BY Brian Berletic

US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John Aquilino has recently complained about China’s militarization of the South China Sea. He has accused China of placing anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems along with other military facilities on islands scattered throughout the South China Sea.

 The Guardian in an article titled, “China has fully militarized three islands in South China Sea, US admiral says,” would claim:

 “Over the past 20 years we’ve witnessed the largest military buildup since world war two by the PRC,” Aquilino told the Associated Press in an interview, using the initials of China’s formal name. “They have advanced all their capabilities and that buildup of weaponization is destabilizing to the region.” 

The article would go on to explain how the US has positioned its own military in the region, challenging Chinese territorial claims despite having no claims over the South China Sea itself. The Guardian would note that nations like the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have overlapping claims with China, along with the current break-away administration of Taiwan.

The Guardian notes that approximately $5 trillion in trade passes through the South China Sea but fails to note which nation above all others would benefit least from disrupting trade in the region – and which nation would benefit most.

The US, Not China Threatens Trade in the South China Sea

 The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) – a policy think-tank funded by the US government, its allies, as well as large corporations including weapons manufacturers – maintains the China Power project. In an article published on the project’s website titled, “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?,” it would be revealed that China above all other nations depends on the safety and stability of the South China Sea regarding trade, noting that $874 billion in Chinese exports transit the region accounting for over a quarter of all trade through it.

Nations including South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam also account for significant trade through these waters and it must also be kept in mind that each of these nations count China as their main trade partner.

China’s military build-up in the South China Sea isn’t just in reaction to America’s unwarranted and significant military presence in the region, thousands of kilometers from American shores, but also in reaction to the specific threat America’s military presence poses to maritime trade for China and the rest of Asia (who primarily trades with China).

The threat the US poses to Chinese maritime trade is not a figment of Beijing’s imagination but a threat articulated explicitly in US policy papers regarding potential war with China within a closing window of opportunity the US has to use its remaining advantage in military might to fight and win a conventional war with China and thus prevent it from surpassing the US economically, militarily, and diplomatically.

The 2016 RAND Corporation paper, “War with China,” specifically mentions deliberately transforming waters through which China’s trade flows into a war zone. The paper notes that amid a US-Chinese conflict:

…much of the Western Pacific, from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea, could become hazardous for commercial sea and air transport. Sharply reduced trade, including energy supplies, could harm China’s economy disproportionately and badly. 

The disruption of China’s economy, in fact, is seen as the only realistic way for the US to “win” in a conflict with China. The RAND Corporation paper would note:

The prospect of a military standoff means that war could eventually be decided by nonmilitary factors. These should favor the United States now and in the future. Although war would harm both economies, damage to China’s could be catastrophic and lasting: on the order of a 25–35 percent reduction in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) in a yearlong war, compared with a reduction in US GDP on the order of 5–10 percent. Even a mild conflict, unless ended promptly, could weaken China’s economy. A long and severe war could ravage China’s economy, stall its hard-earned development, and cause widespread hardship and dislocation. 

The paper also notes that the US need not even specifically blockade various straits Chinese shipping depends on. The paper points out:

This suggests very hazardous airspace and sea space, perhaps ranging from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea. Assuming that non-Chinese commercial enterprises would rather lose revenue than ships or planes, the United States would not need to use force to stop trade to and from China. China would lose a substantial amount of trade that would be required to transit the war zone. 

Since this paper was written in 2016, the US has incrementally implemented policies to prepare for the conflict described by the RAND Corporation.

By 2021, US State Department-funded media Radio Free Asia in an article titled, “US Indo-Pacific Command Proposes New Missile Capabilities to Deter China,” would note (emphasis added):

The assessment calls for “the fielding of an Integrated Joint Force with precision-strike networks” along the so-called first island chain — referring to missile strike capabilities — and integrated air missile defense in the second island chain, USNI News reported. The document also calls for “a distributed force posture that provides the ability to preserve stability, and if needed, dispense and sustain combat operations for extended periods.” 

Extended military operations is precisely what the RAND Corporation called for in its 2016 paper. Additionally, the US has transformed its Marine Corps into a “ship-killing” force equipped to deny China naval access to various territories across the Indo-Pacific region including straits vital for trade.

Defense News in its 2020 article, “Here’s the US Marine Corps’ plan for sinking Chinese ships with drone missile launchers,” would report:

The US Marine Corps is getting into the ship-killing business, and a new project in development is aimed at making their dreams of harrying the People’s Liberation Army Navy a reality.

