Research and Case Studies

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  El Salvador’s Recognition of the People’s Republic of China: A Regional Context

  Douglas Farah and Caitlyn Yates

  In January 2016, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) abandoned an 8-year truce in its war with the Republic of China (ROC) over diplomatic recognition around the world and subsequently moved to aggressively woo traditional Taipei allies. This paper centers on the PRC’s recent successful push into Latin America, and particularly in Central America—historically a primary area of influence for the United States. Through a concerted effort—and often in exchange for promises of mega investments and financial aid—the PRC increasingly receives a warm welcome across the Latin American continent.

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  Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today

  Sean McFare

  Mercenaries are more powerful than experts realize, a grave oversight. Those who assume they are cheap imitations of national armed forces invite disaster because for-profit warriors are a wholly different genus and species of fighter. Private military companies such as the Wagner Group are more like heavily armed multinational corporations than the Marine Corps. Their employees are recruited from different countries, and profitability is everything. Patriotism is unimportant, and sometimes a liability. Unsurprisingly, mercenaries do not fight conventionally, and traditional war strategies used against them may backfire.

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  Thucydides’ Other “Traps”: The United States, China, and the Prospect of “Inevitable” War

  Alan Greeley Misenheimer

  The notion of a “Thucydides Trap” that will ensnare China and the United States in a 21st century conflict—much as the rising power of Athens alarmed Sparta and made war “inevitable” between the Aegean superpowers of the 5th century BCE—has received global attention since entering the international relations lexicon 6 years ago. Scholars, journalists, bloggers, and politicians in many countries, notably China, have embraced this beguiling metaphor, coined by Harvard political science professor Graham Allison, as a framework for examining the likelihood of a Sino-American war.

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  Between Russia and Iran: Room to Pursue American Interests in Syria

  John W. Parker

  President Donald Trump has underscored containing Iran’s sway as a key element in establishing a “strong and lasting footprint” in Syria as the United States moves toward bringing its Soldiers home. In pursuing this key American objective, this paper recommends that Washington take advantage of the “daylight” between Russia and Iran, and that it be American policy at all levels to work to expand it. This long-existing “daylight” was underscored in 2018 by calls in Moscow for Iran to withdraw its forces from some or all of Syria, and by Putin’s positive regard at the summit in Helsinki with President Trump for Israel’s security requirements.

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  Five Conundrums: The United States and the Conflict in Syria

  Michael A. Ratney

  For the past 8 years, two U.S. administrations, the United Nations (UN), and numerous foreign governments have sought to end the catastrophic war in Syria and reach a negotiated political settlement to the conflict. Their efforts have repeatedly been complicated, even thwarted, by the highly contested and violent politics underlying the conflict, the sheer number of conflict actors inside and outside of Syria, and those actors’ diverse and often irreconcilable objectives.

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  China's Other Army: The People's Armed Police in an Era of Reform

  Joel Wuthnow

  China’s premier paramilitary force—the People’s Armed Police (PAP)—is undergoing its most profound restructuring since its establishment in 1982.

  • Previously under dual civilian and military command, the PAP has been placed firmly under China’s military. As chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi Jinping now has direct control over all of China’s primary instruments of coercive power. This represents the highest degree of centralized control over China’s paramilitary forces since the Cultural Revolution.
  • Local and provincial officials have lost the ability to unilaterally deploy PAP units in the event of civil unrest or natural disasters, but can still request support through a new coordination system.
  • The China Coast Guard, which previously reported to civilian agencies, has been placed within the PAP and is thus now part of the military command structure.
  • New PAP operational commands, known as “mobile contingents,” have been established with a diverse mix of capabilities. They will play a key role in protecting the capital and could be deployed in a Taiwan contingency, among other missions.
  • Geographic distribution of mobile PAP units remains skewed to western China, providing rapid reaction capabilities that could be used to repress dissent in Xinjiang and Tibet.

  Politically, the reforms reaffirm Chinese Communist Party (and Xi Jinping’s) control over the PAP and may reduce the scope for local abuse of power.

  • Despite earlier reforms, the PAP’s chain of command was convoluted, confusing, and decentralized. These reforms sought to ensure central party control over an organization deemed vital for ensuring the party’s security and survival.
  • Centralizing command also attempts to bolster the party’s legitimacy by reducing the ability of local officials to misapply PAP assets through corruption or overuse of force to handle local grievances.
  • A consequence of tighter control, however, could be slower responses to incidents as local officials have to submit requests through PAP channels. In some cases, officials may be reluctant to request PAP support in order to avoid negative attention from senior leaders.
  • The reforms place Xi firmly in charge of the PAP, though he will have to exercise authority through trusted agents. The success of continued PAP reforms will depend on elite consensus that centralized management of PAP deployments is desirable.

