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Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis, History

China’s Military Modernization: The Legacy of Admiral Wu Shengli

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This article originally featured on the Jamestown Foundation’s China Watch. You can view it in its original format here.

By Jeffrey Becker

Earlier this month, Caixin reported on another round of Chinese military promotions, highlighting the youth and operational experience of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) newly minted generals (Caixin, August 12). Moreover, in roughly two years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will hold its 19th Party Congress, a critical time to enact important military and civilian leadership changes. One change that is all but certain to occur as the PLA continues to promote a new generation of leaders is the appointment of a new PLA Navy (PLAN) commander. While rumors swirled in the Hong Kong press before the 18th Party Congress in 2012 that long-tenured PLAN Commander Admiral Wu Shengli might retire or be appointed Defense Minister, neither of those scenarios occurred (China Leadership Monitor [CLM], January 14, 2013). Instead, Admiral Wu remained PLAN Commander, becoming the oldest member of the Central Military Commission and one of the longest tenured commanders in China’s naval history. [1]

With no more than two years left before his likely retirement, it seems appropriate to begin looking back on the career of one of the PLAN’s most influential and successful commanders. This article attempts to begin that process. The challenges Wu faced and overcame in his early career provide insights into his leadership as PLAN commander. Additionally, Wu’s career has spanned the largest and fastest buildup in the PLAN’s history. Examining the Chinese Navy’s greatest accomplishments under his tenure may therefore help point toward future directions the PLAN could take under the possible candidates to succeed him in the post-Wu era.

A Product of China’s Revolutions

Admiral Wu’s early life and military career reflects some of the most tumultuous periods in modern Chinese history–the war of resistance against the Japanese, the Chinese civil war and establishment of the People’s Republic, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Born in August 1945, Wu was raised in Zhejiang Province as a well-known “princeling” (太子)–the son of the famous Wu Xian, a Red Army political commissar during the Anti-Japanese war and the Chinese Civil War. Indeed, Wu is purported to have been given the name shengli (“victory” 胜利) in commemoration of the victory over Japan (Office of Naval Intelligence, 2015). After the wars, the elder Wu held important political positions, to include mayor of Hangzhou and vice governor of Zhejiang. Although Wu was raised by his father in Zhejiang, his family’s ancestral home is in Wuqiao County, Hebei Province, about 200 miles south of Beijing. [2]

Wu joined the PLA in August 1964, and began studying at the PLA Surveying and Mapping College in Xi’an, earning a degree in oceanography in 1968 (Guoqing, February 1, 2012). His timing was fortuitous, as his affiliation with the PLA likely helped shield him as the Cultural Revolution decimated Chinese social, government and Party institutions in what amounted to a low-intensity civil war. Over 12 million of Wu’s generation, including current senior PLAN officers, were forced to work on rural communes as part of China’s “sent down youth” movement. [3] As a member of one of the only institutions left standing, however, Wu was saved from this fate by joining the PLA. However, given what we know about the Cultural Revolution’s impact on the nation’s academic institutions, the quality of training he received in Xi’an was highly questionable, and Wu would not receive formal training again until 1972, when he attended the captain’s course at the Dalian Naval Vessel Academy. [4]

After Xi’an, Wu’s early career was spent gaining experience as a surface warfare officer in the East and South Sea Fleets in the 1970s and 1980s, serving as both commander of the East Sea Fleet’s (ESF) 6th Destroyer Flotilla and as deputy chief of staff for the Shanghai Naval Base. The fact that future President Jiang Zemin was serving as Shanghai Party secretary at this time has led some PLA-watchers to speculate that Wu may have cultivated ties with Jiang. [5]

Yet Wu and his colleagues lacked combat experience. The closest that Wu is known to have come to combat was as the commander of the ESF’s 6th Destroyer Flotilla, when he had authority over the FrigateYingtan (CNS 531), one of the vessels which took part in the 1988 Johnson South Reef skirmish with Vietnam. [6]

In 1992, Wu became chief of staff of the ESF’s Fujian Support Base. This was soon followed by an appointment as commandant of the Dalian Naval Vessel Academy, a highly influential post, which allowed him to affect the direction of training for future PLAN officers. Wu returned to the ESF as a deputy commander in 1998. He was appointed South Sea Fleet (SSF) commander in 2002, and promoted to vice admiral in 2003. In 2004, he became one of the few naval officers to serve as a deputy chief of the PLA General Staff, a position equivalent to a commander of one of China’s seven Military Regions and the second-highest-ranking operational officer in the PLA Navy (Center for China Studies [Taiwan], June 5).

