Europe

Russia’s Self-Inflicted Security Dilemma

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Russia Topic Week

By Corentin Laguerre

Russia’s latest military doctrine, published in January 2015, has generated a great amount of discussion, especially because it named NATO as the primary security threat faced by the Russian Federation. If NATO has always been considered as a potential threat by Russia, this document is different in tone. Indeed, NATO is identified as a “fundamental external threat” and global rivalry is considered as the key driver of international politics, rather than international cooperation as it was the case in the past.1 Despite its original objective to counter the USSR, little in NATO policy or strategy can be seen as directly threatening Russia.2 In regards to the Ukrainian conflict and to the increasing tension between NATO and Russia, in order to avoid further escalation or a “New Cold War”, it is necessary to understand why Russia’s hostility toward NATO has increased since the 90s. Our hypothesis is that Russia is hostile to NATO because of its vision of international relations as a zero-sum game. This view makes the Alliance and its military capabilities threatening to Russia’s security and status. Moreover, this vision is reinforced by Russia’s return to its -Cold war mythology and a will to defend its traditional values against those represented by NATO. Finally, combined together these elements are pushing Moscow to balance NATO’s power in Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, thus increasing the phenomenon of security dilemma by pushing the Alliance to take steps to reassure its members, which reinforces Russia’s hostility. In a first part, the article will explore the origins of Russia’s threat perception of NATO, then it will argue that the deeper reason of Russia’s hostility is a difference of values, and finally, it will present the consequences of this hostility in the light of Stephen Walt’s balance of threat theory.            

NATO as a Threat Source

The Russian Federation has always been skeptical about the objectives of the Alliance and the possibility to cooperate with it, even if they both share common interests. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, Russia believes that its security environment has worsened due to an unstable neighbourhood, the expansion of NATO, and the Alliance’s missile defense program.            
This skepticism comes from the fact that Russia follows the principles of realpolitik, considers that the use of force is still present in international affairs and that international relations are a zero-sum game. Thus, Moscow focuses on military capabilities, and any state or organization that possesses substantial military potential can become a threat, marking a return to the Cold War view of the world.3

The primary security concern with NATO is the missile defense system launched in 2016. Since the early phase of its development, Russia was concerned that it could undermine its strategic deterrent. Even if the system is not directed against Russia and can’t intercept missiles launched from its territory because Russian ICBMs are too fast to be caught by the interceptors, Moscow is worried about what the system could become. Indeed, Valery Gerasimov, current Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia and first Deputy Defense Minister,  declared in 2012 that “’the concept of the BMD system being implemented is global by nature’ […] and that ‘such a configuration is a threat to the Russian strategic nuclear deterrent assets across [the] whole country.’” The missile defense system, combined with NATO conventional and special superiority, could undermine the Russian deterrent if the system was directed against it in the future.4

DEVESELU, Romania (May 12, 2016) The Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System Romania is officially certified May 12, 2016. Aegis Ashore, a critical part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach, is a land-based capability of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, constructed to defend against missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Sean Spratt/Released)
DEVESELU, Romania (May 12, 2016) The Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System Romania is officially certified May 12, 2016. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Sean Spratt/Released)

The second source of concern has to do with the nature of NATO governments and colored revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. These revolutions were perceived as threatening Russia because in Georgia and Ukraine, they led to the election of presidents who favored their countries joining NATO. Moscow blamed NATO governments for backing the opposition and trying to take advantage of the 2007-2008 electoral cycle to bring similar changes to Russia. In the eyes of the Russian regime, these revolutions put the stability of the region at risk, menaced to reduce Russian influence, and enhanced the danger of NATO enlargement.5 This last point has always been a source of tension for Russia, so these revolutions did little to reassure Russia about NATO’s intentions and to reduce Russia’s hostility.

Indeed, NATO enlargement was seen as breaking the assurances given by U.S Secretary of State James Baker to Mikhail Gorbachev at the time of German reunification.6 Consequently, since its first phase, NATO enlargement was perceived negatively by Russians inasmuch as they tended to conclude that it demonstrated Western countries’ will to take advantage of Russia’s weaknesses after the collapse of the Soviet Union.7 Moreover, they feared a potential deployment of U.S. forces in the Baltic States that would threaten Russia’s borders.8

