AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis
With the world’s attention on Israel and the Middle East, China is continuing to grow more aggressive in the South China Sea – much to the concern of U.S. allies Japan and Australia, which have expressed alarm at the lack of American leadership in the region under President Joe Biden.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese traveled to the White House on Wednesday amid mounting tensions with Beijing, where he is scheduled to travel next month. But even as Biden rolled out the red carpet for Albanese with a state dinner, he has failed to deliver much substantive assurance that the United States will remain a strong partner in countering Chinese aggression.
Biden has notably lagged behind financing U.S. missile defense infrastructure in the South Pacific, which Australia also relies on for its defense. Amid rapid advancements in China’s hypersonic missile technology, military leaders fear that top targets like U.S. aircraft carriers could now be vulnerable.
Ahead of his departure, Albanese also reiterated the importance of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) submarine pact, which involves the transfer of nuclear-powered submarine technology from the U.K. and U.S. to Australia. Work backlogs under Biden have raised some concerns that the promised delivery of eight nuclear-powered vessels could be significantly delayed.
The submarine deal and missile defense infrastructure has taken on added importance as reports have surfaced of a covert Chinese “maritime militia” consisting of hundreds of ostensibly civilian vessels that could serve a military purpose.
Last month, more than 220 Chinese “fishing boats” crowded around Whitsun Reef, a Philippine possession in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea that China claims as part of its territory. Military analysts said they believe the move was a show of force from China in the disputed territory.
The Philippines have increasingly drawn the ire of Beijing following closer cooperation with Canberra. In August, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles affirmed that Australia “has a security interest in the South China Sea and will work more closely with the Philippines on joint patrols.”
Tokyo, meanwhile, has also expressed growing concern about its neighbor to the West. Earlier this month, Japan and Australia agreed to tighten their bilateral defense ties by expanding joint operations and allowing troops to enter their respective countries. Under the new agreement, Japan also invited Australia to join two military exercises with the United States for the first time.
But increased cooperation between Australia and Japan has been met with more joint exercises between China and Russia. China, which lacks military bases facing the Sea of Japan, now routinely launches air patrols from Russian bases in Vladivostok. According to sources who spoke with this author on the condition of anonymity, Tokyo believes that Putin is reciprocating China’s support for his war in Ukraine by opening up more Russian military bases to China in the Far East.
Japanese leaders are also concerned about China’s ambitions in regard to Taiwan. In mid-September, China conducted live-fire drills simulating an attack on Taiwan, and Chinese jets routinely invade Taiwanese airspace.
One prominent Japanese newspaper recently declared, “Taiwan’s emergency is Japan’s emergency” – a sentiment that seems to be shared by political and military officials in Tokyo.
The threat to Taiwan has again underscored the importance of developing more joint U.S.-Japanese missile defense installations – something Biden has been reluctant to invest in. Biden has also neglected to fund a network of satellites that could prove decisive in countering a joint Russian-Chinese first strike on Japan and Taiwan.
Retired Vice Admiral Fumio Ota, the former director of Japan’s Defense Intelligence Agency, told this author, “More early warning satellites are needed over the Indo-Pacific to detect missile launches, and electronic reconnaissance satellites are needed to gather intelligence.”
“In turbulent times like today, more attention should be devoted to maintaining the service and exchange of satellites,” he continued. “It is a critical issue for America that also affects the Indo-Pacific.”
But Vice Admiral Ota says that Biden’s gravest mistake is his failure to continue former President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy. Biden’s National Security Strategy, published last year, notably contains the concept of “integrated deterrence,” but makes no mention of many of the pressure strategies advanced by President Trump.
Biden has, for instance, abandoned development of weapons like a new type of sea-launched nuclear cruise missile viewed by Trump and his military leadership as an effective deterrent against Chinese or Russian first strikes.
Australia and Japan share this judgment, and are also watching Biden appease Beijing further by compromising on Trump-era sanctions, even on things like microchips.
Amid this backdrop, Japan and Australia likely fear that nuclear deterrence may be their only option against China. With Biden facing serious turmoil at home and major conflicts in Ukraine and now Israel, the Indo-Pacific seems to be taking a back seat. That plays directly into China’s hands and leaves America’s democratic allies with good reason to fear the worst.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
Sir, this article correctly introduces challenges stemming from the Pacific, and the author’s accent on the administration’s withdrawal from the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile is appropriate. Unlike some who tend to describe current priorities in one line, the author differentiates them, allowing the reader to build a correct perspective.