The article also cited Lieutenant General Eric Smith, chief of the US Marine Corps’ requirements and development, noting:

“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.” 

What the US has prepared to do across the Indo-Pacific is implement the RAND Corporation’s “War with China” policy recommendations, implementations aimed at crippling Chinese maritime shipping, strangle its economy, and eventually collapse its government. In other words, the US is creating in the Indo-Pacific region, an existential threat to China’s continued existence as a nation-state.

US Marines are also currently present on Taiwan, according to Voice of America – Taiwan being territory considered by Beijing to be part of China – a fact even the US itself recognizes through the “One China Policy.” Thus, the positioning of US missiles across the region, the navigating of US naval vessels near territory claimed by China, and the placing US military personnel on Taiwan, are all meant to incrementally encircle and encroach upon China – pushing ever closer to, or even crossing over red lines established by China in the interest of basic self-preservation.

Just as the US has done to Russia through Ukraine it is now doing to China through the South China Sea and Taiwan. When conflict eventually breaks out between China and either the US itself or one of its proxies in the region – most likely the administration of Taiwan – it will be a conflict provoked entirely by the United States on the other side of yet another ocean, yet again thousands of kilometers away from American shores, and again endangering the lives of hundreds of millions of people toward the preservation of American hegemony and at the expense of another region’s sovereignty and perhaps even self-preservation.

US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John Aquilino left all of this very important context out of his observations that China is overseeing a major military build-up –  ignoring entirely the major military threat the US has placed at China’s doorstep.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/22/us-condemns-chinese-military-build-up-the-us-itself-provoked/

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BY Sam Biddle

THE PENTAGON ENVISIONS a future in which Elon Musk’s rockets might someday deploy a “quick reaction force” to thwart a future Benghazi-style attack, according to documents obtained by The Intercept via Freedom of Information Act request.

In October 2020, U.S. Transportation Command, or USTRANSCOM, the Pentagon office tasked with shuttling cargo to keep the American global military presence humming, announced that it was partnering with Musk’s SpaceX rocketry company to determine the feasibility of quickly blasting supplies into space and back to Earth rather than flying them through the air. The goal, according to a presentation by Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, would be to fly a “C-17 [cargo plane] equivalent anywhere on the globe in less than 60 minutes,” an incredible leap forward in military logistics previously confined to science fiction. A USTRANSCOM press release exclaimed that one day SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket could “quickly move critical logistics during time-sensitive contingencies” and “deliver humanitarian assistance.” While the Pentagon alluded to potentially shuttling unspecified “personnel” through these brief space jaunts, the emphasis of the announcement was squarely on moving freight.

But USTRANSCOM has more imaginative uses in mind, according to internal documents obtained via FOIA. In a 2021 “Midterm Report” drafted as part of its partnership with SpaceX, USTRANSCOM outlined both potential uses and pitfalls for a fleet of militarized Starships. Although SpaceX is already functionally a defense contractor, launching American military satellites and bolstering Ukrainian communication links, the report provides three examples of potential future “DOD use cases for point to point space transportation.” The first, perhaps a nod to American anxieties about Chinese hegemony, notes that “space transportation provides an alternative method for logistics delivery” in the Pacific. The second imagines SpaceX rockets delivering an Air Force deployable air base system, “a collection of shelters, vehicles, construction equipment and other gear that can be prepositioned around the globe and moved to any place the USAF needs to stand-up air operations.”

But the third imagined use case is more provocative and less prosaic than the first two, titled only “Embassy Support,” scenarios in which a “rapid theater direct delivery capability from the U.S. to an African bare base would prove extremely important in supporting the Department of State’s mission in Africa,” potentially including the use of a “quick reaction force,” a military term for a rapidly deployed armed unit, typically used in crisis conditions. The ability to merely “demonstrate” this use of a SpaceX Starship, the document notes, “could deter non-state actors from aggressive acts toward the United States.” Though the scenario is devoid of details, the notion of an African embassy under sudden attack from a “non-state actor” is reminiscent of the infamous 2012 Benghazi incident, when armed militants attacked an American diplomatic compound in Libya, spurring a quick reaction force later criticized as having arrived too late to help.