However, NATO seems to be an indirect threat to Russian security. Rather, it represents a threat to Russia’s status. Alliance enlargement is a security threat inasmuch as in the Russian perspective, what threatens the status quo also threatens their security. Indeed, since the beginning of its enlargement, it seems that the Russians were more concerned about the fact that the strengthening of NATO in the former Republics could prevent Russia from restoring its former world status.9 According to Russian elites, NATO enlargement “would lead to the diminution of the Federation’s influence in the world and worsen its geopolitical and geostrategic situation.”10 When the expansion began, Moscow feared that it was about to lose the last remnants of influence it had in Europe.11 Indeed, the Russians lost the Warsaw Pact, Ukraine, and Georgia that were the cornerstone of their regional hegemony and power status. The prospect of losing those countries to NATO affected Russia’s self-image and reinforced its feeling of isolation. Besides, with their perception of reality in terms of spheres of influence and geopolitics as a zero-sum game, the addition of former Soviet states to NATO is seen as an aggression and the intent of NATO to keep Russia to the status of an inferior actor.12

In addition, Russia’s anxiety about NATO expansion, despite the Alliance’s claims that it would stabilize the region and favor a more secure environment, certainly comes from the fact that the country felt excluded and isolated by Western powers.13 A sentiment that later reinforced Moscow’s perception that relations with NATO during the 1990s and early 2000s involved humiliating experiences from the two phases of NATO enlargement in 1999 and in 2004 to the colored revolutions and the missile defense system.14 Added to the intervention in Kosovo, considered as another humiliating move by NATO since it had been done without Russia’s blessing, Moscow feels that the Alliance tends to act on its own without consideration for the principles established by the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act.15

nato_expansion
A map depicting NATO enlargement (Wikimedia Commons)

A first explanation for Russia’s hostility is the dynamic of security dilemma. Russia is hostile to NATO because it can become a threat to the Federation’s security and status. NATO enlargement, out-of-area orientation, and missile defense program are worrying Russia because they can reduce its influence in its neighborhood. However, these fears are a consequence of Russia’s political and strategic culture.

Opposed Values and Culture   

Russia’s anxiety can also be explained by major differences in strategic cultures that shape threat perception and responses to security challenges. Indeed, Russia still views security in terms of geography and realpolitik. Thus, Moscow is worried about the influence of external actors in what they consider to be Russia’s security space and views international relations in zero-sum terms. In going back to a Cold War mindset, Russia seems to be worried about its bordering regions, regions it sought to dominate for centuries. This vision of international relations prevents it from engaging in full cooperation with other players and makes the country uneasy about the presence of other major powers in its traditional sphere of influence.

In this context, most Russian leaders believe that the most effective strategy for managing relations with other international players is through competition. In their view, NATO represents not only a major player in the region, but also a concurrent vision of international relations stressing the de-territorialized nature of security challenges and a coexistence of diverse strategic cultures that Moscow finds confusing.16 Indeed, Russia and NATO promote two different models of government and have two different visions for the security in Europe This ideological competition takes the form of two visions of European security, a NATO-centric model aiming to make the behavior of Eastern European countries more predictable and to ensure democratic governance, and a model where NATO is assigned to the OSCE, the key security organisation in Europe. When Moscow grew disappointed with the OSCE, the EU became the pillar of Russia’s model. However, the EU was difficult to deal with and Moscow decided to establish a three pillars model where Russia, the EU and NATO were the balancing powers.17

Additionally, Hannah Smith argues that the rivalry between Russia and NATO can be traced back to the 19th century when there was political rivalry between more liberal (France and the United-Kingdom) and more conservative (Germany, Russia, and the Austria-Hungary) countries. They did not share the same views in terms of human rights and acceptable forms of government, and clashed over imperial rivalries and economic interests. Russia’s hostility toward NATO can be explained by this great power rivalry as Moscow perceives the state identity supported by NATO as a danger to its power elite in the same way that the French Revolution or British liberalism threatened the power of the tsars. Furthermore, the norms of government and societies shared by NATO members do not fit with Russia’s perception of its traditional forms of identity.18 

This imperial past can be observed today with Putin’s speeches about Novorossiya and the return to Crimea to its “native shores.” Moreover, since the Ukrainian crisis, Moscow is reaffirming the need for Russia to establish a democracy and a foreign policy that is consistent with Russia’s traditions, culture, and morale values that are contrasted with “the decadence of the West.”19 This animosity is intensified by the fact that Russia lost its empire with the fall of the Soviet Union and witnessed the survival, increasing popularity, and expansion of NATO. As the latter represents and supports a political and economic system that is alien to Russia’s political legacy, it is seen as a threat to a country that has lost its great power status.20

