Strategy for National Defense

Part I – Regional Security Issue within the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region
The National Security Strategy (NSS) focuses on promoting the security of the United States on the premise that a safe environment is critical toward enhancing the prosperity of the nation. This strategy goes beyond promoting the interests of America and includes safeguarding the interests of partners/allies around the world. Through the strategy, the United States responds to the increasing military, political and economic competitions encountered worldwide. As part of ensuring suitable response to these competitions, NSS includes a regional context strategy through which the United States tailors it approaches to various regions worldwide to protect her national interests.[footnoteRef:1] The United States requires integrated regional strategies that acknowledge the nature and extent of threats, intensity of rivalry, and potential opportunities across all regions. Such strategies become the premise of International Relations and U.S. foreign policy. [1: The White House, “National Security Strategy of the United States of America”, The White House, December 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf]
Issue in Indo-Asia-Pacific Region
Indo-Asia-Pacific region is one of the regions targeted by the United States National Security Strategy. It extends from the west coast of India to the United States’ western shores and represent one of the most economically vibrant and populated regions in the world.[footnoteRef:2] America’s interest in this region, which is currently facing competition between free and repressive visions of world order, dates back to the earliest days of the nation. Consequently, the United States establishes political, economic, and military and security priority actions to help safeguard her national interests in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. This process entails developing international relations approaches and foreign policies that seek to protect the interests of the United States in this region. China and Russia are principal priorities for the United States given their long-term strategic competitions within and outside the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. The United States is faced with the need to ensure increased and sustained investments in addressing these principal priorities because of the threats they pose to her national interests and prosperity.[footnoteRef:3] [2: Ibid., 1] [3: Department of Defense, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America”, National Defense Strategy, 2018, https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf]
Given the strategic competitions between China and Russia, one of the regional security issues in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region is Russia’s military modernization and actions throughout the region. Moscow constantly plays the role of a spoiler in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region as it seeks to undermine U.S. national interests and impose extra costs on the U.S. and her allies.[footnoteRef:4] Over the past few years, Russia has continued to modernize her military forces on the premise that military power is key to achieving key strategic goals and global influence. As a result, the country continues to invest in nuclear weapons as part of her power projection and deterrence abilities. For example, the Russian military carries out “regular nuclear-capable Tu-95 Bear bomber long-range aviation flights off the coasts of Japan, Korea, Canada, and Alaska.”[footnoteRef:5] In the past few years, Russia has increased investments in military infrastructure, deployed anti-ship missile systems, enhanced control and command abilities, and modernized anti-air abilities in the region. This has generated tensions in the relations between Russia and some countries in the region such as Japan while undermining U.S. national interests in the region. [4: Philip S. Davidson, “Statement of Admiral Philip S. Davidson, U.S. Navy Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Posture”, United States Senate, March 27, 2019, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Davidson_02-12-19.pdf] [5: Ibid., 4]
Therefore, the United States faces the need to adopt suitable strategies that would help address the emerging threat posed by Russia in her activities in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Promoting peace in this region is not only critical to U.S. interests, but also essential in enhancing U.S. global influence and prosperity. In line with the goals and objectives of the National Security Strategy, the United States can address the issue using concepts in international relations. International relations concepts would inform and guide U.S. policy in handling the threats posed by Russia in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. One of the applicable international relations concepts that would inform and guide U.S. policy in relation to this issue is polarity and power transition. Polarity and power transition is an international relations concept based on Power Transition Theory. This concept focuses on differential rates of growth and their impact on altering relative power between countries. As a result, it leads to the formation of new relationships between competing groups or nations and the creation of new political and economic realities.[footnoteRef:6] Under this concept, nations act in anarchy when directly threatened, but also hold for peace. [6: Richard L. Tammen, Jacek Kugler, & Doug Lemke, “Power Transition Theory”, International Relations, June 27, 2017, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0038]
This international relations concept would shape U.S. policy through promoting effective actions depending on Russia’s actions in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Based on polarity and power transition, the United States should maintain a forward military presence in the region. This military presence should have the capability of deterring and/or defeating any adversarial actions adopted by Russia. In light of this concept, U.S. policy in the region should also focus on strengthening existing long-term military relationships with its allies across the region. This implies that the United States should adopt measures and strategies that seek to foster military relationships with its long-standing allies in the region. Additionally, the United States should focus on working with its allies and partners to develop a strong defense network. Through these activities, the United States will protect her interests in the region while creating new political and economic realities in the region. This would help to ensure that Russia does not continue to undermine U.S. interests in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.
Part II – A Coercive Air Power Strategy
The new COMPACAF commander has expressed the need for PACAF to rethink how Indo-Asia-Pacific region is viewed as INDOPACOM takes steps to implement the National Defense Strategy. Consequently, COMPACAF tasked the 613th AOC Strategy Division Chief with the responsibility of developing a recommended air strategy for a situation involving Chinese military operation. Chinese military operation has focused on invading Taiwan despite ongoing robust diplomatic efforts. Currently, no options or resources have been removed from the table for planning purposes.
