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While attending the Williams Foundation Seminar on Air Combat Operations: 2025 and Beyond, Dr. John Lee of the Kokoda Foundation provided a base line brief on how to understand the Chinese challenge, military and non-military to the region. The contribution of Aussie airpower and associated military capabilities was to be understood in both national and coalition terms as a contributor to deal with such challenges. Dr. Lee highlighted several key elements of the PRC challenge, which were included in his presentation, which is provided here.
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Sir Richard Williams Founda2on
Air Combat Opera2ons – 2025 and beyond
John Lee
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Summary of the Chinese strategic view of the region
• All things being equal, and assuming no disrup5ve developments to regional trends, America is here to stay strategically and militarily for the reasons that I gave.
• China’s enduring vulnerability is not its sovereignty territory but its inability to secure unfe>ered access to the commons by itself, and inability to defend its unfe>ered access to the commons.
• These vulnerabili5es will persist whilst America and its system of alliances and security rela5onships remain in Asia. And these rela5onships seem to be robust and enduring.
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China’s fundamental strategy…
Lower American poli5cal will to intervene in a military conflict; or lower the poli5cal will for
regional states to resort to reliance on American military assistance and protec5on.
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How do you achieve it? • You create the credible expecta5on that you can impose prohibi5ve
military costs on American military assets; or that you can impose prohibi5ve costs on the military assets of the American ally with or without American a>empts at interven5on.
• You create the reasonable expecta5on that any significant military conflict with China will cause severe disrup5on to economic prosperity in the region – thereby lowering the poli5cal will in Washington or other regional capitals to contemplate military interven5on in the first place.
• You improve your military capacity to seize disputed islands before an organised and effec5ve military counter-‐response is possible. In doing so, you raise the chances that any counter-‐response once territory has already been seize will be prohibi5ve.
• You gradually exercise de facto sovereignty and control over disputed areas in the East and South China Sea in a manner in which each individual move is never extreme enough to provoke a military response.
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Two inferences from the Chinese view…
• They don’t have to be able to win the ba>le, let alone the war, to achieve their poli5cal and strategic objec5ves – just be able to impose prohibi5ve military and/or economic costs.
• They don’t need military capabili5es to defend all their economic interests such as commercial shipping into China through SLOCs which is impossible. They just need enough military capability to cause prohibi5ve damage to commercial shipping for other countries – a far more feasible tac5c.
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