PUBLICATION: Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023

Publisher: IISS

Chapter 3: Asia-Pacific Naval and Maritime Capabilities: the New Operational DynamicsSee Chapter List

ASIA-PACIFIC NAVAL AND MARITIME CAPABILITIES: THE NEW OPERATIONAL DYNAMICS

Naval and maritime competition in the Asia-Pacific is entering a new and more intense phase, with consequences for the strategic balance. Even as China’s navy attains new levels of capability, the US and its allies have redoubled their own capability investments and are adjusting their operating postures in important ways.

THE PACING MARITIME ARENA
Notwithstanding the war in Ukraine, which, though broadly perceived as a land war, has significant maritime aspects, the Asia-Pacific remains the ‘pacing’ maritime arena in terms of technological change, as well as the scale and scope of capability and operational development across the spectrum of activities at sea by navies and other maritime forces.

MANOEUVRING FOR ADVANTAGE
Capability developments in the Asia-Pacific are imposing new operational requirements and patterns of activity on naval forces. These new requirements and patterns are themselves having a strategic effect, adding to the complexity of managing naval competition in the coming years.

AN ASIA-PACIFIC MARITIME PARADOX?
The growth of China’s maritime power has been remarkable and continues apace. However, the US and its allies and partners may be clawing back some significant advantages – with the result being that the Chinese navy may find it needs to adjust its ambitions and programmes.

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A new phase of naval and maritime competition is under way in the Asia-Pacific. Among the most attention-grabbing regional naval developments of 2022 was the 17 June launch of China’s third aircraft carrier, Fujian. The event was notable because the vessel is Beijing’s first fully indigenous carrier design. It will also be considerably more capable than its two predecessors in service with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). As a result, it represents a major step in the transformation of the PLAN’s overall capabilities and aspirations.

When Fujian  enters operational service – probably in 2024 or 2025 – it will likely find itself in a regional maritime environment that is in the midst of a significant transformation. As well as the continuing dramatic development of the PLAN and Beijing’s other maritime forces, perhaps equally important are step changes in the naval and maritime capabilities and postures of other regional countries. Greater interactions, interoperability and even integration have all been notable, especially since 2021 and into 2023. As a result, a naval balance that may have appeared to some to be shifting inexorably in China’s favour may be starting to swing back towards the United States and its allies and partners. However, assessing how these dynamics are developing – and how to judge their impact on regional stability and the broader Asia-Pacific strategic balance – is a significant analytical challenge.

Notwithstanding the geopolitical storm raging in the Euro-Atlantic area as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – and the lessons being learned, including in the naval sphere, from the grim conflict that has ensued – in the long term it is China’s rise that will continue to make the strategic weather. The latest version of the United States’ National Defense Strategy, the public version of which appeared in October 2022, continues to focus on China as the ‘pacing challenge’ for the US Department of Defense.¹ Likewise, the Asia-Pacific remains the ‘pacing maritime arena’. That is true not only in terms of potential high-intensity confrontation but also in the ‘grey zone’ of competition short of armed conflict. Meanwhile, rapid technological change and shifting strategic dynamics are adding to the potential unpredictability of an increasingly complex regional maritime domain. These dynamics are generating new and challenging capability requirements as well as novel operational patterns.

China’s rise as a competitor and potential adversary presents structural challenges for the US that it has not experienced since the Second World War, particularly because in important areas – such as shipbuilding infrastructure – China can outmatch the US (see Figure 3.1). Consequently, the path ahead for the US Navy remains the subject of heated debate in Washington. The role of the United States’ allies and partners may well change the game in the maritime arena, as these actors readjust their policies and plans and seek to integrate these more closely with the US and each other.

Figure 3.1: Major new naval tonnage launched for selected navies active in the Asia-Pacific, 1999–2022 Source: IISS

Notes: Tonnage figures are based on approximate full-load displacements. Vessel categories included are submarines, principal surface combatants, corvettes, principal amphibious ships, mine-countermeasures vessels and minelayers, and fleet-replenishment auxiliaries. The UK’s figures include Tide-class replenishment tankers built in South Korea. Australia’s figures include Canberra-class LHDs and Supply-class replenishment ships built in Spain.

In the past, Washington has occasionally paid little more than lip service to the notion of cooperation with allies and partners; the inverse has also sometimes been true. However, there is a new understanding in the US that these partnerships are now critical, especially those with Australia, Japan and South Korea. Further, these three states share this understanding and are themselves growing closer together.² US officials have asserted that such cooperation can provide an asymmetric advantage (although at present, efforts to assert this advantage remain a work in progress).

Perhaps the most striking new instrument in service of the United States’ reinvigorated approach to regional cooperation is the strategic capability agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US known as AUKUS. Announced in September 2021, the agreement’s centrepiece is an ambition to jointly deliver a nuclear-powered submarine capability to the Royal Australian Navy. AUKUS also involves a second pillar of collaboration – on key emerging defence technologies, many of them central to maritime-domain operations – which could ultimately prove at least as important as the submarine pillar.

The extent to which this potential tapestry of increasingly interoperable and even interchangeable allies and partners comes together in the face of significant challenges and potential frictions will be critical for the regional naval and maritime balance over the next several decades. In this context, extra-regional players, especially European powers, may also prove to have crucial roles – in a way that might not have been envisaged even a few years ago.

The expectation across the region, as well as in Washington and Beijing, is that competition between China and the US will intensify.³ Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s new National Security Strategy, announced in October 2022, describes the world as being in the early years of a ‘decisive decade’.⁴ All this suggests an added urgency in terms of naval and maritime capability developments, which is a factor that represents a major challenge, including for regional states, given the traditionally long-term character and slow progress of naval procurement. In what will almost inevitably become a more complex and highly charged maritime environment, managing the evolving naval balance is also likely to become even more challenging.

