The U.S. Navy and China's Anti-Access Bubble

By 1914, artillery, machine guns, and ammunition were relatively cheap and could blow gaping, irreplaceable holes in enemy ranks. World War I and the advent of industrial age warfare brought an end to massed troop formations associated with Napoleonic warfare and the American Civil War, with the use of massed artillery and machine guns. Today the United States Navy faces a different but similar economy of force problem around China. Long-range precision missiles, including China’s ‘carrier killer’ DF-21D and the DF-26B Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ABSMs), have created an anti-access bubble around the South China Sea, beyond the striking distance of U.S. carrier deployed aircraft, if they stay outside of China’s missile threat ring.

Adapting the current force construct to today’s threat is vital before our enemies make our biggest, most expensive military assets obsolete. Carriers are still great tools for power projection and deterrence, two critical missions for the Joint Force. However, in a modern naval conflict, aircraft carriers are also large targets for a near-peer enemy to attack – especially with their large electronic, acoustical and optical signatures. Fortunately, the Navy can also look to its past for relevant ways of countering these new threats.

In World War II, the Japanese named the U.S. Navy P.T. Boats “devil boats," and the name was subsequently popularized in the media. They were fast, small, maneuverable, and could be stealthy, slipping into areas where the enemy would least expect. This similar vessel construct could make a strategic impact on eating away at China’s “cabbage strategy.” With dozens to hundreds of these vessels in China’s back yard, their collection requirements would become much more challenging while U.S. ease of access becomes much less complicated.

With new technological developments, small, long-range vessels, including unmanned surface vessels (USVs), unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs), or minimally manned vessels could operate under the umbrella of China’s ‘carrier killer’ missiles while simultaneously be much more of an acceptable risk to lose, while bringing strategic capabilities to bear. Modified with new technology and employed in squadrons of varying size and capability, within the concept of the Navy’s Composite Warfare Doctrine, these vessels could present China with the strategic problem of not being able to track large numbers of them. These small vessels could handle numerous strategic missions including hunting enemy submarines and surface ships, provide anti-aircraft and anti-missile cover, conduct freedom of navigation operations, be augmented by unmanned aerial systems (UAS), provide forward logistical support, or put Marines ashore in equipped to support many of the same naval missions.

With dozens or hundreds of vessels like these, China would be forced to significantly increase its collection activities while these ships allow the joint force to play a shuffle game or assets. A shallow draft and low signature would make these vessels able to stealthily bring small Marine units ashore across numerous atolls or islands to conduct Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations (EABO). Coordinated carefully with the Navy, these EABO could then establish additional strategic assets to disrupt and tear open the jaws of the enemy’s anti-access bubble with strategic anti-ship missiles and anti-air capabilities, while supporting forward air refueling.

Here’s the good news: this is achievable for a fraction of the price of the ‘too big to fail’ carriers that are incredibly vulnerable under (and potentially near) China’s anti-access bubble. What is essential is any asset risked under the umbrella of China’s long-range precision missiles, be an economically acceptable loss compared to the number of missiles and resources China would have to expend to sink one. Construction costs on smaller vessels could be kept low; vastly increased speed, range, and fuel consumption of the ships could be achieved. At the same time, they could be big enough to be outfitted with strategic assets, like cruise missiles. With multiple dozens or hundreds of these light vessels, China will have a new strategic challenge that would greatly complicate the maintenance of its anti-access bubble.

The counter-argument here is that one vessel may not be capable of defending itself against submarine, surface, and aerial threats all by itself. However, by distributing assets and forces across many small ships, the loss of one vessel is relatively insignificant, and when employed in squadrons of various sizes and capabilities, they could easily meet enemy threats. Working in conjunction with Marines to put them ashore at strategic locations in the area of operations, the Navy could measurably disrupt any long-range precision fires.

For the leadership in World War I and World War II, tanks and aircraft were not a one-size-fits-all solution, but like the tank in World War I, this course of action provides a reasonable level of economically sustainable survivability against multi-million dollar long-range precision missiles. As previously stated, the threat of China's long-range precision fires is avoidable in conflict, but in any conflict, we must maintain the ability to penetrate any enemy's long-range precision fires.

Robert Clifford is an active duty United States Marine Corps infantry officer with extensive maritime and operational-level planning experience as well as being an avid reader of the military operational art.