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Human Capital

Gapped Billet Squall on the Horizon: The USCG Officer Corps Could be in Trouble

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By Joseph O’Connell

The Coast Guard is facing a looming afloat officer shortage with no good options on the table. With roughly 3.5%* of all CG officer billets currently gapped, and a particular shortfall impacting mid-grade (O3/O4) officers the Coast Guard needs to explore creative solutions to address the pending crisis. At the conclusion of assignment year 2021 (AY 21) the Coast Guard reported being 213 officers short, with a whopping 166 of those being O3 or O4’s, a growing shortfall of experience that cannot be easily resolved.1 While this might seem a rounding error to larger armed services, this represents a significant percentage of the Coast Guard officer corps. To put in context, if the U.S. Navy were facing a similar shortage, they would have gapped approximately 1,960 officer billets, a dearth that would undoubtedly impact operational readiness. This shortage grows more acute when considering the critical billets O3 and O4 officers fill aboard Coast Guard cutters: Operations Officers, Engineer Officers, Executive Officers, and Commanding Officers, depending on the cutter class.

Figure 1: Total Gapped Billets by Assignment Year. (Author graphic)

Utilizing the last 18 years of officer assignment data, a picture of a rapidly declining officers corps forms, with current trends indicating that implemented officer retention tools are failing1. Figure 1 shows the rapid increase in missing officers over time, highlighting the unique nature and acuteness of this particular crisis.1,2 As shown in Figure 2, the officer shortage is extremely concerning for the afloat community and was correctly predicted in 2015’s The Demise of the Cutterman2. Of note, AY21 was the highest number of afloat billets gapped, verifying the more pessimistic predictions made by CDR Smicklas. As the Coast Guard continues to bring new hulls online while operating legacy assets the demand for afloat officers will far outstrip the limited and dwindling supply, with projections anticipating a 25% increase in cutter billets from current levels.3

Figure 2: Gapped Afloat Billets by Assignment Year. Author graphic.

Armed with this knowledge, there are several options left to decision-makers. The readily apparent options, from least to most intrusive are: letting the crisis play out, ameliorating critical shipboard habitability shortfalls, prioritizing afloat officers, and major force restructuring.

Wait and See

The least intrusive option the Coast Guard could pursue is a “wait and see” strategy, wherein program managers would assess the impacts of current retention policies impacts on officer retention and the afloat billet gap. In its current form, this exclusively entails the recent afloat bonus program.5 It is possible that the afloat billet gap will shrink as more officers elect to return afloat in pursuit of bonus money or career path incentives (arguably not the right reasons to go afloat).

There is a historical argument in favor of waiting as well, traditionally during economic boom cycles the service has difficulty retaining officers, while during economic downturns the officer corps is closer to full strength, this can be seen in the years following the great financial crisis when the officer billet gap was greatly reduced, only to steadily rise as the economy rebounded in the mid-2010s.9 Just as a prudent mariner would not hazard their vessel based on scanty radar information, Coast Guard programmers and planners cannot place bets on the future of the service based on unknowable economic outlooks. This strategy runs the risk of inaction and a deepening crisis while maintaining current priorities in hopes that new assets will alleviate habitability issues and that afloat bonuses will deepen the afloat talent pool. 8 If an economic crisis fails to materialize, or the officer corps reacts differently than during a financial crisis there is a chance that this strategy fails catastrophically and the afloat gap grows, adversely impacting operations.

Prioritize “Sea Service Attractiveness”

Habitability

The next actionable item the Coast Guard can pursue to mitigate the exodus of afloat officers is prioritizing sea service attractiveness. By and large, this falls into two buckets: 1) addressing egregious shipboard habitability issues and 2) “nice to have” incentives such as Wi-Fi, preserving port calls, and reduced work days. On the latter measure, the Coast Guard has made significant investments in UW connectivity and bandwidth.

These creature comforts do not, unfortunately, extend to legacy Coast Guard assets, namely the Famous and Reliance class, medium endurance cutters, which suffer from debilitating habitability issues. These issues range from the whimsical– water intrusion flooding staterooms every time it rains to such an extent that it was re-christened “the waterfall suite,”—to the downright dangerous 2 ft. diameter holes hidden by appliances such as laundry machines or controllable pitch propeller systems that rely on emergency relief valves to regulate system pressures. Furthermore, it is not uncommon in the medium endurance cutter fleet to hear sea stories of tools falling into the bilge and puncturing the hull.

Compounded, these unappetizing work environments significantly diminish the already austere nature of serving aboard ship. These unfortunate conditions are the result of years of policy decisions de-emphasizing legacy asset sustainment in favor of other priorities, with newer hulls promising to resolve habitability issues once online. Building new cutters has taken longer than anticipated and legacy medium endurance cutters, the bulk of the Coast Guard Atlantic Area’s forward operating assets, are now expected to operate for another 5-15 years4. Given this timeline, one “down payment” the Coast Guard can make for the health of its future afloat officer corps, is addressing the dire habitability issues aboard its medium endurance cutters. Paired with the “nice to have” initiatives, such as shipboard Wi-Fi, money spent on increasing the attractiveness of sea duty could pay significant dividends in the years to come. 

The Coast Guard should increase habitability and work-life balance, through major investments throughout the fleet, particularly in the Medium Endurance Cutter (MEC) fleet. Some easy actions to take would be increasing cutter maintenance budgets to repair long overdue crew comfort issues, earmarking funds to upgrade or install rec/morale equipment that can be used underway, increasing maintenance periods to promote work-life balance, and decreasing the amount of homeport maintenance work completed by the crew. While none of these are ‘free’ and come with associated costs (funds being taken from other priorities, reduced operational time, more workload for shoreside maintenance units, etc.), they are worthwhile to explore in order to avert a major afloat staffing issue.

Incentives

If sea duty attractiveness is increased, then an organic shift in officer billet preferences may occur and naturally fill the afloat gap. Increasing sea duty attractiveness is complex and difficult, and a myriad of solutions are currently being explored by the Coast Guard, namely afloat department head and XO bonuses5. Given that these bonuses may not prove to be effective the Coast Guard should be investigating additional incentives, starting with the least desirable afloat units. While monetary incentives through bonuses are very cogent, additional incentives could also be explored, such as offering geographically stable follow-on tours, weighing sea time when considering candidates for post-graduate studies, or more drastically increasing promotability for afloat officers. While none of these is a panacea for increasing sea duty desirability, these among other proposals should be explored.

Select and Direct

The proverbial easy button is to simply fill all afloat billets at the expense of the other communities, forcing sector officers, aviators, and support officers to be chronically understaffed while mandating that all afloat billets be filled. While this solution is theoretically easy to implement from a policy perspective, it may backfire as other operational and support communities suffer more acutely under staffing shortages, degrading joint mission capabilities and depleting the CG ‘brand’. More concerning is forcing officers into billets they have no interest (or expertise) in, leading to dissatisfaction at work, poor performance, and incompetence, all of which can congeal into toxic workplace environments aboard cutters, exacerbating the cutterman shortage through a vicious cycle. However, if afloat billets are prioritized while taking concrete steps to promote afloat habitability and work-life balance, there could be a natural shift in billet preference among the officer corps.

