STRANGLEHOLD: THE CONTEXT, CONDUCT
AND CONSEQUENCES OF AN AMERICAN NAVAL BLOCKADE OF CHINA
BySean Mirski
FEBRUARY 12, 2013
SUMMARY
In an all-out war with China, the United States could impose
a naval blockade to pressure Beijing with minimal risk.
ABSTRACT
The mounting challenge posed by China’s military
modernization has highlighted the need for the United States to analyze its
ability to execute a naval blockade. A blockade strategy is viable, but it
would be limited to a narrow context: the United States would have to be
engaged in a protracted conflict over vital interests, and it would need the
support of key regional powers. The United States would also need to implement
a mix between a close and distant blockade in order to avoid imperiling the
conflict’s strategic context. If enacted, a blockade could exact a ruinous cost
on the Chinese economy and state.
INTRODUCTION
Since World War II, the United States has aimed to preserve
military primacy in the Asia-Pacific region. Rather than using this ascendancy
for expansionist purposes, the United States sought to maintain regional
stability through deterrence. For over five decades, its forces largely
preserved command over the global commons in the pursuit of this mission. Even
to this day, the United States remains the region’s most powerful military
actor. But American military dominance is steadily eroding thanks to the
breakneck pace of China’s military modernization, and, as a result, the
military balance in the region is shifting.1 Since the mid-1990s, the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) has been in the process of creating a formidable
anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) complex in China’s near seas.2 As China
continues to upgrade its A2/AD system, it presents a serious and sustained
challenge to the United States’ operational access to the region. In wartime,
some American forces may initially be prevented from operating in China’s near
seas. Even in peacetime, China’s A2/AD complex arguably attenuates the United
States’ ability to defend its interests and its allies from potential Chinese
coercion, and with it, the American-organized system of deterrence and regional
stability.
The mounting challenge presented by China’s military
modernization has led the United States to review existing military strategies
and to conceptualize new ones. In the universe of possible strategies, the idea
of a naval blockade deserves greater scrutiny. By prosecuting a naval blockade,
the United States would leverage China’s intense dependence on foreign trade—particularly
oil—to debilitate the Chinese state. A carefully-organized blockade could thus
serve as a powerful instrument of American military power that contributes to
overcoming the pressing challenge of China’s A2/AD system. A blockade could
also provide the United States with several gradations of escalation control
and be easily paired with alternate military strategies.3
Even if a blockade is never executed, its viability would
still impact American and Chinese policies for deterrence reasons. The United
States’ regional strategy is predicated on the belief that a favorable military
balance deters attempts to change the status quo by force, thus reassuring
allies and upholding strategic stability. The viability of a blockade
influences this calculus, and can accordingly affect American and Chinese
actions—both military and non-military—that are based on perceptions of it. If
a naval blockade is a feasible strategy, it strengthens the American system of
deterrence and dilutes any potential attempts by China to coerce the United
States or its allies. Moreover, if a blockade’s viability can be clearly
enunciated, it would also enhance crisis stability and dampen the prospects of
escalation due to misunderstandings—on either side—about the regional balance
of power.
Yet despite the importance of understanding the viability of
a blockade, the existing literature on the subject is remarkably sparse,
circumscribed, and inconclusive.4While scholars of regional security affairs
often reference their disparate beliefs about the possibility of a blockade, no
consensus exists around either its strategic or operational viability. The few
studies that have been undertaken are perspicacious and refreshingly creative,
but they are limited in either their scope or detail. To date, no one has yet
carried out a comprehensive public examination of a blockade’s prospects
despite the striking implications of such a study to the Asia-Pacific military
balance, regional deterrence and stability, and American military strategy.
In part, a blockade strategy has been overlooked because
economic warfare strategies seem inherently misguided given the close
commercial ties between China and the United States. But if a serious conflict
between the two nations erupted, then their immediate security interests would
quickly override their trade interdependence and wreak enormous economic damage
on both sides, regardless of whether a blockade were employed.
This article seeks to remedy the gap in the literature by
beginning a much-needed discussion on the viability of an American naval
blockade of China and its context, conduct, and consequences.5 While a blockade
is not a priori impossible or irrelevant in any situation, it is also not a
ready tool in the American arsenal and would be feasible mainly within certain
boundaries. First, a blockade could achieve its objectives primarily in the
context of a protracted Sino-American conflict over vital interests. Second, a
blockade’s success would depend in large part on the support of Russia, ideally
along with India and Japan. Particularly in Moscow’s case, such support is
unlikely to be forthcoming unless China begins to misbehave in a way that
unnerves its neighbors and leads them to align with the United States in order
to protect their security interests. Third, in order to avoid imperiling the
larger strategic context of the war, the United States would need to implement
a two-ring blockade that geographically separated its two primary operational
functions: differentiation and neutralization. Fourth, while a blockade would
not be able to directly degrade the PLA’s operational capability, it could
still benefit American forces by enervating the Chinese state in the context of
a larger war of exhaustion and forcing Beijing to make tough decisions over the
allocation of its limited resources.
In the first section, this article analyzes a blockade
strategy’s prerequisite strategic context, as well as the role a blockade would
play within an overall American military campaign. In the second section, the
article lays out the likely operational conduct of a two-ring blockade,
including a rough sketch of its force structure and potential Chinese
countermeasures. In the third section, some of the primary consequences of a
blockade strategy are anticipated, particularly with regards to China’s
military, economy, and society. The article concludes by briefly discussing
implications for regional stability.
THE STRATEGIC CONTEXT OF A BLOCKADE
China’s economy relies intensely on maritime trade,
especially with regards to oil imports. In keeping with its reputation as the
“world’s workshop,” China depends on imported raw materials to export finished
goods. Trade dominates China’s export-oriented economy, comprising 52.1% of
China’s GDP (of which 90% is seaborne).6 The People’s Republic is known for
being the world’s largest exporter of merchandise goods ($1.6 trillion in
2010), but it is also the world’s second largest importer of merchandise goods
($1.4 trillion in 2010) and the world’s third largest importer of natural
resources ($330 billion in 2008).7 Most strikingly, China’s energy security is
closely tied to its reliance on imported oil. In 2011, China purchased almost 60%
of its oil abroad – an astounding 5.7 million barrels per day – and it then
depended on maritime transport to bring 90% of that oil home.8 The country is
intensely and irreplaceably reliant on oil in the industrial and transportation
sectors, and will become even more so in the foreseeable future.9China’s
Achilles’ heel may well be imported oil. 10
In the context of a Sino-American war, the United States
could try to take China’s greatest national strength—its export-oriented,
booming economic growth model—and transform it into a major military weakness.
To do so, the United States would implement a naval blockade of China that
attempted to choke off most of China’s maritime trade. Under the right
conditions, the United States might be able to secure victory by debilitating
China’s economy severely enough to bring it to the negotiating table.11
However, while a blockade could apply debilitating pressure
on China, its efficacy would be limited to certain strategic contexts. A
blockade would work best in a protracted conflict over vital interests.
Moreover, its success would be inextricably linked to the allegiances of
China’s neighbors and the broader regional political context.
