Strategic Outlook

Keeping an Eye on the South (China Sea): Implications of Recent Incidents for China’s Claims and Strategic Intent

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When discussing China’s strategy in the South China Sea it is first necessary to begin by asserting that there is in fact a strategy, which is readily discernible from public documents and pronouncements. There has been some disagreement over the degree of coordination between operational units and the central government,[1] with some analysts questioning if Beijing actually has a strategy in these areas,[2] while others have contended that China does in fact have a strategy that it regards as increasingly successful in achieving its desired objectives. According to Peter Dutton, the Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the U.S. Naval War College, this strategy is centered on the use of “non-militarized coercion” that has provided a means for controlled escalation.[3]

While the execution of this strategy may have at times in the past been poorly implemented due to the vague and developing nature of China’s strategic goals, there has been a concerted effort since and even before Xi Jinping came into power to at least increase coordination and oversight, if not clarify the strategic objectives themselves. This increased coordination and oversight is however primarily intended to better control the potential for escalation, and is part of a wider-evolving Chinese strategy to better protect what it views as its “maritime rights and interests” in the South China Sea. These new objectives do little more than consolidate previous strategic guidance, suggesting that existing patterns of expanded Chinese maritime presence and corresponding incidents at sea are more likely to persist than diminish in the years ahead, though they may be managed more closely by Beijing.

Since 2007 Chinese maritime law enforcement (MLE) agencies have been conducting what were termed “rights protection” (weiquan) missions in the South China Sea,[4] which slowly expanded in number and intensity over time, leading to an increase in operational confrontations and incidents at sea between not only China and its neighbors, but also the United States. This shift in tactics was readily evident in the composition of Chinese forces involved in these confrontations: where previously PLA-Navy forces had been primarily involved, according to a report by the U.S. Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), by 2009 the majority involved Chinese MLE agencies.[5]

While it is not known if the “rights protection” missions were at the time approved by key decision making bodies such as the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) or the Central Military Commission (CMC), a number of recent developments suggest that they were at some point subsequently approved at the highest levels of the Chinese government and are likely to form a central focus of Chinese strategy going forward. The work report of the 18th Party Congress at which the Chinese leadership transition occurred, defined China for the first time as a “maritime power,” one that will “firmly uphold its maritime rights and interests.”[6] Work reports from the Party Congress play a central role in determining the character and content of Chinese strategy going forward,[7] and the work report from the most recent would suggest that not only does China increasingly see itself as a maritime power, but that maritime “rights protection” missions will increasingly become a central component of China’s approach in the South China Sea (SCS).

Important institutional changes in line with these objectives had already begun to be implemented even before the Party Congress occurred, with the central leadership creating several leading small groups to oversee and improve coordination of maritime rights protection in the SCS. The Maritime Rights Office, a leading small group now headed by Xi Jinping, was created in 2012 reportedly to “coordinate agencies within China.”[8] The Maritime Rights Office falls under the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group (FALSG), which is ‘widely believed to be the central policy making group’ in the Chinese Party apparatus. According to Bonnie Glaser, an analyst at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), the Maritime Rights Office includes “over 10 representatives from various units, including several from the PLA,” and is in charge of implementing guidelines handed down by the PBSC.[9] During the same talk, Ms. Glaser also noted the existence of a second leading small group, created specifically to handle issues in the South China Sea, which is also now headed by Xi Jinping.

That there had already been a discernible push by the central leadership in Beijing to improve coordination and oversight before the incident off the Natunas in March of 2013 calls into question analysis suggesting that a lack of coordination or oversight from Beijing is the central factor explaining Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. But this has never been as sufficient an explanation as some have implied, and it seems increasingly plausible that Beijing’s behavior can better be explained as part of a broader strategy. This strategy is evident in the decision of the central leadership to expand and utilize Chinese MLE agencies to more assertively protect what China considers to be its maritime rights and interests in disputed areas, often through the use of non-militarized coercion.

I Like the Islands Natuna.
                                                                    I Like the Islands Natuna.