As much as American generals may be dreaming of rocket-borne commandos fighting off North African insurgents, experts say this scenario is still squarely the stuff of sci-fi stories. Both Musk and the Pentagon have a long history of making stratospherically grand claims that dazzling and entirely implausible technologies, whether safe self-driving cars and hyperloopor rail guns and missile-swatting lasers, are just around the corner. As noted in another USTRANSCOM document obtained via FOIA request, all four Starship high-altitude tests resulted in the craft dramatically exploding, though a May 2021 test conducted after the document’s creation landed safely.

“What are they going to do, stop the next Benghazi by sending people into space?” said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute who focuses on the U.S. arms industry and defense budget. “It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.” Hartung questioned the extent to which a rocket-based quick reaction force would be meaningful even if it were possible. “If a mob’s attacking an embassy and they dial up their handy SpaceX spaceship, it’s still going to take a while to get there. … It’s almost like someone thinks it would be really neat to do stuff through space but haven’t thought through the practical ramifications.” Hartung also pointed to the Pentagon’s track record of space-based “fantasy weapons” like “Star Wars” missile defense, elaborate projects that soak up massive budgets but amount to nothing.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. In an email to The Intercept, USTRANSCOM spokesperson John Ross wrote that “interest in PTP deployment is explorative in nature and our quest for understanding what may be feasible is why we’ve entered into cooperative research and development agreements like the one you reference,” adding that “the speed of space transportation promises the potential to offer more options and greater decision space for leaders, and dilemmas for adversaries.” Asked when USTRANCOM believes a rocket-deployed quick reaction force might actually be feasible, Ross said the command is “excited for the future and believe it’s possible within the next 5-10 years.”

“My two cents are that it’s unlikely that they would be able to evacuate anyone quickly via rocket,” said Kaitlyn Johnson, deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Aerospace Security Project. Johnson pointed out that even if the underlying technology were sound, the small question of where to land an enormous 165-foot Starship rocket, the world’s largest, remains. “If it’s in a city, it’s not like they can land [a] Starship next to the embassy.” In the hypothetical embassy rescue mission, “you still have logistics issues there about getting forces onto the launch vehicle and then again on where you could land the vehicle and how to get the forces from the landing site to the base/embassy,” Johnson added, “which has not been tested or proven and in my opinion is a bit sci-fi.”

The document also nods at another potential hitch: Are other countries going to let SpaceX military rockets drop out of space and onto their turf? The unrealized vision of American “Starship Troopers” is not a new one: As far back as the 1950s, Nazi rocket scientist turned American space hero Wernher Von Braun pondered transporting U.S. troops via rocket, and in the 1960s, defense contractor Douglas Aircraft pitched “Project Ithacus,” a spacecraft carrying 1,200 soldiers to their destination in an hour. More recently, according to one 2006 Popular Science report, the Pentagon has dreamed of an age in which “Marines could touch down anywhere on the globe in less than two hours, without needing to negotiate passage through foreign airspace.” But the USTRANSCOM paper admits that Cold War-era treaties governing the use of space provide little guidance as to whether an American rocket could bypass sovereign airspace concerns by cruising through outer space. “It remains unclear whether and how vehicles are subject to established aviation laws and to what extent, if any, these laws follow them into space for PTP space transportation,” reads one section. “Moreover, the lack of a legal definition of the boundary between air and space creates an issue of where the application of aviation law ends and space law begins.” The document does hint that part of SpaceX’s promise could be to leap over these concerns. Following a redacted discussion of a hypothetical military Starship’s legal status while in flight, USTRANSCOM noted: “This recovery places the Starship outside of altitudes typically characterized as controlled airspace.”

Brian Weeden, director of program planning for the Secure World Foundation, a space governance think tank, told The Intercept that territorial concerns are just one of many, “along with whether or not the countries the rocket/spaceship pass over regard it as a weapon or ballistic missile threat or not.” Hartung argued that SpaceX, despite its “Mr. Clean” image as a peaceful enabler for cosmic exploration, is contributing to the global militarization of space. And as with drones, once an advanced and exclusively American technology begins proliferating, the U.S. will have to face its implications from the other side. “The question is, what would keep other countries from doing the same thing, and how would the U.S. feel about that?” asked Hartung. “This notion that going anywhere without having to get any approval from anybody has appeal from a military point of view, but would the U.S. want other countries to have that same capability? Probably not.”

READ MORE:

https://theintercept.com/2022/06/19/spacex-pentagon-elon-musk-space-defense/

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