Prioritizing afloat billets at the expense of other communities puts ‘butts in seats’, averting the critical crisis of a rapidly dwindling afloat officer corps, but is not a sustainable long-term solution. It is worth noting, a solution that quickly closes the afloat officer gap while incentivizing officers to return afloat still proves elusive, as the Coast Guard started utilizing monetary incentives over the past 2 assignment years without tangibly reducing either the pending staffing shortage or reducing the number of ‘afloat’ billets gapped.1

Major Overhaul

Finally, if the Coast Guard is unable or unwilling to fill billets and can still meet its statutory mission objectives, it could pursue more extreme options involving a major force restructure of officer billets. This restructuring could take multiple forms, including heavier reliance upon automation technology, reducing afloat officer billets, replacing officers with senior enlisted, reducing shoreside support billets, and mandating additional rotations into the cutter fleet. Each of these solutions harbors unique pitfalls.

A forward-looking solution is to reduce officer manning on future platforms such as the OPC, while simultaneously reducing officer billets on existing high-technology platforms, such as the WMSLs and HEALY. Given that industry vessels operate with manning in the teens for similarly sized vessels, it is entirely feasible to sail Coast Guard cutters with a fraction of the existing billet structure. These vessels rely heavily upon automation technology such as machinery control software (MCS) and utilize a different maintenance philosophy that emphasizes heavy depot periods and limited organization (crew) level maintenance6. However, by doing this the Coast Guard would accept significantly increased operating risks (by reducing organic crew casualty response capabilities), reduced operational effectiveness (fewer personnel to staff operational missions, such as law enforcement teams, migrant watchstanders, or defense missions) a reduced talent pool, among other serious consequences. Over-reliance on technology to reduce manning has proven troublesome in the recent past (see LCS and original WMSL manning concepts), and current automatic control systems do not replace a trained technician. 7

Another major restructuring action would be to fill O3 and O4 billets with more junior (to the billet) officers or senior enlisted personnel. While pursuing either action would serve as a temporary salve, both options harbor risk, officers junior to the traditional grade may lack the appropriate experience to serve as an Operations Officer or Executive Officer for example. Meanwhile, filling junior officer billets with qualified warrant officers or senior enlisted personnel stymies the training pipeline for future commanding officers.

A final drastic option would be to reduce current staff, support, and other non-afloat billets for critical pay grades and enforce an afloat tour requirement at those grades. While a guaranteed way to fill vital afloat jobs, this could have cascading effects on the afloat community, and the officer corps writ large. Reducing the number of support billets could degrade the quality of cutter support and sea duty attractiveness may suffer. This move could lead to an exodus of officers who joined the Coast Guard for different reasons than pursuing a career afloat.

Similar to ‘prioritizing the cutterman’, this would reduce the afloat officer gap, but may end up damaging the officer corps more than it helps. On the surface, alternative solutions are capable of solving the afloat officer gap, but a quick analysis reveals that they would have significant costs that may outweigh their benefits.

Shoal Water on Port and Starboard

On paper there are a variety of straightforward solutions to reduce the U.S. Coast Guard’s afloat and overall officer shortage, including leaning into automation/optimization technology, replacing current afloat officer billets with senior enlisted or more junior officers, restructuring the support officer billets and forcing pay grades to go afloat. Unfortunately, all of these solutions have deleterious consequences that increase the risks of operational units, (while decreasing effectiveness), and potentially damage the long-term health of the Coast Guard officer corps.

To avoid the worst of these consequences, the “least bad” option for the Coast Guard is to prioritize cuttermen and fill afloat billets at the expense of other officer specialties, while simultaneously increasing sea duty attractiveness to mitigate the consequences of selecting and directing. These measures are contingent upon increasing cutter habitability and sea duty attractiveness. Here, the Coast Guard must look to the least habitable cutters —the medium endurance cutter fleet— and work to make these units more desirable by increasing crew comfort underway and maximizing homeport downtime.

Lieutenant Joseph O’Connell is a port engineer for the medium-endurance cutter product line, tasked with planning and managing depot maintenance on five Famous-class cutters. He previously served in USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) as a student engineer and USCGC Kimball (WSML-756) as the assistant engineer officer. He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 2015 with a degree in mechanical engineering and from MIT in 2021 with a double master’s of science in naval architecture and mechanical engineering.

These views are presented in a personal capacity and do not necessarily represent the official views of any U.S. government department or agency.

Note: due to the opaque nature of available billet vacancies, vacant afloat billets may not be true shipboard assignments, afloat training organization (ATO), select CG-7 jobs and others may be coded as “afloat,” obfuscating the true shortage.

*3.5% was calculated in the following manner: (Total # of officers-total gapped billets)/(total # of officers). This formula assumes there are no over-billeted positions, which is not entirely accurate, but serves as a decent proxy. 

 References

1. Assignment Year Data from Coast Guard Messages: ALCGOFF 142/04, 062/05, 048/06, 048/07, 082/08, 072/09, 064/10, 038/11, 030/12, 029/13, 025/14, 025/15, 043/16, 057/17, 032/18, 061/19, 068/20, 048/21, 023/22

2. Demise of the Cutterman, CDR Smicklas, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015/august/demise-cutterman

3. State of the CG 2021, https://www.mycg.uscg.mil/News/Article/2533882/sotcg-get-all-the-details-on-the-commandants-announcements/

4. Report to Congress on CG Procurement, April 2022, https://news.usni.org/2022/04/05/report-to-congress-on-coast-guard-cutter-procurement-15

5. All Coast Notice: 105/20 Officer Afloat Intervention

6. CFR 46 Part 15: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title46-vol1/xml/CFR-2017-title46-vol1-part15.xml

7. Unplanned costs of unmanned fleet, Jonathan Panter, Jonathan Falcone, https://warontherocks.com/2021/12/the-unplanned-costs-of-an-unmanned-fleet/

8. Federal Reserve, Financial and Macroeconomic Indicators of Recession Risk, June 2022;

9. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/financial-and-macroeconomic-indicators-of-recession-risk-20220621.htm

10. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/29/138594702/a-weak-economy-is-good-for-military-recruiting

Featured Image: A member of Maritime Security Response Team West watches as a Sector San Diego MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter approaches the flight deck of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL 751) cutter off the coast of San Diego, March 29, 2023. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Taylor Bacon)

capability development

The Politics of Developing the Aegis Combat System, Pt. 1

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The following republication is adapted from a chapter from The Politics of Naval Innovation, a paper sponsored by the Office of Net Assessment and conducted by the Strategic Research Department of the U.S. Naval War College’s Center for Naval Warfare Studies. Read it in its original form here.

By Thomas C. Hone, Douglas V. Smith, and Roger C. Easton, Jr.

By 1975, the extremely capable TU- 22M Backfire bomber, which could carry the AS-4 as well as more capable AS-6 and AS-9 missiles, had entered service with Soviet Naval Aviation…the impact of the rapidly evolving Soviet aviation threat to naval units was assessed during the 1960s and firmly established in the Center for Naval Analyses “Countering the Anti-Ship Missile” (or CAMS) Study. Much of the analytical work had already been done as early as 1958 by Richard Hunt of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) who used a series of carefully defined threat models to determine the possible future threat environment that would have to be countered by U.S. naval forces. In this case, the United States found itself responding to offensive, although expected, innovation on the part of its major adversary that had profound implications for the survivability of naval forces at sea.

The Politics Of Aegis Development

Having established the threat-based context within which the Aegis development team was required to operate, let us now turn to the relevant political circumstances which helped or hindered their attempts to adapt technology to meet emerging threats.