Fueled hostility With Dangerous Consequences            

NATO never stated that its actions were directed against Russia, the threats perceived by Russia is primarily psychological and self-imposed. However, unlikely as a hostile NATO appears, Russia’s apprehensions and return to Cold War thinking have severe consequences since the election of President Vladimir Putin. Since then, Russia is following what Stephen Walt has called the “balance of threat theory.” According to it, “state behavior is determined by the threat perceived by other states or alliances” and it balances against other states that are perceived as a threat.21 Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and involvement in Ukraine in 2014 are examples of this balancing. Indeed, as explained above, Moscow perceives all defense measures taken by NATO as vital threats. Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, involvement in Eastern Ukraine, and the annexation of Crimea are ways to balance the perceived threat posed by NATO. Indeed, in the case of Ukraine, Russia’s objective is not to reconquer the country, but to make sure that the regime instituted and sustained in Ukraine will represent no harm to Russia’s interests and that the situation is sufficiently unstable to prevent its accession to NATO.22

The problem is that balancing threats exacerbates the dynamics of the security dilemma and makes the perceived threats real.23 Ukraine is a good example of this. Indeed, when Russia tried to balance the threat it thinks NATO represents, Russia increased the threat it poses to its neighbors, thus making NATO cease all cooperation and deploy troops to the Baltic States, a step Russia feared at the beginning of NATO expansion.24

Today, it seems that without a change of political system and culture, Russia is unlikely to see NATO as an entity with which it can cooperate, but that does not means that the Alliance should ‘play Russia’s game’ by ignoring Moscow’s view. This would only continue the escalation of tensions. Of course, NATO shouldn’t cease all its projects to reassure Russia, but the Alliance shouldn’t minimize Russia’s fear of isolation from and destabilization by Western powers. In order to do so, when they have to deal with Russia’s neighbors, NATO and Western powers should accept and state clearly that it will respect the sovereign decisions of non-members in how they politically order their societies and do not pledge to attempt to change the system of government of other states.25       

Conclusion

Russia’s hostility toward NATO seems to be due to two sets of reasons. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia sees NATO as a threat not only for its security because of NATO expansion and missile defense system, but also for its desire for great power status because NATO expansion reduced Russia’s influence in the region and promulgated political and strategic values in contention with its own. In regards to the security dilemma, Moscow feared that NATO would try to use colored revolutions to bring democratic change in the country, deploy U.S. troops on its borders, isolate Russia, and thus prevent it from supporting its own allies in the region. However, before Russia’s annexation of Crimea, NATO tried to reassure Russia about its missile defense program and expansion.26 It seems clear that NATO does not pose a direct threat to Russia, but that Moscow’s hostility is due to the different values the Alliance represent and the perceived insensitivity for the Federation’s fears. Indeed, since his first election as President, Putin reaffirmed the need for Russia to defend Russia’s traditional values and norms, which are, in his mind incompatible with those defended by NATO members. It seems that Russia’s hostility is more psychological and reflects a deep sense of political insecurity and vulnerability that fuels its efforts to balance NATO. Thus, it makes Russia’s perceived insecurity become real, and reinforces its own hostility and the dynamics of the security dilemma in Europe.27

Corentin Laguerre has a M.A. in War Studies from King’s College London. 

References

1. Hanna Smith, “Russian Threat Perceptions: Shadows of the Imperial Past”, War on the Rocks (2015), online

2. Col. Robert E. Hamilton, “Georgia’s NATO Aspirations: Rhetoric and Reality”, FPRI (2016), online

3. Stephen Blank, “Threats to and from Russia: An Assessment”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 21:3 (2008), 499

4. Roberto Zadra, “NATO, Russia and Missile Defence”, Survival 56:4 (2014), 53-54

5. Peter J.S. Duncan, “Russia, the West and the 2007-2008 Electoral Cycle”, Europe-Asia Studies 65:1 (2013), 2-3, 9

6. Idem., 16

7. Sharyl Cross, “NATO-Russia Security Challenges in the Aftermath of Ukraine Conflict”, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 15:2 (2015), 154

8. Leonid A. Karabeshkin & Dina R. Spechler, “EU and NATO Enlargement”, European Security 16:3 (2007), 314-315

9. Aurel Braun, “NATO and Russia: Post-Georgia Threat Perceptions”, Russie.Nei.Visions 40, Ifri (2009), online, 10-11

10. Leonid A. Karabeshkin & Dina R. Spechler, “EU and NATO Enlargement”, European Security 16:3 (2007), 314

11. Dmitry Polikanov Director, “NATO-Russia Relations: Present and Future”, Contemporary Security Policy 25:3 (2004), 480

