Preparing for the terrific war he anticipated, British General (later Field Marshal) Sir Henry Wilson spent as much time as he could touring Belgium. He did this in anticipation of a German attack through the Low Countries that the British Army would be tasked with helping to stop. But he was largely alone in the urgency with which he studied the issue. In 1910, Wilson commented upon the lack of interest British officers displayed in the topography of Belgium; he suggested presciently that “most of them may be buried there before they are much older.”
Wilson’s recognition that the British Army had to prepare for war with a determination and focus that were absent before the Great War is vitally important today for the United States military to recall. It too lacks the focus and interest in Belgium’s topography, if you will, in the fight against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
July 2024 has echoes of July 1914 regarding a quickening pace and intensity of crises and, as General Wilson identified, an insouciance of the U.S. military to the threat, with some important exceptions like U.S. Air Force General Mike Minihan, the Commander of Air Mobility Command, who warned in a leaked January 2023 memo of likely conflict in 2025.
The most recent manifestation of these winds of war was this past Wednesday, July 24, 2024, when Russia and the PRC conducted an unprecedented joint strategic bomber patrol in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Two Russian TU-95MS Bear bombers exercised with two People’s Liberation Army Air Force Hong-6K bombers (derivatives of the Russian TU-16 airframe) and were escorted by Russian air force Su-30SM and Su-35S fighters. This flight was the eighth such joint air operation between these allied nations and marked the first time PRC bombers had ever entered the Alaskan ADIZ.
While the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) dispatched U.S. F-16s, F-35s and Canadian CF-18 fighter aircraft to intercept the Chinese and Russian strategic bomber force, incredibly, NORAD’s press release stated that “Russian and PRC activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat.” It is hard to comprehend such a statement given the PRC characterization of the flight as being a “strategic patrol”—a euphemism for nuclear warfare training.
This joint strategic air operation also follows on the heels of two other military operations that demonstrate the depth and threat of the Sino-Russian alliance. The first was the mid-July patrol by four PLA Navy warships into the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Gulf of Alaska, as well as last week’s joint PLA and Russian Navy exercise in the South China Sea. The level of military cooperation between the PRC and Russia, from the strategic to tactical levels, is not something to be dismissed as “not seen as a threat.”
These events are of great significance because of the clear and unambiguous signal Beijing and Moscow are sending to the U.S., first, that Washington has weak leadership from whom the PRC and Russia do not fear any strong response to their attempt at nuclear coercion. Second, that they are balancing against the U.S. The strategic bomber patrol conveys that the U.S. is targeted by both nuclear great powers who are explicitly telegraphing to the U.S. and all global audiences that they are the dominant force and are prepared to unseat the U.S. as the world’s superpower.
In addition to these combined military operations, this month also witnessed the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. and the PRC’s response. We have warned in these pages that those Europeans in NATO who are reluctant to address the PRC threat need to learn what happens out of area does not stay out of area. The PRC’s prodigious economic and military growth and political influence occurred out of area, but it is not staying out of area.
In a powerful signal, the PLA conducted an 11-day military exercise in Belarus, a satellite and firm ally of Russia. The PRC-Belarus exercise was termed “Eagle Assault 2024” and just happened to coincide with the NATO Summit—not a coincidence by any stretch. The exercise demonstrated that the PRC is able to project military power to NATO’s doorstep. In fact, it is centered on Brest, which is close to Belarus’ border with Ukraine and only some 5 kilometers from Belarus’ border with Poland. As with the strategic bomber patrol, this exercise reveals the PRC’s hegemonic ambitions and hyper-aggression that either must be confronted by the U.S. and its allies from Ottawa to Manila or will see the world subjugated to a new world order where all decisions and control are made in Beijing.
Whether a U.S. ally is in NATO or is not, the PRC threat is the dominant one today. The threat of the PRC and Russia in a military alignment, condominium, or alliance is a major threat to the U.S. as it presents the U.S. with a multiple front war problem that it has not faced since the Cold War. The threat of two major theater war operations should compel the U.S. government to plan and prepare for such a threat, which clearly stretches U.S. capabilities beyond what was planned when procurement decisions were made years ago in a much more benign strategic environment.
The strategic environment is not going to evaporate out of some misguided belief in the power of engagement or the hope that the PRC’s economy or the CCP will collapse. As the PRC’s fiercely nationalistic press organ, Global Times, taunted after the strategic bomber patrol, “If the US feels uncomfortable seeing a Chinese military presence on its doorstep, it should get used to it, or reflect on its own military presence on China’s doorstep, which poses much greater security concerns to China.” What is needed is a realistic view of the strategic trend line that is transforming the security situation in the Pacific. The increasing hyperaggression of PRC needs to be addressed. The number of exercises and the form of those exercises indicates the PRC’s military capabilities are evermore formidable. Americans do not want a contemporary coda to Wilson’s great insight ever to be realized. However, if we fail to respond to this clear and present danger, it may be said of American forces in the Indo-Pacific that they will be sleeping beneath the mighty, foaming ocean deeps.
James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure.