This article originally featured at The Diplomat, and was republished with permission. The following is an excerpt, read the article in its original form here.
The Vietnamese public has been given until the end of October to send in comments on the draft policy documents.
Key policy documents are usually released well in advance of a national congress. For example, the draft Political Report and Five-Year Socio-Economic Plan were released nine months before the eleventh national party congress in January 2011. This time only four months remain to complete preparations for the twelfth congress scheduled for January 2016.
Prior to the launch of the website and release of key policy documents, Vietnam’s preparations for the twelfth party congress had been particularly low key. Although leadership selection was discussed at the eleventh plenary meeting of the party Central Committee that met in May no announcements were made.
Observers in Hanoi report that the Central Committee may reconvene in October to resolve the impasse over leadership with a further session planned for November if consensus cannot be reached.
Media reports suggest there are two main contenders for the post of party Secretary General – Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his long-term rival President Truong Tan Sang. Both are southerners. The post of party leader has traditionally gone to a northerner.
If the party Central Committee cannot reach consensus there are two likely possibilities. The first possibility is that both candidates will stand down and retire from politics and the next party leader will be chosen from among the members of the current Politburo who are eligible for election at the congress.
The second possibility could see the incumbent party leader, Nguyen Phu Trong, reappointed on the understanding that he would make way for another leader before his five-year term in office expired. This solution would mirror the decision by the eighth party congress in 1996 to re-appoint Do Muoi as party Secretary General on the understanding he would step down before mid-term. Do Muoi was replaced by Le Kha Phieu in late 1997.
When Vietnam enters its political season in advance of a national party congress current events are subject to intense scrutiny by political observers to discern which way the winds are blowing. This year is no exception.
Follow @scheneypeters After months of speculation and signaling the U.S. has undertaken Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) to protest the claimed rights of Chinese-occupied “artificial islands” in the South China Sea at Subi and Mischief Reef by sending the USS Lassen within 12nm of the reefs. Several of our colleagues and members have written recently about the context, the legal aspects, the recent history, and response to the FONOPS. I recommend reading them all but wanted to offer a few additional thoughts below:
This was a necessary move to both reassure America’s allies and partners in the region of America’s commitment and to uphold common sense interpretations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). What many pieces of analysis gloss over is that even though UNCLOS is pretty clear that the reclamation doesn’t turn reefs into islands or give them the rights of islands, interpretations of international law – if contested – must be backed up by words and actions. Otherwise the counter-vailing view gains acceptance as customary international law.
The reported several-years’ pause in conducting these types of freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea may have been done to try and convince the Chinese to stand-down from their position. Not being privy to the internal administration deliberations I’m not sure if there was a good reason why it took so long to change course and resume FONOPS, but the delay created the risk that the resumption would create a major incident. This is why shortly before it occurred it appeared that the US was trying to prevent surprise from contributing to the risk of an incident by not only warning of the pending FONOPS but very specifically identifying which ship would conduct it and where.
While necessary for the reasons stated above, these FONOPS are unlikely to change the situation unless the Chinese overreact, something I don’t expect to happen. This doesn’t mean China will do nothing, however, and their response may consist of one or more approaches. One thing Chinese officials have long hinted at before the FONOPS occurred was that they would be used as justification for pre-planned actions, such as declaring an ADIZ over the South China Sea or the “militarization” of the reclaimed islands. Another possible action is mirroring the supposed provocation of the American FONOPS by conducting something perceived by the Chinese to be similar – such as additional transits near Alaska. Direct responses to further FONOPS will likely include shadowing of US naval vessels by Chinese naval vessels, as occurred with the LASSEN, and could include electronic or physical interference, as indicated by Chinese media – both much more dangerous and likely to escalate the situation.
Lastly, U.S. officials reportedly indicate that additional FONOPS will be conducted to protest Vietnamese and Philippines excessive claims in the coming weeks. These are not new protests, nor are FON activities in various forms limited to the region but in fact are used to protest claimed excessive maritime rights around the world, from Ecuador to India.
Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and founder and Chairman of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). He is a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, a member of the Truman National Security Project, and a CNAS Next-Generation National Security Fellow.
This publication originally featured at the National Maritime Foundation, and was republished with permission. It can be found in its original form here.
By Dr. Gurpreet S. Khurana
In mid-September 2015, Australia and India held their first-ever bilateral naval exercise, AUSINDEX-2015. The week-long exercise was held in the Bay of Bengal, and involved five warships, an Australian submarine and two long-range anti-submarine aircraft (Australian P3C and Indian P8I). A “pronounced emphasis” of the exercise was on anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Beyond merely being ‘just another combined exercise’, it bears a far-reaching import, and highlights Australia’s national-strategic reorientation in recent years.
