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Capability Analysis

Tankers For The Pacific Fight: A Crisis in Capability

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By Stephen M. Carmel

The Department of Defense is projected to need on the order of one hundred tankers of various sizes in the event of a serious conflict in the Pacific.1 The DoD currently has access it can count on – assured access – to less than ten. Not only does the U.S. lack the tonnage required to support a major conflict in the Pacific, it has no identifiable roadmap to obtain it. Without enough fuel, the most advanced capabilities and ships – even nuclear-powered aircraft carriers – will hardly be available for use. This is a crisis in capability that requires urgent and effective action. There is little time to get a solution in place if speculation that conflict with China could happen this decade proves true. Thankfully, this is a problem that can have a timely and affordable solution. However, the U.S. needs to move past conventional thinking and long-established policies that brought us to this current state.

To Win the Fight Requires Fuel

In the event of a broad conflict with China in the Pacific theater, the U.S. will likely lose reliable access to the currently relied-upon sources of oil within the region. The U.S. will then need to manage exceedingly long lines of supply to ensure oil flows to the forces in the greatly increased quantities demanded by a wartime operational tempo. But it must be remembered that there will be many other consumers of oil competing for those same barrels in a highly disrupted oil market. The cascading effects on the totality of the oil system, from production to distribution across all users, must be hedged against. The Defense Production Act does not apply to foreign refineries and the U.S. government cannot compel where these foreign-produced barrels go. Refiners must not only have the oil to sell, but be willing to sell it to the U.S. military in the midst of what may be a politically controversial war. This access should not be taken for granted, especially given China’s deep reach and increasing influence over the international oil market, the developing world, and the associated energy infrastructure.

The long supply chains for delivering wartime energy from North American sources to the Pacific theater of operations would require a large number of tanker ships. In thinking through the tanker requirement, one must also factor in some level of attrition in lost ships and crews due to combat action, especially when a prudent adversary would prioritize attacking these critical enablers of U.S. power projection. Attrition and escort requirements must be accounted for in planning. Balancing operational logistical demands in the face of attrition and the evolving availability of tankers is a dynamic planning challenge. It requires steady effort throughout the duration of a conflict that features rapidly changing oil supply points and platform availability.

Militarily useful tankers for U.S. operations and TRANSCOM requirements. Click to expand. (Graphic via 2019 CSBA study “Sustaining the Fight: Resilient Maritime Logistics for a New Era.“)

The U.S. would need several different types of tankers to address these challenging scenarios. Larger tankers are needed to do the long-haul parts of the distribution process. These would be principally MR, or “Medium Range” tankers which are the ideal size for the Defense Department and would be needed in large numbers. These are ships that carry roughly 330,000 bbls of multiple types of refined product. They can be fitted with consolidated cargo replenishment (CONSOL) gear to conduct at-sea refueling of oilers which will then refuel the fleet. This capability is currently available on a few MR tankers on charter with the Military Sealift Command. But current CONSOL operations are short-duration exercises and have not been done under contingency conditions in many years. The other type of tanker needed would be smaller, shallow-draft ships in the 40,000 bbl range for intra-theater lift. These smaller tankers would be used to provide fuel to distributed forces across the Pacific.

The current crisis in tanker capability, combined with a high optempo conflict, could result in the distinct possibility that U.S. forces run out of fuel. Sufficient tanker capacity is indispensable to wartime success and must form a central consideration in planning. Current Defense Department planning embodies inherent assumptions about assured access versus assumed access of supply. As the National Defense Transportation Association describes it:

“If the U.S. adopted an assured access approach, it would be comprised of U.S. Flagged ships owned by U.S. companies and crewed by U.S. citizen mariners—somewhat similar to the Chinese strategy (which applies to the entire nation of China, not just their military).The assumed access approach relies on the outsourcing delivery of fuel to the military in times of conflict—with limited description regarding the private parties involved and the extent which access to product would be guaranteed. Working out these details will come at the start of conflict, when demand signals surface for fuel requirements. The assumed access approach relies on the concept that the international tanker market is large compared to the U.S. military demand in a peer to peer full scale conflict.”

Military logistics planners lean toward assumed access, that tankers will be available from foreign-flagged tonnage. This assumption betrays a lack of understanding of the international tanker market and the significant influence China now has over it, including the often-overlooked issue of actual ownership, which is not the same as flag or company. In fact, a substantial portion of European tanker fleets, flying flags normally considered non-hostile to U.S. interests, are actually owned by Chinese financial houses through sale lease back-arrangements.

Assumed access also does not address the very dynamic aspects of the tanker market and the dramatic effects current events can have on availability. The current situation affecting the global tanker markets – tight supply accompanied by high charter rates – is driven by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. But this is but one example. A conflict with China may have even more dramatic consequences for the markets. There will be significant but unpredictable impacts on oil markets, tanker markets, and trade flows upon which to base assumptions on tanker availability. Assumed access also means assuming tanker companies and their stockholders will value the U.S. military, with whom they may have no relationship, over their commercial interests with whom they have longstanding relationships.

July 11-14 2020 – Off the coast of Southern California Military Sealift Command’s long-term chartered motor tanker ship Empire State (T-AOT 5193) conducted connected at-sea refueling operations (CONSOL) with three MSC Combat Logistics Fleet ships. (Photo by Sara Burford/Military Sealift Command Pacific)

Tanker companies, not countries, ultimately own the ships and it is commercial companies that must choose a side. Part of that decision will be based on their assessment on who will “win” in the conflict. Picking the U.S. is currently far from a safe bet, at least in the eyes of international companies that will still want to preserve their commercial relationships, largely oriented toward Asia, when the conflict is over.

