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A Cyber-Information Operations Offset Strategy for Countering the Surge of Chinese Power

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The following is a two-part series on how the U.S. might better utilize cyberspace and information operations as a Third Offset. Part I will evaluate current offset proposals and explores the strategic context. Part II will provide specific cyber/IO operations and lines of effort.

By Jake Bebber 

“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.”

-Herodotus, The Histories

Introduction

In 2014, then Secretary of Defense Hagel established the Defense Innovation Initiative, better known as the Third Offset, which is charged with recommending ways to sustain American military superiority in the face of growing capabilities fielded by powers such as Russia and China.1 The purpose of the Third Offset is to “pursue innovative ways to sustain and advance our military superiority” and to “find new and creative ways to sustain, and in some cases expand, our advantages even as we deal with more limited resources.” He pointed to recent historical challenges posed by the Soviets in the 1970’s which led to the development of “networked precision strike, stealth and surveillance for conventional forces.” Centrally-controlled, inefficient Soviet industries could not match the U.S. technological advantage, and their efforts to do so weakened the Soviet economy, contributing to its collapse.

Today, China represents the most significant long-term threat to America and will be the focus here. A number of leading organizations, both within and outside government, have put forward recommendations for a Third Offset. However, these strategies have sought to maintain or widen perceived U.S. advantages in military capabilities rather than target China’s critical vulnerabilities. More importantly, these strategies are predicated on merely affecting China’s decision calculus on whether to use force to achieve its strategic aims – i.e., centered around avoiding war between the U.S. and China. This misunderstands China’s approach and strategy. China seeks to win without fighting, so the real danger is not that America will find itself in a war with China, but that America will find itself the loser without a shot being fired. This paper proposes a Cyberspace-IO Offset strategy directly attacking China’s critical vulnerability: its domestic information control system. By challenging and ultimately holding at risk China’s information control infrastructure, the U.S. can effectively offset China’s advantages and preserve America’s status as the regional security guarantor in Asia.

All effective strategies target the adversary’s center of gravity (COG), or basis of power. “Offset strategies” are those options that are especially efficient because they target an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities, while building on U.S. strengths, to “offset” the opponent’s advantages. Ideally, such strategies are difficult for an adversary to counter because they are constrained by their political system and economy. Today, China’s COG is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The stability of this system depends greatly on the ability of the Chinese regime to control information both within China, and between China and the outside. Without this control, opposition groups, minority groups, and factions within the CCP itself could organize more effectively and would have greater situational awareness for taking action. Thus, information control is potentially a critical Chinese vulnerability. If the United States can target the ability of the Chinese regime to control information, it could gain an efficient means to offset Chinese power. This offset strategy, using cyberspace and other information operations (IO) capabilities, should aim to counter China during the critical window in the next ten to twenty years when Chinese economic and military power will surge, and then subside as demographic, economic and social factors limit its growth.

Targeting the CCP’s ability to control information can be considered a long-term IO campaign with options to operate across the spectrum of conflict: peacetime diplomacy and battlespace preparation; limited conflict; and, if deterrence fails, full-scale military operations. The goal is to ensure that PRC leaders believe that, as conflict escalates, they will increasingly lose their ability to control information within China and from outside, in part because the U.S. would be prepared to use more drastic measures to impede it.

This strategy is most efficient because it serves as an organizing concept for cyber options targeted against China that would otherwise be developed piecemeal. It could serve as a means to prioritize research and development, and better link military planning for cyberspace operations to public diplomacy, strategic communication, and economic policy initiatives. The nature of cyberspace operations makes it difficult to attribute actions back to the United States with certainty, unless we wish it to be known that the U.S. is conducting this activity. Finally, it provides an alternative array of responses that policy makers can use to offset growing Chinese power without immediate direct military confrontation.

Demographic, economic and social factors will combine to create a ceiling on Chinese power, ultimately causing it to enter a period of decline much sooner than it expects.2 These factors will stress the Communist Party’s ability to exclude economic, social and political participation of dissenters, and create further reliance by the Party on information control systems.

The Strategic Environment

The United States is a status quo power. It seeks to retain its position of dominance while realizing that relative to other powers, its position may rise or fall given the circumstances. It supports the post-World War II international order – a mix of international legal and liberal economic arrangements that promote free trade and the resolution of disputes through international organizations or diplomatic engagement when possible. The United States recognizes the growth of China, and that it will soon achieve “great power” status, if not already. It is most advantageous to the United States if the “rise” (or more correctly, return to great power status) of China occurs peacefully, and within the already established framework of international rules, norms, and standards.

There are two important considerations. First is the “singularity” of China with respect to its self-understanding and its role in the world. China views the last two centuries – a time when China was weak internally and under influence from foreign powers – as an aberration in the natural world order. Most Chinese consider their several thousand year history as the story of China occupying the center of the world with “a host of lesser states that imbibed Chinese culture and paid tribute to China’s greatness …” This is the natural order of things. In the West, it was common to refer to China as a “rising power,” but again, this misreads China’s history. China was almost always the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific, punctuated by short periods of turmoil. It just so happened that the birth and growth of the United States took place during one of those periods of Chinese weakness.3

The strategic approach of China is markedly different, based on its concept of shi, or the “strategic configuration of power.” The Chinese “way of war” sees little difference in diplomacy, economics and trade, psychological warfare (or in today’s understanding, “information warfare”) and violent military confrontation. To paraphrase the well-known saying, the acme of strategy is to preserve and protect the vital interests of the state without having to resort to direct conflict while still achieving your strategic purpose. The goal is to build up such a dominant political and psychological position that the outcome becomes a foregone conclusion. This is in contrast to Western thought which emphasizes superior power at a decisive point.4

To the American leadership, the “most dangerous” outcome of a competition with China would seem to be one that leads to war; hence the near-desperate desire to not undertake any action which might lead China down that path. Yet a better understanding of China suggests that it believes it can (and is) achieving its strategic purpose without having to resort to force. Its military buildup, use of economic trade agreements, diplomacy, and domestic social stability are creating the very political and psychological conditions where the use of force becomes unnecessary. China is quite content to remain in “Phase 0” with the United States, because it  believes it is winning there. Thus, the question for America is not “How do we maintain the status quo in Phase 0?” but “How do we win in Phase 0?” The most dangerous course of action is not war with China, but losing to China without a shot being fired.