This non-militarized coercion includes not only deterrent but also compellent dimensions, as was clearly demonstrated in the recent incidents involving Indonesia. Attempts by China to compel its neighbors into accepting its ‘historic rights’ in the SCS pose a potential threat to the international rules and norms embodied in UNCLOS, and to the extent that China’s “maritime rights and interests” are defined based on historical rather than legal grounds, an implicit challenge to the status quo.

While a more militarized approach by China in the East China Sea has become increasingly evident with the recent creation of the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) there,[10] the non-military and military instruments of power have always been closely intertwined in Beijing’s evolving strategy. Military power has long been more visible in the ECS disputes, with serious incidents occurring involving naval vessels there.[11] At the same time however, China has been systematically and proactively asserting maritime jurisdiction through an enlarged and more aggressive MLE presence around the Senkakus, in an effort to ‘establish a new reality on the sea,’ as Scott Cheney-Peters of CIMSEC put it.[12] 

In addition to the Maritime Rights Office, Xi also became head of the “Office to respond to the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Crisis” when it was created in September 2012, as part of the wider effort to increase coordination and institutional oversight.[13] According to reports there is solid evidence, including ‘from electronic intercepts’, indicating that “the movements of Chinese boats and ships were micromanaged by the new taskforce chaired by Xi.”[14] If accurate, these reports would provide conclusive evidence that Chinese actions in disputed areas of the East and South China Seas are in fact being directed and closely managed from Beijing as part of a wider strategy.

What might be viewed as two separate programs, military and civilian, are actually designed to be complementary parts of the same effort to protect China’s claims in areas like the South China Sea, with the MLE agencies playing the lead while reinforced in the background by the presence of much more capable naval warfighting platforms. Ties between the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and the PLAN are close and longstanding,[15] and can be expected to strengthen in the future with the creation of the new China Coast Guard under SOA. The fact that military assets have taken a more prominent role in the disputes over the Senkakus suggests that the military and non-military means of coercion are part of a continuum of Chinese strategic options to exert leverage over other claimants to the disputes, to be used in accordance with the various operational responses of those claimant countries.

This could provide important lessons for claimants in Southeast Asia, where non-military forms of coercion are likely deemed sufficient by China to achieve its desired goals at present. Should this later prove to no longer be the case, perhaps after countries like Vietnam build up their own MLE forces (which they are in process of doing), Southeast Asia might also come to expect more militarized forms of coercion to begin stretching further south into the SCS. It is not lost on ASEAN that when declaring its ADIZ over the ECS China reserved the right to create additional ADIZ’s in the future, possibly in the South China Sea.[16] The fact that this announcement occurred almost simultaneously with the first deployment of China’s new aircraft carrier to the SCS was viewed with concern in the Philippines, where Foreign Secretary Del Rosario stated that there was a “threat that China will control the airspace (in the South China Sea).”[17]

While China may truly see its actions in a reactive or defensive light, others are unlikely to share this perception and may very well interpret more offensive intentions based on China’s own definition of the status quo, as well as its attempt to enforce it through coercive means. So long as China refuses to take into account the credible concerns of its neighbours and persists in carrying out its current strategy in the South China Sea, the disputes are likely to remain China’s “Achilles heel” in Southeast Asia,[18] and could constrain its larger diplomatic initiatives in the region. Along with the disputes will also remain the danger that misperception or miscalculation could render escalation less controllable in future incidents, a distinct possibility that seems destined to become more pronounced if the various means of coercion continue to evolve in an increasingly militarized direction.

Scott Bentley is an American PhD candidate at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

This post appeared in its original form at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist.  

