Category Archives: Strategy

By David Scott

Introduction

On 30 May 2018, Admiral Harry Harris, the retiring chief of the newly renamed U.S. Indo-Pacific Pacific Command (IndoPacom), noted that “China remains our biggest long-term challenge” and “a resurgent and revanchist Russia, remains an existential threat to the U.S” – and that consequently “Great Power competition is back.” Such competition brings Russia and China together as political partners, and is echoed in their increasing naval cooperation. Such naval cooperation provides one another with tacit support in their respective areas of geopolitical interest.

Straight balancing imperatives against the U.S. bring Russia and China together. This was first evident in their 1997 “Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order,” which was followed by a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation signed in 2001, and proclamation of a “strategic partnership.” Joint military exercises were initiated in 2005, with maritime exercises starting in 2012. Their military cooperation has clear “geopolitical signaling” to the U.S.-led order, reflecting their maritime strategies.

Russia’s Maritime Strategy

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, the Russian Federation suffered a decade of chaos under Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s and with it a sharp decline in maritime power from the preceding Soviet period. Vladimir Putin has sought to establish Russia as a major power again, and to push back the advancing influence of the U.S., NATO and the EU. Military power and military assertiveness has been a feature of Putin’s presidency.

This renewed Russian pushback was reflected in the Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, released in 2015, which sought to restore Russia’s position “among the leading maritime powers,” and concluded in its final sentence that it aimed to make Russia “a great maritime power.” It stressed that as an “instrument of foreign policy […] naval activities are the highest state priorities.” The navy had a global remit:

“The Navy is intended to ensure protection of the national interests of the Russian Federation and its allies on the World Ocean by military means, maintaining military and political stability at the global and regional levels […] ensures the naval presence of the Russian Federation; shows the flag and demonstrates military capabilities on the World Ocean.”

Russia’s areas of strategic interest were recast on a wider scale again; “the Russian Federation identifies the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Caspian, Indian Ocean and Antarctic areas as the main regional priority areas of the National Maritime Policy.” To reverse the Yeltsin-period of industrial collapse of the 1990s, a naval shipbuilding program was announced.

Chinese Military Strategy

The current rise of China is a process where economic modernization is now feeding into military modernization. This military modernization includes naval advancement, where China’s navy is moving from a local coastal activities to oceanic-going “far seas operations” (yuanhai zuozhan). China’s 2013 Defense White Paper announced its intent “to accelerate the modernization of its forces for comprehensive offshore operations, develop advanced submarines, destroyers and frigates […] blue-water capabilities.” Faced with U.S. naval strength in the West Pacific, China has adopted a naval strategy of penetrating the “first island chain” (dì yi dao lian) running from Japan down the Ryukyu chain to Taiwan, establishing naval presence in its “core interests” (hexin liyi) claims to most of the South China Sea, and in a “two-ocean strategy” (liang ge haiyang) of establishing ongoing naval presence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Like Russia, China is accelerating its naval shipbuilding program, including aircraft carrier capabilities.

Bilateral Naval Exercises 2012-2018

A significant development in the China-Russia relationship has been their series of large-scale naval exercises held since 2012. At a time when both powers have been under growing criticism from the West, their overt readiness to publicly operate militarily side-by-side has been an act of political solidarity. They continue to claim that these drills are “not aimed at third parties,” but in reality pointed messages are being sent to third parties like the U.S. and others with whom Russia and China are in competition with.

The geographic scope of the Russia-China naval exercises has been wide ranging, with each country hosting in different waters.

Three of the exercises have taken place in Russia’s backyard – the Mediterranean (2015), Black Sea (2015), Baltic (2017), and Okhtosk Sea (2017). One has been in mutual areas of interest – the Sea of Japan (2013, 2015, 2017). Three have been in China’s backyard – the Yellow Sea (2012), the East China Sea (2014) and the South China Sea (2016). The 2018 exercises are scheduled to be held in the Yellow Sea, coming full circle back to the start of the cycle of exercises that commenced in 2012.

Russia’s Strategic Backyard

2015: Mediterranean

With this exercise, Russia was sending a very explicit message to the U.S. and NATO. This was at a time when Russia was reinserting itself back into the Mediterranean as a permanent maritime presence, through re-setting up in September 2013 the “5th Operational squadron” for operations in the Mediterranean, to be serviced and repaired at Tartus in Syria. This was again made up of ships from the Black Sea Fleet and Northern Fleet, which of course participated in the Russia-China naval exercises in 2015.

Tartus had operated under a Soviet-Syrian agreement concluded in 1971, with a view of supporting the Soviet Navy’s 5th Operational Squadron in the Mediterranean, in its rivalry with the U.S. 6th Fleet based in Italy. This Soviet squadron had been disbanded in 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tartus was subsequently the focus, along with Hmeymim airbase, for the flow of Russian military supplies into Syria from 2012 onward. This growing Russian military role in Syria, on the side of Assad, attracts increasing criticism from European states, the U.S., and NATO, but China’s readiness to exercise with Russia in the Mediterranean in 2015 gave Russia extra support. Direct Russian military intervention quickly followed in September 2015. Russia’s maritime presence in the Mediterranean was further strengthened on 18 January 2017, when Russia and Syria signed an agreement, whereby Russia was allowed to expand and use the naval facility at Tartus for 49 years on a free-of-charge basis and enjoy sovereign jurisdiction over the base, with full immunity from Syrian jurisdiction for Russia’s personnel and material at the facility. The treaty also allows Russia to keep 11 warships at Tartus, including nuclear vessels.

China’s implicit message in the 2015 exercise was to show its assertion of its blue water capabilities. A more subtle message was to accustom Europe to China’s presence and emerging maritime interests in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has come into the purview of the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiative pursued by China since 2013. In particular, the main Greek port of Piraeus has increasing “geopolitical” importance to China, a “bridgehead” into Europe; the so called “dragon head” from the MSR route coming through the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, via the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. Greece’s troubled relationship with the EU had seen China stepping in with financial aid, including the running of the Piraeus port by the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) since 2008. In July 2014 China and Greece agree to make the year 2015 the “China-Greece Maritime Cooperation Year.” Consequently, China strengthened its Mediterranean presence by COSCO’s acquisition of a majority stake (i.e. moving from administering to owning) in the Piraeus Port Authority in April 2016.

2015: Black Sea

Technically speaking the Black Sea was not the focus of the bilateral China-Russia naval exercise program. However, immediately following the bilateral 2015 Mediterranean exercise, the Chinese missile frigates, the Linyi and the Wei Fang, proceeded into the Black Sea, to take part in World War Two commemorations at Novorossiysk on the Russian Black Sea coast.

Russia’s context was simple, growing assertion in the Black Sea littoral. This had first been seen in its ongoing presence in Trans-Dniester since the 1990s, then followed with intervention in Abkhazia in Georgia in 2008, and particularly manifested in 2014 with the occupation of the Crimea, and with it securing full control of the deep water facilities of Sevastopol. China’s deployment to Russia’s Black Sea coast in May 2015 in effect gave unofficial support to Russian actions in the Ukraine in February 2014, which caused outrage across the rest of Europe, and with it sanctions and cutting of various political, economic, and military links.

2017: Baltic Sea

The Chinese destroyer Hefei, the frigate Yuncheng , and the replenishment ship Luomahu sailed to the Baltic to carry out Maritime Interaction 2017 exercises with 18 other Russian ships from the Baltic Fleet from 21-28 July 2017. They first met in the waters off the Kaliningrad enclave, currently a “fault line of East-West tensions,” carried out exercises including live fire exercises, before the Chinese vessels sailed right up the Baltic to Russia’s St. Petersburg for a friendly port call. This represented a particularly far-reaching deployment of Chinese naval presence, but the context was very much Russian reassertion of military power in the Baltic, where Kaliningrad is not only the headquarters for the Russian Baltic Fleet, but is also a forward point for various missile deployments.

Rising confrontation has been a feature of the Baltic. Cyber-warfare attacks have been carried out by Russia against Estonia in 2016, and NATO exercises had immediately preceded the Russia-China naval exercise – the Suwalki Gap exercises in June 2017 and the Tobruq Legacy 2017 exercises in Lithuania in early July 2017. The Russia-China naval exercises in late-July were in turn followed and reinforced by the Russian-Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2017 held in September in the vicinity of Kaliningrad, which was the largest Russian exercise since the end of the Cold War. For Russia, the Baltic Sea exercises with China were one of several shows of strength with the purpose of sending a signal not only to the Baltic States, but also NATO, which had increased its presence in Poland and the Baltic states. China in itself presented no particular military danger to the Baltic States, but its very visible presence alongside Russia sent a signal of tacit support to Moscow.

