China's Way of Naval War: Mahan's Logic, Mao's Grammar
2009; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01495930903025268
ISSN1521-0448
Autores Tópico(s)Military History and Strategy
ResumoAbstract This article posits that Alfred Thayer Mahan supplies the "logic" of Chinese maritime strategy, urging Beijing to amass commercial and naval fleets, international commerce, and forward naval stations—the trappings of sea power. Mao Zedong provides the "grammar" by which the People's Liberation Army will prosecute naval operations offshore. The article ranks Wayne Hughes's three generic models of fleet tactics according to Chinese strategic preferences, concluding that Chinese commanders incline to dispersed attack, sequential attack, and massed attack, in that order. By acquainting themselves with Chinese preferences, U.S. naval commanders can glimpse how this prospective naval adversary will wage war. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not represent any official views or opinions. Notes 1. Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 2d. ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000). This work is a lightly revised version of Hughes's classic Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986). 2. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 266. 3. Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, pp. 268–274. 4. Chester W. Richards, "A Swift, Elusive Sword: What If Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?" presentation at Boyd Conference, Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA, fall 2001, Defense and the National Interest Website, available at http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/strategy-and-force-employment/boyd-and-military-strategy/. 5. Mao Zedong, On Protracted War, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, available at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_09.htm. 6. Sun Tzu, The Illustrated Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (1963; repr., Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 125. 7. Samuel B. Griffith, "Introduction," in Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, pp. 17–30. 8. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed., trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 605. 9. Barry R. Posen, "Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony," International Security 28, no. 1 (summer 2003): 5–46. 10. Bernard Brodie, A Guide to Naval Strategy, 3d ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944), p. 252. 11. Brodie, Guide to Naval Strategy, p. 252. 12. Writing about the results of the Russo–Japanese War, Mahan deplored "fortress–fleets," or fleets that operated purely in support of land fortifications (and within range of land-based fire support) as a "radically erroneous" concept of naval warfare. Russian commanders' reluctance to challenge Togo's Imperial Japanese Navy too far from Port Arthur sparked his ire. Alfred Thayer Mahan, "Retrospect upon the War between Japan and Russia," in Naval Administration and Warfare (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1918), pp. 133–173. 13. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 244. 14. Clausewitz observes that when one state invades the territory of a neighboring state, its army will start overextending itself, while the enemy will grow stronger with shorter communications with its bases, as well as the advantages that accrue from fighting in familiar surroundings. The culminating point represents the crossover point at which the defender's strength starts to surpass that of the attacker. The same applies to the fleet that stands into an enemy's maritime contested zone. Clausewitz, On War, p. 528. See also James R. Holmes, "Roosevelt's Pursuit of a Temperate Caribbean Policy," Naval History 20, no. 4 (August 2006): 48–53, which describes Theodore Roosevelt's early attempt to mount a contested zone in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. 15. Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, 3d ed., repr. (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 119–134. 16. Harold and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1939), pp. 203, 217–222. 17. Donald C. Winter, "Navy Transformation: A Stable, Long-term View," Heritage Lecture no. 1004, February 7, 2007, Heritage Foundation Website, available at http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl1004.cfm. 18. Dean Acheson, "Remarks by the Secretary of State (Acheson) before the National Press Club, Washington, January 12, 1950," in Raymond Dennett and Robert K. Turner, eds., Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. 12: January 1—December 31, 1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 431. 19. Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi, The Science of Military Strategy (Beijing, China: Military Science Publishing House, 2005), pp. 442–443. 20. Douglas MacArthur, in Courtney Whitney, MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History (New York: Knopf, 1956), pp. 378–379. 21. Ernest J. King, in Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), p. 476. 22. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890; repr., New York: Dover Publications, 1987), pp. 25, 71. 23. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 25. 24. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Problem of Asia (1900; repr., Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1970), p. 124. 25. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (1897; repr., Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970), pp. 65–83, 277–92. 26. Mahan, Problem of Asia, p. 124. 27. Mahan, Problem of Asia, p. 33. 28. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 138. 29. Alfred Thayer Mahan, "Considerations Governing the Disposition of Navies," National Review, July 1902: 706. 30. Richard W. Turk, The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 1–6, 101–107. 31. W. S. Sims, "The Inherent Qualities of All-Big-Gun, One-Caliber Battleships of High Speed, Large Displacement, and Gun Power," Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1906: 1337–1366; Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, pp. 69–70. 