15 August 2020
When those boomerang shaped birds took off from Whiteman Airforce Base Missouri, to land at Diego Gracia, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/us-sends-stealth-bombers-to-counter-chinese-threat-fc33g6jnfand the venerable B52 bombers took off from Diego Garcia to land at Guam, when the US Marine Corps deployed her landing ships modified as Lightning Carriers and stationed them off Philippines coast, you can see how across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, there is lot of consternation and curiosity. It seems that a conflict is more than likely. A rising power and the preeminent power will bring their assets to bear in what ever form, first attempting to win without coming to blows, then attempt to do so with minimising the scale and theatre of the conflict. Many things have changed in between when the USA was busy engaging with China, promoting her industrial and economic progress, by leaps and bounds, by processing, investing and holding interests in her factories, by transferring technologies to her directly or indirectly through Hong Kong, or looking the other way, when former Soviet States like Ukraine much to the consternation of Russia, transferred critical technologies like launching of air craft carriers. If you look at the capitals as military analysts describe top of the line submarines, Air Craft Carriers, and Stealth and Fifth Generation Combat Aircraft, you can see the Chinese ramp up the gap, and increasingly looking like copies of US inventory, from J20 to the new 2nd Generation Carrier that she is going to launch early next year, a delay due to the runway technology getting a system similar to the USS Gerald R Ford Class.
Actually it was the ambitious 5G roll out promised by Huawei that made Silicon Valley alert the US Deep State into the factual transformation of the Chinese from being copycat producers to innovative developers, capable of absorbing critical technology and strategising it as part of Comprehensive National Power. BeiDou which is the Chinese GPS, is meant to have a cluster of LEO ( Low Earth Orbit) satellites for which the Chinese have had difficulties, where out of 59 launches so far, with 35 successful placements over Asia Pacific region, which is why the Chinese were keen to acquire controlling stakes on the Ukrainian firm that produced engines and that which produced the Antonov 225, which is capable of heavy payloads and flying to stratospheric heights to launch LEOs! If BeiDou could scale up and go global, it would be a critical military cross over, from a middling power to a transforming sophistication, that would allow China to stage a ‘hyperwar’. In contrast, Indian (NavIC-8 satellite IRNSS)Japanese(QZSS Michibiki 4 satellite RTTS) or Russian (GLONASS 24 satellite with 18 in hyperlocal Russian territorial cover) are not anywhere as ambitious or scaled.
Today the US military is well on the path to achieving total information asymmetry over theatres of conflict, by taking signal inputs from an array of sensors and radars that are Satellite, Ship, Aircraft and Drone based and seamlessly relaying this as effective 3D Cognisance to squadron, flotilla, fleet and theatre. Not only does this Dome of Information offer real time intelligence of enemy posture and array, it also allows the US platforms to use AI to model the best possible intervention or intercept, to activate one or all of them simultaneously and offer offensive options beyond area denial. The reason why US Carrier Fleets are not sailing now between the Mainland and Taiwan in the Straits as they did earlier is not just because of Chinese Anti Ship capabilities led by Ballistic Missiles and may be Hypersonic Guide Vehicles in near future, but also because, it may not be necessary, like how essentially a Dog Fight for FGFA class F35s is not a requirement in actual DEFCON 4 or 5, due to the avionics and air to air Beyond Visual Range capabilities of this platform.
Unlike Russia, which is militarily very capable but starved of funds and with diminishing desire to dominate global agenda, restricting itself to North African Rim and Mediterranean, it is China with its increasing military global footprint that is identified as a clear rival by the US analytical community. Further, in what is finally a acceptance of necessity, the failure of the US policy of engagement with China, a process begun by President Nixon, is now sought to be reversed by the USA, which explains the strategy by cutting off Huawei from 5G rollout, to the actions being taken on Chinese tech giants like TikTok and WeChat.
Inside China, the chatter is clearly about economic consequences of when the US should wall off the Chinese economy from the dollar denominated economy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-decoupling-analysis-idUSKCN2590NJThis when the Chinese own highest proportion of US Treasury bills and bonds, and while the Chinese have been trying to make Renminbi as an alternate tender, they are also looking to cryptocurrency to hedge against the possible dollar denial regime. If the Chinese could have it, by this year end, they would have one foot in the US $ denominated economy and another in their own Renminbi plus crypto mix which would satisfy the stability, liquidity and autonomy concerns of high finance globally. It also is a clear hint of Chinese deep state pondering over consequences of the increasingly openly belligerent rise of China under President Xi. However, one must understand that Xi himself is merely advancing the strategic envelope of the Chinese CCP, which has a clear One China goal, and whether it is Hong Kong, or it is Taiwan or the SCS, the drafts which lead to the current manoeuvres like the Security Law, the sea denial in SCS and military occupation of select island reefs, and aggressive posture toward Taiwan are predating the time of Xi in the Politburo. So we must not think that the Anti Xi faction that exists supported by his predecessor’s predecessor Jiang Zemin, whose Shanghai Faction despite being besieged by Xi for last four years, and remains very much the only source for an overthrow of Xi for now, would alter this course or strategic path of CCP, though it is very likely that any reverses suffered by China under Xi would be capitalised upon by them.
The Chinese occupation of some 600 sq km of territory in Eastern Ladakh must be viewed as ‘posturing’ beyond the hyper tactical gain of a buffer along the arterial Xinjiang Tibet Highway in that region. Its timing could well be linked as a precursor move of the PLA in its Western Theatre, so as to leave the Chinese Southern and Eastern Theatres free to handle military conflict in the SCS and ECS, aided by the Northern Theatre that has a forward airbase and naval base at Qingdao. This is the military arch that faces the first island chain in this region consisting of Japan, Philippines, Taiwan and Borneo stretching from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the Malay Peninsula ( East to West) from where the Chinese expect military hot zone to be created whenever they carry out the military offensive against Taiwan. The Chinese are building a six carrier group Navy to be in position by 2030, with three each as part of Eastern and Southern Sea Fleets in defensive role, while in normal posturing, in maritime peace role, they envisage one carrier group based at Djibouti, for Persian Gulf with additional support from Gwadar, one at Cocos Keeling off Australian Shelf in eastern edge of the Indian Ocean, one at Coco Islands which could rotate between Chittagong in Bay of Bengal and Humbantota in Sri Lanka. https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/the-small-islands-holding-the-key-to-the-indian-ocean/We are aware that the Chinese are looking for a Polynesian berth and may soon be able to obtain a naval base in the Pacific Rim, which would be its fourth carrier group base. If you see the PLAN strategy for the next two decades, it is primarily to ensure that China’s supply lines (SeaLanesOfCommunications) are intact in particular to its exports to Africa and its strategic Oil imports from the Persian Gulf. If as a side effect, it can convert the Indian Ocean into a ‘Chinese’ Ocean, it will not mind at all!
So definitely the window for a conflict exists, one where the Western Compact would have on its terms is narrowing by the day. One where PLA under President Xi too is weighing as a strategic goal for 2020, before Japan, Australia, India, Vietnam and Korea considerably up their military game! Learning to see the world from grains of sand is not reading tea leaves. Military strategising is not crystal ball gazing. It is about national aims, means and gambits leading to national mandates and morale. This is not a German pitch of 1939, which still managed to catch the Western Compact off-guard. The Climate of Strategic Uncertainty proclaimed by Aussie PM Morrison exists. It is up to individual nations to take guard! It could be over a flash before even most players realise it. It could end with Chinese CCP take over of Taiwan or a regime unravelling in China if it failed. Its trail of conflict and flash points could be all along the Chinese land and maritime boundaries.
indiarubberman.com 