Traditional Approach
Until a few years ago, it was commonly said that ‘Australia and India are divided by the Indian Ocean’, which had an element of truth. Traditionally, Australia’s national security strategy has been characterised by a combination of a ‘maritime citadel’ and ‘Pacific-oriented’ approach. The former is best exemplified by Australia’s promulgation of a 1,000 nautical-mile ‘Maritime Identification Zone’ (MIZ) in 2004. While such an approach was considered necessary for Canberra to counter the seaward incursions by foreigners, it led to a perception of Australia’s ‘exclusivity’.
The Pacific-oriented prong of Australia’s approach entailed its strategic focus towards the southwest Pacific, where the island countries have been prone to political instability. Such instability could spill-over into Australia in various forms, thereby impinging on its national security. Notably, most of Australia’s developed cities lie on the eastern side facing the southwest Pacific, making it highly vulnerable to destabilising events in its eastern maritime neighbourhood.
Australian defence forces have often contributed to coalition operations in the western end of the Indian Ocean, such as in Afghanistan and the Gulf of Aden (counter-piracy). However, these were driven by Australia’s need to fulfill its alliances and international commitments, rather than being ‘directly’ linked to its security interests.
Outwards and Eastwards
In the past, Australia’s traditional approach may have been adequate to secure its national security interests. However, Canberra seems to have realised that the emerging regional environment has made it unviable in present times. An inward-looking strategic orientation has also been unhelpful for Australia to develop multifaceted engagements with the Asian countries, including in terms of responding to the vulnerabilities of the maritime realm and strengthening trade ties. In particular, Australia needs to expand its maritime security perimeter to be able to achieve situational awareness in distant waters, besides ‘influencing’ and ‘managing’ developments therein.
For Australia, whose strategic orientation has traditionally been encapsulated in the concept of Asia-Pacific, its re-orientation towards the Indian Ocean is relatively recent, and is evidenced in the conceptualisation of the “Indo-Pacific” region in its National Security Strategy (January 2013) and Defence White Paper (May 2013). Although the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ as often appeared as a geographic entity in the lexicon of Australian policymakers and analysts in the past, its formal articulation as a “new strategic construct” appears for the first time in these documents of 2013.
Where India Fits In?
Notwithstanding its sensitivities stroked by the Indian nuclear tests of 1998, Australia could not keep itself estranged from India for long. Naval cooperation was a natural choice to begin the engagement; in 2003, Australia began its participation in the Indian Navy’s biennial Milan (congregation) of regional navies at Port Blair. It also participated in the five-nation Malabar-2007 exercise in the Bay of Bengal, which caused worries in China. In the following years, India sent observers to the Australia-hosted Dugong (2009) and Kakadu (2010) naval exercises.
Australia’s quest to involve India in its growing maritime engagement with the Indian Ocean countries is clearly discernible. These include Australia’s increasing involvement in the emerging discourse on maritime security under the aegis of the ‘Indian Ocean Rim Association’ (IORA) and the ‘Indian Ocean Naval Symposium’ (IONS), and the Track 1.5 Australia-India-Indonesia trilateral dialogue on the Indian Ocean (TDIO).
Australia and India have already established an information-sharing mechanism on ‘white shipping.’ By contributing to Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) and Search and Rescue (SAR), India could mitigate Australia’s primary concern of illegal immigration across the Indian Ocean. Although Canberra has been troubled since long by migrants from Southeast Asia, in more recent times, Sri Lankan Tamils and Rohingyas have also been trying to migrate to Australia in large numbers.
The China Factor
Undeniably, Australia is seeking partners in the Indo-Pacific region to ride the crest of ‘rising Asia.’ The salience of China is an economic powerhouse of the world is not lost to Australia. Hence, notwithstanding its alliance with the United States and its wariness about the rapid growth and disposition of China’s military power, relations with Beijing will be important to Australia.
Nevertheless, it is instructive to note that Australia’s 2013 National Security Strategy calls China “our key economic partner”, whereas it calls India “our Strategic Partner.” The essence is that as Australia develops its economic ties with China , it needs India and other regional powers as a hedge against possible scenarios involving China that could be inimical to its national security interests. Ostensibly, the need to build strategic deterrence against China is a major driver for Australia’s keenness to join the Malabar-2015 naval exercise involving India, Japan and the US.
