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Crashback Lib/E: The Power Clash Between the U.S. and China in the Pacific
An alarming message from an award-winning journalist with unprecedented access to the highest naval officers in America and China and their ships and weapons, this is a chilling look at the “warm war” over control of the South China Sea—one that is threatening to flare into full-scale conflict.
Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a “warm war,” a shoving match between the United States, since WWII the uncontested ruler of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world’s largest navy. The Chinese regard the Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, as their ocean, and they’re ready to defend it. Each day the heat between the two countries increases as the Chinese try to claim the South China Sea for their own, and the United States insists on asserting freedom of navigation. Throughout Southern Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea respond with outrage and growing fear as China turns coral reefs into manmade islands capable of supporting airstrips and then attempts to enforce twelve-mile-radius, shoot-down zones. The immediate danger is that the five trillion dollars in international trade that passes through the area will grind to a standstill. The ultimate danger is that the US and China will be drawn into all-out war.
Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Michael Fabey has had unprecedented access to the Navy’s most exotic aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, aircraft, and submarines, as well as those who command them. He was among the only journalists allowed to board a Chinese war vessel and observe its operations. In Crashback, Fabey describes how every year the US is “losing sea.” He predicts the next great struggle between military superpowers will play out in the Pacific, and his book, more than any other, is an accurate preview of how that conflict might unfold.
Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a “warm war,” a shoving match between the United States, since WWII the uncontested ruler of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world’s largest navy. The Chinese regard the Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, as their ocean, and they’re ready to defend it. Each day the heat between the two countries increases as the Chinese try to claim the South China Sea for their own, and the United States insists on asserting freedom of navigation. Throughout Southern Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea respond with outrage and growing fear as China turns coral reefs into manmade islands capable of supporting airstrips and then attempts to enforce twelve-mile-radius, shoot-down zones. The immediate danger is that the five trillion dollars in international trade that passes through the area will grind to a standstill. The ultimate danger is that the US and China will be drawn into all-out war.
Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Michael Fabey has had unprecedented access to the Navy’s most exotic aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, aircraft, and submarines, as well as those who command them. He was among the only journalists allowed to board a Chinese war vessel and observe its operations. In Crashback, Fabey describes how every year the US is “losing sea.” He predicts the next great struggle between military superpowers will play out in the Pacific, and his book, more than any other, is an accurate preview of how that conflict might unfold.
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Published October 24, 2017
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July 1, 2023
Some like to come in hot, and some…
The United States and China are at war in the Western Pacific.
…like to light a thousand sparklers doused in jet fuel.
Crashback is a book about how China is bad, America is good, and the only way for the good guy to win is to punch out the bad guy. Or, ram his ship.
There's no point in judging this book as to its strategic overview, relative assessment of each side's material assets, or personnel. There's cavernous gaps in his analysis, such as US responses in an actual war, capability issues with the Zumwalts, or the wonderfully named Fat Leonard. Fabey will know all these things, and has clearly made an editorial choice as part of his framing.
Instead, Crashback is about emphasising the "otherness" of the opposition, with their Little Emperor Syndrome sailors, quick to take offense at any perceived slight, stubbornly illogical in the face of the facts, desperate not to lose “face". The Chinese exceed all others in displays of naval bombasticness:
In sheer size, Admiral Zheng He’s park dwarfs any Western monument to a naval hero; compared with Zheng He’s statue, the figure of Lord Nelson perched atop the spire in London’s Trafalgar Square looks like a hood ornament
Nelson. A guy who literally has a city named after him. And ships. There’s books about him. And movies. His own ship is still parked up in Portsmouth, being maintained for staggering sums. As for America, it has 8 battleships on display. And 5 carriers. I’ve seen them.
They're big.
There’s a run of cultural affectations that could easily be mirrored back onto America’s own psychology with minor contextual changes. Fabey writing Think Maverick and Iceman in Top Gun about the Chinese makes a different point than he thinks it does.
As to Fabey’s statement many twenty-first-century Americans would be more likely to tear such a statue down... ... c’mon.
So aside from this pop psychology, does Crashback achieve its goal? Will you love the US Navy and will you just wish they’d ram something? Yeah, maybe. Fabey pulls together a solid, if not overly coherent, set of stories such as the Hainan Island incident; the harassment of USS Cowpens; and China’s breach of etiquette at RIMPAC 2014 with its spy ship. For sure, I’m not painting the 9 Dash Line on my walls, I’ll leave that to Disney.
The problem is, Crashback is all about provocation without regard to the consequences. It bewails the Obama administration, ever cautious when it comes to China and, in the original epilogue, Fabey got all warmed up again:
America of 2017 is not the America of 2013. And the next time the Chinese navy dangerously confronts a U.S. Navy warship on the high seas, it seems unlikely that it will be the American commander who orders the engine room to execute an “all back emergency full.” For America, and for the U.S. Navy, the era of crashbacks seems to be over.
…only to sheepishly add an Afterword in 2018:
Despite what Trump might like to think, the big global beneficiary during his administration has been Xi
It turns out, just going round ramming things isn’t going to achieve your wider foreign policy goals. I mean, US Navy ships did start ramming ships - unfortunately they were cargo ships.
A good blood pressure raiser.
The United States and China are at war in the Western Pacific.
…like to light a thousand sparklers doused in jet fuel.
Crashback is a book about how China is bad, America is good, and the only way for the good guy to win is to punch out the bad guy. Or, ram his ship.
There's no point in judging this book as to its strategic overview, relative assessment of each side's material assets, or personnel. There's cavernous gaps in his analysis, such as US responses in an actual war, capability issues with the Zumwalts, or the wonderfully named Fat Leonard. Fabey will know all these things, and has clearly made an editorial choice as part of his framing.
Instead, Crashback is about emphasising the "otherness" of the opposition, with their Little Emperor Syndrome sailors, quick to take offense at any perceived slight, stubbornly illogical in the face of the facts, desperate not to lose “face". The Chinese exceed all others in displays of naval bombasticness:
In sheer size, Admiral Zheng He’s park dwarfs any Western monument to a naval hero; compared with Zheng He’s statue, the figure of Lord Nelson perched atop the spire in London’s Trafalgar Square looks like a hood ornament
Nelson. A guy who literally has a city named after him. And ships. There’s books about him. And movies. His own ship is still parked up in Portsmouth, being maintained for staggering sums. As for America, it has 8 battleships on display. And 5 carriers. I’ve seen them.
They're big.
There’s a run of cultural affectations that could easily be mirrored back onto America’s own psychology with minor contextual changes. Fabey writing Think Maverick and Iceman in Top Gun about the Chinese makes a different point than he thinks it does.
As to Fabey’s statement many twenty-first-century Americans would be more likely to tear such a statue down... ... c’mon.
So aside from this pop psychology, does Crashback achieve its goal? Will you love the US Navy and will you just wish they’d ram something? Yeah, maybe. Fabey pulls together a solid, if not overly coherent, set of stories such as the Hainan Island incident; the harassment of USS Cowpens; and China’s breach of etiquette at RIMPAC 2014 with its spy ship. For sure, I’m not painting the 9 Dash Line on my walls, I’ll leave that to Disney.
The problem is, Crashback is all about provocation without regard to the consequences. It bewails the Obama administration, ever cautious when it comes to China and, in the original epilogue, Fabey got all warmed up again:
America of 2017 is not the America of 2013. And the next time the Chinese navy dangerously confronts a U.S. Navy warship on the high seas, it seems unlikely that it will be the American commander who orders the engine room to execute an “all back emergency full.” For America, and for the U.S. Navy, the era of crashbacks seems to be over.
