ARGUMENT: DETERRING CHINAA Strait Too Far: How a Deliberate Campaigning Approach in the Pacific Can Make Beijing Think Twice

On March 1, Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks tweeted a clear message to the People’s Republic of China — don’t press your luck and attempt to cross the Taiwan Strait. The tweet’s timing was likely no accident. Leading Northeast Asia security analyst Ian Easton argues that March through May is one of two ideal windows of meteorological opportunity for cross-strait amphibious operations, with the other occurring in September and October.

Benjamin Van Horrick writes in War on the Rocks that for the U.S. joint force, the spring campaigning season in the Indo-Pacific is thus essential for strengthening regional partnerships, increasing multinational lethality, and instilling doubt in Chinese leaders’ minds about whether they could successfully invade Taiwan.

He adds:

The joint force’s current campaigning actions along the first island chain and just beyond are already deterring Beijing from attempting such an invasion. But these actions have yet to fully exploit the timing challenges that Beijing faces. U.S. planners have conducted an ever-increasing number of cross-strait invasion wargames. Inevitably, though, these focus predominately on capability scorecard comparisons, and incorporate the misleading assumption that China is “playing a home game” while the United States is “playing an away game.” As Easton explains, historic weather patterns in the Taiwan Strait change the equation. From June through August, and then again between November and February, the weather in the Taiwan Strait, specifically frequent monsoons, typhoons, and prohibitive sea-states, make amphibious operations extremely difficult. For Chinese Communist Party leaders, the result is that if they were to attempt an invasion over the summer or winter months, they would consistently encounter unforgiving seas, high winds, and frequent rain, if not torrential downpours.

All of this means that with the right preparations, Washington does not have to be playing an away game. Through increasing interoperability and testing new concepts in and around the first island chain, U.S. forces can secure and exploit their seven-thousand-mile head start in any future Taiwan scenario. Understanding the current scope of U.S. spring campaigning in the region helps convey why timing, weather, alliances, and locations matter more than just inventory scorecards. As Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has made clear, “campaigning is not business as usual — it is the deliberate effort to synchronize the Department’s activities and investments to aggregate focus and resources to shift conditions in our favor.” Rethinking the joint force’s posture during the most favorable months for a cross-strait invasion can shift conditions in America’s favor even further.

Van Horrick concludes:

While the most recent fall and spring campaigning efforts involved many noteworthy successes, the joint force needs to do more and in short order. As Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. John C. Aquillino recently stated, when it comes to deterring Beijing, “everything needs to go faster.” Doing so requires the joint force to first focus on the inherent natural obstacles, both from the sky and the sea, standing between China and Taiwan. Next, the joint force should double down on the historic, nascent, and proposed efforts described above. Washington cannot afford to keep planning and executing these exercises in isolation. Rather they should be one seamless and collective joint and allied campaign ruthlessly conveying the message to Beijing: not today, not tomorrow, not ever.