In January 1983, the Navy commissioned USS Ticonderoga (CG-47), the first of a new and expensive generation of missile cruisers. The heart of Ticonderoga was its Aegis weapon system, consisting of a phased array radar (SPY-1), a tactical weapon system (to monitor the radar and direct the ship’s antiaircraft missiles) and a battery of surface-to-air missiles. Aegis anti-air warfare (AAW) systems were designed to track, target and engage high numbers of incoming aircraft and cruise missiles. The purpose of the system was to protect Carrier Battle Groups from saturation missile attacks staged by Soviet aircraft and submarines.

However, CG-47 carried more than just an AAW system. Linked to computers which monitored and directed AAW missiles were anti-submarine and surface target sensors and weapons, such as the LAMPS antisubmarine helicopter and the Harpoon cruise missile. With this variety of sensors, weapons and sophisticated tactical displays, CG-47 class ships formed the core of the Navy’s Carrier Battle Group surface defense screen…The essence of the system is its ability to screen and monitor, then track and attack, large numbers of radar contacts simultaneously….

May 2, 1982 – An aerial port bow view of the Aegis guided missile cruiser USS TICONDEROGA (CG-47) underway during sea trials. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

…The Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance had already developed several varieties of ship-launched air defense missiles, but no one had yet created the kind of radar and missile system that could deal with the threats forecasted by the Applied Physics Laboratory. Work on such a system began in the Bureau of Ordnance in 1959. Dubbed TYPHON…the new system was designed to track as many as 20 radar contacts simultaneously. But the new system’s radars were heavy, bulky, unreliable, and used enormous amounts of electrical power. As a result, the Secretary of Defense cancelled the project in 1963. The Navy was already having trouble successfully operating its deployed anti-aircraft missile and radar systems, and in September 1962 the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) declared a moratorium on further development in order to “establish an orderly Long Term Plan which takes into account the logistic, maintenance, and training problems of the Fleet as well as the technical opportunities presented by scientific progress.”

Priority was given to a program to make existing anti-aircraft missile systems meet their design goals in operations at sea. The Surface Missile Systems (SMS) Project in the recently created Bureau of Naval Weapons (following the merger of the bureaus of Aeronautics and Ordnance) was assigned this task. After TYPHON was cancelled, the CNO ordered SMS to create a new development office, later given the title Advanced Surface Missile System Project or ASMS. The task of ASMS was to find technological solutions to the problems which had made TYPHON so unwieldy and unreliable.

The basic engineering problem was to develop a radar which did not need a mechanically-aimed antenna. The standard tactic in 1963 was to assign one fire control radar antenna (or “illuminator”) to each target, having already used a separate air search radar to identify contacts. The fire control radars were used to guide anti-aircraft missiles to targets within range. When numerous, high-speed simultaneous targets were approaching, mechanically-aimed radars were easily overwhelmed.

The solution, then being developed, was an electronically-aimed, or “phased array” radar, which could move from one target to another almost instantaneously so as to properly distribute radar beams and defensive missiles among a host of targets. As the orders to ASMS from the CNO put it, the Navy needed “more flexible and standardized fire control systems for SAM ships” built around three-dimensional radars and “multipurpose digital computers and digital data transmission.” The mission of the ASMS office was to work with the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Surface Warfare to prepare general and specific “operational requirements” to guide civilian contractors in their efforts to design and build the new equipment…

…In 1969, the Office of the Secretary of Defense made the second change: establishing the Defense Systems Acquisition Review Council (DSARC). DSARC was created to review major development and procurement efforts at three critical stages (project start, engineering development, and production) in their progression from exploratory development to full-scale production. The goal of this administrative innovation was to decentralize authority and responsibility for major acquisition programs to specially chosen project managers while keeping essential control over procurement in the hands of the Secretary of Defense. Both changes worked to the advantage of ASMS. The first gave the project more resources; the second gave the project the periodic opportunity to demonstrate its progress and thus ensure even more resources in the future…

…In 1970, Navy Captain Wayne Meyer, former head of engineering at the Naval Ship Weapon Systems Engineering Station (Port Hueneme, California), was transferred to the Naval Ordnance Systems Command (NAVORD). Appointed manager of the Aegis project, he almost immediately faced problems from outside his office.

The Deputy Chief of Naval Material for Development recommended against further development of RCA’s Aegis radar on the grounds that the cost would not be justified by the potential anti-air warfare benefits. Chief, NAVMAT, did not agree, however, so his Deputy for Development appealed to the OPNAV staff. That there was a need for a new generation of AAW surface escort ships was generally agreed. What was not clear was whether RCA’s solution to radar tracking and targeting problems was cost effective.

The “showdown” in OPNAV set the Deputy Chief for Development (NAVMAT) and his ally, the CNO’s Director of Research, Development, Testing, and Engineering, against the Navy’s Director of Tactical Electromagnetic Programs, the Director of Navy Program Planning, and the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (DCNO) for Surface Warfare, whose offices sponsored the Aegis project and the offices which would procure the Aegis ships. The DCNO for Surface Warfare argued that the Aegis project office had drastically reduced the phased array radar’s weight, power requirements and cost, and that even greater reductions were likely in the near future as the radar system matured. The Director of Navy Program Planning defended the project office’s management of Aegis development and stressed the need to move the new system into the fleet.

The CNO, ADM Elmo Zumwalt, Jr., was left with the decision. His dilemma was that technical specialists in the Aegis project office (supported by their NAVORD and NAVMAT chiefs) and their warfare sponsors in OPNAV (OP-03, the DCNO for Surface Warfare) believed that Aegis was too important to abandon whereas critics noted the cost of fielding Aegis was consuming much of the Navy’s budget for engineering development. At the same time, ADM Zumwalt was committed to replacing the Navy’s World War II-era surface escorts which were still in service. To make this escort replacement program affordable, ADM Zumwalt planned to asked Congress to fund a “high-low” mix of ships, which featured low capability, less expensive escorts for convoy protection and high capability, higher speed escorts for work with carriers. The projected high cost of Aegis made ADM Zumwalt’s task of obtaining funds for large numbers of both “high” and “low” capability ships just that much more difficult.

His first inclination, therefore, was to try to reduce the cost of Aegis. In December 1971, ADM Zumwalt asked the DCNO for Surface Warfare if the Aegis system could be scaled down and procured at a lower cost. The request was passed to CAPT Meyer, who noted that his office had already considered that option in September and rejected it. The position of the Aegis project office was that the original system had to be developed. The Chief, NAVMAT, also believed a scaled-down Aegis was a waste of money.

At that stage ADM Zumwalt considered cancelling the whole project. He was angry because there was no AAW development plan to integrate the various ongoing AAW projects, and he correctly anticipated that Congress would resist funding sufficient numbers of an expensive, nuclear-powered Aegis ship. But cancelling Aegis would leave the Navy without any medium-range air defense and might threaten the future “high” capability surface escort program, which was then in the concept formulation and design stage.

Moreover, the Aegis project could not be faulted on grounds of inefficiency. At the CNO’s direction, the Naval Audit Service had investigated the management of Aegis development. In its March 1972 report, the Audit Service commended the Project Office’s management methodology. Eventually, powered flights of the Navy’s own anti-ship missile (Harpoon) were conducted in July 1972, demonstrating the growing sophistication and potential of anti-ship cruise missiles. This threat could not be ignored and it pressured the CNO into making a decision in favor of Aegis, the only medium-range system which could knock cruise missiles down.

Thus in November 1972, the CNO finally approved a production schedule for the Aegis radar and control system, giving Meyer’s office secure funding, providing the Navy and Congress could agree on a platform to carry the new system.

