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An Assessment of Thinking Big About Future Warfare 

Marco J. Lyons is a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who has served in tactical and operational Army, Joint, and interagency organizations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and in the Western Pacific. He is currently a national security fellow at Harvard Kennedy School where he is researching strategy and force planning for war in the Indo-Pacific. He may be contacted at marco_lyons@hks.harvard.edu. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature, nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

Title:  An Assessment of Thinking Big About Future Warfare 

Date Originally Written:  April 15, 2022. 

Date Originally Published:  May 2, 2022.

Summary:  There are critical, outstanding disconnects between U.S./western military theory, forces, and doctrine that hamper linking military strategy to national policy. Big ideas about future warfare matter primarily around seizing and maximizing advantages over potential adversaries to compel favorable policy outcomes. The big ideas are useful and matter because identifying, developing, and deploying warfighting advantages unfolds over long periods of time.

Text:  Far more than any particular revolution in military affairs, western powers are witnessing what may be called an extended revolution in strategic affairs. Such dramatic and wide-reaching change in warfare and how it is conceived involves 1) fundamental questions of the utility and most effective forms of power and diplomacy; 2) challenges to future force planning caused by advances in information technologies, long-range, precision fires, and hybrid combinations of symmetrical and asymmetrical capabilities, and whether these define a new warfighting regime and character of war; and 3) influences of globalization – or more specifically, the security environments created by the various forces making up social and economic globalization – on militaries. Bringing these three dynamics together – and more may be added to the list – in a deeply integrated way will almost certainly yield a new paradigm of warfare. 

Both change and continuity are expected characteristics of the future security environment. Thinking about future big ideas is really only possible because there is enough continuity in history and military affairs[1]. Understanding future war is helped by elaborating on seven critical contexts or broad categories of circumstances: political, social-cultural, economic, military-strategic, technological, geographical, and historical[2].

It is difficult if not impossible to talk about big ideas in future warfare without referencing the possibilities for revolutionary change. One of the more popular ideas about the likelihood of new forms of warfare is the revolution in military affairs, or RMA, which nearly dominated defense publications and discussions in the 1990s. The term has a special linguistic power by implying historic, almost inevitable change[3]. Examinations of military history yield periods of profound change in war’s ever-changing character, and sometimes these periods may be called revolutionary, but these assessments are still difficult to complete in a fully persuasive manner[4]. There is no consensus view of the RMA as a way of thinking about future warfare. 

The early days of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) seemed to fall both within and outside the more traditional lines of western war[5]. But just because the U.S. Air Force contributed the core capabilities that allowed Joint Force commanders to achieve effects with air power in Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks did not mean that the character of military operations more broadly had changed. Early OEF was a case of what was possible given the seven critical contexts identified above. Although there are convincing reasons to believe that the character of future warfare will change, and probably change in significant ways, the fundamental nature of war will remain the same[6].

Defense planners thinking about the character of future warfare will be well-served by using a simplified list of four operational challenges. These operational challenges could be used to explore needed capabilities and force postures. The four might be: 1) early halt of an invasion with depth (e.g., Ukraine) or without (e.g., the Baltic states); 2) early attack and early counteroffensive to destroy an enemy combined arms army without the benefit of a massive force buildup first (e.g., Taiwan); 3) effective and low-risk intervention in an ongoing, complex conflict zone or region; and 4) effective low-risk peace enforcement in complex terrain including megacities[7]. There is nothing revolutionary about these four. 

It is inherently difficult to predict the exact course of future change, especially since future enemies will invariably have a say in these eventualities. Nonetheless it is important for defense planners to have a clear sense of the character and general scope of future conflict. While technology will almost certainly continue to evolve, including in the critical areas of reconnaissance and long-range precision fires, there is no overwhelming evidence that the character of future operations will change dramatically for ground forces in most types of missions, and especially in close combat in complex and urban terrain[8]. Tactical continuity is supreme. 

Big ideas about future warfare matter primarily around seizing and maximizing advantages over potential adversaries. Generally, the big ideas are useful and matter because identifying, developing, and deploying warfighting advantages always unfolds over longer periods of time. Finally, the exact nature of future warfighting advantages is highly situational – or contextual – and potential adversaries are presumably trying to counter friendly attempts to secure advantages[9]. The tension in “big idea versus context” illustrates the interactive nature of war. 

Doctrine and the other dimensions of force development are profoundly shaped by the reigning big ideas that capture the attention of military leaders and organizations. Those big ideas sketch what the organizations in question are prepared to do, against which opponents, in which operational environments[10]. So the U.S. Army, on the one hand, may want to cling to the big idea that the most consequential future conflicts will be major theater, conventional forces, maneuver and fire campaigns. Nonetheless, the indicators are that irregular fights – alongside large-scale combat operations – in complex hybrid combinations are not going anywhere. 

Implementing big ideas involves turning vision into things, concepts into capabilities and formations, and orchestrating grand actions in accordance with the vision[11]. Big ideas matter but after all, success is judged by adaptation.

Land forces, and particularly the U.S. Army, have been affected more than other military forces by the existential crisis in supposed relevance caused by the end of the Cold War, the lopsided victory in the First Gulf War, the advent of information technologies, revival of irregular and stability operations, and globalization. There are critical, outstanding disconnects between U.S./western military theory, forces, and doctrine that are, most likely, hampering the effective linking of military strategy to national policy. 

Endnotes:

[1] Colin S. Gray, “Another Bloody Century?” Infinity Journal, no. 4 (Fall 2011): 4–7, https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Infinity_Journal_Special_Edition_war_and_strategy_back_to_basics.pdf#page=14. Gray makes some of the most reasonable and persuasive arguments against assuming too much change in the character of war over time. 

[2] Colin S. Gray, “The 21st Century Security Environment and the Future of War,” Parameters 38, no. 4 (2008): 18, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol38/iss4/7/. Also see Warren Chin, “Technology, War and the State: Past, Present and Future,” International Affairs 95, no. 4 (July 2019): 765–783. Chin concludes that the relationship between war and the state may be in for dramatic change – an existential crisis – as another wave of industrialization, impacts of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies on societies and economies, as well as possible global climate emergencies tax the modern state to the point of breakdown. 

[3] Lawrence Freedman, The Revolution in Strategic Affairs, 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 1998), 7–8. 

[4] Carlo Alberto Cuoco, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Theoretical Utility and Historical Evidence, Research Paper, no. 142 (Athens, Greece: Research Institute for European and American Studies, April 2010), https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/115259/rieas142b.pdf. 

[5] Colin McInnes, “A Different Kind of War? September 11 and the United States’ Afghan War,” Review of International Studies 29, no. 2 (2003): 165–184, https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/16323302.pdf. 

[6] David J. Lonsdale, The Nature of War in the Information Age: Clausewitzian Future (London: Frank Cass, 2004). Also see P.E.C. Martin, “Cyber Warfare Schools of Thought: Bridging the Epistemological/Ontological Divide, Part 1,” Royal Canadian Air Force Journal 5, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 43–69, https://rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/assets/AIRFORCE_Internet/docs/en/cf-aerospace-warfare-centre/elibrary/journal/2016-vol5-iss3-summer.pdf#cyber-warfare-schools-of-thought. 

[7] Paul K. Davis, David C. Gompert, Richard Hillestad, and Stuart Johnson, Transforming the Force: Suggestions for DoD Strategy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1998), https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP179.html. 

[8] Michael E. O’Hanlon, The Future of Land Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25774. 

[9] Colin S. Gray, The Airpower Advantage in Future Warfare: The Need for Strategy (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University, Airpower Research Institute, December 2007), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA477043.pdf. 

[10] Terry Terriff, “The Past as Future: The U.S. Army’s Vision of Warfare in the 21st Century,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 15, no. 3 (2014): 195–228, https://jmss.org/article/view/58119/43736. 

[11] Robert H. Scales, Future Warfare: Anthology (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2000), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA365316.pdf. 

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McMaster, Afghanistan, and the Praetorian Mindset

Lieutenant Colonel John Bolton, U.S. Army, is a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies.  He previously commanded Bravo Company, 209th Aviation Support Battalion, served as the Executive Officer for 2-25 Assault Helicopter Battalion, and the Brigade Aviation Officer for 4/25 IBCT (Airborne). He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College’s Art of War Scholars Program and holds degrees in military history and mechanical engineering. An AH-64D/E Aviator, he has deployed multiple times with Engineer, Aviation, and Infantry units. 

Title:  McMaster, Afghanistan, and the Praetorian Mindset

Date Originally Written:  November 20, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  December 20, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes some national security professionals are taking the wrong lessons from Afghanistan, blaming a non-existent lack of public support for the failure of the American campaign.

Summary:  Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, USA(ret) recently blamed the U.S. public for a “lack of support” in Afghanistan.  McMaster’s claim evokes the legacy of dangerous “stabbed in the back” mentalities that emerged after Germany’s defeat in WWI and the U.S. Army’s withdrawal from Vietnam. Instead of blaming others, the U.S. military would benefit from a far-reaching study to discover the institutional lapses and shortcomings that precipitated failure. 

Text:  Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), has rightfully lambasted the U.S. withdrawl from Afghanistan as embarrassing. However, McMaster goes too far in calling the withdrawl a “defeat” with severe implications for American credibility[1]. More troubling, in a recent column, McMaster blamed the U.S. public and unnamed leaders who allegedly failed to back the American military[2]. According to McMaster, “There are a lot of people in senior positions in government who have never led anything… they’ve never done anything except maybe in academic environments or write policy papers[3].”

McMaster is wrong about Afghanistan and his narrative endorses a praetorian mindset – one dangerously close to the “stab in the back” dogmas that took hold in Weimar Germany after World War I and among the American Military Officer Corps after Vietnam[4]. Leaving Afghanistan will have few, if any, long-term effects on American security but the war’s impact on civil-military relations portends pernicious tensions, especially if military leaders adopt McMaster’s mentality. 

McMaster says America was fighting “one-year wars” in Afghanistan for two decades, obscuring the reality that the U.S. military chose this rotational model and often failed to adapt to local conditions[5]. But the 2017 Afghanistan “surge” engineered by McMaster while he was APNSA was more of the same. The McMaster Surge did not quell violence, deter the Taliban, nor generate effective (or loyal) Afghan Defense Forces[6]. From 2017-2020 Americans did more of the same: hunting the Taliban and training and foisting expensive equipment on poorly trained and often barely literate Afghan forces[7]. Americans were also dying. During the author’s 2017-18 tour, six Soldiers died during a time when Afghans were supposedly in the lead. “Bureaucratic capture” is the only way to explain how otherwise intelligent professionals can endorse logically inconsistent, sunk-cost arguments about a strategically unimportant place.

Rather than explain why Central Asia has relevancy at home, McMaster and others have made expansive credibility arguments – we must stay there because we are there. In doing so, McMaster bastardizes historian Zachary Shore’s “strategic empathy[8].” But instead of understanding the domestic and cultural sources of U.S. adversaries’ actions, McMaster’s “strategic empathy” justifies expansive American action by equating all challenges as likewise threatening. Better to employ a rational consideration of interests and achievable ends, especially amid a public justifiably skeptical of employing force[9]. Moreover, American credibility has shades – eschewing a non-vital commitment in Afghanistan is hardly relevant to the enduring North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance, for example. Tellingly, according to McMaster, violating the 2019 U.S.-Taliban agreement and staying in Afghanistan would not have affected American credibility.

Despite the folly of throwing good Soldiers after bad policy, McMaster and the praetorians see no systemic failure in American national security institutions. Instead, McMaster blames the “defeatist” U.S. public for a lack of support – as if 20 years and trillions of dollars materialized without public consent and Congressional support[10]. If anything, the public and Congress were far too lenient with oversight of the Afghan efforts, largely bequeathing whatever national security leaders wanted. 

The irony of a former APNSA decrying “policy paper writers” is palpable but McMaster certainly knows better. An accomplished soldier-scholar, his doctoral thesis (later turned in the book Dereliction of Duty) savaged senior officers who allowed President Lyndon Johnson to lurch America toward tragedy in Vietnam. Once U.S. forces began fighting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff did little to question U.S. Army General William Westmoreland’s fundamentally flawed strategy. Consequently, Johnson felt boxed in by his own military advisors. Unfortunately, in an unnerving reprisal, American strategy in Afghanistan developed little beyond asking for “more time,” “more money,” “more troops,” while leaders proclaimed “great progress” or “being on the right azimuth[11].” To paraphrase the Afghanistan Special Investigator General John Sopko, “so many corners were turned, we were spinning[12].” When Americans did speak out, as in the case of a U.S. Army Special Forces officer who grew tired of his Afghan partner’s pederasty or an officer who described rampant false reporting in 2012, they were ignored[13].  

As documented by the Washington Post’s “Afghanistan Papers,” false hopes and false reporting were mainstays of Afghanistan strategy across multiple administrations[14]. A 2014 Army report demonstrated the war’s toll on the ethics of Army Officers, finding lying and false reporting had become “common place[15].” Officers, the report said, were often “lying to themselves.” Civil-military distrust arising from Afghanistan needs to be analyzed in this context. If the public shares blame, it is for being too credulous – treating soldiers like saints and senior leaders as anointed heroes, too pious to be questioned, let alone contradicted. Blaming the public is insipid at best and dangerous at worst. Here McMaster espouses a praetorian view of civil-military relations grossly out of step with the American tradition. 

Leaving Afghanistan is exactly the exactly the type of prioritization McMaster called for in his 2017 National Security Strategy. While the Afghanistan withdrawal was embarrassing[16], leaving demonstrates that United States can make unpleasant distinctions between what is long-standing and what is vital. A perpetual counter-terrorism mission in Afghanistan would (and did) distract from other regions. Rather than abandon a failed project, McMaster continues to advocate for doubling down on efforts that were often corrupt and ineffective[17]. It is foolhardy to adopt a national security paradigm predicated on long-term occupations and defense posture anathema to the American public and much of Congress. 

McMaster is an American hero, not only on the battlefield but in the war for the intellectual soul of the U.S. Army. His views on warfare helped shape a generation of officers, including the author. But his correct view of war’s nature has not translated into feasible policy. By failing to distinguish concerns from vital interests this worldview lacks the wherewithal to make difficult strategic decisions. 

America is and will remain the world’s sole superpower. But even massive reserves of power are finite, requiring an adept strategy based on a healthy understanding of the world as it is. Good strategy also requires an engaged but not overly deferential public. U.S. policy will succeed when it prioritizes threats and interests and aligns them with the resources available, not assuming it can do as it wishes abroad with no consequences to the nation’s budget, civil-military relationship, or moral standing. 

Endnotes:

[1] McMaster quoted in Hal Boyd, “Gen. H.R. McMaster on America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Deseret News, October 27, 2021, https://www.deseret.com/2021/10/27/22747222/general-hr-mcmaster-on-americas-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-trump-national-security-adviser-biden.

[2] H.R. McMaster, “Honor Veterans by Having the Will to Win,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/honor-vets-the-will-to-win-war-military-service-veterans-day-afghanistan-taliban-mcmaster-11636576955

[3] McMaster quoted at the 4th Great Power Competition Conference, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvx1rmU-QAU&t=2093s

[4] See Summers, On Strategy and Evans, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for discussion of the “stabbed in the back” narratives.

[5] McMaster interviewed by Chuck Todd, Meet the Press, August 29, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/mcmaster-afghanistan-a-one-year-war-fought-20-times-over-119712325910

[6] See Human Rights Watch, “Afghanistan: Events of 2018,” https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/afghanistan; Craig Whitlock, “Afghan Security Forces’ Wholesale Collapse Was Years in the Making,” The Washington Post, August 16, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/afghan-security-forces-capabilities/2021/08/15/052a45e2-fdc7-11eb-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html

[7] See Alexandra Kuimova and Siemon T. Wezeman, “Transfers of major arms to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020,” SIPRI, September 3, 2021, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2021/transfers-major-arms-afghanistan-between-2001-and-2020.

[8] McMaster, lecture to George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs, March 2021, https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/hr-mcmaster-stresses-strategic-empathy-effective-foreign-policy

[9] Anna Shortridge, “The U.S. War in Afghanistan Twenty Years On: Public Opinion Then and Now,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 7, 2021, https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now

[10] Kyle Rempfer, “Trump’s former national security adviser says the public is fed ‘defeatist narrative’ that hurts the US in Afghanistan,” Military Times, May 9, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/hr-mcmaster-defeatist-narrative-hurting-us-afghanistan-strategy-2019-5

[11] See “Afghan ISAF commander John Allen sees ‘road to winning’,” BBC News, February 10, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-21399805; Sara Almukhtar, “What Did the U.S. Get for $2 Trillion in Afghanistan?,” The New York Times, December 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html; Chris Good, “Petraeus: Gains in Afghanistan ‘Fragile and Reversible’; Afghans Will Take Over in Select Province,” The Atlantic, March 15, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/petraeus-gains-in-afghanistan-fragile-and-reversible-afghans-will-take-over-in-select-provinces/72507.

[12] Dan Grazier, “Afghanistan Proved Eisenhower Correct,” Project on Government Oversight, November 1, 2021, https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2021/11/afghanistan-proved-eisenhower-correct/

[13] See Joseph Goldstein, “U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies,” The New York Times, September 20, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html; Dan Davis, “Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan,” Armed Forces Journal, February 1, 2012, http://armedforcesjournal.com/truth-lies-and-afghanistan

[14]Craig Whitlock, “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,” The Washington Post, December 9, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

[15] Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, “Lying to Ourselves,” Strategic Studies Institute, February 2015, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/466

[16] The White House, “National Security Strategy,” https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf

[17] SIGAR, “Corruption in Conflict: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,” September 2016, https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/sigar-16-58-ll.pdf

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Options to Ensure the Best Indo-Pacific Policy in the U.S. Department of Defense

Chandler Myers is an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He holds a BS in English from the Air Force Academy and a MA in international relations with a focus in cyber diplomacy from Norwich University. Chandler contributes to WAR ROOM, the U.S. Army’s online national security journal. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  Since the 9/11 attacks and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Secretary of Defense (SecDef) has focused on the Middle East at the expense of the other, greater threats. While U.S. interest in the Indo-Pacific has increased since 2009[1], there has not been a SecDef with deep professional experience in this region.  While some may look at the SecDef, as the principal member in the DoD responsible for executing defense strategy to fulfill U.S. policy goals strictly as a generalist, without a sizable length of professional experience in the Indo-Pacific region, or the right mix of Indo-Pacific experts available for consultation, risk of military failure increases.   

Date Originally Written:  March 25, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  April 12, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes that while the DoD’s increasing focus on the Indo-Pacific is the correct strategy, that bureaucratic inertia can cause too many people or not the right people to be in the room when policy decisions are made.  This inertia can contribute to failure and guarding against it is a must[2].

