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Deterring, Countering, and Defeating Conventional-Nuclear Integration
No full textPotential US adversaries have integrated nuclear weapons into their concepts for fighting and winning a future regional conflict. To this end, they have organized, trained, and equipped nuclear-capable forces for theater war fighting. The United States, and its allies, must prepare for adversaries who integrate conventional and nuclear arms to shape the regional battlespace, counter theater defenses, and combat coalition forces. The challenge posed by this conventional-nuclear integration (CNI) cuts across strategic, operational, and tactical levels of warfare. While CNI is not a new phenomenon, its growth and evolution in recent years is placing increasing pressure on US regional deterrence and defense strategies. To effectively deter this threat requires an integrated, but not mirror-imaged, approach. The goal of US CNI is to convince potential adversaries that integrating conventional and nuclear-capable forces grants insufficient advantages within a future regional conflict to overcome either the latter’s potential vulnerabilities or the risks attendant with attempting to leverage nuclear escalation. Potential adversaries are likely to retain some of these platforms and their associated nuclear weapons as a hedge against uncertainty. However, it is important for the Department of Defense to bolster US and allied deterrence postures in Europe and the Asia-Pacific by taking steps—prior to any regional crisis—to influence their cost-benefit calculus in contemplating the deployment or employment of nuclear weapons in theater. This article proposes a three-part framework using the Department of Defense’s Deterrence Operations – Joint Operating Concept (deny benefits, impose costs, and encourage restraint) to plan and posture for accomplishing this goal
(Dis)trust and verify?: Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)Information Environment Part I
No full textThe next generation of arms control negotiators and implementors will face a drastically different, more complicated and contentious information environment than when the United States last negotiated a strategic nuclear arms control agreement (New START) in 2009. In the past decade, disinformation has been used to undermine arms control norms and institutions. The propagation and dissemination of this type of disinformation poses a serious challenge to future arms control initiatives, as some level of trust is required at every stage of a treaty’s life cycle, to include its negotiation, ratification, implementation, and verification. The United States needs to ask the question: Can it engage in arms control negotiations with a party that seems willing to “trust but verify” on one arms control agreement while actively undermining others?
Mistrust between rivals is understandable and can lead to detailed agreements and strong verification regimes. But complete distrust is toxic to negotiations and makes it impossible to find common ground for developing a mutually beneficial compact. As the United States pursues new dialogues with Russia on the topics of arms control and emerging security concerns, it should do so wary of Russia’s tactics and prepare to negotiate, implement, and comply with future arms control in the (dis)information environment
China’s Hypersonic Weapons
No full textBeijing is making a major investment in hypersonic missiles. China’s military leadership see this technology as an important element of its regional warfighting strategy and possibly its strategic deterrent. China possesses one operational hypersonic missile, has tested several others, and maintains an active research and development program. While China’s specific plans for fielding such systems are unclear, it is possible to identify potential strategic and operational issues that will need to be addressed as its capabilities mature
The PRC’s Changing Strategic Priorities in Latin America: From Soft Power to Sharp Power Competition
No full textFor the past 15 years, the willingness of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to give billions of dollars in loans across Latin America created the perception that the PRC is spending unlimited resources to woo allies in a region where the United States historically carries significant influence. Currently, the PRC is heightening this perception by delivering millions of COVID-19 vaccines to Latin America, buttressed by a robust media operation to shape the information environment.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/inss-strategic-perspectives/1005/thumbnail.jp
Winning the Fight Taiwan Cannot Afford to Lose
No full textTaiwan’s defense approach has long relied on purchases of U.S. equipment and attempts to emulate U.S. doctrine. The U.S. military, however, has focused on projecting power to fight smaller adversaries around the world, while Taiwan faces the prospect of defending its homeland from China’s increasingly capable People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The United States is deeply committed to defending Taiwan, particularly as it becomes increasingly clear that Taiwan’s military needs to adapt to the rising threat posed by the PLA and the risk that Xi Jinping might seek to use force to compel unification. China has long had the ability to blockade or to launch missiles or air strikes against Taiwan, but a defiant Taipei could resist such coercion and refuse to surrender. Beijing can only be certain that it can compel unification if it can mount an invasion. Deterring invasion is, therefore, the ultimate objective for the United States and Taiwan. Maintaining cross-strait stability in the face of an increasingly wellresourced and modernizing PLA requires continual innovation and adaptation, including the updating of defense concepts.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/strategic-forums/1002/thumbnail.jp
Doing Well by Doing Good? Strategic Competition and United Nations Peacekeeping
No full textThe Joseph Biden administration’s Interim Strategic Guidance emphasizes the importance of ensuring that international organizations “continue to reflect the universal values, aspirations, and norms that have underpinned the UN [United Nations] system since its founding 75 years ago, rather than an authoritarian agenda.”1 In this context, several trends in competitor contributions to UN peacekeeping operations could be cause for alarm and warrant greater U.S. engagement. Although Washington remains the largest billpayer for these missions, both Russian and Chinese personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping have surpassed those of the United States. Chinese financial contributions are slowly increasing and, unlike the United States, are paid on time, in full, and without conditions. China is also the largest troop contributor to peacekeeping missions among the Permanent 5 members of the UN Security Council.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/inss-strategic-perspectives/1004/thumbnail.jp
Joint Force Quarterly 103 (4th Quarter, October 2021)
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/jfq-full-issue/1010/thumbnail.jp
Joint Force Quarterly 101 (2nd Quarter, April 2021)
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/jfq-full-issue/1012/thumbnail.jp
Russia and Saudi Arabia: Old Disenchantments, New Challenges
No full textThe Joseph Biden administration can manage its recalibration of relations with Saudi Arabia without unwarranted fear that Riyadh will view Russia as a safe-harbor alternative to the United States on a myriad of state-to-state interactions that are most important to the Kingdom. While Russia’s transactional approach to foreign partners has at times given it advantages in some areas over the more value-based framework of U.S. foreign relations, there clearly have been limits to the Russian style of dealing with Saudi Arabia in this century. For now, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have lost his bet on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as a resolute Russian strategic partner. However, Putin will continue to do business when necessary with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on a transactional basis given its role as a key player in the region, particularly in the Expanded Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+). U.S. foreign policy during the Biden administration will do best to recognize that the Russia-Saudi partnership is a transactional one that will endure, but not at the highest order of broad functionality, including at times within OPEC+.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/inss-strategic-perspectives/1003/thumbnail.jp
