The Fall of Kismayo

The Somalia Report has an interesting article discussing some of the naval aspects of the long-awaited defeat of al Shabaab in Kismayo.  Over the course of nearly a year, Kenya's small Navy has hit above its weight during the campaign to defeat al Shabaab's strong-holds in southern Somalia.  While AMISOM forces, largely composed of Ugandans trained and equipped via the U.S. ACOTA program squeezed al Shabaab from Mogadishu in the North, the Kenyan Defense Forces entered Jubaland last fall and moved deliberately northward. Although KDF ground-forces reflagged under AMISOM command a few months ago, the navy has remained under Kenyan control throughout the campaign.  Naval operations have included maritime interdiction and naval gunfire support, and culminated last Friday in a roughly company-sized amphibious landing into the vital port of Kismaayo.  Among the vessels participating in the assault was Kenya's newly-acquired Jasiri OPV (see below video).

Al Shabaab's fighters had largely retreated from the city in anticipation of the assault, some to their few remaining strongholds in the south and mountains in Puntland, some dissolving away to fight again, and others reintegrating with local clan militias.  Fighting continues though, and the security situation is fragile.  As we've discussed, a peaceful transition in Kismaayo, either to friendly clan-based militias or more legitimate Somali security forces, will be the KDF's next major milestone.

The KDF, including Kenya's Navy, should be commended for their staying power and the effectiveness of Operation Linda Nchi.  The unilateral advance initially surprised and offended the UN and Western diplomats who apparently intended for the well-entrenched al Shabaab forces to magically disappear by sheer dint of verbal discourse.  However, in the face of political opposition, a robust but largely untrue social media driven information operations campaign...

KDF ships cowardly shell #Kismayo overnight, killing 2 children & injuring several people despite the withdrawal of HSM administration.
— HSM Press Office (@HSMPress) September 30, 2024

and numerous terrorist attacks against their own population, the Kenyans stuck with it to achieve their military objective.  Hongera!

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

The white elephants of PLAN

With the induction of Liaoning into PLAN this past week, PLAN has reached a milestone in its drive to modernize and becoming blue water navy. We can see now that China has gone through deliberate process of going from a fleet of Luda and Jianghu surface ships to one that will have a carrier escorted by 052D and 054A/B. It has mostly been a step by step process where they often had small production runs and incremental changes. While this has been a fairly successful strategy, it has also left some white elephants in the fleet. I want to look at why these ship were ordered and why they are “white elephants”.

I regard the Sovremenny class destroyer, the 051C destroyers and the Kilo class submarine. You may have noticed that these represent two of the three mentioned here are high profile import from Russia while the third one largely depended on the import of Rif-M air defence system from Russia. This is not a coincidence.

Focusing most of my attention on the Sovremenny class, it was by far the most powerful and modern battleships in PLAN when the first two were imported 12 years ago. Sovremenny class are equipped with medium ranged SAM, supersonic anti-ship missiles, 2 powerful AK-130 main gun, Ka-28 helicopters and advanced sensors. Compared to the most advanced PLAN ship at that time, 051B, it was stronger in AAW, ASW, ASuW and ground support. The two improved Sovremenny class that were ordered in 2002 came with upgraded versions of the same systems in addition to the Kashtan CIWS. If we just compare the weapon systems on Sovremenny class with that of 052B, it may appear that these ships are very comparable. Even now, some derivatives of subsystem from Sovremenny class can be found in many new PLAN surface combatants.

So, why would I consider 052B to still be an important part of PLAN, whereas I look at Sovremenny class as “white elephants”? The main reason is that PLAN has developed its own data link standard, combat and control system and communication system. Now, Sovremenny class is still powerful compared to most PLAN destroyers by themselves, but they have a hard time communicating with the newer PLAN surface combatants. Whenever one of the Sovremenny ships is used to be the command ship of a flotilla, it will have to install a lot of domestic communication and control systems to be able to give directions to other ships. Even using that and PLAN’s data link systems, there is only so much information that Sovremenny ships can take in and process at the moment. Compare them to the new 054A class ships that joined ESF in the past couple years, the additional firepower is outweighed by the modern combat systems and electronics. In PLAN exercises, 054A was used to lead a flotilla of 3 Sovremenny ships against threats of sea-skimming target drones. 054A’s combat system was able to develop a combat plan for its missile, gun and ECM systems using data processed from data link network to destroy all the targets. That’s just one of the problems with Sovremenny class right now. They can’t be used to lead a fleet, their steam boilers are not suitable for blue water deployments, their combat systems are too old, their firing rates is too slow and their air defense systems don’t react fast enough to counter multiple sea-skimming threats. PLAN has improved so much in the past decade, that their decision in 2002 to purchase 2 additional Sovremenny class now look like a panic decision to counter Taiwan’s purchase of Kidd class destroyers. It would be hard for PLAN to refit Sovremenny ships using domestic systems without some Russian help. If China can’t put modern combat and communication systems on Sovremenny ships, these ships will simply have more and more diminished roles in the future.

Although 051C class was built in China, it suffers through some of the same issues that Sovremenny class faces. Now, the two 051C class ships were built as insurance for the 052C program. Since 051C was making use of the existing 051B hull with a mature long ranged SAM (Rif-M), it was considered safer than 052C. As it turns out, 051C actually joined service after 052C did. The decision to basically shove Rif-M air defence system on the 051B hull compromised the hull design of 051C. As a result, 051C does not have a hangar and still uses steam turbines propulsion. Also, Russians have publicly stated that 051C carries a version of Rif that cannot engage anti-ship missiles. Due to the design of the Rif system, each 051C would only be able to engage targets from one direction. While 051C still has area defence capabilities due to the long range of S-300 missiles, their utility is pretty much restricted to provide air cover to the North Sea Fleet. It would be hard to imagine them as escorts to an aircraft carrier, because they provide marginal ASW capabilities and cannot provide the same level of air defense as 052C/D class. If you place two 052Ds together, they not only have those powerful MFR panels, but can also share radar data with each other and also with other ships and aerial assets. If two 051Cs were to provide area defence, they would have to be facing each other just to provide 360 degree air defense coverage and would still need 054As to provide fleet defence. On top of that, they don’t have the same level of data sharing and sensor tracking capabilities as 052C/D ships. As with Sovremenny class, 051C ships are also victims of the rapid advancement of domestic naval weapon systems.

Finally, the kilo class is still quite useful for PLAN. The problem is that their capabilities were over hyped by the Western media. As a follower of PLAN, I see photos of different conventional submarines serving in different bases. The problem is that while I see photos of Song and Yuan submarines out in the sea and at the bases, the only pictures of Kilo class show them either at the bases or at the shipyards under repairs. It seems like China is constantly making changes to these ships to put their own subsystems on there. For the longest time after China first received the newer kilo submarines, it could not complete successful firing of the much hyped Club missiles. Only after some modifications, were they able to finally use these missiles. The problem now is that Kilo submarines are still spending way too much time at the bases instead of making deployments. It’s not entirely clear to me why PLAN has so much trouble utilizing Kilo class, but their importance is diminishing by the day as newer diesel submarines are joining service.

Now, all of the above may sound like I’m overly critical toward China’s purchase of Russian systems. In the case of 2002 purchase of Sov and kilo, they seemed to be panic moves by China toward the Bush's effort to sell more advanced weapons to Taiwan. The earlier purchases of Sov and kilo were very necessary in strengthen PLAN at the time and bringing the technologies that China needed to assist in the building of its own fleet. The building of 051C also made sense, although I think the political influence of Dalian Shipyard also had much to do with it. There are also domestic ships like 051B and 052A which used to be capital ships in PLAN, but have become outdated with the induction of the new wave of warships. They are still relative young and more advanced than Luda and Jianghu class ships, so they will be kept around for a while in diminished role. However, they were not as costly or over-hyped as the Russian import, so it's hard to think of them as "white elephants".

US EUCOM and the Arctic

I have been an absent contributor for a while.  Sadly, this post does not change that, although I am working on a few posts to be up in a few weeks.  In the meantime, this is a brief podcast from an interview of a few weeks back where I discuss US European Command's cooperative efforts in the Arctic.

The views expressed herein are those of the blogger and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Commandant or of the U.S. Coast Guard. Nor should they be construed as official or reflecting the views of the U.S. European Command, or the Department of Defense.

Liaoning and future carriers

As I’m sure you all know by now, the formerly known Varyag Aircraft Carrier was commissioned into PLAN as Liaoning and given the Type 001 class AC with pennant number of 16. I haven’t spent as much time looking into this development, but it’s quite clear that there is a lot of excitement on Chinese military forum over Liaoning class. This news has already eclipsed the exciting unveiling of Shenyang AC’s 4th generation fighter jet (I’m using generation by Chinese standard) and the unveiling of the 052D class destroyers. The only news that has caused more stir in the recent years is the unveiling of J-20. On the English forum that I moderate, some of the fellow members have been waiting for 7 to 8 years for this moment. A few years ago, I had all but given up on Liaoning ever becoming a big part of PLAN’s blue water plans. This was even after Liaoning had been painted with PLAN colours in 2006. Now, it appears that Liaoning has a bigger role in PLAN than many people have expected.

