All posts by Guest Author

Capability Analysis

Ignorance of China is Not Bliss

1 Comment

By Capt. Brent Ramsey (ret.)

China Rising

China is modernizing every element of its military. It has announced plans to field a world-class military by 2035 and a dominant military by mid-century.1 Consistent with its goal of regional hegemony, China is building Navy, Coast Guard, and merchant ships faster than any other nation. Its Navy now directly commands China’s Coast Guard, adding hundreds of ships to its fleet. China’s fleet of warships now outnumbers U.S. warships in the Indo-Pacific by about 10 to 1. With this new capability, China constantly intimidates its neighbors through its increasingly aggressive maritime behavior.2

China intends to control the international waters off its shores.3 It has invested heavily in long-range anti-access area denial (A2/AD) missiles. These missiles represent a serious threat to warships, since considerable uncertainty exists about the effectiveness of the defenses against them.4 A strategic benefit of robust A2/AD missiles is increasing the stand-off distance from China that warships must maintain to avoid attack. By pushing navies further away from shores, these weapons look to turn the China Seas into Chinese territorial waters. According to the Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Phil Davidson, “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”5

In the past few years, China has illegally constructed, and subsequently militarized, multiple artificial islands using various features like reefs, shoals, and atolls in the South China Sea in international waters. Most of these sites have conflicting claims of ownership between China and other countries including Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Construction has occurred at seven sites in the Spratly Islands, 20 sites in the Paracel Islands, and at Scarborough Shoal, totaling more than 3200 acres of reclaimed ocean upon which China has built high-tech military facilities including airfields and missile batteries.6 The UN Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of the Philippines and against China in July 2016, expressly rejecting China’s claims in the area near the Philippines in the South China Sea.7 The tribunal ruled that China’s claims to sovereignty over 90 percent of the South China Sea, particularly with regard to the Spratly Islands, part of which the Philippines claim, was invalid. It specifically found that “China had violated the Philippines sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.”8 Virtually every other nation in the region rejects China’s claims.

China, ignoring the UN ruling,9 continues to militarize the area. Chinese aircraft and ships continue to harass many ships and aircraft of other countries venturing near.10 China has now largely gained the ability to manage and interfere with the commerce passing through the South China Sea if it so chooses. The U.S. and other countries continue to conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) near these features and through the Taiwan Strait, but China vigorously protests these FONOPS and orders U.S. or allied ships out of its “sovereign waters.” After a recent FONOP near the Paracels, the Chinese government boldly issued the following statement, “We again stress that China has irrefutable sovereignty over the islands of the South China Sea and their nearby waters.”11

In order to counter this emergent capability and China’s increasing aggression, deploying a much larger number of warships to the region is urgent.

The U.S. Navy and China’s Threat

Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power on History12 was a seminal military planning and strategy framework that shaped maritime defense and international trade policy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Mahan’s theories concerning the extraordinary importance of sea power to defend national sovereignty and economy still apply today.13 Given how 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is ocean, having a powerful Navy is essential for protecting vital commerce, defending coastlines, and defeating almost any enemy. Throughout American history, time and time again, the use of the U. S. Navy at critical junctures has been the key to its defense and the implementation of national policy. Whether it was fighting the Barbary Pirates, sending the Great White Fleet around the world, the Battle of the Atlantic during WWII, the invasion of Normandy with thousands of ships, or turning the Japanese back at Midway, the U.S. Navy has always played a vital role in war and peace. It must do so again in the Indo-Pacific by resisting China’s goals.

With an adequately sized fleet, the Navy’s ability to control the sea using nuclear-powered carriers with embarked air wings, sophisticated attack and guided missile submarines, Aegis cruisers and destroyers, coupled with unparalleled forward logistics support, would be unmatched. Virtually no one contemplates a land war with China, making the Army’s role in containing China in the Indo-Pacific somewhat limited. The Air Force can project power in Asia but its capability is much more limited than the Navy’s given its dependence on a finite number of fixed launch points and an extremely long logistics tail. With the vastness of the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility, much of it covered by oceans, only the Navy can be effective at countering China’s influences in place and prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon.

But despite the importance of having a robust Navy of sufficient size and capability to defend U.S. national interests, it is acknowledged by most defense experts that the Navy is no longer large enough to ensure freedom of navigation and to limit China’s aggressive behavior in international waters. The Navy’s technical superiority will make a difference only if there are enough ships in the right places. If the U.S. does not retain supremacy in the Indo-Pacific, China will inevitably step in to fill the vacuum.

The current administration and Congress have recognized the need for 355 ships,14 but the Navy currently has only 295 warships in commission,15 and a recent Congressional Research Service report on shipbuilding estimates that with current budget profiles the only way the Navy will reach the goal of 355 is by extending the life of existing ships to 40 and 45 years for various ship types and with increasing maintenance costs.16 With the increasing threat from China and others, the requirement is most likely much higher. The Heritage Foundation documented a need for 400 warships.17 With the inadequately sized force and with approximately one third of the current fleet already deployed at any one time, it is hardly surprising that the Navy cannot effectively keep up with China’s actions in the vital Indo-Pacific. The Navy is already so over-tasked in Asia that many ships have been forced to neglect basic navigation training and overwork it sailors with 100+ hour workweeks, resulting in multiple tragic accidents costing many lives.18

In any conflict, the best strategy would be to project power away from the U.S. and toward the adversary. But China is a long ways away as it takes weeks to traverse the 6000-plus miles from the West Coast to China. The Navy must already have a significant proportion of the fleet in place when needed. Only the Navy can loiter indefinitely near China, supported by the most capable logistics systems. Only the Navy’s power projection assets can freely exercise the American sovereign will for the U.S. and its allies, even to blockade China if necessary. The need is urgent not only for more warships, but also for more advanced warships like the Ford-class CVN and the next generation of attack and ballistic missile submarines and surface combatants that can challenge China’s A2/AD weaponry.

