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Fighting for the Day After

Preserving Chinese Maritime Infrastructure in a Conventional War

 

Capt. Micah Neidorfler, U.S. Army National Guard

 

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During the Second World War, the United States suffered 418,500 military and civilian deaths, second only to the American Civil War, while Japan and Germany suffered upward of 3,100,000 and, 8,800,000, respectively.¹ Add to that the inhumanity of the Holocaust, the firebombing of German and Japanese cities, and the use of the two atomic bombs, and it is difficult to imagine how these nations could have reconciled their grievances postwar. Yet, by 1955, the United States was the world’s fourth largest importer of West German goods, rising to third by 1960.² Similarly, by 1956, the United States imported $6 billion of Japanese goods annually (adjusted for inflation), nearly 3 percent of all U.S. imports at that time.³ That same year, Japan became the United States’ second most important export market.⁴ Barely ten years after the most cataclysmic event in human history, former enemies were closely linked by mutually beneficial international trade.

The United States’ 2017 and 2022 National Security Strategies firmly establish the critical importance of economic prosperity for U.S. strategic interests.⁵ They also acknowledge that U.S. prosperity relies in part on open trade and the international economy.⁶ Consequently, U.S. prosperity and national interests are directly linked to China. This framing is not intuitive. However, as will be demonstrated, the U.S. and Chinese economies are deeply and irrevocably linked through international trade. Simultaneously, foreign policy experts grow increasingly concerned about a potential war between the two.⁷ The U.S. Army, in planning for a possible U.S.-China war, needs to address winning on the battlefield, but also securing a viable postwar settlement, something the Army has struggled with since the Second World War.⁸ As B. H. Liddell Hart identified, “The object in war is a better state of peace … it is essential to conduct war with constant regard to the peace you desire.”⁹ As part of this calculus, the Army should preserve Chinese maritime shipping infrastructure during conflict so that it is usable postwar. This would best serve U.S. long-term economic interests and help set conditions for a sustainable peace between the United States and China. There are two primary ways the Army can accomplish this: through long-range precision firepower in the Indo-Pacific and by seizing Chinese trade assets globally.

China’s Importance to the U.S. Economy

China is the world’s largest trading nation, the largest goods exporter, and the second largest goods importer.¹⁰ Despite economic slowdowns caused by the global coronavirus epidemic and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, most of China’s global exports have increased.¹¹ Apart from direct contributions, however, China plays a more critical role in the global economy—it facilitates it. More than 80 percent of global trade volume is moved by maritime shipping, which is expected to expand throughout the decade.¹² China plays a crucial role here, owning more merchant ships than any other nation, with just over 15 percent of the world’s total.¹³ China is also the third largest country by ship registration, meaning that roughly 12 percent of the world’s ships are regulated by Chinese law.¹⁴ Two of the world’s eight top ship management companies are headquartered in China, and the world’s fourth largest shipping line is Chinese.¹⁵ China alone accounted for 58.1 percent of the global market share of ship production in 2023 (up 7.5 percent from 2022), and it hosts the world’s first, third, fourth, and sixth largest shipbuilding groups by new orders.¹⁶

Equally crucial to maritime trade are ports, which transfer goods from land to sea and back, maintain ships, and forward goods from long-distance vessels to local shipping.¹⁷ China leads here too, owning sixteen of the world’s top fifty ports by throughput, including the number one port, Yangshan.¹⁸ These sixteen are also among the world’s top one hundred ports by efficiency.¹⁹ China is expanding its maritime infrastructure globally by investing in foreign ports as a key part of its Belt and Road Initiative.²⁰ China currently invests in 129 foreign port projects spanning every continent, whereas the United States has zero ports abroad and lags far behind China in foreign port investment.²¹ Many of these investments are in nations with high levels of global shipping connectivity.²² While often presented as nefarious strategic maneuvering by the U.S. foreign-policy community, these investments are just as, if not more, motivated by simple market-oriented profit.²³ Overall, China’s integration into global shipping networks leads the world by a wide margin, approximately twice as connected as the runner-up Republic of Korea, and well over twice as connected as the United States.²⁴ This leadership in maritime trade, along with its massive share of global imports and exports, allows China to dominate global supply chains and occupy an integral place in the global economy.²⁵

