Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Jill Pollocks.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Thomas Sugar, Jonathan Hackett, and Jack Murphy.
Speaker 1: For the people that don't know who Tom is, he
Speaker 1: actually did a great episode on the Team House. You
Speaker 1: should check that out. Talking about his career, he's a
Speaker 1: former US Navy samriner who served more than twenty five
Speaker 1: years and he's now a data analyst, defense analyst excuse me,
Speaker 1: and ajunk senior fellow at the Center for New American Security,
Speaker 1: where obviously he focuses on the end of Pacific and
Speaker 1: the involving like and just the balance between America and
Speaker 1: Chinese militaries and stuff. So he's the guy who's keeping
Speaker 1: his eye on all this. He's got a great Twitter account.
Speaker 1: I suggest anyone's interested in this topic to check him
Speaker 1: out and follow him there. I'll leave a link in
Speaker 1: the description as well, and you can find them. Tom.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Leasure to be here. Thanks t of course.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, I feel like the China American you know,
Speaker 1: rivalry has kind of taken a back seat, at least
Speaker 1: in the press since Iran started, and there's obviously some
Speaker 1: connections there too, like there's some rumor that China is
Speaker 1: helping Iran with some targeting or at least supplies. You know,
Speaker 1: definitely they were the biggest Iranians. They were Iran's biggest
Speaker 1: customer for oil, so there are some connections there, But
Speaker 1: I definitely want to focus on that US Chinese rivalry
Speaker 1: where it's at. You know, I just saw that China
Speaker 1: just had some like live fire drills off the coast
Speaker 1: of Taiwan a few days ago for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and like just where we're at essentially now, July twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six with this, you know, this thing that will
Speaker 1: basically define the next probably fifty years.
Speaker 2: So I would say that while there has been perhaps
Speaker 2: a drop off a bit in the rhetoric of the
Speaker 2: of the competition as it were, I mean, the the
Speaker 2: facts on the ground haven't from China's site certainly haven't
Speaker 2: dialed back at all. You know, they are being aggressive
Speaker 2: as they ever were in the South China Sea. You know,
Speaker 2: we just saw the other day Chinese sailors, you know,
Speaker 2: beating on Philippine sators with sticks. Remember that that's a
Speaker 2: treaty ally of the United States. We're talking about that
Speaker 2: they're you know, conducting violent action against the development of
Speaker 2: the Chinese military has if anything, the trajectory has increased
Speaker 2: in the last few years. We now have multiple classes
Speaker 2: of nuclear submarines under production. We have the commander of
Speaker 2: the Office of Naval Intelligence and Testimony recently said that
Speaker 2: Chinese submarine production is now going to go all nuclear.
Speaker 2: They're not going to build conventional submarines anymore, which is
Speaker 2: quite a surprise to me. And development. We have their
Speaker 2: first nuclear powered aircraft carrier under construction. We have the
Speaker 2: revelation that they are using even more than we thought
Speaker 2: commercial shipping and practicing conducting amphibious assaults. We have increasing
Speaker 2: numbers of Chinese aircraft crossing the Median Line and the
Speaker 2: Taiwan straight. We now have the Chinese not just Coast Guard,
Speaker 2: but their whole of government other agencies as well, acting
Speaker 2: like they own the waters east of Taiwan, waters that
Speaker 2: are actually, you know, really should be divided between the
Speaker 2: Philippines and Japan. I mean, so, the facts on the
Speaker 2: ground in the in the Pacific are, if anything, more
Speaker 2: aggressive than they were in the past. It's just the
Speaker 2: US government doesn't seem to be choosing to make a
Speaker 2: lot of hay about it right now? At this point,
Speaker 2: I guess they've got other things they're busy with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, boys, any questions go ahead please?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think you know, based on what
Speaker 3: you're saying, I'd be interested to hear you expand on
Speaker 3: the arms production because my impression at least of China
Speaker 3: is that their strategy in the past.
Speaker 4: Has been not to meet US tank for tank.
Speaker 2: Fighter jet for fighter, jet, carrier for carrier. Is that still.
Speaker 3: True and if it is, what do you think or
Speaker 3: how do you interpret this sort of like I guess
Speaker 3: increase in proliferation.
Speaker 2: So I think what we'll see is until Taiwan is
Speaker 2: resolved one way or another, uh, there will be a
Speaker 2: pretty significant asymmetry between what China is doing and the and
Speaker 2: the capabilities are developing. And what we traditionally see is
Speaker 2: US power projection capabilities because Taiwan's only a hundred miles away, right,
Speaker 2: So you need different capabilities to do that. So, for example,
Speaker 2: let's talk about amphibious assault vessels. So you know, when
Speaker 2: you look at the US Navy and it's amphibious assualt vessels,
Speaker 2: you have you know, large anthimous assault chips. You know,
Speaker 2: forty thousand plus tons. In some cases they're equipped to operate,
Speaker 2: you know, thousands of miles from home for months at
Speaker 2: a time. That's overkilled for the Taiwan straight you don't
Speaker 2: you need something that can efficiently take troops as fast
Speaker 2: as possible, load them as fast as possible, goal hundred
Speaker 2: miles unloaded them as fast as possible, will come back
Speaker 2: and get more. Right. So, so while China does have
Speaker 2: and is building more Amphibisa salt ships that are similar
Speaker 2: to those that we build, that's not the meat and
Speaker 2: potatoes of what they would need to do with Taiwan invasion.
Speaker 2: That's where a China uses an asset that it has
Speaker 2: and we don't have any any longer, which is a
Speaker 2: massive merchant marine. So they're going to so the vast
Speaker 2: majority of the steed lift capacity that the China would use.
Speaker 2: And this is not theoretical, right, we see them practicing
Speaker 2: doing this routinely in their exercises. So they use civilian
Speaker 2: vessels that have been modified, built to national defense standards,
Speaker 2: owned by state owned companies that are run by the
Speaker 2: Chinese Communist Party. I mean literally the leadership structure of
Speaker 2: these companies is dual headed Chinese Communist Party and Company,
Speaker 2: you know, they use these all the time. These are ferries,
Speaker 2: These are landing craft tank which I l SATs and
Speaker 2: I can I get expand on this some more kind
Speaker 2: of remarkable discovery last year. So civilian vessels that are
Speaker 2: used for kind of the dump trucks of the sea
Speaker 2: that are derived on landing craft designs, we're now seeing
Speaker 2: them use those in exercises. So that's going to kind
Speaker 2: of be the meat and potatoes of a Taiwan invasion.
Speaker 2: On the firepower end of it, it's going to be
Speaker 2: rocket launchers like kind of China's Cheimar so to speak,
Speaker 2: but that are long, longer range. So those are capabilities
Speaker 2: that are asymmetric that are going to be focused on
Speaker 2: that kind of assault. Now at the same time, China
Speaker 2: is developing capabilities that do look more like the traditional
Speaker 2: markers of US global power projections, so nuclear powered aircraft carriers,
Speaker 2: more nuclear submarines, nuclear power, ballistic missile submarines, tankers, strategic
Speaker 2: air lift. That's all going to is starting to look
Speaker 2: in some cases toward that, you know, toward the future
Speaker 2: where you have a China that has you know, they
Speaker 2: made it clear their goals to have a world class military.
Speaker 2: Well that's the kind of things you have to have
Speaker 2: a world class military that projects power worldwide. So over time,
Speaker 2: I think it will start to look a little bit
Speaker 2: more like like those US capabilities. But they've still got
Speaker 2: to get past Taiwan first. And Tom, I'm curious.
