Tag Archives: China

North America, Strategic Outlook

The Quebec Wars

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Daniel S. Matthews brings us this fourth article for our Sacking of Rome Series.

It is the unexpected turns that vex empires the most. Rome did not expect Hannibal to cross the Alps, the French did not expect the dramatic events of Quiberon Bay, the British had their guns pointed the wrong way at Singapore, we were not prepared for World War III to start in Canada.

Matthews-1            Thought of Canada being the region where the sparks for World War III will be struck may not seem likely, but there is one area where a foreign foe could surprise the West: Quebec. If Quebec were to secede from Canada, two unsettling possibilities could occur. The first is that Canada could go to war with its wayward province. The second is that some power like China or Russia could build an alliance with Quebec. While such possibilities are unlikely, there are means of defense.

The Canadian Civil War

 

If Quebec were to secede from Canada, there are several points that could spark a civil war between the two. The least likely would be national pride. There are several economic reasons that could provide the tinder for war. Quebec controls the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and Quebec could use that control to wage economic war with Western Canada. In addition, Quebec possesses significant reserves of natural resources that currently contribute to the North American economy on a free basis. An independent Quebec would change that. Finally, Canada proper would become a split country, with a third of Canadian provinces being geographically separated from the Capital. In light of the fact that no state wants to be divided, and Canada already has several fluttering independence movements, the urge to prevent further dissolution will be strong.

 

While it is true that Canada does not have a large military, and Quebec has none, it is not impossible for war to break out. The Quebec separatists have used violence before, most notably with the murder of Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, and it would be easy for a semi-independent Quebec to buy arms on the international market.

 

If Canada did get involved in civil war with Quebec, there are several options open to both sides if the war drags on. Canada could invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which could split NATO as France has traditionally expressed support for Francophone Quebec. It is unlikely Britain would be unconcerned with a core Commonwealth state being embroiled in civil war; especially depending on how the vote for Scottish independence goes this year. The United States would be committed, as they are deeply intertwined with Canada at every level.

 

States like Russia, China, or Iran could use the distraction of a civil war in the very center of the Anglosphere to press their boundaries with the Western Alliance. Furthermore, they could start supporting the Quebec rebels, either directly or through third party means. If the war was presaged by an internationally recognized referendum, then Russia or China could take the position that they are upholding international norms, and paint the Western states in a negative light. Attempts at arming the rebels or openly supporting them would directly threaten the fundamental security of the United States, as it would provide a foothold on the continent from which hostile states could threaten the United States.

 

The Bear and the Dragon in Quebec

Matthews-2

While the first scenario of a successful Quebec independence movement immediately descending into world war is unlikely, the far more dangerous one of an independent Quebec making allies with states hostile to the West is possible. An independent Quebec would have the full ability to make alliances with foreign powers, and it is unlikely they would be readily welcomed into NATO, NAFTA, or other treaties with the Western powers. Canada would put pressure on any attempts to allow Quebec a seat at the table, and European countries would be wary of admitting Quebec, as it could fuel separatist movements within their own countries.

 

In addition, the United States would not want the possibility of Canada dissolving, even if most of the providences would likely join the United States. This method of amalgamation would be undesirable, if for no other reason than there is no guarantee that each section of Canada would join the US, and a unified Canada is better for the US than a series of states on its northern border. The dissolution of Canada could also embolden separatist movements in the United States.

 

Given the internal danger to Western countries an independent Quebec would present, it is likely that Quebec would be forced to look for friends elsewhere. Russia and China are the most likely candidates. Both countries would be interested in the natural resources of Quebec. China and Russia would also both enjoy the prospects of helping to develop Quebec’s Arctic resources. In addition, the possibility of a military alliance with Quebec would present an opportunity not present since Alaska became part of the United States; a land connection to the United States.

 

Right now the Anglosphere is protected by its island status, with no major hostile powers sharing a land border with any member. An independent Quebec would be courted by hostile powers to allow such a chance thought. Russia would view it as retaliation for NATO expanding into the Baltics, Poland, and developing close relations with Ukraine and Georgia. China would view it as a chance to have a mirror for the US alliances in China’s First Island Chain, with the added bonus of a large land connection to the American heartland, as opposed to the slender one that the US has against China on the Korean peninsula. The presence of a near-peer competitor with bases on the North American heartland would greatly reduce the flexibility of Western countries as they exert their influence on the world. Such a situation would be more bothersome to the United States and its allies than the Zimmerman telegram of a century ago, or the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba half a century ago. It would have the same effect as Germany’s race to rival Britain on the high seas before World War I.