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Figure 1. In 2015, China reorganized the PLA and created a new Cyber Warfare branch under its Strategic Support Force.

Current Offset Proposals

In response to the call for proposals, a number of initiatives and programs have been put forward by both the Department of Defense and leading national security think tanks. The underlying assumption of most of these proposals is that the United States has lost or is quickly losing its “first mover” advantage – such as that offered by the shift from unguided to guided munitions delivered from a position of stealth or sanctuary. In this regard, China represents a “pacing threat,” leading the way in developing its own guided weapons regime and the ability to deliver them asymmetrically against the United States.5 In order to regain America’s military advantage, most recommendations follow along these lines:

  • Development and procurement of new platforms and technologies that leverage current perceived technological advantages over China in such areas as:
    • Unmanned autonomous systems;
    • Undersea warfare;
    • Extended-range and low-observable air operations;
    • Directed energy; and
    • Improved power systems and storage.
  • New approaches to forward basing, including hardening of infrastructure (both physical and communication networks), the use of denial and deception techniques and active defense;
  • Countering China’s threats to U.S. space-based surveillance and command and control systems;
  • Assisting allies and friends in the development of or exporting of new technologies that impose smaller-scale anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) costs on China; and
  • Reconstitute and reinvigorate Department of Defense “iterative, carefully adjudicated tabletop exercises and model-based campaign assessments.”6

These approaches7 may have much to offer and are commendable, however they suffer from a glaring weakness: none target China’s center of gravity or critical vulnerabilities. They seek to leverage capabilities where the United States appears to enjoy an advantage, such as undersea warfare. For example, while it may be true that the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) is not as proficient as the U.S. Navy (or some allies) in the undersea domain, it is also true that the Chinese regime is investing heavily to “close the gap” in these and other capabilities or is developing asymmetric alternatives. The United States will face a diminishing marginal utility as it attempts to maintain or widen the gap, especially in an era when China’s cyberspace-enabled information exploitation capabilities are extremely robust, and capable of transferring intellectual property back to China on a scale unimaginable in the Cold War.

More fundamentally, the offsets proposed are not guided by an overarching grand strategy that utilizes all elements of national power attacking key weaknesses and critical vulnerabilities in the Chinese regime, much in the same way that the Reagan Administration was able to do against the Soviets. Reagan’s policy and strategy represented a “sharp break from his predecessors,” eschewing containment in favor of attacking “the domestic sources of Soviet foreign behavior.”8 By recognizing the inherent weakness of the Soviet economic system, the new policy sought to leverage national military, political and economic tools to press the American advantage home, causing the Soviet system to collapse. This is not to suggest that the Chinese economic system suffers from the same malaise as their Soviet brethren did. Despite growing demographic, social and economic headwinds, it is unlikely that the United States can “bankrupt” the Chinese. However, China does have acute vulnerabilities – vulnerabilities which align with unique American advantages.

China’s Center of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities

None of the proposed previously mentioned offset lines of effort attempt to identify or target China’s COG. The center of gravity is defined by Milan Vego is “a source of massed strength – physical or moral – or a source of leverage whose serious degradation, dislocation, neutralization, or destruction would have the most decisive impact on the enemy’s or one’s own ability to accomplish a given political/military objective.”9 Joint military doctrine defines it as “The source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.”10 The center of gravity concept is important to offset strategies because it enhances “the chance that one’s sources of power are used in the quickest and most effective way for accomplishing a given political/military objective.” It is the essence of “the proper application of the principles of objective, mass and economy of effort.”11

Using an analytic construct designed by Vego, we note that any military situation encompasses a large number of both “physical and so-called abstract military and nonmilitary elements.” These are the “critical factors” that require attention and are deemed essential to the accomplishment of the objective, both of the adversary and ourselves. Not surprisingly, these factors encompass both critical strengths and critical weaknesses – both of which are essential. Critical vulnerabilities are “those elements of one’s military or nonmilitary sources of power open to enemy attack, control, leverage, or exploitation.” By attacking critical vulnerabilities, we ultimately attack the enemy center of gravity.12 The figure below shows notionally how China’s information control systems are a critical vulnerability (note that it is not all-encompassing).

Figure 2. Notional Center of Gravity Analysis[xiii].
Figure 2. Notional Center of Gravity Analysis[xiii].
According to Vego, it is generally agreed that for most authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, the dictator, central governing party or leadership committee is the strategic center of gravity. In the case of China, the CCP is the sole governing political party. The top leadership of the CCP is the Politburo Standing Committee (or Central Standing Committee), currently made up of seven members and led by General Secretary Xi Jinping. A number of factors permit the continued rule of the CCP, including a massive domestic security apparatus and the world’s largest military, a growing standard of living and state control over media and information available to its people. In many ways, the Chinese leadership have already conducted their own vulnerability analysis and concluded that the free flow of information represents the biggest threat to their power – we can see this in both their words and deeds. China spends more on domestic security than on its own military. The last officially reported figures from the PRC in 2013 show the military budget was approximately 740.6 billion yuan ($119 billion) while domestic security received 769.1 billion yuan ($121 billion).14 Beginning in 2014, the PRC stopped reporting on domestic security spending.15 In 2015, the PRC announced an 11 percent increase in “public security” spending to 154.2 billion yuan, or $24.6 billion. However, the total amount spent on domestic security remains unreported, and is certainly much higher, since regional and provincial figures are not provided. The reported military spending was 886.9 billion yuan, approximately $139 billion.16 Fourteen separate state ministries are charged with domestic censorship responsibilities, everything from traditional press and broadcast media to text messages on cell phones.17 A form of self-censorship has been institutionalized with Chinese internet companies being required to sign a “Public Pledge on Self-Regulation and Professional Ethics for China Internet Industry.”18 In short, China has already shown what it fears most and where it is most vulnerable – it has performed its own “COG analysis” and has identified information control as a critical requirement to maintain CCP dominance.

cyber 3
Figure 3. In 2015, the U.S. and China met to discuss recent cyberspace issues.