Background:  In an effort to realign the unbalanced focus and strategy the U.S. military executed in the Middle East from 2000-2008, President Barack Obama broke from tradition to restore engagement in and focus on Indo-Pacific regional issues that impact U.S. security, and the security of U.S. allies and partners. President Obama and SecDef Leon Panetta renewed America’s security investments in the Indo-Pacific through increased deployments and enhancing allied and partner collective and individual security capability[3]. The driving force causing President Obama’s redirection was U.S.-Sino relations. After President Obama reaffirmed U.S. national interests in the Indo-Pacific, he ordered SecDef Panetta to increase planning and troop deployments as one way to compete with China’s military modernization and assertive claims to disputed maritime territory[4]. While President Obama’s direction changed the region, SecDef Panetta had little to no experience there[5].  Indo-Pacific problems require thinking in an Indo-Pacific context. U.S. security goals in the region are contingent more on the professional experience of the SecDef, or the access he has to an experienced workforce to help him execute policy goals, not the advancement of the tools the military wields. 

Significance:  The U.S.-China security relationship is arduous in many facets.  Recommendations and options to assuage the relationship bend toward making changes in DoD force structure, but few focus on expertise within the DoD. 

Option #1:  The President nominates people with deeper professional experience in the Indo-Pacific to the position of Secretary of Defense.

Risk:  A mandate that requires professional experience in the Indo-Pacific will greatly limit who can be nominated to be SecDef.  Additionally, a SecDef with highlighted experience in the Indo-Pacific may fall into a similar strategic trap as past SecDefs who served during OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM and OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM; in a sense that, instead of ignoring China to focus on current operations, they will ignore other parts of the world to focus on China.

Gain:  This option will ensure the SecDef has the experience necessary to ensure the development and execution of DoD policies and strategies to support the President’s policy goals in the Indo-Pacific.  A SecDef equipped with Indo-Pacific experience atop the Pentagon will make fewer strategy errors and more wisely employ the military instrument of power in the Indo-Pacific. 

Option #2:  The SecDef establishes an Indo-Pacific Advisory Board, separate from any current advisory boards in existence, to provide him expert advice on the region that will be used to complement the advice he receives in current DoD channels.

Risk:  This option risks alienating the Indo Pacific-focused DoD workforce across both the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, and Defense Intelligence Components.  The employees of these organizations, once they learn that non-DoD personnel are advising the SecDef on the Indo-Pacific, may feel ignored or neglected and their work may suffer.

Gain:  Under this option, the SecDef now has an additional channel to receive specialist advice from Indo-Pacific experts.  This non-DoD channel would enable him to look at Indo-Pacific issues through a different lens.  This different lens would be a valuable complement to the information and advice provided by the DoD workforce and ensure that the SecDef is not looking at courses of action that may only serve the DoD, but contribute to U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific more broadly. 

Other comments:  None. 

Recommendation:  None. 

Endnotes:

[1] Obama, B. November 14th 2009. Remarks by President Barack Obama at Suntory Hall. Retrieved from:  https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-suntory-hall

[2] Komer, R. January 1st 1972. Bureaucracy Does Its thing: Institutional constraints on U.S.-GVN performance in Vietnam. Retrieved from:  https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R967.html 

[3] Lieberthal, Kenneth. December 21st 2011. Brookings Institute. The American Pivot to Asia. Retrieved from:  https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-pivot-to-asia/ 

[4] Manyin, Mark, et al. March 28th 2012. Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s “Rebalancing” Toward Asia. Retrieved from:  https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf 

[5] Department of Defense Historical office. January 22nd 2021. Secretaries of Defense. Retrieved from:  https://history.defense.gov/DOD-History/Secretaries-of-Defense/ 

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Assessing Early Cold War Overestimations of Soviet Capabilities and Intent and its Applicability to Current U.S.- China Relations

Major John Bolton is a U.S. Army officer and doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. He previously commanded Bravo Company, 209th Aviation Support Battalion, served as the Executive Officer for 2-25 Assault Helicopter Battalion, and the Brigade Aviation Officer for 4/25 IBCT (Airborne). He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College’s Art of War Scholars Program and holds degrees in military history and mechanical engineering. An AH-64D/E Aviator, he has deployed multiple times with Engineer, Aviation, and Infantry units. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing Early Cold War Overestimations of Soviet Capabilities and Intent and its Applicability to Current U.S.- China Relations

Date Originally Written:  January 5, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  February 22, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is an Active Duty U.S. Army Officer attending a PhD program focused on American Foreign Policy. The author believes America tends to overestimate threat capabilities and too quickly resorts to military analysis or responses without considering better Whole of Government approaches. 

Summary:  Though it can illuminate adversaries’ worldview, when predicting actions, analyzing ideology is less effective than traditional balance of power frameworks. During the Cold War, American assumptions about a monolithic Communist block controlled by Moscow blinded American policymakers to opportunities (and challenges) from China to Vietnam. Even in ideological conflicts, states tend to act rationally in the international sphere.

Text:

“When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right[1].

– Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense

A paramount transferable Cold War lesson is the need to disconnect ideology from assessment of state behavior. During the initial stages of the Cold War (1947-1953), American administrations habitually overestimated Soviet military capability and viewed Soviet and Chinese actions through an East vs. West ideological lens that was often inaccurate. Moreover, American policymakers assumed ideological agreement easily translated into operational coordination, even when America and its allies could hardly manage to do so. As a result of this ideological focus, the United States expended resources and energy building far more nuclear weapons than balance required and unnecessarily shunned Communist China for over 20 years. Today this pattern is repeating as scholars and defense planners increasingly ascribe China’s actions to ideological, rather than geopolitical factors[2]. Or, failing to see the obvious, policymakers have coined new monikers such as “revisionist” toward normal, if aggressive, behavior. 

Ideology does far better in explaining a state’s domestic rather than international actions. Viewed using Waltz’s 3rd image (interstate interactions), states consider their interests and the balance of power, rather than what their domestic ideology demands[3]. As a result, interstate behavior is remarkably consistent with the balance of power. To be sure, some states are more aggressive than others due to ideology, governmental structure, or individual leaders. However, according to defense analysis geopolitical factors remain predominant as they have since the Peloponnesian War[4].

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s capitulation to Adolph Hitler’s demand at Munich in 1938 is widely considered to have contributed to the German invasion of Poland the following year. However, Chamberlain’s acquiesce to Hitler’s demands came as much from balance of power analysis based on British and French weakness as a desire for peace or pacifist leanings at home[5]. Had the Allies been better prepared for war; a more stable balance of power could have preempted, or at least stalled, Nazi aggression. 

American policy during the Cold War drew heavily from George Kennan’s 1946 “Long Telegram” and 1947 “X” article. Kennan, based on extensive personal experience, depicted the insular, paranoid nature of Soviet Stalinism. Such a state could not be changed but would eventually collapse as a result of a defunct government and sclerotic body politic[6]. As a result, Kennan recommended that the United States “contain” the Soviets within their current sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Though he stood by his description of Soviet society and his prognosis for the eventual demise of the Soviet System, Kennan would later distance himself from the aggressive form of containment adopted in his name[7].

Two brief examples illustrate the perils of assuming too much regarding an opponent’s ideology: the U.S.-Soviet “Missile Gap” and the American failure to foresee the Sino-Soviet Spilt. The “Missile Gap” was the alleged insufficiency of American nuclear forces relative to Soviet missiles that became a major talking point after the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik. Despite officials under U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower repeatedly providing intelligence demonstrating U.S.-Soviet parity, and a general qualitative and quantitative American superiority, then-senator John F. Kennedy and defense hawks lambasted the Eisenhower Administration as “weak” for the supposed failure to match Soviet arms[8]. The “gap,” however, never existed. Robert McNamara, President Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense later called the missile gap a “myth…[created] by emotionally guided but nonetheless patriotic individuals in the Pentagon[9].”

Likewise, American policy toward Communist China took a hard turn toward the ideological, isolating Communist China even more so than the Soviet Russia. Though a dedicated Marxist-Leninist, Chinese leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung was foremost a patriot, focused on restoring a strong, independent China. Soviet influence, much less command and control, was limited, especially when compared to communist movements in Europe. From the Chinese Communist (CCP) takeover in 1949 until the Korean War, many State Department officials believed that after 2-3 years the U.S. and China could renew relations – that Mao could function as an Asian counterpart to Tito’s relatively moderate communism in Yugoslavia[10]. After the Korean War, however, with Cold War frameworks hardened, American policymakers failed to see clear indications of the forthcoming Sino-Soviet split, despite ample evidence from as early as the end of WWII[11]. The net result was delaying for nearly forestalling for 20 years what became a highlight of American diplomacy, the U.S.-China rapprochement under Nixon.

For a nation so heavily committed to freedom, Americans have shown a strange persistent tendency to simplify other states to ideological stereotypes we discount for ourselves. This has terribly clouded the contemporary China debate. China as a competitor is a function of geopolitics, namely structural and geographic factors, more so than ideology[12]. This conclusion does not discount the importance of CCP ideology, but provides context. While Chinese President Xi Jinping and the CCP have espoused the “China Dream” and embraced a particularly aggressive form of Chinese Nationalism, this has not necessarily translated into China’s international actions, which are much better explained by balance of power analysis. As a growing state in a competitive environment, China’s actions make sense as it seeks to flex its power and establish regional supremacy. China’s history of foreign intrusion and suffering during the “Century of Humiliation” of course color its contemporary maneuvers, but they are not substantially different from what we would expect any emerging power to do. It is also worth considering that Xi’s use of nationalism is largely focused on domestic audiences as a means to consolidate CCP power[13].

Nothing in the previous paragraph discounts the very real challenge China presents to the United States and smaller states of Southeast Asia, two of which are American allies. However, Xi’s development of a Chinese sphere of influence, largely built on bilateral trade agreements is not necessarily about “freezing out” the United States. In short, China is not a Communist state focused on world domination; in fact, its xenophobic nationalism of late is detrimental to that end. China is focused on its own exceptionalism, not ending America’s[14]. 

A clear lesson of the Cold War is the danger of oversimplification. Doing so makes caricatures of real conflicts and leads to poor policy. In the examples above the United States lost 20 years of exploiting the Sino-Soviet Split and spent billions on arguably useless extra nuclear weapons. Moreover, a presumption that ideological coherence between disparate adversaries leads operational coordination is foolhardy without evidence. Even in the midst of an ideological conflict, it is best the United States detaches an overly simplistic ideological lens to properly respond with the most effective means at our disposal[15]. Analysis requires rationality. 

Endnotes:

[1] Zenko, Micah (October 12, 2012). 110% Right 0% of the Time, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/16/100-right-0-of-the-time.

[2] Huang, Yanzhong. (September 8, 2020). America’s Political Immune System Is Overreacting to China. From https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/08/america-overreacting-to-china-political-immune-system; Colby, Elbridge, discussion regarding State Department’s May 2020 China Policy Paper, from https://youtu.be/KyBVmSaua5I.

[3] Waltz, K. N. (2018). Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.159-170.

[4] Kaplan, R. D. (2013). The Revenge Of Geography: What The Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts And The Battle Against Fate.

[5] Munich Agreement, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement.

[6] See https://www.trumanlibraryinstitute.org/this-day-in-history-2/; Kennan, (July 1947). The Sources of Soviet Conduct, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct.

[7] Hogan, M. J. (1998). A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511664984

[8] Preble, Christopher (December 2003). “Who Ever Believed in the ‘Missile Gap’?”: John F. Kennedy and the Politics of National Security. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4. 

[9] McNamara quoted in Ibid. 

[10] See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The Far East: China, Volume VII, Documents 6, 270, 708, 617; Finkelstein, D. M. (1993). Washington’s Taiwan Dilemma, 1949-1950: From Abandonment to Salvation. George Mason University Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=8RW7AAAAIAAJ

[11] Butterworth, Walton. (May 1950). China in Mid-Revolution, Speech at Lawrenteville, NJ, May 1950, Butterworth Papers, George Marshall Library, Lexington, VA. Box 3, Folder 13.

[12] Lester, Simon. (January 6, 2019). Talking Ourselves into a Cold War with China. From https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/talking-ourselves-cold-war-china; Wang, Z. (2012). Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. Columbia University Press.

[13] Colby, Elbridge, discussion regarding State Department’s May 2020 China Policy Paper, from https://youtu.be/KyBVmSaua5I.

[14] Bacevich, Andrew. (January 4, 2021). America’s Defining Problem In 2021 Isn’t China: It’s America, from https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-defining-problem-in-2021-isnt-china-its-america.

[15] Herring, George. (2002). America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975. McGraw-Hill, 225-235.

Assessment Papers China (People's Republic of China) Cold War Governing Documents and Ideas John Bolton Policy and Strategy Russia Soviet Union
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The Merits and Perils of Containment: Assessing the American View of the Chinese Challenge

Brandon Patterson is a graduate student of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  The Merits and Perils of Containment: Assessing the American View of the Chinese Challenge

Date Originally Written:  December 28, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  February 15, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Brandon Patterson is a graduate student of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego. Brandon believes the Cold War concept of containment, at this point in history, is not fully applicable to the Chinese challenge to international order. 

Summary:  Containment retains a strong hold on American historical memory for both its hard-headed realism and its utopian vision which came to fruition. Attempting to graft Containment onto Sino-American relations absent historical context risks running heedlessly into the abyss, turning a peacetime competitor into a clear enemy. 

Text:  By 1946, the United States finally realized the threat posed by Soviet armies bestriding central Europe. America had cast itself into upholding the global balance of power — rebuilding Europe, establishing America’s first military alliance, and parrying early Soviet expansion toward Greece. Containing the Soviet threat was the order of the day. The Containment policy which saw America through the Cold War, was tailored to the unique challenge represented by the Soviet Union. It has become conventional wisdom to treat the challenge posed by China in a Containment-like fashion, as Cold War terminology returns to the American vernacular[1]. Trying to repeat Containment’s Cold War performance today may create new dangers rather than alleviate them.

Containment was the prescription for the challenge posed by the amalgam of communist ideology and tsarist expansionism. As George Kennan warned, the objective of Soviet foreign policy was to avail itself “every nook and cranny available to it in the basin of world power…. But if it finds unassailable barriers in its path, it philosophically accepts and accommodates itself to them[2],” for Marxist theory did not submit a deadline for the end of history. The remedy, according to Kennan, was “a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world[3].”  

Kennan concluded that if the U.S. could only man the ramparts, one day the Soviet Union would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Containment was thus created precisely to meet the challenge of a Marxist-Leninist superpower. For if the correlation of forces was favorable, the Soviets had an historical duty to advance; if they were unfavorable, remaining within their borders was merely a tactical decision, and the struggle would continue by other means. It was a mechanical approach to foreign policy with no category of thought for restraint. Containment was the only means of constraining so ideological a menace. 

Today, Containment is not directly applicable to the challenge posed by a rising — that is to say, re-emerging — China. Contemporary China, in spite of its proclaimed communist rulers and heritage, is not a revolutionary power like the Soviet Union, but an ancient civilization which conceives of world order as a hierarchical structure based on approximation to Chinese cultural characteristics. China more often expanded by osmosis rather than conquest[4]. 

The challenge of the present is how to construct a world order based on principles agreed upon by the major components operating the international system; how to translate transformation into acceptance; to create a pattern of obligations which becomes spontaneous in its operation. When a power sees the world order or its legitimizing principle as fundamentally oppressive or in conflict with its self-image, a revolutionary situation will ensue[5].  

When Containment was theorized, a revolutionary situation was already in existence. The destruction of one revolutionary power, Germany, merely clarified the danger posed by another, the Soviet Union. The new international order being built could only be upheld by force, necessitating containment. Even “Detente”, a late-1960s beginning complement to Containment, was a means of moderating Soviet conduct by forcing a choice between national interests and ideological fervor, backed by the threat of American military power[6]. 

Given the manner in which the burgeoning Sino-American rivalry is cast in ideological terms, it is easy to forget that China does not yet represent an ideological threat in the manner of the Soviets. This nuance is critical. A consensus has emerged among American intellectuals that an alliance of democracies is needed to “confront” China[7]. Such an approach poses grave dangers. Though it is appropriate for democracies to cooperate to combat common dangers, an alliance directed at a particular country — namely China — creates the conditions for a rupture. Stability does not require an absence of unsatisfied claims, but the absence of a perceived injustice so great that the aggrieved power will seek to overturn the existing order. Talk of punishing China for subverting international norms ignores the nature of legitimacy, for China played no role in writing the rules of the current system and so does not feel justly bound by them. The question that those who seek to uphold the “rules-based” order face is whether a symmetry can be found between China’s self-image and the most cherished principles of the system, or whether China’s objectives are so incompatible with the prevailing order that the only recourse is a form of containment. Attempting to berate Beijing from one side of the dividing line into accepting the West’s worldview is a prescription for turning China into a revolutionary power while such an outcome may still be avoidable. 

This is not to say China’s present aggression is the fault of the United States, and China may yet evolve into a revolutionary challenge requiring firm containment. But it would be a tragedy to turn fears of Chinese aggression into a self-fulfilling Containment prophecy. America and its allies are correct to defend the basic principles of international order; but it is important to determine what principles are inviolable and where adjustment to contemporary realities is necessary before engaging in confrontation on every front.  If there is one point of Containment that is easily transferable to today, it is that the world will be selective about where it chooses to challenge China, just like it was when containing the Soviet Union.  

Containment, moreover, though indeed tailored to the Soviet challenge, in another sense represented nothing new in diplomacy. Sophisticated students of history like George Kennan and Dean Acheson, saw in containment a means of conveying to the American public and Congress the principles of the balance of power in terms which they would both comprehend and accept. World order requires equilibrium, and so a “containment” of a potential aggressor will always be necessary, though it may manifest in more subtle forms than in previous periods. 

The South China Sea is illustrative. In geopolitical terms, China’s objective is domination of its “marginal seas” so as to gain access to the wider Indo-Pacific, and forestall its historic fear of encirclement[8]. The United States and its allies will not permit hegemony or disruption of international waterways, as America has gone to war on several occasions to vindicate these principles. This is the space the two countries are obliged to navigate. For in a legitimate order two types of equilibrium exist: the physical, which makes domination by a single power or grouping impossible; and the moral, which defines the relations of powers to each other in terms of their particular histories[9]. This is the essence of diplomacy. 

The great Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich was correct when he asserted that those with no past can have no future, but Austria doomed its future in seeking to petrify its past. America can avoid this trap; the means of doing so is historical context. 

Endnotes:

[1] Gladstone, R. (July 22, 2020). “How the Cold War Between the U.S. and China is Intensifying.” Retrieved December 27, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/world/asia/us-china-cold-war.html

[2] Kennan, G.F. (July 1947). “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Retrieved December 27, from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct

[3] Ibid. 

[4] Kissinger, H. (2012). On China (pp. 18-22) New York: Penguin. 

[5] Kissinger, H. (1957). A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich, and the Problems of Peace (p. 2). Echopoint Books and Media.   

[6] Kissinger, H. (1979). The Whitehouse Years (pp.113-130). Simon and Schuster.  

