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China Coast Guard: On a Trajectory for Peace or Conflict?

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By Ahmed Mujuthaba 

Coast guard roles are envisaged to lay a bridge between state enforcers on land and those beyond state waters. Understanding the fundamental application of coast guard organizations is important, especially given their varying roles and responsibilities in the maritime domain. Today’s coast guards are engaged in an operational spectrum spanning from an array of combat to civil defense roles, resulting in organizations that are seemingly limitless in their roles, authority, and capabilities.1 One such ostensibly boundless organization is the China Coast Guard (CCG).

This article will focus on this latest coast guard and its transformation into one of the world’s largest from two aspects. The first aspect is the requirement for the development and rapid expansion of a China Coast Guard. This includes the contested claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea and an examination of how a maritime law enforcement agency would fit into that context.2 The second aspect is the China Coast Guard’s application. This examination will unravel the roles and responsibilities of China Coast Guard, its legal authority, and its conduct of operations.3

China’s Need for a Formidable Coast Guard

In 2013, four Chinese maritime law enforcement agencies were integrated to form the China Coast Guard Bureau, which was later transferred to the People’s Armed Police Force under the Central Military Commission in 2018.4 This process was an outcome of the 18th National Party Congress in 2012, which called to implement the “Maritime Great Power” strategy.5 The integrated agencies included the China Marine Surveillance, China Fisheries Law Enforcement, Maritime Police and Border Control, and Maritime Anti-smuggling police.6

In less than a decade, the China Coast Guard has transformed into the world’s largest ‘blue water’ coast guard.7 Generally, the term “coast guard” is attributed to enforcement agencies mainly tasked with maritime search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, and the regulation of maritime activities in domestic waters.8 Aligned well within these general requirements, the China Coast Guard is responsible for enforcing China’s sovereign maritime claims, surveillance, fishery resource protection, counter-smuggling operations, and general law enforcement operations.9

One of the urgent priorities for the Chinese to develop a coast guard was the weak Chinese maritime agencies, relative to their regional competitors. In 2010, in the ‘Five Dragons Stirring Up the Sea’, Goldstein states that the regional coast guards of the Pacific region, namely the Japan Coast Guard and the U.S Coast Guard, were comparatively large and more effective compared to Chinese capabilities.10 Expanding on this point, Goldstein also refers to Chinese experts raising the concern of rivalry among the maritime enforcement agencies within China that contributed to a weaker and less collaborative maritime enforcement construct.11

The other priority may have been the future development prospect of the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) Navy as a blue water navy. Most strategists indicate that the requirement for Chinese naval expansion was the result of its humiliation during the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis.12 This triggered a rapid development of the PLA Navy. A U.S Department of Defense report in 2020 claims that China has, by number of platforms, the largest navy in the world with approximately 350 platforms.13 In addition, the establishment of the first Chinese PLA Support Base in Djibouti, operated by the PLA Navy, puts its global power projection ambitions in check.14 Furthermore, the role of regional law enforcement previously utilized by PLA Navy platforms was projected as disproportionate aggression.

The most important priority for developing and strengthening a coast guard may have been the hotly contested maritime claims by China in the South and East China Seas. Chinese scholars claim that while Chinese sovereignty over the South China Sea territories was never contested before the 1930s, after that time China’s vulnerable status was exploited by global powers such as France and Japan.15 Since then, China has struggled to exercise complete authority over the territories, competing, and sometimes clashing with regional states such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines, all of whom also claim sovereignty over the island chains.16 In addition, the U.S Navy has continuously challenged the Chinese claims by conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in those waters, mostly policed by the China Coast Guard. Interestingly, Robert Kaplan has described this region as the battleground for the next global conflict.17

The other contested territory is in the East China Sea. Since claiming its disputed control over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea by the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, China has been continuously demanding its sovereign rights over the islands against Japan.18 As with the historical claims made over the South China Sea territories, China links its claims over the East China Sea territories as far back as 1372, when they discovered the islands and then named them in 1403.19 Meanwhile, the Japanese claim that the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands were annexed by Japan into its Okinawa Prefecture on January 14, 1895, before signing the end of the Sino-Japanese War.20 Regardless of these claims, the two countries have been in frequent clashes with each other. These clashes include a 2010 incident in which a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japan Coast Guard vessels; the 2012 Japanese nationalization of the islands resulting in the Chinese claiming territorial sea baselines; and the 2013 establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone by China in the area.21

Application of the China Coast Guard

Considering the growing clashes in these contested maritime zones, the China Coast Guard’s role as a national tool of escalation or de-escalation is distinguished by its application of force. The most interesting aspect of this application is the “grey zone” tactics of the China Coast Guard. A RAND project defined gray-zone as “…an operational space between peace and war, involving coercive actions to change the status quo below a threshold that, in most cases, would prompt a conventional military response, often blurring the line between military and nonmilitary actions and the attribution of events.”22 Generally gray-zone tactics are activities or operations that fall between war and peace.23

The RAND definition of gray-zone can be broken down as one that: (1) operates between peace and war; (2) engages below the threshold of conventional warfare; and (3) creates ambiguity between civil-military action. The China Coast Guard is known to employ these activities in the Yellow, East, and South China Seas with the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).24 The China Coast Guard has adopted tactics such as ramming into other states’ coast guard and fishing vessels, and actively promoting and accompanying Chinese armed fishing vessels taking up these tactics in disputed waters.25 These tactics go beyond the ‘white-hull’ law enforcement approach, although they do not cross a ‘grey-hull’ warfare response.26