A Cyberspace – IO Strategy

China’s regime identifies the free flow of information as an existential threat, and has erected a massive bureaucratic complex to censor and restrict free access to the nearly 618 million (and growing) Chinese internet uses (and 270 million social network users).19 However, the very nature of the Internet as a networked system makes censorship and restricted access difficult to maintain. As has been shown, China’s information control systems represent a critical vulnerability to their center of gravity. China’s network security is managed by a fragmented, disjointed system of “frequently overlapping and conflicting administrative bodies and managing organizations.”20

China’s cyberspace operations and strategy are driven primarily by domestic concerns, with its central imperative being the preservation of Communist Party rule. Domestic security, economic growth and modernization, territorial integrity and the potential use of cyberspace for military operations define China’s understanding. Even its diplomatic and international policies are built around giving China maneuvering room to interpret international norms, rules and standards to serve domestic needs, principally through the primacy of state sovereignty. This creates a natural tension, as China must seek to balance economic growth and globalization with maintaining the Party’s firm grip on power. Not only is Internet usage controlled and censored, but it is also a tool for state propaganda.21

Chinese authorities use a number of techniques to control the flow of information. All internet traffic from the outside world must pass through one of three large computer centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou – the so-called “Great Firewall of China.” Inbound traffic can be intercepted and compared to a regularly updated list of forbidden keywords and websites and the data blocked.22 Common censorship tactics23 include:

  • Blocking access to specific Internet Protocol (IP) addresses;
  • Domain Name System (DNS) filtering and redirection, preventing the DNS from resolving or returning an incorrect IP address;
  • Uniform Resource Locator (URL) filtering, scanning the targeted website for keywords and blocking the site, regardless of the domain name;
  • Packet filtering, which terminates Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) transmission when a certain number of censored keywords are detected. This is especially useful against search engine requests.
  • “Man-in-the-Middle” attack, allowing a censor to monitor, alter or inject data into a communication channel;
  • TCP connection reset, disrupting the communication data link between two points;
  • Blocking of Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections; and
  • Network Enumeration, which initiates an unsolicited connection to computers (usually in the United States) for the purpose of blocking IP addresses. This is usually targeted against secure network systems or anonymity networks like “Tor.”

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Figure 4. Simplified Chinese Firewall Topology[xxiv].
China also heavily regulates and monitors Internet service providers, Internet cafes, and university bulletin board systems. It requires registration of websites and blogs, and has conducted a number of high profile arrests and crackdowns on both dissidents and Internet service providers. This “selective targeting” has created an “undercurrent of fear and promoted self-censorship.” The government employs thousands who monitor and censor Internet activity as well as promote CCP propaganda.25

China’s information control regime is vulnerable on a number of levels to a coordinated strategy that seeks to hold it at risk. From a technical standpoint, the distributed nature of the internet makes it inherently vulnerable, the “Great Firewall” notwithstanding. The techniques used to filter and block content have a number of workarounds available to the average person. For example, IP addresses that have been blocked may be accessed utilizing a proxy server – an intermediary server that allows the user to bypass computer filters. DNS filtering and redirection can be overcome by modifying the Host file or directly typing in the IP address (64.233.160.99) instead of the domain name (www.google.com). These are simple examples that a novice government censor can easily outwit, but the point remains.

China has long been rightfully accused of being a state-sponsor of cybercrime and theft of intellectual property. One negative consequence of this from China’s perspective is the high level of cybercrime within China “due in large part to rampant use and distribution of pirated technology” which creates vulnerabilities. It is estimated that 54.9 percent of computers in China are infected with viruses, and that 1,367 out of 2,714 government portals examined in 2013 “reported security loopholes.”26 China’s networks themselves, by virtue of their size and scope, represent a gaping vulnerability.

At the same time, China’s information control bureaucracy is especially unwieldy. This is an ideal target to exploit the seams and gaps both horizontally and vertically in their notoriously byzantine structure. The fourteen agencies that conduct internet monitoring and censorship operations must all compete for resources and the attention of policy makers, leading to organizational conflict and competition. Any strategy should exploit these fissures, complicating China’s ability to control information.

Part 2 will outline several lines of effort the U.S. might pursue to attack China’s critical vulnerabilities in its information control system. It will advance the notion that the full range of American power – overt, covert, diplomatic, economic, information and military – must be coordinated and managed at the national level to wage a successful information operations campaign. Based on America’s past success, the future may be brighter than it first appears. Read Part 2 here.

LT Robert “Jake” Bebber USN is a Cryptologic Warfare Officer assigned to United States Cyber Command. His previous assignments have included serving as an Information Operations officer in Afghanistan, Submarine Direct Support Officer and the Fleet Information Warfare Officer for the U.S. Seventh Fleet. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Central Florida. His writing has appeared in Proceedings, Parameters, Orbis and elsewhere. He lives in Millersville, Maryland and is supported by his wife, Dana and their two sons, Vincent and Zachary. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy or U.S. Cyber Command. He welcomes your comments at jbebber@gmail.com.

1 Charles Hagel. “The Defense Innovation Initiative .” Memorandum for Deputy Secretary of Defense. Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, November 15, 2014.

2 Robert Bebber. “Countersurge: A Better Understanding of the Rise of China and the Goals of U.S. Policy in East Asia.” Orbis 59 no. 1 (2015): 49-61.

3 Kissinger, Henry. On China. (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2012).

4 David Lai. “Learning from the Stones: A Go Approach to Mastering China’s Strategic Concept, Shi.” U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. May 1, 2004, accessed Decmeber 26, 2014. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=378

5 Shawn W. Brimley. “The Third Offset Strategy: Security America’s Military-Technical Advantage.” Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. Washington, D.C., December 2, 2014.