The United States does not exist separately from this. International trade made up one-quarter of U.S. gross domestic product in 2023.²⁶ The United States is the world’s largest importer and second largest exporter of goods; it relies on maritime shipping for roughly 45 percent of total trade by value and 80 percent by weight, being the fourth most globally connected nation in maritime shipping.²⁷ Specifically, China is the United States’ third-largest trading partner, and despite years of worsening relations, trade value between the two rose to its highest in history in 2022.²⁸ Moreover, the shipping lanes linking China and the United States are the most valuable worldwide.²⁹ These links have led to increasing calls for the United States to realign its trade dependencies away from China to more friendly countries under terms such as “decoupling,” “de-risking,” and “friend-shoring.”³⁰ But while there has been a decrease in trade between the United States and China, the reality is that de-risking is not meaningfully happening.³¹ Major U.S. companies still rely heavily on China and continue to invest there, new shipping operators continue entering routes between the Far East and the United States, and China is still very capable of attracting foreign investment.³² Furthermore, China already leads many emerging technologies and is implementing policies to retain this edge, indicating its exports will continue to be in demand globally.³³

Some argue that de-risking will escalate, but even if the most severe predictions transpire, the United States and its new primary trading partners will remain strongly linked to China directly and indirectly.³⁴ For example, when the United States does appear to replace Chinese imports with a different source, the upstream origin is still often China.³⁵ Even businesses in alternative countries are usually Chinese, as China leads foreign direct investment in developing economies, further preventing a proper break from Chinese trade.³⁶ But again, data show that the United States is not significantly decoupling from China, that even after reducing some dependencies, there will still be substantial trade between the two, and that large-scale decoupling is unlikely in the long term.³⁷ Ultimately, globalized trade in general has not decreased alongside growing great-power tensions and seems to be increasing.³⁸ While it might weaken, there is little evidence that China’s central role in the global economy will disappear in the near, medium, or long term.³⁹ Indeed, the Asian Development Bank’s chief economist remarked that claims of China being delinked from the global economy are “generally very overdone or very partial,” and economists at the U.S. Federal Reserve agree that “a delinking of global production processes and consumption from China is not in sight.”⁴⁰ Even current volatility in U.S.-Chinese trade is unlikely to alter China’s importance to the United States in the long-term.⁴¹

Consequently, a conventional war between the United States and China would cripple the global economy.⁴² Short of violent conflict, a Chinese blockade of Taiwan would cause the world economy twice as much harm as the 2008 economic crisis.⁴³ Furthermore, a U.S. military victory would not result in Chinese capitulation. The size and capabilities of China’s military make it improbable that the U.S. military will occupy mainland China.⁴⁴ That, combined with China’s ample stockpile of nuclear weapons and ability to harm U.S. forces in theater make it likely that a Chinese defeat would result in a negotiated settlement.⁴⁵ While free from the restrictive concessions of an unconditional surrender, it is questionable whether the Chinese government in power could domestically survive a defeat in war.⁴⁶ Some even propose the Communist Party itself might collapse following a defeat, although this is unlikely given the buy-in that many Chinese have toward the party.⁴⁷ Nonetheless, succession within the Communist Party tends to see new governments avoid the unsuccessful policies of their predecessors.⁴⁸ While this doesn’t mean the United States should expect a friendly Chinese government postwar, it does suggest a path toward better relations. Regardless, considering the economic devastation likely in such a war and the importance of international trade to the U.S. economy, it is in U.S. strategic interests for China to return to its role in these areas quickly postconflict. With increasing capabilities in long-range fires as well as its global presence and deployability, the U.S. Army has a vital role in achieving this end.

How the Army Plans to Fight

How does the Army currently envision operating in a theater seemingly dominated by the sea and air domains? It needs to find roles where its ground-centric capabilities complement the joint force. Over the last decade, the Army has focused on five main themes: providing command and control to the joint force, sustaining the joint force, providing ground-based long-range fires, protecting the joint force via air defense, and providing traditional maneuver forces if required.⁴⁹