For me, I haven’t been as excited about this development. I was quite excited when 054A and 056 came out. I was also excited when we saw that new mysterious large diesel submarine from WuChang shipyard in 2010. I was really excited when 052D came out. I couldn’t stop looking for more photos on it. I suppose I have already spent too much time looking at Liaoning from when it was first dragged to Dalian to when it was first painted to when it got the non-skid layers to when it was taken to dry docks to when work started on Island to when it made its first sea trials. The more exciting moments will still come in the future when we see J-15s take off and land on it. And after that, it will be interesting to see how PLAN intends to use this training carrier. I read a really great article by Andrew Erickson today, where he talked about how Liaoning will not be that useful in the immediate time facing US or Japan, but could be quite useful in South China Sea. When Liu Huaqing first envisioned a carrier in PLAN, he wanted a medium sized carrier that PLAN can use to dominate South China Sea rather than a super carrier to compete against USN. Of course, this was also back in the late 80s when PLAN had those skirmishes with Vietnam where it had no air cover against Vietnam’s Su-22s. Even as PLAN is still learning carrier op in these early years, Liaoning could make quite a difference in any South China Sea scenarios.

When I was going through articles on the commissioning of Liaoning, I think one of the more interesting parts is where someone from PLAN stated that this shows China can build a carrier. While he conceded the hull was built in Russia, he stated strongly that everything inside the ship and on the ship was designed and built in China. I would imagine that whatever the Russians are doing for the INS Vikramaditya is what China had to do for the former Varyag. It certainly explains why they took this many years to finally launch the ship. Thinking about that, it’s interested that China has managed to restore and modernize a larger ship faster than the Russians despite having to learn the entire structure of the ship from scratch. Reading an interviewed piece from the ship, it certainly sounded like the interior of the ship has been completely changed to the modern PLAN standards. It was stated to have a 24 hours cafeteria with two bars (one loud and one quiet). It was has a supermarket, a post office, a gym (probably also basketball court), a laundromart and a garbage treatment station. Sailors can communicate with family at home through computers and can even use their cell phones. I would imagine the condition to be similar to those pictures we’ve seen of the interiors of the No. 88 life style ship and the Type 071 LPD. PLAN has made a serious effort in the recent years to improve the living conditions of these newer ships as they strive to become blue water navy. So far, we’ve already seen the latest of Chinese sensors and close in weapon systems installed on Liaoning. We’ve also seen the living quarters of the sailors revamped and modernized to be similar to other new PLAN ships. I can only imagine that the navigation control, command area and carrier operations control rooms will also be upgraded to the latest and best PLAN could offer. Liaoning should have much more modern weapon systems on board than any previously Russia/Soviet built carriers. It should also be much more powerful than the refitted and modernized Vikramaditya. Once J-15 joins service, it should also theoretically be much more advanced and capable than any previous naval aircraft that operated off a Russia/Soviet built carrier. Now that they have the hardware that the Soviet navy never had, the much longer process of developing the software (training people and pilots for carrier ops) is about to start.

A while ago, I was asked about when I think a Chinese carrier will enter Persian Gulf. And I think this is a good place to put what I thought at that time. Eventually, a China carrier will leave the safety of the South China Sea and then the second chain of islands. It will move past Malacca straits to protect its energy routes from Africa and the Persian Gulf. I have the following thoughts for when that will happen:

First, we have to think about economics and political situation in China. If we have a serious political or economic problem in China, that would slow down all military procurement. So, let's for the sake of argument, assume that this will not be an issue; and the navy will continue to see 10% increase in its budget every year.

Secondly, China doesn't currently have any real oversea base. And I think they would need oversea base close to the Persian Gulf first before they can really enter into Persian Gulf. They already have some supply points or network of places to support their current operations in the Gulf of Aden. Good article to read is here. In order for China to enter the Persian Gulf, I'd imagine it would need an oversea base close to the Persian Gulf. The location talked about so far are Pakistan, Seychelles, Burma, Sri Lanka and any number of African countries friendly to China. This won't happen right away, but I think it will eventually happen by the end of this decade. I think that Gwadar, Pakistan and somewhere in Burma probably make the most sense. In the former case, that base could be protected by Pakistan army and air force. In the latter case, Burma would also be within range of Chinese air force (with refueling).

Third, what would be the carrier entering into the Persian Gulf? I can't imagine it will be Liaoning, which should serve in the role I mentioned up top. Aside from that, Liaoning is still using steam turbines. If we look at all of the recent PLAN deployments, there have been very few long range ones using steam turbines. Even now, none of the Sov destroyers have been to Gulf of Aden. So, that means it would have to be a domestically built carrier. If the first carrier is under construction in JN shipyard right now as I've been led to believe, the earliest it would enter service is toward the end of this decade.

After that, we have to look at the rest of the carrier group. The current generation of AAW and ASW ships (052C/D and 054A) is sufficient to escort something like Liaoning. The first domestic carriers will be expected to make longer deployments, which would require the next generation of escorts. They would also need something like 095, because the current nuclear subs are way too noisy. Even 095 is still expected to be at least one generation behind Virginia class, so they would probably need something that’s a generation better (like a 097 class). They would need larger AAW and ASW ships that have the propulsion to keep up with the carrier. Aside from the 097 class, everything else (including a new generation of AORs) should already be commissioned by the time the first domestic carrier is ready, so escorts will not be a limiting factor.

The part that will slow things down is the development of the air wing and learning of carrier operations. The first generation of air wing will probably achieve IOC by 2015. By then, the J-15 fighter jet, JJ-9 trainer and Z-8 helicopters should have had some experience on takeoff and landing on Liaoning. For PLAN to feel comfortable sending its carrier into the Persian Gulf and keep it there, it will probably want the second generation of naval air wing. It will probably comprise of a naval version of the new SAC fighter jet, Z-8/Z-15 helicopters for ASW/SAR and other missions, different variants of naval flanker playing the role of E/FA-18E/F/G/H, Y-7 AEW and next generation of naval trainer. Now, most of this is already in development, so optimistically speaking they will probably achieve IOC by 2025. And then, PLAN would probably like to operate it a couple of years before giving it an extensive deployment to Persian Gulf. So, I think it would take until the end of the next decade before PLAN can make a meaningful entrance. By then, they would have almost 2 decades of carrier operations and multiple aircraft carriers.

Interservice Conflict and the System of Systems

My latest at the Diplomat discussed efforts to make military services play nice with one another:

I’ve belabored the organizational aspects of China’s system of anti-access systems because bureaucratic boundaries matter. AirSea Battle seeks, above all, to iron out the wrinkles that could prevent tight cooperation between the United States Navy and the United States Air Force.  Years of hard won experience have demonstrated that military organizations don’t necessarily play well together; they have different priorities, different practices, and often different system of communication that generate friction and detract from overall capability.  The history of USN and USAF collaboration in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and the Gulf is littered with stories of hostility, rivalry, and miscommunication. The Pentagon understands this, and over the years has enacted a plethora of reforms (not least the Goldwater-Nichols Act) to ensure that the Air Force and the Navy can operate effectively together. As of yet there is little indication that the PLAN, PLAAF, and 2^nd Artillery have developed the practices necessary to ensure an efficient, effective partnership in battle.

Points of Interest

On Foreign Entanglements, Dr. Toshi Yoshihara and I discuss rising tensions in the East China Sea:

A few other bits:

•  Last week at the Diplomat I wrote about the continued relevance of the aircraft carrier.
•  Over at LGM I wrote a bit about the Avro Arrow. 
• J. Michael Cole on the militarization of China's civilian leadership. 
• The Jedi Council Reading List. 
• James Holmes on Battleship and In Harm's Way.

The appearance of a second Chinese 5th gen project

On Saturday afternoon, I saw murky pictures of this new aircraft appearing on Chinese bbs that were supposedly SAC (Shenyang Aircraft Corporation)'s 5th generation fighter jet project. Originally, the picture looked fishy to me and I thought it might be photo shopped from F-35. Since then, we've gotten clearer photos and it does look real.
It's been long speculated that SAC has also been working on a 5th generation design despite loosing the main 5th generation project to CAC (Chengdu Aircraft Corporation). While CAC has been getting all the funding from PLAAF for the J-20 project, SAC's design was more of a self funded project that may or may not have received a PLAAF designation. The Chinese forums have been referring to this project as J-31 after seeing the serial number 31001 on the plane (and 2001/2002 for J-20 project). Regardless, the following of this project has been gathering steam over the past year. The first significant sighting was the unveiling of an export version at the first International UAV Innovation Grand Prix commonly referred to as F-60 as shown below.

