The Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean are the main areas of maritime military activities. Among them, the Pacific Ocean has the most complex geopolitical characteristics, especially in the western area, and therefore influences the naval strategies of the major powers.
The formulation and implementation of naval strategy are deeply constrained by the geopolitical characteristics of the Pacific Ocean; these constraints derive from nature and are not subject to subjective human will or the development of science and technology. On the other hand, naval activities in the Indian Ocean have always been related to the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, while fully highlighting the Pacific Ocean theme, the geopolitical situation of the Indian Ocean should also be recalled.
The Pacific Ocean is about 19,800 kilometers long from north to south and 15,500 kilometers wide from east to west, with an area of 179,550,000 square kilometers. The average depth is 4,189 meters (excluding marine areas), while the maximum depth is in the Mariana Trench and reaches 10,984±25 meters.
The general contour of the Pacific Ocean is roughly circular. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean at 107 degrees east longitude (Perth, Australia) to the southwest and the Atlantic Ocean at 86 degrees west longitude to the southeast. It is connected to the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait to the north, to the Atlantic Ocean through the Panama Canal, the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Passage to the east and to the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca and the Sunda Strait to the west.
The islands in the Pacific Ocean are countless and widely distributed. The total area of these islands is about 4.4 million square kilometers, accounting for 45 percent of the world’s total island area. Among them, Indonesia alone has 13,667 islands of all sizes, while the Philippines has 7,107. In contrast, in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, islands are relatively few and more concentrated.
The main island groups are: North Pacific Islands, Japanese Islands, Western Pacific Islands, South China Sea Islands, Malay Archipelago, Philippine Islands, South Pacific Islands, Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian Islands. Almost all of the smaller islands lie between 30 degrees north latitude and 30 degrees south latitude. Continental islands are mainly distributed in the western Pacific Ocean, such as the Japanese islands, Kalimantan Island, New Guinea Island, etc. South Australia is both the largest island and the smallest continent on the globe.
There are more than 40 countries and sovereign entities in the Pacific region. The countries or sovereign entities in Oceania are often small in size and weak in strength, but their geopolitical value cannot be underestimated. Historically, they have been famous battlegrounds where maritime powers have confronted or fought each other.
There are more than 30 major straits connected to or within the Pacific Ocean (including the Panama Canal), which can be roughly divided into two categories: those connecting oceans and those connecting regions.
Naval battles that took place in the Pacific region, mainly the Pacific War during World War II. The main combatants were the Japanese and U.S. navies and naval aviation forces; the methods of combat were either naval with the participation of land and air forces, or land and air battles with the participation of the navy.
Obviously, the U.S. and Japanese armies have the most extensive experience in naval warfare in the Pacific, while the Chinese navy is clearly lacking in experience. In terms of more rigorous interstate naval clashes, the People’s Republic of China has had only two small-scale naval battles on the open sea with Vietnam in the South China Sea and has no experience in large-scale maritime expeditionary operations.
Particularly important naval bases in the People’s Republic of China are: Lushunkou, Qingdao-Dalian, Shanghai and Hainan. Whereas those of the United States and its allies are – Outer Circle: Alaska-Aleutian, Washington State Coastal Base Group, California Coastal Base Group, Guantánamo, Panama Canal, New Zealand, Sydney-Melbourne, Perth, Strait of the Sunda, Diego Garcia, Malacca, Subic, Taiwan, Okinawa, Sasebo, Yokosuka, Busan-Maizuru – Inner Circle: Midway Islands, Pearl Harbor, Tonga-Fiji, Moresby, Darwin, Guam. Moreover, the southern part is the mission area of the U.S. Army’s Southern Command, and certainly not an empty space neglected by the U.S. military.
“Geo-unit” means a specific area with relatively independent geo-functions. Its internal structure has an organic strategic connection; its fundamental problem is its inseparable integrity; its inherent hidden danger is that it can be owned exclusively by a single powerful country and cannot be shared with other countries.