The recent introduction to the China Coast Guard law in January 2021 was also of concern to most regional states as an added potency to its gray-zone activities.27 Article 21 of this law states that the China Coast Guard has authority to use force against foreign warships and foreign ships operated for non-commercial purposes.28 Okada, in his article, rightly claims that this is in violation of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) articles 32, 95, and 96, all of which grant immunity to the named category of vessels.29 UNCLOS also ensures freedom of navigation in the High Seas and the Exclusive Economic Zones under articles 58 and 87.30 In addition, countries with disputes in the region have protested against this law, which signals a more aggressive stance against future challengers to Chinese claims.31

This change in law could contribute to the escalation of incidents beyond the threshold of law enforcement or peaceful actions. An international conflict is not only limited to armed confrontation between military personnel, but it also includes confrontation between state, civil, or paramilitary forces, such as coast guards.32 Since not all nations interpret the Chinese version of UNCLOS and accept their claims, peaceful legal challenges or mere undertakings of innocent passage may be met with lethal force by the China Coast Guard. The new law has given the China Coast Guard the flexibility to operate within three spectrums: constabulary, gray-zone, and combat zones.

Conclusion

The China Coast Guard has grown from a feeble organization to one of the region’s most efficient and resourceful agencies. This article focused its examination on two main aspects of the China Coast Guard. The first was the requirement to develop a coast guard by the Chinese. Examining this need revealed three major priorities for the urgent development of a competent coast guard for China: 1.) the nation’s existing weak maritime enforcement capability compared to regional capabilities; 2.) the expansion of the PLA Navy’s responsibility beyond the region and the projection of a pacified regional posture; and, most important, 3.) the need to protect the Chinese claims over the territories in the South and East China Seas. The second part of this article focused on the China Coast Guard’s current application, such as its traditional roles as a coast guard, and its adoption of gray-zone activities with other state entities. It is anticipated that the current trajectory of the China Coast Guard’s development entwined with new conflicting legal authorities rendered to it, will further deteriorate the existing maritime security dynamics of an already fragile region.

LTC Ahmed Mujuthaba was the Principal Director of the Maldives National Defense Force Coast Guard, and is currently pursuing an MSc in Information Strategy and Political Warfare at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He is trained in salvage diving from the PLA Navy Submarine Academy and also holds an MSc in Defense and Strategic Studies upon completion of the Indian Defense Services Staff College. You can follow him on Twitter: @mujuthaba. The views and opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Maldives National Defense Force, or the Government of Maldives.

References

China Power. “Are Maritime Law Enforcement Forces Destabilizing Asia?,” August 18, 2016. https://chinapower.csis.org/maritime-forces-destabilizing-asia/.

Blanchard, Jean-Marc F. “The U. S. Role in the Sino-Japanese Dispute Over the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands, 1945-1971.” The China Quarterly, no. 161 (2000): 95–123. http://www.jstor.org/stable/655982.

Bowers, Ian, and Swee Lean Collin Koh, eds. Grey and White Hulls: An International Analysis of the Navy-Coastguard Nexus. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Cole, Bernard D. China’s Quest for Great Power: Ships, Oil, and Foreign Policy. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2016.

Erickson, Andrew S., and Ryan D. Martinson, eds. China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations. Studies in Chinese Maritime Development. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2019.

Goldstein, Lyle. Five Dragons Stirring Up the Sea: Challenges and Opportunities in China’s Improving Maritime Enforcement Capabilities. China Maritime Study, no. 5. Newport. RI: China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College, 2010.

Heinegg, Wolff Heintschel von. “The Difficulties of Conflict Classification at Sea: Distinguishing Incidents at Sea from Hostilities.” International Review of the Red Cross 98, no. 902 (August 2016): 449–64. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383117000327.

Jacobs, Andrew, and Jane Perlez. “U.S. Wary of Its New Neighbor in Djibouti: A Chinese Naval Base.” The New York Times, February 25, 2017, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/world/africa/us-djibouti-chinese-naval-base.html.

Kaplan, Robert D. “The South China Sea Is the Future of Conflict.” Foreign Policy (blog). Accessed August 12, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/15/the-south-china-sea-is-the-future-of-conflict/.

Kim, Suk Kyoon. “The Expansion of and Changes to the National Coast Guards in East Asia.” Ocean Development & International Law 49, no. 4 (October 2, 2018): 313–34.

Lansing, Shawn. “A White Hull Approach to Taming the Dragon: Using the Coast Guard to Counter China.” War on the Rocks, February 22, 2018. https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/white-hull-approach-taming-dragon-using-coast-guard-counter-china/.

Martinson, Ryan D. “China’s Second Navy.” U.S. Naval Institute, April 26, 2015. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015/april/chinas-second-navy.

Morris, Lyle J. “Gray Zone Challenges in the East and South China Sea.” Maritime Issues, January 7, 2019, 8.

Morris, Lyle, Michael Mazarr, Jeffrey Hornung, Stephanie Pezard, Anika Binnendijk, and Marta Kepe. Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone: Response Options for Coercive Aggression Below the Threshold of Major War. RAND Corporation, 2019. https://doi.org/10.7249/RR2942.

News, Kyodo. “China Says Coast Guard Law Does Not Target Specific Nation.” ABS-CBN News, March 9, 2021. https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/03/09/21/china-says-coast-guard-law-does-not-target-specific-nation.

Okada, Wataru. “China’s Coast Guard Law Challenges Rule-Based Order,” April 28, 2021. https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/chinas-coast-guard-law-challenges-rule-based-order/.

Paleri, Prabhakaran. “Coast Guards of the World and Emerging Maritime Threats.” Ocean Policy Research Foundation, 2009.

Shen, Jianming. “China’s Sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands: A Historical Perspective.” Chinese Journal of International Law 1, no. 1 (January 1, 2002): 94–157. https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/oxfordjournals.cjilaw.a000432.

Tate, Andrew. “China Now Has World’s Largest Navy as Beijing Advances Towards Goal of a ‘World-Class’ Military by 2049, Says US DoD.” Janes.com, September 2, 2020. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/china-now-has-worlds-largest-navy-as-beijing-advances-towards-goal-of-a-world-class-military-by-2049-says-us-dod.