THE PACING MARITIME ARENA

The war in Ukraine has caused a profound security shock in the Euro-Atlantic area and beyond. Perhaps most notably, it has prompted a paradigm shift in perceptions of the likelihood of the return of major war. It is also delivering important operational lessons that are being analysed globally, including in the naval and maritime sphere. And while the conflict is most broadly perceived as predominantly a land war on Europe’s doorstep, its maritime aspects are significant.

The naval and maritime lessons include the underscoring of the interconnectedness of the global trading system and its reliance on maritime arteries or sea lines of communication, and therefore the continuing relevance and effectiveness of naval blockade, as witnessed by the swirl of international concern around the blocking of Ukrainian grain exports. The dramatic loss in April 2022 of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva – although possibly in part the result of some very particular operating circumstances – was a reminder for maritime forces (including major navies) of the risks of operating in littoral areas in the presence of even relatively modest but accurate anti-ship systems and the means to target such forces. This set of capabilities continues to proliferate among both state and non-state actors, including some in the Asia-Pacific.⁵

Equally, Ukraine’s combined use of uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) and uninhabited surface vessels (USVs) to strike at the Black Sea Fleet in its Sevastopol base on 29 October 2022 set alarm bells ringing in naval circles worldwide, even if it may have simply involved the leveraging of emerging technology in pursuit of age-old asymmetric tactics.⁶More broadly, its human tragedy apart, the war in Ukraine has provided a reminder of the cost of high-intensity conflict in material terms – in the inevitable loss of and damage to key platforms and equipment, the very high expenditure of weaponry, and the huge requirements for sustainment and supply. All this clearly has applicability in the Asia-Pacific context, not least in the maritime domain.⁷

Notwithstanding all the lessons that have emerged from Ukraine, it is still the Asia-Pacific that is setting the pace of development of maritime competition. Whether it is in the scale and comprehensive nature of capability development, the reach of precision systems that can hold naval formations at risk or the speed of technical change, it is in this region that benchmarks are being set. Perhaps most notably, China has been developing anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) capabilities in the shape of the DF-21D and the DF-26B systems, which have estimated maximum ranges of 1,500 kilometres and 3,000 km, respectively.⁸ Beijing is also fielding an array of other long-range anti-ship capabilities, such as the YJ-18 cruise missile, which arms surface ships, submarines and aircraft. Meanwhile, because for many years much of the attention of the US and its allies and partners was diverted to fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have to some extent been playing catch-up in this area of military technology.⁹

The introduction of increasingly comprehensive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) networks – including space-based systems – and thus more formidable and far-reaching targeting capabilities, combined with the prospect of applying artificial intelligence (AI) to systems and data analytics, implies that more capable anti-ship missiles will pose increasing challenges to naval formations, especially those that are forward deployed. For maritime forces, determining the most effective balance between delivering operational effect and the risks involved is becoming ever more difficult.

These developments could change the character of at least the opening exchanges of a future naval confrontation. Indeed, they have been prompting debate on whether the lethality and reach of the threats facing forward-deployed naval forces in particular are so changed that countries now require a different set of capabilities to deliver effect on and from the sea. This debate extends even to the question of whether naval forces themselves are the most effective instruments, at least in the initial stages of any confrontation, or whether alternatives – such as long-range, land-based airpower – could be a major part of the solution.¹⁰

Compounding these challenges is the advent of new types of hypersonic-weapons capabilities and the threats they pose in a naval context. This new operating environment may have been heralded with the reported first test of a hypersonic weapon from one of the PLAN’s new Type-055 Renhai-class cruisers in April 2022.¹¹ The US Navy, for its part, has confirmed that it is pressing ahead with plans to modify its Zumwalt-class cruisers to accommodate hypersonic weapons from 2025 and to deploy them aboard its Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines from 2029.¹²

Adding to the proliferation of faster, more precise, more manoeuvrable and longer-range anti-ship weapons is the trend towards increased use of uninhabited or autonomous systems, including their employment in swarming tactics. They may be used especially in the increasingly contested and significant underwater and seabed spaces. China is building a range of uninhabited and autonomous systems, including ‘glider’ submersibles, to gather general information on the maritime environment but also increasingly for more active surveillance as part of a network of deployable and fixed sensor systems.¹³ Here, China is to some extent following in the footsteps of the US, which has also been developing its uninhabited underwater vehicle (UUV)-based capabilities. In addition to China and the US, other countries, such as Australia, India, Japan and South Korea, are developing or considering increasingly sophisticated UUVs in response to elevated threat perceptions and the prospects offered by new technology, including AI.¹⁴ This trend goes hand in hand with the continuing development of submarine capabilities. These developments highlight the sub-surface domain’s increased strategic significance in regional naval and maritime calculations.

The Asia-Pacific has been setting the pace of challenge not only in terms of high-end naval capability development efforts and confrontation but also in the context of grey-zone operations just below the threshold of armed confrontation. Such operations are being undertaken to apply incremental coercive influence intended to change the maritime status quo, most notably and relentlessly in the South China Sea. This activity has been testing the doctrinal, operational and tactical approaches of maritime security forces as they seek to respond effectively. It is also driving changes in capability requirements, while technological change is also playing its part in this area of competition.

Of course, the Asia-Pacific is not a monolithic region, something which is as true in the maritime domain as it is in any other. Not all regional states see their neighbourhood through the lens of growing major-power competition, or at least they still seek to avoid choosing sides and prefer to pursue regionally orientated solutions. Many have a very different perspective on what are the critical security priorities.