A few months ago, we saw this covered up aircraft moved around which many people speculated to be SAC's 5th generation project.

And by Sunday, we've gotten this much clearer photo of the so called "J-31". At this point, there is still plenty of mystery regarding this aircraft. It looks to be much smaller than J-20. If PLA decides to order it at some point, it could form a hi-lo combination with J-20. There has been a lot of speculation that this aircraft will get navalized at some point due to the appearance of twin front landing gear and PLAN's stated desire for a next generation naval fighter jet. It also appears that 2 RD-93s have been fitted for this aircraft initially until the engine designed for this aircraft becomes available (so there won't be the gap with the exhaust).

This aircraft could end up as China's F-35 or it could be a privately funded project that will be competing against something from CAC as the lo part of PLAAF's hi-lo combination or it could be an export project. There is a lot that we certainly don't know yet.

IMCMEX12

U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (Aug. 29, 2012)The mine countermeasures ships USS Pioneer (MCM 9), left, USS Devastator (MCM 6), USS Sentry (MCM 3) and USS Dexrous (MCM 13) approach for an astern replenishment at sea with Afloat Forward Staging Base (Interim) USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15). Ponce, formerly designated as an amphibious transport dock ship, was converted and reclassified in April to fulfill a long-standing U.S. Central Command request for an AFSB to be located in its area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Toni Burton/Released)

I think this is a big deal.

Navies from six continents and more than 30 nations kick off the most widely attended international exercise ever held in the region, Sept. 16.

International Mine Countermeasures Exercise (IMCMEX) 12 is the first of what is intended to be a recurring partnership event.

"This exercise is about mines and the international effort to clear them," said Vice Admiral John W. Miller, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. "Represented here are the best of our individual countries' efforts dedicated to securing the global maritime commons and I look forward to  seeing how this exceptional team of professionals moves forward."

The wholly defensive exercise consists of two distinct phases, the first is a symposium where senior leaders from participating countries will exchange ideas and view the latest mine hunting, sweeping and neutralization technologies provided by a panel of industry representatives and presenters.

In the second phase, ships, crews and observers get underway to train together to prepare for tactical execution. Ships will conduct at-sea maneuvers in three separate geographic areas, which will include mine  hunting operations; helicopter mine countermeasure operations; international explosive ordnance disposal mine hunting and diving operations and small  boat operations focused toward underwater improvised explosive devices.

"Everyone here at IMCMEX 12 understands that countering the threat posed by mines is a critical mission to ensure security in the maritime domain," said  Rear Adm. Kenneth Perry, commander, Task Force 522 and exercise director. "The work we will do here will strengthen relationships and enhance mine countermeasures interoperability among participating navies."

The exercise will finish with leaders, liaison officers and observers gathering to discuss lessons learned during the three phases to further foster interoperability among participants.

I think we all recognize this is one of the constructive way the region is responding to Iranian threats, so there is no need to discuss the geopolitical angles here. Several other thoughts come to mind.

First, 2012 has been a busy year for the US Navy, but in my opinion the most impressive thing the US Navy has done is rapidly forward deploy 5 ships for mine warfare to the CENTCOM area of responsibility on a simi-permenant basis. Starting with the four MCMs from San Diego, for the Navy to basically pick up and completely relocate the infrastructure for 4 Mine Countermeasures ships, including the ships and crews, and move them from San Diego to Bahrain - and insure the vessels are mission functional all within about a 6-8 month time period is truly remarkable. When one starts to think through all the various people with responsibility and touch to this activity it truly is incredible what the Navy has done. It was almost certainly a huge mess, but nothing hard work couldn't accomplish - and did accomplish. Throw in the refit and forward deployment of the USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15) and in my opinion this activity has been to date in 2012 the single most impressive activity by the US Navy.

Second, the participation of over 30 nations for a mine warfare exercise in that part of the world is a big deal. I spoke with Rear Admiral Kenneth Perry on Friday afternoon and he mentioned this is the largest mine warfare exercise in that regions history in terms of scope and size. Getting the international community together for this kind of exercise - specifically in that part of the world - is incredibly important because it sets up exactly the kind of real work cooperation and experience necessary in practice should the activity ever be necessary in a real world emergency. Exercises like this help sailors from various parts of the world come together and understand not only what each others capabilities are, but how they can work together more productively. It is important, because mine warfare is time consuming art towards detection and neutralization as much as it is a science of the same activity, and through cooperation naval forces can reduce the time necessary in conducting the hard, ugly business of removing mines.

Third, everyone knows that mines have done more damage to US Naval forces than any other weapon system since WWII, but that still didn't stop the Navy from spending less money and providing sufficient resources for mine warfare for the last several decades. If you have ever heard an insult of US Navy mine warfare (MIW) capabilities relative to other nations - particularly NATO nations, it was almost certainly a well earned insult. Things are changing though. Over the last few years investment in US Navy MIW is up, considerably, and as a warfare area it is no longer seen as something the US Navy could ignore as critical to the way we fight. The reuse of USS Ponce for purposes of an Afloat Staging Base and modernization of the MCMs to use the Expendable Mine Neutralization System (EMNS) and SeaFox UUV are only a few examples of technology capabilities being upgraded, but just as important (I think) over the long haul are the software and data systems on the back end that will help sailors get better at their warfare specialty by being able to accumulate and use mine warfare data - both ours and the data of our partners - in ways not previously available. Whether it is art or science, having better, more accessible data improves the quality of work being done and can have huge payoffs over time - and I believe that is the impact we will see. ICMCEX 2012 is testing new software and data management systems, and while it is a very small part of the exercise, it is a part I believe matters a lot.

Fourth, I asked Rear Admiral Perry about CONOPs for the USS Ponce and he felt they were all in place, that the Navy is ready to go with a Mine Warfare Command Ship. USS Ponce is not a tender, but the ship does have a logistical support capability for the MCMs in addition to the aviation, manned and unmanned deployable, and C2 capabilities one would expect from a mine warfare command ship converted from an LPD. Mine Warfare is more than just sensor and neutralization technologies - indeed it can quickly become manpower intensive work requiring small boats, divers, and all kinds of other specialists depending upon environment and conditions. The addition of a capability like USS Ponce is a huge upgrade for US Navy mine warfare capabilities, because it doesn't steal from the already over tasked Marine Corps an amphibious ship to conduct US Navy specific operations.

CDR Chris Rawley has more on IMCMEX12 and MIW on his blog Naval Drones - worth checking out.

Foreign Entanglements: The Edge of Diplomacy

On this week's episode of Foreign Entanglements, Matt Duss spoke with Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh (ret.). Here they discuss the opening of the US Embassy in Tblisi: Ambassador Cavanaugh is my colleague at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce; prior to that he was the foreign policy advisor to CNO Mullen. See also the tribute to Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Cyberwarfare and Combined Arms

John Reed had an interesting overview of the Army and Marines' effort to create a "cyber fire support" process in last week's FP National Security. Most of interest to the Information Dissemination audience is the Marines' attempt to put cyber within the MAGTF construct:

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps is also hustling to equip expeditionary fighting groups known as Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs) with cyber weaponry to take into battle alongside their rifles, artillery, tanks, helicopters and airplanes. "The future environment . . . leads us not only to focus on [cyber] vulnerabilities [and opportunities] at the strategic levels, but to create options for the most forward, tactical commanders to use cyber as an important weapon within their quiver," the Marines' top cyber warrior, Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, said on Aug. 15. That MAGTF commander at the front end of the spear will have organic, offensive [cyber] capabilities, they will be augmented by fires from [Marine Corps Cyber Command] and from U.S. Cyber Command and, perhaps ultimately, from NSA," added Mills, referring to the National Security Agency, considered one of the most potent cyber fighting organizations in the world

In the 1990s, most discussion about the broader field of information warfare was couched within the framework of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Either it was about using the network to create Dominant Battlespace Knowledge (one of many concepts that seemed misplaced in retrospect) or stand-alone strategic information warfare to disable the enemy's system of systems. Very little, if any, cyber discussion was couched within a combined arms construct. Today, strategic and standalone information warfare against vulnerable rear areas is still the most prominent area of the cyber discussion. Unfortunately, there hasn't really been very much conceptual advance in that area. Many audiences are unaware of formative cases such as Solar Sunrise or Moonlight Maze and the problems they revealed with US cyber defenses. 