Speaker 5: You know, China is building up a lot of these assets,
Speaker 5: these physical things, but their forces haven't been tested in combat,
Speaker 5: and of course or that as a huge question mark
Speaker 5: of how will they stand up? Just like any military,
Speaker 5: including our own World War Two? You know, there were
Speaker 5: early moments when we learned a lot of lessons very quickly,
Speaker 5: And I'm curious, how do you see that playing out?
Speaker 5: How has China developed kind of a rapid lessons learned
Speaker 5: uptake to an anticipation of something like that happening.
Speaker 2: So I think that that point has flidity, the sense
Speaker 2: that they have not engaged in combat operations. But what
Speaker 2: I'd say it's important to keep in mind is what
Speaker 2: kind of combat operations have they engaged in? And have
Speaker 2: we engaged in? So the United States, yes, has engaged
Speaker 2: in lots of wars over the last you know, twenty years. However,
Speaker 2: none of them were against a peer competitor that had
Speaker 2: anything close to our capabilities. So I think the utility
Speaker 2: of that and calling a difference between the two is
Speaker 2: maybe a little less than people might think. Let me
Speaker 2: give you an example. Between World War One and World
Speaker 2: War Two. You know, the Wehrmachs didn't fight anyone for
Speaker 2: twenty years. There was almost no one in the German army,
Speaker 2: very few. You know, you had a few really senior
Speaker 2: officers who had been in World War One twenty years before,
Speaker 2: but very few of their personnel had been involved in
Speaker 2: combat with a with a peer adversary and high end warfare.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, you had the UK who had
Speaker 2: been engaged in all kinds of brush fire wars, you know,
Speaker 2: colonial essentially imperial management around the world against various we
Speaker 2: call them Third world countries today. Well, which army was
Speaker 2: better prepared for high end combat when the shooting started
Speaker 2: between peer industrialized nations would say, I would say, I
Speaker 2: don't think they would want to look at the Germans
Speaker 2: and say, well, they weren't ready for the war because
Speaker 2: they didn't fight, They didn't fight for twenty years, but
Speaker 2: clearly they were they were doing the right kind of
Speaker 2: training for the fighting that they were going to have
Speaker 2: to do. Now, of course, you did have German observers
Speaker 2: in other conflicts, you know, in the Spanish Civil War,
Speaker 2: probably observing. I know, I think they're working with the
Speaker 2: Russians some probably in the Finland War that might have been.
Speaker 4: Observing there any civil war also.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and well, and who do we have watching the
Speaker 2: Russell Ukraine conflict. You've got Chinese observers. They're getting the
Speaker 2: latest lessons earned probably at Russian headquarters seeing how they
Speaker 2: do business, learn lessons for them. So I'm I'm not
Speaker 2: as confident about that. Also, I would keep in mind
Speaker 2: that we have to look at the fact that any
Speaker 2: conflict in the Western Pacific is going to be the
Speaker 2: decisive elements. They are probably going to be in the
Speaker 2: air and at sea. You know, they're going to be
Speaker 2: air in naval combat. I mean, if there is an
Speaker 2: attempt to invade Taiwan, the conflict will eventually be finished
Speaker 2: one way or the other on the ground in Taiwan,
Speaker 2: but it'll be decided in the air and at sea.
Speaker 2: You know, if the Chinese military, through air and sea superiority,
Speaker 2: has unfettered access to Taiwan, it can send as much
Speaker 2: troops and supplies as it wants across. I don't see
Speaker 2: any way that that Taiwan survives that, so uh and
Speaker 2: that assuming that Taiwan is isolated and can't get supplies
Speaker 2: in like Ukraine can. So if that conflict is going
Speaker 2: to be decided in air and at sea, well when's
Speaker 2: the last time anybody fought appeer navy? See, it's not
Speaker 2: the Iran War, that's for sure. The closest thing we
Speaker 2: have is the Falklands in the nineteen eighties. So you know,
Speaker 2: we have to remember that there's two ships in the
Speaker 2: United States Navy that have sunk another warship at sea,
Speaker 2: and that's USS Constitution, which we did it in nineteen
Speaker 2: and the War of eighteen twelve and is in Boston Harbor.
Speaker 2: And now we have USS Charlotte, the submarine that sank,
Speaker 2: and essentially I wouldn't say defenseless, but pretty helpless or
Speaker 2: Anian frigates. So I don't think either side has a
Speaker 2: lot of experience in really high end naval combat. And
Speaker 2: I think we have to be very careful about thinking otherwise.
Speaker 3: I mean, the other question I'd like to ask, and
Speaker 3: this is more of a political question, I suppose, is
Speaker 3: sort of the timing. And We've been having this conversation
Speaker 3: for many years now, and China has made it's always
Speaker 3: been China's policy to reintegrate, reunify Taiwan into the mainland.
Speaker 3: Why hasn't that happened yet? What are the Chinese waiting for?
Speaker 3: Is the wars in Ukraine in the Middle East? Is
Speaker 3: that sort of like figuring into their calculus that they
Speaker 3: don't want to become a global pariah? What do you
Speaker 3: think is there is the reason why they haven't made
Speaker 3: this attempt yet.
Speaker 2: So I always always make clear to that that I
Speaker 2: am a military analyst, not a political analyst. I know,
Speaker 2: so I look at it from a military perspective, and
Speaker 2: I think certainly up until this point, it's been pretty
Speaker 2: clear that they didn't have the military capability to be
Speaker 2: able to successfully to have confidence that they would that
Speaker 2: they would win an invasion of Taiwan and succeed in
Speaker 2: the event of a US intervention, That they didn't have
Speaker 2: the ability to deter in it a US intervention, and
Speaker 2: they didn't have the ability if they failed to deter,
Speaker 2: to defeat a US intervention. So that's a pretty pretty
Speaker 2: clear reason why they wouldn't try. So the question becomes,
Speaker 2: when do they reach the point where they do have
Speaker 2: the confidence that they're going to succeed That either they
Speaker 2: have the confidence that they're they will be able to
Speaker 2: convince the United States not to intervene, or if he
Speaker 2: or the US intervenes, it won't matter, they'll be able
Speaker 2: to defeat it. So that's that's why we have to
Speaker 2: I think if you're watching those capabilities that are that
Speaker 2: they're developing, I think I think at this point, probably
Speaker 2: deterring a US intervention is what they may be hoping for.
Speaker 2: But but they if you look at Chinese doctrine, they
Speaker 2: always say you have to be ready for that for
Speaker 2: the intervention of the powerful enemy they call it, you know,
Speaker 2: which is their their their code for the United States.
Speaker 2: That means they have to be ready for a protracted conflict.
Speaker 2: They also talk about that in their in their h
Speaker 2: in their doctrinal texts. So you know, that's that is
Speaker 2: I think what they're worried about. I think that's that's
Speaker 2: what's kept them from pulling the trigger. From a military perspective.
Speaker 2: So then the question is will there come a time
Speaker 2: you know, Chi Jiping has told the PLA to be
Speaker 2: ready to execute and a a invasion of an assault
Speaker 2: on Taiwan in twenty twenty seven. Are they going to
Speaker 2: be there? I don't know. I mean, it's it's hard
Speaker 2: to tell at this point that I think they're doing
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that I would expect them to
Speaker 2: do to be able to do that.
Speaker 4: You might be muted, John, Yeah, I was having some
Speaker 4: mic problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see John's going. They'll be right back after
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Speaker 1: In your mind, Tom, what's your like? What's the most
Speaker 1: pressing issue between the US and China, both militarily and politically.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they did go in in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: seven and try to take Taiwan, obviously this is kind
Speaker 1: of skewing into a political question there the US be
Speaker 1: there to interdict, to stop it, to try and stop it.