Assured Access Solutions

Assured assess means the U.S. Navy or U.S. flag shipping companies own and control the ships outright. Availability is not premised on assumptions or expectations about external actors and their assets.

Assured access still comes with challenges to tanker availability. The tanker problem must be solved as a system that considers labor requirements and the demands for sustaining economies amidst a systemically disruptive conflict. Tankers require different credentials from dry cargo vessels and a container-ship officer is only qualified to sail tankers if they have the requisite endorsements which can only come from sailing on tankers. In addition, the domestic oil markets which fuel the U.S. economy must remain functional. There will also be heavy demand for tonnage to service allied economies impacted by the distortions in energy flows.

A current legislative effort to address this problem is the proposed Tanker Security Program (TSP), which provides a stipend to firms that flag tankers into U.S. flag for international trade. The program is limited to ten ships due to the amount of annual funding authorized and appropriated for stipends. This program is flawed however, in that the stipend is too small for enrolled vessels to remain commercially viable for trading in normal markets. (The current tanker market, with historically high charter rates, is not considered “normal.”) Instead, the program allows double dipping so ships can be on short-term charter to the U.S. government carrying preference cargo while still collecting a stipend. Because there are already ships under U.S. flag on short-term charter to the government, the TSP vessels will simply replace these existing vessels, collecting a windfall but adding no new capacity. The program is also not scalable, and even if all other elements work as intended, it could not produce anywhere near the needed number of ships for a major wartime contingency. The program has also yet to address other issues, such as ensuring the vessels have the necessary capability and compatibility with their intended use by the U.S. military in time of conflict. As an example, the program has not determined whether CONSOL equipment and CONSOL-trained crews will be required on these ships, creating uncertainty on funding for this capability, which then creates uncertainty within industry on the financial aspects of the decision to bid for TSP slots.

It is clear that the TSP will not solve the overall tanker shortage. A comprehensive tanker solution that is affordable and can grow the fleet at scale would necessarily consist of a combination of several different programs. First, the TSP must be revised to provide a stipend large enough to allow for commercial trading of U.S. flag tankers in the international market with no reliance on U.S. flag military (preference) cargo. In fact, carriage of preference cargo for TSP ships should only be allowed during times of national emergency. Otherwise, participating ships should be restricted to commercial work. This will produce a fleet of incremental U.S. flag tankers the Navy does not already have access to, with the scale of the program determined by the total amount of funding.

Legislation should be enacted requiring cargo preference on refined oil products being exported from the U.S. For reference, the U.S. currently exports 1.4 million bbls of refined product, principally to South America, every day, all on foreign flag tankers. The U.S. also exports a considerable amount of crude oil. While crude tankers are hardly militarily useful, their crews are useful by virtue of possessing the required documents and skills to sail tankers of any type. Therefore crude oil should also be a consideration. If cargo preference – the requirement that U.S.-flagged tankers carry a significant portion of this cargo – were in place, a substantial fleet of commercially viable but militarily useful tankers would be available as “assured access.” A significant benefit of this program would be that the cost of having that capacity available for wartime use is not borne by the U.S. taxpayer until it is actually needed. It is borne by the oil companies and the foreign buyers of the oil.

U.S. domestic sourcing of DoD fuel should also be put in place. The requirements of “Buy American” do not apply to fuel, and the Defense Logistics Agency Energy (DLA Energy) currently buys fuel wherever it is cheapest, normally meaning the closest source to the point of use. This is of course vastly different from the sourcing for so much else the DoD uses or procures, where “Buy American” applies. But those “point of use” sources of fuel for ships in the Pacific may be at risk in the event of conflict with China, assuming they are not owned or controlled by Chinese companies, which should not be overlooked.

As mentioned, the U.S. currently exports a large amount of refined product. Some of these exports could easily be diverted to DoD as a customer without heavily distorting the domestic oil market. It is highly likely some level of domestic sourcing would need to be done in a time of conflict. As a result, this program would put in place an oil supply chain that will be needed regardless, but in a phased approach that does not distort markets as opposed to an emergency program implemented in a time of crisis that is highly disruptive. Sourcing DoD oil domestically now will result in increased ton-mile demand, hence immediately increasing the need for tankers to carry it.

Lastly, the program run by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) for prepositioning refined product on tankers fitted for CONSOL should be put back in place. At one time, MSC had a large number of tankers under charter loaded with the types of fuel that would be needed in a conflict. These tankers were outfitted with all the required equipment for their military mission, were fully-crewed, and ready to respond immediately. This program, if revived, could be done quickly and supply immediate capability of the required type. 

There are several points to consider when reviewing this menu of potential solutions. First, while some, such as adjusting the TSP, require congressional action which will take time, others can be done by DoD quickly. Prepositioning programs or DLA-E sourcing do not require congressional action and could be accomplished in shorter timeframes. Cargo preference for exports could potentially be done by executive order in the short term, but would certainly require congressional action in the longer term. But a central theme is that cargo must be at the center of any viable solution, not government stipends.

The above solutions must also be implemented in a phased approach to give labor and tanker markets time to adjust. The fact that we are presented with a mix of solutions, with some that can be implemented right away and others that require more time, is not necessarily a bad thing. The key point is that this must be implemented as a phased solution to a systemic problem. Stovepiped programs that do not mesh will not work. Given the very short overall timeframe available to implement a solution due to acute national security concerns with China, action must start now.