6 David.Ochmanek. “The Role of Maritime and Air Power in the DoD’s Third Offset Strategy.” Testimoney Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. Washington, D.C., December 2, 2014.

7 This list is certainly not exhaustive. For a more thorough review of the ones mentioned, see:. Brimley, Shawn W. “The Third Offset Strategy: Security America’s Military-Technical Advantage.” Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. Washington, D.C., December 2, 2014. Martinage, Robert. “Statement Before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces on the Role of Maritime and Air Power in DoD’s Third Offset Strategy.” Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. Washington, D.C., December 2, 2014. Ochmanek, David. “The Role of Maritime and Air Power in the DoD’s Third Offset Strategy.” Testimoney Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. Washington, D.C., December 2, 2014.

8 Thomas G. Mahnken.”The Reagan Administration’s Strategy Toward the Soviet Union.” In Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present, by Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

9 Milan N. Vego. Joint Operational Warfare – Theory and Practice. (Newport, RI: Government Printing Office, 2007) VII-13-29.

10 Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operational Planning. (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2011).

11 Vego, Joint Operational Warfare – Theory and Practice, VII-15

12 Ibid, VII-15.

13 Joint Publication 5.0 defines Critical Capability as “A means that is considered a crucial enabler for a center of gravity to function as such and is essential to the accomplishment of the specified or assumed objective(s);” Critical Requirement as “An essential condition, resource, and means for a critical capability to be fully operational;” and Critical Vulnerability as “An aspect of a critical requirement which is deficient or vulnerable to direct or indirect  attack that will create decisive or significant effects.”

14 Ben Blanchard and John Ruwich. “China Hikes Defense Budget, To Spend More on Internal Security.” Reuters, March 5, 2013, accessed December 23, 2014.http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/05/us-china-parliament-defence-idUSBRE92403620130305  

15 Michael Martina. “China Withholds Full Domestic Security-Spending Figure.” Reuters, March 4, 2014, accessed September 25, 2015.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/05/us-china-parliament-security-idUSBREA240B720140305

16 Ting Shi and Keith Zhai. “China To Boost Security Spending as Xi Fights Dissent, Terrorism.” Bloomberg News, March 5, 2015 accessed September 25, 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-05/china-to-boost-security-spending-as-xi-fights-dissent-terrorism

17 Michael Wines, Sharon LaFraniere, and Jonathan Ansfield. “China’s Censors Tackle and Trip Over the Internet.” The New York Times, April 7, 2010, accessed December 23, 2014.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08censor.html

18 Biena Xu. Media Censorship in China. February 2014, accessed December 23, 2014. http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515

19 Ibid..

20 Amy Chang. Warring State: China’s Cybersecurity Strategy. (Washginton, D.C.: Center for a New American Security, 2014) 12.

21 Rebecca MacKinnon. “Flatter World and Thicker Walls? Blogs, Censorship and Civic Discourse in China.” Public Choice 134 (2008): 31-46.

22 Michael Wines, Sharon LaFraniere, and Jonathan Ansfield. “China’s Censors Tackle and Trip Over the Internet.”

23 Jonathan Zittrain, and Benjamin Edelman. “Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China.” Harvard Law School Berkman Center for Internet and Society. March 20, 2003, accessed December 23, 2014. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/

24 Available at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4931595

25 Thomas Lum, Patricia Moloney Figliona, and Matthew C. Weed. China, Internet Freedom, and U.S. Policy. Report for Congress, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2013).

26 Amy Chang. Warring State: China’s Cybersecurity Strategy. 15. 

Asia-Pacific

The US-China Arrangement for Air-to-Air Encounters Weakens International Law

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This article originally featured on Lawfare and is republished with permission. It may be read in its original form here. 

By James Kraska and Raul “Pete” Pedrozo

As part of the September 2015 fanfare visit by Xi Xinping to the United States, the United States and China signed an arrangement on rules of behavior for safety of air-to-air encounters of military aircraft. The deal is supposed to avert aviation incidents in international airspace between military aircraft of the United States and China. In a deadly 2001 incident, for example, a Chinese F-8 fighter jet interceptor collided with a U.S. EP-3 aircraft that was operating more than 75 miles from Hainan Island, causing the loss of the Chinese aircraft and pilot, and an emergency landing in China by the U.S. surveillance aircraft. Similarly, in August 2014, a Chinese fighter jet roared over, under, and in front of a U.S. P-8 maritime patrol aircraft – coming as close as 50 feet to the American aircraft – about 135 miles east of Hainan Island. The Chinese jet climbed vertically with its underbelly showing in front of the U.S. aircraft to display its under wing combat load out.

After China’s establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea in 2013, Beijing appears poised to adopt a similar zone over the South China Sea. Over the past 18 months, China has constructed three airstrips on artificial islands in the Spratlys that are capable of handling the country’s most advanced military aircraft. China has also deployed surface-to-air missiles to Woody Island in the Paracels and has installed high-frequency radar systems on four of the reefs that it occupies in the Spratlys, which significantly enhances the ability of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to monitor surface and air traffic in and over the South China Sea.

The new “Rules of Behavior for Safety of Air-to-Air Encounters” (Air Rules) is not a legally binding instrument, so it does not create any new substantive obligations. The agreement also does not create any new norms, as customary international law already requires military aircraft to fly in accordance with the rules applicable to civilian aircraft “to the extent practicable,” and to exercise due regard during air-to-air encounters. China wanted (and obtained) the deal as a trophy of great power status and strategic equivalence.

The Air Rules are likely to be a fruitless exercise to bring China back into compliance with international norms and its preexisting legal obligations. But if the deal merely restates existing obligations then what is the harm? We view the new Air Rules as more than just a superfluous agreement. The Air Rules reflect orthodox liberal internationalism and the belief among many U.S. international lawyers and policy makers that the international system is made safer and more stable and secure by enmeshing states in a continually expanding web of new commitments. Often, as is the case with the Air Rules, the specific terms of an instrument, the fact that an agreement does not reflect an actual meeting of the minds, or a lack of compliance with its provisions, are deemed less important than the good vibes hopefully generated by signing something. But the Air Rules erode confidence in international law as an effective element of diplomacy and security and diminishes more authoritative sources of law by adding an additional layer of ambiguity and confusion. Moreover, a bilateral deal plays into China’s claim that the issues concerning air-to-air interactions between Chinese fighter jets and the slow and vulnerable American wide body aircraft involve good faith differences over the law between Washington and Beijing, rather than China unilaterally breaking with universal norms to drive U.S. surveillance from the region.

