If US-China arms build-up continues apace, demons of war will prevail

Days earlier, US forces took part in the Tiger Strike 24 bilateral exercise with Malaysia. The military drills featured joint amphibious operations in the South China Sea, where China has overlapping territorial claims with Malaysia and other neighbours such as Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam. While Indonesia is not a claimant state, its exclusive economic zone stretches to the edge of the South China Sea, where it has challenged Chinese efforts to fish.

But war preparations by the two rivals tell a completely different story, with the Western Pacific, the Malacca Strait and the Japanese island of Kyushu increasingly resembling a potential battleground. No regional actor can be spared from this dynamic.

US strategist Lyle Goldstein has argued that the PLA has been methodically studying the Allied forces’ successful landing on the beaches of Normandy, France, in the summer of 1944, which dealt a mortal blow to the Nazi German occupation. Goldstein noted that, according to some military experts, an amphibious assault by Beijing on Taiwan would have to be on a scale comparable to the Normandy campaign 80 years ago to be effective.

The US is also experimenting with a new, jam-resistant communications technology that could enable the transmission of data from a system based in space to American military commanders and allies around the world during an attack. Gathering tactical information would be critical to any US effort aimed at piercing mainland China’s vast defence network during a potential Taiwan contingency.

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Two mainland Chinese fishermen drown after Taiwan coastguard pursuit

The US navy is also set to test advanced network technologies during the Rim of the Pacific multilateral exercise, scheduled from June 26