The Character of the Conflict
The United States could find itself embroiled with China in
an unlimited war, a limited war, or an “extensive” war that falls between the
other two poles, and out of these, it would only consider implementing a
blockade in the third, “extensive” conflict scenario. The United States will
probably never have to consider implementing a blockade in the context of an
unlimited war because such a conflict—waged by any and all means at the
belligerents’ disposal—could only arise subsequent to a total breakdown in
nuclear deterrence. Fortunately, both China and the United States would be
bounded in their wartime conduct by the prospect of horrific nuclear
escalation, which would establish an upper limit on both the means employed and
the ends pursued by either side. At the opposite extreme, the United States
would also not implement a blockade in the context of a limited conflict. In
such a war, American forces would be fighting over interests that the United
States perceived to be important, but not vital. As a result, the United States
would be reluctant to utilize a blockade strategy due to its high costs, except
perhaps as a latent strategy that deters against Chinese escalation or signals
American resolve and escalation dominance.
However, if the United States perceived that its vital
interests were at stake in a conflict, then it would be willing to shoulder
greater burdens and expend greater effort in order to win it.12 In such an
“extensive” conflict, Washington may be willing to bear higher costs—including
the cost of resisting international pressure to immediately terminate the
conflict—to the point where a blockade would become an appropriate strategy.
Equally importantly, the significance of the interests at stake would reinforce
the United States’ political will and give American leaders the domestic
political space necessary for prosecuting a longer-term conflict.
While the division between a limited and an “extensive”
conflict is an arbitrary one that is heavily conditioned by the conflict’s
context, it nevertheless usefully highlights the circumstances under which a
blockade would be a practical option. Rather than following clear
pre-determined guidelines, American policymakers would ultimately have to judge
in any given conflict scenario whether the interests at stake were sufficiently
valuable to the United States such that a blockade should be seriously
considered.
Before a blockade was implemented, the United States would
need to anticipate that it could not necessarily defeat China quickly and
decisively. Otherwise, China could rely on its domestic resource reserves and
stockpiles to wait out the blockade’s effects until the conflict drew to a
close.13 But if the United States foresaw the possibility of a protracted war,
then a blockade strategy would become more relevant because it could actually
begin to have a material impact as the conflict wore on.
An American War of Exhaustion
Given the presumed context of the conflict—especially the
improbability of decisive military victory—the United States would be forced to
pursue an overall “Fabian” strategy as part of a war of exhaustion. The
ultimate source of a country’s military strength lies in its national power,
which is rooted in its national resources and performance.15 Thus, even if the
United States completely routed China’s forces on the battlefront, China could
still indefinitely generate and project new forces from the safety of its
heartland. Hence, the United States would need to broaden its focus beyond just
the battlefield: it would have to realize that a war of exhaustion is not won
on the battlefront per se; instead, it ends only when one side’s overall
national power can no longer sustain its war effort.
A blockade could be a powerful way of conducting a war of
exhaustion because it could directly strike at the sources of China’s national
power. A blockade strategy would also allow American forces to overcome the
singular challenge posed by a Sino-American conflict: the United States would
have to win a great power war without the threat of invading Chinese territory,
a sharp departure from past conflicts when states would accelerate the collapse
of their opponents’ ability and willingness to fight by directly attacking
their territory. Of course, a blockade strategy alone would be unlikely to
provide either the material or psychological clout necessary to induce Chinese
capitulation, so the United States would only use a blockade as part of a
larger military strategy. But in conjunction with victories on the battlefront,
a blockade could wear China down more quickly and efficiently than a
battlefront strategy alone, which could only indirectly enervate the Chinese
state.
As part of a war of exhaustion, a blockade strategy would
help drive Beijing to the peace table through two potential paths.16 First, it
would weaken China's ultimate ability to prevail in the military conflict to
the point where eventual defeat becomes certain and an extension of the Chinese
war effort is a needless waste of resources. Second, by diluting the cohesion
of the Chinese state, a blockade strategy would also attempt to raise the
specter of other threats graver to Beijing than a direct military loss, which
could then compel China’s leaders to sue for peace. For instance, as Beijing
was forced to direct resources away from its internal security apparatus, it
may be confronted by the looming threat of a revolution or civil war, either of
which threatens the Chinese state more than does a declaration of military
defeat.
The Importance of Third Parties
In light of these strategic benefits, a blockade is a
potentially decisive way of applying pressure on Beijing. But while a blockade
strategy has much to endorse it as a military strategy, it also suffers from
one significant strategic shortcoming: it requires the cooperation of several
third parties.
China’s trade is borne on the seas largely as a result of
economic considerations rather than physical limitations. If Beijing were
blockaded by sea, it would turn to overland imports and the transshipment of
oil and other resources by third parties. For this reason, the success of an
American blockade would hinge on China’s ability to substitute for its lost
imports with overland shipments either bought directly from its neighbors or
transited through them from elsewhere.
Among China’s neighbors, Russia and Kazakhstan are the only
states that produce enough petroleum to dull the pain of an American blockade.
Russia is the world’s largest oil producer, and it produces enough
petroleum—over ten million barrels per day—that it could singlehandedly supply
China with enough oil for all its needs.17 Kazakhstan produces slightly less
than two million barrels per day, and could also go a long way towards
relieving a blockade.18 Admittedly, China currently only has the potential to
import roughly 500,000 barrels of oil per day via the Russian and Kazakh
pipelines. But if China’s demand for oil became sufficiently robust—as it would
in the context of a blockade—then Beijing would undoubtedly be willing to pay
the higher cost of shipping Russian and Kazakh oil via railway systems and in
trucks. While China would likely discover that infrastructural constraints
would limit the aggregate total that could be shipped, it would still be able
to recoup a large portion of its blockaded imports.
Several other Chinese neighbors might act as transit points
for goods and resources produced outside of their borders, albeit to a limited
degree. Broadly speaking, China could import through three potential
sub-regional transit routes: a Central Asian route (via either Tajikistan or
Kyrgyzstan), a Southwest Asian route (via either Afghanistan or Pakistan), and
a Southeast Asian route (via either Burma or Laos).19 In theory, Beijing could
use any country along these routes with access to the international markets as
a stepping stone for imports. However, the infrastructure associated with the
three routes was not designed to support the transportation of large quantities
of goods to China and might become overloaded by a significant increase in
imports. In particular, the Central Asia and Southwest Asian routes would be
severely hampered by the extensive mountain ranges that act as an alpine fence
dividing China from its western neighbors. Hence, these states could only
relieve China’s blockade to a limited degree.
The Regional Political Context
Given the overriding importance of third parties to the
conflict, the United States would need to create a favorable regional political
context in order to succeed. To do so, the United States would mix
political-military coercion with economic incentives to bully and cajole
China’s neighbors into imposing embargoes on China. In some cases, the United
States might be able to do so with relative ease. Countries like India and
Vietnam have a checkered military history with China, and they both fear
China’s rise as a regional hegemon. In other cases, the United States might be
willing to use military force to interdict lines of supply into China. For
instance, if Burma refused to cooperate, the United States might strike the
Sino-Burmese oil and natural gas pipeline or even extend the blockade to
Burmese ports.
More broadly, the United States would try to alter the
political calculus of China’s neighbors in an effort to convince them that
tacitly supporting the United States would align with their strategic
interests. In this regard, how states in the region apportioned blame would
matter: the blockade’s success would be critically determined by whether China
or the United States were judged as at fault for the war.20 If the war were
seen as rooted in American aggression and initiative, then the region’s states
would quickly rally to China’s defense out of fear and stymie the United
States’ efforts. If, instead, the conflict were perceived as the result of
Chinese actions, then China’s neighbors—several of which would be absolutely
central to the success of a blockade—might surge to the United States’ side.
Accordingly, alongside the active conflict, China and the United States would
simultaneously struggle over regional public opinion, and whichever of the two
established the dominant narrative would reap significant benefits. In this
regional battle of perceptions, the United States would profit from its
distance from East Asia, which would make it seem less threatening, especially
when juxtaposed to a rising China next door.