…only to sheepishly add an Afterword in 2018:
Despite what Trump might like to think, the big global beneficiary during his administration has been Xi
It turns out, just going round ramming things isn’t going to achieve your wider foreign policy goals. I mean, US Navy ships did start ramming ships - unfortunately they were cargo ships.
A good blood pressure raiser.
February 5, 2018
A very readable book on the power struggle in the South China Sea. The book focuses primarily on the U.S. Navy and the challenges its faces both with the Chinese and the ships and planes its currently has available. This book is different from some of the other books I have read on this subject. It is less about the geo-political aspects, but more on the people involved. I enjoyed reading about the many incidents over the last few years. There is little details about the other nations and their policies or challenges in the South China Sea. The last chapter does talk about potential changes for a stronger in U.S. policy as the result of the election of President Trump. For me, the stories on board the ships and planes in the Pacific made the book very enjoyable.
August 11, 2019
“We should cooperate with China where we can, but confront China where we must.” - former Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Harris (ret)
WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- Account of the ‘warm war’ over control of the South China Sea.
TITLE OF THE BOOK
- Old navy surface warfare sailors have a word for this kind of unusual emergency at-sea stopping maneuver. They call it a “crashback”—and for a U.S. Navy warship, and its captain, having to execute a crashback is never a good thing.
IMPORTANCE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
- Nearly a third of the world’s maritime trade annually transits the South China Sea alone, including about $ 1.2 trillion in shipborne trade bound for the United States.
YOU COULD SAY THE US STARTED IT (WITH RESPECT TO CLAIMING RESOURCES)
- The U.S. started it in 1945 by claiming exclusive rights to develop oil, natural gas, and mineral resources in the U.S. undersea continental shelf, which can extend hundreds of miles out from the coastline. Other nations followed by claiming the right to regulate certain activities, such as commercial fishing, hundreds of miles from their shores.
EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE (EEZ)
- An EEZ gives a coastal nation exclusive rights to exploit and regulate any natural resources on and under the sea up to two hundred nautical miles from its coastlines.
HOW THE US CAN WIN
- Instead, to win this warm war requires only that the United States force China to peacefully operate within the very system that made China’s economic rise possible in the first place. In other words, America must require China to respect and maintain the status quo.
WHAT DOES THE NAVY NEED TO DO?
- If the U.S. Navy is to survive and triumph in future battles at sea, the navy has to change the way it goes into the fight, and the weapons it puts into it.
DISTRIBUTED LETHALITY
- “distributed lethality.” And he also has an informal phrase to describe it. The phrase is, “If it floats, it fights.”
- Rowden’s idea. He wants to put missile systems on as many navy ships as possible...Military Sealift Command? Rowden wants to do the same with them, arming them with missiles to give them combat capability.
UNCERTAINTY
- it makes sense to inject some uncertainty into their warfighting calculus.
- They could pre-position equipment and forces around the region. The Chinese won’t know where the marines might wind up next—
WHY ARE CHINESE MISSILES SO GOOD/THEIR EXPERTISE?
- As a land-based military power with a long coastline, but without a navy to speak of, China had always been interested in missiles that could reach out and destroy enemy ships off its shores.
WELL, WE ALSO KINDA FOOLISHLY HELPED THEM GET GOOD MISSILES...
- (Ironically, a key figure in China’s missile development was Tsien Hsue-shen, a China-born immigrant to the U.S. who was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech. After the Chinese Communist Revolution and the beginning of the Korean War, Tsien was caught up in the McCarthy anti-Communist purges and had his security clearance revoked in 1950. After being kept under virtual house arrest in the U.S. for five years, he returned to Communist China and helped develop China’s ballistic-missile program, earning him the title “Father of Chinese Rocketry.”)
CHINESE LACK RESPECT FOR INTERNATIONAL NORMS
- In effect China is trying to declare its sovereignty on, over, and below a moving area of more than two thousand square miles of international waters. It violates every principle of international maritime law and the freedom of the seas.
- In July 2016 the tribunal unanimously rules that China’s artificial islands aren’t really islands, and thus not entitled to an EEZ or even territorial waters status...Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the U.S., says the Chinese will not accede to a “scrap of paper.”
...OR SELECTIVELY CITE THEM WHEN IT HELPS THEIR CAUSE
- China, for its part, feigned shock that anyone would object to its ADIZ, noting that some twenty countries, the U.S. and Japan included, also had long-standing air defense identification zones extending outward from their coasts...But the U.S.’ s ADIZ requirements only apply to aircraft planning to land in U.S. territory, not to any and all aircraft just passing by in international airspace.
CHINESE NAVY USED TO BE TERRIBLE
- “The Chinese navy.” For centuries the very phrase was considered by Western navies to be an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, a sailor’s joke. For Westerners, the Chinese navy set the standard for everything a navy shouldn’t be.
LIU HUAQING
- “Father of the Chinese Navy.”
- was able to insist that the navy get an increasingly greater share of China’s burgeoning military budget to pay for new ships, new weapons, and technological research.
- And second, Liu had vision. Liu outlined a strategy that abandoned the coastal defense idea and called for a strategy of projecting Chinese naval power far out to sea—
CHINA’S VISION FOR THE REGION
- In fact, China doesn’t want to just dominate the South China Sea—and the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, for that matter. It wants to own them.
- [Regarding the Belt and Road initiative] That plan is meant to make China “the partner of choice . . . pushing the U.S. and its allies and partners out of the region.”
CHINESE FEAR OF ENCIRCLEMENT
- Historically China has had a fear—a phobia—of being encircled by hostile nations that could invade its territory by land or sea.
SHOULD WE INVITE THE CHINESE TO HANG OUT?
- The theory behind the increased mil-to-mil contacts was that if the U.S. military treated China as a partner and not a potential adversary, then China would act like a partner, and curb its aggressive actions in the South and East China Seas and elsewhere.
- more than a few defense establishment analysts liken inviting the Chinese navy to RimPac to inviting a fox into a henhouse.
- China’s first participation in RimPac is upbeat, positive. And then, just as at-sea maneuvers get fully under way, the Chinese navy spy ship Beijixing pops up uninvited a few miles away from the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group.
- In the four decades since the RimPac exercise began, no invited participant has ever brought along an uninvited intelligence ship to spy on the other participants. And now, first time out of the box, the Chinese are doing exactly that.
CHINESE MARITIME MILITIA
- China has a huge official commercial fishing fleet, with some three hundred thousand motorized vessels, by far the biggest such fleet in the world. Most of the fishing boats are just that—fishing boats—but an unknown number of trawlers and other merchant ships are actually controlled by the Chinese navy and used as reconnaissance vessels, electronic signals intelligence gatherers, and so on;
- Chinese fishing trawlers and their crews serve as a kind of seaborne militia.
SHAME/LOSS OF FACE IS A BIG FACTOR IN CHINESE SOCIETY
- It’s impossible to overstate how much that humiliation, now long forgotten by most Westerners, still shapes Chinese popular and strategic thought, infusing them with both paranoia and the entitlement of victimhood.
- Wu’s aides later admits to one of Greenert’s aides that yes, Admiral Wu does indeed have a water dog, and everybody knows it. It could be Wu just doesn’t want to admit that the top admiral in the Chinese navy would have time for a pet dog. For Wu it could be a loss of face.
- Naming and shaming is a big part of Chinese culture. On billboards, websites, TV, and even over loudspeakers, the government will identify by name people who are guilty of bad behavior: gross polluters, people who don’t pay their debts, offspring who fail to care for their elderly parents,
- Nothing pricks Beijing’s skin more than being named and shamed.
CHINA LIKES TO AVOID BLAME
- “That wasn’t a Chinese navy ship,” Wu says. “It was an army ship. It was a People’s Liberation Army amphibious ship that was not under navy control; it reported up a different chain of command.” In other words, Wu is saying that “we, the Chinese navy, had nothing to do with it.”