Speaker 1: You know, we're seeing like THAD missile batteries being moved
Speaker 1: from the in and around the theater and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I mean that obviously signals something to China. Right where
Speaker 1: are you at with that? Like, where's your thought process there?
Speaker 2: I just don't know at this point. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: we had pretty clear statements from the last administration from
Speaker 2: the president, from President Biden that you know, he said
Speaker 2: things like straight up the United States would intervene in
Speaker 2: the case of a of a of a Chinese assault
Speaker 2: on Taiwan. Were to the point that the administration, you know,
Speaker 2: the folks below him kind of reeled it back at
Speaker 2: times and said, well, the United States our policy remains
Speaker 2: the same as it ever was. You know, are strategic ambiguity.
Speaker 2: You know, we would consider it to be a grave problem,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't mean we're gonna you know, they would
Speaker 2: they would kind of walk that back. President Trump has
Speaker 2: kind of said things now and then that it's hard
Speaker 2: to tell where he would go on this where you know,
Speaker 2: he's given indications he wouldn't would not defend Taiwan in
Speaker 2: some cases. But at the same time you have it,
Speaker 2: you have a natural defense strategy that very explicitly says
Speaker 2: a goal is to prevent China from gaining control the
Speaker 2: first island chain, of which China, of which Taiwan is
Speaker 2: kind of the lynchpin in the center of the first
Speaker 2: island chain. So it's hard to know, quite frankly, what
Speaker 2: what what this administration would do in the event of that.
Speaker 2: I think any administration against the Chinese military that really
Speaker 2: has been fully prepared is going to face some pretty
Speaker 2: grave decisions about about what to do. This would not
Speaker 2: be free for the United States to intervene, and China
Speaker 2: has been looking at this problem for decades now and
Speaker 2: is basically building the military that is the scariest that
Speaker 2: you could deal with, you know, that is built for
Speaker 2: the American way of war, that is designed to destroy
Speaker 2: the bases that the U, the US has come to
Speaker 2: rely upon in the region. That's designed to attack the
Speaker 2: US's highest value naval units at see. It's it's aircraft carriers.
Speaker 2: If you look in particular, you know there was one
Speaker 2: kind of ominous development recently. The Air Force War College
Speaker 2: air Force Air War Colleges, China Aerospace Studies Institute CISI
Speaker 2: recently released a study that they had found, using open
Speaker 2: source imagery a new type of Chinese missile launcher being
Speaker 2: tested at in the desert in western China. And what
Speaker 2: this was basically a large rectangular kind of retractable roof
Speaker 2: silo complex. But it wasn't just one silo. It appeared
Speaker 2: to be one kind of building that would have multiple
Speaker 2: medium rangeableist MRBM sized missiles in it, and if you
Speaker 2: do the math, I'm guessing something like twelve to sixteen
Speaker 2: missiles per one of these things. So basically the roof
Speaker 2: would roll back and this thing would launch like a
Speaker 2: vertical launch system but full of humongous MRBMs missiles that
Speaker 2: can hit all of Japan, potentially Guam or beyond. These
Speaker 2: were just underevelable, but this is a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: and they move pretty fast on this stuff, so it's
Speaker 2: possible that, you know, that sort of thing could be
Speaker 2: under construction. Now why does that worry me? Because that
Speaker 2: is the kind of weapon system that is built for
Speaker 2: a first strike, that's built for them to use it first.
Speaker 2: It's a user or to lose it type weapon system.
Speaker 2: Here you got a fixed target with a bunch of
Speaker 2: missiles in one place that are relatively expensive, that could
Speaker 2: be struck in event of an ongoing conflict. It's very
Speaker 2: much the kind of thing you used to initiate a
Speaker 2: conflict or to threaten to start of it. So I
Speaker 2: talked about this on Twitter like this is this is
Speaker 2: a textbook first strike weapon. So to see them testing
Speaker 2: those a couple of years ago, now this is when
Speaker 2: these images were taken, makes me wonder are they are
Speaker 2: they being built somewhere. That's the kind of thing that
Speaker 2: I worry about, in conjunction with their improvements and amphibious capacity,
Speaker 2: that indicates they really are making the preparations that the
Speaker 2: kind of things you would need to be able to
Speaker 2: again either to defeat or ideally deter US intervention.
Speaker 1: John, you was about today, please, yeah, I was curious.
Speaker 5: You know, we're talking a lot about the march toward conflict,
Speaker 5: and I wonder about them away from conflict. I mean
Speaker 5: in early maybe let's say fifteen twenty years ago, we
Speaker 5: allowed impact to have Chinese observers. We've allowed other periods
Speaker 5: of time to have Chinese military folks interacting with US
Speaker 5: in exchanges and different things, kind of like trying to
Speaker 5: pool some tensions or at least bring each other closer for.
Speaker 4: Various diplomatic reasons.
Speaker 5: What do you think that the way forward on that
Speaker 5: could be if you were if you were going to make,
Speaker 5: you know, an argument to say that's a good idea,
Speaker 5: what are some ways the government could actually do that
Speaker 5: that would be effective.
Speaker 2: So I think the tricky part of those connections between
Speaker 2: the US military and China is that it's pretty consistently
Speaker 2: the US has tried to have those hotlines open and
Speaker 2: lines of communications open because I think we see that
Speaker 2: as useful and part of this based on our experience
Speaker 2: in the Cold War. You know, we set up a
Speaker 2: hotline with Moscow for a reason, and we found that
Speaker 2: to be useful that from both side, for both sides,
Speaker 2: to prevent and on, you know, and misunderstandings from turning
Speaker 2: into something bigger. The Chinese, I think, I think think
Speaker 2: have from what I've read, seem to see this very differently,
Speaker 2: and that they see those those lines of communication as
Speaker 2: something to reward us with when when we're when we're
Speaker 2: behaving the way they like us to behave because they
Speaker 2: know that we seem to want that more than they do.
Speaker 2: They actually there are accounts that they see some utility
Speaker 2: in the lack of those lines of communication causing us
Speaker 2: to be more cautious. They want us to be more
Speaker 2: uncertain about what might happen, and that therefore will be
Speaker 2: more cautious. So they see withdrawing those lines of communication
Speaker 2: in a crisis as a means of getting us to
Speaker 2: back down because we're too worried about about a conflict
Speaker 2: breaking out. So I think they see that in a
Speaker 2: very different way than we do. Uh. You know, I
Speaker 2: oftentimes see writers in the think type space say, you know,
Speaker 2: we should have more we should have more open lines
Speaker 2: of communication with China, and I think everybody agrees. But
Speaker 2: you talk to the Chinese about it, you know, if
Speaker 2: you want, if you want traction on that on that argument,
Speaker 2: write the article in Chinese, because they're the ones that
Speaker 2: really are the one that usually blocking that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: We interviewed an FBI league at at the embassy in
Speaker 3: China years ago, and he had this incredible story about
Speaker 3: how everything with the Chinese is so transactional. And his
Speaker 3: example was they got word, unfortunately, of an American citizen
Speaker 3: at a Chinese school who was abusing children, and they
Speaker 3: went to the Chinese authorities and said, Hey, this guy's
Speaker 3: a bad dude.
Speaker 4: You know, this is a criminal. He's hurting kids. You
Speaker 4: need to go and arrest them. And the Chinese were like, okay,
Speaker 4: you released a couple of our spies. We'll go get them.
Speaker 4: And the guy was.
Speaker 3: Like, what, Like, this isn't like a trade, Like what
Speaker 3: are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just very legal attache, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, act.