However, modern warships are tremendously complicated and take a lengthy time to build. The newest U.S. carrier, the USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78), took 12 years to build. It was commissioned in July 2017, but is still not certified for combat.19 Other ship classes take less time to build, but none less than 6 years. Because it takes so long to construct warships, the next war will almost certainly be fought with the ships already on hand today, unlike in WWII where the industrial base was a decisive factor. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. shipbuilding industry has experienced a tremendous decline. Today there are only seven shipyards in the U.S. capable of building Navy warships.20 The complex nature of Navy combatants requires the retention of a robust, state-of-the-art shipbuilding industry that is capable of building the world’s most advanced warships. According to the Congressional Research Service, the industry has unparalleled capability but limited capacity as it can only build a handful of ships at a time and would have to add considerable numbers to the workforce and make major plant investments before being able to build more ships faster.21 But it is urgent to build more ships now while there is still time.  

Conclusion

While the average U.S. citizen is not aware of the dire threat that China represents, that is not the case for Navy stakeholders and supporters. The U. S. Naval Institute, the Navy League of the United States, the Association of the United States Navy, the Center for International Maritime Security, key Congressional leaders, shipbuilders, and defense think tanks are all too aware of China’s rise and the extreme risks that will dawn in the coming years. These stakeholders wield considerable influence in how the nation plots its maritime course through troubled waters. What seems to be lacking among them is effective coordination that would lead to a shared vision and unified plan for a response to the China threat, with an emphasis on increasing naval power. These organizations must strive to work together to establish common goals in support of the Navy, and inform citizens about the risks and potential consequences at hand.

Will history give a postmortem of a vanquished America that squandered preeminence because it neglected its own defense? The real question is whether the U.S. can afford not to spend adequately on defense and its Navy. We must urgently build far more warships to defend the nation against China, or else entertain the possibility of a more dangerously uncertain future.

Captain Brent Ramsey (ret.) served 30 years in the Navy and 23 years in the Navy Civil Service. He commanded Cargo Handling Battalion TWELVE, was Operations Officer/Business Manager, CBC Gulfport, and was Navy Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer to Mississippi. He currently serves as Senior Advisor, Center for International Maritime Security, and Member/Secretary of the Meadows Military Advisory Group.

References

1. David Ignatius, “China has a plan to rule the world,” The Washington Post, 17 November 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/china-has-a-plan-to-rule-the-world/2017/11/28/ and US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, (US-China Economic and Security Commission Report, November 2018, 25.

2. Lyle Morris, “China Welcomes its newest Armed Force:  The Coast Guard,” War on the Rocks, 4 April 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/china-welcomes-its-newest-armed-force-the-coast-guard/

3. Christopher Cowan, “A2/AD-Anti-access/area denial,” Real Clear Defense, 12 September 2016,   https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/09/13/

4. Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization:  Implications for U. S. Navy Capabilities – Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report, 1 August 2018, 8-10.

5. Steven Lee Myers, “With Ships and Missiles, China is Ready to Challenge US Navy in Pacific,” New York Times, 29 August 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/world/asia/china-navy-aircraft-carrier-pacific.html/

6. Asia Maritime Transparency Institute, https://amti.csis.org/island-tracker/china/

7. Katie Hunt, “South China Sea:  Court Rules in Favor of Philippines over China,” 12 July 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/asia/china-philippines-south-china-sea/index.html/

8. Tom Mitchell and Geoff Dyer, “Tribunal rules against Beijing in South China Sea dispute”, Financial Times,12 July 2016, https://www.ft.com/content/3cdcbf42-4814-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86ab/

9. Tom Phillips, Oliver Holmes, Owen Bowcott, “Beijing rejects tribunal’s ruling in South China Sea case,” The Guardian, 12 July  2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/12/philippines-wins-south-china-sea-case-against-china/

10. Ben Werner, “Destroyer USS Decatur Has Close Encounter with Chinese Warship,” USNI News, 1 October 2018, https://news.usni.org/2018/10/01/37006/

11. Spratly Islands Confidential, South China Sea: US Navy Warship Conducts Freedom of Navigation Operation Near Paracel Islands, 15 September 2019. http://spratlyislandsconfidential.com/south-china-sea-us-navy-warship-conducts-freedom-of-navigation-operation-near-paracel-islands/

12. Little Brown and Company, 1890.

13. Dr. John H. Mauer, “The Influence of Thinkers and ideas on History, the Case of Alfred Thayer Mahan,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11 August 2016, https://www.fpri.org/article/2016/08/influence-thinkers-ideas-history-case-alfred-thayer-mahan/

14. “2016 Navy Force Structure Assessment,” 16 December 2016, https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=98160/

15. “Status of the Navy,” 24 July 2019, https://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146

16. Ronald O’Roarke, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report, 10 June 2019, 22.

17. “2019 Index of Military Strength” edited by Dakota Wood, The Heritage Foundation, October 2018, 8

18. Alex Norton and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “Deadly Navy Accidents in the Pacific raise Questions over a Force Stretched too Thin,” The Washington Post, 20 August 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/08/26/deadly-navy-accidents-in-the-pacific-raise-questions-over-a-force-stretched-too-thin/

19. Navy Fact File, USS Gerald R. Ford, https://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact/; Allen Cone, “Ford-class combat system completes test, first carrier further delayed, UPI, 13 June 2019, https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/06/04/Ford-class-combat-system-completes-test-first-carrier-further-delayed/9161559662262/

20. Huntington-Ingalls, Newport News, VA and Pascagoula, MS, General Dynamics, Bath, ME, Groton, CT, and San Diego, Austal USA, Mobile, AL, and Marinette Marine, Marinette, WI.

21. Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report, 19 October 2018, 45.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Feb. 5, 2020) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) prepares to pull alongside the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) in preparation for a replenishment-at-sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kyle Merritt)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

China’s Bid for Maritime Primacy in an Era of Total Competition

Leave a comment

By Dr. Patrick M. Cronin

In this decade, the United States Navy may be displaced as the most formidable maritime presence in the Pacific Ocean. China is determined to challenge America’s ability to project military power forward into the Western Pacific. It seeks to undermine the U.S. capability of standing with its allies and deterring China from using military force to coerce small nations into making concessions on their sovereignty and the enforcement of binding treaty commitments. Denying Beijing’s quest to become the region’s dominant land and sea power will require more than traditional naval strength. A comprehensive strategy that understands the unfolding fourth industrial revolution and the Chinese government’s problematic activities will be necessary to deny China’s bid for maritime primacy.1

The PLA Navy Challenge

China’s emerging blue-water navy, backed by comprehensive national and maritime power, is “tipping the balance in the Pacific.” In the span of 35 years, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has been transformed from a coastal defense force into a serious peer competitor for the U.S. Navy and its allies in the Western Pacific. The balance of naval power is particularly favorable to China in its near seas where shore-based missiles and aircraft can support the PLAN fleet. Together, China’s shore-based weapon systems and its fleet of small combatants are likely now sufficient to defend China’s near seas, which frees up the PLA Navy’s growing inventory of large vessels for power projection.

While the U.S. still fields more large combatants than the PLAN, the pace of China’s large combatant shipbuilding is accelerating. China is continuing to expand and modernize its shipyards so that they can build more large combatants simultaneously. Meanwhile, China is converting existing facilities for making small combatants into facilities to produce large warships. Retired Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt predicts that by 2035 China’s major surface fleet could add as many as 140 new large combatants and approach numerical parity with the U.S. Navy. If that occurs, China would not only pose a threat within a radius of its shore-based assets but anywhere its fleet sails.

Without an effective counterweight, China may well come to militarily dominate the majority of the maritime Indo-Pacific in the near future. While Beijing already enjoys a global maritime reach, the sharpest impact of its ascending naval power affects potential contingencies involving Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, and disputes in the South China Sea. The PLAN and its auxiliary forces intend to keep this trend going in the decade ahead, making the 2020s a “Decade of Concern.”

The PLAN’s surface ship prowess is improving in both quantity and quality. During the decade beginning in December 2008, the PLAN deployed 100 ships in 31 naval task forces to the Gulf of Aden, thereby using a nominally counterpiracy mission to build a truly blue-water navy capability. In December 2019, the PLA Navy commissioned its first indigenously produced aircraft carrier, the Type 001A Shandong, with a 70,000-ton displacement and a short take-off but arrested recovery (STOBAR) system similar to that of its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a 1985 Soviet platform later purchased, overhauled, and eventually commissioned by the PLAN in 2012. Another four aircraft carriers are planned, and these may include nuclear-powered engines and a catapult assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) system.

For now, however, China’s aircraft carriers convey greater prestige than combat power, and the PLAN surface fleet remains focused on a growing number of modern destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. These surface ships include the new Type 055 large destroyer armed with 112 vertical launch system cells. China’s destroyers have fewer VLS cells than their U.S. counterparts. Still, when operating within range of short-based missile defense systems, they can dedicate a larger percentage of their missile inventory to attack rather than self-defense. As experts like Bryan Clark have noted, the missiles on China’s combatants can also out-range U.S. missiles, meaning PLAN vessels can target U.S. Navy ships before they can return fire. So far, China has launched six Type 055 destroyers and 24 Type 052D destroyers, dubbed the “Chinese Aegis.” The pace of shipbuilding surpasses that of any other navy today. For instance, in December 2019 alone, China launched two Type 056A missile corvettes, two Type 052D guided-missile destroyers, and one Type 055 guided-missile destroyer, as well as having commissioned into service the Shandong aircraft carrier.

More worrisome for a potential Taiwan or East or South China Sea scenario, however, is the expansion of China’s amphibious force. Last year, the PLAN began construction on its first big-deck amphibious assault ship, the Type 075 landing helicopter dock (LHD). Adding the rough equivalent of the USS Wasp to other Chinese capabilities, including some 37 large amphibious landing ships and 22 medium landing ships, it appears that the PLAN is replicating the combined U.S. Marine and Navy amphibious task forces—Marine Expedition Unit/Amphibious Ready Group (MEU/ARG) – that currently deploy throughout the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere. The combined air-sea-ground capability represented by the 31st MEU based in Japan, for instance, conducts joint training with partners, delivers timely humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR), and otherwise signals U.S. interests and influence. China appears to be on the cusp of replicating this amphibious capability and with it an ability to conduct the same range of influence operations, exercises and training, noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs), and HA/DR missions. Moreover, China’s quantitative advantage in ships, backed by a massive shipbuilding industry and para-naval forces, conveys a message throughout the Indo-Pacific that Beijing is becoming more capable of coercing regional neighbors into abiding by China’s rules and claims.