Shepherding the PLAN’s Transition

Wu’s background, family connections and professional experiences made him a strong candidate for top leadership roles. Thus, when cancer forced Admiral Zhang Dingfa into retirement in 2006, Wu was promoted to PLAN Commander just as the navy was on the cusp of an organizational transformation. In 2004, Hu Jintao gave his landmark address on the PLA’s “New Historic Missions,” which declared that China’s interests abroad were expanding, and that the PLA had an important role to play in defending those interests (Xinhua, June 19, 2006).

This new direction provided the PLAN with a substantially increased role in the implementation of China’s national security and military engagement policy. For Admiral Wu and his contemporaries, this challenge was exacerbated by years of isolation from the international naval community, which, along with the domestic effects of the Cultural Revolution, led to a dramatic erosion of professional and technical skills, as well as a severe decline in human capital and basic quality of life within China’s navy. [7] Indeed, Admiral Wu seems to have personally taken an interest in improving the quality of life of China’s sailors. Wu’s writings include details about the difficult and backwards conditions onboard PLAN ships earlier in his career, noting how PLAN sailors routinely “would go into port but not go ashore, eat while squatting on deck, hold meetings on folding stools and sleep on metal siding.” [8]

This makes Admiral Wu’s success in overseeing the PLAN’s transformation all the more compelling. While he and members of his cohort were responsible for overseeing a rapidly transforming navy, complete with formally trained officer candidates, they themselves had only limited formal training. Though tasked with preparing the PLAN to conduct blue water operations, the navy Wu Shengli had joined was still overwhelmingly a coastal defense force. Despite these challenges, within a few years of assuming command, the PLAN would be conducting anti-piracy escort operations in the Gulf of Aden, evacuating Chinese citizens far from China’s borders, (first in Libya in 2011 and later in Yeman in 2015), and participating in progressively more complex multinational maritime exercises, including the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific exercise in 2014 (RIMPAC-14) (China Brief, April 3; China Brief, May 1; Also see “Six Years at Sea… And Counting”).

Viewed in this context, what Wu and his contemporaries have accomplished in transforming the PLAN has been even more remarkable. The PLAN Commander and his staff must have truly been followed Deng Xiaoping’s aphorism to “cross the river by feeling the stones,” in part learning as they went about modernizing the PLAN and partly relying on younger, more technically trained PLAN officers–individuals who constitute the next generation of PLAN leadership. The history of China’s naval transformation in the 2000s has yet to be written, but understanding how Admiral Wu and his advisors managed this will be fascinating reading when the details come to light.

Improving USN-PLAN Relations

Navies often play the lead role in a country’s foreign military relations, and after having spent almost a decade developing the personnel relationships and diplomatic acumen that facilitates international engagement, Admiral Wu has in many ways become the face of the PLA abroad. Nowhere is this influence more apparent than in the PLAN’s growing engagement with the United States Navy (USN). Throughout this time, Admiral Wu has been a constant presence, meeting with each of the past three U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). In 2014 alone, CNO Greenert met with Wu on four separate occasions, the most of any foreign navy leader (USN, September 8, 2014).

Like any PLA officer with whom the U.S. Navy interacts, Admiral Wu’s talking points have been carefully selected and vetted by the Party. His statements in official settings reflect what the Party views as primary objectives for the military-to-military exchange. However, Wu’s long years of experience appears to have helped create a degree of stability in the U.S.-China navy-to-navy relationship not seen in the past. The two navies have worked together in multiple settings, including in the Gulf of Aden and in Hawaii at RIMPAC-14. They have conducted reciprocal port visits in Zhanjiang, San Diego and Hawaii, established the Code of Conduct for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) through cooperation in the Western Pacific Navy Symposium (WPNS) and continue to move forward on additional confidence building measures (Xinhuanet, April 23, 2014; Xinhuanet, December 14, 2014).

