AirSea Battle and A2/AD

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
AirSea Battle: in search of the shoreline against war

Mentioned in 2010, the concept of AirSea Battle should be a response to measures A2 / AD (Anti-Access / Area Denial) implemented by China. Over time, it became central in US defense policy, directing the strategy means different services but also in forming the background of the US "pivot" to Asia. But the stakes exceed also the geostrategic context: it is particularly emblematic of a renewal of the dialectic between offensive and defensive and questions that are bound to deal with it.

The A2 / AD Chinese: the rediscovery of the defensive

Understand what the AirSea Battle involves returning to the vision that had the Americans in the development of Chinese naval strategy in the year 2000. At that time, the Pentagon estimated that Beijing is implementing a series of measures coordinates to prohibit access to its seas to potential adversaries. China would use a complex technology mix. It relies primarily on a high seas fleet, then in full development with Type-052B and 052C-Type but the Type-054 frigates.

After a short phase of gradual ramp, it has stabilized after 2007, then the priorities being elsewhere. Since 2012, the serial production of destroyers Type-052 has taken, including with the commissioning of a new version (Type-052D), but also with the prospect of the arrival of the Type-055, China's cruiser. In 2006, the Chinese navy had 13 modern destroyers and 17 modern frigates. She now has 17 respectively (seven others are under construction) and 32.

Second pillar, the submarine fleet known in the 2000s, accelerated modernization, with the release of Service oldest buildings (Ming) and the arrival of 26 Song and Yuan, after buying Kilo 8 in Russia and all continuing work on nuclear attack submarines. Quieter - without reaching the western standards - conventional submarines are equipped with anti-ship missiles and new heavyweight torpedoes. Everything seems to indicate that the development of these buildings is driven by more than one anti-ship approach by an anti-submarine approach.

The land-based naval aviation is the third component of the Chinese device with interdicteurs JH-7 but also the revival of production of H-6 bombers rather heavily modified to come into service in the 2010s must add Su -30 ordered in Russia but also their sinicized copy, the J-16. In all cases, the devices serve as a platform to launch anti-ship missiles and land attack, sometimes supersonic. Must be added the modernization of the maritime patrol component essential to the detection of adverse ais fleet historically underdeveloped.

Fourth component, the coastal fleet has experienced a radical process of modernization, particularly with the construction in very large series (more than 80 copies to date) patrol catamarans partially stealthy Type-022 each with eight anti-ship missiles. Added to some other missile units. Mine warfare has traditionally played an important role in the Chinese naval strategy, not only against surface ships but also against submarines. In 2009, more than thirty different types, covering all categories of sea mines were in operation, including the EM-52, a container equipped with sensors and containing a torpedo.

The final component of the arsenal A2 / AD Chinese shore batteries of anti-ship missiles - on which little information is available - and especially the anti-ship ballistic missile DF-21D, which would be used for typing larger units US Navy aircraft carriers and large amphibious ships. Mentioned in 2005, the threat has not materialized in a sea trial (see box). Although the Chief of Staff of the US Navy has declared operational, many analysts, including Americans, were skeptical about the effectiveness of capacity. Finally, it must be added the development of advanced air defense systems under the control of the Army or Air Forces of Beijing, and is able to protect the bases.

From a conceptual point of view, this "new" concept A2 / AD, initially referred to China and then to Iran, is not without flaws. On the one hand, there is a new iteration of the principle of maritime interdiction (sea denial) evoked by Bernard Brodie in the 1940s, that the defensive function of a marine relies on a combination of ability to prohibit the movement of the enemy. From this point of view, the present Chinese Capabilities combination is a novelty at best a demonstration of historic incompetence.

On the other hand, the list of Chinese capabilities and their historical perspective, albeit impressive, fails to make the first of the problems inherent in the use of any combined force consider: coordination. However, this issue received little attention by analysts, is poorly documented. If China frequently conducts exercises of all kinds, they do not seem to rely on a combination of available capacity and focus primarily on one or the other system component forces. Incidentally, the issue of command and control, with its attendant technical problems (communications) and tactical (procedures) is as little processed.

The status of the AirSea Battle

In the minds of the designers AirSea Battle, deployment of Chinese maritime interdiction measures is interpreted as a variegated positions between two conflicting logics. For the former, there is a prior rise offensive in nature. Before any action could escalate into war with the United States - whether the claims in the South China Sea or the application of a power projection throughout the "three island chains" - he is able to protect against an attack, with capabilities such that they would be likely to deter the United States.

