Capability Analysis

Future Surface Combatant Week Kicks Off on CIMSEC

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By Dmitry Filipoff

This week CIMSEC will be publishing articles offering ideas on the U.S. Navy’s Future Surface Combatant program in response to our call for articles. What opportunities can be seized with this new family of warships? Below is a list of articles featuring during the week that will be updated as the topic week rolls out and as prospective authors finalize additional publications.

Black Swan: An Option for the Navy’s Future Surface Combatant by Brett Friedman
Strategy and Ship Design – History’s Lessons For Future Warship Concepts by Harry Halem
Forging a Closer Maritime Alliance: The Case for U.S.-Japan Joint Frigate Development by Jason Osuga

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

Featured Image: GULFPORT, Miss. (Dec 5 , 2015) Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus delivers remarks during the christening ceremony for the Navy’s newest Independence-variant littoral combat ship, USS Jackson (LCS 6), in Gulfport, Miss. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Sam Shavers/Released)

Asia-Pacific, Cyber War

Beijing’s Views on Norms in Cyberspace and Cyber Warfare Strategy Pt. 2

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By LCDR Jake Bebber USN

The following is a two-part series looking at PRC use of cyberspace operations in pursuit of its national strategies and the establishment of the Strategic Support Force. Part 1 considered the centrality of information operations and information war to the PRC’s approach toward its current struggle against the U.S. Part 2 looks at the PRC’s use of international norms and institutions in cyberspace, and possible U.S. responses.

Cyber-Enabled Public Opinion and Political Warfare

Many American planners are carefully considering scenarios such as China making a play to force the integration of Taiwan, seize the Senkaku Islands from Japan, or seize and project power from any and all claimed reefs and islands in the South China Sea. Under these scenarios we can expect preemptive strikes in the space and network domains in an attempt to “blind” or confuse American and allied understanding and establish a fait accompli. This will, in Chinese thinking, force the National Command Authority to consider a long and difficult campaign in order to eject Chinese forces, and the CCP is placing a bet that American decision makers will choose to reach a political accommodation that recognizes the new “facts on the ground” rather than risk a wider military and economic confrontation.

The role of public opinion warfare may be an integral component of future crisis and conflict in Asia. Well in advance of any potential confrontation, Chinese writing emphasizes the role of “political warfare” and “public opinion warfare” as an offensive deterrence strategy. China will seek to actively shape American, allied, and world opinion to legitimize any military action the CCP deems necessary. We might see cyber-enabled means to “incessantly disseminate false and confused information to the enemy side … through elaborate planning [in peacetime], and [thereby] interfere with and disrupt the enemy side’s perception, thinking, willpower and judgment, so that it will generate erroneous determination and measures.”1 China may try to leverage large populations of Chinese nationals and those of Chinese heritage living outside China as a way to influence other countries and generate new narratives that promote the PRC’s position. Consider, for example, how Chinese social media campaigns led to the boycotts of bananas from the Philippines when it seized Scarborough Reef, or similar campaigns against Japanese-made cars during its ongoing territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands. Most recently, Lotte Duty Free, a South Korean company, suffered distributed denial-of-service attacks from Chinese IP servers – almost certainly a response to South Korea’s recent decision to host the THAAD missile defense system.

It is also critical to recognize China’s understanding and leverage of the American political, information, and economic system. Over decades, China has intertwined its interests and money with American universities, research institutes, corporate institutions, media and entertainment, political lobbying, and special interest organizations. This has had the effect of co-opting a number of institutions and elite opinion makers who view any competition or conflict with China as, at best, detrimental to American interests, and at worst, as a hopeless cause, some going so far as to suggest that it is better for the U.S. to recognize Chinese primacy and hegemony, at least in Asia, if not worldwide. Either way, China will maximize attempts to use cyber-enabled means to shape American and world understanding so as to paint China as the “victim” in any scenario, being “forced” into action by American or Western “interference” or “provocation.”

