AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis
As tension continues to mount over the Ukraine crisis, seemingly every bit of attention from the American foreign policy establishment and media has remained fixated on Russia, anxiously awaiting Putin’s next move. However, while the Ukraine-Russia crisis will likely dominate the headlines for some time, Americans would be wise not to lose sight of the real threat to American military dominance looming in the Pacific.
It was just over 80 years ago when the United States, again fixated on a European conflict, suffered one of the most devastating military defeats in its history at Pearl Harbor. The Chinese Communist Party now appears to have adopted a long-term strategic calculus something akin to that of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in 1940, who believed that success in a war with the United States would involve taking first Philippines, then Guam, and then Hawaii. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched successful invasions of the Philippines and Guam, neutralizing the American presence in the South Pacific, a loss that would take more than 4 years and tens of thousands of lives to reclaim.
While there is certainly no indication that China is planning a surprise attack on the United States, China’s military strategy clearly recognizes that any potential future conflict between the two countries would likely require a similar approach. China would begin an assault with targeted attacks on the so-called “First Island Chain,” a series of landmasses stretching from Borneo in the South, through the Philippines, the key island of Taiwan, and possibly through to the southern tip of the Japanese mainland. Throughout the Cold War, the United States made a concerted effort to build up its presence on these islands, which U.S. leaders often referred to as “unsinkable aircraft carriers” to contain the rising threat from Chinese communism.
However, as former Deputy Commander for the Pacific Air Forces Lt. General Ty Thomas has warned, U.S. air superiority in this chain of islands has eroded in recent years, and the U.S. now faces an unprecedented threat to its “unsinkable” carriers and its maritime forces in the region.
That lost superiority may take years to regain – if Congress and the President even have the foresight to understand the severity of the threat. In the meantime, however, Republicans in Congress can press the Biden administration to address the defense needs of the so-called “Second Island Chain” – a secondary conceptual defense perimeter stretching from Japan’s Volcano Islands in the North, through the Marianas Islands (notably Guam), the western Caroline Islands, and down to New Guinea in the South.
Should a hot war with China break out, bases on this Second Island Chain would be critical in keeping the fighting away from the American homeland, allowing the Air Force to construct a defensive perimeter to contain Chinese aggression.
Critically, ensuring security of the Second Island Chain requires an immediate expansion of missile defenses that Mr. Biden, along with other Democrats, fought against in the past. As a U.S. senator, for example, Biden supported Democrat Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia’s claim that President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which would have dramatically upgraded America’s missile defense infrastructure with respect to the threat from the Soviet Union, violated the spirit of the treaties signed with the U.S.S.R.
What the Biden administration now seems to fail to grasp is that the missile threat from Communist China is even greater than it was from the Soviet Union. According to a report published this month, the Chinese telecoms giants Huawei and ZTE attempted as far back as 2016 to acquire influence on the critical component of the joint Australia-U.S. global warning system for nuclear attacks. Moreover, with its DF-26 and DF-17 intermediate range ballistic and hypersonic missiles, Beijing can reach Guam, perhaps the most strategic U.S. military base in the entire Pacific region, and there is not much the U.S. can currently do about it in the event of an attack.
The island of Guam is home to the critical Anderson submarine base, and is linked with radars, interceptors, and airfields. All of them currently lack sufficient defense against Chinese attacks. It is not by chance that the Chinese Communist Party calls their new hypersonic missiles “Guam killers.”
But the Biden administration appears to be ignoring the threat.
On February 10 of this year, for example, as 11 Chinese aircraft breached Taiwanese airspace, Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was speaking about the importance of diversity in the military at a White House roundtable. Even as China for the first time successfully tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, the White House was calling for a scaling back of America’s nuclear arsenal.
Republicans and top U.S. military leaders, meanwhile, have continued to sound the alarm. In March of last year, U.S. Navy Admiral Philip S. Davidson, former commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned that China could try to take control of Taiwan within six years. Top Republicans in the House have also repeatedly urged Biden to reject missile drawdown negotiations with China (and Russia) that the Chinese have repeatedly violated in the past. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has also expressed explicit concern about the U.S. Navy’s ability to defeat China in battle.
To effectively defend Guam against the Chinese and Russian hypersonic missiles, the United States urgently needs to upgrade its missile defense systems. As the Chinese missile technology advances, so too must American early warning and detection systems. Once the U.S. falls behind China in new technology, it will become difficult to catch up. This creates an urgent necessity for more investment in research and development, and innovative thinking around how to combine the resources and capabilities of all the armed forces toward the common goal of defending American interests in the Pacific.
In addition to missile defense, the U.S. also needs to bolster its capabilities to not only defend its territory, but also strike back at China in a potential conflict. This means more American missiles in the South Pacific and more B-52 bombers equipped with long-range anti-ship ordinance. Aside from allowing the U.S. to respond in the event of a Chinese attack, a build-up of strike force capabilities and cruise missiles on places like Guam would go a long way toward deterring Chinese aggression.
Russian aggression in Ukraine indeed presents a troubling prospect for Europe, and a newly empowered Putin is no welcome sight for the West. But in terms of the most immediate threat to U.S. interests abroad, American leaders should not take their focus off the real threat in Communist China.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, theologian, and researcher.