Speaker 5: I want to jump back in, Tommy, you're talking about
Speaker 5: the first and Second Island chain. Some years ago, I
Speaker 5: was in the South China see doing some stuff for
Speaker 5: another partner we had, and we were getting daily Chinese
Speaker 5: overflights of pairs of Chinese aircraft, basically violating the sovereign
Speaker 5: airspace of that country. And I'm curious from where you
Speaker 5: sit and what you analyze, what do you think the
Speaker 5: role of that second Island Chain will play for China
Speaker 5: if they were to go. If you know, the main
Speaker 5: objective is Taiwan, what are they doing in those envelopes
Speaker 5: around those island chains to kind of enable that operation.
Speaker 2: So China has if you look at China's naval strategy
Speaker 2: over time, they started with the idea of near sea's operations.
Speaker 2: So their first goal was to be able to gain
Speaker 2: sea control inside the first island chain, you know that.
Speaker 2: So for those not familiar, first island chain is basically
Speaker 2: Japan down through Taiwan, the Philippines, kind of the first
Speaker 2: set of island chains that encompass the Yellow Sea, the
Speaker 2: East China Sea, South China Sea. Second island chain is
Speaker 2: further out. It's Guam, it's the Marianas. You know, it's
Speaker 2: down through maybe parts of Indonesia. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I don't know if you call Australia part of it,
Speaker 2: but but there. The longer term goal in Chinese naval
Speaker 2: strategy has been to between the first and second island chains.
Speaker 2: So in the Philippine Sea, for example, at least get
Speaker 2: to a point where they had seed denial that they
Speaker 2: can prevent operations by others, and they call those far
Speaker 2: seas operations. But to be clear, they do have a
Speaker 2: goal to gain the gain control of those far seas
Speaker 2: and longer term too, just to actually get sea control
Speaker 2: in the in between the first and second island chains.
Speaker 2: So folks understand what we're talking about here, so they
Speaker 2: have so seed denial and sea control those are wor
Speaker 2: those are wartime concepts. It's the idea that during the war,
Speaker 2: seed denial is you preventing the other side from using
Speaker 2: a given area of water, not all the time, but
Speaker 2: in most times most places. So right now, for example,
Speaker 2: Iran is essentially waging a seed denial campaign in the
Speaker 2: Straighterhorn Moves. They're basically trying to deny the use of
Speaker 2: that not all the time, but most times most places,
Speaker 2: whereas the US is attempting to gain sea control over
Speaker 2: the straderh Horn moves, where most times, in most places,
Speaker 2: we can use that waterway for our use, and we've
Speaker 2: seem to have a limited success there. China would be
Speaker 2: trying to basically at the minimum sea control inside the
Speaker 2: first island chain seed then aisle out to the second
Speaker 2: island chain. Their longer term goals to gain sea control
Speaker 2: out to the second island chain as well. So in wartime,
Speaker 2: having gained sea control inside the first island chain allows
Speaker 2: China to keep its ports open to be able to
Speaker 2: get imports in and out of China. I think there
Speaker 2: are a lot of folks that kind of assume that
Speaker 2: we could shut off China's seaborn imports in wartime, and
Speaker 2: I think that's a dangerous assumption to make, because we
Speaker 2: have to remember that trade out at sea is highly internationalized.
Speaker 2: Like ships that are going to China don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: a big sign on the side of it and say
Speaker 2: that we're going. I mean, they may be broadcasting something
Speaker 2: on AIS, but it could be a lie. Cargoes get
Speaker 2: bought and sold and route, so you can't just sink
Speaker 2: ships in the middle of the Indian Notion, for example,
Speaker 2: or maybe even at Malaca. You may not be able
Speaker 2: to reliably tell where something's going even as it goes
Speaker 2: thro the shade of Malaca. So the only way to
Speaker 2: really stop shipping from going into China is to threaten
Speaker 2: the actual entrance is the Chinese ports. Well, if China
Speaker 2: gained sea control where they can effectively protect the approaches
Speaker 2: to their ports, and it becomes much more difficult to
Speaker 2: cut them off from seaborne trade. The perfect example I
Speaker 2: give of that how difficult this can be is ever given.
Speaker 2: So maye people may remember that that was the ship
Speaker 2: that ran aground in the straight hr in the in
Speaker 2: the Suez Canal a few years ago, it was a
Speaker 2: ship that basically ran aground and was blocking the Suez Canal.
Speaker 2: That ship was, let me see if I can remember,
Speaker 2: Japanese built, Japanese owned, chartered to a Taiwanese company with
Speaker 2: mostly Indian crew, carrying goods from China to Europe. I mean,
Speaker 2: do you sink that ship in the in the middle
Speaker 2: of the Indian Ocean? Do you stop it and board
Speaker 2: it at the straight h horn moves? But it is
Speaker 2: carrying trade from China, so so I think I think
Speaker 2: that problem is much more difficult than people think it is.
Speaker 2: And that's where that first island chain, second island chain
Speaker 2: stuff really comes to the four. I think it it's
Speaker 2: worth remembering too, we've gotten a pretty good lesson here
Speaker 2: with the straighter hard moves that you can't make these
Speaker 2: shippers go through right there if they think it's too risky.
Speaker 2: And that's been a bit of a surprise, I think
Speaker 2: to a lot of people, myself included, because it even
Speaker 2: if you say, hey, we'll convoy you, even if you
Speaker 2: say we're going to give you insurance, they may still
Speaker 2: not go right if they if they think the risk
Speaker 2: is too great. And these shipping companies don't owe any
Speaker 2: allegiance to the United States, they don't own any allegiance
Speaker 2: to allies. They're flagged all kinds of places, they're owned
Speaker 2: all kinds of places, so it may be very difficult
Speaker 2: to have shipping continued your allies. China is not like that, right,
Speaker 2: China has an enormous merchant marine. It's Chinese flagged, it's
Speaker 2: Chinese owned, it's crewed by Chinese, and they can make
Speaker 2: those guys keep going. And that's where that I think
Speaker 2: that physical control inside the first island chain really matters.
Speaker 5: We talked a lot about the conventional aspect just now,
Speaker 5: but also with the maritime aspect, the merchant marine kind
Speaker 5: of moving into the less conventional category or kind of
Speaker 5: quasi gray zone. Let's say, what about the actual unconventional
Speaker 5: warfare capability in Taiwan if this thing was to go off,
Speaker 5: obviously maybe having a very conventional confrontation, whether that's Taiwan
Speaker 5: or the US or both against China, what would the
Speaker 5: unconventional insurgency or other types of resistance that are non
Speaker 5: conventional potentially look like.
Speaker 2: That's a tough one for me. You know, I really
Speaker 2: am kind of a maritime, air naval analyst for the
Speaker 2: most part. I mean, Chinese doctrine certainly talks about what
Speaker 2: they call sabotage operations, which would basically be special forces.
Speaker 2: You know, there's certainly we see plenty of stories of
Speaker 2: Taiwanese former officers and other you know, Taiwanese citizens that
Speaker 2: have gotten a foul of the law in basically being
Speaker 2: bought out by the Chinese. So I think there, whether
Speaker 2: it's money or ethnic cohesion or family ties or whatever,
Speaker 2: there's certainly I think of much more risk of fifth
Speaker 2: column activities behind the lines than there is potentially with
Speaker 2: you know, one nation state versus another nation state, and
Speaker 2: you don't have those connections. Are different, different ethnicities that
Speaker 2: you know that they're they're different, they look different, you know.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot more risk of that behind
Speaker 2: the lines in Taiwan. I think to the Taiwanese should
Speaker 2: expect disruptions like that, they should expect some pretty significant
Speaker 2: fifth call activities. I do worry about, you know, there
Speaker 2: being elements of the Taiwanese society that kind of open
Speaker 2: the gates and let you know, let let the invaders
Speaker 2: in potentially. I think that that, you know, that's why
Speaker 2: I think I think Atomy's government has to be very
Speaker 2: very careful about that stuff, and I think they are.
