Developing Sea Power 21 for America's Next Maritime Conflict
Abstract
The Department of the Navy's strategic vision, Sea Power 21, fails to address adequately America's future power projection and forcible entry requirements; thus, it will not effectively counter the People's Liberation Army in a 2020 maritime conflict across the Taiwan Straits. At present, America's maritime and forcible entry capabilities are based on legacy systems and ambiguous judgments with respect to the future. Future force requirements, however, will never be realistically achieved unless there is a reasonable sense of the nation's future military adversaries. To focus the nation's maritime requirements, a Sino-American conflict over Taiwan is considered. Concluding that China is seriously considering the employment of military force against Taiwan, and that America's counter-action will be the employment of military force, this paper initially focuses on anticipating the People's Republic of China's (PRC) future capabilities to successfully seize Taiwan. With the PRC's military capabilities forecasted, the paper then presents a viable 2020 war scenario: China's use of force to seize Taiwan and America's military response to prevent it. From this analysis, the paper identifies and comments on America's future maritime power projection and forcible entry requirements. (30 refs.)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 16, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA419461
Entities
People
- James J. Buckley
Organizations
- Naval War College