THE CRASHBACK

By an award-winning journalist with access to the highest military officers in the American and Chinese navies, this isa fascinating and chilling look at the “warm war” between the two countries over control of the Pacific’s most trafficked sea lanes—one that is threatening to flare into full-scale conflict.

Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a “warm war,” a pushing and shoving match between the United States, which since WWII has been the uncontested monarch of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world’s largest navy. Each day the heat between the combatants increases as the Chinese, who suffer from centuries-long memories of humiliation, try to claim the South China Sea for their own, and the United States insists on asserting freedom of navigation. The immediate danger is that the $5 trillion in international trade that passes through the area will grind to a standstill. The ultimate danger that is that these two naval titans will be drawn into all-out war.

Already, Chinese fighter jets have established a defacto policy of positioning themselves as close as ten feet away from American reconnaissance planes as they hurtle through the air, and Chinese naval forces have grown so bold thatthey dare to shoulder aside American cruisers, the most weaponized ships ever built.
Throughout Southern Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea respond with outrage and growing fear as China turns coral reefs below the water’s surface into man-made islands capable of supporting airstrips and then attempts to enforce 12 mile-radius shoot-down zones.
In certain quarters of the American Navy the Chinese island building effort is called “The Great Wall of Sand.” What is inarguable is that every year the U.S. is “losing sea.”

But that may change soon.

For more than year, Pulitzer-nominated journalist Michael Fabey had unprecedented access to the Navy’s most exotic aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, aircraft and submarines, as well as the men who command them. What’s more,he was among the only journalists allowed to board a Chinese war vessel and observe its operations.
The report he’s come back with is a reminder, first, of the exotic suite of weapons both sides have for killing at the speed of sound and from thousands of miles away, and, second, of a China-related battle for the soul of the American Navy that for a long time has pitted more conciliatory “Panda Huggers” against more hawkish “Dragon Slayers.”

No more. The Dragon Slayers seem to be prevailing, and what that portends for the contest in the Pacific depends on your perspective. What is certain is that the next great struggle between military superpowers will play out in the Pacific, and this book, more than any other, is the most accurate preview of how it will unfold.

Michael Fabey has reported on military and naval affairs for most of his career, winning the most prestigious award inhis field, the Timothy White Award, and earning a Pulitzer nomination. In his work for such media outlets as NationalGeographic Traveler, the Economist Group, Defense News, Aviation Week, and most recently Jane’s, he has collected more than two dozen international, national, regional and local reporting awards. No other journalist has had as muchfirsthand experience of America’s naval ships and ircraft and the officers who command them. A Philadelphia native,he currently resides in Spotsylvania, Virginia.