For some regional states, the overarching security concerns relate to the environment and the impact of climate change. The Asia-Pacific is among the regions most affected by this challenge. The US intelligence community and many analysts and commentators identify the small island states of the Pacific as highly vulnerable,¹⁵ and the Asia-Pacific will be in the vanguard of naval adaptation to climate change in terms of the development of capabilities and operational tasking. These capabilities will include platforms to support disaster relief that are able to operate in more extreme conditions, comply with environmental and emissions targets and be crewed and tasked with an increasing focus on environmental response. Tackling climate and environmental challenges and their impacts will also provide opportunities for greater international collaboration. However, it could also be an area where competitive impulses play out: international responses to the January 2022 tsunami in Tonga provided a case study of the challenges, shortfalls, cooperative opportunities and risks of competition.¹⁶

THE SHIFTING NAVAL BALANCE

The Asia-Pacific is predominantly a maritime theatre. This may not be how it appears in the threat perceptions of all regional states, nor is it always reflected in the position of naval forces in the hierarchy of national military establishments. However, it is in the Asia-Pacific that inter-state frictions seem more likely than ever since 1945 to flare up in the naval and maritime domain. Therefore, the regional naval balance and how it unfolds are of growing importance.

Since the turn of the century, the Asia-Pacific has been through two distinct phases of naval development. It has now entered a third. The first phase saw a striking rise in naval investment and capability development, particularly by China, and a decided shift in the global centre of gravity of naval power towards Asia, fuelled in no small part by the pendulum swing of economic power in the same direction. A second, more hard-edged phase of state-based competition became apparent in the region around 2014–15, as the PLAN’s dramatic capability developments began to mature and Beijing’s growing assertiveness was becoming increasingly manifest (not least in its spurt of island development and fortification in the South China Sea). Ambitious plans by Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and the US to bolster their naval capacity were also beginning to deliver results, leaving the regional naval balance in flux.¹⁷

The third and latest phase of naval development dates from approximately the start of the present decade, signalled by the change of tone in a number of defence-strategy documents produced by the US and other countries, including Australia and Japan, as well as some shifts in plans and postures in the region. The PLAN has continued to make major strides in expanding its fleet, with new, high-capability surface units and other important platforms entering service. China’s navy also seems set to move to a new level of potential capability, including the capacity to deploy as a fully fledged blue-water force beyond the island chains, perhaps with an initial focus on the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, facing a significantly more combative political and diplomatic environment, the US and some of its key allies and partners have also increased their naval investment and operational readiness. Moreover, their efforts are coalescing in ways that could facilitate a shift in the naval balance in their favour. At the same time, all the major players’ deployments and operations have become more assertive, making it harder to predict how events at sea in the region might evolve – with particular regard to deployments, the likelihood of a growing incidence of close naval encounters and prospects for elevated levels of a modern incarnation of ‘gunboat diplomacy’.

Perhaps at least in part for budget-related reasons, the US Department of Defense now routinely refers to the PLAN as the largest navy in the world, at least in terms of ship numbers. The department’s November 2022 report to Congress on China’s military power spoke of a Chinese fleet with a ‘battle force’ (aircraft carriers, destroyers and other major surface combatants, submarines, amphibious ships, mine-warfare vessels and fleet auxiliaries) of some 340 vessels. By a similar measure, the US Navy currently has some 294 vessels,¹⁸though these tend to be larger and more capable – if older – than their Chinese counterparts. The report added that it expects the PLAN’s battle force to grow to 400 ships by 2025 and 440 by 2030.¹⁹ However, at least as significant as the number of ships is the considerable improvement in the quality and capability of PLAN units in service. It is also widely acknowledged that any assessment of Beijing’s burgeoning maritime power must also factor in the China Coast Guard – numerically the largest force of its kind in the world – and the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).

China’s development of ASBMs and its array of other anti-ship missiles and anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities have provided significant ammunition in the debate over the future utility of aircraft carriers in a high-intensity confrontation and, therefore, the role of the US Navy’s carriers (or, indeed, other countries’ carriers) in any major scenario involving China. As such, it is perhaps ironic that a major talisman of Beijing’s naval ambitions has been its investment in carrier airpower.

It is just over a decade since the PLAN’s first carrier, Liaoning, was declared operational. (It was originally built by the Soviet Union and sold by Ukraine in unfinished form to China in 2002.) Along with a slightly improved and domestically built sister ship, Shandong, the PLAN has been amassing carrier operating experience, including via the deployment of increasingly capable groups of accompanying warships. It has also been extending the ranges at which its carriers have been operating out into the Philippine Sea and to the edge of the Western Pacific, though still cautiously only around 1,000 km from the Chinese mainland.²⁰

These carriers offer the prospect of the PLAN conducting enhanced independent task-group missions further afield. However, their relatively modest size of some 65,000–70,000 tonnes full-load displacement and their configuration for short take-off but arrested recovery (STOBAR) air operations limit their strike and power-projection potential. For offensive power, they would probably rely more on the missile armaments of their accompanying escort ships than on their own aircraft. The third Chinese carrier, Fujian, is a different proposition. It is larger than its predecessors – at an estimated 80,000 tn or more – and equipped for catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) operations (using electromagnetic rather than old-style steam catapults) (see Figure 3.2). The vessel will be able to accommodate a more powerful air group. It more closely resembles, albeit still at a somewhat lower level of capability, the US Navy’s current force of carriers (though these are nuclear-powered).

Importantly, an even larger Chinese aircraft carrier, most likely with nuclear propulsion, is expected to follow and potentially be operational by the end of the decade, with still more possibly following. As well as significantly bolstering China’s ability to present a ‘360-degree’ challenge to Taiwan’s air defences, one or more additional carriers would add considerably to the PLAN’s blue-water power-projection capacity.²¹ In any event, a ‘break-out’ of a Chinese carrier group on a significantly more far-reaching deployment – perhaps into the Indian Ocean, as a signal of intent to project greater global influence – probably cannot be delayed much longer.

