All posts by Guest Author

Interviews

Crafting the U.S. Marine Corps Mystique: A Conversation with Heather Venable

Leave a comment

By CDR Christopher Nelson, USN 

Professor Heather Venable joined me to discuss her new book, How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874-1918. It is a fascinating look at how the U.S. Marine Corps, struggling to define its role as a small fighting force in the earlier days of the republic, crafted a reputation and truly — a mystique — to ensure the service’s survival. 

Heather, if we could, I’d like to begin with the title of your new book, How the Few Became the Proud. I certainly recall the Marine Corps recruiting commercials from the 1980s. Some were on the TV, and some were run in movie theaters. And of course, the commercials ended with the same tagline: “The Few, the Proud, the Marines.” Who came up with that phrase?

Venable: “The Few, the Proud” slogan actually came out in the 1970s, coined by J. Walter Thompson, the Marine Corps’ ad agency. One slogan that a Marine coined during the span of my research, though, is “once a Marine, always a Marine.” The first reference I’ve found to this slogan occurred in about 1907, the invention of a creative recruiting officer. Recruiting officers had practical reasons for coining such a phrase—they really wanted former Marines to continue to identify with the Corps in order to encourage future Marines in their local communities to enlist. But it also marks a broader and intensifying effort to get all Marines to identify more actively and positively with their institution that really increased prior to World War I. 

What surprised me a bit was not that the Marine Corps was good at advertising, but how early and aggressively they advertised the Corps. And this was in the age before the big New York City advertisers, correct? 

Venable: A fundamental transformation occurred in American society between the Civil War and World War I in terms of what society deemed acceptable in regard to marketing. Before, if you wanted to sell oranges, for example, it was not polite to say something like, “We have the biggest, juiciest oranges of all the competitors.” Rather, you said something like, “A new shipment of oranges have arrived. Come get a dozen for 5 cents.” So some nineteenth-century Marines wanted to brag about their Corps, but they believed it to be impolite. When these sentiments began shifting in society as a whole, Marines seized the initiative and began actively promoting the Corps, largely without any interaction with the professional advertisers. 

Of all the commercials — the one where the Marine slays the dragon is the most memorable to me — but I also remember the commercial with the knight turning into the Marine. Apparently there’s even a ranking of all Marine commercials. Do you have a particular favorite? Is there a consistent theme in this advertising that goes back to the 19th century? 

Venable: I love the knight commercial as well. I don’t see a consistent theme going back to the nineteenth century. But I do see links between the idealism of Marines—especially recruiters—that really began solidifying prior to World War I. And there is a chivalry celebrated and a love for a brotherhood (and it was, at this point, a brotherhood solely) that echoes in the Corps’ most compelling commercials. Whereas the Army has tried many different approaches, the Corps has stuck more consistently with the idea of serving for the sake of serving. It could be argued that those knight commercials of the 1980s were even more idealistic than their predecessors, the early twentieth-century recruiting posters. (An interesting outlier to this general trend is this commercial from the 1970s.) 

In your book, you say that the Marines, early in their history, referred to themselves as soldiers. It’s how they described themselves to others. But that changes over time. How and when did that change take place? 

Venable: It still had not taken place fully by the end of World War I, which I was surprised to find. In World War I memoirs written by Marines, for example, I noticed how it was more natural for most Marines to refer to themselves as soldiers more frequently than Marines. Thus individual Marines who enlisted during the war did not buy as fully into the rhetoric as longer-serving Marines. But in terms of representing themselves to the public, Marines had solved the essential problem of making it mean something to be a Marine where they did not necessarily have to explain what a Marine was, which had been a problem for decades. 

You end the story, as your subtitle notes, around 1918. If you had more time and space, what is the biggest addition to this story? Does the mystique build through Korea? 

Venable: I would want to talk about the idea of every Marine being a rifleman, because I think that is a key addition to the Corps’ identity that I did not see in the time period I researched. I assume that as the Corps increasingly professionalized and evolved after World War I, it differentiated its roles and specialties, thus necessitating some adjustment to seek to keep the overall institutional culture cohesive. 

And how was the mystique challenged in Vietnam? Obviously, it survived that war. Any thoughts on how it did so? 

Venable: Amidst the recent social distancing and a lot of seniors in high school having to miss proms and graduations and other celebrations, I saw someone post on social media something like, “Imagine graduating from high school and knowing you were going to Vietnam.” My dad went to college for a few years before he enlisted in the Corps, so he didn’t have that exact experience, but I can still appreciate the intense feelings provoked by knowing what they would soon be doing overseas. And, like my dad, many of them chose to serve in the Corps rather than get drafted into the Army. You see the same kind of sentiments within the World War I timeframe. You want to serve alongside and with those people you perceive to be the best for a whole host of reasons. And, as long as the institution has leaders at all levels who uphold the institution’s most positive traits of identity and leadership, you’re going to do better no matter the state of social upheaval. In World War I, many Marines were disappointed by some of their leaders. I would assume that this same reaction factored into the experiences of Vietnam Marines. 

I want to move on to a chapter you wrote titled “Hypermasculinization.” What are you tackling in that chapter? And was the USMC (and is it still) disposed to hypermasculinization over the other U.S. military services? 

