The United States federal government should: Adopt a policy of flexible response toward China in the South China Sea

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Solvency – Cooperation

Solves the entire aff—boosts cooperation

Brendan Cooley is a research assistant at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). And James Scouras is a national security studies fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). This research was completed under the auspices of JHU/APL’s internal research program A CONVENTIONAL FLEXIBLE RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC, National Security Perspective, Johns Hopkins University 2015, http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/publications/pdf/AConventionalFlexibleResponseStrategyfortheWesternPacific.pdf, /Kent Denver-MB

The following two sections of this paper articulate grand strategic and military strategic imperatives. We use these frameworks to argue that the United States should adopt a more diversified and flexible military strategy for the Western Pacific. While resolving the operational challenges posed by A2/AD capabilities should remain an imperative of US defense planning, planners should more carefully consider the impact of counter-A2/AD investments on Chinese threat perceptions and identify lower-order capabilities that may also contribute to deterrence and warfighting in the region. Our proposed strategy will provide for a more stable deterrent relationship by matching potential Chinese aggression with a proportional response while simultaneously making cooperation between the United States and China more likely by clarifying US intentions and assuaging Chinese threat perceptions.

Solves deterrence and pushes China to integrate in the multilateral order

Because of profound uncertainties about the extent of China’s rise and the nature of its future relationship with the United States, the United States needs a grand strategy that simultaneously hedges against the spectrum of plausible alternative futures while making the more worrisome futures less probable. Moreover, the conflict over competing national interests in the Western Pacific is currently being waged in the prewar phases of conflict known in military parlance as shaping and deterrence. However, whereas China is focused on winning the conflict in these phases, the US military strategy is more singularly focused on deterring a shooting war and preparing to fight and win one should deterrence fail. As a consequence, the US military hedge may be overemphasized while a shaping strategy is lacking. A conventional flexible response strategy might provide comparable deterrent value at the high end of the spectrum of conflict and be better able to manage confrontations at the low end, while nudging China toward integration into the current global order rather than revisionism.

Solvency – Allies

Increase allied cooperation solves Chinese aggression

Thuc D. Pham, The Diplomat, 1-17-2016, Deterring Chinese Coercion in the South China Sea," Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/deterring-chinese-coercion-in-the-south-china-sea/, Accessed: 6-22-2016, /Kent Denver-MB

To some extent, these steps show that the U.S. has tried to adopt a more proactive posture in the SCS. However, they will not be sufficient to deter Chinese coercion in the region. Further action is needed. Certainly the U.S. needs to make some careful calculations when it comes to policy dealing with a would-be regional hegemon, but it also needs to be decisive and timely. The concept of “fly and sail” was first mentioned in May 2015, and was repeatedly announced by top U.S. leaders at various levels (here, here, here), but the White House agonized for too long before deciding to send the USS Lassen on its mission on October 27, 2015. Such a slow response is unacceptable for a global power, and prompts widespread charges of American weakness. It gives China the opportunity to mastermind its reaction to ensure that U.S. efforts are in vain. For example, in response to the “fly and sail” campaign, China has recently conducted a series of civilian test flights to the Fiery Cross Reef, violating the Convention on International Civil Aviation and the sovereignty of other coastal states, including Vietnam, and paving the way for the future militarization in the SCS. Diplomatically, the U.S. needs to upgrade diplomatic ties with new Southeast Asian partners, especially Vietnam, to a strategic partnership. This is important for several reasons. First, a strategic partnership will help reduce friction over issues such as democracy and human rights, which in the view of some countries in the region could undermine their political system and territorial sovereignty. In fact, Southeast Asia has made some significant progress in these areas in recent years, and this will continue. Second, when strategic ties are established, “strategic trust” will increase, opening up the possibility for further strategic and defense cooperation. Third and more importantly, if the U.S. is not assertive enough to seek more close friends in the region, it will lose ground to China. Beijing is also investing resources to reassure and appease Southeast Asian countries through initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Maritime Silk Road, and the Silk Road Fund. Economically, the U.S. should consider two more initiatives. First, while the Trans-Pacific Partnership has the potential to usher in a new chapter of U.S. economic engagement with Asia, the U.S. should consider building an American maritime trade road, one that knits and links the U.S. with commercial ports in the region. This is significant because “almost 30 percent of the world’s maritime trade transits the South China Sea annually, including approximately $1.2 trillion in ship-borne trade bound for the U.S.” More American merchant marine ships sailing back and forth in the South China Sea would provide the U.S. with a greater presence, and one that is soft, legitimate, and easily accepted since trade is win-win. Second, the U.S. needs to back its oil companies to establish a joint venture (or a consortium, which includes oil companies from like-minded countries) to explore oil and gas within the smaller claimants’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf, particularly in sensitive areas where the Chinese 9-dash line may overlap. In doing so, the U.S. will not only bolster its interoperability with the smaller claimants, but also weaken Chinese excessive maritime claims in the SCS because the exploration projects are in compliance with international law – within the smaller claimants’ jurisdictional maritime zones in accordance with the UNCLOS, but very distant from Chinese territory. In the meantime, the U.S. might draw more attention to the fact that it is the foreign investment flow into China and demand for Chinese exports that have been creating the revenue that has enabled China to be assertive in the South China Sea and beyond. The decades since China adopted its policy of greater openness in 1978 have seen it rely heavily on Western capital and technology to develop. However, on becoming the world’s second largest economy, China changed direction and became a revisionist and expansionist power. Militarily, if Beijing uses paramilitary and maritime militia vessels to harass the operations of American oil giants, Washington with the host countries’ consent could dispatch its coast guard with the navy on the horizon and aircraft in the sky to protect its economic interests. On the one hand, this would give the U.S. Navy more toeholds in the region, but would avoid sparking international confrontation with the use of warships. On the other hand, this action would uphold the international law in practice, and effectively demonstrate that the 9-dash line is invalid and inconsistent with UNCLOS. To be able to make this real, however, the U.S. Coast Guard needs to be expanded at appropriate levels to afford missions in the SCS, because most USCG vessels are already tasked with surveillance over the vast American EEZ and in the Arctic. In sum, if it is to deter Chinese coercion in the South China Sea, the U.S. needs to be strong and act more comprehensively.