  Operationally, the reforms narrow the PAP’s responsibilities to three key areas: domestic stability, wartime support, and maritime rights protection.

  • Several law enforcement and economic functions previously under the PAP, such as border guards and gold mining, have been divested and placed within appropriate civilian ministries and localities.
  • PAP internal security forces remain focused on domestic security missions, including maintaining stability in western China, guarding government compounds, and disaster relief. PAP units would also be on the frontlines in responding to a major threat to the regime.
  • The PAP has also been encouraged to play a stronger role in supporting People’s Liberation Army (PLA) combat operations. Key roles could include guarding critical infrastructure and supply lines during wartime. Nevertheless, current PAP-PLA cooperation appears superficial and will remain so if the PAP is not better integrated into the PLA’s joint command system.
  • Incorporating the coast guard into the PAP could presage stronger integration with the navy in terms of operations, training, and equipment development, but this will require closer institutional cooperation than currently exists.
  • The PAP will continue to face capabilities gaps, especially in niche areas such as special operations forces and helicopters. Its ability to close those gaps will depend on its political effectiveness in future budget negotiations.

  PAP activities beyond China’s borders are likely to increase and could have implications for the United States and other Indo-Pacific states.

  • The PAP has emerged as a partner of choice for foreign governments in areas such as counterterrorism and peacekeeping training, in addition to its longstanding role as contributors to United Nations peacekeeping missions.
  • PAP units are also likely to deploy overseas to support counterterrorism operations. In some cases, Beijing may also rely on PAP capabilities to protect Chinese citizens and assets abroad, such as projects under the Belt and Road Initiative.
  • Closer coast guard–navy cooperation, if it emerges, would increase risks to U.S. and allied maritime operations in the South and East China seas. U.S. officials will need to determine if new agreements are needed, and feasible, to cover coast guard encounters.

  Over the long run, PAP forces may one day deploy to support Chinese combat operations; one example is a potential role in providing stability during a pacification campaign on Taiwan.

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  China's Strategic Support Force: A Force for a New Era

  John Costello and Joe McReynolds

  In late 2015, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated reforms that have brought dramatic changes to its structure, model of warfighting, and organizational culture, including the creation of a Strategic Support Force (SSF) that centralizes most PLA space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities. The reforms come at an inflection point as the PLA seeks to pivot from land-based territorial defense to extended power projection to protect Chinese interests in the “strategic frontiers” of space, cyberspace, and the far seas. Understanding the new strategic roles of the SSF is essential to understanding how the PLA plans to fight and win informationized wars and how it will conduct information operations.

  • The SSF combines assorted space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities from across the PLA services and its former General Departments.
  • In addition to expected efficiency gains from this approach, the SSF was created to build new synergies between disparate capabilities that enable specific types of strategic information operations (IO) missions expected to be decisive in future wars.
  • Despite a lack of transparency and the fact that the SSF is still in transition, a coherent picture has emerged of how the SSF’s components fit together and the strategic roles and missions they are intended to fulfill.

  The SSF reports to the Central Military Commission (CMC) and oversees two co-equal, semi-independent branches: the Space Systems Department, which leads a space force responsible for space operations, and the Network Systems Department, which leads a cyber force responsible for information operations.

  • The Space Systems Department is largely built around elements of the former General Armament Department and now controls nearly every aspect of PLA space operations, including space launch and support; telemetry, tracking, and control; information support; and space warfare. This appears to resolve previous PLA bureaucratic power struggles over responsibility for space missions.
  • The Network Systems Department is built around the former General Staff Department 3rd Department and incorporates all strategic IO units in the PLA, including those responsible for cyber warfare, electronic warfare, psychological warfare, and technical reconnaissance. This centralization addresses longstanding challenges in operational coordination between the PLA’s cyber espionage and cyber attack forces. Below the strategic level, the Network Systems Department shares operational- and tactical-level missions with units under the services and regional theater commands.
  • The PLA has thus far pursued a “bricks, not clay” approach to the creation of the SSF. Instead of building the organization from scratch, the PLA has renamed, resubordinated, or moved existing organizations and their component parts and then redefined their command relationships.

