NATO has a 75th Birthday plan... buy more weapons

The reason relates to the ultimate purpose of any war.

According to the One China policy, maintained by the governments of both Taipei and Beijing, there is only One China, but disagreement on where the capital city is located.

The PRC maintain this is in Beijing.

The ROC maintain this is in Taipei.

There is no great imperative to bring this impasse to a conclusion.

The downside is potentially great, for both partes, so the status quo remains.

However, as I argued three years ago, the real purpose of the Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea seems to be more about their fears about their strategic approaches. 

They fear a missile attack, from the sea, at short notice.

This could come from SSN attack submarines entering via the deep Bashi Channel.

Previously, I shared this map from a USCC report:  Chinese Air Force’s Long-Distance Training over Water. The flight track analysis shows the main PLA training mission routes over both the Bashi Channel and the Miyako Strait. 

The typical PLAAF and PLAN (air force and navy) package involves Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft and their close air-support fighters, and anti-ship missile aircraft.

This is why AUKUS happened. 

It has nothing to do with visionary leadership from then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and everything to do with answering the call from Washington D.C.

I did not consider war was likely over Taiwan then, and I think it is even less likely now.

The level of destruction visited on Ukraine makes Taiwan reluctant to become Proxy War central for a Great Power standoff in the Indo Pacific.

On the basis of the last election, Taiwan clearly hews closely to self-governance.

However, China has no upside in the pyrrhic victory of a Taiwan wasteland.

The Mexican standoff is likely to continue.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Following the non-event, of war in the Taiwan Strait, the think tank focus has moved to a more feasible option for a contained war in the South China Sea to settle the score.

You can always tell when something is up, because RAND will publish a report.

The RAND Corporation is a very good guide to what happens in US geopolitics.

They are the grandaddy of all think tanks, and the biggest recipient of funding dollars.

The infamous Extending Russia RAND report, from 2019, telegraphed the future war.

The contents of this report were so prophetic, including the risk section of what might actually go wrong with any plan to "Extend Russia", that the Editors made a special note in Sep-2022 that they had nothing to do with anything, and any semblance to reality was accidental.

Once I read that, I paid more attention to the Feb-2024 report.

I expect an editorial note, down the track, stating that the Second Thomas Shoal incident had nothing at all to do with "U.S. Military Theories of Victory".

Let me not belabor the point.

Students of history know that the USA entered the Vietnam War following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. This was a two-part encounter with the North Vietnamese navy.

The first part was real, the second part was not.

It all happened in the period 2nd to 4th August 1964.

President Johnson then intervened in the Indochina conflict in Vietnam.

You can read one account in this declassified document here.

The simple version is that the USA went into Vietnam because of an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese navy that never occurred, in response to an earlier one that did.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The USA fought the Vietnam War because of a provocation that never happened.

The Second Thomas Shoal Incident

There are real provocations happening around the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.

We already have the June-2024 Second Thomas Shoal incident.

The Second Thomas Shoal is a submerged reef that forms part of the Spratly Islands, which is claimed as a territory by several nations including China and the Philippines.

Note that the ugly scenes of China Coast Guard personnel brandishing axes, and the injuries sustained by Philippine sailors, did not themselves lead to war.

However, this is a near perfect analogue for the Gulf of Tonkin.

You can read about it here The Emerging Crisis at the Second Thomas Shoal.

I have purposefully chosen a US-aligned commentary to highlight a key point.

President Joe Biden has made much of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.

Treaties are supposed to deter war but can just as easily trigger one.

Just like Article 5 with NATO, and attack against one is an attack against all, the situation in the Philippines, bordering the South China Sea, and the disputed Spratly Islands, provides a convenient cassus belli for war. 

Should either the USA or China desire a war, they can easily start one at Second Thomas Shoal. Getting going would be a cinch.

The risk of this happening is quite high, in my estimation.

