As the much-watched military muscle-flexing by Washington and Beijing around the Korean Peninsula came to a head this week,the White House appears to have backed away from a confrontation with the Peoples Liberation Army. When the Obama Administration announced last month its plans to send an aircraft carrier,the USS George Washington,to the Yellow Sea as part of a joint exercise with South Korea,Beijing went ballistic.
Beijing considers the Yellow Sea,which separates the Chinese mainland from the Korean peninsula,as its front yard. Beijing declared that any US manoeuvres there would be a military provocation and announced its own exercises to coincide with those of the United States and South Korea.
As China upped the ante,the US first postponed its exercises,meant to signal US solidarity with South Korea after the sinking of its naval ship Cheonan by the North Koreans in March. Washington has now decided to hold the exercises during July 25-28,off the Korean peninsula. Involving about 20 ships and submarines,including George Washington and 100 aircraft,the exercises have apparently been designed to avoid provoking China. While the official Pentagon announcement said that the exercises will take place in both sides of the Korean peninsula,reports from Washington suggest that the US forces,especially the George Washington,will stay out of the Yellow Sea to the west of the peninsula.
The exercises have been timed to coincide with high-level political consultations between the United States and Korea. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are holding talks with their South Korean counterparts in the first ever two plus two dialogue between the two allies.
After some debate,Washington appears to have decided that if the purpose of the exercises was to underline its strategic commitment to defend South Korea against the threat from the North,there was no point in picking up an avoidable fight China at this moment.
Anti-access
The US decision,however,worries some in East Asia. American prudence,they say,will be mistaken for weakness and a reluctance to confront the growing Chinese naval power. As it built a powerful navy in the last few years,one of Beijings main objectives was to constrain the US navys current freedom to operate close to the Chinese coastline.
The Chinese strategy has been to develop a range of weapons sea-skimming missiles,stealthier submarines,anti ship ballistic missiles as well as space and cyber-warfare capabilities to delay or raise the costs of American naval power projection into the Western Pacific.
The latest US decision to avoid the Yellow Sea is being seen as the first visible success for Chinas anti-access strategy. Celebrating the US decision in an editorial,the Global Times newspaper called it a turning point. The editorial argued that the Yellow Sea should be seen as a boundary marker in the Pentagons future decision making. The Chinese peoples endurance is not a spring that can be pressed over and over, it said.
Doubts about American naval credibility,Beijing will hope,will compel its Asian neighbours not to depend on alliances with Washington to contain Chinas rising power. Put simply,Beijings objective is to alter the very geopolitical structure that has dominated its Asian and Pacific neighbourhood for the last six decades.
Air-Sea battle
As China seeks to undermine the US ability to dominate the waters of Western Pacific,the Pentagon has begun to respond. with what it calls the doctrine of air-sea battle. The US navy and air force are working together to develop this new maritime military doctrine.
The objective is to defeat adversaries equipped with sophisticated anti-access and area denial capabilities. The idea is to integrate capabilities in all the domains air,sea,land,space and cyberspace to counter growing challenges to US freedom of action. In terms of the political context,the doctrine of air-sea battle is similar to the air-land battle concept that the Pentagon developed at the turn of the 1980s to counter what it saw as rising Russian military power. The Asian defence communities will have to pay a lot of attention to the competing military doctrines that China and the US are experimenting with. The outcome of this contest will indeed define their strategic environment for a long time to come.
raja.mohan@expressindia.com