32. Richard A. Hough, Dreadnought: A History of the Modern Battleship (New York: Macmillan, 1964), pp. 34–37. 33. For an account of China's naval efforts during the Cold War, see John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China's Strategic Sea Power: The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994). 34. Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, "The Chinese Navy's Offshore Active Defense Strategy," Naval War College Review 47, no. 3 (summer 1994): 9–18; Jun Zhan, "China Goes to the Blue Waters: The Navy, Sea Power Mentality, and the South China Sea," Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1994): 180–208. 35. References to U.S. "encirclement" and "containment" are ubiquitous in the Chinese press. See for example Willy Wo-Lap Lam, "Hu's Central Asian Gamble to Counter the U.S. 'Containment Strategy,"' China Brief, vol. 5, no. 15 (July 5, 2005): 7–8. 36. Mao Zedong, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," in Selected Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. 1 (Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), pp. 205–49. 37. Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), pp. 24–26. 38. Mao himself exemplified this openness to Western strategic thought, quoting Carl von Clausewitz, the author of the classic On War, almost as freely (if not as openly) as Sun Tzu. 39. Ni Lexiong, "Sea Power and China's Development," Liberation Daily, April 17, 2005, p. 2, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Website, available at http://www.uscc.gov/researchpapers/translated_articles/2005/05_07_18_Sea_Power_and_Chinas_Development.pdf. For a more exhaustive look at Mahan's influence in Beijing, see James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, "The Influence of Mahan upon China's Maritime Strategy," Comparative Strategy, vol. 24, no. 1 (January–March 2005): 53–71. 40. Ni, "Sea Power and China's Development," pp. 1–2. On Germany's quest for sea power, see James R. Holmes, "Mahan, a 'Place in the Sun,' and Germany's Quest for Sea Power," Comparative Strategy, vol. 23, no. 1 (January–March 2004): 27–62. 41. Ni, "Sea Power and China's Development," p. 4. 42. Ni, "Sea Power and China's Development," p. 5. 43. Bruce Elleman, "A Comparative Historical Approach to Blockade Strategies: Implications for China," in Gabriel B. Collins, Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and William S. Murray, eds., China's Energy Strategy: The Impact on Beijing's Maritime Policies (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008), pp. 365–386. 44. Some 80 percent of China's oil imports, accounting for 40 percent of total Chinese oil consumption, passes through the Strait, giving rise to what Chinese President Hu Jintao has called China's "Malacca Dilemma." Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2005 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2005), p. 33. On China's demand for petroleum, see David Hale, "China's Growing Appetites," National Interest, vol. 76 (summer 2004): 137–47. 45. You Ji, "Dealing with the Malacca Dilemma: China's Effort to Protect Its Energy Supply," Strategic Analysis 31, no. 3 (May 2007): 467–490. 46. Xu Zhiliang, "Clearly Delineate PRC Territorial Waters in Map Making," Nanfang Ribao, April 26, 2001, FBIS-CPP20010427000033. 47. "Secret Sanya—China's New Nuclear Naval Base Revealed," Jane's Intelligence Review, April 21, 2008, available at http://www.janes.com/news/security/jir/jir080421_1_n.shtml. 48. Gurpreet Khurana, "New 'Revelations' on China's Nuclear Submarine Base at Hainan: Must India Be Anxious?" South Asia Defense & Strategic Review, vol. 2, no. 4 (July–August 2008): 28–29. 49. Author discussions with U.S. scholars, Newport, RI, September 2008. 50. James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, "China's 'Caribbean' in the South China Sea," SAIS Review of International Affairs vol. 26, no. 1 (Winter–Spring 2006): 79–92. 51. Margaret Tuttle Sprout, "Mahan: Evangelist of Sea Power," in Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. Edward Meade Earle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), p. 415. 52. Mahan saw battleships as the embodiment of offensive strategy: "the backbone and real power of any navy are the vessels which, by due proportion of defensive and offensive powers, are capable of taking and giving hard knocks." Mahan, Interest of America in Sea Power, p. 198. 53. Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," pp. 207, 224. 54. The offensive mindset "does not mean, however, that when we are already locked in battle with an enemy who enjoys superiority, we revolutionaries should not adopt defensive measures even when we are hard pressed. Only a prize idiot would think in this way." Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," p. 208. 55. Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," pp. 207, 224. 56. Sun Tzu, The Art of Warfare, trans. Roger T. Ames (New York: Ballantine, 1993). Mao's doctrine of active defense owed much to Sun Tzu. See for instance Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," pp. 217–218. 57. Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," pp. 220, 234. 58. Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," pp. 208, 211, 217, 234. 59. Milan N. Vego, Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas (London: Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 85–88. For the U.S. Army's definition of interior lines, see Headquarters, U.S. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: U.S. Army, June 2001), pp. 5–7, 5–9, available at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/fm3_0b.pdf. 60. Mao Zedong, "Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War," in Selected Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. 2 (Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), p. 83. 61. Mao, "Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War," pp. 82–84. 