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By Patrick Winn - Staff writer-Air force Times
Posted : Tuesday Jan 22, 2008 18:51:15 EST In a hypothetical future scenario, the U.S. and China are poised to
clash — likely over Taiwan.
The democratic Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan — which America
backs and the communist People’s Republic of China considers part of its
territory — frequently irritates Chinese leaders with calls for greater
independence from the mainland. But while the American military mulls
its options, Chinese missiles hit runways, fuel lines, barracks and
supply depots at U.S. Air Force bases in Japan and South Korea.
Long-range warheads destroy American satellites, crippling Air Force
surveillance and communication networks. A nuclear fireball erupts high
above the Pacific Ocean, ionizing the atmosphere and scrambling radars
and radio feeds. This is China’s anti-U.S. sucker punch strategy. It’s designed to strike America’s military suddenly, stunning and
stalling the Air Force more than any other service. In a script written
by Chinese military officers and defense analysts, a bruised U.S.
military, beholden to a sheepish American public, puts up a small fight
before slinking off to avoid full-on war. This strategic outlook isn’t hidden in secret Chinese documents. It’s
printed in China’s military journals and textbooks. And for much of last
year, Mandarin literates and defense experts — working for the Santa
Monica, Calif.-based Rand Corp. on an Air Force contract — combed
through a range of Chinese military sources. They emerged with “Entering the Dragon’s Lair,” a lengthy report on how
the Chinese People’s Liberation Army would likely confront the U.S.
military and how the Air Force in particular can brace itself. In many
cases, the theoretical enemy nation China’s officers discuss in these
scenarios isn’t explicitly named but is unmistakably the U.S. “These aren’t war plans,” said report co-author Roger Cliff, a former
Defense Department strategist and China military specialist who spoke to
Air Force Times from Taiwan. “This is the military talking to itself.
It’s not designed for foreigners or even China’s general public to read.”
Element of surprise When it comes to conflict with the U.S., Chinese military analysts favor
age-old schoolyard wisdom: Throw the first punch and hit hard. “Future conflicts are likely to be short, intense affairs that might
consist of a single campaign,” Cliff said. “They’re thinking about ways
to get the drop on us. Most of our force is not forward-deployed.” China’s experts concede its army would lose a head-on fight, with one
senior colonel comparing such a scenario to “throwing an egg against a
rock.” Instead, the Chinese would attempt what Rand calls an
“anti-access” strategy: slowing the deployment of U.S. forces to the
Pacific theater, damaging operations within the region and forcing the
U.S. to fight from a distance. “Taking the enemy by surprise,” one Chinese military expert wrote,
“would catch it unprepared and cause confusion within and huge
psychological pressure on the enemy and help [China] win relatively
large victories at relatively small costs.” Another military volume
suggests feigning a large-scale military training exercise to conceal
the attack’s buildup.
The Dragon’s Lair Striking U.S. air bases — specifically command-and-control facilities,
aircraft hangars and surface-to-air missile launchers — would be China’s
first priority if a conflict arose, according to Rand’s report. U.S. facilities in South Korea and Japan, even far-south Okinawa, sit
within what Rand calls the “Dragon’s Lair”: a swath of land and sea
along China’s coast. This is an area reachable by cruise missiles,
jet-borne precision bombs and local covert operatives. Air Force bases
within this area include Osan and Kunsan in South Korea, as well as
Misawa, Yokota and Kadena in Japan. And in a conflict over Taiwan, any
nation allowing “an intervening superpower” such as the U.S. to operate
inside its territory can expect a Chinese attack, according to China’s
defense experts. China is designing ground-launched cruise missiles capable of nailing
targets more than 900 miles away — well within striking range of South
Korea and much of Japan, according to the report. Cruise missiles able
to reach Okinawa — home to Kadena Air Base — are in development. The Chinese would first launch “concentrated and unexpected” attacks on
tarmacs using runway-penetrating missiles and, soon after, would target
U.S. aircraft. Saboteurs would play a role in reconnaissance, harassing
operations and even “assassinating key personnel,” according to another
military expert. Chinese fighter jets would scramble to intercept aerial refueling
tankers and cargo planes sent to shuttle in fuel, munitions, supplies or
troops. High-explosive cluster bombs would target pilot quarters and
other personnel buildings. Because the American public is “abnormally sensitive” about military
casualties, according to an article in China’s Liberation Army Daily,
killing U.S. airmen or other personnel would spark a “domestic anti-war
cry” on the home front and possibly force early withdrawal of U.S.