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1. ICG Report. “Stirring Up the South China Sea (I),” Asia Report No. 223, 23 April 2012. Available online at http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/north-east-asia/china/223-stirring-up-the-south-china-sea-i.aspx
2. Lyle Goldstein. “Chinese Naval Strategy in the South China Sea: An Abundance of Noise and Smoke, but Little Fire,” Contemporary Southeast Asia Vol. 33, No. 3 (2011), p. 320-347
3. http://csis.org/files/attachments/130606_Dutton_ConferencePaper.pdf
4. NIDS China Security Report 2011. Tokyo: National Institute of Defense Studies, p. 7. http://www.nids.go.jp/english/publication/chinareport/pdf/china_report_EN_web_2011_A01.pdf,
5. George P. Vance. “The Role of China’s Civil Maritime Forces in the South China Sea,” Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) Maritime Asia Project, Workshop Two: Naval Developments in Asia, August 2012, p. 103
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/files/cna-naval-developments-in-asia-report.pdf 
6. Heath, Timothy. “The 18th Party Congress Work Report: Policy Blueprint for the Xi Administration,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief Volume: 12 Issue: 23; November 30, 2012 http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=40182&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=25&cHash=de4e16aa5513509eb1c0212ac6e401e4
7. Heath, Timothy. “What Does China Want: Discerning the PRC’s National Strategy,” Asian Security, 8:1, 54-72. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2011.652024#preview
8. Jane Perlez. “Dispute Flares Over Energy in South China Sea,” NY Times. December 4, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/world/asia/china-vietnam-and-india-fight-over-energy-exploration-in-south-china-sea.html?ref=world
9. Bonnie Glaser. Remarks at Brookings Institution, December 17, 2012. Panel 1 on “United States, China, and Maritime Asia.” Remarks (15:00-18:00) available at- http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/12/17-china-maritime
10. http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/china-imposes-restrictions-on-air-space-over-senkaku-islands/
11. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/asia/japan-china-islands-dispute.html?hp&_r=0
12. https://cimsec.org/keeping-up-with-the-senkakus-china-establishing-a-new-reality-on-the-ground-er-sea/
13. http://lowyinstitute.org/publications/chinas-foreign-policy-dilemma
14. http://www.smh.com.au/world/all-the-toys-but-can-china-fight-20130426-2ikmm.html
15. http://news.usni.org/2013/11/25/clash-naval-power-asia-pacific
16. http://www.scribd.com/doc/188285766/Thayer-China-s-Air-Defence-Identification-Zone
17. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/92583/philippines-fears-china-wants-west-ph-sea-air-control
18. http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-achilles-heel-in-southeast-asia/

Capability Analysis

The Case for Pickets

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(Editor’s Note: Hey! Corvette week is going so well, we decided to extend it!)

“They Were Expendable” makes for a good movie title, but U.S. naval personnel in the 21st century are not such a disposable commodity.  They Were Expendable

This line in Steven Wills’ article points at a very pivotal question of naval force design, and he’s probably on the wrong side of history.

Small ships and boats – corvettes, avisos, frigates – were historically used for many support functions by battle fleets. These functions did not focus on the destruction or deterrence of enemies until the advent of practical torpedoes in the late 19th century, when the torpedo-boat destroyer was introduced in order to counter torpedo boats. The nature of the torpedo and the difficulties caused by the speed and small size of torpedo boats forced navies to adopt a pattern known from warfare on land: The detachment of small and preferably quick forces to positions between the main forces of both belligerents. Later anti-submarine screens by destroyers, destroyer escorts, sloops and corvettes were even more obvious analogies to their land warfare equivalent. The radar picket destroyers of 1945 were another extreme example.

These security efforts were indispensable for saving marching army corps the disruptions of raids, for countering hostile reconnaissance efforts, for providing reconnaissance and for delaying attacks until the own main force is ready to offer battle or has slipped away.

The core concept behind this is to expose a few assets to great risks in order to spare the bulk of the forces much risk. Small detachments were “expendable,” while an entire army corps caught in an unfavorable situation would be a disaster.

Mr. Wills is correct that this approach has lost much appeal to 21st century people in the Western World. In fact, this approach lost ground by the 1970’s already when the escorts – destroyers and frigates – grew to what’s now widely perceived ”capital ship” status because of the demands by powerful missile armaments.

