You're whistling in the wind my friend.
Geography dictates that the US will never hold the initiative in the Black Sea or South China Sea. The US will always be reactive because it can't project sufficient power to those locales relative to the land based power.
Richardson might try to roar like a lion, but cruel facts of geography mean that he and his war party friends sound like a little lamb when it comes to these regions. Putin and Xi won't be losing any sleep over this fool.
South China Sea is a shooting gallery of Chinese PLA Navy targets to include PLA Air Force. SCS is a Chinese lake and nothing but a lake. Imagine the Chinese fleet on Lake Michigan and you have the Chinese armed forces in the SCS. Or Lake Superior and so on. Your knowledge of military strategic geography is lacking severely. Your competence in geostratigic factors fails completely.
To the Russians the Black Sea is their lake of total vulnerability. Each the SCS and the Black Sea are land enclosed with only narrow passage ways out. The passage way channels and narrow straits out are covered by US and allied forces and closed off. It rankles enemies of the United States to hear it but when we look at the Chinese Navy in the SCS and the Russian fleet in the Black Sea we're looking at ducks on a pond. Yes it drives you guys nuts to hear that about your beloved fleets but it's the cold hard reality.
The PLA Navy south fleet which is its largest (of three fleets) is based at Hainan island in the center north of SCS. Hainan is just another Pacific island off the coast of Asia as far as USN is concerned to include USAF. Boom. Toasted. Likewise concerning each and every Chinese island in the SCS whether natural or artificial. Period. Gone. In a flash. Same for the Russian Black Sea Fleet and its new docking at the bottom of the sea. PLA South Fleet also ends up in the deep south of the sea and at its bottom. SCS is a shallow body of water as seas go so there's little room for submarine warfare whether defensive or offensive. It's all incoming from above to send into the down below each fleet of each country, China and Russia.
Yes each China and Russia would send up its missiles of all kinds but their bases too will receive incoming from US offensive forces in a standoff position in either place, the western Pacific or the Med, the Baltic, the Arctic, the eastern Atlantic as well as continental Europe. Hell the six new Russian Kilo subs Vietnam bought and that have the Klub missile can knock out Hainan island themselves, without US action. The Klub can penetrate the CCP mainland besides as can the swarm of missiles Taiwan manufactures to demolish southeast China industrial and military centers plus hundreds of millions of Chinese in their cities.
The Japan islands and Korean peninsula through Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia, Malaysia through the Strait of Malacca are a natural wall that keeps the PLA Navy confined inside it and to the continental shelf. Dead ducks is what they are, PLAN. At the west the northern end of Malacca is covered by India which has a new and huge naval base at the Andaman islands to include a giant new air force base. The Andaman bases cover the strait, the Bay of Bengal and into the land mass of Myanmar and environs where China has small naval bases.
USA and Japan (and Taiwan) have the heavily defended Myiako Strait closed to the PLAN because it is the PLAN only direct route to the western Pacific from the east coast of the mainland. This deals directly with the PLAN Central Fleet and the North Fleet. With Myiako closed the only Plan route to the open western Pacific is north past Korea and Japan and around again south to the open sea. The bottom of it in fact if Plan ever were to make it that far. Myiako itself is just north of Taiwan so any Plan sea maneuver invasion attempt against Taiwan gets stopped there. Plan losses will be significant no matter their offensive capability which remains wanting. The Taiwan Strait is mined and netted so heavily and in so many layers PLA soldiers can step across and present a shooting gallery simultaneously. Plus Taiwan Navy has a swarm of fast boats with missiles and torpedoes.
The only direct access the Plan South Fleet has out of the SCS into the open western Pacific is the Bushi Strait between Taiwan and the Philippines. With Myiako closed and only this route for remnants of the South Fleet to traverse, South Fleet can abandon hope to enter there. South Fleet can indeed try to enter Bushi but it's going to end up down in and under it. Sitting ducks Plan is for all three fleets no matter the number of ships or the A2/AD fires launched from the mainland which itself will be under a severe bombardment and penetration. Game over.
eace