Meanwhile, undersea capabilities remain a vital part of the PLA’s naval capabilities. The PLA is steadily modernizing its mostly non-nuclear-powered submarines and investing in unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) and seabed research and survey vehicles. One notable development has been the creation of “a deep sea base for unmanned submarine science and defense operations in the South China Sea, a center that might become the first artificial intelligence colony on Earth.”

The PLAN remains focused on its near seas, a fact attested to by its relatively small inventory of replenishment ships. However, China is developing a replenishment system designed to be used on existing civilian ships. Moreover, given China’s shipbuilding capabilities, on top of building a base in Djibouti and constructing various ports that could in the future accommodate naval vessels, Beijing is not as hamstrung by logistical shortfalls as some might think. 

China can backstop its naval presence with not only advanced land-based airpower but especially with its array of anti-ship and land-attack cruise and ballistic missiles. Two land-based, road-mobile anti-ship ballistic missiles pose a direct threat to U.S. Navy combatants. The DF-21D has a range of more than 1,000 miles and is the first ASBM designed to hit ships at sea. The DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile boasts a range of about 2,500 miles, and it can carry either a conventional or nuclear warhead. Both missiles can achieve much greater range if delivered by air on the PLA’s new H-6N bomber, which is also designed to carry supersonic cruise missiles and UAVs, among other weapons. As if to emphasize the psychological warfare element of Beijing’s total competition, these missiles are often referred to as the “carrier-killer” and “Guam express” weapons designed to push the U.S. military out beyond the second island chain. Meanwhile, China is reportedly developing hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) that would be much harder to intercept.

Beyond all of these capabilities, China augments its naval power in the Pacific by exploiting information across all dimensions of policy, including its advances into the new domains of cyberspace, outer space, and the electromagnetic spectrum. The PLA’s quest to master the new domains is being realized through massive investment and reorganization to include a Strategic Support Force that integrates “PLA space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities.”

Also worth noting is that China essentially has two additional navies, each of which is the largest of its kind in the world. The China Coast Guard (CCG) inventory includes at least 142 lightly armed oceangoing vessels. If added to the PLA Navy’s force of over 335 commissioned combat submarines and surface combatants, China’s maritime force numbers 477 combat vessels—more than twice the number of comparable U.S. Navy combat vessels and nearly four times the number of U.S. Navy combat vessels assigned to the Pacific Fleet. A vast People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) and an organized civilian fishing fleet also give the PLAN and CCG vessels a major para-naval auxiliary force. Together, these so-called “three navies” constitute a gray-, white-, and blue-hulled force with nothing comparable in the U.S. alliance network.

Leadership in an Era of Total Competition

A more powerful China flexing its muscle at sea and in new domains is casting longstanding U.S. regional leadership and commitment in a harsher light in East Asia and the Pacific. Despite formidable headwinds, the Chinese economy is still seen as the dominant driver of the regional economy. Nearly four of five Southeast Asians polled view China as the dominant economic power, and twice as many (52 vice 26 percent) see China rather than the United States as the dominant political and strategic power in the region.

Meanwhile, the United States has shown signs of retrenchment from Asia. The Trump administration’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy could well serve as a basis for rallying like-minded countries to stand up to unilateral changes to the status quo and threatening to settle disputes through military force. However, as with the efforts of the Obama administration before it, and the George W. Bush administration before that, a real pivot to Asia requires a sustained focus on the region, backed by an ability to find sufficient resources to preserve a favorable balance of power. As elites in Asia increasingly see China as supplanting U.S. power, the U.S. Navy faces a welter of challenges to maintain current readiness for increasingly contested environments while simultaneously investing in future capabilities.

As the United States struggles to maintain and adapt a legacy naval force, China is closing the qualitative gap in its major combat ships and aircraft. China is gaining sea denial and sea control through a formidable array of missiles that threaten America’s aircraft carrier strike groups and critical bases throughout the region. China is also leveraging the world’s best-armed coast guard and largest paramilitary force to achieve its expansive goals through gray-zone operations.

Importantly, the erosion of U.S. military and naval supremacy is also being accelerated by China’s successful political warfare strategy and America’s sluggish response. Beijing is waging a whole-of-society “total competition.” The techno-nationalist approach seeks to achieve economic preeminence on the back of emerging information-centric technologies like 5G, artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D manufacturing, and quantum computing. All these technologies have both civilian and military value.

While naval competition is vital, there is another competition worth considering. Political and irregular warfare is making a resurgence. Major and regional powers bent on revising the post-World War II global order, in whole or in part, are seeking to achieve their aims without triggering major conflict. Through shadow and covert warfare, as well as a variety of means designed to achieve success with little or no use of kinetic force, revisionist powers are eroding rules, coercing states, and weaponizing information.

