Let’s Talk AirSea Battle

Earlier this week, on a flight back from Utah where I was visiting my ageing parents, I finished reading CSBA president Andrew Krepinevich’s new paper titled “Why AirSea Battle?” (.pdf) The evolving AirSea Battle concept is a spin on the Army’s 1980s AirLand Battle concept that aimed to rain punishing ground and air strikes on Soviet shock armies before they could steamroll NATO defenses. Today, AirSea Battle is targeting China’s rapidly growing arsenal of anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) weapons, such as aircraft carrier killing ballistic missiles, sea-skimming missiles, stealthy submarines, bristling air-defense networks, anti-satellite and cyber weaponry. Krepinevich writes that China is creating a “no-go zone” off its coasts with its “assassin’s mace” war doctrine to prevent U.S. naval and air forces freedom of movement. Beijing has been building up its A2/AD network for decades, but things really accelerated since the 1996 Taiwan Straits crisis when the U.S. sailed two carrier strike groups into the strait. U.S. military dominance is eroding “at an increasing and alarming rate,” Krepinevich writes, because precision guided munitions pit very costly U.S

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Let’s Talk AirSea Battle