Venable: I really wanted to understand some of the rhetoric produced by the first female Marines that did not make sense to me initially. They really undercut their own service. Everything fell into place for me when I realized that the first female Marines had not actually freed male Marines to fight. Indeed, those male Marines had already been declared unfit for overseas service. So the Corps’ reaction to this, I think, was similar to the impetus behind “every Marine a rifleman.” The greatest contribution of the first female Marines was ironically strengthening the Corps’ masculine identity by promoting the idea that all male Marines were fighters and female Marines were there to support them with clerical and other types of work.

I am absolutely convinced that the Corps is still the most hypermasculine of all the services. In talking to Army officers as long as a decade ago, I have been surprised how much more open they were to incorporating women into combat than men.

And the current Commandant seemed to fall into that tradition based on some comments he made last summer. Since then, though, he has taken some steps in the right direction that, frankly, have surprised me positively in regard to integrating training, because I agree with the argument that if you don’t integrate Marines from the very beginning, you can’t ever really integrate them if women aren’t visibly present during foundational experiences like the Crucible. I’m also excited to see major improvements on the Marine Corps’ website that was pretty disheartening about six months ago in the marked absence of females on the site. 

Would you discuss the artist Chandler Christy’s famous recruiting poster — and how does it tie into that chapter?

Venable: I find it interesting that depictions of women in Marine uniforms tend to be more complex than women in Navy uniforms, at least around the World War I timeframe. The Chandler Christy poster features a woman dressed in a naval uniform as a simpering, flirtatious creature, intended to convey to a man that she is clearly not capable of military service, but he is. Thus images of women wearing Navy uniforms tended to avoid depictions of combat, like most of the Navy’s recruiting imagery at the time. But the Corps’ imagery is more complex and, indeed, conflicted. So a poster like “If You Want to Fight, Join the Marines” has some edgy elements to include a woman with her hand on a weapon, unlike the competing Chandler Christy poster for the Navy. But the Corps poses a more forthright challenge to potential recruits, asking them not just to “join” like the Navy but to “fight” and to consider why a woman is wearing a uniform and holding a bayonet but they aren’t. 

Howard Chandler Christy’s 1915 poster, “If you want to fight! Join the Marines.”

Heather, last question, is Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men overrated or underrated? Regardless, I think Aaron Sorkin nailed that script. 

Venable: Great question. I think that Jack Nicholson appeared to be even more extreme than the characters in something like The Great Santini. I’ve been privileged to meet many Marines in my life, and none of them has been that extreme in personality. And so he was too stereotypical. Marines are normal people, not caricatures. Sorkin stressed the “warrior” aspect of the Corps’ legacy, not its highly idealistic vein captured so well in those 1980s commercials. So Nicholson’s character is overrated because he’s not subtle enough and certainly not human enough. And that’s consistent with the perceived warrior culture in the U.S. military as a whole that has really taken hold over the last few decades. It’s too simplistic and neglects the whole person.

Heather Venable is an associate professor of military and security studies in the Department of Airpower at the United States Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College. As a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, she taught naval and Marine Corps history. She received her Ph.D. in military history from Duke University. The views here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Air Force, the Command and Staff College, or the U.S. Department of Defense. You can follow her on Twitter @Heather_at_ACTS and Linkedin. 

Commander Christopher Nelson is the Deputy Senior Naval Intelligence Manager for East Asia in the Office of Naval Intelligence in Suitland, Maryland. He is a naval intelligence officer and graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School in Newport, Rhode Island. The views here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Department of Defense.

Featured Image: Three noncommissioned officers from Marine Barracks, Washington at 8th & I, perform during a Tuesday Sunset Parade at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., July 30, 2013. (Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Dan Hosack/Released)

South America

How the U.S. Can Better Suppress Illegal Drug Trafficking in the Caribbean

Leave a comment

By Laura Burroughs

Introduction

On April 1, President Trump announced that the United States is doubling its counternarcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere. The administration is concerned that illicit actors in Venezuela will exploit the focus on the COVID-19 pandemic to smuggle narcotics undetected. It deployed Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters, and air force surveillance aircraft to suppress drug trafficking coming toward the U.S. The move includes forces in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, but the Trump administration appears particularly concerned with Venezuela.

The country lacks maritime intelligence and enforcement capacity. Corruption, poverty, and food insecurity are leading to increased crime on land and at sea. Drug trafficking in Venezuela does appear to have increased and the U.S. has the tools to fill this gap, with the strongest and largest navy in the region.

However, while this increased presence is likely to result in more seizures over the short-term, it cannot change the root drivers of illicit maritime activity. A more sustainable solution requires more than increased assets on the water for search and seizure. Furthermore, without supporting local organizations and addressing the conditions driving so many Venezuelans to illicit activities, the impacts of the effort will not be sustainable. The following enhancements could improve the U.S. effort to reduce drug trafficking and help ensure a lasting solution.

Measures For Enhancing Effectiveness

Illicit actors can conceal drug trafficking. A robust maritime security approach requires a holistic perspective on maritime crime. Illicit actors around the world display a great deal of agility and ability to conceal their activities. In 2019, the U.S. Coast Guard confiscated $466 million worth of cocaine concealed on fishing vessels along the Pacific Coast of Central America and Mexico. Because illegal fishing often goes unnoticed and generates lower penalties, it is a convenient cover for more high-penalty crimes like drug trafficking. Drugs are even smuggled inside fish.