While the proper mix of the above will produce the required capability at an affordable price, it will not produce capability for free. All capability, from aircraft carriers to missiles, comes at a cost, as does the fuel that enables these capabilities. Fuel, and the capacity to deliver it when and where needed, must be placed on the same level of priority as other essential warfighting capabilities. These must be viewed as interim steps to ensure the tanker capability crisis is solved in a timeframe relevant to the near-term threat of a potential conflict with China.

Conclusion

The very fact that these types of programs need to be considered is indicative of decades of neglect in U.S. maritime strategy. The long-term solution must flow from a coherent national maritime strategy that addresses all elements of maritime power, not just naval power, and treats the maritime domain as an ecosystem that must be addressed holistically. The Chinese clearly have such a comprehensive maritime strategy, which is why China dominates the maritime domain when it is properly understood as encompassing all elements of maritime power. While the U.S. has what it terms a maritime strategy, it is in fact only a naval strategy that does not address the broader dimensions of maritime power. This needs to change, otherwise the U.S. may run the severe risk of neglecting critical elements of maritime power that China has been carefully cultivating.

Steve Carmel is Senior VP at Maersk Line Limited. He is a past member of the Naval Studies Board, the CNO Executive Panel, and Marine Board. 

References 

1. Timothy Walton, Ryan Boone, Harrison Schramm, “Sustaining the Fight: Resilient Maritime Logistics for a New Era,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, pg. 78, 2019, https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/sustaining-the-fight-resilient-maritime-logistics-for-a-new-era/publication/1.  

Featured Image: ARABIAN GULF (May 5, 2016) – Fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lenthall (T-AO-189) refuels the tanker Maersk Peary during a replenishment-at-sea. (U.S. Navy Combat Camera photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Joshua Scott/Released)

Human Capital

The Value of Variance in the Surface Warfare Officer Qualification Process

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By CDR Robert C. Watts IV

In his recent CIMSEC article, Bill Golden argues that there is too much variance in the surface warfare officer (SWO) qualification process and questions whether ship captains have adequate experience to qualify junior officers.1 To address these perceived problems, he proposes that the Surface Warfare Schools Command (SWSC) commanding officer (CO) administer a qualification test between an officer’s first and second division officer tours. The argument for this change overstates the problems posed by variance in the qualification process, neglects the value of the current method, and does not reckon with how the proposed changes would deviate from the community’s culture, which values diversity of experience and command at sea. 

Variance

For context, the existing process culminates in an oral exam, or board, during which the candidate answers a wide variety of questions from the ship’s department heads, Executive Officer (XO), and CO. Based on completing pre-requisite qualifications and their performance in the board, the captain then decides if the candidate has earned the SWO qualification and presents the SWO pin in a wardroom ceremony.

While it is true that qualification boards vary from ship to ship, this variance is not as wide as Golden suggests. To paraphrase Mark Twain, SWO boards do not repeat themselves, but they often rhyme. The SWO Career Manual emphasizes the importance of maintaining “consistent qualification standards.”2 Despite differences in detail, boards across the fleet are generally similar in approach. Every CO designs their boards based on their experience, both as a candidate and then as a board member, resulting in boards that are generally consistent in scope and scale. Variance typically reflects the CO and board members tailoring questions to the ship’s technical and operational circumstances, an assessment of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and the board members’ own diverse professional backgrounds.

It is unclear whether this variance is a problem. Golden writes that “SWOs yearn for standardization,” but neither defines this desire’s extent, nor cites evidence of it. He suggests several potential benefits of standardization, specifically increasing confidence in the readiness of SWOs and improving other communities’ respect for SWOs. Again, Golden presents no evidence for either issue. With regard to readiness, he does not identify negative outcomes caused by SWO qualification variance. Like him, I have not found any. For example, the 2017 Comprehensive Review following the Fitzgerald and John S. McCain collisions did not point to SWO qualification variance as a contributing factor.3 Moreover, managing other communities’ perceptions should not shape SWO qualification policy.

Experience

Golden asserts that COs – of all ranks – are not the most experienced officers available and suggests that the SWSC CO, a post-major command Captain, is the most experienced and would therefore be the ideal qualification authority. Although a ship CO may not be “the best available,” COs of all ranks have sufficient naval experience – and command perspective – to lead a rigorous and fair qualification process that is consistent with community policy. Some COs may have more experience, but even an O-4 CO has served at sea as a division officer, department head and XO, just like any other CO. Although the SWSC CO and staff have extensive experience, they are removed in time and space from afloat operations, inevitably causing their shipboard experiences to atrophy and perspectives to shift.

Benefits

The existing system benefits the candidate, the board members, and the wardroom in ways that would diminish or disappear under the proposed overhaul. For the candidate, qualifying during the first division officer tour provides a significant goal to pursue (and achieve) during that assignment. The oral board format presents a perhaps unfamiliar challenge, but some scholars argue that, unlike a written test, it enables the candidate to demonstrate mental agility and to be treated like someone “who [has] interesting things to say and can handle being put on the spot.”4 Completing the qualification during their first tour also gives them the opportunity to “grow into” their new role as a warfare-qualified officer and report to their second tour as a “full up round.”

For the board members, each board offers opportunities to reinforce and improve their own knowledge, while also considering how they might run boards themselves when in command. For the rest of the wardroom, preparing a candidate for SWO qualifications is a team effort that includes accomplishments to publicly recognize and collectively celebrate. These “pinning” events affirm the qualification’s significance, commend the effort made to earn it, and help build community identity. If centralized ashore at SWSC, preparing for qualification would remain a team effort until the candidate leaves the ship, but the team would lose that direct connection to, and positive feedback from, the new SWO’s milestone accomplishment.