[7] Cimmino, J. & Kroenig, M. “Global Strategy 2021: An Allied Strategy for China.” Retrieved December 18, from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Global-Strategy-2021-An-Allied-Strategy-for-China.pdf

[8] Auslin, M. (May 1, 2020). Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on reshaping the Indo-Pacific (pp.12-14). Hoover Institution Press.

[9] Kissinger, H. (1957). Ibid (p. 147). 

Brandon Patterson China (People's Republic of China) Cold War Containment Governing Documents and Ideas Option Papers Policy and Strategy United States
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Options for the U.S. Towards Pakistan

Jason Criss Howk has spent his career as a soldier-diplomat, educator, and advisor focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He writes a column for Clearance Jobs News and is an interfaith leader and Islamic studies professor. Find him on twitter @Jason_c_howk.  Sabir Ibrahimi is a Non-resident Fellow at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation and hosts the Afghan Affairs Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @saberibrahimi. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  With the U.S. Global War on Terrorism and mission in Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. requires new foreign policy towards Pakistan. 

Date Originally Written:  December, 28, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  February 8, 2020. 

Author and / or Article Point of View:  This article is written from the point of view the of the U.S. towards Pakistan. 

Background:  Since the Cold War, Pakistan-U.S. relations have been oft-based on militant support. Pakistan assisted the U.S. in removing the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan by aiding so-called mujahedeen Islamist militants fighting the Red Army and Afghan government. Post-Soviet-withdrawal, the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan and Pakistan; and Pakistan supported another round of militancy creating the Afghan Taliban to remove the “mujahedeen” government from Kabul. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, the U.S. called upon Pakistan to help remove al Qaeda from the region. Pakistan joined the U.S. in the so-called war on terror but prevented another abandonment by the U.S. through a third round of militancy support[1], this time by rebuilding and supplying the Afghan Taliban remnants to weaken the newly formed Afghan government[2]. Pakistan does not trust America or Afghanistan to be helpful to Pakistan’s policies and the U.S. does not trust Pakistan[3].

Significance:  Pakistan impacts U.S. counterterrorism activities and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a key leverage-point Pakistan holds against the U.S., while the U.S. holds several forms of economic and diplomatic leverage against Pakistan[4]. Numerous terrorist groups operate in Pakistan; some of them aid the Pakistani military to destabilize India and Afghanistan, while some threaten Pakistan itself[5]. The U.S. State Department has designated Pakistan as the Country of Particular Concern (CPC). Pakistan’s economy is struggling, causing Islamabad to heavily rely on China. In 2020 a Pakistani General told an audience at U.S. Central Command conference that “China is Pakistan’s friend, despite the Uyghur treatment, because we can overlook anything right now for our economic wellbeing—our ailing economy is an existential threat[6].”  

This Options Paper looks at the possible future relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. Where the administration of U.S. President Joseph Biden takes U.S. foreign policy towards Pakistan is unknown; but a question policy-makers will need to answer is: does being close to Pakistan help America?

Option #1:  The U.S. adopts an aggressive approach towards Pakistan.

Many U.S. objectives related to Pakistan remain unmet. A more aggressive approach could ensure Pakistan is not harboring, leading, or financially assisting terrorists; or ideologically brainwashing new recruits for terrorist/militant groups. The major U.S. goal of building peace in Afghanistan hinges on Pakistan policy.

In this option the U.S. would designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism, upgrading it from CPC and, as a consequence of this cease all development and military aid to Pakistan. The U.S. would pressure its allies and partners to freeze all assets of Pakistan military and civilian officials related to terrorists. Targeted officials would have their visa revoked, to include their families, so they cannot study, vacation, or live outside of Pakistan. The U.S. would increase its counterterrorism programs in South Asia and follow any intelligence generated into Pakistan via proxies or clandestine forces. The U.S. government would deliver more focused efforts to identify and close radical-militant-owned businesses and non-profit organizations worldwide. U.S. drone and human intelligence programs would be increased to identify and track terrorists, militants, and Pakistan government terrorism-supporters; especially when entering Afghanistan. Armed-drone operations would NOT be included in this approach because the inevitable civilian casualties will increase militant/terrorist recruiting and responses.

Risk:  This option would increase suffering among Pakistani citizens due to decreases in U.S. development funding which could lead to more violence and radicalism. Lack of U.S. aid may lead to the U.S. losing its remaining allies in the civilian and military establishment in Pakistan. Pakistan would end its support of the Afghan peace process. Pakistan fully aligns with China. Pakistan’s military will sell the news of further U.S. abandonment of Pakistan to their citizens, and enact stronger military controls over the civilian government. Lack of U.S. aid could decrease nuclear security thereby increasing the likelihood of loose nuclear material or sales of nuclear science. 

Gain:  The U.S. may push the Pakistani civilian and military officials into recalibrating their alliances with militant groups and terrorists if economic, diplomatic, military pressure is deep enough. A robust public information campaign ensuring the Pakistani people know how to restart economic assistance may lead the people to pressure their government to stop supporting violent movement networks. The U.S. will save foreign relations funding. The U.S. can improve its image with Pakistani civilians and stop being blamed for bombing deaths by ceasing all armed drone operations in Pakistan.

Option #2:  The U.S. Partners with Pakistan more closely to lift them economically.

The United States could direct its energy to address what Pakistan calls an existential threat by increasing U.S.-Pakistan economic partnerships and diplomacy. The U.S. would encourage economic cooperation between Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan; and massively increase economic relations between India and Pakistan. This option would increase U.S. aid to development projects and ensure all military aid is conditions-based in exchange for counter-terrorism assistance, increasing civilian oversight of the military, and more elected leadership power in government. Publicly, the U.S. would be outspoken about human and minority rights, freedom of speech, and religious freedom. U.S. armed drone operations would cease and be replaced by quietly targeted sanctions at military officials recruiting militant groups and aiding violent missions in the region. Measures under this option would include freezing individual assets globally, and multi-nation travel restrictions. The U.S. would warn Pakistan privately of retaliations if they fail to meet U.S. security goals and give deadlines for decreases in terrorism/militant activity.

Risk:  Under this option Pakistan could continue the status quo, a double game with the U.S. whereby Pakistan extracts as much funding as possible before the U.S. stops the flow. Intelligence partnerships would remain unreliable; allowing terrorists/militants reside openly in Pakistan. Pakistan could see the U.S. funds as a way to pay their debt to China, which is not the purpose of the U.S. aid. While Pakistan could openly target extremist groups the U.S. names, it could clandestinely support other extremist groups unknown to the U.S. in order to keep the U.S. engaged and keep Afghanistan weakened. This option could set the conditions for Pakistan better hiding its terrorism support, and the U.S. inadvertently funding it meaning regional militancy continues as do Pakistan human rights violations and military rule.

Gain:  This option may improve economic and diplomatic activities. Increased economic partnerships could lead to increased military partnerships to rebuild trust between leaders. The funds Pakistan received could increase education, development, and humanitarian partnerships and improve the U.S. image in Pakistan. This option could contribute to more Pakistan support to get the Afghan Taliban to act seriously in the Afghan Peace Negotiations. The funds could also be used as leverage to improve counterterrorism partnerships across both governments and human rights. 

Other Comments:  None.

Recommendation:  None.

Endnotes:

[1] Khan, S. (2018, October 28). Double Game: Why Pakistan Supports Militants and Resists U.S. Pressure to Stop. CATO. https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/double-game-why-pakistan-supports-militants-resists-us-pressure-stop

[2] Mazzetti, M. (2018, January 28). How Pakistan has Perpetuated the Afghan Conflict. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/the-pakistan-trap/550895

[3] Tankel, S. (2011, September 1). Restoring Trust: U.S.-Pakistan Relations. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2011/09/01/restoring-trust-u.s.-pakistan-relations-pub-45465

[4] U.S. Relations With Pakistan. (2020, December 1). United States Department of State. https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-pakistan/

[5] Country Reports on Terrorism 2019: Pakistan. (2020, December 1). United States Department of State. https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/pakistan

[6] Jason Howk was a guest speaker at the 2020 U.S. Central Command Central and South Asia Conference and led a public discussion with Inter-Services Intelligence Officers attending the event on Pakistan’s further role in the Afghan peace process.  This discussion was a heated and brutally honest moment in the conference. See readouts of the event here: https://news.clearancejobs.com/2020/02/22/a-regional-perspective-on-the-war-in-afghanistan and https://dispatchesfrompinehurst.com/2020/02/23/briefing-on-pakistans-campaigns-against-afghanistan-and-why-they-have-failed-repeatedly

Afghanistan Jason Criss Howk Option Papers Pakistan Policy and Strategy Sabir Ibrahimi United States
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An Assessment of the American National Interest in Sino-American Competition

Editor’s Note:  This article is part of our Below Threshold Competition: China writing contest which took place from May 1, 2020 to July 31, 2020.  More information about the contest can be found by clicking here.

Brandon Patterson is a graduate student at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, whose area of focus is China.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  An Assessment of the American National Interest in Sino-American Competition

Date Originally Written:  July 21, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  November 2, 2020.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes the United States, in order to maintain a sense of proportion in dealing with China, must find criteria over which in must resist Beijing.  Additionally, wherever the U.S. makes practical accommodations, in order to transcend Cold War-like conditions, and to create a basic American approach to relations with China that can be passed from one administration to the next with a high degree of continuity, it should do so.

Summary:  As tensions rise between the United States and China, Washington requires a concept of the national interest to serve as a guide in navigating this new dynamic. Wearing ideological blinders nearly tore the American psyche apart at key moments during the Cold War. As competition with China develops, America can prevent itself from falling into the Cold War era Manichaeism that shook domestic consensus on the nature of its task.

Text:  In light of deteriorating relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, emphasis on so-called great power competition enters the American lexicon[1]. Competition implies a victor; yet great power relations are a process with no terminal point. Complicating matters is the fact that the relationship between Washington and Beijing has acquired ideological contours, which serve as a blight on the minds of American policymakers who tend to lose a sense of proportion when facing ideological opponents[2]. Under these conditions, competition becomes an end in itself as foreign policy becomes a struggle between good and evil rather than the threading together of various issues into a relationship neither entirely friendly nor wholly adversarial. A clear set of objectives on the American side of this competition, and how they are enmeshed in a grand strategy aimed at a concept of world order is necessary. In other words, before Washington acts, American policy makers ask themselves:

  • What is this supposed competition about and how should one define success?
  • What threat does China pose to international order?
  • What changes must the United States resist by forceful means?

Though unexceptional, these questions are uniquely crucial for a country lacking a geopolitical tradition. The United States can look beyond the aspects of China’s domestic structure which the U.S. rejects in order to retain a clear conception of how the United States may accommodate China without turning the world over to it. This is the space America is obliged to navigate. The national interest, still so vaguely defined in American strategic thought, will fail unless clearly articulated in order to provide criteria by which America’s relationship with China can be assessed and altered. The emphasis on “competition below the threshold of armed conflict” requires examination. To abjure from the use of force — or to define precisely where one is unwilling to go to war — is to define a limit to the national interest.

The United States is the ultimate guarantor of the global balance of power. In order for there to be stability in the world, equilibrium must prevail. This equilibrium is America’s most vital interest, its primary responsibility to international order, and is thus the limiting condition of its foreign policy. The United States cannot permit any power, or any grouping of powers, to attain hegemony over Eurasia, or any of its constituent sub-regions[3]. The People’s Republic of China, whatever its intentions, by the nature of its power, poses the greatest threat to global equilibrium. Tensions are therefore inherent.

It is equally true, however, that the United States and China are likely to be the twin pillars of world order, and that the peace and progress of mankind will likely depend on their conceiving order as a shared enterprise rather than a Cold War in which one perception emerges dominant. Of course, Beijing retains a vote, and if a Cold War becomes unavoidable, Washington requires a clear conception of its necessities to prevent the wild oscillations between overcommitment and over-withdrawal to which it is prone.

American foreign policy can reflect this Janus-like dynamic. This is when the national interest becomes imperative. The United States and China can convey to one another what interests they consider vital, the violation of which will result in conflict. For America, such a threat is more difficult to determine now than during even the Cold War. The Belt and Road initiative is the most awe inspiring example. This initiative represents a Chinese attempt to restructure Eurasia such that China reemerges as the Middle Kingdom[4]. America for its part cannot permit any single country to achieve hegemony over Eurasia; yet Belt and Road is not a military enterprise, and so the threat it poses remains ambiguous, and the best means of countering it is far from self-evident. It thus becomes imperative that American administrations establish what they consider to be a threat to equilibrium and find means of conveying this to the Chinese.

Keeping this competition below the threshold of armed conflict rests upon the ability of Washington to drive home to Beijing precisely what is likely to lead to war while such threats remain ambiguous, and thus manageable. This also implies an early response to Chinese probing actions — such as in the South China Sea — lest they acquire a false sense of security, prompting more reckless actions down the road.

Calculations of power become more complex for the United States than for China however, as America is steeped in a tradition of idealism for which no corresponding impulse can be found in China. The United States is an historic champion of human rights, spending blood and treasure in its defense on multiple occasions since the end of the Second World War. In order to be true to itself, the United States stands for its basic values — it too is a duty to the world. This finds expression in America’s support for the cause of Hong Kong’s protests[5], for the victims of China’s excesses in Xinjiang[6], and for political prisoners[7].

The question is not whether America should stand for these values, but rather the extent to which it does so, and at what cost. The United States cannot directly influence the internal evolution of an historic culture like China’s, and that attempting to do so will manufacturer tensions over issues with no resolution, which in turn renders practical issues within the realm of foreign policy less soluble, combining the worst of every course of action.

A wise course for American policy makers then, is to use the national interest as a compass in navigating what will be a journey without a clear historical precedent. Equilibrium is the obvious limiting condition and starting point for such an effort. Moral purpose guides pragmatic actions just as pragmatism makes idealism sustainable. Such an approach is not an abrogation of American values, rather it is the best means of vindicating them over a prolonged period. For, in Sino-American relations, there will be no ultimate victory nor final reconciliation.

Endnotes:

[1] Jones, B. (February 2020). China and the Return of Great Power Strategic Competition. Retrieved July 1, 2020, from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FP_202002_china_power_competition_jones.pdf

[2] Debate Over Detente. (1973, November 17). Retrieved July 1, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/17/archives/debate-over-detente.html

[3] Spykman, N. J. (2007). America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power (1st ed., pp. 194-199). Routledge.

[4] Kaplan, R.D. (March 6, 2018). The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century. (pp.). New York: Random House.

[5] Edmundson, C. (2020, July 2). Senate Sends Trump a Bill to Punish Chinese Officials Over Hong Kong. Retrieved July 3, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/us/politics/senate-china-hong-kong-sanctions.html

[6] Pranshu, V. & Wong, E. (2020, July 9). U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Chinese Officials Over Mass Detention of Muslims. Retrieved July 10, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/world/asia/trump-china-sanctions-uighurs.html?searchResultPosition=1

[7] Puddington, A. (2018, July 26). China: The Global Leader in Political Prisoners. Retrieved July 10, from https://freedomhouse.org/article/china-global-leader-political-prisoners

2020 - Contest: PRC Below Threshold Writing Contest Assessment Papers Brandon Patterson China (People's Republic of China) Competition Policy and Strategy United States
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Assessing the U.S. Shift to Great Power Competition and the Risk from North Korea

Editor’s Note:  This article is part of our Civil Affairs Association and Divergent Options Writing Contest which took place from April 7, 2020 to July 7, 2020.  More information about the contest can be found by clicking here.

Richard McManamon is an U.S. Army Officer and a graduate student at the National Defense University. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing the U.S. Shift to Great Power Competition and the Risk from North Korea

Date Originally Written:  July 3, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  August 31, 2020.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Richard McManamon is an U.S. Army Officer and a graduate student at the National Defense University.

Summary:  U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategic shift towards Russia and China has de-prioritized North Korea. Following multiple summits between the two nations, minimal lasting progress has been made. As the U.S. shifts focus to great power competition, a comprehensive approach towards North Korea to protect U.S. interests will be of value.

Text:  Individual human factors, both behavioral and psychological, have played a critical role in countless global conflicts and the contemporary security environment is equally impacted by these factors. Following President Trump’s election, a new National Security Strategy (NSS) was published in 2017 that emphasized a shift from a counter-terrorism focused strategy to one that challenges near-peer threats from China and Russia. The Department of Defense implemented the NSS in the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), where the document specifically labeled China “a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors” and highlighted Russia’s attempt to reshape the world through their authoritarian mode[1]l.

The NSS and NDS emphasizing Russia and China reduces focus on North Korea. President Trump’s relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been highly volatile and the U.S. relationship with North Korea further destabilized as North Korea tested twenty-three rockets in 2017 alone[2]. Throughout 2017, President Trump expressed his feeling towards North Korea through multiple tweets, for example, labeling the North Korean ruler “Little Rocket Man[3].” Kim disregarded Trump’s emotionally driven responses and continued rocket testing, which escalated tensions even higher. As the situation escalated toward a breaking point, Trump and Kim met in 2018 and again in 2019. Furthermore, in June 2019 President Trump made a trip to the Korean peninsula for further nuclear negotiations, which marked the first time a U.S. sitting president entered North Korea[4].

Since 2017, both leaders applied various human factors that contributed to a bilateral relationship. Nevertheless, the promising start that followed multiple summits began to dramatically falter when North Korea conducted its first missile launch of 2020 on March 21st showcasing its desire to maintain its position in the global order[5]. The 2020 missile launch combined with new satellite imagery showing a possible expansion of a rocket launch facility signaled to the U.S. and other Western powers that North Korea is maintaining its hardened stance and attempting to portray an image of strength[6]. To Kim, the U.S. realignment of resources toward Russia and China may look like an opportunity. Moreover, this shift to China and Russia can provide enough space for North Korea to expand their rocket research and development. Further highlighting the North Korea challenge, a 2019 RAND report highlighted that North Korea is on a trajectory of nuclear development that has transformed it into a fundamentally different kind of strategic challenge[7].

While the U.S. transitions to China and Russia, it still maintains numerous sanctions on North Korea. For years the U.S. and United Nations Security Council have placed sanctions on the country ranging from export/import restrictions to economic restrictions[8]. The longer the sanctions are in place, the less effective they are. Furthermore, the continued U.S. use of sanctions can provide a false sense of security to the U.S. as it realigns its global strategy towards China and Russia. The U.S. prioritization of China and Russia allows North Korea to maintain its status within the global order without new pressure from western nations to promote change in governance.

President Trump has successfully communicated with Kim in the past by leveraging his attributes and finding common ground with the North Korean leader. While the complete dismantling of North Korea’s rocket and nuclear program may no longer be feasible, the U.S. can reestablish meaningful diplomatic relations with North Korea to influence Northern peninsula. This is not to suggest that if the U.S. were to extend an olive branch that North Korean missiles would be instantly dismantled. However, progress with North Korea can likely be increased through human interaction and an emotional connection versus harsher sanctions that may harm the population more than the senior leaders of the country. Lastly, the opportunity cost of the U.S. not meeting the challenge now is that inaction can embolden Kim Jong Un to develop a more capable missile program that threatens U.S. national interests and its allies globally.

