Category Archives: Europe

Analysis related to USEUCOM

Europe, Global Analysis

OP-WEST: Open Source Intel in Contested Maritime Spaces

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An interview with Michael J. Sanchez

Introduction. While the Indian-Pacific Ocean, and in particular the South and East China Seas, have attracted the most media and scholarly attention in recent years, the use of limited force in contested maritime spaces can also be observed in other corners of the world, even among NATO allies. The case of Gibraltar is interesting, among other reasons, because it features the collection and distribution of open source intelligence by local citizens. In a world where the lines between the military, coastguard and police forces, other state agencies, and private sector operators, are increasingly blurred, this initiative should be of interest to anybody who follows maritime and naval issues. Welcome to OpWest, a non-for-profit private initiative.

1.- What is OpWest and how was it born?

OP West is a naval/maritime observation service for the Bay of Gibraltar and Strait of Gibraltar (STROG). It commenced in June 2011. The concept is primarily to to make people aware of the daily occurences within the Bay of Gibraltar and its surrounding sea area known as British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTWs). This is as a result of Spanish pressure and non recognition of the administration/competency/jurisdiction of these waters by Gibraltar, resulting in confrontations. This pressure by Spain is a resurrection of its outdated policy to claim the soveriegnty of the Rock of Gibraltar.

OP West also serves to highlight and inform the public of illegal incursions by Spanish State vessels that occur on an almost daily basis and are a cause for concern and alarm to many. OP West strives to inform the general public of naval affairs within STROG as reasonabily and responsibly as possible. OP West is vigilant to help provide and promote navigational safety.

2.- Could you tell us a bit more about its historical precedents?

The origins of OP West can be traced back to 1977 as a simple hobby of recording warship arrivals at Her Majestys Naval Base Gibraltar(HMNBG).

3.- How is information collected?

Information is gathered rather painstakingly on a daily basis by scouring for open source material in internet, newspapers,radio/television and oral reports. This is then put together, analized and a picture formed. Rather like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. The most important factor is the human element. Experience over a vast amount of years of observation provides one with the necessary expertise in the process of identification of vessels and the interpretation of actions.

4.- Are you planning to deploy any drone or unmanned vessel as part of OpWest?

There is no intention of operating any drones or other unmanned craft. Outside the remit and aims of OP West.

5.- In addition to your Twitter account (@key2med ), how is information spread?

Most information is distributed via social media(Twitter) and other contacts.

6.- Is OPSEC (operational security) a concern? How do you ensure that information is not used by terrorists or criminals?

OPSEC is always at the forefront of OP Wests concerns when making decisions to disseminate information. All information gathered is carefully evaluated. Any sightings or observations that might be deemed as prejudicial are either time lapsed, exact locations and headings not given, or in many cases not at all. OP West takes OPSEC extremely seriously.

7.- Given rising tensions between Russia and NATO, and the former’s use of the nearby port of Ceuta as a de facto base, have you perceived any increased interest in OpWest?

There has definitely been an upsurge of interest in OP Wests reporting of Russian Naval movements in and out of Ceuta particulary, since it is one of the few sources if any that provides this service.

8.- An incident in 2013 featured divers, how can such incursions be detected?

I believe the incident in question involved Guardia Civil divers. This was in August 2013. The Spanish divers photographed and measured a series of cement blocks laid by the Government of Gibraltar to promote an artifical reef for environmental purposes within BGTWs. This was a flagrant breach of sovereignty . Months later a block was actually removed by Spanish civilian divers in defiance of our jurisidiction in these waters .It was indeed a theft of Government property.

These incidents highligted the lack of supervision on the part of the local law enforcement agencies and their inability to protect BGTWs.

Little can be done to stop these underwater incursions but better and more patrolling of BGTWs is of paramount importance. There should always be at least one vessel at sea on a 24hrs basis. Sadly this is lacking.

9.- Do you believe OpWest’s experience may be useful in other contested maritime spaces featuring revisionist powers?

OpWest is willing to impart on experience gained over the years to anyone with legitimate aims.

10.- Do you expect the number of incidents to keep rising this year?

Very difficult question. Short answer is yes. If the Partido Popular wins the next elections, there can be no doubt that these unwanted illegal incursion will continue and undoudtedly increase.

