David Ignatius expresses concern in his latest Washington Post column over the U. S. ability to wage war against China:
Brose explains a terrible truth about war with China: Our spy and communications satellites would immediately be disabled; our forward bases in Guam and Japan would be “inundated†by precise missiles; our aircraft carriers would have to sail away from China to escape attack; our F-35 fighter jets couldn’t reach their targets because the refueling tankers they need would be shot down.
“Many U.S. forces would be rendered deaf, dumb and blind,†writes Brose. We have become so vulnerable, he argues because we’ve lost sight of the essential requirement of military power — the “kill chain†of his title — which means seeing threats and taking quick, decisive action to stop them.
How did this happen? It wasn’t an intelligence failure, or a malign Pentagon and Congress, or lack of money, or insufficient technological prowess. No, it was simply bureaucratic inertia compounded by entrenched interests. The Pentagon is good at doing what it did yesterday, and Congress insists on precisely that. We have been so busy buffing our legacy systems that, as Brose writes, “the United States got ambushed by the future.â€
Even if we had unquestioned military “primacy” over China, I would favor avoiding war with China to the greatest degree possible. Present U. S. doctrine favors limited war and IMO the notion of a limited war against China is nonsensical on its face. The only practical tactic against China would be to eliminate its command and control at the outset without concern about collateral damage rather than the sort of maneuver warfare that is being discussed here.
I’d also like more details about the war games mentioned in the column. The assumptions and constraints in these games frequently dictate their outcomes.
Also, I can’t distinguish between a genuine practical concern and someone promoting his own pet project.
Finally, although I have little doubt that China is a formidable military foe, I think that both Mssrs. Brose and Ignatius are discounting China’s lack of a seasoned officer corps too strongly. What would happen when China’s battle plans did not survive contact with the enemy? Technology is important but war is likely to remain a human activity for the foreseeable future.
One should always be prepared for the possibility of war.
But how does any direct hot conflict with the China not end in mushroom clouds?
MAD still applies.
Exactly, CuriousOnlooker. That’s one of the reasons I mentioned the important of the assumptions and constraints of the war games being reported. I’m guessing they ruled that out.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.â€
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Orange Man Bad has read the Art of War. I suspect the title of his most famous book was derived from it. He’s a blowhard and a boor and an oaf, but he ain’t stupid.
Besides, China has nukes. Most of them likely aimed at Taiwan and the Straits of Formosa, but likely not all. You don’t fight a country that has nukes. Consider why the Cold War was fought instead of a quick and deadly hot one.
Xi is the most absolute tyrant China has seen since Mao. However because he broke Deng’s escalator of power that enabled an orderly passage of power from one dictator to another, his support is fragile. If his underlings think he is losing the Mandate of Heaven, he’s gone. If Trump wins reelection, IMO Xi’s gone.
Wow, what a dumb, incoherent and self-serving op-ed.
Mr. Brose is the “head of strategy” for a company that develops systems and software for autonomous and unmanned systems. His “strategic” experience is entirely political and the most relevant experience he has consisted of being the lead professional staffer for the Senate Armed Service Committee for the last three defense authorizations.
So it should not come as a shock that Brose only views the military balance with China in terms of systems acquisition and that he derides what he wrongly calls “legacy” systems in favor of systems that would directly benefit the company he works for.
The Army Future Combat Systems was put forth as an example of why we need to change, but that program was canceled more than a decade ago.
That Ignatius is enabling this idiocy is, sadly, not surprising.
But the principal problem regards the fundamental purpose and nature of war. “Deny China military dominance” – what he says should be our strategic goal – is actually strategic flim-flam. Military dominance over what and to what purpose? War is conducted for political ends not as a giant game of Battleship.
The rest is incoherent and self-contradictory for reasons I won’t belabor here, but overall I think this op-ed is deceptive and dishonest to the point of uselessness.
“Orange Man Bad has read the Art of War. ”
Seriously? He watches the “shows”. His books were ghostwritten. You are right that he is not stupid, but he is uninformed and intellectually lazy.
A war with China risks nukes. I guess it is possible to have a non nuclear war for a while until one side decides it is losing. I dont see how we overcome the logistics challenges to hold war in China or vice versa. Maybe we could have proxy wars again ala the Cold War. Those certainly went well.
Steve
Yeah, I checked him out on LinkedIn, too. I’m reluctant to criticize someone’s motives if for no other reason than because I don’t really know what anyone else’s motives are but, as I suggested in the body of the post, this whole train of thought seems agenda-driven.
So you are ambivalent, eh Andy……………?
“He watches the “showsâ€. His books were ghostwritten. You are right that he is not stupid, but he is uninformed and intellectually lazy.”
Steve, Rachel Maddow and Don Lemmon are locked into their shows. Stop auditioning.
I guess I find the notion that the Pentagon fights the last war less preposterous than Andy. In any event, anything more than a relatively minor skirmish results in MAD. Act accordingly: do what you have to do militarily to make them understand you would dominate, so some adventuresome idiot doesn’t bring us to the brink.
Drew,
Note that I’m not saying that the Pentagon does not have inertia and sometimes does have a tendency to “fight the last war” or has many, many other problems and issues that desperately need addressing (which I’ve mentioned in other threads), I’m merely stating that this op-ed is way off the mark and blatantly self-serving.
And I think that today, most of the military establishment really does want to avoid fighting the “last war” – meaning stupid land wars and pseudo policing and governance-building actions in Asia for unachievable political ends.
Dave,
I did realize I was making an ad hominem there – something I do try to avoid, but in this case, his self-interest and bad, contradictory arguments were just too obvious for me to ignore.