- Of course, it’s an old dodge for the Chinese to blame incidents at sea on “rogue operators” or other Chinese government agencies; it offers them a level of deniability, a way to not lose face by admitting any official or personal error or responsibility.
- Greenert asks him, not in so many words—What the hell was that AGI [spy ship at RimPac] thing about? And what Wu tells him is—Hey, it wasn’t my idea...the Central Military Commission had decided to send their own “representative” to observe those parts of the exercise anyway.
- China, for its part, had two versions of the story. One was that the concrete bunkers were merely shelters for fishermen in distress. The other was that the reef had been snatched and the bunkers built by a group of “unauthorized” junior navy officers acting on their own—the old “rogue operator” excuse.
LET’S PLAY “ISLAND, ROCK, OR UNDERWATER GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURE”
- Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a nation that owns an actual island—defined as a piece of land that’s permanently above sea level and is capable of supporting human habitation and economic activity—is entitled to claim an EEZ of up to two hundred nautical miles around the island.
- If a nation possesses what the UN treaty calls a “rock”—an above-water feature that cannot on its own support human habitation or economic activity—it’s still entitled to claim a twelve-mile territorial zone of sovereignty around it.
- Underwater geographical features like Mischief Reef don’t allow a nation to claim either territorial rights or an EEZ.
*** *** ***
FACTOIDS
- the most violent tropical cyclone ever recorded was a 2015 Eastern Pacific hurricane, Patricia, which at its peak saw a wind speed of 215 miles per hour.
- The navy spends about $ 4 billion just on fuel every year.
- the Dalian Naval Academy, China’s Annapolis
- In 1965, for example, Hainan-based J-6 fighters shot down a U.S. Air Force F-104 that had strayed over the Chinese island after a mission in Vietnam. The American pilot ejected and was captured, and even though the U.S. and China weren’t at war, he was held prisoner by the Chinese until 1973.
- [Near Hainan Island] There’s a fifty-foot-wide sea-level tunnel bored into a hill to allow subs to connect with a vast array of underground weapons bunkers and loading facilities, unseen by tourists or spy satellites.
- People may think that movies and news reports have already shown everything there is to know about aircraft carrier operations, but in fact there are some technologies and operational details that remain classified and by U.S. law can’t be shared with the Chinese military.
- On a ship like a cruiser (or a carrier) there are, in fact, two captain’s cabins. One is the “at sea” cabin, a relatively modest living space located conveniently near the bridge and the CIC; the other is the “in port” or “unit commander’s” cabin (UCC), a much more plush suite situated on a lower deck, far away from the bridge...When the cruiser is at sea as part of a task force of several ships, the commander of the task force (usually an admiral) may use the cruiser as his flagship, in which case the admiral will stay in the unit commander’s cabin.
- the cameras can capture the logo on a sailor’s cap from twenty thousand feet up, while the infrareds can actually see through new paint that may have been slapped on to disguise a suspect ship’s name and hull number. The P-8A even has a hydrocarbon sensor to detect exhaust fumes from submarines cruising at snorkel depth; in other words, this plane can smell submarines.
- Once deployed the sonobuoys are not recovered; they self-destruct after a preset time.)
- But the big daddy of the Chinese anti-ship missile arsenal is the DF series of anti-ship ballistic missiles, starting with the DF-21D. (DF stands for Dong-Feng, Chinese for “The East is Red.”)
- A navy ship’s vertically launched missiles can’t be resupplied and reloaded at sea.
- But it’s the future weapons that can be mounted on the Zumwalt that make it most impressive. Because its engines produce enormous electric power—seventy-eight megawatts, enough to power almost fifty thousand American homes
- in the Western view the Spratlys were “discovered” in 1843 by a British whaling ship captain named Richard Spratly.
HAHA
- the Cowpens’s then commanding officer was summarily relieved for having an improper physical relationship with another navy officer’s wife. The navy officially calls that “conduct unbecoming an officer”; unofficially, navy officers call it a “zipper malfunction.”
- There are so many ships, and so many powerful naval radars in operation, that it sometimes causes garage-door openers to malfunction in Honolulu.
BONUS
- Video from inside EP3 prior to collision with Chinese pilot (2001): https://youtu.be/CUp_jX17ZIE
- USNS Impeccable (US spy ship) in 2009 harassed by Chinese vessels: https://youtu.be/hQvQjwAE4w4
- USS Pueblo (captured by North Korea in 1968) is a war trophy still on display: https://youtu.be/c8YTyfY8mgE
- NR-1 (one-of-a-kind US sub sent on secret missions; had wheels, arms): https://youtu.be/LOsQSdntsKc
- Overview of US Navy Littoral Combat Ships (LCS): https://youtu.be/umNJckiRb0g
- PLAN (Chinese) Type 056 Jiangdou class corvette: https://youtu.be/2cylbaQ0NXY
- Chengdu J-10 (Chinese) multi-role fighter: https://youtu.be/XGW_wocbAoM
- Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) is intended to reduce chance of negative interactions between foreign naval vessels: https://youtu.be/JeNtztV7nLU
- China brings an uninvited spy ship to RimPac exercise: https://youtu.be/3NZHla-IBTI
- Chinese DF-21D ballistic missile: https://youtu.be/bLv6Fwjc2zo
- Norwegian Naval Strike Missile (could be purchased by US) striking a ship as part of a SinkEx: https://youtu.be/fBakzoQDd10
- Laser Weapon System (LaWS) destroying target; aboard USS Ponce: https://youtu.be/sbjXXRfwrHg
- Why is China building islands in the South China Sea (Vox video): https://youtu.be/luTPMHC7zHY
- China’s Maritime Militia: https://youtu.be/y2Rk1wRCfnc
- Filipino forces live aboard a rusted-out, intentionally-grounded WWII ship that is in territory they claim: https://youtu.be/gBeQ8AjtrE0
- USS Cowpens CO fired for staying in his state room ‘sick’ during most of its deployment and for having an inappropriate relationship with XO: https://youtu.be/c89ewEXA8Dg
- Media (CNN aboard P-8) used to ‘name and shame’ China by highlighting militarization of newly-created land in ocean: https://youtu.be/jgud7vrBir4
- China ignores international ruling against its claim on Filipino territory at Scarborough Shoal (so-called ‘Nine-Dash Line of China seen as illegitimate): https://youtu.be/ORCE7lsspSY
- China disinvited from RimPac 2018 for its actions in the South China Sea: https://youtu.be/XzmMZ6CIc34
WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- Account of the ‘warm war’ over control of the South China Sea.
TITLE OF THE BOOK
- Old navy surface warfare sailors have a word for this kind of unusual emergency at-sea stopping maneuver. They call it a “crashback”—and for a U.S. Navy warship, and its captain, having to execute a crashback is never a good thing.
IMPORTANCE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
- Nearly a third of the world’s maritime trade annually transits the South China Sea alone, including about $ 1.2 trillion in shipborne trade bound for the United States.
YOU COULD SAY THE US STARTED IT (WITH RESPECT TO CLAIMING RESOURCES)
- The U.S. started it in 1945 by claiming exclusive rights to develop oil, natural gas, and mineral resources in the U.S. undersea continental shelf, which can extend hundreds of miles out from the coastline. Other nations followed by claiming the right to regulate certain activities, such as commercial fishing, hundreds of miles from their shores.
EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE (EEZ)
- An EEZ gives a coastal nation exclusive rights to exploit and regulate any natural resources on and under the sea up to two hundred nautical miles from its coastlines.
HOW THE US CAN WIN
- Instead, to win this warm war requires only that the United States force China to peacefully operate within the very system that made China’s economic rise possible in the first place. In other words, America must require China to respect and maintain the status quo.