In addition to the continued commissioning of highly capable principal surface combatants, such as Type-055 cruisers and Type-052D (Luyang  III-class) destroyers, the rapid construction and induction into service of the Type-075 Yushen-class large-deck amphibious ships (LHDs) also suggests that China’s efforts are focused on rectifying shortfalls in areas of relative weakness. In addition to amphibious capabilities, these shortfalls include anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Moreover, significantly, the reported US assessment that the PLAN has now equipped its Type-094 Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines with a longer-range submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) – the JL-3 – suggests that these vessels can now potentially threaten the continental US from the relative safety of a protected bastion in the South China Sea, thus altering the strategic dynamics of the underwater battlespace.²²

Figure 3.2: US and Chinese aircraft carriers compared Sources: IISS; Military Balance+, milbalplus.iiss.org; Janes Fighting Ships; US Office of Naval Intelligence, www.oni.navy.mil

While the US Navy remains overall the most capable globally by a significant margin, the gap with the PLAN has clearly narrowed, and it continues to struggle with the question of how to meet the challenge posed by China. Since around 2019, there has been an increasingly tortuous debate in the US over the desirable and achievable size and shape of the navy’s future fleet given domestic shipbuilding constraints as well as priorities for capability development. The Department of Defense and the navy have often been at odds with Congress, with the navy looking to pension off older units to free up resources for new vessels and systems, while Congress has been more anxious to expand the fleet by retaining older ships as well as by seeking to add new requests for additional construction. US Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Michael Gilday has emphasised the need to improve current readiness, including with parts and weapons stocks, and by servicing and updating the most useful current platforms.²³ Even so, the fleet still faces significant readiness and maintenance challenges.

In his updated Navigation Plan 2022, the CNO set out an ambition for a hybrid US fleet by the 2040s comprising more than 350 crewed vessels and 150 uninhabited surface and sub-surface platforms.²⁴The path for achieving that target, however, remains unclear. Indeed, projections suggest that the number of ships and – most notably – submarines will continue to decline gradually until at least the early 2030s.²⁵ The retirement of platforms like the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Ohio-class guided-missile-armed submarines (SSGNs) will result in a significant fall in numbers of operationally valuable vertical launch system (VLS) missile cells, which new ship construction may fail to mitigate.²⁶

However, the arming of the Zumwalt-class destroyers and Virginia-class SSGNs with hypersonic weapons is not the only offensive missile enhancement that the US Navy is urgently introducing to increase range and lethality, chiefly in response to the Chinese threat. Other enhancements include the stealthy LRASM (long-range anti-ship missile, initially an air-launched weapon) and various LRASM developments and upgrades, as well as a follow-on hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-surface warfare weapon, dubbed HALO.²⁷ There is also a maritime strike variant of the Tomahawk  land-attack cruise missile.

The requirements of the Asia-Pacific theatre are also the primary motivation for another US Navy priority: extending the reach of its carrier air wings. Key to achieving this aspiration is the rapid introduction of the MQ-25 Stingray  UAV, initially as an air-to-air refueller but potentially also for ISR missions²⁸ and eventually even as a weapons carrier. In another potentially significant move, the US is also exploring a more ‘distributed’ approach to deploying sea-based airpower with the ‘Lightning Carrier’ concept of operating the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B variant of the Lightning  II combat aircraft from the navy’s large-deck amphibious ships. To that end, during 2022 the aviation-capable amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli undertook a trial deployment with some 20 F-35Bs aboard.²⁹ This distributed approach could potentially be extended even to forward deployment of US F-35Bs aboard large-deck platforms, including those operated by US allies Australia, Japan and South Korea. Such a deployment has already been tested operationally aboard the British carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Similarly, the requirements of the Asia-Pacific theatre are an important influence on the US Navy’s effort to develop a family of directed energy weapons, such as high-energy lasers, to counter UAV and USV swarm attacks and high-speed missiles.³⁰ A San Diego-based destroyer has become the first operational US Navy combatant to be fitted with such a new system to counter UAVs and fast-attack craft: the high-energy laser and optical dazzler and surveillance system known as HELIOS.³¹ Furthermore, it is clearly in the Asia-Pacific that the US Navy most wants to press ahead with plans to integrate USVs and UUVs into its fleet, with the aid of an experimental task force based in the Middle East to help gain support for and experience of some of these capabilities.³²

Perhaps more profoundly, and in some ways more controversially, the US Marine Corps (USMC) is undergoing a dramatic transformation intended to create lighter, more agile and more dispersed units to provide ‘stand-in’ forces able to operate within China’s missile engagement zones.³³ Pursuing the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept of rapidly switching between temporary footholds on islands and shorelines would refocus the USMC (absorbed for many years in counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq) on naval and maritime operations, enabling it to conduct anti-ship and even ASW missions.³⁴ As a result, the USMC is divesting itself of significant elements, such as its main battle tank units, and reorganising into lighter, more versatile formations designated as Marine Littoral Regiments, the first of which was formed in March 2022.³⁵ The transformation has given birth to the idea for a new light amphibious warship, a development that has led to frictions with the US Navy over shipbuilding priorities.³⁶ Amid doubts about whether the transformation plan can deliver the effects promised, the reforms have also prompted significant concern and criticism from some of the USMC’s most senior retired officers.³⁷

For the US Navy, the concept underlying its posture for countering high-intensity threats is ‘distributed maritime operations’, under which widely dispersed units and offensive capabilities pose challenges to an adversary.³⁸ At the same time, it seeks to concentrate firepower, including by undertaking more frequent multi-carrier operations involving two or three carrier strike groups (although these groups are to be sufficiently dispersed to aid survivability).³⁹ However, this approach poses considerable demands in terms of command and control and the need for robust networking capacity.⁴⁰

It remains a subject of intense debate whether these measures, taken together, form a credible US response to the challenge from China. For all China’s apparent capability advances, questions remain as to whether Beijing can translate these achievements fully into combat effectiveness, particularly in light of the PLA’s relative lack of recent operational experience.⁴¹ Equally, it is argued that many assessments underestimate unique US strengths, including its undersea capabilities, high-quality training and the value of its alliances.⁴² Indeed, this last factor is becoming increasingly important as other major naval players in the region adjust their plans to meet a transforming strategic environment.