On a personal note OP West is run by 2 persons who have the dedication and duty to protect our small country from ANY sort of aggression. We love our little bit of land. We were born here as so our ancestors going back over 300 years. OP West provides a unique service. Hundreds of man hours are spent on lookout It can be an unforgiving task at times. OP West can complement and support local law enforcement agencies in their duties, but sadly this has not been taken up. Indeed in some circles OP West is viewed with contempt. We are not going away. Not by any strecth of the imagination. We only ask for respect and acknowledgement of our work. Lots of people have given up their lives to give us free speech and the right to inform and be informed, We owe it to them.

Interview by Alex Calvo, member of CIMSEC.

Africa, Europe, Middle East

Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean: A Contact Group is Needed

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The Mediterranean is in crisis. The flow of migrants trafficked illegally by sea has reached the level of a humanitarian tragedy. It also places a heavy burden on the shipping industry. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) recently convened a meeting to identify ways out of the crisis. As became clear, responding to the crisis requires new forms of coordination. Various actors ranging from humanitarian agencies to coast guards, navies and the shipping industry will have to start to act concertedly. Information on the launch and movement of migrant vessels needs to be shared, but also evidence on the criminal networks organizing the trafficking. At the meeting participants pointed to the parallels to another maritime security crisis: the scourge of piracy off the coast of Somalia. Escalating from 2008-2012, piracy in this area has since been successfully contained. Are there indeed useful lessons from Somali piracy? The results from the ongoing lessons learned project of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, led by Cardiff University, show, there are at least three:

Responding to crisis requires to build trust and reach political consensus among states, but also national and international agencies. The IMO meeting was a right step into this direction, but more will be needed. To fight piracy a contact group was created which worked in a flexible and inclusive manner. The group meets bi-annually and over 80 states and agencies concerned about piracy participate. The Contact Group has also dedicated working groups that meet more frequently and address specific issues, such as the legal situation, or the coordination of criminal investigations. This format allows for consensus building, information exchange and perhaps most importantly to develop shared understandings of the situation and what action is required. In such a format actors met as equals. None is on top, no one on tap. Political tensions and geopolitical disagreements can be circumvented. A contact group format allows for a close engagement with littoral states. Adopted to the migration crisis, it will allow to better integrate the North African states into activities. Creating specialized working groups on operations at sea, coordination with shipping industry, criminal investigations, and harmonizing law is promising to improve the response in the Mediterranean.

Tackling a maritime crisis requires efficient information sharing and coordinated operations. In addition to the Contact Group, in counter-piracy this was achieved through a regular shared awareness meeting, known as SHADE, and an Internet based information sharing network, called Mercury. Mercury is the Facebook of counter-piracy. It allows for speedy communication through online chat, and the voluntary reporting of the position of vessels, aircrafts and patrols. Surveillance can be optimized, rapid responses to incidents organized, and an overall division of labour facilitated. It is a system that has proven to deliver. Focused on operational coordination, it allows to avoid political tensions. SHADE and Mercury were initiated by the three major multi-lateral counter-piracy naval missions led by the EU, NATO and the US. These launched the process and soon handed over the chairmanship that became rotating. A similar system can easily and quickly be installed in the Mediterranean Sea. The two multilateral operations could take the lead, that is, the EU’s Frontex and NATO’s Operation Active Endeavour. Given the significant presence of the U.S. navy in the region, also the US might assume a leading role.

The third major lessons from piracy is that long term solutions lie on land. Although we are facing a maritime crisis, vessels are launched from land and transnational criminal networks, whether it is pirates or human traffickers, require coastal infrastructure and anchorage. When counter-piracy in the Gulf of Aden started Somalia was in a disastrous state. Back then no one believed that it could soon be on the way to a functioning state. Today, the villages that used to harbour pirates have stopped doing so. Somalia has a functioning government. Although it still has a long way to go, it is on the path to recovery. None of this would have been possible without the increased efforts of the entire international community. Today, it is Libya that requires a similar new deal, should there be any prospects to halt the trafficking of migrants.

What should be clear in the meantime: the migration crisis is no longer a European problem. Rightfully, international actors such as IMO and other United Nations agencies have started to engage. Concerted efforts by the entire international community are required. New frameworks of coordination are needed. With all the crisis talk, one should however not forget about long term consequences. Once the immediate crisis is over, the new mechanisms will have to be transferred to other organizations. There is a range of mechanisms in the Mediterranean that could play this role, such as the Union for the Mediterranean or NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue. Addressing the crisis will require new ad hoc solutions. But also a strategy of how the problem can be managed in the long run. This is yet another lesson from counter-piracy.