In a new report, Total Competition: China’s Challenge in the South China Sea, Ryan Neuhard and I have attempted to outline Beijing’s variant of political warfare, especially as it applies to a critical regional flashpoint: the South China Sea. Understanding China’s total competition approach is essential to thinking about the naval balance in the Pacific. “Total competition” is in contrast to the concept of “total warfare,” and it is better than “political warfare” because all wars are political, and the main idea is an indirect approach of winning without fighting.  The CCP is interested more in what H. R. McMaster calls “cooption, coercion, and concealment,” than it is in “lethality” (to pick a term central to DoD strategy). Total competition comprises five dimensions: economic, legal, psychological, military (especially maritime), and informational. But information cuts across all the aspects of the strategy and all activities. The growing importance of big data, narrative, cyber warfare, A.I., quantum, and other issues explains why Beijing’s total competition is, at its core, a desire for information dominance.

Augmenting the U.S. Response

In short, the United States does not merely face a rising competitor for primacy in the Pacific; it does so at a time when it is also having difficulty finding strategic coherence and adequate resources. It does so at a time when it is crucial to place conventional military power in a broader context of political warfare in the digital age, or total competition. With that in mind, the United States should consider making several strategic priorities and adjustments.

First, the United States and its allies and partners must prepare for a range of contingencies. Beyond a possible North Korean missile attack, the principal concerns are a possible Taiwan invasion, and maritime coercion or naval conflict in the East or South China Seas. In short, more must be done to shore up deterrence by denial, counter maritime coercion, and prepare for a possible, short, sharp “informationized” clash.

Second, the United States needs to strengthen rather than weaken its alliance network, building out a broader and more capable constellation of security partners.

Third, the U.S. needs to reinforce and defend the rules-based order, rather than calling into question the basic multilateral framework of regional cooperation.

Fourth, the United States needs to push back on China’s total competition, adding military means that help to preserve deterrence by denial, but at a sustainable cost.

Fifth, in the context of the Pacific naval balance, the United States needs to garner more resources and spend it far more wisely to protect the desired balance of current and future capabilities. The administration’s latest proposed budget would cut shipbuilding but invest more in the competition over future information-based technologies and capabilities. A balance is needed.

Three crucial questions require further deliberation and research. For one thing, how can the United States and allies maintain deterrence, prevent it from slipping, or restore it? Presumably, conventional deterrence by denial capabilities and networked security with partners are essential, but policymakers should consider the full toolkit.

Next, how can the United States reassure allies and partners while bolstering deterrence against major power adversaries? For instance, the U.S. Navy has begun its first submarine patrol with low-yield nuclear weapons designed to preserve deterrence. Similarly, the interest in deploying mobile, long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles is also sincere, even though the process of trying to deploy them will create an inevitable political backlash from some quarters.

Finally, how can the United States and its allies and partners win the total competition with China, given that winning means avoiding major war while denying China or any single power exclusive control over the Western Pacific and maritime Asia? A winning approach requires the adoption of a similar total competition strategy, albeit one suited to democracies. It also requires a positive slate of activities to bolster the prevailing rules, institutions, and partnerships to preserve a sustainable Indo-Pacific order for all.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is Senior Fellow and Chair for Asia-Pacific Security at Hudson Institute and is available at [email protected].

Endnotes

1. This essay is based on a longer paper presented in Paris on February 12, 2020, at a closed workshop entitled, “East Asia Security in Flux: What Regional Order Ahead?”, sponsored by the IFRI Center for Asian Studies and the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS).

Featured Image: Sailors of the People’s Liberation Army Navy march past the USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19), at the time the United States Seventh Fleet flagship homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. (Wikimedia Commons)

CNO's Design Week

Operating at the Edge of Chaos: Enhancing Maritime Superiority Through People

Leave a comment

CNO’s Design Week

By Christine MacNulty

Continuous learning environments, opportunities for multi-disciplinary research in warfighting concepts and technology, and expanded Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) training, as envisioned in the CNO’s FRAGO, provide important opportunities to master new skills. But do they do enough to prepare the force for the complexity and chaos likely to characterize the future maritime environment? Do they rely too much on mastering technology—which are likely common to all—and not enough on strengthening the core human abilities of the warfighters who will employ them? Will they do enough to enable warfighters to see through complexity and ambiguity?

Research in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience indicates that human beings are tapping only a small fraction of their potential. Numerous studies over the last 35 years suggest that individuals can be trained to access more of their brains’ capabilities and that such development can lead to enhanced performance of complex tasks—both physical and non-physical—under pressure. The field of neuroscience in particular has expanded our understanding of brainwave activity and how it shapes thoughts, emotions and behaviors, all which can affect warfighting capability.

Dr. Srini Pillay,1 one of the leading researchers in the field, has discovered that when we are engaged in a focused task our level of brain activity is relatively low, but when we activate our brains differently and raise their “cognitive rhythms” by day-dreaming, doodling, mind-wandering and even self-talk, we become more creative and open to associations and possibilities – the kinds of things that mindfulness provides. This understanding is leading to methods to enable individuals to control the levels of brain activity at will—ranging from the deepest meditation to those levels that relate to processing information from different parts of the brain simultaneously.

Intuition and insight are regarded as core components of creativity. Gary Klein,2 a leading cognitive psychology researcher who has worked with several senior Marines, including Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, investigated examples of intuition and insights, including how they happened, how they were accepted, and how they were used. He identified ways in which organizations can encourage and facilitate insight. He distinguished between “fixed” and “growth” mindsets, where creativity is prevalent in the growth areas. Graham Wallas, a co-founder of the London School of Economics, developed a four-stage approach for understanding how insight occurs—preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. These insights hold tremendous potential for developing warfighters.

Warfighter investments for both officers and enlisted must do more to directly address individual capacity for reading the situation, harnessing complexity as a competitive advantage, and creatively improvising to generate advantages throughout the force. The design for the future Navy should include focused warfighter development that focuses on expanding core human capacities.