WHAT DOES THE NAVY NEED TO DO?
- If the U.S. Navy is to survive and triumph in future battles at sea, the navy has to change the way it goes into the fight, and the weapons it puts into it.
DISTRIBUTED LETHALITY
- “distributed lethality.” And he also has an informal phrase to describe it. The phrase is, “If it floats, it fights.”
- Rowden’s idea. He wants to put missile systems on as many navy ships as possible...Military Sealift Command? Rowden wants to do the same with them, arming them with missiles to give them combat capability.
UNCERTAINTY
- it makes sense to inject some uncertainty into their warfighting calculus.
- They could pre-position equipment and forces around the region. The Chinese won’t know where the marines might wind up next—
WHY ARE CHINESE MISSILES SO GOOD/THEIR EXPERTISE?
- As a land-based military power with a long coastline, but without a navy to speak of, China had always been interested in missiles that could reach out and destroy enemy ships off its shores.
WELL, WE ALSO KINDA FOOLISHLY HELPED THEM GET GOOD MISSILES...
- (Ironically, a key figure in China’s missile development was Tsien Hsue-shen, a China-born immigrant to the U.S. who was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech. After the Chinese Communist Revolution and the beginning of the Korean War, Tsien was caught up in the McCarthy anti-Communist purges and had his security clearance revoked in 1950. After being kept under virtual house arrest in the U.S. for five years, he returned to Communist China and helped develop China’s ballistic-missile program, earning him the title “Father of Chinese Rocketry.”)
CHINESE LACK RESPECT FOR INTERNATIONAL NORMS
- In effect China is trying to declare its sovereignty on, over, and below a moving area of more than two thousand square miles of international waters. It violates every principle of international maritime law and the freedom of the seas.
- In July 2016 the tribunal unanimously rules that China’s artificial islands aren’t really islands, and thus not entitled to an EEZ or even territorial waters status...Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the U.S., says the Chinese will not accede to a “scrap of paper.”
...OR SELECTIVELY CITE THEM WHEN IT HELPS THEIR CAUSE
- China, for its part, feigned shock that anyone would object to its ADIZ, noting that some twenty countries, the U.S. and Japan included, also had long-standing air defense identification zones extending outward from their coasts...But the U.S.’ s ADIZ requirements only apply to aircraft planning to land in U.S. territory, not to any and all aircraft just passing by in international airspace.
CHINESE NAVY USED TO BE TERRIBLE
- “The Chinese navy.” For centuries the very phrase was considered by Western navies to be an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, a sailor’s joke. For Westerners, the Chinese navy set the standard for everything a navy shouldn’t be.
LIU HUAQING
- “Father of the Chinese Navy.”
- was able to insist that the navy get an increasingly greater share of China’s burgeoning military budget to pay for new ships, new weapons, and technological research.
- And second, Liu had vision. Liu outlined a strategy that abandoned the coastal defense idea and called for a strategy of projecting Chinese naval power far out to sea—
CHINA’S VISION FOR THE REGION
- In fact, China doesn’t want to just dominate the South China Sea—and the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, for that matter. It wants to own them.
- [Regarding the Belt and Road initiative] That plan is meant to make China “the partner of choice . . . pushing the U.S. and its allies and partners out of the region.”
CHINESE FEAR OF ENCIRCLEMENT
- Historically China has had a fear—a phobia—of being encircled by hostile nations that could invade its territory by land or sea.
SHOULD WE INVITE THE CHINESE TO HANG OUT?
- The theory behind the increased mil-to-mil contacts was that if the U.S. military treated China as a partner and not a potential adversary, then China would act like a partner, and curb its aggressive actions in the South and East China Seas and elsewhere.
- more than a few defense establishment analysts liken inviting the Chinese navy to RimPac to inviting a fox into a henhouse.
- China’s first participation in RimPac is upbeat, positive. And then, just as at-sea maneuvers get fully under way, the Chinese navy spy ship Beijixing pops up uninvited a few miles away from the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group.
- In the four decades since the RimPac exercise began, no invited participant has ever brought along an uninvited intelligence ship to spy on the other participants. And now, first time out of the box, the Chinese are doing exactly that.
CHINESE MARITIME MILITIA
- China has a huge official commercial fishing fleet, with some three hundred thousand motorized vessels, by far the biggest such fleet in the world. Most of the fishing boats are just that—fishing boats—but an unknown number of trawlers and other merchant ships are actually controlled by the Chinese navy and used as reconnaissance vessels, electronic signals intelligence gatherers, and so on;
- Chinese fishing trawlers and their crews serve as a kind of seaborne militia.
SHAME/LOSS OF FACE IS A BIG FACTOR IN CHINESE SOCIETY
- It’s impossible to overstate how much that humiliation, now long forgotten by most Westerners, still shapes Chinese popular and strategic thought, infusing them with both paranoia and the entitlement of victimhood.
- Wu’s aides later admits to one of Greenert’s aides that yes, Admiral Wu does indeed have a water dog, and everybody knows it. It could be Wu just doesn’t want to admit that the top admiral in the Chinese navy would have time for a pet dog. For Wu it could be a loss of face.
- Naming and shaming is a big part of Chinese culture. On billboards, websites, TV, and even over loudspeakers, the government will identify by name people who are guilty of bad behavior: gross polluters, people who don’t pay their debts, offspring who fail to care for their elderly parents,
- Nothing pricks Beijing’s skin more than being named and shamed.
CHINA LIKES TO AVOID BLAME
- “That wasn’t a Chinese navy ship,” Wu says. “It was an army ship. It was a People’s Liberation Army amphibious ship that was not under navy control; it reported up a different chain of command.” In other words, Wu is saying that “we, the Chinese navy, had nothing to do with it.”
- Of course, it’s an old dodge for the Chinese to blame incidents at sea on “rogue operators” or other Chinese government agencies; it offers them a level of deniability, a way to not lose face by admitting any official or personal error or responsibility.
- Greenert asks him, not in so many words—What the hell was that AGI [spy ship at RimPac] thing about? And what Wu tells him is—Hey, it wasn’t my idea...the Central Military Commission had decided to send their own “representative” to observe those parts of the exercise anyway.
- China, for its part, had two versions of the story. One was that the concrete bunkers were merely shelters for fishermen in distress. The other was that the reef had been snatched and the bunkers built by a group of “unauthorized” junior navy officers acting on their own—the old “rogue operator” excuse.
LET’S PLAY “ISLAND, ROCK, OR UNDERWATER GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURE”
- Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a nation that owns an actual island—defined as a piece of land that’s permanently above sea level and is capable of supporting human habitation and economic activity—is entitled to claim an EEZ of up to two hundred nautical miles around the island.
- If a nation possesses what the UN treaty calls a “rock”—an above-water feature that cannot on its own support human habitation or economic activity—it’s still entitled to claim a twelve-mile territorial zone of sovereignty around it.
- Underwater geographical features like Mischief Reef don’t allow a nation to claim either territorial rights or an EEZ.
*** *** ***
FACTOIDS
- the most violent tropical cyclone ever recorded was a 2015 Eastern Pacific hurricane, Patricia, which at its peak saw a wind speed of 215 miles per hour.
- The navy spends about $ 4 billion just on fuel every year.
- the Dalian Naval Academy, China’s Annapolis
- In 1965, for example, Hainan-based J-6 fighters shot down a U.S. Air Force F-104 that had strayed over the Chinese island after a mission in Vietnam. The American pilot ejected and was captured, and even though the U.S. and China weren’t at war, he was held prisoner by the Chinese until 1973.
- [Near Hainan Island] There’s a fifty-foot-wide sea-level tunnel bored into a hill to allow subs to connect with a vast array of underground weapons bunkers and loading facilities, unseen by tourists or spy satellites.