At the same time that the PLAN appears to have pushed its relationship with the U.S. Navy to new heights, the PLAN continues to play a vital role asserting China’s interests closer to home. For Admiral Wu, this ability to do both simultaneously reflects an adept and skillful use of maritime diplomacy. As China continues this assertive behavior however, this skillful balancing act may become increasingly difficult to maintain. Moreover, as Wu Shengli moves closer to retirement, his experience in helping manage this tension will surely be missed.

The Chinese Navy in the Post-Wu Era

While PLA decision making has become more transparent, opaque factors, including personal connections, family relationships and ever present corruption, make predicting who Wu’s successor will be impossible. That however, has never stopped China analysts from putting forth possible candidates for future promotion. With that in mind, the following three officers have been discussed at length as possible candidates to replace Admiral Wu:

Admiral Sun Jianguo: As the PLA’s deputy chief of staff in charge of intelligence, Admiral Sun is the second highest-ranking operational officer in the PLA, a position that Admiral Wu once held before becoming PLAN Commander. [9] Unlike Wu, Admiral Sun’s experience has largely been as a submariner, and he has captained both conventional and nuclear submarines, including those involved in espionage missions in the Taiwan Strait. [10] However, as a contemporary of Wu’s (Sun was born in 1952 and joined the PLA in 1968), he would be 65 by the 19th Party Congress, and thus would likely serve only an abbreviated tenure as PLAN commander.

Vice-Admiral Tian Zhong: A less likely but interesting alternative choice is Tian Zhong, who earlier this year was transferred from his former position as North Sea Fleet commander to deputy PLAN Commander, a position that provides him a seat on the PLAN Party Standing Committee. Relatively young at 59, Tian’s has moved through the ranks at a rapid pace. In 2007, he was promoted to NSF Commander after serving only a year as NSF chief of staff (Center for China Studies, August 3). Perhaps more tellingly, Tian was the youngest and lowest-ranking PLAN officer to serve on the CCP Party Central Committee. While still a fleet commander, Tian served on this elite organization alongside PLAN Commander Wu Shengli, PLAN Political Commissar Liu Xiaojiang and Admiral Sun Jianguo (Xinhua, November 14, 2012).

Vice-Admiral Jiang Weilie: Like Tian Zhong, former SSF commander, Jiang Weilie also became a PLAN commander in 2015. Jiang appears to be something of a technocrat, having served in the PLAN Equipment Department in 2010. [11] This is a highly unusual career move–few operational officers spend time in technical departments, a separate career track. [12] While in this department, Jiang was tasked with overhauling the PLAN’s equipment acquisition systems, after which he was rewarded with a fleet command. As the PLAN seeks to replace Wu’s international engagement experience, it should be noted that Jiang has also had multiple engagements with his U.S. Navy counterparts, most recently traveling to Hawaii in 2014 to serve as China’s VIP during its first-ever participation in RIMPAC-14 (Phoenix Online, July 22, 2014).

Conclusion

Whoever is selected as Admiral Wu’s replacement will be taking charge of a dramatically different force than the one Wu Shengli took command of in 2006. Thanks in part to his leadership, China’s navy today is far more capable, active and engaged with the rest of the world. It is staffed by more professional and formally trained personnel than at any time in China’s recent history, and enjoys a stable and robust working relationship with the USN and other international navies in large part due to his years of experience in maritime diplomacy and careful cultivation of relationships.

Notes

1. Although former PLAN Commander Xiao Jingguan nominally served as PLAN Commander for almost 30 years from 1950 to 1979, he was effectively sidelined during much of this time as a result of factual political infighting during the Cultural Revolution.