Owing to its experience running joint and multinational headquarters during the Global War on Terrorism and a doctrinally structured organization that creates such headquarters at the division level and higher, the Army believes it is uniquely suited to command and control the joint force in the Indo-Pacific during conflict.⁵⁰ Counterintuitively to some, the Army views itself as central to sustaining the joint force in this maritime theater, arguing that ships and aircraft must rearm, refuel, and make repairs on land, and the Army’s massive logistical tail can facilitate that.⁵¹ In a more traditional role, the Army highlights its growing ability to apply long-range precision fires across the theater and the ability of those fires assets to remain hidden and displace, arguably making them more survivable than ships.⁵² Protecting the joint force, mainly through air defense platforms but also by defending the land-based sustainment nodes for aircraft and ships, is another key theme in Army messaging.⁵³ Finally, the Army insists that its traditional maneuver landpower is a key asset that, while not constantly applicable in a U.S.-China war, is ready when and where required, emphasizing airfield seizures, amphibious landings, and fighting a spin-off conflict on the Korean Peninsula.⁵⁴

Of course, all these lines of effort hinge upon access to terra firma.⁵⁵ The U.S. Army and Navy already have physical locations in Japan, Korea, and Guam.⁵⁶ And the Army recently deployed long-range missiles to the Philippines’ northernmost island of Luzon.⁵⁷ But to employ the full range and scale of Army fires capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, still greater access is needed in Luzon and the Japanese southwest islands.⁵⁸ Also key are the Army’s next-generation long-range precision fires platforms, of which there are three. The first is the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). The shortest-range program and destined to replace the current Army Tactical Missile System, the PrSM has a reported range of up to 1,000 km.⁵⁹ As the name suggests, the Typhon Strategic Mid-Range Fires System is the medium-range program. The Typhon is a new launch platform that fires the preexisting SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles.⁶⁰ This covers ranges up to approximately 500 km for the SM-6 and 1,600 km for the Tomahawk.⁶¹ Lastly, the Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon is the longest-range program, with a stated range of 2,776 km.⁶² With these three new systems based in the Indo-Pacific, the Army plans to contribute to the joint force’s fires effort in a war with China.

Preserving Maritime Infrastructure: The Indo-Pacific

What would a U.S.-China war look like, and how can the Army prosecute it while preserving U.S. interests in global trade for the postwar world? Given where Chinese and American interests converge, it would likely occur along the chain of islands formed by Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, known as the first island chain.⁶³ It would be fought heavily in the littoral (on islands and coastlines), the deep ocean, and the airspace above these.⁶⁴ Accordingly, it is unlikely to involve a large ground war.⁶⁵ Several analyses of a possible U.S.-China war by leading defense think tanks completely ignore Army contributions or only mention niche Army capabilities.⁶⁶ They also highlight the vulnerability of Army maneuver units moving into the conflict area and that most will not be successfully pre-positioned in sufficient numbers for such a conflict.⁶⁷ Consequently, it is likely that the Army will contribute most to the kinetic fight with weapons that have extreme standoff such as its long-range precision firepower platforms.

The majority of the world’s maritime trade infrastructure lies within the littoral, and significantly so along the Chinese coastline and Taiwan Strait.⁶⁸ Historically, nations engaged in large-scale wars target their enemy’s strategically essential civilian infrastructure.⁶⁹ Furthermore, U.S. joint doctrine specifically identifies ports as targets, and predictions for a U.S.-China war perceive Chinese ports as likely targets for U.S. strikes.⁷⁰ Therefore, in any U.S.-China conflict, Chinese maritime infrastructure will be exposed to the devastation of twenty-first-century warfare. Considering the Army’s contribution to the kinetic fight through long-range fires, it should make preserving this infrastructure a key consideration during planning and executing combat operations.

Why should the Army pursue this? The first reason is the already established criticality of China and maritime trade to the global economy. China’s ability to conduct international trade will benefit the United States in a postconflict world where China still exists as a powerful independent actor. The second is the ability of the United States to hold this infrastructure at risk throughout a conflict, contributing significantly to U.S. negotiating leverage.⁷¹ Finally, preserving Chinese port infrastructure is a way of controlling war escalation. Striking the Chinese mainland would be highly escalatory; striking port infrastructure would be doubly so given the importance of maritime trade and exports to the Chinese economy and its ports’ criticality in facilitating that.⁷² Nonetheless, considering the heavily naval nature of a U.S.-China war and the limited ability of U.S. forces to strike targets of importance inland of China’s coastline, ports are still tempting targets. There is a way to target them while still achieving the three aims of preserving the ability to trade postconflict, holding ports at risk, and managing escalation. This involves neutralizing ports instead of destroying them by carefully targeting ports as systems vulnerable to disruption.