- People may think that movies and news reports have already shown everything there is to know about aircraft carrier operations, but in fact there are some technologies and operational details that remain classified and by U.S. law can’t be shared with the Chinese military.
- On a ship like a cruiser (or a carrier) there are, in fact, two captain’s cabins. One is the “at sea” cabin, a relatively modest living space located conveniently near the bridge and the CIC; the other is the “in port” or “unit commander’s” cabin (UCC), a much more plush suite situated on a lower deck, far away from the bridge...When the cruiser is at sea as part of a task force of several ships, the commander of the task force (usually an admiral) may use the cruiser as his flagship, in which case the admiral will stay in the unit commander’s cabin.
- the cameras can capture the logo on a sailor’s cap from twenty thousand feet up, while the infrareds can actually see through new paint that may have been slapped on to disguise a suspect ship’s name and hull number. The P-8A even has a hydrocarbon sensor to detect exhaust fumes from submarines cruising at snorkel depth; in other words, this plane can smell submarines.
- Once deployed the sonobuoys are not recovered; they self-destruct after a preset time.)
- But the big daddy of the Chinese anti-ship missile arsenal is the DF series of anti-ship ballistic missiles, starting with the DF-21D. (DF stands for Dong-Feng, Chinese for “The East is Red.”)
- A navy ship’s vertically launched missiles can’t be resupplied and reloaded at sea.
- But it’s the future weapons that can be mounted on the Zumwalt that make it most impressive. Because its engines produce enormous electric power—seventy-eight megawatts, enough to power almost fifty thousand American homes
- in the Western view the Spratlys were “discovered” in 1843 by a British whaling ship captain named Richard Spratly.
HAHA
- the Cowpens’s then commanding officer was summarily relieved for having an improper physical relationship with another navy officer’s wife. The navy officially calls that “conduct unbecoming an officer”; unofficially, navy officers call it a “zipper malfunction.”
- There are so many ships, and so many powerful naval radars in operation, that it sometimes causes garage-door openers to malfunction in Honolulu.
BONUS
- Video from inside EP3 prior to collision with Chinese pilot (2001): https://youtu.be/CUp_jX17ZIE
- USNS Impeccable (US spy ship) in 2009 harassed by Chinese vessels: https://youtu.be/hQvQjwAE4w4
- USS Pueblo (captured by North Korea in 1968) is a war trophy still on display: https://youtu.be/c8YTyfY8mgE
- NR-1 (one-of-a-kind US sub sent on secret missions; had wheels, arms): https://youtu.be/LOsQSdntsKc
- Overview of US Navy Littoral Combat Ships (LCS): https://youtu.be/umNJckiRb0g
- PLAN (Chinese) Type 056 Jiangdou class corvette: https://youtu.be/2cylbaQ0NXY
- Chengdu J-10 (Chinese) multi-role fighter: https://youtu.be/XGW_wocbAoM
- Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) is intended to reduce chance of negative interactions between foreign naval vessels: https://youtu.be/JeNtztV7nLU
- China brings an uninvited spy ship to RimPac exercise: https://youtu.be/3NZHla-IBTI
- Chinese DF-21D ballistic missile: https://youtu.be/bLv6Fwjc2zo
- Norwegian Naval Strike Missile (could be purchased by US) striking a ship as part of a SinkEx: https://youtu.be/fBakzoQDd10
- Laser Weapon System (LaWS) destroying target; aboard USS Ponce: https://youtu.be/sbjXXRfwrHg
- Why is China building islands in the South China Sea (Vox video): https://youtu.be/luTPMHC7zHY
- China’s Maritime Militia: https://youtu.be/y2Rk1wRCfnc
- Filipino forces live aboard a rusted-out, intentionally-grounded WWII ship that is in territory they claim: https://youtu.be/gBeQ8AjtrE0
- USS Cowpens CO fired for staying in his state room ‘sick’ during most of its deployment and for having an inappropriate relationship with XO: https://youtu.be/c89ewEXA8Dg
- Media (CNN aboard P-8) used to ‘name and shame’ China by highlighting militarization of newly-created land in ocean: https://youtu.be/jgud7vrBir4
- China ignores international ruling against its claim on Filipino territory at Scarborough Shoal (so-called ‘Nine-Dash Line of China seen as illegitimate): https://youtu.be/ORCE7lsspSY
- China disinvited from RimPac 2018 for its actions in the South China Sea: https://youtu.be/XzmMZ6CIc34
January 29, 2018
Military journalist Michael Fabey in his book Crashback explores the increasingly tense conflict between China and the United States over naval dominance in the Pacific, a situation he labels a "warm war." The events he covers date from 2001, early in the Bush administration, when an American intelligence gathering aircraft was struck by a Chinese fighter which then crashed into the sea. The US aircraft had to land in China where the crew was detained for a period before being freed. Several other incidents of harassment took place in 2002 and 2003, then they unexplainably stopped until the Obama administration came into office. Then the incidents became increasingly frequent and more aggressive as the new administration tried to pursue a policy of diplomacy and military cooperation. Senior naval officers followed orders, as they must, but some were concerned that the soft approach only encouraged the Chinese to become more assertive.
At stake was freedom of the seas, the ability of all to use ocean waters under long standing international law. For the Chinese, a core concern was their declared ownership of the South China Sea. They followed through on this assertion by building islands on submerged coral reefs and emergent rocks by piling up dredged sand from the sea bottom, despite claims to ownership by other nations. They proceeded to militarize the built islands by adding barracks, bunkers, runways and aircraft hangars. They then claimed exclusive jurisdiction of the surrounding sea and air space. The US and surrounding nations challenged the legality of this under international law, but the Chinese ignored an international legal ruling that the constructed areas were not islands and the areas had no legal right to claim air or sea jurisdiction around and over them. The book fully describes the limited military efforts the US made to claim freedom of navigation through and over these "islands."
Fabey further explores the rapidly changing ability of the Chinese to support their claims through a fast growing, improving navy. The acquisition of an aircraft carrier from the former Soviets and the ongoing construction of several new ones of their own is illustrative of their intentions. As the author points out carriers are essentially power projection armaments, not defensive ones. They are also adding technically sophisticated surface warfare ships and submarines, along with various long range missile systems that could threaten US carrier groups.
Fabey explains how this improved technology imperils US efforts to maintain open seas for all nations in the Pacific. Control of the South China Sea could impact the transit of trillions of dollars of goods annually.
In addition to describing the hostile actions taken by the Chinese, Fabey profiles a number of the uniformed leaders on either side of the conflict. The American participants are labeled
"Panda Huggers" or "Dragon Slayers" based on their leaning toward cooperation or confrontation with the Chinese in the Pacific.
He also previews some of the new weaponry the US forces are working to put to sea: rail guns, laser weapons, undersea drones, and a brand new class of aircraft carriers, the first of which is the USS Gerald Ford.
Reading this book is informative, but it is not likely to make you sleep easier.
At stake was freedom of the seas, the ability of all to use ocean waters under long standing international law. For the Chinese, a core concern was their declared ownership of the South China Sea. They followed through on this assertion by building islands on submerged coral reefs and emergent rocks by piling up dredged sand from the sea bottom, despite claims to ownership by other nations. They proceeded to militarize the built islands by adding barracks, bunkers, runways and aircraft hangars. They then claimed exclusive jurisdiction of the surrounding sea and air space. The US and surrounding nations challenged the legality of this under international law, but the Chinese ignored an international legal ruling that the constructed areas were not islands and the areas had no legal right to claim air or sea jurisdiction around and over them. The book fully describes the limited military efforts the US made to claim freedom of navigation through and over these "islands."
