| 来源类型 | Report |
| 规范类型 | 报告 |
| Risk and resiliency: China’s emerging air base strike threat | |
| Oriana Skylar Mastro; Ian Easton | |
| 发表日期 | 2017-11-08 |
| 出版年 | 2017 |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 摘要 | What to Do: Policy Recommendations for 2017 is an ongoing project from AEI. Click here for access to the complete series, which addresses a wide range of issues from rebuilding America’s military to higher education reform to helping people find work. Introduction The Asia-Pacific region is the center of gravity for US strategic interests. Home to major and rising powers such as Japan and China, the region increasingly represents the primary hub of human activity by any measure. Some of the regional developments that occupy American strategic planners and decision makers include China’s rapid military modernization, weapons proliferation, arms racing, and lack of military transparency. These issues promote insecurity among regional actors that rely on the United States for strategic assurance, and that count on its uncontested military strength to foster peace and stability. In particular, China’s investments in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems are undermining the United States’ ability to live up to regional expectations. Given the centrality of air power for U.S. power projection in the Western Pacific, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has focused on prioritizing the development of asymmetric capabilities to target American air superiority where it is weakest―on the ground. China’s military modernization program is closely associated with a number of maturing precision strike capabilities designed for attacking air bases. Referred to as “airfield runway blockades” by the PLA, such operations intend to overcome traditional Chinese weaknesses in the air by negating enemy air power on the surface. This strategy benefits from both the limited number and the relative fragility of America’s forward deployed air bases. For example, the US Air Force’s principal front-line facility in Asia, Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, is remarkably vulnerable to missile attack due to its lack of active and passive defenses, which includes hardening. Other US and allied air bases are similarly unprepared for surviving, defending, mitigating, or recovering from missile attacks. China’s strategy further benefits from the technical sophistication of the PLA’s strategic missile forces. While air superiority alone does not ensure success in deterring aggression or winning a military campaign, it is often decisive in military operations. Furthermore, crisis stability depends on eliminating any incentives for preemptive or first strikes, and base resiliency is crucial to this deterrent message. As the United States evaluates future force postures during a period of continued fiscal uncertainty, China’s defense establishment is making significant advances in developing a force capable of dominating the air environment around its periphery. In light of these trends, what is Chinese strategic thinking on adversary air base vulnerability, and how well positioned is the PLA to exploit US weaknesses? What steps has the United States taken to improve its air bases’ resiliency, defined as the capacity to withstand attack, adapt, and generate sufficient combat power to achieve campaign objectives in the face of continued enemy action? What more can be done? This paper seeks to provide an overview of the evolving airpower challenge that the United States faces in the Western Pacific and beyond. We will begin by exploring Chinese military writings on air base strike operations, and then evaluate the current trajectory of the PLA’s precision strike capabilities for conducting such operations. Following this, we will describe how the US military is seeking to respond to the threat to its air bases. Finally, we will assess the future implications of this evolving situation, and conclude with recommendations for how American airpower in Asia can be more resilient against threats. Read and download the full report here at the Project 2049 Institute. |
| 主题 | Asia |
| 标签 | Asia Pacific ; China ; Taiwan ; US Air Force (USAF) ; What to do policy recommendations East Asia |
| URL | https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/risk-and-resiliency-chinas-emerging-air-base-strike-threat/ |
| 来源智库 | American Enterprise Institute (United States) |
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/206463 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Oriana Skylar Mastro,Ian Easton. Risk and resiliency: China’s emerging air base strike threat. 2017. |
| 条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 | |||||
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