12. Arthur R. Rachwald, “A ‘reset’ of NATO-Russia relations: real or imaginary?”, European Security 20:1 (2011), 118-119

13. Dmitry Polikanov Director, “NATO-Russia Relations: Present and Future”, Contemporary Security Policy 25:3 (2004), 480

14. Oksana Antonenko & Bastian Giegerich, “Rebooting NATO-Russia Relations”, Survival 51:2 (2009),

15. Dmitry Polikanov Director, “NATO-Russia Relations: Present and Future”, Contemporary Security Policy 25:3 (2004), 481

16. Oksana Antonenko & Bastian Giegerich, “Rebooting NATO-Russia Relations”, Survival 51:2 (2009), 15-16

17. Dmitry Polikanov Director, “NATO-Russia Relations: Present and Future”, Contemporary Security Policy 25:3 (2004), 482

18. Hanna Smith, “Russian Threat Perceptions: Shadows of the Imperial Past”, War on the Rocks (2015), online

19. Sharyl Cross, “NATO-Russia Security Challenges in the Aftermath of Ukraine Conflict”, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 15:2 (2015), 158-159, 161

20. Arthur R. Rachwald, “A ‘reset’ of NATO-Russia relations: real or imaginary?”, European Security 20:1 (2011), 117, 120

21. Andreas M. Bock, Ingo Henneberg & Friedrich Plank, “If you compress the spring, it will snap hard: The Ukrainian crisis and the balance of threat theory”, International Journal 70:1 (2015), 102-103

22. Idem, 102-103

23. Idem, 103

24. Tuomas Forsberg & Graeme Herd, “Russia and NATO: From Windows of Opportunities to Closed Doors”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 23:1 (2015), 52

25. Col. Robert E. Hamilton, “Georgia’s NATO Aspirations: Rhetoric and Reality”, FPRI (2016), online

26. Idem.

27. Arthur R. Rachwald, “A ‘reset’ of NATO-Russia relations: real or imaginary?”, European Security 20:1 (2011), 125 & Andreas M. Bock, Ingo Henneberg & Friedrich Plank, “If you compress the spring, it will snap hard: The Ukrainian crisis and the balance of threat theory”, International Journal 70:1

Featured Image: Luxembourg’s armed vehicles during Iron Sword 2016 in Lithuania. (NATO)

Europe

Russia Week Kicks Off on CIMSEC

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By Dmitry Filipoff

This week CIMSEC is publishing articles analyzing Russian policy. The call for articles may be read here. Below is a list of articles featuring during the topic week that will be updated as the topic week rolls out and as prospective authors finalize additional publications.

Russia’s Self-Inflicted Security Dilemma by Corentin Laguerre
The Ambitions and Challenges of Russia’s Naval Modernization Program by Steve Micallef
The Tsarist Presidency by Steven Swingler
The Mediterranean: Driving Russia’s Strategic Decisions Since 1676 by Jason Chuma

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Nextwar@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: A military exercise of the Kantemirovskaya tank division somewhere in Moskovskaya oblast (Chistoprudov Dmitriy)

History, Interviews

“The Fleet at Flood Tide” – A Conversation with Author James D. Hornfischer

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The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by James Hornfischer
The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by James Hornfischer.

By Christopher Nelson

A passionate naval historian, Jim Hornfischer finds time in the early morning hours and the weekends to write. It was an “elaborate moonlighting gig” he says, that led to his latest book, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945. 

The Fleet at Flood Tide takes us back to World War II in the Pacific. This time Hornfischer focuses on the air, land, and sea battles that were some of the deadliest in the latter part of the war: Saipan, The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, Tinian, Guam, the strategic bombing campaign, and the eventual use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

The battles Hornfischer describe share center stage with some of the most impressive leaders the U.S. placed in the Pacific: Admiral Raymond Spruance, Admiral Kelly Turner, Admiral Marc Mitscher, General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, and Colonel Paul Tibbets. It is quite a cast of characters.

Hornfischer, to his credit, is able to keep this massive mosaic together – the numerous battles and personalities – without getting lost in historical details. His writing style, like other popular historians – David McCullough, Max Hastings, and Ian Toll immediately come to mind – is cinematic, yet not superficial. Or as he told me what he strives for when writing: “I then dive into the fitful process of making this rough assemblage readable and smooth, envisioning multiple readers, from expert navalists to my dear mother, with every sentence I type.”