Specific problems with the Air Rules include:

  • The arrangement states that the parties “should” operate consistent with the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) and its Annexes and guidance….” Yet the Chicago Convention is legally binding; the Air Rules fail to state that the United States and China “shall” comply with its terms in accordance with their legal commitments. The Chicago Convention reflects the norm of customary international law that aircraft will fly with “due regard” for the safety of other aircraft, so the United States and China are already bound to observe this norm as a matter of law. The requirement in the Annex that the parties “should” operate consistent with the Chicago Convention dilutes the existing legal duty. This section of Annex III should have stated that the parties “shall operate” consistent with the Chicago Convention; it does not and international law has been weakened.
  • The arrangement says that the two powers are to “encourage” active communications during air-to-air encounters, but then states the opposite by specifically indicating that there is no obligation to communicate during such events.
  • The arrangement requires the two states to maintain safe separation of aerial forces using their own “national rules,” although China’s national rules are incompatible with its own treaty obligations in international law. Referencing China’s unlawful national rules in the Air Rules lends them undeserved credibility that undermines the rule of law in the airspace over the oceans.  
  • Furthermore, while the arrangement states that an intercepting aircraft should maintain a “safe separation” with other aircraft, it also says that the “intercepted” aircraft should “avoid reckless maneuvers.” This language clearly recalls the 2001 EP-3 incident described above, in which the Chinese side accused the slower and larger, multi-engine EP-3 aircraft of intentionally turning into the F-8 interceptor. This incredulous claim and the reference in the Air Rules for intercepted aircraft to avoid reckless maneuvers helps China avoid responsibility for past aggressive interceptions. Future scenarios are likely to raise similar facts – Chinese fighter jets intercepting slower U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. The text that attempts to balance or equate responsibilities for avoiding air-to-air incidents implicitly supports China’s effort to avoid responsibility for such incidents.
  •  The arrangement considers establishment of warning areas or danger areas using the worldwide Notice to Mariners (NOTAM) system. This provision is also an existing legal requirement and therefore superfluous. China currently does not comply with this legally binding requirement, so why would it now comply with a new, nonbinding requirement to do the same thing?
  • The arrangement states both sides should implement “in good faith” the 2014 Code for Unalerted Encounters at Sea (CUES). This “good faith” requirement is notoriously ambiguous in international law, and in practical terms is not an obligation to do anything. Furthermore, China already has signed CUES, so it already has a preexisting duty to implement it in good faith regardless of what is included in the new Air Rules. Rather than focus on getting China to comply with the nonbinding CUES, it would be better to insist that China fulfill its binding and longstanding legal commitments.
  • The arrangement indicates that aircraft are entitled to freedom of navigation and overflight in warning areas, but this provision is already a legally binding obligation that China ignores. Will the new, nonbinding Air Rules encourage compliance? Furthermore, China has long insisted that the right of freedom of navigation and overflight is limited to non-military ships and aircraft, or is subject to coastal state requirements, such as prior notification or consent.
  • Finally, the arrangement states that aircraft “should” avoid certain actions that may be seen as provocative, much like the Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA) between the superpowers during the Cold War. Once again, however, this legally nonbinding provision is already subsumed by the legal requirement to exercise due regard during air-to-air encounters.

China’s dangerous interception of U.S. aircraft in international airspace violates long-standing and legally binding rules and norms of international law, so adding a new layer of nonbinding provisions merely creates unhelpful ambiguity and dilutes China’s preexisting legal obligations. Since lawyers are experts in the craft of statutory interpretation, saying the same thing in a different way can actually weaken rather than strengthen the underlying norm because it adds additional grist to the interpretative mill.

Besides the political significance of the agreement, the Air Rules are a new plank in China’s unremitting campaign of lawfare. The Air Rules either fail to invoke the appropriate legal terms of art or contain counterproductive and unorthodox references designed to place the United States in a worse light and provide China with colorable arguments to justify its unlawful behavior in the aftermath of the next air-to-air encounter.

The superfluous nature of the arrangement is also not helpful to the United States. There is a view among liberal internationalists that mention of preexisting international obligations in new agreements helps to reinforce them, and this approach perpetuates a compliance spiral that brings states closer together. But China already understands its existing legal obligations and chooses not to comply, so repeating them in oblique terms in a non-binding agreement only serves to weaken the very terms the United States seeks to reinforce. 

James Kraska is Howard S. Levie Professor of International Law at the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, U.S. Naval War College, Distinguished Fellow at the Law of the Sea Institute, University of California at Berkeley School of Law, and Senior Fellow, Center for Oceans Law and Policy, University of Virginia School of Law.

Raul “Pete” Pedrozo is Deputy General Counsel for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). Previously he was a Professor of International Law in the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College, where he now serves as a Non-Resident Scholar.

Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis

Japan’s Izumo-class Helicopter Destroyer: An Aircraft Carrier in Disguise?

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By Matthew Gamble

The Land of the Rising Sun has been quietly strengthening its military capabilities and procuring advanced equipment amid the ongoing debate over whether to amend Article 9 of the country’s constitution. Though officially called the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF), the Japanese Navy boasts an impressive array of hardware and if the country’s ruling party has its way with the constitution, its capability will only get stronger.

To increase the potency of the JMSDF even further, the acquisition of aircraft carriers (CVs) would be a logical next step. Yet, as CVs can best be described as seagoing airbases with significant offensive capabilities, Japan’s pacifist constitution prohibits their use in its navy. Destroyers (DDs) on the other hand rely on speed and maneuverability and are easily employed in defensive roles, criteria deemed acceptable under the Japanese Constitution. Therefore, to accommodate this unique political limitation, the Japanese have designated one of their latest vessels as a “helicopter destroyer” (DDH) but with capabilities akin to those of an aircraft carrier.

