American Naval Policy and China
By George Friedman -January 22, 2025
Editor’s note: If it feels as though the world is changing, that’s because it is. Global economic reconfiguration, demographic decline and geopolitical realignment have fundamentally altered long-held conventional political wisdom, perhaps nowhere more markedly than in the United States. Like all countries, the U.S. is mutable. But unlike most others, changes there have global consequences. The situation in America signals a break in the natural process of a country. America has surprised the world many times, and it is doing so again. The following essay is the third in a series by George Friedman seeking to explain why that’s the case.
Though U.S.-China naval tensions are by no means a new development, they are vital to any understanding of American behavior on the global stage.
Partly this is because the United States is one of the most well-protected countries in the world. It is situated firmly in the middle of North America – a vast landmass buttressed by oceans – and, as such, cannot be readily attacked from the ground. The northern approach to the United States is from Canada, and the southern approach is from Mexico. Neither has the social or military power to invade the United States. The biggest threats to America have always come from the seas. U.S. intervention in both world wars was designed to block Germany from building a fleet that could threaten U.S. maritime power (as the U-boats had in both conflicts). During World War II, the naval effort dwarfed the ground effort until the war was well underway. But the invasion of Europe and the isolation of Japan were both naval actions.
China’s geography differs dramatically. Its east coast, large though it may be, is hemmed in by island chains. These chains, which include sovereign states as well as disputed territories, are a blessing and a curse: They can hinder the maritime trade on which China’s economy relies, but they can also, if prepared and powered sufficiently, interdict U.S. naval forces, even to the point of controlling the seas between China and the United States. Washington’s fundamental interest is preventing this from happening, so it has developed the capability to deploy fleets to block China’s access to the sea. So far, this limited action has satisfied U.S. interests; the Chinese navy has not sortied en masse to challenge the U.S., and U.S. allies, particularly Australia, strengthen its position in the South China Sea. Even so, as was the case in both world wars, the ability to hold the Pacific is critical. (It was Japan’s attempts to employ this same strategy that led to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.)
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