The United States would especially concentrate on winning
the battle of perceptions with respect to three of China’s neighbors – Russia,
India, and Japan – who could then help close China’s potential alternate
trading routes. In particular, Russia would be the sine qua non of a successful
blockade of China, and could tip the balance of a blockade in favor of either
China or the United States.21 On the one hand, Russia is remarkably
well-positioned to alleviate the blockade’s effects on China. Russian trade
would be immune to American interdiction, since Russia’s nuclear arsenal and
significant conventional assets preclude any serious American attempts at
military coercion. If the United States were unwise enough to try, the Kremlin
would be incensed and might enter the fray on the Chinese side. But on the
other hand, China’s northern neighbor could also sound the death knell for
China’s ability to resist a blockade. On the political level, Moscow continues
to exert sway over the decisions made in the capitals of China’s Central Asian
neighbors. With Russian cooperation, the United States would likely prevail in
its attempts to exhort Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and potentially Kazakhstan and
Afghanistan to refuse Chinese entreaties to act as transit states.
In short, Russia would not only be China’s best hope of
overcoming an American blockade, but it would also be the United States’ key to
closing China’s transit route through Central Asia and preventing China’s two
neighboring oil producers from supplying it with petroleum. In an American
blockade of China, Russia’s importance as a swing state cannot be overstated,
as is borne out by the observation that “no blockade of China in history has
succeeded without Russian acquiescence.”22
Second, the United States would similarly benefit from using
the great power in China’s south, India, to institute a second arc stretching
from the subcontinent through Southeast Asia. Neither Russia nor India would
have to participate in American military operations, but they would have to
tacitly endorse American objectives by implementing national embargoes on China
and pressuring their smaller neighbors to do the same. Third, the United States
might use Japan’s top-of-the-line navy to complement its own blockading forces,
particularly by reinforcing the Pacific portion of the blockade.
Accordingly, for the United States to implement a
strategically effective blockade of China, it would strive to build a “minimum
coalition” with Russia, India, and Japan. If all three states made common cause
with the American blockade, then China would be placed in both an economic and
a political stranglehold. If not, however, a blockade strategy would
regionalize a Sino-American war in a way that would be fundamentally
unfavorable to American interests.
With Russo-American relations in a rut and Sino-Russian
relations reaching new heights (at least rhetorically), the possibility of
Russia aligning with the United States may seem particularly ephemeral.23 However,
Russian military officials often express concerns about China’s unbounded rise
as a regional power and its creeping encroachment in the Russian Far East.24
The pressure of a rising China may provide the impetus for Russo-American
reconciliation sometime in the near future, since Russian leaders may decide
that for structural reasons rooted in geography, a growing China on their
borders presents a greater danger than a troublesome but distant United
States.
Russia’s calculus hints at the larger strategic context
necessary for such a minimum coalition to form: the United States could only
conceivably assemble a minimum coalition on the heels of an assertive Chinese
push for regional hegemony that precipitates local support for a drastic
American response. Short of anything but an aggressive China, collective
embargo action will be deterred by the potential consequences of a blockade,
not least of which is the possibility of a larger regional conflict with China.
The four states are unlikely to coalesce together around an implicit
containment policy until each feels that its national interests may be
threatened by China in the future.25
While such a possibility may appear distant at present, the
United States, Japan, India, and Russia all fear that Beijing might someday
conclude that it must use force in order to protect its interests and to
resolve its security dilemma on favorable terms 26 All four powers have
increasingly hedged their bets against this possibility by setting up a
framework for cooperation amongst themselves. With the notable exception of the
tense Russo-American tie, they have consciously maintained stable (if not
friendly) relations with each other despite their sundry backgrounds. If
China’s power and influence in Asia continues to increase, then the bonds
between all four states will strengthen, not out of any conviction about
China’s belligerent intentions, but rather because of a profound uncertainty as
to their future disposition.
THE OPERATIONAL CONDUCT OF A BLOCKADE
If the conflict took place within the prerequisite strategic
context, then the United States could decide to conduct its blockade of China
in a number of ways. In what follows, the article assumes that the United
States is embroiled in a protracted and “extensive” conflict with China over
vital interests, a conflict that has engendered the tacit support of several of
China’s neighbors, including Russia, India, and Japan. On these assumptions,
the analysis that follows describes the optimal strategy for American
policymakers. If a conflict actually occurred, however, the United States would
likely tailor the approach laid out below to fit the demands of the particular
context.
The Central Operational Challenge
Operationally, blockades are characterized by their distance
from the coast of the blockaded state, and they come in two forms: close and
distant. A close blockade is typically enforced by stationing a cordon of
warships off an enemy’s shores to search all incoming or outgoing merchant
ships and to impound those carrying contraband. Over the last century and a
half, though, close blockades have become increasingly dangerous as
belligerents developed the technology to project power from their coasts. In
response, blockading powers have turned to distant blockades. A distant
blockade avoids the military hazards of being located near the enemy’s shores
by stationing itself at a distance, albeit still astride the enemy’s sea lanes,
and it then chokes off the enemy’s trade in a similar manner to the close blockade.
Regardless of the type, blockades have been most successful
when they have accomplished two key objectives: differentiation between neutral
and enemy shipping, and neutralization of enemy shipping. Strictly speaking,
differentiation is not an operational prerequisite for blockades, since a
blockading power can successfully interdict enemy commerce by simply preying on
all trade in the region. In practice, however, indiscriminate blockades
infuriate neutrals, oftentimes with ruinous strategic consequences for the
blockading power.
Neither a close nor a distant blockade of China alone would
be able to accomplish the two functions of successful blockades thanks to the
constraints imposed by military requirements and the nature of maritime
commerce. On the one hand, a conventional close blockade would be severely
complicated by the United States’ desire to minimize the military risk to
American warships. As American forces came closer to China, they would
increasingly place themselves within range of China’s A2/AD complex, possibly
limiting their operational freedom and resulting in heavy losses. American
forces could avoid the perils of China’s A2/AD system by implementing a close
blockade enforced by submarines, long-range air power, and mines; but by so
doing, the blockade would also lose much of its ability to differentiate.
On the other hand, the logic behind conventional distant
blockades has similarly been undermined by the exigencies of modern commerce.
Today’s cargos of raw materials and merchandise can be sold and re-sold many
times in the course of a voyage, so the ultimate ownership and destination of a
ship’s cargo is often unknowable until the moment it docks. In other words, the
idea of “enemy commerce” on the high seas no longer holds. Although the United
States might be able to set up a conventional distant blockade that quarantined
all Chinese-owned or -flagged vessels, China could still simply buy neutral
vessels’ cargoes after they had passed through the blockade, defeating its
entire purpose. While a distant blockade could differentiate and neutralize to
some degree, it would not be able to match up the two functions enough to
create anything but an extremely porous blockade.
To remedy the infirmities of the two blockades, the United States
would take the best of both worlds and geographically distill the two functions
by implementing a “two-ring” blockade made up of two concentric rings around
China’s shores. The heart of the two-ring blockade would be its “inner ring,”
which would be an unconventional close blockade primarily aimed at neutralizing
vessels bound for China without having to board them first. However, an inner
ring blockade would likely spawn considerable political problems by virtue of
its inability to either peacefully neutralize blockade runners or differentiate
between different shipping with any degree of sophistication. Therefore, the
United States would also need to implement a second, “outer ring” of blockading
forces in order to resolve the inner ring’s political challenges. In contrast
to the inner ring, the outer ring would be comprised largely of warships
focused on both differentiating between different regional commerce with
greater precision and adding a non-lethal component to the inner rings’
neutralization efforts. In so doing, the outer ring would help accomplish the
two key functions, thereby improving the overall efficacy of the blockade. The
outer ring would not be a prerequisite for the blockade’s operational
success—although it would greatly help—but it would be vital in guaranteeing
its strategic viability.