forces. (“The U.S. experience in Somalia is usually cited in support of
this assertion,” according to the Rand report.) Once this hard-and-fast
assault on U.S. bases commenced, the Chinese army would “swiftly divert”
its forces and “guard vigilantly against enemy retaliation,” according
to a Chinese expert. Dumb and blind The PLA also would likely use less conventional attacks
on the American military’s vital communications network. The goal, as
one Chinese expert put it: leaving U.S. combat capabilities “blind,”
“deaf” and “paralyzed.” Losing early-warning systems designed to detect incoming missiles would
be, for the Air Force, the most devastating setback — one that could
force the service to exit the region altogether, according to Rand. China could also launch a nuclear “e-bomb,” or electromagnetic
explosive, that would fry U.S. communication equipment while ionizing
the atmosphere for minutes to hours, according to the report. This would
likely jam radio signals in a 900-mile diameter beneath the nuclear
fireball. The PLA could also employ long-range anti-satellite missiles — similar
to one successfully tested last January — to destroy one or more
American satellites. However, the PLA has a host of less dramatic
options: short-range jammers hidden in suitcases or bombs and virus
attacks on Air Force computer networks.
U.S. Air Force options Shielding against a swift Chinese onslaught is, according to Rand, as
simple as reinforcing a runway or as complex as cloaking the orbit of
military satellites. In the short term, U.S. air bases inside the Dragon’s Lair should add an
extra layer of concrete to their runways and bury fuel tanks
underground. All aircraft, the report said, should be parked in hardened
shelters, especially fighter jets. Parking larger aircraft — bombers, tankers and E-3 Sentry Airborne
Warning and Control Systems jets — in hard-shell hangars would be
expensive and difficult but likely worth the cost, according to the report. U.S. fighter jets remain the best defense against incoming Chinese
missile attacks. But, given China’s taste for sudden attacks,
surface-launched missile defense systems must be installed long before a
conflict roils. Because the PLA is expected to strike quickly, the
report said, waiting for the first tremors of conflict is not an option. The Air Force also should fortify itself against Chinese hackers by
using software encryption, isolating critical computer systems and
preparing contingency plans to communicate without a high-bandwidth
network. Though China maintains a “no first use” nuclear bomb policy,
the U.S., according to Rand, should warn China that nuclear
electromagnetic pulse attacks will be considered acts of nuclear
aggression and could prompt nuclear retaliation. Rand insists the Air Force must defend satellites — which support
communication, reconnaissance, bomb guidance and more — against China’s
proven satellite-killing missiles. This could be accomplished in the
Cold War tradition of mutually assured destruction by threatening to
retaliate in kind if the PLA blasts U.S. satellites. “That might be the one restraining factor,” Cliff said. “They might not
want to start that space war.” Or, Rand suggests, the U.S. could invest heavily in satellite protection
or evasion techniques, including stealth, blending in with other
satellite constellations or perhaps developing and deploying
microsatellites capable of swarming to defend larger satellites, which
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is working toward. Could this really happen? The Chinese first-strike strategy is “more
than hypothetical,” according to the report. But in the near term, at
least, it’s considered unlikely. If the most contentious issue is Taiwan, Cliff said, then the likely
trigger would be Taiwanese elections, where assertions of complete
independence from the mainland can infuriate Chinese leaders. China’s
current president, Hu Jintao, has built up China’s military but also its
ties with America. In 2012, however, when Taiwan holds an election and
mainland China’s leadership is expected to turn over, perhaps for the
worse, the risk of conflict could increase. “It really depends on the circumstances,” Cliff said. “Would Taiwan be
the provocateur? If so, it might be hard for the American public to
support intervention.” However, if China moves to capture control of the island, Cliff said he
believes the U.S. would face a rocky dilemma. “Are we really going to let a small, democratic country get snuffed out
by a huge authoritarian country — especially when you think about how
our own country came into existence?” Cliff said. As China pours more resources into its evolving and expanding military,
it buys the power to more strongly assert itself against America. In
November, China denied U.S. Navy minesweepers shelter from a storm and,
in another incident that month, turned down an Air Force C-17 flight
shuttling supplies to the American consulate in Hong Kong. Experts
speculate this was a rebuff to American arms sales to Taiwan, as well as
President Bush’s autumn meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled
spiritual leader of another state China claims, Tibet. “If this conflict happened today, I’m certain we’d prevail,” Cliff said.
“But as time goes on, that’s not a given.”
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