Japan Ministry of Defense. “The Coast Guard Law of the People’s Republic of China.” Accessed July 30, 2021. https://www.mod.go.jp/en/.

“The Maritime Police Law of the People’s Republic of China,” January 29, 2021. https://m.gmw.cn/2021-01/29/content_1302079361.htm.

Council on Foreign Relations. “Timeline: China’s Maritime Disputes.” Accessed August 18, 2021. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/chinas-maritime-disputes.

Trung, Nguyen T. “How China’s Coast Guard Law Has Changed the Regional Security Structure.” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, April 12, 2021. https://amti.csis.org/how-chinas-coast-guard-law-has-changed-the-regional-security-structure/.

“United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas.” United Nations, 1980. https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf.

[1] Prabhakaran Paleri, “Coast Guards of the World and Emerging Maritime Threats,” Ocean Policy Research Foundation, 2009, p-52.

[2] Lyle J Morris, “Gray Zone Challenges in the East and South China Sea,” Maritime Issues, January 7, 2019, 8, p-3.

[3] Nguyen T. Trung, “How China’s Coast Guard Law Has Changed the Regional Security Structure,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, April 12, 2021, https://amti.csis.org/how-chinas-coast-guard-law-has-changed-the-regional-security-structure/.

[4] “The Coast Guard Law of the People’s Republic of China,” Japan Ministry of Defense, accessed July 30, 2021, https://www.mod.go.jp/en/.

[5] Ian Bowers and Swee Lean Collin Koh, eds., Grey and White Hulls: An International Analysis of the Navy-Coastguard Nexus. (S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 19.

[6] “Are Maritime Law Enforcement Forces Destabilizing Asia?,” China Power (blog), August 18, 2016, https://chinapower.csis.org/maritime-forces-destabilizing-asia/.

[7] Ryan D. Martinson, “China’s Second Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute, April 26, 2015, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015/april/chinas-second-navy.

[8] Suk Kyoon Kim, “The Expansion of and Changes to the National Coast Guards in East Asia,” Ocean Development & International Law49, no. 4 (October 2, 2018), 314.

[9] “Are Maritime Law Enforcement Forces Destabilizing Asia?”

[10] Lyle Goldstein, Five Dragons Stirring Up the Sea: Challenges and Opportunities in China’s Improving Maritime Enforcement Capabilities, China Maritime Study, no. 5 (Newport. RI: China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College, 2010), 3.

[11] Goldstein, 2.

[12] Bernard D. Cole, China’s Quest for Great Power: Ships, Oil, and Foreign Policy (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2016), 52.

[13] Andrew Tate, “China Now Has World’s Largest Navy as Beijing Advances Towards Goal of a ‘World-Class’ Military by 2049, Says US DoD,” Janes.com, September 2, 2020, https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/china-now-has-worlds-largest-navy-as-beijing-advances-towards-goal-of-a-world-class-military-by-2049-says-us-dod.

[14] Andrew Jacobs and Jane Perlez, “U.S. Wary of Its New Neighbor in Djibouti: A Chinese Naval Base,” The New York Times, February 25, 2017, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/world/africa/us-djibouti-chinese-naval-base.html.

[15] Jianming Shen, “China’s Sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands: A Historical Perspective,” Chinese Journal of International Law 1, no. 1 (January 1, 2002), 98-99.

[16] Shen, 97.

[17] Robert D. Kaplan, “The South China Sea Is the Future of Conflict,” Foreign Policy (blog), accessed August 12, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/15/the-south-china-sea-is-the-future-of-conflict/.

[18] “Timeline: China’s Maritime Disputes,” Council on Foreign Relations, accessed August 18, 2021, https://www.cfr.org/timeline/chinas-maritime-disputes.

[19] Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, “The U. S. Role in the Sino-Japanese Dispute Over the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands, 1945-1971,” The China Quarterly, no. 161 (2000), 101.

[20] Blanchard, 102.

[21] “Timeline.”

[22] Lyle Morris et al., Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone: Response Options for Coercive Aggression Below the Threshold of Major War (RAND Corporation, 2019), 8.

[23] Andrew S. Erickson and Ryan D. Martinson, eds., China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations, Studies in Chinese Maritime Development (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2019), 47.

[24] Erickson and Martinson, 25.

[25] Morris, “Gray Zone Challenges in the East and South China Sea.”, 3.

[26] Shawn Lansing, “A White Hull Approach to Taming the Dragon: Using the Coast Guard to Counter China,” War on the Rocks, February 22, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/white-hull-approach-taming-dragon-using-coast-guard-counter-china/.

[27] “The Maritime Police Law of the People’s Republic of China,” January 29, 2021, https://m.gmw.cn/2021-01/29/content_1302079361.htm.

[28] “The Maritime Police Law of the People’s Republic of China.”

[29] Wataru Okada, “China’s Coast Guard Law Challenges Rule-Based Order,” April 28, 2021, https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/chinas-coast-guard-law-challenges-rule-based-order/.

[30] “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas” (United Nations, 1980), https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf.

[31] Kyodo News, “China Says Coast Guard Law Does Not Target Specific Nation,” ABS-CBN News, March 9, 2021, https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/03/09/21/china-says-coast-guard-law-does-not-target-specific-nation.

[32] Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, “The Difficulties of Conflict Classification at Sea: Distinguishing Incidents at Sea from Hostilities,” International Review of the Red Cross 98, no. 902 (August 2016), 451.

Featured Image: A China Coast Guard vessel patrols the disputed Scarborough Shoal on April 6, 2017. (Credit: Reuters)

Podcast

Sea Control 318 – Fish & Ships with Dr. Frédéric Grare (French Version)

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By Alexia Bouallagui

Dr. Frédéric Grare joins the program to discuss European Union fishing policy. 

