While enjoying his breakfast coffee Sunday morning December 7th, 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox surely smiled if he was reading the New York Times. On the front page, below the fold of one of America’s most influential and trusted newspapers, a glowing article enthused how proud Knox was to “report that the American people may feel confident in their Navy.” He continued, “On any comparable basis the United States Navy is second to none.”
Within hours, Secretary Knox undoubtedly lost his smile as reports informed him that America’s “second-to-none” Navy had suffered a grievous, devastating defeat. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s successful attack on Pearl Harbor and airfields had achieved complete strategic, operational, and tactical surprise, which totally belied Knox’s assessment.
The United States in late 2022 confronts a Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) intent on absorbing Taiwan through any means, including military force. Senior U.S. civilian Defense Department leaders, much like Secretary Knox in 1941, assure America, its allies and partners, as well as the Chinese, that the U.S. military can defeat any such attempt by Beijing. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared in October, “We’re confident that we’ll have…the force to be able to execute our strategy.” Colin Kahl, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, promised in November that, “We have been [China’s] pacing challenge for years. The gap has closed, [but] no one should doubt the United States” [retains the most capable military force]. At last week’s Reagan National Defense Forum, Secretary Austin stated that China has the will and the power to “reshape its region and the international order to suit its authoritarian preference,” and that the United States, “will not let that happen” stating that, “deterrence comes through strength.”
The growing lack of confidence to defeat the Chinese should the PRC invade Taiwan is strategically well-founded, notwithstanding the superb people serving in the U.S. military. If the Chinese begin this war, they will determine the time and place of their choosing to attack, exploiting their advantages of surprise, interior lines, strategic depth, and superior numbers both at sea and on the land. They would have the initiative in this maritime-dominant theater of operations.
On any day in the Western Pacific, about 23 U.S. Navy warships and submarines are underway at sea on active patrol, while another 60 odd Navy combatants are in port. With their superiority in numbers and comprehensive knowledge of the region, Chinese forces could overwhelm the defenses of the Navy’s underway ships with saturation missile attacks, and more easily destroy the stationary Navy’s ships and submarines in geographically fixed seaports. The Chinese would simultaneously destroy the Navy’s principal logistical nodes in Japan: six major fuel oil depots, the Urago ammunition depot, and the Yokosuka naval base, which is the only facility in the Western Pacific that can repair aircraft carriers, outside of China itself, of course.
To prevent such a catastrophic, Pearl Harbor-like attack, the U.S. military requires exquisite indications and warning in order to minimize the number of its ships in port and to stand-up battle formations at sea. Unfortunately, as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reminded in 2011, “When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never gotten it right, from the Mayagüez to Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Kuwait, Iraq, and more—we had no idea a year before any of those missions that we would be so engaged.”
It is a strategic assumption of the highest uncertainty to believe that that the U.S. military will get accurate, advance notice of Chinese intentions. What is likely is that the United States will not even comprehend that the war has begun. U.S. leaders will misinterpret initial actions, such as mysterious hacking into airline ticketing software that close down major domestic U.S. airports in advance of Chinese kinetic attacks. What we do know is that Beijing the Chinese will play with a different set of rules than Washington.
It is not an absolute guarantee that the U.S. military will prevail in a conflict with the PRC. The commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Chas Richard, in November said as much, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. …it isn’t going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our forces are — we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.” And as a near-term problem, building new ships, as the Congressional Research Service correctly reports, “will only have a small impact” during this next decade.
On this day of remembrance, more than 80 years on, America needs to re-consider the stirring battle cry to “Remember Pearl Harbor.” In 1941 it served as a call for sacrifice and duty. In 2022, it serves as a forewarning that authoritarian regimes such as China’s only respect power, and that effective deterrence against the Chinese is much cheaper than the cost of war.
Today’s senior civilian defense leaders need to level with the American public about the U.S. military’s strengths and weaknesses for a protracted, global war with China. These leaders cannot follow the example of Secretary Knox in 1941. The American public deserves candid, accurate assessments about Chinese intentions and capabilities as compared to the United States and its allies, and not cheering-leading, happy talk. Americans need to understand the gathering storm and the requisite need for a stronger – a much stronger – U.S. military.
Bruce Stubbs, as a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the former Director of Navy Strategy and Concepts for the Chief of Naval Operations.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Bruce Stubbs
While enjoying his breakfast coffee Sunday morning December 7th, 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox surely smiled if he was reading the New York Times. On the front page, below the fold of one of America’s most influential and trusted newspapers, a glowing article enthused how proud Knox was to “report that the American people may feel confident in their Navy.” He continued, “On any comparable basis the United States Navy is second to none.”
