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Taking the Battle Upstream: Towards a Benchmarking Role for NATO
No full textThe main intuition underlying this paper is that the current (geo) political, technological, and especially financial realities may require NATO to take the battle for capabilities upstream.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/defense-tech-papers/1010/thumbnail.jp
Star Wars Rebooted: Global Missile Defense in 2017
No full textAt present and for the near future, missile defense (MD) is not in peril of dismemberment. Indeed, the level of political consensus on the need for a missile defense runs high, as demonstrated by the Obama administration since 2009.1 But there probably will be questions about the most appropriate policy and technical options going forward when the President and administration take office in 2017 either as incumbents or new arrivals. While the debate in Washington will probably concern such matters as whether the United States needs a maritime or land-based MD and where within the program the Nation should place its budgetary chips in what could become a very tense financial atmosphere, events elsewhere around the globe may confront the 2017 administration with some delicate strategic dilemmas and force it to make difficult choices.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/wmd-proceedings/1003/thumbnail.jp
Combating Transnational Organized Crime: Strategies and Metrics for the Threat
No full textThis paper provides an overview of the strategic and policy initiatives that the United States and international community have taken, including an assessment of the TOC threat. The overview is followed by the metrics developed to evaluate the relative magnitude and direction of the threat of a 5-year period.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/defense-tech-papers/1014/thumbnail.jp
Widening Gaps in U.S. and European Defense Capabilities and Cooperation
No full textThis assessment is a synthesis of recent research projects at the National Defense University (NDU). These projects included consultations with think tanks, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Allied Command Transformation, the International Staff and U.S. Mission, and U.S. Military Delegation at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), and U.S. European Command (USEUCOM). Document analysis included review of the 2011 Capability Surveys from the NATO Defense Planning Process and Defense Intelligence Agency reports on allied capability projections. We conferred with U.S. Defense Attachés and Office of Defense Cooperation representatives in key European capitals. Finally, we have spoken with representatives of Allies in Washington, at NATO, and in capitals in order to understand as much as possible the factors bearing on their future capabilities decisions.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/transatlantic-currents/1005/thumbnail.jp
NATO and the ICC: Time for Cooperation?
No full textFollowing the wars in the Balkans, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established solid cooperation, whereby NATO supported ICTY in its quest to bring persons indicted for war crimes (PIFWCs) to justice. NATO Headquarters has provided substantial material used as evidence in various ICTY cases. NATO members have participated as witnesses to ICTY. Personnel of the NATO-led operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Kosovo, have detained and handed PIFWCs over to ICTY personnel who arrested them based on indictments issued by the tribunal’s prosecutor. The solid working relationship, while possibly temporarily challenged, was not put in serious jeopardy when the ICTY prosecutor investigated NATO’s conduct of operations during Operation Allied Force (also known as the Kosovo Air Campaign). The investigation did later clear NATO of the allegations of war crimes levied against it.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/transatlantic-currents/1003/thumbnail.jp
Managing Sino-U.S. Air and Naval Interactions: Cold War Lessons and New Avenues of Approach
No full textThe United States and China have a complex, multifaceted, and ambiguous relationship where substantial areas of cooperation coexist with ongoing strategic tensions and suspicions. One manifestation involves disputes and incidents when U.S. and Chinese military forces interact within China’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Three high-profile incidents over the last decade have involved aggressive maneuvers by Chinese military and/or paramilitary forces operating in close proximity to deter U.S. surveillance and military survey platforms from conducting their missions. Why do these incidents continue to occur despite mechanisms designed to prevent such dangerous encounters? Could new or different procedures or policies help avoid future incidents?
The problem in the U.S.-China case lies not with inadequate rules (for maritime operations) or history of practice (for air operations), but rather in the motivations that sometimes drive the Chinese to selective noncompliance with their provisions. China regards military surveillance and survey operations in its EEZ as hostile, threatening, illegal, and inappropriate. China’s harassment of U.S. naval vessels and aircraft conducting surveillance and survey operations is intended to produce a change in U.S. behavior by raising the costs and risks of these operations.
The U.S. military has confronted this problem before. U.S. doctrine and operational practice in conducting and responding to surveillance operations derives primarily from Cold War interactions with the Soviet military. The two countries were eventually able to develop a mutually beneficial protocol, known as the Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA), for managing air and naval interactions, thereby reducing the potential for an incident to occur or escalate. Given the success of INCSEA and tactical parallels between U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-China interactions, the factors that led the Soviet Union to seek an agreement provide a useful prism for evaluating the current situation.
Three primary factors motivated the U.S.-Soviet agreement: concern over the escalation potential of future incidents, a growing parallelism in the nature and scope of surveillance operations, and a burgeoning period of détente. These factors do not presently exist in the U.S.- China relationship to the degree necessary to induce mutual restraint in maritime and air interactions within China’s EEZ. This situation may change over the next 10 to 15 years as Chinese global economic interests expand and naval modernization produces a more capable and active Chinese navy, but waiting for change is not an attractive solution given continuing operational risks and the potential for an incident to badly damage bilateral relations.
