Category Archives: Global Analysis

A Geographical Breakdown of What’s Going on in the World

Global Analysis, Members' Roundup

Members’ Roundup Part 8

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Welcome back to another edition of the Member Round-Up and the first for 2015. It has been two weeks since I last posted and CIMSECians have been busy across various blogs, journals and websites discussing all manner of topics. Whether it is a review of upcoming technology or discussion of hacking, there is an array of articles available to be enjoyed by all.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS & STRATEGY

With 2014 marking some positive steps to normalizing US-Cuban relations, the trade embargo still persists. Maryland-based CIMSECian, David Wise, writes that there are two key reasons why opportunities to speed up its removal were missed. Firstly, due to the influence of interest groups who benefit from the embargo and secondly, that an opportunity was lost in 1998 when the Pope’s visit to Cuba was overshadowed by the Lewinsky scandal. You can access his post on the London School of Economics and Political Science blog here.

As always, The National Interest’s Zachary Keck returns this edition with three articles, the third one will feature in a later section of this post. The first, assesses China and India’s pursuit to deploy multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRV) on their ballistic missiles. The second article comes in the wake of the Sony hacking scandal and aims to clarify some reports by media outlets suggesting that the DPRK threatened to blow up the White House.

Although the Canadian government unveiled its National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) to the public in October 2011, the exact capabilities of Canada’s future maritime forces have been largely a mystery. Over at the NATO Council of Canada, Paul Pryce gives some indications of possible contenders to build the ships. The long-term issue, however, is whether the first of the class will be ready by 2018.

Chinese sailors take a picture together in front of guided missile destroyer Haikou (171)
Chinese sailors take a picture together in front of guided missile destroyer Haikou (171)

Military diplomacy has been graining traction in the IR and strategy debate recently. Over at Offiziere, Patrick Truffer writes that greater transparency in US-China military relationship may be one-sided. ‘whether greater transparency of the US armed forces towards the Chinese armed forces is really profitable for the US must be critically examined,’ writes Truffer.

Moving into the new year a common feature preceding the changing of calendars is, of course, the ubiquitous ‘new year resolutions.’ This rationale can be applied in the professional realm; debating reform within any organisation is an enduring aspect of being a professional. Before becoming a naysayer and condemning any reform into the ‘too hard’ basket, consider reading BJ Armstrong’s article on innovation within the US military and its pursuit in amphibious warfare. The article can be accessed here at War on the Rocks.

TECHNOLOGY & HARDWARE

In the wake of the tragic AirAsia Flight 8501 accident many families, commentators and the general public have been raising questions such as: ‘how could we lose an aircraft when Apple can find my iPhone?’ Emotions run high during times of crisis and it is important during these times that information is delivered in a timely and accurate manner. On the MIT Technology Review, CIMSECian Dave Majumdar, explains the issues behind aircraft tracking.

Continuing with the aviation trend, Dave reports that Russia is developing a new strategic bomber called the PAK-DA as part of its post-Soviet military modernization plan. The article can be accessed here at The National Interest.

MQ-8C Fire Scout
MQ-8C Fire Scout

For the hardware fanatics a round-up of unmanned naval systems can be found over at Naval Drones and Zachary Keck is reporting that Iran has recently tested its first ‘kamikaze drone.’

ENTERTAINMENT

Over at War on the Rocks we have our NextWar blog Director, Matthew Hipple, with a review of Sony’s latest movie release: The Interview. ‘No one promised Hitchcock,’ writes Hipple, and the recent hacking affair may have actually increased interest in the movie. So if you were slightly skeptical of this film before forking out a few dollars to view it at an independent cinema then perhaps a quick peruse of this review will provide some assistance for your own expectation management.

IN REVIEW

One of our newest members, CNAS’ Jacob Stokes, will have his essay ‘Strategies of Competition’ published in the next issue of Orbis (Volume 59 Issue 1). In it, Jacob reviews the following books:

  • Strategic Reassurance and Resolve, by Jim Steinberg and Mike O’Hanlon
  • The Contest of the Century, by Geoff Dyer
  •  Maximalist, by Stephen Sestanovich

Jacob’s essay can be accessed here.