Further information on the Lessons Learned Project is available at http://www.lessonsfrompiracy.net

Dr. Christian Bueger is Reader in International Relations at Cardiff University. He is the principal Investigator of the ESRC funded Counter-Piracy Governance project [ES/K008358/1] . He is also one of the lead investigators of the Lessons Learned Project of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and an Associate Editor of Piracy-studies.org – The Research Portal for Maritime Security. Further information is available on his personal homepage.

Africa, Capability Analysis, Europe

The Rapid Growth of the Algerian Navy

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The Algerian Navy has been on a buying frenzy in recent years, amassing a significant maritime force. In September 2014, representing the culmination of a longer term procurement project, Italy’s Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN) delivered Algeria’s new flagship, an 8,800-tonne amphibious assault ship called the Kalaat Beni-Abbes. But newer projects than OSN’s are currently underway. A shipyard in Saint Petersburg, Russia is building two new Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines for Algeria, while two MEKO A200-class frigates, three F-22P Zulfiquar-class frigates, and two Tigr-class corvettes are being produced for service in the Algerian National Navy at shipyards ranging from Kiel to Karachi.

z classThis vastly outpaces the procurement projects of Algeria’s neighbours. In 1993, Algeria and Tunisia successfully resolved their maritime boundary dispute and have since launched several joint energy exploration projects. Tunisia’s 2010-2011 revolution and concerns in Algeria that the uprising might bring an Islamist regime to power created some uncertainty, but the bilateral relationship remains on the whole quite positive. Although the nearby Strait of Gibraltar has seen some heightened tension between British and Spanish maritime forces, Algeria is not a party to any of these confrontations. In this context, the aggressive expansion of the Algerian National Navy must be rather confusing.

However, it is possible that Algeria is preparing for a significant counter-piracy role. NATO’s Operation Unified Protector devastated the Libyan Navy. Currently, that country’s maritime forces consist of one Koni-class frigate, one Natya-class minesweeper, and two Polnocny-C landing ships. NATO air strikes in May 2011 totally destroyed Libya’s naval bases at Sirte, Khoms, and Tripoli. While the maritime forces loyal to the Libyan government are small in number and poorly equipped, rebels continue to hold a few ports in Libya’s east, though most were freed in a series of offensives during the summer and autumn of 2014. Earlier, in March 2014, one rebel militia succeeded in loading an oil tanker in defiance of the Libyan authorities, prompting the ouster of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan.

If the Libyan authorities are struggling to secure their own ports, it is conceivable that rebel groups in the country’s eastern regions could engage in piracy in future years. Such a situation would jeopardize Algeria’s economic growth as it seeks to become a major energy exporter to Europe and Asia. In March 2014, Algerian officials announced plans to increase oil and natural gas production by 13% to 220 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent in two years. The resulting increase in tanker traffic on North Africa’s coast would present plenty of prime targets for Libyan pirates.

Yet it remains unclear whether it is indeed a counter-piracy role that is envisioned for the Algerian National Navy. Algeria is not officially cooperating with Operation Active Endeavour, which is NATO’s counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation force in the Mediterranean Sea, though five ships assigned to the NATO Mine Counter-Measures Group did make a port visit to Algiers in September 2014 prior to joining Active Endeavour. In order to avoid conflict from emerging between Algeria and Libya over the security of international shipping routes, it may be necessary for NATO officials to aggressively pursue a closer relationship with both countries.

Through the Mediterranean Dialogue, NATO established an Individual Cooperation Program (ICP) with Israel in 2006, which allows for Israeli participation in Operation Active Endeavour and other mutually beneficial initiatives. Other ICPs were completed with Egypt in 2007 and Jordan in 2009. Securing ICPs with Algeria and Libya, however, will be an uphill battle; Algeria has participated in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue since 2000 but Libya has yet to even respond to a 2012 invitation to join. Nonetheless, it is still an effort worth attempting as it may help to avoid much hardship and conflict in the future. For now, Algeria seems to be bracing for impact.

Paul Pryce is a Research Analyst at the Atlantic Council of Canada. His research interests are diverse and include maritime security, NATO affairs, and African regional integration.

This article can be found in its original form at Atlantic Council of Canada.

