China could soon defeat the United States and its allies in a naval conflict in the East Pacific, says Vassily Kashin, a senior research fellow at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
In a commentary published on Dec. 27 on the website of the Voice of Russia, the Russian government’s international radio broadcasting service, Kashin says it is “highly probable” that by 2020 China could defeat the US in a local conflict in the east part of the Pacific or slow down the transportation of US forces to the region after it completes its current cycle of reforming and rearming the People’s Liberation Army.
“China could be able of reaching its political goals even before the US localizes all the necessary forces for a full-scale counterattack,” Kashin said.
The US army has developed the “AirSea Battle” concept to counteract joint efforts made by Iran and China to stop the build-up of American forces in neighboring regions, Kashin said. The AirSea Battle concept envisions three main courses of action; the destruction an adversary’s intelligence, the destruction of the adversary’s means to isolate a combat area, and the destruction of an adversary’s armed forces.
However, Kashin said that China has been preparing against the strategy via a large-scale countering of intelligence and control systems by means of electronic warfare, cyber attacks and the use of anti-satellite weapons.
“China will be able to launch a massive highly accurate non-nuclear strike against US facilities used by transportation and military infrastructure in the region by reducing abruptly the speed of building up American forces,” he wrote.
