Victory ... From the Sea

But not naval victory ... in the seas

We look at the western Pacific and have visions of epic fleet clashes under the approving gaze of Alfred Thayer Mahan that challenge our ability to sustain the fight with reloads to VLS cells. We have visions of Hellscapes to crush the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and worry our air defenses will run short against swarms of Chinese planes and missiles launched from a plethora of assets, including anti-ship ballistic missiles.

But what if that high tech replay of the Mahanian Pacific campaigns of 1941-1945 is grossly mistaken? What if the model isn’t one of major naval battles for control of the seas ending with one fleet triumphant and the other one sunk?

What if the model is one where two fleets have essentially strategically defensive objectives centered around access to the decisive land front of the war? In such a war, the fleet battles could happen, but the motivation to pursue total sea control by destroying the enemy fleet isn’t necessary and could even be a risk to achieving the main objective.

This retired admiral looks at the Russo-Japan War of 1904-1905 through the lens of naval strategist Julian S. Corbett as a potential template for thinking about war with China in the western Pacific:

Like any good strategist, Corbett started building his case by reviewing the nature of the war. He ascertained that the Russo-Japanese War had been a limited war whose “most conspicuous feature is admittedly that it was a war in a maritime theater, where . . . naval and military operations were so intimately connected as to be inseparable.” He went on to contend that “a war of this nature does not necessarily involve the complete overthrow of the enemy.” Instead it was “a combined or amphibious war where the question [was] which side could occupy and hold a certain piece of seagirt territory,” namely the Korean Peninsula, “to which for troops acting alone there would be no unrestricted access.”

In other words, the paramount purpose for both navies, properly understood, was to “control the relative amount of [ground forces] that could be brought to bear on the territorial object.” Decisive sea battle might not even be necessary! Guaranteeing the Imperial Japanese Army unfettered access to battlefields in Korea, north China, and Manchuria—and, as a corollary, keeping the Russian Navy from obstructing their access—was Tōgō’s prime goal. This was how the army would prevail on land, the decisive theater in the war. Winning command of vital waters was a desirable objective, but ultimately a secondary one.

In the war, Corbett concluded, the Combined Fleet’s posture was strategically defensive.

The indecisive but bloody land campaigns in Manchuria that cemented Japan’s hold on Korea were ended by American diplomatic intervention. Russia had lost enough men, materiel—and ships—and worried about rumblings of domestic unrest. Japan, much smaller than Russia and losing heavily on the ground despite undisputed naval supremacy, was happy to cash in its land chips.

In the Mahanian example, America planned to invade Japan. Nukes save us from that bloody (for both sides) plan to win the war. Or from starving Japan while the Japanese army remained undefeated on the Asian mainland. The USSR at least, could have taken care of that army.

How would a war between China and America—with allies to be determined for each—play out if the model is Corbett’s?

First, the Army has great interest in the strength of the Navy:

One reason our military budget is so large is that we have to spend so much just to get our troops and equipment to the fight overseas and sustain them there even before we train and equip one member of our military. We got used to not thinking about that. That's a problem if we don't want isolated troops surrendering in large numbers overseas.

China’s navy is backed by modern coastal artillery—long-range anti-ship and land attack missiles in China itself:

A hallmark of American deterrence doctrine and force projection is the ability to respond to any crisis on Earth through aerial and naval superiority, which will be threatened under China’s missile threat. The extent of Beijing’s IRBMS and MRBMs immediately threatens U.S. bases in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, where the PLAN is militarizing, which makes recalibrating contingencies even more urgent.

The envelope of that arsenal in addition to land-based aircraft and naval operations punching out from that protective screen interferes with American efforts to reach the land areas around China’s periphery. Just what is the purpose of the PLAN?

The framing of discussing the Navy role in relation to a land campaign like 1904-1905 accounts for much of my confusion over just what the Navy planned to do after penetrating China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) shield. Sail around off of China’s coast? Swarms of stealthy Zumwalt destroyers bombarding China seemed positively bizarre. What objective would that achieve?

Yet when America began to build its own A2/AD belt along with allies out in the first island chain and behind that, the contours of two defensive naval strategies suggested itself.

China could simply focus on maintaining sea lines of communication to the land area that is the objective of the war. That allows China to preserve their fleet—although old ships, including China Coast Guard ships, could be sacrificed as armed troop transports moving more grains of sand in a PLA invasion of Taiwan—by protecting a sea corridor rather than sortieing to destroy the U.S. Navy and impose general command of the seas.

America, too, could refrain from seeking out a new Midway decisive naval victory in an updated War Plan Orange to win command of the seas in an afternoon. Instead, America would seek to contain China and maintain its own lines of supply in order to supply and support Taiwan for a long war.

The question is, where is the land battlefield? It could be the Korean peninsula in a close repeat of the 1904-1905 model. America has troops on the ground in South Korea already. And our logistics capacity has long been focused on northeast Asia.

But Taiwan seems more likely (as I discussed in Military Review) as a proclaimed core interest of China.

Yet Taiwan might not be, with many areas around China’s periphery potentially the land campaign area (as I also discussed in Military Review) that is the real objective of the war. And please note that the option in Russia could either be with Russia as an enemy or ally—if Russia pulls its head out of their Putin.

Control of the seas is valuable. But ultimately it must be for the purpose of controlling the land. The Tyranny of the Shores is absolute.

NOTE: The map is from my 2018 Military Review article.