China has (or will have) an edge in three important aspects of undersea warfare -- a battle which we mustn't forget is fought from the surface and in the air and outer space, as well as down in the water column. One aspect is her geographic situation. If a PLAN sub breaks through nearby anti-China choke points, that sub gains immediate access to the deep and vast waters of the Pacific Ocean where it can exploit bad weather, protective acoustic propagation effects, and other local factors in order to disappear, lurk, and then attack. American subs based at Guam, Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. East and West Coasts, because of the tremendous distances involved, might lose the race to reach and block those choke points. The second aspect, by the 2020s, will be China's weight of sheer numbers of subs -- which we can expect by 2025 to be accompanied by a gradual shift toward more leveling of the playing field as to quality of vessels and crews between the U.S. Navy and the PLAN. The third aspect of China's edge is that the PRC has no commitment (yet) to act as a worldwide policeman -- or the opposite role more fitting to her, as a mob boss. Thus China can mass her forces to accomplish global policy via regional military actions or threats, whereas the U.S. Submarine Force is, of necessity, spread around the globe, and overstretched at that.

If China has three times as many subs as America, and our subs are divided between disparate theaters of conflict and counter-insurgency, China can achieve local undersea superiority in the Western Pacific, at least temporarily -- and temporarily may be more than enough to consolidate her objectives. A classic advantage of the aggressor is that they can choose the time and place of attack. China could, through shrewd planning and skilled logistics coordination, arrange in secret to surge all of her submarines at a time that a substantial portion of American subs are undergoing maintenance in dry dock, unable to even get underway for days or weeks -- a delay that could act decisively in China's favor.

If we imagine close to 150 hostile submarines of many different classes all surging at once, even any friendly available diesel subs and ASW forces (Australia, Japan, etc.) would be unable to fill the gaps. Exploiting surprise, China could quickly achieve sea control (or at least sea denial) in major portions of the Western Pacific. Such a large number of submarines in motion at once would be impossible to keep from being noticed, of course, but that wouldn't be the point. Chinese submarines could follow individual courses that weave around and intersect with each other to play an effective shell game -- it might be impossible for surprised U.S. and allied forces to keep track of which Chinese vessel was which, further disguising actual Chinese objectives for the surge. This would be a particular problem to the degree that some ASW detections rely on optical (LIDAR, LASH), MAD, or surface-wake anomaly signatures, which are less able to identify a target by name or even by class or type, compared to active and passive sonar. (Pre-positioned undersea listening grids might not be of much help against such an overwhelming wave of sortieing vessels.) Once out in the Pacific, the Chinese subs could, by pre-arrangement, rendezvous to form fifty or sixty mutually supporting or widely scattered three-ship wolf packs, each an expendable task group in an unflankable barrier or uncharted “smart minefield,” with orders to sink any American carrier or SSN that comes charging their way. (A campaign against U.S. merchant shipping would be bad enough in itself!)

What might the PRC's political policy and the PLAN's military objectives be in such a hypothetical surprise-surge scenario? Let's assume an “outside the box” worst case, where Taiwan is friendly or at least neutral to Beijing, and not Beijing's target. Well, the Pacific Ocean is peppered with small islands and atolls, all of great strategic value in any serious naval fracas. Many of these islands were once occupied by independent natives, then were taken over by various colonial powers, and ownerships changed again as a result of World War I and World War II. Some of these islands and atolls now remain possessions of the United States. These include, for instance, Guam, Saipan, Wake Island, or Midway. Beijing could make the case that the U.S. is a hostile occupying power, and the job of the People's Liberation Army Navy is to liberate occupied peoples. Suppose the People's Republic were to exploit their temporary local dominance in sea power (and other military power) to invade and “liberate” these so-called oppressed masses and hold them under “protective custodianship” -- permanently. This gambit fits perfectly with Beijing's espoused ideologies, and seems likely to receive huge popular support within China. Assume that China invaded in such a way as to minimize initial American casualties, and immediately released all POWs. Would the United States, faced with such a fait accompli, and faced also with the actual or prospective loss of several CVNs and SSNs (not to mention aircraft crews and Marines and various ground troops), really be willing to mobilize and replay World War Two-style island hopping? This would of course depend on many factors, including other military commitments from which the U.S. might not be able to quickly extricate herself, the attitude of the current White House administration at the time, the state of the American economy and national deficit, and the willingness of the American people to shed blood to take back abstract little dots on a map when we ourselves, arguably, years ago snatched those dots from Spain, or independent Hawaii, or whomever.

This is exactly what I mean by a potential PRC “red herring strategy.” Rather than a north-south arena of attempted dominance against the island nations off her shores -- especially Taiwan -- instead China and Taiwan implement the “one country, two systems” approach. Then China achieves an end-run past the other island nations in her way, accomplishes a bold west-east land grab in mid-Pacific, and dares an embarrassed U.S. to do something about it while PLA soldiers quickly dig in and install hefty anti-air defenses. Shouting matches at the UN Security Council and fragmentary economic sanctions by third-party countries would certainly not deter Beijing. The Red Herring Strategy reduces American stature and self-respect, perhaps forever, and leapfrogs China to the fore as a credible superpower.

This scenario, by the way, is designed to be controversial. Its purpose is to shake you up and get you to think.

There are some other points worth posing about Chinese submarine strategies and tactics:

1. While possible, it seems relatively unlikely that China would mimic the Soviet approach of establishing “bastions” of protected waters in which to keep her SSBNs safe from American interference while on strategic deterrent patrol. Russian and Chinese geography and hydrography are too different for this to work well. China's only potential bastion areas, the Yellow Sea in the north and the Gulf of Tonkin in the south, are rather shallow, and in both cases one entire shoreline consists of nations potentially very hostile to China: North and South Korea in the case of the Yellow Sea, and Vietnam in the case of the Gulf of Tonkin.

2. On the other hand, Chinese SSBNs need not be very well protected or even very stealthy in order to be effective playing pieces in a grand scheme to diminish American clout and spread our SSN fleet dangerously thin. I suspect that China knows from Soviet experience in the Cold War that it's unlikely a communist SSBN can for very long avoid getting an American (or Royal Navy?) SSN in trail in the boomer's baffles. The job of the SSN is to destroy the SSBN promptly under certain contingencies related to possible thermonuclear war. But if even really good Chinese SSBNs can't avoid being followed by Western SSNs (to the extent such SSNs are available), why not go for not-so-good Chinese SSBNs with not-so-good sub-launched ballistic missiles? In reality, even one Chinese H-bomb warhead hitting the continental U.S. interior with a circular error probably of a wildly inaccurate 1,000 miles presents an unacceptable threat. In this way China can dilute the effectiveness of our fast-attacks on deployment without even firing a shot, by using one crappy SSBN as strategic flypaper for a superb SSN.

3. In any major conflict with China, whether cold or hot or first one and then the other, SSBNs on both sides will take on much greater importance than was the case in the struggle between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. The reason, once again, has to do with geography. One glance at a globe will reveal that the trajectories of any ICBMs launched from the heartlands of the U.S. and China at one another must pass over the heartland of the Russian Federation. Considering that in the late 1990s, a Russian early warning radar thought that a pre-announced Norwegian science sounding rocket aimed toward the North Pole was an inbound American ICBM warhead -- and President Yeltsin went as far as opening the briefcase with the nuclear go codes before the mix-up was resolved -- it would seem to be the height of madness for the U.S. and China, in any limited or all-out nuclear exchange, to fight each other right over Russia's head. This would be an almost certain recipe for tragic misunderstandings, massive Russian retaliation against both countries, and a true global thermonuclear holocaust. It makes much more sense for China and the U.S. to deploy SSBNs close to each other's shores, where the missile trajectories, should it ever come to that, would be unambiguous. Granted, this is a fine example of “thinking the unthinkable,” but as a professional risk analyst that's part of my job.

Conclusions: What should we do?

I believe that step one is to accept that a new cold war is already on with China. At least three strategies for dealing with this problem have been suggested:

1. “Hope and pray.” I've tried to convey why I'm deeply convinced that China's ultimate intentions aren't benign. To hope and pray that her society and government will somehow turn peaceful and friendly simply won't cut it. Isolationism as an American strategy spells doom.

2. “Learn to speak Chinese.” This alternative is unattractive. Surrender is not an option. Unilateral disarmament will only encourage Chinese aggression, a sure recipe for exactly the war America seeks to avoid.

3. “Wield steel fist in velvet glove.” Henry Kissinger once said that diplomacy is ineffective unless backed by useable armed force. I believe this third strategy has important potential, and will even, as more time goes by, prove to be essential both to preserving peace and -- if necessary -- prevailing in war.

My conclusions will look at how to implement the “steel fist in velvet glove” strategy:

1. Firstly, I think the U.S. needs to become much better at Chinese-style gamesmanship, deceit, and deception. In short, out-Sun-Tzu the SOBs!

2. We also need to learn (or relearn) truly world-class human intelligence and counter-intelligence tradecraft, and build a network of assets to counteract and counterbalance China's espionage against the U.S. We mustn't be shy on psychological operations either.

3. As Admiral Mullen and others have emphasized recently, the U.S. Navy needs to get better at antisubmarine warfare and also at counter-mine warfare. Important advances are being made on both fronts after years of semi-stagnation. The keys to success here remain the same as always: practice, practice, practice.

4. Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions, in today's world the concept of “reliable allies” has become an oxymoron -- a self-contradiction in terms. We must be mentally, physically, and fiscally prepared to go it alone in a major armed conflict. A robust carrier fleet remains essential, because experience has shown that we can't count on friendly bases, or even on overflight rights, among third parties close to a theater of battle. Yes, U.S. Air Force bombers deploying directly from American territory, and refueling repeatedly in flight, provide our country with planet-wide reach, but those USAF assets alone have finite munitions delivery rates. Shuttle bombing from carriers, well protected by ASW assets including SSNs, remains a necessary war-winning tool.

5. For reasons that by now should be obvious, it's vital to increase the VIRGINIA-class build rate to two per year as soon as possible.

6. To the extent that any further OHIO-class Trident subs are withdrawn from SSBN duty, those platforms must be converted as soon as possible to SSGNs, and not scrapped.

7. We must stay the course with the cost overruns and developmental delays of the Advanced SEAL Delivery System minisub. This transformational special ops transport vehicle is considered essential by Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Yes, the ASDS right now has problems. We need to fix them.

8. We need the largest possible SSN fleet over the next few decades to optimally conduct preventive or preemptive undersea indications and warnings missions, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. The prolonged dwell time, stealth, and exploitation of electromagnetic surface-ducting effects make submarines indispensable platforms for all these taskings that are now a matter of national survival. We need to serve notice on China that we are watching them and are not pleased by what we see. Our submariners must continue to maintain the attitude of full-time warriors, as they did during the Cold War, and get in the adversary's face and stay there, “deployed and annoyed.”

9. The American public would benefit from some systematic, accurate education on National Defense and Deterrence 101. Outside the military community and its supporters-enthusiasts-hobbyists, it's sometimes shocking how unaware the average man or woman in the street really is about even the most basic aspects of military history, strategy, tactics, doctrine, and technology. The prevalence of this under-education is going to hurt us more and more in the years to come. How casualty-averse will our country be by 2020+?

In closing, I'd like to quote from Teddy Roosevelt, a genuine master of the purpose and uses of sea power. He once put it very bluntly, “Battleships are cheaper than battles.” I also want to repeat a truism mentioned often by others, that nuclear submarines are capital ships of the 21st century. New capabilities are now emerging that were barely dreamt of when the Berlin Wall came down. To shortchange our submarine fleet's size going forward, to underutilize its ever-increasing payload capacity, and to under-appreciate the hard work and sacrifices by every generation of our brave submariners, could mean that in the foreseeable future America will reap the whirlwind in a terrible conflict with China.

This article first appeared in the January 2006 issue of The Submarine Review, a quarterly publication of the Naval Submarine League. The article won First Prize in the Naval Submarine League's Annual Literary Awards.