In 2020, Australia indicated its sense of urgency regarding developing strategic threats in the region via the publication of its Defence Strategic Update. It was released under a conservative coalition government, which was replaced by a Labor administration following the May 2022 federal elections.⁴³ Among the priorities identified was a need to enhance long-range-strike capabilities, a goal reinforced by the new government in pursuit of ‘impactful projection’.⁴⁴ The Royal Australian Navy was already well on the way to significantly upgrading its capabilities, particularly following the commissioning of two Canberra-class LHDs and three Hobart-class Aegis-equipped guided-missile destroyers, thus reviving its ability to conduct power-projection missions based on task groups. In addition, highly capable Hunter-class frigates (built to a significantly enhanced British Type-26 design) will start entering service in the 2030s. However, the most striking signal that Canberra anticipated an increasingly challenging security environment was the September 2021 AUKUS announcement, with its central pillar of building at least eight nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs). The submarine delivery plan revealed on 13 March 2023 will see a phased build-up of capability leading ultimately to Australian indigenous SSN-AUKUS vessels based on a new UK SSN design. It will be hugely challenging for all the partners but should enhance submarine capability for all three, with significant potential impact for the Asia-Pacific.

Perhaps just as important as the submarine pillar is the agreement’s focus on collaboration on other advanced defence technologies, many with a clear maritime application, including undersea capabilities, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities, AI and autonomy.⁴⁵ Australia has confirmed that it will buy Tomahawk  cruise missiles for its Hobart-class destroyers.⁴⁶ These missiles are also likely to be fitted to the current Collins-class submarines pending the arrival of the new nuclear-powered boats at the end of the 2030s.

Something of a similar step change has been under way – and gaining momentum – in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). Tokyo set out its new defence approach in important defence and security documents released in December 2022. It includes the planned introduction of enhanced stand-off counterstrike capabilities based on the purchase of Tomahawk  cruise missiles and deployment of an extended-range version of the locally developed Type-12 surface-to-surface missile.⁴⁷

These plans seem set to bolster further the JMSDF’s transition to a force with improved defence-in-depth capabilities, greater ability to carry out independent power-projection missions at range, and greater potential to support US-led integrated operations. The JMSDF is, overall, becoming a significantly more robust and capable force in equipment terms and is pressing ahead with modification of its two largest large-deck aviation-capable platforms, the Izumo-class ships, to accommodate the F-35B. As a result, they will be able to operate in effect as STOVL light aircraft carriers.⁴⁸ Izumo  itself has already carried out trials with USMC F-35Bs aboard.⁴⁹

The JMSDF also has a formidable flotilla of eight Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers capable of undertaking ballistic missile defence (BMD).⁵⁰ The number of these ships is planned to increase to at least ten with the commissioning of two vessels being procured to replace the abandoned Aegis  Ashore programme – though these may focus on fixed territorial-defence missions. Some of the new ships are also to be equipped with the Standard  SM-6 missile, providing enhanced BMD capability but also a surface strike role.⁵¹ The rapid series production of the Mogami-class multi-mission frigates – currently under way – will further strengthen the surface fleet.⁵² It is expected that this class will ultimately number some 22 vessels. The JMSDF submarine force has also been expanding and has reached its target of 22 operational boats. The latest vessels – including the new Taigei  class – are fitted with lithium-ion batteries for extended underwater endurance.⁵³

The Republic of Korea Navy has also been significantly expanding its blue-water capabilities. In particular, it has been building up an impressive surface fleet, currently centred on Sejong-class (KDD-III) Aegis-equipped cruisers. A second batch of Sejong-class ships – able to undertake BMD – is under construction; six of these vessels are likely to be in service by the end of the decade.⁵⁴ The new Daegu  class of frigates has also been entering service, with plans for improved ships of this class. Together, these developments represent a considerable increase in not just the tonnage but also the capability of South Korea’s surface fleet.

North Korea’s fleet of midget and patrol submarines poses particular challenges for South Korea and is forcing the country to improve its ASW capabilities,⁵⁵ while Pyongyang’s apparent pursuit of a nuclear-armed SLBM capability is raising wider alarms in the region and beyond.⁵⁶ Seoul has made strenuous efforts to transform its submarine flotilla, including by introducing the Chang Bogo  III (KSS-III) class outfitted with conventionally armed SLBMs. Larger and more capable variants of these submarines are under construction and planned, promising to provide Seoul with significant additional naval capability.⁵⁷

For the time being, South Korea’s ambition to procure a STOVL-equipped light aircraft carrier of around 30,000 tn under the CVX programme appears in abeyance. There are suggestions, however, that some form of carrier programme may eventually proceed, possibly involving a larger design and with a domestically developed carrier-borne combat aircraft.⁵⁸ The focus on carriers may be connected to the continued and growing interest in and commitment to carrier capabilities across the region. Moreover, further modification of the navy’s plans – with renewed focus on blue-water, task-group-orientated operations – is possible given the constantly evolving regional strategic dynamics, not least in relation to China and mounting concerns about a Taiwan contingency, growing unease regarding the security of sea lines of communication, and Seoul’s desire to reinforce security and defence relations with the US and even Japan.⁵⁹

Other regional navies have also been making significant strides in modernising and enhancing their capabilities. While some belong to states anxious to avoid becoming embroiled in the increasing frictions of great-power competition, the reality of an increasingly tense regional environment is adding extra impetus to many naval procurement plans.

The potential advent during the current decade of Taiwan’s first indigenous submarines,⁶⁰combined with its growing inventory of missile-armed corvettes, will increase Taipei’s sea-denial capabilities (although there are still doubts about the submarine project’s viability and cost-effectiveness).⁶¹ As well as seeking to build up its asymmetric forces, including the corvettes, Taiwan has begun to modernise its larger surface forces, with the arrival of a new and heavily armed amphibious assault ship (with others to follow) and plans for a new frigate class.⁶² However, delivering on these ambitions will be challenging; again, questions abound regarding the cost-effectiveness of some of these investments in light of the challenges Taiwan faces.

