Russia’s efforts are comprehensive and aimed at NATO rather than solely against the United States, as Russia recognizes the comparative weakness of NATO’s land forces. Russia, far less exposed to naval forces, leans on advanced air defenses specifically designed to detect and engage low-observable targets at any altitude. Iran relies heavily on mobile but inaccurate ballistic missiles and large numbers of small surface craft to limit U.S. forces depend.Ĭhina is not the only country using an anti-access strategy aimed at locally inhibiting the U.S. power projection capabilities is to combine a robust defense of near battlespace combined with an attack on the basing and logistical structure upon which U.S. Their solution to the threat posed by U.S. forces capable of projecting power against the mainland. bases in the region, matched with an advanced counterair and countermaritime architecture intended to offer a dense, mobile, and flexible threat to the remnants of U.S. China’s focus revolves around a credible and flexible missile threat to U.S. Their efforts were enhanced by the fact that the United States has spent so long resting on its laurels and is still prepared to place its bets on the same basic stealth and precision technologies highlighted in the Gulf War, applied the same way. Chinese military planners used the same basic methodology. They had a deep understanding of Soviet warfighting preferences, along with the relevant terrain, prevailing climate and weather, training techniques, and logistical capabilities of the adversary. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) planners who initially developed and then sold AirLand Battle to the rest of the Department of Defense started by knowing who they would fight and where. It is the equivalent of the second offset strategy, which was focused on blunting the Soviet threat in Europe. Like AirLand Battle doctrine of the 1980s, Chinese counter-intervention doctrine is focused specifically on the United States and the capabilities demonstrated against Iraq in 1991. This basic doctrine has driven Chinese military development for almost a quarter century. intervention in a conflict between China and Taiwan. The Chinese equivalent developed from a “counter-intervention” doctrine that followed closely behind the success of Desert Storm and was originally designed to prevent U.S. The description of the A2/AD challenge is an American creation, not a Chinese or Russian one. Otherwise we risk repeating the Light Brigade’s experience on a grander scale - meaningless tactical victories gained at unacceptably high cost. The key to overcoming this strategy is to work around it - shunning the hyperactive, close-range, quick-kill strategy that underpins what was once called AirSea Battle and the third offset strategy, and doing something else entirely, enhanced by favorable geography and a long-standing alliance structure. A2/AD is a defensive strategy, focused on an intention to deprive American forces, particularly air and naval forces, of their preferred method of warfighting. The current view of dealing with a generic A2/AD environment is unnecessarily focused on a tech-heavy widget-on-widget battle fought at the tactical level, devoid of military objectives and with limited support from allied nations. This illustrates, on the tactical level, the Pentagon’s current vision for dealing with the so-called anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment. While the diminished brigade successfully reached the wrong Russian guns and slaughtered the gunners, the only objective that they secured was to ensure that they could retreat at no hazard from the artillery fire they had just attacked through. The 1854 charge in the Crimean War involved an unsupported light cavalry charge directed against the wrong objective at the conclusion of the Battle of Balaclava, which the British had already won. “ The Charge of the Light Brigade” provides a classic example of the subordination of military skill in favor of courage and stubbornness, seasoned with a generous measure of poor leadership and a dash of sheer chaos. – Marshal Pierre François Joseph Bosquet, observing the Light Brigade Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Charge of the Light BrigadeĬ’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie. Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell, Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, This article was originally published in 2016.Ĭannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them,Ĭannon in front of them, Volleyed and thundered Editor’s Note: This week, War on the Rocks is featuring some old favorites from the archives.
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