Members' Roundup

August Member Round-Up

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Welcome to the August 2015 Members’ Roundup! Last month CIMSEC members have examined a range of major maritime security issues, including the new U.S. DoD Asia-Pacific maritime strategy, Iranian capabilities in the Persian Gulf, and NATO’s northern threat from Russia in the Arctic.

Beginning in the Western Pacific, Bryan Clark gave a presentation at the Hudson Institute concerning the missile threat China poses to U.S. regional allies and U.S. forward deployed forces. The discussion centered on China’s missiles and their ability to deter U.S. regional influence, primarily through limiting the operational capabilities of U.S. surface fleets in conflict. Harry Kazianis, for The National Interest, provides further details regarding the Chinese missile threat by describing the challenge U.S. sea-based interceptors, such as the Aegis based SM-3 and SM-2 Block 4, will have in engaging ballistic and conventional missiles such as China’s DF-26 or DF-21D. For further reading, Zachary Keck, also for The National Interest, identifies additional Chinese missiles posing threats to U.S. forces in the Western Pacific.

CIMSEC’s founder, Scott Cheney-Peters, along with members BJ Armstrong and Bryan McGrath, contributed to CSIS’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) with commentary on the new DoD Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy. The review offers an evaluation of the pace at which U.S. military capacity in the region is being strengthened relative to China. Also provided was an analysis of the strategic importance of distinguishing conflict and coercion in the region. BJ Armstrong further analyzed the new DoD strategy in his article for War on the Rocks, where he also provided a historical context for U.S. naval operations in the Asia-Pacific.

Scott also joined Harry and The Diplomat‘s Shannon Tiezzi for a panel discussion on the latest South China Sea developments hosted by the Project for the Study of the 21st Century. You can watch their chat here.

Continuing on China and Asia-Pacific regional security issues, James Goldrick for The Interpreter, discusses the challenges the Taiwanese Navy faces regarding China and a high-level threat environment. Mr. Goldrick identifies key features of Taiwan’s future acquisition program for the Navy – emphasizing submarine hulls and major systems, guided missile destroyers, fast attack missile-carrying catamarans and mine warfare technologies.

A refreshing perspective offered by Vijay Sakhuja in the Nikkei Asian Review considers joint Search and Rescue (SAR) operations as a platform for increased inter-governmental relations in the South China Sea. With regional pressures reaching critical levels, he contends joint SAR operations would reduce tensions by creating a safer maritime environment while also promoting regional dialogue and cooperation.

Leaving the Asia-Pacific, another Zachary Keck National Interest article considers the U.S. Navy’s strategy to combat Iran’s asymmetric naval doctrine. Mr. Keck highlights capability improvements being implemented to date to overcome the challenges faced at joint war game exercise Millennium Challenge 02 (MC02), including deployment of Longbow Hellfire Missiles aboard Littoral Combat Ships. Also from The National Interest, Robert Farley delivers an overview of Iranian weapons and tactics that provide Iran with aspects of strategic influence in the gulf region, including C-802 cruise missiles and irregular warfare strategies.

To conclude the August roundup, ADM. James Stavridis, for Foreign Policy, provides insight on current NATO defense capabilities while emphasizing the increase in Russian military operations in the Arctic. ADM. Stavridis describes Russia’s aggressive territorial claims near the Lomonosov Ridge, increased air patrols and the establishing of Arctic Brigades, as well as NATO’s capability to respond to an increasing Northern threat.  ­­

Members of CIMSEC were also active elsewhere during August:

At CIMSEC we encourage members to continue writing, either here on the NextWar blog or through other means. You can assist us by emailing your works to dmp@cimsec.org.

Book Review, Europe, History

Some Corner of a Foreign Field that is Forever Anzac: A Book Review of Peter Fitzsimons’ Gallipoli

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The following book review is by guest author Shane Halton.

Peter Fitzsimons. Gallipoli. Random House Australia, Feb 01, 2015. Hardcover. 800 pages. $45.00.

When writing about World War I, it can be difficult to strike the correct philosophical balance. Make the story too bleak or nihilistic and you risk misunderstanding the very real patriotic enthusiasm that characterized the first months of the War. Conversely, one can’t make the story too romantic and heroic at the risk of ignoring the fact that most of World War I was a brutal slog with moments of individual gallantry, often overwhelmed by pointless slaughter exacerbated by terrible generalship.

World War I had so many different facets that it can be hard to meld the stories of political scheming in London, Berlin, and Constantinople with the existential drama of soldiers clinging to their lives in trenches under constant enemy fire while waiting for the order to ‘fix bayonets’ and go over the top. Simply put, most stories of World War I don’t scale well: they work best as individual stories (depending on your temperament I recommend either Storm of Steel or the equally classic All Quiet on the Western Front) or sweeping grand histories (my favorite one volume is the comparably slim The World Undone or Robert Massie’s Dreadnaught and Castles of Steel combination for the nautically inclined). Rarely does a history come along that can fuse the two genres. That’s why Peter Fitzsimons’ masterful new volume Gallipoli is such a treat.

