Ric Saludo: "Asian nations facing aggression must join forces" Golez: Good advice. It is happening now

Ric Saludo: "Asian nations facing aggression must join forces" 
Golez: Good advice. It is happening now in a bigger way. US-Vietnam alliance emerging. 20-year old US-India Malabar exercise now joined by Japan, Australia might join soon. US-Japan alliance getting stronger with tow-carrier joint exercise in South China Sea. China has triggered coalition against itself.https://t.co/1G26PoD7it Ricardo Saludo philstar.comINQUIRER.net

Asian nations facing aggression must join forces

By

 Ricardo Saludo

 - 

AUGUST 21, 2017

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IT may never happen, but what South China Sea nations fearful of China can forge is an alliance among them.

Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam cannot match the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the PLA Navy and Air Force. Bringing in the United States risks escalating frictions, and may simply exchange one hegemon for another. Plus: Washington’s defense commitment could falter, depending on national priorities, leadership changes, and its own relations with Beijing.

So, the third option may well be the only viable one: a regional alliance.

No way, Asia watchers and military analysts would chorus. How can countries with territorial disputes among themselves band together to defend their rival claims?

And Beijing is now cosy with most of these states, so that the Asean has toned down its criticism of island-building and force deployment in the South China Sea.

Most of all, even if all Asean members combined their forces, they could never match the 2.3 million PLA and its air, sea and missile weaponry. So, forget about this alliance fantasy.

Winning with asymmetry

IF Vietnamese freedom fighter Ho Chi Minh thought that way in 1950, all Indochina might still be under French rule. Military experts then didn’t give Ho’s ragtag guerrillas much chance of defeating the French colonial army.

Even after France capitulated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, breaking up its Asian empire into Cambodia, Lao PDR, North and South Vietnam, doubters still dismissed Ho in his quest to unify his nation against the wishes of the most powerful nation on earth. But two decades later, there was one Vietnam, and the US suffered its first defeat against a foreign adversary.

What won it for Ho’s heroes was asymmetric warfare: fighting a conflict in which an adversary’s massive superiority in arms and numbers counts for little.

In Vietnam’s liberation struggle, the asymmetric strategy was guerrilla warfare, with the vastly outgunned Vietnamese mounting hit-and-run attacks, blending with a supportive population, and safeguarding men and materiel in bomb-proof underground caverns and tunnels.

The ancient Spartan king Leonidas also used asymmetric warfare by engaging a mammoth invading Persian army in the narrow Thermopylae pass, where his force of several hundred bettered the odds against attackers many times their number, as depicted in the film 300.

For sure, Vietnam got immense help from communist allies Russia and China. Without their backing, the North might have run out of war materiel and funds. More crucially, Washington might have unleashed more devastating firepower against Hanoi, maybe even sending troops above the 17th Parallel dividing the country.

But communist allies merely kept Ho Chi Minh from being overwhelmed. What made their forces win was asymmetric warfare, harnessing their mastery of terrain through guerrilla tactics and structures.

The strait and narrow

SO, do Southeast Asian nations have some asymmetric strategy to use in matching up with the PLA? Yes, and as Vietnam did against France and America, the nations around the South China Sea must harness geography.

Specifically, they must exploit their control over the Malacca, Sunda and other straits linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Through these chokepoints pass much vital shipping, including four-fifths of
Chinese oil imports.

With naval vessels and coastal batteries of antiship missiles, Indonesia and Malaysia can interdict shipping going through those waterways, Vietnam and the Philippines can target ships within their 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

These EEZs encompass nearly all of the South China Sea, but for a thin sliver, which includes Fiery Cross Reef, one of two outcrops enlarged by Chinese reclamation and equipped with military-capable base facilities.

Now, this joint blockade would be undertaken only if provoked by hostile action in violation of international law.

For instance, if Beijing’s maritime security or navy were to stop oil drilling or fishing activities within another country’s EEZ or its 320-nautical-mile extended continental shelf, then the envisioned alliance of rival claimants can retaliate by closing chokepoints to China’s shipping.

Won’t the PLA retaliate? Sure, but sending warships into the teeth of enemy air, naval and missile defenses, far beyond land-based fighter cover, sounds suicidal.

As for launching ballistic missiles against Asian targets, this would be where Western allies come in. Just as Russian and Chinese backing deterred a US invasion of Vietnam, the West and Japan could warn against an excessive escalation by the PLA.

None of this needs to happen, however, if Beijing shows goodwill by signing a binding Code of Conduct, ceasing its island-building and military deployment, and respecting sovereign rights under the Law of the Sea.

Then the emerging joint maritime security effort by Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines does not have to expand. It can just stick to stopping terrorism, and not encompass deterring aggression and protecting sovereign rights.

Will China behave? Will its neighbors join forces?

Don’t hold your breath.