The U.S. must be sensitive to shifts toward other illicit crimes. In the Caribbean, maritime enforcement has largely focused on drug trafficking. However, illicit actors have diversified their activities. Gold and fuel smuggling have also become common. While these goods appear more innocuous than drugs, they provide an important funding source for illicit actors. Venezuelan criminal groups own mining towns and manage trafficking routes into bordering Colombia and Brazil, generating violence, conflict, and instability. Gold mining in Venezuela has even been compared to West and Central African blood diamonds. And those hardest hit are indigenous local groups that are being immersed in violence and pollution from mining operations. Many Venezuelans are also forced into illicit gold mining because of low wages and are subsequently required to pay criminal gangs large portions of their earnings.

Venezuelan criminals have also turned to the maritime space, stealing boat engines, conducting robberies, and even conducting kidnap-for-ransom operations. Low-priced fuel is being smuggled through Venezuela and traded to neighboring countries. This displays the array of options from which illicit actors in Venezuela can generate funds. Funds from these activities will help illicit actors sustain their funding and networks, and ease their return to narco-trafficking once the U.S. redeploys its assets.

The U.S. must balance its efforts with a geographic focus on the Pacific. The United States may not effectively combat drug trafficking with its focus on the Atlantic. Illicit actors are also geographically flexible. Due to a strong focus on anti-narcotics enforcement in the Caribbean, much of the cocaine traffic has shifted to the Pacific coast. 84 percent of confiscated South American cocaine is routed through the Pacific. In fact, more cocaine appears to be traveling through the Galapagos than the Caribbean, where illicit actors can travel undetected or disguise themselves as fishers.

Some of the U.S. naval forces are being directed at the eastern Pacific, with a recent seizure of 1,700 pounds of cocaine off the Pacific coast of Central America, but this illustrates the geographic agility of narco-traffickers and the need for maintaining sufficient resources so that investment in one domain does not come at the expense of the other.

The U.S. must empower regional organizations. While the U.S. has engaged 22 partner nations on this effort, it is still dominating the Venezuelan counter-narcotics operation. In order to improve maritime security long-term, it is important to support and empower regional organizations. This increases the operation’s legitimacy as well as regional capacity.

The Caribbean includes several international organizations. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), composed of 15 Caribbean countries, aims to improve regional cooperation on economic issues and foreign policy. CARICOM includes a branch called the Caribbean Community Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (CARICOM IMPACS). CARICOM IMPACS promotes information exchange, regional capacity building, and collaboration to improve regional security. The Regional Security System (RSS), a separate sub-regional body focused on collective security among seven of the CARICOM member states, analyzes criminal activity in the region and conducts air, land, and sea patrols. However, it has had to reduce its maritime patrols in recent years, despite maintaining two regularly operating maritime patrol aircraft.

In order for the U.S. operation to be perceived as legitimate as possible and be able to counter illicit maritime operations in the long-term, the U.S. should support capacity building for regional organizations like CARICOM-IMPACS and RSS to more effectively fulfill their mandates. This will also enable the U.S. to ultimately spend fewer resources in the region.

The U.S. must be mindful of threats to conflict and coastal welfare. One of the most important root causes of illicit trafficking is poverty and insecurity on land. In Venezuela, food insecurity and a lack of viable livelihood opportunities are turning citizens to illicit crime. In 2017, the average Venezuelan lost 24 pounds, and 90 percent of the country is now living in poverty. Food and economic insecurity and violence in Venezuela has catalyzed four million migrants and refugees to leave the country. These conditions are causing many Venezuelans to turn to illicit crime for survival. With more pressure against Venezuela, the United States may only push more Venezuelans into desperation. If it wants to develop a long-term solution to illicit trafficking in the region, it is vital for the United States to consider the impacts of its decisions on coastal welfare. 

Conclusion

The United States has the largest and most advanced navy in the world, and is an important actor in the Caribbean region and the Western Hemisphere as a whole. Increased maritime enforcement is vital, especially to combat drug trafficking in the region. However, aiming to control drug trafficking will not make these criminal groups disappear. They will take alternate routes and capitalize on trading other illicit goods. In order to establish a sustainable and peaceful approach to the region’s maritime security challenges, the U.S. must take a holistic approach to maritime security threats and empower local organizations to solve regional security challenges at their source. The U.S. will be spending a great deal of time and resources in this effort. It is important to generate a long-term solution to the problem, lest the U.S. find itself in an expensive, endless battle against drug trafficking.

Laura Burroughs has served for five years at the NGO One Earth Future (OEF) that works closely with the UN, navies, and the private sector. She has experience in maritime security, facilitating sessions, and developing reports for the Caught Red-Handed project – a series of workshops hosted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) to promote interagency coordination to improve maritime security.

