01 October 2014

News Story: US may block Malacca Strait to contain China - Huanqiu


Huanqiu, the website of China's nationalistic tabloid Global Times, translated a piece from US military newspaper Stars and Stripes which details the Air-Sea Battle tactics proposed by the US military and another less-aggressive strategy that aims to block China's economic access to the Strait of Malacca.

The tactics were tested by the US military during the Valiant Shield exercise held in the western Pacific Ocean in mid September this year. They were described as concepts rather than a strategy, aimed at increasing the military's "anti-access, area-denial" capability and enabling them to reenter international waters and airspace if they were blocked. Although the US defense department carefully left China out of its 2013 summary of the tactics, they were considering a measure to contain China's increasing hostility.

TX Hamas, a retired Marine colonel and a researcher at National Defense University, argued that the tactics failed to recognize that the US military cannot find and attack China's solid-fueled missiles and mobile missile launchers in time and that the tactics could ultimately lead to a nuclear war. He proposed blocking China's access to the Malacca Strait to minimize conflict with China.

Read the full story at Want China Times