One of my all-time favorite movies is “Task Force” starring Gary Cooper. It came out in 1949 and details the birth of naval aviation. There’s a scene, where Cooper attends a fancy Washington, D.C. soiree. He’s uncomfortable and clearly out of his element. Matters are only made worse when a Senator comes up to him and basically starts an argument over maritime strategy on whether the Navy needs an air arm. The Senator says there’s no threat; therefore, the Navy doesn’t need airplanes or aircraft carriers. Cooper replies that Japan is a threat and says they are building up their naval air arm to include aircraft carriers to counter the U.S. Navy. The Senator strongly disagrees. Unfortunately for Cooper’s character, the Japanese Naval Attaché is attending the same party, over hears the comments and files a complaint saying Cooper’s statements about Japan’s intensions are insulting and false. Cooper gets thrown out of D.C. and sent to a remote assignment in the tropics as punishment. The Japanese Attaché would have been Captain Isoroku Yamamoto who would later become the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I don’t know if that movie scene had any basis in fact, but it was foremost on my mind when I sat down to hear what senior naval leaders had to say about our maritime strategy and hot topics like China during the recent AFCEA WEST 2014 Conference in San Diego. Relations with China have come a long way since President Nixon’s historic visit in 1972. Overall there’s been much improvement since the Cold War days; but there are still potentially divisive issues such as the territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas and their “lack of transparency” on their intentions and military buildup during a time when the U.S. is talking about defense budget cuts. This week China announced it was increasing it defense budget by 12.2 percent to about $132 Billion. Still below the U.S. defense budget (Pentagon is requesting $496 Billion for fiscal year 2015), but what jumped out at me from the official Chinese press report was the following:
“Yin Zhuo, director of the Expert Consultation Committee of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, said China’s military spending is still far from the level it needs to be as the country faces increasingly severe security challenges.”
Allies in the region are also questioning just how much influence the U.S. will be able to retain in the region in this era of downsizing. A 6 March article in the Wall Street Journal reported:
“At a national security seminar held in Tokyo Wednesday, several politicians and officials close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed the need for Japan to give a greater role to its Self-Defense Forces. They pointed to higher Chinese military spending and U.S. defense cuts.
“Truth be told, the U.S. can no longer afford to play the world’s policeman,” said Yosuke Isozaki, a ruling-party lawmaker who advises Mr. Abe on national security issues. “This is no longer an era when Japan is permitted to do nothing and count on America to protect us for free. It’s become extremely important we do our own share alongside the U.S.”
With that as a backdrop, I thought it would be interesting to highlight some of the comments made by the Navy’s Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr. (no relation). He began by saying the Navy needed technology that is resilient, reliable, secure, and affordable. He illustrated that by the way he conducted his talk. He began by wearing an optical device that resembled Google Glass, although he declined to attribute a manufacturer of his device, then went to reading from a tablet, and finished by reading from a piece of paper. He said:
“I started this speech with a wearable optical device, then went to a tablet, then a paper copy. What is this all about, really? It’s about creativity, redundancy and resilience. Because all of our systems might fail…and all that stands between our nation and tyranny and oppression is the individual Sailor, Soldier, Airman, Marine and Coastguardsman. I think it’s a fair fight. No one innovates better, improvises better, than the American Sailor.”
He talked about the significance of freedom of the seas reminding the audience that not only does 90 percent of the world’s trade travel by sea but 95 percent on internet traffic travels under it. He pointed out:
“…freedom of the seas requires security and stability in the maritime domain…and working closely with our Allies, partners and friends around the world, the United States Navy plays a significant role in providing that security and stability.”
Admiral Harris said the U.S. Navy today still has an “edge on any and all would be aggressors” but we can’t “rest on our laurels”. The Navy needs to revolutionize its way of doing things in order to guarantee they have the architecture to maintain what its needs to do to “sustain combat operations on, over, under and near the seas.” He believes, “The Indo-Asia-Pacific will drive the world economy for the next century. But there are risks in this region that we must contend with, where conflict or calamity on a regional scale can negatively affect the growth potential for the entire global economy.”
Speaking of China, the Admiral remarked:
“We see strife between nations over rocks and shoals all through the South China Sea and East China Sea. We’ve got developing nations vying for regional influence and infringing on the rights of other nations. We see interference with fishing and resource rights in other nation’s exclusive economic zones; and maritime sovereignty claims that have no basis in…or relationship to…international law.
Our criticism of China’s recent establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, is less about it’s right to do so, but rather how they did it in a unilateral attempt to change the status quo. I also have concerns regarding the aggressive growth of the Chinese military, their lack of transparency, and a pattern of increasingly assertive behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea. This includes incremental efforts to assert control over the area within the so-called “nine dash line.” They’re doing this despite the objections of their neighbors, and, in my opinion, a lack of any explanation or basis under international law.”
He said attempts to change the status quo negatively could lead to a “miscalculation.” He went on to say in spite of the concerns he welcomed, “ the emergence of a prosperous and successful China as a positive contributor to Asian stability and a member of the community of nations.”
He mentioned China’s upcoming participation in the Rimpac 2014, the world’s largest maritime exercise as a positive development. After his talk, I got a chance to ask Admiral Harris if the Navy had changed the way it operated in the Chinese ADIZ. He reiterated he viewed it with concern. It was more about how they did it but we were operating our forces just as we had before they announced it. We are operating in and under the ADIZ.
This is significant. To my mind, if we had modified our operations that would have been showing the Chinese they were able to maintain some control over a disputed area. Some parts of their ADIZ overlap with the Japanese ADIZ in the region. You don’t want to reward or encourage that type of behavior. Think I’ll end here. As always, my views are my own. I’ll have more on this topic next week.