Speaker 2: I think they're certainly working hard to try to eliminate
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, but it's definitely a risk. I
Speaker 2: think that the Chinese military talks about three D island assault,
Speaker 2: three dimensional island assault, so there's gonna be a significant
Speaker 2: airborne angle to it. There's gonna be a significant helicopter
Speaker 2: assault angle to it that could certainly result in a
Speaker 2: lot of folks being put down behind the lines. I
Speaker 2: think you can see. You know, they've got their own
Speaker 2: special operations forces. You know, there's all kinds of things
Speaker 2: are probably gonna do with those folks. China has tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of fishing boats that they can use to
Speaker 2: transport small teams to do things. That's that's another asymmetric
Speaker 2: advantage they have that really doesn't exist anywhere else. So
Speaker 2: there's plenty of opportunity to have a bit of a
Speaker 2: Swiss Cheese effect on the tilings defenses in the manner
Speaker 2: that you're talking about. I think that's what if that
Speaker 2: answers your question.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really interesting. Another subject I'd like to touch upon.
Speaker 3: I mean maybe this is separate, but related is rare
Speaker 3: earth minerals on the seabed and I've seen some papers
Speaker 3: about this, and I was wondering what you think about
Speaker 3: how those, if any of those deposits play into the
Speaker 3: sort of conflict we've been talking about, and if that
Speaker 3: relates to you know, sub subsurface warfare as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, China clearly has put us in a bit
Speaker 2: of a hammer lock with with rare earth. I mean,
Speaker 2: we saw how things didn't go well with the trade
Speaker 2: war that the President initiated against China. They pretty quickly
Speaker 2: pull that lever on rare verse and force force the
Speaker 2: US to back down. How does that apply in a
Speaker 2: military conflict. I think it matters more for a protracted
Speaker 2: conflict than it does for a short term one. You know,
Speaker 2: it's that's really something that's going to speak to longer
Speaker 2: term industrial production and ability to apply supply munitions and
Speaker 2: replacement parts. And that's part of their game plan, you know,
Speaker 2: when when they when they their doctrine specifically says for
Speaker 2: a campaign against the powerful enemy. And again that's us
Speaker 2: that you have to specifically with that enemy. You have
Speaker 2: to consider the profit possibility of protracted conflict, which is
Speaker 2: then going to be driven in large part by industrial
Speaker 2: production and national resilience. So yeah, their ability to have
Speaker 2: more of a hammer, even more of a hammer lock
Speaker 2: on that area of industrial production is going to matter,
Speaker 2: you know, doesn't matter as much in wartime. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that kind of activity you can
Speaker 2: can continue on. I mean, many of the places that
Speaker 2: they're looking at to do that are in the Central
Speaker 2: Acif these are not close to China for the most part,
Speaker 2: So can they sustain that in wartime? I doubt it. Now,
Speaker 2: are there other angles to it? Sure? I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of places where these things exist are areas where
Speaker 2: US vessels would be transitting back and forth, both in
Speaker 2: peace time and wartime. Reporters have asked me, could they
Speaker 2: leave behind things that would be useful for them? Yeah,
Speaker 2: they could leave bhind sensors potentially if they've got industrial activity.
Speaker 2: We have to remember, like anything that Chinese do, like,
Speaker 2: they have a very specific military civil fusion strategy that
Speaker 2: leverages their civilian industry for military purposes. They're quite clear
Speaker 2: about it, although in recent years that they have kind
Speaker 2: of talked a little less about it because it was
Speaker 2: so obvious what they were doing. So you should assume
Speaker 2: that if there's any industrial activity they're taking that could
Speaker 2: have military benefits, that those are being used for military
Speaker 2: purposes as well. So let's say they are doing it,
Speaker 2: you know, mineral mining on the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 2: If there is a possibility that that activity could have
Speaker 2: military benefits by harvesting data, by looking at the bottom type,
Speaker 2: by leaving behind sensors, by whatever, I would assume they're
Speaker 2: doing it. I mean, there's no reason that they would.
Speaker 2: These are not Chinese companies, are not normal companies. They
Speaker 2: don't just operate for a profit. They operate at the
Speaker 2: behest of the CCP. So if there's a military utility,
Speaker 2: is something they're doing, you should just seem they're there.
Speaker 2: You should assume that they're getting it.
Speaker 1: I have a question talking about a protractive fight, what
Speaker 1: would it look like if we weren't a protracted fight
Speaker 1: with China? And like, where are like statuses in terms
Speaker 1: of shipbuilding is nowhere near. We don't have the capacity
Speaker 1: anywhere near China what China does. So let's say a
Speaker 1: war does last a couple of years and we lose
Speaker 1: a couple of aircraft carriers, or we lose a couple
Speaker 1: of destroyers. How do we replenish that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know at this point, I don't.
Speaker 2: I have a hard time imagining. I guess keeping up. Uh,
Speaker 2: they're they've got such a head start in shipbuilding. I mean,
Speaker 2: could we improve from where we are? Yes? Absolutely, you
Speaker 2: know we could reopen shipyards have been closed, but it
Speaker 2: takes time to train the people to do that. We
Speaker 2: have to remember the last time we were in a
Speaker 2: you know, as I said, it's been a long time
Speaker 2: since we were in a peer naval war at sea. Well,
Speaker 2: the last time we did that was World War Two.
Speaker 2: The last time the US fought a peer competitor at
Speaker 2: sea was the Battle of Layte Gulf in October nineteen
Speaker 2: forty four. So what did that conflict look like from
Speaker 2: a protracted war perspective? Well, everybody knows, right the Chinese,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry Chinese. The Japanese executed an attack you know,
Speaker 2: it's Pearl Harbor and destroyed a significant portion of the
Speaker 2: US Pacific fleet, and yet still lost the war because
Speaker 2: there was a tidal wave of American naval production that
Speaker 2: had begun in nineteen thirty eight and nineteen forty, you know,
Speaker 2: years before that point. The Two Ocean Navy Acts of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nineteen forty financed humongous increases in the size
Speaker 2: of the US Navy, so that that large capital ship
Speaker 2: production was already happening at the time the war started.
Speaker 2: It didn't really matter if the Japanese lost had won
Speaker 2: or lost the Battle of Midway, they still would have
Speaker 2: been overwhelmed by US carrier production. It didn't really matter
Speaker 2: what happened to the Battle of the Coral Sea. They
Speaker 2: still would have been overwhelmed by US uh, you know,
Speaker 2: capital ship production. So the thing that's scary to me
Speaker 2: about the Chinese at this point is they're the ones
Speaker 2: practicing executing the Pearl Harbor attack on the US in
Speaker 2: the form of a surprise attack using ballistic missiles and
Speaker 2: other and other weapons. But they also have the huge
Speaker 2: industrial production on their side. So it's like, I'm worried
Speaker 2: about a poor harbor happening to us, and we're the
Speaker 2: ones that are going to get out produced after the
Speaker 2: attack is over and after we've incurred those losses. So
Speaker 2: I am deeply worried about about that capacity. I think
Speaker 2: it also when you look at the ability to deal
Speaker 2: with battle damage. You know, China has the US Navy
Speaker 2: in peace time without any battle damage. It's having a
Speaker 2: great deal of difficulty just completing its normal maintenance just
Speaker 2: from our ships getting used not necessarily being uh, you know,
Speaker 2: caught incurring battle damage. The Chinese ship building industry, it's
Speaker 2: again it's dual purpose. The same shipyard pumps out warships
Speaker 2: that pumps out commercial vessels, and they also do overhauls
Speaker 2: and refits on military vessels as well. So that's more
Speaker 2: capacity again than in the event of a conflict, could
Speaker 2: be used to repair battle damage as well. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm deeply worried about that asymmetry in shipyard capacity and
Speaker 2: the event up protracted war.