For example, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea together form a geopolitical unit (which includes Cuba) owned exclusively by the United States of America. From a geopolitical perspective, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 meant that the Soviet Union attempted to share this unit with the United States of America, which almost led to the outbreak of a nuclear war. The situation calmed down later, after Soviet missiles were withdrawn from Cuba and the integrity of the unit returned to the White House.
As a structurally complete geopolitical unit, the Taiwan Strait is owned exclusively by the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. If the unit is torn apart, it will be unacceptable to both sides of the strait. However, if either side wanted to independently own this unit, it would have to establish a reliable military presence on the other side of the strait, otherwise it could only own half of the unit. This kind of “half ownership” means that the integrity of the unit has been divided. Unless the integrity is restored, the problem cannot be completely solved without a war.
Small regimes participating in building geopolitical unity find it difficult to benefit from the assistance of powerful countries from afar. During the aforementioned missile crisis, Cuba should not have relied on the Soviet Union. Otherwise, once a conflict broke out between the United States of America and the Soviet Union in the Caribbean, Cuba would have had no future other than to play the role of a victim with cheap funerals, that is, relying on weak allies and being easily defeated by a strong one, which would mean indulging in long-distance rescues and underestimating neighboring enemies, brings no benefit.
Therefore, the connotation of a strategic line includes (1) a general direction rather than a specific rigid route; (2) the strategic line is not a “front line” pushing forward, or a “defense line” deployed along the coast, but a route that is roughly perpendicular to the front line or defense line or has a significant angle to indicate the direction of attack; and (3) for the navy, the strategic line can be divided into strategic line of attack and strategic line of return. In most cases, the two roughly overlap. In other words, the fleet moves back and forth along the strategic line.
Offshore Bases
Offshore bases are defined as strategic-level bases that are geologically indestructible and have sufficient surface area.
Their connotation includes:
1) Geological indestructibility. Geological entities that are not easily destroyed by high-power nuclear explosions. Hawaii has this kind of “geological indestructibility”-they are so large that even a major nuclear attack would have difficulty sinking them. While the Senkaku Islands (cin. Diaoyu: currently under Japanese administration, and are claimed by both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan) are also a geological entity, but small and fragile enough to be completely destroyed or sunk by a small-scale nuclear attack. In short, the fundamental appeal of “geological indestructibility” is that it cannot be annihilated.
2) Sufficient area. Stick to building one or more large military ports or airfields, various auxiliary or support facilities (missile bases, material reserves, training camps, maintenance facilities, radar facilities, monitoring, communications and navigation facilities, combat command centers, barracks, family communities, hospitals and schools, etc.); and the local economy and production can be self-sufficient to a certain extent. And if the area permits, a large shipyard could be built. Examples of this can be found in Guam and Okinawa.
3) Correct position. A. Traffic requirements: the best solution is to occupy a hub position for maritime civil routes (freight and passenger transport), followed by positions along, on the sides of, or near maritime civil routes. B. Deterrence requirements: the ability to exert strategic pressure on the enemy and, when necessary, conduct large-scale rapid response operations against enemy territory. C. System requirements: the ability to form a network of bases that is mutually interdependent and effectively connected to its related bases.
4) Strategic level. Geographical location is extremely important. We have long-term or even permanent possession of it, which makes it convenient to station or assemble large-scale armed forces in all military services. It has the ability to launch wars at the strategic level (e.g., basic combat capability) and has a systematic and powerful self-defense capability (e.g., basic self-defense capability).
5) Overseas. Sovereignty resides in ultramarine enclaves. The best form is an archipelago, followed by a mainland coastal zone (e.g., “restoring” the Republic of Lan Fang or, for argument’s sake, the RP of China annexes the Sultanate of Brunei); or an island lost in the sea.
[ the 18th century, the sultans of West Borneo stationed Hakka miners from southern China to work in the local gold mines. Later the miners, united in a powerful kongsi, rebelled and under the leadership of Luo Fangbo founded the Lanfang republic in 1777, of which Luo Fangbo was elected its first president. The republic placed itself under protection and vassalage to Qing China. In addition to having ties with China, the republic allied itself with the Pontianak Sultanate. Thanks to the protective wing of the Chinese colossus, the republic prospered and was able to resist infiltration by European colonial powers, especially the Netherlands].