Download Sea Control 318 – Fish & Ships with Dr. Frédéric Grare (French Version)

Links

1. Fish and Ships: Chinese Fishing and Europe’s Indo-Pacific Strategy by Dr. Frédéric Grare, European Council on Foreign Relations, August 24, 2021.

This episode was hosted, edited, and produced by Alexia Bouallagui. Contact the podcast team at [email protected].

Europe

Gators in Motion: Demystifying Recent Russian Amphibious Activity

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By Ben Claremont

The past several weeks have seen some extraordinary Russian naval activity.1 On 17 and 18 January 2021, six Russian amphibious warfare ships sortied from the Baltic Sea, passing through the Danish straits to the North Sea. On 24 January, TASS reported that over 20 surface combatants and auxiliaries sortied from the Russian Baltic Fleet.2 Recent satellite radar imagery of Baltiysk Naval Base in Kaliningrad shows only the two Neustrashimy-class frigates in port.3 This implies that all four Steregushchiy-class corvettes and several of the 21 smaller ships assigned to the fleet are at sea.4 In addition, major portions of the Northern, Pacific, and Black Sea Fleets have sortied, nominally as part of a large exercise.5 On 4 February, the six amphibious ships stopped for resupply in Tartus, Syria.6 Currently, they have transited the Turkish Straits and entered the Black Sea.7

Due to the build-up of forces on the Russian border with Ukraine and in Belarus, Russia’s amphibious forces have received a great deal of news coverage. This includes no less than eight articles in The Drive’s The War Zone and regular reporting from USNI News, Forbes, Radio Free Europe, the French Navy, and numerous other media outlets.8 The coverage has generally focused on their progress and the viability and possible locations of amphibious assaults on Ukraine. While the capabilities, location, and destination of these ships are important, their movements and possible targets must be contextualized; the Russian Military has a distinct understanding of and approach to amphibious warfare. It also must be kept in mind that these forces only augment existing capabilities in the Black Sea Fleet and so should not be used as an indicator of readiness to initiate conflict.

Most commentary on possible Russian amphibious assaults in a war with Ukraine suggests targets such as Odessa and Mariupol or describes them as a feint.9 In November, the Chief of Ukrainian Military Intelligence suggested that amphibious assaults would target Odessa and Mariupol.10 Responding to this in the January 2022 issue of Proceedings, Col. (Ret.) Phillip G. Wasielewski, U.S. Marine Corps, suggested that such assaults would be incredibly risky.11 Still, the idea of amphibious assaults to seize major cities persists.12 However, when this scenario is compared with existing Russian amphibious warfare capabilities, the Russian theory and practice of amphibious warfare (and its Soviet antecedent), and the larger Russian deployment of forces, it becomes clear that Mariupol, Odessa, and other major urban areas or ports are unlikely targets for the Russian Naval Infantry. Conversely, it is unlikely that such forces are only a bluff, feint, or ruse.

February 9, 2022 video by  Ihlas News Agency entitled (in Turkish), “Russian Warships Advancing From The Dardanelles To The Black Sea One After One.”

Capabilities

Russia’s amphibious ships are moving in two groups with an estimated capacity of two regular battalions — one tank and one motorized infantry— with some space for artillery and air defenses. Alternatively, the groups could carry a Battalion Tactical Group.

Group 1: Baltic Fleet14

  • Пр.775/II [ROPUCHA-I] 127 Minsk
  • Пр.775/II [ROPUCHA-I] 102 Kaliningrad
  • Пр.775/III [ROPUCHA-II] 130 Korolyov

Group 2: Northern Fleet15

  • Пр.775/I [ROPUCHA-I] 012 Olenegorskii Gornyak
  • Пр.775/II [ROPUCHA-I] 016 Georgii Pobedonosets
  • Пр.11711 [IVAN GREN] 017 Peter Morgunov

A Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) is a task-organized combined arms force created by augmenting a Motor-Rifle Battalion (MRBn) with tanks, artillery, electronic warfare capabilities, air defenses, and other modern conveniences necessary for the mission at hand.16 It is the smallest regularly formed combined arms force in the Russian military capable of independent action.17 It is only the latest form of a type of unit which the Russians — and Soviets before them — have been iteratively developing and adjusting since the Second world War.18 A 1989 survey of Soviet professional literature on the topic found that only 12 of the 551 examined battalion-level actions involved a battalion acting without attachments or support, and none took place after 1972.19

From analyzing Russian exercises, it can be inferred that these two groups can carry a BTG. Zapad 2021 featured an amphibious assault exercise in which four Ropucha-class tank landing ships (LSTs) and two Zubr-class landing craft air cushion (LCACs) landed a Naval Infantry force.24 The four Ropucha-class offloaded “more than 40x BTR-80” while the two Zubr-class LCAC offloaded supporting vehicles. A Russian BTR-mounted infantry battalion has 44 BTR-80 variants, meaning that four Ropuchas can carry the entire infantry landing force of a BTG. This leaves two landing ships for whatever forces are attached — likely a mixture of tanks, artillery, and air defense vehicles. While the contents of their holds are unclear, a BTG is well within the six ships’ capacity and congruous with the Naval Infantry’s most probable mission in conflict: supporting the Russian Ground Forces.

