Light, lean, agile: How US plans to counter Chinese threat in Indo-Pacific

On 6 and 9 August, 1945, as the propellors of the two B-29 Superfortress ‘Enola Gay’ and ‘Bockscar’ ominously whirred, Japan’s history was about to be rewritten. Little Boy and Fat Man obliterated 70,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and another 46,000 in Nagasaki, respectively. The B-29s took off from Tinian, one of the four constituent municipalities of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (the overseas autonomous states of America), around 200 km north of Guam, a United States (US) territory in the Western Pacific. In 1946, the US Air Force (USAF) abandoned Tinian, which, along with Saipan and Guam, housed fleets of B-29s during WWII. After 77 years, the  USAF has reclaimed  the 101 sq km island, whose six runways are covered with jungle, by requesting $78 million from the Joe Biden government.

America has started constructing “an extensive” facility at the Tinian North airfield and the Tinian International airfield, General Kenneth Wilsbach, Commander of the US Pacific Air Forces, told Nikkei Asia last week. “If you pay attention in the next few months, you will see significant progress, especially at Tinian North. We’ll be clearing that jungle between now and summertime,” Wilsbach said. Why US focused on Tinian Once the Tinian mission is complete, it would boost the US military’s firepower in the Indo-Pacific, which has the Naval Base and the Andersen Air Force Base on Guam and the secretive US Navy Support Facility on the Indian Ocean’s British atoll Diego Garcia. Clearly, the decision to reuse Tinian is to counter the rising Chinese threat and Beijing’s muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific, which stretches from the US’s West Coast to the eastern coast of Africa. The US views China as its only competitor with the “intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order”. In its 2023  annual report to Congress  titled ‘Military and Security Development Involving the People’s Republic of China’ (PRC), the US Department of Defence (DoD) stated that the 2022 National Defence Strategy identifies China as the “pacing challenge”. “The PLA’s evolving capabilities and concepts continue to strengthen the PRC’s ability to fight and win wars against a strong enemy (a likely euphemism for the United States), counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC’s periphery and project power globally,” the report reads. In 2023, China adopted “more dangerous, coercive and provocative” actions in the Indo-Pacific while accelerating its development of capabilities and concepts to strengthen its ability to “fight and win wars”, the report states. Between September-November 2021 and 2023, the US documented more than 180 instances of PLA coercive and risky air intercepts against US aircraft in the region.

America also recorded about 100 instances of “coercive and risky operational behaviour”—lasing, reckless manoeuvres, close approaches in the air or at sea and discharging chaff or flares in front of or in proximity—by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) against aircraft of the US and allies.

