Days after communist China threatened the United States with nuclear war over the investigation into the origins of COVID, a new report has surfaced revealing that the Pentagon may soon launch a permanent naval task force to stand up to China’s expanding military presence in the Pacific.
According to the report from Politico, the Pentagon may be planning to launch a permanent naval task force to rapidly respond to conflict in the Pacific.
According to American Military News, “A named military operation would be included in the plan, allowing for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to distribute funding and resources to the effort, said the sources, who asked to remain anonymous.”
The plan would strengthen Joe Biden’s claims that he is tough on China, especially regarding the communist country’s military expansion and aggression in the Pacific. Discussion surrounding the Pentagon’s possible response to China began in the Department of Defense’s China Task Force, which was created by Biden to analyze the Pentagon’s policies and processes regarding the communist country.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an official from the Department of Defense said that the plans from the Pentagon have not been finalized.
“We are looking at a number of proposals in the Indo-Pacific and across the Department, to better synchronize and coordinate our activities,” said the person, discussing pre-decisional plans. “However, as the Secretary said, now is the time to get to work, there are many details and specifics still to be finalized.”
“The task force and the named operation suggest to me that they are going to elevate the oomph and the power of the Western Pacific oriented force,” said Elbridge Colby, a former Trump Pentagon official, adding that if the force “is focused on the Western Pacific, whether it’s focused on China explicitly or implicitly, it’s got bureaucratic oomph to say ‘hey, no [Central Command], just because you have a knee-jerk reaction to something happening you can’t steal our assets.”
According to the anonymous official, the task force would mimic the Cold War-era “Standing Naval Forces Atlantic,” which was a program launched in Europe by NATO in which ships formed a quick reaction force that was able to rapidly respond to conflict.
The reaction force was typically made up of six to 10 ships from several NATO nations, including destroyers, frigates and auxiliaries. People familiar with the discussions are unsure whether the task force would include other nations, or just the U.S.
If the task force does include other nations, Jerry Hendrix, an analyst for the consulting firm Telemus Group and author of “To Provide and Maintain a Navy,” says that it would signal a joint effort to stand together against aggression from China.
The force would act as a “deterrent because it demonstrates a unity of effort in countering Chinese excessive threats to the concept of a free sea and free trade with their large territorial sea claims,” Hendrix said.