For the latter, there is a setting to contemporary standards of a Chinese naval defensive oriented culture. In both cases, however, it is for the US Navy to be able to have freedom of action, regardless of the constraints or their reasons and to rehabilitate its power projection capabilities. But what is it?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Doesn't really say anything new.

But I suppose we should have a thread for the topic.

I should add however, that none of us really know how coordinated the PLAN and PLAAF (and 2nd arty) are in A2AD scenarios, so unless the author has more information than letting on, I don't think we can make a detailed judgement of PLA's jointness given the limited information we have, apart from the simple mantra that more is better.

Personally I think the term A2AD is a little misleading in terms of capability description and role. I think calling it BAMS2 should be more accurate; Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (taking a note from USN) and Strike. That is to say, what we see as A2AD is really two interrelated components: maritime ISR (satellites, UAVs and MPA, SOSUS, OTH radars, ships, and integration), and long range strike (surface combatants, submarines, FACs, land based air power, land based cruise and ballistic missiles, and of course AShBM)
 
Last edited:

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Report: Army should embrace anti-access/area-denial mission
Oct. 29, 2014 - 02:49PM |
By Joe Gould
Staff writer
FILED UNDER
News
WASHINGTON — The Army is embracing a more expeditionary identity, but earlier this month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended it return to an old mission on the home front: coastal defense.

Now the think tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is expanding upon that idea in a report released today — “Beyond Coast Artillery: Cross Domain Denial and the Army,” authored by Eric Lindsey — advocating a new role for the Army, cross-domain denial.

As with Hagel, who spoke at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting here in mid-October, the report recommends the Army employ land-based forces to deny access to other domains, such as the air and sea. More than defend coastlines, the Army could employ a forward anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) force to constrain the movement of enemy forces.

China’s People’s Liberation Army can use radars, air defenses and anti-ship missiles to deny access to U.S. and allied forces in the Western Pacific. Yet the Army no longer mans the massive forts and coast artillery emplacements that overlook America’s strategic waterways.

The Army could use existing offensive fires, air and missile defenses, adapting its high-mobility artillery rocket and multiple-launch rocket systems, to create maritime choke points along strategic waterways like the Baltic Sea, East China Sea and Persian Gulf.

The advantage for ground forces in this role over the other services is that they are easier to harden, conceal, disperse and resupply than ships and airplanes, Lindsey writes in the report.

And amid shrinking defense budgets, the Army might take a modest route to start by first developing operational concepts, war-gaming them and experimenting with partner-nation or off-the-shelf systems.

Lindsey criticizes the Army’s operating concept for falling short of “fully embracing” the denial mission, and indeed the Army’s operating concept, released shortly before Hagel spoke at AUSA, typically views A2/AD as an enemy’s tactic.

Still, the concept leaves a couple of narrow openings for the idea. In one instance, it calls for the Army to “emulate or disrupt” capabilities like A2/AD. It also affirms the benefits of surface-to-surface and other fires as a means for land forces to project power into the air and maritime environments.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

shen

Senior Member
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The Army could use existing offensive fires, air and missile defenses, adapting its high-mobility artillery rocket and multiple-launch rocket systems, to create maritime choke points along strategic waterways like the Baltic Sea, East China Sea and Persian Gulf.

Oh, hold on a minute, no way! Navy and Air Force get shinny new toys under AirSea Battle, Army only get "existing" stuff to play with? Must have Norwegian missiles for Army!
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Oh, hold on a minute, no way! Navy and Air Force get shinny new toys under AirSea Battle, Army only get "existing" stuff to play with? Must have Norwegian missiles for Army!

Well Naval Strike Missile was designed to be fired off of a TEL.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Well Naval Strike Missile was designed to be fired off of a TEL.

His point is that the weapons listed -- rockets and MRLS are not very suited for waterway defense. Hell, none of the US land forces have any meaningful coastal defence capability in its existing arsenal.