Culture

Golden’s premise also raises important fundamental questions: What does a SWO pin mean? What is the culture of the surface warfare community? What should both be in the future?

The SWO qualification represents that the wearer not only achieved pre-requisite qualifications – most notably officer of the deck underway – but also built a foundation of knowledge, has the aptitude to continue their professional development, can confidently discuss complex naval concepts, and will well represent the community. A SWO pin earned through a standardized, bibliography-based, written test and shiphandling assessment, as Golden advocates, would not necessarily represent the wearer’s holistic foundation for future growth.

Culturally, the current qualification process is consistent with the community’s long-standing character, which values diversity of experience and upholds command at sea as the pinnacle of responsibility and trust. The members’ wide variety of perspectives and experiences enrich SWO boards and increase their rigor. Furthermore, it is only natural that the CO bears responsibility for training and qualifying junior officers on their ship, not just in a division officer’s capstone SWO board, but also throughout their time onboard. The CO observes and guides an officer’s qualification progress and, over time, builds trust in them as a watchstander and confidence in them as a future SWO before making the qualification decision. The Navy entrusts the captain to lead a warship and its crew. It would be logically inconsistent to remove qualifying junior officers from their responsibilities. Such a change would undermine the community’s commitment to the importance of command at sea. 

Conclusion

The surface warfare qualification is a critical career milestone and symbolizes an officer’s identity as a SWO. Golden rightly examines how to improve the SWO qualification process, but standardizing the process and centralizing it ashore would not be as beneficial as he argues and would be contrary to the community’s character. If the SWO community desires to standardize the qualification process, it should first consider refining the current approach. For example, just as the SWO Career Manual outlines what topics should be included in a command qualification board, this instruction could also describe in more detail what a CO should include in a SWO board.5 Although worthwhile to assess through the “Get Real, Get Better” lens how officers earn the surface warfare qualification, the existing process maintains a sufficiently consistent standard, benefits both the candidate and the wardroom, and reinforces the culture of the SWO community.

CDR Rob Watts is the Current Operations Director at U.S. Pacific Fleet and most recently commanded USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53). He holds a B.A. in Foreign Affairs and History from the University of Virginia and a Master’s in Public Policy from Princeton University. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense.

References

[1] William Golden, “Get Real, Get Better: Revamping Surface Warfare Officer Qualification,” Center for International Maritime Security, 25 October 2022, https://cimsec.org/get-real-get-better-revamping-surface-warfare-officer-qualification/.

[2] U.S. Navy, “Surface Warfare Officer Career Manual,” Commander, Naval Surface Forces Instruction 1412.7A, 22 November 2021, p. 3-1.

[3] U.S. Navy, Comprehensive Review of Recent Surface Force Incidents, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/11/02/document-navy-comprehensive-review-surface-forces.

[4] Molly Worthen, “If it was Good Enough for Socrates, it’s Good Enough for Sophomores,” New York Times, 2 December 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/opinion/college-oral-exam.html.

[5] U.S. Navy, “Surface Warfare Officer Career Manual,” p. 5-4 to 5-6.

Featured image:  Lieutenant Junior Grade Shamaal Fletcher submerges his SWO pin into the Norwegian Sea as part of his pinning ceremony aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), Sept. 20, 2022. (Credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Almagissel Schuring)

Force Development

Bringing Back the Fleet? A Review of NWP-3 Fleet Warfare, Change 1

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By Barney Rubel

The Navy recently issued Change 1 to one of its key new doctrine books, Navy Warfare Publication 3, Fleet Warfare. The change was issued to update the definitions of a number of key terms to keep them in accordance with joint doctrine. The issuing command, the Navy Warfare Development Center, says “Ultimately, Change 1 to NWP-3 enhances fleet-centric warfighting effectiveness through establishing a framework for the execution of fleet warfare at the operational level of warfare.” Certainly there is an advantage to maintaining consistency across the services in the definition of terms, but NWP-3’s contribution to warfighting effectiveness is less than it could be due to its generic approach to the subject. Granted, it is an unclassified publication, but nonetheless, it could have offered more practical detail on the evolving nature of the Navy’s approach to warfighting. An unclassified practical framework would be vital to operationalizing the Navy’s renewed emphasis on fleet-level warfare.

Beyond including the definition of various terms like strategy, operations, tactics, and mission command, NWP-3 describes the three levels of war and the command and control arrangements the U.S. has established to direct forces within that framework. Focusing on the Navy piece of the action, NWP-3 defines numbered fleets as the Navy’s highest tactical-level commands, although in certain cases like Fifth Fleet (specific fleets are not mentioned in the text) the fleet staff might also function as a Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) in which case it would constitute an operational-level command. The Navy components – Pacific Fleet, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. Naval Forces Northern Command – are the Navy’s highest operational level of war commanders. This is depicted conceptually by the graphic below.

So long as the strategic issue is confined to a particular theater, this graphic – and the U.S. military command structure (Unified Command Plan or UCP) – is an accurate depiction of how things would work. But for the Navy, there is a problem associated with the fact that the oceans of the world are all connected, essentially forming one single world ocean that cuts across combatant command jurisdictions. While NWP-3 mostly confines its discussion to the framework of the UCP, it makes one excursion that acknowledges the disconnect. It quotes a Chinese white paper that declares the PLAN will focus on the far seas, which sets up a global challenge, and then says on page 10:

“Warfare against an enemy of such resource and reach will require the Navy to operate as a globally unified force, orchestrating naval power in a manner that overcomes geographic, organizational, and administrative boundaries. It will require that commanders align, share, and synchronize assets, capabilities, operations, and understanding across the globe while balancing challenges unique to their regional theaters. Fleet warfare will require the holistic, integrated application of distributed naval power across an entire fleet, working in concert with other fleets in other operational areas to confound, dislocate, and defeat our enemies. Campaigns must account for fleet warfare on a global scale, and form an integrated, coherent unity of purpose, effort, and effect across the naval, joint, and likely coalition force. Fleet warfare in an era of GPC requires integrated and distributed multifleet operations on a global level.”