  The SSF has two primary roles: strategic information support and strategic information operations.

  • The SSF’s strategic information support role entails centralizing technical intelligence collection and management, providing strategic intelligence support to theater commands, enabling PLA power projection, supporting strategic defense in the space and nuclear domains, and enabling joint operations.
  • The SSF’s strategic IO role involves the coordinated employment of space, cyber, and electronic warfare to “paralyze the enemy’s operational system-of-systems” and “sabotage the enemy’s war command system-of-systems” in the initial stages of conflict.
  • The SSF improves the PLA’s ability to conduct information operations by integrating multiple disciplines of information warfare into a unified force, integrating cyber espionage and offense, unifying information warfare campaign planning and force development, and unifying responsibilities for command and control of information operations.
  • The SSF also appears to have incorporated elements of the PLA’s psychological and political warfare missions, a result of a subtle yet consequential PLA-wide reorganization of China’s political warfare forces. This may portend a more operational role for psychological operations in the future.

  The PLA reforms have substantially altered the command context for many of the missions now under the SSF, redefining longstanding organizational relationships and creating new responsibilities across the PLA command bureaucracy.

  • The reforms dissolved the four general departments and created an expanded Central Military Commission, including a new Joint Staff Department (JSD) with responsibility for supervising joint operations. The CMC now oversees a dual command structure where services are responsible for force construction and five theater commands are responsible for conventional joint operations in their respective regions. The SSF and Rocket Force fall outside this bifurcated arrangement, maintaining responsibility for both their own force construction and strategic operations.
  • The PLA has created a new force-wide structure under the JSD for managing cyber and electronic warfare missions. Along with the creation of the SSF, this framework aims to institutionalize the PLA’s longstanding goal of “integrated network and electronic warfare.” The exact division of responsibilities between the JSD and SSF remains unclear, including how the PLA will integrate SSF espionage and offense-oriented cyber operations with CMC management of the PLA’s cyber defense mission.
  • The SSF has been entrusted with technical reconnaissance capabilities supporting operations, but not with intelligence capabilities supporting strategic decisionmaking. In context, this reform gives the PLA more latitude to move away from its army-dominated past and direct intelligence resources toward critical operational needs.

  The PLA reforms can be compared to U.S. reforms after the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, which were similarly aimed at transforming a peacetime military structure toward one more optimized for joint warfare. The SSF is partly modeled on U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), with modifications reflecting China’s unique approach and challenges.

  • The PLA’s decision to construct the SSF as a separate service rather than a joint force construct like USSTRATCOM was ostensibly driven by lessons learned from observing foreign militaries and is intended to avoid redundancies in force development and counterproductive rivalries for funding and resources.
  • Unlike U.S. Cyber Command, the SSF’s Network Systems Department (the closest comparable organization in the PLA) is responsible for a much broader range of operations, including kinetic, cyberspace, space, electromagnetic, and psychological operations.
  • Questions remain about how the SSF will integrate its cyber espionage and attack missions, which have historically been separated. Integration will require developing new strategy and doctrine on the use of force in cyberspace without the benefit of substantive operational experience or robust real-world case studies.

  The creation of the SSF heralds a new era for China’s strategic posture, both in terms of the PLA’s preparations for fighting and winning informationized wars and its shift to projecting power farther from China’s shores.

  • The SSF embodies the evolution of Chinese military thought about information as a strategic resource in warfare, recognizing both the role it plays in empowering forces and vulnerabilities that result from reliance on information systems.
  • The SSF’s responsibility for both information support and information operations is prescient, enabling more rapid adaptation as China shifts from reliance on asymmetric capabilities as a weaker power to contending with adversaries on more symmetric terms as a near-peer competitor.
  • The consolidation of information operations under the SSF could act as a limiting factor for the development of service space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities necessary for tactical warfighting needs.
  • It remains an open question how the SSF will manage conflicting or overlapping responsibilities between its space and cyber forces. Force integration at lower organizational and administrative layers is challenging, and deficiencies in integration may impede the SSF’s ability to integrate its in-house space and cyber missions as well as its coordination with theater commands and other entities.
  • The SSF’s ability to execute its envisioned roles will depend in large part on the PLA’s ability to address weaknesses in its broader organizational culture, including a historical emphasis on top-down control and distrust of bottom-up decisionmaking.