Featured Image: U.S. Coast Guard members sit atop a seized semi-submersible suspected smuggling vessel in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean as the cutter Harriet Lane maneuvers nearby Oct. 24, 2019. (U.S. Coast Guard photo/Patrick Kelley)

Podcast

Sea Control 175 – The Bilge Pumps

10 Comments

By Alex Clarke

A historically-informed maritime current events series – or possibly the Old Top Gear/The Grand Tour team if they were interested in navies. In this episode the #Bilgepump Crew discusses China in the East and South China Seas, the future of aircraft carriers, rail guns, arsenal ships, and oh so much history.

#Bilgepumps is a fresh new series, and we don’t know if it is going to be popular or hated, so we hope you like it and enjoy the discussion. For any comments or suggestions please tweet them at the Bilgepump crew (with #Bilgepump) at Alex (@AC_NavalHistory), Drach (@Drachinifel), and Jamie (@Armouredcarrier). Or you can comment on our Youtube channels (listed down below). 

Download Sea Control 175 – The Bilge Pumps

Links

Alex Clarke is host of the Bilge Pumps series on the Sea Control podcast.

Contact the Sea Control podcast at [email protected]. 
Fiction

At the Commissioning of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Aircraft Carrier Baekdusan

Leave a comment

By JD Work

The cheers of the crowd were deafening as the sharp prow of the Baekdusan fast carrier (CVL) slid into the dark waters of the protected basin at Sinpo. The adulation may have even carried some genuine enthusiasm by those caught up in the sight of North Korea’s first aircraft carrier officially launching, mixed in of course with mandatory nationalism under compulsion for fear of “encouragement” by watchful political commissars. The former Mistral-class amphibious assault ship was nearly unrecognizable after more than a decade in the yard, resulting in profound changes to the vessel. These changes go far beyond the superficial difference of the dazzle camouflage paint scheme that replaced the earlier haze gray given to her by the original French builders of Chantiers de l’Atlantique. The oddities of the unusual, algorithmically-derived dark blue pattern were perhaps a fitting metaphor for the long, strange journey that brought this hull to North Korean shores. Bringing a new light carrier into service would be an impressive feat for any naval enterprise, let alone the Korean People’s Navy.

From Egypt to the East Sea of Korea

The complex saga began in the bizarre spring of 2020, as the world reeled under the uncertainties of pandemic. Kim Jong Un had already been in isolation out of fear of the disease, and following a cardiac scare that gained worldwide attention, would emerge even more determined to make his mark upon the global stage through his nation’s military.1 Among these assets would be a stunning set of naval capabilities, built around a ballistic missile submarine (SSB) program and the fleet to protect those boats. During these months, an intrusion attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau by commercial cyber intelligence services was attempting to compromise the networks of a cleared defense contractor in the United Kingdom.2 The incident was part of a long-running cyber espionage activity – known commonly as HIDDEN COBRA, Lazarus, or HERMIT – that targeted individuals associated with high-profile defense acquisition efforts to seek out information related to aviation, shipbuilding, missile development, and other critical capabilities.3

Almost overlooked in the flurry of ever-changing malware and forged documents that furthered these machinations, the UK incident was notable only in that the decoy message repurposed a glossy promotional photo from the UK Royal Navy’s Future Aircraft Carrier program. But while this specific lure was detected and the attempt defeated, it was not the last such attempt. Other efforts would persist and ultimately provide sustained access to the shipbuilder, systems integrators, and strike aviation programs. This espionage not only gave the National Defense Commission insight into the capabilities and deployments of newly introduced systems, but the aggregation of stolen documents, technical information, software code, and problem-solving correspondence allowed various Machine Industry Bureaus to circumvent years of research and development activity. Integrating this espionage haul into an ossified and overly centralized military industry was the work of almost a generation of intelligence officers, scientists, and production managers.

For all the edge that stolen intellectual property could offer, the DPRK’s heavy industry could not muster the resources and expertise to construct a major surface combatant out of nothing. To overcome this deficiency, the Korean Worker’s Party turned to the shadowy entity known informally as Office 39. This group essentially served as the organized crime racketeering function of the North Korean state, tasked with generating the illicit revenue required to keep the country functioning and the Kim family in power under the crushing weight of international sanctions. Its far-flung operations ranged from gold smuggling, drug trafficking, cybercrime and other pursuits on a massive scale.4 It would be Office 39’s access to the proceeds of these continuing criminal enterprises that would fund the operation, laundered through the vast markets of the online videogaming industry and the many quasi-legal virtual gambling ventures launched by the casinos of Macau, Manila, and Hanoi – each desperate for gamblers to replace those driven away by pandemic and the downturn of the mainland Chinese economy.

Office 39 would score its grandest coup to date as the Egyptian state collapsed into yet another endless series of coups that continued to ripple out from the Arab Spring. The regime had long established itself through corrupt relationships with key power figures that increasingly were backed by intelligence advantages offered by compromised Orascom telecommunications networks. The HIDDEN COBRA intrusion set subgroup known commonly as APT37, REAPER, Scarcruft, or RICOCHET CHOLLIMA had enabled an initial foothold in the country’s networks after the collapse of a joint venture between the Egyptian firm and the North Korean Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.5 APT37 / REAPER operators built upon this initial access to develop an unprecedented signals intelligence interception architecture across the backbone of telecom infrastructure in the region. Years later, in the frantic uncertainty before Cairo’s ultimate fall, this combination of insider knowledge and powerful friends would give Office 39 the chance to purchase what was then the nearly unserviceable Mistral-class multipurpose amphibious assault ship, ENS Anwar El Sadat. The LHD was the last surviving vessel of two purchased from France after a Gallic deal with the Russian Navy had fallen through in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.6 The Sadat’s sister ship, the Nasser, had been sunk at her higher-profile port in Alexandria by Ikwan saboteurs, and the Sadat was left to rust.