Speaker 5: Speaking of ase symmetries, especially in special operations world, a
Speaker 5: lot of times we heard about unrestricted warfare. The book
Speaker 5: that was written nineteen ninety nine by two plaaf Kernels,
Speaker 5: this was kind of like the source document that we
Speaker 5: had a lot when especially talking about great power competition
Speaker 5: and like how to so com fit into that and
Speaker 5: so on. That was like the doctrinal book we had
Speaker 5: from the other side. How much weight does that still
Speaker 5: actually hold from the other side, if it ever did,
Speaker 5: If you.
Speaker 2: Know, I tend to focus on the doctrinal texts that
Speaker 2: I look at, or the Science of Campaigns from two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, because those are more like the joint.
Speaker 2: First of all, they're highly authoritative, so they're published by
Speaker 2: their National Defense University, So two thousand and six Science
Speaker 2: of Campaigns, the twenty thirteen Science of Military Strategy, and
Speaker 2: then a twenty twenty version. One problem we have is
Speaker 2: that a lot of that production is dropped off, Like
Speaker 2: there's fewer of those texts that are now being released
Speaker 2: into the open source world, so it's hard to know. Obviously,
Speaker 2: there's been a lot of changes and a lot of
Speaker 2: lessons that have been learned from the Russo Ukraine War
Speaker 2: and drones in the last few years, so I'm sure
Speaker 2: there have been changes to the way China is looking
Speaker 2: at combat like that, but it's difficult to know because
Speaker 2: they don't really replace that. They haven't really released those
Speaker 2: the replacements for those texts. That being said, I think
Speaker 2: much of the larger, you know, bigger muscle movement military
Speaker 2: that we see being in production now is I think
Speaker 2: it makes sense to see from a doctrine, from a
Speaker 2: document like that from twenty years ago, that's kind of
Speaker 2: the timeline for this is how we're going to do
Speaker 2: this thing. Okay, let's start working on the product, the
Speaker 2: weapons system development and then the testing, and you know,
Speaker 2: twenty year timeline is kind of consistent with that. So
Speaker 2: it makes sense that we'd be seeing in Chinese military
Speaker 2: that in its kind of longer term larger capital investment
Speaker 2: areas like ballistic missiles, hypersonics using merchant because they talk
Speaker 2: in Science of Campaigns about using merchant merchant, you know,
Speaker 2: merchant ships to supplement you know, selift. We see the
Speaker 2: carriers being built. I mean, all that kind of stuff
Speaker 2: is on that timeline. So those tend to be the
Speaker 2: documents that I'm used. There's some fantastic translations by against
Speaker 2: c ASI. China Aerospased Studies Institute has translated some of
Speaker 2: those documents. The trouble is, again we're not saying much
Speaker 2: in recent years. That's really dropped off a lot.
Speaker 5: There's a book by Fravel called Active Defense. I don't
Speaker 5: know if you've read that at Princeton that talks about
Speaker 5: kind of the idea of luring the enemy in deep
Speaker 5: and then engulfing them, which is based off like earlier
Speaker 5: Maoist thought, but it has for some time remained I
Speaker 5: don't know if it still remains.
Speaker 2: I'm curious from that.
Speaker 5: Strategic perspective, is that still a valid concept for them?
Speaker 2: Sure? I mean, after defense, is that is still something
Speaker 2: they've at least again the documents we have, they still
Speaker 2: do talk about active defense, but they also talk, you know,
Speaker 2: more recently have informationized warfare and then intelligentized warfare are
Speaker 2: the kind of the more recent expansions to that we're
Speaker 2: gonna remember too. Active defense is Shina's way in some
Speaker 2: regard of saying that whatever they do is defensive, right.
Speaker 2: So so like for example, if let's say Taiwan declared's
Speaker 2: independence and they launch a humongous ballistic missile strike on Taiwan,
Speaker 2: they would say that was defensive, right they were China.
Speaker 2: Taiwan had insulted us, had caused us damage in the
Speaker 2: political you know arena, and so we are defending ourselves
Speaker 2: politically by launching this huge politic missile strike that is
Speaker 2: not something anybody else on the planet. It's going to
Speaker 2: be considered a defensive measure. But they will still call
Speaker 2: it active defense in that regard. Or let's say that
Speaker 2: you know, they saw the US had turned on the
Speaker 2: O plan and was spinning up the tip fit to start,
Speaker 2: you know, sending getting all our forces out there, and
Speaker 2: they launched a strike on our bases in Asia. They
Speaker 2: would call that defensive. They would say, they would call
Speaker 2: that active defense. So it's kind of the convenient way
Speaker 2: politically for them to call whatever it is they're doing
Speaker 2: as a defensive thing.
Speaker 1: What's O plan and T fib UH.
Speaker 2: Plan all plants operational plans, So the theater level operational plan
Speaker 2: for whatever you're doing, defensive Korea, defensive Taiwan, and then
Speaker 2: the tip fit is the T p F D D
Speaker 2: plan for it all stands for you on the spot.
Speaker 2: It's basically the giant, the big, you know, canculator plan
Speaker 2: of how to get all this stuff over there that
Speaker 2: we need to execute the plan.
Speaker 1: Essentially, I'm just for the for the audience and me too,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what that meant. Sure, talking a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the pro like the protracted war that
Speaker 1: possible that they're planning for, are you worried at all
Speaker 1: about like the D O D And it's like kind
Speaker 1: of slow procurement process and able like the ability for
Speaker 1: it to adjust, like we're seeing it a bit in
Speaker 1: I ran right now with our missile defense. Obviously we
Speaker 1: probably would have been in a better spot if we
Speaker 1: had some low cost drones to be able to you know,
Speaker 1: knock out the ballistic missiles and drones that are heading
Speaker 1: over to our bases. Are you worried about something like that.
Speaker 1: Let's say a conflict lasted you know years, our our
Speaker 1: kind of inability to adjust and improvise, I think that well.
Speaker 2: So to some degree, you know, the necessity is the
Speaker 2: mother invention. Right, So where do we see the most
Speaker 2: aggressive innovation and action happening? And it's in Ukraine. It's
Speaker 2: in Russia because they have to write there's nobody gets
Speaker 2: bet out of shape about about the you know, relatively
Speaker 2: small risks that you might be taking when the larger
Speaker 2: risk is that you're going to lose a war and
Speaker 2: you know, get killed. So it's it's extremely difficult, I think,
Speaker 2: to cause change of the scale that it needs to
Speaker 2: happen at in a peacetime military. And yes, we're fighting
Speaker 2: a war against Iran and there is innovation happening there,
Speaker 2: but it is not an existential war for the United States.
Speaker 2: Do you still have bureaucratic comparatives that can over can
Speaker 2: override things? You can still have you know, if you're
Speaker 2: building a runway somewhere, you know, environmental issues. You can
Speaker 2: have all kinds of rules that Congress has has put
Speaker 2: in place about sourcing things, buy American rules, like a
Speaker 2: lot of that can get in the way of doing things.
