September 13, 2023 (Brian Berletic - New Eastern Outlook) - A series of announcements by the US reflect its large and still growing military presence across Asia-Pacific, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. Together, they reflect a continued and increasingly desperate desire by Washington to encircle and contain China.
These announcements include plans for expanding the number of US air bases across the region as part of the US Air Force’s (USAF) new “Agile Combat Employment” (ACE) doctrine. It also includes plans for a “civilian port” in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km from the Chinese island province of Taiwan. Then there were recently announced plans by the US Department of Defense to create drone swarms for countering China’s growing advantage in materiel and manpower.
Washington’s “ACE” in the Hole?
A recent article published by Defense One titled, “Air Force expanding number of bases in Pacific over next decade,” reported on the Pentagon’s plans to expand the number of air bases across the Pacific over the next decade to fulfill the requirements of the USAF’s “ACE” doctrine.
More than simply increasing the number of air bases in the region, ACE seeks to disperse US aircraft, ammunition, and personnel among a larger number of smaller bases, thus creating more targets for potential adversaries and increasing the overall survivability for USAF assets.
The article notes:
The U.S. Air Force will increase its number of bases across the Pacific over the next decade, in an effort to spread out and become more survivable in conflict.
And that:
In the ACE concept, a few airfields serve as central ports, or hubs, while several smaller airfields serve as spokes. The idea is to be able to distribute weapons and assets over a large area and to increase survivability, versus just having a few large airfields throughout the geographically enormous region.
Despite USAF assets being distributed, command and control would be able to mass together assets from across multiple smaller bases for each specific mission or “force package.”
The concept is meant to make it more difficult in a potential conflict with China for it to target and destroy US air bases with its large missile arsenals and by doing so, significantly disrupting US air capabilities in the region.
While ACE doctrine may be a realistic shift away from the relatively centralized nature of US military bases across the Pacific, it will take many years to implement and only if the Pentagon’s budget is adjusted to do so. By then, China’s missile arsenal will only have increased in size and capabilities, possibly neutralizing any advantage the US seeks to achieve by pursuing this doctrinal shift.
And while an eventual dispersal of US air assets may complicate China’s ability to target and destroy US warplanes before even leaving the ground to perform missions, China also possesses a large and very capable integrated air defense system able to intercept both US warplanes and the munitions they would be using against Chinese targets.
US Seeks “Civilian Port” Dangerously Close to Taiwan
Reuters, in an article titled, “Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,” would report:
The U.S. military is in talks to develop a civilian port in the remote northernmost islands of the Philippines, the local governor and two other officials told Reuters, a move that would boost American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan.
U.S. military involvement in the proposed port in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, could stoke tensions at a time of growing friction with China and a drive by Washington to intensify its longstanding defence treaty engagement with the Philippines.
The article also notes:
The Bashi Channel between those islands and Taiwan is considered a choke point for vessels moving between the western Pacific and the contested South China Sea and a key waterway in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The Chinese military regularly sends ships and aircraft through the channel, Taiwan’s defence ministry has said.
The article fails to mention a much more important fact, that this “choke point” leading into the “contested South China Sea” is already “a key waterway,” one for Chinese maritime shipping.