The ripple effects of serial pandemics throughout the 20s would again prove key. The near total collapse of the recreational and luxury cruise industry left hundreds of vessels at sea in makeshift flotillas, crewed by unpaid and increasingly desperate mariners abandoned by corporate headquarters which had rapidly ceased to exist.7 These ungainly, massive ships were unsuitable for merchant commerce, and poor choices as pirate motherships – although many crews tried both just to survive. Eventually, they would be destined for the shipbreakers in order to extract any value that could be salvaged. The ordinary yards of Alang and Chittagong, already under immense pressures over environmental regulation and worker safety, could not accept hulls encumbered by high profile, already years-long bankruptcy litigation – and especially would be unable to pay a master and crew whose only tenuous claim to ownership was mere possession.8

But the great decoupling had also killed many other vessels no longer needed for trade with an increasingly broken Chinese market, and like countless oil tankers and container ships, these hulls would be stripped in the newly emerging breaker yards of Africa. Here, the remnants of Belt and Road Initiative mercantilist outposts still raced to extract any resources that could be used to offset crippling debts to Beijing, heedless of legality or consequence.9 One more sale to one more shell company, paid through a Southeast Asian nation banking institution cutout, passed without notice. The Sadat would sit at anchor for nearly two years at harbor in Nacala, Mozambique; just another hulk among the many waiting to be beached and broken in a forgotten port at the wrong end of a frequently failing rail corridor.

Only commercial imagery satellites recorded when the Sadat vanished from port under cover of darkness, and even despite the high revisit rate of increasingly more capable constellations, some uncertainty would persist over exactly which night it happened. Active interest had long since faded and monitoring was reassigned to mere automated change detection algorithms, which dutifully flagged the discrepancy as being lost in the sea of other low-profile vessel movements. The system, triaged only by a bored Office of Naval Intelligence analyst, who did not speak French, apparently did not pick up on the significance of the type designator BPC (for Bâtiment de Projection et de Commandement) as he might have then tagged the vessel as an LHD. Instead, it was mistaken for one of many legacy British Petroleum entries that had never been corrected following Brexit. The error would prove costly, especially as the KPN prize crew now sailing the Sadat would embark on a route that would take her through the most desolate and empty waters imaginable.

The over 9,000 nautical mile journey would depend heavily upon Office 39’s prior experience conducting illicit transfers at sea, especially for the clandestine movement of oil to keep the Sadat’s bunkers topped up.10 Over nearly three months at sea, a quarter of the crew would perish from accident, malnutrition exacerbated illnesses, and what became an infamous purge responding to what the KPN would describe as a mutinous plot by so-called “wreckers.” The global community further failed to respond effectively when the Sadat was at last spotted approaching Indonesian waters, initially unclear on her destination. The distractions of the Taiwan crisis further delayed consensus for action as she transited east of Hokkaido. A promised interdiction operation by Russian forces from Vladivostok did not materialize when the lead Lider-2 (Project 23780M) class destroyer allegedly suffered an unspecified mechanical failure, reportedly preventing pursuit – an event which remains viewed with much skepticism by international diplomats and navalists alike.11

Outfitting

The ship once called Sadat was transformed in years-long process in the yard at Sinpo. Her flight deck was extended, and featured a new ski-jump ramp that offered a Short Takeoff But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) capability for somewhat limited aircraft weights.12 Her obsolete and degraded onboard networks were refitted with an indigenously developed Red Star operating system.13 Somewhat surprisingly new, Iranian-origin 15 Khordad radars and missile canisters would be integrated for air defense, along with multiple CHT-02D torpedo mounts and small arms weapons stations.14 Concept graphics reported by Chinese defense analyst sources also depicted KN-23 SRBM TELs positioned on the aft deck, possibly intended to mimic the U.S. Marine Corps deployment of HIMARS systems on light amphibious warships, although the North Korean missiles have not been observed to date in handheld imagery of the platform.15

On the day of the Baekdusan’s launch, the pierside static display of light aircraft that would operate from her decks also commanded attention, with the ranks of their future pilots assembled alongside in full Nomex suits and oddly shaped augmented reality flight helmets. The two delta wing fighters, a supposedly navalized variant of the country’s indigenously developed “next generation pursuit assault plane,” had been observed through overhead commercial imagery for years. It was still unclear if the North Korean aircraft industry had produced more than a dozen airframes – nearly half of which had already been lost to mishaps during development.

One of these mishaps had claimed the third aircraft previously intended for display, where the platform was lost during the long road movement from the airstrip at Iwon down to the port in the weeks before the ceremony. Handheld imagery of the mishap had circulated among the country’s elites-only StarMesh social media network, where in virtue signaling posts they condemned the heavy transport truck driver for careless driving. It had just as quickly been censored – but not before being picked up and reported to the world by a sharp-eyed Chinese defense blogger.