It then promptly reverts back to the theater-by-theater model for the following 35 pages, until it offers an impromptu solution on page 45:

“Fleet warfare in this GPC era will require global coordination that crosses traditional CCDR boundaries. The supported CCDR’s JFMCC will integrate naval activity across CCDR lines under the authorities of a support command relationship. The SECDEF establishes and prioritizes support between and among CCDRs via the support command relationship. When a supporting commander cannot fulfill the needs of the supported commander, the SECDEF will be notified by either commander and will rely on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Services to determine solutions.”

While this may reflect what is permissible in the context of the UCP, it is an awkward and probably slow arrangement that does not seem consistent with the description of global naval coordination requirements on page 10. If NWP-3 is trying to advocate for something different in the way of global naval C2, this is a pretty subtle and frankly weak approach to doing so. The discrepancy between the two paragraphs could be confusing, especially as a doctrinal publication trying to navigate the seams of the issue.

This harkens back to the early 2000s when the Navy was attempting to achieve some degree of global coordination due to shrinking force structure. It established Tenth Fleet to globalize cyber operations, the Global Engagement Strategy Division N52, and according to then-Fleet Forces Commander Admiral John Nathman, a global network of naval component commander operations centers that would coordinate with each other. It is still not clear how much global coordination the Navy is able to accomplish on its own recognizance. This has relevance due to calls by certain members of Congress for the Navy to develop a new global maritime strategy, something which in theory the Navy has no authority to do under the joint structure.

NWP-3 unfortunately does not spend a lot of time discussing naval operations in a joint context. When it does, it says:

“Future fleet warfare will increasingly rely on capabilities not necessarily under direct fleet command. For example, special operations forces, embarked on fleet vessels, could be used to enhance targeting, communications, and other capabilities. Capabilities can also include those inherent within other fleets, or resident within naval forces already in theater. Joint forces, now including space and cyberspace, all have capabilities that can support fleet warfare. Additionally, national capabilities are increasingly responsive and pervasive as technological advances expand across the maritime domain. Furthermore, integrated campaigning below the level of armed conflict provides opportunities in peace to find and refine efficiencies that are practical in war.”

The significant omission in this paragraph has to do with the Air Force and airpower. A large portion of a fleet warfighting manual ought to outline how Navy forces would work with the Air Force in defense (integrated air and missile defense), offense, and scouting. Air Force bombers have considerable maritime strike and mining capabilities that could be magnified via Navy cooperation. Large swaths of ocean create significant demand for domain awareness and tactical-level intelligence that aircraft can provide. Land-based aviation typically outranges carrier aviation and could offer major augmentations to carrier concepts of operation. The other services also deserve more explicit mention. The Marine Corps is getting into the anti-shipping business and the Army is talking about it with its Multi-Domain Operations concept. Why would the Navy’s capstone document on fleet warfighting not discuss all this? Mentions of potential joint collaboration should not be limited to brief hypotheticals, but rather expanded into detailed frameworks for how the joint force can bolster the capability of the fleet and vice versa. Despite being major service-level warfighting concepts, neither DMO nor EABO are mentioned in the document.

As a nit, NWP-3 asserts that British Admiral Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar saved Britain from the threat of a French invasion. In fact, Napoleon had already abandoned such plans before the battle took place. The reality is more nuanced; the collective “mission command” decision-making of a number of Royal Navy admirals, along with inspired strategic directives by the First Sea Lord Barham, confounded Napoleon’s attempted combinations in the months preceding Trafalgar to lure Royal Navy forces away from the English Channel so he could mount an invasion. Trafalgar was a kind of coup de grace that freed Britain up to take the strategic offensive. A Navy doctrinal publication should exhibit more careful historical appreciation.

The publication seeks too much erudition in the theoretical realm, leading to a rather confusing conclusion: “Recent history suggests that fleet warfare will be a protracted affair of episodic decisive engagement as each side seeks degrees of sea control suitable for supporting operational objectives.” This illustrates the overall problem with the publication – it resembles more theoretical Naval War College reading than it does substantive and practical guidance for the fleets to operationalize.

The establishment of the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander headquarters and its embedded Maritime Operations Center (MOC) spelled a new approach to fleet-level command and control. This should be the focus of NWP-3. How do all the elements of a fleet, including surface, air, subsurface, logistics, and others work together? How do they all work in conjunction with joint and perhaps international forces? The theory of operational art is a good thing for officers to learn, but there is currently a gap between that and the teaching of unit and community tactics that needs to be filled. There must be some unclassified way of discussing fleet-level operations that bridges the operational and tactical levels that is specific enough to provide practical clarity for MOC watchstanders, JFMCC planners, and individual unit commanders. NWP-3 should ideally constitute a bridge between the strategic and tactical levels, yet it makes no mention of Admiral Bradley Fiske’s injunction that no strategy is valid unless it takes account of the tactics required to make it work. The idea at the fleet level is to set units up for tactical success rather than counting on them to exhibit tactical genius to make up for deficiencies in broader operational design.

