An Interesting (And Scary) Analogy

From John Copper at National Interest comes this interesting set-up:

In December 1890, the United States Army won a battle against American Indians at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. This battle marked the end of the Indian Wars and meant that the United States could focus on external matters since it had finally consolidated its territory in the west.

Within ten years of Wounded Knee, the United States was on the way to becoming a world power. In 1898, the U.S. Navy won the Spanish American War. It acquired the Philippines and Guam as a result. The same year, the U.S. incorporated Hawaii and signed a tripartite agreement on Samoa.

In 1900, America made Wake Island its territory. Shortly after the United States started building the Panama Canal.

The expansion of the U.S. Navy was vital to all of this happening. And it continued. By the end of WWI, the U.S. Navy was the world’s largest. It built aircraft carriers that were the game-changing weapon in the Pacific during World War II, and in 1945, the U.S. had a fleet of 1,600 ships; no other nation was close to competing with America.

I apologize for the long quote, but you’re now ready for the punch (in the gut) line:

China’s reunification of Taiwan will be its Wounded Knee. It will no longer need to focus on territorial matters and will doubtless look to realize power ambitions further from its shores.

So who will have their heart buried at this new Wounded Knee?

While our ability to predict the future with precision is generally lame, we can observe capabilities (if not intentions).  Such capabilities are outlined in the DoD’s annual Report to Congress for 2011, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.

Shovel-ready aircraft (and their associated jobs)

It’s been pointed out the F-35 program (already a defense bill-payer and sure to deliver fewer-than-planned aircraft) and the apparently turned off sale of new F-16s to Taiwan will be important confirmation issues for Ash Carter.

Already, legislation to allow the Taiwanese sale (contra the administration’s position) is being pondered.  Normally such an effort, offered up by a member of the minority party would never make it out of committee.  However given U.S. unemployment, it will be interesting to see how legislation to authorize F-16 sales plays out.

U.S. Bows Down to China on Taiwanese F-16 Purchase

Draw your own conclusions, but the Obama administration (in another continuation of a Bush administration policy) has decided that Taiwan will not be allowed to purchase 66 shovel-ready F-16C/Ds.  In lieu of this, upgrades to existing Taiwanese F-16s will be offered.

Will the no-sale hold? 

More than a few TADTE [Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition] attendees said the Obama administration might reverse the decision as the 2012 presidential election approaches and political pressure for new jobs builds.

And just what are the U.S. economic implication?

A June report by the Perryman Group, a Texas-based economic and financial analysis firm, estimated that Taiwan’s F-16C/D program would create more than 16,000 jobs and almost $768 million in U.S. federal tax revenue. Much of that tax revenue and new jobs would go to election battleground states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Texas and Utah.

Is this an appeasement effort to China?  Ponder the following:

…China holds about 8 percent of U.S. debt, the largest block in foreign hands.

(Snip)

China has called the sale a "red line." A recent editorial in the state-controlled People’s Daily called for the use of a "financial weapon" against the U.S. if new F-16s were released.

Is it possible the no-sale might have been made regardless of China’s position on the topic?  No.

With Taiwan, Reading Between The Lines Is Not Necessary

From the AP via Kentucky.com:

Taiwan is hailing its most advanced missile as "an aircraft carrier killer" on the same day that China began sea trials of it first aircraft carrier.

No further explanation is really required, is it?

The Desire To Buck Conventional Wisdom

Robert Haddick at Foreign Policy says SecDef Don Rumsfeld (the evil Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars), was more influential, policy-wise, than Robert Gates (the Yoda-like and popular successor).  The money quote:

If the battle is over management style, Gates wins in a knockout. But events, combined with experience gained through trial-and-error, have given the ultimate victory to Rumsfeld’s military doctrine.

Actually, Gates won in a knockout regardless.  In this case, pragmatic beat dogmatic.

Part of it was circumstance (Gates was favored by comparison in following the most despised SecDef since Robert McNamara), part of it was good fortune (being in place when the surge achieved success); part of it was politics (carrying the defense water as a moderate Republican in a Democrat’s administration).  This part of the article shows the desire for a man-bites-dog story in the media can be a powerful thing.

The crux is that Rumsfeld was transformation focused, having the Army, for example move from a division-level focus to a brigade-level focus.  The Army was big, slow, powerful, and bureaucratic.  The change we can see today is that it isn’t quite as big, slow, or powerful.  After all, Rumsfeld got the Army’s leviathan Crusader artillery system cancelled.