The obvious gap in the display arrangement had been hastily filled with a Kimchaek unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV). While manned flight operations were still considered the prestige assignment, it was the dark composite of the cranked kite design that brought the Baekdusan its truly operational airwing. A nearly direct two-thirds scale copy of the CASIC CaiHong-7, the stealth platform had been a revolutionary development for DPRK strike capabilities despite its quintessentially 2020s vintage design.16 When fitted with beyond visual range air-to-air missiles, the UCAV could also serve in the combat air patrol (CAP) role, as a pair of Republic of Korea (ROK) KF-X fighters found to their surprise when ambushed near the Northern Limit Line a few years ago. Named for the former Korean People’s Army Air and Anti-Air Force Academy, the Kimchaek UCAV’s resemblance to the Northrup Grumman X-47B demonstrator was a constant reminder of the path not taken by the U.S. Navy. The Kimchaek fighters were also fitted for delivery of autonomous standoff naval mines, using a bolt-on kit of Chinese origin for glide, underwater propulsion, fusing and guidance that could be fitted to low-cost conventional gravity bombs that themselves were well within North Korean production capacities. This too incorporated stolen designs that could be originally traced to cyber espionage against the defense industrial base conducted by Chinese Ministry of State Security operations known as APT40, Periscope, KRYPTONITE PANDA, or GADOLINIUM.17

Implications and Outlook

Baekdusan is in many ways a counter-intuitive platform to Western eyes. The KPN still does not appear to have a genuine strategic requirement for the kind of force projection options that are the traditional role of a carrier or expeditionary strike group. However, to a dictator the investment could be justified solely on its basis as a prestige capability – to say nothing of the propaganda value in continued demonstration to domestic audiences of the Juche ideology of self-reliance. It mirrored the accomplishments of their larger neighbor in acquiring and fielding a modified CV, much as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy managed to convert their purchase of the Varyag heavy aviation cruiser (TAKR) into the fleet’s first carrier, Liaoning.18 But this is likely not the whole story, suggesting both wider ambitions and a new strategic depth to the regime’s ultimate priority: the survival and continued rule of the Kim dynasty.

The Gorae SSB and its successors remain a key linchpin of this priority. These submarines continue to represent a significant wildcard in any potential strategic exchange – despite the relative obsolescence of their design, terrible acoustic profile, and frequent maintenance casualties.19 Even as advances in Western intelligence capabilities, prompt conventional strike options, and other left-of-launch methods increasingly threaten the DPRK mobile missile force, the ability of the Korean People’s Navy to sustain a sea-based second strike delivery platform presents an unknowable challenge to deterrence. This challenge becomes especially salient in the case of an ROK attempt at leadership decapitation, whether due to Pyongyang’s feared bolt out of the blue or Seoul’s anticipated crisis escalation scenarios.

The Baekdusan fast carrier (CVL), or drone carrier (CVLQ) as some would prefer to argue, may instead represent a substantial further investment to protect the Gorae SSB as a second strike retaliation capability, drawing upon older Soviet naval doctrine developed when facing similar correlations of forces and qualitative disadvantages. The bastion model of patrol within confined seas, where access may be controlled via strategic chokepoints or sea denial, may have unexpectedly re-emerged in part as a function of the new time and distance equations that bound the contemporary weapons engagement zone. In this, the DPRK may also be mimicking emerging thinking observed over recurring deployments of the PLAN SSBN force.20 A North Korean carrier provides the option, at least as a matter of doctrine, to delay regional or international naval intervention in order to buy necessary operating space for the survival of the Gorae and her sister boats.

It still remains to be seen if this costly and audacious program will be nothing more than a white elephant. Certainly, the debate is far from finished regarding the limited survivability of a large surface platform like a carrier in the face of contemporary precision guided munitions fires, especially given ever-increasing ranges, loiter times, sensor integration, and autonomy. The remarkable accomplishment of the Baekdusan may be merely reduced to the first flaming datum in a future peninsular conflict.

Still, one cannot help but reflect on what might have been different. The combination of factors that had to line up “just-so” for this carrier to be built was the result of remarkable North Korean tenacity, and no small degree of luck. So many opportunities existed where intervention could have halted Pyongyang’s progress, starting from the earliest cyber espionage campaigns against defense industrial base contractors. But very much like the reaction to early Chinese forays toward a blue water navy in the 1990s, serious people would not take the idea seriously. After all, everyone knew the immense hurdles of building a naval aviation warfare community to operate from a narrow deck at sea. This simply could not be achieved using a rusting hulk headed to the shipbreakers, by the kinds of people more at home in a casino than in a banker’s office or a uniform. Likewise, conventional wisdom demands that serious naval strategists focus on power projection in the open ocean, unencumbered by the distractions of littoral operations in close and confined seas.

But what if they were wrong?

JD Work serves as the Bren Chair for Cyber Conflict and Security at Marine Corps University, and as a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. He holds additional affiliations with the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and as a senior adviser to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. He can be found on Twitter @HostileSpectrum. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency of the U.S. government or other organization.