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American Nimitz class supercarrier besides Izumo and Hyuga class vessels of the JMSDF.

Enter the vessel in question: the JS Izumo (DDH-183), commissioned on March 25th, 2015. Officially classified as a $1.2 billion “helicopter destroyer”, this warship is the largest constructed by Japan since the Second World War, and at first glance bears a striking resemblance to a light aircraft carrier. With an impressive length of 248 meters and a beam of 38 meters, the vessel is larger than short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) carriers operating in the Spanish and Italian navies. Likewise, its fully-loaded displacement of 24,000 tonnes and 7.3 meter draft put the Izumo class in a category similar to that of the Invincible class carriers commissioned by the Royal Navy. Altogether, the scale of these vessels represents a major advance in Japan’s maritime defense capabilities, significantly increasing the country’s ability to project force.

Equipped with the latest in electronic warfare, fire control, and radar systems, the Izumo class has been designed with the battlefield of the 21st century in mind. According to Janes Defense, the Izumo class will carry up to 14 helicopters- primarily Japanese-built MCH-101s and SH-60Ks equipped for anti-submarine warfare or search-and-rescue operations. For closer encounters, the Izumo is equipped with the Phalanx and SeaRam close-in weapons systems (CIWS), capable of defeating most forms of incoming ordnance.

Furthermore, the Izumo class boasts the exceptional capability of supporting amphibious assault operations as the ships have the capacity to embark up to 400 marines and approximately 50 light vehicles. However, unlike the American Wasp-class, the Izumo is not equipped with a well deck and relies on its compliment of helicopters to provide embarked marines with the ability to rapidly deploy in amphibious operations.

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Izumo with helicopters ready on the flight deck.

The Izumo will be supplemented by the JS Kaga (DDH-184), launched in late-August 2015 and expected to be commissioned sometime in 2017. Named after the Japanese province, the second ship of the Izumo class has the dubious honor of sharing the same designation as the infamous IJN Kaga- an aircraft carrier that took part in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and served with the Imperial Japanese Navy until scuttled at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Unsurprisingly, the choice in name has raised eyebrows given the current Kaga’s aircraft carrier-like appearance.

Though the Izumo and her sister ship Kaga lack catapults or a “ski-jump” to assist conventional fixed-wing aircraft (such as the F/A-18) during take-off and arrestor cables for their recovery, the potential for operating STOVL aircraft from these vessels is high. For instance, in addition to greater size, major alterations were made to the design of the flight deck from Japan’s previous Hyuga class of helicopter destroyers. The new Izumos remove obstacles from the flight deck and rearrange equipment that would prevent the launch and recovery of fixed-wing aircraft. The CIWS system mounted on the foredeck of the Hyuga class has been moved well to the side, opening up the much needed space necessary for fixed-wing operations. Moreover, the aft vertical launch silo has also been removed, allowing for greater ease of aircraft recovery. By and large, changes such as these are critical for allowing the vessel to operate fixed-wing aircraft.

Should Japanese leaders decide to include a compliment of fixed-wing aircraft on the Izumo class, STOVL or vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft would be necessary as the ship’s basic design lacks the size of catapult assisted take-off barrier arrested recovery (CATOBAR) carriers. Though currently slated to be delivered to the country’s air force, domestic production of the Lockheed-Martin F-35A JSF is already underway in Nagoya. It is unclear, however, whether Japan will produce or purchase the F-35B- the model of the JSF with the STOVL capability necessary for the aircraft to operate from any Izumo class vessel.

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A F-35B practices vertical take off and landing.

To accommodate the JSF, a few key modifications to the class would be necessary. Thermion coating, like that used on the Wasp class, would need to be applied to protect it from the extreme heat created by the F-35’s exhaust during vertical landing. Second, a ski-jump similar to those employed on most European carriers would likely be needed to assist the JSF during take-off, though this is not an absolute necessity as preliminary testing on the Wasp class has demonstrated. Moreover, since Japan has ordered the V-22 Osprey, its addition to the ship’s complement is likely. Should a complement of F-35’s and V-22’s be added to the Izumo and Kaga, Japan would boast an increased maritime strike capability, signaling Japan’s increasing military power to its rivals.

Overall, the capabilities of the new Izumo class “helicopter destroyers” represent a step up for the JMSDF. Though in their current configuration the vessels are not capable of fielding conventional fixed-wing aircraft, with minor adjustments and a compliment of STOVL aircraft, the Izumo class would boast similar capabilities to light aircraft carriers currently serving around the world.

Given this potential, simply calling these ships “helicopter destroyers” could be construed as misleading, or even deceptive. Therefore, we can surmise that the classification is largely for political purposes, as the inherently offensive capability of aircraft carriers would run counter to the values espoused in Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Whether the JMSDF decides to further develop the capability of these ships has yet to be seen; however, the potential is there and serves as a warning to China and the DPRK that Japan is indeed a maritime power to be reckoned with.

Matthew Gamble is an International Relations student at St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His interests primarily focus on the foreign policy of Eurasian states, and new developments in warfighting capability.

Asia-Pacific, Global Analysis

Ships and Shipbuilding in India through a Sino-Indian Prism

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This article originally featured on Bharat Shakti. It may be read in its original form here. 

By Vice Admiral Pradeep Chauhan, AVSM & Bar, VSM, IN (Ret.)

The year 2022 arrived as a harried harbinger of tidings of war and woe in the Indo-Pacific — a geo-strategic region central to the security calculus of both, regional and extra-regional players.  From the United States of America to Japan, strategic advisers and military practitioners began reading-up their several carefully-prepared contingency plans, each focused upon the increasingly violent writhing of the Chinese dragon.