Mind-Body Training is already taking place in the Military 

This idea is not new, though the most common applications have targeted ground forces. Richard Strozzi-Heckler3 reports teaching aikido and meditation techniques to Army Green Berets in the mid-1980s, and later developing a martial arts program to provide similar effects for the Marines. Navy SEALs train themselves to expand their sensory perceptions and emotional resilience. Many of them learn martial arts, mindfulness, and meditation. Would it surprise us to learn that some of our Asian adversaries are doing this, too?

A paper published in the journal Progress in Brain Research reports that Army infantry troops who went through a month-long training regimen that included daily practice in mindful breathing and focus techniques were better able to discern key information under chaotic circumstances and experienced increases in working memory function. The soldiers also reported making fewer cognitive errors than service members who did not use mindfulness. The recent study found that service members who train for four weeks experience significant improvement, but those who train for only two weeks do not.

Major General Walter Piatt, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq, reportedly attributes his best decisions to mindfulness4—the practice of using breathing techniques, similar to those in meditation, to gain focus and reduce distraction. His approach is based on work of Amishi Jha, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Miami. The Navy’s own Warrior Toughness Program, originating at Recruit Training Command, is a deliberate approach to making and operationalizing the connection of mind, body, and spirit.

SEALs and other SOF have demonstrated cognitive capabilities for situational awareness beyond those produced by mindfulness for many years.  Much of it seems inherent, although advanced training in martial arts – especially Aikido and Qi Gong – are recommended, and brain training and entrainment, using breathing, humming, music and other sounds with specific beats can have measurable effects on different parts of the brain by stimulating different brainwave activity.

Mindfulness is clearly becoming broadly accepted as a useful form of cognitive training, but it is only the beginning.

Capabilities of the Future Navy Warfighter

If we truly want to maintain maritime superiority then innovating in the human cognitive domain is an area we should be examining in depth, just as more cognitively powerful technologies like automation and decision aids advance. Indeed, it may be that our focus on technology and its use in decision-making could lead us to ignore our own natural abilities and intuitions, and even lose them.

A 2020 project on SOF operators that we undertook for USSOCOM a decade ago – one of several SOF innovation projects sponsored by the combatant commander himself – may indicate some initial areas of focus. Rather than considering types of future conflicts, weapon systems, technologies, or terrain, we focused on physical, emotional, and mental capabilities that would equip SOF operators with the ability to operate effectively under any conditions. Participating SOF operators recognized that warfighting is as much a mental and emotional activity as a physical one, and that incorporating mental and emotional training increased all warfighting capabilities.

Some of the key cognitive capabilities identified as desirable include:

Intuition/Insight: Being aware of all one’s senses, trusting one’s heart and gut, and using mental imagery to one’s advantage. Many SOF have had their lives saved by intuition about ambushes, buried IEDs, and incoming mortars and bombs. Interestingly, many scientists, inventors, and engineers attribute their successes to these same intuitive capabilities.

Ability to Operate at the Edge of Chaos: The term “edge of chaos” is used to denote a transition space between order and disorder that is believed to exist within a wide variety of systems. In our description of related competencies, it is a combination of the ability to make decisions under severe stress, operate in ambiguity, have emotional stability, and exhibit courage and fortitude.

Concentration: Ability to know when to focus, and then allocate attention using all senses.

Awareness: the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel or be cognizant of physical, mental, and emotional signals. This can include physical awareness – sight, sound, feelings. Acute, trained hearing can pick up sounds of engines and engine anomalies at very low decibels or long distances. And some troops with experiences of “knowing” where IEDs have been planted have indicated personal biomarkers such as a feeling of coldness across their shoulders.

Some of these were also inspired by the work of Richard Strozzi-Heckler (In Search of the Warrior Spirit – based on his work with Marines and SOF) and Commander Mark Divine,5 USN, (ret.) – a former SEAL (Unbeatable Mind ) – who has developed a leadership training program of the same name.

While originally conceived in the context of small unit engagements by special operations and ground forces, this list addresses advanced human capabilities that would benefit people operating in the multi-domain maritime environment. Education and training in these capabilities would be very different from that in the traditional RRL curricula, yet could be important to the force’s ability to deliver on many of the objectives described in the CNO’s FRAGO. Building on the Warrior Toughness Program and expanding its reach across the force is a place to start and reinforce the skills being developed among new accessions. Scaling up the methods that have been developed so far for delivering training and measuring effects will require continued research and innovation.

Combining the Best of People and Technology

As the world becomes more complex and chaotic, the faster Sailors can take in and make sense of information of all kinds that is bombarding them, the better. Fast reaction times and greater mental resilience equate to increased ability to manage risk and strike at the enemy.  

We believe that innovation in the human domain is as important as it is in the technological domain – and figuring out the right things to do morally, mentally, and physically is as important as doing them right. All ideas come from or through the human mind. Why not explore what it takes to operate at the edge of chaos—and win?

Christine MacNulty is the CEO of Applied Futures, Inc. and is a strategist, futurist and writer on the human dimensions of innovation, strategy and warfighting. She is the co-author of Strategy with Passion: A Leader’s Guide to Exploiting the Future, and many papers and monographs. She is grateful to VADM Patricia Tracey (ret). for her comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors were produced without help.

References

1. Dr. Srini Pillay, Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try, Ballantine Books, NY, 2017.

2. Dr. Gary Klein, The Power of Intuition, Doubleday, NY 2003, and Dr. Gary Klein, Seeing What Others Don’t,  Public Affairs, 2013.