Jason Camlic provides his own round-up after attending the Chicago Maritime Museum Christmas party. You can find his post and some photos taken at the venue, here.

Finally, we also have two articles by CIMSEC members featured in Strategic Insights. Scott Cheney-Peters provides an analysis of the risks in the Taiwan Strait. Louis Bergeron analyses the chokepoint in the Mozambique Channel. They have been posted here and here on the NextWar blog.

As we begin a new year I wish to thank all of the contributions to this segment in 2014. As always please continue emailing dmp@cimsec.org so that we can all share and promote the great work that CIMSECians are producing. As a final note, if you are not yet a member and wish to be featured then simply apply to become one! Until next time.

Nam is a Maritime Warfare Officer in the Royal Australian Navy. He holds a Bachelor of Business and is currently completing a Master of Philosophy in International Security Studies at the University of New South Wales. Nam is the current Director of Member Publicity at CIMSEC.

Fiction, South America

An Unknown Unit

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This piece by W. Alejandro Sanchez is  part of our Future Military Fiction Week for the New Year. The week topic was chosen as a prize by one of our Kickstarter supporters.

Waking Up

“Jesus, Maria y Jose, this heat is impossible,” I said at around 5am. The sun had yet show up in the dessert but it was hot enough. Well maybe not too hot, it was an acceptable 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit to the uneducated) but you know, I was born in the Andes so I am not used to the heat. “Why couldn’t we start this war in the winter? Everyone would be miserable except me at least,” I said to whatever ghost still inhabited this abandoned room.

Then again, I was still mostly in my uniform: the standard desert-pattern cargo pants, my belt, socks. I was even wearing still those damn boots that, while resilient, made my feet hurt. It was common sense to sleep all dressed up in the battlefield, with your rifle next to you, in order to be ready if (or more like when) the enemy showed up.

With that said, I did make the executive decision to take off my jacket and t-shirt. I have never been able to sleep with a t-shirt on and it was the first time in like three weeks that we had been able to sleep with an actual roof on our heads.

A nice roof, mind you. “I wonder whose house this had been,” I had said, again out loud, when I camped here last night. Then again, I rather not know. I made sure I did not look at the pictures of this nice little two-story home in this mid-sized town that my unit had been sweeping the day before.

From what I could tell from the corner of my eye when I looked at the pictures as I walked by, this had been the home of a 7-person family. “The spoils of war,” I thought as I peeked through the window, pulling the curtain aside just a bit to see that, indeed, the only source of light from anywhere in the horizon came from the moon.

Prior to the war this town had been the home of some five thousand people. Now it was the home of at least five thousand stray dogs, cats and rats.

I bent over, which made my poor back crack. Carajo! I cursed and then grabbed my FN Herstal. I liked this rifle, my government had bought a few thousand of them from the Belgians a few years ago and it had paid off. It was a good weapon, light but the bullets packed a good punch.

It had taken me longer than I cared to admit to get used to it instead of the old-school FAL rifle that the army had used for generations. My father, uncle and other relatives had trained with it when they were soldiers and still joked about how the damn thing was taller than some recruits.

But the change to a younger, sleeker weapon had been worth it. This efficient little rifle was the cornerstone of why the army had been so successful in the first months of the war. Well that, some good strategy and a successful surprise attack that had taken the enemy, our perpetual southern neighbors, by surprise.

I drank a big gulp of water from my canteen and briefly considered following it with a gulp of pisco from my flask, nicely hidden in one of the inside pockets of my jacket, but decided against it. It wasn’t even 6am and I figured I should be fully sober for a couple of hours more.

I stood on the edge of the door for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness and then began walking downstairs. I could easily distinguish the shapes that constituted the other soldiers of my unit, part of the 13th Counterinsurgency Regiment.  We were a ragtag bunch, remnants from the original unit from when the war began plus new recruits. Not to mention the really green recruits and paramilitaries that had joined as time passed. In my early 30s, I was already regarded as a veteran simply because of having survived longer than most others around here.

