Barrow Fellows 2020

The inaugural Barrow Fellows publication seeks to explore and understand China’s role in world affairs as it relates to strategic competition with the United States.

Developed and produced by the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity BARROW FELLOWS 2020

Understanding US – China Relations

Barrow Fellowship Mission & General Barrow’s Biography

The General Robert H. Barrow Fellowship seeks to explore and understand different aspects of security and strategy as it relates to great power competition. For this inaugural school year (2019-2020), the Barrow Fellows examined US-China strategic competition.

General Robert H. Barrow, 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps, was born on 5 February 1922 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Lieutenant Barrow subsequently served as Officer-in-Charge of an American team attached to a group of Chinese Nationalist guerrillas. He entered China via India, and after many months of operations along the periphery of the area held by the Japanese in central China, his team entered Japanese occupied territory and conducted intensive guerrilla operations for the last seven months of World War II. For this service, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V.” After the war, Lieutenant Barrow remained in China for another year, six months of which was spent in Shanghai and six months in the Tientsin-Peking area.

During the Korean War, he led Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, in the Inchon- Seoul operation, and the Chosin Reservoir campaign. For the latter, he was awarded the Navy Cross for holding a pass near Koto-ri on 9-10 December 1950.

Colonel Barrow graduated from the National War College in June 1968. He then served in the Republic of Vietnam, as Commanding Officer, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division (Rein), and as Deputy G-3, III Marine Amphibious Force. During the nine months he served as Commanding Officer of the 9th Marines, his regiment participated in numerous combat actions in the vicinity of the DMZ, Khe Sanh, Da Krong Valley, and A Shau Valley. For extraordinary heroism in Operation Dewey Canyon, he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross.

After promotion to brigadier general, he served as Commanding General at Camp Butler, Okinawa. On further promotion to major general, he became Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1975 and assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps as Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower. In 1976, he was named Commanding General, FMF, Atlantic, at Norfolk, VA.

General Barrow became the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps in July 1978, so serving until appointed the Corps' Commandant on 1 July 1979.

General Barrow was the first Commandant to serve, by law, a regular four-year tour as a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was instrumental in acquiring approval of production for the Marine Corps of the American-modified Harrier aircraft, in awakening interest in new and improved naval gunfire support, in getting amphibious ships included in the Navy's new construction programs, and in returning hospital ships to the fleet, especially on station with Marine Corps amphibious task forces.

General Barrow retired as Commandant on 30 June 1983 and returned to his native state of Louisiana. Upon retirement, he was presented with the Distinguished Service Medal.

The fellowship was aptly named after General Robert H. Barrow, who served as a China Marine during World War II and afterward while on occupation duty. He focused on examining non-military aspects of China’s international relations critical to understanding its role and place in the world today. The General Robert H. Barrow Fellowship intends to increase the collective understanding of China’s role in world affairs as it relates to strategic competition with the United States. Given the recent national return to great power competition, it is increasingly necessary for US military service members to holistically understand our competitors beyond a single military dimension. This fellowship aimed to expose members to academic scholars, intelligence community professionals, and other individuals with regional-area expertise within the National Capital Region who have unique insights into US strategic competitors. For this pilot iteration of the Barrow Fellows at Marine Corps University, we ask the question: “In addition to military matters, what aspects of US-China great power competition should US service members strive to understand?”

Contents Barrow Fellowship Mission & General Barrow’s Biography ...... 2 From the Director ...... 5 Barrow Fellowship 2019-2020 Guest Speakers ...... 6 A Strategic Interface: Reestablishing the Logical Relationship between Tactics and Politics...... 7 Orienting on The Orient ...... 11 DIME: Not Just an Acronym ...... 17 Trial and Error at The Dawn of a New Era: An Examination of American Strategy in the Era of Great Power Competition and How the United States Can Ensure Long-Term Global Stability...... 25 Defending Space – Challenges to U.S. National Interests in an Era of Great Power Competition ...... 33 Rise to Global Power: Visualizing China’s Strategic Engagement Efforts ...... 41 Key Terrain, Naval Integration, and Distributed Operations: Making Sense of The Future Operating Environment ...... 54 The Character of Chinese Influence in 2020: OBOR’s Economic Coercion ...... 67 The Five Incapables Through The Lens of Covid-19: What China’s Pandemic Response Illuminates About Control and Command in Times of National Crisis ...... 74 A Cognitive Domain of Warfare: The Intellectual Competition Between the US and China ...... 83 Cyberspace Operations in the South China Sea ...... 89 US Great Power Competition and China: Heavy on Effort but Thin on Vision ...... 98 Founding Members ...... 103

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organizations for which they work, Marine Corps University, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, or the U.S. government. The information contained in this book was accurate at the time of printing.

From the Director

As an organization, the Marine Corps has acknowledged the importance of understanding foreign languages and cultures, and so since 2012, it has implemented a regional culture and language familiarization program for all new officers and enlisted Marines. Instead of an across-the-board application of culture and foreign language learning, a more targeted approach might be more effective. To this end, the General Robert H. Barrow Fellowship for Strategic Competition was established for the 2019-20 academic year through the KC. The fellowship is a new way to provide exposure to a broad spectrum of viewpoints about the strategic environment to students enrolled across the continuum of professional military education schools at Quantico to help supplement and deepen learning about near-peer competitors, like China, for participants in the program. In its inaugural year, the fellowship, named for the Corps’ 27th commandant who served as a China Marine during the Second World War and then afterward while on occupation duty, focused on examining non-military aspects of China’s international relations critical to understanding its role and place in the world today. The fellowship program consists of a robust guest speaker program, guided discussions, question and answer sessions with experts on great power competition, and a writing project. During the nine monthly sessions, fellows engaged with experts from the Pentagon, National Security Council Staff, the Intelligence Community, academia, and Washington, D.C.-area think tanks. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meetings transitioning from in-person to virtual during the spring of 2020. Several Barrow Fellows were also able to attend an external workshop held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on China’s One Belt, One Road initiative during the fellowship year, and then report back to the larger group about what they learned, enhancing the experience for all participants. Through programs like the Barrow Fellowship developed and implemented from the bottom up, we can begin to populate the Marine Corps’ ranks with officers and NCOs who are better equipped to question the reigning orthodoxy on China. They can see the country and the effects of its rejuvenation on the contemporary world with eyes wide open, understanding both the opportunities and challenges presented by China’s rise.

Barrow Fellowship 2019-2020 Guest Speakers

Sept 2019 Dr. Daniel R. Green (Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development) Topic: Great power competition as it relates to the National Defense Strategy

Oct 2019 Dr. Jennifer Staats (Director of East and Southeast Asia Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she oversees USIP’s work on Burma, China, and North Korea.) Topic: One Belt One Road

Nov 2019 Dr. Michael Green (Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) Topic: Power and Norms in the U.S. Asia Strategy

Dec 2019 Dr. Chris Yung & Dr. Chris Harmon (MCU Professors) Topic: Mao’s China and Beyond

Jan 2020 Ms. Constance Taube (Deputy Director of National Counterintelligence Security Center) Topic: Insider threat, critical infrastructure, foreign influence, and economic espionage

Feb 2020 Dr. Andrew Scobell (RAND & MCU) Topic: This meeting focused on the Barrow Fellowship writing requirement and all Fellows pitched their proposal(s)

Mar 2020 Cancelled due to COVID

Apr 2020 Dr. Larry Wortzel (USCC) Topic: Influence of History and Culture on Foreign Policy

May 2020 LtCol Ivan Kanapathy (NSC) Topic: U.S. Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China

A Strategic Interface: Reestablishing the Logical Relationship between Tactics and Politics Captain Olivia Garard, USMC

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.

“But Which is the stone that supports the bridge?” Kublai Khan Asks.

“The Bridge is not supported by one stone or another,” Marco answers, “but by the line of the arch that they form.”

Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: “Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.”

Polo answers: “Without the stones, there is no arch.”

- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

There is a tendency to ignore tactics when designing strategy. This is an inverse of, and a corollary to, the oft-heard lament that the United States wins battles, but loses the war. Both claims inject a disjunction between tactics and strategy where there is not one; tactics and strategy are distinct, but not separate. All strategy is built from and upon tactics. The strategic corporal is an appeal to the direct link between tactical actions and strategic effects. This link, it is worth adding, has always been true, as is its obverse. Any and all strategic actions are only possible because of tactics. It is worth restating; tactics are the necessary building blocks of strategy, but they are not sufficient for strategy. Strategy, built from tactics and its consequents, adds something of its own too. As the United States looks to engage more directly in strategic competition, it is essential to reconsider the extent of what is tactically possible.

For Carl von Clausewitz, author of On War, “[t]actics and strategy are two activities mutually permeating each other in time and space, at the same time essentially different activities, the inner laws and mutual relations of which cannot be intelligible at all to the

mind until a clear conception of the nature of each activity is established.”1 I have written before on the three key components of this formulation, namely their “essential difference,” “inner laws,” and “mutual relations.”2 Essential difference homes in on how the conduct of combat, as Clausewitz defines tactics, is different from its use, which is Clausewitz’s definition of strategy. Both strategy and tactics follow their own inner laws; there is a tactical logic towards combat, or the threat of it, just as there is a strategic logic of control. It is worth pausing over the mutual relation between strategy and tactics if we are to consider the extent of what is possible, or necessary, in strategic competition.

In The Future of Strategy, Gray describes how strategy ought to “serve to connect purposefully a polity’s military assets with its political wishes.”3 Strategy functions as a bridge, Gray argues. It reaches from “the civilian policy-political bank” to the “military establishment” traveling over “a completely unfordable river separating the political from the military sphere.”4 Unfortunately, the bridging metaphor begs the question. It posits a conceptual separation between policy-politics and tactics that ought not exist in reality and does not in theory.

Anders Engberg-Pedersen and Michael Kornberger’s article “Reading Clausewitz, reimagining the practice of strategy” leverage Gray’s bridging metaphor, “theorizing the practice of strategy as a bridge between the overarching purpose of war and actual conduct on the battlefield.”5 And yet, throughout their argument, they end up relying on a far better metaphorical option: an interface. Simply, they write, “[s]trategy is the interface between policy and tactics.”6 The conceptual distinction between a bridge and an interface is essential. Both entail a crossing-over, but a bridge also posits a gap. To move from policy, as the political instantiation of politics, to the tactical demands required by war, should not entail a separation. Tactics must continuously serve strategy, even as it constrains what is

1 Carl von Clausewitz. On War. trans. Colonel J. J. Graham (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2004), 76. 2 Olivia Garard, “Tactical and Strategic Interdependence,” The Strategy Bridge, 18 December 2016, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2016/12/18/tactical-and-strategic-interdependence. 3 Colin S. Gray, The Future of Strategy (Cambridge: Polity, 2015), 25. 4 Ibid., 28. 5 Anders Engberg-Pedersen and Martin Kornberger, “Reading Clausewitz, reimagining the practice of strategy,” Strategic Organization, vol. 1, no. 13 (June 2019), 8. 6 Ibid., 7.

politically possible, while policy ought to be responsive to the limitations of what tactics can do. A bridge reinforces conceptual consolidation on separate banks, rather than encouraging or demanding continuous logical participation with the other side. Interaction is discrete because a bridge necessarily has limited points (a point) to access the other side.

These elements, inherent in a bridging concept, are incommensurable with Clausewitz’s view of the relationship between tactics and strategy, and thereby politics. While a bridge may serve as an interface, as a point where two sections intersect, the more useful metaphorical interface has a computational sense. From this view, an interface serves as a “boundary between two independent entities.”7 Gray’s metaphor is incompatible because such an interface would require a fordable river (or no river), which he categorically denies. Engberg-Pedersen and Kornberger explain how strategy is “the interface that structures the interaction between what is desirable (policy) and what is possible (tactics). At its core, Clausewitz proposes, the practice of strategy is concerned with the organization of the interface between the two, how that which is possible shapes action and how action delimits what is imagined as possible.”8 To rely only on limited points of access between what is possible and what is desirable will fail to encompass all elements of, to continue in Gray’s terms, the military bank nor will it incorporate all the restraints and constraints based on the desires of the polity. Rather than positing a mythic river, wherein the operational level also lives, the focus should be on creating continuous discourse across the boundary between what is possible and what is desired. This delineation is a negotiation. It will change over time, due to time, and because of technological innovation and societal upheavals.

Tactics about politics and strategy seek to best organize that boundary. Drawing a line around what is tactically possible in an era of great power competition will reveal a larger and more diverse set of possibilities than what the United States has traditionally considered its set of tactics. More possibilities have emerged from novel technologies and the emerging areas into which we can project the threat of combat. For instance, the

7 Brian W. Kernighan, D is for Digital: What a Well-informed Person Should know about Computers and Computing (DusfirDigital.net, 2011), 216. 8 Enberg-Pedersen and Kornberger, “Reading Clausewitz,” 8.

degrees of freedom of combined arms have moved beyond three dimensions, and the three-domains of land, sea, and air. Likewise, adjectives that posit options outside a typical dichotomy – like gray as orthogonal to black and white or asymmetric as a value judgment against what we are not currently doing – imply that the scope of what is tactically possible has not been conceptually harnessed within the military institution. All that is tactically possible may not be politically desirable. Nor will all political desires be tactically possible. What is necessary is a two-way discussion where a tactician is also “a servant of strategy,”9 but also, importantly, as Engberg-Pedersen and Kornberger reassert, “long-term plans and goals are conditioned by tactical possibilities and constraints.”10 Strategy must interface between what is possible and what is desired.