The Inner Ring Blockade – Lethal Neutralization
The Organization of the Inner Ring Blockade
In light of the constraints posed by China’s A2/AD complex,
the United States would organize the inner ring blockade as an impassable
exclusion zone off China’s coast.27 Unlike a conventional blockade, an
exclusion zone is not semi-permeable, nor does it attempt to confiscate or
disable ships. Instead, an exclusion zone is an area that is declared off-limits
to commercial shipping, and the ban is then backed by non-negotiable firepower.
In the context of an American blockade, the United States would implement the
exclusion zone as close to China’s shores as operationally possible in order to
avoid damaging neutral vessels. But the United States would target without
additional warning those vessels unwise enough to stray into the zone – in
effect, the United States would implement a “sink-on-sight” policy.28
The United States would enforce the exclusion zone
principally through attack submarines, long-distance airpower, and mines,
because unlike other military assets, these three capabilities could operate
with relative impunity within the range of China’s A2/AD complex. Submarines
are well suited to anti-ship operations in China’s near seas because China
remains relatively weak in its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities.29
China traditionally has not invested substantially in multidimensional ASW
capabilities, and its ASW impotence would be further exacerbated by the
operating environment of an inner ring blockade: the shallow waters of China’s
coastal areas curb the ability of sonars – the primary sensors used for ASW –
to detect submarines. The upshot is that “Chinese abilities to deny access to
U.S. SSNs and SSGNs are very limited and U.S. submarines can currently operate
freely in Chinese coastal waters.”30 While the air above China’s near seas is
likely to be more contested than the undersea environment, American forces
could nevertheless project airpower from outside the region. The United States
could use a combination of stealth, stand-off, and cyber capabilities to
penetrate into the near seas’ airspace, strike targets, and then vacate the
area before Chinese air defenses were able to respond.
To impose the exclusion zone, the submarines would be
stationed around China’s coast and key harbors, and would work in conjunction
with airpower projected from the periphery of China’s near seas. In total, the
United States and Japan currently have 71 attack submarines between them; if
one-third of the their submarine force were on station as part of the inner
ring’s blockading force—and if the two countries did not dramatically scale up
the construction of submarines, as powers have previously done in anticipation
of and during major wars—then each submarine would be in charge of a roughly
100 mile perimeter of ocean at most.31If a merchant vessel violated the
exclusion zone, the United States could either cue long-range strikes by
American warplanes or inform the nearest patrolling submarines.
In ideal conditions, the submarines and airpower would have
little trouble handing their area of operations, since they would be supported
by targeting information from the United States’ extensive intelligence, reconnaissance,
and surveillance (ISR) assets. In the context of a regional war, however, China
would seek to degrade American ISR assets and blind American forces. As a
result, both long-distance airpower and submarines would be handicapped by
imperfect targeting information, and the latter would have to rely more on
their own sonar as they hunted for targets. While American forces could still
implement a predominantly effective exclusion zone, its enforcement would
probably remain somewhat incomplete.
Even with imperfect enforcement, though, the exclusion zone
could still achieve the blockade’s aims because the fulcrum of the United
States’ campaign would be grounded in deterrence rather than in force. If the
United States expected to halt Chinese shipping by forcibly neutralizing every
vessel that normally docks in Chinese ports, then it would be sorely
disappointed; after all, over two hundred vessels enter and leave Chinese ports
every day, and the United States would rapidly exhaust its stock of munitions
if it strove to sink them all.32 While daunting in theory, the United States
would never need to meet this high standard in reality. As soon as American
forces conspicuously sank several large merchant vessels, the majority of other
shipping would be deterred from trying to run the blockade and much of the
regular flow of China’s maritime commerce would quickly dry up. The more
effectively that the United States prevented blockade runners, then the less
likely it would be that American forces would encounter any vessels struggling
to sneak past in the future, allowing the submarine and air forces to conserve
their armaments.
American forces would also enforce the inner ring’s
exclusion zone through naval mines, which would be positioned at the approaches
to China’s harbors. China’s harbors are indispensable to its waterborne trade –
China’s ten largest mainland ports accounted for more than 80% of the country’s
container throughput in 2010.33 This heavy concentration results from the
virtual necessity of port facilities to the conduct of large-scale maritime
trade. The United States would exploit this structural weakness by seeding
China’s major ports with smart mines that are designed to attack all passing
merchant vessels. In deciding how to lay the minefields, American forces would
choose between two delivery options: they might use either submarines to
dispense the mines, albeit at a slow rate, or aerial minelaying, which could
disburse many more mines at a given time but might also be operationally more
difficult and dangerous if non-stealthy aircraft were employed for the
mission.34 Of course, China would try to clear the minefields through various
measures, so the United States would need to obstruct these efforts as much as
possible while also periodically re-seeding the ports.35
Despite mines’ conceptual efficacy, though, it is unclear
whether the United States has either the mines or the delivery capabilities to
successfully and continually seed Chinese ports in the fashion described. This
issue will be treated at greater length below.
But while submarines, long-distance airpower, and mines
could effectively enforce an exclusion zone as part of the inner ring blockade,
they are all blunt instruments that are poorly equipped for either fine-grained
differentiation or non-lethal neutralization. Unlike surface warships, the
inner ring forces would not be particularly conducive to telling the difference
between a ship carrying Chinese cargo and one carrying Japanese cargo. They are
also not designed to stop, board, and search suspicious vessels. Moreover,
these forces’ greatest asset – their ability to ladle out highly lethal doses
of firepower without detection – also limits their ability to peacefully
enforce a blockade: they are much better at sinking blockade runners than
disabling them.
In large part, the inner ring forces’ capabilities – along
with those they lack – would thus tacitly constrain what American forces could
realistically hope to achieve in the inner ring blockade, thereby necessitating
an exclusion zone as opposed to a more discriminatory blockade. While the
United States would ideally prefer to implement a more conventional close
blockade, with a heightened sensitivity to issues of differentiation and
peaceful neutralization, China’s A2/AD complex would prevent it from deploying
the forces necessary to do so, and instead limit it to imposing mostly
indiscriminate, “sink-on-sight” policies.
The Potential Political Repercussions
While past “sink-on-sight” policies frequently scored
undeniable martial victories, their interference with neutral shipping made
them politically dangerous and often led to disastrous strategic effects. If
the inner ring blockade were not supplemented by an outer ring, then it would
likely result in severe political repercussions for the American war effort,
particularly when the United States interfered with neutral commerce by
mistake. Because American forces would be unable to differentiate between
different types of shipping, they would inevitably launch unintentional attacks
on neutral vessels. Beyond their political implications, accidental attacks
would have a spill-over effect on all regional commerce by raising shipping
costs (particularly insurance rates), thereby impinging on the trade of neutral
Asian states and American allies.36 Of course, the United States would be
exceedingly cautious in its targeting practices, but war is not immaculate: as
history admonishes, accidents do happen, and no other field of human activity
is as prone to them. It is worth remembering that the United States’ own
entrance into World War I was partly spurred by Berlin’s indiscriminate and
unrestricted “sink-on-sight” policies, which ultimately backfired and scuttled
the German war effort.