The report also mentioned the PLA’s new “core operational concept” called ‘Multi-Domain Precision Warfare’, which aims to leverage a C4ISR—Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)—network. The network “incorporates advances in big data and artificial intelligence to rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the US operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities”. The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and PLA Navy’s (PLAN) aviation wing are the “largest aviation force” in the Indo-Pacific. The PLAAF is “rapidly catching up” to Western air forces. “In October 2019, the PLAAF signalled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuellable bomber,” the report states. According to the report, if China expands its overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to project its military power at greater distances, it could “disrupt US military operations”. China’s first overseas naval base, in Djibouti—on the Horn of Africa and an important nation in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific—built at a cost of $590 million supports Chinese warships deployed in the Indian Ocean region. The DoD report mentions the Chinese ambition of providing additional military logistics facilities to support the PLA Ground Forces, PLAAF and PLAN beyond Djibouti—Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, Nigeria, Namibia, Mozambique, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the UAE, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tajikistan. Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base is being upgraded by China, which docked its warships there for the first time this month. The US State Department expressed “serious concerns about” China’s plans for “exclusive control over portions of Ream Naval Base” as Beijing expands its military footprint. The DoD is concerned about China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) counter-intervention strategy, which aims to restrict US access to the Indo-Pacific. China’s A2/AD capabilities are “the most robust” within the First Island-Chain, comprising Japan, Taiwan, portions of the Philippines, and Indonesia. Beijing seeks to strengthen its capabilities to “reach farther into the Pacific Ocean”, the report states. China can strike every American military base in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, including Guam, Diego Garcia, Japan, South Korea and Australia. According to the American University Digital Research Archive, 2021, the US military has 750 bases in 80 countries. Of these, 73 US bases and 26,414 troops are in South Korea; 120 bases and 53,713 troops in Japan; and 7 bases and 1,085 troops in Australia. The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) is increasing its strategic deterrence by developing new conventionally armed ICBMs that could strike the US, Hawaii and Alaska. China has the biggest and the most varied stockpile of land-based, cruise and anti-ship missiles numbering 2,000—mobile ground-launched SRBMs, MRBMs and IRBMs, ICBMs and ground-launched cruise missiles. The PLARF’s conventional missile forces include: • DF-15 SRBM, range 725-850 km • DF-16 SRBM, range more than 700 km • DF-11 SRBM, range 600 km • Land-attack and anti-ship variants of the DF-21 MRBM, range around 1,500 km • Hypersonic glide vehicle-capable DF-17 MRBM, range 1,800-2,500 km • DF-26 IRBM, range 3,000-4,000km • DF-31 ICMB, range 7,200-8,000 km • DF-31A ICBM, range 11,000-plus km • DF-5, DF-41 ICBMs, range approximately 12,000 km • DF-41 ICBM, range 15,000 km • DH-10 GLCM, range about 1,500 km and • DF-100 GLCM, range around 2,000 km Using the DF-21D ASBM variant, China can “conduct long-range precision strikes against ships, including aircraft carriers, out to the Western Pacific from mainland China”. The DF-26 can rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and conduct precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea (SCS) from mainland China. According to the US, a Chinese military expert said in 2020 that the DF-17’s main purpose is to strike foreign military bases in the Western Pacific. The DF-31A and DF-41 can reach most locations in the US. The DF-41, which can carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, could theoretically hit the US in 30 minutes, per the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Similarly, US bases in Japan are within the striking range of DF-21s and the CJ-10 land-based cruise missile. A day after an American U-2 spy plane allegedly entered a no-fly zone in SCS in August 2020, Beijing fired the DF-21’s ‘carrier killer’ version DF-21D and the DF-26—which has a  ‘carrier killer’ version   called the DF-26B—as warnings to USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan and Guam respectively. Besides, China has strategically docked its aircraft carriers and attack submarines to strike US bases in SCS—one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered attack submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines of the Northern Theatre Command Navy and an aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines of the Southern Theatre Command Navy. The threat of Chinese missiles forced the US to end its 16-year-old Bomber Assurance and Deterrence (BAAD), or the Continuous Bomber Presence (CBP) mission, on Guam in 2020. Guam housed the long-range strategic American bombers B-52 Stratofortress, B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit to assure American allies/partners of swift US retaliation, in case, of an enemy attack or to deter adversaries. Publicly, the US said that the BAAD was ended to make American force deployments “operationally unpredictable” to “challenge competitors” by frustrating and precluding their options. The actual reason for ending the CBP mission was the DF-26 missile, or the ‘Guam Killer’, which could have destroyed several B-2s, the costliest aircraft in the USAF inventory. Besides, the PLAAF’s H-6K bomber, which has a combat radius of 3,700 km, could have fired the Changjian-20 air-launched cruise missile in Guam. The bombers could always return to protect American allies/partners from an enemy attack, the US said. However, the bombers would take 13-16 hours to cover 11,000-13,000 km between Midwestern American airbases and Guam and require midair refuelling. The time gap will be sufficient for China to attack US bases in the Indo-Pacific. A few months later, in 2020, three B-2s were deployed on Diego Garcia for the first time since 2016. Six months earlier, six B-52s were redeployed on the atoll. The two deployments were done after it was reported that the PLAAN was planning a live-fire training drill 545 km north of Taiwan near the Zhoushan Islands. The redeployment of the bombers on Diego Garcia was a veiled warning to China not to attack Guam. One year later, the USAF deployed B-1s on Diego Garcia, which already had B-52s and B-2s, for the first time in more than 15 years after China launched air drills near Taiwan and a joint naval exercise with Russia in the Sea of Japan.

