Research and Case Studies

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  Managing Military Readiness

  Laura J. Junor

  Understanding the limits of the Nation’s ability to generate and deploy ready military forces is a basic element of national security. It is also the element most likely to be taken for granted or assumed away despite ample historical evidence of the human and operational costs imposed by such an error. As budgets shrink and threats grow more diverse, national security leaders need a specific accounting of the readiness limits of the force and the consequences of those limits as well as the insight to make timely and effective mitigation decisions.

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  India-Japan Strategic Cooperation and Implications for U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region

  Thomas F. Lynch III and James J. Przystup

  The emerging strategic relationship between India and Japan is significant for the future security and stability of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. It is also a critical emergent relationship for U.S. security objectives across the Asia-Pacific. India possesses the most latent economic and military potential of any state in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, India is the state with the greatest potential outside of the United States itself to contribute to the objectives of the “Rebalance to the Pacific” announced by Washington in 2011. This “rebalance” was aimed at fostering a stable, prosperous, and rules-based region where peace, prosperity, and wide respect for human rights are observed and extended. Implicit in the rebalance was a hedge against a China acting to challenge the existing post–World War II rules-based international and regional order.

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  The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations: A Case Study

  Maurice A. Mallin

  On July 16, 1945, the United States conducted the world’s first nuclear explosive test in Alamagordo, New Mexico. The test went off as planned; a nuclear chain reaction, in the form of an explosion, could be created. Less than a month later, nuclear weapons were used to support Allied efforts to end World War II.

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  Putin’s Syrian Gambit: Sharper Elbows, Bigger Footprint, Stickier Wicket

  John W. Parker

  Thanks in large part to Russia’s military intervention, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad’s fortunes have made a remarkable recovery since May/June 2015. Russia, together with the Lebanese Hizballah, Iran, and Iranian-organized Shia militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, has succeeded in averting Asad’s military defeat. What Russian president Vladimir Putin has accomplished in Syria is important for American national security interests and policy in the region because it frames some of the hard choices Washington must now make.

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  Asia and the Trump Administration: Challenges, Opportunities, and a Road Ahead

  James J. Przystup and Phillip C. Saunders

  The Asia-Pacific region is of exponentially increasing importance to the United States. Developments there affect vital U.S. economic, security, and political interests. Unfettered access to the region is a strategic imperative to allow the United States to protect and advance its wide-ranging national interests.

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  Like, Comment, Retweet: The State of the Military's Nonpartisan Ethic in the World of Social Media

  Heidi A. Urben

  Through a survey of more than 500 military elites attending the United States Military Academy and National Defense University, this project seeks to establish the nature and extent of political expression by members of the military throughout social media and whether or not such expression is in keeping with the norm of nonpartisanship.

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  Chinese Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative: Strategic Rationales, Risks, and Implications

  Joel Wuthnow

  Chinese officials have downplayed the security dimensions of Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative—the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, Chinese strategists have extensively analyzed three major issues: strategic benefits the BRI can provide for China, key security risks and challenges, and ways to reduce those risks. This study surveys their views and comments on implications for U.S. strategy. Key findings include:

  The main strategic benefits of the BRI include bolstering regional stability, improving China’s energy security, and amassing influence in Eurasia.

  • Chinese analysts see Eurasian integration as a way to create a more stable security environment around China’s southern and western periphery by addressing the underlying sources of violence and building mutual trust. Another benefit is increasing China’s energy security by diversifying oil and natural gas supply and transport routes.
  • Several analyses describe the BRI as a way for China to simultaneously achieve two geopolitical objectives: amassing strategic influence in Eurasia’s heartland while deftly avoiding direct competition with the United States. Some sources, however, are more explicit in portraying the BRI as a response to U.S. pressure, especially that posed by the Barack Obama administration’s rebalance to Asia policy.

  Implementing BRI projects could be frustrated by domestic and regional instability, nontraditional security threats, and strategic balancing from other major powers.

  • Chinese sources—including Xi Jinping himself—portray the BRI as unfolding within a turbulent and, in some ways, deteriorating security environment.
  • Key operational challenges include regional conflict and protecting property and personnel from “radical” groups, such as Uighur separatists, the so-called Islamic State, and Pakistani militants, although Chinese sources rarely acknowledge that anti-China sentiment stemming from policies such as exclusive use of Chinese labor could be contributing to that violence.
  • Chinese observers closely follow perceptions of the BRI in states such as the United States, Japan, and India, and assume that all three will respond individually or collectively to oppose China’s ambitions, or have already done so. Lesser concerns are raised about Russia and Southeast Asian states.

  China will have to marshal military, intelligence, diplomatic, and economic tools to counter perceived threats to the BRI’s long-term viability.