 

Possible Western Responses

 

Despite the perils presented by an independent Quebec, there are steps that the US and its allies can take to mitigate the dangers. The easiest remedy would be to continue the integration of the US and Canada, so that Quebec does not have economic or cultural incentives to break away. In addition, the West should focus more on promoting its unifying cultural values internally to provide less fuel for separatist movements. The US and Canada should also do more to encourage English proficiency, to increase the bonds of unity within and between both countries.

 

Internationally, the West should focus less on supporting the forms of Western states, elections being a key issue, and more on cultural reforms such as the acceptance of the loyal opposition, freedom of the press, and the like. Encouraging every group that wanted its own state did not work well for the peace, freedom, and stability of Europe from 1815 to 1939; it is not going to work well elsewhere. Such an approach would help cement the cultural idea that it is undesirable for states to break up along ethnic lines.

 

Finally, if Quebec does become independent, the West must make every effort to keep them within the Western sphere of influence. The United States should immediately offer closer association with the rest of Canada to stress the message of unity. An independent Quebec can be offered membership in the trade agreements that the Western nations have with one another and limited military exchange. Alternatively, a Canadian confederacy could be proposed where Quebec has almost total control over domestic affairs, but for international relations, it would still be part of Canada.

 

Militarily, Quebec already has more ties with Western countries, as they have served in the unified Canadian armed forces since that country was formed. Quebec citizens have served alongside the armed forces of other Western nations and have developed close ties; therefore, they would likely want to maintain those bonds. This should be encouraged.

 

As a final point, if hostile foreign powers do make inroads to an independent Quebec, the US should step up integration with its allies militarily and economically so to prevent further wedges being driven between the parts of the alliance. Alliances are easier to break apart than unified countries, and neither Russia nor China would want to face a unified power stretching from Japan to Eastern Europe.

Lieutenant Daniel S. Matthews is currently assigned to Marine Corps University, preparing to take over the role as Naval Gunfire Liaison Officer for III MEF. He has served in a wide range of sea and shore billets. LT Matthews is a native of Warrenton, Virginia, and graduated from Old Dominion University in 2007.

Asia-Pacific, Global Analysis, Territorial and Law of the Sea Disputes

India’s Role in the Indo-Pacific

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“What is India’s role in the Indo-Pacific?” “Does India have a national interest at stake in the South China Sea?” “How should India shape its maritime relationship with China?”

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to India to take part in an engaging three-day conference on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific, joining two other CIMSEC members in Chennai and Kochi. While the above questions of India’s maritime strategic future were not the theme of the conference (that being Sea Change: Evolving Maritime Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific Region), they were frequent points of discussion, only natural given the event’s location and the preponderance of preeminent Indian minds. While I’ll focus here on these conversations, the conference’s top-notch organizers from the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and Stimson Center are publishing a collection of the papers presented, on an array of topics, which should make for stimulating reading. I’m grateful to the organizers for inviting me, and the U.S. Consulate Chennai for sponsoring the event.1

I’m also grateful for the effort these organizations made to bring together scholars and practitioners from the United States, China, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India to consider the challenges and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific from a variety of perspectives. These representatives from the fields of maritime shipping, offshore energy, geopolitics, international law, private maritime security, and fisheries and climate sciences had the chance to share and contest ideas in a cross-disciplinary approach. And contest they did.

juObservers and attendees of similar events will be familiar with the contentious dynamic that can develop between Chinese and Japanese or Chinese and American representatives, as highlighted at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier in the month. In India, Dr. Liu Zongyi of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) carried China’s banner. Some of the feistiest exchanges involved his assertions that the United States had previously agreed to Chiang Kai-Shek’s claims to the South China Sea and that there were no maritime disputes in the South China Sea prior to U.S. involvement in the region in the 1960s-70s – the former rebuffed by a personal account of the post-War discussions with Chiang relayed by U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Director for Plans and Policy, W.J. Wesley. As for Liu’s latter argument, South China Sea claimants on all sides have produced a multitude of historical documents stretching back centuries, but if he was referring to the start of a more active phase of the disputes he may have the timing more accurate. Yet China’s seizure of the Paracels from South Vietnamese forces in 1974, killing 70, is probably not what he meant as an illustration of U.S. trouble-making.

In spite of these disagreements over China’s positions, the conference to its credit maintained a cordial atmosphere, with several presenters touting the benefits of establishing personal connections and dialogue over beers or cocktails – the benefits to which many CIMSEC chapters can attest. The organizers’ ringing of a concierge bell to mercilessly keep panelists to their allotted time also built a sense of shared sacrifice against a common enemy. Even by continuing to press his country’s positions Liu won some professional empathy for resoluteness in the face of near-universal criticism.