Years of patrolling the very confined Persian Gulf did not help the idea that depth of defence may be gained by having picket ships such as the radar picket destroyers used to warn about incoming kamikaze aircraft in 1945. AEW and MPA aircraft had largely assumed the picket role.

Yet the HMS Sheffield’s fate on picket duty (substituting for an AEW asset) demonstrated both the need for a picket and the relative unsuitability of large ships in such a role: A picket itself must not be a worthy prize. Its survivability should rest on its unworthiness as a target. It should cause enough trouble to the enemy to help its own fleet, but not enough to become an intentional target itself.

Mr. Wills thinks a corvette crew of 35 would be too large for such an exposure, and he’s probably correct. The problem of existing corvette designs may be that they’re neither large enough to be a powerful and thus useful asset nor small enough to be a suitable picket, exposing themselves to protect the capital ships. The very smallest coastal corvettes known from Sweden may be close to a suitable picket hull, though.

A few more words about the possibilities of pickets:

Radar and infrared sensor suites of capital ships still have for plain physical reasons great difficulties with a timely detection of sea-skimming missiles. Less elaborate sensor suites deployed forward could detect incoming missiles much earlier than gold-plated ones on capital ships. The same applies to torpedoes.

Furthermore, advanced multi-static sonar concepts demand the use of multiple vessels with miles of spacing in between. The full potential of low frequency active sonars is likely not going to be exploited without such forward-deployed  vessels, and the smallest hulls to be called “corvettes” may just be the right hull size for this purpose unless we use modified civilian vessels for the purpose.

Detached boats could also serve as decoys, but the fashionable unmanned vessels are the natural choice for this mission.

Sven Ortmann is a German blogger. Since 2007, his blog, “Defence and Freedom,” has covered a range of military, defence policy and economic topics, with more than a million page views. His personal military background is his service in the Luftwaffe. He has guest-blogged at the Small Wars Journal Blog and other blogs on military topics.  http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

Events

DC Dec CIMSEC Meet-Up

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6316551269_7aa69237f4CIMSEC’s DC chapter will be changing things up and heading to Whitlow’s on Wilson near the Clarendon Metro stop for our informal December meet-up Monday the 9th. We hope you’ll join us to meet some interesting people, discuss all things maritime, or just enjoy good beer and/or food. No need to be a member to join us – the more the merrier. Ask up front for our group if you can’t find us.

Time: Monday, 09 Dec 5:30-9pm

Place: Whitlow’s on Wilson
2854 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA

RSVPs not required, but welcome: director@cimsec.org.

Drones, Seamanship and Leadership

Drone Pilots: Statistically, On the Front Lines

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The battlefield is not the only place our defenders die.
The battlefield is not the only place our defenders die.

Within the Air Force, there is no cow more sacred, no shibboleth greater, than the glory that is the manned fixed-wing combat aircraft. While even the most obstinate fighter pilot might be willing to concede that unmanned aircraft will necessarily make up the majority of a future force, such pallid (even bloodless) prospects are loudly lamented. Valor and heroism cannot be had from an armchair; Sic transit gloria Air Force.

Within the Air Force, it is the danger and thrill of piloting (and the concomitant safety and tedium of remote combat) that justifies the continued marginalization of the RPA community from promotions and awards. Certainly, flying RPA is less exciting than flying a F-18. But, as a career, is it actually that much less dangerous?

It’s not hard to imagine, early one morning, an IED going off on the road to Creech AFB, blowing up a commuter bus full of RPA pilots on their way to work. How different would the conversation about a “drone medal” have been in the wake of significant combat casualties? Such a scenario isn’t just possible – it’s one America’s enemies are actively trying to bring about.

Critics might say that this is just a hypothetical, which is true. It’s exactly as hypothetical as a fast-mover being brought down by enemy fire in post-invasion Iraq or Afghanistan, which is to say that it’s a possibility which has never occurred. For these two wars, “combat risk” has been as hypothetical for F-16 pilots in Iraq as for RPA pilots in Nevada. But even if we accept that fixed-wing combat aircraft are working in a very low risk combat environment in Iraq and Afghanistan, what about all the other dangers of flying? While, a differential risk analysis still supports the conclusion that flying RPA in combat is only marginally less dangerous than flying manned fixed-wing combat aircraft.