2. Jeffrey Becker et al., Behind the Periscope: Leadership in China’s Navy (Alexandria, VA: The CNA Corporation, 2013), p. 136

3. This includes for example current North Sea Fleet Commander Admiral Yuan Yubai. Before joining the PLAN in 1976, Admiral Yuan spent two years as a full-time member of his “Basic Line Education Work Team,” in Gongan County, Hubei Province. “Work Teams” were ad-hoc organizations invested with local authority during the Cultural Revolution. Jeffrey Becker et al., Behind the Periscope: Leadership in China’s Navy, p.183.

4. Cheng Li, “Wu Shengli – China’s Top Future Leaders to Watch,” Brookings, accessed March 18, 2015.

5. Ibid.

6. Yang Zhongmei, China’s Coming War: The Rise of China’s New Militarism (中國即將開戰: 中國新軍國主義崛起) (Taipei: Time Culture Press, 2013), p. 210–211

7. Admiral Liu Huaqing’s biography provides some exceptionally painful examples of just how far the PLAN had fallen immediately following the Cultural Revolution. See Liu Huaqing, Memoirs of Liu Huaqing, (刘华请回忆录), (Beijing: PLA Press, 2004), pp. 417-432.

8. Wu Shengli, “Beginning to Bid Farewell to Sleeping and Eating Aboard the Ship in Port: The Lifestyle Revolution for Chinese Sailors,” PLA Life (Jiefangjun Shenghuo; 解放军生活), no. 9 (2010).

9. Jeffrey Becker et al., Behind the Periscope: Leadership in China’s Navy, p. 173.

10. Shih Min, “Hu Jintao Actively Props up ’Princeling Army,” Chien Shao, April 1, 2006, no. 182.

11. Ma Haoliang, “High-Ranking Officer Adjustments in the Navy with a Focus on Having a Technologically Strong Military (海軍將領調整 凸顯科技強軍),” Ta Kung Pao, February 9, 2011

12. Kenneth Allen and Morgan Clemens, The Recruitment, Education, and Training of PLA Navy Personnel(China Maritime Studies Institute, 2014).

Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis, History, New Initiatives, North America

‘Indo-Asia Pacific’ Explained: An Assessment of US Maritime Strategy 2015

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In March 2015, the United States published a new maritime strategy document titled ‘A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower’ (Strategy-2015). It supersedes the one of the same title published eight years ago in October 2007 (Strategy-2007). It is the first maritime strategy to be released after the US announced its ‘Rebalance to Asia’ in 2011, and comes amidst seminal developments with far-reaching geopolitical and security ramifications. This view-point attempts to analyze Strategy-2015, including in comparison to Strategy-2007.

Jointness and Political Interface

Strategy-07 was the first-ever combined strategy of the three US Sea Services (Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard). Strategy-2015 maintains this feature, with is appropriate since the maritime environment is essentially ‘joint’’, and therefore, any strategy relating to the maritime realm cannot be a single-service articulation. Besides, due to fiscal uncertainties the US is facing today, an inter-service synergy is necessary to avoid duplication of resources and optimise investments for capability development.

Notably, unlike the 2007 document, the new strategy contains a ‘Preface’ by the Secretary of the Navy, which indicates an enhanced political interface with the Sea Services, possibly in terms of both oversight and support of the higher national leadership.

Indo-Asia-Pacific

The new strategy contains an explicit focus on the region that it calls the “Indo-Asia-Pacific.” While US officials have been increasingly using this phrase, the 2015 Strategy document is the first official articulation. The inference is two-fold:

• First, it denotes the realisation of the ‘inadequacy’ of ‘Asia-Pacific’ to address the emerging geopolitical, economic and security dynamics of the rising Asia.

• Second, while the phrase ‘Indo-Pacific’ has become more prevalent in Asia since 2007, the US preference to use “Indo-Asia-Pacific” indicates that it wishes to be part of Asia’s ‘rise’ and derive the attendant gains.

Ends, Ways and Means

The term ‘strategy’ is defined as an articulation of ‘ways’ and ‘means’ to achieve the ‘ends’. In this context, Strategy-07 was merely a ‘primer’ to strategy. It referred to ‘ends’ in very broad terms, without going into specifics of security challenges. It avoided naming countries, either as adversaries, or allies and partners. While it mentioned maritime threats like piracy, it did not contextualize these with specific areas. It was also frugal in expounding on the ‘ways’ and ‘means.’

