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Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)Information Environment Part II
No full textWhen the United States and Soviet Union agreed to begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) – the first sustained bilateral negotiations on controlling nuclear armaments held between the two superpowers – the news was an international sensation. Journalists from around the world gathered in Helsinki in November 1969 hoping to file stories on groundbreaking, high-stakes negotiations. But as weeks passed with only anodyne press releases issued by the US side (and nothing from the Soviet camp), disappointed reporters left to cover other stories.
The early days of the talks foreshadowed negotiations that occurred in something of an information vacuum. Official government publications rarely revealed much of interest, and those controlled by the Soviet Union (such as “Pravda”) were considered mostly propaganda. The talks and the subjects they covered were opaque to the world and to most members of the US and Soviet publics. This extended to the Soviet delegation itself, whose diplomats typically received only cursory briefings about their country’s military capabilities. Indeed, Soviet military officials complained to their American counterparts that during negotiations the US side kept bringing forward details about the Soviet nuclear arsenal that even ambassadors appointed by Moscow were not supposed to know
Quantum Sensing\u27s Potential Impacts on Strategic Deterrence and Modern Warfare
No full textThis article examines the impact of quantum sensing on strategic deterrence and modern warfare. It has two related objectives. The first is to highlight quantum sensing as an important area of research for the policy communities considering the role of emerging technologies on strategic deterrence and countering weapons of mass destruction. The second aim is to present the potential warfighting implications of quantum sensing if employed by either the United States or its adversaries. While quantum sensing technologies offer opportunities to transform modern warfare, they also present challenges and risks. The article contends that the quantum sensing investment, research, and development should be prioritized within the Department of Defense\u27s quantum science modernization agenda to ensure that the U.S. military does not cede technological advantage to competitors, such as the People\u27s Republic of China, who are actively investing in quantum sensing applications that could upend the United States’ existing deterrence and warfighting capabilities
Three’s Company? Prioritizing Trilateral Deterrence Against North Korea
No full textIn December 2018, a South Korean destroyer allegedly locked its targeting radar on a Japanese surveillance aircraft. Although details of that incident remain bitterly contested, the controversy captures well the suspicions and ill-will that have engulfed Japanese-South Korean relations. The tarring of that military-to-military relationship — one that has historically served as a shock absorber for difficulties between the two governments — is particularly troubling for the United States. The challenge of deterring a nuclear-armed North Korea is more severe if its two closest allies in Northeast Asia are more concerned about each other than their common adversary.
The extent of that challenge has long occupied U.S. strategists and planners. Days after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama warned his successor Donald Trump that North Korea would be the most urgent threat he would face. Much has changed since then, but North Korea remains one of the most pressing security challenges as President Joe Biden returns to the White House
Joint Force Quarterly 100 (1st Quarter, January 2021)
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/jfq-full-issue/1013/thumbnail.jp
Biodefense and the return to great-power competition
No full textThe 2017 US National Security Strategy asserts that, “after being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned,” pointing to actions that Russia and China have taken to reassert their influence and attempt to change the international order. Such a shift has implications for biodefense. It suggests an increased likelihood of the development and potential use of biological weapons by states, which had been downplayed by those who have been more concerned about non-state biological-weapons programs. State program access to expertise, facilities, and resources implies a greater level of technological sophistication than would typically be credited to non-state actors, influencing the requirements for national biodefense programs to detect, characterize, respond, to, and attribute a biological attack. States also could have missions for biological weapons that differ from those intended by terrorists
Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)Information Environment Part III
No full textWhen the Soviet Union covertly continued its massive biological weapons program after signing the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, it disguised programs aimed at the weaponization of smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax, and other pathogens as civilian medical research. It fabricated alternative explanations for deadly outbreaks caused by facility accidents and arranged elaborate “Potemkin tours” for international inspectors. When the United States seemed close to fielding their new enhanced radiation weapon under the administration of President Jimmy Carter, the Soviets launched a massive covert propaganda campaign through media outlets and front organizations to shift public opinion about the new weapon in Europe and the United States, mobilize protests that threatened NATO coherence, and ultimately alter US strategic decisions around the “neutron bomb.”