In a way, Edward Tufte, who focuses on the visual display of data, is right: “Information becomes the interface.”11 Tactical possibilities translated into combat, what Emile Simpson in War from the Ground Up calls “the ‘vernacular of battle,’” serves “the language of war” to create “political meaning.”12 Clausewitz’s “grammar,” the tactical constraint, delineates the possibilities of what, to continue the metaphor in the spirit of the early Wittgenstein, can be said.13 As many a poet has shown over the years, just because the form of the sonnet, for instance, has been around for many centuries, does not mean that its possibilities are exhausted, that its potentialities are known, or that further evolution is impossible. Equally, as we move towards increasingly more complex strategic competition, it is imperative to understand the full extent of what is tactically possible as we expect to elicit more out of strategy, in the service of our political desires.

9 B. A. Friedman, On Tactics, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2017), 195. 10 Enberg-Pedersen and Kornberger, “Reading Clausewitz,” 9. 11 Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, (Cheshire: Graphics Press, 1997), 146. 12 Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics, (London: Hurst & Company, 2012), 15. 13 Clausewitz, On War, trans. Graham, 699.

Orienting on The Orient Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Glauber, Army

"The rise of China has happened so quickly, we have not yet had time to be astonished." -Vaclav Havel

We are frequently surprised by the direction of our domestic policy. Our inability to predict the course of our arguably most familiar government--of us, by us, and for us— should give us pause to reconsider recommendations founded on assumptions made regarding an exponentially less understood government and society.

In 2017, Graham Allison attributed our assumption that China will continue to accept US strategic primacy in the Asia-Pacific region as cognitive dissonance.1 Most contemporary works on the subject of China correctly assert the new reality of a changed environment. This fact, however indisputable it may be, is insufficient to inform strategy- making alone. The dynamics of the factors and actors within our changing environment must be sufficiently understood to ensure the advancement, maintenance, and protection of our most vital and vulnerable interests.

This understanding is the lens through which we view the current dimensions of our strategic interests in American protection, prosperity, peace, and influence and make assumptions on their future condition. This lens, with sufficient clarity, allows policymakers, strategists, and planners alike to discern actual dimensions from apparent dimensions. In other words, this lens separates fact from fiction.

The accuracy of our strategic assumptions or "educated guesses" about the future state of our allies, adversaries, and their environment is profoundly important. First, they set a nation in motion to generate and employ solutions to problems that won't exist for decades. Second, inaccuracy is inherited. Errors in prediction are passed along to higher,

1 https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/china-america-and-thucydides-interview-graham-allison

adjacent, and subordinate stakeholders. The cost of correcting the false strategic assumption is often too high for a nation to bear.

With the above dilemma in mind, this paper: (1) Offers two examples to promote further consideration of our competitors; and (2) Offers two examples to encourage further reflection about ourselves.

Considering our competition

Assumptions about the rules.

Balancing the benefits of economic cooperation and the risks of military conflict is a precarious business. The prospect of modifying or discontinuing a 70-year precedent governing our international order makes it more so. Since the end of WWII, nations have peacefully coexisted through a shared commitment, fundamentally or incidentally, to the precepts of western ideology-free minds, free men, and free markets.

The United States' preeminence in matters of security was crudely yet succinctly justified under the golden rule or "He who has the gold rules." With Fareed Zakaria's "West" vs. "The Rest" argument in "Post-American World" in mind, a red flag appears inconveniently on our horizon. We will welcome a rising tide to lift all boats, so long as they don't break free of their moorings to the international system in place since WWII. From the Bretton-Woods Agreement, through the IMF, to the World Bank, the golden rule of our golden age has been: "The largest economy dictates the global security activities and assets to ensure its survival." Our current and projected roles must account for any deviation from historical rhetoric.

Along a receding frontier of US dominance, decades of Asian transparency and goodwill are replaced with distrust and resentment. Urgent calls to stem or reverse the tide are not unwarranted. First, it is reasonable to assume that the longer we delay, the more irrelevant and vulnerable we become. Second, there’s no award for second place. We're losing the competition, and the winner is the only one who rules to any avail. The winner constructs the narrative with the only piece of evidence that matters—the results.

Nevertheless, we should cautiously proceed to correct the problems resulting from the rebalanced regional order.

The rules of the road to war.

All roads to war necessarily begin with a blanket assumption that peaceful coexistence is not possible. The road is made to appear as a one-way street fixing the feet of its travelers towards an inescapable destination. The way is neither straight nor clear, yet the national "maps" or strategies, for the sake of political consensus, and the mobilization of resources, would often have us believe it to be so. Furthermore, our responses with respect to the map are appropriate to the scope of our responsibilities. Our observations are likewise limited to the span of our proper responses. The reason for a conflict is justified and explained through a lens most appropriate to the source of power— not the source of the problem. For the sake of efficient development and implementation, the "just cause" of policy tends to become the "just because" of a policy. For the above reasons, environmental anomalies take the shape of conflicts. The perceived preference for a forceful resolution of conflict becomes a reality and complicates the pursuit of equally viable non-violent alternatives.

In our chaotic and complex environment, the military, albeit the most accessible, is not the exclusive allied tool to ensure understanding or even protection against irregular threats. Our cohesion is our center of gravity and, therefore, the "bullseye" of enemy effort. We may further assume that our adversary will exploit our vulnerabilities outside the military and at the points where we are weakest. We are most vulnerable at the limits of our society, territory, and authority. The threat will not fit within an acceptable legal definition—it remains just outside our legal authority--our basis for legitimacy. The condition for its employment is the existence of a dilemma between political legitimacy and military victory. The action necessary to gain, maintain or protect the one is the very action that causes us to lose, degrade, or expose the other.

Assumptions about the ruled.

Successful appeals to individual, organizational, and national reason or passion for modifying or maintaining popular behavior to align or remain aligned respectively with our goals are the result of a detailed, if not intimate, knowledge of the strength, scope, and scale of the society's fears, values, and interests. Generally, threats to survival take precedence over threats to prosperity. Likewise, threats to prosperity take precedence over threats to ideology.

A successful effort to discourage or encourage widespread behavior is predicated upon a sufficient understanding of the values ascribed to the aforementioned areas. To that end, when confronted with an anomaly, we must be careful not to project our values to fill the void of our understanding. Barbara Tuchman sheds light on a common American misconception in 1926 that still persists.

"America saw in the Chinese a people rightly struggling to be free and assumed that because they were struggling for sovereignty, they were also struggling for democracy. This was a delusion of the West. Many struggles were going on in China--for power, for nationhood, even in some cases for the welfare of the people--but election and representation, the sacred rights on which Westerners are nursed, were not their goal. " 2

We may necessarily seek common ground to ease tension. Nevertheless, our efforts should be balanced with an appreciation for uncommon ground to ultimately avoid conflict.

The success of our influence campaigns are prone to rely too heavily on metrics such as presence and resource expenditure. Although insufficient resources will almost certainly bring defeat, sufficient resources are no guarantee for success. The ultimate aim of our efforts to influence a population is control rather than support. Although winning hearts and minds is ideal, and perhaps sufficient to control a population, it is essential to ascertain the actual level of control required for stability. The following scale may yield a more accurate commitment of resources.

2 Tuchman, Barbara. Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945. p. 97

1-Armed Conflict; 2- Unarmed Conflict; 3- Compulsion through physical force; 4- Compulsion through moral force; 5- Cooperation through relative physical benefit; 6- Cooperation through relative moral benefit; 7- Integration; 8- Assimilation

Lastly, the study of past conflicts within the environment will likely yield a reasonable understanding of core grievances, social networks, values, and events that precipitated movement along the above scale.

Considering ourselves

Barbara Tuchman, in her book, "Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911- 1945," makes a compelling case to establish General Joseph Stillwell as the ideal individual to understand, visualize, describe, and direct US strategic efforts in China in WWII. The following takeaways will inform our future efforts:

• General Stillwell's: (1) Knowledge of Country and Language; (2) Friendship with the people; (3) Belief in the mission, and (4) Discipline and diligence were what made him the most appropriate choice for the mission. • The military has a role in influencing diplomatic choices, ranging from public to private, firm to flexible, immediate to gradual. • Knowledge of the conditions preceding conflict, such as non-violent cooperation, compromise, compulsion, coercion, compliance, is necessary to bring about a successful conclusion. • As a result of our unique ability for prolonged projection, the military has a responsibility as a "bystander" or eyewitness beyond their military function. • The threat of destruction might be the only sufficiently powerful catalyst for creating change.

Within the last decade, our assumptions about China remaining in the static defensive have grown weaker. They have moved from pre-ordained certainty, through probable and

possible, to preposterous, and yet we've maintained them to be true. What follows are our strategic efforts to mitigate the risks of ignorance and inaction. Estimates on "What, where, when, with how much?" will manifest with more clarity over time. Even without the clarity, there is sufficient reason for western policymakers and strategists to expand their gaze beyond a bipolar system of politically manageable problems neatly confined to the Euro-Atlantic Region.

Perhaps the best assumption we can make is that we're wrong, and that surprise is inevitable. Why? Because the only thing we hate more than being wrong is losing. Assume you're wrong, and that surprise is inevitable because the only thing we hate more than being wrong is losing. To that end, learn to not only live with but invite discomfort.

DIME: Not Just an Acronym Master Sergeant Matthew Higgins, USMC

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a complex, multidimensional concept that has drastically changed the global landscape. The vastness of BRI requires the United States to take a holistic view to clearly identify the associated implications and opportunities in this ambitious global strategy designed to cement China as the world’s dominant superpower. This initiative is the most ambitious global move that the world has witnessed since the end of the Second World War. To understand the scope and complexity of Chinese dominated expansion, the United States must adopt a comprehensive national strategy that carefully balances all instruments of national power. A full governmental approach that leverages each requisite government agency in a time and manner that is advantageous to their abilities is required for the United States to successfully draft, implement, and maintain a strategy that enables the country to compete with China and, more specifically, the Belt and Road Initiative. The United States of America is lacking a comprehensive, concerted approach, framed by a unifying strategy that leverages all available public and private resources to ensure the U.S. remains the dominant global leader while also furthering its strategic national goals. The instruments of national power are commonly discussed in professional military education and individually throughout the government apparatus. Many in military circles are familiar with programs, studies, and the theoretical application of Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economic, but a much wider and coordinated implementation is required for the United States to be successful in competing with China and maintaining our superpower status. If China were to replace the United States as the dominant global authority, the world order as we know it would be replaced by an oppressive, authoritarian communist model where the values of democracy, freedom, equality, justice, and basic human rights would be non-existent.

Diplomacy

The first and arguably most important instrument to be leveraged in Chinese relations is diplomacy. The United States maintains a robust government that employs experts and agencies that are specialized in every corner of the world of diplomatic relations. The United States Department of State (DoS) is the lead agency for carrying out the diplomatic means of the country. The DoS mission is stated as, “The U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity.” 1 Notably, the Department of State is only as successful as foreign governments will allow. China poses many diplomatic challenges for the U.S.; to successfully compete with China, the Department of State and other national agencies, such as the Office of the President of the United States of America, should work in concert with one another to deliver a well developed and implemented plan. The Chinese have a long history of not following through with their diplomatic promises, regularly conducting deception operations in lieu of employing legitimate diplomatic means.2 One fact that plagues America’s ability to maintain credibility and assurances is the high rate of turnover with ambassadors, presidents, and other key diplomats. The current administration’s policies can be drastically altered or changed with the appointment of a different diplomat to the post, a newly elected president, or even a change in the national objectives of either of the nations.

Recommendations to effectively utilize the diplomatic arm of the United States Government include: strengthening current alliances and cultivating new alliances that are vital to national interests and strategic goals. Although the U.S. has adopted a more hardline stance on certain aspects with our allies, these ties with key allies must be reinvigorated and revitalized. Various agreements that were negotiated with previous administrations have since been renegotiated or withdrawn from due to perceived unequal terms and fairness for the United States. Whereas this may be true in some instances, agreements that are not evenly split with incentives for both sides are still needed to

1 “Mission,” United States Department of State 24 March 2020, https://www.state.gov/about/about-the-u-s- department-of-state/ 2 Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower (New York, NY, Henry Holt and Company ,2015)

maintain strong unshakable alliances, especially during times of major global change. Examples include trade agreements, defense spending for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty.3 Each strategic partner should receive an individualized approach to ensure that our collective needs are aligned and in the best interest of both countries. Without solid alliances and agreements, the implementation of BRI projects and stronger bonds with increased reliance on Beijing is more likely to occur. Our allies and other nations need reassurance that America is in it for the long game and will continue to provide a viable alternative to a Chinese dominated world order. Offering incentives to other countries promote advantageous outlooks for partnering with America. Incentives could include favorable trade terms, military partnerships, U.S. sponsored educational programs, joint infrastructure and energy projects, etc. U.S. alliances such as those participating in the Blue Dot Network are crucial to strengthening allied resolve and competing with BRI projects across the globe.4 Many of the strategic decisions regarding allies and treaties between the United States and other nations have drastically changed during the last three years. Although the reasons for these actions remain ambiguous, the United States should strategically forecast its long-term goals and not rely on near-sighted band-aids that will be pulled by a future administration.