B-1 bombers deploy to Diego Garcia for the first time in over 15 years:https://t.co/WTKYKvl8gD

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) October 20, 2021

Increasing Chinese belligerence against Taiwan, a crucial component of the Indo-Pacific due to its geographical and strategic position, also endangers the US. Though Washington believes in the One-China policy, it will not be mute to a Chinese attack on the self-governed country claimed by Beijing. However, several war games have shown that China will attack Guam and other bases if the US tries to defend Taiwan, which connects the Indian Ocean to SCS and the Sea of Japan. A war game for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan run by the CSIS 24 times showed that the US/Taiwan/Japan “defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China” in most scenarios, but they too lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of servicemembers. In the war game, Chinese missiles destroyed around 90 per cent of US, Japanese and Taiwanese aircraft on the ground despite the large number of American and Japanese air and missile defences on Okinawa. The US lost two aircraft carriers and 7-20 destroyers/cruisers. “China’s A2/AD capabilities are now formidable. China’s sizable and sophisticated force of ballistic and cruise missiles challenges the US ability to operate from its few air bases in the Western Pacific, and China’s development of anti-ship ballistic missiles threatens to destroy US surface ships,” the CSIS report reads. A 2020 Pentagon war game based on 2030 showed that the US would fail to defend Taiwan with the PLA targeting Guam. A 2018 war game also showed that China would target Guam. Another 2020 war game showed Chinese missiles hitting US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific. ACE to counter China in Indo-Pacific The USAF will reuse Tinian under its Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine, “a proactive and reactive operational scheme of manoeuvre executed within threat timelines to increase survivability while generating combat power”. After reducing its overseas bases by 65% from 93 in WWII to 33, the USAF realised that it challenged its ability to project power. America doesn’t expect to maintain the same level of air supremacy with large unprotected air bases—like Kadena Air Base (Okinawa) or Anderson Air Force Base—“no longer considered a sanctuary from attack” due to Chinese technological advances in “pervasive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” and long-range precision strikes. According to Mark Gunzinger, director of government programmes and war gaming, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, “The best place to kill an enemy’s air force is on the ground.” Besides, Chinese A2/AD threats and the “rapid proliferation” of advanced technologies have reduced the USAF’s operational ability and manoeuvre. The ACE doctrine involves a network of small and dispersed bases—if one gets hit, the loss is small, and the others can continue to function. Several small bases with dispersed combat jets will complicate China’s missile targeting process, “create political and operational dilemmas” and provide operational flexibility to the US and its allies. A 2019 Rand Corporation report titled ‘Distributed Operations in a Contested Environment’ emphasised ACE in the context of Chinese missile inventory being the “most significant threat” to US air bases. “Distributing aircraft across more locations improves survivability; an adversary must fire more missiles to achieve the same effect,” RAND suggests. More Chinese missiles would be required to attack several targets if America operates from several protected air bases. General CQ Brown, Jr., former USAF chief and current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “To generate combat power from a number of locations to create dilemmas for an adversary … I just need a runway, a ramp, a weapons trailer, a fuel bladder and a pallet of [meals, ready-to-eat].” As part of ACE, F-22s Raptors from the 673rd Air Base Wing and 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and the Kadena Air Base participated in a joint exercise called Agile Reaper on Guam and Tinian in March. In October 2022, the US withdrew the F-15 C/D Eagle fleet from Kadena Air Base only to announce this year that they would be replaced with its most advanced variant, the F-15EX Eagle II, but only 75 per cent of the earlier strength. It was another ACE strategy to disperse the Eagles from Kadena to execute operations and avoid Chinese missile strikes. In an earlier ACE exercise in July 2021, around 25 Raptors from the Hawaii Air National Guard and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson; 10 F-15 Strike Eagles from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; and two C-130J Hercules transport planes from Yokota Air Base, Japan, participated in   Operation Pacific Iron  over Guam and Tinian. The exercise aimed to operate from smaller airports on islands around the western Pacific. A few days before Agile Reaper, Wilsbach said, “From the Agile Combat Employment standpoint, what we’re spending our dollars on this year is expanding the number of places that we can go to, and of the places that we’re already at, expanding the capability at those places.” For example, an air base under ACE lacks a traditional runway. “There’s a runway, a taxiway, a very small ramp and a very small terminal which acts as the commercial terminal. And the other half is our [operations] centre,” he added. Crews at such air bases are always in touch with their parent wings located elsewhere. ACE’s purpose is to “disperse your forces”, he said. “It makes them use more munitions, and it gives us a chance to keep air power in the air to create effects,” he said. The writer is a freelance journalist with two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .