Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Here's the beginning of the article. (Full text here.)

Navy officer warns of Chinese subs

BY: Charles Snyder, Taipei Times

07/28/2005

A former senior US naval officer warned Monday that within 20 years, China will have the ability to wreak havoc on US naval forces going to Taiwan's defense against a Chinese attack.

Such a defeat of the US navy by a Chinese force "will ruin America as we know it today," Vice Admiral Al Konetzni said. He was testifying before a hearing of a commission formed by the Pentagon earlier this year to probe plans for closing dozens of US military bases in a bid to save money.

Konetzni was testifying at a hearing in Boston on plans to close the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut, one of 33 major bases slated for closure under the Defense Department's base closure initiative.

He made his comments less than a week after the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on China's military buildup, which warned of a grave threat to Taiwan stemming from China's military modernization and of its submarine force expansion.

A key role for Chinese submarines, the report and US military experts note, would be to prevent the US from coming close enough to aid Taiwan by essentially closing off the Taiwan Strait to US vessels and troops, allowing China to complete its attack on Taiwan without US interference.

China's submarine force is larger than the US', and "in the year 2025, they'll have three times [as many as the US] at the rate we're doing business," Konetzni told the base closing commission hearing.

"I see a problem with Taiwan," he added.

"I see us putting our white hats on and going across the world and getting there" in the case of hostile Chinese military action against Taiwan requiring a US response, he said.

"And I see one punch in the nose, and it will ruin America as we know it today," Konetzni told the commission.

Until his recent retirement, Konetzni was the deputy commander of the naval command that covered Europe, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Before that he spent three years as commander of submarines in the Pacific and before that, three years in Japan and South Korea.

He testified in opposition to the closure of the New London submarine base. . .

This is the essence of Occidentalism being used by fear-mongering Navy types as a last-ditch effort to stave off sub base closings: China will land one punch to our nose and Western civilization falls. It's so absurd as to be dismissed out of hand as sheer nonsense, but here's a retired 3-star peddling this crap.

Truth be told, I have interacted once in my career with this guy and found him to be a bullying jerk with a strategic IQ just north of 40. He's a dinosaur of the worst sort, and it pains me to think he made 3 stars. But it's good to hear he's retired. He's one of the last of a dying breed, and I say good riddance to them all. If he thinks the challenge we face from China 20 years from now is just some bloody-nose strategy (the essence of the Occidentalist view of America--one we encountered with Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and video beheadings of hostages in Iraq), then the admiral's gotten even dumber with age.

When will these submarine guys learn?

Thanks to a reader (USAF, of course) for alerting me to this wonderful blast from the past.

BTW, I encounter this sort of strategic stupidity and I realize that Friedman's book (World is Flat), for all my problems with it, is a good antidote for this sort of thinking. At least it broadens the vision.