The kinds of weapons the U.S. may face in any future Pacific Rim conflict will be formidable, if for no other reason than the fact that the U.S. has under-invested in proper strategic thinking.
Let us look at a sample of some of the threats.
Inertial navigation bomb kits; China now has similar capability to our JDAM and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). This used to be a trump card for the U.S. in past conflicts. Now, for this area of interest; no more. We face parity or near parity.
Integrated air defenses. China is fielding high end surface-to-air missile systems in quantity. China is on a path to field high end fighter aircraft in quantity. Worse in this area is China is now approaching parity or near parity. This used to be the golden rule of U.S. air domination thinking that facing parity was not a good thing. Now, in our strategic ignorance, we seem destined to have no choice.
Cruise missile technology; China is able to field this kind of weapon in enough quantity to make conflicts expensive. And they are improving. Super-sonic cruise missile technology is already being fielded in the Pacific; and not by us. One hopes that the Pacific Rim doesn't look like this someday; a SCUD hunt from hell; only worse.
Naval mines. China has these in mass quantity. Our mine sweeping skills are not very large and always an after-thought until a war shows up. This will be way more than a nuisance threat in any conflict involving China.
Communism. A large scale weapon and worse; scalable to be used as China sees fit to motivate its people; backed up by negative reinforcement. They would probably say; positive reinforcement.
If we can contain this with a proper and credible deterrent, history may show us as very lucky.
Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim-
Part 1, Strategic Strike for Anti-Access Threats
Part 2, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
Part 3--Energy
2 comments:
I'd add another side: The uncertainty whether the U.S. high tech systems and systems of systems work in the face of modern opposition. Industrial espionage, military intelligence and EW could create a situation where neither side can successfully utilize their latest toys. Then it's either large-scale asymetric or low(ish)-tech.
Communism is a joke even in China. It's not only discredited but true Marxists are actively persecuted by the money obsessed CCP.
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