China appears to have very ambitious plans for creating and fortifying bases in the South China Sea:
Nextbigfuture makes the obvious observation that China will modernize its dregger fleet and triple dredging capacity again over the next 15 years. China will spend $2 to 4 billion per year on better ships and on operations to build islands.
The Paracel Islands are a chain of some 130 tiny features. China will likely building up dozens into islands with airports, missile facilities and ports.
Mind you, that's Nextbigfuture's prediction based on dredging capabilities and interpretations of Chinese statements, and not a Chinese announcement.
But it is not a far-fetched conclusion. China has proven that building and fortifying islands is possible and may have the ambition to do far more.
Which means that the United States Marine Corps could face a smaller-scale version of their Pacific island hopping campaign in World War II.
But rather than infrequent major assaults on heavily defended islands, the Marines might face lots of small island garrison requiring smaller forces to assault.
Which means that the Marines might need smaller armed transports (that's behind a firewall--basically I call for smaller armed transports to carry company-sized Marine elements) to take and garrison the smallest islands (and to swarm the larger--but still small--bases).
Remember too that just like the World War II campaign, the Marines (and allied contingents from Australia and Japan, for example) won't need to take over 50 fortified islands in the South China Sea to deny China control. Select islands will need to be taken and turned into allied bases while the rest can be bombed into ineffectiveness and left isolated to die--as long as American-led naval and air power can control the seas, of course.
Still, the skills and equipment needed to storm the beaches and drive inland won't apply when there is no beach to hit and no inland to reach. The Navy and Marines will need to practice how to suppress the defenses of such bases in order to land troops right into the teeth of shooting defenders who have no room to retreat.
That excessive Chinese claim for control of the South China Sea is why China's apparent ambition is a problem. I honestly wouldn't care--for purposes of peacetime usage of the region--if China purchased every island and land feature from every other claimant in honestly voluntary negotiations if China didn't illegally use that control to claim control of nearly all of the South China Sea and end its status as an international waterway.