Information

The use of information as an instrument of national power is one of the most crucial, cost-effective, and practical means of furthering U.S. interests around the world. This includes the military’s information operations campaigns but also goes well beyond as it supports policy objectives across all domains simultaneously. To be effective, information needs to be well focused, coordinated and distributed to three major audiences. First, the American public should be kept informed by transparent government communications and intentions when these do not obstruct or harm national security. In a world that is plagued with propaganda and deliberate disinformation to support personal agendas, it is crucial to

3 Arms Control Association, “U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Agreements,” April 2020, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USRussiaNuclearAgreements 4 U.S. Department of State, “Blue Dot Network,” U.S. Department of State, 25 March 2020, https://www.state.gov/blue-dot-network/

educate the public on these monumental issues that put the nation at risk. Second, our allies and potential allies across the world need to be aware of Chinese intentions and the consequences of poorly or deceptively constructed deals and interactions. Third, informing and educating Chinese citizens on opportunities beyond an intrusive and oppressive communist world is possible.5 Information must be shared across all the aforementioned populations, encompassing a rudimentary understanding of China’s BRI that would increase understanding, dispel misconceptions, and avoid potential negative consequences.

Additionally, exploiting and debunking Chinese information operations to inform the rest of the world of Chinese intentions would shed light on deceptive tactics and China’s global dominance goal. Using historical and recent examples of China’s duplicitous behavior and hypocritical procedures dealing with crisis situations and political unrest show how a world dominated by China would look for any potential adversaries. Examples include the PRC’s handling of unrest in Hong Kong, proof of civil rights violations, speech censoring/social engineering, and the incarceration or disappearance of political opponents. Exposing China for who they really are could drastically shape the world’s perspective of exactly who they are siding with when entering into agreements and alliances with the People’s Republic of China. If done correctly, with collective prosperity as the goal and not to just serve a sole American agenda, this could greatly enhance the propensity for more prosperous and well-informed alliances beyond the BRI deals. The ability of the U.S. to effectively employ soft power tactics is essential to produce long-term success in the information spectrum. In this context, “Soft power is the ability to achieve desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion.”6 The United States has been a long-lasting example of what is possible in a free and dynamic civil society. By improving and reinvigorating this legacy, the U.S. can shine through as “the alternative” through practices, policies, and civil liberties that are a possibility for all people in all nations. Educating developing countries on contract negotiations, quality control, fair business practices, and additional items will allow them to analyze and validate contracts and

5 Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower 6 Amit Kumar Gupta. "Soft Power of the United States, China, and India: A Comparative Analysis." Indian Journal of Asian Affairs 26, no. 1/2 (2013): 37-57. www.jstor.org/stable/43550355.

agreements prior to being coerced or persuaded without understanding the entire process or situation.

Military

The military has already begun a drastic shift to better prepare for the Chinese pacing threat. The notion of United States military supremacy across all domains is no longer valid. During the past three years, the United States has published multiple documents that highlight the Chinese threat and a renewed focus to orient the country’s government agencies in a specific, unified direction. Through the development and distribution of several key documents and strategies, including the National Security Strategy (2017), National Defense Strategy (2018), National Military Strategy (2018), and the DoD Indo-Pacific Strategy Report (2019), activities can be clearly delineated, approached, and solved with a unified effort of all security, intelligence, and defense stakeholders. As stated in the National Defense Strategy (NDS), “the central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by revisionist powers.”7 The latest NDS discusses the current analysis of the strategic environment, outlining the Department of Defense’s objectives and strategic approach. Individual Services have translated this guidance into personalized approaches that effectively employ the Services while aligning with current and future Service tasks.

The United States Marine Corps Force Design 2030 and 2019 Commandant’s Planning Guidance are shining examples of shaping force objectives and reprioritizing needs. These documents undergird the Marine Corps’ strategic vision and strategy for maintaining the Corps as the most competent and ready Service for strategic competition with the PRC. The shifts to further integrate with the U.S. Navy are imperative if the Marine Corps is to remain a viable maritime option to combat Chinese military capabilities. “With the shift in our primary focus to great power competition and a renewed focus on the Indo- Pacific region, the current force has shortfalls in capabilities needed to support emerging joint, naval, and Marine Corps operating concepts.”8 However, much more is needed to

7 Department of Defense. “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.” 8 United States Marine Corps. “Force Design 2030.”

make fixing these shortfalls in manning, training, and technology a reality. In addition to military cooperation with large defense contractors, this coordination needs to extend further into civilian information technology and cyber defense sectors. The United States already possesses greater capabilities and innovative ideas that are harbored in the private sector. The need for a more streamlined, effective, and less bureaucratic process to shorten the progression from idea or concept to production for new technologies and equipment is paramount. Simply increasing a defense budget and continually allowing government service providers or contractors to exploit the existing system by charging for uncompetitive, astronomically overpriced goods and services must cease.

Economic

The economic tools that the United States and her allies have at their disposal provide a wide array of options to compete with China’s BRI. The biggest advantage that China currently has for promoting and obtaining deals along the BRI is the lack of competition; enormous amounts of money have been invested and continue to be invested in the economies of developing nations. However, without any known or substantial alternatives to ongoing projects and investments, emerging economies have very few reasons to refuse unfavorable terms and transactions. A 2018 study conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported that “The United States is no longer the major player for developing countries when it comes to trade, investments, and financing.9 This alone leaves many opportunities for Chinese companies and state-owned entities to fill a void and exploit strategic locations and partnerships throughout the world. In 2006, the United States was the principal trading partner for nearly 130 nations. Ten years later, it dropped to 76 countries.10 China capitalizes on these open sources to the full extent possible to support the People’s Republic of China (PRC) interests globally. China

9 Daniel Runde, Romina Bandura, and Owen Murphy. “Renewing U.S. Economic Engagement with the Developing World.” (Washington, DC: CSIS, November 2018). 10 Runde. “Renewing U.S. Economic Engagement with the Developing World.”

has subverted the United States’ place and become the top trading partner for 124 countries. 11

The biggest tenet that is lacking from the United States' approach to economically competing with China and BRI projects is the lack of focus. It is almost impossible to thrive without a comprehensive foundational strategy that complementarily aligns and simultaneously employs various tools to increase their effectiveness. The economic arm of the United States is long-reaching, but still requires full support and coordination with the other instruments of national power to be successful. Simply cutting off ties to China is neither feasible nor practical. The U.S. strategy should focus on current and attainable national strengths and not try to outperform China in Chinese strengths. Although the United States cannot match China in dollars spent or underbid their construction/infrastructure projects, there are many intangible assets that America possesses that can make our deals more appealing than BRI proposals. The United States brings transparency, free-market economic principles, technology transfers, increased environmental and social safeguards, debt sustainability assessments, quality infrastructure standards, and lifecycle cost assessments. Although some developing countries and their leaders may not fully understand the importance and value of these transactions and concepts, informing them gives them those options. The various USG departments and agencies need one guiding authority to coordinate all actions to reduce unnecessary redundancy and duplicative efforts. The private sector shares an equal, if not more, of a vested interest in supporting global trade agreements. A holistic approach is key to the economic superiority of the United States and its allies.

Conclusion

China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the instruments of U.S. national power are much too complex to be summarized in a single article. This article intends to give the reader a better understanding of what the United States is currently doing with respect to each instrument and various researched recommendations for competing with China. Although

11 Daniel Runde. “A Tale of Two Paths: Divergence in Development.” (Washington, DC: CSIS, February 2017). https://www.csis.org/analysis/tale-two-paths.

some say that the United States may be too late in combating the Chinese BRI threat, this is not conclusive. The threat has been noticed, actions are being taken, and the United States will continue to do what is in the best interest of the nation and its citizens. The BRI and Chinese/American economic engagement is not a win or lose game. It is about ensuring that the United States remains a global economic and values-based superpower for itself and all nations that deserve fair, equitable, and balanced trade/economic opportunities. However, even the best intentions fall short when they are conceived in a vacuum. The United States faces many challenges that, although not unique, are not present for the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party. The vast amount and depth of state-owned enterprises in all major industries throughout the Chinese economy allow for centralized control of policies, trading, and customers that are not possible in capitalist economies throughout the rest of the world.12 The stranglehold that the Chinese government has on its economy, military, businesses, and citizens makes it much easier to focus all actors (national instruments of power) towards a central goal, which at this time is the Belt and Road Initiative. A unified, comprehensive strategy that maximizes the United States’ vast power must be developed—and more importantly, implemented—to ensure the United States remains capable and effective as the world’s dominant superpower and economic powerhouse.

12 Karen Jingrong Lin, Xiaoyan Lu, Junsheng Zhang, and Ying Zheng. “State-owned enterprises in China: A review of 40 years of research and practice,” China Journal of Accounting Research 13, no. 1 (2020): 31-55.

Trial and Error at The Dawn of a New Era: An Examination of American Strategy in the Era of Great Power Competition and How the United States Can Ensure Long-Term Global Stability Captain Charles Koch, Army

Revisionist states such as Russia and China seek to rewrite the rules of the current international order through sub-threshold conflict, territorial expansion, weapons research, or grand strategies (i.e., Belt and Road Initiative) that run counter to the interests of the United States. Unfortunately, the U.S. government does not have a long-term solution to these emerging issues despite increasingly hostile actions from these revisionist states. Instead, the U.S. maintains a National Security Strategy (NSS) that projects short term strategies for current issues in the era of great power competition. The 2017 NSS, the nation's guiding document on strategy, does not prepare for great power competition because it is myopic, overly focused on military threats by revisionist states, and over- utilizes the U.S. military to achieve its strategic goals. To properly prepare for a new era of great power competition, the NSS must implement a three-pronged strategy that pursues offshore balancing, cooperation amongst rising great powers, and an emphasis on diplomacy, information, and economy to properly enable all instruments of national power in conjunction the military.

The current NSS of the U.S. explicitly states that it will pursue an "America First foreign policy."28 According to the NSS, this policy guides everything from developmental assistance to developing countries and competitive diplomacy involving coalitions.29 This Hobbesian foreign strategy of "America First" is myopic because it pursues foreign relations that demonstrate the strength of the U.S. at the expense of its allies. From 2017 to 2018, the U.S. decreased its cap on displaced people it would accept within its borders from

28 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, (Washington D.C.: The White House, 2017), 37. 29 Ibid., 33 – 39.

304,849 to 178,585.30 This decrease is a signal from the U.S. to the world that it is less than willing to participate in humanitarian relief because it provides few benefits to an "America First" foreign policy.

Regarding NATO, President Trump revealed he felt it is "unfair" that Article 5 (collective defense) of the NATO Treaty can be enacted by a country that fails to provide at least 2% of their GDP towards defense.31 This statement causes some states to doubt America's commitment to NATO. In 2018, the U.S. government unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran due to perceptions that the plan failed, despite the majority of the world and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supporting the deal.32 In line with "America First" foreign policy, the U.S. government renegotiated terms with NAFTA, the E.U., China, and Japan so that the "…United States will not be taken advantage of any longer."33 The long-term effects of each of these policies reverse decades of cooperation and diminish the credibility of the U.S. government.

The second issue with the NSS is that it focuses on revisionist threats to the status quo of U.S. hegemony. The Power Transition Theory (PTT) argues it is natural for declining hegemons to be wary of rising states who challenge the status quo.34 However, the PTT also indicates that conflict can be deterred through communication if rising powers are satisfied with the status quo. Yet, the U.S. government currently operates with the belief that both Russia and China are now great power competitors who seek to "reassert their

30 Department of Health and Human Services, Justification of Estimates for Appropriations Committees, (Washington D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services, 2019), 38. 31 The White House, Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada Before Bilateral Meeting, (Washington D.C.: The White House, December 3, 2019) accessed January 20, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-prime-minister-trudeau- canada-bilateral-meeting-london-united-kingdom/. 32 International Atomic Energy Agency, “Iran Is Implementing Nuclear-Related JCPOA Commitments, Director General Amano Tells IAEA Board,” (IAEA, March 5, 2018) accessed on January 20, 2020, https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iran-is-implementing-nuclear-related-jcpoa-commitments- director-general-amano-tells-iaea-board. 33 The White House, President Donald J. Trump Has Forged New Trade Agreements to Revitalize American Industry and Agriculture, (Washington D.C.: The White House, February 5, 2019) accessed January 20, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-forged-new-trade- agreements-revitalize-american-industry/. 34 Jacek Kugler and A.F.K. Organski, "The Power Transition: A Retrospective and Prospective Evaluation,” in Handbook of War Studies, ed. by Manus I. Midlarsky (Milton Park: Routledge, 2011), 175.

influence both regionally and globally."35 The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) echoes this assessment by stating that "[t]he central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the re-emergence of long-term strategic competition" by both Russia and China.36 Both the NDS and NSS make these conclusions because Russia represents an imminent military threat to the security of Europe, and China poses a long-term threat to the regional stability of East Asia due to its aggressive trade policies and increasing military.37 However, this belief that Russia and China are rising great power competitors is actually due to America's waning relative power advantage. Therefore, if we accept the PTT to be true, the real threat to global stability is the U.S. government's fixation on maintaining hegemony, not the rise of China or Russia.

The third issue with the NSS is that it overemphasizes the use of the U.S. military as a tool of national power. All the problems that occur around the world appear to be solvable with America's military because that is the only tool well-maintained and well- funded. The 2017 NSS seeks to modernize the military with weapons that over-match adversaries, invest more into the defense industrial base, upgrade nuclear weapons, and secure new domains.38 Since 2013 these goals are actively pursued with annual increases in defense spending with no signs of slowing down.39 While defense spending is on the rise, other instruments of national power, such as diplomacy, are being funded less.