2017: Okhtosk Sea

The Okhotsk Sea lies between the Kurile chain of islands and the Kamchakta peninsular. It is very much Russian waters, facing the northern Pacific and the U.S. Aleutian islands, with naval facilities at Petropavlovsk. The 2017 Russia-China exercises in the Sea of Japan were extended northwards into the Okhtosk waters in September 2017. From Russia’s point of view such military exercises support its increasing grip on the Okhtosk Sea, demonstrated with how it closed down these waters to outside shipping and fishing in 2014, which some argued will “embolden” similar Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.

Common Backyards

2013, 2015, 2017: Sea of Japan

The Sea of Japan lies between the Japanese archipelago, the Russian island of Sakhalin and Far Eastern province, and the Korean peninsula. Vladivostok is the home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, currently recovering from the decay witnessed in the 1990s. Naval exercises between Russia and China were carried out in the Sea of Japan in July 2013, August 2015, and September 2017. The 2015 exercises included joint amphibious landing drills, of relevance for China and Russia in their respective island disputes with Japan.

The Kurile island chain is administered by Russia, but territorial disputes remain with Japan over the four southernmost islands which Japan calls the “Northern Territories.” Russia has continued to reassert its continuing grip on this chain, with increased naval strength a signal to Japan.

Disputed features of the Kuril Islands (DW.com)

China has no direct frontage onto the Sea of Japan, but it continues to seek access to the Pacific Ocean through the “first island chain” running down through the .U.S Aleutian islands down through the Japanese archipelago. Naval exercises in the Sea of Japan send a message from China to Japan, the more so following the 2013 exercise where five Chinese naval vessels conducted their first known passage of the Soya Strait located between Hokkaido in northern Japan and Russia’s Sakhalin Island. The 2013 exercises were preceded by live fire joint U.S.-Japanese naval exercises in the Eastern Pacific. Comments in China were pointed: “all military drills have imaginary enemies, otherwise it’s just a game. For the U.S. and Japan, their joint drills in San Diego targeted China. And the upcoming Sino-Russian exercises will obviously target Japan or even the U.S. in response.” The five Chinese vessels participating in the 2015 exercise sailed from the Sea of Japan into Aleutian island territorial waters, a message to the U.S.

China’s Backyard

Three venues for the China-Russia exercises have been in China’s backyard, namely the Yellow Sea (2012), the East China Sea (2014), and the South China Sea (2016).

2012: Yellow Sea

The Yellow Sea is bounded by China, running up from Shanghai on the one side and the Korean peninsula on the other side. It in turn runs into the Bohai Sea, the maritime gateway to Beijing. A degree of naval “competition” is apparent with the U.S., which continues to deploy into these waters and carry out naval exercises with South Korea. The immediate context for the China-Russia 2012 exercises in April were the U.S. joint naval exercises with South Korea in March, as well as those in November 2010 which had attracted much Chinese criticism. Another set of exercises with South Korea and Japan took place in the Yellow Sea in June 2012; complete with the USS George Washington nuclear-powered aircraft carrier; with the state media warning that “U.S. in position to strangle China’s maritime lifelines.”

2014: East China Sea

These exercises were launched by both Presidents Xi and Putin at Shanghai in May 2014. Russia’s motives were secondary, i.e. tacitly supportive of China’s increasing naval presence in the East China Sea where “core interests” are at stake for Beijing. These revolve around the Senkaku islands controlled by Japan but which China claims as the Diaoyu islands, disputed exclusive economic zones between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and disputed airspace above these waters. Chinese actions in 2012 and 2013 provide the immediate context for Beijing’s decision to operate with Russia in the East China Sea. Firstly, increasing deployments of Chinese naval units in the waters immediately around the Senkaku/Diaoyu have been rising since 2012. The Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) proclaimed in November 2013 was a further sign of China’s push to establish jurisdiction over the East China Sea. Moreover, from the East China Sea, China seeks to penetrate Japan’s Ryukyu island chain into the Pacific, with naval deployments becoming a regular pattern through the Miyako and Ishigaki straits since 2008. The 2012 deployment through the Miyako Strait was particularly significant as China told Japan that “with the expansion of China’s maritime transport lines and interests, the Chinese navy will inevitably extend its combat forces to the Pacific.”

2016: South China Sea

The two sides conducted their annual naval exercise, Joint Sea-2016, in the South China Sea with a focus on “island-seizing.” This is a key arena for China, a so-called “core interest” (hexin liyi) in which China’s “9-dash line” encloses most of the South China Sea, including the Paracels (occupied by China since 1974 but disputed with Vietnam) and the Spratlys (some land holdings occupied by China but disputed with Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, as well as waters disputed with Brunei and Indonesia). The China-Russia naval exercise in September 2016 was preceded in July 2016 by the ruling at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague which had seriously undermined China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, since it held that China’s so-called historical rights gave no validity for claims for Exclusive Economic Zones, and that none of the land features were proper “islands” under the UNCLOS categorization which could generate exclusive Economic Zones, and criticized Chinese creation of artificial concrete land features. It was significant that immediately before the start of the exercise Putin affirmed “we stand in solidarity and support of China’s position – not to recognize the decision of this court.” Given that China’s militarization of these artificial holdings had attracted widespread regional and international criticism, Russia’s readiness to then conduct military exercises with China, particularly involving South China Sea amphibious “island-seizing” operations, in effect provided tacit support for China’s maritime reinforcement of its position.

Looking Forward

The 2018 exercises to be held in the Yellow Sea returns their cooperation to Northeast Asia, at a time when both China and Russia are moving to strengthen involvement in the Korean peninsula, and shape developments in their favor. These naval exercises have become a well-established feature in China-Russia military cooperation, which are in turn part of their wider strategic cooperation.

David Scott is an independent analyst on Indo-Pacific international relations and maritime geopolitics, a prolific writer and a regular ongoing presenter at the NATO Defense College in Rome since 2006 and the Baltic Defence College in Tartu since 2017. He can be contacted at davidscott366@outlook.com.

Featured Image: In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Rear Adm. Du Xiping, front right, deputy commander of China’s Beihai Fleet, shakes hands with Captain First Rank Sergei Yuriyevich Zhuga of Russia’s Pacific Fleet during a welcome ceremony at a naval base in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, Saturday, April 21, 2012. A China-Russia joint maritime drill is scheduled from April 22 to 27 on the Yellow Sea, Xinhua said. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Zha Chunming)

Capability Analysis, Strategy

Countering Hybrid Threats in the Maritime Environment

June 11, 2018 Guest Author 1 Comment

Maritime Strategy for Great Power Competition Week

By Chris Kremidas-Courtney

Introduction: Hybrid Threats

Today, there are state and non-state actors challenging nations, institutions, and private companies through a wide range of overt and covert activities targeted at their vulnerabilities. Both NATO and the European Union refer to these as “hybrid threats” and the maritime domain has proven to be especially vulnerable.¹ As we’ve seen recently, in both Crimea and the South China Sea, a hybrid approach lowers the political price for aggression, making regime change and territorial annexation possible “on the cheap.”²

Many refer to this phenomenon as “hybrid warfare” and in the process militarize a phenomenon that is actually much broader and more complex. This phenomenon requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to access the necessary means and authorities to address them. Thus, hybrid threats are best understood when framed as an attack on governance, specifically democratic governance.

Hybrid uses subtle, far-reaching, and opportunistic methods – and seldom with a return address. In other cases, they can be more brazen, but operate in a gray zone in which the impacted state has few good response options without escalating the situation into armed conflict.

In general, governments and institutions with weak governance are more susceptible to hybrid and transnational threats. Corruption, low levels of public trust, weak public and private accountability, ineffective law enforcement, poor border and port security, weak security protocols for critical infrastructure, and a lack of cooperation between ministries, institutions, and the private sector leave them more vulnerable to these attacks on governance.

Of course, these threats have always existed, but what makes hybrid threats different are the new vulnerabilities presented by a globalized world interconnected by instant global communications, systems of finance, and commerce. Hybrid threats represent the weaponization of globalization.

The governance which is threatened by hybrid threats is not just public, but private as well. The majority of the world’s supply chain, communications providers, financial systems, and media outlets are found in the private sector. For example, 80–90 percent of many Western countries’ critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector. This infrastructure is widely recognized as the first target of a hybrid campaign.³ Given NATO’s heavy reliance on the private sector to provide logistics and communications capabilities during a crisis, these vulnerabilities can have far-reaching effects.

Vulnerabilities to Maritime Hybrid Threats

Commercial. Commercial vessels and ports are vulnerable to hybrid threats in the form of sabotage, navigational spoofing, and cyber-attacks on supply chain information systems, resulting in lost or disrupted cargo, denial of access to critical port facilities, and environmental damage. At the same time, foreign ownership and control of commercial port facilities can lead to the disruption of their use when these same facilities are required in times of crisis.

Cyber. Commercial and military maritime activities are more reliant on cyber-enabling capabilities than ever, with everything from navigation systems to port information systems all being vulnerable to cyber-attack by hybrid actors and criminal organizations.⁴The Maersk incident of 2017 illustrates the challenge well. A cyber-attack on the government of Ukraine inadvertently impacted Danish global shipping giant Maersk when they went to pay their Ukrainian taxes online.