The political challenges of the inner ring blockade would be
further compounded by the international character of Chinese shipping. As
previously noted, China’s maritime trade is conducted within the bounds of the
international shipping market, which is composed of a medley of vessels flagged
in many different nations and owned and crewed by citizens of many more. Many
of these neutral states would likely be unwilling to accede to an American
blockade, and they would be furious if their vessels were sunk without first
having been given the chance to surrender. Moreover, many of these states would
be vital to the success of the United States' blockade strategy, and China
would surely attempt to re-flag its ships under the colors of nations that the
United States would rather not confront. For example, China might try to shift
all of its international trade into Russian-owned hulls; even if Moscow were
inclined to support the United States, it might not be able to when faced with
considerable pressure from its business community.
The United States could face further political consequences
from the exclusion zone’s inability to allow medical care and basic necessities
through to China. While this humanitarian aid may not be directly relevant to
the success of the United States’ military campaign, its wanton destruction
might nevertheless have political implications both domestically and abroad.
For instance, if the United States were to regularly destroy hospital ships—the
likely and unfortunate outcome of an indiscriminate “sink-on-sight” policy—the
opinion of the international community might shift against the United States,
undermining the strategic context necessary for the blockade to succeed.
The degree of geopolitical trouble for the United States
would depend on how American forces balanced between the use of mines and the
use of submarines or long-distance airpower. On the one hand, mines might be
less hazardous for neutral vessels than either of the two other capabilities,
since they would generally be positioned in Chinese harbors and other areas
that are far from the paths of international shipping. Mines also have the
added advantage of distancing Washington away from the ultimate responsibility
for sinking a suspect vessel; while American forces would choose to lay the minefield,
the final decision to risk going into it would still be in the hands of the
merchant vessel’s captain. But on the other hand, mines are also a less
flexible and more escalatory means of warfare, and their lack of discrimination
ability makes their use in civilian ports particularly suspect under both
American and international law.37
Taken together, these potential repercussions suggest that
regardless of the balance struck between the three capabilities, an exclusion
zone around China would be fraught with tremendous political danger. While an
inner ring blockade strategy would be militarily effective on its own, it might
nevertheless trigger a cascade of intolerable diplomatic crises, and the United
States might appear to be establishing unilateral and Melian policies backed
only by American military muscle. To combat this impression, the United States
would implement a second blockade ring that would allow greater selectivity in
applying force while also acting as a winnowing device.
The Outer Ring Blockade – Differentiation and Non-Lethal
Neutralization
The Organization of the Outer Ring Blockade
In considering where to position the outer ring, the United
States would look for a confluence of two factors: opportune geography and the diminution
of China’s A2/AD-related strike capabilities. These two elements coincide at
the periphery of China’s near seas, and there the United States would establish
a selectively-permeable perimeter of checkpoints.38
To guarantee that its perimeter would cover all shipping
traffic, the United States would have to account for a variety of key
passageways in Southeast and East Asia that would either have to be blockaded
or closed entirely.39 The most important passageway would be the Straits of
Malacca, the maritime corridor through which much of the region’s commerce
travels – and China’s in particular. Washington would face deep and enduring
condemnation if it closed the Straits, so it would instead choose to set up its
primary checkpoint there. In addition to the Straits, the United States would
have to take into account several alternative sea routes that Chinese vessels
could take, including the Strait of Sunda, the Lombok Strait, around the coast
of Australia, and through the Pacific Ocean. These passageways would either be
blockaded in a similar fashion to the checkpoints at the Straits of Malacca, or
they would be closed off to international shipping completely.
At the outer ring’s checkpoints, the United States would
need to set up and streamline a rigorous inspection regime. In order to help
determine passing merchant vessels’ ultimate destinations, the United States
would board ships and manually examine their bills of lading, documents that
typically specify the destination of a ship’s cargo. Unsurprisingly, the U.S.
Navy might find that such a process is highly laborious, given the daily volume
of shipping in the region.40 To overcome this challenge, the United States
would impose a new inspection regime; for instance, one set of authors proposes
implementing a mandatory system of remotely-verifiable bills of lading.41
Additionally, the United States would streamline the inspection process by
dividing vessels into different tiers – vessels that are unlikely to contravene
the blockade (for instance, American- and allied-owned ships) could sail
through with minimal inspection.
The United States would reap considerable benefit from the
checkpoints at the outer ring in the initial stages of the blockade effort. If
the United States discovered that a vessel was destined for, owned by, or
registered in China, then it could impound it. The United States would escort
the vessel and crew to a quarantine anchorage; if the crew refused to go
voluntarily, then the United States would provide a prize crew to direct the
vessel there. Then, the United States could either auction off impounded
vessels and cargo to the highest bidder or send them back to their original
non-Chinese owners. In the initial stages of the conflict, the United States
would “capture” much Chinese commerce this way; but as the blockade was
normalized, China would instruct its ships to stay out of the Asia-Pacific
altogether even as shipping companies increasingly refused to sell their cargo
to China for fear of confiscation.
Besides inspecting vessels, the United States would use the
outer ring blockade to establish a new regional maritime traffic system. To do
so, it would draw inspiration from the British Navigational Certification
(navicert) system of World Wars I and II, which was able to successfully
streamline the United Kingdom’s blockade operations.42 The United Kingdom
investigated merchant vessels’ cargo before it was shipped. Once its cargo
passed inspection, the vessel was given a navigational certificate that stated
its destination and granted it safe passage through the blockade. The Royal
Navy considered any vessel operating in a fixed area without a navicert or
other authorizing document to be running the blockade and thus liable to
seizure. In effect, the United Kingdom used navicerts to set up a compulsory
regulatory system whereby it successfully controlled the flow of all maritime
commerce in Northern Europe.
Similarly, the United States would dramatically magnify the
success of its own efforts by instituting a modern-day navicert system in East
Asia.43 The United States would grant a digital navicert to each incoming
merchant vessel after it had successfully been inspected at either the outer
ring’s passageways or a port outside the region. In essence, the navicert would
be a commercial passport, carrying both records of the ship’s past journeys and
of its future ones. The United States would also insist that each ship in the
region regularly report its location, along with any deviations in course or
any cargo re-sales, which would all then be updated in the navicert. When a
merchant vessel docked in a regional port, its navicert would be corroborated
against the cargo on board to make sure that the vessel had not secretly
ferried any contraband to the Chinese mainland. In addition to its digital
elements, the navicert system would also have a physical component: the United
States would put tracking beacons on board each ship to automatically keep
American forces updated as to the ship’s location.44
When combined with American ISR assets in the region, the
East Asian navicert system would give the United States a fairly accurate
spatial map of the positions and trajectories of all commercial vessels in the
region.45 The United States would then integrate the navicert spatial map with
American firepower to exert deadly force against blockade runners. Vessels
might try to disable or spoof the tracking beacons, but the United States could
still use other ISR assets to hunt down wayward vessels. While an imperfect
process, the navicert system would nevertheless substantially raise the risks
of deviation for vessels to the point where running the blockade was so
sufficiently perilous that it was no longer attempted except by the most
risk-loving vessels.
In order to make its East Asian navicert system compulsory,
the United States would peacefully turn away any ships at the outer ring that
were attempting to sail into China’s near seas but were unwilling to accede to
the navicert system. Shippers would complain, but the potential riches of trade
in East Asia—even excluding China—would be difficult to resist, especially when
juxtaposed with so token an inconvenience as complying with the navicert
system.
