ASIAN NAVIES ON THE RISE WHILE WESTERN SEA POWER DECLINES

Commentary by ‘Odin’

How is it that navies around the Pacific Rim are arming themselves with modern, capable warships, while Britain, which once ruled the waves, and other Western nations seem to think that sea power is unimportant? This despite the fact that the majority of trade comes by sea (more than 90 per cent of the UK’s) from the manufacturing powerhouses in Asia, and Western countries are increasingly dependent on overseas energy supplies in competition with rising naval powers India, Japan and China. Until only a short time ago it was axiomatic that sea power could be used to dominate both blue and brown waters and land and air space a considerable distance ashore. Politicians, diplomats and strategists understood the teachings of Mahan, conveyed over a hundred years ago in his classic book ‘The Influence of Sea Power upon History.’ Put simply, he said:  Navies give nations global influence. The Peace Dividend that followed the end of the Cold War seems paid but instead of reaching some Elysian fields, the triumph of the Western liberals or “the end of history” has failed to transpire and, since 9-11, the New World Disorder has grown. Paul Kennedy, a leading modern-day guru of sea power, has written that we are now at ‘a remarkable global disjuncture ... involving, as it did six centuries ago, massive differences in the assumptions of European nations and Asian nations about the significance of sea power, today and into the future.’
Kennedy excludes the US Navy, which at least seems intent on maintaining, if not reinforcing, its maritime strength and powers of force-projection. Kennedy points out that the governments of the fast-growing economies of East and South Asia are building powerful navies. On recent visits to South Korea he has been intrigued to notice that the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) has a 15-year plan for the expansion of its maritime power in all dimensions. Right now South Korea is constructing three 7,000 tons destroyers, which are more than is required to stop North Korean submarines from sneaking down the coast. Japan is in the midst of an even greater naval build-up, and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) now comprises 54 modern destroyers and frigates.  When it comes to motivation for this, the Japanese point to the rapid build-up of the Chinese Navy, which possesses 71 destroyers and frigates and 58 submarines (compared to Japan’s 18). According to a US Congressional report, by 2010 China’s submarine force will be nearly double the size of the US submarine fleet, and by 2015 the Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will be larger than the USN. As Kennedy writes, it is hard to think that the US government would let such a dramatic shift in the naval balance of power ever come to pass, but one cannot gainsay that everyone in Asia believes it is vital to enhance maritime power, while the West (even the USA in some respects) does not. Even tiny Singapore, which sits astride one of the most important choke points of world trade, has a navy that, seemingly, far exceeds its immediate strategic needs. By contrast, the Royal Navy is a shadow of its former self: Total defence expenditure in the UK as a percentage of GDP is less than at any time since the 1930s; the number of destroyers and frigates is less than half that of Japan, and some of these are threatened with mothballing in yet more defence cuts.  For the first time in 250 years the RN is smaller than the French Navy. Even so, the naval budgets of France as well as Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain are also falling. These two developments, a naval arms race in the East and disarmament in the West, are taking place independently of each other. The question, which Kennedy asks is: ‘What do naval planners on one continent assume about the future of the world that the planners in the other continent do not?’ Kennedy contrasts Chinese television showing programmes about the rise of Queen Elizabeth I’s navy with the news that the British Ministry of Defence is mothballing or scrapping warships with names that go back over 400 years. Determined to challenge US hegemony in its region, any rise in China’s navy will trigger an arms race. But, is it wise, asks Kennedy, that the leading European nations are ignoring the ancient Elizabethan caution: “Look to thy Moat.”

Pictured: The new Improved Kongo Class destroyer Atago alongside at Yokosuka.
Photo: Yoshiharu Fukushima..