Despite the theorizing about DMO and fleet-level concepts, right now the fleet would fight a conventional war at sea by mainly using carrier strike groups and submarines to some extent. P-8s would conduct anti-submarine warfare and such MQ-4s as are available would provide reconnaissance and surveillance, and perhaps targeting. How exactly the various elements would do this is naturally classified, but the fact that the main source of anti-ship capability still resides in the carrier air wings is something that should be explicitly talked about, and then how the other elements of the Navy support it. At a minimum, such a description would provide a baseline for thinking through other ways of doing business at the fleet level. The Navy needs clearer guidance to bridge its current formations and force packages into the larger-scale combat entity that fleet-level warfare is intended to wield.

NWP-3 is an indicator that the Navy is having trouble shifting gears from a service that has engaged almost exclusively in projecting power over the shore from unchallenged sanctuaries at sea to a force that will have to fight for command of the sea and conduct sea control operations in hostile environments. Moreover, it also indicates the Navy has not gotten joint in its heart despite the years of bureaucratic requirements set up by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. The latest capstone document Advantage at Sea, along with its wingman, the CNO’s NAVPLAN, together offer a somewhat better vision of fleet warfighting than NWP-3, although those visions are also hardly satisfactory. As the Navy considers how to transform itself for fleet-level warfare, it will need stronger and clearer frameworks for what exactly that may look like in practice.

Robert C. Rubel is a retired Navy captain and professor emeritus of the Naval War College. He served on active duty in the Navy as a light attack/strike fighter aviator. At the Naval War College he served in various positions, including planning and decision-making instructor, joint education adviser, chairman of the Wargaming Department, and dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies. He retired in 2014, but on occasion continues to serve as a special adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. He has published over thirty journal articles and several book chapters.

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Nov. 20, 2022) The U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), steams in formation with the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, USS Milius (DDG 69), Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship, JS Setogiri (DD 156), Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) and the Royal Australian Navy supply ship, HMAS Stalwart (A304), in the Philippine Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Heather McGee)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

Using the Enemy to Train the Troops—Beijing’s New Approach to Prepare its Navy for War

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This article originally appeared on the Jamestown Foundation’s ChinaBrief and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here.

By Ryan D. Martinson and Conor Kennedy

Introduction

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has quietly changed the way it interacts with U.S. military forces in the Western Pacific. Instead of just tracking and monitoring U.S. ships and aircraft, demanding they leave sensitive areas, the PLA has embraced an approach that favors hostile encounters as preparation for future conflict with the United States. In PLA parlance, it is “using the enemy to train the troops”—nadi lianbing (拿敌练兵).

This is not a new approach. The term nadi lianbing has appeared in PLA sources since 2014. However, recent statements by the Ministry of National Defense (MoD) indicate that it has become enshrined as doctrine. At the MoD’s press conference on January 22, Senior Colonel Wu Qian highlighted the key aims of PLA training. The first is to “vigorously promote the deep coupling of operations and training.” Specifically, forces operating on the “front line in the military struggle” should “use the enemy to train the troops” (PRC Ministry of Defense, January 27).

For the PLA, the front line in the peacetime “military struggle” is located along China’s maritime periphery: the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea, and Philippine Sea. As a result, it is the air, surface, and undersea forces of the PLA Navy (PLAN) that are chiefly tasked with implementing this new approach. What does nadi lianbing mean for the PLAN, and what are the implications for PLAN-U.S. Navy interactions at sea?

From Concept to Doctrine

The notion of “using the enemy to train the troops” was first applied in undersea warfare. An August 2014 essay in People’s Navy, the PLAN’s official newspaper, highlighted the submarine force’s special function in “countering the powerful enemy” (应对强敌, yingdui qiang di), a common euphemism for the U.S. The author emphasized that the force should train like it will fight, which means it must “go to the battlefield of the future and boldly approach the opponent of the future…using the enemy to train the troops.” In his words, “training must be a rehearsal for war.”1 In a January 2015 article, the political commissar of a submarine unit urged PLAN submariners to “take aim at the operational opponent,” recognizing that peacetime “confrontation with the powerful enemy is the most realistic training form.” The force should embrace a culture that favors “competing with the enemy, and using the enemy to train the troops.”2

The PLAN expanded this approach to the rest of the service following a November 2020 Central Military Commission (CMC) meeting on military training. In his remarks, President Xi Jinping called for the PLA to realize a “transformation in military training.” This precipitated a greater emphasis on training in general, with a particular focus on “realistic” training that better approximates the conditions of actual combat with a likely adversary (Xinhua, November 25, 2020). Subsequently, the PLAN issued a document called “Decision on Accelerating the Promotion of Transformation of Navy Military Training and Constructing a New-Type Navy Military Training System.” The Decision took the concept of nadi lianbing from the shadowy world of undersea warfare and made it service doctrine. Henceforth, all components of the service would regard encounters with the “powerful enemy” as opportunities to bolster warfighting capabilities.3

Why Now?