Targeting enemies as systems is not a new concept and is well represented by John Warden, whose systems-warfare theories focus on defeating enemies by targeting specific elements of their national power, leading to widespread collapse.⁷³ While many rightly criticize the strategic applicability of Warden’s theories, attacking tactical-level targets as systems has more validity.⁷⁴ Ports fit this bill perfectly as they are composed of dozens of separate on-site constituents that must cooperate for ports to function.⁷⁵ A comparable tactic is neutralizing airfields. Airfields, like ports, can be viewed as targetable systems.⁷⁶ Destroy or degrade one or two subcomponents and the entire airfield ceases to function at levels required to sustain primary operations, but it is not catastrophically damaged and can be returned to complete functionality later.⁷⁷ Applying this tactic to Chinese ports would fulfill a strategic aim of preventing or degrading their utility during wartime while remaining relatively easy to repair postconflict, allowing China to return to maritime trade quickly. It would also allow these ports to be further targeted as the conflict continues. There are numerous subcomponents of ports that can be targeted, allowing the United States to continue holding them at risk. Lastly, as destroying subcomponents does not threaten ports’ long-term functionality, this dramatically reduces the escalatory nature of targeting them.

This strategy can be pursued in several ways given the complex nature of maritime shipping. To begin generating options, it is helpful to understand the different types of ports. There are three broad categories: general cargo ports, bulk cargo ports, and passenger ports. General cargo ports handle unitized cargo such as containerized or palletized goods, Bulk cargo ports handle liquid bulk (e.g., petroleum and chemicals) or dry bulk (e.g., iron ore or coal), and passenger ports cater to people and personal vehicles.⁷⁸ While general and bulk ports are more strategic-level economic targets, passenger ports may present a more military target, reflecting their ability to facilitate troop transport, although simultaneously carrying more law of armed conflict concerns considering their primarily civilian purpose. Based on the strategic and operational situation, the joint force commander will determine (along with political guidance) the geopolitical and legal feasibility of targeting Chinese ports. Although legally debatable, the long history of great-power warfare indicates it is likely to happen.⁷⁹

Planning for this would fall within the joint force’s targeting cycle during the fourth step, in which the joint force commander allocates specific targets to the subservices.⁸⁰ With the plethora of long-range weapons throughout the joint force, why would the Army be a good choice to target ports? Despite recent training events demonstrating the Army’s ability to target warships, it is nonetheless a land-oriented service.⁸¹ It makes the most sense for the Navy and Air Force to concentrate on the maritime fight, leaving land-based targets to the Army where its expertise lies. After being tasked to engage Chinese ports, relevant Army units would execute the Army’s targeting process (decide, detect, deliver, assess).

In the decide phase, units determine what capabilities to deploy, when to attack, and where and what to target.⁸² The range of the PrSM and Typhon systems allow them to strike most major ports along the Chinese coast if based in the northern Philippines, various Japanese islands along the first island chain, or South Korea.⁸³ The Dark Eagle is not optimal for this role as it is fewer in number and more capable of striking high-value military targets further inland, where China’s antimissile defenses are substantial.⁸⁴ Deciding when and where to target would be relatively easy, given port infrastructure’s immobility and prewar identification of these targets. The main effort here would be determining what specific facilities to target, keeping in mind that the long-term functionality of the ports is desired. This requires a more detailed understanding of how they operate internally. Ports execute three general tasks: maritime services, shore-side services, and hinterland services. Maritime services encompass receiving ships into the port, providing anchorage space for them to linger, and moving ships back out into the open sea.⁸⁵ Shore-side services involve berthing ships to transfer points (such as wharves, jetties, quays, and piers), transferring cargo from ship to land or land to ship, temporarily storing cargo, and restocking ships with supplies and fuel.⁸⁶ Hinterland services comprise the flow of cargo overland both out of and into the port via road, rail, pipeline, and sometimes inland waterways.⁸⁷ Each of these three services contains elements that, if targeted, would degrade the ability of a port to function, although some are more economical than others.

