America’s stealthy submarines in the region remain submerged and mostly intact. They can detect some of the mayhem above,but they rely on US satellites to communicate. The sub-commanders can’t report their findings or receive orders.

The US has two big navy battle groups in the region as the attack unfolds,the standard for peacetime deployment.

According to Molan’s scenario:“Carrier-killer missiles from China’s east and south coasts are fired at the larger ships in both battle groups,with backup from smaller cruise missiles from Chinese ships and submarines in the vicinity,and from China’s old but usable H-6 bombers,which each fire two of the enormous anti-ship cruise missiles they haul into the air under their wings.” All the major combatants are torn apart,burn and sink.

“The cost in human lives is appalling,” writes Molan. Xi Jinping has delivered his message even as the world still struggles to restore communications. Xi’s message to America,as Molan puts it:

“You are out of the Western Pacific and we will not let you re-establish your bases in Japan,South Korea or even Guam. From Japan to Australia and out to Hawaii,the Western Pacific is now a Chinese sphere of influence.”

It’s merely a scenario,but is it plausible? Molan argues that we’re preparing for the wrong war. He thinks that we’re all standing around waiting for a limited Chinese attack on Taiwan. And while he says that’s possible,it would only happen if China’s strategists are silly.

“A prudent Australia would have started to prepare 20 years ago.”

Jim Molan,former major general and now Liberal senator

If Xi struck Taiwan,his attacking forces would be vulnerable to a hammering from the US. Why would he accept that pain when he has the option of pushing America out of the hemisphere altogether,forcing it back to the region east of Hawaii?

Then he can take Taiwan at his leisure,probably without the use of force. And dictate terms to US allies including Australia,now cut off from its great ally.

And Xi can luxuriate in history’s acclaim as the ruler who ended half a millennium of Western dominance of the Pacific.

But is Molan’s scenario plausible? Or is he just an obsessive ex-army type who’s spent too much time alone with the internet and a paranoid imagination?

I turned to a well-regarded US strategist,Elbridge Colby,for guidance. Colby was the lead author of the US National Defence Strategy published in 2018. From his seat at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defence for strategy and force development,he was privy to America’s defence capabilities and all its secrets. And all US knowledge of China’s.

After reading Molan’s scenario,Colby’s verdict:“It is very credible. Molan clearly knows what he is talking about. I would say,if anything,he may well underestimate the scope and scale of a Chinese attack. It is possible they would go for a narrower strike,but it is also possible they would go even bigger than he lays out.”

In Molan’s vision,Australia would receive special attention from Beijing. Because if Washington decided to try to regroup and fight backshort of nuclear war,its most likely operating base would be Australia,just as it was for General Douglas MacArthur in 1942.

So as part of its attack on the US,China positions eight of its submarines at four critical points around the Australian continent. They fire cruise missiles at the air force planes “sitting on criminally unprotected bases”. Australia’s “small but beautiful air force has been destroyed”.

Next,China’s subs send self-propelled,automated sea mines to seal Australia’s military ports. The navy is trapped until it can manage to clear them. And so on.

“The prospect of a war in the Western Pacific is dark enough for the US,but it is even darker for Australia,with our one-shot defence force,our enormous vulnerability” because of import dependence for fuel,pharmaceuticals,fertiliser and many other critical supplies.

Jim Molan hails from Australia’s political right;Hugh White is another ex-Defence Department strategist but hails from the left. They have very different views of the world. But Molan’s book and White’s latest Quarterly Essay,Sleepwalk to War,converge on two fundamentals:

First,Australia cannot assume that the US will protect it from China. Even if it wanted to. And,flowing logically from the first,is the second – Australia must plan to be able to stand alone. As Molan says,“a prudent Australia would have started to prepare 20 years ago”. We didn’t. We need a Plan B. We do not have one.

Peter Hartcher is international editor. He is scheduled to launchDanger on Our Doorstep in Parliament House,Canberra,on Wednesday.

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