Regarding diplomacy, the NSS states that "[e]ffective diplomacy requires the efficient use of limited resources," essentially signaling to the State Department that they must do more with less. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the FY20 budget for the Department of State decreased by 21% compared to its previous FY19 budget.40 Furthermore, the most recent budget reveals a significant difference in spending

35 The White House, The National Security Strategy, 27. 36 Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, (Washington D.C.: The Department of Defense, 2018), 2. 37 James Dobbins et al., Russia is a Rogue, Not a Peer; China is a Peer, Not a Rogue: Different Challenges, Different Responses, (RAND Corporation, 2018), 7-10. 38 The White House, The National Security Strategy, 28 – 32. 39 Brendan W. McGarry, The Defense Budget and the Budget Control Act: Frequently Asked Questions, CRS Report for Congress RL44039, (Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service, September 30, 2019), 2. 40 Cory R. Gill et al., Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs: FY2020 Budget and Appropriations CRS Report for Congress R45763 (Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service, October 28, 2019,) 1.

between America's military and its diplomatic corps. For the FY19 budget, Congress allocated the State Department $42 billion, compared to a $689 billion for the Department of Defense.41 The disparity between the defense and diplomacy budget emphasizes America's propensity to utilize its military over its diplomatic corps to solve issues around the world. If your primary tool is a hammer, most problems appear to be solvable through force.

The U.S. government can reverse the effect of an "America First" foreign policy by implementing a grand strategy that pursues long-term global stability. A hypothetical grand strategy that can lead America and the world towards prosperity in the future is one that accepts it is a declining global power relative to competitors, builds up its allies, and enforces a policy of offshore balancing. In Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of Great Powers, he boldly predicted in 1987 that the U.S. hegemony will eventually erode as all other great powers have before it, but that "short-term advantages" would accelerate the erosion.42 Implementing an "America First" foreign policy is precisely the type of policy declining powers implement as they struggle to accept a multipolar world. Secondly, the U.S. must empower and invest in its allies, so they rely less upon the might of the U.S. military. Instead of utilizing the American military to "prevent the rise of peer competitors" overseas, this policy enables allies to prevent the rise of peer competitors through their military capabilities.43 Lastly, a gradual implementation of offshore balancing (a strategy that utilizes regional allies to counter the rise of great powers) will encourage states to maintain their defense against rising great power threats along with cooperation across the whole of the U.S. government. At the same time, the U.S. must slowly retract its Army from the world stage and invest in a stronger Navy to patrol the seas and secure its economic interests. According to Christopher Lane, an effective strategy of offshore balancing prevents the U.S. from entering a great power war, avoids wars of credibility, "reduces vulnerability to of the American homeland to terrorism," and maximizes America's relative

41 Michael J. Meese et al., American National Security. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), 277. 42 Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 534. 43 John J Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014), 265- 266.

power position and strategic freedom of action.44 A policy of offshore balancing is a possible strategy that can ease the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar system. If a great power does arise and go to war with its neighbors, the U.S. can “offshore balance” its allies by supplying them with military equipment and economic assistance.45

To resolve potential conflict amongst great power competitors, both the NSS and the NDS must set aside fears of a great power competition by recognizing that America remains a powerful nation, even though other countries are also becoming powerful. Historical evidence of the PTT reveals that international orders (i.e., Concert of Europe and League of Nations) tend to fail and lead to conflict if competition arises due to disagreements about the "norms and principals upon which the international system is based."46 Though they are few, history also reveals that peaceful transitions are possible. In the late 19th century, the United Kingdom (U.K.) chose not to check the rising economic and military power of the U.S.; and at the end of the 20th century, Germany's political influence caused no conflict between itself, France, and the U.K. In both instances, the transitions occurred peacefully due to open dialogue amongst both nations about their intentions. Therefore, instead of overemphasizing the threat of great powers to the security of the U.S. and its allies, the NSS ought to promote an open dialogue with Russia, China, and its allies with changing the international order to reflect the realities of the world. This open dialogue allows both revisionist and status quo states to participate in the development of the international order, instead of revisionist states being merely subject to the current global order. Promoting open dialogue about restructuring the international order can effectively secure peace because states satisfied within the international order will find that there is nothing to be gained through conflict.47 Restructuring the international order starts with inviting Russia, China, and other great powers to discuss the future of the international order. It will take years to agree on a new international order effectively, but this issue highlights

44 Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2007), 160. 45 Ibid., 162. 46 Mazarr, Michael et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International Competition: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, (RAND Corporation, 2018), 12. 47 Douglas Lemke, “The Continuation of History: Power Transition Theory and the End of the Cold War,” Journal of Peace Research 34, no. 1 (February 1997): 24.

the need for a grand strategy that anticipates a multipolar world and a budget that reinvigorates all instruments of national power.

Through a gradual reduction of defense spending, it is possible to sharpen the three other instruments of national power. This claim does not seek equitable budgeting amongst all devices of national power. Instead, it is an argument to allocate money towards the tools that receive the least attention. This redistribution of funds requires expanding the institutional capacity of the U.S. government to pursue new diplomatic initiatives by funding a more capable State Department. To improve information as an instrument of national power, the U.S. government must consolidate the strategic communications of its various departments into an agency focused on strategic communication. Creating an agency focused on strategic communication would bear semblance to the previous U.S. Information Agency (defunded in 1999) that sought to “understand, inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the U.S. national interest.”

Furthermore, by rejecting the "America First" foreign policies that place the economic interests of the U.S. before all others, it is possible to improve the economic tool of national power. The U.S. must push for more free trade agreements that benefit not only its economy at home but also the economies of countries across the world. Unlike the effect of tariffs, free trade is a policy with the potential to strengthen alliances. Although improving each instrument of national power may appear expensive, it is merely a reshuffling of money away from the defense. It is possible to double the State Department budget while still spending more money on security than any other country in the world.48 Improving all instruments of national power provides the U.S. with more options to respond to emerging challenges.

Developing a new grand strategy that pursues a three-pronged approach towards global stability through offshore balancing, cooperation amongst rising great powers, and sharpening all tools of national power does not come without its critics. Critics claim that grand strategy does not have the flexibility to adapt and change to new and emerging

48 Douglas Lemke, “The Continuation of History: Power Transition Theory and the End of the Cold War,” Journal of Peace Research 34, no. 1 (February 1997): 24.

challenges. This inability to adapt to changes, critics argue, provides a degree of credence to the emergent strategy being a more successful strategy because it comes from "learning and adaptation."49 In other words, grand strategies fail because they remain inflexible towards creating a new end in the face of new challenges. Professor Williamson Murray, a critic of most grand strategies, argues that history yields few successful grand strategies and that the most successful strategists are those who "…adapt to political, economic, and military conditions as they are rather than as they wish them to be."50

However, to continue with the strategy set forth within the current NSS is to reject the current political, economic, and military conditions as they currently exist to maintain an eroding Pax Americana. The proposed grand strategy put forth in this essay carefully considers emerging threats to long-term global stability. The end state of this grand strategy is more flexible than emergent strategists may admit. Pursuing global stability as an end state with no end year and no definition of "stability" permits future policymakers the flexibility to always adapt to new and emerging challenges while still pursuing global stability within the context of the grand strategy outlined in this essay.

With states such as Russia and China quickly closing in on America's relative power and effectively challenging the status quo, the U.S. government must seriously consider how its current strategy can maintain global stability. America's citizens and its allies across the world do not deserve a mercurial strategy framed inside of an "America First" foreign policy. Great power competition necessitates that the U.S. government create a strategy not born from trial and error. To ensure long-term global stability in a competitive environment, the U.S. must develop strategies within its NSS that accept America's relative power on the world stage is gradually declining, that cooperation with rising revisionist powers is acceptable, and that there are other tools of national security to be utilized than just the military. Establishing a three-pronged grand strategy to ensure global stability will not be an easy undertaking; then again, nothing worthwhile comes easy.

49 Ionut C Popescu, Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy: How American Presidents Succeed in Foreign Policy, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), 19. 50 Williamson Murray et al., The Shaping of Grand Strategy: Policy, Diplomacy, and War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) 27.

Defending Space – Challenges to U.S. National Interests in an Era of Great Power Competition Major Daniel Kovatch, USMC

The 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) describes a security environment highlighted by strategic competition. The NDS makes clear that “failure to meet our defense objectives will result in decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in our prosperity and standard of living.”1 Given the complex and ever-changing character of warfare, new technologies and warfighting domains will stress the U.S. Department of Defense in this emergent era of strategic competition. To address the growing threats posed by our adversaries, the U.S. has responded by formally designating space as the newest warfighting domain and created the U.S. Space Force. Although these two responses are not aimed at provocatively suggesting the U.S. seeks or desires conflict in the vast reaches of space, they do indicate a clear national interest in this era of great power competition for access to and use of space.

In the late 20th century, only the U.S. and the Soviet Union maintained both the means and national will to compete in space, yet by the end of the Cold War, the U.S. found itself the sole remaining superpower with dominance in space. As part of the “Space Race” during the Cold War, the U.S. developed numerous space-based capabilities that enabled the U.S. and, by extension, its allies, and partners, a unique strategic advantage. Capabilities ranging from satellite communication (SATCOM), missile warning, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) imagery, environmental monitoring (weather), and Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), like Global Positioning System (GPS), created exceptional advantages for the U.S. military. These advantages were gained in part through space access to different types of orbits.2 Further, the benefits of these space-based

1 The White House, The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC, 2018), 1. 2 Although delineating different space orbits may sound like a technical issue, the topic is important to strategy in terms of understanding “key terrain”. Further, the seizure or control of key terrain offers benefits or advantages in other disciplines and applications as well. For an explanation of space orbits and their associated utility, refer to Appendix A. 33

capabilities do not just include the U.S. military, but extend to the global population, making many of these space capabilities critical to everyday life for millions of people across the globe. In fact, global commerce is heavily dependent upon the services provided by space- based technologies.

The ubiquitous spread of these space services, in concert with the unique strategic advantages they provide the U.S. military, has led numerous other nations and private industries to invest and deploy similar space assets, to include potential adversaries. Today, a rising China is deploying vast numbers of various types of satellites, and the continued commercial potential of space is just beginning to be understood. As potentially adversarial nations like China and Russia further develop their space-based capabilities and capacity, the U.S. competitive advantage in space will decrease. The increase of access to space by potential adversaries and private industry presents complex challenges and risks to U.S. national interests, including state-based space proliferation, counter-space weapons, and commercial-based space proliferation.

State-based Space Proliferation

The significant growth of space-based capabilities by peer strategic competitors, like China and Russia, continue to add challenges and risks to U.S. military operations and reduce the competitive advantage space provides the United States.3 From the end of the Cold War to today, our adversaries have witnessed the remarkable military advantages gained through space systems. The first such example came in the Gulf War, in which U.S. and coalition forces used GPS to facilitate long-range maneuver and precision targeting. Additional advances in ISR capabilities, one of which includes satellite imagery, led to technological overmatch on the battlefield. This integration of space-based technology on the part of the U.S. military led to China’s development of an offset strategy to counter our

3 While the United States remains the most prevalent owner of space assets on orbit, strategic competitors like China and Russia are expanding their constellations of satellites on orbit. Appendix B is a graphic that highlights countries that own space assets on orbit as well as a breakdown of satellite function by country. The data is current as of December, 2018.

competitive advantages, namely through asymmetric means.4 In fact, over the past decade, China has rapidly expanded its military and commercial space sectors, successfully conducting more than 200 orbital launches and creating its own PNT constellations.5 On a larger scale, this offset strategy is made possible by the “reduced cost of space technology and launch services [which] have supported explosive growth in the number of objects in space and enabled numerous countries to acquire advanced technologies, boosting their space industries and countering U.S. competitive advantage.”6 This reduced cost of accessing and operating in space will only increase and encourage the use of space systems by our adversaries.

Counterspace Weapons

In addition to the reduced financial costs associated with accessing space, the development of counter-space technologies, like anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, further complicates U.S. military operations in space and potentially threaten vital U.S. national interests. As the name implies, counter-space weapons are designed to deceive, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy utilizing physical, non-kinetic physical, electronic, or cyber- attack, a targeted satellite or constellation of satellites.7 Furthermore, ASATs may be ground-based or space-based weapons. A Center for Strategic & International Studies report published in 2020 on space threats describes the two different types of ASATs and briefly summarizes their characteristics, noting:

A direct-ascent ASAT weapon attempts to strike a satellite using a trajectory that intersects the target satellite without placing the interceptor into orbit. Ballistic missiles and missile defense interceptors can be modified to act as direct-ascent ASAT weapons provided they have sufficient energy to reach the target satellite’s orbit. A co-orbital ASAT weapon differs from a direct-ascent weapon because it is first placed into orbit. When commanded, the satellite then maneuvers to strike its target. Co-orbital ASATs can remain dormant in orbit for days or even years before

4 Robert O. Work and Greg Grant, “Beating the Americans at their Own Game: An Offset Strategy with Chinese Characteristics”. CNAS (June 6, 2019). 5 Todd Harrison, et al, “Space Threat Assessment 2020”. CSIS (March, 2020), 8. 6 National Air & Space Intelligence Center, “Competing In Space”. NSAIC (December, 2018), 3. 7 Todd Harrison, et al, “Space Threat Assessment 2020”. CSIS (March, 2020), 2-7. 35

being activated. A key technology needed to make both direct-ascent and co-orbital ASAT weapons effective is the ability to detect, track, and guide the interceptor into a target satellite. An onboard guidance system requires a relatively high level of technological sophistication and significant resources to test and deploy.8

Examples of counter-space weapons include cyber effects that insert false data (deceive), use of high-powered lasers or microwaves to effect satellite receptors (disrupt), electronic spoofing of SATCOM signals (deny), electronic uplink or downlink jamming of digital signals (degrade), and co-orbital ASATs (destroy).

