If the Chinese navy sorties and tries to break out into the Pacific, it could get ugly for the PLAN.
While pundits and policymakers in Washington lock horns over a new strategic direction to counter China, the Department of Defense (DoD) is quietly working to blunt the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) advance into the Pacific Ocean. The plan is simple: work with allies and partners throughout the Pacific region to maintain America’s military presence and limit the PLA’s operational capacity therein.
The Pentagon’s strategy isn’t a grand plan to collapse the regime in Beijing. Rather, it’s a practical recognition of the PLA’s growing capabilities and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) appetite for global domination, as well as the actual barriers that stand in China’s way. Geography plays a key role here, for the Pacific Ocean is most unfavorable to China, hemming it in with successive land barriers, or island chains, as defense planners call them. Holding these island chains won’t save America from great power competition, but it would certainly constrain China’s advance.
I'm fully on board that approach:
If China starts a war, it will surge with its initial advantages of force and surprise. Let's make sure we don't have to fall back to Hawaii before pushing back in earnest. Let's get those bases while we can do it cheaply in blood.
I will say that if American forces have access to a lot of islands that my concerns about unarmed light amphibious warships declines a lot.
Although it would make sense to airlift anti-ship coastal defense units in those friendly areas, wouldn't it? So my concerns about LAW design remain.