Information manipulation and covert influence campaigns have long been tools of sub-threshold strategic competition used to try to influence arms race dynamics, arms control decisions, and the enforceability of compliance and verification regimes. During the Cold War, such massive covert operations were only feasible by great powers. Today, not only are there more actors with potential stakes in arms control decisions, but global connectivity and digitization combined with a panoply of new Digital Age tools make it easier to obfuscate, deny, and manipulate the information environment around arms control
A Weapon of Mass Destruction Strategy for the 21st Century
No full textThe last time the U.S. government published a national strategy for countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam Hussein was still ruling Iraq, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was a teenager, and Xi Jinping was governing a Chinese province. The White House and the Kremlin were also talking about “acting as partners and friends in meeting the new challenges of the 21st century.” The world has changed greatly over the past twenty years, and ideally, so should national security strategies.
The December 2002 U.S. government concept for addressing WMD has been completely overtaken by strategic, political, and technological developments, including new risks posed by hypersonic missiles, cyber weapons, drone swarms, pandemic outbreaks, and AI. Today, the United States is threatened by a nuclear North Korea, a potentially nuclear Iran, and an eroding nuclear nonproliferation framework. American policymakers have witnessed North Korea, Syria, and Russia all use chemical weapons in recent years and have seen concerning biosecurity trends in Russia and China. Due to the nature of modern global supply chains, various state and non-state actors have greater opportunities to procure the materials and equipment needed to develop and deliver WMD
PLA Overseas Operations in 2035: Inching Toward a Global Combat Capability
No full textOver the past decade, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has followed two general development trajectories. The primary focus has been on deterring adversaries and building the capability to fight high-intensity, short-duration wars around China’s periphery—what the PLA often refers to as “informationized local wars.” This has included acquisition of advanced combat capabilities, supported by progress in doctrine, training, logistics, and command and control (C2). A central theme has been strengthening the PLA’s ability to conduct joint operations, thus correcting problems of ground force dominance and poor interservice cooperation. A secondary focus has been on nontraditional security operations, such as peacekeeping, maritime law enforcement, and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR). Such missions, usually involving only a single service, have been conducted within the region and farther from China’s shores, reflecting the expansion of Chinese interests and the growing presence of Chinese citizens outside East Asia.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/strategic-forums/1003/thumbnail.jp
Iran in Latin America: Malign Alliances, “Super Spreaders,” and Alternative Narratives
No full textIran’s ability to shape the information environment and spread the narrative of the United States as an imperialist force—perpetrating violence and instability in Latin America—has grown in recent years. These ongoing and multifaceted campaigns of disinformation and carefully curated messages are coordinated with Russian and Venezuelan state media companies and thousands of allied Internet and social media accounts. Together, these efforts pose a strategic challenge to U.S. interests and regional efforts to promote stability, democratic values, and the rule of law. While less visible than shipping gasoline to the Nicolás Maduro regime and other provocative actions, Iran’s advances in Latin America’s information space is not any less threatening than its more overt activities.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/inss-strategic-perspectives/1002/thumbnail.jp
The Role of Special Operations Forces in Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction
No full textThis chapter, published in Strategic Latency Unleashed: The Role of Technology in a Revisionist Global Order and the Implications for Special Operations Forces (Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2021), asserts that at a time when international norms and other constraints on the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons have grown weaker, they are becoming more accessible and attractive to adversaries because of their potential utility against a range of vulnerable targets. The WMD-related objectives identified in the national and DOD strategies rely implicitly on the roles of U.S. special operations forces (SOF), whose capabilities are critical for competing and winning in this WMD-infected security environment. Core SOF capabilities work to shape the operating environment in the current “steady state” landscape in a manner that serves to deter, dissuade, and frustrate adversaries from pursuing or acquiring WMD. With their global presence, reach, and capabilities, SOF remain a critical tool for meeting the United States’ priorities for countering WMD.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/wmdcenter-books/1010/thumbnail.jp