While counter-space weapons had first been developed and tested by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the “Space Race,” technological improvements now include an array of weapons technology. These emergent technologies enable attack across the whole spectrum of space-based technology. It is important to note that all space systems are organized into three segments: the space segment (e.g., satellite), the ground control or terrestrial segment, and the link segment that connects the other two segments.9 Any of the three segments are potentially vulnerable to counter-space weapons effects. While emergent technologies certainly play a role in threats to satellites, more traditional military approaches, such as Electronic Warfare (EW), also can play a role, such as jamming the link or ground control segment. Of this wide array of counter-space weapons, however, arguably, the most devastating to space systems is the ASAT.

Great Power Competition in Space

Prior to 2007, the only nations with demonstrated direct-ascent ASAT weapons were the United States and the former Soviet Union. As noted by author Clay Moltz, “space security evolved during the Cold War in two primary stages: the 1957 – 62 period

8 Todd Harrison, et al, “Space Threat Assessment 2020”. CSIS (March, 2020), 3. 9 Defense Intelligence Agency, “Challenges to Security in Space”. DIA (January, 2019), 8. 36

(characterized by military-led approaches) and the 1963 – 91 period (characterized mainly by military “hedging” and negotiated approaches).”10 Regarding direct-ascent ASAT tests, the results yielded substantial amounts of debris in space, as well as released significant amounts of radiation, which had the potential to adversely impact future satellite operations. Both nations came to view the continued testing of these weapons as detrimental to future space operations. The discussion regarding ASATs dramatically changed; however, in 2007, when China successfully launched an ASAT missile targeting a Chinese weather satellite that had reached the end of service life. Nearly a decade later, several thousands of pieces of debris remain in orbit, which poses a safety of flight concern for satellites currently on orbit due to the risk of collision.11 Moreover, India, in 2019, successfully conducted an ASAT missile test that was largely regarded as a response to the growing regional power of China in the region.12 Given the potential impacts of great power competition, ASATs now pose an even larger issue in discussing future security in space.

As the development and proliferation of counter-space weapons, capabilities, and technologies continue, the threat to U.S. national security interests and the future accessibility of space dramatically increase. Counter-space weapons development and employment by nations like China and Russia pose a significant risk in our current era of great power competition. Further, Indian ASAT development serves as a potential signpost for other nations seeking to gain international leverage. The message to nations is clear: develop counter-space weapons, with ASATs representing the ultimate symbol of national power, or risk being left on the sidelines in space.

Although treaties from the “Space Race” during the Cold War, like the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and those that followed, remain in effect today and prevent the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in the space theater, they do not explicitly prohibit weapons in space. As described by a recent National Air & Space Intelligence Center report, space is

10 Clay Moltz, The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 12. 11 Joint Publication 3-14: Space Operations; Joint Chiefs of Staff; 10 April 2018, I-12. 12 Brian Weeden and Victoria Samson, “India’s ASAT Test Is Wake-Up Call For Norms Of Behavior In Space,” spacenews.com, April 8, 2019, https://spacenews.com/op-ed-indias-asat-test-is-wake-up-call-for-norms-of-behavior- in-space/ 37

becoming increasingly militarized. As more assets, private or state-based, are launched into space, the increase in technological “dual-use” capacities of satellite payloads creates challenges to security concerns. For example,

Dual-use capabilities will challenge the U.S. ability to provide advanced warning of

nefarious intentions or discern between peaceful and potential hostile activity. For

example, future satellite servicing and recycling capabilities incorporate a variety

of technologies, such as robotic arms, to inspect, repair, or dispose of damaged

satellites. However, the same technologies have inherent counter-space capabilities

that could be used to inspect non-consenting satellites or to cause physical damage,

steal parts, or grapple with a satellite.13

This paradigm increases the complexity of threat analysis by the U.S. military for space systems launched by potential adversaries and challenges deterrence in space. With technological advances continuing into the foreseeable future, coupled with reduced “up” costs, the number and variety of space systems expected to be launched will increase. Further, the “dual-use” nature of many satellite payloads; the inherent difficulties in attribution, similar to issues that persist today in the cyber domain; and the increasing commercial sector proliferation in space only add to security complexity and challenges to protecting vital U.S. national interests.

13 National Air & Space Intelligence Center, “Competing In Space”. NSAIC (December, 2018), 14.

APPENDIX A: Orbit Types and Uses

Source: Defense Intelligence Agency, “Challenges to Security in Space.” DIA (January 2019).

APPENDIX B: Space Assets on Orbit

Source: National Air & Space Intelligence Center, “Competing In Space.” NSAIC (December 2018).

Rise to Global Power: Visualizing China’s Strategic Engagement Efforts Master Sergeant Mahoney, USMC

1. Introduction.

Since 2013, the Chinese government and its corporate proxies have invested vast sums of money on numerous international investment initiatives that have come to be collectively branded in the West underneath the umbrella name of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as first championed by Xi Jinping. Estimates of the total value of these foreign direct investments range widely, owing both to the rather amorphous nature of the initiative itself and the opaqueness of Chinese government figures, but even conservative estimates place the value at well over one trillion US dollars⁠1. According to the official web page of the Chinese Communist Party State Council, these investments are designed to promote economic connectivity, strengthen partnerships, and enable development for Asia, Africa, and Europe. In return, providing China with a larger dedicated trade base and a larger role in global economic affairs ⁠2. This public face of the BRI, one that promises the developing world, regardless of governmental form or civil rights considerations, has been challenged by many in the Western world as little more than a brazen attempt to exploit access to industrial raw materials and establish an indebted axis of countries beholden to China and drawn away from the Western-centered sphere of power. The 2017 National Defense Strategy highlighted many of these concerns from the US perspective, labeling China as a strategic competitor and calling out the country for predatory economic practices, but BRI only gives one facet of the story of Chinese global expansion ⁠3.

1 Henrik Yann Louis Pröpper, “The ‘Chinese Dream ’: An Analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative,” International Social Science Review 96, no. 1 (2020). 2 Andres B Schwarzenberg, “Tracking China’s Global Economic Activities: Data Challenges and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service R46302 (2019). 3 United States Government, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy,” Office of the Secretary of Defense (Washington DC, 2018). 41

In the seven years that have passed since the BRI was first started, its popularity and scale have ebbed and waned, but China has still focused considerable resources on developing its international reach in military, diplomatic, and economic terms. Despite economic downturns and trade wars, the march of China towards securing the realities of the “Chinese Dream” continues onward. Between 2013 and 2019, China continued to advance its goals in realpolitik fashion, increasing international arms sales, pressing its military to assume greater diplomatic as well as operational reach, and focusing its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into specific regions and countries to lay the groundwork for a Chinese-centered power block that operates outside of current global norms. This paper will examine these combined efforts through the lens of data analysis and visualization to determine not only where China is directing the majority of these efforts, but also for where the US should either focus its own global diplomatic or economic attention or otherwise work to counter Chinese expansionism by elevating relations with adjoining states or competitors.

2. BRI By the Numbers.

While there are competing assessments regarding the total value of Chinese FDI due to the aforementioned lack of transparency from the Chinese government, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) maintains a dataset that tacks all Chinese FDI, BRI, and otherwise, since 2005. The dataset provides data for any investment with a value of greater than $100 million by transaction party, country, region, sector, and value in USD.⁠4 Because of the high fidelity of this data set, and its continuous update cycle, it was used as an authoritative data source for this research.

Total Chinese FDI, including BRI and non-BRI was valued at over $1.355 trillion between 2013-2019; out of that total, $846.841 billion, were identified as BRI related. Following the initial start-up of the BRI initiative in mid-2013, total investments peaked in

4 American Enterprise Institute, “China Global Investment Tracker,” American Enterprise Institute, 2015, https://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/. 42

2015 at $134 billion and again in 2018, with $133 billion, with a slight decrease in the intervening years. Examining these investments regionally, the bulk of BRI investment dollars were provided to:

East Asia ($187.8 billion) followed by Sub-Saharan Africa ($158.3 billion), West Asia ($156 billion), the Middle East and North Africa ($106.1 billion), Europe ($66.9 billion), South America ($47.3 billion), and finally North America ($7.5 billion).5 Throughout the period, West Asia, East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa received the largest continuous investments with South America, seeing the largest deviations year on year.

5 Global regions listed as utilized by the American Enterprise Institute for their China Global Investment Tracker. https://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/. The region of West Asia includes: Russia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Iran, Turkey, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. East Asia includes: Myanmar, Thailand, Loas, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and Papua New Guinea. 43

When we examine where China is investing BRI dollars by industrial sector and region, other patterns emerge. By far, the largest investment sector is energy (oil, natural gas, and coal) at $283 billion total, followed closely by transportation (heavy rail, ports, airfields) $188 billion, and more distantly by real estate (industrial and commercial) $71 billion, and metals (iron, copper, gold and rare earth) at $54 billion. Ostensibly, these are indeed critical requirements for localized economic development, but they are also the areas where China has a strong economic self-interest and where market leverage would provide the country with greater power in global economics and trade.⁠6 They also represent areas where China’s slack production capabilities can be converted to long term foreign investments, with many of the developmental investment vehicles being served solely by Chinese contracting firms, which, along with corruption and offensive lending practices, are the biggest issues associated with BRI projects.⁠7

6 Andres B Schwarzenberg, “Tracking China’s Global Economic Activities: Data Challenges and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service R46302 (2019). 7 Daniel Russel and Blake Berger, “Navigating the Belt and Road Initiative,” Asia Society Policy Institute, no. June (2019). 44

Examining the data by country for East Asia, the largest overall investment region for BRI and China’s critical security concern, geographically speaking, we can further identify where China is investing BRI funds to create regional partnerships and extend its sphere of influence. Pakistan is by far the biggest recipient of BRI investment funding to date with $43 billion, followed by Indonesia at $36.2 billion, Singapore at $33 billion, Malaysia at $31.4 billion, and Bangladesh at $23 billion. Pakistan is a critical partner for China, given its shared border and its ability to provide commercial and military ports in the Indian Ocean. Of course, Pakistan also shares its eastern border with India, a regional and perhaps global power rival to China, so bolstering Pakistan could serve to weaken Indian ambitions over the long term. Likewise, Indonesia and Malaysia offer strategic

access to the South China Sea and critical naval lines of communication for the region, making them vital enablers for China’s naval, military, and economic ambitions.

Summarizing the data on the BRI, China has invested vast sums of money in developing energy and transportation capabilities in the developing world since 2013, focusing the lion’s share on regional development and partnership building in Asia. Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia are the largest regional recipients of BRI dollars. Further emphasis for BRI investments is placed in the sectors of energy, transportation, and real estate, with energy being by far the largest sector of investment.

2. Chinese International Arms Transfers

Another critical indicator of global influence is arms sales. Using the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) arms transfer database, we can examine how during the same time frame as our BRI analysis China exported arms across the globe to determine both where its military influence is growing and where it may be using arms as a trade good. In the past, China has purchased hard commodities such as natural gas from countries using military arms as a trade good. The SIPRI database only tracks the relative value of the outgoing shipments, not the nature of the actual trade itself, so while it gives us an idea of where China is sending its arms, we do not know the conditions of these trades.⁠8

Looking at the data, if we compare US and Chinese arms exports of the period analyzed, it becomes apparent that the US has a far larger trade volume in military arms than China. Indeed, the total value of U.S. arms transfers in 2017 exceeds the total value of Chinese arms shipments from 2013-2019.

8 “SIPRI Arms Transfers Database | SIPRI,” accessed April 21, 2020, https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers. 47

However, if again look at the data by region, a different picture emerges. After all, the US is still supporting Iraq and Afghanistan and has transferred approximately $7.5 billion’ worth of arms to those countries in support of ongoing counter-insurgency and regional stability operations in those areas, which contribute greatly to this seeming disparity.

The data shows that while the US still greatly outpaces China in terms of the total value of arms exported per year, China has developed an extensive arms trade in multiple regions such as in Central Asia and Africa that exceeds US arms exports by a large margin.

Examining the data in further detail, we can analyze the Chinese arms trade in Asia in the same way we have previously examined BRI investments.

As with the BRI data, Pakistan again stands out as the largest recipient of Chinese arms, with over $4 billion in arms received during the period analyzed, compared with just under $2 billion from the US in the same time frame. Other countries in the region that receive large amounts of arms from China include Bangladesh with $2.3 billion, Myanmar with $744 million, Thailand with $390 million, and Indonesia with $268 million.

3. Putting it all together 50

In 2017 National Defense University published a perspective report on the Chinese military, diplomatic activities from 2006-2013. Among the reports, findings were that China was rapidly increasing its military-diplomatic activities globally in the form of international military exercises, naval port calls, and military to military senior leader engagement.⁠9 As an artifact of that study, they compiled a database of these activities, which was subsequently made public. So far, in this paper, we have examined the Chinese economic and military trade between 2013 and 2019. While this database does not cover the specific period analyzed thus far, if we wish to truly consider all of the facets of China’s expansion of influence on the global stage, we can include this data set in our analysis. Exploring the data, we can see that China has greatly increased its participation in bilateral and multinational military exercises since 2001, especially in Europe and Asia.

9 Kenneth Allen, Phillip C Saunders, and John Chen, “Chinese Military Diplomacy, 2003–2016: Trends and Implications,” China Strategic Perspectives, d2016, (National Defense University Press). 51

When we combine this data set with the BRI and arms transfers data analyzed previously, a broader sense of the focus, scale, and scope of Chinese global engagement comes into focus.