Real-world experience and the need to bring capabilities within existing organizational frameworks is motivating a combined-arms approach. There are, however, some risks involved. First, the phrase "weapon" understates the variability of effects that the current generation of cyber-weapons generate as well as the diminishing financial and strategic returns inherent in their current form. As James Hasik notes, precision-guided weapons actually are economical when compared to the cost of deploying cheaper but more numerous "dumb" bombs and delivery vehicles but cyber weapons do not necessarily offer similar savings. The target intelligence, testing demands, legal concerns, shortage of cyber operators, and hat-tipping effects (once used, an vulnerability is exposed to the enemy) inherent in the weapons suggest complications for integrating this sort of weapon into a standard combined arms matrix. That is, if the matrix conceives cyber weapons as somehow equivalent to disembodied field artillery pieces waiting in the ether for grid coordinates. Certainly making things go boom matters, but it is not the only means to an end.

One of the dominant conceptual problems involved in thinking about cyber weapons is also the focus on weapon instead of effect. There were many faults with Effects-Based Operations (EBO), but it at least looked at the problem from the framework of linking targeting method to the type of desired effect rather than trying to figure out what effect was necessary to make a given weapon useful. Thinking about cyber solely from the perspective of the electromagnetic network--and kinetic actions to damage it--is part of the problem. One encouraging sign in Reed's article is precisely a focus on blending different kinds of tools together to precisely achieve a cumulative effect. There are a variety of ways within the broader array of cyber capabilities to achieve effects, and too little thinking about what weapons and attack vectors might match them.

As Sam Liles observed, the common link between what he dubs all three "generations" of cyber warfare is the command and control-centric style of warfighting that originated in the late 19th century. Integrated communications networks is a major part of what enabled the large distributed operations possible on both land and sea that is characteristic of modern warfare. But command and control should not be confused with the technical network. Rather, an institution like the Prusso-German General Staff was a human network that, while built around telegraphic information networks, can be regarded as than more than simply just a electromagnetic superstructure. It might best be considered what Tim Stevens has called a "sociotechnical assemblage" of humans and machines.  Human networks constitute a formidable weak link that can be leveraged to compromise technical systems.

If, say, the British or the French had thought about information warfare from our present-day framework, operations against telegraphic networks alone would have been a poor use of their resources. That is why the World War II double-cross system, which gave Britain control over the entire German network of secret agents, was probably more effective than a hypothetical attempt to damage German telecommunications infrastructure at blinding and disrupting Berlin's command and control systems. John Hamre's chief insight about Moonlight Maze was precisely that the infiltration exploited the open norms of the civilian research networks associated with the Department of Defense to compromise it.  If this sounds familiar, it also is the method that the Taliban may have used to strike Camp Bastion this weekend. While the base's defenses were thought to be impregnable, the attackers likely exploited a variety of human network vectors that counterintelligence planners may have overlooked.  Liles' judgment is that the next generation of cyber weapons will target the entire sociotechnical assemblage, and use advanced computational tools to reveal a system's various fault lines and target it with follow-on weapons customized for purpose.

All of this is a bit of a roundabout way of saying that putting a cyber capability within the framework of combined arms will take a better conceptual lens than imagining digital rifles or mortars. The problem it poses for the American way of warfare is that it puts a premium on a kind of thinking about effects and targeting that runs counter to the instinct of turning battles into engineering equations and thinking about machines over people and the social systems they create. What the Army and Marines are doing is definitely a step forward. The question is how it will be realized--and whether it will avoid or repeat some of the past conceptual errors in how we think about incorporating cyber into military's toolbox.

How a slowdown in Chinese economy may effect PLA

If you have not been following Asia news recently, you may have missed out on the dramatic slow down recently in the Chinese economy. There are many reasons for this slow down. The most obvious of which has been the extreme unbalanced growth model that China has been on in recent year to exports and investments. With Europe, China's biggest export market, in an economic free fall and America also getting into a recession, China's export is unlikely to pick up in the near future. At the same time, we are seeing a collapse in the real estate caused by the bursting of housing bubble. Local governments are saddled with debts from all of the infrastructure projects, so the investment part of Chinese economy is seeing a collapse and this is confirmed by all of the PMI numbers that have come out recently. While Chinese government may push for more stimulus and infrastructure projects to kick start the economy, this is really a great time to start the de-leveraging process and come to a more balanced growth model with increased consumption making up the growth. I'm not sure how long this period will last, but this is all part of the capitalism. You have the boom and bust period. During bust period, the government will hopefully cut back on some programs and reduce the spending. When it comes to PLA, that should point to a lower growth in the defense budget. This happened in 2009 when the defense budget grew at the slowest pace in a long time. And Chinese government has shown in the past that it is willing to divert money from defense to help economic development. The question is how PLA will adjust to smaller increases in its budget. Which programs will it cut? Or which programs should be cut or reduced?

If we look back in the 80s, when PLA saw its budget cut pretty much every year, most of the programs it embarked on were cut or abandoned very early on. When Su-27s were purchased in the early 90s, there were even many who called for abandoning the J-10 program. That's quite amazing considering that J-10 has been described as China's Apollo project by some. At the same time, many naval projects like 052 and nuclear submarines were delayed while the shipyards continue to build low technology ships due to lack of funding, lack of technical expertise and arms embargo. Of course, the PLA build up of the past 20 years were the results of increased funding, technology transfer from Russia and improved civilian industries.

First of all, what should PLA look into slowing down, reducing or cutting if the procurement and RnD budgets are cut by 10 to 20% vs PLA's current projection levels. Suppose the four services of air force, navy, army and second artillery all get cut around that level, I will look at the two areas I'm more familiar with: air force and navy. I will talk about training and personnel cost later.

In the air force, there are programs that must go on like J-20, Y-20, KJ-2000 (or some future variants of it) and Y-8 special missions aircraft. They will receive proper funding for the foreseeable future. There are ongoing programs like J-10 and flankers series that may see cut in funding resulting in early termination of some variants and shelving of some variants. For example, J-10B has been stuck in the test stage for seemingly a long time and looks to finally be ready for induction. If J-20 becomes successful early, PLAAF may choose to shelve future "semi-stealthy" variants of J-10 to save on development cost and continue to produce J-10B while upgrading J-10A with more advanced electronics and weaponry. In the case of the flanker series, PLAAF may terminate J-11B project early due to its bad performances in the recent red flag/blue flag aerial exercises at Dingxin. The J-16 project could also be cut if SAC continues to have problem actually developing new flanker variants to serve PLAAF. And SAC's 5th generation project may loose PLAAF funding if SAC continues to struggle. There are also many UAV and UCAV projects that are under way in China as we've seen in the recent Zhuhai air shows. Many of these projects are privately funded or for export purposes, but we know PLAAF also has requirements of different types of UAVs and UCAVs. PLAAF may delay the purchase of some of the UAVs while going with more mature and less advanced designs. Of course, these are just my personal speculation and the success of many programs depend not only on their performance but also on the political connection of the people involved in the projects. On top of these core PLAAF projects, there are also the less essential ones that may not get chosen or delayed. JF-17 has long been talked about as a project that may provide the lo-end of China's fighter force and I've long advocated PLAAF purchase a variant of it. However, if PLAAF is in a cash crunch and deems JF-17 to be too expensive, it may continue to purchase J-8IIs or cut some of the regiments and restart J-10A production to lower the logistical cost of having another type of fighter jet in service. In the area of advanced jet trainer, PLAAF may completely give up on purchasing the more expensive L-15 project and only purchase the less advanced JJ-9 project. Future variants of JH-7 will probably be left on the drawing board while JH-7A replaces all remaining Q-5 regiments as the workhorse attacking aircraft of PLAAF. Future bomber projects will get pushed back even more while XAC continues to churn out newer variants of the 50s era H-6 bombers. The Y-9 project will probably get enough funding by then to already be in service, but the speculated jet engine powered version of medium transport will probably be abandoned.

