Offshore Control is the Answer | U.S. Naval Institute
The summary of Offshore Control is a naval blockade of China into submission; this is made possible because China's surrounded by enemies.
In the highly unlikely event of conflict with China, the United States needs a strategy that plays to its strengths, minimizes the risks of nuclear escalation, and limits physical destruction.
Looming budget cuts require the United States to consider a military strategy for the Asia-Pacific that could significantly reduce the cost of maintaining U.S. influence and presence in the region. Currently, the United States is executing a strategic rebalancing to Asia without a corresponding military strategy to guide imminent military procurement and force-structure decisions. The challenge is to achieve peacetime savings while leaving the United States well postured to influence the region in peacetime and defend its interests in war.
A proposed alternative strategy is offshore control, or OC for the purposes of this article. Unlike the British concept of offshore balancing, the OC strategy does not assume we could maintain an ally on the mainland that could challenge Chinas ground power. Rather, it partners with Asia-Pacific nations to ensure the U.S. ability to interdict Chinas energy and raw-material imports and industrial exports while protecting those nations.
Offshore control would deny China the use of the sea inside the first island chain, at the same time defend those islands, and dominate the air and sea outside that theater. It envisions a stand-off military campaign focusing on a war of economic strangulation rather than on penetrating Chinese airspace to physically destroy its infrastructure. It seeks to force China to fight in ways that maximize U.S. strengths while minimizing Chinas. In essence, OC provides a strategic context for an operational approach that goes beyond Air-Sea Battle to use the U.S. geographical advantage to maximize the effectiveness of a campaign using our air, sea, and land assets.
This approach seeks to match required capabilities to reduced U.S. defense resources while simultaneously neutralizing much of Chinas investment in anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD), forcing it to spend significantly more to defeat offshore control.
Obviously, the OC strategy is in its infancy and requires a rigorous examination for feasibility at the political, strategic, operational, and tactical levels. This article offers only a quick and basic overview of the issues.
While the isolation of China would devastate the world economy, any major Sino-U.S. conflict would do so as well. However, geography and the maritime nature of global trade means the rest of the world economy could rebuild around the perimeter, while China has little prospect of rebuilding via a new Silk Road. Although clearly not as positive as peacetime trade, that strategy sets conditions that favor the United States in an extended conflict. Further, by not destroying Chinese infrastructure, it facilitates restoration of global trade after the conflict. While we may not like it, the economic reality is that increased global prosperity relies heavily on increased Chinese prosperity.
Because the concept is transparent, plans can be made and nations and corporations informed of the U.S. plans and procedures for boarding and escorting shipping as well as making arrangements for cargos bound for China to be resold and delivered to areas outside the exclusion zone. This would reduce the strategic uncertainty early in the conflict. Further, if the United States chose to escalate into a penetration campaign it could do so.
Operationally, offshore control establishes a set of concentric rings: 1) Deny China the use of the sea inside the first island chain; 2) Defend the sea and air space there; 3) Dominate the air and maritime space outside the island chain. There would be no campaign to penetrate Chinese airspace. Eliminating penetration reduces the possibility of nuclear escalation, greatly reduces the cost of forces necessary to execute the strategy and makes war termination easier. (If China suffers little direct internal damage, the Communist Party leadership would be able to terminate the war yet save face with a We taught them a lesson declarationas they have in previous conflicts.)
The deny portion of the campaign would play to U.S. strengths by employing primarily attack submarines, mines, and a limited number of air assets inside the first island chain.
The defend portion would use A2/AD concepts to protect U.S. allies. The United States could bring the full range of its assets to defend allied soiland should encourage allies to contribute to that defense. It flips the geographic advantage by forcing China to fight at longer ranges while allowing U.S. and allied forces to fight as an integrated air-sea defense over the allies own territories. Since that would rely heavily on land-based air defense and short-range sea defense to include counter-mine capability, we can encourage potential partners to invest in those capabilities and exercise together regularly in peacetime. OC also reverses the financial imposition because it would cost China more to defeat this strategy than it would cost the United States and its allies to execute it.
The primary advantages of an offshore control strategy are:
Increased deterrence and assurance due to the feasibility and transparency of the concept.
Lower probability of nuclear escalation because the United States does not conduct strikes on mainland China.
Higher probability of allowing China to declare victory and end the conflict much as it did in Korea, its invasion of Vietnam, and in border conflicts with Russia and India.
Lower peacetime cost to maintain U.S. capabilities to fight such a campaign, which increases its deterrent effect.
China would be forced to fight at the extreme range of its weapon systems.
It plays to U.S. strengthsnaval power (submarines and sea control in particular) while avoiding Chinas massed defenses.
Reduced cost to the United States to maintain the capabilities necessary to execute this approach.
U.S. ground forces could contribute major capabilities by intercepting and controlling major ships.
The summary of Offshore Control is a naval blockade of China into submission; this is made possible because China's surrounded by enemies.
