U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan on August 2. Beijing responded fiercely. In addition to the restrictions on Taiwan’s agricultural imports, the cancellation and suspension of various cooperation and dialogues with the United States, the most worrying thing for the outside world is that from August 4 onwards Large-scale military exercises and live-fire missiles are being carried out around Taiwan.
The Voice of America reported that in the face of the CCP’s “island closure” action, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered the USS Ronald Reagan CVN on duty in the Philippine Sea in the western Pacific Ocean (including the waters southeast of Taiwan) on August 4. -76) The aircraft carrier strike group continued to stay in the waters surrounding Taiwan to monitor the development of the situation. On August 5, the “Reagan” aircraft carrier strike group, which had reached the waters near Japan, began to turn back and head towards the South China Sea.
The USS Ronald Reagan is the only forward-deployed aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy.
In addition to the Seventh Fleet permanently stationed in the Western Pacific, the Navy’s Third Fleet said recently that it will also expand its activities in the “Indo-Pacific region”. The jurisdiction of the Third Fleet is about 50 million square kilometers in the eastern and northern waters of the Pacific Ocean (including the Bering Sea, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and part of the Arctic). In fact, since the U.S. military proposed the “Third Fleet Forward” strategy in 2015, the U.S. military has gradually formed a trend of dual fleet deployment in the Western Pacific. The Third Fleet and the Seventh Fleet complement each other.
The “Lincoln” aircraft carrier strike group, which has just concluded the “Rim-Pacific Military Exercise”, belongs to the Third Fleet.
In addition, the Navy has strengthened the deployment of nuclear submarines in the Western Pacific. In April, the Navy dispatched two nuclear attack submarines to Guam, and five nuclear submarines currently have Guam as their home port. As of March this year, the U.S. Navy had 68 nuclear submarines, 41 of which were owned by the Pacific Fleet, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet.
On July 27, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday (Adm. Mike Gilday) released the latest version of the “Navigation Plan for the Navy” (“Plan”). A week before that, the U.S. Navy submitted the U.S. Navy’s long-term development plan, “U.S. Navy Structure Plan 2045,” to Congress.
According to the latest “planning”, the US Navy plans to have a large fleet of 373 manned warships and about 150 unmanned surface and underwater vehicles by 2045. At the same time, the US Navy will also have about 3,000 various type aircraft.
The plan emphasizes that China is the most central threat to the U.S. Navy’s maritime dominance over the next decade. “By making illegal maritime claims, militarizing the geographic features of the South and East China Seas, and attempting to intimidate neighboring countries’ offshore resources, they are undermining international norms,” the CCP said. “This aggressive behavior threatens U.S. interests and undermines U.S. interests. a rules-based system.”
Dean Cheng, a senior researcher at the Center for Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation, pointed out that the Chinese military is most likely to attack Taiwan in 2027, which is “probably the most dangerous moment” from the perspective of U.S. deterrence.
However, he believes that the CCP itself is also facing a crisis, and the first one is the population problem. At that time, whether the CCP’s military has enough troops will become a question.
Charles Flynn, commander of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, said in an interview with Nikkei Asia recently that the U.S. Army is considering deploying a “multi-domain task force” in Asia to deter China in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. aggressive behavior. The force will have capabilities such as missiles, electronic warfare and cyber warfare.
At present, the United States already has two such troops, stationed in Washington state and US military bases in Germany.
The “multi-domain task force” is usually composed of thousands of people and has four units under its jurisdiction to perform fire strike, air defense, logistics and information warfare tasks. The Army said a third Multi-Domain Task Force, to be created after 2023, is planned to be based in Hawaii, but is likely to eventually be deployed in Asia. Flynn said countries such as Japan and the Philippines have been considered.
The “Multi-Domain Task Force” uses electronic, network, and space means to collect intelligence in peacetime, and to grasp the operation mode and weaknesses of hostile countries; in wartime, it is responsible for launching electronic warfare or network attacks to paralyze the opponent’s communication network and disrupt its command and control system. . At the same time, according to the available information, the missiles were used to simultaneously launch attacks on enemy ships and ground facilities.
According to the Nikkei Asia report, as an advance force, the Multi-Domain Task Force will be responsible for destroying China’s air defense systems and command and control first, creating opportunities for U.S. warships and fighter jets to approach China’s surrounding areas.
The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment (Marine Littoral Regiment) of the US Marine Corps is tailor-made for the United States to deal with the “imminent threat” from China in the Western Pacific region.
In March of this year, the Marine Corps reorganized the 3rd Marine Regiment of the 3rd Marine Division and established the 3rd Littoral Combat Regiment. The “Littoral Combat Regiment” consists of three parts: the Littoral Combat Team, the Littoral Air Defense Battalion, and the Combat Logistics Battalion.
