标题: AirSea Battle [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 6-2-2012 10:35 标题: AirSea Battle Geoff Dyer, Pentagon's New Battle Plans Face Censure; Military strategy; Doctrine Focusing on Asia-Pacific--and particularly China--is seen as overly provocative. Financial Times, June 1, 2012.
Quote:
(a) "'AirSea Battle is demonising China,' James Cartwright, a retired vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said last week. 'That's not in anybody's interest.'
(b) "For some observers, AirSea Battle will push the US into dangerously provocative war planning against China. One of the documents the Pentagon has released--the Joint Operational Access Concept--recommends that in the event of any conflict, the US 'attack enemy antiaccess/area-denial defenses in depth.' In the case of China's anti-ship missiles, that would mean preparing for a large pre-emptive strike on military bases in mainland China.
"'The big risk is that such an attack would lead to a very dramatic escalation and China might even think it was an attempt to take out its nuclear capability,' said Raoul Heinrichs of Australian National University.
My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest of the FT report, which says little.
(b) Joint Operational Access Concept. US Department of Defense, Jan 17, 2012 (Version 1.0) http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/JOAC_Jan 2012_Signed.pdf
Quote:
(i) "Operational access is the joint force contribution to ASSURED ACCESS, the unhindered national use of the global commons and select
sovereign territory, waters, airspace and cyberspace." page i (emphasis original)
(ii) "Attack enemy antiaccess/area-denial defenses in depth rather than rolling back those defenses from the perimeter.
"This concept envisions that joint forces will attempt to penetrate into the depth of an enemy’s antiaccess/area-denial defenses. To do this, they will exploit and expand any domain advantages and maximize cross-domain synergy as described above. Additionally, they naturally will take advantage of any identified gaps in the enemy defenses. The penetration is designed to disrupt the integrity of the enemy defensive system, the preferred defeat mechanism, by striking at critical hostile elements, such as logistics and command and control nodes, long-range
firing units, and strategic and operational reserves.
"The historical alternative to this approach is to attack the perimeter of the enemy’s defenses, pushing back those defenses while advancing. Such an approach operates primarily by attrition and does not threaten the integrity of the enemy’s defensive system, but rather merely compresses those defenses as they fall back. This may actually play into the enemy’s antiaccess/area-denial strategy, which likely will attempt to use space and time to inflict cumulatively unacceptable casualties on an advancing joint force.
"While striking enemy antiaccess/area-denial capabilities in depth, a joint force should also attempt to neutralize the enemy’s ability to do the same to it, attacking those capabilities the enemy could employ to attack US command and control, sustainment, and lines of communication.
(c) The heading of the section ("Attack enemy antiaccess/area-denial defenses in depth rather than rolling back those defenses from the perimeter) also appeared at pages iii and 17, of the preceding document.
(d) To be fair, quotation (ii) does not mention--or hint at--a "pre-emptive" strike. Indeed the entire document did not contain the word "pre-emptive." For this reason, it is unclear when Raoul Heinrichs commented about "such an attack," he meant pre-emptive or in-depth attacks.