The Political Benefits
At first glance, a compulsory East Asian navicert system
might seem diplomatically untenable. In effect, though, it would be intended as
a bargain: the United States would gain a greater awareness of regional
maritime traffic patterns, and in exchange, it would be better able to avoid
damaging neutral shipping. The navicert system would not only transmit the
ship’s location, but it would also broadcast the ship’s identity as a neutral
vessel that was not to be harmed. When the United States attacked blockade
runners, it would use navicert information to avoid accidentally targeting
neutral shipping in the region. The United States would also use the navicert
system to code between different types of vessels and to safely allow
humanitarian aid vessels through the exclusion zone via the use of a “humanitarian
navicert.”
Given the cumulative effect of the navicert spatial map,
merchant vessels would find it difficult to trade with China unless they
received concerted state aid to fool the navicert system, a reality that would
diminish the negative political repercussions of the United States’ inner ring
blockade in two respects. First, there would be fewer merchant vessels which
would be willing to expend the resources to try to run the blockade in the
first place, thereby decreasing the number of times that the United States
would be forced to sink a vessel and possibly cause a diplomatic row. Second,
any remaining blockade runners would only stand a chance of success if they
accepted state aid and succor, either from China or from their home country. If
the former, then their active cooperation with the Chinese regime would
politically isolate them from their home state and smooth the way for American
intervention. If, on the other hand, the ship’s home state was the one
providing it with the means to bypass the navicert system, then the United
States would simply have to accept that this state’s adamant opposition to the
blockade was immutable and that no amount of reforms – short of ending the
blockade – would be enough to appease it.
In sum, while the outer ring blockade would not be an
operational prerequisite for the military success of the overall blockade, it
could nevertheless be strategically crucial, in large part because it would
help mollify the political repercussions that would flow from the inner ring
blockade’s non-discriminatory and lethal neutralizations. The outer ring
blockade would decrease the rate of accidental sinkings—especially of
humanitarian vessels—by giving American forces more accurate targeting
information via the navicert system. It would also diminish the absolute number
of blockade runners, as well as the political consequences of using lethal
force against those still willing to sail the gantlet. Finally, of course, the
outer ring blockade would also be able to confiscate a large quantity of
Chinese shipping in the early stages of the conflict, and thereafter contribute
to general blockade enforcement. The outer ring’s navicert system could even be
used to regulate the flow of commerce into neutral nations in China’s vicinity
in order to prevent transshipment of contraband.46 Cumulatively, these benefits
would also allow regional shipping rates to revert back to the status quo ante
bellum, benefiting both neutrals and allies.47
A Blockade’s Force Structure
When considered in isolation, a two-ring blockade requires a
relatively modest force structure. The United States would have to commit a
hefty proportion of its submarine force to the inner ring blockade, backed by
air forces located at the edges of China’s near seas to provide additional
firepower as well as ISR capabilities. It would also need a more sizable
investment of surface combatants, ASW escorts, and anti-air assets for the
outer ring blockade, although the exact force structure would depend greatly on
the circumstances of the blockade, including the size of the United States’
coalition, the number and location of outer ring checkpoints, and the degree to
which the blockade distorts regional shipping.48 Over time, though, the United
States would be able to decrease many of its forces as the navicert system was
normalized and checkpoint activity became progressively more streamlined.
Cumulatively, these force requirements would not particularly tax the resources
of the U.S. Navy.
In preparing for a blockade, the United States should take
comfort from the fact that whatever the outcome of the ongoing budget battles,
the U.S. Navy’s force structure will be sufficiently flexible to implement a
blockade. The U.S. Navy’s recent acquisitions, however troubled their developmental
histories, would be ideal for the purposes of a blockade.49 In particular, the
United States could use the much-maligned Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as the
mainstay of outer ring forces, and its recent decision to locate at least two
LCSs near the Straits of Malacca in Singapore reaffirms that
potentiality.
In a sense, the United States should primarily concern
itself not with whether it has the forces to implement a blockade—it does—but
rather with the opportunity costs of not using the naval assets involved in the
blockade for alternate military operations. As part of its broader military
campaign, the United States would have to allocate its limited resources
between the blockade and other ongoing operations. In navigating this dilemma,
the United States would take advantage of the fact that many of the naval
assets that are too vulnerable to be used in an alternate military campaign
would be ideal for blockade duty.50 The United States’ most sought-after
resource would be its submarines, but it would efficiently maximize their use
by making an initial investment in blockade firepower that catalyzes an
effective system of deterrence in the exclusion zone and thereby minimizes the
blockade’s future need for submarines.
There is one exception to the readiness of the United
States’ current and programmed force structure – American forces do not
currently possess the mine capabilities necessary for a high-volume minelaying
campaign.51 Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has allowed its offensive
minelaying capabilities to atrophy: its extant inventory of mines is both
meager and antiquated, and by the beginning of FY 2013, the United States will
lack any submarine-deployed mines whatsoever.52 Delivery options are similarly
deficient. While the United States could count on submarines to lay minefields,
they would be in high demand for other operations and also handicapped by their
limited payload capacity. Conceptually, the United States’ best option would be
aerial minelaying, but it lacks a long-range stealth bomber capable of and
trained for minelaying operations.53
Accordingly, if Washington seeks to bolster its blockade
option, then it should “develop and field in significant numbers smart mobile
mines capable of autonomous movement to programmed locations over extended
distances,” as some commentators have recently called for.54 To the degree that
the United States exhumes its offensive minelaying capabilities, it may lower
the threshold costs associated with the implementation of a blockade, since
they would interfere with international shipping far less than either
submarines or long-distance airpower, and their use would thereby partially
decrease some of the political repercussions that would otherwise result from a
blockade.
Chinese Countermeasures
Other than the indirect methods of subverting a blockade,
China may also choose to challenge a blockade directly through a variety of
countermeasures. Two of the most likely are an offensive strategy of economic
warfare and a defensive convoy system. However, neither option is likely to
provide China with a decisive edge over an American blockade.
Economic Warfare
China boasts an A2/AD system that is well-suited to
attacking regional trade: its submarine fleet could threaten all vessels within
China’s near seas, its land-based aircraft and missile-armed surface ships
could harass maritime traffic near the coast, and it could mine key waterways
and harbors. 55 Given the relatively short reach of China’s A2/AD system,
though, the PLA would be limited to commercial targets in the country’s near
seas.
Moreover, China would face serious strategic repercussions
if it pursued a campaign of commerce raiding. Admittedly, if the PLA could
distinguish between the trade of American allies and neutrals, then it would be
able to undermine the American war effort without antagonizing third parties
unnecessarily. But this scenario is unlikely: if the PLA attempted engage in
economic warfare, the Chinese navy would face the same central operational challenge
that bedevils an American blockade strategy – China would be prevented from
selectively targeting American and allied ships while sparing the trade of
neutrals by the international and undifferentiated nature of maritime commerce.
To overcome this problem, an American blockade strategy relies on two rings
that geographically separate the functions of differentiation and
neutralization; China, however, would not have the option of implementing an
“outer ring” to differentiate between neutral and enemy shipping. As a result,
a Chinese strategy of economic warfare would likely devolve into an
indiscriminate attack on all regional trade passing through China’s near seas,
fomenting the same sort of troubles that vexed Germany’s sink-on-sight policies
in WWI.