The Fleet at Flood Tide is his fifth book, following the 2011 release of Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Gudalcanal. Hornfischer — whose day job is president of Hornfischer Literary Management — also found time to write The Ship of Ghosts (2006), The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (2004; which won the Samuel Eliot Morison Award), and Service: A Navy SEAL at War, with Marcus Luttrell (2012). Of note, Neptune’s Inferno and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors have been on the Chief of Naval Operation’s reading list for consecutive years.

I recently had the opportunity to correspond with Jim Hornfischer about his new book. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How did the book come about? Was it a logical extension of your previous book, Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal?

All these years on, the challenge in World War II history is to find books that need writing, stories that need telling with fresh levels of detail, or in an entirely new frame. After Neptune’s Inferno, I was looking for a project that offered expansive territory in terms of geography, people and operational terrain, fresh, ambitious themes, and massive amounts of combat action that was hugely consequential. When I realized that no single volume had yet taken on the entirety of the Marianas campaign and followed that coherently to the end and what it led to, I had something. I wrote a proposal for a campaign history of Operation Forager, encompassing all its diverse operations on air, land and sea, as well as the singular, war-ending purpose to which that victory was put. The original title given to my publisher was Crescendo: The Story of the Marianas Campaign, the Great Pacific Air, Land and Sea Victory that Finished Imperial Japan. In the first paragraph of that proposal, I wrote, “No nation had ever attempted a military expedition more ambitious than Operation Forager, and none had greater consequence.” And that conceit held up well through four years of work. Everything I learned about the Marianas as the strategic fulcrum of the theater fleshed out this interpretation in spades.

As you said, in the book you focus on the Marianas Campaign, and there are some key personalities during the 1944-45 campaign. Namely, Raymond Spruance, Kelly Turner, and Paul Tibbets are front and center in your book. When scoping this book out, how did you decide to focus on these men?

As commander of the Fifth Fleet, Raymond Spruance took the Marianas and won the greatest carrier battle in history in their defense along the way. Spruance, to me, stands as the finest operational naval commander this nation ever produced. After all the ink spilled on Halsey and the paucity of literature on Spruance, it was, I thought, time to give him his due. Kelly Turner, Spruance’s amphibious commander, has always fascinated me. After his controversial tour as a war plans and intelligence guy in Washington in the run-up to Pearl Harbor, and then in the early days of Guadalcanal, surviving a dawning disaster (and did I mention he was an alcoholic), it’s incredible that Turner retained Spruance’s confidence. Yet he emerged as the leading practitioner of what CNO Ernest J. King called “the outstanding development of the war”: amphibious warfare. He has been poorly credited in history and deserved a close focus for his innovations, which included among other things an emphasis on “heavy power”—the ability to transport multiple divisions and their fire support and sustenance over thousands of miles of ocean—as well as the first large-scale employment of the unit that gave us the Navy SEALs.

As for Paul Tibbets, he and his top-secret B-29 group were the reason for the season, so to speak, the strategic purpose behind all the trouble that Spruance, Turner, and the rest endured in taking the Central Pacific. Without Army strategic air power, the Navy might never have persuaded the Joint Chiefs to go into the Marianas in 1944. And without Paul Tibbets and his high performance under strenuous time pressure, the war lasts well into 1946. Did you know that it was his near court-martial in North Africa in 1942 that got him sent to the Pacific in the first place?

General Carl Spaatz decorates Tibbets with the Distinguished Service Cross after the Hiroshima mission/USAF Official Photo
General Carl Spaatz (l) decorates Colonel Tibbets (r) with the Distinguished Service Cross after the Hiroshima mission (USAF Official Photo)

Early in the book you say that naval strategy was driven more by how fast the navy was building ships and not by battle experience. How so?

Well, of course the naval strategy that won the Pacific war, War Plan Orange and its successors, was drawn up and wargamed in the 1930s. But at the operational level, nothing prepared the Navy to employ the explosion of naval production that took place in 1943 and 1944. Fifteen fast aircraft carriers were put into commission in 1943. Thus was born the idea of a single carrier task force composed of three- and four-carrier task groups. The ability to concentrate or disperse gave Spruance and his carrier boss, Marc Mitscher, tremendous flexibility.

They realized during the February 1944 strike on Truk Atoll that it was no longer necessary to hit and run. There had been no precedent for this. Instead of hitting and running, relying on mobility and surprise, they could hit and stay, relying on sheer combat power, both offensive and defensive. That changed everything.