As a result, Maersk’s global operations came to a halt as they temporarily lost the ability to govern their fleet. Numerous other industries were also impacted as the global supply chain was disrupted.⁵ If this attack was actually aimed at commercial ports and logistics companies, the damage and disruption could have been much worse.

Under this same category, some commercial shipping companies are currently testing technologies to enable the use of cyber-controlled unmanned container ships to move commodities across the world’s seaways. Obviously, the risks associated with this potential development are self-evident when looked at through the lens of maritime hybrid threats, with a potential scenario of a cyber-hacked unmanned vessel being turned into a weapon.

Energy. Diversification of energy supplies has led to an increase in the importance of liquefied natural gas (LNG), to include the transport vessels and onshore offloading facilities. In addition, gas and oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and the trans-shipment of petroleum and LNG at sea makes the energy supply chain more vulnerable to hybrid threats against the commercial entities which explore, extract, and ship these commodities.⁶

Communications. Today’s economies are very reliant on the global information technology infrastructure with 97 percent of intercontinental communications moving through undersea cables, most of which lack even basic defenses. Approximately $10 trillion in financial transactions is carried over these 213 cable systems every day, illustrating the global economy’s reliance on them.⁷ These cables are not owned by states, but rather by private entities which cannot afford to harden them and still make a profit.

The potential impacts are apparent when considering that in December 2008, accidental cable cuts in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf resulted in widespread internet outages in the Middle East and India. For example, during that accident, Egypt lost 70 percent of internet connectivity, while India lost 50 percent.⁸

Territorial Vulnerabilities. The borders and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of coastal nations can be disrupted and contested by hybrid actors acting on behalf of a state in order to contest the governance of their sovereign territory. In the South China Sea, China seeks to expand its claims, often interfering with the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, using methods such as armed fisherman to challenge the authorities of these nations and their commercial entities operating in their own EEZ.

Since the ability to control, maintain, and protect sovereign territory is a key aspect of governance, these are among the central tasks of coast guards and naval forces. In some cases, governments find it necessary to modify the rules of engagement for coast guards to be authorized to use deadly force, as Finland did in 2017.

Threats to Maritime Security Forces. Clandestine hybrid actors using armed frogmen or unmarked vessels disguised as commercial or fishing craft can surprise and swarm military vessels, disabling or disrupting them to keep them from being able to respond to other elements of a hybrid attack. The ability to detect, attribute, and respond to these threats is among the greatest challenges presented to security forces. In addition, the availability of increasingly sophisticated commercial off-the-shelf technology (COTS) to hybrid actors means that maritime security forces must constantly adapt in order to mitigate these emerging risks.

Disinformation. Alongside the previously mentioned maritime hybrid threats is the vulnerability to adversary disinformation campaigns aimed at eroding internal and regional trust by creating a false counter narrative. These disinformation campaigns across the media spectrum can bring into question the intentions and activities of friendly maritime security forces and their governments, not just in other countries but at home among their own people.

Strengthening Maritime Governance to Counter Hybrid and Transnational Threats

The answer to these assaults on governance is resilient, credible, and capable governance; with deeper cooperation among public, private, and international organizational entities. High-trust societies are much more difficult for hybrid actors to target with disinformation campaigns.

Strong public and private governance presents a credible deterrence to both hybrid and transnational threats and well governed entities are more resilient when faced with them.

In a broader sense, there are three levels of cooperation and collaboration which better enable governments and societies to deter and be more resilient to both hybrid and transnational threats:

A whole-of-government approach in which all agencies and ministries from national to local level cooperate and share information to reduce any gaps, seams, and vulnerabilities which can be exploited by hybrid and transnational threats.
A whole-of-society approach, which is similar to the whole-of-government approach, but also includes engagement with private sector, academia, and civil society stakeholders. Finland’s Comprehensive Security concept is a good example of a best practice for a whole-of-society approach.
A comprehensive approach in which the whole society of like-minded nations works together with international organizations and entities such as NATO, EU, UN, World Bank, the private sector, and civil society, collaborating and coordinating to face these challenges together.⁹

Seeking to focus on governance, instead of looking at hybrid and transnational threats primarily through a military lens, does not exclude a role for military capabilities. Rather, it puts these threats into a perspective which more closely matches each nation’s own legal authorities and frameworks. Given the nature of these threats, the first to detect and respond are most likely to be civilian entities (both public and private), which may require varying degrees of military capabilities to provide support. This is especially important since no government can afford to pay for the same capabilities twice.

In the event of a situation possibly escalating, close civil-military cooperation and interoperability is necessary to ensure a measured and appropriate response with all instruments of national and international influence available. For this reason, comprehensive and whole-of-society tabletop exercises (TTX) and scenario-based discussions on hybrid and transnational threats are vital to building trust and interoperability, while also identifying and closing any gaps and vulnerabilities in our legal and procedural frameworks.

At the same time, the ability to counter maritime hybrid threats can be assisted by optimizing the use of existing systems and arrangements such as EUROSUR and Frontex’s European Patrols Network (EPN). In addition, new ways should be explored to leverage the expertise and capacity building efforts of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence, the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operations Training Center (NMIOTC), and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid COE).

Emerging Requirements to Counter Maritime Hybrid Threats

As recent history has shown us, these vulnerabilities point to a new list of emerging requirements in order to deter and counter maritime hybrid threats:

A review of national legal frameworks and the rules of engagement for maritime security forces to ensure they are sufficient and appropriate to the task of deterring and countering maritime hybrid threats.
A national and EU-wide foreign investment screening process for critical infrastructure and sensitive technologies.
The ability to operate in and regain control of contested commercial spaces.
The ability to differentiate clandestine hybrid threat vessels from other commercial and privately owned vessels.
The ability to operate in and regain control of contested cyberspace.
The ability to detect and attribute hybrid threats on shore and at sea.
The ability to operate quickly and decisively in a contested public information environment.
The need for whole-of-government, whole-of society, and comprehensive approach tabletop exercises and scenario-based discussions to develop deeper cooperation and information sharing between public and private entities.

Through meeting these new requirements, strengthening public and private governance, and seeking deeper and broader cooperation among institutions, nations, and civil society, we can turn globalization and our greater interconnectedness from a vulnerability into an advantage.

Chris Kremidas-Courtney currently serves as the Multilateral Cooperative Engagement Coordinator for U.S. European Command (EUCOM). His next assignment will be as Director of Training and Exercises at the Hybrid Center of Excellence in Helsinki. He regularly publishes articles in European journals on countering hybrid and transnational threats and is a facilitator and course designer for NATO Comprehensive Approach seminars throughout Europe. His views are his own and do not represent the opinion of the U.S. Government or EUCOM. Chris can be contacted through his LinkedIn page.

Endnotes

1. Joint Declaration of the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, December 5, 2017

2. Kremidas-Courtney, Christopher, Russia and China take the lead in hybrid warfare while West struggles to respond, Europe’s World, September 2017.

3. Shea, Jamie, Resilience: a Core Element of Collective Defence, NATO Review, 2016

4. Jones, Kevin D, Maritime Cyber Threats, Presentation at NMIOTC Annual Conference, June 2015.

5. Milne, Richard, Maersk CEO Soren Skou on Surviving a Cyber Attack, Financial Times, August 13, 2017

6. Incertis, David, Risks and Interdependencies in the LNG supply chain, Presentation at NMIOTC Annual Conference, June 2015.

7. Sunak, Rishi, Undersea Cables: Indispensable, Insecure, Policy Exchange, 2017

8. Khurana, Gurpreet S., Maritime Dimension of Hybrid Warfare – The Indian Context, National Maritime Foundation, Dec 28 2017

9. NATO Defense College (2011), NATO Comprehensive Approach Awareness Seminar, Course Guide

Featured Image: A container ship leaving Hamburg port (DPA)

Strategy

Topic Week on Maritime Strategy for Great Power Competition Kicks Off on CIMSEC

June 11, 2018 Dmitry Filipoff Leave a comment

By Dmitry Filipoff

This week CIMSEC will be featuring articles submitted in response to our Call for Articles on Maritime Strategy for Great Power Competition. Below is a list of articles featuring during the topic week that will be updated as prospective authors finalize additional publications.

Countering Hybrid Threats in the Maritime Environment by Chris Kremidas-Courtney
Russia-China Naval Cooperation in an Era of Great Power Competition by David Scott
What do the New National Security and Defense Strategies Mean for Maritime Security? by Jack McKechnie
Manning the Distant Rampart: Maritime Strategy in an Age of Global Competition by Harry Halem
The Discrepancy Between U.S. Administration Rhetoric and Navy Strategy by Philip Chr. Ulrich
Togetherness At Sea: Promoting 21st Century Naval Norms of Cooperation by Commodore Olutunde Oladimeji, NN (ret.)