According to PLAN leaders, nadi lianbing is a direct response to an uptick in provocative U.S. behavior along China’s maritime periphery. The PLA has long complained about U.S. naval operations within the first island chain, but the Chinese military believes that U.S. activities have become more aggressive in recent years. According to the (unnamed) head of PLAN Training Bureau, “some countries have sharply increased their hostility towards China.” In the maritime realm, they have “continuously strengthened their targeted military deployments, frequently sent air and maritime forces to conduct close-in provocations, and have even organized air and maritime forces to ‘use China to train their troops,’ drilling warfighting methods and tactics.”4

Zhang Tianjing, a senior officer in the PLAN Operations Bureau, echoes these points in an August 2021 essay. Specifically, Zhang asserts that “ships and aircraft are frequently infringing the territorial waters and airspace of Chinese islands and reefs in the name of ‘freedom of navigation and overflight,’ warships have transited the Taiwan Strait multiple times, and military aircraft have conducted high-intensity flights adjacent to China’s near seas.” He describes these as “abnormal activities.”5

Approaches to Nadi Lianbing

Nadi lianbing is a “special training form” that exploits opportunities created by close encounters with the putative enemy. The head of the PLAN Training Bureau explains that this approach has two forms, one passive and one active (see note 4 for source information). With the passive approach, PLAN forces respond to provocative behavior by the enemy (因敌而动, yin di er dong), such as tactical exercises aimed at Chinese forces, taking steps short of kinetic force to defend against them. This approach likely involves all the skills required to thwart an attack, short of using force: e.g., intercepting inbound aircraft, maneuvering for tactical advantage, and perhaps jamming and other forms of electronic warfare.

The second form involves proactively seeking out (依我而动, yi wo er dong) nearby enemy forces during regular missions and using interactions to serve training purposes. That is, deployed PLAN forces would target enemy ships, aircraft, and submarines to complete required individual training, platform training, group (module) training, and combined group training. According to Zhang Tianjing, PLAN forces will “conduct real reconnaissance, real transmissions, real tracking, real aiming, and simulated attack, treating the enemy as a live target.”

Nadi lianbing is not limited to PLAN forces operating at sea in the Western Pacific. Escort task forces also now refer to the approach during training operations in the Indian Ocean. So too do coastal defense missile units, including those deployed to Chinese outposts in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.6

Benefits for the PLAN

PLAN leaders believe that nadi lianbing can help bolster PLAN capabilities in a number of ways.7 First and foremost, it ensures that training is realistic. In the words of one PLAN officer, the service gets to take on a “real blue team” (真实的蓝军, zhenshi de lanjun), instead of the poorly-simulated rendering of the enemy that is common in other forms of training. For example, nadi lianbing can bolster the PLAN’s ability to compete across the electromagnetic spectrum, that is, to ensure the performance of its reconnaissance and communications systems despite enemy efforts to degrade them, and to use electronic warfare to impair the enemy’s systems. According to one front page article in People’s Navy, the PLAN must “fully exploit scenarios in which the enemy engages in electromagnetic confrontation against China to conduct countermeasures, test the boundary capabilities of China’s various types of weapons and equipment, and let front-line sailors practice synergizing their efforts and practice their technical skills in a near realistic environment of counter-interference, counter-attack, and counter-reconnaissance.”

But nadi lianbing is about more than just training technical skills. The PLAN believes that hostile encounters with the enemy will help strengthen the “fighting spirit” of PLAN sailors. PLA commentators often highlight the existence of a “peace disease” (和平积弊, heping jibi or 和平病, heping bing) within the ranks, and they see close contact with the enemy as one way of treating this malady. CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia amplified this point in a November 2021 essay, citing the value of using nadi lianbing as a means to instill the “martial courage” (血性, xue xing) needed to fight and win a great power conflict (People’s Daily, November 30, 2021).

Nadi lianbing provides opportunities to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the adversary. As the head of the PLAN Training Bureau describes, hostile encounters allow the PLAN to “discover the ins and outs of the enemy’s combat capabilities.” By provoking a response, the service can gauge the enemy’s “principled red lines” (原则底线, yuanze dixian) and analyze the command styles and response speed of individual enemy commanders. The political commissar of the PLAN’s Type-055 cruiser Nanchang highlights the importance of collecting, analyzing, and using data collected during at-sea confrontations with U.S. forces, in order to develop a “brain trust” (智囊团, zhinang tuan) of PLAN experts specializing on the “powerful enemy” (强敌通, qiang di tong). According to Zhang Tianjing, effective use of nadi lianbing sheds light on current U.S. operational concepts, such as distributed lethality and mosaic warfare, which he describes as “posing a fairly large challenge” to the PLAN. With this knowledge, the Chinese military can develop plans to counter likely U.S. approaches in the event of a real conflict.

Nadi lianbing also helps the PLAN learn about its own shortcomings. Some of these “weak links”—as Zhang Tianjing describes them—are already apparent to the PLAN. In his words, the PLA’s reconnaissance and early warning capabilities remain “fairly weak,” its target identification capabilities are “inadequate,” the challenge of configuring kill chains for long-range precision strikes remains “fairly difficult,” PLAN tactics are “comparatively simplistic and meager,” and “precise coordination” between services is still a problem when conducting joint operations. Zhang writes that these problems must be remedied so that the PLAN can effectively support the types of integrated joint operations the PLA intends to conduct against the U.S.: multi-domain precision warfare (多域精确战, duo yu jingque zhan), cross-domain joint operations (跨域联合战, kua yu lianhe zhan), and area-denial warfare (区域拒止战, quyu ju zhi zhan).

No Risk, No Reward

PLAN leaders fully acknowledge that nadi lianbing carries risk. According to one surface warfare officer, when PLAN forces deploy to the front line, the “battlefield” and the “training field” overlap. As a result, although nadi lianbing provides a valuable learning opportunity, it also heightens the risk of an “inadvertent armed clash” (擦枪走火, ca qiang zouhuo).8 In a 2020 article, a senior PLAN submarine unit leader highlighted the need for balance in nadi lianbing: “if things are pushed too hard, there is a concern about exceeding the scope of ‘training’; but if things are pushed too soft, then the ‘training’ aims cannot be achieved.”

