Editorial: The U.S. Army’s Anti-Access Strategy

RBS-15 Missile TEL (Wiki Info - Image: Wiki Commons)

By James R. Holmes

Maj. Robert M. Chamberlain avers in Armed Forces Journal that land power "trumps" air and sea power in the Obama administration's pivot — or rebalance, or whatever the term du jour is for this formidable yet soft and cuddly strategic venture — to Asia. Or rather, he suggests that it should win out. Having broached similar ideas (along with my doughty coauthor Toshi Yoshihara) a couple of years back, I violently agree!

Well, mostly. To claim categorically that one thing trumps another is generally to overpromise. That's an ill-starred choice of term. Although … let's bear in mind that editors, not authors, write the titles in many publications. Hype is commonplace when driving up circulation or web traffic is your goal. That may have been the case here.

Anyway. Maj. Chamberlin maintains, in effect, that air and sea power are intrinsically offensive and destabilizing in character, whereas the U.S. Army could anchor a defensive posture in places like Japan or the Philippines. By developing land-based weaponry, and by organizing to shape events on the high seas, the army could field its own, strategically defensive, relatively unprovocative anti-access capability.

And indeed, there is ample scope for quasi-static, land-based defenses in the Western Pacific. They could deter war. The United States and its allies must mount an anti-access strategy of their own. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat