As the Pentagon plans for U.S. forces to exit Iraq and Afghanistan, it is keeping one eye trained on the rising threat in the East. For two decades China has been adding large numbers of warships, submarines, fighter jets and — more significantly — developing offensive missiles capable of knocking out U.S. stealth aircraft and the biggest U.S. naval ships including aircraft carriers/…/China says it is simply developing defensive weapons and protecting its interests. But military analysts say the United States appears to be taking a different view, citing the Pentagon's development of a new class of bombers that can fly for long periods outside of the reach of radar.
Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent policy research institute, says China does not want war with the United States.
"What China does want, apparently, is to shift the military balance in the Western Pacific so that the United States will not be able to provide credible military support to longtime security partners such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan," according to Krepinevich, who had a 21-year career in the Army.
All three nations provide vital ports and bases in the Pacific to the United States, preventing China from pressuring these democratic allies to accommodate the communist dictatorship's foreign policy aims worldwide out of fear of attack, Krepinevich said. The Soviet Union tried the same thing in Western Europe, he said. He called the situation a "cloud" on the national security horizon that incoming Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cannot ignore.
So what to do about it? Some analysts say the U.S. military should be most concerned about China's development of weapons that would block the U.S. military from the region. These can be long-range missiles that could destroy an aircraft carrier at sea, or be used to target bases on islands, such as the one operated by the United States on Guam.
"The anti-access … approach is one of forcing U.S. forces to attack from much longer distances," says Jan van Tol, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a retired U.S. Navy captain. "The greatest attention has been paid to the anti-ship ballistic missile that, if it were to become operationally effective, would give China a long-range weapon against the Navy's aircraft carriers."
Carriers are the backbone of U.S. military power abroad, allowing attack jets to operate off virtually any coast in the world. China's buildup would allow it to essentially fence off a portion of the Pacific from U.S. forces and allow it to act with a freer hand against American allies in the region.
"There's a lot of stuff that China seems to be acquiring for no obvious reasons," van Tol says.