By the time the Fifth Fleet wrapped up the conquest of Guam, the carrier fleet was both an irresistible force and an immovable object. That was a function of a sudden surplus of hulls, and the innovations that the air admiralty proved up on the fly in the first half of 1944. Most of these involved making best use of the new Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, fleet air defense, shipboard fighter direction, division of labor among carriers (for combat air patrol, search, and strike), armed search missions (rocket- and bomb-equipped Hellcats), the concept of the fighter sweep, adjusting the makeup of air groups to be fighter-heavy, night search and night fighting, and so on.

Grumman F6F Hellcats of VF-8 in flight/Wikipedia
Grumman F6F Hellcats of VF-8 in flight (Wikimedia Commons)

Just as important was the surge in amphibious shipping. In 1943, more than 21,000 new ‘phibs were launched of all sizes. The next year, that number surpassed 37,000. That’s the “fleet at flood tide” of my title. As Chester Nimitz himself noted, the final stage of the greatest sea war in history commenced in the Marianas, which became its fulcrum. Neither Iwo Jima nor Okinawa obviated that. And that concept is the conceit of my book and its contribution, I suppose—the centrality of the Marianas campaign, and how it changed warfare and produced America’s position in the world as an atomic superpower.

Spruance, King, Halsey, Tibbets, Turner ––  all of them are giant military historical figures. After diving into the lives of these men, what surprised you? Did you go in with assumptions or prior knowledge about their personalities or behavior that changed over the course of writing this book? 

I had never fully understood the size of Raymond Spruance’s warrior’s heart. I just mentioned the Truk strikes. Did you know that in the midst of it, Spruance detached the USS New Jersey and Iowa, two heavy cruisers, and a quartet of destroyers from Mitscher’s task force, took tactical command, and went hunting cripples? This was an inadvisable and even reckless thing for a fleet commander to do. He and his staff were unprepared to conduct tactical action. But he couldn’t resist the chance to seize a last grasp at history, to lead battleships in combat in neutering Japan’s greatest forward-area naval base.

Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo/Wikipedia
Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (Wikimedia Commons)

Also, I hadn’t known how much Spruance exulted in the suicide death on Saipan of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the executioner of the Pearl Harbor strike and Spruance’s opponent at Midway. Finally, I was unaware of the extent of his physical courage. Off Okinawa, in the space of two weeks in May 1945, two of his flagships, the Indianapolis and New Mexico, were hit by kamikazes. In the latter, he disappeared into the burning wreckage of the superstructure, to the horror of his staff, and turned up shortly afterward manning a fire hose. That’s a style of leadership that the “cautious” COMFIFTHFLT is seldom credited for.

Regarding Tibbets, I mentioned his near court-martial in North Africa. Few people know this happened, or even that he served in Europe at all, but he was among the finest B-17 squadron commanders in the ETO in 1942. The lesson of his near downfall is: Never mess with a line officer who’s destined to become a four star. This would be Lauris Norstad, Tibbets’s operations officer in North Africa, who went on to become one of the most important USAF generals of the Cold War.

You touch on this in your book, but the war stressed all of these men greatly. And each of them handled it in their own way. Taking just Spruance and Tibbets as examples, how did they handle the loss of men and the toll of war?

Spruance, in his correspondence, often described war as an intellectual puzzle. He could be hard-hearted. Shortly after the flag went up on Mount Suribachi, he wrote his wife, “I understand some of the sob fraternity back home have been raising the devil about our casualties on Iwo. I would have thought that by this time they would have learned that you can’t make war on a tough, fanatical enemy like the Japs without our people getting hurt and killed.” That’s a phrase worthy of Halsey: the sob fraternity. And yet when he toured the base hospitals, he felt deeply for the wounded in war.

It was for this reason that Spruance opposed the idea of landing troops in Japan. He favored the Navy’s preference for blockade. But those were perfectly exhausting operations at sea, week after week of launching strikes against airdromes in Western Pacific island strongholds, and in the home islands themselves. By the time Admiral Halsey relieved Spruance at Okinawa in May 1945, Spruance was exhausted both physically and morally.  

Paul Tibbets suffered losses of his men in Europe, but in the Pacific he was stuck in a training cycle that ended only at Hiroshima on August 6. Later in life, he considered the mass death and destruction he wrought as an irretrievable necessity. Responding to those who considered waging total war against civilian targets an abomination of morals, Tibbets would say, “Those people never had their balls on that cold, hard anvil.” I don’t think the moral objectors have ever fully credited either the tragic necessity or the specific success of the mission of the atomic bomb program: turning Emperor Hirohito’s heart. Tibbets was always unsentimental about it. 

Why is Spruance considered a genius?