Fabey further explores the rapidly changing ability of the Chinese to support their claims through a fast growing, improving navy. The acquisition of an aircraft carrier from the former Soviets and the ongoing construction of several new ones of their own is illustrative of their intentions. As the author points out carriers are essentially power projection armaments, not defensive ones. They are also adding technically sophisticated surface warfare ships and submarines, along with various long range missile systems that could threaten US carrier groups.
Fabey explains how this improved technology imperils US efforts to maintain open seas for all nations in the Pacific. Control of the South China Sea could impact the transit of trillions of dollars of goods annually.
In addition to describing the hostile actions taken by the Chinese, Fabey profiles a number of the uniformed leaders on either side of the conflict. The American participants are labeled
"Panda Huggers" or "Dragon Slayers" based on their leaning toward cooperation or confrontation with the Chinese in the Pacific.
He also previews some of the new weaponry the US forces are working to put to sea: rail guns, laser weapons, undersea drones, and a brand new class of aircraft carriers, the first of which is the USS Gerald Ford.
Reading this book is informative, but it is not likely to make you sleep easier.
November 3, 2021
This journalist specializes in military matters, so he is comfortable writing about the challenges that these two countries and their fleets present to one another.
His narrative powers are at their best when he describes details of actions which have opposed ships from both countries which remind us of typical Cold War incidents. The US has had an ambiguous relationship with China; on the one hand it has gained as a customer but on the other hand it has also realized that the rapid economic development of China comes with political consequences. That economic might is being translated into military means; as a consequence confrontations keep escalating.
China has embarked on a course of hybrid warfare with its immediate neighbors and is testing the ability of the US to respond and its willimgness to make use of its military umbrella in the region. China is on its way to establish itself as a dominating regional power and its Navy is being built as a tool to achieve its foreign policy objectives with a touch of good old imperialism hidden behind a screen of propaganda.
The (known!) military tools available to both adversaries are described and the strenghts and weaknesses of both forces are discussed. Good presentation of the armaments of the future. Overall we are reminded that confrontations occur on a daily basis with risks to both Navy personnel and ships and the potential to trigger more dangerous incidents.
His narrative powers are at their best when he describes details of actions which have opposed ships from both countries which remind us of typical Cold War incidents. The US has had an ambiguous relationship with China; on the one hand it has gained as a customer but on the other hand it has also realized that the rapid economic development of China comes with political consequences. That economic might is being translated into military means; as a consequence confrontations keep escalating.
China has embarked on a course of hybrid warfare with its immediate neighbors and is testing the ability of the US to respond and its willimgness to make use of its military umbrella in the region. China is on its way to establish itself as a dominating regional power and its Navy is being built as a tool to achieve its foreign policy objectives with a touch of good old imperialism hidden behind a screen of propaganda.
The (known!) military tools available to both adversaries are described and the strenghts and weaknesses of both forces are discussed. Good presentation of the armaments of the future. Overall we are reminded that confrontations occur on a daily basis with risks to both Navy personnel and ships and the potential to trigger more dangerous incidents.
March 25, 2025
This book was recommended reading from a game on the same subject. This book is a highly approachable into the subject. It covers the how, why, and what to do about it. The book has a great flow talking about how we got to that point of China trying to take on the US for hegemony in the Pacific. The basic premise of the book is that China hasn't and won't play by the rules following international law. That America playing soft isn't going to do anything to help themselves out in the long run. Experience shows that playing soft to bullies never wins. It's a refreshing look on the conflict that there is still hope for America to win.
December 20, 2017
The author of "Crashback", Michael Fabey, is a long time reporter on military and naval affairs. His book details China's expansionist policy in the South China Sea, muscling into the area and taking over a number of small islands and reefs, many of which are claimed by other regional nations as well as by China. Expanding its borders in this way gives China further reach and strength militarily, and by claiming territory in dispute, gives it economic strength by claiming mineral rights and fishing rights in those areas. Smaller nations such Vietnam or the Philippines can't compete with China economically or militarily, and China is moving ahead with it's policies despite international objections. By expanding its borders in this way, China also makes territorial claims around these islands, redefining international waters recognized by the rest of the world to territorial waters claimed by themselves. This change in territorial water status would prevent other nations, and other navies, from navigating through these waters without permission.
Only the U.S. has the military strength in the region to stand up to the Chinese, however as Fabey points out with examples of past confrontations, the U.S. has not been willing to push back very forcibly, and China seems to be winning in this "warm" war with the U.S. One specific example, from which the book takes its name, details an attempt by a U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser, the U.S.S. Cowpens, in International waters by world-wide definition (but in territorial waters by Chinese definition), sailed in the vicinity of China's new aircraft carrier. Chinese naval forces ordered the Cowpens to leave the area, and when the Cowpens failed to comply, dangerously blockaded the Cowpens by positioning ships in a collision path with the U.S. vessel. This caused the Cowpens to implement an emergency stop, i.e., go to "Crashback" mode, to avoid colliding with the Chinese warship and causing an international incident.
Faber shows how China continues to flex its muscles in the region, and as its naval forces grow and weapon capabilities expand, it's becoming even bolder in its stance in the South China Seas.
The author also describes the rapid improvement in Chinese naval and weapon capabilities. Many of the U.S. Navy ships have older missile technology, and newer Chinese defensive and offensive missiles are rapidly improving, and have far greater range than many U.S. vessels. Faber's message seems to be that China's strength is growing rapidly, and if international order and rules are to be maintained in the South China Sea region, and if it's in the U.S. national interest to preserve that order and those rules, then the U.S. needs to focus and address this change in status quo.
Without stating so specifically, Fabey seems to be somewhat critical of the Obama Administration's handling of the expansionist aims of China in the region over the past several years, and I suspect is more hopeful that the Trump Administration will take a more forceful approach in the area in order to maintain America's and their allies interests in the region. President Trump's recent National Security speech seems to answer Faber's concerns. The President has stated that the United States has to “rethink the policies of the past two decades — policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners.” According to the President, that isn't happening, as evidenced by Russia's interventions in Ukraine and Georgia, and China's claims to the South China Sea at the expense of their neighbors.
The President has called for an increase in the Defense Department budget and military spending, something Faber should find worthwhile, but there remains the question as to whether the plan to strengthen the Navy will be to build "more" vs. building "smarter". Based on Faber's book "Crashback", I suspect the author would prefer additional emphasis on the latter approach. Continuing to spend without a modern real-world strategy could simply widen the gap with China, something this book points out to be a dangerous approach.
Only the U.S. has the military strength in the region to stand up to the Chinese, however as Fabey points out with examples of past confrontations, the U.S. has not been willing to push back very forcibly, and China seems to be winning in this "warm" war with the U.S. One specific example, from which the book takes its name, details an attempt by a U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser, the U.S.S. Cowpens, in International waters by world-wide definition (but in territorial waters by Chinese definition), sailed in the vicinity of China's new aircraft carrier. Chinese naval forces ordered the Cowpens to leave the area, and when the Cowpens failed to comply, dangerously blockaded the Cowpens by positioning ships in a collision path with the U.S. vessel. This caused the Cowpens to implement an emergency stop, i.e., go to "Crashback" mode, to avoid colliding with the Chinese warship and causing an international incident.
Faber shows how China continues to flex its muscles in the region, and as its naval forces grow and weapon capabilities expand, it's becoming even bolder in its stance in the South China Seas.
The author also describes the rapid improvement in Chinese naval and weapon capabilities. Many of the U.S. Navy ships have older missile technology, and newer Chinese defensive and offensive missiles are rapidly improving, and have far greater range than many U.S. vessels. Faber's message seems to be that China's strength is growing rapidly, and if international order and rules are to be maintained in the South China Sea region, and if it's in the U.S. national interest to preserve that order and those rules, then the U.S. needs to focus and address this change in status quo.