In light of the current situation, the United States can utilize a coercive airpower (air, space and cyber) strategy to support her national aims of influencing China to abandon expansionist goals in relation to Taiwan and return to the status quo ante. Currently, U.S. values and national interest support preservation of the status quo ante as the premise for promoting the prosperity of Taiwan. China has seemingly ignored the ongoing robust diplomatic efforts as it continues with her expansionist goals against Taiwan. Given China’s progress to invade Taiwan while ignoring the robust diplomatic efforts, a coercive strategy is ideal to support U.S. national aims of influencing China to abandon its goals with respect to Taiwan. Coercion affects the behavior of an opponent through altering costs and benefits. Coercion takes place when a nation must choose between suffering the consequences of her present course of action or making concessions.[footnoteRef:7] Through adopting a coercive strategy, the United States will force China to examine whether to continue with invasion of Taiwan or make concessions. Coercion, in the international arena, is used to alter the behaviors of states, especially during war.[footnoteRef:8] [7: Robert A Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, 1st ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).] [8: Karl Muller, “The Essence of Coercive Air Power: A Primer for Military Strategies”, Air University, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Chronicles/mueller.pdf]
A coercive air power strategy would be a suitable approach for the United States to achieve her national aims with respect to China’s invasion of Taiwan. Air power strategy is the most potent tool of contemporary military coercion and is commonly used to assess the causes of coercive success and failure.[footnoteRef:9] Using this strategy, U.S. efforts would incorporate four approaches i.e. punishment, denial, destruction, and decapitation. Punishment entails affecting the adversary’s will to resist instead of their ability to do so while destruction entails physical destruction or incapacitation of an adversary’s unit, vehicle or force. On the contrary, denial entails altering the behavior of the adversary through making the undesired course of action meaningless.[footnoteRef:10] Decapitation is an approach that pursues the impacts of punishment and denial simultaneously. [9: Ibid., 7] [10: Ibid., 8]
Air power strategy for addressing this scenario and achieving the desired impacts would incorporate a combination of air, space and cyber techniques. Under air strategy, the United States should focus on achieving air superiority over China without extending over the entire Chinese territory. The United States approach in this case would entail threatening an air power invasion against Chinese territory if its continues with the expansionist goals instead of the robust diplomatic efforts. If China does not make the desired concessions, the United States would launch aerial attacks that inflicts pain on Chinese civilians. These attacks would focus on wrecking Chinese economy by destroying critical aspects of the economy such as electric power grids, domestic transportation services, and water and sewer systems. The United States will target Chinese population in China’s territory and seek to inflict pain on the general population unless and until China makes concessions. Aerial attacks would also be launched against any Chinese forces in Taiwan’s territory. In this regard, the United States military will provide logistical and tactical support to Taiwan forces in their fight against China. U.S. military will partner with Taiwan forces to create an allied force that will launch aerial attacks against any Chinese forces in Taiwan territory. These aerial attacks will be based on the Douhet model, which is based on the idea that inflicting severe pain on civilians can affect their morale and unravel social bias of resistance in order for citizens to pressure the government to vacate territorial ambitions.[footnoteRef:11] These attacks will be combined with destruction of China’s military production, which will weaken her forces by lessening the aggregate quantities of war materials and weapons. [11: Ibid., 7.]
With regards to space, this coercive air power strategy will entail controlling the adversary’s air space. The United States will focus on obtaining and maintain air superiority over China through controlling air space over Chinese territory. This will be achieved through destruction of China’s military production and weakening Chinese forces. The process will result in decapitation and enable U.S. forces to utilize Chinese air space in strategic bombing of civilians. Through weakening Chinese forces and lessening the overall quantities of war materials and weapons, U.S. forces will control Chinese fielded forces and homeland territory by controlling air space. Since air power is increasingly dependent on the cyber domain in today’s military operations, this strategy will incorporate air-cyber integration.[footnoteRef:12] The United States will establish a robust and secure networked command and control structure to support air power initiatives against China. Cyber specialists will carry out offensive operations against Chinese cyberspace through leveraging opportunities to exploit weaknesses in China’s cyberspace. Cyber capabilities will be combined with the other air power strategies in the war against China. [12: Paul Withers, “Integrating Cyber with Air Power in the Second Century of the Royal Air Force”, Medium, March 4, 2019, https://medium.com/raf-caps/integrating-cyber-with-air-power-in-the-second-century-of-the-royal-air-force-bca74b8d42ed]
Bibliography
Davidson, P.S. “Statement of Admiral Philip S. Davidson, U.S. Navy Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Posture.” United States Senate, March 27, 2019, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Davidson_02-12-19.pdf
Department of Defense. “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.” National Defense Strategy, 2018, https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf
Muller, K. “The Essence of Coercive Air Power: A Primer for Military Strategies.” Air University, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Chronicles/mueller.pdf
Pape, R.A. Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, 1st ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Tammen, R.L., Kugler, J. & Lemke, D. “Power Transition Theory.” International Relations, June 27, 2017, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0038
The White House. “National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” The White House, December 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf
Withers, P. “Integrating Cyber with Air Power in the Second Century of the Royal Air Force.” Medium, March 4, 2019, https://medium.com/raf-caps/integrating-cyber-with-air-power-in-the-second-century-of-the-royal-air-force-bca74b8d42ed