Speaker 2: That's what we call red tape, right. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: all all of it, every every every little bit of
Speaker 2: red tape is somebody's good idea, right, I mean, somebody says, hey,
Speaker 2: we should make sure we're not buying things that are
Speaker 2: or you know, Iranian sourced. Yeah, sounds great, Right, So
Speaker 2: that's one more bureaucratic requirement, because the bureaucrat is there
Speaker 2: has to be some person that that verifies that, yes,
Speaker 2: we are and in fact not buying stuff from that's
Speaker 2: Chinese source. Well, that's what we call it bureaucrat, right,
Speaker 2: It is some expert that make sure you're actually doing
Speaker 2: the way you said the rule. It seems like a
Speaker 2: good idea at the time. You know that when you
Speaker 2: combine all those things together and it makes it harder
Speaker 2: and harder and harder to do things. Ultimately, if you
Speaker 2: have a no kidding, existential war, you can say that
Speaker 2: is all off the table, all the requirements are waved
Speaker 2: declaring emergency and and and you can move forward faster.
Speaker 2: But it's difficult to do that in the and the
Speaker 2: absence of existential conflict. So I do worry about our
Speaker 2: ability to move fast and and there are some good signs,
Speaker 2: for sure. You see a lot of defense new defense
Speaker 2: startups that are doing interesting things. But what I worry
Speaker 2: about is that some of those, certainly in the in
Speaker 2: the event of an air and naval dominated conflict, aren't
Speaker 2: quite as transformational as people might think they are. You know,
Speaker 2: one of my one of my sayings that I semi
Speaker 2: famous for in Twitter circles is there are no magic beans. Right,
Speaker 2: there's no there's no magic beans. There's no free lunches
Speaker 2: like drones, for example, at sea. I mean, they're not
Speaker 2: as new at sea as people think they are, right
Speaker 2: the US, the US, you know, during the Cold War,
Speaker 2: we worried about cruise missiles, right, We're scary Russian cruise
Speaker 2: missiles mock three. We worried about homing torpedo right. Those
Speaker 2: are basically drone. So you know, you say, hey, there's
Speaker 2: a one way attack drone that's going to attack ship
Speaker 2: to sea. Well yeah, those are called cruise missiles, right,
Speaker 2: And quite honestly, one hundred miles per hour cruise missile
Speaker 2: that's propeller powered is not as scary as what we've
Speaker 2: been dealing with now for decades. If you look at
Speaker 2: the ranges involved in some of those weapons systems, if
Speaker 2: you look at the huge blue Pacific, right, they're not
Speaker 2: They just don't operate that far in many cases. So
Speaker 2: I think things may be a little less transformational than
Speaker 2: some folks think. So. So some of those defense startups
Speaker 2: that are kind of their shining light of hope may
Speaker 2: not be quite as transformational in an high end air
Speaker 2: on naval war as people might think. I do think
Speaker 2: so if you look at the on the shipbolding question.
Speaker 2: You know, one thing I saw pointed out the other
Speaker 2: day that where the US actually does have an asymmetric
Speaker 2: advantage is in boat production. So if you look at
Speaker 2: US boat production, the US is I think the world's
Speaker 2: largest producer of boats, not ships, but boats so like,
Speaker 2: and a lot of it's driven by US boating the
Speaker 2: boating can.
Speaker 1: Right, you've got I want to go out in the
Speaker 1: lake and you know, yeah, go down.
Speaker 2: Well guess what you can take that same whole form
Speaker 2: and put a GPS. You know, so I already got
Speaker 2: a GPS on it. You know, you could put some
Speaker 2: sign up, some sort of autonomist thing on it, load
Speaker 2: it full of T and T and now you've got it.
Speaker 2: You've got a one way attack drone. And we have
Speaker 2: plenty of the world's largest producers of that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: personal watercraft and all these all these Ukrainian USVs, a
Speaker 2: lot of them are basically modified jet skis. We're actually
Speaker 2: pretty well placed to do that. The problem is, how
Speaker 2: do you get something like that six thousand miles across
Speaker 2: the Pacific? So unless we're fighting a war here and
Speaker 2: then we've really got problems.
Speaker 5: That power projection problem. That brings up an excellent point
Speaker 5: about allies and partners, because you remember, you know, the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one NDS for example, mentioned allies and partners
Speaker 5: like one hundred and twenty eight times something like that.
Speaker 5: So obviously we have allies and partners Indonesia, Philippines, Australia,
Speaker 5: you know, you name it, they're there, we can work
Speaker 5: your shoulders shoulder with them, not just Taiwan, but also
Speaker 5: obviously Japan with the sofa in a you know, enhanced
Speaker 5: defense security co operation agreement with Philippines. All this is
Speaker 5: like kind of designed.
Speaker 2: Just for that battle. So let's say that.
Speaker 5: Battle starts, whatever that looks like, not for our allies
Speaker 5: and partners. What about China's allies and partners. You know,
Speaker 5: they've got security cooperation agreements with Russia and Iran of
Speaker 5: varying degrees, you know, and other countries around, especially you know,
Speaker 5: Solomon Islands for example. What's what are the Solomon's going
Speaker 5: to do? What kind of basing access and overflight is
Speaker 5: China looking for? I'm curious from that kind of perspective.
Speaker 2: That's a great question, and it's it's for one thing,
Speaker 2: they certainly don't have the same number as we do.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, what's I don't like. I have
Speaker 2: a hard time imagining Russia choosing to get into a
Speaker 2: kinetic war with the United States just to help China
Speaker 2: take Taiwan. But let's say that Russians just send the
Speaker 2: Pacific Fleet out right. They don't, they don't. They're not
Speaker 2: sending them out to actually shoot at us, but they
Speaker 2: just send them out, and all of a sudden, we
Speaker 2: have to worry about that, like we have to cover
Speaker 2: down on that. So when we've already got our hands
Speaker 2: full with the Chinese navy, now you've got there huge
Speaker 2: distraction of let's say a bunch of Russian submarines out
Speaker 2: rowing around the Central Pacific or Eastern Pacific. You know,
Speaker 2: that can certainly make things more more complicated. Let's say
Speaker 2: the North Koreans are start rattling their saber and they've
Speaker 2: at least doing enough that the South Koreans decide, you
Speaker 2: know what, we don't really want you using our airfields
Speaker 2: in this conflict over Taiwan because we don't want to
Speaker 2: get North Korea into this. They could certainly do things
Speaker 2: to make life much more complicated. I don't see them.
Speaker 2: I don't think I see those, you know, Russian North
Speaker 2: Korea actively engaging in combat operations, but they could certainly
Speaker 2: make them already strapped US force, and now US and
Speaker 2: Allied force have that much more to worry about at
Speaker 2: least cover down on the Central Pacific. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's sensible that they would be building building bridges there
Speaker 2: for the future, because you know, let's face it, a
Speaker 2: Chinese navy that in fifteen or twenty years is the
Speaker 2: equal of the US Pacific fleet, that is not a
Speaker 2: navy that has to fight the US pacifically in the
Speaker 2: Western Pacific. They can push out to the Central Pacific
Speaker 2: now at that point, and now those places start to
Speaker 2: matter a lot more for the basing and access. Right. So,
Speaker 2: the Chinese haven't built a lot of naval bases overseas,
Speaker 2: but Chinese contractors have built a lot of ports and
Speaker 2: airfields overseas that are ostensibly commercial. And so seeing these
Speaker 2: kinds of things in development in places like that that
Speaker 2: could someday be a Chinese base, and in some cases
Speaker 2: maybe whether the locals want it to be or not.
Speaker 5: I remember that, And actually the Gwadar port in Pakistan
Speaker 5: that's run by China. I'm curious what role might something
Speaker 5: like that far flung or Jibouti, for example, they have
Speaker 5: troops there as well. What role might those far fall
Speaker 5: on places play if the war like kicked off in Taiwan.