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Nextwar@cimsec.org

Featured Image: Photo of Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning. (PLA Photo)

Strategy

Sea Control 148: United Kingdom Maritime Strategy with Dr. Eric Grove

June 7, 2018 Guest Author 1 Comment

By Cris Lee

Join us for the latest episode of Sea Control for a conversation with Dr. Eric Grove on the UK’s maritime strategy, the evolution of its national security strategy in the post-9/11 era, and force structure debates in the current era.

Download Sea Control 148 – United Kingdom Maritime Strategy with Dr. Eric Grove

A transcript of the interview between Dr. Eric Grove (EG) and Roger Hilton (RH) is below. The transcript has been edited for clarity.

RH: Hello and moin moin, Center for International Maritime Security listeners. I am Roger Hilton, a non-resident academic fellow for the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University, welcoming you back for another edition in the Sea Control podcast series.

Great Britain is one of the few island civilizations that for centuries served as the center of a sprawling global empire. Obviously, this success would not have materialized without their prowess at sea. This mastery of everything maritime was captured in perfectly in Peter Hopkirk’s book, The Great Game, when Captain James Abbott explains the extent of territory and power of Queen Victoria to a Khivian Tribal Lord. A glance at the map, he said, would show him that the seas occupied 3 times as much of the earth’s surface as the land. Adding, that wherever the ocean rolls, there my queen has no rival.

Here today to help us update the state of this mastery is Dr. Eric Grove. Dr. Grove is a commanding authority on naval history and a fellow at the Royal Historical Society, a vice president and fellow of the Society for Nautical Research and a member of the Council of Navy Records Society. In addition, he is author of Vanguard to Trident, the standard work on the post 1945 Royal Navy. Dr. Grove, welcome aboard today.

EG: I’m very happy to be able to talk with you on this very important subject.

RH: Well, I couldn’t agree with you more. With so much of the media both at home and abroad focusing on the state of Brexit, it will certainly be refreshing to hear your thoughts about Stanhope to Zambellas and the UK’s naval strategy in the 21^st century.

Your piece begins by declaring your positivity about the state of the Royal Navy from the time of the Vienna Congress in 1815 to the beginning of the current century. Following the end of the Cold War in 1991, this produced mixed results for the Royal Navy. On one hand, the concentration of resources and preoccupation with continental commitments of ground and air forces had ended. A positive in theory which you mention in your piece. In opposition, due to the peace dividend, the Royal Navy suffered serious cuts. Prior to reviewing the 1997 Strategic Defense Review, can you contextualize what those budget cuts meant for listeners?

EG: Well, the Navy didn’t suffer as much as the other services. In fact, the Army lost about 120,000 people in so-called “options for change process” which some people criticized because it wasn’t focused enough. The Navy lost about 60,000 people, but the cuts were limited. The number of frigates and destroyers came down from about 50 – actually it was more like about 45 to about 40, which sadly turned out to be a little less than that. But the Navy on the whole was able to argue that in these new strategic circumstances, it should suffer least.

Now, the continental commitment had been tremendous – the commitment of ground and air forces in Europe had been a major factor in British defense policy throughout the Cold War. The fact that that continental commitment, if not being abandoned, was being wound down meant that the space, if you’d like, for the Royal Navy was actually rather greater in terms of the overall defense budget. So, although there were cuts, they weren’t as significant as they might have been. One might say the priority of the Royal Navy overall in British defense policy increased.

RH: In 1997, the British people overwhelming elected Labour’s Tony Blair. As you and I both know his record has shown he was not shy in foreign policy.

EG: Absolutely.

RH: Immediately his government commissioned the strategic defense review, which you describe as a major triumph for the Royal Navy. Consequently, Labour’s more interventionist oriented foreign policy was greater than their predecessors, the Conservatives under John Major. Dr. Grove in practical terms, what did the SDR mean for the Royal Navy? What are the positives and negatives that our listeners should recognize in such a complex document?

EG: Well, the most important thing was the decision to purchase two large aircraft carriers. These were the only platforms actually mentioned in the introduction by Defense Secretary George Robertson to the Review, as he put it, in the future, we can’t expect the crisis to come to us, we have to go to the crisis. And so, the two aircraft carriers were in there. Apparently, there had been quite a lot of controversy right up to the publication of the Review. We know a lot about this Review because in those days of open government they allowed the BBC in to do a fly-on-the-wall-documentary. And there you see the carrier very ably being defended in perhaps a slightly unlikely Baltic scenario, supporting an eastern European country. So, going for the aircraft carrier and making the carrier the centerpiece of the future Navy was I think a major victory although some would say it was putting a lot of eggs in those baskets. But on the other hand, it was a great success.

The cuts to the surface fleet were kept limited. And to submarines, and so it looked as if the era of continentalism was really over and that British strategy would have a maritime emphasis. They actually even asked the academics about this Review. I went to a meeting in Coventry, in the Midlands of England as far north as civil servants would let the government go without falling off the end of the world, and I said at one point, if you don’t know who you’re going to fight when and where, then maritime forces and maritime platforms are more important. And a junior defense minister nodded sagely, so I think I made my mark.

RH: I mean there’s no doubt and I think you would agree that Secretary of State Robertson was on to something when he said you had to go to the crises rather than expect them and as everybody would recognize, an aircraft carrier is the ultimate tool of power projection.

EG: Absolutely, yes.

RH: And so much utility to it. Something that I found super interesting in your piece was how you mention the previous Whitehall defeats of 1966 and 1982 for the listeners. So maybe you can also elaborate on how the Navy overcame their previous Whitehall defeats from those periods.

EG: Well in 1966, there was a big argument between the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy as to what could do the east of Suez job, the job of intervening east of Suez in the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian areas best as far as air power is concerned. And the Royal Navy was really out-argued by the Royal Air Force whose apparent command of modern analytical techniques really impressed Defense Secretary Healey. Who later said in fact he’d been rather hoodwinked but still. Then again in 1981, Defense Secretary John Nott who’d been put in to bring the budget of the program into greater congruence lost faith in the power of the naval staff because he had been told things in the United States about the future shape of the battle of the Atlantic and he believed the Americans rather than the Royal Navy. In fact, it was a time when strategy was changing toward the more forward strategy of the 1980s.

They began to recognize that the Whitehall battle was as important as any battle and perhaps more important than most. And by the late 90s, the Royal Navy had got rather good in arguing its corner within the Ministry of Defense. And I think as I say if you look at this TV program, it’s very interesting to see how well the naval officers are arguing and how positively, and the Royal Air Force and the civil servants are both on the defensive.

RH: That’s a positive for our listeners who know that into the future, the Royal Navy will be able to defend their positions adequately well and hopefully not suffer too many devastating budget cuts.

EG: Better, but of course the balance shifts at various times as we shall see later on.

RH: Our listeners should get the popcorn as the tensions between the rival factions is something out of theater. Dr. Grove, as the Royal Navy enters the new millennium, you claimed its new expeditionary strategy was justified and cite operations specifically in Sierra Leone that helped its stabilization as an example of proof. You subsequently identify a watershed moment – the attacks of September 11^th – as a negative turning point for the Royal Navy, as it led to the re-emersions of a continental strategy. In fact, Europe was replaced with Asia in your words. Before going into more detail, can you explain why Navy personnel loathed the concept of continental strategy.

EG: Because it took attention away from what they regarded as the important dimensions of an island nation. An island nation needs a Navy if it wants to protect itself and project power. And having to put so much emphasis on a major commitment to ground troops, not just troops but their families as well. Back in 1981 there was a major conflict between the First Sea Lord and the Ministry of Defense who wanted to say well why not bring families home, it will save a great deal of money. Although, actually bringing the families home, trying to find facilities in Britain, it meant also bringing the troops home and would actually have spent money rather than have saved it. But in general, the Royal Navy disliked very much being tied down to sort of a single threat, in Germany, and largely a land and air threat in Germany rather than a more substantial global threat. And you can see in the writings of people like Admiral Richard Hill for example, one of the leading thinkers of the Navy at the time, a considerable frustration that the continent was taking resources away from a more balanced strategic policy.

RH: But if it was disadvantageous against the Royal Navy, who was it in favor of, specifically was it the Army or the Air Force?

EG: Well both, it was the Army and the Air Force, it was both land and air contribution. It certainly helped the Army. The Army was able, very easily, to argue its case because it had a 200 km section of the central front, it knew precisely who it was going to fight, it had a very good idea of what it needed and actually it increased the sophistication of its doctrine. It invented the concept of doctrine in British defense circles in the later Cold War period. The Air Force too. One needed a considerable contribution of aircraft as well. And so, this became the priority. And one saw it in fact, particularly in the 1981 Defense Review, the John Nott Defense Review. Where in fact, with respect to the Atlantic commitment, the Chief of Staffs had tried very hard in the 70s while under pressure from the defense reviews to come up with the four pillars of British defense policy. But certainly seeing it in 1981, with the land and air contribution to central Europe, was considered to be much more important than the contribution to the North Atlantic. And that was something that naturally the gentlemen in dark blue didn’t like.