Tank landing ship of the Russian Navy RFS Kaliningrad 102 (2012 Photo via ShipSpotting.com/Lukasz Pacholski)

Theory and Practice

Whatever its size, this amphibious force is trained to conduct what the Russians call “десант” [desant]. Desant is the task of landing troops on the enemy’s territory to conduct combat operations.25 The role of the Naval Infantry in these landings is to support the action of the Ground Forces. The Russian Navy did not consider themselves able to conduct a brigade-scale landing — what they call an Operational Desant — in 2018, and there is no indication this has changed.26 The Kavkaz 2020 and Zapad 2021 exercises included landings by battalion-sized groupings. In particular, Zapad 2021 featured 4 Ropuchas landing a Naval Infantry Battalion while two Zubr-class landed the battalion’s attachments.27 This restricts the mission profile to Takticheskii Desant (Tactical Desant), defined as: desant used in an offensive battle or operation to destroy important enemy targets in the tactical and close-operational depths, preventing the maneuver of enemy troops and ensuring the high rate of advance.28

The archetypical Soviet-Russian Tactical Desant is conducted in the tactical depth to outflank an enemy defense or insert a force acting as a forward detachment for the main forces attacking along a coastline.29 These are both viable missions for a Naval Infantry BTG. The location of such a landing is dependent on the disposition of enemy forces and the landing force mission. However, the Russians do believe that surprise (Внезапность) is a prerequisite of success.30 Whether or not it is still possible to conceal an amphibious landing, it is likely Russia would seek to conceal the beachhead and axis of the main effort.31 A common method to achieve this is by presenting the enemy with information which confirms pre-existing incorrect assessments of the time, place, and scale of a landing. Operation Fortitude is a classic example of this technique, though Soviet practice went further, often conducting a secondary landing to continue the deception or split enemy attention.32 Examples of this include the January 1943 Taman landings by the 47th Army, the April 1942 Murmansk Offensive by the 14th Army, and the October 1944 landing at Malaya Volokovaya by the 63rd Naval Infantry Brigade.33

Soviet Amphibious Assault during the Novorossiysk-Taman Strategic Offensive Operation. Click to expand. (SSRC Soviet Amphibious Warfare, p. 41)

The Soviet-Russian school of amphibious assault also heavily features vertical envelopment by airborne or heliborne forces to support the landing. This could either be in support of seizing an initial beachhead or to assist the Naval Infantry force in achieving their objectives. One of the most common uses of vertical envelopment seen in Russian amphibious assault theory and practice is an initial landing of infantry and combat engineers to clear obstacles and provide security for the beachhead.34 This initial landing may be supplemented or replaced by landings from small assault boats, such as the Pr.03160 Raptor-class.35 Four of these boats were spotted on 30 January moving on the M4 highway between Moscow and Krasnodar via Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh.36

Click to expand. (Graphic via Grau and Bartles, Russian Way of War, p. 148.)

All six amphibious ships appeared loaded in pictures captured as they transited through Denmark.37 In addition, Frederik Van Lokeren noted that when the Northern Fleet Ropucha-class LST Aleksandr Otrakovsky and Georgiy Pobedonosets and Ivan Gren-class Pyotr Morgunov entered the Baltic on 11 January, “It appear[ed] that both Ropucha class vessels are fully loaded, with the RFS Pyotr Morgunov being partly loaded,” and that on 13 January at least a company of BTR-mounted Naval Infantry was seen leaving their barracks in Baltiysk.38 It is therefore possible that the BTG consists of Baltic Fleet Infantry and supporting assets from the Northern Fleet’s Naval Infantry units.

Conclusions

While these movements are cause for concern, the initiation of armed conflict is unlikely to be contingent on these forces. The Black Sea Fleet has seven LSTs organic to its forces, three Alligator-class and four Ropucha-class.39 Each Alligator-class has double the capacity of a Ropucha-class.40 These seven ships have far more capacity than the six amphibious ships from the Baltic and Northern Fleets.

While amphibious landings could undoubtedly assist in destabilizing Ukrainian defenses, the Russians have amassed a preponderance of forces near the Ukrainian border, equivalent to 12 divisions or over 75 BTG.41 It is highly unlikely that Russian planning is reliant on whether they can put two BTG over the shore instead of the single BTG they are currently able to land, or even whether they can land one maneuver battalion when they have deployed 12 divisions.

In sum: the Russians have moved loaded amphibious ships that double their landing capacity in the Black Sea to two BTGs. If they do conduct a landing, it will almost certainly be in support of the Ground Forces, not an attempt to seize major urban areas by coup de main. It is unlikely that Russian offensive plans are contingent on the amphibious forces which just entered the Black Sea. These forces represent less than 1/75th of deployed Russian maneuver battalions and far less than one percent of deployed Russian combat power when air assets and high-level indirect fire assets are considered.

The build-up phase of the Russo-Belarussian joint exercise was scheduled to end on 9 February. This is the date by which experts such as Rob Lee have stated that Russia’s deployment of forces would likely be complete.42 At the time of publishing on 10 February the Baltic and Northern Fleet amphibious forces have arrived in the Black Sea. However, these forces would only augment existing Black Sea Fleet capability and so should not be used as an indicator of Russian readiness for offensive action. On the other hand, these amphibious forces are unlikely to be a feint; the Russians have demonstrated the capability to land battalion-scale forces in the region, and such a landing fits into their theory and practice.

Benjamin Claremont graduated with an MLitt in Strategic Studies from the University of St Andrews School of International Relations in 2021. His dissertation, Peeking at the Other Side of the Fence: Lessons Learned in Threat Analysis from the US Military’s Efforts to Understand the Soviet Military During the Cold War, explored the impact of changing sources, analytical methodologies, and distribution schemes on US Army and US Navy threat analysis of the Soviet Military, how this impacted policy and strategy, and what this can teach in a renewed era of great power competition. He received his MA (Honours) in Modern History from the University of St. Andrews. He is interested in Strategy, Operational Art, Naval Warfare, and Soviet/Russian Military Science.