  • While some Chinese sources advocate greater expeditionary naval and ground force capabilities as a means to protect overseas equities, others argue that many challenges can be reduced through private security forces and host nation support. Mitigating threats to Chinese overseas interests also requires stronger risk assessment capabilities and enhanced nontraditional security cooperation, especially in the counterterrorism arena.
  • Many Chinese writings argue that strategic competition can be avoided by co-opting other major powers, such as by including U.S. companies in key BRI projects, and by carefully avoiding encroaching in other states’ spheres of influence. Many also call for a more attractive strategic message to enlist supporters and calm detractors.

  U.S. strategy should seek to check China’s geopolitical ambitions while advancing mutually beneficial cooperation where possible.

  • The most negative outcome for the United States would be a Sinocentric Eurasian order in which Beijing locks countries into exclusive economic relationships and U.S. interests are marginalized.
  • China’s ability to pursue an exclusive regional sphere of influence hinges on variables including China’s interests in maintaining stable relations with the United States, the willingness of other major powers to check China’s aspirations, and the ability of BRI partners to avoid overreliance on China’s economic largesse.
  • U.S. strategy should aim to preserve the strategic balance in Eurasia by maintaining strong U.S.-China economic relations, encouraging alternative regional infrastructure development plans, and remaining a committed partner to states across the continent. However, this does not preclude U.S.-China cooperation in areas of shared interest, such as in the counterterrorism domain. The mix of competitive and cooperative responses to the BRI should facilitate larger U.S. strategic aims in the region and vis-à-vis China.

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  Chinese Military Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications

  Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders

  China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on its most wide-ranging and ambitious restructuring since 1949, including major changes to most of its key organizations.

  • The general departments were disbanded, new Central Military Commission (CMC) departments created, and a new ground force headquarters established.
  • Seven military regions were restructured into five theater commands aligned against regional threats. Commanders will be able to develop joint force packages from army, navy, air force, and conventional missile units within their theaters.
  • PLA service headquarters are transitioning to an exclusive focus on “organize, train, and equip” missions and will no longer have a primary role in conducting operations. However, the PLA is still figuring out how the new relationships among the CMC, services, and theaters will work in practice.

  The restructuring will also reduce the size of the PLA by 300,000 soldiers, cutting the ground forces and increasing the size of the navy and air force. The restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operations capabilities—on land, at sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains.

  • The centerpiece of the reforms is a new joint command and control structure with nodes at the CMC and theater levels that will coordinate China’s responses to regional crises and conduct preparations for wartime operations.
  • A Strategic Support Force has been established to provide command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to commanders and will oversee space, cyber, and electronic warfare activities. A Joint Logistics Support Force will provide logistics support to units within the theaters.
  • The creation of a joint command system complements other recent changes supporting joint operations—including joint training, logistics, and doctrinal development.

  The reforms could result in a more adept joint warfighting force, though the PLA will continue to face a number of key hurdles to effective joint operations.

  • If the reforms are successful, the PLA could field a joint force more capable of undertaking operations along the contingency spectrum, including high-end operations against the U.S. military, allied forces in the Western Pacific, and Taiwan.
  • Key obstacles include continued ground force dominance, interservice rivalry at a time of slowing budget growth, and lack of combat experience for most PLA personnel.
  • Several years of joint exercises and training will be needed for PLA officers and units to gain experience in operating under the new system. This could impede China’s ability to conduct major combat operations during this period.

  Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability.

  • Useful indicators of progress would include more joint assignments going to non– ground force officers, expansion and deepening of joint training, and evidence that the theater commands are exercising operational control over air, naval, and conventional rocket forces.
  • Additional reforms to the officer assignment and military education systems will be announced in 2017, and will play a critical role in cultivating the military leaders necessary to conduct effective joint operations in a restructured PLA.

  The reforms are also intended to increase Chairman Xi Jinping’s control over the PLA and to reinvigorate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs within the military.

  • The reforms emphasize Xi’s role in making all major decisions, reversing the delegation of authority to the two vice chairmen under Hu Jintao. However, Xi will still have to rely on trusted agents within the PLA to supply military advice and execute decisions.
  • The restructuring strengthens supervision of the military by giving auditing, discipline inspection, and military legal mechanisms more independence and having them report directly to the CMC.
  • Xi is also trying to increase ideological control by emphasizing the importance of political work and the military’s “absolute obedience” to the Party.

  Xi Jinping’s ability to push through the reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors.

  • Xi has been able to wield sticks and carrots to break the logjam of institutional and personal interests that stymied previous reform efforts.
  • The ultimate effectiveness of efforts to strengthen CCP control will depend on Xi’s ability to devote sufficient attention to supervising the military and on the loyalty of the officers who will implement the control mechanisms.
  • If Xi’s leadership falters or if a slowing Chinese economy can no longer provide resources for military modernization, PLA leaders may grow dissatisfied with Xi’s efforts to strengthen CCP control over military affairs and to emphasize political ideology.

  The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.

  • The PLA now has closer counterpart positions for some senior U.S. billets, such as Chief of Staff of the Army. This could provide an opportunity for more productive exchanges.
  • The creation of a new joint command system and the role of the theater commanders in directing operations will require adjustments to existing confidence-building and communications measures to ensure that U.S. and Chinese forces can communicate effectively during a crisis.

