WASHINGTON, DC: PRC’s militaristic expansion represents a major threat to regional and international stability and is a direct threat against U.S. national security interests.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of armed aggression. Since coming to power in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has invaded Tibet and South Korea in 1950, aggressed against India in 1962, clashed with the Soviet Union in 1969, seized the Paracel Islands in 1974 from South Vietnam, invaded Vietnam in 1979 and for years afterward had limited conflict along their border, and clashed again with Vietnam in the South China Sea in the 1980s.
This aggression did not end with the Cold War but has only expanded as the PRC has grown more powerful. The PRC has confronted Japan over contested territory in the East China Sea. This includes the Senkaku Islands, where in 2014 it declared a new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over them. Beijing contests Sokota Rock with South Korea and continues to clash with India over multiple points along their disputed border. Beijing has militarized its naval resupply port in Djibouti and now threatens Taiwan with a clockwork certainty. The PRC has also created new islands in the South China Sea and possesses the local military power to enforce its claims. It contravened the 1984 Hong Kong agreement with the UK to crush Hong Kong and, de facto, brought it completely under Beijing’s control. The PRC is committing genocide against Uighur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz Muslims while the world merely observes. It has expanded its influence in Melanesia and Polynesia and is increasingly assertive in opposing U.S. air and sea operations in South China Sea, East China Sea, and North Pacific.
But its current actions against the Republic of the Philippines, a treaty ally of the U.S., are most telling. The PRC’s increasingly coercive actions against Manila at Second Thomas Shoal are notable due to the escalating aggression evinced by the PRC, its coast and military are now routinely interfering with resupply of the BRP Sierra Madre, the vessel permanently beached on the shoal to protect Manila’s sovereignty, but also due to the inaction of the Biden administration.
At root, the PRC’s militaristic expansion represents a major threat to regional and international stability and is a direct threat against U.S. national security interests. To meet this unambiguous threat requires leadership to immediately develop a more robust U.S. deterrent posture in the Indo-Pacific—one that has been neglected for far too long. As such, to deter the PRC the U.S. must take three steps.
First, the U.S. needs to expand its conventional military presence in the Indo-Pacific to be able to target Chinese bases, vessels, and military targets within the PRC. The U.S. simply does not now have the conventional capabilities in the Indo-Pacific to deter the PRC’s aggression. To do so requires an expanded U.S. 7th Fleet to include more attack submarines (SSNs), cruisers and destroyers, and additional dedicated aircraft carriers dedicated to deterring a PRC attack. Additionally, U.S. intermediate range missiles must be increased, as was recently tested with the Typhoon missile system for exercise Balikatan-2024. Unfortunately, the Biden administration pulled the system out of the Philippines after Beijing complained—an unfortunate example of “anti-deterrence”.
Instead, deterrence requires the ability to escalate and to sustain attacks against targets in the PRC to hold the CCP leadership and other high value targets at risk. U.S. military presence must be expanded to show U.S. presence and deter further expansion by Beijing, as well as to serve as facilities should the U.S. elect to roll back the PRC’s expansion in the South China Sea. Deployments of drones and new long range conventional systems are positive steps that aid the U.S. conventional deter posture, so long as the PRC does not go nuclear.
Second, precisely because the PRC is a nuclear state, deterrence of PRC aggression also requires a robust U.S. nuclear arsenal as Washington must extend deterrence to its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. U.S. nuclear weapons must be deployed in the Indo-Pacific to deter their use at any level of aggression—tactical, theater, or strategic. Tactical nuclear weapons are necessary evil on the battlefield to deter the PRC from escalating a conventional clash to a nuclear attack against U.S. tactical forces. Theater nuclear weapons serve the same purpose within the region, deterring a tactical exchange from escalating to an intermediate range, the last step before an exchange of strategic weapons between Beijing and Washington. Unfortunately, since the Obama Administration’s retirement of the submarine based TLAM-N, the U.S. has insufficient numbers of deployed tactical weapons (a small number of W76-2 onboard ballistic missile submarines, while all B-61 tactical nuclear weapons are based in NATO countries) and no theater nuclear weapons in the Indo-Pacific. After decades of neglect, the U.S. has only recently begun to modernize its strategic nuclear forces. In stark contrast, the PRC has exercised no inhibitions about deploying their nuclear weapons and developing new capabilities. In the tactical and theater nuclear realms, the U.S. is on the backfoot due to decades of neglect of its nuclear force posture and infrastructure. This must be reversed immediately at the outset of a new U.S. administration in January 2025.
Third, since the end of World War II, the U.S. is fortunate to have exceptional allies who have augmented Washington’s deterrent capabilities. Unfortunately, the weakness of the Biden administration undermines this. The absence of strong diplomatic and military support for Manila is actually undermining the defense architecture the U.S. built during the Cold War. This is a fact, as there is ample concern the U.S. is allowing the PRC to get away with “salami slicing tactics,” that are gradually increasing the coercive pressure against the Philippines until Beijing achieves its objectives without provoking a war.
To prevent this, a new American administration must change tack immediately and show strong U.S. military support for the Filipino presence on Second Thomas Shoal and other locations in the South China Sea where Beijing’s aggression threatens Manila. A robust response akin to how the U.S. strongly supported South Korea’s navy in 2010 through the sustained, visible presence of U.S. Navy 7th Fleet in wake of the sinking of the South Korean frigate ROKN Cheonan. The frigate had been torpedoed by a North Korean midget submarine, killing almost half of her crew. At the time Washington was not equivocal about the incident and sent a powerful single to North Korea that any escalation would result in direct confrontation with U.S. forces. Similarly, a formidable U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard presence is now needed around Second Thomas Shoal. U.S. allies should expect nothing less in their hour of need. The Biden administration has failed in this regard and a new administration must demonstrate to the Philippines, the PRC, and the world that Manila does not stand by itself.
Certainly, India appreciates that the Biden administration is demonstrating weakness in the face of the PRC’s aggression against a U.S. Treaty ally and that this does not augur well for U.S. credibility. After the G-7 meeting in Hiroshima in May 2023, Biden was to continue to Papua New Guinea and then to Australia to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi but was too enfeebled to complete either visit. A lesson of history is clear: weakness encourages aggression and invites the PRC to attack. However, our friends in India must also understand that the neo-Engagement posture of the Biden administration does not represent the will of the American people and that a new administration is prepared to resume the work begun during the first Trump administration to re-establish American military credibility across the Indo-Pacific.
Today the U.S. deterrent posture is far from ideal in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is hindered by the absence of the proper mix of conventional and nuclear capabilities. But capabilities are only half of the deterrence equation. The other half comprises political considerations, including willpower and credibility. Biden’s disastrous performance at the U.S. presidential debate conveyed weakness. The U.S. President is clearly non compos mentis. This situation emboldens aggressors like the PRC. Beijing may perceive a window of opportunity to act while Biden is President and Trump’s very possible return to office in January 2025. This timeframe so lends urgency to direct and visible U.S., and Indian, support for its Filipino ally where it matters right now at Second Thomas Shoal.
James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of “Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure”.