Indian Perspective
The PLA Navy’s submarine visits to Colombo (September-October 2014) and Karachi (March-May 2015) are likely to increase in future, and involve nuclear submarines. Neither Canberra nor New Delhi draws comfort from unannounced forays of such stealth platforms in their maritime zones. For India, a partnership with Australia could check China’s possible politico-military assertiveness in the Indian Ocean.
Notwithstanding, New Delhi will need to be cautious in any partnership with Canberra involving other major powers, so as not to send misleading signals to Beijing, for instance, on the prospects of ‘Asian-NATO’ that emerged during Malabar 2007. For Delhi, therefore, the biennial AUSINDEX was a deft move to engage with Australia bilaterally, rather than under the multi-nation format of Malabar.
While AUSINDEX-2015 as a seminal event does not by itself herald the evolution of Australia’s strategic reorientation, it does portent to be a bellwether for its enhanced maritime security cooperation with India. Possibly, in the coming years, the Indian Ocean will be more of a ‘bridge’ rather than a ‘barrier’ between Australia and India.
Captain Gurpreet S Khurana, PhD is the Executive Director, National Maritime Foundation (NMF), New Delhi. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Indian Navy, the NMF or the Government of India. He can be reached at [email protected].
The United States has been a maritime power since its inception. Maritime trading has always been essential to its economy and over the years has stretched across the globe. Protecting these interests is the job of U.S. Navy. Its origins date back to when North African pirates began seizing American merchant vessels and holding their crews to ransom. This article will explore what could have been if the United States had decided to appease the pirates instead of investing in a national navy to protect its economic interests on the high seas.
The United States had barely stepped on to the global stage, when it faced its first foreign crisis. Its merchant fleets were increasingly coming under attack by North African pirates from the Barbary States. This problem of piracy was hardly new: since the 16th century, European commerce in the Mediterranean had been under threat from the Barbary Nations in North Africa. These states consisted of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, which were nominally protectorates of the Ottoman Empire, along with the independent Sultanate of Morocco. The economies of this region were heavily dependent on piracy and a series of warlords, called Deys, maintained their power largely by bringing in tribute. The European nations had found it easier to simply pay off the pirates rather than engage in sustained military action that would likely forge either temporary peace or require an expensive occupation of North African territory.
American merchant shipping had, in its early years, been protected by European powers: by the British during the colonial period, and during the Revolution later by the French. The onset of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, however, drew attention from the pirate threat in the Mediterranean and left American merchant vessels with European help. Furthermore, upon achieving independence, the fledgling U.S. government found itself short of money. The Continental Navy, which fought during the revolution, was disbanded and the remaining vessels were sold off to raise funds. Unfortunately, this left American merchantmen to fend for themselves on the high seas.
The first U.S. merchant ship was seized in October of 1784 by a Moroccan raider. The crew was held captive for a decade and many wrote letters home describing the deplorable conditions of their imprisonment. The resulting public outcry compelled renewed interest in dealing with this persistent pirate threat.
Dealing between Morocco and the U.S. were not necessarily negative, however. Morocco was the first nation to recognize the United States in 1777 and subsequently signed The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship in 1786. The other Barbary States were not as easily dealt with. Algiers continued to demand tribute from the U.S. and ransomed captives, although a peace treaty was signed in 1796. The agreement proved very costly for the U.S. (requiring up to 10% of its annual revenue) and military options were increasingly considered. In 1801, Congress approved the construction of six frigates for use in protecting American shipping and compelling the Barbary States to allow American ships to sail the Mediterranean unscathed. Tripoli declared war the same year after its demands for tribute were refused by the newly elected President Thomas Jefferson.
The U.S.S. Chesapeake, one of the U.S. Navy’s original six frigates.
A fleet under the command of Edward Preble was ordered to blockade the port of Tripoli. The expedition was largely successful although losses were taken. The decisive action of the conflict occurred when the former U.S. consul William Eaton led eight U.S. marines and approximately five hundred foreign mercenaries on an overland march to capture the city of Derne, and threatened the capital of Tripoli. The fall of Derne marked the first U.S. victory on foreign soil (and is immortalized in the lyrics of the Marine Corps Hymn). Tripoli subsequently signed a peace treaty with the U.S. in 1805, ending the first Barbary War.
With this first American victory on foreign shores, the Navy demonstrated its ability to project power over long distances and sustain an extended naval campaign away from home ports. In addition, this was the first U.S. Marine landing and subsequent land campaign. The U.S. had demonstrated that it could protect its citizens and could meet any aggressive acts against it with force. In addition, the U.S. was no longer compelled to pay tribute to any foreign nation.