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  Fifty Shades of Friction Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War

  Mark Clodfelter

  “Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty, and chance,” wrote Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz in his seminal On War. He observed that collectively, those four elements comprised the notion of friction, which he defined as “the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.” Friction has disrupted the implementation of war plans since the dawn of civilization, and despite efforts to minimize its effects, it will continue to do so.

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  Violating Reality: The Lavelle Affair, Nixon, and the Parsing of the Truth

  Mark Clodfelter

  On December 20, 2010, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) denied the Pentagon’s request, endorsed by President Barack Obama, to advance posthumously Air Force Maj Gen John D. Lavelle to the retired list in the rank of general.1 Thirty-eight years earlier, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen John D. Ryan had fired the four-star Lavelle as the Seventh Air Force commander in Saigon for allegedly conducting unauthorized airstrikes against North Vietnam and ordering the falsification of mission reports. Senate hearings in September 1972 deemed Lavelle guilty of both offenses, resulting in his demotion to major general following retirement. Yet a careful reading of documentary and taped evidence, much of it recently discovered and not available at the time of the original Senate hearings, reveals that General Lavelle neither violated the rules of engagement (ROE) that prescribed America’s air war at the time of his dismissal nor falsified mission reports. Accordingly, Lavelle should have his rank restored, and the so-called Lavelle affair should serve as a cautionary tale for political and military leaders alike who question the proper conduct of “civil-military relations” in the complex and often confounding era of modern limited war.

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  Frontier Security: The Case of Brazil

  John A. Cope and Andrew Parks

  Over the past three decades Brazil has greatly improved its ability to monitor and control its long border. Achieving better management of the complex frontier security problem required a great deal of patience, trial and error, organizational adaptation, and good leadership. The Brazilian experience yields a number of important lessons for Brazil and for its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. Improving performance required subordination of military priorities to civilian authorities; the repositioning of forces; better military-police cooperation; interagency and international cooperation; investment in technologies to give Brazil an advantage in the contest for best situational awareness; a long-term commitment; and guiding strategy documents supported by both civil and military authorities. Of overarching significance is the way the Brazilian military was able to reestablish the confidence of civilian leaders in the aftermath of decades of military rule. The result was a Brazilian military that is more professional, more respected, and better resourced than before. For the United States, the evolution of Brazilian frontier security is not only a developing good news story for hemispheric relations, but also a learning opportunity, since similar security problems have not always been so well managed in the United States.

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  India’s Naxalite Insurgency: History, Trajectory, and Implications for U.S.-India Security Cooperation on Domestic Counterinsurgency

  Thomas F. Lynch III

  The pace of U.S.-India defense cooperation over the past decade—and especially the past 2 years—has been unprecedented and impressive in many areas. These areas include defense technology cooperation, the discussion of a framework for military-to-military agreements, and the expansion of joint military exercises. U.S.-India defense cooperation, however, will remain limited in critical areas where India’s historical independent interests remain firm. Among these areas of Indian reserve include strategic autonomy, the imperatives of domestic federalism, and the preference for a go-slow approach toward redressing civil unrest. Attempts by U.S. policymakers to press harder in these areas will likely prove counterproductive.

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  The Return of Foreign Fighters to Central Asia: Implications for U.S. Counterterrorism Policy

  Thomas F. Lynch III, Michael Bouffard, Lesley King, and Graham Vickowski

  Central Asia is the third largest point of origin for Salafi jihadist foreign fighters in the conflagration in Syria and Iraq, with more than 4,000 total fighters joining the conflict since 2012 and 2,500 reportedly arriving in the 2014–2015 timeframe alone. As the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) continues to lose territory under duress from U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition activities, some predict that many may return home bent on jihad and generating terror and instability across Central Asia. Yet several factors indicate that such an ominous foreign fighter return may not materialize. Among these factors are that a majority of Central Asians fighting for ISIL and the al-Nusra Front in Syria and Iraq are recruited while working abroad in Russia, often from low-wage jobs under poor conditions making the recruits ripe for radicalization. In addition, many of those heading for jihad in Syria and the Levant expect that they are on a “one way journey,” some to martyrdom but most for a completely new life, and do not plan a return.

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  Understanding Putin Through a Middle Eastern Looking Glass

  John W. Parker

  The resurgence of Russian influence in the Middle East has surprised Moscow as much as any other capital. Russia has done better than the Kremlin and its Middle East experts feared when the Arab Spring began. Despite Moscow’s deep involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, Russia is now in a stronger position with national leaderships across the Middle East than it was in 2011, although its stock with Sunni Arab public opinion has been sinking.