The task of the Allies at Gallipoli was truly Sisyphean. They held the low ground: thin trenches carved into the sides of steep cliffs, downhill from the Turkish trenches, exposed to artillery fire. A few times a month they were

A modern view of ANZAC cove
A modern view of ANZAC cove

directed to fix bayonets and, often in the cover of darkness and always over terrain with minimal cover, take the hill and break the Turkish lines. It was an impossible task. After over a year of grinding attrition from disease and enemy fire, the Allied troops were withdrawn in secret, in good order and with no casualties. The Gallipoli peninsula was ceded to the Turks.

How did it all go so wrong? Despite opting to spend most of the book with the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops in the trenches, Fitzsimons does an admirable job decoding the mix of over-optimism, managerial muddle, and lack of appreciation for local conditions that combined to make an Allied amphibious landing in Gallipoli seem like such a good idea… at least to those sitting in London. A young and manic Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, speed walks through Whitehall, obsessed with finding a way to use the Royal Navy to end the grinding stalemate on the Western Front. His genius brainwave? Send a flotilla of minesweepers and battleships up the Dardanelles and onward to Constantinople to scare the Turks into surrender. Had that plan worked it would have stood as history’s grandest example of gunboat diplomacy.

But the plan didn’t work. The Ottomans and their German advisors mustered just enough of a defensive effort, using a combination of minefields and artillery, to drive back the minesweepers and batter the fleet. Churchill was forced back to the drawing board, eventually convincing the Army to support the Naval force with an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula. The previously all-Navy operation thus

An Australian Sniper peers over a trench in 1915.
An Australian Sniper peers over a trench in 1915.

became a joint Army-Navy invasion. Until the following year’s Allied withdrawal from the peninsula, the Army was to take the brunt of the punishment, with the Navy providing mainly logistical support and transport with the occasional desultory gunfire support to ground operations.

What redeems the story of this quagmire is the piss, vinegar, and rude good humor of the ANZAC soldier as he departs home for the first time, trains for combat in Egypt under the nose of the Sphynx, disembarks on the coast of the Peninsula during the cold predawn hours, and scrambles up the hill again and again as Allied fortunes slowly dwindle and the bodies of his friends pile up around him. Though the story has many individual heroes on both sides (Fitzsimons has a deep respect for the tenacious Turks, enduring stoically in conditions at least as poor as those of the Allies), it is the archetype of the ANZAC soldier that shines through most brightly.

The first third of book covers the transportation and training of the ANZACs and culminates in the shock of their initial (opposed) landings. It reads like a nineteenth century boy’s adventure novel. Everything is bustle and forward motion; the world outside Australia is crammed with dangerous and seductive wonders. The reader is invited to stand among the troops and stare in awe as their transport ships glide quietly up the Suez Canal at night. Later, as the ANZACs train and assemble for the invasion in Alexandria, the story briefly becomes a cautionary tale about the dangers of allowing relatively well paid young soldiers unfettered access to Egypt’s renowned brothels. Letting the reader get to know and love the jovial ANZACs before hurling them on the beaches of Gallipoli is a painful and effective way of keeping one glued in through the rest of the often grueling narrative.    

One of the reasons that Fitzsimons succeeds in capturing the huge scale of the landings and subsequent battles while never losing sight of the plight of the common soldier is that Gallipoli itself is just the right size. Most important locations are a single hill, valley, or inlet. The enemy is always very close, the sounds of shrapnel and thud of artillery create a hellish sonic micro-climate, and the freshly dug cemeteries are never far off. The scenes feel both intimate and comprehensive, in a way that histories of Somme or Verdun can never be.

This text is recommended for readers who want to understand why such a massive undertaking seemed so poorly thought through and how victory was almost snatched from the jaws of defeat by the unyielding heroism of the average ANZAC. Read it to renew your appreciation for the military genius and iron willpower of the Ottoman commander, Mustafa Kemal – a figure whose obvious talent and ambition mark him out for even greater deeds after the War. Read it because it’s a crackling good yarn and a minor masterpiece of the genre.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Halton is assigned to the Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Agency. He served as an enlisted intelligence specialist before commissioning as an Intelligence Officer through the STA-21 program. He has written about cyber security and the effects of big data on intelligence analysis for Proceedings magazine. The views above are the authors and do not represent those of the US Navy or the US Department of Defense.

Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis, History

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

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

By Jeffrey Becker

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

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

A Product of China’s Revolutions

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

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

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

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

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

Shepherding the PLAN’s Transition

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

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

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

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

Improving USN-PLAN Relations

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

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

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

The Chinese Navy in the Post-Wu Era

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

5. Ibid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jointness and Political Interface

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

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

Indo-Asia-Pacific

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

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

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

Ends, Ways and Means

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

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

Strategic and Operational Access

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

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

Forward Presence and Partnership

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

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

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

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

Force Design and Employment

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

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

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

Captain Gurpreet S Khurana, PhD is the Executive Director, National Maritime Foundation (NMF), New Delhi. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Indian Navy, the NMF or the Government of India. He can be reached at gurpreet.bulbul@gmail.com.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.