Active Defense
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.”
The Quad
American foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region
One of the most important goals of American foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region is to retain and grow our alliances in order to contain China’s aggressive rise.
The key nation-states are Australia, India and Japan. These three alone will go a long way in allowing for the forward deployment of American military forces throughout the region. In addition, the armed forces of these countries would give America crucial support in any armed conflict with China. The Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam should be added to this list to help ensure an open South China Sea and to control the existing ocean gap that currently allows China to move their naval forces far out in the Western Pacific and directly threaten the American homeland, especially Hawaii. It should also be stated that these Indo-Pacific countries could not balance against China without the aid of America. These nation-states need America as much as America needs them.
China’s Unprecedented Growth
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.