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  The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Review of the Guidelines for Defense Cooperation

  James J. Przystup

  This paper is focused on the U.S.-Japan alliance as reflected in the evolution of the U.S.-Japan Guidelines for Defense Cooperation. It begins with consideration of the October 3, 2013, 2+2 Statement released by Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, and Minister of Defense Itsunori Onodera. The statement reaffirmed the critical importance of the alliance to international stability and security, the U.S. commitment to the security of Japan, and a common strategic vision based on shared values. The statement also tasked the two governments to review the existing 1997 U.S.-Japan Guidelines for Defense Cooperation. Over the course of three-plus decades, the guidelines have served as the framework for U.S.-Japan security cooperation.

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  Red China's "Capitalist Bomb": Inside the Chinese Neutron Bomb Program

  Jonathan Ray

  This paper examines why China developed an enhanced radiation weapon (ERW) but did not deploy it. ERWs, better known as “neutron bombs,” are specialized nuclear weapons with reduced blast effects and enhanced radiation, making them ideal tactical and antipersonnel weapons. Declassified U.S. intelligence and Chinese press reports indicate the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was interested in an ERW in 1977 and successfully tested a device on September 29, 1988. To date, however, these sources provide no evidence of deployment. This study exploits primary source documents to reconstruct the ERW program’s history, assesses drivers behind decisions throughout the program, and considers broader implications for PRC decisionmaking on weapons development. This case study suggests a model of a “technology reserve” in which China develops a weapons technology to match the capabilities of another state but defers deployment. This paper presents an analytic framework for examining how the technology reserve model might apply to China’s decisionmaking on ballistic missile defense (BMD), antisatellite (ASAT), and hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) systems.

  The framework considers five variables as potential drivers of China’s ERW decisionmaking. Specifically, it assesses the strategic environment of the PRC, the strategic value and normative value of the ERW, as well as the resource demands and technical feasibility of the ERW program. The framework also considers coalition politics of the ERW program as an intervening variable that influenced each of the above variables throughout the program’s history. The ERW program’s history comprised three phases:

  1. 1977–1980: Decision and Initial Research. In 1977, Chinese media followed the controversy over the U.S. decision to develop and deploy an ERW in Europe. Soviet media denounced the ERW and grew concerned at China’s silence on the controversy. After General Zhang Aiping [张爱萍] signaled the PRC’s interest in the ERW in the People’s Daily, scientists involved in the ERW program (herein referred as the weaponeers) began initial research and development (R&D). Some weaponeers argued against developing the ERW, worrying that it was unnecessary and would disrupt higher priority work on warhead miniaturization. Ultimately, they acquiesced to orders and combined the ERW and warhead miniaturization research to master common principles of the two systems.

  2. 1980–1984: Research and Development. In 1980, General Zhang told a member of a visiting U.S. delegation that China needed the ERW as a hedge against the Soviets. The weapon fit into China’s military strategic guideline of “active defense” to defend against a Soviet armored thrust and invasion. By then, the weaponeers were dividing the ERW problem into constituent parts, or “principles,” and solving them individually. From 1982 to 1984, China conducted five tests related to the ERW and warhead miniaturization. On December 19, 1984, the weaponeers conducted a successful “principles breakthrough” test. One weaponeer metaphorically described the successful test by saying that “the second generation of light boats has passed the bridge.”

  3. 1985–1988: Pause and Reevaluation. In 1985, China halted nuclear testing for 30 months. The pause coincided with a Soviet moratorium on testing and a leadership reshuffle that neutralized ERW proponent General Zhang. In 1986, the weaponeers warned PRC leaders that the United States and Soviet Union could conclude a nuclear test ban treaty, and they proposed accelerated testing to complete warhead designs. The Central Committee approved the report and provided funding. On September 29, 1988, China successfully tested an ERW design and added it to what one weaponeer called the “technology reserve.”

  No variable individually explains the ERW program’s decisions and outcomes. A tense strategic environment and the ERW’s high strategic value against Soviet armored divisions correlate with the program’s R&D but do not explain the fi al test in a more relaxed strategic environment. Similarly, the ERW’s normative value was initially high as a technological achievement, but a taboo against the weapon was fi mly in place before the fi al test. Resource demands and technological feasibility were challenges at the program’s beginning, and even after the weaponeers combined ERW and miniaturization research to conserve resources, the program still stalled in 1985. The 1988 fi al ERW design test for China’s “technology reserve” reflects both a hedge against changes in China’s strategic environment and the culmination of research. The evidence is incomplete, but it indicates that an ERW coalition led by General Zhang Aiping championed the program from 1977 to 1984 but fell apart before the ERW’s completion.

  This analytic framework and “technology reserve” model of matching a capability but deferring deployment help frame analyses of the PRC’s decisionmaking for its BMD, ASAT, and HGV programs. A cursory analysis indicates arms control possibilities for BMD, continued development of ASAT capabilities, and multiple possible outcomes for HGV development.

