The Navy is talking tougherdifferently about China than it was just a few months ago.
As the Navy’s new top officer enters his fourth month on the job, a shift in tone is underway. In public remarks and his strategic guidance, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson has called In public remarks and in his recent strategic guidance, Richardson calls China a competitor, grouping the country them with Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation, and has talked openly of China’s development of weapons systems specifically designed to counter the U.S. Navy.
That's a different tack than his predecessor, who advocated on Adm. Jonathan Greenert, who stepped down as chief of naval operations in September, was a forceful advocate of building military-to-military relationships with China as a means of getting its rising military to be a responsible partner in regional security.
Adm. John Richardson is taking a different tack. In public remarks and in his recent strategic guidance, Richardson calls China a competitor, groups them with the Russian Federation, and talks openly of China's development of weapons systems specifically designed to counter the U.S. Navy.
In a Monday speech at the National Press Club in Washington, Richardson said that For nearly 25 years, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Navy has ruled the seas, but not anymore, Richardson warned. been unrivaled at sea, but not anymore.
"That era is over," Richardson said in a Monday speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "Today, both Russia and China have advanced their military capabilities to be able to act as global powers. Their goals are backed by a growing arsenal of high-end war fighting capability … much of which is focused on our vulnerabilities."
That theme was at the core of his new strategicy vision, entitled recently released strategic guidance, "Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority," which stopped short of calling China a threat, but made clear that he saw the Chinese ares considered a competitor.
The tough tone from the new CNO caught the attention of observers, where debate continues about whether China is a growing threat to be countered or a rising maritime power to be engaged and influenced. raised some eyebrows among observers who see China’s rise as a global maritime power as inevitable and see as engagement as the best way to influence Chinese policy.
"I'd … welcome a bit more emphasis on how the Navy can ideally contribute to shaping China's peaceful rise — using America's military not just for old-fashioned deterrence or war fighting, but for helping to ensure that the rules of the global order are maintained and respected even as we look to acknowledge China's new powers and prerogatives," said Michael O'Hanlon, an influential security analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
The CNO is still in favor of engaging with China, but he also sees the need to counter China’s expanding capabilities and aggressive actions towardstheir neighbors which have stopped short of open warfare, said a Navy official familiar with Richardson’s outlook on China.
Those in Richardson’s camp note say that while he uses more forceful rhetoric than his predecessor — Adm. Jon Greenert, who has warned that it was unnecessarily antagonistic to talk openly about the possibility of war with China — the shift in tone does not necessarily indicate a radical policy shift. China, for example, will likely still be participating in the biennial Rim of the Pacific Exercise, which brings together about two dozen nations in a massive military exercise.
China has been using its Coast Guard and even paramilitary forces to harass and antagonize its neighbors. It even sent fishing boats and merchants vessels to harass the destroyer Lassen last fall when it patrolled within 12 nautical miles of China’s man-made land masses in the Spratly Islands while the People’s Liberation Army-Navy vessels maintained a safe and respectful distance, according to a November report from Navy Times' sister publication Defense News. Afterwards, China summoned the U.S. ambassador and warned the U.S. against doing it again, a move the U.S. has vowed to continue.
It's that kind of tactic that Richardson has called "a gray area" and said needs to be countered in a creative way that stops short of hostilities.
Bryan Clark, a former top aide to CNO Greenert and who's analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that the increased edge in Richardson’s tone doesn’t necessarily mean the two men have a different outlook, but is a response to a sharper rhetoric coming from Beijing.
"As the new guy, he can take a slightly more confrontational position," Clark said. "But in terms of what each thinks, I would say it’s about the same. They want to cooperate was much as possible with China, but want China to respect international norms and the sovereignty of its neighbors."
David B. Larter was the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.