In comparison, Strategy-15 is a detailed articulation. It echoes the spirit of the US ‘Rebalance’ policy in terms of China’s naval ascendency as both an opportunity and a challenge. It seeks to temper Beijing’s revisionist stance and dissuade its politico-military assertiveness through multifaceted engagement. It is also more forthright in defining the “military challenges”, such as the “Russian military modernization (and) aggression” and the (Chinese) “anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities that challenge our global maritime access….” Furthermore, it is more explicit on the ‘geography’ of piracy, the effects of religious radicalism and the fundamentalist groups. In terms of the ‘ways’ and ‘means’ too, Strategy-2015 reveals as much as a document in the public domain possibly can. It provides much detail on the US plans to allocate forces for the ‘Rebalance.’

Strategic and Operational Access

Since the middle of 20th century when the US rose to superpower status with the ability to influence events worldwide, unimpeded strategic access to the global commons and freedom of operational manoeuvre have been the cornerstones of its military strategy.

While Strategy-2007 did acknowledge the operational salience of dominating the realms of space, cyber and the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum – as integral to sea control, for instance – it conceived strategic access largely in the geospatial context: sea, land and air. Strategy-2015 goes beyond this to seek access and freedom of action in any domain—the sea, air, land, space, and cyberspace, as well as in the EM spectrum. In all likelihood, this is a declaration meant to counter China’s declaratory policy of A2/AD in the western Pacific, including the asymmetric challenges in the space, cyber and EM domains that Chinese military forces may impose upon their US counterparts.

Forward Presence and Partnership

Strategy-2007 had laid much emphasis on forward presence of the US Sea Services as essential for a major power like the US that seeks inter alia to shape developments in its areas of interest, be better prepared to respond to adverse contingencies, deter and dissuade potential adversaries, reassure allies and friends.

While maintaining the emphasis on forward presence, Strategy-2015 also explains how the US intends to achieve this more effectively, both operationally and fiscally. It adds that the forward naval presence would enable a quick and seamless access to the US joint military forces, if and when the occasion demands.

Given that resource limitations envisaged by the US Sea Services, ‘forward naval presence’ is closely enmeshed with the need to develop partnerships with local maritime forces. The Thousand Ship Navy (TSN) concept propounded by the US Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Mike Mullen in 2005 was rephrased as the ‘Global Maritime Partnership’ (GMP) initiative in Strategy-2007. As a set of informal arrangements, the GMP was also intended to “send powerful messages to would-be aggressors that we will act with others to ensure collective security….”

Strategy-2015 furthers the appeal for the partnership, now rephrased as a “global network of navies.” The document effectively communicates to the potential partners the rationale for such “plug and play” cooperation with the US forces sans “commitment.”

Force Design and Employment

Strategy-2015 describes “a force that balances warfighting readiness with our Nation’s current and future fiscal challenges.” This statement seems to be the mainstay of the force design and employment strategy of US Sea Services.

Strategy-2007 had laid down the intent to “tailor” maritime forces “to meet the unique and evolving requirements particular to each geographic region.” Strategy-2015, possibly driven by fiscal prudence, seems to have adopted a less ‘ambitious’ approach. It aims only to “align (existing) capability, capacity, and platforms to regional mission demands…by ensuring that our most modern and technologically advanced forces are located where their combat power is needed most.” It also seeks to enhance the effectiveness of naval forces by employing “new warfighting concepts… and…. innovation.” The innovations stipulated by the document include increasing forward-basing of forces “to reduce costly rotations…” and developing modular platforms like Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) to enable swapping mission modules in lieu of costly ship rotations.

In sum, Strategy-2015 is not only a quantum improvement over the preceding strategy document of 2007, but also sets a model for the other existing and emerging major powers to emulate in the interest of transparency in military concepts and capability development. Such transparency is essential among maritime-military forces that operate in the international medium, and particularly those belonging to the “Indo-Asia-Pacific” region that is becoming increasingly volatile, as recent developments indicate.

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 gurpreet.bulbul@gmail.com.