Admiral Raymond Spruance, USN/Alfred J. Sedivi, courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute
Admiral Raymond Spruance, USN (Alfred J. Sedivi, courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute)

He was the ultimate planner, and through his excellence in planning, naval operations became more than operational or tactical. They became strategic, war-ending. It was no accident that Raymond Spruance planned and carried out every major amphibious operation in the Western Pacific except for the one that invited real disaster, Leyte. He was in style, temperament, and talent a reflection of his mentor, Chester Nimitz. The Japanese gave him the ultimate compliment. Admiral Junichi Ozawa told an interviewer after the war that Spruance was “impossible to trap.”

Switching gears a bit, what is your favorite naval history book?

It’s a long list, probably led by Samuel Eliot Morison’s volume 5, Guadalcanal, but I’m going to put three ahead of him as a personal matter: Tin Cans by Theodore Roscoe, Japanese Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara, and Baa Baa Black Sheep by Gregory Boyington. This selection may underwhelm your readers who are big on theory, doctrine, and analytical history, but I list them unapologetically. These were the books that set me on fire with passion for the story of the Pacific War when I was, like, twelve. If I hadn’t read them at that young age, I don’t think I would be writing today. It is only a bonus that all three were published by the company that’s publishing me today, Bantam/Ballantine. We are upholding a tradition!

What is your research and writing process like?

It’s all an elaborate moonlighting gig, conducted in relation to, but apart from, my other work in book publishing. It takes me a while to get these done in my free time, which is stolen mostly from my generous and long-abiding wife, Sharon, and our family. But basically the process looks like this: I turn on my shop-strength vacuum cleaner, snap on the largest, widest attachment, and collect material for 18 to 24 months before I even think about writing. Having collated my notes and organized my data, I then dive into the fitful process of making this rough assemblage readable and smooth, envisioning multiple readers, from expert navalists to my dear mother, with every sentence I type. I stay on that task, early mornings and weekends, for maybe 18 more months. Then, in the case of The Fleet at Flood Tide, my editor and I beat the draft around through two or three revisions before it was finally given to the Random House production editor. Then we sweat over photos and maps. History to me is intensively visual, both in the writing and in the illustrating, so this is a major emphasis for me all along the way. I never offload any of this work to a research staff.

In spite of all of this effort, the result is usually, maddeningly, imperfect in the end. But it is always the best I can do, using this hand-tooled approach under the time pressure that inevitably develops.


What’s next? Are you already thinking about what you want to write about after you finish the book tour and publicity for The Fleet at Flood Tide? Do you have a specific subject in mind?

One word and one numeral: Post-1945.

Last question. A lot of our readers here at the CIMSEC are also writers. What advice would you give to the aspiring naval historian?

Think big. Then think bigger. Then get started. And focus on people and all the interesting problems they’re facing.

James D. Hornfischer is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Neptune’s Inferno, Ship of Ghosts, and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award. A native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Colgate University and the University of Texas School of Law, he lives in Austin, Texas.

Christopher Nelson is a naval officer stationed at the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters. A regular contributor to CIMSEC, he is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and the U.S. Navy’s operational planning school, the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School in Newport, Rhode Island. The questions and comments above are his own and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

Featured Image: Marines on the beach line during the invasion of Saipan in 1944.  (USMC)

Asia-Pacific

China Delivers Submarines to Bangladesh: Imperatives, Intentions, and Implications

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The following article was originally featured by the National Maritime Foundation and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here.

By Gurpreet S. Khurana

On 14 November 2016, the Bangladesh Navy (BN) took delivery of two old refurbished Chinese Type 035G Ming-class diesel-electric submarines. As part of the US$ 203 million contract signed in 2013, the submarines were handed over to the BN crew during a ceremony at the Liao Nan Shipyard in China’s Dalian city. The submarines are slated to be commissioned as Bangladesh Naval Ships (BNS) Nabajatra and Joyjatra and are expected to arrive in early 2017 at the new Bangladeshi submarine base being constructed near Kutubdia Island.

This may be a rather seminal development with strong ramifications not only for the littoral countries of the Bay of Bengal, but also for the wider Indo-Pacific region. This essay seeks to undertake an assessment of this development in the context of the likely imperatives of Bangladesh, the intentions of China, and its implications with specific reference to the Indian context.  