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  United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Environmental Sustainability

  Philip Stockdale, Rebekah Kirkwood, Julie Sapp, and Jonathan Daniel

  United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO) are deployed to create, maintain, and secure peace in countries and regions struggling with violence and war. The environmental sustainability of UNPKO mission sites is not essential to the purpose of each deployment, but good sustainability practices can benefit the mission, host nation, troop-contributing countries, and the global environment. As a major contributor to UNPKO efforts, the United States has a direct interest in improving the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of each mission.

  This paper identifies gaps in sustainability practices at local and organizational levels and recommends an increased focus on sustainability practices that can benefit the mission, host nation, troopcontributing countries, and the environment.

  The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) is a long-term mission, likely to be in place for at least another five years. Investments in active technologies such as solar energy and electric vehicles are already paying dividends. Expansion of these programs, as well as standardized environmental awareness training and improvements to UNIFIL’s water management practices would enhance the sustainability of the mission.

  The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is a relatively recent mission, staffed with a high proportion of illiterate peacekeepers, in a politically unstable country with a harsh natural environment. Although required by Security Council resolution to manage its environmental impact, MINUSMA lacks the financial resources, manpower and timeline to invest in complex technologies with up-front cost. To comply with its environmental mandate, the mission should implement short-term, passive measures to improve water management and solar/thermal protection, as well as standardized environmental awareness training. If the situation in Mali stabilizes and MINUSMA is extended to a longer mandate, then the mission should follow the lead of UNIFIL and implement active technologies that are environmentally friendly and will save money over the life of the equipment.

  All of these recommendations can be applied, to some extent, to all UNPKO deployments. UN headquarters should take the lead in standardizing environmental training, technology and practices for all UNPKO missions. Cost-benefit calculations will always be important, but the overall benefit of good sustainability practices will extend to people and the environment from the local to the global level.

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  Chinese Military Diplomacy, 2003–2016: Trends and Implications

  Kenneth Allen, Phillip C. Saunders, and John Chen

  China is placing increasing emphasis on military diplomacy to advance its foreign policy objectives and shape its security environment.

  • Military diplomacy is part of broader Chinese foreign policy efforts to create a favorable international image, develop soft power, and shape international discourse. Other objectives include shaping China’s security environment, collecting intelligence, and learning from advanced militaries.
  • The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) seeks to forward strategic and operational goals through a variety of interactions with foreign military partners, including senior-level visits, security dialogues, nontraditional security cooperation, military exercises, functional exchanges, and port calls.
  • Chinese security cooperation also includes arms sales (conducted by state-owned arms manufacturers), internal security assistance (provided by the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security), and advice on Internet censorship and control.

  Military diplomacy is subordinate to and intended to serve national foreign policy objectives, which determine the relative priority the PLA places on regions and individual countries.

  • Military diplomacy is managed in a top-down manner, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee dictating broad foreign policy goals and the Central Military Commission (CMC) determining specific activities for various parts of the PLA.
  • The goal of building stronger bilateral relations with key partners means that the PLA must adapt its planned program of bilateral military activities to accommodate the preferences and constraints of its foreign partners.
  • Efforts to shape the security environment can include concealing or downplaying specific military capabilities, highlighting the contributions a stronger PLA can make to regional and global security, and displaying capabilities to deter or intimidate potential adversaries. Since 2010, shaping efforts have placed greater emphasis on displaying capabilities rather than concealing them.

  Most PLA diplomatic activity consists of senior-level meetings carried out by the Defense Minister, the Chief of General Staff (now Chief of the Joint Staff), and the Deputy Chief of General Staff (now Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff) who handles foreign affairs and intelligence.

  • Senior-level meetings accounted for 83 percent of Chinese military diplomatic activity from 2003 to 2016. China views these meetings as useful for building bilateral relations and providing high-level buy-in for a broader program of military-to-military activities.
  • The number of meetings fluctuates in conjunction with the Chinese 5-year political cycle, with visits lowest in years when the CCP changes political and military leaders at a National Party Congress (2002, 2007, 2012).
  • Since mid-2010, there has been a significant decline in overseas visits by top PLA leaders. This has been partially offset by the willingness of other countries to ignore protocol and visit China without reciprocal visits from their PLA counterparts.
  • Most Chinese military diplomacy is bilateral, but the PLA now participates in a range of multilateral meetings, conferences, exercises, and competitions.