As the U.S. continues a strategy shift to China and Russia, countries like North Korea are losing their much-needed prioritization within the U.S. government. While both China and Russia pose risks to U.S. interests, acknowledging such risk does not justify a neglect of other threats on the world stage. Small risks can quickly transition to substantial risks if not appropriately managed. The ramifications of not placing significant resources and attention on North Korea creates opportunities for Kim to exploit, with short and long-term costs for U.S. interests and regional security. President Trump has the tools to build a relationship with North Korea to achieve good governance and order. Moving forward, the U.S. can ensure a comprehensive strategy that effectively challenges China and Russia, but not at the cost of neglecting smaller countries. Such a strategy starts with increased diplomatic relations, revisits sanction negotiations with the input from key nations and lastly, works towards a manageable missile treaty with North Korea.

Endnotes:

[1] Department of Defense, National Defense Strategy (2018). Retrieved from https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.

[2] Berlinger, J. (2017). North Korea’s missile tests: What you need to know. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/29/asia/north-korea-missile-tests/index.html

[3] Hirsh, M. (2019). Trump just gave North Korea more than it ever dreamed of. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/30/trump-has-already-given-north-korea-more-than-it-dreamed-of

[4] Ripley, W. (2019). Trump and Kim make history, but a longer and more difficult march lies ahead. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/30/asia/trump-kim-history/index.html

[5] Masterson, J. (2020). North Korea tests first missiles of 2020 . Retrieved from https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-04/news/north-korea-tests-first-missiles-2020

[6] Brumfiel, G. (2020). North Korea seen expanding rocket launch facility it once promised to dismantle. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2020/03/27/822661018/north-korea-seen-expanding-rocket-launch-facility-it-once-promised-to-dismantle

[7] Gian Gentile, Yvonne K. Crane, Dan Madden, Timothy M. Bonds, Bruce W. Bennett, Michael J. Mazarr, Andrew Scobell. (2019). Four problems on the Korean peninsula. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TL271.html

Schoff, J., & Lin, F. (2018). Making sense of UN sanctions on North Korea. Retrieved from https://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/north-korea-sanctions

2020 - Contest: Civil Affairs Association Writing Contest Assessment Papers Civil Affairs Association North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) Policy and Strategy Richard McManamon United States
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U.S. Options for a Consistent Response to Cyberattacks

Thomas G. Pledger is an U.S. Army Infantry Officer currently serving at the U.S. Army National Guard Directorate in Washington, DC. Tom has deployed to multiple combat zones supporting both the Conventional and Special Operations Forces. Tom holds a Master in Public Service and Administration from the Bush School of Public Administration at Texas A&M University, a Master of Humanities in Organizational Dynamics, Group Think, and Communication from Tiffin University, and three Graduate Certificates in Advanced International Affairs from Texas A&M University in Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and Defense Policy and Military Affairs. Tom has been a guest lecturer at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. He currently serves on 1st NAEF’s External Advisory Board, providing insight on approaches for countering information operations. Tom’s current academic and professional research is focused on a holistic approach to counter-facilitation/network, stability operations, and unconventional warfare. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature, nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  The United States Government (USG) does not have a consistent response or strategy for cyberattacks against the private sector and population. Instead, it evaluates each attack on a case by case basis. This lack of a consistent response strategy has enabled hackers to act with greater freedom of maneuver, increasing the number and types of cyberattacks.

Date Originally Written:  April 24, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  June 29, 2020.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes that a lack of a consistent response or strategy for cyberattacks against the United States private sector and population have emboldened foreign powers’ continued actions and prevented a coordinated response.

Background:  The United States private sector and population has become the target of an almost continuous barrage of cyberattacks coming from a long list of state-sponsored actors, including Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran[1]. These actors have used the low financial cost of execution and low cost of final attribution to utilize cyberattacks as a tool to stay below the threshold of armed conflict. In the United States, these attacks have primarily avoided negative impacts on critical infrastructure, as defined by the USG. Therefore, the USG has treated such attacks as a matter for the private sector and population to manage, conducting only limited response to such state-sponsored attacks.

Significance:  The number of known cyberattacks has increased at a near exponential rate since the 1990s. During this same period, these attacks have become more sophisticated and coordinated, causing increased damage to both real-world infrastructure, intellectual property, societal infrastructure, and digital communication platforms. This trend for cyberattacks will continue to rise as individuals, industry, and society’s reliance on and the number of connected devices increases.

Option #1:  The USG categorizes cyberattacks against the United States’ private sector and population as an act of cyberterrorism.

Risk:  Defining cyberattacks against the United States’ private sector and population as cyberterrorism could begin the process of turning every action conducted against the United States that falls below the threshold of armed conflict as terrorism. Patience in responding to these attacks, as attack attribution takes time, can be difficult. Overzealous domestic governments, both state and federal, could use Option #1 to suppress or persecute online social movements originating in the United States.

Gain:  Defining cyberattacks against the United States’ private sector and population as cyberterrorism will utilize an established framework that provides authorities, coordination, and tools while simultaneously pressuring the USG to respond. Including the term “digital social infrastructure” will enable a response to persistent efforts by state actors to create divisions and influence the United States population. Option #1 also creates a message to foreign actors that the continued targeting of the United States private sectors and population by cyberattacks will begin to have a real cost, both politically and financially. A stated definition creates standard precedence for the use of cyberattacks not to target the United States’ private sector and population outside of declared armed conflict, which has been applied to other weapon systems of war.

Option #2:  The USG maintains the current case by case response against cyberattacks.

Risk:  The private sector will begin to hire digital mercenaries to conduct counter-cyberattacks, subjecting these companies to possible legal actions in United States Courts, as “hack the hacker” is illegal in the United States[2]. Cyberattacks conducted by the United States private sector could drag the United States unknowingly into an armed conflict, as responses could rapidly escalate or have unknown second-order effects. Without providing a definition and known response methodology, the continued use of cyberattacks will escalate in both types and targets, combined with that U.S. adversaries not knowing what cyberattack is too far, which could lead to armed conflict.

Gain:  Option #2 allows a case by case flexible response to individual cyberattacks by the USG. Examining the target, outcome, and implication allows for a custom response towards each event. This option maintains a level of separation between the private sector operating in the United States and the USG, which may allow these organizations to operate more freely in foreign countries.

Other Comments:  Although there is no single USG definition for terrorism, all definitions broadly include the use of violence to create fear in order to affect the political process. Cyberterrorism does not include the typical act of violence against a person or property. This lack of physical violence has led some administrations to define cyberattacks as “cyber vandalism[3],” even as the cyberattack targeted the First Amendment. Cyberattacks are designed to spread doubt and fear in the systems that citizens use daily, sowing fear amongst the population, and creating doubt in the ability of the government to respond.

Recommendation:  None.

Endnotes:

[1] “Significant Cyber Incidents.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Apr. 2020, http://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/significant-cyber-incidents.

[2] “Hacking Laws and Punishments.” Findlaw, Thomson Reuters, 2 May 2019, criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/hacking-laws-and-punishments.html.

[3] Fung, Brian. “Obama Called the Sony Hack an Act of ‘Cyber Vandalism.’ He’s Right.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 22 Dec. 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/12/22/obama-called-the-sony-hack-an-act-of-cyber-vandalism-hes-right/.

Cyberspace Option Papers Policy and Strategy Thomas G. Pledger United States
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Assessing the Goals of U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts in Somalia

This article is published as part of the Small Wars Journal and Divergent Options Writing Contest which runs from March 1, 2019 to May 31, 2019.  More information about the writing contest can be found here.

Mathew Daniels is a graduate of Old Dominion University, holding a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in International Relations.  He served six years in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves.  He has a diverse professional background including both Law enforcement and education.  Fluent in both Spanish and English he is currently learning Japanese, while residing in Japan as a military spouse.  He has moved three different times in the past three years.  He just concluded student teaching and is preparing to take the Foreign Service Officer Test while awaiting to start employment with the Child Youth Military Program.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing the Goals of U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts in Somalia

Date Originally Written:  May 31, 2019.

Date Originally Published:  September 5, 2019.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Author is a former member of the U.S. Coast Guard  and a military spouse.

Summary:  As the Global War on Terror continues to expand, the U.S. believes it is important to maintain sound strategy and policy in order to bring about success and avoid costly foreign policy and militaristic commitments. This is especially true in Somalia, where the U.S. is engaged in a small war which currently has a light footprint approach, but risks of increased involvement are possible. 

Text:  The Global War on Terror continues to wax and wane with the foreign policy objectives of the United States. This is especially true in Africa, specifically in Somalia, where a U.S. presence has been in country intermittently since 2003. Somalia is one of the United States’ many small wars that are part of the campaign against Islamist Terrorism post 9/11.  The current terrorist organization that warrants a U.S. military presence is Al Shabaab. It is important to understand that Al Shabaab is allied with and mimics Al Qaeda.  However, some members claim that “they do not wish to wage a global jihad, merely to dominate East Africa[1].”  In this way Al Shabaab may differ from Al-Qaeda but this difference makes them no less of a threat to U.S. national security.  Furthermore, Al Shabaab routinely attacks civilian populations and is a threat to the  U.S.-backed government in Mogadishu. In 2007 African Union Forces were able to drive out Al Shabaab militants and retake most of Mogadishu, however Al Shabaab continued to exist in the suburbs and threaten the capital[2]. 

Presently, the Somalia National Army and police forces with assistance from African Union, Kenyan, and Ethiopian militaries, continue to wage a counter insurgency campaign against Al Shabaab. The United States continues to be involved indirectly in combating Al Shabaab by supporting regional forces with  military advisors. However, without a clear-cut purpose and end goal, the United States risks mission creep and more potential long-term militaristic commitments. 

As part of the Global War on Terror the U.S. has had a presence in Somalia since as early as 2003[3].  This early presence in Somalia was made up of the Central Intelligence Agency and small elements of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), specifically the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), also known as SEAL Team 6. These early elements  focused on intelligence gathering and relying on local warlords bankrolled with U.S. cash to eliminate Islamist groups in the region[3]. 

In 2011 U.S. President Barack Obama authorized a drone strike campaign in Somalia targeting Al Shabaab[2].  This was a shift from the Bush administration whose primary focus was intelligence gathering and counter-piracy operations.   Under the current Trump administration, Obama’s  policy of drone strikes has continued, and JSOC has become heavily involved in Somalia[2]. This involvement  represents an increase of American commitment to the anti-Al Shabab effort over a significant amount of time. Combat by American forces is not officially confirmed. Multiple sources report that the Pentagon is extremely tight- lipped on operations in Africa and especially Somalia[2][4]. According to The New Yorker, the Pentagon did not respond to a request for information on ongoing operations in Somalia[2]. Nick Terse quotes a “reliable source within the JSOC community who stated, we are heavily engaged in combat as well as advise missions and have sustained casualties, but things are kept as quiet as possible[5].” It appears that the advise and assist role requires members of the U.S. military to accompany local forces on missions which can lead to actual combat for U.S. troops.  

Whatever the official policy, if U.S. forces are at risk, American public and policy makers awareness is of value so they can realize the potential consequences, should mishaps or potential loss of life occur. In fact, casualties have occurred in Somalia, Kenya, Chad and Cameroon  according to Retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Donald Bolduc formerly in charge of special operations in Africa[5]. Make no mistake, American service members are at risk in these advise and assist operations, with or without public knowledge of their presence. Furthermore, absence of sound policy or strategy may mean that these service members sacrifices are in vain.

It is unclear whether U.S. policymakers and senior defense officials consulted the Powell-Weinberger doctrine prior to the deployment of forces to Somalia. Consulting this doctrine  would have helped provide needed clarification for the U.S. military mission in Somalia. For example, why is the U.S. in Somalia? To fight Al Shabaab? To preserve geopolitical stability? At what point will Al Shabaab be defeated? The Powell-Weinberger doctrine would ask if it is politically feasible to win in Somalia, and more importantly what does winning look like? What size of force would be needed to accomplish the goal? Also, what is the compelling U.S. national interest in Somalia?

It is significant to note that African Union forces will be withdrawing from Somalia in 2020[2]. Is the United States going to fill this security void by increasing their footprint, or maintain its current approach?  Without a clear end goal in mind, the American military in Somalia is left without a real direction, other than to train Somali forces and conduct joint raids against Al Shabaab.  It is worth considering that Somalia has lacked any real centralized government that maintained control since it was a colonial possession.  As a result of this weak government, insurgencies such as Al Shabaab thrive and prosper. The likelihood of the United States defeating the insurgency and propping up a stable government  in Somalia without a large  militaristic and diplomatic commitment is slim. Development of clear goals and strategy can help the U.S. achieve victory in Somalia without being dragged into a quagmire abroad. 

Endnotes:

[1] Who are Somalia’s al-Shabab? (2017, December 22). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15336689

[2] Ferguson, J. (2018, March/April). Trump’s Military Escalation in Somalia Is Spurring Hope and Fear. The NewYorker.

[3] Naylor, S. (2016). Relentless strike: The secret history of Joint Special Operations Command. New York, NY: St. Martins Griffin.

[4] Bowman, T. (Writer). (2019, February/March). How Global Is The Global War On Terror?[Radio broadcast]. In 1A. Washington D.C.: NPR.

[5] Turse, N. (Writer). (2019, February/March). How Global Is The Global War On

2019 - Contest: Small Wars Journal Assessment Papers Mathew Daniels Policy and Strategy Somalia United States
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Options for New Zealand’s National Security Posture

Dr Simon Ewing-Jarvie is a business consultant, Defence commentator and military fiction writer.  He served 25 years in the New Zealand Defence Force, including two operational deployments, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel (Infantry).  He works at TorquePoint.co.nz where he designs business war games and provides Red Team services.  He was Senior Lecturer in Command Studies at Massey University (NZ) and Senior Advisor to the NZ Associate Defence Minister.  He writes on NZ National Security at unclas.com.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  Options for New Zealand’s national security posture.

Date Originally Written:  May 27, 2019.

Date Originally Published:  September 2, 2019.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Author is a critic of New Zealand’s lack of a national security strategy.

Background:  As a former colony of the United Kingdom (UK), New Zealand (NZ) has traditionally been politically and militarily aligned with the West, more specifically, the UK. This alignment shifted from being UK to the United States (U.S.) during the Vietnam War as did NZ’s major military platforms. The alignment was breached in deed when NZ declared itself nuclear free, effectively ending its part in the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, U.S. Security (ANZUS) Treaty [1]. However, while the potential for great power conflict and regional insecurity grows, NZ seems unwilling to invest significant resources into national security capability, instead opting for the ‘umbrella’ protection of its traditional allies in the Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and U.S.) intelligence sharing arrangement [2].

Significance:  Current friction between the U.S. and China has significant economic implications for NZ. China is the country’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 25% of NZ’s total exports [3]. There has been controversy over Huawei’s involvement in NZ’s 5G network [4] and NZ has been openly critical of China’s growing regional influence [5]. China is pursuing its ‘belt and road’ economic policy in the South Pacific [6]. NZ’s claim to having an independent foreign policy will be tested over these and other developments in its region.

Option #1:  NZ maintains a posture of armed alignment with current allies and partners.

Risk:  NZ will continue to be drawn into any conflict involving traditional allies. Apart from the military cost of operations, it makes NZ, its people and assets a target internationally. NZ will continue to be reliant on protection from allies. The economic harm would be significant if China was a belligerent. It would take decades to rebuild trust and levels of trade following an East/West conflict.

Gain:  This is the least expensive option for NZ. Capabilities and systems are largely aligned and existing allies remain patient regarding NZ’s lack of investment in defence. Regarding NZ’s trade, 42% is currently with countries that would likely fall behind a U.S.-led coalition [7].

Option #2:  NZ actively seeks new treaties and allies/partners more closely aligned to the protection of its economic interests e.g. Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)[8].

Risk:  The loss of current intelligence sharing arrangements (Five Eyes) would be immediate. Logistics and support for currently held military platforms and capabilities that are manufactured in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia would be constrained or unavailable. Trade with traditional Five Eye countries would be negatively impacted.

Gain:  New allies might be more motivated to re-equip NZ’s defence capabilities at little or no cost. Trade barriers in these countries could be lowered.

Option #3:  NZ adopts a strategy of armed non-alignment.

Risk:  This option could be seen as a lack of commitment to ‘coalitions of the willing’ and therefore have trade and other political and military implications. Interoperability with other military forces would degrade over time and a drift toward peace support operations capability would be likely.

Gain:  This option enables NZ to only pursue armed interventions that fit with its foreign policy rather than being drawn into all conflicts involving allies. This option aligns well with NZ’s usual position of only committing armed forces in support of United Nations Security Council resolutions [9].

Option #4:  NZ adopts a strategy of armed neutrality.

Risk:  No longer being a member of any treaties or alliances would make NZ vulnerable to attack and occupation. The most likely motivation for an attack on NZ is assessed as access to Antarctica. This would be the most expensive option and would require international arms supply arrangements or a significantly enhanced NZ defence industry. A transition period of up to ten years would be required to develop the enhanced capability required.

Gain:  This option would return NZ to full combat capability through dramatically increasing its funding to defence and other national security capabilities. This option could open pathways for NZ to be a broker between states in conflict in the region in a similar fashion to Switzerland.

Other Comments:  The Closer Defence Relationship with Australia [10] is a harmonisation agreement not a mutual defence treaty. The Five Power Defence Arrangement [11] is focussed largely on security events involving Singapore and Malaysia. The lack of discussion toward a national security strategy for New Zealand is an impediment to a whole-of-government approach to these options.

Recommendation:  None.

Endnotes:

[1] New Zealand History. New Zealand Becomes Nuclear-Free. (June 8, 1987). Retrieved from https://nzhistory.govt.nz/new-zealand-becomes-nuclear-free.

[2]  Tossini, J.V. (November 14, 2017). Retrieved from https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/the-five-eyes-the-intelligence-alliance-of-the-anglosphere/.

[3] Workman, D. (February 4, 2019). Retrieved from  http://www.worldstopexports.com/new-zealands-top-trade-partners/.

[4] Griffin, P. (March 12, 2019). Retrieved from https://www.noted.co.nz/tech/huawei-5g-what-controversy-is-all-about/.

[5] New Zealand Government. Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018. (July 6, 2018). Retrieved from https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/strategic-defence-policy-statement-2018-launched.

[6] Devonshire-Ellis, C. (May 23, 2019). China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the Pacific Islands. Retrieved from https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2019/05/23/chinas-belt-road-initiative-pacific-islands/.

[7] Workman, D. (February 4, 2019). Retrieved from http://www.worldstopexports.com/new-zealands-top-trade-partners/.

[8] Goodman, M. (March 8, 2018). From TPP to CPTPP. Retrieved from  https://www.csis.org/analysis/tpp-cptpp.

[9] Purser, P. (November 24, 2014). Troop Deployments Abroad: Parliamentary Consent. Retrieved from https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/research-papers/document/00PLLawRP2014051/troop-deployments-abroad.

