Command of the sea with Chinese characteristics

Orbis

Volumn 49, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 677-694

  Yoshihara, Toshi ^a   Holmes, James ^b  

^a Department of International Security Studies   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 23944516502     PISSN: 00304387     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2005.07.008     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, "'For America, the Age of Geopolitics Has Ended and the Age of Global Politics Has Begun,"' Boston Review, Feb./Mar. 2005;
2. and America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2003)
3. For a sampling of similar views, see Joseph S. Nye, Power in the Global Information Age: From Realism to Globalization (London and New York: Routledge, 2004)
4. and Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century (New York: Public Affairs, 2002).
5. See, e.g., Mackubin T. Owens, "In Defense of Classical Geopolitics," Naval War College Review, Autumn 1999.
6. Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, China's National Defense in 2004, China Military Online website (http://english.chinamil.com.cn).
7. Barry R. Posen, "Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony," International Security, Summer 2003.
8. Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2000), ch. 5, "Geopolitical Power Calculations."
9. See, e.g., Jun Zhan, "China Goes to the Blue Waters: The Navy, Sea Power Mentality and the South China Sea," Journal of Strategic Studies, September 1994
10. Jeffrey B. Goldman, "China's Mahan," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, March 1996, pp. 44-47
11. Swaran Singh, "Continuity and Change in China's Maritime Strategy," Strategic Analysis, December 1999
12. and Srikanth Kondrapalli, "Chinese Navy's Political Work and Personnel," Strategic Analysis, January 2000.
13. Bernard D. Cole, "The PLA Navy and 'Active Defense'" in Stephen J. Flanagan and Michael E. Marti, eds., The People's Liberation Army and China in Transition (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2003).
14. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (New York: Dover Publications, 1987 [1890]), pp. 25, 71.
15. "Central to the theory of sea power," notes George Baer, "was the expectation of conflict. When a nation's prosperity depends on shipborne commerce, and the amount of trade available is limited, then competition follows, and that leads to a naval contest to protect the trade." George W. Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The United States Navy, 1890-1990 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 12
16. See also James R. Holmes, "Mahan, a 'Place in the Sun', and Germany's Quest for Sea Power," Comparative Strategy, Jan.-Mar. 2004.
17. A. T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970 [1900]), p. 15.
18. A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1970 [1897]), p. 277.
19. Mahan, Problem of Asia, p. 135.
20. Mahan, Interest of America, pp. 275, 380.
21. Dean Acheson, "Remarks by the Secretary of State [Acheson] before the National Press Club, Washington, Jan. 12, 1950," in Raymond Dennett and Robert K. Turner, eds., Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. 12, Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1950 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1951), p. 431.
22. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, p. 138.
23. Jiang Shiliang, "The Command of Communications," China Military Science (Beijing), Oct. 2, 2002.
24. Zhang Wenmu, "China's Energy Security and Policy Choices," World Economy and Politics (Beijing), May 14, 2003.
25. Indeed, an article in Elite Reference (Beijing) commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of China's submarine force quoted an "anonymous PLA submarine warfare expert" as noting that the PLA Navy's strategic objective for the next decade was "to obtain absolute superiority of the sea area of about 500 miles off, and along, China's coastline and to safeguard China's coastal economic circle." Qiu Yongzheng, "Chinese Submarines: Fighting for 500 Nautical Miles of Absolute Sea Superiority," June 30, 2004.
26. Posen, "Command of the Commons," p. 22.
27. See David Shambaugh, Modernizing China's Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2002), pp. 56-107
28. See also David Shambaugh, "China's Military Views the World: Ambivalent Security," International Security, Winter 1999/2000.
29. Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2002), p. 53.
30. Eliot Cohen, "Change and Transformation in Military Affairs," Journal of Strategic Studies, Sept. 2004, pp. 401-02.
31. John Stone, "Politics, Technology and the Revolution in Military Affairs," Journal of Strategic Studies, Sept. 2004, p. 421.
32. For a widely circulated journalistic account of how China might use its capabilities along its coastline, see Robert D. Kaplan, "How We Could Fight China," Atlantic Monthly, June 2005
33. See also Frank C. Borik, "Sub Tzu and the Art of Submarine Warfare," in Mary A. Sommerville, ed., Essays on Strategy XIII (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1996).
34. Cohen, "Change and Transformation," p. 402.
35. Some estimates hold that shipbuilding budgets would have to rise by approximately 80 percent, from around $10 billion to around $18 billion annually, to sustain even the low-end force structure contemplated by the Navy leadership. U.S. Department of the Navy, An Interim Report to Congress on Annual Long-range Plan for the Construction of Naval Vessels for FY 2006, March 2005
36. Ronald O'Rourke, Potential Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Feb. 16, 2005), p. 22.
37. Corbett, a British contemporary of Mahan, depicted naval warfare as the art of controlling the SLOCs. Corbett maintained that an uncommanded sea would constitute the norm, both in peacetime and even in wartime. He argued that the sea was "not susceptible to ownership, at least outside territorial waters." Command of the sea meant "nothing but the control of maritime communications, whether for commercial or military purposes." Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988 [1911]), pp. xxx, 91, 134.
38. Mahan, Problem of Asia, p. 33.