References

1. Economist Intelligence Unit, “North Korea politics: Reports of leader’s illness stoke regime stability concerns,” April 22, 2020.; IHS Global Insight. “Government stability and policy direction continuity likely despite North Korean leader’s probable ill health”. 23 April 2020.; JD Work. “Loose cobras: DPRK regime succession and uncertain control over offensive cyber capabilities”. Atlantic Council. 30 April 2020. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/loose-cobras-dprk-regime-succession-and-uncertain-control-over-offensive-cyber-capabilities/

2. Strange Real Intel. “Operation Flash Cobra”. 5 May 2020. https://github.com/StrangerealIntel/CyberThreatIntel/blob/master/North%20Korea/APT/Lazarus/2020-05-05/Analysis.md

3. Departments of State, the Treasury, and Homeland Security, and Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Guidance on the North Korean Cyber Threat,” 15 April 2020, https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-106a.

4. Soo Kim. “Luxury Goods in North Korea: Tangible and Symbolic Importance to the Kim Jong-un Regime.” On Korea Academic Paper Series. Korea Economic Institute of America. 2014. http://keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/2013_luxury_goods_in_north_korea.pdf; FireEye. “North Korea, Iran, and Other Isolated Regimes May Increasingly Use Cyber Crime Capabilities”. 18 May 2017.; CrowdStrike. “Baselining North Korean Cyber Capabilities”. 3 August 2017.; FireEye. “Threats to Cryptocurrencies”. 10 August 2017.; CrowdStrike. “Office 39: North Korea’s Money Maker”. 5 December 2017.; CrowdStrike. “Organizational Overview of Bureau 121: The Suspected DPRK Cryptocurrency Miner”. 26 February 2018.; FireEye. “Country Profile: North Korea.” 8 March 2018.

5. FireEye. “APT37 (Reaper): North Korean Cyber Espionage Group Expands Its Focus and Capabilities”. 19 February 2018.; CrowdStrike. “RICOCHET CHOLLIMA: Campaigns Spanning 2016 to 2018”. 4 April 2018

6. Frederic Lert, Nikolai Novichkov, Jeremey Binnie. “Egypt to buy the two ex-Russian Mistral”. Jane’s Defence Weekly. 24 September 2015.; Jane’s Intelligence Weekly. “French refusal to deliver Mistral warships to Russia raises contract enforcement and sanction risks” 26 November 2014.; Lee Willett, Nicholas de Larrinaga, Guy Anderson. “France halts first Russian Mistral delivery in response to Ukraine crisis”. Jane’s Navy International. 4 September 2014.

7. Tyler Rogoway. “Satellite Images Show Armadas Of Vacant Cruise Ships Huddling Together Out At Sea”. The War Zone. 7 May 2020. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33338/satellite-images-show-armadas-of-vacant-cruise-ships-huddling-together-out-at-sea

8. Economist. “The world’s biggest ship-breaking town is under pressure to clean up”. 7 March 2019.; Peter Gwin. “The Ship-Breakers”. National Geographic. May 2014. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2014/05/The-Ship-Breakers/

9. Kenneth Rapoza. “Overwhelming Majority Say Time To ‘Decouple’ From China”. Forbes. 27 April 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/27/overwhelming-majority-say-time-to-decouple-from-china ; James Politi. “Fears rise that US-China economic ‘decoupling’ is irreversible”. Financial Times. 21 January 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/c920bce2-360e-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4 ; John Hurley, Scott Morris, Gailyn Portelance. “Examining the debt implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a policy perspective”. Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development. Vol 3 No 1. 2019.

10. Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein. “China’s Sanctions Enforcement and Fuel Prices in North Korea: What the Data Tells Us.” 38 North. 1 February 2019. https://www.38north.org/2019/02/bkatzeffsilberstein020119/ ; Inderpreet Walia. “UN blacklists vessels and shipping companies over North Korea smuggling. Lloyds List Maritime Intelligence. 2 April 2018. ; Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr. “North Korean Illicit Activities and Sanctions: A National Security Dilemma.” Cornell International Law Journal. 51 CORNELL INT’L L.J. 57 (2018). https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/ILJ/upload/Bechtol-final.pdf

11. Geoffry Till. “Future conditional: naval power sits at centre of Russian strategy.” Jane’s Navy International. 20 July 2016.; Nikolai Novichkov. “Russian destroyer design revealed.” Jane’s Navy International. 14 May 2015.

12. Richard Scott. “From the flight deck: Innovation in carrier take-off and landing.” Jane’s Navy International. 22 March 2018.

13. Florian Grunow, Niklaus Schiess. “Lifting the Fog on Red Star OS”. 32C3. Hamburg. 27 December 2015.

14. Jeremy Binnie. “Iran unveils new SAM system. Jane’s Defence Weekly. 12 June 2019.; Jeremy Binnie. “On the radar: Iranian air defence developments”. Jane’s Defence Weekly. April 2018.

15. Jeffrey Lewis. “Preliminary Analysis: KN-23 SRBM”. James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. 5 June 2019. https://www.nonproliferation.org/preliminary-analysis-kn-23-srbm/ ; Gidget Fuentes. “Marines Fire HIMARS From Ship in Sea Control Experiment With Navy”. USNI News. 24 October 2017. https://news.usni.org/2017/10/24/marines-fire-himars-ship-sea-control-experiment-navy

16. Kelvin Wong. “Over the rainbow: Cai Hong family takes to the world stage”.  Jane’s International Defence Review. 30 January 2018.; International Defense Review. “Unmanned dragons: China’s UAV aims and achievements” 23 January 2012.