Now, I can almost hear the jaws of fighter jocks hitting the floor. How could armchair warfare approach the danger of conducting close air support over hostile territory? The answer is: cumulatively. Now, the Air Force should be more amenable to this line of thinking than the other branches of the armed services. During WW2, the Bronze Star was created to raise the morale of infantrymen who were disheartened by the Air Medal. As George Marshall said in a memo to Roosevelt, infantrymen “lead miserable lives of extreme discomfort and are the ones who must close in personal combat with the enemy.” And yet, this viewpoint mostly originates from a skewed view of what risk is. It’s true that your average WW2 infantryman faced individual moments of tremendous danger, punctuating long bouts of boredom. Given the personal courage required to maintain effectiveness in the face of the enemy, it is easy to see why infantrymen could be dispirited by medals going to bombardiers flying safely miles above the battlefield. But, while the risk of any particular bombing mission was relatively low (over Germany, about 5%), it was the cumulative risk that was so valorous – only one crewman in six was expected to survive his tour intact. The courage of the infantryman consisted in doing an exceptionally dangerous thing a few times; the courage of a bombardier, in doing a mildly dangerous thing many times.

If the modern student of war can understand why the infantryman’s courage cannot be privileged over the air crewman’s, he can come to see why the manned pilot’s valor cannot be preferred to the unmanned, in both the current wars and the wars to come. First, combat looks very different in asymmetrical wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. In twelve years of combat, we’ve lost a whopping one fighter jet to hostile fires in the air, in 2003. In both wars, we’ve lost a total of 18 fixed-wing fighter aircraft (almost all due to human errors or mechanical failure), and six of those pilots have died. Although each of these deaths is tragic, six fatalities in two wars over twelve years is hardly an epidemic, and these deaths account for a tiny fraction of all airmen who have died over these twelve years.[1] Moreover, only one of these deaths was caused by enemy fire, largely due to the fact that, since 2003, the enemy has had zero capability to shoot down fast-movers. From a statistical standpoint, since the defeat of Saddam’s air defense weaponry, ~0% of the risk to manned fixed-wing combat aircraft has come from enemy fires –  all of the risk is due to the general risks associated with flying. This is not to say that flying is not dangerous – over the past ten years, there have been an average of 8.2 fatalities a year (though most of those fatalities come from multi-death incidents). But for fast-movers in particular, none of the risk comes from combat or deployment.

What then, are the primary dangers to airmen? The data unequivocally says motor vehicle accidents (52 fatalities in 2012) and suicides (over 100 in 2011), [2] and on the rise) kill the most airmen every year. Nor are these two kinds of casualties equally distributed across occupations. Because most of the data is hard to get at, the following are sketches of arguments, suggestive evidence open to empirical verification.

Ironically, one of the “perks” of being an RMA operator – not deploying and instead commuting to work every day – almost certainly will, over time, kill more operators than flying manned planes would. According to a NATO morale survey[3], a significant number of Reaper/Predator pilots complained about the long commutes to the bases where they work (meaning they had commutes of over an hour). Combined with high levels of work-related stress, long shifts for months on end, and unhealthy sleep schedules, this driving substantially raises the risk of a vehicular accident (though exactly how high, it’s difficult to say). Manned fixed-wing pilots have some of the same work issues as unmanned pilots, of course, except that they are deployed for months at the time when their occupational stress is the highest (and when they would have the highest work-induced risk factors for a vehicular accident). It’s a little counterintuitive, but when your main job (flying combat sorties) has become surprisingly safe, the risk starts to come from weird, other factors.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest a perfect equivalence between a pilot who dies in a car crash on his way to work and one who dies flying in an operation over Iraq (rare as that is). But risk analysis demands that we also take lots of small risks over time to be serious and meaningful. An airman fatigued from piloting a Predator for 12 hours straight who dies in a crash at 2am on his way home from Creech AFB has “paid the ultimate price” just as surely as a disoriented F-18 pilot who makes a fatal maneuver. And some of the risks from driving that airmen face are operational –they come from the pace and intensity of their work. [4]