Speaker 2: So I think where that matters is. You know, China's
Speaker 2: made quite clear in their defense white papers that maintaining
Speaker 2: their sea lines of communication is a huge priority, right,
Speaker 2: what makes sense, right, they are they're the world's largest
Speaker 2: trading nation, they're the world's largest exporter. They have the
Speaker 2: world's largest largest bridge of marine so that really matters
Speaker 2: to them. And if you look at the sources of
Speaker 2: raw materials that China has, like the some of the
Speaker 2: key sources are across the Indian Ocean, so it's raw
Speaker 2: materials or what not from Africa and energy from the
Speaker 2: Middle East. So we should expect to see them, you know,
Speaker 2: create infrastructure over time that would allow them in conflict
Speaker 2: to be able to try to maintain those tea lines
Speaker 2: of communication. So water, that's an example that where there
Speaker 2: have been trying to make in roads in the Maldives, Tanzania.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of places across those across the Indian Ocean
Speaker 2: in particular, that you see them in making investments in
Speaker 2: the kinds of places that you would imagine they would
Speaker 2: be interested in. You know, one thing I found kind
Speaker 2: of interesting in a lot of these places is there
Speaker 2: they tend to be a little bit out of the country.
Speaker 2: You know, hamp and Tote Port for example, in Sri Lanka.
Speaker 2: Water is kind of out there in the country. Why
Speaker 2: does that matter? Well, I mean they will. People will
Speaker 2: say things like, well, the local host nation has said
Speaker 2: that this isn't for military use, Well, what if it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter with the locals think? I mean, in World
Speaker 2: War two, right, we fought our way across the Pacific.
Speaker 2: We've built bases all over the place. Does anybody even
Speaker 2: know what the local communities thought about about the bases
Speaker 2: that we used to fight our way across the Pacific?
Speaker 2: Do you think we asked? I mean, Xiji Ping is
Speaker 2: not going to let his own people decide whether he
Speaker 2: launches or wins or loses World War three. He certainly
Speaker 2: doesn't care what they kind of care what the Sri
Speaker 2: Lankans think. If he has a defensible base that he
Speaker 2: can use and put pla and marines around it and
Speaker 2: tell the locals, hey, we're going to use this for
Speaker 2: what we're going to use it for and just stay
Speaker 2: out of it. You know, That's how that I think
Speaker 2: potentially could work. So, if they've built the facility, if
Speaker 2: it's there, if it can be used in the event
Speaker 2: of a hind conflict, I would expect it to be used,
Speaker 2: regardless of any previous agreements or what anybody said about
Speaker 2: what it's for.
Speaker 3: Jackie got something, I mean, I guess the last thing
Speaker 3: and we touched on it briefly is the subject of
Speaker 3: a depletion of stockpiles of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and
Speaker 3: so on.
Speaker 4: And John and I have talked about this before.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just over the weekend, I believe Mike
Speaker 3: Waltz was in the press talking about this, you know,
Speaker 3: blaming the last administration for it being depleted and then saying, actually,
Speaker 3: it's not depleted, but politics aside. I think that goes
Speaker 3: to your procurement and sustainment side of this conversation. Is
Speaker 3: what you're seeing in our fight with Iran and the
Speaker 3: depletion of weapons stockpiles? Is that concerning for you as
Speaker 3: we move into a theoretical conflict with China in the future.
Speaker 2: So I have to say that it may surprise people
Speaker 2: to hear me say that I'm not quite I don't
Speaker 2: think the depletion of stock interceptor of stockpiles makes quite
Speaker 2: as big of a difference for you know, for China's
Speaker 2: calculus and deciding whether to pull off something, because I'm
Speaker 2: not sure those stockpiles are really going to matter much
Speaker 2: after the first salvo. Regardless of how deep the magazine is.
Speaker 2: At US bases in Asia, I expect the interceptor batteries
Speaker 2: to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of Chinese missiles.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have a hard time imagining that our
Speaker 2: stockpiles are going to get so low that there isn't
Speaker 2: one set of missiles on the rails ready to go
Speaker 2: for that first shot. But I mean, Chinese doctrine is
Speaker 2: pretty straightforward that some of the first things they hit
Speaker 2: in a firepower strike is blistic missile defenses. Right they
Speaker 2: have They have you know, DF twenty seven hypersonic missiles
Speaker 2: that are probably very difficult to shoot down and appear
Speaker 2: to be pretty accurate. That's the kind of thing I
Speaker 2: would expect them to use to destroy D and D
Speaker 2: rather than deplete it. So you know, how many sets
Speaker 2: of reloads we have in the magazine on base, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure it matters all that much, to be honest.
Speaker 1: When the launcher is blown up.
Speaker 2: If the launchers are destroyed and the runways are createred
Speaker 2: and you can't fly anything in anyways, and and the
Speaker 2: you know, and the and the crews that operate them
Speaker 2: have been killed by anti personnel air bursts, and I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Just your picture matters, got like our base and Bahrain
Speaker 3: that just overwhelmed and evacuated.
Speaker 2: Far beyond that. I mean, like you know, people, I
Speaker 2: think people look at what the Iranian missiles have done,
Speaker 2: and oh, they shot one hundred missiles at our carrier.
Speaker 2: None of them hit. Okay, Iran is not China, right,
Speaker 2: The PLA Rocket Force is not the IRGC Coods Force.
Speaker 2: They are not the same. Go look at Iran's version
Speaker 2: of a stealth fighter and compared it to China's actual version.
Speaker 2: Go look at Iran's version of a frigate and compared
Speaker 2: it to an actual Chinese frigate. I mean, they're just
Speaker 2: not the same thing. It's harder to tell those differences
Speaker 2: with missiles, I think, because they kind of all look
Speaker 2: the same to people, as opposed to the kind of
Speaker 2: look at cardboard looking stealth fighters at their Anians, you know, parade.
Speaker 2: But I think the differences are just as deep, and
Speaker 2: I think any confidence and we've seen how challenging it
Speaker 2: was even with Iranian missiles to defend our bases, and
Speaker 2: yet we seem to not be refusing to harden anything
Speaker 2: in the Western Pacific. The Air Force isn't budgeting any
Speaker 2: money for it. I beat this drum over and over again.
Speaker 2: That is just say nothing of drones. Like. Let's remember
Speaker 2: China is the world's largest drone producer there. I worry
Speaker 2: deeply about drone strikes. You know, people may recall Operation
Speaker 2: Spider Web right, the Ukrainian attack on Russian air bases.
Speaker 2: I worry a lot about that kind of thing happening
Speaker 2: to us. That can make the Bahrain stuff look relatively
Speaker 2: tame in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Tom, we got to get you back, man. This is great,
Speaker 1: great episode. I mean, I don't feel great about it, obviously.
Speaker 2: Everybody says that they talked to me like so much
Speaker 2: fun to talk to you. We're screwed, hopefully not.
Speaker 1: I want everyone to go and check out Tom. If
Speaker 1: you have something to plug men, feel free that I
Speaker 1: hadn't hit.
Speaker 2: I'll provide links to you guys for some of the
Speaker 2: things that I mentioned, and you can feel free to
Speaker 2: put those in there if you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the links will be down on the description and
Speaker 1: in the show notes if you're listening on audio. And
Speaker 1: Tom is a great Twitter follow if you're in sitting
Speaker 1: this he is, He's got his ear to the ground.
Speaker 1: You know what's he knows what's going on of course,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Hackett Jack all their links are in the description
Speaker 1: as well, Tom a Pleasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, great you.
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