Atari ASB (Source: Atari Age)
Air Sea Battle is taking center stage in the emerging American Pacific regional military strategy. Now that the concept has acquired new-found fame, it has also similarly acquired enemies. Marine Corps War College Professor James Lacey is the latest to attack AirSea Battle as a operational concept elevated to strategy. Bryan McGrath of Information Dissemination has counterattacked in a recent blog post. But there’s the thing: what is AirSea Battle?
Unlike AirLand Battle, its Cold War namesake, AirSea Battle is not clearly defined in a doctrinal publication. There is no equivalent of FM 100-5: Blueprint for the AirLand Battle. AirSea Battle is a nebulous joint concept promoted in military journals, a paper by the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments looking at an operational solution for access problems in the Pacific, and a multi-service office. There’s also a Joint Operational Access Concept, which is not necessarily the same thing as an AirSea Battle concept.
So what is AirSea Battle? In the absence of any further information it is probably what its proponents say it is: a military operational concept for dealing with the ability of certain states and groups to prevent the United States from entering conflict areas. These groups use a variety of forms of standoff weaponry in both land, sea, and air. While it is strongly suggestive that this concept does, in fact, refer to China, it should be observed that there are other maritime areas in which anti-access and area denial threats exist. AirSea Battle is not a strategy, and it is hard to find anyone who has referred to it as such.
There is, somewhat of a similarity to AirLand Battle in that putting both into operation puts some incongruities of policy into sharp relief. AirLand Battle leveraged emerging military capabilities for deep attack, such as the Assault Breaker and Follow-On Forces Attack, just as AirSea Battle would presumably benefit from increased investment in long-range strike across longer operational distances. But lost in AirLand Battle nostalgia is the fact that it was necessitated by two unpleasant facts: overwhelming Soviet conventional superiority and the political (not necessarily military) desirability of a forward defense. And there was also the dicey matter of engaging in a massive conventional war with a nuclear power, a power that knew that we had previously refused to rule out first use of nuclear weapons to offset conventional weakness. AirLand Battle was the lynchpin of a potential military strategy of conventional defense in Northeast Europe and a policy that Western Europe would be maintained free of Soviet expansion. But that military strategy was always precarious.
Similarly, AirSea Battle, at least in the Pacific, is part of an overall military strategy that supports the US policy goals of maintaining its own access to the maritime commons of East Asia and maintaining the balance that has allows the structured ambiguity of American, Chinese, and Taiwanese understandings of the One China Policy to continue. Of course, given that the anti-ship missiles are themselves located deep inland and supported by C4ISR battle networks, the crux of AirSea Battle could hinge on striking both. It remains uncertain whether the US would be realistically commit to such an escalation, or whether it would be wise.
Either way, much of the current debate about AirSea Battle is at this point either speculation or a proxy for a more existential battle in Washington: the Pentagon budget wars. The parameters of the concept will continue to evolve, unfortunately dating most writing on it (including this post, perhaps).
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Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in strategic theory. His articles on subjects ranging from grand strategy to cartel tactics in the Mexican drug war have been published in The Atlantic, Small Wars Journal, Defense Concepts, and OpenDemocracy. He is currently pursuing graduate study in Georgetown and lives in Washington D.C, is an Associate Editor at Red Team Journal, an Associate at Small Wars Journal's El Centro, a Technology Research Analyst at CrucialPoint LLC. All opinions are his own.
Adam Elkus has 5 post(s) on Asia Security Watch
2 comments
HB Pencil says:
Dec 23, 2011
Interesting post, however I think Airsea has more similarities with Airland than you suggest. The there was a third leg to the Air Land Battle Stool; an attendant recapitalization of the US Military capabilities. This wasn't merely a reactive response to the Soviet threat. US equipment stocks were heavy depleted from Vietnam and needed replacing.
For example you saw a massive investment into attacking beyond FEBA. This included development and purchase of the F-117 and the A-10, a range of new precision guided munitions, new sensor systems on existing aircraft (LANTIRN), a brand new command and control system for ground operations (JSTARS and anti-jam comms), new reconnaissance aircraft (TR-1) and a new system for intermediate nuclear strikes, the GLCM. It wasn't just that the Russians had overwhelming capability; it was also that the US was prepared to make a major recapitalization of its forces and needed a doctrine to build it around.
Air Sea battle has some hope to reach the success of its predecessor. Certainly the Pentagon budget is a major consideration, however if there are two themes that I think that bode well.
#1: Our strategic priority is Asia and spending will be focused there above other areas.
#2: the Rust-out of the American forces.
For #2, the equipment stocks from the Carter-Reagan buildup (all those pieces of equipment listed above) are all but exhausted. For example, the average age of US strike aircraft is now 26 years… when most have a usable lifespan of 30, so the US will replace over 2000 aircraft in the next decade. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and the attendant cutbacks in the 1990s, as well as the GWOT after 2001 interrupted the normal recapitalization process. Now those capital stocks are depleted and in need of replacement.
While we are not going to see anything like the Carter Reagan buildup, AirSea battle has some hope to affect US defence policy in the way that Airland was able to. Certainly it won't be to the same level as Airland, but I think it will be an important conceptual rallying point nonetheless.
Adam Elkus says:
Dec 25, 2011
Yeah, I was referring to a lot of those technologies when I talked about deep strike and FOFA in the general sense. It's also very true that it coincided with a more general program, both in the sense of training and equipment of revival. The Army in specific, though, did base Active Defense and AirLand Battle off the threat scenarios and their readings of the Yom Kippur War.
I hope too that ASB leads to a similar process, but it remains to be seen.