Maritime services contain four targetable elements. Blocking port entrances would prevent ships entering or leaving ports. This can often be done by sinking a single ship, and in ideal peacetime situations, it takes weeks to remove wrecks and complete the cleanup of fuel leaks and cargo spillage required for safe operation.⁸⁸ Fairways, the navigable routes inside of ports, can be similarly blocked.⁸⁹ Anchorage space is key for port functionality, allowing ships to wait for their turn at shore-side services, and can also be blocked by sinking ships. This would prevent ports from accommodating enough ships to reach capacity, forcing ships to bypass such ports.⁹⁰ Finally, controlling ship movement between port entrances, fairways, and anchorages is managed by systems of lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and radars.⁹¹ Crippling this navigation architecture is another way to freeze ports’ ability to function. However, the number of targets required to sufficiently affect this makes it the least efficient maritime service to target.

Shore-side services are also targetable in four primary ways. The first of these is onsite management and regulatory infrastructure. Ports are complex systems that require careful administration of day-to-day activities. Destroying control towers or administrative hubs would cripple a port’s ability to function.⁹² Likewise, careful legal regulation of port activities is essential, including cargo inspections and customs procedures. Without the ability to regulate, governments cannot allow trade to occur, making port authority infrastructure possible targets.⁹³ The second targetable shore-side service is the transfer of cargo to and from ships. This happens along wharves, jetties, quays, and piers, requiring massive cranes.⁹⁴ The two primary crane types are quay cranes (which move cargo on and off ships) and yard cranes (which move cargo between the quayside, yard storage, and within storage sites).⁹⁵ Of the two, quay cranes are less mobile so easier to target, and they are essential to port operations and efficiency; the destruction of even one would severely hamper any port’s operations.⁹⁶ The next shore-side service is the temporary storage and processing of cargo. This requires yard cranes and adjoining asphalt yards to safely stack cargo.⁹⁷ Since yard cranes move constantly, targeting them is less reliable than quay cranes, although most travel along train-track-like rail systems, which are permanent fixtures that can also be targeted. Storage yards themselves are easily targetable. However, with the relatively large amount of storage space and yard cranes in ports, it would require significant ordinance expenditure compared to other targets. The final shore-side service is the tending of ships. Targets in this category include jetties for ship resupply, fuel tanks for ship refueling, docks for ship repair, and waste-treatment plants for ship waste.⁹⁸ In general, shore-side services encompass the most prominent physical infrastructure in ports and are “expensive, rigid and meant to last for decades.”⁹⁹ Consequently, ports do not have deep reserves of replacements.¹⁰⁰

Targeting hinterland services would stop ports’ abilities to forward and receive goods from land, a crucial element of their operations.¹⁰¹ There are three primary targetable components, the first being road connectivity. Roads are necessary for cargo truck access as well as port employees who commute via car.¹⁰² Identified choke points for port efficiency are vehicle entry points into cargo terminals, making them good targets.¹⁰³ Railways are the next consideration. These are especially vital in bulk ports for the transport of cargo but can also be important commuting methods for port workers.¹⁰⁴ Lastly, there are pipelines, which fill fuel tanks and transport liquid bulk.¹⁰⁵ The importance of these three modes varies from port to port, so planners need to understand the port in question.¹⁰⁶

Decide-phase planning would benefit from joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) expertise, as maritime port functions are not within the purview of Army personnel. Justifying these civilian targets in terms of the law of armed conflict is another essential aspect, but this could prove less difficult as China has long been militarizing its civilian maritime sector.¹⁰⁷ A final key aspect to these decisions would be achieving cumulative and cascading effects from specific targeting within individual ports.¹⁰⁸ This is surprisingly easy to accomplish while limiting damage to port facilities. Since all ports within a region work together as a network, degrading one port will cause ships to bypass it, creating bottlenecks at other ports.¹⁰⁹ This allows the Army to prosecute fewer targets at each port if planners can identify key targets within all regional ports that would break the natural operation of the network. This is especially relevant as China has recently put significant effort into coordinating operations and reducing redundancies, overcapacity, and duplication of facilities within regional Chinese port networks.¹¹⁰

The detect phase is less critical in this scenario. As these port facilities are generally immobile, it is not necessary to constantly observe the targets, which eases the difficulty of achieving constant, layered observation during conventional conflict (the only exception being ships, if targeted).¹¹¹ This also eases the deliver phase, where the requirement for primary and alternative observers may not be feasible given the situation.¹¹² Finally, the various damage assessments required in the assess phase might take longer to complete in this contested surveillance environment. With the strategic nature of these targets, it will be important for planners to communicate this to joint force commanders, and through them political leadership, so that leaders can manage expectations. Forming these assessments should also include JIIM experts.