What can the U.S. do to Enhance Network Resilience?

One of the most important ways that network resiliency can be addressed is by fundamentally changing the intellectual and conceptual approach to critical networks. Richard Harknett, the former scholar-in-residence at U.S. Cyber Command, has suggested a better approach. In a recent issue of the Journal of Information Warfare, he points out that cyberspace is not a deterrence space, but an offense-persistent environment. By that he means that it is an inherently active, iterative, and adaptive domain. Norms are not established by seeking to impose an understood order (such as at Bretton Woods) or through a “doctrine of restraint,” but rather through the regular and constant interactions between states and other actors.  Defense and resiliency are possible in this space, but attrition is not. Conflict here cannot be contained to “areas of hostility” or “military exclusion zones.” No steady state can exist here—every defense is a new opportunity for offense, and every offense generates a new defense.2

Second, the policy and legal approach to network resiliency must shift from a law enforcement paradigm to a national security paradigm. This paradigm is important because it affects the framework under which operations are conducted. The emphasis becomes one of active defense, adaptation, identification of vulnerabilities and systemic redundancy and resilience. A national security approach would also be better suited for mobilizing a whole-of-nation response in which the government, industry, and the population are engaged as active participants in network defense and resiliency. Important to this is the development of partnership mechanisms and professional networking that permit rapid sharing of information at the lowest level possible. Major telecommunications firms, which provide the infrastructure backbone of critical networks, require timely, actionable information in order to respond to malicious threats. Engagement with the private sector must be conducted in the same way they engage with each other – by developing personal trust and providing actionable information.

Network hardening must be coupled with the capabilities needed to rapidly reconstitute critical networks and the resiliency to fight through network attack. This includes the development of alternative command, control, and communication capabilities. In this regard, the military and government can look to industries such as online retail, online streaming, and online financial networks (among others) that operate under constant attack on an hourly basis while proving capable of providing on-demand service to customers without interruption. Some lessons might be learned here.    

Third, new operational concepts must emphasize persistent engagement over static defense. The United States must have the capacity to contest and counter the cyber capabilities of its adversaries and the intelligence capacity to anticipate vulnerabilities so we move away from a reactive approach to cyber incidents and instead position ourselves to find security through retaining the initiative across the spectrum of resiliency and active defensive and offensive cyber operations.

Congressional Action and Implementing a Whole-of-Government Approach

There are five “big hammers” that Congress and the federal government have at their disposal to effect large changes – these are known as the “Rishikof of Big 5” after Harvey Rishikof, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Law and National Security for the American Bar Association. These “hammers” include the tax code and budget, the regulatory code, insurance premiums, litigation, and international treaties. A comprehensive, whole-of-nation response to the challenge China represents to the American-led international system will require a mixture of these “big hammers.” No one change or alteration in Department of Defense policy toward cyberspace operations will have nearly the impact as these “hammers.”3

The tax code and budget, coupled with regulation, can be structured to incentivize network resiliency and security by default (cyber security built into software and hardware as a priority standard), not only among key critical infrastructure industries, but among the population as a whole to include the telecommunication Internet border gateways, small-to-medium sized Internet service providers, and information technology suppliers. Since the federal government, Defense Department, and Homeland Security rely largely on private industry and third-party suppliers for communications and information technology, this would have the attendant effect of improving the systems used by those supporting national security and homeland defense. The key question then is: how can Congress incentivize network resiliency and security standards, to include protecting the supply chain, most especially for those in industry who provide goods and services to the government?

If the tax code, budget, and regulation might provide some incentive (“carrots”), so too can they provide “sticks.” Litigation and insurance premiums can also provide similar effects, both to incentivize standards and practices and discourage poor cyber hygiene and lax network security practices. Again, Congress must balance the “carrots” and “sticks” within a national security framework.