Over the next four years, however, debates over the proper ship platform for Aegis almost killed the system altogether. Aegis engineers faced a difficult problem: design a system which would fit a range of platforms (large or small, nuclear- or conventionally-powered, destroyers and cruisers), field test it with the Standard Missile (SM-2), and then have RCA produce it in time to match whatever platform the Navy and Congress finally agreed upon.

The challenge for CAPT Meyer was that the platform issue was to a large degree out of his hands. The Navy had begun work on a new surface escort design in 1966. The approaching block obsolescence of the hundreds of destroyers built during World War II required large numbers of replacement ships; advances in threat technology and tactics required increasingly sophisticated (and hence more expensive) ships. The potential conflict between numbers and individual ship capability was laid out in the Major Fleet Escort Study of 1967, written in OPNAV’s Division of Systems Analysis while (then) RADM Zumwalt was its director. As CNO, Zumwalt attempted to act on the conclusions of the study even though he well understood how hard it would be to persuade Congress to fund the construction of large numbers of expensive (and more capable) fleet escorts.

Zumwalt also lacked complete control of shipbuilding. The real boss of ship construction in 1972 was ADM Isaac Kidd, the Chief of NAVMAT, and Kidd had immediate authority over the surface escort program. After a long exchange of memos in 1973, Zumwalt persuaded Kidd not to accelerate the design and production of the anticipated conventionally-powered missile-firing escort so that ship and Aegis development could progress together. Zumwalt hoped to mount Aegis on a conventionally-powered escort; nuclear surface ships were too costly to get in satisfactory numbers, and Zumwalt wanted to guarantee sufficient production to maintain Aegis development and manufacture. The first engineering development model of the Aegis radar had already been tested ashore, and Zumwalt wanted to pace Aegis development to match that of a conventionally-powered platform.

In 1972, CAPT Meyer was assigned to Chief of the Surface Missile Systems Office in NAVORD. He also retained his position as head of the Aegis Project and this expanded assignment signified the degree to which Aegis development dominated surface-based AAW systems.

In 1974, the Naval Ship Systems Command merged with NAVORD to become the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). The Aegis Project Office became the Aegis Weapon System Office (PMS-403), and CAPT Meyer was promoted to Rear Admiral and made head of PMS-403 as well as Director of NAVSEA’s Surface Combat Systems Division.

May 1983 – Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer, USN.

This organizational change was important to Meyer. For the first time, he had access to and control over ship design offices and direct, authorized contact with the sponsors in OPNAV. Before the reorganization, Meyer had headed a weapons system office. After 1974, he directed that office plus two others, including one responsible for the design of a destroyer-size Aegis ship, the other for an Aegis cruiser. After the creation of NAVSEA, Meyer had three sponsoring offices instead of one, and the opportunities for him to act as an organizational entrepreneur increased.

Unfortunately, the struggle over the “proper” Aegis platform was just heating up about the same time the Aegis system itself was changing from just an AAW sensor/weapon system to one which could direct all AAW weapons and sensors for an entire Carrier Battle Group. This modification of Aegis system goals was made, not to build a PMS-403 empire, but because it became technically feasible. The Navy had originally developed digital communication links for carriers and their escorts in order to allow one ship to coordinate and control the massed AAW firepower of a whole group believing that capability eventually would be developed.

RADM Meyer believed that Aegis computers and software could revolutionize the conduct of Carrier Battle Group defensive operations. He saw the Aegis ship as mainly a command center, and only secondarily as an AAW escort. Through 1974, he made his point to his superiors in NAVSEA and NAVMAT and to a variety of offices in OPNAV. By December 1974, Meyer had persuaded the Chief of NAVMAT to consider a redefinition of the Aegis combat system, and it seemed that the Aegis program had entered a new (but logical) stage of development.

PMS-403 ran into two problems however. The first was a debate between the Navy and OSD about the proper design of the Aegis platform. The new CNO, ADM James Holloway, favored a nuclear-powered ship. OSD was opposed to the nuclear-powered alternative on the grounds of cost and numbers: too few ships at too high ($600 million, projected) a cost. OSD also criticized the nuclear-powered escorts (California-class) then being completed as “loaded from stem to stern with technically achievable, but not very practical, systems and subsystems.” As Vice Admiral E.T. Reich, then working in the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, noted in February 1975, “the Navy had done an inadequate job of specifying overall ship system integration design…systems engineering and total ship design integration have been seriously lacking in post-World War II surface ship acquisitions.” This concern was shared by Meyer, and he argued that the rational solution was to give the combat systems office (PMS-403) authority over the design of the ship – control, not merely the right to negotiate or coordinate. Meyer’s proposed solution was novel but it was not unreasonable.

Unfortunately, Congress intervened and the issue over the proper Aegis platform rapidly became politically controversial, placing several key decisions beyond Meyer’s effective influence. The conference committee report on the FY 1975 Defense Authorization Bill stated that future authorizations for Aegis would be withheld unless the Aegis AAW system was tested successfully under operational conditions and then maintained at sea by “shipboard personnel only.”

The report also demanded that the Navy and OSD agree on the design of the Aegis platform and that the Navy produce a “cohesive integration plan specifying the interface of Aegis with the platform(s) and other weapon and command/control systems.” In July 1974, Congress approved Section 804 of Title VIII of Public Law 93-365 (“The Nuclear Powered Navy”), which stated:

“All requests for authorization or appropriations from Congress for major combatant vessels for the strike forces of the United States Navy shall be for construction of nuclear powered…vessels…”

…To satisfy Congressional demands that Aegis be tested and maintained at sea, RADM Meyer had the land-based prototype systems (radars and computers) moved from the RCA plant in New Jersey to the test ship USS Norton Sound. In just over three months in the summer of 1974, Norton Sound was converted into an AAW ship complete with radars and missiles. By December, Norton Sound’s AAW tracking and fire control capability had been proven superior to that of any other Navy AAW ship, and actual test firings against a variety of targets in January 1975 were a success.

USS Norton Sound (AVM-1) at sea, circa 1980. Ship shown after the SPY-1A Aegis combat system was installed. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

The results were impressive enough to convince the Secretary of the Navy to release money that had been withheld pending the outcome of the sea trials. Even so, Meyer could not resolve the dispute between the Navy and OSD about the Aegis ship design. He favored a mix of both nuclear and conventionally-powered ships, but the procurement costs associated with nuclear propulsion (estimated at 4 to 1 over a conventionally- powered ship) were more than OSD could accept. In January 1975, OSD decided not to ask Congress for any FY 76 funds for Aegis ship construction or conversion. RADM Meyer termed the decision “unacceptable for a stable program in Congress…”‘

…In May 1975, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee fired another salvo against OSD: “the committee tied the use of RDT&E funds for Aegis to your provision of a plan for a nuclear platform for Aegis… As a start we expect to have Aegis installed promptly on the USS Long Beach” (the first nuclear-powered cruiser, launched in 1961). That same month, the CNO told the Secretary of Defense that Congress would eliminate all Aegis funding if OSD did not stand firmly behind some Aegis platform. The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee also wrote to President Gerald Ford arguing that major surface combatants should be nuclear-powered and denouncing the influence of “systems analysts” in OSD….

…Behind the scenes, however, the Navy and OSD had been considering an Aegis destroyer powered by gas turbines as a companion to the nuclear-powered Aegis cruiser.