I walked down the stairs, and only then proceeded to put on my t-shirt, Kevlar vest and jacket, enjoying the last moments of freedom from all that extra weight. Sergeant Juan Jose Gambini, mi Segundo, walked up to me, already in full uniform (did he sleep in that thing?). He gave me a sharp salute, with a broad grin. “Nothing to report, señor. The Western scouts came back a while ago, no sightings of rotos.”

Everyone has a nickname for the “enemy,” the Allies called the Germans the “gerries” and we called ours either “los rotos” or “los vecinos”.

“Vanessa must have been upset that she did not get to unleash Marta on anyone,” I said with a little mischievous smile.

“Correct señor, she was a bit grumpy, but you know her, she’s quite the optimist.”

At this point in the war, neither side could afford to stick to that old, silly, machista culture that Latin Americans are known for. Even though we were winning, we could not afford to keep our female soldiers serving “support” roles. We needed everyone who wanted to fight and could fight in the front lines.

Unsurprisingly there had been the standard sexist comments when female soldiers began fighting in the front lines. “Can they shoot?”; “What if they get hurt?”; “Can they carry all that equipment?”; and the ever-present “No necesitamos mujeres.” I am sad to say that not all in my unit had been as welcoming to female fighters as I had wished.

Nevertheless, the addition of a female component only increased our efficiency. Vanessa is a person mind you, but Marta is the name of M82A1 rifle that she used with deadly efficacy. That is not the rifle she was originally given at the start of the war, she had lost that one during the Battle of Tarapaca in an amusing hand-to-hand combat. She found Marta a few days ago and her new rifle already had five notches.

If nothing else, this war had proven that both genders could be just as deadly and effective in combat as the other.

Mi segundo left to wake up the rest of the troops as I walked throughout the rest of the house. I got on knees when I got to the kitchen and crawled my way out into the dark backyard and from there across to the neighboring also two-story house.

I believed Gambini when he told me that there were no enemy combatants in sight, but I was just as sure that the enemy probably had their own version of our 5 foot and 5 inches-Vanessa: a sniper in some roof just waiting as patiently as a hungry serpent for some silly officer to stick his head up just a centimeter too high over a fence.

Eventually I crawled the 30 meters, more or less, of backyard to the next house and entered through the kitchen. I could smell some rotting food on the table and I tried not to throw up. The smell of rotting food always got to me.

Lying on the ground by a hole in the wall was Corporal Humberto, holding, caressing one would say, his trustworthy ZH-05 grenade launcher. The launcher was Chinese and it had a wicked kick to it. It was also deadly effective.

Humberto held it securely but also with pride while he admired his work: some three hundred feet away lay the remains of a Leopard tank. Their enemy’s bought a couple hundred of those tanks years ago. This particular Goliath had been deployed here with around a dozen supporting troops to stop our forces from taking over the town.

It had been a difficult fight the night before but my unit had prevailed and we had Humberto, his grenade launcher, and two fallen comrades to thank for that. Vanessa had scratched Marta twice that night. The two had taken the tank’s gunner as well as a lieutenant who was hiding behind what looked like a Mercedes (that’s as far as my knowledge of cars goes). If the troops had any problems with having any female in our unit, these reservations died that night.

Funny how sexism and racism can evaporate in extreme circumstances if you show how much of a badass you are.

I spoke with Humberto for a few moments. Unsurprisingly, nothing had happened for the past few hours, but we were certain that the enemy had noticed that one of their patrols, including one of those impressive and expensive tanks, were missing.

I sat next to my comrade, whispering a carajo as my back cracked again. I saw across the room and saw two of our paramilitaries sitting there. Their uniforms were… well they were not uniforms. More like a combination of military pants and black sweaters.  “Rimaykullayki ¿Allillanchu?,” one of them said at me, with a friendly wave. Humberto frowned as there was no “sir” in their greeting, but I did not care. We were not a priority unit so we got paramilitaries to refill our ranks. They cared little for military discipline and hierarchy… and they spoke Quechua and very little Spanish, but they were good fighters. And I was going to need more good fighters.