[10] Australian Government. Australia-New Zealand Joint Statement on Closer Defence Relations. (March 9, 2018). Retrieved from https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/marise-payne/statements/australia-new-zealand-joint-statement-closer-defence-relations.

[11] Huxley, T. (November 8, 2012). The Future of the Five power Defence Arrangements. Retrieved from https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-future-of-the-five-power-defence-arrangements/.

Dr Simon Ewing-Jarvie New Zealand Option Papers Policy and Strategy
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Turning “Small” Wars into “Big” Wars: How Tacticians Endanger Us All

This article is published as part of the Small Wars Journal and Divergent Options Writing Contest which ran from March 1, 2019 to May 31, 2019.  More information about the writing contest can be found here.

Dr. Heather Venable is an Assistant Professor of Military and Security Studies at the Air Command and Staff College, where she teaches classes on airpower and the historical experience of combat. She has written a forthcoming book entitled How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874-1918.  She also has written for War on the Rocks, Strategy Bridge, and other online blogs.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

Title:  Turning “Small” Wars into “Big” Wars: How Tacticians Endanger Us All

Date Originally Written:  May 31, 2019. 

Date Originally Published:  August 26, 2019.

Author / or Article Point of View:  The author is a professor of airpower. The author wants to point out the tensions in military thinking between the tactical and the strategic and how this has the potential to lead to escalation of “small” wars amidst the return to great power conflict.  

Summary:  Small wars remain highly likely even as the U.S. stresses the return to great power conflict. In these coming conflicts, some frustrated military leaders will exhibit tension between strategic and tactical thinking. This tendency can be seen in the following discussion of Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg, who had a problematic vision of targeting the Chinese mainland during the Korean War that exemplifies tactical thinking at the expense of considering strategic ends. 

Text:  He talked the talk. But he did not walk the walk. In a lecture given to the Air War College in May of 1953, Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg initially exemplified strategic thinking by providing compelling reasons why the Korean War should remain confined to the peninsula. In the subsequent question and answer session, however, he demonstrated a clear desire to widen the war and target the Chinese mainland. Vandenberg’s lecture epitomizes the tensions in the minds of military leaders between tactical and strategic thinking, which pose dangerous risks of escalation, particularly in small wars. 

In the lecture, Vandenberg explained that he had no easy solutions “tied up in pink bows[1].” He also shared how his vantage point provided him with unparalleled perspective on the importance of allies and Cold War grand strategy. As such, he pointed out the problems he saw in expanding the war into China, explaining that striking a key air base inside Chinese territory required the U.S. to “do it with our eyes open” in light of a Sino-Soviet mutual defense treaty. Vandenberg also highlighted the risks of lengthening the United Nations’ own lines of communication. These comments epitomize a solid strategic consideration characterized by continually asking: then what? 

In the ensuing question and answer session, however, Vandenberg dangerously undercut his previous comments. When asked to discuss the Far East’s “strategic importance” during a “hot war,” Vandenberg ignored realities like the aforementioned treaty[2].  Caveating his opinion as being “almost as dangerous” as clamoring for preventative war against the Soviet Union, Vandenberg continued on recklessly:  “My solution has always been . . . we ought to put on a very strong blockade of the Chinese Coast; that we ought to break her rail lines of communication that carry the wheat from the North and the rice from the South . . . that we ought to mine her rivers . . . and that we ought to destroy those small industrial installations . . . .”

In addition to expanding the war and possibly inciting a famine, he suggested that the U.S. start its own “brushfire” to demonstrate, “BY GOD, that we are getting fed up with it.” Vandenberg’s address to War College students on the challenges of making sound strategic decisions devolved into sharing his emotionally-laden tactical responses, which lacked careful consideration of desired ends. Yet Vandenberg characterized his approach as “realistic[3].” 

Ironically, Vandenberg believed himself to be thinking rationally when, in fact, he was thinking romantically. In 1959, Bernard Brodie counterintuitively described the military mind as romantic, explaining how officers preferred “strong action over negotiation, boldness over caution, and feeling over reflection[4].” Vandenberg’s irrational suggestion that the U.S. start a new war because he was “fed up” epitomizes the mentality Brodie sketched. Today, many military officers also characterize themselves as pragmatic realists; in practice, though, they may act very differently.

This romantic attitude permeates tactical thinking, which can undermine a strategic vision. In theory, the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war are neatly bundled together. In reality, the frustrations of small wars often reveal the gaping seams between the tactical and the strategic as the limitations of military force to quickly meet political objectives become evident. 

A tactical thinker concentrates on the short-term prospect of winning a clear-cut victory. A strategic one, by contrast, seeks to play the long game. At times, these two inter-related but competing perspectives cause tension. In the case of a parent teaching a child to play chess, the tactical mindset of seeking to “win” a game sits at odds with the more strategic perspective of keeping children motivated to learn by letting them win[5]. 

Meanwhile, this seductive tactical vision entices military thinkers and decision makers with the promise of decisive action, with the potential to solve a problem once and for all. But nothing in warfare is ever final. The Army officers who produced a recent study on Operation Iraqi Freedom entitled The U.S. Army in Iraq epitomize the dangers of this tactical tendency. Chafing at what they consider to be the imposition of problematic “artificial geographic boundaries,” they wish the U.S. had enlarged the war to include Iran, thus eliminating the sanctuary areas of small wars that are understandably so frustrating to officers[6]. This “if only” mindset seeks short-term military advantage at the cost of a stronger, more durable state of peace that should be the guiding principle underlying and linking together each level of war. 

Small wars on the periphery remain highly likely even as the U.S. returns to stressing great power conflict. In these coming conflicts, some frustrated military leaders will demonstrate tension between the strategic and the tactical just as Gen Vandenberg did. Indeed, the likelihood of this tendency has increased because the U.S. military has become imbued with a “killing and destroying things” mindset[7].  In focusing more on how to kill and destroy than why, the military has reified the tactical and operational at the expense of the strategic. We can only hope that politicians choose not to follow through on fool-hardy tactical ventures; amidst the democratization of weapons technology, such impulses risk endangering us all[8]. 

Endnotes:

[1] Vandenberg, H. (1953, May 6). Lecture Presented by General Vandenberg to Air War College. K239.716253-118, Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA). 

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Brodie, B. (1959). Strategy in the Missile Age. Palo Alto, CA: Rand, p. 266.

[5] Dolman, E. (2016). “Seeking Strategy” in Strategy: Context and Adaptation from Archidamus to Airpower. Eds. Richard Bailey and James Forsyth. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016, pp. 5-37.

[6] Finer, J. (2019, May 28). Learning the Wrong Lessons from Iraq. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2019-05-28/last-war-and-next. 

[7] Kagan, F. (2006). Finding the Target. New York: Encounter Books, 2006, p. 358.

[8] Krepinevich, A. (2011, August 15). Get Ready for the Democratization of Destruction. Foreign Affairs. https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/15/get-ready-for-the-democratization-of-destruction/.

 

 

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Options for Maintaining Counterinsurgency Capabilities in the Great Power Era

This article is published as part of the Small Wars Journal and Divergent Options Writing Contest which runs from March 1, 2019 to May 31, 2019.  More information about the writing contest can be found here.

Harrison Manlove is a Cadet in the U.S. Army’s Reserve Officer Training Corps at the at the University of Kansas and is currently studying History and Peace and Conflict Studies. Harrison has also written for The Strategy Bridge, where he examined Russia’s strategy in Syria and the Middle East. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  The U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) struggle with retaining an enclave of counterinsurgency (COIN) capabilities alongside a renewed focus on training and equipping for great power competition.

Date Originally Written:  May 6, 2019.

Date Originally Published:  June 27, 2019.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Harrison Manlove is a Cadet with the U.S. Army’s Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Kansas where he studies History and Peace and Conflict Studies.

Background:  The 2017 US National Security Strategy (NSS) identifies the return of great power competition as a strategic threat to U.S. interests across a variety of domains. Challenges to U.S. military and economic power are meant to “change the international order…” that the U.S. has overseen since the end of the Cold War. The NSS acknowledges the ability of near peer competitors to operate “below the threshold of open military conflict…”. In addition, the NSS identifies the need to “sustain our competence in irregular warfare…” in a long-term capacity[1]. This “competence” most certainly includes COIN, or the employment of various means of national power by a government to counter an insurgency “and address its roots causes[2].” DoD’s 2018 National Defense Strategy identifies “Long term strategic competition with China and Russia” as “the principal priorities for the Department…[3]” Both of the above mentioned documents indicate how non-state threats have slowly moved down the priority list.

Significance:  Recent decisions by U.S. President Donald Trump and the DoD to drawdown forces in a variety of conflict areas seem to reflect a desire to realign U.S. force posture to counter near-peer competitors in both Europe and Asia, and bolster conventional military capabilities. In December 2018, President Trump directed U.S. forces in Syria to withdraw, while simultaneously halving U.S. forces deployed to Afghanistan over several months as peace talks continue[4]. U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and General Purpose Forces (GPF) U.S. forces have spent almost two decades advising and training foreign forces as a function of COIN efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and others. Last fall, U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) was directed to drawdown SOF missions on the continent over a period of three years[5]. SOF in Africa suffered a highly-publicized loss of troops in the 2017 Tongo Tongo ambush in Niger, while SOF personnel were also killed and wounded during an attack on their outpost in Somalia last year[6].

Option #1:  U.S. SOF addresses COIN threats through Direct Action.

Risk:  SOF conduct countless direct action missions, or “Short-duration strikes…”, against insurgent and terror groups in multiple countries across theaters like USAFRICOM and U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM)[7]. American deaths during these operations has proven damaging for domestic opinion on global U.S. operations, exemplified by the 2017 deaths of four American Special Forces soldiers in Niger. An uninformed public, a largely opaque DoD concerning SOF missions and their specific purpose, and U.S. military roles within those missions, has created a wider civil-military gap. This lack of clarity has brought some American lawmakers to call the Niger scenario “an endless war” where “We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world militarily and what we’re doing[8].” These lawmaker opinions underscores concerns about the scale and cost of worldwide U.S. military involvement and its impact on SOF personnel. In addition, raids often do not solve the political or economic challenges within COIN and can become a whack-a-mole strategy for targeting an insurgency’s network.

Gain:  The GPF often take the brunt of the task involved in conducting major COIN operations. Recent moves by the U.S. Army to retool brigade combat teams from infantry roles to Stryker and armored roles is one of the clearest examples of the “pivot back to the near-peer fight[9].” SOF addressing COIN threats through direct action drastically reduces the overall need for GPF on the frontlines in COIN and frees them up to focus on the near-peer fight.  Additionally, while direct action does not address the factors driving the insurgency, it does succeed in disrupting insurgent formations and presents metrics to Washington D.C. that are more easily understood than the more esoteric quantification of “winning of hearts and minds.”  Funding for U.S. Special Operations Command was given a massive hike to cover personnel increases to maintain a reliance on SOF[10]. SOF in Africa often operate under the Section 127e authority that allows SOF to accompany partner forces on missions, staying behind at the “last position of cover and concealment.” This has been touted by USAFRICOM Commander U.S. Marine Corps General Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, as “high payoff with low risk to US forces[11].” Direct action is relatively low-cost and, under 127e, also provides SOF the ability to directly control partner forces during operations to achieve US objectives.

Option #2:  Specially trained non-SOF units address COIN threats through Security Force Assistance.

Risk:  Global military engagement may be spreading U.S. forces too thinly if a near-pear conflict were to breakout. Since the 9/11 attacks, a focus on COIN and counterterrorism has resulted in U.S. deployments to 40% of the world’s countries[12]. The U.S. Army’s 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) deployed to Afghanistan in early 2018 to train and advise Afghan forces. Insider attacks by Afghan Taliban insurgents posing as members of the Afghan military have taken a toll on that deployment and highlight the potential dangers of a continued U.S. military presence there[13]. In mid-2018, the 2nd SFAB was established and is also slated for deployment to Afghanistan in 2019. SFABs could pull troops and resources from DoD’s ability to train and prepare for near-peer threats. DoD personnel involved in arms transfer, security assistance, and short-term military-to-military engagement programs are meager within the context of broader defense spending, but might offer an area for DoD to repurpose personnel and funding to critical capability gaps like artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber warfare.

Gain:  While military force is often the preferred method in COIN, an emphasis on non-kinetic means for DoD could provide better results at a much lower cost. The defense budget for fiscal year (FY) 2017 brought major reforms to security assistance authorities and organizations, a problem that had previously plagued those initiatives. Security assistance programs allow small teams of DoD personnel to train partner forces in basic military tactics and provide weapons training[14]. DoD spending as part of the foreign assistance budget totaled out to $6.4 billion spent worldwide in FY 2018, which includes these programs. Total spending for the foreign assistance budget in FY 2018 was $17.6 billion[15]. In comparison, the war in Afghanistan alone cost $45 billion in 2018, a little under half the $100 billion spent every year during the war’s height between 2010-2012[16]. DoD training with partner militaries is relatively inexpensive when compared with other DoD programs and deployments, and “builds relationships with friendly foreign forces, improves interoperability with and indirectly contributes to building the capability of key allies through exposure to United States tactics, techniques, and procedures…[17]” Capacity-building conducted by specially trained units could better enhance opportunities for partner forces to provide security in COIN conflict environments. The Army’s SFAB model appears to be a comprehensive training force, standing in contrast to the ad hoc approach used throughout Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. This option could alleviate pressure on SOF to manage similar missions on a global scale that would continue to strain overworked equipment and personnel.

Other Comments:  None.

Recommendations:  None.

Endnotes:

1. “National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” The White House. December 2017. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

2. United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 2019. 54.

3. “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy.” January 19, 2018. May 2, 2019. https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.

4. Gibbons-Neff, Thomas, and Mujib Mashal. “U.S. to Withdraw About 7,000 Troops From Afghanistan, Officials Say.” The New York Times. December 21, 2018. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/politics/afghanistan-troop-withdrawal.html.

5. Browne, Ryan. “US to Reduce Number of Troops in Africa.” CNN. November 15, 2018. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/15/politics/us-reduce-troops-africa/index.html.

6. Sonne, Paul. “U.S. Service Member Killed, Four Others Wounded in Somalia Attack.” The Washington Post. June 08, 2018. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-special-operations-soldier-killed-four-service-members-wounded-in-somalia-attack/2018/06/08/39265cda-6b5f-11e8-bbc5-dc9f3634fa0a_story.html

7. . United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 2019. 66.

8. Callimachi, Rukmini, Helene Cooper, Alan Blinder, and Thomas Gibbons-Neff. “‘An Endless War’: Why 4 U.S. Soldiers Died in a Remote …” The New York Times. February 20, 2018. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/17/world/africa/niger-ambush-american-soldiers.html.

9. South, Todd. “New in 2019: From Tanks to Strykers, Major Brigade Combat Team Conversions Are Coming This Year.” Army Times. January 02, 2019. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/01/02/new-in-2019-from-tanks-to-strykers-major-brigade-combat-team-conversions-are-coming-this-year/.

10. South, Todd. “Special Operations Command Asks for More Troops, Biggest Budget Yet.” Military Times. February 27, 2018. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/02/23/special-operations-command-asks-for-more-troops-biggest-budget-yet/.

11. Morgan, Wesley. “Behind the Secret U.S. War in Africa.” POLITICO. July 02, 2018. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/02/secret-war-africa-pentagon-664005.

12.   Savall, Stephanie, “This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism.” Smithsonian.com. January 01, 2019. Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/map-shows-places-world-where-us-military-operates-180970997/.

13.   LaPorta, James. “U.S. Soldier Killed in Afghanistan Was Highest Enlisted Soldier Supporting Army’s New Adviser Brigade.” Newsweek. October 04, 2018. Accessed May 3, 2019. https://www.newsweek.com/afghanistan-soldier-killed-attack-us-1104697.

14.  Elliot, Adriane. “U.S. Security Assistance Soldiers, Nigerian Army Partner to Combat Terrorism.” Army Values. December 13, 2017. Accessed May 3, 2019. https://www.army.mil/article/198066/us_security_assistance_soldiers_nigerian_army_partner_to_combat_terrorism.

15.   “ForeignAssistance.gov.” Foreignassistance.gov. May 3, 2019. https://foreignassistance.gov/explore.

16.   Pennington, Matthew. “Pentagon Says War in Afghanistan Costs Taxpayers $45 Billion per Year.” PBS. February 06, 2018. Accessed May 3, 2019. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/pentagon-says-afghan-war-costs-taxpayers-45-billion-per-year

17.  “Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 President’s Budget Security Cooperation Consolidated Budget Display.” Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller). February 16, 2018. Accessed May 3, 2019. https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2019/Security_Cooperation_Budget_Display_OUSDC.pdf.

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An Assessment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Cyber Strategy and Cyber Challenges

Ali Crawford has an M.A. from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce where she focused on diplomacy, intelligence, cyber policy, and cyber warfare.  She tweets at @ali_craw.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  An Assessment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Cyber Strategy and Cyber Challenges

Date Originally Written:  December 5, 2018.

Date Originally Published:  January 14, 2019.

Summary:  Cyber capabilities are changing the character of warfare.  Nations procure and develop cyber capabilities aimed at committing espionage, subversion, and compromising the integrity of information.  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has evolved to meet these modern challenges by consistently implementing new policies, creating governing structures, and providing education to member-states.

Text:  In 2002, leaders from various nations met in Prague to discuss security challenges at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit.  Agenda items included enhancing capabilities to more appropriately respond to terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to consider the pending memberships of several Eastern European nations, and for the first time in NATO history, a pledge to strengthen cyber defenses.  Since 2002, NATO has updated its cyber policies to more accurately reflect the challenges of a world that is almost exclusively and continuously engaged in hybrid warfare. 

As NATO is a defensive organization, its primary focus is collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security.  Early cyber policy was devoted exclusively to better network defense, but resources were limited; strategic partnerships had not yet been developed; and structured frameworks for policy applications did not exist.  When Russian Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks temporarily disrupted Estonian banking and business sectors in 2007, the idea of collective defense was brought to fruition.  Later, in 2008, another wave of vigorous and effective Russian DDoS attacks precluded an eventual kinetic military invasion of Georgia.  This onslaught of cyber warfare, arguably the first demonstration of cyber power used in conjunction with military force, prompted NATO to revisit cyber defense planning[1].  Today, several departments are devoted to the strategic and tactical governance of cybersecurity and policy. 

NATO’s North Atlantic Council (NAC) provides high-level political oversight on all policy developments and implementation[2].  Under the NAC rests the Cyber Defence Committee which, although subordinate to the NAC, leads most cyber policy decision-making.  At the tactical level, NATO introduced Cyber Rapid Reaction teams (CRRT) in 2012 which are responsible for cyber defense at all NATO sites[3].  The CRRTs are the first to respond to any cyber attack.  The Cyber Defence Management Board (CDMB), formerly known as the Defence Policy and Planning Committee (Cyber Defence), maintains responsibility for coordinating cyber defense activities among NATO’s civil and military bodies[4].  The CDMB also serves as the most senior advisory board to the NAC.  Additionally, the NATO Consultation, Control, and Command Board serves as the main authority and consultative body regarding all technical aspects and implementation of cyber defense[5]. 

