Diplomacy & Crisis News

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Robert Farley

Sino-American War, Asia

Chinese and American leaders should remember the costs of the first Sino-American conflict. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: The most important legacy of the first Sino-American War is the enduring division of the Korean Peninsula.

In November 1950, China and the United States went to war. Thirty-six thousand Americans died, along with upwards of a quarter million Chinese, and half a million or more Koreans. If the United States was deeply surprised to find itself at war with the People’s Republic of China, a country that hadn’t even existed the year before, it was even more surprised to find itself losing that war. The opening Chinese offensive, launched from deep within North Korea, took U.S. forces by complete operational surprise. The U.S.-led United Nations offensive into North Korea was thrown back, with the U.S. Army handed its worst defeat since the American Civil War.

The legacies of this war remain deep, complex and underexamined. Memory of the Korean War in the United States is obscured by the looming shadows of World War II and Vietnam. China remembers the conflict differently, but China’s position in the world has changed in deep and fundamental ways since the 1950s. Still, as we consider the potential for future conflict between China and the United States, we should try to wring what lessons we can from the first Sino-American war.

Initiation

In early 1950, the politics of the Cold War had not yet solidified around a pair of mutually hostile blocks. Nevertheless, the contours were visible; the Soviets had spent several years consolidating control of Eastern Europe, and the Chinese Communist Party had ridden the victories of the People’s Liberation Army to power in Beijing. The stage was set for a zero-sum interpretation of the global struggle between Communist and non-Communist powers. It was just such an interpretation that dominated Washington’s thinking as North Korean forces escalated the Korean civil war with a massive invasion across the 38th parallel.

Inside the United States, tension over the collapse of Nationalist China remained high. The Nationalist government possessed an extremely effective public-relations machine in the United States, built around the Soong family’s relationship with Henry Luce. This influential domestic lobby helped push the United States towards both intervention and escalation, while at the same time undercutting the advice of experts who offered words of caution about Beijing’s capabilities and interests.

The initial Chinese victories in late fall of 1950 resulted from a colossal intelligence failure on the part of the United States. These failures ran the gamut from political, to strategic, to operational, to tactical. The politicization of American expertise on China following the establishment of the PRC meant that U.S. policy makers struggled to understand Chinese messages. The United States also misunderstood the complex relationship between Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang, treating the group as unitary actor without appreciating the serious political differences between the countries.

On an operational level, advancing U.S. forces paid little heed to warnings of Chinese intervention. The United States failed to understand the importance of the North Korean buffer to Beijing, failed to detect Chinese preparations for intervention, failed to detect Chinese soldiers operating in North Korea and failed to understand the overall strength of the Chinese forces. This lack of caution stemmed from several sources. The U.S. military, having had experience with Chinese Nationalist forces during World War II, had little respect for the capabilities of the PLA, especially outside of Chinese borders. Americans overrated the importance of air superiority at the tactical and operational level, not to mention the relevance of nuclear weapons at the strategic level.

Conduct

The People’s Liberation Army appreciated the significance of U.S. air superiority over the battlefield, as well as the effectiveness of U.S. armor and artillery. The PLA (or PVA, as the expeditionary force in North Korea was dubbed) attempted to fight with the hybrid insurgent tactics that it had used to prevail in the Chinese Civil War. This involved using light infantry formations, designed to move and attack at night, in order to avoid U.S. airpower and concentrated American firepower. These tactics allowed the PLA to surprise U.S. forces, which were uncertain of the magnitude of Chinese intervention until it was too late to do anything but retreat.

Similarly, the United States fought with the tactics (and often the weapons) that it had used in World War II. Although North Korean armor and artillery had outmatched unprepared U.S. ground forces in the opening weeks of the war, by the time of the Chinese counteroffensive, the United States was fielding mobile, armored forces and employing combined arms tactics. These weapons and tactics allowed the United States to inflict severe losses on Chinese forces, even as it gave up wide swaths of territory.

The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy expected to conduct sea and air operations in what we now refer to as a permissive environment, without significant interference from Communist forces. The Navy was right; the Air Force was wrong. Expecting overwhelming advantages in training and material, the U.S. air forces found cagey Communist forces equipped with the MiG-15 interceptors, which could outfight American piston-engined aircraft and most early jets. Formations of B-29s attempted to conduct daylight precision bombing raids of North Korea, finding that MiG-15s could cut them to pieces. U.S. forces, fresh from the bloody organizational fights that had birthed the U.S. Air Force, also struggled to develop a compatible, cooperative ground-air doctrine. Still, despite the problems, the United States managed to establish and hold air superiority for most of the war, using that freedom to inflict severe damage on Chinese and North Korean forces, infrastructure and logistics.

