THE FUTURE OF SEA POWER

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The Future of Sea Power
the South China Sea: carefully calibrated and cunningly executed moves based on an
accurate assessment of the unwillingness of Europe and the United States to react
in anything more than a formulaic manner. However, in Putin’s case, his timing was
execrable. The Russian occupation of Crimea was followed shortly thereafter by the
catastrophic collapse of global oil prices. Much of Putin’s grand plan for the revitalisation
of the Russian military was predicated on the assumption that oil would fetch US$105
or $110 a barrel. Instead, it has plummeted to around US$50 per barrel, and with a
seriously weakened rouble, Western sanctions against Russia have begun to bite with a
vengeance. 26
The first thing that Mao Tse-tung did in 1949, following the establishment of the People’s
Republic of China, was to make a pilgrimage to Moscow, the Rome of the communist
world. Stalin kept Mao waiting for several weeks before granting him an audience. Now
it is Putin who goes to Beijing to touch his forelock; the master has become the servant
and the Russians are faced with an array of grim new realities. 27 They are beginning to
lose their traditional defence markets in India and, to a lesser degree, in Vietnam, while,
at the same time, they find themselves in a disarmingly reduced position vis-à-vis China.
The long-term energy agreement that Putin inked with Xi, in the immediate aftermath of
Crimea’s annexation, was a measure of Russia’s weakness, and analysts have pointed out
that the deal favoured China disproportionately. Similarly, Putin’s ambitions in Central
Asia, in Russia’s one-time ‘near abroad’, are being checked and he has been obliged to
conflate his Eurasian schemes with Xi’s one belt one road proposal. These developments
aside, what is important for our purposes is that Russia has made its own pivot towards
the Pacific. 28 An emerging pattern of major naval exercises with the Chinese is a
metaphor for the new relationship between Russia and China. 29 Unfortunately, Putin
and his inner circle have come to inhabit a world bordering on fantasy. There is a dull,
reptilian resilience about Russian society, and the average Russian is prepared to put
up with a great deal of discomfort as sanctions erode his standard of living, but Putin’s
vision of carrier battle groups is completely beyond his grasp. The Russian shipbuilding
sector is dinosaurian, despite glints of technical genius, and although new generations
of surface combatants and submarines are beginning to appear, the production rate is
unimpressive and Putin will have to content himself with being a supporting actor in the
Chinese naval drama. 30
The Protagonists
What of the principal protagonists, the United States and China? While there has been
a good deal of Chinese schadenfreude about US tribulations, as it exits inelegantly
from southwest Asia and tries to cope with a number of domestic and foreign policy
challenges, the fact remains that the United States is still an enormously powerful and
influential state. However, critics and even ardent supporters of the Obama government
have expressed growing concern about the dysfunctionality of Congress, the apparent
irresolution - if not incompetence - of the White House, and the financial woes besetting
the US Navy as it wrestles with budget cuts. Although the declinists are premature