Within hours, Secretary Knox undoubtedly lost his smile as reports informed him that America’s “second-to-none” Navy had suffered a grievous, devastating defeat. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s successful attack on Pearl Harbor and airfields had achieved complete strategic, operational, and tactical surprise, which totally belied Knox’s assessment.
The United States in late 2022 confronts a Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) intent on absorbing Taiwan through any means, including military force. Senior U.S. civilian Defense Department leaders, much like Secretary Knox in 1941, assure America, its allies and partners, as well as the Chinese, that the U.S. military can defeat any such attempt by Beijing. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared in October, “We’re confident that we’ll have…the force to be able to execute our strategy.” Colin Kahl, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, promised in November that, “We have been [China’s] pacing challenge for years. The gap has closed, [but] no one should doubt the United States” [retains the most capable military force]. At last week’s Reagan National Defense Forum, Secretary Austin stated that China has the will and the power to “reshape its region and the international order to suit its authoritarian preference,” and that the United States, “will not let that happen” stating that, “deterrence comes through strength.”
Other strategists are not so confident. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Ochmanek observed in war games that, “When we fight China, Blue [the Good Guys] gets its ass handed to it.” Mr. Robert Work, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, observed that, “In the first five days of the campaign, we are looking good. After the second five days, it’s not looking so hot. That is what the war games show over and over again.” Even more alarming were the statements in 2020 by former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld and former Central Intelligence Agency Acting Director Michael Morell that China could seize Taiwan before the U.S. could effectively respond. Also at last week’s Reagan National Defense Forum, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (MI-R) commented, “We know that we lose war games when we fight China.” Indeed, as the International Business Times recently reported, “the potential forced unification of Taiwan with mainland China — opens up, the massive advancement and expansion of the Chinese PLA Navy are coinciding with the steady shrinking and decline of U.S. Navy’s capabilities that are marred by deployment delays, cost overruns and severe maintenance issues.”
The growing lack of confidence to defeat the Chinese should the PRC invade Taiwan is strategically well-founded, notwithstanding the superb people serving in the U.S. military. If the Chinese begin this war, they will determine the time and place of their choosing to attack, exploiting their advantages of surprise, interior lines, strategic depth, and superior numbers both at sea and on the land. They would have the initiative in this maritime-dominant theater of operations.
On any day in the Western Pacific, about 23 U.S. Navy warships and submarines are underway at sea on active patrol, while another 60 odd Navy combatants are in port. With their superiority in numbers and comprehensive knowledge of the region, Chinese forces could overwhelm the defenses of the Navy’s underway ships with saturation missile attacks, and more easily destroy the stationary Navy’s ships and submarines in geographically fixed seaports. The Chinese would simultaneously destroy the Navy’s principal logistical nodes in Japan: six major fuel oil depots, the Urago ammunition depot, and the Yokosuka naval base, which is the only facility in the Western Pacific that can repair aircraft carriers, outside of China itself, of course.
To prevent such a catastrophic, Pearl Harbor-like attack, the U.S. military requires exquisite indications and warning in order to minimize the number of its ships in port and to stand-up battle formations at sea. Unfortunately, as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reminded in 2011, “When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never gotten it right, from the Mayagüez to Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Kuwait, Iraq, and more—we had no idea a year before any of those missions that we would be so engaged.”
It is a strategic assumption of the highest uncertainty to believe that that the U.S. military will get accurate, advance notice of Chinese intentions. What is likely is that the United States will not even comprehend that the war has begun. U.S. leaders will misinterpret initial actions, such as mysterious hacking into airline ticketing software that close down major domestic U.S. airports in advance of Chinese kinetic attacks. What we do know is that Beijing the Chinese will play with a different set of rules than Washington.
It is not an absolute guarantee that the U.S. military will prevail in a conflict with the PRC. The commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Chas Richard, in November said as much, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. …it isn’t going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our forces are — we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.” And as a near-term problem, building new ships, as the Congressional Research Service correctly reports, “will only have a small impact” during this next decade.
On this day of remembrance, more than 80 years on, America needs to re-consider the stirring battle cry to “Remember Pearl Harbor.” In 1941 it served as a call for sacrifice and duty. In 2022, it serves as a forewarning that authoritarian regimes such as China’s only respect power, and that effective deterrence against the Chinese is much cheaper than the cost of war.
Today’s senior civilian defense leaders need to level with the American public about the U.S. military’s strengths and weaknesses for a protracted, global war with China. These leaders cannot follow the example of Secretary Knox in 1941. The American public deserves candid, accurate assessments about Chinese intentions and capabilities as compared to the United States and its allies, and not cheering-leading, happy talk. Americans need to understand the gathering storm and the requisite need for a stronger – a much stronger – U.S. military.
Bruce Stubbs, as a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the former Director of Navy Strategy and Concepts for the Chief of Naval Operations.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.