Aegis was finally saved in a House-Senate Conference Committee meeting in September 1975. President Ford greatly influenced this decision by promising to justify in writing the need for a gas turbine Aegis ship. OPNAV also strongly supported Aegis. VADM James Doyle, the Deputy CNO for Surface Warfare (OP-03), was a strong Aegis supporter and he persuaded ADM Holloway to support the proposal to place Aegis in an existing gas turbine-powered destroyer design (the Spruance-class)…

…Meyer was another reason Aegis survived. Trained as a engineer (at University of Kansas, MIT, and at the Naval Postgraduate School), Meyer gradually and deliberately gained the respect of Congressional staff aides and members of Congress. According to one of his civilian assistants, Meyer established his legitimacy as a systems engineer both in the Navy and in Congress in 1975. His argument that Aegis should not fall victim to a dispute over its platform apparently had some effect.

The most important event in 1976, however, was the establishment of the Aegis Shipbuilding Project (PMS-400) that October, with Meyer as Project Manager. PMS-400 was created by combining PMS-403, PMS-389 and PMS-378 into one NAVSEA office. OPNAV sponsors were also combined into one unit, OP-355. PMS-400 was given responsibility for developing and producing the Aegis combat system. It was the first “hardware” organization given authority over shipbuilding, but that was just what RADM Meyer wanted.

He had criticized recent nuclear cruisers on the grounds that their sensor and weapons systems were poorly integrated, and that they lacked the capability to manage Battle Group anti-air and anti-submarine information and weapons in major engagements. His criticisms were supported by officials in OSD and accepted by Congress. The order creating PMS-400 was the Navy’s solution to the systems integration obstacle.

Read Part Two.

Featured Image: An aerial port bow view of the Aegis guided missile cruiser USS TICONDEROGA (CG-47) underway during sea trials. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

Arctic

Why the US is Losing The Race for the Arctic and What to Do About It

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By Josh Caldon

Almost weekly there is another story insinuating that the US is losing the “race for the Arctic.” Those who support the claim that the US is losing this race often highlight that the Arctic ice is melting and that this environmental change is opening up potential trade routes and making natural resources more ripe for exploitation. Others then point out that Russia has increasingly re-militarized the Arctic and that China has also made inroads to establish itself in the region. 

One key point these articles often make is the United States’ relative lack of icebreakers compared to its competitors. What is missing from this conversation, however, is an explanation of why the US has fallen behind its competitors in the Arctic. This article fills in that gap by attempting to explain why the US is behaving as it does. It then argues that paradoxically falling behind in this regional competition may actually improve America’s overall security and international influence when compared to Russia and China.

Geography

The US is relatively fortunate in its geography. It has large coastlines with natural harbors on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Its rivers largely flow southward to southern ports. It also shares borders with Mexico and Canada, two countries that do not threaten the US in a conventional sense. This geography serves to protect the US from foreign invasion and allows it to readily deploy military forces to foreign locales, without use of the Arctic.

With the advent of intercontinental missiles and strategic bombers, the Arctic became more important to the US militarily during the Cold War. This pushed the US to erect now largely defunct early warning stations across northern Alaska, Greenland, and Canada. More recently, it established incipient missile defense systems in the Arctic to deal with increased threats emanating from Russia, China, and North Korea and improved its ability to monitor the region. However, these systems have never been designed to control the Arctic, but instead to protect America, and its NATO allies, from foreign military threats coming from, or through, the Arctic. This is an important distinction.

Russia does not share America’s fortunate geographic position. Instead, its geographic positioning and acrimonious international relationships have pushed it to “conquer the Arctic.” It has few “warm-water” ports and shares large land borders with many adversarial states. Russia’s only ports that are free from year-round ice are located in Sevastopol (Crimea), Tartus (Syria), and in the Baltic and Barents Seas. Significantly, Russia has recently fought to maintain control over Sevastopol and Tartus, but still faces possible blockades by adversarial forces in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Baltic Sea. Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO, Finland’s recent accession to the alliance and Sweden’s standing bid to join, along with the West’s attempts to overthrow Russia’s surrogate in Syria, Bashar Assad, have heightened Russia’s longstanding fear in this regard.

As a result, since the disastrous Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and especially during WW I and WW II,* and the Cold War, Russia has militarized the Arctic. This is something that it has taken up with renewed vigor under Vladimir Putin’s regime. Russia’s militarization of the Arctic has especially occurred in two spots. The first one is the ice-free Barents Sea, which Russia has relied on to access the world’s oceans so that it can better protect its territory and international interests from foreign threats, and the second one is under the Arctic ice cap where its nuclear submarines have an icy bastion that protects them from NATO forces.

Economics

The US largely has a free-market economy with strong interest groups that challenge its willingness to expand its commercial footprint in the Arctic. This has overwhelmingly kept it from attempting to control the Arctic like Russia has done and China is increasingly attempting to do. It is important to look at the times when American commercial interests have focused on the Arctic to understand America’s overall lack of interest in this region. The three times the US has been economically drawn to the Arctic were to exploit temporarily scarce resources. This occurred with whale oil and seal skins during the 18th and 19th century, gold at the end of the 19th century, and oil during the mid-twentieth century. These intense periods of economic interest in the Arctic resulted in America’s purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 and the development of Alaska in the decades afterwards. Notably, however, it is expensive and difficult to operate in the Arctic. As Canadian Arctic expert, Michael Byers highlights, even as the Arctic ice slowly melts, the region remains in complete darkness for half of the year and melting ice is dangerously unpredictable. The Arctic is also austere and quite far from the largest population centers of the world. As such, the intermittent economic demands for the region’s natural resources have relatively quickly resulted in substitutes being found for these goods in less austere places.

Subsequently, the only portions of Alaska that are significantly developed are in the sub-Arctic portion of the state, with the exception of the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay – which also appear to be winding down with the advent of fracking and renewable energy. Increasing environmental concerns (most of Alaska is situated in nationally owned wilderness preserves) and native groups’ claims prohibitively increase the price of resource extraction from most of Arctic Alaska even further. Many Americans believe the region should be left to nature and to indigenous groups. The US also does not have a great need to develop the sea routes in the Arctic to improve its international trade. It has a transnational road and railway system and easy access to maritime trade routes which are connected through the recently enlarged Suez Canal. These circumstances mean that the US has very little motivation to establish sea routes through the largely uninhabited, relatively shallow, and dangerously unpredictable Arctic Ocean. Finally, Russia’s aggression over the last two decades, and increasing pressure from environmentally-based NGOs, have pushed American-based companies even further away from Russia’s Arctic.

All told, since the US has only marginal economic incentives to pursue the Arctic, it has not felt the need to develop harbors, settlements, transport infrastructure, or icebreakers to increase its footprint in the region. As such, it has relatively little capability to “conquer the region,” but also relatively little to defend in the region.

This is not the case for Russia or China. Russia suffers from what Hill and Gaddy call the Siberian Curse. Its geography is not as economically favorable as America’s, which has forced it to turn towards the Arctic to improve its economic circumstances. However, it has also traditionally operated a state-controlled economy that uses slave labor and nationally owned corporations to mask the economic, environmental and demographic costs of operating in the Arctic. Beginning with the czars, and accelerating under Russia’s Soviet dictators, Russia forcibly sent millions of people to develop and “conquer the Arctic.”