RH: If we did a quick counterfactual exercise Dr. Grove, if September 11th had never happened, how do you think the Royal Navy would look today?

EG: I think it would look somewhat larger. I think we would have kept a carrier capability throughout the century so far, we wouldn’t have done away with the carriers as they were later done away with. Thankfully, temporarily I think, it would be relatively larger, and I think given the kind of operations that might have occurred and such as Sierra Leone which I think we’ll be coming back to. I think that in these circumstances, if strategic circumstances stayed the same we’d have more frigates and destroyers, we’d have had perhaps a marginally larger attack submarine force, and we’d certainly not have abandoned carriers as we did temporarily in the 2010s.

RH: Forgive me, but I have to ask this question, but if your desired wish to have an expanded Navy had materialized, how do you think that would have influenced British foreign policy? In terms of being able to go do more crisis-oriented situations or what would be the real impact on drafting of foreign policy?

EG: Well, we might’ve done more in Africa, I mean I think one of the trends at the very early years of the 21st century were operations in Africa. And I think even the operations then were sort of stretching the armed forces somewhat. And I think therefore there may have been perhaps a more gently interventionist policy shall we say in various parts of the world where British government was trying to intervene as a force for good which was what they used to say. And of course, we have the Blair doctrine of humanitarian intervention. Whether that might have backfired badly is of course something we can’t say, but I think what did certainly happen was that the commitment to Iraq and to Afghanistan greatly helped the Army in its pressure to make the Army the major service, and in fact almost come up with a cultural change where the media began to refer to servicemen as soldiers.

RH: I mean no doubt the pursuit of very sought out financial resources was extremely buoyed by both the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan but hopefully as we move forward, you can elaborate on if you think if England is in fact losing its island nation ethos, which is the lynchpin to Great Britain’s great success in the past.

EG: Well, you could say it’s the opposite now. I mean, you mentioned at the start about Brexit but in fact actually, you might argue that our desire to leave the European Community or European Union, is in fact part of Britain redefining as a sort of a second rank, not second rate, but second rank global power. So, I think that some future historians might see a sort of secular trend taking place, of Britain repositioning itself as a more global power, and so you know perhaps we’re in the middle of some great historic trend but certainly it could help the Navy somewhat but of course the budgetary pressures remain very considerable.

RH: I couldn’t agree with you more though, but I mean as Great Britain ventures out to the unknown abyss at the moment I think you would be in agreement that the Navy will only start to gain more relevance, if they’re trying to reposition themselves as a second rank global power with access to world markets.

EG: That’s right yes. We need to go back and look at Admiral Richard Hill’s, of late he died recently sadly, but his book ranked medium naval powers. Because I think that is certainly the role which Britain wishes to fulfill. The British still consider themselves to be a world power if not a superpower and if they want to be so, then certainly maritime forces are very important. Now, whether in fact that Navy will get the resources to do that given the balance of shall we say political power in the ministry of defense or within the armed services is a moot point. I think Cameron had been converted to a born-again seapower man by the time he resigned. The position of the present government of course is so preoccupied with other things it’s hard to say.

RH: I mean there’s so much uncertainty but I mean some of the wild theories about substituting the European trade…I’ve even read about Great Britain potentially joining NAFTA? And you have a very sympathetic regime, or should I say administration with President Trump. So obviously with such great logistical issues the Navy will once again play a major role and in facilitation of capital and goods.

EG: Well, I think once the carriers come into service I think people will be quite surprised actually, the potential of Britain’s maritime forces. The problem is of course, are the RAF really wholeheartedly behind the idea of the joint force. I mean one reason the carrier came along back in 1998 was because there was an accord between the RAF and the Navy to set up Joint Force 2000 but it originally was Joint Force Harrier as it became and they hadn’t come up with a name for it but of course the first squadron, the 617 squadron of the Royal Air Force the Dam Busters’ is in fact a joint RAF-Naval affair, but there’s only one squadron. And as some critics have said we have this wonderful carrier which looks marvelous, and I was on board her recently and she is marvelous, but, you know, what about her aircraft? Now she’s going to go to the Far East in 2020 with a combined British and American group, which goes right back to the origins of the carrier, actually, that in fact the idea was that it would give Britain a say in the actions of a joint force air component commander. So, having a combined air group on board is actually a very important thing. And this of course brings in another dimension. The Royal Navy as, shall we say, is part of the cement in the Anglo-American strategic relationship.

RH: Nine years on from 9/11, the British government was occupied by a Conservative, Liberal-Democrat coalition led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Outside of its borders as we’ve already mentioned and discussed, the UK was firmly involved in both Afghanistan and Iraq which as history has shown did not go according to plan, to compound problems a wave of economic decline through the Great Recession was sweeping Europe and North America. Against the backdrop of this coalition government it undertook as you mention a hurried Strategic Defense and Security Review. An SDSR. To begin with can you clarify the difference between an SDSR and an SDR.

EG: Well, the idea was, in principle that in fact that one should look at national security in the round set in how the National Security Council was set up to try to come up with a policy which made more sense. Unfortunately, the lead was quite clearly the Treasury. They couldn’t afford everything. And as I said at the time the Army wrapped itself in its Afghan blanket which proved to be extremely effective and kept it nice and warm and the other armed services paid the price, particularly the Navy. I remember my late wife coming into the bedroom on the night of the review and saying “Eric, they’re scrapping Ark Royal” and I couldn’t believe it because right up to the end of that Review, and it demonstrated a sort of disconnect between higher security policy and the actual defense posture and the budgeting for it. It looked as if, the Harriers, the short takeoff and landing Harriers, operating from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal at the time would survive and the land-based Tornadoes would go. But there was, right at the end of the Review, a serious counterattack by the Chief of the Defense Staff, a senior RAF officer, and would you believe, a Tornado officer, who convinced the government that it should be the Harriers that should go, without necessarily telling the Prime Minister, rumor would have it, that in fact that would be the end of the aircraft carrier. But once they were committed to the demise of the Harrier, and this was a problem of course because the Joint Force put the RAF in the driving seat, as far as the carrier air groups were concerned. And they decided on their own priorities, they wanted to keep the Tornado, and so the Harriers went, and the carrier capabilities went also, because officially it was estimated that there would not be a requirement for aircraft carriers in the next 10 years or so. Things didn’t turn out quite that way.

RH: I mean to think that carriers are never needed is a bit of a farcical proposition. From my perspective at least.

EG: It was an overambitious one (laughs).

RH: But based on everything you just said then, what was the major takeaway for the Royal Navy based on the hurried SDSR, was it the takeaway of the Ark Royal or was it the last-minute pressure to keep the Tornadoes?

EG: Well as far as the Navy was concerned, it was the loss of Ark Royal. It came as a big surprise, now the current commanding officer HMS Queen Elizabeth, the new aircraft carrier, which is coming into service, was the last captain of the HMS Ark Royal. And he learned on the news that his ship was going to be decommissioned. Which only goes to show the hurried nature of the final decisions of the Review. And it was the loss of the carrier that was the important thing. Yes, the submarine force would be retained to a very large extent, a marginal reduction from eight to seven, new submarines would be coming into service, the nuclear deterrent was to stay, and in that period the amphibious force, although it was notably reduced, one of the amphibious transport docks would be going to reserve. But nonetheless, the rest of the Navy on the whole, suffered not quite so badly as perhaps it might have done, but the real loss was the loss of the aircraft carrier, the loss of carrier strike. And this caused a tremendous, in the fleet air arm, certainly in the air component to the Navy, it caused a tremendous, well no, a near revolutionary feeling as I found when I gave an after-dinner speech down at Yeovilton, the naval air station shortly afterwards. I’ve never seen a more mutinous bunch of young officers in my life.

RH: Mutinous is the perfect word to describe where we’re heading next, Dr. Grove. You make no effort to hide your disappointment about the paradoxical commitments to power projection based on the 2011 Defense Planning Assumption.

EG: That’s right absolutely.

RH: And now for our listeners the real palace intrigues starts. Can you elaborate on the tensions between the Army and the Nvy against the RAF and specifically the role of the famous Tornado mafia?

