A number of articles have popped up recently tackling China's military and speculating on it's import. Robert Kaplan has advocated for years a sort of neo-Mahanism, that naval power is what really counts in international power calculus and our preoccupation with COIN distracts us from the (ascendant) great power challenges facing the US. A constant refrain arguing for the F-22 was China's development of 3.5-5th generation fighters.
And now, especially in light of Gates' Saturday speech rumored to systemically challenge the carrier battle group model, a fascinating article crops up exploring China's incessant attempts to build an aircraft carrier as a function of social identity theory.
On face value, the Chinese attempts to build an aircraft carrier is anachronistic. First, any other, non-American design in the world is inferior to those currently afloat and would field inferior aircraft. Second, the lack of quantity would match the lack of quality; as Payne notes, changing the balance of power from 11-0 to 11-1 is... unlikely to affect matters materially. Third, with China investing so heavily in asymmetric capability, most relevantly anti-carrier cruise and ballistic missiles, that indicates a strategic foresight to transcend current American conventional military primacy, investing so heavily in such a conventional technology almost looks like a step backward.
Personally, I offer three explanations for China's motive. First, I agree with Larson and Shevchenko: Aircraft carriers are symbols. As much as China purports to pioneer an Asian (read: Chinese centric) metric for international importance in everything from human rights to environmental policy, they know what symbols the old system uses to judge countries. So, an aircraft carrier is a potent physical declaration saying: "I'm a great power and I have the toys to prove it". So Larson and Shevchenko argue a carrier is a fulfillment in China's need for self-esteem and prestige.
Second, judging Chinese power relative only to the US is a mistake. In addition to being a symbol of Great Power status, an aircraft carrier is a symbol of expeditionary force. Nothing says American hegemony like a carrier. A carrier says: "I can reach out and touch anyone, anywhere, anytime". The US might possess the most advanced fighter aircraft, the most sophisticated submarines, and the best-equipped Army in the world, but without it's network of forward deployed bases, pre-staging areas, and international agreements, all that military might would sit in warehouses in Iowa. That's why Russian and Kyrgyzstani politics are so salient for Afghanistan. It's why critics can dismiss Chinese military modernization. Even with modern fighters or a trained army, they couldn't project that power. A carrier would change that, especially relative to regional neighbors or perhaps as a big stick against recalcitrant Africans.
Third, a carrier introduces the possibility of winning the battle, yet losing the war. At the turn of the 20th century, British naval preeminence was unquestioned. The British fleet represented more combined tonnage than all their competitors combined. The fleet controlled the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the byways of South-East Asia, simultaneously. The French possessed a not insignificant fleet, but it was pretty much localized to the Med. Even the French, an active colonial power, were subject to British fleets controlling the lanes of communication. So when Germany, newly minted and eager to prove itself a global power, entered the Great Game, they could not tolerate British control of the seas. Germany was humiliated in the First Moroccan Crisis, and grew increasingly frustrated at it's overseas ambitions being subject to British sufferance. In the coin of the era, a Dreadnought was the symbol that Germany was a Great Power and could project power globally.
But what makes the comparison is not just a jejune analogy between two ascendant powers. Rather, it is the calculus employed by the German admiralty. Cognizant that Britain far outclassed them in tonnage, the Germans realized they didn't need to defeat the British in straight up combat. Instead, they decided to make their fleet strong enough that the British could not afford to defeat them. Because once the British defeated the German fleet, the French fleet, the Russian fleet, hell, maybe even the Japanese fleet, would all assert their authority in their respective spheres, and the British fleet would be too weak to fend them off. Additionally, Germany's proximity to Britain meant that while global British tonnage might outclass everyone else combined, their North fleet alone would have to be sufficient to defeat the Germans; the Germans were an existential threat. Consequently, as the German fleet grew, the British retracted their global commitments, until they finally, and amicably enough, seceded the Med to the French as part of their Triple Entente obligations so that they could concentrate their full might on defending the Home Isle.
Now, I'm straight up speculating if any of that influences the Chinese decision making process. There are certainly copious reasons why the analogy is imperfect or misleading. An aircraft carrier is a far more sophisticated vessel than a dreadnought, and the technological and developmental gap between the US and China is accordingly greater than it was between England and Germany. Secondly, there isn't a commensurate French fleet to affect balance of power calculations. Russia has a global fleet, sure, as does India, but neither is strong enough or motivated enough to play the same role. So whereas the British had to evaluate against the Germans, and the French, and the... the US really balances against China, with a few et als for spice. Third, China lacks the proximity or the means to poses the same existential threat Germany posed England. Certainly, a carrier could pose a threat to regional allies, but that's not quite the same thing.
Ultimately, my point is that whereas the British could not afford to lose the tonnage that made them vulnerable to the other Great Powers, the US cannot afford to lose even one carrier. As Gates' noted, a Ford-class carrier represents $15 to $20 billion in a single asset, to say nothing of the propaganda value. The Chinese don't need to have a carrier left afloat if they ever challenge us to Midway 2.0. They just need to sink ours.
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