As a grain of optimism, one U.S. President rarely can change overall modernization programs designed mainly by Secretary Rumsfeld’s team and slightly corrected by Gates.
Current Russian-China capabilities are not near-pear, as we say, but both potential adversaries resorted to the late Cold War technologies and tactics, while over decades, we’ve developed systems that surpass them.
We are now on the path to harden our superiority in many areas. The speed should be as high as possible because our adversaries are desperate to use what they acquired, as their prospects for modern weapons are slim. We must maintain blockages to our sensitive tech. God bless the United States of America.
A missile is a weapon of choice in contemporary war. You rightly described a space domain as strategic for a potential conflict. Pacific has always been challenging; as General McArthur said, these are our friends linked with us by the blood we shed to secure peace. This author highlighted, and rightly, that the space is currently a strategic domain. We need to be able to deter our potential adversaries. As Lt Col said, they have circa Cold War enhanced capabilities, but they radically cut on tests while we uphold all requirements.
In my view, the decision on SLCM-N needs to be reconsidered.
Sir, I frequently share these articles with family and friends. Your articles are sharp, on-target, and handy. I commend you and Amac for this effort. The Respected Audiences should be sending these materials to their friends.
God bless the USA.
Yes, I also agree. Pacific is offense/defense priority for the US now. We have good capabilities, but as I-P Admiral said, the trajectory is trending in the wrong direction. When we were there in the early 1990s, it was not on the right course either. We had China’s ostentatious, enormous, intense maneuvers in the South China Sea that looked like a war could erupt any second. Beijing tried to sideline Taiwan and gave a headache everyone in the region. What I say may be contested, but today our potential is much more significant, and our bases are safer. However, I agree with the author that more needs to be done, and Congress should focus more on the Pacific. Satellites are at the top of our priorities.
We need more Americans on board with all of these plans. The public must support all indispensable defense projects that can be most effective when positioned throughout the oceans.
I was involved as an engineer in many projects at Kadena and in Hawaii in the mid-1990s. We saw Chinese navy patrols nearing our shores in Kadena nearly every week. It was not a friendly gesture under the successor to Deng Xiaoping, who hated the West more than one could imagine. In Hawaii, we saw Chinese jets pretending to veer off course and flying into our space. That was a peaceful time, and we called Beijing a friend.
I fully share the view of the Japanese Admiral that our nuclear-armed missile deployed on submarines could create a successful deterrent due to its unpredictability. If we tighten our technology transfer and close some information channels to Beijing, we will hold our advantage. I am also familiar with the fact that both China and Russia cut their testing time to show off their supposed superiority over the West. But there is a reason why they, unlike us, do not show documentation of their tests to the public. I doubt that even Russian and Chinese leaders understand what they are shown on these screens.
Russian missiles are not hypersonic, neither X nor even Kinzhal, since our interceptors stopped it. As it was said here, they cut on the test time of their missiles. Besides, at least 70 percent of the technology, including electronics, is ours or our allies. The same can be said about Chinese missiles. PLA may have some kind of hypersonic, but it is doubtful that they launched serial production.
I would also be cautious since, with some exceptions, they followed Russian patterns.
I agree that discontinued missile requires one more thought – it may still be a good deterrent. Last but not least, I share the view that these brief articles are educative and needed.
Education on defense is needed, or at least a good speech by a politician who knows what he says, not says what he knows. Reagan had problems with excessive libertarianism that fought, like the Reds, defense increases. But he defeated them, making it possible for many successful projects, including our stealth bombers, not to mention the modernization of our triad. Libertarians could not grasp the magnitude of our challenges, not because we were imperialists but because the world is dynamic.
America’s security depends on the safety of our allies.
This situation will not change until geopolitics reshapes, which is probably not soon. Many Americans still appear not to understand it. I agree with the comment that the public must stand behind funding our defense projects. Many radio talk show hosts cynically are pumping fiction about limiting defense to our homeland into the brains of the uneducated and ignorant. These cynics are a current problem for America.
These articles are needed.
Sir, all is correct in this article, and I find the Japanese Vice Admiral’s opinion particularly interesting as it coincides also with the concerns of many of us.
Our likely potential adversaries connect Ukraine, Israel, and Pacific battlefields. Whoever doesn’t understand it should not try to acquire any office of lawmaker or executive. It is an ABC of our strategic environment most vital for this country’s security. Opposite claims on this subject are a fantasy that serves against our fundamental interests. Missiles are precisely the weapons of choice. We need a good balance of offensive and defensive capabilities. The space-based missile defense is not a luxury anymore. There is a need for informed and decisive lawmakers who can expand defense budgets as soon as possible and meet current requirements.