If U.S. policymakers seek a faster change in Chinese behavior, they need to understand the underlying Chinese policy calculus, how it may change over time, and potential means of influencing that calculus. Based on Chinese policy objectives, official statements, patterns of behavior, and logical inferences, we identify seven decisionmaking variables: Sovereignty/security concerns: These reflect China’s historical concerns about sovereignty and the economic importance of defending China’s coastal provinces. Intelligence/counter-intelligence: China needs to gather strategic and tactical intelligence and also seeks to limit intelligence collection by potential adversaries. Geostrategic considerations: China has concerns about the U.S. role in Asia, needs a stable external environment that supports development, desires to shape international rules and norms, and seeks to project a positive international image. Chinese domestic context: Aggressive efforts by Chinese naval and maritime forces to defend sovereignty bolster their relative importance and justify increased resources. However, the Chinese navy also seeks to show that it can protect China’s interests and safeguard China’s economic development, missions that require cooperation with foreign militaries. Global commons access: Assured access to the global economy for resources and to reach markets is essential for continued Chinese economic growth and development. Escalation control: China shares an interest in preventing interactions with U.S. military assets from escalating into a broader conflict, but Chinese leaders and officers tend to regard the risk of such escalation as limited and manageable. Relations with the United States: A constructive relationship with the United States is important for China’s continued economic development and ability to achieve its national objectives, but Chinese leaders downplay the likelihood of a military incident causing irreparable damage to bilateral relations.
U.S. policymakers have several broad avenues of approach to alter the Chinese policy calculus and thereby influence Chinese behavior: Intelligence/counter-intelligence approaches: These approaches link China’s own ability to gather intelligence with its tolerance of U.S. intelligence-collection activities. Options include creating direct parallels between U.S. operations in China’s EEZ and Chinese operations in Japan’s EEZ; linking Chinese tolerance of U.S. surveillance operations in its EEZ with U.S. tolerance of select Chinese intelligence-collection activities in other areas or using other means; and linking the frequency of U.S. surveillance operations to Chinese concessions or cooperation in other areas. Maritime cooperation/coercion: These approaches play on the distinction between contentious U.S.-Chinese interactions within China’s EEZ and more cooperative interactions in distant waters. Cooperative options include highlighting the value of agreed operational norms and expanding U.S.-China maritime cooperation, including via surveillance cooperation in support of counterpiracy operations; coercive options include responding to Chinese harassment with “tit for tat” actions against Chinese navy ships or commercial shipping outside China’s EEZ. Geostrategic and bilateral considerations: These approaches play on Chinese geostrategic interests in maintaining a stable regional environment and a U.S.-China relationship conducive to economic and social development. Options include a more structured, consistent, and sustained U.S. strategic communication plan that highlights international norms of airmanship and seamanship; drawing parallels between the rights of military units to conduct operations in EEZs under the freedom of navigation principle and the more general issue of commercial access to the global commons; and challenging the Chinese assumption that military incidents inside China’s EEZ are unlikely to escalate into broader conflict or seriously threaten bilateral relations.
Given the importance that China places on sovereignty, no single option is likely to be sufficient. A mixed approach, particularly one that influences more Chinese decisionmakers, may maximize the probability of success. Cooperative approaches require time for benefits to accrue and for normative arguments to be heard and heeded. Some potential coercive approaches require violating preferred U.S. norms of freedom of navigation and U.S. military standard practice of safe airmanship and seamanship to generate the leverage necessary to alter Chinese behavior. This risks shifting international norms in undesired directions and would create greater tension and friction in military-military relations and bilateral relations generally.
This study does not attempt to weigh the intelligence value of U.S. operations in China’s EEZ against their negative impact on U.S.-China relations or the costs of the coercive options identified above. U.S. policymakers will need to carefully consider whether the status quo is tolerable, the costs and risks of various approaches, and what mix of policies might move China in desired directions at an acceptable cost.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/china-strategic-perspectives/1014/thumbnail.jp
Joint Force Quarterly 65 (2nd Quarter, April 2012)
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/jfq-full-issue/1048/thumbnail.jp
NATO Reassurance and Nuclear Reductions: Creating the Conditions
No full textThe first point in the preface of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Strategic Concept reconfirms the bonds between NATO nations to defend one another under Article 5. This was a response to the requirement by some Central and Eastern European (CEE) states that reassurance of Article 5 remains fully operative. The fourth point in the preface commits NATO to the goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons.1 This includes further reductions of U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) deployed in Europe. It also implies mutual reductions and closer cooperative relations with Russiahttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/transatlantic-currents/1001/thumbnail.jp
The International Atomic Energy Agency\u27s Decision to Find Iran in Non-Compliance, 2002-2006
No full textOn August 14, 2002, at a press conference in Washington, DC, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled Iranian opposition group, drew worldwide attention when it publicly accused Iran of clandestinely developing nuclear weapons. Alireza Jafarzadeh, then-U.S. media spokesperson for the NCRI, described two “top secret” nuclear facilities being constructed in Iran at Natanz and Arak under the guise of front companies involved in the procurement of nuclear material and equipment. Noting that media attention had focused on Iran’s publicly declared civilian facilities, Jafarzadeh claimed that “in reality, there are many secret nuclear programs at work in Iran without knowledge of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” the international body responsible for verifying and assuring compliance with safeguards obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/wmd-case-studies/1005/thumbnail.jp
PRISM Vol. 3, No. 4
No full textThis issue of PRISM examines the complexities of modern conflict, stabilization, and military strategy. The Features section explores the future of Syria after Asad, the importance of sociocultural analysis in contemporary security environments, and the evolution of irregular threats. Additional articles discuss the challenges of building host-nation police forces, the logistics of global military supply chains, and the dilemmas of stabilization efforts. Lessons from Vietnam and Afghanistan provide insight into U.S. political-military strategy, while a critique of the American way of war questions the effectiveness of current military doctrines. The Lessons Learned section analyzes civilian harm in Operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines and the role of indirect military approaches. An interview with J. Brian Atwood offers perspectives on international development and conflict resolution. Finally, Book Reviews assess firsthand accounts of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and the practical application of counterinsurgency theory in Algeria.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/prism-full-issue/1011/thumbnail.jp