OK, OK, but can we say Gates was transformation focused as well?  I mean Gates was at the front of an expected military evolution versus a Rumsfeld-driven revolution in military affairs.  Air Force-centric examples include the SecAF and Chief of Staff being relieved by Gates for the nuclear enterprise debacle (those two refusing to shut up about the number of F-22s the USAF needed had to be part of the calculus as well) and the emphasis on UAVs.

The problem with the Rumsfeld Doctrine (once we’ve gone in and busted stuff up and dispersed the adversary’s military force) is a profound one: what’s next?  It remains a problem.  It will be a problem in perpetuity.

Now, at least a generation of military leadership has been profoundly shaped by lower-intensity conflict, one that institutionally values deployments even as global-level problems that are more likely to affect our national survival have largely worsened.  Beyond the economy, these include nuclear and missile proliferation from Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea which are growing and huge concerns, as is the military build-up of China which affects huge parts of the Pacific. 

Now, with defense budget cuts looming and a hollow-force being openly discussed, do you think Rumsfeld’s transformations will bear much fruit?  Chances are that personnel accounts will be first raided followed quickly by the investment accounts which are essential to transformation. 

I’m sure Gates learned much from Rumsfeld, including what not to do along with which ideas to embrace and nurture.  Rumsfeld generally wanted cheaper, faster, smaller, better and like most of the boilerplate we see in policy (and doctrine and “strategy”), how can you argue against inherent goodness?

Early on, Rumsfeld’s basic intellectual position seemed to be that which was held by much of the military in the Clinton years: we aren’t good at nation-building; we can’t afford to nation-build; don’t nation-build.  That was conventional wisdom fifteen years ago and it’s become conventional wisdom once again.  When we didn’t have the forces in place to nation-build/secure Iraq, things went south.

The lesson: sometimes conventional wisdom has it right.

Later in the article, the author shifts to the issue of proposed foreign military sales (F-16s to Taiwan) and offers:

What Taiwan needs instead is to mimic mainland China’s missile program. Mobile launchers, which unlike airfields could evade detection and targeting, could support both battlefield and strategic missiles that could hold targets on the mainland at risk. Such a program could do a better job of restoring a military balance across the Taiwan Strait than would fixed-wing aircraft operating from vulnerable bases.

(snip)

But Taiwan’s struggle to adapt to the immense missile threat from the mainland — over a thousand ballistic missiles are now aimed at Taiwan and a hundred more are added every year — also applies to U.S. military strategy in the region. United States military plans can no more rely on fixed bases and concentrated surface naval forces than Taiwan can. In the meantime, Taiwan could use some missile engineers instead of more F-16s.

Here, the author nails it (although he could have mentioned missile defense).  Once again, it is a simple case of the trend towards future military conflict being largely unmanned.  At what point in this century does the manned warplane become the horse-mounted cavalry of the last?

UPDATE: Taiwan, Subs, and Nuclear Deterrence

It seems the Taiwan report is…bogus.  No wait, false.

Recent local media reports that Taiwan test-fired an anti-ship Hsiung Feng 2 (Brave Wind) missile from a Dutch-built Hai Lung (Sea Dragon) submarine during an exercise in late June now appear to be false.

Taiwan’s Hai Lung’s have "absolutely no capability" of launching anti-ship missiles from their torpedo tubes, said a former Taiwan Navy official who worked with ordnance used on the submarines. "This is common sense since they still have problems with just launching torpedoes with the old fire control system."

So while the basic capability is still missing, the small deterrence payoff for the ‘false’ system remains valid.

Original report follows:

Defense News reports Taiwan is said to have tested a Taiwanese-developed submarine launched missile.

The reason? 

…to counter the threat of China’s fast-expanding navy

I’m thinking the fast-expanding Chinese navy won’t be too deterred by the development. 

Taiwan’s navy operates a fleet of four submarines, but only the two Dutch-built ships could be deployed in the event of war. The other two were built by the United States in the 1940s.

Now if there were more subs and they were modern and if these missiles had nuclear weapons, the deterrence factor would have to be honored by China. But that’s a lot of ifs.

And as for the subs, there’s always the high-speed hold of the U.S. regarding Taiwanese arms sales.  But for the nuclear weapons, who Kahn the Taiwanese call?

Why Would Taiwan Ever Want To Go Nuclear?

Taiwan continues to face what appears to be an unending plus-up of a Chinese military threat even as hostilities across the Strait appear to be decreasing.

So what would happen if Taiwan wanted the bomb?

Hard to say, but they’re going to produce an indigenous cruise missile as it is.

Not to say Taiwan will go nuclear; just to say the circumstances that motivated Israel to go nuclear might be at play with Taiwan as well.