Finally I saw our pirate’s booty. Across the floor was a little amalgamation of weapons we had collected from the deceased. Our prized trophy was the Rheinmetall MG 3 machine gun that we had managed to save from that enemy tank before the fire took it.

At this point I had plenty of weapons at my disposal, enough to take a small regiment, but alas I did not have enough fingers to pull all the triggers (I made a mental note of asking the captain for more paramilitaries).

Humberto handed me some grapes that we had picked up from the trees around the house and I tried to not wolf them down in one handful. El desayuno.

I took this moment to pick out a couple of papers from my backpack. They were some commentaries I had printed weeks ago from some American think tanks about our little conflict. The gringo scholars were trying to figure out why this war had come to be and who was behind it.

I could not help grunting a bit in disgust. Yes, my country had bought tanks and helicopters from the Soviet Union and, yes, we had bought new Russian tanks in the past years. But really, does this made my government, and the army I was part of, Moscow’s client state? Was it so unconceivable to believe that countries could still go to war with each other not because the powers-that-be decided it, but because of our own national interests… or because we just did not have anything better to do on a Tuesday?

We already knew the reasons for the war, I thought as I drank more water, wishing it was alcohol, after I had finished with the grapes. El Presidente had gone on TV, radio, print media and social media (he loved to tweet) to make his predictably nationalistic speeches about us fighting the good fight. “Los rotos no son de confiar,” he had boldly proclaimed during a speech in one of our big southern cities. I guess he picked the place so the city’s volcano (an active one) would appear in the shots, making him appear even more defiant. “Si no atacamos, sera como en la guerra del siglo 19,” He also said, which was true. We had been attacked first in the 19th century and we were ever-weary of them attacking us first again.

But it quickly became clear that we had started this war for resources: lithium and copper. Bolivia, our other neighbors, were known as the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium,” but the “rotos” had recently located some big veins of lithium, which, combined with their already vast copper industry (the biggest one in the world), would make it a regional economic powerhouse.

And we could not let that happen.

Lucky for us the enemy was in disarray, university students and some indigenous groups were protesting again. Hence, the government had been more focused on internal security rather than checking on what neighboring militaries were up to. I know, gulping more water (que sed!), sneak attacks are not particularly brave things to do, but we were going for victory here, not heroism.

Suddenly my earpiece came to life. “We got company señor, a column of five-six humvees are approaching. They look gringo made, there are a couple of trucks behind,” said my second in command. This was obviously the enemy we were expecting as my army did not have any humvees in our arsenal.

For the fifth time in 25 minutes I considered taking quick gulp of the pisco for my nerves but decided against it, once again. I turned around to face Humberto and the paramilitaries. I felt bad that I have yet to learn their names – not that it mattered, everyone looks the same with a black ski mask on anyways.

Out of habit, I checked that my Herstal rifle was still hanging from my shoulder and, also out of habit and because I did not want to make an ugly corpse, I checked myself on a broken mirror that I found on the ground. Sadly, I still had greasy bed hair. I unceremoniously dropped the mirror, making it break a couple of more times, and nodded at my soldiers, “vamos, the barbarians are at the gates.”

Humberto smiled and stood up, carrying his trusty grenade launcher. He and the others grabbed the machine gun and some of the rifles that littered the room. I cursed at myself, “I should have spread this around to everyone else last night.” I helped by grabbing a couple of Makarov pistols and some ammo for the machine gun.

“Russian pistols, Chinese grenade launchers, German tanks, American jeeps… I’m fairly sure our uniforms are from India…there is not one ‘made in your homeland’ product here is there?” Humberto said to no one in particular as he briskly walked to the kitchen door. No one shot him so I figured that, indeed, there was no enemy sniper out there.