Imperatives for Bangladesh

For any navy, the surface warships and their integral aircraft are capable of being used across the entire spectrum of conflict including for ‘constabulary’ and ‘benign’ missions ranging from counter-piracy to maritime search and rescue (M-SAR). In contrast, submarine forces – due to their inherent stealth characteristics – are optimized for sea-denial during war. Even in peacetime, these underwater platforms are used to undertake highly specialized missions against a military adversary like clandestine surveillance, intelligence-gathering, and Special Forces operations. Hence, it is difficult to fathom why Bangladesh – which does not encounter any conventional maritime-military threat – has inducted submarines into its navy. The maritime disputes between Bangladesh and two of its only maritime neighbors – Myanmar and India – were resolved through international arbitration in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Neither Naypyidaw nor New Delhi have indicated any reservations to the verdict of the international tribunals, nor have any other major outstanding contention with Dhaka.

It is nonetheless well known that the BN has since long aspired for a three-dimensional navy through inclusion of underwater warfare platforms. After Dhaka succeeded in settling its maritime boundary through the highly favorable decisions of the international tribunals, the apex political leadership showered much attention upon the BN as the guardian of the country’s newfound maritime interests. Notably, Bangladesh is seeking an increasing dependence upon sea-based resources for economic prosperity of its rather high density of population. The political nod to acquire submarines may therefore be seen as an incentive for the BN. Besides, it is a low-cost deal to reinforce strategic ties with China, including by taking forward Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s support to President Xi Jinping for its ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) initiative. Hence, the development seems to have been driven by symbolism for Bangladesh, rather than being a result of the navy’s appreciation-based force-planning based on an objective assessment of the projected security environment.   

China’s Intentions

As in case of other defense hardware exports, Beijing’s overarching intent behind the sale of submarines would be to go beyond strengthening political ties with Dhaka, to bring about its ‘strategic dependence’ upon China. The long-term submarine training and maintenance needs of the BN would also enable China’s military presence in the Bay of Bengal, and enable it to collate sensitive data for PLA Navy submarine operations in the future. This area is becoming increasingly important as the transit route for China’s strategic crude-oil and gas imports, and bears the origin of China’s oil pipeline across Myanmar. Strategic presence in the area is also critically necessary for Beijing to supplement the strategic and geopolitical dimension of its Maritime Silk Road (MSR) plans.

Further, by selling the two old (though upgraded) Ming-class submarines – which were commissioned in early 1990s and presently at the end of their service life with the PLA Navy – Beijing has assiduously generated useful revenue out of hardware, which would have only ‘scrap value’ in a few years. As per an established practice in China, a significant proportion of the revenue would go to PLA Navy since the submarines were sourced from its inventory.

Implications

The sale of Chinese submarines to Bangladesh bears significant ramifications for the Indo-Pacific region. Lately, apprehensions are being increasingly expressed over the rapidly increasing number of submarines being operated by regional countries. An addition of a submarine-operating country would not only multiply the complexity of water-space management – particularly due to the confidentiality associated with the deployments of such stealth platforms – but could also lead other countries to follow suit. The development also strengthens the imperative for Indian Ocean navies to institute a mechanism for de-conflicting unintended naval encounters at sea through the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), which ironically, is presently being chaired by Bangladesh.

The submarine sale to Bangladesh has come at a rather inopportune time for the countries of the Bay of Bengal. With the two major maritime disputes having been resolved, the sub-region was looking forward to enhanced maritime cooperation in various sectors like trade connectivity, blue economy, and maritime safety and security, including through the revitalisation of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). The BN’s acquisition of submarines could lead to littoral countries reassessing their maritime security strategies and adopting a cautious approach to maritime cooperation. 

In the Indian context, New Delhi has little reason to be threatened by Dhaka’s newly-acquired sea-denial capability. Nonetheless, Beijing’s likely intent needs to be factored in its national security calculus, particularly considering the imminence of China’s military-strategic presence in close proximity to India’s naval bases, including its nuclear submarine bastion. Evidently, India’s foreign policy vis-á-vis Bangladesh needs to be recalibrated. At the national-strategic level, India possesses insufficient financial and defence-industrial wherewithal to offset China’s overwhelming influence upon Bangladesh, but there is no dearth of other leverages. In such circumstances, New Delhi may need to graduate from its long-standing policy of ‘appeasing’ Dhaka to a ‘carrot and stick’ policy.

Captain   Gurpreet S Khurana, PhD, is Executive   Director at National   Maritime Foundation (NMF), New Delhi. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the NMF, the Indian Navy, or the Government of India. He can be reached at gurpreet.bulbul@gmail.com.

Featured Image: Handover ceremony of two ex-PLA Navy Type 035 submarines to the Bangladesh Navy. (banglanews24.com)

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