Congress might also address law and policy which permits adversary states to leverage the American system to our detriment. Today, American universities and research institutions are training China’s future leaders in information technology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, computer science, cryptology, directed energy and quantum mechanics. Most of these students will likely return to China to put their services to work for the Chinese government and military, designing systems to defeat us. American companies hire and train Chinese technology engineers, and have established research institutes in China.4 The American taxpayer is helping fund the growth and development of China’s military and strategic cyber forces as well as growth in China’s information technology industry.

Related specifically to the Department of Defense, Congress should work with the Department to identify ways in which the services man, train, and equip cyber mission forces. It will have to provide new tools that the services can leverage to identify and recruit talented men and women, and ensure that the nation can benefit long-term by setting up appropriate incentives to retain and promote the best and brightest. It will have to address an acquisition system structured around platforms and long-term programs of record. The current military is one where highly advanced systems have to be made to work with legacy systems and cobbled together with commercial, off-the-shelf technology. This is less than optimal and creates hidden vulnerabilities in these systems, risking cascading mission failure and putting lives in jeopardy.

Finally, Congress, the Department of Defense, and the broader intelligence and homeland security communities can work together to establish a center of excellence for the information and cyber domain that can provide the detailed system-of-systems analysis, analytic tools, and capability development necessary to operate and defend in this space. Such centers have been established in other domains, such as land (e.g., National Geospatial Intelligence Agency), sea (e.g., Office of Naval Intelligence) and air and space (e.g., National Air and Space Intelligence Center).

Conclusion

It is important to understand that this competition is not limited to “DOD versus PLA.” The U.S. must evaluate how it is postured as a nation is whether it is prepared fight and defend its information space, to include critical infrastructure, networks, strategic resources, economic arrangements, and the industries that mold and shape public understanding, attitude, and opinion. It must decide whether defense of the information space and the homeland is a matter of national security or one of law enforcement, because each path is governed by very different approaches to rules, roles, policies, and responses. Policymakers should consider how to best address the need to provide critical indications, warnings, threat detection, as well as the system-of-systems network intelligence required for the U.S. to develop the capabilities necessary to operate in and through cyberspace. For all other domains in which the U.S. operates, there is a lead intelligence agency devoted to that space (Office of Naval Intelligence for the maritime domain, National Air and Space Intelligence Center for the air and space domains, etc.).

It must always be remembered that for China, this is a zero-sum competition – there will be a distinct winner and loser. It intends to be that winner, and it believes that the longer it can mask the true nature of that competition and keep America wedded to its own view of the competition as a positive-sum game, it will enjoy significant leverage within the American-led system and retain strategic advantage. China is pursuing successfully, so far, a very clever strategy of working through the system the U.S. built in order to supplant it – and much of it is happening openly and in full view. This strategy can be countered in many ways, but first the U.S. must recognize its approach and decide to act.

LCDR Jake Bebber is a cryptologic warfare officer assigned to the staff of Carrier Strike Group 12. He previously served on the staff of U.S. Cyber Command from 2013 – 2017. LCDR Bebber holds a Ph.D. in public policy. He welcomes your comments at: jbebber@gmail.com. These views are his alone and do not necessarily represent any U.S. government department or agency.

1. Deal 2014.

2. Richard Harknett and Emily Goldman (2016) “The Search for Cyber Fundamentals.” Journal of Information Warfare. Vol. 15 No. 2.

3. Harvey Rishikof (2017) Personal communication, April 21.

4. See: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-03-28/chinese-hacking-is-made-in-the-u-s-a-

Featured Image: Nokia Security Center server room (Photo: Nokia)

Book Review

Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

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Robert Scales, Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk. Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2016, 248 pp, $25.46.

By Colin Steele

“Wars break armies, and they have to be put back together again.” — Bob Woodward, paraphrasing Gen. (ret.) Jack Keane 

“Wars may be fought with weapons but they are won by men.” — Gen George S. Patton, Jr. 