  Key themes and lessons from the ERW case study include the following:

  • Strong leaders versus institutional capacity. Coalitions with strong leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhang Aiping drove the ERW program in a time of weak institutions. Today, China’s weapons development processes are more institutionalized but are still susceptible to factional politics.
  • Technology parity as an ideological imperative. Matching other states’ military technologies is an extension of Chinese techno-nationalism into weapons development decisions.
  • Importance of potential adversaries’ reactions. Soviet alarm over the ERW as a disruptive capability made the weapon more attractive to Chinese leaders. U.S. reactions to contemporary PRC weapons systems should be calm.
  • Need to update Chinese open-source research techniques. This research benefited from studies on Chinese open-source research techniques, but such literature is dated. Newer sources such as social media, blogs, chat rooms, and updated databases highlight the need for more current discussions.

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  China Moves Out: Stepping Stones Toward a New Maritime Strategy

  Christopher H. Sharman

  Over the last decade, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has increased the frequency, duration, complexity, and distance from the mainland of its operations. Not only does China maintain a permanent counterpiracy escort flotilla in the Indian Ocean, it also now routinely conducts naval exercises and operations beyond the first island chain throughout the year. This normalization of PLAN operations in the Western Pacific and beyond is an important step toward an emerging new maritime strategy that will incorporate far seas defense.

  Far seas defense involves extending PLAN combat capabilities into waters farther from China. The concept is consistent with stated PLAN goals and training requirements, but it is not formally incorporated into China’s current maritime strategy. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s 2004 New Historic Missions charter provided the PLAN with the strategic direction to develop concepts, experience, and tactics germane to establishing far seas defense capabilities. PLAN deployments to and exercises in the near seas since 2004 have been evolutionary steps toward implementing a near seas active defense strategy, but regular deployments deeper into the Western Pacific have also helped the PLAN build the ability to operate in the far seas and begin to operationalize the concept of far seas defense.

  This monograph begins by examining the geography, history, and strategic focus of near seas active defense, China’s current maritime strategy. It illustrates how the New Historic Missions expanded PLAN mission requirements from traditional near seas operating areas to operations in the far seas. The paper provides a strategic framework for a new maritime defense strategy that would incorporate far seas capabilities. It then examines the evolution of PLAN operations and exercises since 2004. The monograph concludes by identifying several factors that, if observed, would indicate PLAN incorporation of far seas defense as part of an emerging new maritime strategy.

  PLAN deployments to the Western Pacific since 2004 demonstrate a deliberate and methodical approach to normalization, from single fleet and single-dimensional (surface ship against surface ship) scripted exercises in the Western Pacific to multifleet coordinated unscripted training involving submarines, surface ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, and fixedwing aircraft. There has also been a gradual increase from a few ships conducting deployments to as many as 12 ships and submarines deploying simultaneously. The monograph summarizes these changes as well as PLAN trends in signaling and in the steady expansion of chokepoints used by PLAN ships to access the near seas. It also highlights the growing complexity of information over time.

  The PLAN is likely to gradually increase the frequency of combat readiness patrol deployments to the far seas over the next 5 to 7 years. An uptick is likely in mixed-platform PLAN surface action groups rehearsing a myriad of combat warfare disciplines, such as exercising antisubmarine, antiair, and antisurface warfare during deployments to the far seas. These combat readiness patrols may include deployments along various strategic sea lines of communication in the Pacific, chokepoints in the Indian Ocean, and perhaps even to the Northern Pacific to support China’s Arctic interests.

  Operationalization of far seas defense will consist of regular deployment of surface action groups that provide maximum flexibility to address ever-changing mission objectives. PLAN ships deploying to the far seas will possess robust communications capabilities and will be linked through relatively rapid information flow across and up the chain of command. PLAN near seas operations over the last decade have included political signaling, suggesting the PLAN will be used for this mission in the far seas as well.

  Indications that the PLAN is aggressively looking to operationalize far seas defense missions would include observation of Jiangdao light frigates assuming greater responsibility for missions traditionally assigned to larger PLAN combatants within the first island chain, construction of icebreakers, enhanced intelligence support to deployed ships, active reporting on distant sea operations in the official Chinese press, a gradual increase in the frequency of deployments, and enhanced PLAN logistics support capabilities.

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  The Bosnian Train and Equip Program: A Lesson in Interagency Integration of Hard and Soft Power

  Christopher J. Lamb, Sarah Arkin, and Sally Scudder

  Military assistance to Bosnian forces was part of a complex plan to resolve what one former Secretary of State called “the problem from hell.” When Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in the early 1990s following the Soviet Union’s demise, it released a mix of nationalist and ethnic movements that led to civil war. Ill-disciplined combinations of regular and irregular forces struggled to control territory and protect civilians, sometimes herding them toward ethnically homogenous enclaves in a process widely referred to as “ethnic cleansing.” The intentional displacement of civilian populations, often encouraged by atrocities including mass murder and rape, was a tragic and complex foreign policy problem that defied simple and easy solutions.

