Geostrategic dreams and unexpected solutions
It is often claimed that the conflict in Ukraine has caused the aggravation of Russia's relations with the United States and NATO. In my opinion, these are fairy tales for the unenlightened European inhabitants.
And when did the United States start demanding the internationalization of the Northern Sea Route? No, not allowing American merchant ships to sail in the Russian Arctic – since 1991, merchant ships of all countries have been sailing there. Except for the American ones, which are hindered not by Russia, but by their own logistics. No, the Americans, it is unclear on what basis, demand that the Russian icebreaker fleet and Russian Arctic ports be transferred under their control.
And when did the US and NATO fleets register on the Black Sea? Yes, if the United States and NATO did not climb into Ukraine, there would be no conflict at all.
HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT OF RUSSIA AND CHINA
On June 29-30, 2022, the annual NATO summit was held in Madrid, where for some reason Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as well as the leaders of the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand appeared. It turns out that they are so concerned about the situation in Ukraine that they propose to unite NATO and AUKUS.
Since 2022, Japan has been deploying Patriot long-range anti-aircraft missiles and anti-ship missiles on its small islands at a distance of 100-200 km from Taiwan.
On April 13, 2021, the US Office of National Intelligence officially named China "Enemy No. 1". Indeed, Russia and China are the only states in the world capable of resisting attempts to create a unipolar world. And defend their traditional values and their way of life.
In such a situation, Russia and China willy-nilly have to strengthen military cooperation. So far, Beijing does not consider it advisable to conclude a full–scale military alliance - but there is no special need for this. It is also possible to ensure the security of the western Pacific by concluding a set of separate agreements – open and closed.
Why would the leadership of the Russian Federation not remember the difficult 1920, when Lenin made a number of concessions and entered into an alliance with the Turkish "field commander" Mustafa Kemal. Soviet gold, hundreds of cannons, thousands of rifles and machine guns allowed Kemal to throw the Entente, along with Wrangel's army, out of the Black Sea Straits zone. And for 20 years they ensured the security of the Soviet Union on the Black Sea.
In essence, it was a deal with elements of a proxy war. The Turks ensured their geopolitical control over the straits and indirectly helped the USSR to defend the Black Sea borders.
Well, Beijing, for its part, would do well to turn to the experience of the Second World War. Let us recall how England, from October 1939, was preparing to seize Norway in order to finally lock up the German fleet in the North Sea.
However, the German Grand Admiral Erich Raeder bustled up earlier - and captured Norway, knocking out the British and French who had already landed from there. The seizure of Norwegian bases increased the capabilities of the German fleet several times, and now it was no longer Germany, but England that was blockaded.
JAPANESE IN THE KURIL ISLANDS
And here is another example of expanding the combat capabilities of the fleet and aviation through the construction of new bases.
According to the "Military Encyclopedia" published in 1912 in St. Petersburg, the population of the Kuril Islands at that time was about 800 people. And in August 1945, there were 25 thousand Japanese military and about 10 thousand civilians on the islands, who were mainly engaged in servicing the military.
What has happened in 33 years? And the thing is that since the mid-1930s, the Japanese have created a system of first-class naval bases and airfields in the desert Kuriles. And a dozen small islands were turned into underground fortresses.
For example, on the island of Matua, the Japanese built two concrete runways (runways) with a length of 1570 m and a width of 35 m each. Moreover, the runways were not covered with ice in winter in the changeable and humid Kuril climate, because they were heated by thermal waters passing through a system of pipes under concrete.
On the island of Iturup at the airfield of Etorofu (Soviet name "Petrel"), the Japanese also built two concrete runways with a length of 2383 m and 1203 m. MiG-23MLD fighters were based on the Burevestnik until 1994. And on July 1, 1968, Soviet fighters forced a four-engine American DC-8 airliner to land on the Burevestnik, which flew away two days later.
In total, about 20 paved airfields were built by the Japanese in the Kuril Islands. Soviet historians claimed that the samurai turned the Kuriles into a springboard for an attack on the USSR. Alas, this is not serious. There were very few Soviet forces in Kamchatka. And did the Japanese really want to reach Vladivostok or the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Kuril Islands?