Without stating so specifically, Fabey seems to be somewhat critical of the Obama Administration's handling of the expansionist aims of China in the region over the past several years, and I suspect is more hopeful that the Trump Administration will take a more forceful approach in the area in order to maintain America's and their allies interests in the region. President Trump's recent National Security speech seems to answer Faber's concerns. The President has stated that the United States has to “rethink the policies of the past two decades — policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners.” According to the President, that isn't happening, as evidenced by Russia's interventions in Ukraine and Georgia, and China's claims to the South China Sea at the expense of their neighbors.
The President has called for an increase in the Defense Department budget and military spending, something Faber should find worthwhile, but there remains the question as to whether the plan to strengthen the Navy will be to build "more" vs. building "smarter". Based on Faber's book "Crashback", I suspect the author would prefer additional emphasis on the latter approach. Continuing to spend without a modern real-world strategy could simply widen the gap with China, something this book points out to be a dangerous approach.
February 25, 2018
In this work Mr. Fabey seeks to outline US-Chinese interactions in the Pacific, focusing on the last decade and a half. The tensions that have developed between the budding Chinese Navy and the still dominant US force are at the fore, particularly confrontations such as the USS Cowpens incident, from which this work gains it's title.
On the plus side, this is a short and engaging read. In military works, particularly in works with no "exciting" battles it is easy to get lost in ths minutia of doctrine, manuals, and the endless acronyms that the military loves. Mr. Davey has also taken the route of consolidating his characters, mostly into a few higher ranking officers, although there are a few junior officers and higher enlisted included as well. This streamlines the book and doesn't daunt the reader with a massive cast to remember. However, it also limits how wide a picture the reader gets of this large topic.
While the book is compelling and quite readable...it has its flaws. In spite of quite a few incidents described taking place in the younger Bush administration, which initiated the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia took funding and resources away from the Pacific theater, the Obama administration takes quite a bit of flack for its policy in the waters around China. While it is mentioned that the Obama administration tried to refocus on the Pacific, Mr. Fabey repeatedly harps on the administration for it's softness without offering much more than vague concepts of a "stronger" stance. This is combined with his somewhat rosy eyed view of the Trump administration's lip service to the military and the navy in particular. There isn't much substantial in the last chapter other than a general "Trump will take us in a better direction" vibe.
While the politics of the book are thinly veiled and its tone is alarmist, the readability of Mr. Fabey's work is what saved the work, along with some attempts to understand the Chinese perspective. If you are interested and have little knowledge in the subject, I'd recommend this book...just take it with a grain of salt.
On the plus side, this is a short and engaging read. In military works, particularly in works with no "exciting" battles it is easy to get lost in ths minutia of doctrine, manuals, and the endless acronyms that the military loves. Mr. Davey has also taken the route of consolidating his characters, mostly into a few higher ranking officers, although there are a few junior officers and higher enlisted included as well. This streamlines the book and doesn't daunt the reader with a massive cast to remember. However, it also limits how wide a picture the reader gets of this large topic.
While the book is compelling and quite readable...it has its flaws. In spite of quite a few incidents described taking place in the younger Bush administration, which initiated the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia took funding and resources away from the Pacific theater, the Obama administration takes quite a bit of flack for its policy in the waters around China. While it is mentioned that the Obama administration tried to refocus on the Pacific, Mr. Fabey repeatedly harps on the administration for it's softness without offering much more than vague concepts of a "stronger" stance. This is combined with his somewhat rosy eyed view of the Trump administration's lip service to the military and the navy in particular. There isn't much substantial in the last chapter other than a general "Trump will take us in a better direction" vibe.
While the politics of the book are thinly veiled and its tone is alarmist, the readability of Mr. Fabey's work is what saved the work, along with some attempts to understand the Chinese perspective. If you are interested and have little knowledge in the subject, I'd recommend this book...just take it with a grain of salt.
August 8, 2019
Having failed to have my China needs satiated by my previous book, I had to turn to one entirely focused on the nature of America's military posture versus China—with a focus on the sea services. ‘Crashback’ spans the entire breadth of Chinese-American naval relations, from comparative missile capabilities to emerging technologies and operational concepts to the challenges of reconnaissance in the Chinese littoral zone. More than focusing on the hardware the Navy brings to the table, ‘Crashback’ takes great care in working through how the Navy intends to counter an increasingly serious, dangerous, and capable Chinese navy. In doing so, the author goes from man-to-man meetings between service chiefs to the bridges of guided-missile destroyers. Impressive in its depth and uncompromising in its findings, ‘Crashback’ leaves room for optimism: the abilities of America’s sailors and her technicians to prepare and arm themselves superbly for battle cannot be underestimated. But it leaves a great deal of room for concern. China’s naval capabilities are steadily mirroring our own, her leaders and sailors are confident, and the underlying logic of her plan for regional dominance are well-constructed. For decades, China took international attempts to ease her entrance into global institutions and ran with them. Now we’re the ones playing catch-up. Her navy has taken each American vulnerability and focused fire on it. What used to be sacrosanct, from area access to maritime logistics and long-range reconnaissance, are now being challenged. HowAmerica, her leaders, and her navy respond will dictate decades of American foreign policy and perhaps the nature of Chinese power as well. The author is clearly encouraged by some of the current administration’s policies in the region, especially in terms of naval appropriations, but cautions that they are probably not enough. Regional confidence in America’s staying power is flagging, and it is imperative that it is restored. Only visible and clear action can provide the boost. Words are not enough.
May 1, 2021
The possibility of war in the South China Sea between the People's Republic of China and the United States is, to be sure, a nightmare scenario. A scenario that some thriller writers have used in their writing, since having China as the "bad guy" makes for entertaining reading.
Potential conflict in the South China Sea, though, is not fiction; it's fact. And Michael Fabey's nonfiction work, "Crashback: The Power Clash Between the U.S. and China in the Pacific," shows why. The Chinese government regards the vast expanse of the South China Sea as territorial waters, subject to its jurisdiction. The United States government in general, and the U.S. Navy in particular, disagree: the South China Sea, outside of China's twelve-mile boundary, falls under the heading of international waters and international shipping should be free to transit through those waters.
Fabey provides the reader with a look at how the People's Liberation Army Navy has evolved from a fairly primitive coastal defense entity to a powerful force to be reckoned with. The showpiece of the current Chinese navy is the aircraft carrier "Liaoning," a formidable vessel that gives the U.S. Navy pause.
Fabey also looks at the U.S. Navy and what it is doing to maintain its standing as a powerful military force. He discusses the various types of ships that contribute to the Navy's mission, such as littoral combat ships (LCSs) to function in shallow coastal waters and the USS "Zumwalt," a powerful, futuristic-looking guided-missile destroyer that has the energy-producing capacity to power lasers, electromagnetic guns, and other next-generation weapons.
In summary, this is a well-written, informative book that is certainly worth checking out.
Potential conflict in the South China Sea, though, is not fiction; it's fact. And Michael Fabey's nonfiction work, "Crashback: The Power Clash Between the U.S. and China in the Pacific," shows why. The Chinese government regards the vast expanse of the South China Sea as territorial waters, subject to its jurisdiction. The United States government in general, and the U.S. Navy in particular, disagree: the South China Sea, outside of China's twelve-mile boundary, falls under the heading of international waters and international shipping should be free to transit through those waters.
Fabey provides the reader with a look at how the People's Liberation Army Navy has evolved from a fairly primitive coastal defense entity to a powerful force to be reckoned with. The showpiece of the current Chinese navy is the aircraft carrier "Liaoning," a formidable vessel that gives the U.S. Navy pause.