Even bounded by the years of the NDU study, we can readily identify the focus of Chinese strategic engagement efforts. While BRI and the Chinese arms trade are both global in scale, the majority of Chinese activities are centered on Asia and Western Asia. Pakistan is the single largest recipient of both arms and military-diplomatic events from China. Indonesia receives far fewer arms from China but receives a large amount of BRI funding and military-diplomatic attention. Malaysia does not receive arms from China but is one of the largest recipients of BRI investment and had 21 diplomatic engagements in the three-year period. Meanwhile, Bangladesh is near the median of the spectrum for both arms and BRI funding and had ten diplomatic engagements with the PLA. 52

4. Conclusion

Since 2001, China has embarked on a massive international engagement campaign that applies various elements of national power towards establishing a non-Western, China-centered alternative to the current global order. Recent internal economic developments have perhaps altered the scale of these efforts, but the data shows that China is still solidly focused on securing regional control over its neighbors and expanding its economic and military reach into the Indian Ocean, likely as a counter to India as it too vies to become a larger regional if not global power center, capable of threatening China and Xi Jinping’s long term aims. Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh are countries where China has focused a large majority of its international efforts, and so long as that continues, the US will need to either offer a viable alternative to a China-centric view of Asia that supports development with minimal strings attached or we risk losing allies in future US-China confrontations. For the US military, continued if not increased engagements in these countries or those immediately surrounding them is required for the US to have any hope of countering PLA diplomatic efforts and limit their overall effectiveness. Alternatively, redoubling efforts on countries that have largely been left out of large-scale efforts by China may also be a critical pathway to continued regional influence and power, but this may prove difficult given the desire of the US to tie human rights and government reform to direct foreign engagements. As the Chinese economy reels from economic contraction and the post-COVID-19 world again begin to focus outwards, much may change about how China is viewed globally, but in Asia, the reality of China’s continued rise in power will likely prevent countries from altering their current courses without a good deal more direct attention from the US.

Key Terrain, Naval Integration, and Distributed Operations: Making Sense of The Future Operating Environment Captain Lukhma McBride, USMC

It is an exciting time to be a Marine as the Corps dynamically re-tasks, re-organizes, and re-orients away from counterterrorism and towards emerging threats from rival nation-states. While the Marine Corps remained engaged in fighting the global war on terrorism, China, and to a lesser extent, Russia, continued to modernize their militaries. Today China has emerged as a pacing threat to the United States maritime primacy and has reshaped the future operating environment. Although the United States has enjoyed decades of uncontested military primacy, the 2018 National Defense Strategy warns that “today, every domain is contested—air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.”1 According to the Chief of Naval Operations: “Our competitive advantage has shrunk and, in some areas, is gone altogether.”2 To get to the fight, the U.S. Navy must transit across the open ocean and navigate through contested maritime domains, and the Marine Corps is the ready force capable of rapid deployment and power projection to cover the Navy's movement. Through the lens of patrolling fundamentals, this paper seeks to offer a practical understanding of the role of the Marine Corps and the Navy’s concepts of Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), to answer General Berger's question “what does the Navy need from the Marine Corps?”3

1 United States Department of Defense. Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America. Washington, D.C: 2018. https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense- Strategy-Summary.pdf 2 United States Navy. A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. Washington, D.C: December 2018, v. 2.0, p. 4. https://www.navy.mil/navydata/people/cno/Richardson/Resource/Design_2.0.pdf 3 David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps. Force Design 2030. Washington, D.C: March 2020, p. 3. https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/CMC38%20Force%20Design%202030%20Report%20Phase%20I %20and%20II.pdf?ver=2020-03-26-121328-460

General Berger observes, “The future operating environment will place heavy demands on our Nation's Naval Services… (and) together, the Navy-Marine Corps Team will enable the joint force to partner, persist, and operate forward despite adversary employment of long-range precision fires.”4 Meanwhile, China is expanding in the South China Sea and occupying strategic terrain that, if unopposed, will disrupt international trade, freedom of navigation, and inherently U.S. interest in the region. China's expansion makes the South China Sea a key terrain as its seizure or retention “affords a marked advantage to either combatant.”5 China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has the most potential to lead to an armed conflict. According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, since 2014, China has constructed significant infrastructure of military outposts in the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands to include “new radar and communications arrays, airstrips, and hangars to accommodate combat aircraft, and deployments of mobile surface-to-air and anti-ship cruise missile systems to project power beyond throughout the South China Sea.”6 If left unopposed, China will continue to promote and implement its BRI objectives and incrementally deny the United States access to strategic regions, notably denying freedom of movement and navigation in the South China Sea.

4 United States Marine Corps. The 38th Commandant’s Planning Guidance CPG. Washington, D.C: June 2018. https://www.marines.mil/News/Publications/MCPEL/Electronic-Library-Display/Article/1907265/38th- commandants-planning-guidance/ 5 United States Department of Defense. Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment, Joint Publication (JP 2-01.3). Washington, D.C: 16 June 2009. https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=33212 6 The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. https://amti.csis.org/chinese-power-projection/

Figure 1: For illustrative purposes, the ranges of known high-frequency radar installations are depicted as being 300 kilometers, while those of smaller arrays are shown as 50 kilometers. Combat radius for fighter aircraft is shown based on China's J-11 fighters, while bomber ranges are based on China's H-6 bombers, both of which have been deployed to Woody Island. Surface to Air Missiles (SAM) and cruise missile ranges are based on the HQ-9, YJ-62, and YJ-12B systems that have been deployed across Woody Island, Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef. Fighter and bomber range at Fiery Cross, Mischief, and Subi Reefs represent expected future deployments based on the hangars built to accommodate those assets. Source : https://amti.csis.org/chinese-power-projection/

It is necessary, to begin with defining the area of operations to frame the future operating environment through the tactical lens. In this context, the continental United States (CONUS) is comparable to a base of operations geographically distant from the objective area and separated by oceans and other landmasses. The U.S. Navy's transit across open oceans constitutes crossing a large open danger where a maneuvering force is susceptible to adversary observation and attacks. In terms of patrolling fundamentals, a danger area is any place where the patrol is vulnerable to enemy observation or fire. When a unit must cross a danger area, it must seek to avoid contact with the enemy. A unit may cross a danger area by stealth to avoid detection or by force when the probability of contact or observation is high.

When crossing a danger area by force, a unit must identify positions that afford good observation to the flanks so that the security elements can detect and report opposing force (OPFOR) in time for the main body to take action to avoid detection. Just as in patrolling fundamental, Naval Operations in the maritime domain require similar tactical

considerations. Modern challenges in the information environment—including cyber warfare make it impossible to cloak a U.S. Navy carrier strike group's movement across a transit area. However, together, the Navy-Marine Corps Team will enable the joint force to “partner, persist and operate forward despite adversary employment of long-range precision fires.”7 Through distributed lethality, the smaller and more potent MAGTF can employ the bounding overwatch to provide fires, communications, and logistics nodes across key terrain and cover the Navy’s transit across open oceans. 8 The Navy will have to transit by force, and the Marine Corps is the Navy's advanced force that “precedes the main body to the objective area, [to prepare] the objective for the main assault by conducting such operations as reconnaissance, seizure of supporting positions, mine countermeasures, preliminary bombardment, underwater demolition, and air support.”9

Figure 2 above depicts a hypothetical U.S. Navy carrier strike group in transit with elements of the U.S. Marine Corps littoral regiment covering its movement through distributed operations. In this scenario, the Marine Corps is the advanced guard projecting naval power forward through integrated amphibious operations.

The U.S. Navy's transit area is furthermore an essential avenue of approach that encompasses several key terrains. The 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018

7 United States Marine Corps. The 38th Commandant’s Planning Guidance CPG. Washington, D.C: June 2018. https://www.marines.mil/News/Publications/MCPEL/Electronic-Library-Display/Article/1907265/38th- commandants-planning-guidance/ 8 Headquarters Department of the Army. FM 7-8 Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad. 1 March 2001, p. 2-39, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/FM%207-8%20W%20CH%201.pdf 9 United States Department of Defense. Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment, Joint Publication (JP 2-01.3). Washington, D.C: 16 June 2009. https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=33212

National Defense Strategy realignment of the defense priorities toward the Asia-Pacific compel the re-designed, agile, and highly potent Navy-Marine Corps team to traverse multiple open areas to establish sea control and project power deep into the littoral. In the future operating environment, establishing sea basing, deployment areas, land-based, and sea-based air superiority, and critical passages for maritime transit will be essential to gaining sea control. Vice Admiral Thomas A. Rowden, U.S. Navy, asserts that “sea control can be either actual—in which case, combat operations have occurred, and maritime territory has been seized or assumed—in which case a preponderant naval force reasonably can expect to be able to exercise the full range of combat operations should they become necessary.”10 To establish persistent maritime superiority, a more agile and potent Marine Corps distributed across multiple regions and control key terrain will enable the Navy's unimpeded transit across open oceans and access key maritime terrain. Figure 3 depicts the South China Sea as the decisive terrain and its surrounding area as key terrain, which, if controlled, offers both friendly and adversary advantage. These regions enable

10 Thomas A. Rowden, Admiral, U.S. Navy. Commentary – “Sea Control First.” Proceedings. Vol. 143/1/1,367. January 2017. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/january/commentary-sea-control-first

advance base operations and facilitate power projection and are therefore characterized as key terrain.

As the contact force, the Marine Corps is the principal force for deterrence, and with its shore-based anti-ship missiles, distributed command, control, and communications nodes, the Marine Corps can secure and control sea basing and deployment areas in preparation for a major naval operation. Additionally, expeditionary air bases enable land- based aircraft to fly sorties in conjunction with carrier-based aircraft in the open ocean. “In

Figure 3 above depicts the South China Sea as the decisive terrain and its surround area as key terrain which if controlled offers an advantage to both friendly and adversary. These regions are characterized as key terrain because they enable advance base operations and facilitate power projection. a narrow sea with many offshore islands and islets, land-based aircraft can strike from bases flanking the enemy ships. Aircraft present a persistent threat to the survivability of all ships, but especially to one's surface forces.”11 However, the Marine Corps cannot hold islands with small and disaggregated units for extended periods without robust logistics.

11 United States Department of Defense. Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. Washington, DC, 12 July 2017. p. 2-22. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp1_ch1.pdf

First, distributed operations require enduring strategies that gain a foothold in the Island chains in peacetime, and then retain those key terrains through the establishment of infrastructure, theater security cooperation, and presence patrols. Secondly, distributed operations require significant integration of military strategy with economic and diplomatic objectives to build and establish sustained influence over those key terrains.

Moreover, distributed operations require an enduring commitment of military drills, demonstrations, and operations to deter China's BRI ambitions in the SCS. Finally, for deterrence to work, it will require the whole of government approach and the combined application across diplomatic, economic, and information policies to deter Chinese behavior. For distributed operations to succeed, it must become enduring and sustainable.

Crossing a danger area is an immediate action drill that must be rehearsed. Despite the potential drawbacks that may impede Marine Corps' distributed operations in enabling sea control, the Navy-Marine Corps team is capable of exercising control and influence over key terrain throughout the SCS by gaining a foothold in the South China Sea. Additionally, a well-executed strategy that builds alliances throughout the Asia-Pacific, which includes building the military capacity of regional partners, can further deter Chinese ambitions in the region. Moreover, the Marine Corps must train to expeditionary airbase operation (EABO), reinvigorate its signals intelligence and sensor capabilities, increase its kinetic fires projection, and most importantly, place additional emphasis on disaggregated logistics and command and control operations throughout key terrain in the SCS to complement and enable sea control. While the 2018 CPG offers a vision and an end-state for the Marine Corps, the tasks remain for commanders and small unit leaders to war-game scenarios, simulate future employment concepts, and apply military judgment to translate the Commandant's guidance into tangible tactical action. The Marine Corps must train today for distributed operations in concert with the Navy to validate employment concepts for the future operating environment.

From Land and Sea: Developing Marine Corps Sea Control and Denial Systems for Indo-Pacific Realities

Captain Chadd Montgomery, USMC

China is building a blue-water navy capable of power projection into the Indian Ocean to protect its maritime trade routes and its access to key maritime terrain. The People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLAN) impending numerical superiority over the US Navy in the Indo-Pacific makes Sea Control and Denial (SCAD) operations essential to US deterrence. The Naval Force (US Navy and Marine Corps) must address the delta between the US fleet and the PLAN in the Indo-Pacific. The Marine Corps is developing SCAD systems to complement fleet operations, but their employment requires and assumes access to land near key maritime terrain. This creates a single point of failure in the Naval Force’s ability to control or deny access to that terrain. Marine Corps SCAD systems must operate afloat and ashore against targets at sea and on land for the Naval Force to hold Chinese naval units at risk and overcome the China Delta. Maritime trade disruptions are a significant concern for China. More than 64% of China’s trade, including 80% of its oil imports, transits the South China Sea, with the Strait of Malacca as the primary access point.1 The Strait of Malacca offers the fastest and cheapest passage for China’s maritime trade.2 Other straits – Sunda and Lombok - offer access to the South China Sea, but their size, depth, and proximity to countries that could put Chinese access at risk make them unsatisfactory substitutes. 3 China’s Malacca Dilemma is that a

1 China Power Team, How much trade transits the South China Sea?, China Power Project, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 10, 2019), https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade- transits-south-china-sea/; Capt. Olivia Garrard, “Geopolitical Gerrymandering and the Importance of Key Maritime Terrain,”warontherocks.com, October 3, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/geopolitical- gerrymandering-and-the-importance-of-key-maritime-terrain/. 2 Capt. Garrard, “Geopolitical Gerrymandering and the Importance of Key Maritime Terrain,”; China Power Team, How much trade transits the South China Sea? 3 China Power Team, How much trade transits the South China Sea?; Michael J. Green, China’s Maritime Silk Road: Strategic and Economic Implications for the Indo-Pacific Region, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 2018), 28, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs- public/publication/180404_Szechenyi_ChinaMaritimeSilkRoad.pdf?yZSpudmFyARwcHuJnNx3metxXnEksVX 3.

