The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

In the future, any facilities that China did establish
or plan to use would have to be defended effectively
in the event of conflict. Gwadar, for instance, has
been designed in part to “serve as an alternate port to
handle Pakistani trade in case of blockade of existing
ports,” however, and Pakistan might be reluctant to
grant the PLAN access during a conflict. 195 Gwadar,
like any other potential port for PLAN use on the
Pakistani coast, the Saudi peninsula, or the East Africa
coast is located west of India and is thus too easily
interdicted for any significant use by PLAN forces—
unless India agrees to such use. 196 While it is easy to
look at a map of the Indian Ocean and make shallow
historical analogies to Mahan and the age of navalism
a century ago, in this era of long range precision strike,
a series of exposed and nonmutually supporting bases
is unlikely to pay off in the event of war.
IMPLICATIONS
China’s leaders approved the Gulf of Aden deployment
to protect Chinese ships, which were being attacked
and sometimes captured by pirates, under the
aegis of furthering international security. This does
not necessarily signify a change in Beijing’s sensitive
approach to national sovereignty issues: four UN resolutions
and the Somali Transitional Federal Government
itself explicitly support these missions. Instead,
it represents China’s debut as an international maritime
stakeholder, and a vital training opportunity for
its navy. Significant logistics capabilities constitute the
vital backbone of the mission; their largely commercial
nature suggests dynamism and sustainability that
could make future efforts in this area both feasible
and affordable. In sum, the PLAN is clearly attaining
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