Preserving Maritime Infrastructure: The Global South

Chinese trade assets also exist outside of mainland China. As mentioned, China invests in port projects globally—sometimes as a developer, sometimes as an owner, sometimes as an operator, often as multiple.¹¹³ Many of these projects and other Belt and Road Initiative investments are based in the Global South, which is increasingly becoming a major region for commercial transactions and trade.¹¹⁴ A key indicator of this is that containership port calls in Africa have increased by 20 percent since 2018.¹¹⁵

A major U.S.-China war would not be contained within the Pacific.¹¹⁶ Burgeoning conflict inside the first island chain will almost certainly escalate horizontally to other regions as the belligerents seek to force each other to concede.¹¹⁷ Moreover, such a war will not be short and decisive.¹¹⁸ A common characteristic of escalating great-power wars is the targeting of opponents’ global maritime assets.¹¹⁹ This is particularly likely in this scenario as the UN Security Council would be deadlocked and unable to dissuade these attacks.

Should the United States forgo this approach to preserve Chinese maritime shipping ability? Perhaps, but there is an alternative that the Army is structured to perform: the physical seizure of Chinese global maritime infrastructure. This fulfills three aims. Primarily, it denies China’s use of these assets during a conflict. While overseas ports warrant seizure owing to their economic benefits, the small but growing number of military ports would aid China in projecting conventional naval power during a war.¹²⁰ Concurrently, civilian ports, as hubs of some of world’s most advanced information technology, also present military threats.¹²¹ The information systems and software located within ports and their interconnectedness with ships could aid Chinese maritime intelligence gathering, and ports’ plethora of powerful signal-emitting devices pose significant risk of cyberattacks against ships, especially with the number of Chinese port projects located at major maritime chokepoints.¹²² This strategy also allows the United States to leverage these seized assets during negotiations.¹²³ And lastly, it protects this infrastructure for postwar use, as ports are particularly vulnerable to damage in the chaotic landscape of great-power conflicts.¹²⁴

As a U.S.-China war would not require large numbers of maneuver units in the Pacific theater, most of the Army’s force structure would be available for this strategy. Of course, this proposal raises sovereignty issues for the nations housing Chinese ports, and the United States could not pursue this unilaterally. Fortunately, the Army has several methods to address this issue. The Army contains multiple entities capable of conducting military diplomacy, namely its foreign area officers, the National Guard’s bilateral affairs officers and State Partnership Program, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, and security force assistance brigades. These entities span the gamut of military diplomacy and cooperation from the strategic to the tactical levels, and if used in conjunction, would be able to negotiate bilateral agreements with willing third-party nations. They are especially important given the current shrinking of the State Department, which would otherwise be key to facilitating these negotiations.¹²⁵ Of course, these negotiations would hinge on the willingness of third-party states to aid the United States this way, meaning that these seizures could follow two approaches.

The first is seizing Chinese port assets in diplomatically permissive third-party states. In these instances, the United States has good bilateral relations with the nation in question, making it more likely that the state would tolerate U.S. troop deployments to seize Chinese assets. Once negotiations conclude, U.S. troops would be deployed. Planners would have to decide what type of formation best suits a port seizure and occupation. This would be driven by two factors: the size of the port in question and whether Chinese resistance would be expected. Port size varies substantially in each circumstance, as most Chinese port projects or holdings only take up a portion of the entire port in question (i.e., one or two terminals within a larger port).¹²⁶ As for Chinese resistance on the ground, it is unlikely to be significant. China does not rely on its military to protect most of its overseas assets, instead utilizing state-owned security firms and local contract security.¹²⁷ Resulting from China’s desire to appear as an attractive partner, Chinese security firms are beholden to the local laws and governments of the nations they operate within.¹²⁸ Were a nation to approve a U.S. seizure of Chinese assets, that nation would likely simultaneously restrict the right of any Chinese security firms to retaliate. Even if they did resist, they would not pose a substantial threat to U.S. maneuver formations.¹²⁹ Alternatively, third-party states’ militaries could seize Chinese port assets themselves, possibly with assistance and coordination from security force assistance brigades. This would allow states to retain more sovereignty and require fewer U.S. troops. However, many nations would probably not agree to U.S. troops performing occupation tasks within their borders, especially considering the diplomatic inroads China has made in the Global South.¹³⁰ In these cases, third-party states’ own militaries seizing assets would be more realistic.