The two other Quechua-speaking paramilitaries followed him, not saying a word. I stood by the door for a moment, trying to see anything as the day dawned. I saw Vanessa and Marta leave the house rapidly making their way across the street. There was a 4 story-building not far which I guess would be her new location to greet our incoming guests.

I was in the process of multitasking again, walking and sneezing (guess sleeping shirtless was not such a good idea in spite of the heat), when a small ghost tackled me to the ground.

Carajo, I guess there was a sniper out there after all.

The year is 2021.

This is the story of the second War of the Pacific.

This is not a story about heroes and villains, but a story about an unknown war fought by unknown soldiers.

The author would like to thank M.M. and S.D. for their invaluable editorial suggestions.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This story is a complete work of fiction. In no way does it represent the points of view of any of the organizations that this author is affiliated with.

Asia-Pacific, Global Analysis

The Challenge of Non-Lethal Force at Sea

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This year’s CIMSEC HQ Christmas party featured a number of ‘unofficial’ polls on the main naval developments of 2014 and prospects for 2015 (the results of which can be found in CIMSEC’s Twitter feed). These provided a most interesting glimpse both of recent events and of what the immediate future may hold in store. Needless to say, 2014 has indeed been an eventful year in the maritime domain, not least in the Indian Ocean-Pacific Region.

JAPAN-TAIWAN-CHINA-DIPLOMACY-DISPUTEOne of the main challenges of the year, highlighted in the polls, is how to respond to the use of non-lethal force, that is to coercion by means of a limited amount of violence, designed to gradually expand control over disputed bodies of water without leading to casualties or a major reaction by the victim country and other maritime democracies with a stake in freedom of navigation and the rule of law at sea (also known as “Salami Slicing“). This non-lethal force approach usually features coastguards, other state agencies, oil rigs, and civilian vessels (mainly trawlers) in lieu of navies. The difference is often rather academic however, due to the size, capabilities, and numbers of some of the vessels involved. Equipped with modern communication technologies these forces are bound together not just by institutional links but also subsidies, participation in part-time militias, extreme nationalism, and an integrated whole-of-government approach to the maritime domain. They operate in the grey areas between peace and war, naval warfare and law enforcement, public security and private enterprise, and have made significant advances in areas like the South China Sea. The use of ramming by these forces, rather than firing, is a reminder of ancient times, yet state of the art of technology is still very much in display.

While Beijing’s inability or unwillingness to take a Bismarck-like step by step, divide and rule approach to expansion has helped usher a new era of regional cooperation, contributing to the U.S.-Vietnamese reconciliation and Japan’s normalization as a military power, unless naval planning is geared toward the whole spectrum of conflict, including undeclared non-lethal wars, we risk preparing for a conflict that will never come, losing instead the one that actually takes place. We should never forget that, as the saying goes, the enemy has a vote too.

Two brief historical references may prove useful. First, the roots of President John F. Kennedy’s insistence on developing a strong counterinsurgency capability lied in the previous administration, but it ultimately derived from a recognition that it was not credible to threaten to employ nuclear weapons or massive conventional forces against every single instance of aggression (“trip wire approach”). Similarly, it is not credible to threaten naval war against any attack on freedom of navigation or against any grab of maritime territory. A revisionist power aware of this may react by adopting the gradual “Salami-slicing strategy” approach, pushing, never carrying out any individual action likely to trigger in and by itself an armed response.

Faced with such strategy, and taking into account China’s extensive economic connections with the United States and other major powers, the prospects of conventional force being employed to stop Beijing’s expansion seem rather slim. This is not to say that the modernization of nuclear weapons and the continued reinforcement of traditional naval power should be neglected. However, these two legs should be accompanied by a third one, giving rise to a whole-spectrum capability able to withstand any challenge to peace and security in the Indian Pacific-Ocean Region, freedom of navigation, and the rule of law at sea.

p3A second useful historical reference may be the United States’ Vietnam, or Second Indochina, War. Almost half a century later, historians still debate why the Republic of Vietnam, the United States, and their allies did not prevail. One major school of thought argues that it was self-imposed restrictions, in other words a failure to wage a more total kind of war, which doomed Allied efforts. As evidence, they point out that it was conventional troops, not guerrillas, which delivered the coup de grace to South Vietnam in 1975. Another major school of thought argues that it was the failure to master counterinsurgency, and more widely nation-building, that ultimately doomed the efforts to save the Republic of Vietnam. Without entering this debate, we may perhaps note that in Vietnam it was not just conventional or insurgent forces that one faced, but both, and that any lasting victory required prevailing against the two.

