By Joseph Bosco
September 26, 2014
China thinks it can defeat America without battle
Mr. Axe’s otherwise excellent article (“China Thinks It Can Defeat America in Battle”) starts with one huge non sequitur.
The bad news first. The People’s Republic of China now believes it can successfullyprevent the United States from intervening in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or some other military assault by Beijing (emphasis mine).
Let’s call that assertion—with which I totally agree—the apples. Here come the oranges:
Now the good news. China is wrong—and for one major reason. It apparently disregards the decisive power of America’s nuclear-powered submarines(emphasis mine).
The bad news “apples” have to do with American intentions or will, that is, the psychologicalcomponent of security planning. The good news “oranges” relate to U.S. military capability, the physical or technological component. By itself, the latter—the ability to prevail in actual combat—cannot compensate for the absence of the former—the willingness to intervene—or even the perception that it is lacking.
Effective deterrence requires both the willand the capabilities—and the proper communication to the adversary that we are armed with both.
As for communicating to the People’s Republic that we have the wherewithal to defeat it in a naval battle, say in the Taiwan Strait, Mr. Axe’s article generously lays out the Navy’s underwater prowess: numbers of subs on station, numbers of missiles on each boat, offensive capabilities, etc.
Of course, all that information is in the public domain, aside from the more granular secrets that China manages to buy or steal. So it is rather startling for Mr. Axe to conclude that, until the publication of his piece, “the PLA seems to have ignored Washington’s huge undersea advantage.”
He even offers an explanation for this apparent major intelligence failure on the part of the Chinese: “It’s not surprising that Beijing would overlook America’s subs, he writes, because they’re under water! “Unseen and unheard. That why the sub force calls itself the ‘Silent Service’.”
Cutting to the chase, our superb sub service could doubtless wreak devastation on a Chinese surface fleet if given the order to do so. But would the order be given? I’m betting that Beijing is betting it would not.
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Why not? Because, short of a preemptive U.S. attack, our vaunted submarine force cannot prevent the Chinese—employing either its own subs or its anti-ship cruise missiles—from sinking at least one major U.S. combatant ship. If a single carrier goes down, more Americans could die than in Pearl Harbor and September 11 combined. Destroying China’s navy or some of its cities in retaliation will not bring our people back. Would an American president be willing to pay that price to defend Taiwan, let alone some rocks in the East or South China Seas? I am confident he or she would, for the historic, moral, and strategic credibility reasons Mr. Axe cites.
But several U.S. China experts publicly say otherwise, that the U.S. would not and should not intervene. Such talk, taken with other factors, encourages China’s planners to reach the same conclusion. I believe they are wrong, but a major strategic miscalculation is in the making—not because of U.S. capabilities, which are far more than adequate, but because of the perception of the lack of U.S. will.
Chinese strategic thinkers are fond of citing Sun Tzu for the doctrine that the objective is to win the war without having to fight it—that is, to win it psychologically so you don’t have to wage it militarily. So, if Beijing can convince Washington that it cares about Taiwan, “a core interest” a hundred miles off its shore, more than we do from a distance of 7,000 miles, then it follows that China is willing to risk more and lose more to achieve its goal than we are prepared to expend to defend it. Or, as one Chinese general delicately put it during the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, “You care more about Los Angeles than you do Taiwan.”
What would lead Beijing to conclude such a thing? For starters, we democratic Americans care a lot more about individual citizens’ lives than do China’s Communist leaders—see the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Korean War, Tiananmen Square.
Joseph A. Bosco is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as China country desk officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and taught a graduate seminar on US-China-Taiwan relations at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.
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