Although the danger-signs of a precipitous economic decline within the People’s Republic had appeared even before 2015, the sheer speed of contraction of the Chinese economy took the world completely by surprise.  The internal repercussions within China were so extreme that news of the violent unrest within the Middle Kingdom easily transcended the efforts made by the CCP to keep matters under wraps.  Widespread rioting became commonplace as socio-economic fault lines — centred upon income inequality, curbs on rural labour becoming permanent urban-dwellers, and the huge economic disparity between southern coastal cities and the hinterland — could no longer be papered over by ‘gloss’ and ‘bling.’

The CCP’s recurring nightmare of regime-collapse threatened to become a grim reality.  Faced with increasingly belligerent responses from the USA, India, Vietnam, the Philippines — and even Indonesia — to its earlier attempts to convert the South China Sea into a Chinese lake through machinations such as the Nine Dash Line, the Chinese leadership turned to the oldest trick in the book to reunite the country.  It pointed to a ‘malevolent’ axis of alignment between India, the USA, Japan and Australia as being responsible for a series of carefully orchestrated actions designed specifically to stunt and reverse China’s economic miracle. Indian duplicity was specifically and repeatedly referred-to and, in the ensuing vituperative polemics, much was made of teaching ‘upstart’ India a lasting lesson.  Chinese media was repeatedly drawing the people’s attention to Indian adventurism along the still-unresolved border.

As a supposed ‘restrained and proportionate response’, deep incursions by Chinese troops began across the entire Sino-Indian border.  Most worrying to India was the significant Chinese build-up in Demchok and in the Chumbi Valley.  Paying scant regard to the protestations of Bhutan, Chinese troops had begun occupying the western extremities of Bhutan that they had been long been claiming as their own.  This widened the ‘point’ of the Chumbi Valley and the danger to India’s ‘Chicken’s neck’ was seen as being clear and present.

Over the past few years, Indian mountain infrastructure had certainly improved, but was far from ideal.  Nevertheless, New Delhi directed its newly raised Mountain Strike Corps (its embryonic state notwithstanding), to deploy in the Gaygong-Geegong gap.  IAF Forward Air Bases in Nyoming, Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) and several more in Arunachal Pradesh were brought up to full combat capability and ammunition pre-positioned.  The roar of Su-30 aircraft became incessant at Tezpur.

Many forward-looking Indian planners had high hopes of the Indian Navy being able to achieve a ‘strategic outflanking’ of the Chinese at sea — yet, the Chinese Navy seemed to have pre-empted matters:  In the Gulf of Aden, the 44th Chinese anti-piracy Escort Force, comprising two Luyang-II (Type 052C) destroyers, one Jiangkai-II (Type 054A) frigate and one Fuchi Class (Type 903A) replenishment ship, was supplemented by a significant flotilla consisting of four Luyang-III (Type 052D) destroyers led by the Changsha, six Jiangkai-II frigates, an Underway Replenishment Group (URG) comprising two Fuchi Class ships, and, oneShang Class SSN.  The ships berthed at Djibouti while the SSN, having called at Karachi, was last reported at the newly-developed submarine berth at Gwadar.

Luyang III: Chinese Missile Destroyer (Picture Courtesy: Chinese Military Review)

Luyang III: Chinese Missile Destroyer (Picture Courtesy: Chinese Military Review)

Just north of Indonesia’s Natuna Island, a confirmed sighting was registered of a Chinese amphibious flotilla centred upon the aircraft carrier Liaoning, along with three Luyang-III destroyers, three Sovremenny Class destroyers, three Jiangwei-II and four Jiangkai-I Class frigates, apparently escorting four Yuzhao Class LPDs and accompanied by two Type 901 Fast Combat Support SHIP (FCSS).  Three Zulfiquar Class frigates of the Pakistan Navy — an unusually large number — had also been deployed with the ‘Coalition Task Force 150’, while three Agosta-90B submarines (all capable of Air-Independent Propulsion) were notably absent from any of Pakistan’s naval harbours.  It was manifestly clear that battle lines had been drawn….

How and under which circumstances the Government of India might realise and decide that the Union of India — in its entirety (as opposed to just the Army) — was in a state of armed conflict against the People’s Republic of China is a matter of conjecture and debate. Yet, the above scenario provides a plausible enough backdrop against which the state of advancement of Indian warships and warship-building needs to be examined.

Tonnage is a very good indicator of the ability of a warship to endure the violence of the maritime environment — something that generally increases with distance from the coast.  Thus, warships of heavier displacement-tonnage are more likely to be suitable for protracted deployments in ‘blue waters’ than are those of lighter displacement-tonnage.

INS Kolkata (Picture Courtesy: Indian Defence News)

INS Kolkata (Picture Courtesy: Indian Defence News)

In this regard, the tonnage of the Indian Navy’s frontline surface-combatants (guided-missile destroyers and frigates) — taken individually as well as collectively over the 25-year period from 1995 to 2020 — shows a consistent and impressive increase.  However, the Chinese Navy, too, has been demonstrating a nearly identical trend.  This is a clear sign of the steady consolidation of the ‘Blue-water’ capacities of both navies, and may be readily discerned from the following graphs.  Contemporary DDGs in both navies have displacement-tonnages in the region of 7,000 tonnes, making them eminently suitable for protracted deployments in distant waters. It may also be seen that the Indian Navy has far fewer classes of Guided Missile Destroyers (DDGs) than does its Chinese counterpart.

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The reverse is true when it comes to Guided Missile Frigates (FFG).  Here, the Indian Navy’s contemporary classes are certainly pushing the limits of what might reasonably be termed a ‘frigate.’  In most countries, ships of the Shivalik Class and those of ‘Project 17A’ to follow — both classes displacing 7000 tonnes or more — would be certainly categorised as ‘destroyers.’  Were this to be done, the number of ship-classes in both categories (DDGs and FFGs) would be very similar in both navies.

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INS Satpura

INS Satpura.

The past and projected growth of the Indian Navy in terms of numbers of DDGs and FFGs over the period from 1995 to 2020 may be seen through the following graphical depiction, which details the numbers of warships in each class of destroyers and frigates respectively.