6) Joint Base. It is not just a naval base (only for docking the fleet), but integrates land, sea, air and space and other military forces in the same base, and establishes a corresponding joint combat command.
In the United States of America, however, the naval strategy of Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) laid a solid foundation for the basic doctrine of the U.S. Navy. Later, during the Pacific War, the various branches of the U.S. military used countless overseas bases in the Pacific region. In other words, the U.S. military not only had a mobile “steel fleet,” but also an unsinkable “base fleet.” To this day, the situation has not changed substantially.
A history of the naval battles in the Pacific, which began with Pearl Harbor, tells us that the naval clashes between the Japanese and the U.S. revolved around the competition for islands, and ended with the great battle of Okinawa (April 1-June 22, 1945) that pitted the Japanese Empire alone (105,000~110,000 dead), against the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada (76,000~84,000 dead). Therefore, a natural archipelago with geological immortality cannot be artificially created.
We have previously stated that naval activities in the Indian Ocean are often linked to that of the Pacific Ocean. Since the Spanish adventurer Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (1511-72) began his expedition to Asia in the mid-16th century, most European routes involved starting from Europe, passing the Cape of Good Hope, heading northeast, crossing the equator and sailing across the Indian Ocean to China and northeast Asia.
The navigational feats of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), Fernão de Magalhães (1480-1521: Ferdinand Magellan), Legazpi, and James Cook (1728-79) made immortal contributions to the expansion of their respective empires, thus changing the course of civilization.
The Indian Ocean was not only one of the destinations of the European maritime powers of the time, but also their main stop before heading to their most important final destination, China. For about 500 years, from Legazpi until the Pacific War, the contiguous North Indian Ocean-West Pacific Ocean area was often a battlefield for the great powers.
Currently, the best location for a naval base in the northern Indian Ocean is the Maldives Islands. Their geographical location and geological structure are even better than those of Diego Garcia. However, as global warming causes sea levels to rise, the Maldives, with an average elevation of 1.2 meters, is in danger of being submerged; at that point, Diego Garcia will not be able to escape the same fate.
In this case, the base location, which can avoid the misfortune of sea level rise and land sinking and has alternative geopolitical value, is the island Democratic Socialist Republic of Śrī Laṅkā. The island covers an area of 65,610 square kilometers and has a stable geological structure. The island is surrounded by sea, where the traditional strategic naval port is Trincomalee, mentioned by Mahan in his Naval Strategy: Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land (Little Brown and Company, Boston 1911).
Although Trincomalee is currently poorly equipped, its geographical value is infinite. During Dutch rule, Trincomalee was the main port of Śrī Laṅkā (then Ceylon) and was described by both Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 100-ca 168) and Marco Polo (1254-1324). During World War II, Trincomalee became the headquarters of Lord Mountbatten (1900-79), Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia Command.
As for the “central location” mentioned in Mahan’s Naval Strategy, Trincomalee (thus the Śrī Laṅkā) is centrally located between the Gulf of Aden and Malacca; and the same applies to the Śrī Laṅkā between the Persian Gulf and Malacca.
Another point is the issue of supplies. Taking aircraft carriers, for example, and heavy weapons carried by ships such as military aircraft, hovercraft (airships: vehicles supported by a cushion of air and propelled by one or more propellers), landing craft, and amphibious tanks, these are all tigers that need oil. A fleet towing a large squadron of supply-ships is bound to find itself in the dilemma of having to fight and escort its squadron at the same time, so its actual combat effectiveness is bound to be greatly reduced.
During the Russo-Japanese Battle of Tsushima on May 27-28, 1905, the Russian Pacific Fleet led by Adm. Zinovy Petrovich Rožestvensky (1848-1909) learned a painful lesson in this regard. When ships, including aircraft carriers, suffer severe damage in combat, finding a reliable base nearby in which to anchor is an inevitable choice to avoid sinking and to repair and restore the ship.
All this suggests that a war in the Pacific Ocean can only be won by those who have more islands, and consequently more military bases.
Author: Giancarlo Elia Valori – Honorable de l’Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France, Honorary Professor at the Peking University.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).