Fabey also looks at the U.S. Navy and what it is doing to maintain its standing as a powerful military force. He discusses the various types of ships that contribute to the Navy's mission, such as littoral combat ships (LCSs) to function in shallow coastal waters and the USS "Zumwalt," a powerful, futuristic-looking guided-missile destroyer that has the energy-producing capacity to power lasers, electromagnetic guns, and other next-generation weapons.
In summary, this is a well-written, informative book that is certainly worth checking out.
November 14, 2018
Anyone familiar with the People’s Liberation Army (and its small adjuncts, the PLAF and PLAN) during the 1980s found it hard to take seriously: most of its aircraft and ships belonged in museums. It intended to rely on human-wave attacks in the event of a full-scale war. If it wasn’t equipped with nuclear weapons, it would hardly be of concern at all.
That is not the PLA or the Chinese Navy now.
China has the advantage that Germany initially had during WWII: unburdened by “legacy” warships which were out of date and consumed resources more efficiently spent elsewhere, Germany concentrated instead on warships which would prove to be of more use to her, such as heavy cruisers capable of outrunning enemy task forces sent after them and U-boats of entirely new design. China was unburdened by a legacy fleet when it began building its first real blue water navy. It has built modern warships armed with a variety of anti-ship missiles. The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, has not developed a new anti-ship missile in decades and has, in fact, removed the missile magazines on some older ships, relying on “multipurpose guns” to take on other ships and other missions.
China has been on a collision course with the United States for some time. Claiming its Exclusive Economic Zone as territorial waters, China is bullying Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan into abiding by this “interpretation” of international law. China is also showing more and more of a willingness to take on the United States itself… where will this end?
Reads like a novel while it opens your eyes. Well-illustrated with maps and photographs.
That is not the PLA or the Chinese Navy now.
China has the advantage that Germany initially had during WWII: unburdened by “legacy” warships which were out of date and consumed resources more efficiently spent elsewhere, Germany concentrated instead on warships which would prove to be of more use to her, such as heavy cruisers capable of outrunning enemy task forces sent after them and U-boats of entirely new design. China was unburdened by a legacy fleet when it began building its first real blue water navy. It has built modern warships armed with a variety of anti-ship missiles. The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, has not developed a new anti-ship missile in decades and has, in fact, removed the missile magazines on some older ships, relying on “multipurpose guns” to take on other ships and other missions.
China has been on a collision course with the United States for some time. Claiming its Exclusive Economic Zone as territorial waters, China is bullying Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan into abiding by this “interpretation” of international law. China is also showing more and more of a willingness to take on the United States itself… where will this end?
Reads like a novel while it opens your eyes. Well-illustrated with maps and photographs.
July 13, 2018
Wow! I was stunned by this book that the author tells in such an enthralling way. It covers the history of the Chinese Navy, and the clashes that have been happening in the South China Sea between the United States and China. While much of this I had heard in the news, I learned that so much more has happened and in more detail. This book is recent and up to date. I wonder what else has happened since publication.
I listened to the audio version of it, and the narrator does mispronounce a few words. It is just a mild annoyance, and doesn't diminish the power of his narration, or the contents of this narrative.
The information in this book has changed my perspective a lot. I'll never think of the products that I purchase which are "Made in China" the same way again. I want everyone that I know to read this book. I hope this text gets adopted in schools so that every American knows about this. It will keep me awake at night.
I listened to the audio version of it, and the narrator does mispronounce a few words. It is just a mild annoyance, and doesn't diminish the power of his narration, or the contents of this narrative.
The information in this book has changed my perspective a lot. I'll never think of the products that I purchase which are "Made in China" the same way again. I want everyone that I know to read this book. I hope this text gets adopted in schools so that every American knows about this. It will keep me awake at night.
February 8, 2018
Solid book on the devolving relationship between the Chinese and American navies as they battle for dominance in the Pacific. The on the ground (or perhaps, on the sea) reporting done by Fabey is insightful, providing a perspective on the dangers of naval life many of us will never know. It’s clear the author did not care for the Obama Administration’s policy toward China, and seems to be more of a “dragon slayer” than “panda hugger” to use his parlance. Bias aside, the book is a compelling case that the U.S. must stand up to increasingly-aggressive Chinese naval actions, before it’s too late.
July 15, 2018
This book explains the rising tensions between the US and its allies and China over navigation in the South and East China Seas. It describes some of the previous incidents and the potential impact of future freedom of navigation patrols by the US Navy. The author is relatively direct in articulating that China seems to be ignoring international law when it suits them and is not going to change its ways any time soon.
April 15, 2019
I found it intriguing to read a stronger-postured take on the geopolitics of the South China Sea, and to learn more about the politics of defense funding, weapons development, and the relationship between the military and civilian government of the US. I usually read history so reading something contemporary that was relatively hawkish was fresh, though I could imagine reading another book arguing against this one. I’m but a mere padawan and don’t know a huge amount on the topic.
April 16, 2021
Well I wanted to like this book more because of the timely important topic but the style of the author's writing was very annoying to me. Scholarly it's not. Just way too casual as if you went to a crowded bar on an NFL Sunday and the guy seated next to you at the bar is shouting a news story to you he heard on the radio. Bad grammar, punctuation and occasional spelling aside, I did learn what I came for.
December 31, 2018
Great way of gaining basic understanding of the current state of the naval relationship between the US and China. Well-written by someone with extensive experience in the field, but no prior knowledge is assumed -- all terms and backstories are explained, but without spending too much time on it. Thorough but concise.
September 16, 2019
It was a good account of specific events but I found it a bit disjointed and lacking in depth. That may be due to the fact that China is such a secretive nation, but I imagine there are better books out there to gain a thorough picture of Chinas military capabilities, goals and interactions with the U.S.
February 12, 2022
A perceptive and informed overview of the often confusing and contradictory great power relations between the US and China, from the perspectives of their respective naval forces - doctrines, operations, ships and weapons and the cultural and historical friction points that further complicate interactions between the two. Enjoyable, informative and insightful.
June 11, 2018
Weak ending to the book
Author does a nice job chronicling the Navy his.tory in the South China Sea. But as it approaches 2017/2018, there obviously less history , but he fails to provide closure , thoughts about the future, or a summary of what might be to come
Author does a nice job chronicling the Navy his.tory in the South China Sea. But as it approaches 2017/2018, there obviously less history , but he fails to provide closure , thoughts about the future, or a summary of what might be to come
July 21, 2022
An excellent research and analysis of the current military/geopolitical situation in the Pacific between the US and China and the true military struggle taking place daily in that region between the two countries.
November 25, 2017
Good read
Easy to read, no earth shattering revelations. I enjoyed it but would like to see more viewpoints included in future works.
Easy to read, no earth shattering revelations. I enjoyed it but would like to see more viewpoints included in future works.
February 25, 2018
Terrific book - like Blind Man's Bluff but for the Surface Navy. Should be required reading for JOs. Thanks to Andy Bonn for the book!
May 14, 2018
Short, sweet and current. Good easy read with excellent cultural insights.
September 7, 2018
This is an important book describing the challenges the US is facing with a rising China.
All citizens should read.
All citizens should read.
September 6, 2019
A page turner. I couldn’t put it down. Easily readable, and highly informative. I appreciate the author’s moral clarity on such a touchy subject.
June 1, 2020
That China harbors territorial ambitions in the Pacific is well known. That China does not always play by the rules is also well known. Why the United States should care is explained herein.
August 11, 2020
A good basic overview of China’s intentions in the south sea area, the history, and some recent US policy actions.
September 19, 2021
Exceptionally well written and highly informative even if it is a little dated. Would love an updated version.
October 14, 2021
Excellent overview of the USA’s perspective on Chinese expansion in the South China Sea. Intense. Great power struggles is never for the faint hearted.
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