Capability Analysis, Future War, Global Analysis, History, South Pacific/Oceania, Strategic Outlook, Tactical Concepts

Enter the SCAGTF: Combined Distributed Maritime Ops

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By Nicolas di Leonardo

SURFACE * CYBER * AIR * GROUND * TASK FORCE

 “…The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” –Sun Tzu, The Art of War 

Six Phases of Warfare
Source: JP 3-0

In modern parlance, winning without fighting is accomplished in Phases 0 and 1 of a campaign.  China is seeking to achieve a Phase 0-1 victory in the Pacific through its acquisition / deployment of Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) weaponry and economic / military coercion of its peripheral neighbors. When the two are coupled, US operational and diplomatic freedom of maneuver becomes severely constrained, and decisive counter-strategy is required.

Historically, the US has attempted to counter each of China’s weapon systems / diplomatic moves individually without attacking its overall strategy.  When new Chinese weapons systems are deployed, new American countermeasures are fielded.  When China builds new islands where disputed sandbars and reefs once existed, the US flies freedom of navigation sorties overhead.  When individual South East Asian countries are coerced by China to abandon multilateral UNCLOS negotiations and sign bilateral agreements, the US reaffirms support of multilateralism.  The American strategy demonstrates

Source: InformationDissemination.net
Source: InformationDissemination.net

resolve and intent, but does little to shape the environment, and deter the near peer competitor.  It plays like a precipitated withdraw and ceding of the South China Sea to China—a stunning admission that there is seemingly little that the US can do when faced with the Chinese dominated political-economic landscape on one hand and a potential naval – air war of attrition on the other. 

The potential Chinese A2AD environment is particularly daunting for the US Pacific Fleet.  Chinese forces could elect to deploy their anti-surface / land attack ballistic and cruise missiles to keep American carriers outside of the 9-Dash Line; disable reconnaissance satellites; jam communications necessary for secure / centralized command & control; threaten to overwhelm remaining forces with vast numbers of aircraft while using the majority of their ships and submarines to counter the US asymmetric advantage in undersea warfare. By asymmetrically threatening American Navy “kill chains”, and especially by holding its naval center of gravity—the CVNs—at risk, the Chinese can effectively turn the American critical strength into a critical vulnerability.  The US cannot afford to lose even one CVN and thus when confronted with the threat of a paralyzing strike against its Pacific CVNs followed by an attrition war, it is prudent to assume that the US would not risk the losses and would exit the battlespace. A potential de-facto Chinese victory in Phases 0-2 could thus be achieved without a decisive Mahanian sea battle–just a credible threat.

Solution sets to countering Chinese A2AD Phase O-2 victory are under development from multiple sources—US  Naval Surface Forces (Distributed Lethality); Marine Corps Combat Development Command (Distributed STOVL [F-35B] Operations); US Marine Corps Advanced Studies Program (Engagement Pull).  All have one thing in common: strategic distribution of mobile offensive power to hold China’s freedom of maneuver in the South China Sea at risk, and inhibit their sea control over key sea lines of communication (SLOC). These solution sets represent a significant evolution in the strategic thought surrounding the US pivot to the Pacific:  attacking China’s strategy vs countering its individual asymmetric capabilities.

In Distributed Maritime Operations: Back to the Future, Dr. Benjamin Jensen states that

“…integrating land and naval forces as a ‘fleet in being’ denying adversary sea control is at the core of the emerging distributed maritime operations paradigm.” 

The defining of the pieces parts and the organizational construct of this paradigm is at the heart of the matter.  General Al Gray, USMC (ret) and Lt. General George Flynn, USMC (ret) recently presented at the Potomac Institute their thoughts on Sea Control and Power Projection within the context of The Single Naval Battle.  In their vision, the forces would include:

To this list I would add tactical level cyber capabilities.

