Our strategic region: medium powers

I picked a lousy week to sweep the Asia-Pacific military radar, since the imminent (as of yesterday) North Korean rocket launch is monopolizing the news. Well, not exactly monopolizing it, I suppose; the Economist magazine, hardly a military journal, has weighed in on the Asian military situation. The cover of its April 7 edition is a photo of a submarine flying Chinese colors, and the text is three bold words: “China’s military rise.”

And that pretty much sets the stage for most discourse on the topic. The big powers get a lot of attention (the U.S., China, Russia), and a questionable upstart (North Korea) claims headlines as well. But when it comes to nuclear proliferation, I think the real surprises in the Asia-Pacific scene are going to come from the medium powers, who, thus far, don’t seem to get much attention at all.

In general, a lot of folks are reaching for the Cold War outlook of two major powers counterbalancing each other. Back in the day, we had NATO around the U.S. nucleus, and the Warsaw Pact around the Soviet nucleus. In other words: Two powers and their buddies.

Will this same two-power structure apply to Asia’s future?

I doubt it.

Now, I’m going to just veer into conjecture. None of this is worth worrying about. We’re just riding a tangent here. We’re buying a ticket on the “what-if” express. Hey, that’s a sensible thing to do sometimes, just to have a mental path established if future events steer that way.

Anyway, as for the Asia-Pacific region, of which Saipan is, of course, a component, this might not be a two-power equation. Or three. Or even four. Even now, just a few steps into the new game, which pretty much coincides with the start of this, the Asian century, there are at least five nuclear arsenals present in the larger Asian sphere. This number could nearly double in the foreseeable future if certain nations decide to build their own deterrence instead of betting their sovereignty on somebody else’s capabilities.

One big question, to their minds, will be if Uncle Sam is always going to have the commitment, the capability, and the money to be the guarantor of security in the region. I use “guarantor” in the nominal sense, since nothing is guaranteed in life, especially in warfare, and especially in warfare in Asia. So my terminology is colloquial and sloppy. Hey, that’s how I talk, I’m more grits than caviar. Anyway, you get the idea: There’s a lot riding on Uncle Sam’s stature.

One thing that could inspire Asian’s advanced, but, thus far, non-nuke nations to arm themselves with big booms would be if they decide they’d be better off providing their own deterrence instead of depending on someone else to protect them. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that if one nation takes this step, it could start the unraveling of the current defensive paradigm, and other nations would soon follow.

Possible result: Nuclear arms proliferation. Not among the big players. And not among any small rogue upstarts either, who I assume will be de-fanged eventually. But in the middle, among the respectable, advanced nations, who would want to pack enough of a punch to deter would-be aggressors.

The time scale in play here isn’t generations, or even decades. If triggered, it could play out in just a matter of few years.

Big missiles might get big press, but small warheads are where the real punch will be. Many of the critical distances in Asia’s s important areas are very short. Therefore, weapons delivery doesn’t need a globe-spanning scale to have a strategic scope.

Here’s some perspective: Even one small warhead carried by a small, single-engine, single-pilot fighter plane can pack the punch of over 20 Hiroshima bombs. I don’t know how many nations in the Asia-Pacific region can develop such warheads, but in the West the technology certainly exists (and has for decades). Beyond that, in terms of launch platforms, things are pretty basic (considering the context), and even little bitty militaries commonly have diesel subs and various cruise missiles that could put them in the game.

Well, that’s a “could happen” type of scenario, and a pretty extreme one. But I mention it because I think that some of the most important factors in the Asia-Pacific military equation are going to be not the biggest players, and not the smallest players, but the players in between who are so well-behaved and non-threatening that they don’t usually get a lot of attention. And the bottom line for these guys? They can seriously militarize if they want to.