  The PLA engages in nontraditional security cooperation with a range of partners to demonstrate that a stronger PLA can play a positive regional security role.

  • Most PLA bilateral and multilateral exercises, functional exchanges, and port calls are focused on humanitarian assistance/disaster relief and other nontraditional security activities. Some PLA assets, such as the Peace Ark hospital ship, are specifically devoted to these activities.
  • Since late 2008, the PLA Navy (PLAN) has maintained a constant presence in the Gulf of Aden to conduct counterpiracy operations. The vessels have also conducted port calls, supported the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya and Yemen, and assisted in the disposal of Syrian chemical weapons.
  • The PLA has participated in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations since 1990 and contributes more troops than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council. PLA participation has expanded from medical and engineering units to include an infantry battalion deployed to South Sudan in 2014.
  • China has created a Peacekeeping Training Center near Beijing and has pledged to provide 8,000 troops to participate in a standing UN peacekeeping force.

  The PLA has begun to participate in more combat-related exercises and competitions with Russia and Central Asian countries.

  • Since 2005, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Peace Mission exercises, nominally focused on counterterrorism, have included combat-related activities such as air defense, bombing, and aerial refueling. These are the only exercises where two or more PLA services conduct combined training with foreign partners.
  • China’s bilateral exercises with Russia focus heavily on combat and combat-support activities. Since 2012, the two navies have conducted a series of exercises in the East China Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and South China Sea that signal their willingness to cooperate in strategically sensitive areas.
  • The PLA Army and PLA Air Force have participated in multilateral military competitions hosted by Russia since 2014. This participation reflects growing confidence that the PLA can match international standards.
  • The PLA has pushed to engage in “traditional” security cooperation with the U.S. military, but the United States has been reluctant to conduct exercises that might improve PLA combat capabilities.

  PLA military diplomacy is focused primarily on major powers such as Russia and the United States and on Asian countries on China’s periphery.

  • China’s most frequent partners are Russia (4.8 percent of all interactions), the United States (4.4 percent), Pakistan (3.9 percent), Thailand (3 percent), and Australia (2.9 percent), all of whom participate in a full range of military diplomatic activities with the PLA.
  • PLA military diplomacy places a strong emphasis on Asia, which accounts for 41 percent of all interactions. Southeast Asia (22 percent) and South Asia (9 percent) are higher priority subregions than Northeast Asia (4.8 percent) and Central Asia (5 percent).
  • PLA interactions with U.S. treaty allies in Asia have increased since the 2011 U.S. rebalance to Asia and the ascent of Xi Jinping to power in 2012. The PLA has frequent military contacts and a strategic partnership with South Korea but rarely engages the Japanese military.
  • The PLA conducts different activities with different partners, sending the most seniorlevel visits to Asia and Europe, conducting the most military exercises with Russia and SCO nations, and carrying out most of its port calls in the Middle East and Asia.
  • The volume of Chinese military diplomatic activity with a particular country generally conforms to the hierarchical priority that the Chinese foreign policy apparatus has assigned to that country.
  • China’s military interactions with countries under UN sanctions (such as North Korea and Iran before 2016) are limited and not highly publicized.

  Military diplomatic activity does not necessarily translate into influence, and many routine activities may not be significant. Activity may reflect the quality of bilateral relations rather than be a means of developing them.

  • PLA military diplomacy typically emphasizes form over substance, top-down management, tight control of political messages, protection of information about PLA capabilities, and an aversion to binding security commitments.
  • Much of China’s military diplomatic activity consists of formal exchanges of scripted talking points in meetings, occasional port calls, and simple scripted exercises focused on nontraditional security issues.
  • Most PLA interlocutors are not empowered to negotiate or share their real views, which makes it difficult to build strong personal or institutional ties with foreign counterparts.
  • Chinese military relations are also constrained by what activities their foreign counterparts are willing or able to conduct with the PLA.

  Military diplomacy can help establish communications and crisis management mechanisms with China and may also encourage Chinese adherence to international rules and norms.

  • China’s participation in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium contributed to the PLAN’s eventual acceptance of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea.
  • China uses military diplomacy to build international support for its own preferred rules of behavior, including working with Russia to shape international rules for the space and cyber domains.