In 2008 at the Bucharest Summit, NATO adopted its first political body of literature concerning cyber defense policy which primarily affirmed member nations’ shared responsibility to develop and defend its networks while adhering to international law[6].  Later, in 2010, the NAC was tasked with developing a more comprehensive cyber defense strategy which eventually led to an updated Policy on Cyber Defense in 2011 to reflect the rapidly evolving threat of cyber attacks[7].  NATO would continue to evolve in the following years.  In 2014, NATO began establishing working partnerships with industry leaders in cybersecurity, the European Union, and the European Defense Agency[8].  When NATO defense leaders met again at the Warsaw Summit in 2016, the Alliance agreed to name cyberspace as a domain of warfare in which NATO’s full spectrum of defensive capabilities do apply[9]. 

Despite major policy developments and resource advancements, NATO still faces several challenges in cyberspace.  Some obstacles are unavoidable and specific to the Internet of Things, which generally refers to a network of devices, vehicles, and home appliances that contain electronics, software, actuators, and connectivity which allows these things to connect, interact and exchange data.  First, the problem of misattribution is likely. Attribution is the process of linking a group, nation, or state actor to a specific cyber attack[10].  Actors take unique precautions to remain anonymous in their efforts, which creates ambiguities and headaches for the response teams investigating a particular cyber attack’s origin.  Incorrectly designating a responsible party may cause unnecessary tension or conflict. 

Second, as with any computer system or network, cyber defenses are only as strong as its weakest link.  On average, NATO defends against 500 attempted cyber attacks each month[11].  Ultimately, the top priority is management and security of Alliance-owned security infrastructure.  However, because NATO is a collection of member states with varying cyber capabilities and resources, security is not linear.  As such, each member nation is responsible for the safety and security of their own networks.  NATO does not provide security capabilities or resources for its members, but it does prioritize education, training, wargaming, and information-sharing[12].

To the east of NATO, Russia’s aggressive and tenacious approach to gaining influence in Eastern Europe and beyond has frustrated the Alliance and its strategic partners.  As demonstrated in Estonia and Georgia, Russia’s cyber power is as equally frustrating, as Russia views cyber warfare as a component of a larger information war to control the flow and perception of information and distract, degrade, or confuse opponents[13].  U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparroti sees Russia using cyber capabilities to operate under the legal and policy thresholds that define war. 

A perplexing forethought is the potential invocation of NATO Article 5 after a particularly crippling cyber attack on a member nation.  Article 5 bounds all Alliance members to the collective defense principle, stating that an attack on one member nation is an attack on the Alliance[14].  The invocation of Article 5 has only occurred one time in NATO history following the September 11 terror attacks in the United States[15].  The idea of proportional retaliation often arises in cyber warfare debates.  A retaliatory response from NATO is also complicated by potential misattribution.

Looking ahead, appears that NATO is moving towards an active cyber defense approach.  Active defense is a relatively new strategy that is a set of measures designed to engage, seek out, and proactively combat threats[16].  Active defense does have significant legal implications as it transcends the boundaries between legal operations and “hacking back.”  Regardless, in 2018 NATO leadership agreed upon the creation and implementation of a Cyber Command Centre that would be granted the operational authority to draw upon the cyber capabilities of its members, such as the United States and Great Britain[17].  Cyber Deterrence, as opposed to strictly defense, is attractive because it has relatively low barriers to entry and would allow the Alliance to seek out and neutralize threats or even to counter Russian information warfare campaigns.  The Command Centre is scheduled to be fully operational by 2023, so NATO still has a few years to hammer out specific details concerning the thin line between cyber defense and offense. 

The future of cyber warfare is uncertain and highly unpredictable.  Some experts argue that real cyber war will never happen, like German professor Thomas Rid, while others consider a true act of cyber war will be one that results in the direct loss of human life[18].  Like other nations grappling with cyber policy decision-making, NATO leadership will need to form a consensus on the applicability of Article 5, what precisely constitutes a serious cyber attack, and if the Alliance is willing to engage in offensive cyber operations.  Despite these future considerations, the Alliance has developed a comprehensive cyber strategy that is devoted to maintaining confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility of sensitive information. 

Endnotes:

[1] Smith, David J., Atlantic Council: Russian Cyber Strategy and the War Against Georgia, 17 January 2014, retrived from http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/russian-cyber-policy-and-the-war-against-georgia; and White, Sarah P., Modern War Institute: Understanding Cyber Warfare: Lessons From the Russia-Georgia War, 20 March 2018, retrieved from https://mwi.usma.edu/understanding-cyberwarfare-lessons-russia-georgia-war/

[2] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cyber defence, 16 July 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_78170.htm

[3] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cyber defence, 16 July 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_78170.htm

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cyber defence, 16 July 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_78170.htm

[8] Ibid; and NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center for Excellence, History, last updated 3 November 2015, https://ccdcoe.org/history.html

[9] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cyber defence, 16 July 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_78170.htm

[10] Symantec, The Cyber Security Whodunnit: Challenges in Attribution of Targeted Attacks, 3 October 2018, retrieved from https://www.symantec.com/blogs/expert-perspectives/cyber-security-whodunnit-challenges-attribution-targeted-attacks

[11] Soesanto, S., Defense One: In Cyberspace, Governments Don’t Know How to Count, 27 September 2018, retrieved from: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/09/cyberspace-governments-dont-know-how-count/151629/; and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cyber defence, last modified 18 February 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2018_02/20180213_1802-factsheet-cyber-defence-en.pdf

[12] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cyber defence, last modified 18 February 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_78170.htm

[13] U.S. Department of Defense, “NATO moves to combant Russian hybrid warfare,” 29 September 2018, retrieved from https://dod.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1649146/nato-moves-to-combat-russian-hybrid-warfare/

[14] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Collective defence – article 5, 12 June 2018, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm

[15] Ibid.

[16] Davis, D., Symantec: Navigating The Risky Terrain of Active Cyber Defense, 29 May 2018, retrieved from https://www.symantec.com/blogs/expert-perspectives/navigating-risky-terrain-active-cyber-defense

[17] Emmott, R., Reuters: NATO Cyber Command to be fully operational in 2023, 16 October 2018, retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-cyber/nato-cyber-command-to-be-fully-operational-in-2023-idUSKCN1MQ1Z9

[18] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Cyber War Will Not Take Place”: Dr Thomas Rid presents his book at NATO Headquarters,” 7 May 2013, retrieved from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_100906.htm

 

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Call for Papers: The Next Pivot / The Next Threat

 

eprs-aag-564355-understanding-hybrid-threats

© Jérôme Rommé / Fotolia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Background:

Divergent Options is a non-politically aligned non-revenue generating national security website that, in 1,000 words or less, provides unbiased, dispassionate, candid articles that assess a national security situation, present multiple options to address the situation, and articulate the risk and gain of each option.  Please note that while we assess a national security situation and may provide options, we never recommend a specific option.

Call for Papers:

Divergent Options is calling for national security papers assessing situations or discussing options related to countries choosing to pivot their focus away from one issue and towards another.  We are also interested in national security papers assessing situations or discussing options related to new threats that countries may be facing.

Please limit your article to 1,000 words and write using our Options Paper or Assessment Paper templates which are designed for ease of use by both writers and readers alike.

Please send your article to submissions@divergentoptions.org by February 8, 2019.

If you are not interested in writing on this topic, we always welcome individual articles on virtually any national security situation an author is passionate about.  Please do not let our call for papers cause you to hesitate to send us your idea.  We look forward to hearing from you!

To inspire potential writers we offer the following writing prompts:

– Did U.S. President Barack Obama’s “Pivot to the Pacific” or “Rebalancing Towards Asia” succeed?  Provide an assessment.

– What options does the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have as the U.S. pivots away from Syria?

– As the U.S. pivots away from Afghanistan, what options exist for the Afghan Government?  What options exist for the Afghan Taliban?

– What threats are posed by the continued evolution of hypersonic technology?  Provide an assessment.

– Artificial intelligence is rising.  What threat does it pose?  Provide an assessment.

– Assess the next threat that countries effected by the Arab Spring will face.

– Assess China’s efforts globally.  Do they represent a pivot?  If so, what are they pivoting toward and what is the impact?  When did this pivot begin?

– What are the next threats to emerge in Central America or South America?  Provide an assessment.

– Does any country need to pivot towards addressing organized crime?  Provide an assessment.

– Will U.S. President Donald Trump’s pivot away from Syria and Afghanistan succeed?  Provide an assessment.

– As Britain pivots away from the European Union, what options does it have to maintain its status in the world?

– Is Russia pivoting away from Soviet-era tactics and towards something else?  Provide an assessment.

– What country is pivoting towards cyber warfare above all others?  Provide an assessment.

– Assess the U.S. pivot away from the Global War on Terrorism.  While this may happen, will it make more terrorists pivot towards the U.S.?

Our partners at the The Conflict Studies and Analysis Project at the The Global Initiative for Civil Stabilisation offer the following prompts:

– Assess the potential use / misuse of Artificial Intelligence in future war crimes /crimes against humanity investigations.

– What options exist to reduce Chinese dominance of cellular, internet, and other network infrastructure in poorer countries?

– Assess the use of loans by China to curtail the sovereignty of African States.  This assessment can also be done within the context of U.S.-China Competition.

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Assessment of the Future of “Russkiy Mir” in Russia’s Grand Strategy

Gabriela Rosa-Hernández was the U.S.-Russia Relationship Research Intern at the American Security Project.  Rosa-Hernández is a David L. Boren Scholar and a Critical Language Scholarship recipient for Russian Language.  Collectively, she’s resided for nearly two years in post-soviet spaces such as Russia, Latvia, and the Republic of Georgia.  Rosa-Hernández can be found on Twitter @GabrielaIRosa.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Editor’s Note:  All translations were done by the author.

Title:  Assessment of the Future of “Russkiy Mir” in Russia’s Grand Strategy

Date Originally Written:  December 10, 2018.

Date Originally Published:  December 31, 2018.

Summary:  In October 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the 6th World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad and approved a migration policy.  In 2014, Russia utilized its “Russian World” rhetoric to justify its illegal annexation of Crimea and its support of secessionist groups in the Donbass.  Following Russia’s demographic decline, and its economic issues; it is likely that the “Russian World” narrative will continue and focus on compatriot resettlement.

Text:  “Russian World” is perhaps Russia’s most controversial piece of policy.  While the terms “Compatriots” and “Russian Diaspora” were not new when President Vladimir Putin took office, the first time he officially mentioned the term “Russian World” was in 2001 before the first World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad[1].  Specifically, Putin stated, “the notion of the Russian World extends far from Russia’s geographical borders and even far from the borders of the Russian ethnicity[2].”  From this moment on, the Russian government erased the boundaries between ethnic Russians and those who identified themselves belonging to the cultural-linguistic-spiritual sphere of the Russian Federation.  “Russian World,” can be best described as the ideological concept guiding the way in which Russia’s responsibility to “compatriots” abroad manifests itself into concrete policy[3].  Overall, “Russian World” is such a versatile piece of policy that it can be observed in Russia’s 2015 National Security Strategy just as it can be seen in Russia’s 2018 “Decree on the Concept of the State Migration Policy.”

On December 31, 2015, the Russian government released its National Security Strategy and the term “compatriot” was mentioned twice therein.  The first mention of “compatriot” was located under the “Russia in the Contemporary World” section[4].  The document directly read that “Russia has shown the ability to defend the rights of compatriots abroad.”  Right after this, the strategy remarked how Russia’s role has increased in solving important world problems.  The strategy posed “defending the rights of compatriots abroad” as an international issue where Russia could bolster its role in the international arena. “Compatriot” was also casually mentioned under the “Culture” section[5]. 

The “Culture” section of the strategy regarded Russian language as not only a tool of interethnic interaction within the Russian Federation but the basis of integration processes in the post-Soviet space.  It remarked that the function of the Russian language as a state language was also a means of meeting the language and cultural requirements of “compatriots” abroad.  Essentially, Russia visualized Russian language as something far more than its state language.  Instead, Russia views the Russian language as the means to interethnic communication in the post-Soviet space, particularly Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member states.  The document also mentioned that Russia supported Russian language and cultural programs in CIS member states to further the Eurasian integration process[6].  Overall, Russian language was politicized in the document, and Russia declared its intent to keep Russian language alive in at least CIS member states.  This intent is crucial to understand because Russia considers all those former-Soviet citizens with a linguistic affiliation to the Russian Federation under its compatriot policy. 

In October 2018, nearly three years after the release of Russia’s National Security Strategy, Putin stated in the 6th World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad, “all together – represent a huge community of Russian-like compatriots, represent one large, huge, Russian world, which has never been exclusively built on only ethnic, national, or religious ground[7].”  Putin further commented that Russian World unites all with a spiritual connection with Russia and all those who consider themselves carriers of Russian language, Russian culture and Russian history[8].  Putin’s words followed the same line as Russia’s national security strategy; a strategy which listed the lowered role of Russian language in the world and the quality of its teaching as a national security threat[9].

Russia effectively visualizes the use of Russian language and culture as a soft power tool to be employed not only in the international arena but the domestic arena as well.  During the same speech, Putin declared that Russia would defend the interests and rights of compatriots by using all the international and bilateral mechanisms available to do so[10].  Putin made this statement after accusing the Baltics and Ukraine of altering historical monuments and Russian language[11].  While Putin’s speech reflected the principles written in Russia’s national security strategy, the speech did not reflect the narrative within the decree he signed and released on the same day on Russia’s state migration policy.

Instead of highlighting the role of the interests of compatriots abroad, the decree focused on facilitating conditions for compatriots to resettle in the Russian Federation.  This decree was a shift from a rhetoric which focused on international presence of foreign citizens who are native carriers of the Russian language.  The shift signaled a change in narrative from an international policy brought down to the domestic level.  Ultimately, the decree stated that the migration influx (2012-2017) into Russia compensated for Russia’s natural population decline before discussing state programs towards compatriots[12].  This present change of emphasis regarding compatriots is likely due to Russia’s demographic decline.  Overall, Russia’s new state migration policy shows how the concept of “Russian World” is adapted to fit the needs of the Russian state in a time of demographic decline. 

In conclusion, the rhetoric of “Russian World” served as justification for Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in the Donbass[13].  Because of this, Russia’s “Russian World” is looked upon with suspicion by its neighbors[14].  However, in the latest piece of policy regarding “compatriots,” instead of focusing on “Eurasian integration,” Russia seeks to attract “compatriots” into its territory.  Following Russia’s demographic decline, and its economic issues, it is likely that “Russian World’s” narrative on compatriot resettlement will become stronger.  This narrative will hold more importance over the “defending the rights of compatriots abroad” narrative.  Due to the lack of tangible benefits of “defending the rights of compatriots abroad,” compatriot resettlement is likely to play a larger role in Russia’s future national security strategy. 

Endnotes:

[1] Laurelle, M. (2015, May). The ‘Russian World’: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Aspirations. Retrieved from http://globalinterests.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FINAL-CGI_Russian-World_Marlene-Laruelle.pdf

[2] Ibid.

[3] Zevelev, I. (2016, August 22). The Russian World in Moscow’s Grand Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-world-moscows-strategy

[4] President of Russia. (2015, December 31). On the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation. Retrieved from http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/l8iXkR8XLAtxeilX7JK3XXy6Y0AsHD5v.pdf

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] President of Russia. (2018, October 31). World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad. Retrieved from http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59003

[8] Ibid.

[9] President of Russia. (2015, December 31). On the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation. Retrieved from http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/l8iXkR8XLAtxeilX7JK3XXy6Y0AsHD5v.pdf

[10] President of Russia. (2018, October 31). World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad. Retrieved from http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59003

[11] Ibid.

[12] President of Russia. (2018, October 21). Decree on the Concept of the State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation for 2019-2025. Retrieved from http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/58986

[13] Zevelev, I. (2016, August 22). The Russian World in Moscow’s Grand Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-world-moscows-strategy

[14] Ibid.

Assessment Papers Gabriela Rosa-Hernández Policy and Strategy Russia
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An Assessment of the 2018 U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy Summary

Doctor No has worked in the Cybersecurity field for more than 15 years.  He has also served in the military.  He has a keen interest in following the latest developments in foreign policy, information security, intelligence, military, space and technology-related issues.  You can follow him on Twitter @DoctorNoFI.  The author wishes to remain anonymous due to the work he is doing.  The author also wishes to thank @LadyRed_6 for help in editing.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

Title:
  An Assessment of the 2018 U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy Summary

Date Originally Written:  November 11, 2018.

Date Originally Published:  December 3, 2018.

Summary:  On September 18, 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released a summary of its new Cyber Strategy.  While the summary indicates that the new document is more aggressive than the 2015 strategy, that is not surprising as President Donald Trump differs significantly from President Barack Obama.  Additionally, many areas of adversary vulnerabilities will likely be taken advantage of based upon this new strategy.

Text:
  The U.S. DoD released a summary of its new Cyber Strategy on September 18, 2018[1].  This 2018 strategy supersedes the 2015 version.  Before looking at what has changed between the 2015 strategy and the new one, it is important to recap what has happened during the 2015-2018 timeframe.  In 2015, President Obama met with China’s Premier Xi Jinping, and one of the issues discussed was China’s aggressive cyber attacks and intelligence gathering targeting the U.S. Government, and similar activities targeting the intellectual property of U.S. companies.  The meeting and the sanctions before that did bear some fruit, as information security company FireEye reported cyber attacks from China against the U.S. decreased after that meeting[2].

Russia on the other hand, has increased cyber operations against the U.S. and other nations.  During 2014 in Ukraine, Russia seized Crimea, participated in military operations in Eastern Ukraine, and also demonstrated its might in cyber capabilities during these conflicts.  Perhaps the most significant cyber capability demonstrated by Russia was the hacking and immobilizing of Ukrainian power grid in December 2015[3].  This event was significant in that it attacked a critical part of another country’s essential infrastructure.

The cyber attack that had the most media coverage likely happened in 2016.  The media was shocked when Russians hacked the U.S. Democratic National Committee[4] and used that data against Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, specifically in social media during the U.S. Presidential election[5].

The U.S. had its own internal cyber-related problems as well.  “Whistleblower” Reality Winner[6] and the criminal negligence of Nghia Hoang Pho[7] have somewhat damaged the National Security Agency’s (NSA) capabilities to conduct cyber operations.  The Nghia Hoang Pho case was probably the most damaging, as it leaked NSA’s Tailored Access Operations attacking tools to adversaries.  During this timeframe the U.S. Government also prohibited the use of Kaspersky Lab’s security products[8] in its computers due to security concerns.

Also worthy of note is that the U.S. administration has changed how it conducts diplomacy and handles military operations.  Some have said during President Obama’s tenure his administration micromanaged military operations[9].  This changed when President Trump came to the White House as he gave the U.S. military more freedom to conduct military operations and intelligence activities.

