The ABCs of A2/AD

Much of the current debate about the U.S. Navy’s surface force has been about the number of ships we need.  Almost none of it, however, has focused on the fact that Russian and Chinese Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities will effectively deny the Navy the ability to bring our carriers, amphibious forces and surface combatants into action.  Dense Russian anti-air and anti-surface systems based in Kaliningrad pose a formidable barrier to U.S. and NATO naval operations in the Baltic Sea (already a crucial area whose importance will grow larger if Sweden and Finland enter NATO).  Similarly, Chinese A2/AD systems based on the Chinese mainland and on the artificial islands Xi promised never to militarize pose a barrier to U.S. and allied naval operations in the South China Sea. If we are to bring our maritime might to bear in either theater, the A2/AD defenses must be reduced first.  The relatively short legs of naval tactical air (compared to the Russia and Chinese air defenses) tend to rule these out as the answer.  At the same time, the sophistication of the air defenses argue against Tomahawk as the weapon of choice, as does its relatively long time of flight (which was not a factor in Iraq but could be against a sophisticated enemy).

If “Integrated Deterrence” has any meaning, it begins with coordinated multi-service efforts to serve the national interest.  Deterrence requires a credible war-fighting capability which makes clear to potential enemy leaders that the costs of aggression will outweigh their hoped-for gains.  A deterrent which arrives in theater too late to halt aggression is a failed deterrent.  And a surface force, however large, which cannot enter the theater of operations is of small value.

On a final note, and to be the subject of a future op-ed, it is incumbent on DoD to review and reverse its cancellation of SLCM-N.   The Administration’s purported rationale as it made its decisions in late 2021 was that cancellation would contribute to its goal of “reducing the role of nuclear weapons”.  The constant nuclear saber-rattling by Vladimir Putin and his sycophantic cohort, Kim Jong- un’s similar rhetoric and missile tests, and the continued frenzied pace of Chinese strategic nuclear force build-up make clear that this element of the Administration’s policy has not succeeded.  SLCM-N’s cancellation contributed to encouraging these adverse outcomes, and it has simultaneously increased allied concerns about the extended deterrent – particularly in the Pacific.  Course corrections are difficult politically, but it is incumbent on policymakers to recognize when an initiative has failed (as this so clearly has) and must be altered.

Franklin C. Miller served for three decades as a senior nuclear policy and arms control official in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council staff.