In my early teens, I enjoyed former SEAL Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior books. I couldn’t yet drive, so stories of SEAL derring-do provided an outlet for too much testosterone with too little direction. I haven’t read any of the “hop-and-popping, shoot-and-looting” exploits of Demo Dick and Red Cell in years, but the stories planted several seeds that have taken root over time. Perhaps the most enduring of these from the Rogue Warrior books is Marcinko’s quip that the word “war” is itself an acronym for We Are Ready.

As the major ground commitments of the Long War appear to be winding down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the defense establishment is turning to the question of the next war — hybrid or high tech? Gray zone or little green men? Whatever it is, will we be ready?

War prognostication is an infamously fallible industry. In the memorable words of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “when it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right.” The perennial and oft-cited problem of “fighting the last war” only sets in after forces have been committed to a place, region, and conflict that was neither predicted nor prepared for. And once boots touch ground, of course, training is over: the war will be fought with the force — tactics, techniques, procedures, and equipment — we have, not those we “might want or wish to have,” to paraphrase Gates’s predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. 

If we wish to be ready for the next war, two questions follow: whether we can improve our ability to predict the conflict and how we might better prepare our forces to win no matter what. In his latest book, Scales on War, retired Army Maj. Gen. Bob Scales takes up both questions, and, with iconoclastic fervor, tears down the business-as-usual answers to each.

On war forecasting, Scales is especially scathing: “The least successful enterprise in Washington, D.C., is the one that places bets on the nature and character of tomorrow’s wars. The industry remains enormously influential and well financed, because everyone in Washington knows that bad bets cost lives and waste trillions.” He goes on to lay out five lines of wishful thinking, ranging from the “Scenario Development School” to the “Global Trends School” — and to dismiss each of them as implausible wishful thinking.

Even more concerning to Scales than misconceptions of where the next war will be fought is the question of who will do the fighting and how. Namely, his concern is for the infantry, the “intimate killers” who ultimately close with and destroy the enemy. Scales views the capital-intensive, casualty-averse American way of war as disastrous, and, ultimately, deadly to the next generation of infantry that will inevitably be committed to fight. As long as wars will forever be won by infantry, in Scales’s view, we owe it to this minority of soldiers to train and equip them to utterly dominate the enemy. No U.S. soldier should ever find him or herself in a fair fight.

Scales is compelling on both fronts, throwing cold water on the war forecasters and laying out the case for the infantry necessary to definitively fight and win the nation’s wars. Scales on War, however, is more successful in its diagnoses and critiques than in its prescriptions. Perhaps out of reluctance to offer yet another flawed prediction, “the enemy” too often goes unspecified. Too much of the argument also rests on emotional appeal, for example by reference to a “debt” owed to service members by their civilian masters. This is a far too easily contestable basis for law and policymaking. Finally, the book is almost completely silent as to the importance of joint warfare. Wars might ultimately be won by “intimate killing” — and soldiers’ lives should not be wasted — but the much broader strategic, operational, and budgetary context in which the infantry exists and fights receives short shrift relative to its policy implications.

The policy merits of Scales on War will have to be debated and ultimately decided upon by the politicians who will resource and shape tomorrow’s fighting force. What makes the book worth reading for those within (or interested in) the Department of Defense, however, are the lessons Scales points toward in terms of educating and training the force. No matter how policymakers strike the balance between highly trained infantry and high-tech platforms, the services will retain the responsibility for preparing tomorrow’s troops for tomorrow’s wars, wherever they may be.

However badly we may fail to predict tomorrow’s wars (be they anything from messy contingency operations to high-end interstate war) the test of war will be the same as ever: are we ready? As Scales points out, the world is changing, and so are the technology, character, and scope of conflict. Enemies continue to adapt and emerge; the U.S. joint force is still looking for a new normal after Iraq and Afghanistan. Women are being integrated into U.S. combat arms (on which Scales holds a pragmatic and largely positive perspective), new battlefield technologies hold the promise of giving the infantry unprecedented advantages, and education and training will evolve to meet tomorrow’s needs. In fact, education and training may prove to be the most important area for innovation and evolution — and Scales’ limited but clear-eyed suggestions on that topic should be studied and expanded upon by future authors.