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  The U.S. “Rebalance” and Europe: Convergent Strategies Open Doors to Improved Cooperation

  Leo G. Michel and James J. Przystup

  The U.S. strategic “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific region has captured the attention of our

  European allies and partners. When the strategy (initially described as a “pivot to Asia”) was articulated in late 2011 and early 2012, European reactions were diverse. Some governmental officials, nongovernmental experts, and media commentators voiced concern that the strategy signaled at best a diminishing U.S. interest in European security affairs, or at worst a deliberate U.S. policy of disengagement from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

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  The Indian Jihadist Movement: Evolution and Dynamics

  Stephen Tankel

  The Indian jihadist movement remains motivated primarily by domestic grievances rather than India-Pakistan dynamics. However, it is far more lethal than it otherwise would have been without external support from the Pakistani state, Pakistani and Bangladeshi jihadist groups, and the ability to leverage Bangladesh, Nepal, and certain Persian Gulf countries for sanctuary and as staging grounds for attacks in India. External support for the Indian mujahideen (IM) from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and Pakistan-based militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) persists, but the question of command and control is more difficult to discern. The IM is best viewed as an LeT associate rather than an LeT affiliate.

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  “Not an Idea We Have to Shun”: Chinese Overseas Basing Requirements in the 21st Century

  Christopher D. Yung, Ross Rustici, Scott Devary, and Jenny Lin

  China’s expanding international economic interests are likely to generate increasing demands for its navy, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), to operate out of area to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and sea lines of communication. The frequency, intensity, type, and location of such operations will determine the associated logistics support requirements, with distance from China, size and duration, and combat intensity being especially important drivers.

  How will the PLAN employ overseas bases and facilities to support these expanding operational requirements? The assessment in this study is based on Chinese writings, comments by Chinese military officers and analysts, observations of PLAN operational patterns, analysis of the overseas military logistics models other countries have employed, and interviews with military logisticians. China’s rapidly expanding international interests are likely to produce a parallel expansion of PLAN operations, which would make the current PLAN tactic, exclusive reliance on commercial port access, untenable due to cost and capacity factors. This would certainly be true if China contemplated engaging in higher intensity combat operations.

  This study considers six logistics models that might support expanded PLAN overseas operations: the Pit Stop Model, Lean Colonial Model, Dual Use Logistics Facility, String of Pearls Model, Warehouse Model, and Model USA. Each model is analyzed in terms of its ability to support likely future naval missions to advance China’s expanding overseas economic, political, and security interests and in light of longstanding Chinese foreign policy principles. This analysis concludes that the Dual Use Logistics Facility and String of Pearls models most closely align with China’s foreign policy principles and expanding global interests.

  To assess which alternative China is likely to pursue, the study reviews current PLAN operational patterns in its Gulf of Aden counterpiracy operations1 to assess whether the PLAN is currently pursuing one model over the other and to provide clues about Chinese motives and potential future trajectories. To ensure that this study does not suffer from faulty assumptions, it also explicitly examines the strategic logic that Western analysts associate with the String of Pearls Model in light of the naval forces and logistics infrastructure that would be necessary to support PLAN major combat operations in the Indian Ocean. Both the contrasting inductive and deductive analytic approaches support the conclusion that China appears to be planning for a relatively modest set of missions to support its overseas interests, not building a covert logistics infrastructure to fight the United States or India in the Indian Ocean.

  Key findings:

  • There is little physical evidence that China is constructing bases in the Indian Ocean to conduct major combat operations, to encircle India, or to dominate South Asia.
  • China’s current operational patterns of behavior do not support the String of Pearls thesis. PLAN ships use different commercial ports for replenishment and liberty, and the ports and forces involved could not conduct major combat operations.
  • China is unlikely to construct military facilities in the Indian Ocean to support major combat operations there. Bases in South Asia would be vulnerable to air and missile attack, the PLAN would require a much larger force structure to support this strategy, and the distances between home ports in China and PLAN ships stationed at the String of Pearls network of facilities along its sea lines of communication would make it difficult to defend Chinese home waters and simultaneously conduct major combat operations in the Indian Ocean.
  • The Dual Use Logistics Facility Model’s mixture of access to overseas commercial facilities and a limited number of military bases most closely aligns with China’s future naval mission requirements and will likely characterize its future arrangements.
  • Pakistan’s status as a trusted strategic partner whose interests are closely aligned with China’s makes the country the most likely location for an overseas Chinese military base; the port at Karachi would be better able to satisfy PLAN requirements than the new port at Gwadar.
  • The most efficient means of supporting more robust People’s Liberation Army (PLA) out of area military operations would be a limited network of facilities that distribute functional responsibilities geographically (for example, one facility handling air logistics support, one facility storing ordnance, another providing supplies for replenishment ships).
  • A future overseas Chinese military base probably would be characterized by a light footprint, with 100 to 500 military personnel conducting supply and logistics functions. Such a facility would likely support both civilian and military operations, with Chinese forces operating in a restrictive political and legal environment that might not include permission to conduct combat operations.
  • Naval bases are much more likely than ground bases, but China might also seek to establish bases that could store ordnance, repair and maintain equipment, and provide medical/mortuary services to support future PLA ground force operations against terrorists and other nontraditional security threats in overseas areas such as Africa.
  • A more active PLA overseas presence would provide opportunities as well as challenges for U.S.-China relations. Chinese operations in support of regional stability and to address nontraditional security threats would not necessarily conflict with U.S. interests and may provide new opportunities for bilateral and multilateral cooperation with China.
  • Long-term access to overseas military facilities would increase China’s strategic gravity and significantly advance China’s political interests in the region where the facilities are located. To the extent that U.S. and Chinese regional and global interests are not aligned, the United States would need to continue to use its own military presence and diplomatic efforts to solidify its regional interests.
  • A significantly expanded Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean would complicate U.S. relations with China and with the countries of the region, compel U.S. naval and military forces to operate in closer proximity with PLA forces, and increase competitive dynamics in U.S.-China and China-Indian relations.
  • Finally, if some of the countries of the Indian Ocean region and elsewhere agree to host PLA forces over the long term, their decision will imply a shift in their relations with the United States, which may ultimately need to rethink how it engages and interacts with these countries.