Beans Boots Bullets, Europe, Global Analysis

The Gutting of Ukraine

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By Norman Friedman

UkraineChina has consistently supported Ukraine during its agony at the hands of Russian-supported separatists. One of the less-publicized reasons why is that China has relied heavily on Ukrainian firms to help modernize its military.

For example, the active phased-array radar on board Chinese Type 052C destroyers was developed by a Ukrainian company. The current Chinese main battle tank is essentially the current Ukrainian one. The firms involved are all in the heavily-industrialized area in which the Russian-backed forces are operating; it may even be that the Russians are specifically targeting particular Ukrainian towns and companies. From Mr. Putin’s point of view, the Ukrainian companies may be unwanted competitors with the military industrialists on whom he depends for much of his power. At the least, he is trying to put them out of business. The white trucks supposedly carrying humanitarian aid into Ukraine from Russia were actually arriving to plunder Ukrainian factories of their modern machine tools. What the West may not want to sell to Mr. Putin, his forces can steal.

The Ukrainian plants and development companies exist because of policies implemented long before the Soviet Union broke up. The rulers of the Soviet Union were always worried that nationalism would break up their country — as, in the end, it did. One of their insurance policies against breakup was to make it difficult or impossible for those in any one of the republics making up the Soviet Union to build key items independently. For example, gas turbine ships built in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in Russia were powered by gas turbines made in Ukraine. Their torpedoes came from Kazakhstan. Sonobuoys came from Ukraine, as did helicopter dipping sonars. Some ballistic missiles came from Ukraine. The only shipyard in the old Soviet Union capable of building carriers was in Nikolaev, in Ukraine. However, any carrier built there was armed with weapons and sensors from elsewhere in the Soviet Union, mainly from Russia.

In Soviet times, none of this really mattered. The Ukrainian factory making gas turbines responded to commands from Moscow to deliver engines to St. Petersburg, just as any factory in Russia did. There was little or no distinction between what happened in Moscow and what happened in, say, Nikolaev — no border, no transfer of cash. To a considerable extent design organizations were set up in Ukraine in the early 1960s or the late 1950s because Nikita Khrushchev, who ran the Soviet Union, was Ukrainian. For example, Khrushchev decided to reward his homeland by transferring the Crimea to it. Unsurprisingly, Russians applauded its seizure, since they had never considered the transfer legitimate. Ukrainian independence is a much more substantial issue, although most Russians apparently consider it a spurious notion, its separation a penalty imposed by the West at the end of the Cold War.

Once the Soviet Union broke up, the Soviet -era distribution of facilities suddenly mattered a great deal. All of the constituent republics of the old Soviet Union were suddenly plunged from a world of command by Moscow to a world of cash purchases. The Ukrainian plant could still make gas turbines, but if Moscow wanted a set for installation in St. Petersburg it suddenly had to pay up with real money. That was not easy. In time the Russians built their own gas turbine factory, but while that was happening they had to power ships with steam plants, because the steam plants were being made in Russia.

Conversely, key components of the carrier Varyag, afloat at Nikolaev, could not be delivered because they could not be paid for. The yard had no way to complete the carrier. Parts of her weapon system were visible for some years on the pier alongside, incomplete and hence impossible to install. In much the same way the Ukrainians had no way of completing a Slava class cruiser left nearly completed when the Soviet Union broke up. The carrier proved saleable — its transfer may have been the beginning of Ukrainian arms exports to China — but the cruiser did not. Even Ukrainian governments clearly favoring the Russians could not conjure up the resources to give the Russians weapon systems or platforms they wanted, because it took cash to move equipment over the border.

With their Russian (ex-Soviet) customers no longer paying, Ukrainian firms looked elsewhere, and they seem to have found their main customer in China — which certainly did have lots of cash. Exports were not so much finished equipment (which would probably have required components from elsewhere in the former Soviet empire) as innovative designs, such as the active phased-array radar. From time to time the Russians have tried to police the export of military data and know-how from their country, but once the Soviet Union broke up Ukraine must have made such controls a mockery in many cases. That might not have mattered had Russian military R&D kept advancing at its pre-collapse pace, but the cash shortage stopped most of that, too. Ukrainians who knew what the Soviet Union had developed by the time of its collapse could sell just about anything Russians could.