Amid much fanfare, in December 2022 Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems launched the second and third of four new-generation Type 218SG submarines for Singapore’s navy.⁶³ Singapore is also planning to modernise its naval patrol forces with a new design of multi-role combat vessels intended to serve as motherships for various uncrewed platforms, while there is a long-standing ambition for a new Joint Multi-Mission Ship that would bolster Singapore’s amphibious and power-projection capacity.⁶⁴Indonesia, meanwhile, is planning major enhancements of its warship inventory, with orders for six Italian FREMM frigates and two UK-design Arrowhead  140 vessels, the latter to be built locally. Reports also indicate the possibility of ordering frigates from Japan as well as ongoing ambitions to purchase Scorpene  submarines from France. Further enhancements in the navy’s smaller patrol forces are perhaps no less significant, with continuing construction of patrol craft in considerable numbers.⁶⁵

The Philippine Navy is also attempting to bolster its maritime-patrol and -surveillance capabilities, notably with South Korean-built vessels, including two new corvettes and six new offshore patrol ships.⁶⁶ Meanwhile, the Vietnamese Navy remains a force to be reckoned with, boasting as its main equipment six Russian-built Improved Kilo  submarines armed with Klub-S anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, and four Gepard  3.9 (Project 11661E) corvettes – also supplied by Russia – with 3M24E Uran-E (RS-SS-N-25 Switchblade) anti-ship missiles.

On 2 September 2022, India commissioned its first domestically produced aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, meaning it now possesses two operational carriers, although they are configured for STOBAR operations and therefore have some limits on their capacity. There are also ambitions for a third carrier to enter service within the next decade.⁶⁷ While India’s naval expansion has been slow to materialise, the commissioning of the second Project 15B Visakhapatnam-class guided-missile destroyer in December 2022,⁶⁸ followed by its fifth Scorpene-type submarine in January 2023, shows that its capabilities are developing steadily, with significant implications for the naval balance in the Indian Ocean and India’s potential capacity to project power further afield. Concurrently, Pakistan is undertaking a naval-modernisation programme that is raising the stakes. It includes plans to acquire a class of four Chinese-built Type-054AP frigates, four Turkish-designed Babur-class light frigates, and eight planned Hangor-class submarines (export versions of China’s Type-039B Yuan  class).⁶⁹

MANOEUVRING FOR ADVANTAGE

When it comes to addressing and assessing changing strategic dynamics and frictions, capabilities developments are important. However, also critical (and closely connected to capability) are shifting patterns and postures of operational deployment. These have also evolved significantly in the Asia-Pacific.

Notwithstanding the relatively cautious development of the PLAN’s carrier operations and the fact that the preponderance of China’s naval power remains concentrated close to its coasts and within the first island chain, Beijing’s naval and maritime activities – involving all China’s military maritime agencies – have grown increasingly ambitious. The PLAN’s continuous deployments since 2008 into the Indian Ocean, though primarily in a counter-piracy role, have long been seen as a signal of intent to extend its reach while also serving the strategic purpose of boosting its experience of long-range deployments.

Other notable indicators of Beijing’s intent and the PLAN’s expanding horizons include naval forays north of Alaska (on at least one occasion in company with Russian warships⁷⁰) and increasingly in waters close to Australia – in the latter case raising particular frictions when Canberra claimed that a Chinese warship had used a laser device to dazzle the crew of a Royal Australian Air Force surveillance aircraft.⁷¹ The security agreement forged between China and Solomon Islands in 2022 fuelled debate over potential Chinese naval-basing ambitions in the Southwest Pacific (and the attendant strategic implications).⁷² The prospect of Chinese access to an enhanced base facility in Cambodia will also provide the PLAN’s deployment capacity with additional options, including particularly into the Indian Ocean, supplementing its first foreign support facility in Djibouti.⁷³ Meanwhile, the increasing assertiveness and coercive tactics of the China Coast Guard and the PAFMM have also raised concern, while apprehensions remain over the China Coast Guard Law of 2021 and how Beijing might apply it to support more forceful action in waters that China disputes with others.⁷⁴

The PLAN’s patterns of activities serve an operational purpose in addition to geopolitical aims, while the increasingly complex character of its exercises is apparently intended to improve skills applicable to more complex operations.⁷⁵ The challenge for all interested parties (including Beijing’s leadership) – particularly in light of what has been revealed about the performance of Russian forces in Ukraine – is assessing just how much progress is being made and how that might translate into operational performance against a peer adversary.

China has not been the only actor elevating its naval activity in the Asia-Pacific. Indeed, the transformation in the maritime posture and practice of the US and its allies and partners may prove to be equally telling in terms of how the regional naval balance will play out. The drumbeat of US Navy freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs) and transits of key waterways like the Taiwan Strait has been one element of this evolving posture.⁷⁶ The latest US maritime strategy, released in late 2020, notably referred to a ‘continuum’ of competition and highlighted the incremental, sub-threshold character of the challenges to the rules-based international order being faced at sea, calling for US naval power to adopt ‘a more assertive posture’ in day-to-day operations and accept calculated risk to confront ‘malign behavior’.⁷⁷ This was reinforced by the published version of the 2022 US National Defense Strategy, which placed new emphasis – for all the US armed services – on a ‘campaigning’ approach of persistent activities to address grey-zone challenges in particular.⁷⁸ The US Third Fleet, based on the west coast of the US, is also now taking on a more operational role in support of the Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific.⁷⁹ US Navy carrier-strike-group deployments have been enhanced to include multi-carrier exercises. The US Navy has also boosted the number of SSNs it forward deploys to Guam – to five, from two just a few years ago – and is planning to expand its facilities to support such deployments there.⁸⁰

Nevertheless, it is a huge challenge for the US Navy to deliver an enhanced forward presence while also sustaining the fleet and seeking to transition from legacy to emerging capabilities and technologies. In this context, the third element of the regional naval-balance equation – the increasing integration of the other major regional naval players with each other and with the US – assumes greater significance.