Bolstering the capabilities of China’s rivals solves Asian conflict—induces caution

Jackson 2016 (Van Jackson, The Diplomat, 1-6-2016, Rethinking US Asia Policy: 3 Options Between Appeasement and War ," Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/rethinking-us-asia-policy-3-options-between-appeasement-and-war/, Accessed: 5-28-2016, /Kent Denver-MB)

The unifying theme of U.S. Asia policy has been the maintenance of a stable, liberal regional order. Yet a number of regional trends now militate against that goal: trust among regional neighbors is low; military modernization investments are rampant; territorial nationalism is growing in salience; and China continues to press its peripheral claims in ways that risk inadvertent conflict. The current configuration of U.S. policy does nothing to arrest any of these problems, yet their continuation threatens longstanding U.S. interests in Asia. So what can be done? Today, there’s still time to pursue options that eschew either war posturing on the one hand or unreciprocated conciliation on the other. Restoring Imbalances The first option to shape better future conditions without either appeasement or war is to significantly enhance the military capabilities of China’s potential adversaries. The most likely conflict scenarios with China run through a U.S. ally or partner — Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, or the Philippines, for example. One of the background conditions that makes these conflicts plausible is an extreme capability asymmetry between China and its potential opponent. If the balance of local military capabilities favors China so strongly, U.S. allies and partners may be discouraged from contesting Chinese preferences when faced with the prospect of coercion. Improving the military strength of local allies and partners enhances general deterrence by simultaneously making the weaker states more capable of defending themselves while discouraging any coercive opportunism by Beijing. The goal is not for these smaller states to achieve military parity with China — that would be impossible and probably undesirable — but rather to mount a reasonable self-defense effort sufficient to bolster their confidence and induce a modicum of caution in Beijing.

Improving allied A2AD solves China aggression

Exploiting Asymmetries A third option is really a variant of the first: build select ally and partner capabilities to support anti-access strategies. Similar to but distinct from what some describe as a “hedgehog” strategy, this is not so much a way to change China’s calculus — a Sisyphean task if ever there was one — as it is a way to enable smaller powers to plausibly come out on top in a localized skirmish. China may retain escalation dominance in the abstract, but conflicts are not abstractions, and the ability of smaller powers to quickly secure their objectives in a localized operation flips China’s “gray zone” calculation on its head by presenting China with a fait accompli rather than the reverse. Implementing an anti-access capacity-building strategy isn’t easy. The United States has proven it has the stomach for some of what’s necessary — extending maritime domain awareness capabilities, missile defense, and surface patrol/combatant ships to select allies and partners. But these are half-measures. Also essential are undersea mine inventories and deployment doctrine, submarines, cruise missiles, and unmanned systems with various range and payload capacities. These capabilities, in turn, require loosening some of the political-legal constraints on foreign military sales and financing cases to countries like Vietnam. Most importantly, it requires a reform of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which currently constrains the transfer of the most capable types of missiles and UAVs.

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