In the navy, most of the programs are amazingly efficient due to China's very competitive civilian shipbuilding industry and advancing electronics industry. Off the top my head, I really cannot think of any ship class currently under production that's really badly managed and deserve to get cut. In the beginning part of PLAN's modernization, it was forced to make large leaps in technology and had numerous classes with limited production to eventually get modern warships. You can see that from 052 to 051B to 052B to 052C. In cases where it did make huge leap like from 052/051B to 052B/C, PLAN waited 7 years before the problems are all sorted out and it can start mass production at much lower cost. At this point, it is no longer forced to make as large leaps in technology, so I think cost escalations have not been major issues with PLAN. As seen in recently in new surface ships, PLAN chooses to either create a new ship class with the same hull but new weapon system or the same weapon systems but the same hull. You can see this in the transition from 053H3 (Jiangwei II) class transition to 054 and then from 054 to 054A. If PLAN had jumped directly from 053H3 to 054A, that would have carried a lot of risks in terms of having a entirely new hull and propulsion system on top of a wholly new air defense system. We've also seen this with 052C to 052D to the speculated 055 class. The new major item weapon systems eventually intended for 055 class will get tested out on 052D. So when 055 program starts, the risk of the project lies only with the new hull and propulsion system and not with the weapon system. The air defense suite, VLS, new naval LACM, main gun, and CIWS would already have been tested on 052D. So after complimenting PLAN for this long, what can they do to lower cost. I think one answer would be to reduce the production level of each ship class that's been mass produced. For example, 022 class could've stopped at 64 instead of whatever the total is now. 054A production run could've stopped at 12 instead of the 16 that's been planned. Yuan class submarine could've been stopped at 8 instead of 12 or 16 that's been planned. I would also advocate for the earlier retirement of some ships that have run out of use like most of the Luda class "destroyers" and Jianghu class "frigates". Recently, we've seen many new warships coming into service, but PLAN has shown an utter reluctance to decommission older ships. PLAN needs to retire some of the older ships or else it will have too many personnel to maintain. Above all, I think if PLAN is really facing a cash crunch, it could always delay the production of a carrier and planned escorts to cut costs. Naval air projects could also be delayed to cut down cost. If the choice for funding of blue water navy was between nuclear submarine or a carrier force, I think it's more important for PLAN to continue to fully fund its nuclear submarine research and development rather than aircraft carriers. There is nothing wrong with spending more time training and learning to operate on one domestic aircraft carrier (+ Liaoning, formerly known as Varyag) before speeding up aircraft production.

I think when it comes to training, large scale exercises and oversea missions, PLA should not cut back its funding in these areas at all. China is finally learning to devote more resources into more advanced training method and improving the quality of its sailors and pilots. Both PLAAF and PLAN have received a lot of new toys recently and I have always wondered whether improvement in software can keep up with improvements in hardware. So even if the procurement budget goes down, the training budget should continue at current pace to bridge the back between China and better trained military forces around the world. Finally, I think personnel cost is not going to be an issue. A large part of the recent climb in PLA budget has been to accommodate the increased quality of life around China. Food and fuel cost in additional to cost of goods have all been going up due to the economic boom. At the same time, better living quarters using more expensive construction material and increased wages have to be allotted to recruit more intelligent young people around the country to have a career in the increasingly less attractive profession of serving in the military. In the bust portion of the economic cycle, these costs will all be turned upside down with inflation likely to completely disappear and worker wage increases falling to flat.

So in the face of increasingly gloomy economic situation in China, PLA will be forced to make some choices in cutting back some of its projected increases. I think that both procurement and personnel cost will see reduction from projected levels. I'm sure the conversation within PLA will be no different than some of the conversations going on in the Pentagon right now

The Three Hub Navy

This week's events along the northern edge of Africa remind us once again of the reality of our smaller Navy and the incontrovertible truth that one ship cannot be in two places at once.

I will not state here or anywhere else that had we a larger Navy, one which routinely stationed what was referred to in  "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower" (CS21) as "regionally concentrated credible combat power" in the Mediterranean, our Ambassador to Libya would be alive today, or that the Embassy in Cairo would not have been rushed. 

Additionally, I am aware that the "two hub Navy"--one in the Indian Ocean/Arabian Gulf and one in the Western Pacific--was formalized in the document cited above, with which I am directly and proudly associated.

I will however, assert that the lack of a Mediterranean hub limits our deterrence and response options.  Ultimately, we as a nation must decide whether those response options are worth paying for.

I have argued in this blog and elsewhere that much of CS21 has been overcome by events--or more appropriately--that much of that strategy can be clarified and specified based on changes in the strategic environment. 

The two hub Navy is one of the ideas that must be reconsidered.  Again--the tragic death of our Ambassador to Libya does not in and of itself demand the presence of U.S. naval combat power in the Mediterranean.  Rather, this latest tragedy should be viewed against the backdrop of instability and uncertainty that spans the Maghreb, Egypt and the Levant, and our historic relationship with Israel. 

Transits of CVBG's and ESG's through the Mediterranean on their way to CENTCOM can no longer be viewed as a sufficient posture for the United States to take given our interests in the region. Among those interests are:  1) the security of the State of Israel, 2) the surveillance of regimes in the region whose political aims are antithetical to American interests and security 3) preventing a strategic linkage between large, powerful state actors and terror groups. 

And while forward stationed BMD assets are an encouraging step toward a greater presence in the region, they should be considered just that--a step.  As for the two Destroyers sortied to the Libyan coast, I consider this a rational signalling response, but I am dubious as to their purpose beyond that.

I have not run the numbers, but I suspect our current fleet would be incapable of executing a three hub Navy, and by that I mean 1.0 presence of CVN and LHD/A at each hub.  At some point, LHD/A with JSF could serve as a proxy for a CVN, but I am not sure whether even that is sustainable.  Add to this mix CENTCOM's continuing (perhaps permanent?) requirement for 2.0 CVN presence, and the prospects become even more dim.

The case for re-establishing the Mediterranean hub should also be considered in the context of China's rise, and the recent emphasis on the primacy of American naval and aerospace power in the Pacific.  It is interesting to watch the Chinese ratchet up their activity vis-a-vis disputed territories while we find ourselves occupied half a world away.

Bryan McGrath

The Fundamentals of Surface Warfare: Sailors and Ships

The following email was sent out by Admiral John C Harvey Jr. on September 1, 2024 to all surface warfare Flag officers. Admiral Harvey requested no one publish this email until today - his retirement day. Admiral Harvey is one of the great ones - and for me personally the most impressive uniformed leader I have observed since i began writing about the US Navy. I wish him the very best in the future, I can't wait to buy him a beer, and I hope he keeps putting pen to paper.

The Fundamentals of Surface Warfare: Sailors and Ships

Fellow Surface Warfare Flag Officers, I'm communicating with you today in my capacity as the senior Surface Warfare Officer on active duty, otherwise known as "the Old Salt," who is soon to retire and who, upon retirement, will relinquish that status and the honorific that accompanies it to VADM Terry Blake. This e-mail is my first "Old Salt-gram" to you, the leaders of our community, and it will be my only one.

Having had the great privilege of serving as a SWO for many years in a wide array of duties, the last 12 years as a Flag officer, I've watched our community grow and develop in both capability and professionalism across the wide array of mission sets for which we are responsible. And while there is certainly a great  deal that is very positive for us to focus on, from the quality and performance of our ships to the quality and performance of our Sailors, there is a significant  issue I want to discuss with you because of the painful lessons-learned we've accumulated over the years and the potential implications for the surface force  if we don't take those lessons-learned to heart.

The past few years have been a serious wake-up call for our surface force. We discovered that the cumulative impact of individual decisions made over long periods of time, driven by unique and widely varying circumstances, had put the future readiness of our surface force at risk. And, most unfortunately, it took "outsiders" (INSURV followed by the Fleet Review Panel) to fully piece together what happened (Attachment 1) and document the full scope of the problems (Attachment 2), which spanned our entire man, train, equip and maintain domain.

So how did we get into such a situation? As I look back over the experiences in my career, which started in 1973 with naval nuclear propulsion training  followed by my first tour at sea in the Big E's Reactor department, I see three significant changes in how we did business as a community that got us off track:

1) We shifted our primary focus away from Sailors and Ships - the fundamentals of surface warfare - to finding efficiencies/reducing costs in order to fund  other important efforts such as recapitalization. We took our eyes off the ball of the main thing for which we were responsible - maintaining the wholeness and operational effectiveness of the surface force. Because readiness trends develop and evidence themselves over years and not months, shifting our primary focus to individual cost-cutting measures gave us a very myopic view of our surface force and the way ahead; institutionally, we essentially walked into the future looking at our feet.

So why didn't we hear from the deckplates that we were going to walk into a wall? Our conceptual shift to investing the Surface Warfare Enterprise (SWE) with command and control functions rather than properly limiting the SWE to informing accountable commanders to enable sound decisions removed our most reliable feedback loop by focusing everyone (our leadership, our organizations, and our commands) on efficiency measures, not OPERATIONAL  EFFECTIVENESS. We certainly developed a large number of plans to achieve greater efficiencies, but we did not pay sufficient attention to rigorously evaluating the products of those plans, particularly as their effects on our surface force grew over time.

And, in the process, we "trained" our people on the deckplates that improving efficiency trumped all other considerations - certainly an approach and a philosophy that was completely contrary to the institutional culture of ownership - "this is MY ship; this is MY gear" - and the institutional focus on operational readiness - "we are ready NOW" - that have been at the very foundation of our surface force since its beginnings.

At US Fleet Forces, my #1 priority has been to provide our aviation squadrons, submarines, ships, expeditionary units and cyber units with the means to  accomplish their assigned missions and to ensure they are ready for tasking - in short, to ensure the WHOLENESS of our Fleet.