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  China’s Forbearance Has Limits: Chinese Threat and Retaliation Signaling and Its Implications for a Sino-American Military Confrontation

  Paul H.B. Godwin and Alice L. Miller

  Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has employed military force in defense of China’s security and territorial integrity. In many such instances, Beijing implemented a calculus of threat and retaliation signals intended first to deter an adversary from taking actions contrary to Chinese interests by threatening the use of military force and, if deterrence failed, to explain and justify Beijing’s resort to military force.

  This deterrence calculus was applied in each of the major instances in which Beijing has resorted to military force—in Korea in 1950, in the Sino-Indian border dispute in 1961–1962, in the Sino-Soviet border dispute in 1968–1969, and in China’s attack on northern Vietnam in 1979. It was also applied in instances in which Beijing’s effort at deterrence apparently succeeded and China ultimately stopped short of using military force. Examples include China’s responses to the intensifying American combat effort in Vietnam in 1965–1968 and to the 1991 debates in Taipei about delimiting the Republic of China’s sovereignty claims.

  Beijing implements this deterrence calculus by a carefully calibrated hierarchy of official protests, authoritative press comment, and leadership statements. If the crisis persists and Beijing perceives its interests are not satisfactorily taken into account, its statements escalate in level and may include at first implicit and thereafter increasingly explicit warnings that it may use military force to achieve its goals. This approach has been employed consistently despite the sweeping changes in the PRC’s place in the international order, the proliferation of foreign policy instruments at its disposal, the more complex crisis decisionmaking process and domestic political environment, and the dramatic evolution in the Chinese media over the decades.

  Significant improvements in China’s military capabilities, particularly in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval and air arms, have enhanced Beijing’s ability to press its territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. Chinese actions, often in response to challenges by other claimants, have raised regional tensions. Moreover, Beijing has at times hardened its objections to U.S. military exercises, aerial surveillance, and intelligence collection in China’s exclusive economic zone and in international airspace off its coasts. Aggressive maneuvers by Chinese military aircraft, fishing vessels, and civilian agency ships have led to serious incidents, including a collision between a PLA Navy (PLAN) fighter and a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft that led to the death of the PLAN pilot.

  The question for U.S. policymakers is whether improving military capabilities will lead Beijing to substitute sudden or surprise attack for the politically calibrated deterrence signaling it has employed prior to its past use of force. This study assesses the problem in four ways. It first reviews China’s use of force since 1949 to determine the motivations driving Beijing’s employment of military coercion. Second, it assesses China’s crisis decisionmaking process and crisis management. Third, it assesses the prospects for China’s more aggressive use of military coercion in Asia’s emerging security environment. Finally, Beijing’s signaling of China’s intent to employ military coercion is assessed in detail using a series of crisis case studies covering the years 1961–2004.

  Although China’s military capabilities are continuing to improve and its standing and involvement in the world have changed quite dramatically, this study concludes that the traditional calculus of threat and retaliation statements remains a central tool in Beijing’s array of foreign policy and security instruments for responding to and managing tensions and disputes.

  The historical instances where China has used military power can be divided into those cases when Beijing has employed significant military force and those cases when lesser military coercion has been employed. As one would anticipate, the forces employed reflect the immediacy of the perceived threat, the importance of the interest being threatened, and the capabilities of the opposing military forces.

  Deterrence signaling has been more systematically and directly applied when Beijing has perceived a major military threat or strategic trend placing a high value interest in jeopardy. This includes all four of the Taiwan cases examined (in 1991, 1995–1996, 1999, and 2003–2004).

  China’s recognition of the power asymmetry between itself and the United States partially explains why none of the post–Korean War crises involving the United States evolved into direct military conflict. Chinese and American scholars agree that one characteristic of Sino- American crises is China’s consistent policy of seeking to avoid a military confrontation with the United States even as it employed or threatened the use of military force.