This strategy poses several challenges for planners. First, the negotiations necessary to initiate these operations would be high-level and need to be conducted quickly in case China attempted to sell off its foreign assets.¹³¹ Furthermore, current U.S. relations with many states in the Global South are at a low point, and the United States frequently overestimates its influence with them.¹³² Ensuring third-party states’ sovereignty would be vital in securing their cooperation. The second most significant challenge would be determining what to occupy physically. Most terminals within ports are owned or leased by a variety of separate private entities, and even some subservices operating within individual terminals can be handled by separate companies.¹³³ Identifying the specific Chinese-owned and/or operated assets within individual ports will require legal scrutiny, likely requiring further JIIM assistance.

Conclusion

This is not an intuitive strategy. Culturally, the Army is an organization focused on achieving decisive victory in the shortest time possible. This is especially true as the Army now focuses on fighting large-scale combat operations as opposed to counterinsurgency and stability operations. Suggesting that the Army should preserve enemy strategic infrastructure might make many balk, but the reasoning is sound. U.S. domestic prosperity significantly depends upon international trade and the global economy, which in turn are deeply intertwined with China. While the specific “how” of that relationship might change somewhat, the underlying connection will not. During conventional great-power wars, economic and trade nodes usually are targets. As the United States will not achieve unconditional victory over China, it is crucial for the United States that China be able to return to global trade in a postwar world. Therefore, Chinese maritime trade assets should be exploited but also preserved. The Army can contribute to this end by carefully applying long-range fires in the Pacific and seizing Chinese trade assets globally.

The introduction highlighted U.S. trade with Germany and Japan after the Second World War. However, a more apt comparison is U.S.-Vietnamese trade after the Vietnam War, as Vietnam was not molded by U.S. occupation postwar. During the war, the United States suffered 211,523 casualties, of which 58,220 died, while combined Vietnamese deaths totaled approximately 882,000.¹³⁴ The war also had immense impacts that linger today on American and Vietnamese societies.¹³⁵ Despite this, over the ensuing decades, the two countries have reconciled, are major trading partners, and regularly cooperate diplomatically and even on security policy.¹³⁶ U.S.-Vietnamese trade has grown exponentially to the benefit of American consumers and producers.¹³⁷ Vietnam has consistently been the sixth or seventh top exporter to the United States since 2019, and imported approximately $13 billion of U.S. goods in 2024.¹³⁸ If the U.S. could build a strong, mutually beneficial trade relationship with a nation that withstood it in a major war, it certainly can with a future China that agrees to a negotiated settlement. If the U.S. Army is truly preparing for a conventional war, it must recognize that any settlement must be mutually acceptable for it to last.¹³⁹ By pursuing this strategy, the Army has a unique opportunity to pursue victory, preserve long-term U.S. prosperity, and secure lasting peace in a postwar world.

 

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Notes

1. “Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II,” National WWII Museum, accessed 4 August 2025, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war.
2. Tamás Vonyó, The Economic Consequences of the War: West Germany’s Growth Miracle after 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 159.
3. Meghan Warner Mettler, “Gimcracks, Dollar Blouses, and Transistors: American Reactions to Imported Japanese Products, 1945–1964,” Pacific Historical Review 79, no. 2 (2010): 213, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2010.79.2.202; “Imports of Goods and Services” (quarters 1–4 1956 data), Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed 4 August 2025, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NA000342Q; for the 2025 value of $543 million in 1956, see U.S. Inflation Calculator, accessed 4 August 2025, https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.
4. Sayuri Shimizu, Creating People of Plenty: The United States and Japan’s Economic Alternatives, 1950-1960 (Kent State University Press, 2001), 211.
5. The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (The White House, 2017), 4, 17–23; The White House, National Security Strategy (The White House, 2022), 6–7, 10–11, 14.
6. 2022 National Security Strategy, 34; 2017 National Security Strategy, 17–20.
7. Ross Babbage, “A War with China Would Be Unlike Anything Americans Faced Before,” New York Times, 27 February 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/opinion/a-war-with-china-would-reach-deep-into-american-society.html; Zhao Ziwen, “U.S.-China War ‘Likely’ but Not Inevitable, Warns Top Political Scientist,” South China Morning Post, 7 April 2025, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3305556/us-china-war-likely-not-inevitable-warns-top-political-scientist.
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