This legacy continues today as Putin pushes and subsidizes Russia’s economic ministries and state-controlled corporations to extract more resources from the Arctic and to expand the infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route (with the numerous powerful icebreakers needed to navigate this waterway) to transport these resources to distant markets. Unlike American corporations, Russia’s economic pursuits in the Arctic are not concerned with environmental or indigenous considerations either. Furthermore, Russia’s extreme sacrifices in the Arctic have made developing and controlling it symbolic for its people and leadership. As such, Russia has much more to defend materially and ideationally in the Arctic than the US does. Even with these factors pushing Russia to conquer the Arctic, Russia’s regional ambitions have been challenged by fiscal, demographic, and environmental hurdles. Most recently, the war in Ukraine has forced it to curtail its ambitious Arctic railway and icebreaker projects and to mobilize and sacrifice a significant proportion of its Arctic troops for combat in Ukraine. Additionally, many of its Arctic cities have rapidly de-populated, and the Arctic melt has paradoxically threatened its existing Arctic infrastructure.

Like Russia, China’s companies are largely nationalized and it also does not have the environmental or indigenous concerns in the Arctic that the US does. It has spent the last two decades increasing its manufacturing sector and its international trade ties. This has increased its needs for natural resources and trade routes, resulting in its plans to establish a “Polar Silk Road,” under its greater Belt and Road Initiative, in order to link the Arctic to China’s greater network of international trading posts and manufacturing centers. As Russia has lost access to Western markets and technology over the last two decades, it has increasingly turned towards an eager China to help it build out its Arctic economic footprint. As such, China also has more economic interests to defend in the Arctic than the US does.

What Does This Mean for the US?

The United States is not truly interested in competing for the Arctic. It has relatively less military, economic, or ideational interest in the region when compared to Russia or China. Its strategic plans for the region have become increasingly assertive in reaction to Russia’s and China’s efforts, but lack funding or prioritization. However, this lack of genuine interest carries some benefits for the US when considering the larger geopolitical context of the international system.

America’s lack of interest in the region has paradoxically pushed the other Arctic states to increase their security ties with the US and to take on more security responsibilities for the region. Similar to World War II, when Iceland and Denmark invited the US to help protect their territory from foreign adversaries, Russia’s aggression pushed Sweden and Finland to formally petition to join the US-dominated NATO. The inclusion of these states into the organization means that half of the Arctic will soon be administered by NATO member states.

Specifically, the Nordic states of Norway, Sweden and Finland have significant capabilities and economic stakes in the region that will make up for America’s relative lack of willingness and ability to contain Russia’s and China’s ambitions in the region. These countries’ capabilities will be further complemented by Denmark and Canada, and the other non-Arctic NATO states that have recently increased their defense spending to deal with Russian aggression. This collective defense in the Arctic will allow the US to better focus on domains like space, cyberspace, the Americas, and the Indo-Pacific, which are more important than the Arctic to America’s most critical national interests.

Economically speaking, the Arctic will likely remain a backwater for market-driven economies for the foreseeable future. The relatively high costs of extracting resources and transporting goods from the Arctic means the region is unlikely to become much more attractive for Western companies, even if the ice continues to retreat (which has slowed in recent years) and icebreakers improve, except in times when specific resources are in sharp demand or when there are long-term bottlenecks in other trade routes. 

The resources that Russia and China extract from the Arctic will contribute to the overall global supply of these resources and decrease their overall price for American consumers. As such, Americans will gain many of the benefits of Russia’s and China’s efforts in the Arctic while Russia and China absorb the costs. In the case of scarce rare-earth minerals that have spiked in demand and are monopolized by China, it appears Sweden may fill this void for the US with its own Arctic resources, even as companies search for substitutes for these critical resources.

Overall, the US should not ignore the Arctic, and it should put to rest the notion that this region is a unique zone of peace in an otherwise quite turbulent world. That being said, Americans should also not deem that losing the “race for the Arctic” will critically threaten America’s larger national interests. By not attempting to compete head-to-head with Russia or China to “conquer” the region, the US has incurred some advantages against these competitors.

As the US has been reminded again in Iraq and Afghanistan, and through its observation of Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, conquering territory comes with significant costs that can weaken the material strength and ideational attractiveness of a country. This, in turn, weakens a country’s ability to secure its most significant national interests. The US should continue to diplomatically, militarily, and economically challenge Russia’s and China’s actions in the Arctic on humanitarian and environmental grounds, but it also should identify that China’s and Russia’s actions in the Arctic come with high economic and soft power costs that may relatively benefit the US. Doing so will allow the US to increase its ability to collectively defend its interests in the Arctic with its allies and to prioritize its attention and resources on domains that are more important to it than the Arctic.

Josh Caldon is an adjunct professor at the Air University where he instructs courses in national security. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Albany and is a veteran of the USAF. The views in this article are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the US Government, or its subsidiary agencies.

* Interestingly, the US was responsible for a significant portion of Russia’s militarization of the Arctic during World War II and went from supplying friendly Russian forces through the Arctic during WW I to fighting them in the Russian Arctic after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Featured Image: A U.S. Coast Guard ship breaks ice near Nome, Alaska. (Credit: Charly Hengen/USCG)

Nuclear

Containing the Bomb: An Assessment of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones

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This article is part of a series that will explore the use and legal issues surrounding military zones employed during peace and war to control the entry, exit, and activities of forces operating in these zones. These works build on the previous Maritime Operational Zones Manual published by the predecessor of the Stockton Center for International Law, the International Law Department, of the U.S. Naval War College. A new Maritime Operational Zones Manual is forthcoming.

By LtCol Brent Stricker

Nuclear Weapons Free Zones (NWFZ) are an attempt to prohibit the use or deployment of nuclear weapons within a nation’s territory. None of the signatories to these treaties possess nuclear weapons, where NFWZs stand as a pledge not to develop these weapons. The established nuclear powers of the world have similarly pledged to respect some NFWZs.1 It remains to be seen whether such pledges will be observed or dismissed as a simple “scrap of paper.”2

Background

The legality of the use of nuclear weapons is an unsettled issue. The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating the threat or use of nuclear weapons must be examined under the United Nations Charter Article 2(4) prohibition on the use of force and Article 51’s right of self-defense.3 The Court could not “conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense in which the very survival of the state was at stake.”4

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was an early attempt to limit and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. Article 1 of the NPT prohibits Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) from transferring nuclear weapons to a Non-Nuclear Weapon State (NNWS) or encouraging a NNWS to develop nuclear weapons. Article 6 of the NPT requires states to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Since the signing of NPT, the number of NWS has expanded. Two of the newly acknowledged nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, never signed the treaty. North Korea signed and subsequently withdrew. Finally, Israel, a suspected and unacknowledged nuclear power, never signed the treaty.5

The concept of NWFZ predates the NPT with a proposal for a Central European NWFZ by the Soviet Union to the General Assembly in 1956.6 In 1958, Poland proposed the Rapaki Plan, “banning the manufacture, possession, stationing, and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and equipment, the proposal called for the prohibition of nuclear attacks against state members in the zone.” The proposal would have included Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East and West Germany. Such a proposal would have prevented NATO’s use of nuclear weapons and played to the Warsaw Pact’s advantage due to its overwhelming conventional forces arrayed against NATO, causing this proposal to fail.7

A NWFZ is either implemented unilaterally, through a state’s domestic law, or bilaterally through regional agreements to prohibit the possession, use, testing, and/or transit of nuclear weapons within a designated territory.8 A vital part of the viability of NWFZ is buy-in from the NWS. Typically, the NWS will sign negative security assurances to the NWFZ states pledging to respect the NWFZ’s prohibitions.9 The NWS may refuse to issue a negative security assurance due to other concerns. For example, none of the NWS have signed onto the South East Asian proposal due to its impact on freedom of navigation.10 It should be noted that four of the five NWFZs allow the vessels and aircraft of signatory states to transit their territory with nuclear weapons.11