For a time, the Russians recovered to the point that they did have cash, but Russian military producers faced much higher costs at home, not least to feed an extremely corrupt political system. Now that a plunging oil price has cut Russian cash resources, it is even more difficult for them to buy from Ukrainian firms. It must be doubly difficult if they have to compete with much wealthier Chinese buyers. Theft is a much easier way to obtain the necessary products. Since it includes the theft of production tooling, the plants in question can be re-established in Russia, where their products will be far more affordable. Hence the systematic looting of plants in Ukraine. Looting also circumvents the effect of a falling price of oil, which drastically reduces hard-cash resources in Russia.

If the Ukrainian agony were all about money and access to technology, it would be unhappy enough. However, a major the driving force is nationalism. Vladimir Putin’s only important attraction for Russians is nationalistic: he is seen as a strong man who will restore the strength of the motherland, and he will also expunge all of those unhappy guilty memories of the Soviet past. In this narrative, the West is the enemy who broke up the Russian Empire and thus sought to crush Holy Russia. Anyone familiar with Russian history before the Revolution can recognize the sort of policy Mr. Putin is following. It takes a very committed Russian nationalist to say, as some have in recent days, that the falling price of oil is part of a deliberate plot on the part of ‘certain organizations’ in the West intended specifically to weaken Russia. Ukraine was the oldest part of the Empire, and its recovery excites Russian nationalists. Before he annexed Crimea, Mr. Putin was extremely unpopular. People in Russia saw him for what he was: a thief working with larger thieves to plunder their country. Afterwards his popularity soared, and old-style raw Russian nationalism became a ruling force.

Russian nationalism is opposed by Ukrainian nationalism. It may not be particularly powerful in the Eastern Ukrainian regions in which the Russians and their friends are operating, but in much of the country it is alive and well. Ukraine has a distinctive culture and language. The language and the alphabet are similar to Russian, but by no means identical. Ukraine enjoyed brief independence after the Russian Revolution. During the late 1920s and early 1930s the government in Moscow created a famine in Ukraine that killed 6 to 10 million people in the name of collectivizing farming. Ukraine had been the breadbasket of Europe, its wheat exports the major source of foreign currency to Czarist Russia. After collectivization, the Ukraine was badly enough ravaged that in the 1950s the Soviet Union found itself buying wheat abroad.

The horrors of the 1920s and 1930s remained fresh in Ukrainian minds when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Initially Ukrainians understandably welcomed the Germans as liberators, only to discover that the racist Germans lumped them with the Russians as sub-human. Even so, they hated the Russians even more, and a low-level insurgency continued well into the 1950s. The Ukrainian view of the man-made famine is somewhat analogous to the Polish view of the Soviet massacre of Polish military officers in 1941 at Katyn. Each was a horrific crime committed by the Soviet Union and then buried. Under Soviet domination, denial that the Soviets had committed such crimes became a test of political loyalty. Once Ukraine and Poland were free of Soviet control, memory of such crimes helped generate nationalist hatred for the Soviets. When Mr. Putin glorifies the Soviet Union which produced him, he enrages those it tortured. Victims inside the Soviet Union are less than popular in the current nationalist climate, but victims outside are in a very different position.

To further complicate matters, another Soviet-era strategy for binding together the Soviet Union was to encourage ethnic Russians to settle in the various republics forming the Soviet Union. That produced large ethnic Russian minorities in countries like Latvia and Ukraine. Mr. Putin is encouraging the ethnic Russian minority in Eastern Ukraine to revolt against the government in Kiev. Although he is enjoying a short-term advantage, surely what he has done has made other post-Soviet governments uncomfortably aware that they may be harboring hostile minorities. They may decide to do something about them before they can revolt.

If that seems an extreme extrapolation, remember that before World War II Hitler exploited the manufactured resentments felt by a large ethnic German minority in Czechoslovakia (in the Sudetenland) to dismember that country (he did not have to resort to invasion or even to proxy invasion, as in Ukraine). Governments who remembered what minority Germans had done in the 1930s expelled them after Germany collapsed in 1945. Many Germans found themselves walking all the way across Poland from what had been East Prussia, and for years the cry to recover that territory resonated through German politics. What is likely to happen now in places like the Baltic states? Their governments lived through decades of repression in the name of the Soviet Union, but up to now they have been relatively restrained about the Russians in their midst.

Norman Friedman is author of The U.S. Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapon Systems. This article can be found in its original form at the Australian Naval Institute here and was republished by permission.