While multilateral naval exercises have taken place in the region for decades, in the early 2020s they are evolving in new ways, with participants according such exercises greater significance. For example, in 2022, the US-led Rim of the Pacific  (RIMPAC) exercise involved five large-deck aviation-capable platforms from four states – Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US. It also featured a greater number of more realistic, ‘free-play’ activities than previous RIMPACs. There was also a significant contribution from uncrewed vessels and other uninhabited platforms.⁸¹ Meanwhile, the Malabar  series of exercises has developed from a bilateral US–India arrangement into a four-state framework involving Australia and Japan, while its activities have increasingly included more complex tasks. The November 2022 Malabar exercise, hosted by the JMSDF and conducted off Japan in the Philippine Sea, included the USS Ronald Reagan  carrier strike group. The exercise underscored the increased emphasis being placed on the integration of operations between US carriers and allies and partners, including in key operating areas like the Philippine Sea.⁸²

Both Australia (since 2017) and Japan (since 2019) have instigated regional task-group deployments, usually led by one of their large-deck aviation-capable warships.⁸³ As well as projecting influence, such deployments have enhanced participants’ ability to engage in multilateral manoeuvres aimed at both training and strategic signalling. October 2022 saw a notable first, with a four-state exercise involving Australia, Canada, Japan and the US in the South China Sea.⁸⁴ In terms of dispositions, the Royal Australian Navy has drawn back from its long-standing engagement in the Middle East to concentrate on the Asia-Pacific.⁸⁵ The Royal Canadian Navy, in light of a new national Asia-Pacific strategy, aims to increase its deployment pattern in the region to three frigates during each year, ideally with a support ship also in the region.⁸⁶ Canadian vessels transited the Taiwan Strait in company with US Navy ships in October 2021 and September 2022 and there are plans for further such missions.⁸⁷ Meanwhile, growing concern about North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities has seen a renewed emphasis on combined naval BMD exercises involving Japan, South Korea and the US.⁸⁸

Another significant aspect of this trend towards greater interconnectedness and cooperation has been the growing number of support agreements between key players. Among these have been a reciprocal access agreement between Japan and Australia and a similar one between Japan and the UK, while Manila and Washington have agreed to boost base support in the Philippines for US forces under their Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.⁸⁹

Reflecting a US campaigning approach that increasingly acknowledges that grey-zone challenges across the spectrum of competition require a response, the latest US maritime strategy emphasises the importance of integration between the US sea services, including the US Coast Guard. The profile and presence of the US Coast Guard in the Western Pacific has been increased, notably through some important demonstrative missions, again including transits of the Taiwan Strait since 2019.⁹⁰

Nevertheless, it remains the case that the US Navy’s focus (and that of some other major Western navies) on high-end war-fighting capabilities has resulted in a deficit in lower-end maritime-security capacity. While some of these deficiencies are being addressed, a number of commentators argue that the US Navy should adopt an even more disaggregated force structure and even more ubiquitous deployments, with larger numbers of smaller crewed and uncrewed platforms that can also respond more comprehensively to different levels of challenge. Another criticism is that the US strategy of periodic, high-level demonstration missions, such as FONOPs, has not produced the desired deterrent effect and that even more persistence is needed, with a range of other regional actors playing more prominent roles with the US Navy in support.⁹¹

Indeed, some other allies and partners may be better placed to take a leading role in areas where the great-power dynamic is second to other security concerns and where capacity-building for maritime constabulary work or disaster relief will produce more influence. Of note in this regard is Australia’s Pacific Maritime Security Program, intended to generate improved maritime-security capacity, notably through the supply of new patrol craft to Pacific Islands states.⁹²

HOW GREAT A GAME AT SEA?

For some observers, these evolving dynamics of naval and maritime manoeuvre and investment are starting to resemble something of a ‘great game’ at sea that is – while global in nature – focused particularly on the Asia-Pacific.⁹³ Indeed, the increasing naval engagement (or, in some cases, re-engagement) of important external players is one aspect of the broader recognition of the region’s growing significance as a centre of gravity of global economic development and strategic challenge.

In this context, the return of a British naval presence to the region has perhaps attracted most attention and debate. A re-engagement was already under way before the 2021 roll-out of the UK’s ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’, the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy and the accompanying Defence Command Paper: these steps reinforced an impulse that already existed.⁹⁴ Added to this was the operational debut of the UK’s regenerated carrier-strike capability via the Carrier Strike Group 2021 (CSG21) deployment to the region led by the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.

In defence and particularly naval terms, the message has been that this renewed British engagement will include a mix of forces. To provide a persistent lower-level capability in the maritime arena, two River-class Batch 2 offshore patrol vessels have already been forward deployed – essentially for defence diplomacy. These vessels are to be supplemented by new Type-31 frigates. The UK also foresees the more periodic deployment of slightly more capable forces, such as a small amphibious formation dubbed a Littoral Response Group, and the episodic deployment of high-level capability, such as a carrier strike group. A striking feature of the CSG21 deployment was an exercise bringing together HMS Queen Elizabeth, two US carriers and the Japanese Hyuga-class ship Ise  – a formation of four ‘flat-tops’ from three states.⁹⁵

An important question is whether this revived British interest will be credible and sustainable, not least in light of the UK’s other defence commitments. The ambition appears to be there, with talk even of the extended forward deployment of one of the UK’s carriers, although this would probably only be possible in an even wider multinational format than the CSG21.⁹⁶ Depending on what is decided regarding Australia’s new nuclear-powered submarine capability, another possibility could be the periodic forward deployment into the region of a Royal Navy Astute-class SSN.