The establishment of the Littoral Regiment is part of the Marine Corps Force 2030 design effort. The Littoral Regiment is expected to reach initial operational capability in fiscal year 2023. The third littoral regiment first appeared in the “Rim-Pacific Military Exercise” in 2022.
Littoral combat regiments are smaller, more agile and less vulnerable to adversaries, General Eric Smith, assistant commander of the Marine Corps, said at a July symposium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank. aware.
In June, media reported that the U.S. Air Force was expanding its airport on Tinian Island, about 160 kilometers north of Guam. In addition, the US Air Force bases in Guam, Saipan and Wake Island are also in full swing.
In June of this year, the U.S. Air Force deployed four B1B strategic bombers again on Guam. The B-1B is a supersonic bomber that has been equipped with the US Air Force since the 1980s and is the backbone of the US strategic bomber. Currently, the U.S. Air Force is equipped with 45 B-1B bombers, which can carry guided bombs, air-to-surface missiles and anti-ship missiles for routine missions. B1B has been stationed in Guam for 16 years, but after 2020, it will only be temporarily staying or transiting, and will no longer be stationed. This time, after a lapse of two years, the resident status has been restored, and the meaning of strengthening deterrence is very strong.
In June, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in a discussion with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) that in response to pressure from China’s conventional military, the Air Force has It should be considered to permanently deploy fifth-generation stealth fighters such as F-22 and F-35 to Guam, which is a little closer to China.
In March of this year, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command submitted a “deterrence funding” report to the U.S. Congress. Indo-Pacific Command requested an increase of about $27 billion in spending between 2022 and 2027, including the purchase and deployment of new weapons, construction New facilities and closer military cooperation with U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific region. Compared with the $20 billion invested in the European Deterrence Program against Russia in 2014, the budget request for the Pacific Deterrence Program against China is more than $5 billion more.
Admiral Aquilino spoke about the importance of Guam and the challenges Guam faces. “The Chinese military’s rocket force is clearly developing sustained advanced capabilities and longer ranges,” he said. “Guam faces a 360-degree threat, so our defense capabilities and our ability to operate from there are absolutely critical.”
The Air Force is also advancing a number of new technologies and operational concepts to create a competitive advantage over China, such as the Air Force’s advanced operations, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Brown Jr. said in July at the Center for a New American Security, a U.S. think tank Management System (Advanced Battle Management System, ABMS).
The U.S. Coast Guard is the fifth largest armed force in the United States under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Since January 2019, the United States has begun to send coast guards to the South China Sea region to intervene in the situation in the South China Sea region through patrols, participation in U.S. Navy and Air Force exercises, signing law enforcement cooperation agreements with countries in the region, and conducting joint maritime law enforcement exercises. In response to the challenges of the CCP’s “gray area”.
In addition to enhancing its own military capabilities, the United States is also helping allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region upgrade their military capabilities and create “asymmetric combat power” to “reshape the strategic environment around China.”
Seth Cropsey is the founder of the Yorktown Institute, a US think tank, and a former deputy undersecretary of the US Navy. He believes that in addition to vigorously strengthening the deterrence in the Western Pacific, the United States must also have a clear strategy in order to avoid future wars.
“To deter the Chinese Communist Party, or prevent the Chinese Communist Party from having a conflict, the United States must have a clear strategy that clearly states what the United States will do in the event of a conflict,” he said. “The lack of such a clear statement will be a huge political problem.”
Former Singaporean foreign minister: US and China ready for war on the night Pelosi flew to Taiwan
Former Singaporean Foreign Minister Yang Rongwen said at an event on August 3 that the anger caused by the US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on August 2 was “a carefully planned tension” between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
Singaporean media The Edge quoted him as saying that the United States has calculated Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and handled it very carefully, not to implement the facts. Before Pelosi’s Asian itinerary began, she did not include Taipei on the list of places to visit, but intended to confirm her visit to Taipei at the last minute.
Yang Rongwen said that the United States and China are now engaged in a long-term competition. If the competition is currently escalating, it is not good for the CCP.
Yang Rongwen said: “There is no doubt that when she flew into Taiwan that night, the US Indo-Pacific Command was ready to fight, and so was China. However, neither side was willing to actually fight, so they took control. down.”
He believes that in each game, the protagonists of all parties will seize the opportunity to collect information on the other party. During Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, he believed that the United States and China were constantly gathering intelligence on each other and thinking about how to play the next move.
Yang Rongwen predicted that US-China relations will swing between “cold war” and “cold peace” in the future, and said, “I hope there will be no hot war, but there will always be anxious moments.”