War in the Western Pacific would shatter global economies, run the risk of spreading nuclear conflict and leave half a million “deaths of despair” in its wake, the senior American commander in the Indo-Pacific told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.
When asked why Americans should care about Taiwan’s future, Adm. Samuel Paparo said closing the waterway separating it from China, one of the world’s major trading channels, could be more devastating than the Great Depression in the 1930s globally. It would also expose the United States’ dependence on Taipei for semiconductor production, essential to modernizing and growing the domestic economy.
Chinese aggressive military actions toward the self-governing island have increased by 300 percent. As he has noted in the past, these are “not exercises but rehearsals” for a possible forcible takeover.
War in the region Paparo said, could produce “a 25 percent reduction in GDP [gross domestic product] in Asia, an effect of 10 to 12 per GDP reduction in the United States of America, unemployment spiking at 7 to 10 percent” above normal levels “and 500,000 excess deaths of despair.”
Even a successful American intervention “would halve that impact, so still a grave result” and “a lot of human misery.”
The tenuous nature of alliances and partnerships would also be at stake, he warned. “Some of the states” in the Indo-Pacific “would submit … to China’s long-range goal of setting the rules of the world.”
Others, who “would never submit” to Chinese threats, could embark on their own nuclear weapons programs, escalating the risks in any conflict. Paparo and Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, top commander in Korea, said Tokyo and Seoul would examine that option if the U.S. military commitment to the peninsula and Northeast Asia and Taiwan were scaled back.
Paparo added, “with the loss of the force on the Korean Peninsula, there’s a higher probability that he (North Korea) would invade.” Cutting the force significantly below the 28,000 authorized “would reduce our ability to prevail” there.
Seoul makes “significant contributions beyond the Korean peninsula” to Indo-Pacific security, he said.
Brunson in his opening statement, said if large cuts were made deterring North Korea aggression and holding back Russia and China in the region “becomes problematic.”
“They are a critical portion of helping the INDOPACOM command see, sense and understand in the North and to deter a great many adversaries,” Brunson said in answer to a question.
“[North Korean leader Kim Jong Un]’s intentions could shift with the wind and he’s built a military that is designed to impose tremendous costs directly on South Korea,” Paparo said. “It’s very important we maintain that deterrent posture.”
Looking at ways to bolster Indo-Pacific security, Paparo said the command could use more counter C5R [Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] capability in cyber, space and counter-space and long-range fires and effects that endanger an adversary’s platforms and systems.
“Sustainment is what won the Second World War,” he said. “You can’t AI [artificial intelligence] your way out of material deficiency.” He pointed the committee’s attention to shipbuilding lags in delivery and construction, labor shortages, the need for the command to have a diversified tanker fleet and having “the lift capability we can order in harm’s way.”
Paparo said the command “is moving in that direction” of using unmanned systems “in bringing smaller payloads” to smaller, more dispersed forces.
On the larger question of the state of the Navy’s amphibious fleet, he added it is “under-resourced and not ready enough.” Those 32 ships carry Marines, their equipment and aircraft.
In its December finding, the GAO wrote, “the Navy must maintain a fleet of 31 operational ships to meet these needs. But half of the fleet is in poor condition and some ships have been unavailable for years at a time. To save money, the Navy proposed early retirement for some ships and cancelled critical maintenance on them. But the Navy is still relying on these ships—which haven’t been well-maintained—while it waits for new ones to be built.”
At this week’s Sea-Air-Space symposium, the Navy announced a pilot program aimed at improving amphibious ship readiness that will kick off this year.
As USNI News reported, under the program, the Navy will complete the proposed maintenance package 500 days before the start of the so-called “signature availability” and award the contract 360 days before the overhaul begins, Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, commander of Naval Surface Force, said.
The hope is that knowing what the work package is more than one year in advance and having more time to plan the availability will drive down the number of delay days on the amphibious ship maintenance.
The Navy’s target is to have 80 percent of its surface fleet, submarines and aircraft ready for deployment to an immediate crisis.
Paparo also noted that the Trump administration’s decision to scale back or eliminate USAID would benefit China.
“I continue to advocate for it,” he said. Otherwise, Beijing “would seize” the opportunity to win more influence by responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises.