EG: Well yes, I mean, the Tornado force, the sort of long range strike force is very close to the soul, one might say, the soul of the Royal Air Force. The Royal Air Force in the 1920s acquired strategic bombing as its major role, it was their major offensive capability in the Second World War, to which virtually all else gave way. It was the nuclear delivery system for a long time, in fact I think the RAF has never quite forgiven the Navy for taking over the nuclear delivery role. It was one reason they were so determined to hang on to limited war and air power in the east of Suez in the carrier controversy of the 1960s. And so, the RAF has tended to emphasize certain aspects of air power, leaving maritime airpower and naval airpower in the hands of the Navy. And now in fact the Navy wanted back in the 60s something rather like the current joint force. And they offered a partnership with the Air Force on carrier-based aircraft. But the Air Force turned that down. Because it wanted to use the east of Suez scenario for its long-ranged land-based jets. And that of course is what the Air Force really believes in. Now if the only way they’re going to get something like F-35 aircraft is to actually go along with the Navy and go along with the government in the joint force, well and good. But certainly, as late as the SDSR in 2011 they put the maintenance of their Tornado force way above their contribution to Britain’s carrier force and if that meant the end of the carrier force, so what.

RH: Another point that you raise regarding the 2011 Defense Planning Assumptions is the role of BAE, specifically in a hiatus in building that would mark the end of the industry. Could you comment a little bit within the procurement realm about the significance of what that would mean for BAE and for future carriers.

EG: This is very important actually, because the government of that time was so against carriers. Basically, Cameron and the Conservatives in particular saw the carrier program as a nasty Labour job creation scheme. And they wanted in fact in a perfect world, cancel the second carrier or in fact if not that, put the first carrier into reserve and build the second one. But they were certainly playing with the idea of cancelling the second carrier. And the chairman of BAE, sponsored I think by the Navy, to some extent, wrote to the Prime Minister and said look, if you scrap the second carrier, if you don’t build it, there isn’t going to be a shipbuilding industry because, BAE will have to lay off most of its shipbuilders, you say you want a new frigate, but that’s not going to be developed for in time to retain the workforce. Basically, if you scrap the second carrier, you will destroy the British warship building industry, indeed the British shipbuilding industry. And the government could hardly, that letter was leaked, it was certainly published, and the government could hardly do anything else but keep the carrier Prince of Wales. The idea originally being that the Prince of Wales would be the ship brought into service and what would happen to Queen Elizabeth? Well she might be put into reserve, etc. That actually didn’t happen. But certainly, the main reason that the second carrier was retained, the fact that the carrier force was retained was basically industrial, rather than strategic. It wasn’t as many people say, that cancelling the ship would’ve cost more than building it that’s not the case. The real point was, that if you cancel HMS Prince of Wales, the second aircraft carrier, you will cease to have a warship building industry.

RH: Without being overdramatic, it is somewhat of an apocalyptic situation for Great Britain not to have a shipbuilding industry. What would the alternative have been in the defense policy if Great Britain did not possess an organic shipbuilding industry then?

EG: Well, it would certainly create a lot of unemployment along the Clyde. And given the fact that the carrier was also being built on the Tyne, on the river Mersey and down in Appledore, it would’ve created considerable unemployment, and that would have been politically unwelcome. BAE would have continued building jet fighters although this is a whole new issue which we can’t go into about the future of the Typhoon and so on. Certainly, BAE also got in on the F-35 program. One tends to forget that a significant part of the F-35 is built actually in Lancashire in the northwest of England. So, BAE would’ve continued, but certainly I think it was the jobs implications, the fact that BAE would’ve had to have laid off most of its shipbuilding people, and this would’ve led to considerable social problems, and indeed political problems, it might’ve made the Scottish Nationalists more powerful than they became.

RH: Outside of the social issues that you just described in detail, would the other areas of the British defense policy be able to pick up the slack with the massive diminishment in British Navy?

EG: Not so much shipbuilding no. I mean, nowadays British shipbuilding depends very much on warships. The carrier program has been a tremendous fill in for the shipbuilding industry. I always say when I talk about it you know, it’s not just expenditure on a ship there’s been investment for example on the Cammell Laird which allowed them to take on extra work, a major shipbuilder on the Mersey. There’s been a tremendous investment in skills and so on in British industry. And in fact, not for the first time, naval policy has been, governed perhaps is too strong a word, but strongly influenced by industrial factors. Way back in 1909 there was a crisis. We wanted battleships and we won’t wait. That was to get private shipbuilders to invest in shipbuilding capacity. During the 1920s and 30s there were great concerns about the decline in the shipbuilding industry and building ships. In the 1970s, it was quite a boom then, and it was to keep the shipbuilders in work. So, in fact this sort of interplay between naval policy and industrial and social policy is very important.

RH: So, thank you again for the various options that came with the 2011 Defense findings and assumptions. After being obstructed for a considerable amount of time by the Tornado mafia, you praise the 2011 edition of the British maritime doctrine, for our policy wonks out there it is JDP 0-10. It is the first release since the mid-1990s. Can you run the listeners through how the document represented the natural evolution through the wisdom of Sir. Julian Corbett and his belief in the roles of navies, in affecting what happened ashore?

EG: Well yes, I mean I was involved actually in the first edition of Maritime Doctrine. I was a co-author way back in the 1990s. And in fact, in the latest issue, my own ideas were trying to develop future sea power, a sort of the triangle of naval roles, you know: warfighting, constabulary, and diplomatic had been developed there. But yes, I mean Corbett is sort of the origin, really of British maritime strategic thought. His idea of command of the sea being something from limited periods of time and limited areas chimes in very well with the doctrine of sea control which the Americans developed in the 1970s, and which is now standard naval thinking around the world.

The idea he called it in 1911, the mounting of plex munitions, we call it power projection now, and he also emphasizes which is perhaps the most important thing, that in fact, one needs to think of a maritime strategy and not just a naval one. A naval one is almost incidental to using the sea as an important strategic factor, supporting troops ashore, supplying them, might not necessarily be actually marines, but as he said in the principles of maritime strategy, a major role in the Navy is what it allows your army to do. So therefore, the idea was that there was an overall maritime strategy that Britain could pursue. In some ways he was defeated. He was trying in the pre-first world war period, to avoid, we go back to it, a continental strategy. As things turned out, we couldn’t do that, or we didn’t do it. But certainly, the idea of naval power being part of a joint maritime strategy, the fact that there should be an emphasis on the sea, as an area over which one deploys forces ashore, the idea of power projection is very important. He didn’t say so much about the peacetime roles of naval power. Although he does at times refer to the policing function of certain ships. This kind of thing which we now call maritime security, the constabulary role. But certainly, in his balanced way at looking at maritime strategy, he took Clausewitz to sea, including Clausewitz’s ideas on limited war which was a very sophisticated foundation for the development of British naval thought, in the 20th and into the 21st century, and something that I certainly and my colleagues, who have produced doctrine over the years, have tended to emphasize.

RH: Clausewitz at sea, that’s a first. For our listeners, in case you are interested, Corbett’s most famous work is Some Principles of Maritime Strategy which I think you’ll agree Dr. Grove remains a classic among students of naval warfare.

EG: Absolutely. I in fact produced the United States Naval Institute edition in the classics of naval strategy series with my own introduction and footnotes, etc. That’s not an advertisement, but I think it’s still available, and certainly I mean I argue that, better than anyone else including Mahan, Corbett was able to tease out from the experiences of the past, lessons and principles perhaps for current and future application. That really was his genius.

RH: For our listeners I’m going to read out Corbet’s four concepts, and it’s striking how applicable today.

Number 1. Control lines of communication focus on the enemy and maneuver for tactical advantage,

Number 2. The aspects of political, economical and financial dimensions of waging war as well as with the technological and material aspects of war,

Number 3. The primary of politics in a war and devising an appropriate strategy to protect the national interest,

EG: That’s Clausewitz (laughs)

RH: Yeah, and number 4. The emphasis on efficiency at battle while preserving costly assets. That fourth one is interesting as if there was a budget around the corner and he had to do a little bit of bootstrapping.

EG: Well, I think he was a bit concerned, about the Mahanian idea of you must fight a battle at all cost. This of course gets us into arguments that we can’t get into detail about the battle of Jutland, how far Corbett was responsible for the, perhaps some might argue, rather timid and non-aggressive approach of the Royal Navy at the battle of Jutland, certainly people at the time said he was. As I made clear in my introduction in my edition back in ‘88. And certainly, the fact that you don’t go into a headlong rush. In fact, he was rather critical of Nelson, he was enough of a heretic to be that. Headlong rush in Trafalgar. He thought that modern warships were too much of a national investment to be risked like that.

RH: Its definition in terms of maritime power projection was wide ranging in utility and more importantly address the needs of the security landscape. Based on your expertise, can you address how maritime security provided for where UK interests needed protection? And for our listeners, maybe you could provide some examples to illustrate your point.

EG: Do you mean the concept of maritime security as part of the three-fold role if you see what I mean, rather than maritime security in a much broader sense?

RH: I think it was much more of the refined sphere I was referring to.