Scales on War is the author’s last book — his “last shot to tell the sad story of neglect, ahistoricism, intellectual hubris, corruption, and ignorance about the nature and character of war that has left too many of our [soldiers] dead on the battlefield.” In that he succeeds, though more policy work is needed to find solutions. Others should pick up where Scales on War leaves off so that, when the next war comes, “We Are Ready.”

Colin Steele is a 2018 Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy candidate at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Find him on Twitter at @bravo_xray12.

Featured Image: A U.S. Army M109A6 Paladin deployed in support of Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, fires during training operation at Camp Manion Iraq, March 10, 2017. (Photo by Spc. Christopher Brecht)

Territorial and Law of the Sea Disputes

South China Sea: Continuous U.S. Presence or a New Law of the Sea Treaty

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This article originally featured on Divergent Options and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here.

By David Mattingly

National Security Situation:  The United Nations Convention for the Law of Sea (UNCLOS III) has failed to adequately define a nation’s territorial waters and to create a body which can enforce its judgements on nations involved in arbitration.

Date Originally Written:  February 7, 2017.

Date Originally Published:  March 6, 2017.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  David Mattingly is retired from the U.S. Navy and has sailed with U.S. Navy Carrier Task Groups in the South China Sea (SCS).  He holds a Masters of Arts in National Security Studies where he studied the geopolitics of the SCS and authored “The South China Sea Geopolitics: Controversy and Confrontation.”

Background:  Over the centuries, a few countries with strong navies controlled the world’s oceans.  The outcome of many conflicts fought on land often had a strong maritime element.  Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius first addressed the Law of Sea in his 1609 treatise Mare Liberum in which he established the idea of the freedom of the seas[1].  After  World War II and the emergence of the United Nations, the first Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) concluded with four treaties being signed: Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone (CTS); Convention on the High Seas (CHS); Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas (CFCLR); and Convention on the Continental Shelf (CCS); as well as the Optional Protocol of Signature concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes (OPSD)[2].  UNCLOS II convened in Malta to discuss territorial seas and fishery limits, however, the convention ended without agreeing upon a new treaty[3].  Today, UNCLOS III has been accepted by 167 nations and the European Union, however, although the U.S. has agreed in principle to the convention, it has not been ratified by the U.S.[4].  In the last attempt for ratification in 2012, it failed due to the “breadth and ambiguity” of the treaty and because it was not in the “national interest of the United States” to give sovereignty to an international body.  Ratification was overwhelmingly supported by the Department of Defense and the U.S. shipping industry[5][6].

Traditionally, a nation’s territorial boundary was established as a three-mile belt along its coastline based on the distance that a cannon could shoot a projectile.  All waters beyond the three-mile limit were considered international territory.

Today, the SCS is a possible flash point for confrontation over unresolved issues of the UNCLOS III between the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), its neighboring states which have joined to form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the U.S.  The islands in the SCS remained largely uninhabited until the mid-1970s when the PRC began to lay claim to a number islands and shoals which were claimed during the reign of Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty in 1405 and later claimed by the PRC in what has come to be known as the “Nine-dash line[7].”  A map which was produced after World War II extended the PRC’s territorial waters claim deep into the SCS.  France challenged the PRC’s claim in 1931 by claiming the Parcel Islands and the Spratley Islands as territory of French-Indo China which then passed to the government of Vietnam after the Franco-Indo China War ended in 1954[8].