While added driving risk is difficult to tease out, suicide provides a much more personal face to a 21st century understanding of what combat risk is. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might be the first in history where the number of suicides exceeds the number of combat deaths. Because that the Air Force doesn’t publish casualty breakdowns by Air Force Specialty Code (though a FOIA request might dislodge them), it’s impossible to say what the suicide rate amongst only pilots has been. But we do know some things about it from other research.

Mostly, we know that the suicide rate amongst pilots (RPA and Manned) is lower than the rest of the Air Force; pilots are officers and are selected for physical, mental and moral capabilities, both of which reduce risk factors for suicide. But, of course, the risk factors for individual pilots vary depending on their circumstances. One of the biggest risk drivers of suicide for veterans is PTSD, which one study showed to make someone ten times more likely to successfully commit suicide.[5] And a number of recent studies have shown that RPA pilots are at an increased risk of PTSD and work-related stress. A NATO study found low morale and high levels of operationally-induced stress in Pred/Reaper crews.[6] More significantly, a retrospective cohort survey found that RPA pilots have higher levels of PTSD and other mental health diagnosis compared to manned pilots.[7] Absolutely, they face a 60% increased chance (in this admittedly limited survey) of a mental health issue, although adjustments for age and experience brought that number back towards the baseline.

PTSDDronesUnfortunately, despite a fairly extensive search of the data available online, it’s hard to drill down more on the number of suicides afflicting pilots. But it’s sort of irrelevant, because I can still lay out my basic conceptual case for a new way of thinking about risk. The case that being an RPA pilot isn’t much less dangerous than being a fighter pilot is pretty simple. In low-intensity conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, the hostile fires-risk part of a fighter pilot’s job approaches zero, leaving only the risk of flying (~1 Class A mishap/100k flight-hours). On the other hand, while a lot of the data is still coming in, we know that being an RPA pilot carries its own set of real, physical risks. The geographical placement of AFBs where RPA pilots work and the increased stress of their jobs takes a physical toll. Over time, those risks will add up to deaths. Given that, for fighter pilots in particular, the going fatality rate seems to only be about 1-2 per year, it is logical to conclude that the combination of increased motor vehicle risk and suicide risk could render RPA more dangerous than flying, over time. This hypothesis is empirically testable (albeit using data the Air Force hasn’t made available), and it may be worth following up on this post with further research.

This analysis also makes a broader point. The Air Force has reached a point where heroism can no longer really be understood by amounts of physical risk. Though outside the scope of this post, enlisted AF technicians who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and whose duties took them outside the wire were manifestly more subject to combat risk than the pilots deployed to support OEF and OIF. We have been fighting wars where physical risk has not necessarily most heavily accumulated to those doing the actual killing (e.g. C-130s, not F-15s, are subject to hostile fire). What this reveals is something that was probably true all along. We need to stop idolizing risk and realize that we should make heroes who look like the excellences we need. The sacrifices that C-130, F-18, and MQ-9 pilots make to perform excellently and serve their country well are all going to look a little different. It’s long past time to stop privileging one view of heroism.

 

[2] Many accidents are actually suicides. Cf. Pompili et al (2012), Car accidents as a method of suicide: a comprehensive overview, Forensic Sci Int.

[3] Psychological Health Screening of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Operators and Supporting Units, 2011

[4] Combat exposure, too, has a role to play (http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956(08)00003-4/abstract).

[5] Gradus et al (2010), “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Completed Suicide”, Am J of Epidemiology.

[6] Psychological Health Screening of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Operators and Supporting Units, 2011

[7] Otto et al (2013), “Mental Health Diagnoses and Counseling Among Pilots of Remotely Piloted Aircraft in the United States Air Force”, MSMR.

 

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.