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  Shifting Human Environment: How Trends in Human Geography Will Shape Future Military Operations

  Paul T. Bartone and Mitchell Armbruster

  In January 2014 the Center for Technology and National Security Policy was asked to examine some major trends within the domain of human geography, developments that will have important influence on the type of environments future military forces will be operating in. Experts were identified to address the following key topics:

  • Population, migration and the development of megacities
  • Technology change and education
  • Ideological and cultural factors in conflict
  • Irregular and hybrid threats
  • Growth of transnational crime organizations and activities

  One goal of this effort was to provide useful information to DoD policy makers engaged in future force planning and “futures thinking.” The papers contained in this volume all deal with major developments and trends in the human arena that are likely to change the way military forces must operate in the future. Each paper contains a section addressing anticipated implications for future military operations. And by presenting these papers as a package, the reader is encouraged to move beyond a simple recognition of particular trends, and consider how these factors may interact to shape a more complex and surprising future operating environment.1

  As economic growth has spread to more and more of the developing world, an unprecedented level of migration to large urban centers has occurred in response. The first paper by Bartone and Sciarretta explores the rise of these “megacities,” and what they mean for the future of U.S. defense policy. According to the United Nations, by 2025 there will be 37 megacities worldwide, up from 27 today. Up until now, the U.S. military has attempted to avoid operating in hostile urban environments whenever possible. Bartone and Sciarretta show that the military needs to develop significant urban warfare capabilities in order to effectively carry out future missions.

  Albert Sciarretta’s paper on ideology and decision making examines how bias shapes and informs the decisions that government and non-government groups make. Sciarretta reviews the various types of biases and ideologies that leaders have, including religious, pragmatic, and cultural beliefs systems. Understanding what these ideologies are, how they influence thought processes, and who possesses them is critical in order to develop strategies to face emerging threats.

  One way that future adversaries are likely to employ force is through a mix of conventional warfare, irregular tactics, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, cyberattacks, and criminal behavior called hybrid warfare. James Keagle’s paper on hybrid threats explores the nature of hybrid threats and ways in which the U.S. can counter them. Understanding the hybrid threat is critical for, as Keagle explains, hybrid threats are often located in the global commons that the U.S. has sought to control. This paper is especially timely, as Russia has employed elements of hybrid warfare in its assault on Ukraine. As more and more actors turn to the tactics associated with hybrid warfare, the U.S. military must develop capabilities and strategies to counter them.

  Celina Realuyo’s paper addresses the rising threat the U.S. will face from transnational criminal enterprises. New opportunities, such as cyberspace, now allow transitional criminal elements to spread their operations further and faster than before. While the globalized economy has created previously unimaginable wealth and opportunities, it has also come with a dark side. Transnational criminal groups and international terrorists have used the same infrastructure to enrich themselves and promote their interests around the world. As transnational criminal networks become wealthy, they will seek to infiltrate and corrupt government institutions, creating in effect “criminal states” that protect and promote the interests of the gangs that control them. Transnational criminal networks have also found common cause with terrorist groups, with both operating in the same “governance gaps” that permit their behavior. A renewed whole of government approach to transnational criminal gangs will be necessary in order to combat this emerging threat.

  Robinson, Armbruster, and Snapp’s contribution on the future of education details how changes in technology and approaches are reshaping education, not only in the U.S. but around the world. New approaches to education, such as flipped classrooms, competency based education, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and mobile learning are challenging educational institutions to rapidly adapt. In addition, advanced technology makes education more affordable and accessible to more people, and further advances are expected to radically re-order the educational landscape. Virtual classrooms, augmented reality, 3D printing, and gamification are all challenging the traditional model of education. U.S. military leaders need to understand how these changes will both impact our society and how they will affect the rest of the world.

  Taken together, these papers describe an increasingly networked, technologically sophisticated and complex world that the U.S. military will have to operate in. By being aware of these trends, national security leaders and decision makers will be better equipped for the awesome task of anticipating future force challenges and requirements.

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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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  The NSC Staff: New Choices for a New Administration

  R.D. Hooker , Jr.

  Early in every new administration, the President and his national security team are inundated with studies offering advice on how to organize for national security. Many propose sweeping changes in the size, structure, and mission of the National Security Council (NSC) staff, the fulcrum of national security decisionmaking. However attractive superficially, organizational tinkering is unlikely to drive better performance. This paper argues that structure and process are less important than leadership and the quality of NSC staffing. No duty rises higher than the President’s call to defend the Constitution and the people and territory it nourishes. That duty will be tested early and often. An NSC staff that is up to the task will play an enormous role in keeping the United States safe.

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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.