Lessons and Legacies

The most important legacy of the first Sino-American War is the enduring division of the Korean Peninsula. Following the exhaustion of the Chinese counteroffensive, neither side really threatened to throw the other off the peninsula. The relationships between Seoul, Washington, Beijing and Pyongyang have changed mightily over the years, but the conflict remains frozen along the geography established in 1953.

Many of the problems have stayed the same, despite the fundamental transformations that have overtaken global politics. Beijing has grown tired of the antics of its North Korean client, just as South Korea has grown significantly in wealth and power. But North Korea can still threaten the security and prosperity of the Republic of Korea, and threats to the DPRK are still felt in Beijing.

China and the United States remember this conflict much differently. For the United States, the Korean War represents an odd aberration; a war fought for justice, but without satisfactory resolution. Americans’ most enduring memory of the conflict came through the television show M.A.S.H., which used the war as a proxy for talking about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Even this memory has begun to fade, however.

For China, the war represents a remarkable victory over imperialism in the face of overwhelming odds. It introduced the People’s Republic of China to the international system with a (literal) bang. At the same time, the legacy of the war complicated China’s international situation. In part because of the memory of Chinese intervention, but also in combination with China’s domestic politics, the United States managed to keep the PRC isolated from the international system into the 1970s. Today, the PRC poses a quasi-imperial threat to neighbors all along its vast periphery, while at the same time representing one of the three major tent-poles of the growing global economy.

Militarily, the political, social and technological conditions that produced mass infantry warfare in Korea in the 1950s no longer hold. The United States has grown accustomed to fighting opponents who excel in hybrid warfare, but the People’s Liberation Army has been out of that business for decades. The ground forces of the PLA are now transitioning between mechanized and postmechanized warfare, while the air and sea forces are in the process of perfecting the world’s most extensive anti-access/area denial system. If conflict were to happen again, China would challenge U.S. control of the air and seas in a way that it never did during the Korean conflict.

The most interesting, useful lessons may involve botched war termination. The Korean War dragged on for nearly two years after the settlement of the key strategic issues became clear. Nevertheless, poor communication between Washington and Beijing, combined with reputational concerns on both sides, inflated minor issues—such as POW repatriation—and extended the war well beyond its productive limits. That the United States viewed its conflict with China as a proxy war complicated the problem, as American policy makers became obsessed with the message that every action sent to the Soviet Union. In any future conflict, even as political questions associated with escalation and reputation loom large, Beijing can likely count on having Washington’s full, focused attention.      

Conclusion

There was nothing good about the last Sino-American War, not even the “peace” that resulted from it. The experience of this war, now nearly forgotten on both sides, should serve as a grim lesson for policy makers in both Washington and Beijing. The Korean War was anything but accidental, but miscalculation and miscommunication both extended and broadened the war beyond its necessary boundaries.'

Robert Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter:@drfarls.

This first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

MiG-25,

It intercepted bombers, did reconnaissance, and served as a fighter-bomber.

Here's What You Need to Remember: However, the true inheritor of the Foxbat are the MiG-31 Foxhound, which continues, in Russian service, to perform its original patrol and interception missions, and the F-15 Eagle, which has played as dominant of a role since its development as any fighter in the history of flight.

The MiG-25 (NATO reporting name: Foxbat) was one of the most awesome, yet most misunderstood, fighters of the Cold War. Envisioned as an interceptor designed to destroy U.S. supersonic bombers and high-flying spy planes, the Foxbat also put its high speed to good use as a reconnaissance aircraft and, to less good effect, as a fighter-bomber. The Foxbat also became a mainstay on the global export market, eventually serving in the air forces of over a dozen countries, and seeing combat in Lebanon, in the Syrian Civil War, over Egypt, in the Kargil War, in the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War and the Libyan Civil War.

But what if the Foxbat had failed?

The Plane

The MiG-25 was a magnificent aircraft in many ways, capable of flying in excess of Mach 3 and at altitudes few aircraft could reach. The formidable performance parameters of the Foxbat were soon apparent, and as early as 1965 prototype models were claiming world records in speed, climb, and altitude.

But notwithstanding its extraordinary performance, the Foxbat had major problems. It lacked maneuverability, especially at low altitudes. It was exceedingly heavy, as the USSR lacked the materials technology to produce airframes with the required tolerances and therefore used nickel-steel alloy for most of the plane. Its engines could reach Mach 3.2, but flying at this speed tended to permanently damage them, resulting in a lower practical speed of Mach 2.8. The earliest models lacked a look-down/shoot-down radar, a major handicap for an interceptor designed to hunt and kill American bombers

The downsides of the Foxbat became clear when a Soviet pilot defected to Japan with one in September 1976. The Japanese turned the aircraft over to the Americans, who disassembled and inspected it at length. The investigation confirmed that the Foxbat was an interceptor and not intended as an air superiority fighter, and that its capabilities were not as impressive as many had assumed.

Had the Soviet Union enjoyed better intelligence on the development of U.S. bombing doctrine, it might have decided to eschew the expense of building large numbers of MiG-25s, instead focusing on less expensive multi-role fighters. This would have set in play a series of dominoes that could have had a major impact on the history of world combat aviation.

The Alternatives

The Soviet Union built over 1,000 Foxbats, some 80 to 90 percent of which served in the Soviet air forces in various roles. Had these planes not existed, the USSR would have had to look elsewhere for fighter, fighter-bomber, recon and interceptor roles. The first two could have been accomplished just as effectively by additional MiG-21s, MiG-23s and Su-17s. The Foxbat shared the interceptor role with the Tu-28, an enormous, long-ranged aircraft that wasn’t as fast as the MiG-25, but did the job well enough under the circumstances. The Foxbat’s main practical contribution came in its recon configuration, where high speed and high altitude performance made it virtually invulnerable to defense.

The big problem facing the Foxbat was that its mission disappeared almost as soon as it entered service. Concerned mostly about Soviet SAM systems, the United States abandoned its B-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber project, and retired its supersonic B-58 Hustler bombers at an early age. Instead of fast and high, U.S. bombers would now enter the Soviet Union low and slow, an approach that the Foxbat was almost uniquely ill-suited to counter. But as it turned out the USSR never needed to defeat a massive incursion of U.S. bombers, so the merits and demerits of the Foxbat in this mission were never tested.

The Impact

The Foxbat rarely served in a combat capacity while in Soviet service, but it did fly in several conflicts in the Cold War and post-Cold War period. MiG-25s performed relatively well in air superiority missions during the Iran-Iraq War, although they suffered at the hands of Iranian F-14s. In the Persian Gulf War a MiG-25 killed the last U.S. fighter shot down in air-to-air combat, an U.S. Navy F/A-18. Another Foxbat killed a U.S. Predator drone in 2002, on a mission that took advantage of the plane’s unique high-speed characteristics. In its recon role the Foxbat turned in excellent service for the Indian Air Force in its millennial conflicts with Pakistan. But although it made real contributions, as a tactical aircraft the MiG-25 was something less than transformational.

But the Foxbat had an impact beyond the Soviet Union, beyond its combat contributions, and even beyond its awesome capabilities. Concern about the potentially transformational nature of the Foxbat spurred fighter development in the United States. Intelligence about the Foxbat suggested that it easily outclassed existing Western fighters, but acknowledged few of its shortcomings. Consequently, the US re-evaluated its F-X program (designed to replace the F-4 and the Century Series fighters) and revised plans for what would become the F-15 Eagle. The Eagle would eventually become the world’s most formidable air superiority fighter, in large part because it was designed to fight a Soviet plane that only really existed in the minds of Western intelligence. Had the Foxbat never seen the light of day, the F-15 would likely have been built to a more modest, less effective, and probably less enduring design.

Finally, the Foxbat led to the development of the MiG-31 Foxhound, by all account a considerably more effective interceptor. With better radars and better materials, the Foxhound continues to fly in the Russian Aerospace Forces. Had the Foxbat never flown, the Foxhound likely would have been replaced by some variant of the Su-27, an extremely capable fighter but somewhat less effective interceptor.

Wrap

Today, only the Algerian Air Force operates the MiG-25 in any numbers. Foxbats have been pressed into service in Libya and Syria in the past few years, but represent more of a curiosity than a genuine capability. This stands in contrast with the MiG-21 and MiG-23, both of which remain in extensive service around the world.

However, the true inheritor of the Foxbat are the MiG-31 Foxhound, which continues, in Russian service, to perform its original patrol and interception missions, and the F-15 Eagle, which has played as dominant of a role since its development as any fighter in the history of flight. The F-15 was built around a mistake, but it turned out to be a very fortunate mistake indeed.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is the author of The Battleship Book.

The views expressed here are his personal views and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, the Army War College, or any other department or agency of the U.S. government.