A second Barbary War began when the War of 1812 again drew European attention away from North Africa. Once again U.S. merchant ships were taken by pirates and again the Navy was dispatched to the Mediterranean. In 1815, a fleet under the command of Stephen Decatur won several battles against Algerian pirates and forced Algiers to sign a treaty protecting American vessels from piracy.
Building a navy and launching military expeditions against the Barbary pirates was by no means a unanimous policy decision on the part of the U.S. government, however. Even within Jefferson’s own party, the Democratic-Republicans, there was considerable opposition to the idea of creating a regular navy in the first place. Many prominent Americans were skeptical of creating a centralized standing military because they felt is could be used by rulers to oppress its citizenry. From the Anti-Federalist papers (Brutus X):
“The liberties of a people are in danger from a large standing army, not only because the rulers may employ them for the purposes of supporting themselves in any usurpations of power, which they may see proper to exercise, but there is great hazard, that an army will subvert the forms of the government, under whose authority, they are raised, and establish one, according to the pleasure of their leader.”
Even if the military remained subservient to the state, there were concerns that a standing peacetime military would encourage the government to provoke wars and promote their own agendas that would not be in the best interests of the nation. Still others felt that future of the new United States lay in expanding westward across the continent. Building up a navy, they felt, would allocate resources away from this expansion. In the end, Jefferson and his supporters won out, but it could have easily gone the other way.
Had history followed this alternate course, and the anti-navalists won out, the trajectory of America becoming a world power would have been curtailed. The U.S. would have contended with numerous economic and geopolitical problems. A U.S. Navy would have eventually been created, but not until an event such as the Civil War prompted renewed interest in military expansion. Even then, the resources and expertise would not be in place to accommodate such a policy.
In the meantime, the U.S. would have continued paying tribute to the Barbary States in order to secure safe passage for its merchants, thus straining the national budget. Even if westward expansion became a priority, maritime trade would have remained the economic backbone of the country. In order to continue its overseas trade, the U.S. would be forced to remain reliant on Europe for maritime protection or limit its trade with Europe accordingly and remain a strictly regional power. Instead, America would probably turn its gaze southward to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. This alliance would almost certainly spark tensions with Britain, France, and even the Dutch, the primary competitors for territory in the Americas. Any number of conflicts could break out, making the War of 1812 look like a border skirmish by comparison.
Alternatively, an agreement could be reached whereby U.S. goods would be transported in European hulls to overseas markets. Such an agreement would deter piracy at the cost of ceding control of the U.S. economic lifeline to foreign powers who could gain immense leverage by threatening to choke it off. While this would have prevented a rising America from coming into coming into conflict with other states, ultimately, this would have the effect of reducing the U.S. to little more than a de facto European colony yet again.
Strategically, policies like the Monroe Doctrine would not be viable for the U.S., given the lack a strong deterrent. Other European competitors would have free access to U.S. waters and generally be able to do as they pleased. Indeed, the Quasi War with France in 1798 and the War of 1812 proved that the U.S. needed a naval force that could stand up to the other European powers. In both cases, the Navy was able to protect American interests at sea. Hiring privateers for protection would be an option for the U.S., though likely an expensive strategy in the long run. In addition, with naval action relegated to secondary importance, it is unlikely that the U.S. would develop the capability to produce homegrown warships. Noted ship designers such as Joshua Humphreys, the designer of the first U.S. frigates, would take their expertise elsewhere, not to mention the great American naval commanders who would remain unknown.
Instead the U.S. began a strong naval tradition of projecting power globally that would manifest itself in the coming decades with the Great White Fleet, the opening of Japan, and the Spanish American war, and continued into the modern era. It is telling, perhaps, that the 2011 Libyan intervention is sometimes referred to the Third Barbary War.
Christopher Stephens is a graduate from the College of William & Mary and is currently with the Project for the Study of the 21st Century. He has formerly completed internships with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and the Joint Forces Staff College.
Sources
Ohls, Gary J. Roots of Tradition: Amphibious Warfare in the Early American Republic. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2008
Peskin, Lawrence A. Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public, 1785–1816. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009
Tinniswood, Adrian. Pirates of the Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests, and Captivity in the 17th Century Mediterranean. New York: Penguin, 2010.
The Anti-Federalist Papers. Brutus X. January 24, 1788
This was a necessary move to both reassure America’s allies and partners in the region of America’s commitment and to uphold common sense interpretations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). What many pieces of analysis gloss over is that even though UNCLOS is pretty clear that the reclamation doesn’t turn reefs into islands or give them the rights of islands, interpretations of international law – if contested – must be backed up by words and actions. Otherwise the counter-vailing view gains acceptance as customary international law.