  This record does not, however, necessarily transfer to a potential Taiwan crisis. Here, some Chinese hold the view that whereas Taiwan involves a core interest for China, it is only of marginal strategic interest to the United States. Consequently, China should not be fearful of employing military force to deter Taiwan’s de jure independence because the United States could well decide that a war with China over Taiwan is simply too costly given the island’s low strategic value to the United States.

  This view of the asymmetric importance of Taiwan to China and the United States reflects a broader Chinese perspective on past Sino-American crises. From a Chinese perspective, Sino-American crises did not occur in locales where core U.S. security interests were at stake. Whether in Korea, China’s offshore islands, Vietnam, or Taiwan, China’s interests were under greater threat because the locales were on or near China’s national boundaries. More over, in crises over the offshore islands and Taiwan, China’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty were at stake. These perceived asymmetries of interest contribute to China’s view that U.S. policies and strategies are similar to those conducted by imperialist and hegemonic powers in the past.

  This same perspective of asymmetric interests applies to China’s maritime territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. Whereas Beijing recognizes a U.S. interest in freedom of navigation, any U.S. involvement in how these territorial disputes should be settled is unacceptable because the disputes do not involve U.S. strategic interests. For Beijing, these territorial disputes are sovereignty issues extending back to the 19th century when Japanese and Western imperialists began their violations of China’s sovereignty. In China’s view, they are not a matter where the United States has any legitimate interest.

  Despite its commitment to the restoration of its own sovereignty over islands in the South and East China Seas, Beijing is reluctant to employ direct military coercion when its claims are challenged. These disputes do not constitute a direct threat to Chinese security, and the political, economic, and security consequences of a military confrontation between China and its neighbors, including those with mutual defense treaties with the United States, are evident. Beijing’s resolve to avoid a military confrontation is particularly manifest with regard to the United States. Given the potentially grave consequences, if China does consider using military force, Beijing is almost certain to employ the same deterrence calculus it has maintained since the founding of the People’s Republic. It would do so to minimize the possibility that it will have to use the military force on which the deterrence calculus ultimately rests and to reduce the costs if force is used.

  China’s application of the deterrence calculus in a future crisis would likely have the following characteristics:

  • Systematic integration of political and diplomatic action with military preparations as the signaling escalates through higher levels of authority. Such preparations are often, if not always, overt and integrated into the political and diplomatic messages designed to deter the adversary from the course of action Beijing finds threatening.
  • Stating why China is justified in using military force should this prove necessary. The message targets both domestic and international audiences. In essence, Beijing declares that it confronts a serious threat to its security and interests that if not terminated will require the use of military force.
  • Asserting that the use of military force is not Beijing’s preferred resolution to the threat it faces, but one that will be forced upon it should the adversary not heed the deterrence warnings sent. In short, Beijing’s signaling strategy seeks to grant China the moral high ground in the emerging confrontation. Such an argument supports China’s self-identification as a uniquely peaceful country that employs military force only in defense and when provoked by adversaries threatening its security or sovereignty. Presumably, Beijing believes that asserting the moral high ground in a confrontation can ease international response to any military action China might take and thereby reduce the political costs of employing military force.
  • Emphasizing that China’s forbearance and restraint should not be viewed as weakness and that China is prepared to employ military force should that be necessary.

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  Crisis Stability and Nuclear Exchange Risks on the Subcontinent: Major Trends and the Iran Factor

  Thomas F. Lynch III

  Crisis stability—the probability that political tensions and low-level conflict will not erupt into a major war between India and Pakistan—is less certain in 2013 than at any time since their sequential nuclear weapons tests of 1998. India’s vast and growing spending on large conventional military forces, at least in part as a means to dissuade Pakistan’s tolerance of (or support for) insurgent and terrorist activity against India, coupled with Pakistan’s post-2006 accelerated pursuit of tactical nuclear weapons as a means to offset this Indian initiative, have greatly increased the risk of a future Indo-Pakistani military clash or terrorist incident escalating to nuclear exchange.1 America’s limited abilities to prevent the escalation of an Indo-Pakistani crisis toward major war are best served by continuing a significant military and political presence in Afghanistan and diplomatic and military-to-military dialogue with Pakistan well beyond 2014.

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  The New NATO Policy Guidelines on Counterterrorism: Analysis, Assessments, and Actions

  Stefano Santamato

  The history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will say that the first, and so far only, time NATO has called upon its Article 5 collective defense clause was on September 12, 2001, following a terrorist attack on one of its members. Yet, until the agreement by NATO Heads of State and Government on the new policy guidelines on counterterrorism on May 20, 2012, NATO did not have an agreed policy to define its role and mandate in countering terrorism.

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  The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991-1992

  Susan J. Coch

  On the morning of September 28, 1991, then-Colonel Frank Klotz witnessed an historic moment at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota. As he and other senior officers from the base bomber and missile units watched, the crews for the B-1 strategic bombers that had been on alert that day climbed into their cockpits, started the planes, and taxied one after another away from the alert aircraft parking area. That scene was repeated at all 11 Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases in the United States. By the end of the day, there were no U.S. bombers on alert for the first time in over 30 years.