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It is important to note that while the tonnage of the individual warship-classes that constitute each navy has been rising, and while

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there is not much to give or take between the comparative tonnages of Chinese and Indian frigates or destroyers, it is the stark disparity in the sheer numbers of Chinese and Indian warships that make the overall tonnage that each navy can put to sea so different from each other. The huge impact that these ‘numbers’ have in terms of the overall tonnage that both navies can put to sea may be readily discerned once these are plotted on the same scale.

What all this brings out quite starkly is that although Indian warship construction / induction is certainly picking-up and although the tonnage-trend is a healthy one, it is, nevertheless, very nearly a case of ‘too-little-too-late.’ Indian ship-building has to show a dramatic increase of the type shown by Chinese shipyards, most especially in the period after 2010.

This, of course, is a realisation that is somewhat more sobering than the breezy optimism that comes embedded in the official pronouncements that emanate from New Delhi.  Despite the proclivity of our defence shipyards to ‘cut-off their noses to spite their faces’ by refusing to accept their capacity-limitations and encourage private players, there is an urgent need for greenfield shipyards in the country to either build relatively low-end platforms so as to free-up capacity in the more established defence shipyards, or to take up construction of major surface-combatants themselves.  The latter could, perhaps, be under a ‘prime system-integrator’ model as was done for the Daring Class ‘Type 45’ guided-missile destroyers of the British Royal Navy. As such. there is, enormous scope for private players in the national effort to ratchet-up numbers in the Indian Navy’s DDG and FFG holdings.

5_PradeepChauhanIn the interim, the Government of India and its Navy will have to rely upon nimble-footedness at the strategic level as well as at the level of operational art, so that even if a conflict with China arise, the entire numerical strength of the principal combatants of the Chinese Navy are not capable of being arrayed against it en masse.  The plans and strategems for this, are, of course, subjects for a far more detailed analysis.

Yet, there is some cause for quiet satisfaction, too.  For instance, the overall combat capabilities — comprising the various  weapon-sensor suites, the software-intensive integration systems, the integral-air capacity, and, the propulsion and power-generation plants — of both, contemporary Indian guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) and guided-missile frigates (FFGs) compare quite favourably with those of the Chinese Navy.  In a combat encounter between major surface combatants, the Indian Navy is very likely to acquit itself well. For this, the uniformed and civilian segments of the Indian Navy (they are very nearly equal in numbers), the DRDO and our ship-builders must be given much credit. That said, naval warfare is typically one in which the ‘hunter’ and the ‘hunted’ switch roles with disconcerting frequency and often operate in entirely different mediums.  Thus, the capability of current and future Indian warships must also be assessed against air threats (including anti-ship missiles) and underwater threats emanating from both, conventionally and nuclear-propelled submarines.

Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) within most parts of the northern Indian Ocean — most especially in the Arabian Sea — is adversely impacted by a ubiquitous negative temperature-gradient. This significantly shortens the detection range of hull-mounted sonars.  On the other hand, towed-array sonars and ship-mounted variable-depth sonars impose often-unaffordable operational penalties in terms of maneuverability and speed — quite apart from a host of maintenance-related technological challenges that industry needs to wrestle with.

Scorpene submarine (Picture Courtesy: Daily Mail, UK)

Scorpene submarine (Picture Courtesy: Daily Mail, UK)

Indian FFG and DDG ship-designs have long featured the carriage of two 10-13 tonne multi-role / ASW helicopters aboard every such platform. An ASW helicopter, equipped with a variable-depth sonar with high-end processing capabilities, sonobuoys, and a good EW suite, is the optimum platform for seaborne ASW and the Navy requires these in adequate numbers so as to take advantage of the potential offered by excellent ship-design.  For the present, the absence of multi-role helicopters has rendered this design-advantage null and void. Much promise was initially held out by the indigenous ‘Advanced Light Helicopter’ (ALH) Dhruv.  However, the technological challenges of folding rotor-blades and minimising the downwash while the helicopter is in hover continue to frustrate efforts to embed this helicopter within the integral-air capacity of the Indian Navy.

As and when our otherwise very-capable surface-combatants need to operate in a combat-environment characterised by a substantive subsurface threat, this lack of integral ASW helicopters might well prove decisive. In contrast, Chinese ships have a carrying-capacity of just a single helicopter, but successful reverse-engineering of the French Dauphin has resulted in the Harbin-Z that is integral to Chinese warships.

Perhaps the most telling factor weighing in favour of the ‘reach’ of the Chinese Navy is its impressive holding of refuelling-tankers and stores/ammunition-supply ships, particularly those capable of ‘underway replenishment.’

Qiandaohu Ship (Picture Courtesy: en.people.cn)

Qiandaohu Ship (Picture Courtesy: en.people.cn)

The six Qiandaohu Class (Type 903A) replenishment vessels displace 23,000 tonnes, compared with the two 19500-tonne replenishment-tankers of the Indian Navy’s Deepak Class.  Although the five Dayun Class (Type 904) stores-supply ships of the Chinese Navy are incapable of underway replenishment, they do add significantly to their Navy’s amphibious follow-on capacity.  Seeking to catch-up, the Government of India had floated a global Request for Information (RFI) for the construction of five large 40,000-tonne ‘Fleet Support Ships’ for the Indian Navy.  Although the delivery of the first ship has been specified as 36 months (with subsequent ships being delivered at six-monthly intervals), there is little evidence as yet of any significant progress. This notwithstanding, opportunities for Indian industry in terms of the equipment-fit of these ships is, once again, enormous.

In conclusion, if India is to be able to handle the fictitious 2022-scenario that this brief piece began with, there is an urgent need to address the shortfall in numbers of major-combatants and fleet-support ships. It is true that over 45 warships are currently building in Indian shipyards, but the rate of production is painfully slow and as a consequence, the numbers may not be enough in the available time before such a scenario shifts from absorbing fiction into frightening fact.

Vice Admiral Pradeep Chauhan (ret.) retired as Commandant of the Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala. An alumnus of the prestigious National Defence College.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BharatShakti.in)