In his guidance, the head of the PLAN Training Bureau prescribes methods to “avoid friction and conflict” when applying the new approach. The PLAN should, for example, “strictly control the use of weapons” and take special care when organizing live fire exercises. However, he suggests ambiguity about using the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a 2014 agreement designed to reduce risky encounters between signatory countries (including the U.S. and China). In his June 7 guidance, he stated the service must “strictly obey” CUES and other such regulations. However, the following day he called for the “flexible application” of CUES, implying that PLAN forces would abide by the Code only when it suited their needs.

PLAN leaders perceive risk through the lens of the global balance of power, which is changing in a way “not seen in a hundred years.” That is, they see China as rising, while the U.S. is declining. In his August 2021 article, Zhang Tianjing cites the damaging impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy and concludes the U.S. is looking for a “strategic opening” to arrest its descent and maintain its status as a global hegemon. Thus, the PLAN “could not rule out” that the U.S. might manufacture an incident to cause a conflict or even a regional war. Despite these concerns, PLA leaders clearly believe that the potential rewards of hostile encounters with the U.S. military outweigh the risks.

Ryan D. Martinson is a researcher in the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College. He holds a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a bachelor’s of science from Union College. Martinson has also studied at Fudan University, the Beijing Language and Culture University, and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

Conor M. Kennedy is a Research Associate at the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.

This article reflects the personal opinions of the authors and not the official assessments of the U.S. Navy or any other U.S. government entity.

Notes

1. 王红理 [Wang Hongli], 能打胜仗是最大的担当 [“Being Able to Win Battles is the Biggest Undertaking”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], August 29, 2014, p. 4.

2. 李云平 [Li Yunping] 把握使命任务特点持续培育战斗精神 [Grasp the Characteristics of the Mission to Continue to Cultivate the Combat Spirit”] 政工学刊 [Zhenggong Xuekan], no. 1, 2015, p. 51.

3. 敢打善拼制强敌 [“Bold Enough to Take on the Powerful Enemy”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], September 7, 2021, p. 1.

4. 王世建 [Wang Shijian], 进一步提高部队训练质效和打赢能力 [“Do More to Improve the Quality and Effectiveness of the Force’s Training and Ability to Fight and Win”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], June 7, 2021, p. 1.

5. 张天敬 [Zhang Tianjing] 拿敌练兵主要“练什么” [“The Gist of ‘What We Train’ When We Use the Enemy to Train the Troops”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], August 10, 2021, p. 3.

6. Information on escort task forces and Nadi lianbing is derived from 刘冬冬, 石小强, 王宗洋 [Liu Dongdong, Shi Xiaoqiang, Wang Zongyang], 第38批护航编队开展实际使用武器训练 [“38th Escort Task Force Conducts Weapons Training”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], August 11, 2021, p. 1; 孙飞, 方智坤 [Sun Fei, Fang Zhikun], 薪火传承 激发打赢热情 – 南部战区海军某岸导团利用红色资源提升教育质效 [“Continuing to Fuel the Fire to Inspire Enthusiasm for Winning – A Shore-to-Ship Missile Regiment of the Southern Theater Navy Uses Red Resources to Improve the Effectiveness of Education”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], July 21, 2021, p. 2.

7. Information in this section on how nadi lianbing may bolster the PLA’s capabilities is derived from the following sources: 本报评论员 [Anonymous Columnist] 坚持战训一致助力训练转型 [“Persist with the Unity of Operations and Training to Support a Transformation in Training”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], June 4, 2021; 刘志刚 [Liu Zhigang], 立足实战实案，紧盯新质新域求突破 [“Ground Ourselves in Real Combat and Real Cases, Focus on New Qualities and New Domains to Seek Breakthroughs”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], June 22, 2021, p. 1; 张校邦 [Zhang Xiaobang] 破“心中之敌”，深入纠治和平积弊 [“Destroy the ‘Enemy in the Heart,’ Rectify Peace Disease”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], June 5, 2021, 1; 赵宝石 [Zhao Baoshi], 把握关键环节 提升打赢能力 [“Grasp the Key Links and Improve Our Ability to Win in War”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], June 8, 2021, p. 1; 陈维工 [Chen Weigong], 深化强敌研究, 培养知彼胜彼的 “智囊团” [“Deepen Research on the Strong Enemy and Cultivate ‘Think Tanks’ that Can Understand the Enemy to Defeat The Enemy人民海军 [People’s Navy], July 16, 2021, p. 1; Zhang, “The Gist of ‘What We Train’ When We Use the Enemy to Train the Troops.”

8. Information on the PLA’s risk versus reward calculus on nadi lianbing is derived from the following sources: 杨黎明 [Yang Liming], 以战载训砥砺胜战刀锋 [“Use Operations to Advance Training and Sharpen the Blade of Victory”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], April 29, 2020, p. 3; 徐杰 [Xu Jie], “以敌为师”漫谈 [“Ramblings on ‘Using the Enemy as a Teacher’”], 政工学刊 [Zhenggong Xuekan], no. 5, 2020, p. 75; Wang, “Do More to Improve the Quality and Effectiveness of the Force’s Training and Ability to Fight and Win;” Zhao, “Grasp the Key Links and Improve Our Ability to Win in War;” Zhang, “The Gist of ‘What We Train’ When We Use the Enemy to Train the Troops.”

Featured Image: A frigate attached to a naval flotilla under the PLA Southern Theater Command steams ahead towards the designated waters in a maritime combat training exercise in late June, 2022. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Zhang Bin)