A further potential limitation of NWFZs occurs when a NNWS is in a defensive treaty agreement with an NWS. To illustrate, Australia is a signatory to the South Pacific NWFZ but has stated it will rely on the United States’ nuclear deterrent capability for its defense. Australia also supports the United States by allowing assets to be based in Australia that forms part of the Communications, Command, Control and Intelligence (C3I) network the U.S. would use in a nuclear exchange.12

Current Nuclear Weapons Free Zones

There are currently nine NWFZs in existence. Five of these were created by regional agreements. Three of them were created by international treaty but only occur in unpopulated areas: Outer Space, the Moon, and the seabed. The last NWFZ was created unilaterally by Mongolia. NWFZs cover more than two billion people and 111 countries.13

African NWFZ (ANWFZ)

The Treaty of Pelindaba established the African NWFZ. It was opened for signature on April 11, 1996, and came into effect on July 15, 1990.[14] Article 3 of the treaty renounces nuclear weapons, and the signatories pledge “not to conduct research on, develop, manufacture, stockpile or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over any nuclear explosive device by any means anywhere” and “not to seek or receive any assistance in the research on, development, manufacture, stockpiling or acquisition, or possession of any nuclear explosive device.” Article 4 is a prohibition on stationing nuclear weapons on their territory, but it allows individual nations the ability to allow foreign aircraft and ships to visit or exercise innocent passage without reference to whether such aircraft and ships may be armed with nuclear weapons. This thereby creates a loophole allowing nuclear weapons within the NWFZ. The treaty also makes no mention of control or assistance to an NWS in a defensive agreement.

A map of participating and non-participating nations in the ANWFZ. Green: Signed and Ratified. Yellow: Signed not Ratified. Grey: Not signatories. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

There are three protocols to the treaty for other nations to sign. Protocol I calls for the 5 acknowledged NWS to pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against signatories or on territory within the African NWFZ. Protocol II is a nuclear weapons test ban. Protocol III is open for Spain and France to sign onto, pledging to the Treaty on behalf of their dependent territories within the African NWFZ. The five acknowledged NWS have signed Protocols I and II.

The United States made a cautionary reservation when signing onto the Protocols by “reserve[ing] the right to respond with all options implying possible use of nuclear weapons, to a chemical or biological weapons attack by a member of the zone.”15 These Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Reservations mean the United States may still use nuclear weapons in the African NWFZ.

South Pacific NWFZ (SPNFZ)

The Treaty of Rarotonga established the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone. It was signed on August 6, 1985, and came into effect on December 11, 1985. All five acknowledged NWS have signed onto its Protocols. Annex 1 to the treaty describes the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, which includes both territorial land, waters, and the high seas. Article 3 of the treaty pledges signatories “not to manufacture or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over any nuclear explosive device by any means anywhere inside or outside the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone” and “not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture or acquisition of any nuclear explosive device.” Article 5 prohibits stationing nuclear weapons on the territory of signatory states. Article 5 also includes a loophole allowing signatory states to allow visits and transit by foreign aircraft and ships that may be armed with nuclear weapons. Article 7 includes a prohibition on dumping radioactive matter within the SPNFZ.”16

A second loophole appears in Article 3(c) of the treaty. There is no prohibition on the research of nuclear weapons. This leaves signatories the option to research nuclear weapons. The most likely being Australia if it needs to rapidly develop such weapons for nuclear deterrence.17

A map of the participating nations of the SPNFZ. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

Australia poses a unique challenge to the SPNFZ due to its defensive alliance with the United States. The Australia, New Zealand, and the United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) was signed in 1951, joining the three nations in a collective security arrangement.18 New Zealand banned nuclear-powered vessels in 1984 and later created its own nuclear-free zone with the passage of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987. In response, the Reagan Administration suspended New Zealand’s obligations under the ANZUS Treaty.19 Australia remains a party.

Australia has publicly stated in its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper it would rely on the deterrence power of the United States’ nuclear weapons.20 Australia also hosts US military installations that are vital to worldwide command and control.21 Undoubtedly, these facilities would be part of the Communication, Command, Control, and Intelligence (C3I) the United States would rely on during a nuclear crisis. Australia is in a dilemma then of being a party to the SPNFZ and an ally of an NWS poised to potentially assist in a nuclear attack. The treaty does not address this issue of C3I by a signatory state, with Article 3(c) only prohibiting the manufacture or acquisition of nuclear weapons.22 Australia’s decision to cancel an order of French diesel-electric submarines and order nuclear-powered submarines from the United States does not violate SPNFZ. These submarines will only be nuclear-powered, and will not house nuclear weapons.

Southeast Asian NWFZ (SEANWFZ)

The Bangkok Treaty established the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. The treaty was signed on December 15, 1995, and went into effect on March 28, 1997. The ten members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed not to “develop, manufacture or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over nuclear weapons; station or transport nuclear weapons by any means; test or use nuclear weapons.”23 The Treaty also prohibited control, stationing, or testing of nuclear weapons in the SEANWFZ.24 The Bangkok Treaty thus closed the visit, transit, research, and control loopholes for vessels and aircraft with nuclear weapons. Finally, the Bangkok Treaty prohibited dumping or discharging into the atmosphere of radioactive material or waste.25 

A map of the participating nations of the SEANWFZ. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

The SEANWFZ is striking due to the size of the zone defined in the treaty. The zone is expanded to include the continental shelf and exclusive economic zones of the signatory nations.26 The Zone embraces an area of strategic importance to maritime shipping. The treaty would prevent the 5 NWS from transporting nuclear weapons through this zone. This is likely why no NWS has signed onto the treaty’s protocols and provides a negative security assurance to the ASEAN signatories.27 

Central Asian NWFZ (CANWFZ)

The Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone was created by the Treaty of Semipalatinsk. The treaty was signed on September 8, 2006, and went into effect on Mar 21, 2009. The CANWFZ is defined as the land, internal waters, and airspace of the signatories.28 Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, all former Soviet Republics, agreed to prohibit research, development, manufacture, stockpiling, acquisition, possession, or control over any nuclear weapon. The treaty also prohibited the location of such weapons in the zone. The treaty closed the control loophole for aircraft and vessels harboring nuclear weapons while transiting through the zone. Article 4 of the treaty allows the individual states to determine how to handle passage and transit by foreign ships, aircraft, and ground transportation, thus leaving loopholes open. The five acknowledged NWS have signed onto the Protocols of the treaty.

A map of the participating nations of the CANWFZ. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have a similar problem to Australia noted above. They are members of the 1992 Tashkent Collective Security Treaty, which includes the Russian Federation, one of the five acknowledged NWS. Article 4 of the treaty requires the Member States to provide all assistance, including military assistance, if one member is attacked.29 It remains to be seen how this will affect the CANWFZ.