Thus, while China may be able to score some limited
victories, its guerre de coursestrategy would unify the entire region against
it. If anything, Chinese commerce raiding might benefit the United States on
the whole, since it would help alleviate one of the primary weaknesses of an
American blockade strategy – its heavy reliance on regional political
support.
Convoy System
China can also adopt a more defensive strategy by organizing
convoys. Historically, convoy systems have been an effective means of
mitigating damage from enemy commerce raiding both because they minimize
exposure to the enemy and because they economize merchant defense. In China’s
case, a convoy system would be a particularly attractive option because it
would allow Beijing to use its limited naval resources more efficiently.
But while a convoy system would help reduce losses to
Chinese commerce, it is unlikely to offer a decisive defense against a blockade
for three reasons. First, the PLA only has limited means to actually protect
its trade from attack. China does not have anywhere near the ASW or
minesweeping capacity to protect the entire volume of its commerce. At best, a
convoy system could secure only a small fraction of Chinese trade. Moreover,
although China can effectively exclude most American surface vessels from its
near seas with its A2/AD system, it cannot similarly protect its own vessels.
As Corbett noted, it is an error to think “that if one belligerent loses
command of the sea that command passes at once to the other belligerent…the
most common situation in naval war is that neither side has command.”56 In line
with this logic, China’s convoy system will face constant attrition from the
United States’ own A2/AD-like capabilities, preventing it from making full use
of the region’s waters.
Second, a convoy system would be logistically difficult for
China to implement effectively. Typically, a convoy system will group ships
together as they pass through a danger zone. But in this case, Chinese merchant
vessels would be in danger as soon as they approached the outer blockade ring,
and a Chinese convoy would only be able to protect them on the last leg of
their journey. After managing to dissemble its way through the outer ring, a
merchant vessel on its way to China would have to surreptitiously meet up with
the rest of the convoy, all before being noticed by the American blockading
forces. But the United States would specifically be looking for large clusters
of military and merchant vessels that would signal a proto-convoy, so a
merchant vessel’s ability to join a convoy would be inversely related to that
convoy’s size and defensive capacity.
Finally, a convoy system would at best be able to buy each
merchant vessel a one-way ticket to China. If a ship successfully ran the
American blockade, it would be placed on an American-administered blacklist.
Thereafter, if that vessel tried to re-enter the stream of commerce, it would
be stopped at the outer blockade ring and confiscated. Accordingly, China could
receive supplies from the outside world, but only if it was willing to pay the
exorbitant cost of buying a new vessel for each shipment of goods.
THE ANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES OF A BLOCKADE
Although a blockade could be feasibly implemented, it
remains an open question as to whether it would be a worthwhile military
strategy for the United States and its allies. How a blockade impacts China’s
military, economy, and society will determine its value as a military strategy.
Although the consequences of a blockade would be exceedingly complex, manifold,
and interdependent, a blockade would likely prove to be a cogent instrument of
exhaustion as part of the United States’ overall campaign.
Even the most effective blockade would not directly
debilitate the Chinese military, as demonstrated by an examination of what is
perhaps the PLA’s greatest dependency: its thirst for oil. In response to a
blockade, Beijing would strictly ration oil supplies and prioritize military
needs. As a result, although civilian economic production would be curtailed
sharply, China could still use existing domestic oil production, undamaged
reserves, and overland imports to fuel its war machine. 57The more pressing
threat to the PLA might be that transportation bottlenecks in the country would
prevent Beijing from efficiently distributing the oil. But given enough time,
the central government would be able to unclog these bottlenecks and build a
resilient oil distribution network. Accordingly, a blockade would not directly
affect the PLA’s access to petroleum for any significant length of time over
the course of the conflict.
A blockade would also not be able to completely interdict
Chinese trade, because even under ideal conditions, China would still be able
to acquire the most vital goods and resources it needed, courtesy of the
inescapable laws of supply and demand. The more effectively the United States
established a regional embargo, the more it would become a victim of its own
success: as the United States increasingly restricted the flow of imports into
China, the profit margins on selling those imports to China would skyrocket
proportionately. If every nation save one decided to place an embargo on China,
then the one loner would monopolize sales to an incredibly inelastic and desperate
Chinese market. The inevitable outcome would be stunningly profitable price
gouging, so as a result, many of China’s neighbors would be strongly
incentivized to either continue trading with China or to cast a blind eye to
any sub rosa commerce. Even if all of China’s neighbors agreed to embargo, the
United States would still have to resign itself to rampant smuggling at the
sub-state level. American forces would be powerless to stem the flow of a high
degree of illicit smuggling, since the opportunities for arbitrage would be
directly proportional to the efficacy of Washington’s blockade and Beijing’s
desperation.
Therefore, the real value of a blockade would be its ability
to exact an incredibly high financial toll on Beijing. First, consider the staggering
economic impact of crippling oil shortages alone. A rough estimate suggests
that a maritime oil cut-off would contract China’s annual GDP by roughly $883
billion (12.6% of China’s 2011 GDP), under the starting assumption that the oil
blockade was fully successful, all of China’s neighbors comprehensively
embargoed it, and American forces prevented Chinese access to its offshore oil
production (but that domestic production continued at the same rate). 58
Of course, in reality, China would manage to recoup at least
some of its lost oil imports, but only at an exorbitant cost. If China managed
to sneak ships past the blockading forces, it would have to insure every vessel
at extortionate rates, possibly totaling over $10 million per ship per day. 59
If China instead substituted for seaborne imports by turning to its neighbors,
it would have to reckon with the orders-of-magnitude more expensive costs of
overland pathways. 60 Since the United States would likely render much of
China’s fixed oil transportation infrastructure unusable, Beijing would have to
supplement any remaining pipelines and railways with imports from a fleet of
trucks. If China sought to import five million barrels of oil each day through
fuel tank trucks, then it would need to assemble a fleet of at least
110,000-155,000 tank trucks. Assuming such a fleet could even be mobilized,
China would need to pay an overwhelming price just to keep it running – a tank
truck would consume at least 8-16% of the oil it delivered in the course of a
round-trip journey, meaning that just to operate its truck fleet, China would
need to import an additional 395,000-885,000 barrels of oil per day over and
above the five million barrels otherwise demanded.61 Moreover, Beijing would
also have to account for the higher price of oil itself, since a blockade would
cause oil prices for China to spike as the result of fewer suppliers, a higher
risk premium, and higher transportation costs for suppliers.
When the consequences of an oil cut-off are married to the
effects of the loss of other trade, it becomes clear that a blockade would send
the Chinese economy into a tailspin by hitting three distinct pressure points:
China’s dual dependency on both intermediate and raw material imports, and its
low levels of domestic innovation.
While China’s economy is export-oriented, this dependency
does not automatically equate to fragility as the conventional wisdom would
suggest. After all, in the event of an embargo, a typical export-oriented
economy could simply re-direct its production process towards making goods for
domestic consumption (including its war effort). However, China lacks this
option because much of its export production process is dependent upon access
to imports. Historically, China has shipped mostly processing exports, or goods
that it had assembled and processed after the importation of various
intermediate inputs.62 In other words, the Chinese economy “recycles,” taking
in mostly-finished products and adding marginal value before subsequently re-exporting
them. As a result, China has structured much of its export-oriented economy
around the importation of intermediate goods, a phenomenon particularly evident
in its high-technology sectors where well over 90% of its exports are
processing exports.63 So if a blockade interrupted Chinese imports as well as
exports, China could not simply switch its factories over to domestic
production because those factories would require imported inputs that would no
longer be arriving.
