Share This Article

Our pivot to the Pacific is nothing new.

Two related developments concerning our military engagement in the Pacific theater leave historians and strategists shaking their heads: The announced doctrine (that isn’t really a doctrine), AirSea Battle, for our Air Force and Navy, and the announcement that our security focus will“pivot”to the Far East. The first involves the wildest mismatch between ambitions and capabilities in our military history, while the second really was news – in 1856.

Start with the history: While the fledgling U.S. Navy soon visited the Far East to show the flag on behalf of “Yankee traders,” the first hint of a strategic pivot came in 1853, when Commodore Perry’s flotilla began the “opening” of Japan (which would prove a mixed blessing). The massive pivot, of course, began in 1898, with the Spanish-American War, the conquest of the Philippines, and our entanglement in the Boxer Rebellion. At that point, we were not only engaged, but married to the Far East.

We’ve never gotten divorced. When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th 1941, half of our warships were in the Pacific, even though our Navy was actively engaged in convoy-escort duty in the North Atlantic. And the tonnage and firepower in the Pacific were far greater, with an immense concentration in Hawaii.

That was just the beginning. Out of the wreckage of Battleship Row rose the mightiest fleet in history.

Another “pivot” came in 1950, with the Korean War, followed by Vietnam and Nixon’s trip to China (another mixed blessing). Throughout those decades, our military maintained an impressive presence in Japan, South Korea and, until Washington and Manila engaged in mutual folly, in the Philippines. Then there are U.S. possessions, such as Guam, and the mid-ocean state of Hawaii, as well as longstanding military treaties. Raw numbers of vessels, aircraft or troops have fluctuated, but we certainly never left.

Now politicians with no grasp of our own history present a pivot to East Asia as something utterly new – a position that must mystify East Asians. At bottom, this policy smacks of a hoped-for retreat from elsewhere – at a time when the dramatic increase in our naval presence isn’t off the coast of China, but around the Persian Gulf.

This isn’t to say that refreshed attention to the Far East isn’t useful, only that a bumper-sticker slogan isn’t a strategy.

Although our leaders dare not say it, the obvious potential threat in East Asia is China, and that behemoth is the pivot’s primary focus. That brings us to the profoundly dishonest AirSea Battle concept, which is no more than a justification for buying what our Air Force and Navy already intended to buy before the current budget crisis.

As a former Soldier, I believe that the United States remains, first and foremost, a maritime power, and that sea power must, indeed, work in tandem with air power. But our Navy has to stop preparing to re-fight the Battle of Midway. AirSea Battle won’t work against China for a host of reasons, the salient being that our carriers could not approach close enough to China to launch aircraft and survive (our naval planners worry about the vulnerability of our carriers to attacks from Iran, a third-rate power). And both our Navy and Air Force are intent on buying the F-35, a troubled short-range fighter-bomber that could not effectively reach Chinese targets from any survivable airbase or vessel – and which can only deliver a tiny payload. We’re buying sprinters when we need marathon runners.

Our wisest military leaders managed to officially kill the “Effects-based Operations,” or EBO, concept, yet it remains the de facto doctrine of an Air Force and Navy out of new ideas. But the EBO premise that we could force China to surrender by pinpoint strikes on the right three telephone poles in Shanghai ignores every possible lesson of military history. If we ever have to fight China, we would need to inflict massive damage and mount a strategic blockade. AirSea Battle isn’t a war-making concept; it’s a procurement campaign.

Watch: Will our ballyhooed pivot to the Pacific survive a looming war in the Persian Gulf?

Crisis Watch Bottom Line: Our political leaders don’t know our history and our flag officers ignore it, while our defense industry, not strategists, shapes our military.

 

 Ralph Peters is a longtime member of the “Armchair General” team; a retired Army officer and former enlisted man; a media commentator; and the author of 29 books, including works on strategy, military thrillers, the recent bestseller “Cain at Gettysburg,” and the forthcoming “Hell or Richmond,” a novel of the Overland Campaign of 1864.

Originally published in the March 2013 issue of Armchair General.