blockade of the strait would cut its economy off from the Middle Eastern energy and African raw materials that fuel its growth.4 Malacca is not the only key maritime terrain dilemma China faces. It must also project power throughout the Indian Ocean to secure its maritime trade routes from the Middle East and Africa. China’s economic interests in the Middle East and Africa require a blue-water navy to project power along trade routes and exercise SCAD around key maritime terrain like the Strait of Malacca.5 China is aggressively expanding the PLAN to meet this requirement. More than one-third of China’s 335-ship fleet is blue-water ships commissioned in the past 15 years.6 In 2019, China commissioned the first of eight Type 055 destroyers capable of air- defense, anti-ship, and land-attack missions.7 These are the first Chinese surface combatants designed to conduct land-attack missions, a capability critical to power projection against key maritime terrain. China already fields 23 Type 052D guided-missile destroyers capable of air-defense and anti-ship missions. 8 Both types of destroyers will escort the PLAN’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers, helicopter landings ships, and amphibious transport docks.9 By 2035, the PLAN will overtake the US Navy as the largest blue-water naval force in the world. In the interim, free of the global obligations that siphon US warships from the Indo-Pacific, the PLAN can deploy its entire fleet within the first island chain. A host of frigates, corvettes, fast attack craft, and submarines equipped with missiles that outrange their US equivalents gives the PLAN a distinct numerical advantage inside the first island

4 Krishnadev Calamur, “High Traffic, High Risk in the Strait of Malacca,” The Atlantic, (August 21, 2017); China Power Team, How much trade transits the South China Sea? 5 Steven Lee Myers, “With Ships and Missiles, China is Ready to Challenge U.S. navy in Pacific,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/world/asia/china-navy-aircraft-carrier- pacific.html 6 Rear Admiral (Ret.) Michael A. McDevitt, “China’s Navy Will Be the World’s Largest in 2035,” Proceedings, (February 2020) Vol. 146/2/1,404 (February 2020), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/february/chinas-navy-will-be-worlds-largest-2035; David B. Larter, “As China expands navy, US begins stockpiling ship-killing missiles,” Defense News, February 11, 2020, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/11/as-china-continues-rapid-naval-expansion- the-us-navy-begins-stockpiling-ship-killing-missiles/. 7 David Axe, “China’s Giant New Warship Packs Killer Long-range Missiles,” The National Interest (blog), accessed on March 2, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china%E2%80%99s-giant-new-warship- packs-killer-long-range-missiles-109786. 8 Dave Makichuk, “China launches destroyers, while US cuts back,” Asia Times, December 30, 2019, https://asiatimes.com/2019/12/china-launches-destroyers-while-us-cuts-back/. 9 Rick Joe, “A Mid-2019 Guide to Chinese Aircraft Carriers,” The Diplomat, June 18, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/a-mid-2019-guide-to-chinese-aircraft-carriers/; Reuters article.

chain in addition to interior lines of communication and supply.10 Air and missile forces based in mainland China augment this naval power to create an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) system with the capability and capacity to overwhelm the current US fleet stationed in the Indo-Pacific. China’s A2/AD systems are built to attrite the US Navy and make its operations inside the first island chain unsustainable in the event of a conflict. The US Navy’s global commitments prevent fleet concentration in the Indo-Pacific and singular focus on the PLAN. The US cannot afford to build and maintain enough warships to quantitatively and qualitatively outstrip the PLAN in the Indo-Pacific.11 The 355-ship Navy became policy in the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act, but Navy leadership is struggling to grow the fleet while preserving readiness and improving lethality because inflation-adjusted budget toplines remain flat.12 Countering the China Delta requires an affordable and resilient Naval Force capable of holding Chinese naval units at risk through SCAD centered on key maritime terrain. Navy and Marine Corps leaders understand the Naval Force must change to execute SCAD operations. The Marine Corps is “over-invested in capabilities and capacities purpose- built for traditional sustained operations ashore” and “under-invested in naval expeditionary capabilities and capacities that support fleet operations.”13 The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger, wants to transform the Marine Corps into a force “purpose-built to facilitate sea denial and assured access” that puts enemy ships at risk.14 Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gilday, wants to move the Fleet Marine Force on small amphibious connectors in a naval campaign to employ kinetic and non-kinetic effects against

10 Reuters article; Sam LaGrone, “Work: Sixty Percent of U.S. Navy and Air Force Will Be Based in Pacific by 2020,” United States Naval Institute, September 30, 2014, https://news.usni.org/2014/09/30/work-sixty- percent-u-s-navy-air-force-will-based-pacific-2020. 11 Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, CRS Report for Congress RL32665 ((Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June 3, 2020), 38-39. 12 Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans, 3, 34. 13 Gen. David H. Berger, “Notes on Designing the Marine Corps of the Future,” warontherocks.com, December 5, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/notes-on-designing-the-marine-corps-of-the-future/. 14 Gen. Berger, “Notes on Designing the Marine Corps of the Future”; Todd South, “Marine Corps to pivot on critical warfighting systems, but commandant still vague on details,” Marine Corps Times, February 27, 2020, https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/02/27/marine-corps-to-pivot-on- critical-war-fighting-systems-but-commandant-still-vague-on-details/.

an adversary.15 These statements from Adm. Gilday and Gen. Berger make one thing clear - in the Indo-Pacific, US sea control is not guaranteed, and SCAD is no longer the exclusive endeavor of the US Navy. The Naval Force knows what key maritime terrain China must control and is developing operational concepts to execute SCAD in these areas. The Naval Force believes Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) will complicate Chinese efforts to target US naval forces by operating in a distributed manner using new systems capable of bringing lethal force to bear against Chinese forces. 16 The Marine Corps is developing two operational concepts to complement DMO — Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE). These concepts focus on complicating China’s decision-making calculus by controlling key maritime terrain with long-range anti-ship fires and sensors that feed naval and joint kill-chains.17 The Navy and Marines Corps wants to build a new type of ship, the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW), to execute DMO/EABO operations. These proposed vessels would have an unrefueled range proportionate to the Indo-Pacific’s geography and the ability to land personnel and equipment directly onshore using the bow or stern ramps.18 These features are essential to employ the two SCAD systems the Marine Corps is testing. One anti-ship system is the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), which combines a Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires (ROGUE-Fires) drone vehicle with the US Navy’s Naval Strike Missile (NSM).19 The NSM can be employed out to 185km against sea or land targets. The second is the US Navy’s new Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) missile modified for launch from a land-based system.20 If previous iterations of the Tomahawk are an indicator, the MST’s range should be around 1,600km. Both systems provide a capability currently absent from the Naval Force – the

15 Megan Eckstein, “CNO, Commandant Asking for Fleet Wholeness amid Pause in Future Force Structure Planning,” United States Naval Institute, March 3, 2020, https://news.usni.org/2020/03/03/cno- commandant-asking-for-fleet-wholeness-amid-pause-in-future-force-structure-planning. 16 Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, CRS Report for Congress R46374 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, May 27, 2020), 4. 17 Gen. Berger, “Notes on Designing the Marine Corps of the Future.” 18 Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) Program, 6. 19 Gen. Berger, “Notes on Designing the Marine Corps of the Future.” 20 Ibid; Paul McLeary, “Navy’s New Tomahawk Plan Targets Ships, Bunkers, and Distance,” Breaking Defense, May 6, 2019, breakingdefense.com/2019/05/navys-new-tomahawk-plan-targets-ships-bunkers-and- distance/?_ga=2.258303496.308485905.1557684295-1674655644_1523813634.

ability to engage Chinese ships from land. Their existence will complicate Chinese decision- making and place PLAN naval units at risk in ways the Marine Corps currently cannot. Although the NSM adds a land-attack capability the MST lacks, both systems have the same limitation – they must be employed from the land. Land-based anti-ship assets without access to land near key maritime terrain cannot hold the PLAN at risk. With military power approaching parity with the US in the Indo-Pacific and the Belt and Road Initiative as an economic cudgel, China is creating strong incentives for Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines to sit out a conflict between the US and China.21 In the event of a conflict, allies and partners could deny US requests to deploy forces ashore near key maritime terrain or allow Chinese access to this terrain instead. If Marine Corps SCAD systems cannot get ashore, they cannot hold PLAN naval units at risk. While LAWs might open the aperture of places Marine Corps SCAD units can physically get ashore, diplomatic considerations could make that capability irrelevant. The NMESIS-ROGUE NSM land attack capability is useless in a situation where Marine Corps SCAD units need to seize key maritime terrain already occupied by Chinese ground forces. The inability to employ Marine Corps SCAD systems from Navy ships creates a single point of failure for the Naval Force. Developing Marine Corps SCAD systems that cannot operate from ships ignores Indo- Pacific geographic and political realities and creates an unacceptable vulnerability for the Naval Force. The Marine Corps’ SCAD systems “must be able to fight at sea, from the sea, and from the land to the sea.”22 With SCAD systems employable ashore and afloat, the Marine Corps provides the Naval Force the capability and capacity to overcome the China Delta. Gen. Berger testified before the House Armed Services Committee in February 2020 that Marines need “to reach out and hold at risk an adversary fleet, from wherever [they] are” or else they will just be passengers on Navy ships.23 Anti-ship systems that cannot operate from the ships that carry them are not aligned with Gen. Berger’s vision. In the past three years, the Marine

21 Maj. Nicholas R. Nappi, “But Will They Fight China?,” Proceedings 144/5/1, 383 (May 2018), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018/may/will-they-fight-china. 22 Commandant of the Marine Corps, Force Design 2030, March 2020, 3, https://mca-marines.org/wp- content/uploads/CMC38-Force-Design-2030-Report-Phase-I-and-II.pdf. 23 Todd South, “Marine Corps to pivot on critical warfighting systems, but commandant still vague on details,” Marine Corps Times, February 27, 2020, https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-

Corps shot HIMARS off an amphibious transport dock, strapped LAVs to ships decks when transiting maritime chokepoints, and used an L-MADIS anti-drone system on the deck of an amphibious assault ship to disable an Iranian drone.24 Recent experimentation shows the validity of using embarked Marine Corps systems from the Navy ships that carry them, even when the systems were not designed for such use. Purpose-built anti-ship systems, intended to operate afloat and ashore, are the key to overcoming the China Delta. NMESIS and ground- launched Tomahawks could satisfy this requirement, and their capabilities could easily be integrated into the LAW design. The Naval Force must test these systems against the range of scenarios it could face in the Indo-Pacific, including those where it cannot access land within range of key maritime terrain it needs to control or deny to an adversary. China is building a blue-water navy to ensure access to key maritime terrain and protect trade routes transporting the energy and raw materials necessary to sustain its economy. By 2035, the PLAN will be the largest blue-water navy in the world with quantitative superiority over any US fleet in the Indo-Pacific. The Naval Force must develop SCAD systems capable of holding Chinese naval units at risk to overcome the China Delta. This means Marine Corps systems that can operate ashore and afloat against targets on land or at sea. Without these capabilities, the Naval Force will have a single point of failure China is well-positioned to exploit through economic and military coercion.

24 Hope Hodge Seck, “In a First, Marines Shoot HIMARS Rocket from Amphibious Ship,” Military.com, October 25, 2017, https://www.military.com/defensetech/2017/10/25/himars-fired-marine-amphib; Gina Hawkins, “Marines use Armored Vehicle to Defend Ship from Small Boats off Iranian Coast,” Military.com, August 15, 2019, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/08/15/marines-use-armored-vehicle-defend-navy-ship- small-boats-iranian-coast.html; Sam LaGrone, “Marines Took Out Iranian Drone for the Cost of a Tank of Gas,” United States Naval Institute News, July 19, 2019, https://news.usni.org/2019/07/19/marines-took-out- iranian-drone-for-the-cost-of-a-tank-of-gas.

The Character of Chinese Influence in 2020: OBOR’s Economic Coercion Major Gary Sampson, USMC

“China is a big country, and you are small countries, and that is a fact.” -- Yang Jiechi, Chinese Foreign Minister, to ASEAN counterparts in Hanoi, Vietnam, 20101

Introduction: Alliances and Partnerships

Alliances and partnerships are how nations traditionally get other countries to cooperate and coordinate on major issues. Leeds et al. define alliances as “written agreements, signed by official representatives of at least two independent states, that include promises to aid a partner in the event of military conflict, to remain neutral in the event of a conflict, to refrain from a military conflict with one another, or to consult/cooperate in the event of international crises that create a potential for military conflict.”2 Promises to aid in the event of military conflict are called security assurances, either positive or negative.3 Alliances and partnerships can also include provisions for economic cooperation or aid. Since the end of World War I, the United States has gone to great lengths to cultivate and grow not only a liberal international order that serves as a framework for interstate relations, commerce, trade, and diplomacy but also its network of

1 Tom Mitchell, “China Struggles to Win Friends over South China Sea,” Financial Times, last modified July 13, 2016, accessed April 21, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/a9a60f5e-48c6-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86ab. 2 Brett Leeds et al., “Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions, 1815-1944,” International Interactions 28, no. 3 (2002): 238, accessed February 1, 2020, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03050620213653. 3 Positive security assurances look something like, “State A promises to deploy XYZ military capabilities to State B in the case of State B becoming embroiled in an armed conflict.” The other kind of security assurance is a negative security assurance, in which a state promises to not use some capability against a certain set of other states given a particular set of condtions. Perhaps the most emblematic negative security assurance is the U.S. pledge to not use or threaten the use of its nuclear weapons on any state without nuclear weapons which is a signatory in good standing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and which is in good standing in its obligations under said treaty. See Jeffrey W. Knopf, ed., Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation, Stanford Security Studies (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012), accessed April 25, 2020, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/tufts-trial/detail.action?docID=982930.

alliances and partnerships.4 A century later, no other country comes close to rivaling the network of allies and partners enjoyed by the United States.

