The tyranny of distance isn't the only problem to defeat in INDOPACOM. Believing distance is the scope of the problem could lead America to solving the problem of projecting force into the western Pacific where it then loses the war. The tyranny of the shores awaits America at the other side of the ocean.
The U.S. faces a tyranny of distance in dealing with the Pacific. As one Admiral put it to me: “In effect, the Indo-Pacific sea space is the equivalent of three Atlantic Oceans.”
Projecting from the United States, American forces need to generate force from the United States and then from a strategic triangle going from Hawaii to Guam and to Japan. And then the American forces need to project force into in a strategic quadrangle which reaches from Japan to South Korea, to Singapore and to Australia.
If we are dealing with the Pacific, why add in the Indian Ocean to magnify its size?
First off, the tyranny of distance is real. It is correct that staging power from the continental United States to intermediate bases in Japan, Guam, and Hawaii in order to fight closer to China in the first island chain requires a lot of sea and air logistics capabilities. Much more than America has now after relying on a few peacetime hubs since the Cold War was won.
But treating the vastness of even just the Pacific as the scope of the problem is misleading.
Overcoming the tyranny of distance isn't the end. It's the means. And focusing on the ability to promptly strike targets in that quadrangle is just part of the means. Once the tyranny of distance is overcome to project forces and fires into that strategic quadrangle, the tyranny of the shores, as I described in Military Review, will demand fealty.
There is a reason that the strategic triangle and strategic quadrangle are defined by land areas. Victory may come from the sea in INDOPACOM, but it won't be won on the seas.
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NOTE: Map from the article.