It is clear that the bases on the Kuril Islands from the very beginning were intended for strikes against the United States – the main enemy of the Japanese in the Pacific. For example, the Japanese squadron that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, had previously been based on Iturup Island. And in early June 1942, the Japanese squadron, leaving the base on Paramushir Island, landed troops on the Aleutian Islands. From Musashi airfield on the same Paramushir Island, Japanese G4M Mitsubishi bombers regularly bombed the Aleutian Islands.
RUSSIAN ISLANDS – CHINESE BASES
The question arises: why not recall the experience of the Second World War and agree with the PRC on providing it with sea and air bases on the Kuril Islands? Accordingly, the reconstruction of the former Japanese and Soviet facilities in the Kuril Islands will be carried out at the expense of the Celestial Empire. These restored bases will become a threat not only to the United States, but also to Japan.
Currently, China has six nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles (SSBMS). Each of them is armed with 12 JL-2 missiles with a range of 7 thousand km. Chinese missile boats are based in the port of Dalian, the former Russian Port Arthur (the northernmost base). And also in Qingdao, in the eastern province of Shandong, on the coast of the Yellow Sea. And the southernmost base of the Chinese Yalong submarines is located on Hainan Island in the South China Sea.
According to the press, so far Chinese missile submarines patrol only in coastal seas. In my opinion, this is what hinders the construction of nuclear missile carriers in China. Firstly, there is a huge distance from the coast of China to the Pacific coast of the USA. Secondly and most importantly, in open coastal seas, the combat stability of Chinese missile carriers is clearly not up to par. Moreover, according to Western data, the noise level of Chinese SSBs does not meet modern requirements.
The Russian Pacific Fleet consists of four SSBMS (K-44, K-550, K-551 and K-552) armed with 16 R-29R and R-30 Bulava missiles each. These SSBs are based in Kamchatka, in the city of Vilyuchinsk, 25 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. But alas, our submarines, like the Chinese, do not have "protected areas of combat operations" (ZRBD).
With a mutual desire, Russia and China can agree on the creation of several RDBMS in the Sea of Okhotsk. To do this, it is necessary to create joint air defense systems that reliably cover the Sea of Okhotsk. And the four Kuril Straits, which are over 24 miles wide, should be blocked from the penetration of American nuclear-powered "killer" submarines.
In 2014, the UN recognized the Sea of Okhotsk as an internal sea of the Russian Federation. However, the UN decision is not a decree to the Pentagon, and the Americans periodically send their planes and submarines to the Sea of Okhotsk. Air defense fighters can deal with the planes, and it is not difficult to block the four mentioned straits with anti–submarine nets - and, if necessary, with anti-submarine mines. By the way, laying mines off their shores in peacetime is a routine matter. Let's remember how Sweden did it at the end of the twentieth century.
It is possible to wean Americans from meddling in the Okhotsk and East China Seas in another way. For example, by sending a Russian-Chinese squadron of surface missile ships on combat patrol in neutral waters off the east coast of the United States. The American man in the street will howl – and then negotiations can begin on security zones off the coasts of the United States, Russia and China.
MILITARY COOPERATION IN THE ARCTIC
And why can't Russia help Beijing to organize a patrol of SSBMS in the eastern part of the Arctic? Going out to the Arctic, the Chinese "kill two birds with one stone." Firstly, the vulnerability of their submarines is drastically reduced. Secondly, the distance to potential targets is reduced several times. So, the distance from the Chinese coast near Shanghai to New York is 11.8 thousand km. And from the North Pole to New York - 3.4 thousand km, that is three and a half times less.
The economic power of the Celestial Empire allows to increase the number of their nuclear submarine missile carriers to 20-30 units by 2030. With Russia's consent, the Chinese can deploy a supply and communication system for their missile submarines on our Arctic islands under the sauce of research stations.
In the future, Russia and China may also start creating a joint air and missile defense system (air defense and missile defense) in the Arctic. Which is important, given the fact that since the beginning of the 1950s, the Americans planned to strike at the USSR and the PRC through the Arctic.
