Soldiers shout as they practice in temperatures of about minus 22 degrees in Heilongjiang province, December 16, 2014.
In the U.S. military, at least, the "pivot" to Asia has begun. By 2020, the navy and the air force plan to base 60 percent of their forces in the Asia-Pacific region. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is investing a growing share of its shrinking resources in new long-range bombers and nuclear-powered submarines designed to operate in high-threat environments.
These changes are clearly meant to check an increasingly assertive China. And with good reason: Beijing's expanding territorial claims threaten virtually every country along what is commonly known as "the first island chain," encompassing parts of Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan—all of which Washington is obligated to protect. But to reliably deter Chinese aggression, the Pentagon will have to go even further. Emerging Chinese capabilities are intended to blunt Washington's ability to provide military support to its allies and partners. Although deterrence through the prospect of punishment, in the form of air strikes and naval blockades, has a role to play in discouraging Chinese adventurism, Washington's goal, and that of its allies and partners, should be to achieve deterrence through denial—to convince Beijing that it simply cannot achieve its objectives with force.
Leveraging the latent potential of U.S., allied, and partner ground forces, Washington can best achieve this objective by establishing a series of linked defenses along the first island chain—an "Archipelagic Defense"—and, in so doing, deny Beijing the ability to achieve its revisionist aims through aggression or coercion."©
THE RISKS OF REVISIONISM
China wants to slowly but inexorably shift the regional military balance in its favor.
China claims that its rise is intended to be peaceful, but its actions tell a different story: that of a revisionist power seeking to dominate the western Pacific. Beijing has claimed sovereignty over not only Taiwan but also Japan's Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands) and most of the 1.7 million square miles that make up the East China and South China Seas, where six other countries maintain various territorial and maritime claims. And it has been unapologetic about pursuing those goals. In 2010, for example, China's then foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, dismissed concerns over Beijing's expansionism in a single breath, saying, "China is a big country, and other countries are small countries, and that is just a fact.""©
Consider Beijing's recent bullying in the South China Sea. In March 2014, Chinese coast guard boats blocked the Philippines from accessing its outposts on the Spratly Islands. Two months later, China moved an oil rig into Vietnam's exclusive economic zone, clashing with Vietnamese fishing boats. The moves echoed earlier incidents in the East China Sea. In September 2010, as punishment for detaining a Chinese fishing boat captain who had rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels, China temporarily cut off its exports to Japan of rare-earth elements, which are essential for manufacturing cell phones and computers. And in November 2013, China unilaterally declared an "air defense identification zone," subject to its own air traffic regulations, over the disputed Senkaku Islands and other areas of the East China Sea, warning that it would take military action against aircraft that refused to comply."©