For it was near-universal. If anything surprised me at the conference it was that the Indian panelists and presenters also openly disparaged both Chinese claims and their actions in the South China Sea. The 9-dash line came in for particularly sharp treatment, with one analyst noting that by the same basis of drawing lines in the water Spain could claim all lands 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands – with a treaty to back it up. Yet a consensus on the merits of the issues doesn’t mean India will take action. Indian participants led a robust discussion and were of divided opinion as to whether India had a national interest in getting involved in these disputes on the eastern end of the Indo-Pacific.

To be fair, it was not only China that came in for criticism. During Q+A segments Indian audience members asked why the United States is focused on destabilizing China, whether it should be viewing the region through a Cold War lens, and whether the Rebalance to the Pacific is waning. None of these questions reflect the reality or the logic of U.S. goals in the region, but they do highlight some existing perceptions.

Dr. Liu’s view of India’s role was clearer, arguing “a swing state and hedge is the best choice,” and describing newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in The Global Times last month as having a chance to become “India’s Nixon,” and bring about closer ties with China. The outreach to India was oddly tinged with scare tactics, however, as Liu claimed “If China was crushed, India will become the target of the U.S.,” based on a remark former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made calling India an “emerging threat.” Even a Pakistani newspaper acknowledged this slip-up as a gaffe.

For their part, many of the Indian representatives saw opportunities to increase already growing maritime cooperation in the region while weighing the risks of increased Chinese activity in the Indo-Pacific. Inspector General Satya Sharma, of the Indian Navy, touted India’s sustained and close cooperation with several counter-piracy efforts from East Africa to Singapore and room for closer Coast Guard collaboration in the near abroad. ORF’s Manoj Joshi and Madras Christian College’s Dr. Lawrence Prabhakar explored ways India could build its own deterrent power in the context of increased risk from increased contact with China at sea.  Prabhakar further stated that India would continue to focus primarily on bilateral relationships with regional powers, but noted several instances of developing trilateral engagements, including the upcoming Malabar exercise with the United States and Japan. At the same time, ORF’s Dr. P.K. Ghosh cautioned against expecting India to “play the role of headmaster” in setting the agendas of its neighbors at the west end of the Indo-Pacific.

article-0-1EC45E6C00000578-448_966x490Taken as a whole, the workshop was more productive than most with its focus on presenting not only challenges but also the potential means to mitigate them. By the time I presented my paper on U.S. Maritime Security Relationships and Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific I had coalesced some ideas around a concept raised by retired Vice Admiral Hideaki Kaneda earlier in the day on “webs of maritime collaboration,” specifically creating linkages between such structures as maritime domain awareness and info-sharing agreements for counter-piracy and EEZ enforcement. For despite the focus of this article on some of the more contentious issues in the conference2 there were in fact large areas of agreement and mutual concern – from the need to protect sea lanes to the projected impacts of climate change on coastal regions and ports to the benefits of collaborative humanitarian assistance / disaster response (HA/DR). As noted yesterday at The Diplomat, there’s a real need for workshops such as these, where participants talk with each other and not just at each other, to bring productive dialogue to the region.3

 

Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founder and president of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.

1. Fittingly, it was held as Monsoon rains began to lash southern India during the 5th anniversary of the precursor article to Robert Kaplan’s book of the same name, discussing India’s role in the region.

2. In addition to the more academic debates over the scope and history of the term “Indo-Pacific.”

3. And well worth cramming one’s 6’3″ frame into 40+ hours of coach flight.

Asia-Pacific, Cyber War, Global Analysis, North America

The Hacking of Rome

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This is the second article of our “Sacking of Rome” week: red-teaming the global order and learning from history.

This is not a prediction for the future, simply a thought experiment to tell a story of what might be. Thinking about how American power and influence might decline is not a slight to the United States. It is a strength. We are not a people blinded by American hubris, but instead are willing to honestly analyze the negative what-ifs while working toward the positive ones.

When discussing the fall of the United States, the initial reaction is to think of a dramatic collapse. Things such as losing World War III in an enormous battle or an economic collapse making the Great Depression look like a little setback could make for an engaging movie, but reality does not have to entertain – it simply has to be.

This is fiction, not a prediction, but hopefully it makes us think.

And Now for our Story…

The United States is powerless. Though our economy is still intact for the moment, our ability to influence events on the world stage and protect our national interests is gone. We try to turn to our allies for help, but even our oldest friends recognize that the balance of power has shifted and begin to reshape their alliances to look out for their best interests. We are alone, afraid, and powerless in a very complicated world. How did we get here?

