The US in the pacific: getting the military part right – and still losing

A recent Wall Street Journal article describes the United States Air Force’s hurried efforts to rebuild old World War Two airfields in the Pacific and to access other facilities in the region.  This is a good thing.

The Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) scheme is designed to make it harder for China’s rocket force by complementing the handful of large bases in Japan, South Korea, and Guam with smaller sites distributed across the region.

Spreading out also opens up opportunities to attack from a number of different directions – complicating things when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) operates into the Pacific.

The other U.S. services have similar schemes afoot to disperse throughout the region.

It’s good the U.S. military is paying attention to the Pacific region after mostly ignoring it for 50 years.

And building military infrastructure and developing tactics for dispersed operations is essential.

However, the Chinese have not been standing still.  They’ve studied World War Two, understand the importance of geography, and have been insinuating themselves into the region for decades.  Their plan is to block and preempt the Americans – while laying the groundwork for their own military presence and increased political and economic influence, including via dual-use infrastructure.

A few examples of where the U.S. has focused on military infrastructure while the PRC has sought to undermine it through political warfare.

Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), U.S.A.

The Americans are making a push to rebuild Tinian’s historic and strategic airfields. During World War Two, waves of B-29s (including the Enola Gay) took off from Tinian to bomb Japan, changing the course of the war.  Tinian is part of the U.S. territory of CNMI. So how did a Chinese-linked casino get permission to open up right on Tinian’s harbor through which military materials and supplies move?  Any competent intelligence service – and the Chinese can be more than competent – can make good use of this.  As a bonus, a hotel affiliated with the casino has an excellent view of the maritime approach.

On nearby Saipan, also part of CNMI,  China-tied business interests are pushing to move the administration closer to China.  This isn’t new.  A Chinese casino (now defunct) hamstrung U.S. Marine Corps’ efforts to build a training center a decade ago on an island up the chain.  How?  Money was lavishly spread around government circles and ‘environmental groups’. 

Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)

The U.S. Air Force is building a $400 million airfield in Yap state in FSM.  The Chinese are building one of their own on another island in Yap state.  Just for tourism, of course.

Palau

There are widely known Chinese investments in land in coincidentally highly strategic locations, such as on the tiny island of Angaur where the U.S. is putting in over-the-horizon radar as part of a regional missile defense system. Additionally, the PRC is again spreading money and influence around to maneuver  a more ‘Chinese-friendly’ administration into place – if not the presidency, then at least the legislature.  The goal is not just to get Palau to derecognize Taiwan but to use the narrative that the U.S. is ‘militarizing’ the islands to get the U.S. footprint reduced, if not expelled.

Republic of Kiribati

The PRC is angling to refurbish a defunct U.S. airfield on Kanton, one of Kiribati’s islands. 1900 miles from Hawaii.  Once again – just for tourism.  The U.S. has a treaty that ought to prevent this.  Nobody cares.  What will D.C. do? Send in the Marines?  No, it, along with Australia, has said it will fund a new wharf for Kanton.  Beijing should send a thank you note.

Australia

The Americans are expanding airfields and fuel depots for use by U.S. and allied forces.

All good, though the Australian government has been working hard to rebuild trade with China and still thinks it can be friends with Beijing and sell them lobsters and wine. The more Canberra wants that trade, the more leverage Beijing has.  And the donor-dependent political class really seems to want that trade to continue and grow – maybe more than just about anything else.

East Timor

The Chinese have their claws in East Timor to the north.  The U.S. just finished a 10,000-foot runway – that could have been done in 2010 when the government practically begged for it. There’s no guarantee this airstrip won’t eventually be a gift for China.

Solomon Islands

In the country where so many Americans died at Guadalcanal and Iron Bottom Sound, the Chinese have an agreement with the pro-China regime that can allow for the deployment of Chinese forces to defend Chinese citizens and major projects, and to put down civil dissent. They are also putting in Huawei towers to blanket the country, and are redeveloping a major port.

And plans are afoot for China to extend the nation’s main airfield, Henderson Field – crucial to Marine defense in 1942.  And as important now as it was then.

Over the past 15 years, the U.S. has squandered or ignored opportunities to build bases or have greatly expanded access throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and the Chinese haven’t wasted that opening.

Getting the military part right – and still losing.

Current U.S. military efforts are good, but one might get the military part of the equation right – and still lose if proper attention isn’t paid to China’s decades-long political warfare campaign in the Pacific region that is undercutting the U.S. presence and local support for it.

What is political warfare?  It is ‘“the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives.” This includes financial, economic, diplomatic, alliance building, ‘propaganda’, intelligence, and even the employment of military forces (without shooting) as explained in a 1948 policy planning memorandum that prepared the United States to fight and ultimately win the Cold War.

In China’s case, it includes bribery that greases the whole thing, along with drug trafficking, cyber attacks, use of organized crime, and the like. So, for example, as for taking Chinese money in the Pacific islands, there is no downside risk.  And practically none in Washington, D.C. either.

The result in the Pacific is that the Chinese have turned a region that was once overwhelmingly leaning towards to the United States and the West into a place where pro-China constituencies exist nearly everywhere – and in some cases have political control.

The Chinese understand political warfare.  The head of the local Chinese business association, fishing or timber company probably has more real influence than the Commander, USINDOPACOM.  He’s there all the time – influencing.

The PRC’s political warfare campaign not only needs to be blocked and countered, but the U.S. government ought to have and employ its own political warfare campaign, which can include nation-to-nation policies like preferential trade policies and also focused strategies to free countries from corruption. We used to be good at it during the Cold War – but seem to have largely forgotten what political warfare is in the years since. And the State Department does not appear to consider it part of the job description.   

So ACE is well and good.  As is the U.S. miliary interest.

But the military part is only part of what’s required.

Congress needs to summon whoever is Secretary of State in a few months from now, and ask two questions:

What is political warfare?

What is your political warfare plan?  Show it to us.

If he or she can’t answer or has no plan….show them the curb.

And call in the Commander USINDOPACOM and ask him about political warfare.  If he says it’s somebody else’s responsibility…show him the curb as well.

Too many Americans died in the Pacific war 80 years ago for someone to say this is someone else’s problem.