62. Mao, On Protracted War. 63. Adm. Liu Huaqing, who commanded the PLA Navy during the 1980s, coined the phrase "offshore active defense." He urged China to adopt a phased strategy to wring control of the waters within the first island chain from the U.S. Navy before turning its attention to the waters within the "second island chain," farther out in the Pacific, and ultimately to global competition for maritime supremacy. See Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-first Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 165–68; Jeffrey B. Goldman, "China's Mahan," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (March 1996): 44–47; Jun, "China Goes to the Blue Waters," pp. 189–91; Huang, "China's Offshore Active Defense Strategy," p. 18. 64. Maj. Gen. Jiang Shiliang, "The Command of Communications," Zhongguo Junshi Kexue, October 2, 2002: 106–14, FBIS-CPP20030107000189. 65. See for instance J. Noel Williams and James S. O'Brasky, "A Naval Operational Architecture for Global Tactical Operations," in Sam J. Tangredi, Globalization and Maritime Power (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2002), available at http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books_2002/Globalization_and_Maritime_Power_Dec_02/29_ch28.htm. 66. Mahan had in mind the ability of the U.S. Navy to impose command of the sea the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, astride the approaches to the isthmian canal, despite its overall inferiority to European navies. His most exhaustive geopolitical analysis of these waters came in two essays: "The Strategic Features of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean," which appeared in Harper's in 1887, and "The Isthmus and Sea Power," which appeared in The Atlantic in 1893. Both were reprinted in The Interest of America in Sea Power. 67. Martin Andrew, "The Dragon Breathes Fire: Chinese Power Projection," China Brief, vol. 5, no. 16 (July 19, 2005): 5–8. 68. Keith Crane et al., Modernizing China's Military: Opportunities and Constraints (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005). 69. Holmes and Yoshihara, "The Influence of Mahan upon China's Maritime Strategy," pp. 53–71; Lyle J. Goldstein and William S. Murray, "Undersea Dragons: China's Maturing Submarine Force," International Security, vol. 28, no. 4 (Spring 2004): 162–94. 70. Of the Japanese invasion of China, Mao wrote, "Japan, though strong, does not have enough soldiers. China, though weak, has a vast territory, a large population and plenty of soldiers." Even if strong enemy forces seized key urban areas and communication nodes, then, China would retain "a general rear and vital bases from which to carry on the protracted war to final victory." Mao, "Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War," p. 158. 71. Mao, "Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," pp. 220, 234. 72. Wendell Minnick, "RAND Study Suggests U.S. Loses War with China," Defense News, October 16, 2008, available at http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3774348&c=ASI&s=AIR. 73. "Hangzhou Type 956 Sovremennyy," GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/haizhou.htm. 74. Ted Parsons, "China Develops Anti-Ship Missile," Jane's Defense Weekly, January 18, 2006, available at http://www.janes.com/defence/naval_forces/news/jdw/jdw060118_1_n.shtml; Wendell Minnick, "China Developing Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles," Defense News, January 14, 2008, available at http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3307277. 75. For details about the FT-2000, see James C. O'Halloran, ed., Jane's Land-Based Air Defense (Surrey, UK: Jane's Information Group, 2004), pp. 109–110. 76. According to one of the Pentagon's annual reports on Chinese military power, a brochure promoting the FT-2000 at the September 1998 Farnborough Air Show boasted that the system was an "AWACS killer." See U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, July 2003), p. 30. 77. To browse through any of the Pentagon reports published since 2002, see "Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China," Department of Defense Website, available at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/china.html. 78. For more on the Chinese undersea fleet, see Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, William S. Murray, and Andrew R. Wilson, China's Future Nuclear Submarine Force (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007), pp. 59–76, 359–372. 79. Andrew Hind, "The Cruise Missile Comes of Age," Naval History, vol. 22, no. 5 (October 2008): 52–57; Ramit Plushnick-Masti, "Israel: Iran Aided Hezbollah Ship Attack," CBS News, July 15, 2006, available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/15/ap/world/mainD8ISKVT80.shtml. 80. Zhang Wenmu, "China's Energy Security and Policy Choices," Shijie Jingji Yu Zhengzhi 5 (May 14, 2003): vols. 11–16, FBIS-CPP20030528000169. See also Zhang Wenmu, "Sea Power and China's Strategic Choices," China Security (Summer 2006): 1, 17–31. 81. "RIM-7/-162 Sea Sparrow/ESSM," Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems, February 8, 2008; Joris Janssen Lok and Richard Scott, "Navies Face Choice Questions for Defense of Surface Combatants," International Defense Review, February 1, 2005. 82. The study was supervised by Wayne Hughes. Chase D. Patrick, Assessing the Utility of an Event-Step ASMD Model by Analysis of Surface Combatant Shared Self-Defense (Monterey, CA: U.S. Navy Postgraduate School, September 2001), pp. 51–54. 83. "MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS)," GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/systems/mk-15-specs.htm. 84. "J-11 [Su-27 FLANKER]; Su-27UBK /Su-30MKK/Su-30MK2," GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/j-11.htm. 85. "F/A-18 Hornet," GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-18-specs.htm; "BGM-109 Tomahawk," GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bgm-109-specs.htm. 86. "AGM-84 Harpoon; SLAM [Stand-Off Land Attack Missile]," GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/agm-84-specs.htm. 87. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 247. 88. Office of Naval Intelligence Website, available at http://www.nmic.navy.mil/.
Referência(s)