A TICKET TO THE GLOBAL GAME: THE POLITICAL MOTIVATIONS FOR THE MARITIME TRANSFORMATIONS OF CONTINENTAL POWERS A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Security Studies By Matthew W. Caris, B.A. Washington, DC April 15, 2011 Copyright 2011 by Matthew W. Caris All Rights Reserved ii A TICKET TO THE GLOBAL GAME: THE POLITICAL MOTIVATIONS FOR THE MARITIME TRANSFORMATIONS OF CONTINENTAL POWERS Matthew W. Caris, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Karl P. Mueller, Ph.D. ABSTRACT A historical survey of cases of Continental powers – Imperial Germany, Soviet Russia, and the People’s Republic of China – pursuing maritime transformation, seeking to understand the motivations and the reasons these ambitious building programs are undertaken. The presence of an existing hegemonic maritime power influences perception of seapower as being indispensable to a transition from regional or Continental land power to global status, and the rising state attempts to emulate this kind of ability through the development of surface fleets with sea control or capital ship capabilities in order to secure demonstrable global power and further global interests and influence. The apparent refusal of rising powers to consider sea denial strategies as adequate to security needs further suggests the primary motive on the part of the political leadership for authorizing surface fleet construction may be political, rather than concern with wartime naval strategy. Implications of these cases and the political motivations, including arms races, opportunity costs, and other possible consequences, as well as policy implications for the United States in the face of the Chinese naval program, are also considered. iii Table of Contents Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 Case Study: Imperial Germany and the Kaiserliche Marine: Weltpolitik, Battleships, and a Place in the Sun..................…………………………………...……....................................................... 6 Case Study: The Soviet Union and the Red Fleet: Coercive Naval Diplomacy and Countering American “Maritime Imperialism” …………………………………………………………….. 22 Case Study: China and the People’s Liberation Army-Navy: Near Seas Security or Hard Power Backing for Global Influence?..............…………………………................................................ 36 Conclusions and Implications for China’s Maritime Transformation and the American Response…………………………………………………………………................................... 49 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………. 57 iv Introduction On April 12, 2011, Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), told Congress he believes the Chinese People‟s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) will put to sea its first aircraft carrier, the refurbished ex-Soviet Varyag, likely by the end of 2011.1 Various and occasionally contradictory reports describe major Chinese ambitions including multiple conventional- and nuclear-powered carriers to be built over the next decade, each possibly in similar size to Varyag (~65,000 tons – larger than all except the U.S Navy‟s nuclear- powered versions). The carrier program, while still somewhat speculative, comes on top of over ten years of fairly rapid construction of numerous classes of new surface combatants.2 In a little more than a decade, this building program has transformed the PLAN from an inshore coastal- defense force of decrepit frigates and destroyers, aging submarines, and fast attack boats, to a thoroughly modern and growing naval force now conducting its first global operations off the Horn of Africa and (in March 2011) the Mediterranean Sea. Western, particularly American, analysts have spilled a great deal of ink in the past few years describing the potential threat this fleet poses to America and its allies, and drawing comparisons to Imperial Germany‟s maritime transformation at the dawn of the 20th Century. Particularly within the U.S. naval community, the rise of China‟s ocean-going naval capabilities has sparked calls for increased funding for the U.S. Navy, more attention to U.S. anti-ship capabilities (the next-generation Long Range Anti- Ship Missile [LRASM]), and major concerns over the possibility that China may someday be able to contest control of vital sea lanes and strategic choke points like the Straits of Malacca. 1 Viola Gienger and Tony Capaccio, “China‟s Carrier Poses Mostly Symbolic Threat, U.S. Admiral Says,” Bloomberg, 12 April 2011. 2 For full details on the numerous and still-speculative reports on likely PLAN carrier developments over the next decade, see Hayoun Ryou, “Chinese Aircraft Carrier Program: Blue Water Navy on the Way,” Issue Brief no. 101, New Delhi Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, 2009. 1 The issue of China‟s naval expansion is obviously a major one for U.S. policymakers, especially given the dramatically heightened tensions between China and the U.S. and its Asian allies in 2010. The optimistic 1990s predictions of a “geography of the peace,” that the “mitigating effect of geography” would result in a land superpower China and maritime superpower U.S. potentially at odds but peacefully separated, have given way to more dire warnings of possible confrontations at sea and potentially a naval arms race (even including the air and space domains as well)3. Understanding the motivations behind China‟s maritime transformation, then, is vital for understanding the likely consequences and U.S. policy responses to what is already one of the largest security questions of the 21st Century. While numerous studies chronicle both China‟s maritime transformation and other historical cases of nations “going to sea,” the naval-centric nature of some of these studies often leads them to focus on strategic or operational-level issues, e.g., the threats Chinese carriers could pose to U.S. forces or how U.S. naval and air forces will have to change their concepts of operation in the face of such threats. Particularly given the U.S.-centric nature of these analyses, examinations of today‟s PLAN – like Cold War-era analyses of the Soviet Navy in decades past – tend to view naval expansion through the lens of a potential challenge to U.S. maritime power and seek to understand how the Chinese might use this newfound naval might in a Sino- American war. This operational focus, however, fails to fully understand the driving political forces behind a naval building program, particularly one focused on surface fleets and capital ships. Nor is the phenomenon of a land-based or Continental power pursuing maritime transformation a new one. Since the twilight years of the 19th Century, Imperial Germany and 3 “Geography of the peace” and “mitigating effect of geography” from Robert Ross, “The Geography of the Peace: East Asia in the Twenty-first Century,” International Security, Vol 23, No. 4, Spring 1999, 82; arms race and naval confrontations, Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, Red Star Over the Pacific: China‟s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy, (Annapolis: Naval Institute, 2010) 15-7. 2 later the Soviet Union both attempted to develop capable maritime power, including capital ships and the potential for sea control capacity. While the particular shape and characteristics of these efforts were dramatically different, they shared common political motivations. Therefore, in order to better understand the ongoing maritime buildup by the People‟s Republic of China, history can be a useful vehicle. Given that navies themselves can safely be assumed to generally desire more and larger ships, explaining why a traditionally land-based or Continental power would seek to build a large, ocean-going surface navy capable of sea control requires a greater understanding of political motivations. The argument to be made here is that traditionally Continental powers will decide to pursue major surface fleets/sea control capabilities – i.e., a capital ship strategy – for largely political reasons as part of an attempt at transitioning from a regional land power to global player. In such a transition, maritime power is seen by the rising state as the sine qua non of the global “game” of the day, whether that be imperialism at the turn of the 20th Century, the global competition between capitalist West and communist East in the Cold War, or today‟s economically integrated world of globalization and “smart” power. Key to this perception is the rising power‟s belief that its major competitor – an established maritime power – owes its advantages or privileged position in the global system to its maritime capabilities. This belief, in turn, encourages the rising power to seek to emulate the existing “maritime hegemon” – in purpose if not in precise fleet composition. In some cases, where channels for public debate and political participation exist, domestic politics and public opinion can be a reinforcing factor. The resulting fleets, then, are not designed, built, and operated expressly to conduct a particular wartime naval strategy; they are the product of political goals and intended to pursue specific political designs of grand strategy. 3 This paper will make this argument by examining each of these three cases – Imperial Germany, the Soviet Union, and today‟s China – in turn, identifying the “permissive political context” that enabled the fleet-building program, and explaining