3. Richard Strozzi-Heckler,  In Search of the Warrior Spirit, 1990 – latest edition, Blue Snake Books, 2007.

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/health/military-mindfulness-training.html

5. Mark Divine, The Way of the SEAL, Readers Digest Book, 2015, and  Mark Divine, Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level.

Featured Image: South China Sea (August 22, 2019) – Junior Officer of the Deck Ensign Jasmine Walker, from Lexington, South Carolina, establishes bridge-to-bridge communications with another marine vessel while standing watch on the bridge aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay (LPD 20). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Markus Castaneda)

CNO's Design Week

Interwar Navy-Marine Corps Integration: A Roadmap for Today

Leave a comment

CNO’s Design Week

By Capt. Jamie McGrath (ret.)

Introduction

In his FRAGO 01/2019: A Design For Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday calls out three focus areas: Warfighting, Warfighters, and the Future Fleet. The CNO declares that “Together with the United States Marine Corps, our Navy is the bedrock of Integrated American Naval Power.” This level of USN/USMC Integration was last seen at the end of WWII. The path to that level of integration blazed in the interwar period provides a blueprint for integrating today’s Navy and Marine warfighting and warfighters.

Admittedly, the crucible of a world war played a significant role in forging the Navy-Marine Corps team into a virtually unstoppable amphibious juggernaut that systematically took over Imperial Japan’s Pacific empire. But the foundation for the integrated team began in the interwar period with three interrelated efforts: large-scale Fleet Problem exercises, which included amphibious operations, constant wargaming at the U.S. Naval War College, and all-out effort at the Marine Corps schools to develop and refine amphibious doctrine. Although not initially coordinated, by the mid-1930s, these efforts all focused on the plan to defeat Japan, commonly referred to as War Plan Orange.

Preparing for War

The Fleet Problems, the interwar equivalent of today’s Large Scale Exercises (LSE), allowed fleet and ship commanders to experiment and practice with their weapons platforms at both unit and fleet-level formations. This allowed the development of doctrine and the full exploration of the new capabilities as they joined the fleet. Fleet Problems even exercised future capabilities with the interwar years’ version of Live, Virtual, and Constructive training – the simulation of capabilities with surrogate and constructive forces. Following the Fleet Problems, robust conversations and formalized after action debriefs, which included dozens of senior commanders and junior officers of the fleet, critiqued the performance. The Fleet Problems identified some enduring lessons that can guide development of warfighting today: innovation requires time to mature; exercises and wargames should not be confused with reality; surrogates should not be mistaken for actual capability; annual large scale exercise foster openness, flexibility, and frankness; familiarity with tactics and operational concepts leads to internalization of these ideas; and the role of the Fleet Problem is to explore ideas, not necessarily technology; and candid critiques must be done immediately afterward.1

The cost of the Fleet Problems, both in dollars and wear and tear on the fleet, meant they occurred only annually. Unconstrained by these costs, the Naval War College took the lessons from the Fleet Problems and incorporated them into a vast series of wargames. These wargames were also unconstrained by predetermined conclusions. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the officers who would eventually lead the American armada in its defeat of Japan spent time at the Naval War College participating in and learning from these wargames.2 And the results of the wargames were fed back to the fleet, helping to inform the next Fleet Problem. It was these incessant wargames the prompted Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz to remark after the war, that “the war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise—absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these.”3

The Marine Corps of the 1930s realized that if it were to remain viable as a service, it needed a mission beyond is role as a constabulary force. Recognizing the need for island bases for the success of the Navy’s plan to defeat Japan, the Marines developed doctrine first to seize and then to defend island bases to allow the fleet to march across the Pacific. Initiated by Major Pete Ellis’ survey of the islands of the South Pacific, the Marines developed the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations (1934) and the Tentative Manual for Defense of Advanced Bases (1936) with the help of dedicated effort by the faculty and staff of Marine Corps Schools. Brigadier General James Breckinridge, Commandant of Marine Corps Schools, “temporarily discontinued Field Officers School classes so that the staff and students could devote their full attention to developing the new doctrine.”

The three efforts discussed above were self-synchronizing, which is to say not synchronized, with no single authority directing their efforts. This led to inefficiency and a lack of common direction. Despite the excellent work occurring in Naval War College wargaming, the college struggled to stay open during the austere, Great Depression-era budgets of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The conclusions reached by fleet commanders and War College staff and students did not always agree, and senior navy commanders in charge of the fleet often did not want to yield to the academics. And despite the apparent utility of seizing island bases to the drive across the Pacific, the U.S. Navy initially invested little in amphibious capability, even when naval construction began anew in 1933.

There were still successes in integrating efforts. Fleet Problem III in 1924 provided the first opportunity to incorporate the Marines into fleet operations and demonstrated that “amphibious operations might have a role to plan in the navy’s sea-control mission.”4 In the mid-1930s, the Fleet Problems began to include a Fleet Landing Exercise (FLEX) component, but often the Marine’s desire to contribute to the sea control mission by seizing islands was superseded by the Navy’s focus on the decisive fleet engagement.5 The opportunity for integration was there, but without a common top-down coordinator, the two branches continued to focus on their independent priorities.