Forces engaged in these missions will likely operate in near proximity to each other and in joint / combined operations, as the American, Australian, New Zealand and British sea, air and land forces of Guadalcanal did.  They will be required to pose sufficient threat to Chinese forces without significant reinforcement due to anticipated Chinese A2AD.  The inter-complexity of their likely combined Sea, Cyber, Air, Ground operations dictates that their task force command and control should not be ad-hoc, but must be defined well in advance to allow for the emergence, experimentation and exercising of command knowledge, skills, abilities and tactics / doctrine. US and allied lack of exercising joint/ combined, multi-domain operations prior to Guadalcanal led to tactics and command and control (C2) doctrine being written in blood.  This lack of foresight should not be repeated.

A SCAGTF construct allows for the US to shape the environment with its allies, deter the [Chinese], and if necessary to seize the initiative, buying time for the massing of forces to dominate the battlespace.  The SCAGTF is one way to integrate the great ideas of our best strategists on distributed maritime operations into a single, flexible organizational structure that is capable of mobile, simultaneous combined / joint multi-domain operations in all phases of warfare.  Such a force could aid the US in reversing its Pacific fortunes, in reinforcing multilateral peace and security for the region, and ultimately in realizing Sun Tzu’s bloodless victory.

Nicolas di Leonardo is a graduate student of the US Naval War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the War College or the United States Navy.

Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis, Europe, Global Analysis, History

Return of the Clandestine Merchant Raider?

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By Chuck Hill

Since before recorded history, merchant vessels have been adapted for offensive purposes by navies, pirates, and privateers to destroy enemy commerce or to launch attacks ashore. Frequently they employed disguise and deception. The UK employed Ships Taken Up From Trade (STUFT) during the 1982 Falklands War, the Malaysian Navy has converted two container ships into pirate hunters, and the US Navy has leased ships to support special operations, but I think the last time they were used to attack commerce was WWII. By the end 1943, it appeared that technology, primarily in the form of reliable radios, plus robust challenge-and-reply procedures, a comprehensive naval control of shipping organization, and a seemingly impervious blockade of the German coast, had made this type of  warfare very dangerous, but new technology may now be working in favor of using converted merchant ships as clandestine warships.

The German Experience

During World Wars I and II, the German Navy achieved considerable success using armed merchant ships as clandestine merchant raiders. At small cost they sank or captured a large number of allied merchant vessels, tied down a number of warships searching for the raiders, and even managed to sink allied warships.

In World War I, three raiders, Wolf, Moewe, and Seeadler (a full rigged sailing ship), sank or captured 78 ships totaling 323,644 tons. In addition to the merchant ships they captured or sank directly, merchant raiders proved effective mine layers. One victim of a mine laid by the raider Moewe was the pre-dreadnought battleship EdwardVII, sunk on 6 January, 1915.

In World War II nine German Merchant raiders, Atlantis, Komet, Kormoran, Michel, Orion, Pinguin, Stier, Thor, and Widder, sank or captured 129 ships, totaling 800,661 tons. While this pales in comparison to the sinkings by U-boats, they were far more effective than the regular navy surface raiders, including the vaunted pocket battleships, heavy cruisers, and battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, that managed to sink or captured only 59, totaling 232,633 tons. The merchant raider Kormoran even managed to torpedo and sink the light cruiser HMAS Sidney, before the Kormoran herself was also sunk.

Typically, the raiders of WWII were equipped with six obsolescent 5.9″ guns and large numbers of torpedoes to allow ships to be sunk rapidly. Most were also equipped with aircraft and some with torpedo boats.  They were also equipped to change their appearance while underway.

Several of their voyages were extraordinarily long. Michel’s first voyage was 346 days. Orion’s was 510 days. Thor was away 329 days and managed to sink HMS Voltaire, an armed merchant cruiser. Pinguin for 357 days. Komet for 512 days. Kormoran for 350 days before her fatal encounter with HMAS Sydney. The ships were refueled and rearmed by supporting vessels that also took their prisoners. Raiders were also used to resupply submarines.

Perhaps surprisingly, none of these WWII raiders were underway when the war began, when they might have been most effective. They were sortied in two waves in 1940 and 1942.