This first appeared in 2018 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

Robert Farley

IDF, Middle East

Israel's arsenal could get even more impressive with these weapons. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: But in some areas the Israelis could take more advantage of U.S. technology, especially if strategic necessity and financial reality came together in more productive ways.

With only a few notable exceptions, Israel can buy whatever it wants from the United States, generally on very generous terms associated with U.S. aid packages. Notwithstanding the availability of weapons, however, Israel must still make careful decisions regarding how to spend money. Consequently, Israel can’t have quite everything that it would like, despite the continued good relationship with the United States and its arms industry. Here are a few US military systems that the Israelis could use:

Littoral Combat Ship

For a long time, the sea arm of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has examined the potential for warships somewhat larger than the corvettes that have historically dominated the force. As Israel’s maritime security interests increased (the necessity of maintaining the Gaza blockade, and of patrolling offshore energy deposits), this need has become more acute.

This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Over the last decade, the IDF extensively studied the possibility of acquiring heavily modified versions of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship design. These would have had significantly different features, mainly making them less modular and more self-sufficient than their American cousins. On paper, the plan made a lot of sense; a high-speed, networked platform would fit in very well with the IDF’s operational concept. However, the necessary modifications drove up the cost of the warship, pricing it out of Israel’s range. Future changes in the market (or in Israel’s perception of need) might well shift the equation, however.

F-22 Raptor

The Obey amendment, which prohibits the export of the F-22 Raptor, was developed with Israel firmly in mind. Concerned about Israel’s transfer of high-technology equipment to Russia or China, the United States decided that domestic considerations meant it could not bar Israel from acquiring the Raptor without a blanket ban.

And so this has meant that only the USAF flies the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Historically, Israel has preferred fighter-bombers that can conduct both air superiority and strike missions, and the Raptor doesn’t yet have much in the way of a strike profile. However, the IDF purchased the F-15 when it was still primarily an air-superiority platform, then made the necessary modifications on its own to transform the fighter into a devastating bomber. The F-22, which otherwise serves Israel’s air superiority needs nicely, might have gone through a similar process.

Long Range Strike Bomber

Setting aside the periodic nonsense about Israel acquiring American B-52s, the long-term stand-off with Iran has demonstrated that Israel really could use a plausible long-range strike option. While Israeli F-15s and F-16s can, with refueling, reach targets in Iran, the immense distance would put them at a disadvantage as they tried to penetrate defended airspace. In this context, the Air Force’s B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber might seem attractive.

Of course, Israel hasn’t operated a strategic bomber since it retired a few B-17 Flying Fortresses in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the perceived need for an option that could penetrate Iranian air defenses and deliver heavy payloads might make the IDF reconsider its commitment to fighter-bombers. Whether the United States would ever consider exporting the bomber (which will likely fall under a variety of legal restriction associated with nuclear-delivery systems) is a different question entirely.

Massive Ordnance Penetrator

And what good are planes if they don’t have bombs to drop? Rumors of Israeli interest in the thirty-thousand-pound precision-guided bomb began to emerge at the beginning of this decade, fueling ideas in Congress about transferring the munition and an aircraft capable of delivering it. The MOP interests Israel because of its “bunker busting” capacity, which would give Israel the ability to hit deeply buried weapons facilities in Iran and elsewhere.

The United States has thus far declined to send the bomb to the Israelis, in no small part because the IDF still lacks a plausible delivery system. The Obama administration also worried about giving Israel the tools it needed to strike Iran would upset the regional balance. But geostrategic changes (or domestic political shifts in the US) might alter that calculation.

Ballistic Missile Submarine

Israel’s submarine force teeters on the very edge of presenting a plausible deterrent. The IDF submarine arm has done excellent work with its group of transferred Dolphin-class subs. However, diesel-electric submarines carrying long-range cruise missiles simply cannot match the performance, endurance, or security of nuclear boats.

This is not to say that Israel needs, or could use, something analogous to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. However, a more modest boat with a smaller number of missiles of limited range could indeed prove very useful to Israel’s efforts to create a robust second-strike capability. A flotilla of four such boats would provide a nearly invulnerable retaliatory capacity.

Israel has most of what it needs from the United States; in several areas, the technical capabilities of the IDF exceed those of the U.S. military. But in some areas the Israelis could take more advantage of U.S. technology, especially if strategic necessity and financial reality came together in more productive ways. Given the dynamism of Israel’s economy, the IDF may have the chance to avail itself of some of these opportunities in the near future.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissemination and the Diplomat. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: DVIDS

Up to $1.7 trillion is estimated to be wagered on illicit betting markets each year, according to a new report released on Thursday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).