17. CrowdStrike. “Global Threat Report.” March 2020. ; FireEye. “Chinese Cyber Threat Activity Targeting Foreign Militaries and National Security Entities”. 15 October 2019. ; Michael Fabey. “USN seeks to tackle mine warfare shortfalls”. Jane’s Navy International. 31 January 2019.; Red Sky Alliance. “Anchor Panda and Periscope – Threat Actors Targeting Maritime Operations”. March 2019. https://redskyalliance.org/transportation/anchor-panda-and-periscope-threat-actors-targeting-maritime-opera.; FireEye. “Attack Lifecycle: APT40 (Periscope)”. 19 December 2018.

18. Reuben F Johnson. “Analysts examine role of China’s future carrier force”. Jane’s Defence Weekly. 4 March 2016.; Reuben F Johnson. “PLAN’s future carriers to be updated copies of Ukrainian design.” Jane’s Defence Weekly. 7 January 2016.; James R. Holmes. “The Long, Strange Trip of China’s First Aircraft Carrier.” 3 February 2015. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/the-long-strange-trip-of-chinas-first-aircraft-carrier-liaoning/ ; Robert Farley. “What if China Never Acquired the Varyag.” The Diplomat. 23 January 2015. https://thediplomat.com/2015/01/what-if-china-never-acquired-the-varyag/ ; Andrew S. Erickson, Abraham M. Denmark, Gabriel Collins. “Beijing’s Starter Carrier and Future Steps: Alternatives and Implications”. Naval War College Review. Vol 65 No 1. 2012. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss1/3/ ; Richard Scott. “Chinese aircraft carrier capability unlikely before 2015, says US report”. Jane’s Navy International. 31 March 2009.;

19. Gabriel Dominguez, Kosuke Takahashi. “North Korea test-fires possible SLBM.”. Jane’s Defence Weekly. 2 October 2019. ; Nick Hansen. “Images show North Korea building larger ballistic missile submarine”. Jane’s Intelligence Review. 2 August 2019. ; Gabriel Dominguez. “North Korea releases partial images of ‘newly built submarine’”. Jane’s Defence Weekly. 25 July 2019. ;  ; Jack Liu, Peter Makowsky and Jenny Town. “North Korea’s Sinpo South Shipyard: Submarine Shipbuilding Continuing at Slow Pace”. 38 North. 12 April 2019. https://www.38north.org/2019/04/sinpo041219/ ; Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. “North Korea’s Submarine Ballistic Missile Program Moves Ahead: Indications of Shipbuilding and Missile Ejection Testing.”. 38 North. 16 November 2017. https://www.38north.org/2017/11/sinpo111617/ ; Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. “Sinpo South Shipyard: Is the GORAE Set to Sail?”. 38 North. 19 December 2016. https://www.38north.org/2016/12/sinpo111916/ ; Nick Hansen, Markus Schiller. “North Korea tests submarine-launched missile.” Jane’s Intelligence Review. 9 September 2016. ; North Korea’s Ballistic Missile Submarine: Probable Post-Missile Test Maintenance; Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. “Construction Hall Externally Complete”. 38 North. 20 July 2016. https://www.38north.org/2016/07/sinpo072016/ ; Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. “North Korea’s Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile: Continued Progress at the Sinpo South Shipyard”. 38 North. 3 May 2016. https://www.38north.org/2016/05/sinpo050316/

20. Tong Zhao. Tides of Change: China’s Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines and Strategic Stability. Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. October 2018. https://carnegietsinghua.org/2018/10/24/tides-of-change-china-s-nuclear-ballistic-missile-submarines-and-strategic-stability-pub-77490 ; Matthew Harris. “Rig for sea: Countering the deployment of Chinese ballistic missile submarines.” Comparative Strategy. Vol 35 Issue 5. 2016; Wu Riqiang. “Survivability of China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Forces.” Science & Global Security. Vol 19 Issue 2. 2011. ; Kristian Atland. “The Introduction, Adoption and Implementation of Russia’s ‘Northern Strategic Bastion’ Concept, 1992–1999”. Journal of Slavic Military Studies. Vol 20 Issue 4. 2007; Christopher A. Ford, David A. Rosenberg. “The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan’s Maritime Strategy”. Vol 28 Issue 2. 2005. ; Jan S Breemer. “The Soviet Navy’s SSBN bastions: Why explanations matter.” RUSI Journal. Vol 134 Issue 4. 1989.; Walter M. Kreitler. The Close Aboard Bastion: a Soviet ballistic missile submarine deployment strategy. Naval Postgraduate School. 1988. ; Jan S Breemer. “The soviet Navy’s SSBN bastions: New questions raised”. RUSI Journal. Vol 132 Issue 2. 1987.; Jan S Breemer. “The soviet navy’s SSBN bastions: Evidence, inference, and alternative scenarios”. Volume 130, Issue 1. 1985.

Featured Image: “Modified Aircraft Carrier” by Jack Cong via ArtStation