Specifically, for our surface force, I define delivering wholeness as providing the appropriate resources (for manning, training, equipping and maintaining) and time required to prepare a crew not just to deploy, but to sail forward with confidence in their ability to accomplish their assigned missions, sustain their ship's operational readiness,  and do their part to help their ship achieve its expected service life.

Stated simply, our job is to grow Sailors like FN Thornes and give them ships (Attachment 3) that can confidently accomplish the Navy's mission: conduct prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea. All the actions we have pursued over the last three years have been singularly focused to achieve that outcome (Attachment 4).

2) When the assumptions behind the man, train, equip and maintain decisions did not prove valid, we didn't revisit our decisions and adjust course as required.

In short, we didn't routinely, rigorously and thoroughly evaluate the products of the plans we were executing.

For example, we reduced manpower requirements on our ships based on technology initiatives that did not deliver as expected and then manned our ships  to 90% of that lower requirement; the initial struggles of LPD-17's commissioning crew are an example of what occurred as a result of this practice. We shifted maintenance ashore, scaled back our shipboard 3M program and reduced our preventive maintenance requirements to fit a smaller workforce, and then failed to fully fund the shore maintenance capacity we required.

The result was optimally-manned ships that we could not maintain to the performance and reliability standards we previously mandated in order to achieve mission success over service life. This result became apparent with the increase in the failure rate of the INSURV Material Inspection, the "gold standard" inspection which measures the performance of our Sailors and their ships against the established standards required to sustain wholeness and mission  effectiveness over the life of the ship.

Sustaining the force requires constant investment - both in money and time - AND an effective feedback loop. There is no easy way out and there are no  shortcuts, as we are finding out today (Attachment 5).

3) The combination of our shift in focus and failure to routinely evaluate the product of the plans resulted in too many Sailors who no longer understood "what right looks like." Our day-to-day standards and expectations had become dependent variables based upon available resources; our standards dropped  with every cost-cutting measure we implemented. An example of this phenomenon is when we see a very big delta between a ship's actual day-to-day  standards and what is required to perform satisfactorily on INSURV, which should be a "come as you are" inspection that we routinely pass.

Now in discussing these issues with you, I want to acknowledge up front that I realize how much more I could have done to fully evaluate the impact the  actions I've described to you had on our surface force's overall mission effectiveness. Looking back on my time as a Flag officer, I can see that I focused too exclusively on the tasks and responsibilities immediately at hand and did not take sufficient time to "step off the pitcher's mound" and reflect more broadly on the Navy-wide/community-wide impact of what we were doing. And, when we did gather together as community leaders, we did not get to the heart of the matter: our Sailors and our ships and their collective readiness to carry out our assigned Title 10 missions. I could have done better. We could have done better. You MUST do better, because now we know better.

So, having recognized what happened and what we needed to do to get back on track, we've been at it - hard. Over the past several years, in very close  partnership with the Surface Navy's greatest friends - VADM Kevin McCoy and his NAVSEA team - we've cleared out a lot of the underbrush. I strongly  believe that we must now keep the press on with our efforts, but with a far sharper focus on assigning the correct responsibilities to the accountable officer(s) in the appropriate organizations and ensuring we are getting the full value of every readiness and maintenance dollar we spend.

Notice I did not simply say "save money." We must certainly be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, that is an absolute given, but our TYCOMs, ISICs and ships must be focused first and foremost on EFFECTIVENESS - if it's cheap, efficient, but doesn't work, it does us no good. If our budgets drop, we may certainly have to do less; but whatever it is we decide to do, we must do it well.

The absolute accountability of our COs for the performance of their ships and Sailors is the sure foundation for the performance of our Navy under the most challenging conditions imaginable. We know that the concept works.

So why did we so readily walk away from an approach that had accountability at its foundation with regards to how we deliver combat capabilities to the Fleet?

There are many answers to that question, but, now that we know where that path leads, we can no longer countenance such a fundamentally flawed approach - the misapplication of the otherwise very beneficial construct of Enterprise behavior - to sustain the wholeness of the surface force.

Re-establishing the fundamentals of how we train, how we equip, and how we operate and then putting those responsible to deliver on those fundamentals back under accountable officers in the chain-of-command is something I've been working on during my entire tour here at USFF.

It's a task that must continue and it's up to you to keep the effort going.

We may not all agree on what I've laid out for you above or even on the actions we've taken to reverse the negative surface force readiness trends, but I think we can all agree that our surface force's readiness was trending negative. Every day we could see the direct impact our surface force was  having around the globe; it was (and is) an enormously satisfying sight. But for those of us who were responsible for the long-term health of the surface  force, this satisfaction was short-lived when we looked ten years into the future and saw the direction in which we were heading. Fortunately, because of the very hard work of so many of you and our people, we're now turning the corner; but we have a long way to go.

My experience over my career is that if you place one person in charge, give that person the appropriate authority, and hold that person accountable for the results, then that is exactly what you will get - results.

Individuals and organizations succeed because they make the choices that lead to success. Greatness is not primarily a matter of circumstance or happenstance; greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline. Officers who are accountable for the outcomes must make  those choices and have the courage, energy and discipline to drive their organizations to turn those choices into reality.

I've had my say and my turn at the wheel; now it is your turn - your time to break the Battle Ensign and lead our community into the future.

No matter  what organization you're in, whatever "box" you're in within that organization and however the boxes are arranged linking you with the other boxes or  organizations - straight lines, dotted lines, dashed lines, imaginary lines - for the sake of our surface force and our Sailors, be ruthless in the maintenance of our standards and keep your focus where it MUST be - on our ships and Sailors.

Wherever you may serve, consider yourself accountable for the wholeness of our surface force; find the wherewithal to routinely step back and get the panoramic view of our surface force, not just the part right in front of you. Then, step forward to act on what you believe we need to do to keep our ships and Sailors ready for the conflicts that will inevitably come our way.

Never, never, never give way on the standards of excellence that have made us the greatest Navy in the world, bar none. And never forget that the  fundamentals of surface warfare are our ships and Sailors.

Every day we see that the world remains a volatile place, with new threats to our nation's security emerging rapidly all over the globe. It is crystal clear  that our Navy will be at the forefront of our nation's response to these threats and it will be our Sailors and our ships carrying the might and mission of  the United States forward. You must be singularly focused to ensure those Sailors and those ships are ready for the great challenges that surely await them.

It has been both a great honor and the privilege of a lifetime to serve alongside all of you. I thank you for all you have done, and will do, for our community, our Navy and our nation and I wish you fair winds and following seas.

All the best, The Old Salt

Armed Maritime Lawfare with Chinese Characteristics

Photo from a Kyodo News aircraft shows the Chinese marine surveillance ship Haijian 51 (front) in Japanese territorial waters near the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Sept. 14, 2012. China also claims the islets and calls them the Diaoyu Islands. At back is a patrol ship of the Japan Coast Guard. (Kyodo)

China's policy of armed lawfare for control of island territories continues, this time with Japan.

Japan says six Chinese patrol ships have entered its territorial waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea, further heightening the tensions over the uninhabited archipelago claimed both by Tokyo and Beijing.

Japan's Coast Guard said two Chinese vessels entered Japanese waters early Friday, and four more vessels arrived soon after.  The Coast Guard says it has issued a warning for them to leave.

China's official news agency, Xinhua, Thursday quoted the Ministry of Agriculture as saying the vessels would be dispatched on routine patrol near the islands to assert China's sovereignty and protect fishermen.

The rocky islets, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, have been the focus of recurring flare-ups between the two sides.

Additional reading material...

Down South at Scarborough Islands near the Philippines

3 Chinese ships seen in Scarborough - PCG
Philippines ready to redeploy ships to Scarborough Shoal—PCG

A few important opinions from China

Unity brings power: this concept holds good today
Diaoyu Islands baseline announcement significant: Chinese diplomat

This map in Google Earth may help with geography to understand which islands Japan is claiming.

There is a Typhoon expected in Okinawa by Sunday night, so that may impact the ability of Japan to sustain vessels in the area. The use of civilian maritime security agency vessels has consistently been a successful tactic by China in staking claims to maritime territories, and no one appears to have a credible idea how to standing up to China's provocations. This is the new normal, and apparently a very successful way China continues to discredit the US Pivot to Asia policy rhetoric as it relates to disputed territories.

Everyone needs new ideas towards managing China's aggressive presence with government maritime agency vessels, because all indications are China has stumped the diplomats with this tactic. Secretary Panetta will be in China and Japan this weekend. He should have plenty to discuss.

Benghazi, Cairo, and the "New" Force Protection Reality

Most of the op-eds and blogs that will be written over the course of this week will psycho-analyze Terry Jones or argue about the relative merits of the Arab Spring. There is, however, an immediate concern that relatively few have addressed: what yesterday's attack on the American consulate in Libya and the American embassy in Egypt means for the protection of American diplomatic property, personnel, and interests abroad. This post will look at both the "new" and old dimensions of embassy and consulate attacks and how the US might learn from how it previously dealt with far greater challenges of this nature.

