[floppydisk]

It's the same strategy the Japanese tried using in WWII to turn islands into stationary aircraft carriers. So long as you can keep them resupplied, it works to a certain degree. The moment the supply line gets into trouble, the island starts losing its ability to project power. Replacement parts, supplies for the ground crews, etc. all start disappearing. As a deterrent, they make a great show piece, as a practical matter, it's possible to either exhaust their supplies and bypass or take them out via other means.

Realistically, in the event of hostilities, we wouldn't send in the air force to take the islands out. We'd launch a bunch of sea skimming cruise missiles from a submarine or a special forces raid onto the island to punch a hole in the air defense grid then let the planes through. We did something similar in Gulf War I & Gulf War II. Planes only went in after other forces ensured the air defense grid wouldn't be defending much.

[smacktoward]

War is Boring had an interesting article last year basically making the same argument, that the way for the U.S. to win a war with China would be to focus on disrupting its maritime supply lines: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/to-defeat-china-in-a-confli...

[junto]

That's only during wartime though. At present it is purely a show of force and a way to prevent the US advising "their" airspace.

If they do want to sell a couple to Turkey, then a US plane being "accidentally" being downed by one due to operator error, would make for a good advertisement. I'm such a cynic.

[floppydisk]

Right now it's being used to build out the Air Defense Identification Zone they claimed over the south china sea a couple years ago and back up their claim with the threat of shoot down. By projecting force over the South China Sea, they, in essence, use the islands to turn it into their own private lake and effectively take over what are considered international waters render moot the ongoing arguments at the UN regarding islands and mineral rights. If the geological estimates concerning the amount of oil in the SCS are correct, it's a major coup and has the possibility of turning China into a net oil producer.

[Someone]

So, what's your opinion on Diego Garcia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia)? Waste of effort, too?

[dsp1234]

Waste of effort, too?

As an air defense base, yes. As a FOB for non-wartime activities, no. As a defensible base in an all out war, yes.

That said, I can't imagine Diego Garcia's primary role is to act as a buffer/barrier so the two aren't really comparable in that way. After all, it has:

"two parallel 12,000-foot-long (3,700 m) runways, expansive parking aprons for heavy bombers, 20 new anchorages in the lagoon, a deep-water pier, port facilities for the largest naval vessels in the American or British fleet, aircraft hangars, maintenance buildings and an air terminal, a 1,340,000 barrels (213,000 m3) fuel storage area, and billeting and messing facilities for thousands of sailors and support personnel."

Is this comparable to what the is being done by the Chinese?

[Someone]

The comment I reacted to mentioned the strategy of the Japanese in World War Two. They had islands with lots of infrastructure (for the time), too.

I think the problem for the Japanese was that they didn't have enough ships. Knowing that, they went for the island approach. Doing that, they gave up mobility in exchange for size and robustness. The mobility of the US navy allowed the US to concentrate firepower and take an island at a time. If distances between islands were smaller the Japanese might have been able to better defend against the US by rapidly moving planes and infantry between islands.

[hga]

They also didn't have enough planes, the ability to make significantly better ones due to the engines, and not enough pilots (they didn't change to war tempo pilot instruction until way too late). They really had no business getting into a war with a mature and robust industrial power like us, their only hope was breaking our will and that, at best, would have only happened when we started invading the home islands.

The war was all but over after the South Pacific campaign which started with our landing in Guadalcanal. Neither of us did anything particularly clever there, besides our only neutralizing vs. taking Rabaul, it was just a brutal slugfest where, for example, in one night action we lost two rear admirals (2 stars). By the end of it, IJN airpower, land and carrier based, was broken, and most of that was done by US land based aviation. For a really in depth look this book is highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813338697

You do have a point about our tactic of defeat in detail, when we were willing to expend enough lives and material we could and did take islands as we needed. I guess one of their big mistakes was thinking they could stop that for any particularly island with their air and naval forces in the region.

[nickff]

Diego Garcia is not part of a defensive line, it is a force multiplier. The problem with using an island chain to defend yourself is that you must keep all the islands supplied, and this is a logistical nightmare. A single island is much easier to supply and defend.

Diego Garcia is a single island, more like Malta than the Japanese islands and islets. Diego Garcia's capacity for basing large strategic bombers close to potential conflict zones is a huge force multiplier, much like basing aircraft in Malta allowed the Allies to disrupt axis resupply efforts to North Africa.

[floppydisk]

As with all other Forward Operating Bases (FOB), it will face the same challenges as any island during conflict. If you can exhaust the island's supplies and constrict replenishment, the utility of the island diminishes. In the case of Diego Garcia, assuming a conflict with China, they lack the force projection capabilities to effectively shut down the flow of supplies to DG. (Assuming the US submarine force > chinese submarine force in capability). Their best bet would be to render it inert using cruise missile and non-nuclear ICBM strikes to disable the runways, mine the anchorages, and destroy the fuel supplies. Bonus points if they can sink ships in the lagoon.