Taking these events into account, it is not surprising that the new DoD Cyber Strategy is more aggressive in its tone than the previous one.  Its statement to “defend forward to disrupt or halt malicious cyber activity at its source,” is perhaps the most interesting.  Monitoring adversaries is not new in U.S. actions, as the Edward Snowden leaks have demonstrated.  The strategy also names DoD’s main adversaries, mainly China and Russia, which in some fields can be viewed as near-peer adversaries.  The world witnessed a small example of what to expect as part of this new strategy when U.S. Cyber Command warned suspected Russian operatives of upcoming election meddling[10].

Much has been discussed about U.S. reliance on the Internet, but many forget that near-peer adversaries like China and Russia face similar issues.  What China and Russia perhaps fear the most, is the so-called Orange Revolution[11], or Arab Spring-style[12] events that can be inspired by Internet content.  Fear of revolution leads China and Russia to control and monitor much of their population’s access to Internet resources via the Great Firewall of China[13], and Russia’s SORM[14].  Financial and market data, also residing on the Internet, presents a vulnerability to Russia and China.  Much of the energy sector in these countries also operates and monitors their equipment thru Internet-connected resources.  All of these areas provide the U.S. and its allies a perfect place to conduct Computer Network Attack (CNA) and Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) operations, against both state and non-state actors in pursuit of U.S. foreign policy goals.  It is worth noting that Britain, arguably the closest ally to the U.S., is  also investing in Computer Network Operations, with emphasis on CNA and CNE capabilities against Russia’s energy sector for example.  How much the U.S. is actually willing to reveal of its cyber capabilities, is in the future to be seen.

Beyond these changes to the new DoD Cyber Strategy, the rest of the document follows the same paths as the previous one.  The new strategy continues the previous themes of increasing information sharing with allies, improving cybersecurity in critical parts of the homeland, increasing DoD resources, and increasing DoD cooperation with private industry that works with critical U.S. resources.

The new DoD Cyber Strategy is good, provides more maneuver room for the military, and its content will likely be of value to private companies as they think about what cyber security measures they should implement on their own systems.

Endnotes:


[1] U.S. Department of Defense. (2018). Summary of the Department of Defense Cyber Strategy. Retrieved from https://media.defense.gov/2018/Sep/18/2002041658/-1/-1/1/CYBER_STRATEGY_SUMMARY_FINAL.PDF

[2] Fireeye. (2016, June). REDLINE DRAWN: CHINA RECALCULATES ITS USE OF CYBER ESPIONAGE. Retrieved from https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/current-threats/pdfs/rpt-china-espionage.pdf

[3] Zetter, K. (2017, June 03). Inside the Cunning, Unprecedented Hack of Ukraine’s Power Grid. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunning-unprecedented-hack-ukraines-power-grid/

[4] Lipton, E., Sanger, D. E., & Shane, S. (2016, December 13). The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html

[5] Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (2017, January 6). Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution. Retrieved from https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

[6] Philipps, D. (2018, August 23). Reality Winner, Former N.S.A. Translator, Gets More Than 5 Years in Leak of Russian Hacking Report. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/reality-winner-nsa-sentence.html

[7] Cimpanu, C. (2018, October 01). Ex-NSA employee gets 5.5 years in prison for taking home classified info. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/ex-nsa-employee-gets-5-5-years-in-prison-for-taking-home-classified-info/

[8] Volz, D. (2017, December 12). Trump signs into law U.S. government ban on Kaspersky Lab software. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-kaspersky/trump-signs-into-law-u-s-government-ban-on-kaspersky-lab-software-idUSKBN1E62V4

[9] Altman, G. R., & III, L. S. (2017, August 08). The Obama era is over. Here’s how the military rates his legacy. Retrieved from https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2017/01/08/the-obama-era-is-over-here-s-how-the-military-rates-his-legacy/

[10] Barnes, J. E. (2018, October 23). U.S. Begins First Cyberoperation Against Russia Aimed at Protecting Elections. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/russian-hacking-usa-cyber-command.html

[11] Zasenko, O. E., & Kryzhanivsky, S. A. (2018, October 31). Ukraine. Retrieved November 1, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Orange-Revolution-and-the-Yushchenko-presidency#ref986649

[12] History Channel Editors. (2018, January 10). Arab Spring. Retrieved November 1, 2018, from https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/arab-spring

[13] Chew, W. C. (2018, May 01). How It Works: Great Firewall of China – Wei Chun Chew – Medium. Retrieved November 1, 2018, from https://medium.com/@chewweichun/how-it-works-great-firewall-of-china-c0ef16454475

[14] Lewis, J. A. (2018, October 17). Reference Note on Russian Communications Surveillance. Retrieved November 1, 2018, from https://www.csis.org/analysis/reference-note-russian-communications-surveillance

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Options for the Strategic Goals of the Royal Canadian Navy

Lieutenant(N) Fred Genest is a Naval Warfare Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy and has deployed operationally in HMCS Charlottetown and HMCS Fredericton.  He is currently completing a Master of Public Administration degree while on staff at the Royal Military College of Canada.  He tweets at @RMCNavyGuy.  This article does not represent the policies or opinions of the Government of Canada or the Royal Canadian Navy.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) is in the process of recapitalizing its fleet but has not had a significant debate on its strategic goals in decades.

Date Originally Written:  December 19, 2017.

Date Originally Published:  March 12, 2018.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  This article is written from the point of view of the senior Canadian political and military leadership.

Background:  Successive governments have asserted that Canada must deploy warships overseas to help maintain international security and stability[1].  Despite the RCN’s fleet recapitalization, there has been no debate about the best way to employ its forces.

Current RCN employment is based on history, Cold War thinking, and national myths. Canada sees itself as “punching above its weight” since the Second World War.  In that war, Canada gave control of its forces to the British and American leaders, with disastrous results at home such as the closure of the St. Lawrence seaway.  During the Cold War, Canadian warships deployed with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Standing Naval Forces; this continues in the 21st century.  In its role as a “junior partner” since World War 2, Canada has followed the British and American lead in security and defence, subordinating its national interest to the alliance’s goals.

Significance:  As a sovereign middle power, Canada can set its own strategic priorities[2].  A commitment-capability gap—insufficient units to accomplish designated tasks—has been identified in the RCN since at least the 1964 White Paper on Defence[3].  The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) saw this as normal at the end of the Cold War[4].  A 2013 report[5] stated that Canada would have difficulty meeting its readiness and force posture requirements until well into the 2020s.  Adjusting the current strategy could help reduce the gap.

Option #1:  Maintain the status quo with a medium global force projection navy[6], constant rotations with NATO, and a worldwide presence.

Risk:  With Option #1 the commitment-capability gap could grow.  The Government of Canada (GoC) intends to be prepared to participate in concurrent operations across multiple theatres[7].  However, readiness goals will not be met until the late 2020s[8], perhaps even until the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project is completed in the 2040s.  Manning is, and will remain, a problem in certain areas like anti-submarine warfare and engineering.

By continuing the historical pattern of letting alliance leaders determine its strategy, Canada is abdicating its responsibility to protect its national interests.

Gain:  There is prestige in being one of the few navies that routinely deploys around the world[9], and RCN ships are recognized by its allies as the “go-to” during operations[10].  Option #1 improves Canada’s standing in the world, especially amongst peer allied nations, and allows Canada to exercise some leadership in international affairs.  This increased leadership role allows Canada to further its interests through diplomacy.

Furthermore, there is a morale-boosting effect in having regular overseas deployments; sailors, like soldiers, are keen to acquire “bits of coloured ribbon.”  In the RCN, this is achieved through overseas operations.  Regular overseas deployments or lack thereof may therefore be a factor in recruitment and retention.

There is also an internal political gain: by highlighting successes abroad, the GoC can raise awareness of the RCN and increase popular support for its foreign policy[11].  This is beneficial to the RCN, as popular support can translate into political pressure to obtain the tools required to achieve its institutional goals.

Option #2:  Downgrade the RCN to a medium regional power projection navy.  Cease overseas deployments except for specific, time-limited United Nations or NATO missions critical for peace or security.

Risk:  No longer routinely deploying internationally would be seen as a loss of prestige, and could lead to a loss of informal diplomatic leadership.

Local operations are often unpopular with sailors, and removing the opportunity to go overseas could lead to a loss of morale, with obvious effects on retention.  Also, one of the main ways Canadian sailors are trained for full-spectrum operations is through workups leading to an overseas deployment, and through multinational exercises while deployed.  Removing those training opportunities could reduce personnel readiness.  Option #2 could also harm the justifications for future, or even current, procurement projects.

Gain:  RCN commitments would be more in line with capabilities.  The GoC’s commitments will continue to be difficult for the RCN to meet in the next decade[12]; reducing the level of commitment would allow the RCN and its allies to plan based on actual capabilities.

Carefully selecting operations as part of Option #2 would also let Canada set its own priorities for its warships.  In recent years, Canadian ships have taken part in operations that were only vaguely related to Canadian interests, such as European Union migrant activities.  Not committing to those operations would free up the RCN to take part in more nationally-relevant operations.

With the CSC, Canada will maintain a full-spectrum capability, and being a medium regional power projection navy does not preclude overseas deployments.  Option #2 would bring Canada in line its European NATO peers, who keep their warships near their own waters, to protect their national interests.

Another challenge for the RCN is its maintenance budget, which is insufficient to meet all requirements. One of the effects is that ships have to swap parts to achieve material readiness and some repairs are left undone due to a lack of parts or available personnel.  Deployments, especially repeated overseas deployments by the same units, are hard on equipment. Reducing the number of overseas deployments under Option #2 would reduce premature failures and maintenance costs.

Other Comments:  Option #2 may not be feasible in the current political climate, but this does not preclude vigorous examination.

Recommendation:  None.

Endnotes:

[1] Department of National Defence. (2017a). Leadmark 2050: Canada in a New Maritime World. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/assets/NAVY_Internet/docs/en/analysis/rcn-leadmark-2050_march-2017.pdf 
— Leadmark 2050 is a document produced by the Royal Canadian Navy to set its long-term vision beyond its five-year strategic plan. It is a follow-up to the 2001 publication, Leadmark 2020.

[2] Lindley-French, J. (2017). Brexit and the Shifting Pillars of NATO. Retrieved from http://www.cgai.ca/brexit_and_the_shifting_pillars_of_nato

[3] Department of National Defence. (1964). White Paper on Defence. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/dn-nd/D3-6-1964-eng.pdf — While it did not call it as such, the concern was evident.
  In Commonwealth countries, White Papers are used to provide information about government policy to parliamentarians and the public.  In Canada, there have been three White Papers on Defence since World War 2: 1964, 1971, and 1994. Major defence policy documents were also released in 1984, 1992 and 2017.

[4] Department of National Defence. (1987). Challenge and commitment : a defence policy for Canada. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/dn-nd/D2-73-1987-eng.pdf

[5] Department of National Defence – Chief Review Services. (2013). Evaluation of Naval Forces. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/mdn-dnd/D58-33-2013-eng.pdf 
— This document evaluated the RCN’s performance from 2008 to 2013, particularly the ability to generate and employ naval forces as directed by the GoC.

[6] Department of National Defence. (2017a). Leadmark 2050: Canada in a New Maritime World. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/assets/NAVY_Internet/docs/en/analysis/rcn-leadmark-2050_march-2017.pdf

[7] Department of National Defence. (2017b). Strong Secure Engaged: Canada’s Defence Policy. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/mdn-dnd/D2-386-2017-eng.pdf

[8] Department of National Defence – Chief Review Services. (2013). Evaluation of Naval Forces. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/mdn-dnd/D58-33-2013-eng.pdf

[9] Department of National Defence. (2017a). Leadmark 2050: Canada in a New Maritime World. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/assets/NAVY_Internet/docs/en/analysis/rcn-leadmark-2050_march-2017.pdf

[10] Department of National Defence – Chief Review Services. (2013). Evaluation of Naval Forces. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/mdn-dnd/D58-33-2013-eng.pdf

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

Canada Fred Genest Maritime Option Papers Policy and Strategy
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Future Risk & Surge: Brian Christopher Darling

Editor’s Note:  This article differs from the regular format we use at Divergent Options per a request from Nate Freier of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College.  This article has the writer imagining that they are a Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense (SecDef).  The writer is responding to a request from the SecDef for a two page memo that defines or describes strategic and military risk and identifies national security situations that may take place from 2017 to 2027 that would require the U.S. Department of Defense to surge personnel or capability to address.  The entire call for papers can be found here.  

  Brian Christopher Darling has served in the United States Army in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Qatar.  He has master’s degrees in Liberal Studies and Public Service Leadership from Rutgers University and Thomas Edison State University, respectively.  Mr. Darling is presently employed at Joint Force Headquarters, New Jersey National Guard.  He can be found on twitter @briancdarling and has written for NCO Journal.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

20 February 2017

Dear Secretary Mattis,

The Department of Defense faces a number of significant challenges in the coming decade.  Some of these situations involve familiar scenarios, some involve rising threats, and worst-case scenarios involve combinations of state and non-state actors and cyber warfare.  Not all threats to national security come from outside influencers either as the current state of the economy places the entire Department on precarious footing.  The purpose of this memorandum is to define strategic and military risk in the context of three areas that might well require a surge of United States armed forces.

It is prudent here to discuss risk assessment.  Although the previous administration sought to create more multilateral relationships and to conclude contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current President is faced with threats from an unstable North Korea, a resurgent Russia, and continued violence by state and non-state actors in CENTCOM.  The scenarios discussed herein require major risk considerations in terms of force management risk (manpower and readiness), institutional risk (funding and logistics), and future challenges[1].

The first area where the United States may be obligated to commit additional forces is the Middle East, commonly referred to as the CENTCOM Theater.  The Overseas Contingency Operations ongoing in CENTCOM drain manpower and readiness from forces which might otherwise be employed in EUCOM, PACOM, and elsewhere, thereby emboldening adversary states in those regions.  Further, surging forces to existing contingency operation locations risks an appearance of impropriety by the United States through support of oppressive regimes with records of human rights violations[2].

By surging forces in CENTCOM, the United States demonstrates its continued commitment to stability in the region.  Modular escalation of forces also serves to deter Iranian intervention in conflicts in Iraq and Syria[3].  A surge of forces to allied countries in the area would allow for rapid response to conflict within the region, to wit: the destruction of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and ongoing conflicts with Al Qaeda and their affiliates and the Haqqani network[4], the conclusion of the first being a stated goal of the new administration.

A discussion involving the ongoing hostilities in Syria logically leads to a consideration of a rising hegemonic threat.  This second possible area of consideration is the EUCOM Theater, involving a rising Russia and a surge of forces in Eastern Europe.  By surging forces to Eastern European nations formerly associated with the Warsaw Pact, the United States risks escalating tensions with Russia.  Further, reassigning forces from the pool available to CENTCOM creates an operational risk in the Middle East and a future challenges risk in both CENTCOM and PACOM.

A surge of forces in EUCOM would demonstrate the new administration’s continued commitment to NATO[5].  The President has previously publicly questioned the value of the alliance[6]; surging forces to counter Russian territorial expansion is a visible demonstration of the United States’ continued support of the existing international order. A surge of forces in EUCOM would also deter further Russian annexation of territory previously controlled by the former Soviet Union, as it has been aggressively active in previous years[7].

The final area where a surge of forces may be necessary is in South Korea, in the PACOM Theater.  The North Korean regime has become increasingly unstable and its nuclear threat has become more volatile[8].  Surging forces to PACOM risks nuclear intervention by the unstable North Korean regime, as well as grating the Pakistanis and emboldening our Indian allies.  Perhaps most significantly, a surge might also risk aggravating the United States’ relationship with China.

Demonstrating support of our allies in PACOM continues the themes of the previous administration’s pivot to the pacific.  The President has continued to demonstrate an interest in improving America’s Pacific alliances[9].  The United States would provide a balance of power between the rising economies in the area and a hegemonic China.  A surge presence in the Pacific theater would also reassure Taiwan, which might fear Chinese aggression[10], while also balancing potential conflicts between India and Pakistan[11].

Given the current manpower of the armed forces, any of the options above present an unsustainable future challenges risk to the Department of Defense.  Consideration must also be given to the condition of the platforms available to the services; the Air Force and Navy are currently dealing with issues regarding decades-old weapons platforms[12].  Although the President has sought more cost-effective relationships with vendors[13], there is a long-term institutional risk to development and acquisitions.

Endnotes:

[1]  Gates, R. (2010). Quadrennial defense review. Washington, DC.

[2]  Dorsey, James. (2017 January 18). “Qatar’s Backtrack On Labor Rights And Cooperation With Russia Reflects New World Order”. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/qatari-backtracking-on-labour-rights-and-cooperation_us_587c5ef5e4b077a19d180f56

[3]  Bar’el, Zvi. (2017, Feb 11). “In Iraq, the U.S. Invests, ISIS Loses and Iran Gains”.  Retrieved from http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iraq/.premium-1.770944

[4]  Lamothe, D. (2017 February 9). “Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan opens door to a ‘few thousand’ more troops deploying there”. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/02/09/top-u-s-commander-in-afghanistan-opens-door-to-a-few-thousand-more-troops-deploying-there/

[5]  Smith-Spark, L., and A. Shubert. (2017, January). “Poland welcomes thousands of US troops in NATO show of force”.  Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/14/europe/poland-us-troops-nato-welcome/

[6]  Gordon, M.R. (2017, January 15). “Trump Criticizes NATO and Hopes for ‘Good Deals’ With Russia”. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/world/europe/donald-trump-nato.html?_r=0

[7]  Dews, F. (2014, March 19). “NATO Secretary-General: Russia’s Annexation of Crimea is illegal and illegitimate”.  Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2014/03/19/nato-secretary-general-russias-annexation-of-crimea-is-illegal-and-illegitimate/

[8]  BBC News. (2017, February 12). “North Korea ballistic missile test sparks condemnation” Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38950733

[9]  Reuters.  (2017, February 11). “Trump and Japan’s Abe take a swing at golf diplomacy”.  Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/11/trump-and-japans-abe-take-a-swing-at-golf-diplomacy.html

[10]  Graham-Harrison, E. (2017, February 4). “Islands on the frontline of a new global flashpoint: China v Japan”.  Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/05/china-v-japan-new-global-flashpoint-senkaku-islands-ishigaki

[11]  IANS. (2017, February 12). “Pakistan sounds alarm over ‘nuclearisation’ of Indian Ocean by India”. Retrieved from http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/pakistan-sounds-alarm-over-nuclearisation-of-indian-ocean-by-india/story-Hdp49Lb4wpsPHYhbjs8A1M.html

[12]  Serbu, J. (2017 February 8).  “Military readiness problems can’t be fixed overnight, Defense chiefs warn”.  Retrieved from http://federalnewsradio.com/defense/2017/02/military-readiness-problems-cant-fixed-overnight-defense-chiefs-warn/

[13]  Cohen, Z. (2017 February 4). “After Trump attack, Lockheed Martin slashes F-35 cost”. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/politics/f-35-lockheed-martin-cost-reduction/

Brian Christopher Darling DO Partners Policy and Strategy Risk Assessment U.S. Army War College
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Future Risk & Surge: Chris Townsend

Editor’s Note:  This article differs from the regular format we use at Divergent Options per a request from Nate Freier of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College.  This article has the writer imagining that they are a Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense (SecDef).  The writer is responding to a request from the SecDef for a two page memo that defines or describes strategic and military risk and identifies national security situations that may take place from 2017 to 2027 that would require the U.S. Department of Defense to surge personnel or capability to address.  The entire call for papers can be found here.