References

[1] https://www.c-span.org/video/?517418-1/defense-department-briefing

[2] https://tass.com/defense/1392417

[3] https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1485698678979538951?s=20https://twitter.com/GrangerE04117/status/1485696134278696960?s=20

[4] These comprise: 4x Nanuchka-III-, 6x Parchim-, 2x Buyan-M-, 3x Karakurt-, and 6x Tarantul-class corvettes and missile boats. The fleet flagship, the Sovermenny-class destroyer Nastoychivy is currently in refit.

[5] https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/13479285

[6] https://ria.ru/20220204/korabli-1770989423.html

[7] https://twitter.com/SAMSyria0/status/1490018038363664385; https://twitter.com/ethevessen/status/1489987246778466311; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDFnDseNptw; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmPmXkDvt5g; 

[8] https://news.usni.org/2022/01/21/russian-navy-announces-more-major-fleet-exercises-as-drills-end-with-china-iran; https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/01/18/russia-has-rehearsed-an-amphibious-invasion-of-ukraine-but-thats-the-least-of-kievs-problems/?sh=3129cb5438cd; https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-sea-attack/31670910.html; https://twitter.com/EtatMajorFR/status/1484901686808358915?s=20&t=_Y4i8xiOZag0SdywGQsXXQ; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/23/russian-ships-tanks-and-troops-on-the-move-to-ukraine-as-peace-talks-stall; https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17403270/russian-warships-escorted-english-channel-royal-navy/; https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1486745542709317634

[9] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/will-russia-make-a-military-move-against-ukraine-follow-these-clues/

[10] https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2021/11/20/russia-preparing-to-attack-ukraine-by-late-january-ukraine-defense-intelligence-agency-chief/

[11] https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/january/russia-ukraine-putins-amphibious-options-are-limited

[12] https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220113_Wasielewski_Jones_RussiaUkraine.pdf?TnU5pXVdKLLagIkYc8.pJLT1TjucY6ew

[13] https://twitter.com/tekmic64/status/1483049987315580929; https://twitter.com/tekmic64/status/1483405897640599554?s=20

[14] https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1484260688893820944

[15] https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1483410761422712835?s=20

[16] Grau and Bartles, Russia’s View of Mission Command of Battalion Tactical Groups (2016), p. 5-7

[17] Grau and Bartles, Russian Way of War (2017), p. 37-40

[18] The Soviets habitually task-organized their battalions into combined arms formations throughout the Great Patriotic War. Grau, Combined Arms Battalion, p. 31

[19] Les Grau Soviet Combined Arms Battalion – Reorganization for Tactical Flexibility, p. 14.

[20] Grau and Bartles, Russian Way of War, p. 224

[21] Ibid p. 210

[22] Ibid p. 148, 267, 334

[23]As a task organized group these numbers are only loose estimates.

[24] https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/zapad-2021-day-3-september-12/

[25] VES 1986 p. 229 Note that desant is seen as the same fundamental activity no matter the mode of transport.

[26] Bartles, Russian Naval Infantry – Increasing Amphibious Warfare Capabilities, Marine Corps Gazette, (Nov. 2018), p. 64

[27] https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2020/09/27/kavkaz-2020-september-23-day-3/ ; https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/zapad-2021-day-3-september-12/ Note that this was not described as a BTG landing. This is perhaps due to the limited support or specific mission planned.

[28] Военный энциклопедический словарь 1986 edition (VES86), p. 229.

[29] Further Reading can be found in Leavenworth Paper 17: The Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation and SSRC Report CR-57 Soviet Amphibious Operations: Implications for the Security of NATO’s Northern Flank.

[30] https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=4272@morfDictionary; this is nearly unchanged from the late-soviet definition. For more discussion see: FM 100-2-1 (1990) p. 1-35:1-41 and Советская военная энциклопедия 1979 Edition (SVE79) Vol. 2, p. 161-163

[31] Soviet Amphibious Operations p. 58-59

[32] Soviet Amphibious Operations p. 59

[33] Soviet Amphibious Operations p. 59, Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation p. 89-91

[34] https://youtu.be/jzv-MnTKfdM https://youtu.be/jzv-MnTKfdM Vertical envelopment is often supplemented by personnel landed from small assault boats like the Pr.03160 Raptor-class.

[35] https://youtu.be/_dF0Db8UWZE

[36] https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1487773497346732036?s=20&t=Q8Hrhe9cL7MioCgIpcQoxg

[37] https://twitter.com/tekmic64/status/1483049987315580929 A friend in the Danish Navy who saw them sortie confirmed they were lower in the water than typical even for exercises.

[38] https://russianfleetanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/01/russian-naval-infantry-january-2022.html, citing https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/1481373264471629826

[39] The Alligator-class is known to the Russians as Project 1171 Tapir.

[40] Apalkov, Landing Ships p. 8-9

[41] https://rochan-consulting.com/tracking-russian-deployments-near-ukraine-autumn-winter-2021-22/; https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1486539799100067845?s=20; https://video.foxnews.com/v/6295567325001#sp=show-clips

[42] https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1486398656513257479?s=20&t=ep54Rvt57aazDvjbwTAvVg

Featured image: A photograph of Russian Ropucha-class Korolev followed by the French patrol vessel Flamant while transiting the English Channel (Credit : https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1484260688893820944/photo/)

Future Tech

@Channel – A Dialogue Concerning Kill Webs

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By The Naval Constellation

The Naval Constellation is an online, unofficial forum resident on the team communication application Slack. The group includes Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officers, enlisted, and civilians, and serves as a place to break down organizational silos and facilitate conversation on topics ranging from innovation to strategy, emerging technology, and more. While it has existed and grown for six years, we are now partnering with CIMSEC on an enduring public series, “@Channel,” to be published as the conversation warrants it. Contact information to join future conversations like this can be found at the bottom of the article.

The below is a discussion from the Constellation between 11 participants identified by first name. It has been lightly edited for clarity. All content is submitted with the participants’ consent.