"New" and Old Risks

One perennial (and quickly cliched) argument of the Iraq War era was that the United States, with its fortress embassy and army of security contractors, was losing the war for public opinion. What was needed was for American diplomats to move away from an exclusive focus on state-to-state relations and directly intersect with the people, free of ostentatious security entourages. The idea was to radically transform the structure and dynamics of American diplomacy to engage the whole of foreign societies in order to gain leverage among sectors beyond foreign governments. At its most ambitious, the idea also sought to utilize a civilian surge to directly utilize the State Department as a tool of national power in counterinsurgency wars.

There are certainly merits to this idea that would presumably justify the risks in question. But there were always nagging questions of capacity as well as practicality. Most importantly, such ideas also assumed a permissive environment for these 'guerrilla diplomats' to operate in. The unfortunate reality is that, for all intents and purposes, the United States government cannot expect governments or sub-state movements in conflict zones or politically unstable states to respect the Vienna Convention. Norms of diplomatic immunity do not mean anything to rent-a-mobs, armed "students," or militias fired up by religion or ideology. And counting on host nation leaders looking to protect themselves to risk their political position to protect foreigners is a historically losing proposition. Even when host governments need American support, they often lack the capacity or will to devote resources to aggressively securing compounds and conducting intelligence-based disruptions of assault plans in light of urgent domestic problems.

Since the 1979 Tehran embassy hostage crisis, this new reality should have been obvious, but diplomatic missions abroad have still had a checkered history of force protection. Compared to past eras of US diplomacy, deployment of Marines as precautionary measure and demonstrations of force are sparse. Foreign governments are also rarely held to account for their failures to exercise their diplomatic obligations, out of a mistaken belief that the greater good of promoting US interests outweighs the strategic consequences of enabling these governments to evade their responsibilities to protect American lives and property.

Some, for that matter, use American diplomats and other foreigners as objects of domestic political games. As Christine Fair soberly argued, Karzai's incitement of Afghan rage over Mr. Jones' last outburst was likely intended to demonstrate his independence from the US. But it risked American lives and resulted in the murder of United Nations personnel in Mazar.  It is telling that Egypt's President Morsi can willfully incite anti-American rage and fail to protect the United States embassy in Cairo without fear of losing $1.5 billion in US annual aid or the $1 billion in debt that Egypt seeks creditors to forgive. Perhaps some client states have come to see aid as entitlement that will not be threatened regardless of their failures to protect their patrons' in-country personnel.

The result of force protection spottiness and difficult host nation politics, as Daniel Trombly notes, has been both a failure of deterrence and a heavy reliance on contractors to perform security missions. The ad-hoc alternatives that have emerged pose political and operational risks of their own. These issues range from the political problems experienced with Blackwater in Iraq to the potential diplomatic and operational issues involved in attempting to maintain a human intelligence presence capable of disrupting plots against Americans in conflict zones. The fact that American spies need Spanish translators to even operate south of the Rio Grande and often are forced to rely on corrupt local governments for targeting information is a sobering reality that any force protection planner seeking to use intelligence for force protection must reckon with. 

This is the new reality: in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, the United States must expect that its diplomats will not enjoy protection in societies wracked by political instability and the birth pangs of transition into new forms of government. This problem is by no means exclusive to these areas of conflict. Even Mexican drug cartels have no fear of shooting at diplomatic cars. As Trombly pointed out, the ability of the State Department to advocate for US interests will be compromised if effective measures are not taken. The State Department--on its own--lacks the capacity and redundancy to ensure that most of its stations across what has dubbed the "arc of conflict" can function at the level of combat readiness experienced in environments like Iraq and Afghanistan.

 Of Punitive Expeditions and Politics

Ultimately, this unfortunate state of affairs may actually be a reversion to the norm in American diplomacy. During the 19th century and pre-World War II era, the United States found itself operating in transitional states throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. It could not assume, as a rule, that local rulers would honor US diplomatic obligations or refrain from preying on American merchants. The United States Navy and Marine Corps bore the primary responsibility for protecting US lives and property and establishing deterrence. Most heavily in Latin America, the Marine Corps had the capacity to intervene with combined arms combat power necessary to make local governments respect their treaty obligations. Most famously, the US utilized unconventional warfare during the Barbary Wars to force pirate lords to cease their attacks on American merchant ships.

But the kind of deterrence Americans sought in those bygone days was not the deterrence of Kenneth Waltz. It was more suited to the threats and diplomatic objectives of the time and you will not find an explanation for it in the academic literature shaped by Cold War experience. The United States had limited resources and an politically inward-facing populace. The punitive expedition by the Marines to save the European legation from Boxers and Qing Army units in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion was one of the most substantial pre-WWI American involvements abroad. Cold War deterrence was based on the presumption that once force is used, deterrence has failed. However, as Thomas Rid writes about Israeli deterrence, force can also be used to shape norms of international behavior. As in law, consistent punishment can under some circumstances shape a deteree's perception of costs and benefits.

Despite persistent myths of prewar isolationism, the United States was in fact heavily commercially and diplomatically involved in the world. Particularly on the high seas, the ability of the United States to have political and commercial relationships with the outside world depended on the resolve to punish those who would prey on American citizens. With limited resources, the United States needed to rely on sheer will and rapidly deployable air-ground-sea forces to make up for its lack of a British-sized worldwide military presence. Because Americans have grown accustomed to the luxury of hegemony, establishing a norm of deterrence has fallen as a political priority. But the importance of maintaining a norm of deterrence will only increase as limited financial and military resources heighten the necessity of American diplomatic and commercial presence in a world increasingly resembling the concert system of the late 19th century in structure and configuration.

Establishing Norms of Deterrence

Even if the United States' political distinct arrangements in zones of uneven political authority shift, there will always be a necessity for the United States to use diplomacy and trade to operate in the world. This will implies several conceptual tasks for strategists and political thinkers. First, one cannot simply resurrect punitive expedition and demonstration of force concepts from the 19th century without paying attention to a different configuration of power, politics, and slate of military capabilities. Concepts of operation should be crafted that are sensitive to these new realities. But there are important similarities, such a need for naval expeditionary and ground forces to be capable of fighting both irregular bandits and national army forces simultaneously--a common scenario in the 19th century.  The Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and special operations forces are ideally placed to do more than evacuate Americans under threat in these situations. They, along with nonkinetic instruments of national power, can also be used to proactively shape foreign perceptions of the cost of either abusing American diplomats and civilians or failing to fulfill diplomatic obligations.

Second, the "message" that would shape a norm of deterrence must be shaped by both military and nonkinetic actions coupled with clear statements by government officials about the necessity of ensuring American life and dignity are respected by foreign governments and sub-state movements. As Naval Postgraduate School professor Anna Simons argued, politically the United States should also embrace aspects of a 19th century understanding of its relations with the outside world. Quite simply, states that tolerate or abet injuries to Americans at home and abroad should be faced with a choice of what kind of relationship they seek with the US. Whether national government or armed tribe, those who are willing and able to assist the United States government in securing its citizens abroad should be aided. Those who are not should be exposed to a sliding scale of political-military consequences.

In the event that diplomatic and economic means of power are not enough to persuade adversaries to respect American lives and property and political-military circumstances permit it, rapid and decisive punishment should not be ruled out. If the United States is not willing to employ force to protect its own citizens it will find that no one else will exercise such sovereign duties for it. Establishing norms of deterrence would stand in contrast to the "whole of government" era of American national security thought, which conflated defeating one's adversaries with governing them.  Moreover, it would also sidestep the strategic and ethical complications of the current targeted killing regime by setting clear conditions about targets, defeat mechanisms, and aims of employing force. Finally, it would be a mode of security management more fitting to a near-term future of limited resources.

Future of Force Protection

With security being boosted across American embassies, the Benghazi and Cairo attacks may serve as forcing incidents for some of the concepts noted in this post. So far, the Libyan transitional government seems to be willing to help us achieve redress. Egypt is not. Further events could complicate this judgment, but if unchanged it can and should inform US policy.

To be sure, economic and diplomatic sources of power can and should be the primary means by which the United States defends its citizens abroad. Working with local governments, as we appear to be doing with Libya, is always best.

But if this is to be a truly "maritime century," we need to look carefully at how the United States guaranteed its interests abroad during the last one. Such a review will surely give us ideas as to how all instruments of national power--including the military instrument--can be used to proactively protect American diplomats and merchants abroad.

How Many Flattops?