When you read the RAND report on theories of victory, it is readily apparent that the USA would quite possibly welcome a small war, with limited aims, and defined ends.

Hopefully it would all be over in ten days.

I don't think that China views the strategic situation the same way.

I think they have their own modern take on the Monroe Doctrine, which was the US attempt to forcibly expel any attempt at European colonialism in the Western hemisphere.

You can take issue with my analysis, but I think China considers this to be a good strategy.

China would like to keep the USA out of their littoral backyard.

If it looks like they are losing, after ten days, they will likely double down.

The possibility of war over this, a patch of ocean, seems more likely to me than an attempt to invade Taiwan. Invasions are messy affairs of doubtful success.

Naval battles are demonstrative of power.

The Spanish Armada came. The Spanish Armada sank.

England prevailed, thanks to seamanship, and the oddly English weather.

Will war with China happen in our lifetime?

Hopefully no, but quite possibly, yes. 

Ideally, not because of an event that never happened.

Not like the Vietnam war, that began at presidential pleasure, over bad intelligence.

The NATO plan

Clearly, Russia now has the upper hand in Ukraine, through a slog-fest of destruction.

There have been two prior attempts to cease hostilities, both rebuffed.

NATO just met for the 75th Anniversary with this announcement:

NATO has signed a nearly $700 million contract to have member countries produce more Stinger missiles.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, the Stinger missile, while effective is pretty short range.

The FIM-92 can engage targets at ranges up to 4,800m and 3,800m altitude.

Russia engages Ukrainian targets with Su-34 bombers using FAB-500, FAB-1500 and the new FAB-3000 glide bombs at ranges from 55-60km for the FAB-500, less for the larger bombs.

The Stinger is unlikely to have any effect at all on this part of the air campaign.

Second, the Stinger was off production previously and allegedly had to be redesigned because Raytheon could no longer source the chips for it. This is interesting because we have been told repeatedly that advanced semiconductors are critical for warfare.

People like me, who used to work as bona-fide defense research scientist, know that this is a myth propagated by journalists and think tanks eager to sanction Chinese semiconductors.

Actually, weapons systems are primarily designed for durability, reliability and efficacy.

The so-called "flying computer" the F-35 is about as powerful as an iPhone One.

You read that correctly. It is not very powerful in compute capacity, at all.

What do we make of weapons procurement contract announcements that spend big dollars but really won't move the dial on the Russian campaign of attrition in Ukraine?

They are for public consumption on bulking up NATO for further expansion.

I don't think that Russia has any real intent to expand their war into Europe.

Whatever ground they have taken has been systematically pulverized.

The pace of gains, in territorial terms, has been glacial.

The destruction of Ukrainian fighting men and materiel has been relentless.

This is a war to destroy the combat effectiveness of Ukraine.

It has now become a war to deplete NATO stocks of weapons and equipment.

Since there is no serious effort to stop this war, and the Russian war machine continues to replace lost troops and equipment faster than Ukraine and its allies, this war will continue to grind forwards, relentlessly, until there are no men left to fight.

That point is likely to be reached in Ukraine before it is reached in Russia.

With this being the most likely outcome, it is hard for me to conceive of a situation where US and European defence spending does not continue to expand.

I do not expect the same situation in China, because the footprint of Chinese military ambition is small. Aside from the provocations in the South China and East China seas, they have only one major military base, that in Djibouti, alongside Camp Lemmonier, run by the USA.

Definitely, the tensions are providing support to military expenditure across Asia, notably in Japan, and South Korea, following the expansion in China.

However, short of the "small war" scenario I outlined above, started by, take your pick which side, in or around the Spratly Islands, I don't see an appetite for war.

The clear appetite for war is in Europe.

Watch NATO spending and be prepared for it to expand very significantly.

Don't be surprised if NATO turns up in the South China Sea.

If NATO is foolish enough to do that, we may wake up to World War III.

I am not putting any stock ideas in this piece.

I think you know why.