EG: Well maritime security of course, British contributions to evacuating nationals from various places, various times, from Lebanon for example, in relatively recent years. Dealing with anti-piracy operations, in fact there was this great growth in piracy and this led to the Royal Navy playing a leading role in dealing with it. Developing tactics such as fast boarding and this kind of thing, in fact it might be argued that piracy and anti-drug operations became the main roles of the Navy, for a time actually, in the 21st century, the maritime security role came to dominate. This led to debate about whether one needed sophisticated frigates or destroyers to take part in these operations. So maritime security in the broadest sense. Particularly with the possibility of terrorism at sea which I always thought whose threat was hyped a bit too much. But nonetheless, you know keeping good order at sea became perhaps the predominant role of the Royal Navy for most of the 21st century so far. Although that is changing now.

RH: I mean everything you said is right on when you refer to these, the British maritime doctrine refers to these as benign operations. And like you said in terms of humanitarian, the British assistance during disaster relief operations after the Indian Ocean tsunami, and again with the trends in climate change, the rising sea levels, the very frequent environmental disasters that have occurred. I think we’re both in agreement that the Navy will have to play a much more of a dual role in this type of operation in addition to power projection.

EG: Absolutely, well it was one of the arguments in favor of the aircraft carrier is that it’s a box that floats. And it could be used for anything, and certainly I noticed that the naval spokesman had been arguing the case for as you say the benign role, in which a sense you can differentiate perhaps from constabulary in the broadest sense. Constabulary is the application of laws perhaps using a certain amount of force within our mandate etc., but benign as you say in disaster relief and so on. That’s a term we invented actually in our original edition of British Maritime Doctrine back in the 90s, but yes, these broad roles, and in fact warships including the biggest, including the carrier, are being justified very much in terms of disaster relief and so on and it’s not special pleading. These are the kinds of things, things that float and have space, and can operate helicopters, and operate medical facilities.

RH: Another asset outlined in the British Maritime Doctrine is the more traditional role which was Britain’s international engagement, as in the aim to prevent conflict from emerging. Can you elaborate on theory and in practice what the concept of conflict prevention from the Royal Navy actually means?

EG: It’s the ability to sort of deploy forces of a contingent basis, perhaps visibly, perhaps not, so that measures can be taken in due time to deter action and or control action should it occur. One thinks of perhaps, the operations of the British aircraft carrier in the Adriatic, in the 1990s which I had the privilege of seeing when I was writing something for Ark Royal and I was onboard her. And having a contingent force in the ship to actually support the peacekeeping force ashore should that get into trouble, we always try to be within range of the Army ashore. So as a contingency force hopefully in fact flying overhead to deter and prevent people who might want to interfere with the activities of the UN protection force, poise, is a British maritime term. Poised to protect as Ark Royal liked to say. So, you can keep something poised on international waters, where you could move, but you could also produce a graduated and potentially forceful response ashore. You don’t want to use force if you can avoid it. So that you can help control and stabilize what goes on ashore. You can see it too in Operation Palliser, the Sierra Leone operation in 2000. Perhaps the most successful of Mr. Blair’s wars. Where in fact you brought in naval forces, maritime forces, these could land troops, these could provide troops ashore, they could support them, and they could also overfly and deter the Sierra Leonean rebels and others in the hugely sort of disorganized affair ashore from interfering with the British because if they did, they might suffer air attack. We didn’t have to carry out the air attacks, but the deterred threat was there.

RH: That’s a perfect segue Dr. Grove because staying within the international engagement asset role, let’s take a trip back in time and discuss deterrence. I think you would agree, looking back at history is sometimes the best way to speculate on the future. Especially since, deterrence as a contemporary concept has been resurrected due to the deteriorating European security landscape for numerous reasons.

EG: Quite so.

RH: As you know, new prime ministers are asked to write letters of last resort on their first day in office which are sealed and given to the captains of the UK’s submarines in the event that the government is wiped out by nuclear strike. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is on record saying nuclear weapons are not the solution to the world’s security issues. They are a disaster if ever used. We spoke about it very very lightly already can you describe the primary function of strategic deterrence at sea within the UK framework?

EG: Well basically, Britain deploys at all times one nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine with a number of apparently eight missiles with up to 40 warheads on board. These provide a range of potential nuclear responses. One suspects that about two of the missiles are single warheads, one with a low yield warhead one with a high yield warhead, and the rest carrying multiple targeted reentry vehicles. This gives you a spectrum of potential responses which any potential enemy should know about. And it deters everything from on one level the use of chemical weapons against British forces in the field, to a full scale attack on the United Kingdom.

One imagines in fact that it would only be in extreme circumstances that nuclear weapons might be used, hence the letters of last resort, what Mr. Corbyn would write: heaven knows, but of course one doesn’t know what’s in there and one hope would any potential aggressor would in fact take the worse possible solution. And it’s interesting too, how a captain would react if Britain had been knocked out and apparently, they monitor the long wave Radio 4 programs actually apparently as a sign of what’s been happening and if they disappear something has gone dreadfully wrong. So yes, I mean at the top end of all this deterrence you have the deterrent force. Britain remains, despite the attitude of a small number of people in the Labour party, committed to retaining a deterrent, there is a new so-called successor class of submarines, the first is called HMS Dreadnought, the other which is currently under construction just over the way from where I live, in northwest of England and there’re going to be three more, probably three perhaps two but I expect a total force of four. Each can carry up to twelve missiles, and they will retain the capability in close cooperation with the United States, but with totally independent British operational control.

RH: I mean no doubt, in the event that Jeremy Corbyn was ever elected it would definitely have a major effect on the Trident delivery system. And as well even without Corbyn in power, the Scottish Nationalists are very much against nuclear posture of Great Britain. Complimentary to strategic deterrence is conventional deterrence which is risen in respectability, according to your professional perspective since the 1990s.Can you start by distinguishing the difference for our listeners, between strategic deterrence and conventional deterrence, and explain why maritime forces are particularly well-suited for conventional deterrence.

EG: Right well, strategic deterrence is considered to be fundamentally nuclear. And that you have a secure second-strike capability in your submarine, this cannot be taken out by your potential opponent, and it gives you a set of nuclear options, including full scale Armageddon if Britain suffers nuclear attack. Conventional forces of course play a part in an overall deterrence strategy, certainly they did in the days of the Cold War, because the idea was you started fighting at the conventional level, and then perhaps you will escalate in controlled kind of way. The Trident force can still do that, it used to be called sub-strategic capability, Now I think that’s out of fashion, as any use of nuclear weapons would be strategic.

As far as conventional is concerned yes, demonstrating to a potential opponent if they engage in some kind of operation, they will face a conventional response which might well defeat that operation. The best example of this perhaps was back in the early 70s when HMS Ark Royal flew its aircraft over Belize to try and prevent an invasion coming because it was thought there might be and the thought of having to operate against a strong force of Buccaneers and Phantoms rather put the potential aggressors off. And of course maritime forces could be brought to bear extremely effectively. The RAF would’ve had great difficulties in doing anything over Belize because it was out of range, but bringing aircraft within range of the potential target is what maritime platforms can do and that’s the basic argument in favor of Britain having a carrier capability being restored in the 2020s.

RH: Your example illustrates perfectly as you say in the piece that conventional deterrence is the UK government’s most versatile military means.

EG: Absolutely. Yes.

RH: The last major asset per the British maritime doctrine that you described is the concept of presence as a multiplier of UK influence. The very famous First Sea Lord Mark Stanhope acutely recognized the benefit of this concept which still stands today. Can you elaborate on this concept and integrate it into the 2003 Operation Keeling that took place in Sierra Leone? While the Invasion of Iraq was ongoing.

EG: Yes, I mean presence in general is having a force in the area and making it known, in fact I just marked a PhD thesis, very interesting, which argued in fact there was a fundamental concept in the idea of visibility. Having maritime forces that can be brought to bear and being visible, greatly enhances deterrence. Of course, to some extent, you can have a deterrence force which might be there or might not be there hence the importance of submarines. Having a capacity to be there can be important. I mean well you could argue that the Falklands War broke out because we were doing away with our naval presence in the area. It wasn’t very powerful in itself, HMS Endurance the ice patrol ship, but it was an important intelligence gatherer, and announcing it was going to be withdrawn gave the Argentines the impression that in fact we were not serious about defending the Falklands. And the invasion went ahead. So, having some kind of naval capability in the area as a mark of national interests and national commitment is very important.

RH: Prior to getting into the specifics of Operation Keeling, I just want to tell the listeners that the Sierra Leone civil war began in March of 1991 when the revolutionary United Front with the support of special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years and left tens of thousands dead. So, Dr. Grove, how does Operation Keeling fit in with the concept of presence with Sierra Leone?

EG: I think in a way, the important thing in Sierra Leone was that firstly we showed a willingness to intervene. And then by deploying ships, we showed a continuous willingness to intervene in the area to help stabilize things. And I think that that is the important thing. If you are in the area, and if you can bring forces to bear in the area. And if you have shown and demonstrated a capacity albeit in a limited way to use force ashore as we did in Sierra Leone, then I think that it could act as a very stabilizing influence. It didn’t solve the Sierra Leone problem, but certainly it prevented a victory by the RUF, by the rebels, which could have had disastrous consequences. Both in terms of what happened in Sierra Leone and what it indicated to those elements such as the Liberian government at the time who wanted to sort of pursue their highly selfish interests.

