American Sea Power in the Asia-Pacific
By Francis Sempa
June 10, 2023U.S. Navy
SPECIAL SERIES:
Best Defense
War between the United States and China in the western Pacific is a real possibility in the next several years. Although both sides have conducted military exercises and “war games” in the region, predicting the course and outcome of such a war is problematic. Military strategists and war planners, even armed as they are with the latest information technologies and precision weapons, have yet to overcome Clausewitzian “friction” and the Luttwakian “paradoxical logic” of strategy. Strategies and plans often fail to survive contact with the enemy. What Bismarck said about statesmen is also true of generals and admirals: They “cannot control the current of events [but] can only float with them and steer.”
In any future U.S. war with China, sea power will play a major role in the fighting. In the Asia-Pacific, China has the obvious advantages of geographical proximity to the arena of conflict and has been assiduously expanding its naval power to achieve regional naval superiority--at least in numbers of warships. As Sam Tangredi of the U.S. Naval War College has noted, numbers matter, and by the end of the decade if current trends continue China’s PLA Navy (PLAN) may reach a total of 460 warships, while the U.S. fleet may decrease to 260 warships. Tangredi contends that those who claim America’s technological advantages will tip the balance in war against China are ignoring history which shows that “
n a naval struggle between near-peers, mass (numbers), and the ability to replace losses bests technological advantage.” “At a certain point of imbalance in mass,” Tangredi continues, “the larger naval force cannot be defeated.” Tangredi’s conclusion: “If the United States wants to retain global influence, maintain deterrence in multiple regions, and conduct combat operations against a near peer that is expanding its global military footprint, it needs a large number of naval platforms.”
Tangredi’s conclusion is based on history, which is the best teacher. He studied the outcomes of 28 wars that involved significant naval clashes, including the Peloponnesian Wars, the Punic Wars, Rome’s civil wars, Anglo-Spanish and Anglo-Dutch-French wars, the Seven Years’ War, the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, the Opium Wars, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, World Wars I and II, and the Cold War. In all but three of the 28 naval clashes, the nation with superior numbers won.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/06/10/american_sea_power_in_the_asia-pacific_939895.html
