The Indo-Pacific Strategy: an Analysis

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Nov 22

When analyzing Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, it is useful to keep two terms in mind: boondoggle and tacking.  Boondoggle is a good Canadian word that refers to something on which lots of money will be spent, the usefulness of which is questionable, but which is dear to the heart of the government, its friends, or to the senior bureaucracy.  Tacking means to attach an unpopular measure to a popular one to hoist the unpopular measure into law.  Let’s now turn to The Strategy.

The Strategy contains five Strategic Objectives.  In terms of dollars spent, the Objectives are, in order of importance: building a sustainable and green future ($902.7m); promote peace, resilience, security ($720.3m); invest in and connect with people ($261.7m); expand trade, investment, and supply chain resilience ($244.4m); and be an active and engaged partner ($137.6m).  Verdant jungle mustn’t be “green” enough.

The total to be spent over five years is under $2.3b.  The business of employing armed forces falls second in priority, and accounts for less than a quarter of the total expenditure.

The military expenditure component is entitled “enhance defense presence and contribution,” The operational part of $720.3m boils down to the addition of a third frigate to the Pacific theatre and participation in sabre rattling exercises.  The budget under this head totals $492.9m over five years, and it includes a project to launch a regional women, peace, and security initiative - an exercise in exporting Canadian cultural values.

Other military-ish projects include security partnerships and capacity building, cyber security and digital technology diplomacy.

Nothing in The Strategy is aimed to defeat China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative; rather it is intended to counter somewhat China’s intimidating militarization of islands in the South China Sea.  Militarizing these otherwise uninhabited islands enables China to interdict strategic sea lanes, and the sea bed around them may have significant petroleum deposits.  China intends to overawe with the threat of force where the power of money is unavailing.  How would a military address this conundrum of fighting the power of money?

A military can more easily deal with physical military assets: aircraft, ships, and supporting infrastructure.  Sea power is essential for rapidly isolating these islands and preventing resupply.  Command of the sea can turn these islands into hostages to fortune.  Once isolated, their combat capability can be reduced by missile attack at leisure.  Other overseas assets, such as international ports and airfields around the globe, can also be made hostages to fortune.

How can Canada contribute meaningfully to military deterrence in the South China Sea?  Canada needs to acquire ships, submarines, and aircraft suitable for long-range operation in the Pacific.  If we had Type 26 frigates in service, with their 7,000 nmi range and Tomahawk cruise missiles, that would add significantly to sea power, and could menace land targets from long range.  Nuclear powered submarines would have the range to operate freely in the Pacific, and would contribute to the isolation of outposts supplied by sea.  They would also enable under ice sovereignty patrols in the Arctic Ocean.  Deep interdiction, land based aircraft would help seize control of the air.

The Type 26 frigate has become too expensive to acquire.  However, an Arleigh Burke class missile cruiser has nearly the same dimensions and displacement as a Type 26 frigate, are much cheaper to acquire, and could be had in numbers before the end of the decade.

By deep interdiction aircraft, I mean the F-15X Super Eagle.  The F-35 is not an air superiority fighter as the F-15 is, and its combat range is half that of the F-15.  There is another kind of aircraft with 2,900 gallon internal fuel capacity, that can reach 70,000 feet, fly at close to Mach 3, and carry guided missiles; but that aircraft is oh so 1950s!

The Strategy for countering China’s militarization of the South China Sea seems to be taking a classic military response and tacking on to it four times its weight in boondoggles.

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