Active Defense

Active Defense is defined as tactical offense and strategic defense.

For several years, through its anti-access, area-denial approach in the South China Sea, China has been engaged in Active Defense with the intent to deter, delay and ultimately defeat any opposing military force. It could be argued that China now has the capability to keep the American and allied navies, including their aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and logistic vessels (tankers and store ships) far from the First Island Chain by utilizing anti-ship and air defense cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles fired from surface ships, submarines (including torpedoes), minefields, manned and unmanned aircraft, shore based and inland mobile rocket batteries, electronic warfare and cyberattacks. 

In fact today it is very possible that China can do what it wants in this littoral sea-space of the Western Pacific. If the Chinese prove that they can control the South China Sea it would be much harder to displace them from this region that includes various sovereign island nation-states. America and its allies learned this lesson during the Second World War in the Pacific when many long and costly battles were fought to take back numerous contested islands from the Imperial Japanese. 

China’s potential control over the region also means that America and its allies need to find a way to protect Taiwan if and when China attacks. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the reunification of Taiwan a centerpiece of his presidency and we may have already lost the initiative because of the lack of foresight and preparation over the past U.S. government administrations. However, the democratic world has a moral and ethical obligation to prevent China’s use of Active Defense to crush a sovereign democratic nation of 23 million people currently living under freedom. 

We must also consider the strategic importance of Taiwan to the world. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world’s largest producer of microchips controlling 51% of the global market. Its next largest competitor accounts for less than 19%. Microchips are used in almost every piece of modern technology and TSMC is also only one of two companies capable of producing the most cutting edge microchips which are a key component in the latest computer processors, graphics cards and smartphones. Therefore, if China were able to take control of Taiwan, it would also gain control of TSMC and effectively gain control of the 21st century’s most important commodity of technology. The significance of this is best summed up by Stanford University historian Niall Ferguson who, when analyzing the importance of Taiwan to the United States and China, stated: “He who rules Taiwan rules the world.”

China’s Unprecedented Growth

The American public must always keep the following in mind. It was just forty years ago in 1979 that the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping changed the course of history and put China, then a poverty-stricken land, on the path to great wealth and power. Since Deng’s revolution, China’s economy has grown more than tenfold and now is only second to America’s. When Deng took over the Chinese Communist regime its economy was only 10 percent of the American economy.

Today it is well over 80 percent. Other statistics are just as intimidating. China is now the world’s largest exporter and the largest producer of agricultural products. It leads the world in overall industrial production and also has the largest labor force in the world. This rapid economic growth has enabled China to build one of the most powerful armed forces on Earth and there is no end in sight to their global ambitions. To contain China, America will have to muster all of its strength and resolve.

An Historical Analogy

The Danger Of An EMP Attack

An electromagnetic pulse or EMP attack is rarely discussed, but it might be our most threatening reality, and this type of nuclear attack could come at any time.

China, Russia and North Korea all have the capability of launching such an attack. If they did, such an attack would result in the agonizing death of millions of Americans.

So what exactly is an EMP attack. The simple explanation is that it is a short burst of electromagnetic energy as the result of a high-altitude nuclear explosion. If such a targeted explosion were to occur above the American homeland, it would probably destroy our entire electrical grid system leaving the country without electricity. This loss of our electrical infrastructure would result in the mass starvation of our people and the collapse of our society.

To quote from the EMP Commission Report:

“Electrical power is necessary to support…critical infrastructures, including supply and distribution of water, food, fuel, communications, transport, financial transactions, emergency services, government services, and all other infrastructures supporting the national economy and welfare.  Should significant parts of the electric power be lost for any substantial period of time, the Commission believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic, and many people may ultimately die for lack of the basic elements necessary to sustain life in dense urban and suburban communities.”

“Water and its system of supply is a vital infrastructure…(EMP) can damage or disrupt the infrastructure that supplies water to the population, agriculture, and industry of the United States…By disrupting the water infrastructure, an EMP attack could pose a major threat to life, industrial activity, and social order.  Denial of water can cause death in 3 to 4 days, depending on the climate and level of activity. People are likely to resort to drinking from lakes, streams, ponds, and other sources of surface water.

Most surface water, especially in urban areas, is contaminated with wastes and pathogens and could cause serious illness if consumed. If water treatment and sewage plants cease operating, the concentration of wastes in surface water will certainly increase dramatically and make the risks of consuming surface water more hazardous. Demoralization and deterioration of social order can be expected to deepen if a water shortage is protracted.  Anarchy will certainly loom if government cannot supply the population with enough water to preserve health and life.”

“An EMP attack that disrupts the food infrastructure could pose a threat to life, industrial activity, and social order.  Absolute deprivation of food, on average, will greatly diminish a person’s capacity for physical work within a few days. After 4 to 5 days without food, the average person will suffer from impaired judgment and have difficulty performing simple intellectual tasks”

After two weeks without food, the average person will be virtually incapacitated. Death typically results after 1 or 2 months without food. Social order likely would decay if a food shortage were protracted. A government that cannot supply the population with enough food to preserve health and life could face anarchy.