The Age of Austerity

As the War on Terror wound down, the Department of Defense entered what has now become known as “the age of austerity.” We began to heed the warnings of Admiral Mike Mullen that our national debt is the biggest threat to our national security. It started with sequestration in 2013. The writing was on the wall that we were no longer the post-Cold War hegemon of the 1990s and once again simply a strong player within a multipolar world.

Before we knew it, China was no longer just a developing power. Profits from energy exports enabled Russia to regain its seat as a major player on the global stage. If there was a time for more guns and less butter it was then. But America was tired and mostly broke from over a decade of war, so the Department of Defense was forced to confront more diverse global challenges with fewer resources.

The future emerged amongst a sea of buzzwords and lightning bolts connecting nodes on countless PowerPoint slides within the Pentagon. It was impossible to attend a Department of Defense brief without network-centric warfare, cross-domain synergy, asymmetric advantages, and autonomous unmanned systems being heralded as the solution to all problems.

In an effort to preserve America’s military advantage while reducing long-term spending, we invested in unmanned technologies and the ability to network unmanned and highly advanced manned systems together. The network enabled coordinated operations across all domains almost simultaneously. This would provide the quick and overwhelming response necessary to defeat any adversary, and the best part was it required minimal personnel. Unmanned systems might have a high upfront cost, but they do not require a salary, medical care for dependents, or a retirement plan. The extra savings from eliminating as many people as possible enabled the establishment of a network of unmanned undersea, surface, air, and even space systems providing continuous intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance on a global scale and immediate coordinated response in the event of hostilities. The global influence of the United States was secured at a fraction of the long-term costs.

The Unmanned Network Watches All
The Unmanned Network Watches All

The Bubble Bursts

The American drone network continuously patrols the Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs) which China has established encompassing the East and South China Seas. China has made repeated complaints to the United States and the United Nations, and there have been many close calls between American assets and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and PLA Air Force resulting in the loss of some drones, but without loss of life. Relations are tense, but the global status quo is maintained. The strategic goal of the United States is to keep economic relations with China how they currently are.

Suddenly the handful of operators within the Joint Force Drone Operations Center necessary to monitor and operate the global unmanned network find themselves staring at blank screens. What happened? An unannounced drill? A power outage? A loss this extensive has never happened before. They wonder and begin to troubleshoot.

While the casualty to the network is being reported up the chain of command, drones begin disappearing from radar screens at monitoring stations around the world. A flight of drones scheduled to land at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa for routine maintenance and refueling never arrives. Reports even begin to arrive of flights taking off and immediately crash landing. U.S. Cyber Command is alerted and begins to investigate. Once they know what to look for, it does not take long to find the malicious code responsible and it is glaringly obvious where it originated. The PLA. Not only did they not try to cover their tracks, but it looks like they wanted us to know who was responsible.

The Overwhelming Opening Salvo of the Cyber War
The Overwhelming Opening Salvo of the Cyber War

The few remaining manned platforms – a mere shadow of the previous numbers during the Cold War – are ordered to sortie toward the western Pacific in a show of force. Everyone quickly makes a devastating discovery. They are receiving no signal from the Global Positioning System. Once they are out of sight from land, ships and aircraft have no idea where they are. The Fleet attempts to adapt. They pull out the old paper charts – which they luckily retained onboard. Utilizing their mechanical compass and dead-reckoning for navigation, they set sail and attempt to find the Chinese coast.

They might not be at 100% capability, but they can at least make a show of American power with presence. Luckily, satellite communications are still functioning so they can coordinate between each other and with their operational commander. As they cross the Pacific, one by one they drop out of communications. The failures are first noticed in the radio room, but they quickly spread to ship control, combat systems, and to engineering. Every U.S. platform is now blind, impotent, and dead in the water. Within a few short days the once-feared military power of the United States is defeated without any bloodshed. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Jason H. Chuma is a U.S. Navy submarine officer who has deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet and U.S. 6th Fleet areas of responsibility. He is a graduate of the Citadel, holds a master’s degree from Old Dominion University, and has completed the Intermediate Command and Staff Course from the U.S. Naval War College. He can be followed on Twitter @Jason_Chuma.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

Asia-Pacific, Cyber War, Podcast, Sea Control: Asia-Pacific (ASPI)

Sea Control 39 (Asia-Pacific): Pacific Cyber Security

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seacontrol2This week, Sea Control Asia Pacific looks at cyber security in the region. Natalie Sambhi, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), interviews her colleague Klée Aiken from ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre about the major cyber issues facing Australia, ICPC’s new report on cyber maturity in the Asia Pacific, what cyber maturity means and how it’s measured, China’s and India’s respective cyber capacities, and what this all means for the individual internet user.

DOWNLOAD: Sea Control 39 (Asia-Pacific)- Pacific Cyber Security

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