Integrating Today for Tomorrow’s Fight

Today’s Navy-Marine Corps team can learn from these efforts, modeling the commitment to Fleet Problems, Naval War College wargaming, and the single-minded development of amphibious doctrine, but today’s team needs to take it further. The first improvement is to ensure these efforts are integrated. The CNOs FRAGO and the Commandant’s Planning Guidance are a step in the right direction but cannot be the end of integration. An integrated Navy-Marine Corps steering group should be developed to synchronize integration efforts, identifying significant integration development activities, and ensuring alignment among them. A modern version of the Navy General Board as suggested in Joel Howlitt’s 2017 CNO History Award-winning essay could serve this role admirably. The steering group does not need to create additional events but instead would ensure existing events are linked together and align Navy-Marine Corps integration efforts and doctrine where appropriate.

Next, make these three powerful integration mechanisms a priority. Don’t allow LSE 2020 to be a one-off event. Like the Fleet Problems of the interwar years, make the LSEs annual, and make them a defined operational priority for the fleet’s ready naval power, getting as many ships, aviation units, and Marine formations to sea and into the exercise as possible. And for ships unable to sail or other units unable to join, connect them to the exercise via the Navy Continuous Training Environment (NCTE) and after action review mechanisms.

Once complete, consider how the lesson from the exercises will be used. Will they be squirreled away in a lesson learned database, or will they be turned over to these new, powerful brain trusts of the Naval War College and Marine Corps University? Like the interwar period, the Large Scale Exercise and Fleet Exercises should inform, and be informed, by the studies at the two institutions. Give the classified results, all of them, to the war colleges, and let the student and staff pick them apart.

To ensure quality analysis and feedback, the service must send the best officers from all warfighting and combat support communities to the Naval War College and Marine Corps University – not just the officers who happen to be available. There is a saying that if the loss of a liaison officer you sent to another command doesn’t hurt, you’re sending the wrong officer. The same should be true with the Naval War College and Marine Corps University. Accept the tactical risk at the unit level of losing an officer to this effort to buy down the strategic risk of an underprepared officer corps. This is exactly what is called for in the Secretary of the Navy’s Education for Seapower (E4S) Decisions and Immediate Actions memorandum from February of last year. In it, he directed that “All future unrestricted line Flag and General Officers will require strategically-focused, in-residence master’s degrees.” The Navy’s Chief Learning Officer further notes that “the critical months of in-residence study afford each officer a unique chance to read, think reflect, and interact with their future fellow Fleet and Marine Operating Force Commanders…”6

While these future operational commanders are in residence at the War College and Marine Corps University, make it worth their while to attend these prestigious institutions. Rather than sticking to a rigid curriculum designed to satisfy graduate school accreditation and Joint Professional Military Education wickets, give these officers the hard problems to solve. Give them the tools to “study strategy, policy, operational doctrine, and the effects of new technologies for national strategic advantage”7 that comprise the current curriculum, but then give them real-world tasks, at the appropriate classification levels, and let them apply that knowledge. Not just in select groups like Gravely and Halsey, but across the board – putting large numbers of minds against our hardest problems to come up with a range of solutions, just like the interwar period’s Naval War College did.

And while sending the best and brightest to in-residence programs, more integration is needed in each institution. A recent Proceedings article called for higher percentages of Marines at the Naval War College and filling all the Navy billets at Marine Corps University. This is spot on and should be implemented with urgency. If we are going to ask the Naval War College and Marine Corps University to tackle problems of integration, they must have an integrated staff and student body. Then allow wargaming departments, now with a significant pool of frontline operators available to run the games, refight the LSEs and determine were improvements can be made. And finally, feed the output from these wargames into designing the subsequent LSEs, to take advantage of the lessons learned from these multiple interactions.

Conclusion

The tools are in place and a roadmap is available for developing Navy-Marine Corps integration in peacetime. The interwar use of annual Fleet Problems, Naval War College wargaming, and Marine Corps amphibious doctrine development focused the efforts of all three on preparing for war against Japan. Using those same tools and the lessons learned from their shortcomings, Navy-Marine Corps warfighting and warfighters can achieve unprecedented levels of integration and be prepared for the next great Pacific war when it comes.

CAPT Jamie McGrath, USN (ret.), retired from the U.S. Navy after 29 years as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer. He now serves as a Deputy Commandant of Cadets at Virginia Tech and as an adjunct professor in the U.S. Naval War College’s College of Distance Education. Passionate about using history to inform today, his area of focus is U.S. naval history, 1919 to 1945, with emphasis on the inter-war period. He holds a Bachelor’s in History from Virginia Tech, a Master’s in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, and a Master’s in Military History from Norwich University.

References

1. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War: The US Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940 (Naval War College Press: Newport, RI, 2010), 303-315.

2. John R. Kroger memorandum to Secretary of the Navy, Graduate Strategic Studies for Flag and General Officers, dated 11 December 2019. On 07 December 1941, 83 of 84 active Navy flag officers were graduates of the US Naval War College in residence program at the beginning of World War II.

3. Chester W. Nimitz [FAdm, USN], speech to Naval War College, 10 October, 1960, folder 26, box 31, RG15 Guest Lectures, 1894–1992, Naval Historical Collection, Naval War College, Newport, RI,

4. Craig C. Felker, Testing American Sea Power: US Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923-1940 (Texas A&M University Press: College Station, TX, 2007), 94-97

5. Ibid., 104-109

6. Kroger memorandum.

7. Ibid.

Featured Image: Sailors and Marines of the USS Ronald Reagan stand at attention before manning the rails on the flight deck in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, June 28, 2010.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Oliver Cole