Shane: @channel, Kyle and I are discussing how the Joint Force ought to think about warfare as disabling or breaking down kill webs rather than kill chains; that these webs should be thought of almost as complex adaptive systems (CASs), not multiple reducible chains of effects. What’s the best mental model for attacking or defending against kill webs in war?

Jason: Kill chains are single path, unidirectional, and fairly fragile. Kill webs are multipath, multi-directional, and resilient. To take out a web you have to affect the node and surrounding nodes… That means you need to affect proximal relationships, not just specific targets. Counterintuitively, precision fires don’t work on kill webs. You need an area of effect and less precise methods.

Throw a rock through the spider web, don’t clip individual strands.

DARPA’s Adapting Cross-Domain Kill-Webs (ACK) Program
Figure 1 – Depiction of DARPA’s Adapting Cross-Domain Kill-Webs (ACK) Program. 

Chris: I think of kill chains as being the decision process. We are hindered by the chain of command and decision process that is fragile effect and does have a single path. Kill webs are what Jason described above, but they are aspirational right now. I’d argue that most of our systems are not part of kill webs and are still really fragile. Are we that adaptive? Do our systems actually work that way outside of a very structured exercise?

And if they are, will our Command and Control (C2) process actually let us operate like that?

Jason: Kill webs take a lot of energy to maintain. They are resilient, but if disrupted are more difficult to restore. I recommend a hybrid approach.

Kyle: Would you describe China’s A2AD networks as kill webs? Is there any difference?

Jason: Certainly. Highly resilient, taking out a single node won’t affect the web, but a significant enough, broad disruption, and the system would be hard to reconstitute.1

Figure 2 – An interpretation of the kill web-centric Mosaic Warfare concept for a Chinese audience, published in the April 2021 edition of the PLA journal Aero Weaponry.

Chris: Jason, do you design a kill web so that it fails to a chain? Or do you choose what systems are part of a web and which are a chain? 

Jason: It needs to fail to chains. That’s essentially what graceful degradation is… The reduction of nodal complexity until the issue is solved. Isolate the system, identify the problem, and reconstitute the system. For example, we should actually practice moving from battlegroup, coordinated operations to a unit, disconnected independent ops, and back again. The back again shouldn’t be “the network is back.” That’s unrealistic.

Instead, its independent ops, becoming two ships talking, becoming a group of ships coordinating, becomes battlegroup operations.

We actually do this in damage control. Think about engineering redundancy. We make the system more complicated than it has to be by building redundant systems. Two of the same system with a series of crossovers and disconnects. If something leaks in the system, you can isolate a portion without fully shutting down the system. You may have some penalties to efficiency… Can only operate with a 50% flow rate for example… But the system keeps working and furthermore… The degradation makes the system simpler to troubleshoot and operate.

Shifting back to the more complex operations should be deliberate – just because you fixed one thing, doesn’t mean there aren’t secondary issues you will find when you bring it back up to a higher level of complexity… Open the isolation valves too fast and you end up with 100% flow against potential unknown issues you haven’t fixed yet.

Shane: Do we do enough to train the Information Warfare Community (IWC) in how to understand and potentially disrupt, degrade, deny or destroy complex systems like kill webs?

Ryan: We absolutely do not do enough to train the IWC in this.

That’s the issue with webs and warfare at the liminal edge. We believe that shooting a few multimillion-dollar surface-to-air missiles (SAM) at an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) drone is Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), or that mixing up a CVW (Carrier Air Wing) composition enables more resiliency. Neither are webs – they are chains – and we think of warfare in a chain mentality.

The Navy fundamentally lacks the ability to see outside the cave and assess how cyber or info ops might result in degraded C2 from a geographic node in the web. Or space-based effects. Nor would JFMCCs (Joint Force Maritime Component Commanders) know how to employ that kind of stuff at the Fleet or AOR (Area of Operations) level.

Kurt: I’d argue no one in the USG (United States Government) can assess cyber ops, and no one in the US military (except maybe the bubbas at CYBERCOM) trust that cyber can reliably deliver the right effect at the right time for cyber to be selected before a traditional kinetic option is selected.

Ryan: I think breaking up kill webs requires a truly joint effort. That’s not something we can expect our CSGs (Carrier Strike Groups) or single DDGs (Guided Missile Destroyers) to determine and execute alone.2

China, on the other hand, does this really well with its joint structure and national technical means. We would do well to think on how that can be broken down, and how a similar construct “with American characteristics” might be developed to serve attacking CASs.3

Kyle: So as much as I understand the concepts we’re applying here, what I struggle with is assigning the WHAT to invest in and WHO needs WHAT training.

Is this Fleet staffs? Individual ships or units? Everyone? What are we buying that would turn our chains into webs, and is that even feasible with our current acquisition process? Isn’t a “Cloud of Fire Control Data” sort of what you want?4

Kurt: I think the Navy can’t do it alone.

Alex: Kurt, because the Navy doesn’t have the assets to populate a web, i.e. “this is inherently ‘Joint’”? Or because culturally the Navy is resistant to implementing the organizational changes to exploit a web should it exist?

Ryan: Yes to both.

Kurt: Maybe I don’t know what you all mean by “web.” I’m assuming you mean some ultra-resilient system (like a mesh network) exists that can absorb significant damage before a worrisome degradation of capability occurs. And if that damage isn’t adequately and appropriately applied, the system would shrug off the attack with very little actual impact to the overall system.

Kurt: I said the Navy can’t do it alone because the Navy almost assuredly doesn’t have the fielded capabilities to unilaterally destroy what I (perhaps incorrectly) am assuming is a multi-domain, multi-modal “kill web.” Ignoring everything else, the way the DoD (Department of Defense) allocates (or doesn’t, as it happens) cyber forces would preclude Navy cyber from having a major role in fights occurring outside certain geographic boundaries.