China’s vulnerability is further compounded by its
incredible dependence on raw materials and foreign innovation as the basis of
its production processes. Raw materials compose a full 27% of China’s imports,
and if China lost access to them, then its economy would stall even further.64
China also lacks a strong domestic innovation ability—especially in
high-technology sectors—which means that the sources of its national power are
particularly vulnerable to the pernicious effects of a blockade.65
Thus, China cannot simply “bounce back” from a blockade by
re-orienting its economy towards domestic production – its entire economy is
structurally dependent on trade, and a blockade would eviscerate China’s
high-technology domestic production capacities as surely as it would collapse China’s
trade. As time passed, China might discover ways to substitute for its
inability to trade and it might rebuild its economy from the ground-up, but an
ongoing conflict could nevertheless impose a devastating rate of economic
attrition that exceeds Beijing’s compensating abilities.
Initially, a conflict with the United States, regardless of
how American forces decided to prosecute it, would likely rally the Chinese
populace behind their leaders and extend the regime’s grip on power. But in the
long run, as China’s nationalist ardor faded under the burdens of war, the
costs of overcoming a blockade may simply be more than China’s leaders would be
willing to bear. In conjunction with a battlefront strategy, a blockade’s
debilitating effect on the Chinese economy would limit the resources available
to China’s leaders and seek to impale them on a “Morton’s Fork”: to continue an
increasingly unwinnable conflict, or to instead end the war and focus on
brewing domestic crises that endanger the Chinese state to a greater
degree.
CONCLUSION
The context, conduct, and consequences of an American
blockade of China would be deeply embedded in the mire of global politics. To
overcome the blockade’s various challenges successfully, the United States and
its allies would have to carefully balance the strategic repercussions of its
actions with their contribution to the efficacy of the overall blockade. In
almost any context, this trade-off would be extremely difficult politically,
and would require a high degree of flexibility and innovation on the United
States’ part. Policymakers would do well to carefully examine the precedents
and lessons from past blockades, particularly those of WWI and WWII. The exact
trade-offs would be made with a variety of considerations in mind, above all
the value of the American interests implicated in the conflict.
Nevertheless, despite considerable challenges, a naval
blockade is both operationally and strategically possible, albeit only within
the limits of extremely narrow contexts and consequences. Even against a
maximally effective blockade, China would be able to meet its military needs
indefinitely, and it could survive on its SPR, stockpiles, and massive foreign
exchange reserves for an extended period of time. As a result, the effectiveness
of a blockade would turn on its ability to impose debilitating economic costs
on China. While these economic costs mounted, China’s likely response would be
to organize a political coalition to resist the American blockade. Who would
win this contest would likely be determined by whether or not the United States
were able to assemble its minimum coalition.
If the United States attempted to implement a blockade
without the tacit acquiescence of Russia, India, and Japan, the blockade would
be much less effective and its political consequences for the United States
would be far worse. A waiting game of exhaustion would begin. On the one hand,
China’s economy would attenuate continuously, but on the other hand, China
would work with its neighbors to increase regional and international political
pressure on the United States until Washington could no longer sustain the
blockade. In the game of economic against political attrition, the People’s
Republic would probably triumph in the long run if the minimum coalition were
not assembled by the United States, since China’s counter-coalition would
likely prove to be collectively stronger than the United States and its allies.
If, however, the United States were able to assemble its minimum coalition—a task
that would hinge on China’s aggressive behavior—then China’s rate of economic
exhaustion would sharply accelerate even as the United States gained the
political support it would need to continue a blockading strategy indefinitely.
In this context, while the United States would not be able to use Beijing’s
dependence on maritime trade to decisively defeat China in one short blow, it
would still be able to help sap Chinese strength until Beijing eventually
submitted.
These conclusions suggest several avenues for further
research. In particular, scholars have recently been debating the merits of
“Air-Sea Battle,” a military concept that centers on “networked, integrated,
attack-in-depth to disrupt, destroy and defeat (NIA-D3) A2/AD threats.”66 Some
analysts fear that Air-Sea Battle may be strategically dangerous because its
putative focus on an “extended conventional blinding and suppression campaign”
could lead to rapid escalation, possibly to the nuclear level.67 To these
analysts, a blockade strategy may offer a compelling military alternative
because it is a deliberately slow strategy that allows for a wider range of
diplomatic options. Yet more work is needed – to what extent can the threat of
a blockade be used as a tool of coercion prior to the outbreak of hostilities?
If the United States and China are plunged into a crisis short of extensive
war, how does a blockade fit into the escalation ladder? If the United States
re-orients towards a blockade strategy, will that dampen or intensify the
prospects of escalation during a crisis?
Alternatively, a blockade strategy could be used to
complement other strategies that countenance strikes against targets on the
Chinese mainland. By striking Chinese territory, the United States could
maximize the strategic implications of the blockade in three ways: first,
strikes could significantly tighten the blockade; second, they could increase
the impact of the blockade; and third, over time, strikes could grant the
United States the strategic option of moving from a two-ring blockade to a
conventional close blockade. However, the relationship between a blockade
strategy and strikes on the Chinese mainland, as well as how the two relate to
Air-Sea Battle, remains largely unexplored. How would Air-Sea Battle and a blockade
strategy reinforce each other, and to what extent might they work at
cross-purposes? How would precision strikes fit into this joint strategy? And
if a blockade strategy were employed, how would it relate to the larger
American conception of victory?
One striking implication that emerges from this analysis is
the consequence for regional stability. In the short term, the United States
may breathe a little easier knowing that despite China’s ongoing military
modernization, the military balance in the region still favors the United
States in a worst case scenario. So long as China also understands a blockade’s
potential, then it is more deterred from regional aggression, and both great
powers benefit from the higher improbability of conflict.
In the longer term, the ultimate consequences for regional
stability are murkier, and depend largely on how China continues to respond to
its perceived vulnerability. On the one hand, China may correctly assess that
the crux of a blockade revolves around its strategic context, and it may move
accordingly to strengthen its relations with its neighbors in order to buttress
its security. Insofar as a blockade’s viability compels China to avoid seeking
regional hegemony—an aim tirelessly disavowed by Beijing—then it is a welcome
force for regional stability. After all, the United States would be able to
spur China to behave in a manner favorable to American and regional interests
without having to ever threaten the implementation of a blockade, and both
Chinese and American security would be enhanced as a result.
On the other hand, China may decide that it should
unilaterally labor to render a blockade impossible. Some of these policies may
not be particularly worrisome, such as a decision to re-balance China’s economy
in favor of domestic consumption and away from a reliance on foreign imports.
Other policies may be more destabilizing. If China misperceives its commercial
security as something that can be solved by “locking down” foreign resources,
it may push international markets onto a more mercantilist trajectory. China
may also decide to continue modernizing its navy with the specific contingency
of a blockade in mind. To this end, it may build up its nascent ASW
capabilities, continue growing its long-range submarine force, and move further
in the direction of a blue-water navy.68
While such long-term policies may complicate the planned
operations of a blockade, they would ultimately miss the larger picture: the
key to a successful blockade of China lies not in its operational conduct—the
United States can always try to match Chinese military improvements
step-by-step—but rather in its strategic context. If China seeks to boost its
security by aggressively and opaquely expanding its military, then its strategy
may backfire in the long run by triggering a security dilemma that has
increasingly perilous implications for both Chinese security and wider regional
stability. Ironically, if China misapprehends the root of its vulnerability,
then it may react in a way that unfortunately sends it—and the region—down a
path where a blockade becomes an increasingly realistic possibility.
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