CAN THE EAGLE CONTAIN THE DRAGON?
You Got A Dragon? They Taste Great With A little Tabasco.
The DIPLOMAT recently sponsored and reported on a debate over whether or not the United States could blockade China if they don't relinquish their over reaching territorial claims against their neighbors, most especially those we have formal defensive treaties with. Could the U.S. given our present naval strength as compared to China's contain the PLAN (Chinese Navy) within the "First Island Chain" and maintain a "blockade at a distance cutting off China's commerce? Our thought is that the U.S. could carry that task if they started tomorrow. As the defense budget continues to be cut across the board in response to sequestration naval power suffers disproportionately. In short our advantage is shrinking. But that's just what we think below is a lead in and a link to what the debaters thought:
Airsea Battle VS Offshore Control: Can the US Blockade China?
By James R. Holmes
Retired Marine Corps colonel T. X. Hammes and Center for Naval Analyses researcher Elbridge Colby have been trading salvoes over the merits of AirSea Battle for the past couple of weeks. (Coolest names ever for a pair of debaters.) Writing over at The National Interest, Colby mounts a defense of the ASB doctrine. He maintains in effect that the U.S. armed forces must develop some way to kick in the door should China slam it shut in the Western Pacific. In his rejoinder, Hammes denies that AirSea Battle is a strategy while propounding hisalternative concept of "offshore control.” It's a good, and necessary, debate. Have a look at all three installments.
In a nutshell, offshore control means sealing off the first island chain to keep PLA Navy shipping from reaching the broad Pacific; waging submarine and aerial warfare to deny China access to its own offshore waters and skies; and imposing a distant blockade to bring economic pressure on Beijing. Over time, China might relinquish its goals to stop the pain. Offshore control abjures strikes at sites on the mainland — the most objectionable part of AirSea Battle — as needlessly escalatory in a campaign for limited aims.
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