I have a new weekly gig at the Diplomat Flashpoints blog.  First entry:

The proliferation of flat deck aircraft carrying warships in East Asia creates problems for the sort of static analysis of maritime requirements that General Wang Haiyun’s contribution represents.  Generating expectations for warfighting needs in absence of good estimates of potential enemy capabilities is extremely difficult. While static analysis of maritime interests (the North Sea Fleet and the South Sea Fleet each require an operational carrier, for example) has its value, it is very likely that China, India, Japan and the United States will all begin to think dynamically and strategically about their force needs. Another way of phrasing this is that any credible understanding of China’s maritime needs requires an estimation of Indian, Japanese, and American naval capabilities, and of how those states will respond to Chinese expansion.

Five Points

The National Security Discussion has entered a political phase as the election approaches, and both parties are attempting to make political points about National Security in the context of a policy discussion that appeals to their respective voter bases. The lack of detail distorts these discussions almost as much as the absence of context, and very few politicians know how to educate voters with their public speech talking points - particularly in the context of national security. Below are 5 7points of thought I believe are important to keep in mind while observing the political rhetoric related to National Security for the duration of the election season.

1) A bigger Army is not necessarily a better Army. The same theory of overwhelming force used in the 1991 Gulf War was remarkably effective the last decade of the 20th century, but the United States had evolved beyond that theory of warfare by 2001 when it took ~1/1000 the number of troops to overwhelm Afghanistan and 1/5 as many troops just 12 years later to defeat the entire organized Iraqi military in 2003. Over the last two decades the Joint Force of the US military has rediscovered that it takes fewer military personnel to be lethal and effectively destroy an enemy in war, but it takes significantly more resources to stabilize territory towards peace. This isn't some new theory of war, but the disparity gap between the resources necessary to kill and destroy with conventional military power and to stabilize the territory of a defeated enemy after using such power has expanded considerably over historical norms, and this gap has yet to be rationally demonstrated in a US Army force structure policy plan. The bottom line is this - to defeat enemies of the United States, a larger Army is not needed - indeed the US Army could afford to shrink in terms of manpower quite a bit and actually become a far more lethal military service. With that said, if the US Army will be called upon to occupy territory outside the United States after fighting the next war, a larger US Army is indeed needed. The future is hard to predict, but circumstances that will require occupational Armies can be predicted, and it is time to start discussing those circumstances in theory to forward a legitimate discussion for the Army regarding what we - as a superpower - want the US Army to be capable of doing, thus be.

2) The Pivot to Asia is not about shifting military power to Asia as many falsely describe it, rather the Pivot to Asia is actually about the modernization of military infrastructure capabilities in the vast Pacific region. Despite what very vocal critics like Thomas Barnett claim in various articles, there is no evidence at all of any significant military shift outside the CONUS to the Pacific region, unless those critics are now somehow suggesting that the replacement of minesweepers and old frigates with the Littoral Combat Ship is a major military power shift, or replacing existing older aircraft with new aircraft is a surge. The strategic pivot can be described as a move away from concentration of force towards geographical distribution of force, but the increases to the Pacific region represent little more than an expansion of infrastructure, not an increase in total force. I tend to think the Pivot to Asia is one of the most hollow, hyped political Foreign Policy slogans we have seen since the cold war, because there simply isn't anything specific one can point to from the DoD that suggests a significant increase in capabilities - as every migration of military force to the region is simply a replacement for a retiring infrastructure or system. To quote another slogan, where is the beef? The lack of specific details regarding the Pivot to Asia is intentional, because the power in the policy is only truly increased via political diplomatic rhetoric - not substance represented in force. In many ways, because the policy is rhetoric and not substance, the Pivot to Asia is evidence of effective Strategic Communications - which makes the Pivot to Asia more about diplomatic shifts rather than military shifts. It surprises me folks like Thomas Barnett have failed to recognize the distinction between rhetoric and reality when it comes to this over hyped political policy, but at some point during this election my sense is folks will reset Pivot to Asia in a more diplomatic context.

3) The Pivot towards Persia in 2012 is the most under reported major military buildups in modern media history, which is ironic considering the amount of hype in the media regarding Iran every day. The media has gone out of their way not to cover with any real attention the significant US and European military forces operating in the Persian Gulf region. The US Navy is now forward operating between 50-66% of all deployed aircraft carriers in the Gulf region. The US Navy is currently operating 66% of all US Navy minesweepers in the Persian Gulf. The US Air Force is now continuously rotating several of the most advanced aircraft squadrons in their inventory, including the F-22, to the Persian Gulf region. Nearly the entire training, workup, and deployment routine of every single East Coast Aircraft Carrier, Cruiser, Destroyer, Submarine, and Amphibious Ship is specifically tailored towards operating around the Middle East. Nearly all of the major defense budget adjustment increases for FY12 to date for the Air Force, Navy and SOCOM involve increasing capabilities or sustaining infrastructure in the USCENTCOM AOR. At the same time, the Europeans are reducing deployments to the Pacific and Western Hemisphere to focus naval forces for deployment to the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East regions. Despite the rhetoric that suggests there are numerous National Security issues facing the United States, there is only one national security question facing voters in 2012, and it is who they want their President to be during the hot and likely costly, bloody war between Israel and Iran that every measurable indicator one can use observing military force movements by European countries and the United States suggests is coming very soon.

And because predictions sure to go wrong can be entertaining thought exercises for bloggers, I'd wager a high quality Belgium wheat beer pint that if Israel attacks Iran before the election, with a 2 day margin of error I would say the date is October 13th.

4) The single most important element of United States national power related to National Security in need of increasing in both size and capability lies not in the Department of Defense, nor in the Department of State, but in the US Coast Guard. China is fighting a cold war in the South China Sea using their civilian agency maritime security forces backed by the implied support of military power. Unless the US intends to get asymmetrical in dealing with these tough diplomatic issues - which is sure to create unnecessary tension in the region; the appropriate symmetrical response would be to increase the presence of the US Coast Guard around the world to engage and assist towards the quality improvement of the regional maritime security forces. Whether one looks at Africa, South America (including the US coast), or Asia - the national security solution to most state diplomatic challenges and nearly all non-state security challenges facing the global economy lies at sea, but these are not solely a naval centric challenge. If we really believe the 21st century is going to be a maritime century - and I believe this 100% - the first step is to increase the size of the Coast Guard, and that starts with doubling the size of the large, deployable National Security Cutter fleet that can be sent forward to engage with civilian agencies globally and help improve the capabilities of our partners in Africa, Asia, and South America. I am not opposed to reducing the budget of the DoD, but it only makes sense as long as the civilian agencies needed for peacetime maintenance are funded to increase their capabilities to actually maintain the peace - and that beings with expanding the US Coast Guard. The peacetime Global Fleet Station of the 21st century might be a US Navy amphibious ship in certain situations, but it should also be the National Security Cutter. The maintenance of peace is a manpower intensive, thankless security role that ALSO belongs to the civilian security agencies, not solely the DoD. It is past time the US government forwards national security of this country by recognizing this reality, and balances the reduction of DoD capabilities with an increase in US Coast Guard capabilities for the offshore engagement role the US Coast Guard has a long history of performing. This needs to start now - not later - because while today's challenges might be piracy and illegal oil bunkering off Africa, territory disputes in the Pacific region, the global narcotics trade that is creating significant challenges off our own southern border, or the polar regions of this planet - there are several regions that are going to get more competitive sooner than later, and the offshore economy is expanding at a pace far greater than maritime security forces globally are adapting. While Mitt Romney wants to reconstitute the US Army by 100,000 and grow the US Navy, President Obama would be wise to counter by expanding the US Coast Guard - because the lesson of 10 years of war has taught us that if the objective is peace, the nation needs strong civilian security capabilities. It is time to apply the lessons of the last war towards the future being shaped.

5) It is often suggested that the US needs to help foster some sort of alliance in the Pacific similar to NATO, but it is my hope that long before that rhetoric is explored towards some reality the US gets more deeply engaged and serious with South America. In a global economy, the Monroe Doctrine doesn't work for us anymore for the same reason the Monroe Doctrine with Chinese characteristics is failing China in the Pacific - there are too many interconnected economic relationships in today's global economy for security interests to be conceded by great powers. China, among others, is coming to South America as we speak, indeed I fully expect China's first carrier deployment to be to South America in early spring of 2016 - namely Brazil, not the Middle East as is commonly speculated. Brazil, India, China, and Russia are all poised for difficult, but productive decades ahead. The rise of the BRIC nations combined with an impending era defined by energy and resources - including water - of the next two decades will change the national security landscape globally. Unfortunately, every Powerpoint I have seen produced by the DoD fails to reflect what that change means to force posture, and ignores the key role South America is going to play regarding the national security landscape of the mid-term future. The time is now to start thinking about the BI in BRIC, and what they truly mean to national security for the United States in the 21st century.