In a war with the Chinese regime, Australia would assist the United States by helping block trade routes with its submarines. This was detailed in a secret chapter of Australia’s 2009 Defense White Paper, yet was revealed in a new book by Australian journalist David Uren, “The Kingdom and the Quarry: China, Australia, Fear and Greed.”
The book is causing a stir in Australia, leading The Australian newspaper to post a front-page headline, “Secret ‘War’ With China Uncovered,” which was published just ahead of a meeting between the Australian Defense Minister and the Chinese regime.
But for the United States, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The military shift to the Pacific, announced by President Barack Obama on January 5, is the playing out of the Air-Sea Battle concept—a military strategy meant to defend against the Chinese regime’s broad anti-access strategy.
The Washington Times reported on it in February 2011 stating, “Officials said the plan responds to China’s ‘anti-access’ strategy of using ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines, and aircraft to drive U.S. forces out of the western Pacific or limit them in aiding U.S. allies.”
The United States has been rather open with information regarding this strategy. It was mentioned in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), then it was explained more deeply in an April 22, 2011 report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) by Naval Affairs specialist Ronald O’Rourke.
The Chinese regime’s anti-access strategy is meant to keep the United States out of the Pacific, allowing the regime to launch attacks from a safe distance.
The CRS said the strategy “can be viewed as broadly analogous to the sea-denial force that the Soviet Union developed during the Cold War to deny U.S. use of the sea or counter-U.S. forces participating in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict.”
Concern around this is twofold. The first is that the Chinese regime will use this strategy to keep the West out during a takeover of Taiwan. The other is the regime’s related strategy, Assassin’s Mace.
David Uren outlined this in his book, citing Ross Babbage, managing director of Strategy International, an Australian national security consulting organization.
He states that the Chinese military’s “strategy for the Western Pacific potentially involves four steps. First, blind the U.S. surveillance and reconnaissance systems and damage command, control, and communications networks with cyber, missile, and space attacks. Then launch large pre-emptive attacks on U.S. and Japanese bases and forces with missiles, aircraft, and special force raids, possibly extending to facilities in Australia,” Uren states.
While this is taking place, he states, “There would be multiple missile and submarine attacks on U.S. naval vessels. Finally, PLA units would aim to destroy more distant support forces from Hawaii to Alaska, Singapore, and Australia.”
The Air-Sea Battle concept is designed to prevent such a scenario from taking place—given that the strategy relies heavily on pre-emptive strike and on the U.S. military being at a safe distance.
This is detailed in the report from the Congressional Research Service, mentioned earlier. Its author, Naval Affairs specialist Ronald O’Rourke, states that the Navy had already moved all three of its Seawolf class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines to the Pacific, along with several other ships and submarines.
He states, in particular, that moving the Navy’s Aegis destroyers to the Pacific “can be viewed as having been prompted in large part by Navy concerns over its ability to counter China’s maritime anti-access capabilities.”
Similar actions have been taken by other branches of the military—in line with the new military focus on the Pacific.
The secret chapter of Australia’s 2009 Defense White Paper reveals that Australia is taking similar measures. Uren states that this chapter “focused on Australia’s ability to fight an air-sea battle alongside the United States against China. This assumed that there would be blockades distant from China designed to control its sea routes and stop the flow of natural resources on which its industrial engine depends.”
“A ‘major power adversary’ could be expected to respond to such blockades by mining and attacking ports,” Uren states. “Part of the defense thinking is that, in the event of a conflict with the United States, China would attempt to destroy the Pine Gap, the U.S.-Australia signals facility near Alice Springs, which is crucial for guiding U.S. military operations in Asia.”
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