Mongolian NWFZ

The Mongolian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone is unique as a unilateral action by domestic law similar to the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone noted above. Mongolia made this declaration in 1992 and called for a regional NWFZ.30 This seemed improbable as Mongolia is surrounded by the Russian and Chinese NWS. The Mongolian NWFZ was recognized with UN General Assembly Resolution 53/77 D.31

Mongolia’s history makes its NWFZ unique, considering it was caught between the two struggling NWS for most of its existence. Emerging as an independent nation within the Soviet sphere of influence after centuries of involvement with Imperial China, Mongolia continued as part of the struggle between the Sino-Soviet split.32 Russia and China signed negative security assurances with Mongolia in 1993 and 1994, respectively. The other acknowledged NWS has agreed to respect Mongolia’s NWFZ.33

Latin American and the Caribbean NWFZ

The Treaty of Tlatelolco created the Latin American NWFZ. It was signed on February 1967 and went into effect on April 25, 1969. Article 1 of the treaty prohibits “the testing, use, manufacture, production or acquisition, by any means, of any nuclear weapon [signatory states] by order of third parties or in any other way,” and “the receipt, storage, installation, location or any form of possession of any nuclear weapon, directly or indirectly, by [signatory states], by mandate to third parties or in any other way.” The NWFZ is defined in Article 4 of the treaty in a manner similar to the 1939 Panama Declaration expanding the zone into international waters.34 Article 18 makes one exception for the peaceful use of nuclear explosions. All five acknowledged NWS have signed Additional Protocol II of the treaty respecting the NWFZ with the United States stating a reservation on the right to transit of nuclear weapons through the zone.35

A map of the participating nations of the Treaty of Tlatelolco. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

The Latin American and Caribbean NWFZ has a similar problem shared by Australia and the CANWFZ due to the mutual defense obligations imposed by the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. This treaty was signed in 1947 by all of the states in North and South America, including the nuclear-armed United States. While it may be in decline with the withdrawal of member states and attempts to replace this treaty with sub-regional treaties, it remains valid international law.

Antarctica, the Moon, and Seabed NWFZ

It is interesting to note that the first NWFZs were created in places that humans normally do not inhabit: Antarctica, Outer Space, and the deep seabed. Article V of the Antarctic Treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or the dumping of radioactive material on the continent. Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in space or on celestial bodies. This prohibition also prohibits the militarization of celestial bodies. The Outer Space Treaty does not address military activities in orbit, though. Article I of the Seabed Arms Control Treaty prohibits the emplacement of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction including structures to test, launch, or store such devices on the deep seabed.

It has been speculated that support for these NWFZs by the five acknowledged NWS was to limit the area to deploy nuclear weapons and the increased pressure on the arms race this would impose.36 The strategic value of making Antarctica off-limits for nuclear weapons seems to belie this argument since all NWS, acknowledged or not, are located in the Northern Hemisphere. The future possibilities for weaponizing outer space may render the Space NWFZ irrelevant.

2017 United Nations Nuclear Prohibition Treaty

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons could create the largest NWFZ in the world. It was proposed on 23 December 2016 with UN General Assembly Resolution 71/258. It was open for signature on September 20, 2017, and in effect on January 22, 2021.37 The NWS acknowledged and unacknowledged, do not support the treaty.38

Under Article 1 of the treaty: “Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to:

(a) Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

(b) Transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly;

(c) Receive the transfer of or control over nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly;

(d) Use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

(e) Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

(f) Seek or receive any assistance, in any way, from anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

(g) Allow any stationing, installation, or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control.”

A stated reason for the treaty is the failure of the promises under NPT for the acknowledged NWS to eliminate nuclear weapons. Regional NWFZs, as discussed in this chapter, have increased the area on Earth for nuclear weapons, but as noted above, these are all reliant on Negative Security Assurances by NWS.39 As noted above, many NWS refuse to provide such assurances when transit rights are impacted. It is also unclear how useful a NWFZ agreement will be when one of its signatories is involved in a collective defense agreement with a NWS if an armed conflict occurs. It seems unlikely that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will be supported by the NWS anytime soon.40

LtCol Brent Stricker, U.S. Marine Corps serves as the Director for Expeditionary Operations and as a military professor of international law at the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Navy, the Naval War College, or the Department of Defense.

References

[1] See the Southeast Asian NWFZ where no NWS has granted a negative security assurance due to its prohibition on transit of nuclear weapons through the zone.

[2] “Scrap of paper” was allegedly the phrase used by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, on 4 August 1914 to justify ignoring the 1839 Treaty of London guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Germany was caught in a two-front war for national survival, and its war plans called for sending military forces in and across Belgium. T. G. Otte (2007) A “German Paperchase”: The “Scrap of Paper” Controversy and the Problem of Myth and Memory in International History, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 18:1, 53-87, 55.

[3] Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion of July 8, 1996) ICJ, 35 ILM 809 & 1343 (1996), Para. 105(2)(C).

[4] Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion of July 8, 1996) ICJ, 35 ILM 809 & 1343 (1996), Para. 105(2)(E).

[5] Paul J. Magnarella, “Attempts to Reduce and Eliminate Nuclear Weapons through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Creation of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones” PEACE & CHANGE, Vol. 33, No. 4, October 2008 507-521, 510.

[6] Gawdat Bahgat, A Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East – A Pipe Dream?, The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies Volume 36, Number 3, Fall 2011 360-383, 364.

[7] Bahgat at 364.

[8] Magnarella at 511; Bahgat at 362.

[9] Bahgat at 363.

[10] Bahgat at 363.

[11] Elizabeth Mendenhall, “Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones and Contemporary Arms Control” STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY WINTER 2020 122-151, 131.

[12] Michael Hamel-Green (2018) The implications of the 2017 UN Nuclear Prohibition Treaty for existing and proposed nuclear-weapon-free zones, Global Change, Peace & Security, 30:2, 209-232, 221.

[13] Bahgat at 365.

[14] Bahgat at 365-66.

[15] Bahgat at 363.

[16] Hamel- Green at 218.

[17] Hamel-Green at 222.

[18] ANZUS Treaty, Article V; Richard Baker, “ANZUS On Two Legs?” Far Eastern economic review, 1989-05-25, Vol.144 (21), p.30.

[19] Richard Baker, “ANZUS On Two Legs?” Far Eastern economic review, 1989-05-25, Vol.144 (21), p.30.

[20] Hamel-Green at 218.

[21] Hamel-Green at 219.

[22] Hamel-Green at 221.

[23] Bangkok Treaty Article 3.

[24] Bangkok Treaty Article 3.

[25] Bangkok Treaty, Article 3.

[26] Bangkok Treaty Article 2.

[27] Marangella at 515; Hamel-Green at 212.

[28] Treaty of Semipalatinsk Article 2.

[29] Collective Security Treaty Organization http://www.odkb.gov.ru/start/index_aengl.htm

[30] Marangella at 512.

[31] UN General Assembly Resolution 53/77 D (1998)

[32] Enkhsaikhan Jargalsaikhan (2005) MONGOLIA, The Nonproliferation Review, 12:1, 153-162, 156.

[33] Jargalsaikhan at 156.

[34] Article 4, Treaty of Tlateloco.

[35] Hamel-Green at 217.

[36] Mendenhal at 124-25.; See Doore at 7-8 for a discussion of the proposed demilitarization of the deep seabed and draft treaties submitted to the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference in 1969 by the Soviet Union and the United States with the Soviets advocating for denuclearization and the U.S. advocating for banning weapons of mass destruction. Article 1 of the Seabed Treaty is a combination of both positions.

[37] As of this writing, 56 member nations have signed the treaty. https://treaties.unoda.org/t/tpnw

[38] Hamel-Green at 209-10.

[39] Hamel-Green at 210-12.

[40] “‘We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it. Therefore, there will be no change in the legal obligations on our countries with respect to nuclear weapons.” United States Mission to the United Nations, Joint Press Statement from the Permanent Representatives to the United Nations of the United States, United Kingdom, and France Following the Adoption of a Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons, New York City, July 7, 2017 Hamel-Green at 214 (https://usun.usmission.gov/joint-press-statement-from-the-permanent-representatives-to-the-united-nations-of-the-united-states-united-kingdom-and-france-following-the-adoption/).

Featured Image: The “Baker” explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)