Admiral Warns U.S. Losing Pacific Dominance To China

 Posted 01/21/2014 05:00 PM ET

Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, warns of America's "diminishing dominance" in Pacific and elsewhere. View Enlarged Image

Power Shift: Despite the White House's much-lauded pivot to the Pacific, the Navy's Pacific commander warns that an increasingly hostile and assertive China threatens U.S. air and sea superiority in the region.
If jaws didn't drop, they should have last week when Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, chief of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), said: "Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question."
U.S. naval and air superiority, particularly in the Pacific, has been taken for granted. But as Obama administration budget cuts and the effects of sequestration take their toll, our position is being severely challenged by a Chinese military benefiting from years of double-digit spending increases and a commitment from Beijing to push the U.S. out of the area.
Locklear noted the regional power shift at the annual Surface Navy Association conference in Virginia.
"We need to think about all scenarios, not just the ones we've been dealing with over the last several years, where we've enjoyed basic air superiority and basic sea superiority," he said. "There are places in the world where in this century we won't have them."
The irony is that this warning of the U.S. losing its Pacific dominance comes after the administration announced its plans for a Pacific pivot that de-emphasizes commitments in Europe and elsewhere.
President Obama pledged on Jan. 5, 2012, that his strategy would put more military muscle in Asia. The goal is to have about 60% of Navy ships dedicated to the Pacific by 2020. Of 11 active aircraft carriers, six would be committed to the region.
But these are not the heady days of President Reagan's 600-ship navy that helped buttress his strategy of "we win, they lose." Neither that Navy nor that strategy is in play anymore as the U.S. fleet dwindles from attrition while China rapidly expands its navy and develops weapons to counter ours.
One of these weapons is the Dong Feng-21D missile, intended to give China "the capability to attack large ships, particularly aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific," the Pentagon's 2012 China report said. The paper cites estimates that the missile's range exceeds 930 miles (1,500 kilometers).
Coincidentally, China's defense ministry last Wednesday announced the test of a hypersonic glide vehicle, dubbed the WU-14, designed to evade U.S. missile and other defense systems, such as the Aegis sea-based missile shield guarding our Pacific fleet and carrier battle groups.