Blackouts of electric grids caused by storms or accidents have destroyed food supplies. An EMP attack that damages the power grid and denies electricity to warehouses or that directly damages refrigeration and temperature control systems could destroy most of the 30-day regional perishable food supply. Blackouts also have disrupted transportation systems and impeded the replenishment of local food supplies.”

“Massive traffic jams are most likely in large cities, the very areas where rapid replenishment of the food supply at hundreds of supermarkets will be needed most urgently. Significantly, recent famines in the developing world have occurred, despite massive relief efforts by the international community, in large part because food relief could not reach victim populations through their underdeveloped transportation infrastructure.”

An EMP attack could, in effect, temporarily create in the United States the technological conditions in the food and transportation infrastructures that have resulted in developing world famines.”

In other words, America as we know it, would no longer exist!

Why are we are doing practically nothing to prevent this very real threat to our civilization?

The Failure Of Appeasement

One of the most deceptive and coercive strategies that Imperial China is using is called ‘salami slicing’.

This simply means China tends to take what seems to be small steps in carrying out its aggressive military moves.

This is what China has done in the South China Sea by building and taking control of its artificial islands in a way just short of causing a military conflict. The fact that America and especially its Asian allies and friends are allowing this to happen is a very tragic mistake. There is really no difference in small aggressions from big aggressions.

The danger in allowing China to do just what they want is that it encourages the Chinese Communist regime to continue taking over territory that does not belong to them. Let’s not forget the mistake of the infamous Munich agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to devour a part of free and independent Czechoslovakia. That succeeded in wetting the appetite of Adolph Hitler and encouraged that evil dictator to soon consume almost all of Europe. To appease an enemy is never a good idea. How many times do we need to learn the same lesson.

The Importance Of Military Planning

The U.S. military is often ahead of the public when it comes to understanding the reality of the threat of war.

Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, most of the American public did not want to hear about the approach of major armed conflict. The people were still in the grip of a severe economic depression, jobs were scarce, and many Americans felt that they had enough of their own personal problems to overcome. Luckily, at least some of our military planned for the eventuality of war.

One primary example was our Navy which developed a strategy for war in the Pacific against Japan. This planning proved to be very helpful when that conflict did eventuate.

Today, America is unfortunately repeating the past. The American public is basically tired of warfare, with the country having fought continuous wars in the Middle East for many years and to no avail. The people are not yet distinguishing between these localized wars and the war that could be about to emerge. A war that would involve every aspect of American life. In other words, a major war with a peer-adversary such as China. Luckily, once again, our military does understand the threat and is planning for this possibility.

Hopefully, the American public will also soon recognize the threat.

Dividing The World

In December 1941, as the Second World War in the Pacific broke out, Japan issued a statement that defined its intentions in the Indo-Asia-Pacific regions of the world.

It was to have most of Siberia, all of China, most of India and all of Southeast Asia. Furthermore, Japan was to conquer and hold Australia, New Zealand and all of the islands in the Pacific.

Additionally, if the war went their way, they were to also own Alaska, the western provinces of Canada, the U.S. state of Washington, all of Central America, the islands of the Caribbean, Ecuador, Columbia, western Venezuela, Peru and Chile. Nazi Germany was to have much of what was left of the world including the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

The question today is, if we do have a Third World War, what plans would China and possibly Russia have for the world, if they could get away with it.

Brave New World – With Chinese Characteristics

Possibly the most insidious aspect of China’s Communist Party is its focus on mind-control.

Make no mistake about it, China is intent on creating a world not unlike that of the novels Brave New World and 1984 where individual freedom did not exist. Similar to brain washing, the CCP is conducting what it calls ‘patriotic education’ in an effort to build what it refers to as a ‘socialist spiritual civilization’ where loyalty is not to the country or its citizens but to the Communist regime itself.

Chinese leaders want to be sure that all of their people recognize the Party as the sole source of political authority and in the tradition of double speak, China calls this ideology ‘socialist democracy’ which of course just means dictatorship by President Xi. China is cracking down on what it calls ‘violations of virtuous behavior’ among its teachers and students to make sure that the future belongs to a repressive China. This includes any negative reference to the authority of the party or its system of socialism. Marx, Lenin, and Mao must be smiling from their graves. This form of communism has led to the deaths of literally millions of innocent people.

If China continues to grow and is able to dominate the world, China’s version of the world will be our future. Thousands of years of the evolution of liberal democracy will end and we will surely live in the Dark Ages again. America is the only country that can lead the way in stopping this ideological disease from spreading. This is our historic duty. It’s time now to recognize this reality before it is too late.

Is History About To Repeat Itself

We may be again entering a very dangerous historic period when great power competition turned into war.

Between the interwar years after the First World War and the beginning of the Second World War, America did not feel the threat level emerging until it was almost too late. Today, after the end of the Cold War, the American public and its allies are not feeling the level of threat or the likelihood of war that is emerging with a number of near-peer adversaries. The American people again, to their security risk, are repeating the time of the interwar period where America and its allies were slow to recognize the developing danger.

A defense document specifically states that “China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea. Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors. North Korea’s outlaw actions and reckless rhetoric continue despite United Nation’s censure and sanctions. Iran continues to sow violence and remains the most significant challenge to Middle East stability.”

It is now more important than ever that we encourage and strengthen our support for our military and the defense industry in relation to these emerging threats.