It would warrant purchase of new weapons.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Or modification extensive modification to existing or emerging systems. I get what he is saying. Three systems make sense for that, the LRASM which is to be fired from a VLS MK41, meaning one of two options, Modification to either a Mk41 or Mk57 VLS system and instillation at long term US Army bases like Guam, Okinawa, Hawaii and the like. Or modification of the LRASM to fire from US Army launchers like the PAC TEL.
Outside of that is the Naval Strike Missile now under testing for the USN. The Polish Navy uses a found based TEL system with there NSMs.
Or development of a Anti ship version of the MGM-168 ATacMS – Block IVA.
Outside of those a enemy ship would have to come pretty close into the brown water to take the pounding. Primarily this was the SecDef telling the Army to pound sand as he feels the Army is to heavy for AirSea. Which is foolishness IMHO the US Army has operates in Just as many Amphibious landings as the USMC and operates a pretty substantial landing force. Its Airborne elements are perfect for Air Sea as well.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Basically the strategy these days is for someone who claims to be an expert on China to tell everyone what the Chinese are thinking and then it becomes the bible. China did not come up with the "string of pearls" concept. It was an American. But now Indians act as if there is a Chinese plot against them called String of Pearls. It's the same as when you hear that Chinese are plotting to take over the world. I'm Chinese. I have never been invited to such a meeting. Same thing but because now a so-called expert says it's happening, it must be true.
 

balance

Junior Member
This is another. Bill Geertz apparently has become science fiction writer instead of a defense analyst.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


China Secret Strategy Exposed
Bill Geertz

China launched a secret 100-year modernization program that deceived successive U.S. administrations into unknowingly promoting Beijing’s strategy of replacing the U.S.-led world order with a Chinese communist-dominated economic and political system, according to a new book by a longtime Pentagon China specialist.

For more than four decades, Chinese leaders lulled presidents, cabinet secretaries, and other government analysts and policymakers into falsely assessing China as a benign power deserving of U.S. support, says Michael Pillsbury, the Mandarin-speaking analyst who has worked on China policy and intelligence issues for every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon.

The secret strategy, based on ancient Chinese statecraft, produced a large-scale transfer of cash, technology, and expertise that bolstered military and Communist Party “superhawks” in China who are now taking steps to catch up to and ultimately surpass the United States, Pillsbury concludes in a book published this week.

The Chinese strategic deception program was launched by Mao Zedong in 1955 and put forth the widespread misbelief that China is a poor, backward, inward-looking country. “And therefore the United States has to help them, and give away things to them, to make sure they stay friendly,” Pillsbury said in an interview. “This is totally wrong.”

The Chinese strategy also is aimed at gaining global economic dominance, he says, noting that China’s military buildup is but one part. The combined economic, political, and military power is seeking to produce China as a new global “hegemon” that will export its anti-democratic political system and predatory economic practices around the world.

In the interview, Pillsbury, currently director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, said new details contained in the book were cleared for publication by the FBI, CIA, and Defense Department, including details of formerly classified presidential directives, testimony from previously unknown Chinese defectors, and alarming details of writings from powerful Chinese military and political hawks.

The book also discloses for the first time that the opening to China in 1969 and 1970, considered one of the United States’ most significant strategic gambits, was not initiated by then-President Nixon’s top national security aide Henry Kissinger. Instead, Pillsbury shows that it was Chinese generals who played the United States card against the Soviet Union, amid fears of a takeover of the country by Moscow.

Some sensitive details were removed from the manuscript by the government. However, the totality of the book represents an authorized disclosure of China’s secret strategy that is among the most significant releases of internal U.S. government information in over a decade, Pillsbury said.

“That highlights the importance of the book,” Pillsbury said in an interview. “And it sends a message to China: We’re not as clueless as you think.”

Pillsbury also reveals how a Chinese government defector exposed Beijing’s effective lobbying campaign from 1995 to 2000 that led Congress to approve Most-Favored National trade status for China—several years after China was sanctioned for the bloody massacre by the military of unarmed protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The covert influence operation was carried out at a time when American concerns about Chinese human rights violations were high. Yet China was able to successfully induce U.S. leaders into making key strategic trade concessions.

That covert influence program was revealed by one of the six Chinese defectors Pillsbury questioned over the years, including one who turned out to be a false defector—FBI informant Katrina Leung, who was arrested in 2003.

“I tried to put a defector interview into the opening of each chapter,” Pillsbury said, noting that the defectors remain in witness protection programs and “fear for their lives” due to the possibility of Chinese retaliation.