Communist comrade Dictator Beijing biden cuts our military funding and defenses and instead has them wearing pink Tu-Tu’s for the fat and unfit with pink bullets for ammunition while he’s building up and financing Communist China and his Terrorist buddies. Meanwhile, we still have an Ammunition shortage to fight a WAR since he gave it all to Ukraine. Then he SELLS our oil out of our National Strategic Oil Reserves to Communist China. Which he still hasn’t replaced the oil for his act of Espionage and Treason.
Don’t forget he gave $86 Billion in U.S. Military weapons, explosives, ammunition, assault rifles, etc., and the largest airport on the planet to the Taliban when he SURRENDERED to them in Afghanistan. Then gives Terrorist Iran $6 Billion for Terrorist attacks on Israel and Americans.
Then gives $Billions by raising taxes for his Illegal Alien Terrorist Invasion.
And definitely not to forget he let Communist China SPY ballon’s fly all over the United States doing absolutely NOTHING except hiding and taking vacations waiting for poll results on whether to do anything.
If President Trump had done these espionage and treasonous acts the Fascist liberals and Communist News Network would be whining in an uproar.
But do you hear anything about this on the Fake and your Local Fake News? No, not a word of the TRUTH.
But instead, he goes after his Number One political opponent, President Trump with illegal and unconstitutional WITCH HUNTS wasting taxpayer money with his corrupt DOJ and Judge violating every Constitutional Right with Election Interference.
So it’s no wonder that Communist China is laughing all the way and pressuring other countries to join them while Dictator Beijing biden continues with his anti-Trump obsession instead of PROTECTING the United States and our allies.
The Chinese don’t need to defeat us militarily while we’re being sabotaged from within. The radicals of yesterday are now running the country and they’re multiplying in numbers thanks to the re-education camps called “colleges”.
What more is there to say? Biden does not want to upset personal finances coming in from China. China will take back its renegade province and continue to expand its influence in the region because of the weakness of this current administration. Our military is woefully unprepared for the next war with a major power.
Is there one place on this planet where China has not spread it’s tentacles quietly while the rest of the world slept
Don’t some call him, China Joe??
While we were busy sending “humanitarian” aid to here there and everywhere China build its army Our army is too busy to accommodate the LGBTQs Paton and Mc Arthur are needed right now instead there are pussyfooting around careful not to offend we want to be friends with everyone appeasers
The United States has educated the Chinese by bring them to our universities,learn high tec and they have better themselves since 1949 to the present that is a fault of out government
Obama/Biden Traitor and Communist Demonrats
Have Totally DECIMATED
Impeach Compromised Biden for Treason
Thinking that they understand that Uncle Sam won’t be coming to the rescue because he is old and tired.
The Far East should not rely on slow Joe Biden Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, et al should form their own alliances to defend against the China/North Korea alliance. He’ll be on vacation when the sh*t hits the fan. Taiwan will be overrun by the time Biden snaps out of his stupor.
CCP aggression and world dominance objectives are not surprising to even casual observers of world affairs.
Japan, Australia, Taiwan and the Philippines must not rely on US defense. That is foolhardy. Each nation has an obligation and duty to protect itself and its people from communist aggression.
Japan must abandon its limited self defense posture in place since the end of WWll. It must pull its own weight and prepare now to defend itself.
Australia, Taiwan and the Philippines must beef up as well. Additionally, these nations must arm or permit the arming of its law abiding citizens in preparation for potential communist invasions (especially Taiwan) and the wholesale murder of innocent people by communist forces. Witness: Israel invasion by Hamas.
Time is short.
Weakness always invites aggression. France 1940 (huge army but defeatist attitudes). Soviet Union 1941 (military gutted by stalins orders and commisars put in charge). Korea 1950 (blundering misstatements by our state dept that we weren’t concerned about an invasion of the south). Kuwait 1990 (the idiot bush appointed ambassador said iraq moving militarily no biggee) Tehran 1979 (living proof of the peter principle carter emanating weakness encourages the mullahs to take our embassy). Now this soulless husk following orders to do everything possible to diminish this country. Even if by a miracle we avoid a major war in the next twelve months AND trump is elected he will have to deal with millions of illegals in addition to all the other crisis the dems have created. The treason party is deliberately making the country ungovernable.
I pray that the Lord will intervene soon. Somehow someway these brainwashed people from fake news who will stand up to truth and get it out to America !!!
Hey Jackass, I’ll bet you would never criticize anyone in military uniform in person because you’re just a wimpy 14 year old Punkydoodle!