Alex: Ah, the Navy can’t attack/dismantle an adversary kill web alone. I think there’s a parallel discussion about implementing and using blue force kill webs.

Louis: I like the term “ecosystem”, which brings to mind perhaps “full-spectrum ecological attack” or something. Military eco-collapse.

Matt: I think that the idea of webs will require different C2 and ways to think about sensor/weapon/target pairings. We can’t allocate a set of assets for a single or small set of targets unless we want a very narrow web.

I think that chains can be a way to test and think about paths through the web but they’ll always need to have follow-up analysis as a web. In aerospace engineering (AE) we used to have a joke that you know you’re an AE if you’ve represented a wing as a plane, the plane as a line, and the line as a point (to simplify the calculation). The same holds, you can test paths through the web exquisitely using analysis and might have to run exercises as exquisitely planned chains or small webs, but we should war game and do larger [Modelling and Simulation] as webs. I worry about webs though, if we need the always-on comms to make them work. That means they’re fragile and our already targeted comms infrastructure will be an easy point of failure.

Mike: In my mind, having multiple comms channels is part of what would make a web a ‘web’.

Matt: I agree, but those might be very low bandwidth or short duration or one way rather than bi-directional. We don’t just turn on “Uber comm path 1” and know that will link everyone with the same protocols.

Mike: It worked in World War Two, some of the naval battles in the Slot [during the Guadalcanal campaign] came down to real-time unencrypted bridge-to-bridge radio to share info across the Fleet rapidly.

Matt: Absolutely think of them as complex adaptive systems, but if you do then you have to accept that any given path through the web might not give you the same performance twice, or that the assets you thought you’d have for a given mission might be taken over by another use of the web. This is where the joint piece comes in, the bigger the web the more possible elements in any given role/roles.

Practicing as a web will be hard though. We need MMO (massively multiplayer online) wargaming that is always on. I should be able to log in with the rest of my DDG or on my own, and should be able to find other players online. We would also need some way to figure out classification so we could play red as accurately as possible without giving up methods and sources. We should have stats that we can download and leader boards and tutorial sessions that are always available. Have practice where people can try out ideas free of criticism and then have more serious competitions where people are graded and that data-rich environment is plumbed to find out how to do better.

This is going to be expensive, in terms of dollars and resources, but would be well worth it. We could/should have layers of detail, so someone can play a simpler game against

Others in one on one or play in very detailed complex many on many battles.

Nick: Agreed, and you can’t benefit from AI-enabled reinforcement learning (think AlphaGo)5 to make tactical and operational recommendations without building a robust modeling and simulation environment first.

So, this virtual environment has to essentially mirror the real-world COP (Common Operational Picture), or at least have exposed APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that are formatted similarly, so you can train a model in a simulated environment and immediately deploy that same model into an operational context.

Matt: Use peoples’ play to train the AI as you go?

Nick: You could do it either way. You have a rewards/punishments system, where let’s say people play China, and fight to China’s tactics and capabilities. A model can then iterate through millions of blue force responses to find the one with the highest probability of success and make those as recommendations. Another method is you can program China’s tactics in as broad rules, but have it be an AI instead of people, so the two models learn from each other. The reason for machine learning is that there are so many exponentially complex scenarios in the responses, you can’t necessarily try all of them every time, so you train a model that can estimate the best response without needing to try every scenario. That was the significance of the AlphaGo achievement in beating the world champion at Go.6

Once a model is trained though, you can deploy it to look at real-world situations and make recommendations for blue force actions based on its training in the simulated environment. 

Google's AlphaGo beats Go master
Figure 3 – Google’s AlphaGo beats Go master Lee Se-dol in 2016.

Alex: I think this is the end state that LVC (Live, Virtual, Constructive) training should aim for. Imagine if off each coast there was a persistent virtual battlespace that you could “log” into, either with a ship, aircraft, or submarine (not sure how LVC is thought to work for subs, if at all).

Nick: Also, having no experience or interaction with JADC2 (Joint All-Domain Command and Control), would someone mind explaining how that initiative relates to the kill web concept?[7] I was under the impression that the JADC2 initiative was trying to help solve that problem.

Shane: JADC2 should, in theory, give you the technical ability to link together currently non-compatible networks, sensors, and weapons systems. But from what I can gather JADC2 is pretty much only about that technical ability. There’s no attempt to get people to conceptualize attacking webs as opposed to just attacking a series of chains. That’s not really a technical thing, it’s more a doctrine, training, and TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) thing.

That half seems to be sorely lacking.

If you would like to join the conversation at the Naval Constellation, please email: [email protected]. 

Endnotes

1. “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020, Annual Report to Congress.” Office of the Secretary of Defense. https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF 

2. Captain Carmen Degeorge, U.S. Coast Guard, Commander Nathaniel Schick, U.S. Navy, and Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Wilson And Majors Chad Buckel And Brian Jaquith, U.S. Marine Corps. “Naval Integration Requires A New Mind-Set”. 2021. U.S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/october/naval-integration-requires-new-mind-set-0.

3.” Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020, Annual Report to Congress.” Office of the Secretary of Defense. https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF

4. Shelbourne, Mallory. 2020. “Navy’s ‘Project Overmatch’ Structure Aims To Accelerate Creating Naval Battle Network – USNI News”. USNI News. https://news.usni.org/2020/10/29/navys-project-overmatch-structure-aims-to-accelerate-creating-naval-battle-network.

5. “Google AI Defeats Human Go Champion”. 2017. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40042581. 

6. Ibid.

7. “Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)”. Congressional Research Service. July 1, 2021. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11493 

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Jan. 22, 2022) An F-35C Lightning II, assigned to the “Black Knights” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 314, and an F/A-18E Super Hornet, assigned to the “Tophatters” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 14, fly over the Philippine Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Haydn N. Smith)