Chris Townsend is an active duty U.S. Army officer with 20 years of service.  He is a Middle East and North Africa Foreign Area Officer.  He can be found on Twitter @FAO_Chris and has written for the Journal of Defense Resources Management, Small Wars Journal, Armchair General, and the Strategy Bridge.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

16 February 2017

MEMORANDUM FOR: Secretary of Defense

SUBJECT: Strategic and Military Risk

1.  DEFINING RISK:  Risk is any uncertainty that could complicate military operations or limit strategic options in responding to threats to U.S. interests.  Risks to strategic and military response can be categorized into three areas:  Operational, Institutional, and Global.

a.  Operational risk represents potential threats to military options and includes the presence of near-peer adversaries capable of area denial and the creation of threats across multiple domains simultaneously; weapons of mass destruction; adversarial Cyber, Space, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capabilities; and the potential for simultaneous multiple-theater, multiple-phase conflict.

b.  Institutional risk includes the forces, funding, and acquisition uncertainties and inefficiencies.  These affect the size, training, equipping, readiness, and resilience of the fighting force and the ability to project power in response to dispersed threats while defending the homeland and assisting civil authorities.

c.  Global risk represents the uncertainties introduced by climate, politics, and societal factors.  Complications introduced from changes to climate or natural disasters, competition for resources, challenges to sovereignty, cultural friction, and global, criminal—independent or state-aligned—actors all present risks that must be mitigated and used to inform planning.

2.  THREAT SCENARIOS:  The greatest threat to the United States response capability is a simultaneous, multiple-theater, multiple-phase, multiple-domain conflict compounded with a homeland defense requirement in an era of dwindling resources and forced reductions in manning and equipping in a global political environment where the U.S. has reduced basing, access, and overflight options due to lapsed efforts in relationship maintenance, coupled with a lack of partner capacity and poorly defined political and strategic end states.

a.  The most likely scenario for the next ten years is for America to continue its military involvement in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan as Iran seeks to increase its influence through the continued proliferation of the Iranian Threat Network and meddling in regional politics.  As the conflicts resolve, there will be significant requirements for the U.S. to train and equip security forces to maintain the fragile stability in these countries.  Periphery conflicts like Egypt in Libya, Turkey in Northern Syria and Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in Yemen will strain resources as the U.S. continues to support partners with equipment and training.  Counterterrorism efforts will continue to require attention and resources around the globe and here at home.

b.  The most dangerous scenario is state-on-state aggression that either through treaty or interest requires U.S. engagement in addition to the ongoing security missions around the globe.  Potential conflicts include Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, Iranian-Saudi War, Chinese seizure of Taiwan and surrounding waters, clashes between India and Pakistan, and North Korean attacks on South Korea or Japan.  Any such conflict would expose the inability of the U.S. military to truly project power in multiple theaters while protecting the homeland.

c.  The most disruptive scenario would be a full-scale, multiple-domain attack on the homeland while forces are deployed into multiple theaters.  Potential adversaries have demonstrated the capability to disrupt internet, power, and communication systems in addition to the ability to shoot down satellites.  Significant network outages would create chaos in civilian arenas and significantly challenge military planning.  Space capabilities of new satellites deployed by potential adversaries could threaten lateral physical or cyber attacks against our satellites creating long-term disruption.  The U.S. could find itself unable to address threats from distant adversaries that have developed capabilities that increase stand-off distances and preclude insertion of forces without significant risk.  Other belligerents would likely seize on U.S. preoccupation by launching efforts to resolve regional disputes.

3.  SURGE REQUIREMENTS:  In every scenario the U.S. would be required to surge forces in response to aggression or instability.

a.  U.S. Forces must be capable of surging forces into two separate theaters while maintaining ongoing security requirements at home and abroad.  Current manning, arming, and equipping forecasts are insufficient for this kind of conflict, straining the ability to respond, reducing the margin of error, and increasing the costs.  Potential conflicts with near-peer adversaries would be longer wars with higher casualties that embolden those that threaten our interests while undermining the confidence of allies and partners.

b.  The priority now must be to shift current security and training responsibilities to partner nations with U.S. support.  Domain owners must refocus on basic proficiency in their respective domain: air, land, sea, cyber, space.  Efforts to establish relationships between domain owners that allow for quickly assembled Joint Task Forces to effectively operate are vital to addressing potential threats.  The risks from multi-domain battle and anti-access/area denial must be addressed through focused strategic planning for ways to defeat these threats and develop our own capabilities in these areas.

c.  While global risk can only be understood and used to inform planning, operational and institutional risk can be managed by military and civilian leaders.  Legislative and doctrinal efforts must define the institutional and operational risk tolerance thresholds and match those assessments with funding and programs to mitigate residual risk.  Without a rebalance away from ongoing security requirements, and a refocus on core domain competencies absent the uncertainty of sequestration, the U.S. will find itself challenged in the most likely scenarios and sorely outmatched in the most dangerous and disruptive ones.

4.  POC for this memorandum is Christopher P. Townsend, MAJ, SC.

Chris Townsend DO Partners Policy and Strategy Risk Assessment U.S. Army War College
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Future Risk & Surge: Nathan Wike

Editor’s Note:  This article differs from the regular format we use at Divergent Options per a request from Nate Freier of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College.  This article has the writer imagining that they are a Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense (SecDef).  The writer is responding to a request from the SecDef for a two page memo that defines or describes strategic and military risk and identifies national security situations that may take place from 2017 to 2027 that would require the U.S. Department of Defense to surge personnel or capability to address.  The entire call for papers can be found here.  

Nathan Wike is an officer in the U.S. Army and a member of the Military Writer’s Guild.  The opinions expressed are his alone, and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

13 February 2017

MEMORANDUM FOR:  SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

SUBJECT:  The Ability to Surge Personnel in Response to Contingencies

INTRODUCTION:  The Secretary of Defense recently requested a series of position papers that describe national security situations that may take place from 2017 to 2027 that would require the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to surge personnel or capability. This is a critical step in considering the potential threats to U.S. national interests that may arise within the next decade. However, it rests upon a key assumption: that the DoD is capable of surging personnel to respond to a contingency. This topic directly relates to all four components of risk, outlined on page 90 of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. This memorandum discusses the means by which the DoD can surge personnel to rapidly expand the joint force in response to a contingency, and the potential risks.

BACKGROUND:  Since the 1970s, the U.S. military has relied upon the all-volunteer force (AVF) to fill its ranks. This force is unquestionably one of the most professional and capable militaries in all of history. The AVF has met every challenge with distinction, and is a credit to the nation. However, the AVF may not be enough to ensure victory against a peer or near-peer competitor in a conflict where vital U.S. interests are at stake. History reveals that in every major war, where the U.S. has faced an existential threat (e.g. the American Civil War, WWI, WWII), more than volunteers were required to achieve victory.

An unfortunate side effect of the AVF is that the methods and skills for utilizing the various means of surging military personnel have atrophied, or completely passed from the lexicon. These means equate to methods of conscription, which are inherently unpopular in any society. However, they are crucial in a major contingency.

DISCUSSION:  A well-conceived and tested system of surging personnel is a strategic capability that serves U.S. national interests. It provides assurance that the DoD can rapidly grow the joint force with the most qualified personnel available. This in turn serves as a deterrent to conflict. The options may be politically and socially difficult to implement, or even to contemplate. But losing a war would be even more so.

There are four primary methods through which the DoD may surge personnel. They may be applied in any sequence, or concurrently with one another. All are governed by the United States Code (USC). These four methods are: involuntary extension, ready reserve mobilization, enhanced recruitment strategies, and military selective service. Each method has various pros and cons that must be assessed prior to implementation.

Involuntary extension, colloquially known as “stop-loss,” is the fastest way to surge military personnel. This method retains a service-member beyond their initial end of term of service (ETS) date and up to their contractually agreed end of active obligated service (EAOS). Involuntary extension, which generally affects junior officers and enlisted personnel, is governed by Title 10, USC, Section 12305(a). This option has LOW operational and institutional risk, as it provides an immediate pool of trained personnel who are already assigned to units, and it has been used throughout the various operations throughout the 21st century. However it entails MODERATE force management risk, especially as is relates to morale and recruitment, and it is not sustainable over time.

Ready reserve mobilization affords the ability to recall service-members to active or reserve component service within 400 days of their ETS. This method affects a broad range of personnel from all ranks and occupational specialties. Ready reserve mobilization is governed by Title 10, USC, Section 12301(a). It has LOW operational risk, since affected personnel are not too far removed from military service, are generally of higher ranks and experience, and may quickly be re-integrated into units. This method has HIGH force management and institutional risk. It has been utilized within the last decade, but only for a minute percentage of personnel, and though all personnel assigned to the ready reserve are legally required to meet certain standards, in practice there are virtually no incentives to comply.

Enhanced recruitment strategies are the means by which the various recruitment apparatuses of the DoD can induce new personnel to volunteer for military service. This method primarily affects initial entry personnel, though it may extend to lateral entry personnel for select occupational specialties. This method has MODERATE operational risk, as it requires compromises in standards, and personnel arrive at units lacking valuable experience. It has MODERATE force management and institutional risk, as it preserves the spirit of the AVF, and the DoD can manage this method within existing structures, provided additional financial and material resources can be made available.

Military selective service, colloquially known as the draft, allows the DoD to draw upon the entire (male) population to meet personnel requirements, for all specialties. This is the most strategically significant option, by far. Military selective service is governed by Title 50, USC, Chapter 49. However it has HIGH risk across all categories. It has not been used since 1973, excludes eligible females, and the DoD no longer has the apparatuses or plans in place to monitor, induct, and assimilate the potentially vast numbers of eligible personnel.

CONCLUSION:  The risk to future challenges is currently HIGH, given that none of the aforementioned options are currently planned for, let alone regularly tested in the context of a major contingency operation. Reduction in risk can only come through a comprehensive review of the DoD’s processes to surge personnel, according to the USC. The options of involuntary extension, ready reserve mobilization, enhanced recruitment strategies, and military selective service must be incorporated into DoD strategic planning, then operationalized as part of exercises, and in practice for select cases. The ability to rapidly surge personnel is a strategic capability that must be preserved and modernized in order to safeguard U.S. interests from 2017 to 2027 and beyond.

DO Partners Nathan Wike Policy and Strategy Risk Assessment U.S. Army War College
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Syria Options: U.S. Grand Strategy

Mark Safranski is a Senior Analyst for Wikistrat, LLC.  His writing on strategy and national security have appeared in Small Wars Journal, Pragati, War on the Rocks  as well as in recent books like Warlords, inc., Blood Sacrifices:Violent Non-State Actors and Dark Magico-Religious Activities and The Clausewitz Roundtable.  He is the founder and publisher of zenpundit.com.

National Security Situation:  The Syrian Civil War.

Date Originally Written:  December 23, 2016.

Date Originally Published:  January 16, 2017.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  An analyst considering U.S.  national interest in terms of grand strategy.

Background:  Aleppo has fallen and with it the last shreds of credibility of President Obama’s policy on Syria.  None of Obama’s policy goals for Syria since the Arab Spring revolt were achieved.  In Syria, the Assad regime has crushed western-backed opposition fighters with direct Russian and Iranian military ground support; the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) still controls swaths of Syrian territory[1] and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally Turkey has conspired with Iran and Russia to exclude the U.S. and UN[2] from Syrian settlement talks.

Significance:  While Syria itself is of little strategic value to the U.S. beyond secondary implications for Israeli security, the utter failure of the Obama administration has brought U.S. diplomatic prestige to a nadir reminiscent of the Iranian hostage crisis or the fall of Saigon.  Worse, defeat in Syria occurred in a broader context of successful Russian aggression in Ukraine, uncontested Russian meddling in an U.S. presidential election, and perceptions of U.S. strategic concessions to Tehran in the Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA[3]).  Should the next administration want to accomplish more than Obama, it is vital that they  1) address Syria within the context of increased Russian-U.S. competition and 2) seize the initiative in restoring the influence of U.S. leadership with substantive and symbolic policy changes in regard to Syria and Russia.

Option #1:  Salvage Syria primarily in terms of a comprehensive re-ordering of U.S.-Russian relations to reduce threats to international stability from inter- and intra- state conflict.  Henry Kissinger’s concept of “linkage[4]” should be revived as a guiding principle rather than treating all points of international conflict or cooperation with Moscow as unrelated and occupying separate boxes.  Russian misbehavior needs to be met with appropriate countermeasures.  If U.S.  diplomats are assaulted by Federal Security Service (FSB) thugs, Russian diplomats in the U.S. are restricted to their embassies.  If U.S.  elections are hacked, Russia’s large number of intelligence officers under diplomatic cover in the U.S. are promptly expelled.  If “little green men” appear in friendly states, the U.S. instigates tough banking, economic or security aid pressure on Moscow.  Likewise, instead of trading public insults, the U.S. under Option #1 should negotiate frankly over Russian concerns and be prepared to build on points of cooperation and make concessions on a reciprocal basis.  If the U.S. could strike deals with Brezhnev we can do so with Putin.

Risk:  The U.S. begins from a position of weakness in regional conflicts, having little direct leverage over events on the ground in Syria or eastern Ukraine, which is why U.S. policy must shift to focus on systemic and strategic levels.  U.S. bureaucratic and political stakeholders have simultaneously pursued incompatible goals (i.e. overthrow Assad, stop ISIS, keep Syria intact, support rebels, fight terrorism, non-intervention) and will strongly resist a genuine strategy that forces choices.  Demonstrations of political will may be required by the new administration to convince partners and adversaries now skeptical of U.S. resolve or capability.

Gain:  Russian-U.S. relations could eventually shift to a “new detente” that replaces a high level of friction and peripheral aggression to if not friendly, at least business-like engagement.  Regional conflicts and attendant humanitarian crises could be moderated or settled in a stable diplomatic framework.  Progress on issues of mutual security concern such as Islamist terrorism could be made.  Trust in U.S. leadership could be regained.

Option #2:  A second strategy would be to address Syria narrowly with the objective of a settlement that cuts U.S. losses and attempts to return to as much of the status quo ante as possible – a weak state governed by Assad with minimal ability to threaten neighbors, guarantees for minorities, no ISIS or Islamist terror group in control of territory, and a removal of foreign military forces.

Risk:  While preferential to the current situation, Option #2 could be perceived as a U.S. retreat due to dropping longstanding unrealistic policy goals (i.e. regime change, Syria becoming a liberal democracy) in return for real increases in regional security and stability.  Domestic opposition in the U.S. from neoconservative and liberal interventionists is apt to be fierce.  The effort may fail and Syria could see a large-scale military build-up of Russian and Iranian military forces, threatening Israel.

Gain:  A diplomatic end to the conflict in Syria would have multiple benefits, not least for Syrian civilians who bear the brunt of the costs of civil war.  Preventing permanent state failure in Syria would be a strategic win against the spread of ISIS and similar radical Islamist Sunni terror groups.  The flow of refugees to Europe would markedly decline and those abroad in states like Turkey or Jordan could begin to return to Syria.  Finally, Syria would not become a major military outpost for Russia or Iran.

Other Comments:  It is most important that the new administration not begin by leaping into any particular foreign policy problem, including Syria, but start with a grand strategic end of improving U.S. global position and capacity, which in turn increases U.S. ability to uphold a stable, rules-based, international order. 

Recommendation:  None.

Endnotes:

[1]  Euan McKirdy and Angela Dewan, “Reports: ISIS retakes ancient Syrian city of Palmyra”, CNN, December 12, 2016.  http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/12/middleeast/palmyra-syria-isis-russia/index.html

[2]  Ben Hubbard and David E. Sanger, “Russia, Iran and Turkey Meet for Syria Talks, Excluding U.S.” New York Times, December 20 2016.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/world/middleeast/russia-iran-and-turkey-meet-for-syria-talks-excluding-us.html

[3]  United States Department of State, “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” January 17, 2016.  https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/ 

[4] Makinda, S. M., “The Role of Linkage Diplomacy in US‐Soviet Relations,” December, 1987.  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8497.1987.tb00148.x/abstract

 

Mark Safranski Option Papers Policy and Strategy Russia Syria United States
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Future Risk & Surge: A U.S. Army War College & Divergent Options Call for Papers

Note as of January 20, 2019:  This Call for Papers from December 2016 may reappear in your queue as a newly published item.  It is not.  This is us testing some functionality at our website.  Thank you for bearing with us.

 

armyandstrength200

Acknowledgements:

Before we discuss this call for papers, Divergent Options would like to publicly and sincerely thank Loren DeJonge Schulman of the Center for a New American Security.  Loren, without you this call for papers would never have happened.  Divergent Options is in your debt.  If you need anything in the future, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Background:

One of the four things we aspire to do at Divergent Options is to partner with research organizations to call for papers on a national security situation they have requested us to explore.  It is within this context that Divergent Options is proud to announce a partnership with Nate Freier of the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) at the U.S. Army War College.

In the summer of 2016 SSI began a year-long study of strategic and military risk and risk assessment.  The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff J-5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, and the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, Headquarters, Department of the Army sponsor SSI in this undertaking.

Since initiating the research, SSI has assembled a joint team of defense analysts, serving officers, and national security professionals to take a comprehensive look at the U.S. Department of Defense’s risk assessment challenges.  In the final analysis, SSI is endeavoring to arrive at meaningful conclusions for the entire U.S. Department of Defense by examining how the Pentagon defines, identifies, and accounts for risk in strategy development and strategic decision-making.

Opportunity:

This call for papers represents an opportunity for potential Divergent Options authors to assist in SSI’s research efforts.  If you have ever wanted to be able to provide your ideas to the Pentagon, here is your chance.

Call for Papers:

In this call for papers, we invite potential authors to imagine that they are a Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense (SecDef).  The SecDef has asked you to prepare a two-page memo that:

–  Defines or describes strategic and military risk and their various components.

(Note that the SecDef views components of risk as akin to operational, force management, institutional, and future challenges risk as described on page 90 of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review).  

–  Describes national security situations that may take place from 2017 to 2027 that would require the U.S. Department of Defense to surge personnel or capability to address.  The SecDef asks that you describe national security situations that are the likeliest (e.g. routine), most dangerous (e.g. most militarily lethal), and most disruptive (e.g. highly demanding and unanticipated).

–  Describes how these surge demands will impact U.S. Department of Defense priorities and strategic and military risk assessments.

Deadline for Submission:  February 3, 2017.

Submission Papers To:  submissions@divergentoptions.org

Call For Papers DO Partners Policy and Strategy Risk Assessment U.S. Army War College