A major challenge for the UK will be how to sustain the operational effectiveness of its lower-level forces as regional developments raise the bar on what constitutes minimum credible capability. This will also be an important question for France, which regards itself as a regional power in the Asia-Pacific by virtue of its territories there and maintains a significant permanent presence. The French Navy is grappling with this challenge as it seeks to renew its naval patrol and surveillance assets, not least its long-serving Floreal-class light frigates.⁹⁷ Following an Asia-Pacific deployment by the carrier Charles de Gaulle  in 2019, France is aiming for a further such mission in 2025.⁹⁸ In early 2023 the carrier undertook its longest power-projection display yet, launching aircraft from the Indian Ocean to forward deploy to Singapore, a distance of 4,000 km.⁹⁹ This followed the navy’s 2021 forward deployment to the region of the SSN Emmeraude  with a support ship.¹⁰⁰ These developments are indicators of France’s ambition to expand its naval operations and presence in the Asia-Pacific.

The German Navy’s dispatch of the frigate Bayern  to the region on a seven-month deployment during 2021 and 2022 was further evidence of increased European interest and naval ambition in the Asia-Pacific. It was the first such mission for nearly two decades, with a further plan to deploy two more ships in 2024. Likewise, the Netherlands, having attached its frigate Evertsen  to the UK’s CSG21 deployment, has set out plans to deploy a warship to the Asia-Pacific every two years – a significant commitment given the Dutch navy’s limited resources.¹⁰¹
In its  Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific published in September 2021, the European Union stated that it ‘will explore ways to ensure enhanced naval deployments by its Member States in the region’.102 Just what that will mean and how it might deliver it are open questions, given the limited success of the EU in the defence and security field so far and in light of the renewed focus on Euro-Atlantic security following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Given resource constraints and a probable lack of political consensus among EU member states regarding long-range deployments, the northwestern Indian Ocean may be the most likely area to see an enhanced European maritime security role. Furthermore, the UK has maintained a long-standing naval presence in and around the Gulf, and there is a limited European maritime monitoring operation there (European Maritime Awareness in the Strait of Hormuz – EMASOH) and an EU Naval Force mission off the Horn of Africa – EUNAVFOR Operation Atalanta – although the long-term sustainment of the latter may be in question.

An enhanced European maritime-security role in the northwestern Indian Ocean may not be insignificant if it relieves allies and partners of a burden, thereby allowing them to concentrate their efforts elsewhere in the region. However, for some European capitals, notably London and Paris, there is at least an implicit commitment to go further if a crisis were to erupt in the Western Pacific, although possibly by responding on a limited scale with niche capabilities. Nevertheless, their efforts could make a significant contribution in concert with the greater commitment of other regional players. For all European powers, a clue to the fact that they would need to adjust their threat perceptions – currently focused on the Euro-Atlantic area – when operating in the Asia-Pacific can be gleaned from the relative lack of magazine depth (in terms of VLS cells) of major European-design naval platforms, compared to those of the more regular Asia-Pacific naval operators (see Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3: Magazine depths of selected principal surface combatants Sources: IISS, Military Balance+, milbalplus.iiss.org; Janes Fighting Ships
Note: Missile figures for each vessel are based on the number of VLS cells.

Balancing these developments is the fact that Russia cannot be counted out as a Pacific naval power. Its 2022 Maritime Doctrine appears to place the Pacific second only to the Arctic in terms of priority, while Moscow has referred previously to the enormous significance of the Pacific Ocean for Russia. The new doctrine spelled out ambitions for developing Russia’s naval presence and maritime industrial capacity (including, perhaps unrealistically, aspirations to construct aircraft carriers).¹⁰³ The Russian Pacific Fleet has received some significant enhancements in recent years, including submarines and modern surface vessels, although its main oceangoing surface combatants remain legacies of the Soviet era. There have been notable recent joint exercises with China, including some in waters near Japan. While these exercises may have been limited in scope and perhaps demonstrated more show than substance, signalling is important in the context of how Sino-Russian relations might develop.

In addition, the recent signs of naval cooperation between China, Iran and Russia in the northwestern Indian Ocean could prove a complicating factor in the region in the context of a crisis elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.¹⁰⁴ The Iranian navy appears to be extending its own reach – with a transit by two vessels through the South Pacific as part of a long-range deployment – in another sign of the continuing changes in regional naval dynamics.¹⁰⁵

AN ASIA-PACIFIC MARITIME PARADOX?

Amid the swirl of cross-currents that characterise the new phase of Asia-Pacific maritime competition, it is difficult to determine precisely where the naval balance now stands and the trajectory of its evolution. This challenge is compounded by the shadow of the Ukraine war and the need to digest the implications and lessons of that conflict, many of which have created new uncertainties. Nevertheless, it is possible to contend that although the PLAN’s transformation has produced a critical mass of naval power both for operations close to home and incipiently for blue-water operations, the coming together of the plans and new postures of the US Navy and its allies and partners – combined with the increased urgency and ambition of many of their procurement programmes – may be swinging the strategic pendulum back in the latter’s favour. The result is something of an Asia-Pacific maritime paradox: while China’s maritime power has never been greater and the PLAN continues to grow at a remarkable rate, the US and its allies and partners may be clawing back some significant advantages such that the PLAN itself may find that it needs to adjust its own ambitions and programmes.

In the absence of recent high-intensity naval warfare, attempts to assess regional naval developments are bound to be somewhat theoretical. The fact of rapid technological change is adding another layer of complexity. Questions also remain about whether the US and its allies and partners can devise and enact the kind of comprehensive campaigning strategies that they seem to acknowledge are necessary to counter the persistent challenges to the status quo. The upshot of all these developments is a general increase of assertiveness at sea – not just by China but also by the US and others in the region – that may yet deliver strengthened deterrence but also carries increased risk and a greater danger of miscalculation.

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Nick Childs
Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security
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