China is pursuing a very different military strategy from that of the United States, and the Pentagon needs to understand this. At the same time, China has serious problems of its own.
Oriana Skylar Mastro, a renowned China expert, Stanford University assistant professor of political science, and fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, has produced a provocative book that challenges Pentagon thinking about China.
In her book “Upstart: How China Became a Great Power,” Mastro’s focus is primarily, though not exclusively, military, which is understandable, given that she is also a U.S. Air Force reserve officer.
This reviewer is in no position to critique anyone’s military judgment, though her arguments sound compelling, and one hopes that they will receive wide circulation within the Defense Department. That said, the book has weak spots. It fails to consider China’s serious economic and financial problems and their likely impact on that nation’s future military and diplomatic capabilities.
Mastro finds great flaws in the U.S. military strategy against China. These flaws boil down to the Pentagon’s unfortunate assumption that Chinese thinking mirrors that of the United States. She describes the American approach as periodic projections of power from aircraft carrier groups and from some 120 bases in 45 countries. Though China has aircraft carriers, they are not as central to Beijing’s strategy as they are to Washington’s.
Unlike the United States, China seeks little global military power projection, according to Mastro. China has only one army base overseas, in Djibouti, where it has stationed some 800 marines for anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Western fears of some 20 years ago of a network of Chinese bases throughout the Indian Ocean, the so-called “string of pearls,” never materialized. Instead, China concentrates on a formidable missile array, including powerful anti-ship guided missiles, to deny the United States and any other power access to the eastern Pacific.
Mastro notes that the U.S. surface fleet, including its huge carriers, is highly vulnerable to this defensive array. China’s approach has effectively neutralized American naval power. The United States, she argues, is wasting resources by building a surface fleet to counter China. China can, in fact, prevail, she concludes, without ever confronting U.S. naval power or, by extension, the naval assets of any other power in the region, presumably Japan.
Rather than invade Taiwan, for instance, as the Pentagon thinks might occur, China, she writes, can use its missile power to blockade the island and keep presumably American, Japanese, and other sources of relief at bay until the island yields. Taiwan, she points out, has only three week’s supply of natural gas on hand to produce electricity.
These are powerful conclusions, but they seem to miss two considerations: military and economic.
While China might prefer to avoid a confrontation with the U.S. military and use the threat of its missiles as a means to that end, a confrontation may occur anyway. Take Taiwan, for instance. Although Washington has not made any promises to Taiwan, a Chinese blockade of the island could provoke a response—if not militarily, then through efforts at relief.
Japan has already promised to protect the island. And since the United States has commitments to Japan, the easy blockade Mastro envisions would almost certainly involve this country, however coy Washington’s diplomacy concerning Taiwan has been.
Any use of China’s anti-ship missiles to thwart efforts to relieve Taiwan would almost certainly impel the United States (and Japan) to neutralize the Chinese regime’s formidable missile array. It is a terrifying prospect, to be sure, but it does suggest that China’s strategy is not as impregnable as Mastro suggests.
Mastro dismisses the risks these economic and financial weaknesses pose to China by highlighting the significant development strides the country has achieved in the past. Though these historic gains are impressive and indisputable, they occurred when China was catching up to the developed world and had easy models to follow and existing technologies to adopt. Having caught up to the developed West and Japan, the way forward has become much less clear, a fact to which China’s suffering economy testifies.
If Mastro is correct, the Pentagon needs to rethink its strategy in the far Pacific. Her book offers guidance for the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force on what changes they need to make. In the meantime, China’s problems are less military than economic and financial. And on this front, Beijing has shown less insight and ability than is needed. Continued failure on these fronts will ultimately create military weakness.
