THE INDIAN OCEAN - THE SUPPORT AREA FOR THE DEFENSE LINE AND SANCTUARY

THE INDIAN OCEAN: THE SUPPORT AREA FOR THE DEFENSE LINE AND SANCTUARY

THE INDIAN OCEAN: THE SUPPORT AREA FOR THE DEFENSE LINE AND SANCTUARY

China also seeks to establish a support area in the Indian Ocean, analogous to the Soviet navy’s strategy in the Mediterranean Sea. During the Cold War, the Soviet navy used the Mediterranean as a support area that could give it access to the southern flank of its defense line in Eastern Europe and provide a sanctuary to warships and submarines operating against NATO forces. The Soviet Union also needed naval bases in the Mediterranean Sea to support deployments onward into the Atlantic Ocean and provide logistical support to its defense line. As mentioned, the main concentration of Soviet forces was stationed on the Soviet Union’s western border, and Soviet planners were concerned about potential vulnerability to the south, and thus saw access to and freedom of action in the Mediterranean Sea as a crucial element of successful homeland defense.⁴⁸

Gorshkov believed that the Atlantic Ocean was the paramount naval theater, and the Soviets’ inability to secure their SLOCs was a significant vulnerability that he believed might be mitigated by obtaining additional naval bases.⁴⁹ Because of the vastness of the country itself, most of the Soviet Union’s naval bases were isolated geographically from each other, and many of its ports were icebound in the winter, making warm-water ports on the Black Sea especially important. Gorshkov insisted that maintaining freedom of action and access for the Soviet navy in the Mediterranean Sea was key to denying an adversary access to Soviet coasts, and bases there would permit the service to conduct naval deployments in support of Eastern Europe while preventing the enemy from threatening it.⁵⁰

Gorshkov cited Napoléon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 as illustrating the Mediterranean Sea’s strategic importance. During that campaign the tsarist navy cut off the French supply line that passed through Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea, which disrupted critical logistics support for Napoléon’s army. Russia then drove the French back, in part by leveraging naval mobility in the Mediterranean.⁵¹ But if France had controlled the eastern Mediterranean Sea, not only would Russia not have enjoyed that leverage, but it would have faced an additional threat as well.

During the Cold War, Gorshkov insisted that the Soviet Union should try to contain the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet, which was based in the Mediterranean Sea, because U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers could be a serious threat to the Soviet Union. The presence of the Sixth Fleet not only posed a threat to the Soviet homeland from the sea; it also presented the possibility that Soviet forces would face threats on two fronts in a conflict: Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.⁵² In short, the goal of denying freedom of action to NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea was crucial for the Soviet Union’s homeland defense because it protected the southern flank of its defense line in Eastern Europe. Consequently, the Soviet Union began significant naval deployments into the Mediterranean to begin filling the regional power vacuum after World War II, and it worked to maintain influence in Egypt and Syria to preserve its access to the eastern reaches of the sea.⁵³

China experienced a painful humiliation during the Taiwan crisis in 1995, facing two USN carrier strike groups that taught China the necessity of developing effective countermeasures against U.S. power-projection capabilities.

Today, the Indian Ocean shares similar strategic importance as a support area for China. Just as the U.S. Sixth Fleet threatened the Soviet navy and the southern maritime approaches to the Soviet homeland, U.S. naval forces flowing from the Fifth Fleet area of responsibility in the Middle East can approach the SCS from the southwest while China’s ASCEL operations focus toward the east and the ECS. If China has no countermeasures against U.S. naval forces approaching from the Indian Ocean to intervene in the SCS, China could face threats on two maritime fronts, including the potential for strikes against the Chinese homeland. This is almost exactly the same strategic problem the Soviet Union faced in the Mediterranean Sea during the Cold War. China similarly must maintain presence and deterrent capabilities in the Indian Ocean to counter potential encirclement by the U.S. Navy

To deter NATO naval forces, Gorshkov concluded that the Soviet navy needed larger, more-capable warships and long-range maritime patrol aircraft.⁵⁴ He did not emphasize aircraft carriers as part of this modernization, likely because the Soviet navy’s operational area was not large enough for them to be useful. China, by contrast, needs a much larger fleet, including aircraft carriers, to maintain a naval presence or project power in the vast Indian Ocean. Zhang Xusan, the deputy commander of the PLAN at the end of the Cold War and part of the second generation of senior navy leadership that followed Liu Huaqing, insisted that the PLAN needed aircraft carriers for their sea-denial capability.⁵⁵ He envisioned Chinese aircraft carriers principally being used to defend the SCS, but since China now has “unsinkable” aircraft carriers in the form of its artificial island bases, the PLAN’s growing carrier force may be freed up to operate in the Indian Ocean.

As for the U.S. Navy, aircraft carrier operations remain its best solution to maintain a naval presence in the Indian Ocean that can project force into the SCS to counter the PLAN. A USN carrier strike group (CSG)—consisting of an aircraft carrier and a mix of escorting surface combatants—can conduct a variety of operations against a multitude of threats in both the open ocean and the littorals, thanks to its high mobility and strike capabilities.⁵⁶ Just as the U.S. Navy believes highly capable, multimission combatants are required to conduct the full range of naval operations over vast sea spaces, the PLAN similarly may see a CSG of its own as the only appropriate force to intercept and disrupt adversary operations in the Indian Ocean.

China’s approach to the Indian Ocean is very similar to the Soviet navy’s in the Mediterranean Sea, although the methods differ. After World War II, the Soviet Union tried to coerce Turkey militarily to ensure its access to the Mediterranean Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Turkey turned to the United States, fomenting the Turkish Straits crisis, and ultimately the Soviet Union’s effort at intimidation failed.⁵⁷

Perhaps mindful of how overt coercion can cause counterproductive backlash, China has pursued influence and access in the Indian Ocean through commercial and other economic means. China is leveraging its massive economic power in the Indian Ocean with a “first civilian, later military” approach.⁵⁸ First it attracts coastal countries with financing and development projects to establish a local infrastructure presence and gain political influence and leverage; later it may convert this influence into securing military and logistical access, especially through ports it has built and manages for the host country.⁵⁹ There is concern that China accomplishes this acquisition of coercive leverage and access to strategic infrastructure under the auspices of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which Chinese officials describe as “a way for win-win cooperation that promotes common development and prosperity and a road toward peace and friendship by enhancing mutual understanding and trust, and strengthening all-around exchanges.”⁶⁰ Despite this innocuous framing, China gradually may expand the civil facilities that it builds overseas for use by its military, relying on the host state’s growing economic dependence on China to ensure continued access.⁶¹

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps also appreciate the importance of securing basing and logistics in contested areas, and have developed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept to establish temporary bases in areas expected to be contested at the outbreak of a conflict.⁶² Establishing a military base can be a daunting task in a contested environment, but it is easier to accomplish in peacetime. Similarly, China appears to be laying the foundations for wartime port and logistical access in the Indian Ocean now, before any conflict has broken out, including developing “dual-use possibilities” in some commercial ports to provide logistical support to PLAN warships. In the near future, it is possible that more than ten Chinese-operated ports in the Indian Ocean will be developed with dual-use capabilities to serve both commercial and military needs (see figure 2).⁶³

FIGURE 2

CHINA-INFLUENCED PORTS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

FIGURE 2 CHINA-INFLUENCED PORTS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

The PLAN rapidly is improving its ability to operate and employ CSGs. In April 2018, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning (CV 16) conducted the PLAN’s first CSG operations in the Philippine Sea, just east of Taiwan; China’s second aircraft carrier, Shandong (CV 17), conducted sea trials and training exercises in May 2020.⁶⁴ The PLAN also is believed to be constructing a next-generation nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and is expected to build several more.⁶⁵ Toshi Yoshihara estimates that the PLAN could have sixteen to twenty cruisers, thirtysix to forty destroyers, and forty to fifty frigates by 2030, which is a sufficient base of surface combatants to form several CSGs and simultaneously conduct ASCEL operations in the ECS.⁶⁶ These prospective CSGs, in combination with the sustainment rights and access China appears to be pursuing at Chinese-operated ports in the Indian Ocean, will give the PLAN sea-control, power-projection, and logistics capabilities similar to the U.S. Navy’s in the Indian Ocean. This could undermine U.S. forces’ influence in the region and subsequently threaten U.S. approaches and logistics lines into the SCS in a conflict.⁶⁷