DYLAN WELCH August 09, 2012
The United States government might like to deny it, but Barack Obama's former intelligence chief has confirmed China is a principal target of a major US war plan.
Most worryingly, the plan - known in the US as Air-Sea Battle - is one that regional defence expert Professor Hugh White says is strategically flawed and risks escalating a US-China struggle to the level of nuclear strikes.
It is also a plan that is known to anger the Chinese military, and the confirmation will likely be viewed with displeasure in China.
The confirmation was provided by Admiral Dennis Blair, an Asia expert who until 2010 was Mr Obama's director of national intelligence. Before that he commanded the US Pacific Command, which represents about a fifth of the US military machine. His answers were in response to questions posed by Fairfax about Air-Sea Battle, a Pentagon strategy designed to knock out an enemy's long-range surveillance radar and precision missiles, followed by an air and sea assault.
When asked directly about Air-Sea Battle and whether it directly relates to China, Admiral Blair said: ''I'm not in the Pentagon any more, so I can't say [what that is] in particular, but it doesn't take any classified piece of information to let you know that countries like Iran and China … have taken advantage of technology in terms of submarines and missiles to be able to keep US maritime and air forces at distance.''
As a result, he said, it was the job of US military commanders to ''figure out ways that we can send our forces to conduct military operations despite these sorts of threats''.
It is widely understood that Iran would pose very little threat to a full-scale US military campaign, and Air-Sea Battle is unofficially acknowledged in the US as the central tenet of plans to deal with an aggressive and heavily armed China.
''I don't doubt for a moment … that the real target of the Air-Sea Battle is China,'' said Professor White, the author of a book on the US-China relationship, The China Choice.
Professor White is also a strong critic of Air-Sea Battle, which he says has three fundamental problems. ''Firstly, I don't think it will work; second, even it it does work operationally it won't achieve its strategic aims; and thirdly, it runs a very strong sense of escalating to a nuclear war.''
Admiral Blair said: ''The concept is nothing new, in typical American fashion we often pour the old wine into new bottles with fancy new labels … But the navy and air force co-operating to be able to get to our allies that are within range of Chinese missiles is nothing new, and most Americans expect that to be their job.''