RH: No, it speaks volumes to the effectiveness of the strategy, that while it didn’t end it, it at least prevented more bloodshed.

EG: Absolutely.

RH: Fast forward to the National Security Strategy and Strategic Deference Security Review of 2015 which outlined the United Kingdom’s defense strategy up to 2025. The threats faced by the UK included its overseas territories and overseas interests that have increased in scale diversity and complexity since 2010.

EG: That’s right.

RH: It highlighted 4 particular priorities that are likely to be priorities for the UK in the coming decade. They are:

Increasing threats posed by terrorism, extremism, and instability, the resurgence of state-based threats, the impact of technology, especially cyber threats, and the erosion of rules based international order making it harder to build consensus and tackle global threats.

Based against a litany of threats, as outlined by the national security assessment, can you contextualize the 2015 SDSR within a maritime context?

EG: Yes, I think those were actually quite good in a way. They said that the terrorist threat is the most likely, which is true of course, we have suffered terrorist attacks, but the important thing I think is to say the second one, that in fact the increasing confrontation on a rather more traditional level, with powers, you can’t mention it, but particularly Russia and so on. Cyberwarfare, very important. Of course, there has to be an investment in that, but in the maritime side it demonstrates that we have to reorient ourselves away from a primary constabulary-based navy or a navy that was doing primarily constabulary roles, back toward a more traditional warfighting role. The Russian submarines are out again in the Atlantic.

I was down in the fleet air arm station in Carl Drove’s recently, the anti-submarine helicopter headquarters, and the captain there was saying a major preoccupation is keeping an eye on Russian submarines. Of course, our problem there or one of the problems is that in 2010, we did away with our fixed wing maritime patrol aircraft and it will take time for this capability to be restored. They’re operated by the RAF but they’re part of our maritime capability.

The carrier force, very important. I’ve been engaged in some discussions about the possibility of going back to something like a forward maritime strategy. Of course, the number of American carriers might not be sufficient so having a contribution to a forward carrier force and amphibious forces in the use of the northern flank, very important.

Operations in the Baltic, Operations in the Mediterranean, and of course depending on the relationship of China with its neighbors, in the East China Sea, given the fact that Mr. Trump is making rather conciliatory noises, it’s interesting to note that the carrier will be going to the Far East, partly I think for diplomatic reasons, but also probably to show that we can help strategically there, so in fact in the changing environment, going back to the future and having a more warfighting navy is important.

There are question marks about the new frigate program, the new lighter frigate which will be marvelous for the constabulary role, perhaps ought to have the capability to carry out higher level operations. I mean whenever I go to the staff college and see the junior naval officers there I argue this case very strongly. We have to go back to an expertise on anti-submarine warfare, an expertise on anti-air warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, all these various dimensions of warfighting. And this is something that is going to have to come back, it’s priority too, it’s perhaps less likely, but on the other hand, it is much more likely than it used to be.

RH: I mean I couldn’t agree with you more with all of the threats posed by new technologies and cyber penetration. It is sometimes easy to forget the validity of going back to basics in terms of protecting interests and projecting power.

EG: That’s right.

RH: Finally, prior to the 2015 SDSR, you praise the development of a strategic tripod of roles to support, to develop the size, shape, and capabilities of the future British fleet. As outlined by first sea lord Admiral George Zambellas. They are: Continuous sea deterrence, continuous carrier strike, and continuous amphibious readiness.

EG: Correct.

RH: To support these core capabilities, and meet the requirement of its international engagements, a new generation of surface combatants was called for. To date, has the introduction of the tripod system met or fallen short of your professional expectations?

EG: Well if we could keep it, it would be good, but continuous amphibious readiness is looking a little threadbare at the moment. The Ministry of Defense has been going through a serious cost cutting process, in fact the mine countermeasure force has been reduced. Not actually with the types of mine countermeasure ships that the Navy wanted to keep, it was just convenient to scrap two. You know one had lost its crew and the other was about to be refitted.

This demonstrates the problem of budgetary constraints and budgetary pressures with adherence to strategic and operational planning and it has been reported at the press, although it has been denied as being the final decision that in fact the two amphibious docks might be taken out of service. One currently is in reserve, one currently is in service, this would be a tremendous blow to the amphibious ability of the UK and to the Western alliance. So continuous amphibious readiness always seemed to be a little bit of an add on, although it had proved to be crucially important in the post-Cold War period. That appears to be under something of a cloud at the moment.

A continuous carrier strike is fine and continuous sea deterrence, but the problem is, is there enough budget to do all three things properly? And the answer is perhaps not. That is the challenge, but we must in fact, finesse together strategic and operational thinking and the shape and size of the fleet. There are signs that that is proving too fickle at the moment, so we’ll watch this space.

RH: Well based on your answer, it seems as if that the tripod system is meeting expectations but is unrealistic in application due to the limited funds to sufficiently finance all of these operations. Dr. Grove, based on our conversation, it goes without saying that the ability for the UK to continue to project power beyond its borders and respond to challenges in the 21st century will be dependent on Westminster being able to find and utilize a dynamic Royal Navy. Against the backdrop of Brexit it goes without saying this is true. As we submerge on another sea control series podcast, do you have any operational takeaways for the listeners or issues related to the UK’s naval strategy that we should keep an eye on moving forward?

EG: Well, I think first of all watch out for how far the air groups of the carriers are going to reflect the proper operational requirement. Which is 36 aircraft, that might be two American squadrons and one British squadron, I don’t think we get another British squadron until 2022. But certainly, the carrier strike capacity is so central that it needs to be properly serviced.

There may be some people in high positions that have said an increase in the strength of the Royal Navy is coming, because of the new cheaper Type 31E frigate or super corvette. Watch this space. Are we going to have these ships put into service faster than the rather more capable Type 26 ships? Are we going to maintain 19 frigates and destroyers, or are we going to increase? Are we going to maintain the nuclear submarine force with its cruise missiles, the answer is probably yes. How far though, will the nuclear deterrent program eat into the Navy?

I ended my book Vanguard to Trident with some considerable worries of the impact of the Trident force on the rest of the Navy. I’ve become somewhat of a born again Trident man, but unless the government is willing to spend more on defense, that depends very much on the economic results of Brexit: positively or negatively. Then we are going to have a crisis and we won’t be able to do everything we want to do. But that’s been the name of the game in defense policy in general and in naval policy in particular ever since the end of the Second World War and probably before it.

RH: So, a note to all of you Brexit followers, when you need a break from negotiations, be sure to follow all of Dr. Grove’s suggestions. Once again Dr. Grove, it was a pleasure hearing from you today, and I wanted to thank you for graciously passing on your wisdom and insight.

EG: Pleasure.

RH: If our listeners want to follow up on the UK naval strategy or desire a better outlook on the general maritime domain the Routledge Handbook of Naval Strategy and Security edited by Sebastian Bruns and Joachim Krause, published in 2016 is an indispensable resource to have. In addition, please visit www.kielseapowerseries.com for more info on the book and other podcasts derived from the book. Dr. Grove, you were at the Kiel Seapower series, do you have a quick comment for our listeners on it?

EG: It was very useful, it was a very useful talk and a very useful meeting and in fact I’m very pleased that in fact such high-level discussions on such an important matter were taking place. Kiel of course is in the Baltic, and that’s a whole different story, but you never know, we have thoughts of sending carriers there in the past, you never know we might do it in the future.

RG: Well with no shortages of maritime issues as Dr. Grove has echoed, within the greater geopolitical landscape, I will be back to keep CIMSEC listeners well informed. From the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University and its adjunct center for maritime strategy and security, I’m Roger Hilton saying farewell and Auf Wiedersehen.

Professor Eric Grove is an independent Naval Historian and International Strategic Analyst. Until January 2015 he was Professor of Naval History and Fellow in Security Studies at Liverpool Hope University. He was previously Professor of Naval History and Director of the Centre for International Security and War Studies at the University of Salford, and Deputy Head of Strategic Studies at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. His publications include:- World War Two Tanks;Vanguard to Trident;The Future of Sea Power; Fleet to Fleet Encounters; and The Royal Navy Since 1815. Professor Grove has taught and lectured in North America, Australasia and Asia. He frequently contributes to radio and television programs on naval history and the wider security agenda.

Roger Hilton is from Canada and a graduate of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna where he holds a Master’s Degree in Advanced International Studies. He has previous experience at the Office of the State Minister of Georgia for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration as well as with the delegation of the Kingdom of Belgium at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Since 2017 he is a Non-Resident Academic Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy & Security at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University in Germany. His research publications concentrate on transatlantic affairs and the post-Soviet sphere.

Cris Lee is Senior Producer of the Sea Control podcast.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.