The defectors disclosed details of “what China is trying to do to America in what they call the 100-year marathon,” he said.

On the Chinese hawks, Pillsbury said internal writings of these powerful political and military leaders revealed “how they draw lessons from China’s ancient past … and how can they surpass America without the Americans reacting.”

Pillsbury, whose most senior government post was assistant undersecretary of defense for policy planning in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, also worked for several senators and has been a consultant on China policy for decades.

In the book, Pillsbury acknowledged that initially he was among the staunchest advocates of the U.S. policy of “constructive engagement” toward China launched initially in 1969 as a way to prevent a Soviet takeover in Beijing.

Asked when he abandoned his pro-China, “panda hugger” views, he said: “Over time … mainly after Tiananmen”—a reference to the brutal 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s main square.

“We believed that American aid to a fragile China whose leaders thought like us would help China become a democratic and peaceful power without ambitions of regional or even global dominance,” Pillsbury wrote.

“Every one of the assumptions behind that belief was wrong—dangerously so,” he stated, noting that the power of China’s now dominant faction of anti-American ultranationalists was underestimated.

Pillsbury’s book, The Hundred Year Marathon, reveals new details of secret CIA cooperation with China in covert action programs in Afghanistan and Angola, as well as nearly $1 billion worth of weapons transfers during the 1980s.

The covert support for China, along with a continuing flow of U.S. technology and intelligence for the past 45 years, were once among the U.S. government’s most closely guarded secrets.

The book also declassifies details of several presidential memoranda behind the covert U.S. policy of supporting China that Pillsbury states produced one of the United States’ most significant strategic blunders.

Documents and intelligence reports smuggled out of China after the bloody Tiananmen massacre, when tanks were called in to disperse tens of thousands of unarmed pro-democracy protesters, revealed that senior Chinese leaders were sharply divided over supporting the students’ calls for democratic political reform, according to the book.

Communist super hawks in the military and senior Party leadership managed to defeat and ultimately arrest senior Party officials who supported the pro-democracy reform.

The book also provides the following new disclosures on China’s strategy toward the United States:

  • Chinese hardliners promoted the book of Col. Liu Mingfu, “The China Dream” that is the inspiration behind current Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increasingly Maoist policies. Other writings by hawks reveal a future China-dominated world will that values “order over freedom, ethics over law and elite governance over democracy and human rights.”
  • U.S. intelligence agencies for decades underestimated the influence of Chinese hawks and continue to dismiss their power and influence as “fringe” elements.
  • Intelligence assessments in the late 1980s failed to recognize the pro-democracy sentiment inside the ruling Politburo was strong until it was crushed after the 1989 crackdown on dissent.
  • After Tiananmen, China’s government created a false history to hide its past covert cooperation with the United States.
  • China’s “assassin’s mace” weapons—missiles and other exotic arms—are being built to defeat satellites and knock out aircraft carriers, using high-tech arms, including electromagnetic pulse weapons.
  • As part of covert U.S. offers of assistance to China in the 1970s, the CIA cut off aid to the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama and canceled U.S. Navy patrols through the Taiwan Strait. Instead, the CIA began providing intelligence on the Soviet Union to China.
  • Reagan agreed to sell six major weapons systems to China but required that continued aid be conditioned on China remaining unaligned with Moscow and liberalizing its communist system. The arms transfers were halted after Tiananmen.
  • World Bank assistance to China imposed no conditions on China moving toward free market reforms. As a result, China’s government today continues to control most industries.
  • China will undermine the United Nations and World Trade Organization to “delegitimize” the U.S.-led world order in order to promote its global system.
  • An internal secret briefing for Chinese officials discussed China’s most important foreign policy priority as “how to manage the decline of the United States,” revealing that China is working against U.S. interests in supporting rogue states and selling arms to America’s enemies.
To counter what Pillsbury describes as China’s “warring states era” strategy for world dominance, an approach that outlines how a lesser power can defeat a stronger foe, the United States needs to recognize the threat and take urgent steps to prevent China from dominating the world.

Pillsbury said that as part of efforts to counter the Chinese military buildup, the Pentagon’s next budget will include funding for up to 100 new long-range bombers, funds for hardening U.S. satellites against Chinese attacks, and money for a Navy program to protect U.S. aircraft carriers from China’s carrier-killing DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile.
 
Top