End of the Merchant Raider

Despite their successes, by the time the last German raider at sea was sunk on 7 September, 1943, by a US submarine shortly after it had sortied from Japan, it had become impossible for ships to sortie from Germany and make it to open sea. Komet and a tenth raider were both sunk attempting to do so.  Three of the nine, Atlantis, Pinguin, and Kormoran, were sunk in distant seas by British cruisers. One, Stier, was sunk by the Naval Armed Guard on the Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins. One was destroyed by a nearby explosion while moored in Yokohama. Two, Orion and Widder,  survived their career as raiders long enough to return to Germany and be repurposed.

Rebirth–Weapons and Sensors, Old and New

Technological changes in the form of containerized cruise missiles, satellites and UAVs and other Unmanned Vehicles may have made the merchant cruiser once again a viable option.

Cruise missiles mean that the raider no longer needs to come with visible range of the their victim. With sufficient range and use of way points, the shooter can be over 100 miles from its victim and the missile can come from any direction, not necessarily from the direction of the raider. Plus they can now attack land targets as well as ships. The US has begun to think seriously about the threat of a cruise missile attack on the US and innocent looking container ships are a possible source.

UAVs can provide over the horizon targeting and are likely to be undetected by the target.

Satellites may help or hurt potential raiders. If they have the support of satellites, it may help them find their pray. If the defenders are sufficiently sophisticated (and they are looking in the right place) they may be able to recognize a missile launch as the first step in finding, fixing and destroying the raider.

Similarly the Automatic Identification System may help the raider or the defender. It may help the raider find targets, but it may also help the defender react more swiftly to an attack or help him identify the raider from among all the other ships in the area. There is always the possibility the information may be bogus. Unmanned Surface Vessels might be used to create false targets. We might want to plan for a system of encrypted information for contingencies. Limiting use of the systems is an option that may require careful consideration.

Mines are still potentially effective. The large carrying capacity of cargo ships means they could potentially lay large mine fields. A raider could knowing a war will start soon might lay a large field to be activated when hostilities begin. If hostilities have already begun, the raider is unlikely approach a port closely enough to lay the mines itself, but mobile mines already exist, and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles or even simple semi-submersible unmanned vessels that can lay an minefield should be relatively easy technology.

China, Perpetrator or Target

From an American point of view, China with its huge merchant fleet and large inventory of cruise missile may appear a possible user of Merchant Raiders, but their large merchant fleet and need to import may also make them vulnerable to this this type of warfare if employed by weaker nations.

We know China has a Naval Militia. that will allow them to rapidly increase the size of their naval force. China has recently said it would require its ship builders to incorporate features that would make them usable for military purposes in wartime. These requirements are to be applied to five categories of vessels – container, roll-on/roll-off, multipurpose, bulk carrier and break bulk.  What these additional features are to be, is not clear. This could mean upgraded communications, either external or internal. It could mean improved survivability, greater speed, or foundations for weapons upgrades. They may only be thinking of using these ships to support amphibious operations, but these improvements may also make a large number of ships potential merchant raiders.

China’s large merchant fleet and need to import raw materials may make her vulnerable to Guerre d’Course. In the kind of low intensity conflict we have seen between China and her neighbors, it has seemed China has had all the advantages, but if they are pushed too far, China’s neighbors might see this form of warfare as a way to push back.

Non-State Actors

There is also the possibility of terrorist organizations attempting something similar, but they are more likely to attack highly visible targets of a symbolic nature, such as port facilities or major warships. Cruise missile could of course be used to attack major landmarks. They may also be less interested in living to fight another day.

Conclusion: I don’t think we have seen the end of offensive use of Merchant vessels.

Sources:

Addendum:

Some photos of vessels that are being used for military purposes:

MSC has chartered the MV Craigside to support SOCOM requirements. It is undergoing conversion in Mobile.

SD Victoria lifts boats and supports crews for UK Special Forces (SBS and SAS).

Malaysian auxiliary warship Bunga Mas Lima

Chuck retired from the Coast Guard after 22 years service. Assignments included four ships, Rescue Coordination Center New Orleans, CG HQ, Fleet Training Group San Diego, Naval War College, and Maritime Defense Zone Pacific/Pacific Area Ops/Readiness/Plans. Along the way he became the first Coast Guard officer to complete the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course and also completed the Naval Control of Shipping course. He has had a life-long interest in naval ships and history.