To understand UNCLOS III, it is important to first understand the definitions of terms such as the differences between an island and a rock.  The PRC began an aggressive land reclamation program where soil was dredged from the ocean bottom to create islands, which have standing under UNCLOS III, unlike rocks and shoals which are not recognized.  The islands created by the PRC can support military garrisons, home porting of both military and fishing ships, and extend the PRC’s territorial limits under the “archipelagos concept[9].”  Within UNCLOS III, this concept furthers a nation’s territorial rights by considering the seas between the mainland and the islands claimed by a nation as a connecting, rather than separating, element.  The PRC could therefore declare an emergency and suspend the “right of innocent passage” for its self-protection.

Significance:  Merchant shipping between Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas transverse the SCS and a PRC declaration of emergency which suspended the “right of innocent passage” would have major impact in global shipping.

Option #1:  The U.S. and coalition naval forces create a continuous presence in the SCS and actively challenge PRC naval activities and construction of and on islands and rocks in dispute.

Risk:  The PRC has openly harassed and attacked ships and aircraft of the U.S. and ASEAN member nations.  The PRC has established the SCS as its home waters and had several years to construct military garrisons on the islands which it created.  It is possible that the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has placed surface to air missiles on the larger islands.  Additionally, the PLAN has aggressively modernized its ships and aircraft to include launching its first aircraft carrier.  As such, Option #1 may increase the possibility of a naval confrontation between the U.S. and the PRC.

Gain:  A naval coalition could provide protection for fishing and merchant shipping in the SCS and shape the narrative that the international community will not idly allow the PRC to control one of the most important sea lines of commerce.

Option #2   The U.S. and other nations could call for UNCLOS IV.  As evidenced by recent events in the SCS, UNCLOS III left many gray areas that are open for arbitration and the decisions lack the power of enforcement.  UNCLOS IV would address these gray areas and establish an enforcement framework.

Risk:  Major powers agreeing to a new UNCLOS could perceive that they have lost sovereign rights.  The UN lacks the ability to enforce treaties unless the major powers are onboard thus the text of a new UNCLOS would have to be carefully worded.

Gain:  In creating an agreement that is recognized by the international community, confrontation between the U.S., the PRC, and ASEAN may be avoided.

Other Comments:  None.

Recommendation:  None.

David Mattingly serves on the board of directors for the Naval Intelligence Professionals and is also a member of the Military Writers Guild. The views reflected are his own and do not represents the United States Government of any of its agencies. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Endnotes:

[1]  Harrison, James. July 5, 2007. Evolution of the law of the sea: developments in law -making in the wake of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.

[2]  Treves, Tullio. 1958 Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea. United Nations.  http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/gclos/gclos.html

[3]  Second United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 17 March – 26 April 1960 Geneva, Switzerland. , January 8, 2017. Washington School of Law, American University. http://wcl.american.libguides.com/c.php?

[4]  The Convention of the Law of Sea. U.S. Navy Judge Advocate Corps. http://www.jag.navy.mil/organization/code_10_law_of_the_sea.htm

[5]  Patrick, Stewart M, June 10, 2012. (Almost) Everyone Agrees: The U.S. Should Ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/-almost-everyone-agrees-the-us-should-ratify-the-law-of-the-sea-treaty/258301/

[6]  Senators Portman and Ayotte Sink Law of the Sea. July 16, 2012. Portman Senate Office, Washington, DC.

[7]  Tsirbas, Marina. , June 2, 2016. What Does the Nine-Dash Line Actually Mean? The Diplomat. http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/what-does-the-nine-dash-line-actually-mean/

[8]  Bautista, Lowell B. 2011.  Philippine Territorial Boundaries: Internal tensions, colonial baggage, ambivalent conformity.  University of Wollongong. New South Wales, http://jati-dseas.um.edu.my/filebank/published_article/3162/035 053%20Lowell%20B.%20Bautista-
 Philippine%20Territorial,%20JATI%20VOL16,%202011-%20new.pdf

[9]  Katchen, Martin H. 1976. The Spratly Islands and the Law of the Sea: “Dangerous ground” for Asian Peace. Presented at the Association of Asian Studies, Pacific Area Conference.  June.  Revised and published in the Asian Survey.

Featured Image: International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.