Furthermore, while some restrictions may seem or even plainly be irrational and self-defeating, simply criticizing them leads nowhere. The military cannot live in a fantasy land where total war is the rule and limits are few. Historically this has not been the case, and also because in today’s complex web of international relations and extensive economic connections, any “tripwire” or “massive retaliation” strategy is unlikely to enjoy the necessary political support and thus deterrence credibility. Therefore, the need to be flexible and able to deal with very different scenarios simultaneously is one of the great lessons from that controversial war, and one equally applicable on land and at sea. It is, to mention a relevant example, one of the inspirations behind the U.S. Marine Corps’ “Three Block War” concept.

For the disputed maritime spaces in the Pacific this means that countries in the region and other interested parties such as the United States need to develop a full capability spectrum. With conventional naval warfare on one extreme, it must extend to non-lethal violent clashes on the other, and cover all intermediate scenarios. This must be the underlying rationale for acquisitions, doctrine, regional cooperation, and training. It will of course require an additional effort from everyone involved, but there is simply no alternative.

LaserSome of the weapons systems currently in development hold great promise in the event of hostilities breaking out, but there is no realistic prospect of their use being authorized short of a major conflict, a scenario that right now seems remote. Just to show how remote, a comparison with Russia is useful: replicating the sort of sanctions directed at the Kremlin is simply unimaginable, and has never been suggested when discussing Chinese expansionism (although there is indeed a discrete trend away from FDI in China by countries like Japan). In other words, lasers, just to give an example, are great, and their development surely must continue, but they will not stop a trawler fleet or an oil rig, simply because the necessary permission to fire will never come.

This does not mean that there is no way to counter such tactics. Coast guard capacity building, one of the main pillars of Japan’s security and defense cooperation with the Philippines and Vietnam, is a major step in that direction. It should not be seen, however, as an isolated step, but rather as one of many to be taken in the coming years. What we face is a long, undeclared, mixed, war at sea. A war without great battles or big names, without campaign medals, a war where many advanced weapons systems will merely be silent witnesses. It will be one, however, whose ultimate impact on future generations will be as great as many of its more heroic, spectacular, counterparts. A war that maritime democracies cannot afford to lose.

Alex Calvo is a guest professor at Nagoya University in Japan and focuses on security and defence policy, international law, and military history in the Indian-Pacific Ocean Region. He tweets at @Alex__Calvo and his work “China’s Air Defense Identification Zone: Concept, Issues at Stake and Regional Impact” is available at the Naval War College Press Working Papers.

Asia-Pacific, The Lighter Side

The Interview Review: No One Promised Hitchcock

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Presents are open and dinner approaches… If you are considering adding “The Interview” to your holiday celebration, grab some spiked eggnog and read this review by yours truly available at War on the Rocks.

“The Interview” is a silly, fun movie that you’ll want the kids out of the room for. If you are (or were) expecting Kubrick or Hitchcock, I’m assuming you didn’t pay attention to the part of the trailer where Seth Rogan has to hide a drone payload in his butt. He had to loosen up quite a bit to do that and I’d recommend you do the same before watching (figuratively, of course).

I can see why North Korea would hate this parody of Kim Jong Un. An alcohol-swilling trust-fund brat with daddy issues, megalomania, and a penchant for Katy Perry isn’t the image one wants for a 31 year-old god-king whose internal mythos is that he is formidable genius…. Read the rest at War on the Rocks.

Matthew Hipple is the CIMSEC Director of Online Content and firmly believes that Die Hard is the greatest Christmas movie ever.