A natural question arises: can Chinese missile carriers in the Arctic or Chinese air defense and missile defense systems pose a threat to Russia? In my opinion, the answer is unequivocal – no. Russia and China have a multi-thousand-kilometer common border. Under these conditions, it is complete insanity to transfer Chinese nuclear missiles, potentially dangerous for Russia, from the border strip to the distant and relatively deserted Arctic. And the joint air defense and missile defense system in the Arctic will not physically be able to cause any damage to either Russia or China.
MILITARY COOPERATION IN THE AIR
In November 2022, Russian Tu-95MS missile carriers and Chinese Hong-6K bombers conducted an eight-hour air patrol over the Japanese and East China Seas. The bombers were accompanied by Su-30SM and Su-35S fighters. From such air patrols, regular shuttle flights of strategic bombers of the Russian Federation and China from Hainan to the Bering Strait are just around the corner. With the landing of Russian aircraft at Chinese airfields and Chinese – at the airfields of Kamchatka, the Far East and the Kuril Islands.
By the way, what is a Hun-6K? And this is a modernized Soviet Tu-16 bomber, which made its first flight back in 1952. And why shouldn't Russia help its neighbor replace the Hun-6K with the Tu-160M? I note that the last two Tu-160ms were built by the Kazan plant in 2020. At the same factory, several machines can be manufactured for the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA). And in parallel, transfer the technological documentation for the production of the Tu-160M to the Chinese corporation "Hong".
By the way, in the mid-1990s, China tried to buy Tu-160 bombers from Ukraine. A Chinese delegation arrived in Kiev, and the Chinese even assigned the Tu-160 its designation — H-8. But the Americans were alarmed, and the planes intended for sale to China were scrapped. Another question is that the Chinese are now working on a supersonic strategic bomber "Hong" N-20, created according to the "flying wing" scheme. But so far only drawings of this machine have been published in China.
In general, the list of weapons samples that both countries could share will take at least a dozen pages.
MILITARY COOPERATION AT SEA
The United States systematically conducts secret sabotage operations, which, being obvious, would become an obvious casus belli. For example, since 1971, American submarines have been putting "cocoons" on a closed communication cable between Kamchatka and the mainland in the Sea of Okhotsk in Soviet territorial waters for several years. In September 2022, the Americans, according to their own press, carried out a grandiose sabotage by blowing up a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. Why shouldn't Russia and China, together or separately, adopt the American experience? And just as secretly not to undermine the underwater cables connecting Taiwan, South Korea and Japan with the United States? Dozens of similar operations were carried out by the fleets of the world in the First and Second World Wars, they were not uncommon in peacetime. The secrecy of such an operation can ensure the use of a small underwater vehicle launched from any vessel, including a merchant vessel, which will undermine this cable after a given time – maybe in a few days or weeks.
Such a device can be delivered to the desired point of the ocean with the help of a drone. Why don't Russia and China create their own large RQ-4 Global Hawk drones to patrol the entire Western Pacific Ocean? The author of these lines has repeatedly written that both small and large drones are an ideal means to combat commercial shipping. According to the efficiency/cost criterion, there can be no analogues for such operations. Moreover, a drone or several drones can easily destroy any vessel, including a tanker of 500 thousand tons.
Or another option. A small drone can hit the ship's propellers and immobilize it, leaving it afloat and without loss of life. Such an event would be an effective response to the possible seizure by the Americans or the British of merchant ships from Russia, China or Iran.
In March 2023, joint exercises of the fleets of Russia, China and Iran took place in the Arabian Sea, in which more than 10 ships and vessels were involved. As we can see, the "ice has moved" – but, unfortunately, very slowly. Apparently, the inertia of bureaucrats among politicians and generals of both countries is great.
AFTERWORD
Of course, most of the agreements or joint operations described above look fantastic. They are possible only with a different degree of trust between Russia and China – much greater than today. And most likely unattainable in relations between world powers. But the logic of geopolitical events persistently pushes the Russian Federation and the PRC towards each other. And what seems fantastic today may turn out to be quite natural and even obvious tomorrow.
It is important to understand that Russia and China have something to respond to the most audacious machinations and provocations of the United States and its allies. And, perhaps, it is even more important to convey this idea, and with ready-made implementation scenarios, to the US leadership. Perhaps this will keep Americans from making crazy decisions in the future. Although there is less and less faith in this.
Alexander Shirokorad
Alexander Borisovich Shirokorad is a writer and historian.