China: A Different Approach to Partnership

It’s becoming more and more apparent that today’s China has chosen a different approach to alliances. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi may have inadvertently previewed China’s approach to diplomacy and economic relations over the next decade with his remarks to his Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) counterparts at a summit held in Hanoi in July 2010. (The salient extract of Yang’s comments form this paper’s epigraph.) Though China is officially allied with very few nations, including North Korea and perhaps Pakistan,5 links of this typeface relative neglect under the current regime of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Instead of trying to compete with the network of allies and partners developed by the United States since World War I, today’s China has opted to pursue what it refers to as “communities of common destiny” – essentially non-alliance alignments of convenience. Therefore, China’s official messaging portrays traditional alliances as an outdated construct no longer appropriate for the contemporary situation. China seeks what it calls a “new type of security partnership” – links based on a conception of increased interdependence and integration among modern states based on shared interests, not national interests.6 Two examples of non-alliance alignments that China has fostered since 2000 include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and, more recently, the One Belt, One Road

4 G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, “Global Distancing: Past Crises Spurred International Cooperation. Now Each Country Is Going It Alone.,” Washington Post, May 24, 2020, sec. Outlook, B1, accessed May 25, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/21/pandemic-international- cooperation-alliances/. 5 China and North Korea signed an alliance agreement in 1961 that remains in force. China and Pakistan have not signed a formal alliance, but since 1972 they have been in a “strategic partnership” cooperating on defense and economic matters in relation to common competitors, the United States and India. See Catherine Wong, “China-Pakistan Military Ties Set to Get Even Closer as ‘iron Brothers’ Eye New Alliance,” South China Morning Post, January 7, 2018, sec. News, accessed May 30, 2020, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2127106/china-pakistan-military-ties-set- get-even-closer-iron. 6 Yiwei Wang, The Belt and Road: What Will China Offer the World in Its Rise (Beijing: New World Press, 2016), as cited in Elizabeth Economy, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018), 217.

(OBOR) initiative.7 While the U.S. has around five dozen full-fledged treaty allies, China maintains what it refers to as strategic partnerships with approximately 70 nations.8

The Character of Chinese Influence in 2020

While partnering with China’s OBOR plan may seem beneficial to countries over the short-term from a pragmatic standpoint, the longer-term effects could be disastrous – and not just economically. The economic and diplomatic faces of agreements like the SCO and OBOR are simply their most apparent features. Looking deeper, these arrangements serve to tacitly establish the types of linkages between China and its neighbors that underpin the military and perhaps even ideological alignments typical of traditional alliance relationships. Put another way, these agreements may not be explicitly for military purposes, but how they end up functioning is, in many ways, the same as a more traditional, diplomatic-sealed security alliance. By appealing to shared interests, China believes it can attain the utility of conventional alliance measures, such as signing long- term treaties of cooperation, while avoiding the specific security commitments that would come with a traditional alliance. China hopes that the more fluid arrangements of OBOR and other new-type security partnerships, often concluded in secrecy, will give it the access and economic growth opportunities it desires while remaining unencumbered by the unwanted baggage of security guarantees. Meanwhile, if partner states of convenience get the wrong impression about the depth of Chinese commitments…that’s a problem for them, not for China.

As briefly mentioned above, a significant part of China’s efforts to build its so-called communities of common destiny is OBOR, first announced in 2013.9 In military terms,

7 When first introduced, China used the term One Belt, One Road to describe the initiative. This is the most direct translation from the Chinese characters of the program’s name, 一带一路 (Romanized as Yi Dai Yi Lu). Later, Beijing rebranded the project (in English) as the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. (The Chinese characters did not change.) This research will only us the term One Belt, One Road, or OBOR, to refer to this project, unless quoting another researcher who uses the terms Belt and Road Initiative or BRI. 8 Xuetong Yan, “Inside the China-U.S. Competition for Strategic Partners,” Huffington Post, November 2, 2015, accessed March 1, 2019, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/yan-xuetong/china-us-competition- allies_b_8449178.html. 9 OBOR has been known colloquially since 2016 as the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, but the Chinese characters for the program, 一带一路, literally mean one belt, one road. Therefore, this work will refer to the initiative as OBOR.

OBOR is General Secretary Xi’s main effort – his bid for success in accomplishing his overall goal of the rejuvenation of China to the glory and status it enjoyed before the so-called Century of Humiliation.10 OBOR aims to link China to countries around the globe by trade, infrastructure development, people-to-people exchanges, and policy alignment.11 Beijing’s promised “community of shared future for mankind” will reopen the historical business and commercial ties of China that existed during the time of the Silk Road on land and the maritime voyages of Zheng He’s Ming dynasty “treasure ships” during in the 15th century.12 The implements of today’s OBOR are, of course, different than those used in the time of Alexander the Great. Still, the goal is the same: to create lasting economic links between China and the nations of Central, South, and Southwest Asia, and even into Europe and Africa.

A Threat-Driven Design?

Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell write that its vulnerability to threats drives China’s foreign policy.13 Assuming that is true, what can that tell us about a significant foreign policy initiative like OBOR? Examining a map of the places to which OBOR connects China, a few observations follow. OBOR simultaneously addresses two of China’s economic challenges, one internal and one external. Internally, to support China’s decades-long economic boom, it developed an incredible ability to generate infrastructure. It has built the world’s most extensive domestic high-speed rail network. It can replace a 1,000-ton bridge over a weekend that could take months or longer in other countries like the United

10 The Century of Humiliation describes the period of foreign domination which divided a weakened China in the late Qing dynasty period. China fell prey to imperialism and occupation after the Opium Wars of the 1830s and 1840s. Only after the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War and establishment of the PRC in 1949 did this period of weakness end, as Mao Zedong consolidated control of continental China and centralized his rule in Beijing. 11 Jennifer Staats, “Where Does China’s Belt and Road Initiative Stand Six Years Later?,” United States Institute of Peace, last modified April 25, 2019, accessed May 30, 2020, https://www.usip.org/index.php/publications/2019/04/where-does-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-stand- six-years-later. 12 Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History, 1st edition. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999), 46. 13 Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, China’s Search for Security, 2nd ed.. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 3.

States.14 But as China’s economy has begun to slow and major internal projects have grown more scarce, it is experiencing a surplus of building materials like concrete. OBOR helps offload excess production capacity from within China that also serves to make those nations that partner with China indebted to it. For example, suppose that China agrees to build a bridge or a road or a soccer stadium in another country. Concrete and steel components travel out of China along the ties established under OBOR – rail lines or highways.

In return, resources flow back to China. Perhaps it’s currency, but it could also be petroleum via overland pipelines. Pipelines help address China’s external economic challenge. China’s massive appetite for petroleum products leads the world – and historically, most of that petroleum has arrived in China aboard oil tankers sortied from the Arabian Gulf. On the way to China, these tankers must navigate several maritime chokepoints, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Malacca Straits. This method of obtaining petroleum is vulnerable and leaves China’s access to oil and gas ripe for disruption. Overland pipelines help to diversify China’s access to petroleum, giving it an alternative method to source the petroleum needed to fuel its economy.

Competitive Approaches to Countering Chinese Influence

The American approach, described in the 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), features recognition of a return to great power competition, or GPC. GPC aims to stop revisionist powers like China and Russia from reshaping the global order in a fashion more consistent with their authoritarian bent and preventing them from obtaining veto authority over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of other nations.15 The NDS offers some possible answers about how to counter OBOR. Specifically, recognizing that we are stronger together, it calls for the United States to strengthen its current alliances while working to attract new partners. As marching

14 Felicia Sonmez, “Watch: Beijing Replaces 1,300-Ton Bridge in Less Than 48 Hours,” WSJ, November 19, 2015, accessed May 25, 2020, https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/11/19/watch-beijing-replaces- 1300-ton-bridge-in-less-than-48-hours/. 15 Jim Mattis, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2018), 2, accessed February 4, 2020, https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National- Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.

orders, this serves as the right starting direction, but as is often the case, implementation is a fair shake more complicated, and currently, the record is mixed. Many NATO countries are unsure about American commitment to the alliance under the current administration. They have undertaken measures to develop a continental military capability to provide for its defense, which would be less dependent on the U.S.16 Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, a U.S. treaty ally is openly courting Beijing for infrastructure development and other assistance.17 At the same time, the U.S. is increasing the cost for its Northeast Asian partners to host American troops18 – a price that has always been high in ways beyond merely the financial.19 Now the financial burden of hosting U.S. troops may increase to match the social costs. In short, much American alliance behavior in this era seemed a strategic and uncoordinated – even before the advent of the COVID-19 global pandemic.20

Perhaps the counter to OBOR’s influence that the United States has been searching for will be its new Blue Dot Network or BDN. Right out of the gate, BDN has two main problems. First, despite being launched in late 2019,21 it remains almost unknown outside the U.S. government. It must do more to advertise. The second problem is that, in terms of dollars invested, it is tiny compared to OBOR – measured in millions, not billions or trillions. Realistically, BDN will not reach parity with OBOR in terms of dollars spent. But unless the U.S. and its allies can offer states considering joining OBOR an alternative means to finance

16 Steven Erlanger, “European Defense and ‘Strategic Autonomy’ Are Also Coronavirus Victims,” The New York Times, May 23, 2020, sec. World, accessed May 25, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/world/europe/defense-autonomy-europe-coronavirus.html. 17 Timothy McLaughlin, “A U.S. Ally Is Turning to China to ‘Build, Build, Build,’” The Atlantic, last modified May 8, 2019, accessed May 30, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/philippines- us-ally-china-investment/588829/. 18 Phil Stewart and Idris Ali, “Exclusive: Inside Trump’s Standoff with South Korea over Defense Costs,” Reuters, April 10, 2020, accessed May 30, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-southkorea-trump- defense-exclusiv-idUSKCN21S1W7. 19 Gary Sampson, “American Basing in Asia: Taking the Cow by the Horns,” The Affiliate Network, August 19, 2019, accessed August 30, 2019, http://affiliate-network.co/2019/08/cow-horns-american-basing/. 20 The Trump Administration announced on May 27, 2020 that it would sever ties with the World Health Organization in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic over disputes about Chinese influence among the United Nations body. Martin Crutsinger and Dan Sewell, “Trump Takes Aim at WHO as US Economic Outlook Worsens,” Washington Post, May 28, 2020, accessed May 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/rising-us-job-losses-stir-fears-of-lasting-economic- damage/2020/05/28/d46f82d2-a142-11ea-be06-af5514ee0385_story.html. 21 The BDN was announced in November 2019 at the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Thailand. Jennifer Lyn, “US Blue Dot Network to Counter China’s BRI,” Asia Times, last modified May 21, 2020, accessed May 30, 2020, https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/us-blue-dot-network-to-counter-chinas-bri/.

infrastructure development capable of countering the economic coercion that accompanies and entraps many such countries, they will continue to hold their noses as they sign the secret agreements with Beijing.

Conclusion: Realistic Alternatives Needed

The bottom line is that the U.S. must devise asymmetric responses to OBOR that harness the unique soft power appeal of America’s form of government, freedoms, and economic promise. China has its strengths; the U.S. has its own. The U.S. and China are now competing for influence, and many countries only see dollar signs when China’s emissaries come calling, looking past, or ignoring the attached strings until it’s too late. This economic coercion can’t be allowed to supersede the network of alliances and partners built and nurtured by the United States for over 100 years.

The Five Incapables Through The Lens of Covid-19: What China’s Pandemic Response Illuminates About Control and Command in Times of National Crisis Captain Shawna Sinnott, USMC

“We have adopted the most comprehensive and strictest prevention and control measures through mobilizing and rapid responses. We have declared a People's War against the epidemic through prevention and control… We are fully confident and capable of fighting the epidemic.” – Chinese President Xi Jinping to U.S. President Donald Trump, 7 February 20201

China’s acknowledgment of the occurrence of SARS-COV2 and its associated COVID- 19 illness occurred begrudgingly and under a cloud of suspicion. While President Xi Jinping did not make a statement about the rapidly spreading disease until 20 January 2020,2 government media eventually published reports of Xi’s involvement in managing the crisis from at least 7 January and likely earlier, eliciting internal and external criticism of what the government knew and why it did not inform the public sooner.3 In the ensuing days, weeks, and months, China was forced to conduct damage control on multiple fronts, from stopping the spread of the virus to protecting the reputation of what was perceived as a slow-responding Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The decisions China eventually made during this period, starting in Hubei Province, were seen as drastic at the time, but in retrospect were acutely aligned to the Party’s interests and crisis methodology.

In this framework, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) response to COVID-19 from a control and command perspective provides essential insight into how the state may operate when the reputation of the CCP is at stake. President Xi’s characterization of the fight

1 PTI, “Assess coronavirus pandemic in ‘calm’ manner: President Xi Jinping tells Donald Trump,” The Economic Times, February 7, 2020, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/assess-coronavirus- epidemic-in-calm-manner-chinese-president-xi-jinping-tells-donald- trump/articleshow/74015186.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst. 2 Bloomberg, “Chinese President Xi Says He Was Leading COVID-19 Efforts During Critical Early Stages of Outbreak,” Time, February 16, 2020, https://time.com/5785115/xi-jingping-lead-covid-19/. 3 “Coronavirus: What did China do about early outbreak?” BBC, June 9, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world- 52573137.

against COVID-19 as a “People’s War” demonstrates the intangible parallels in how the government counters all “threats” to the security of the Party, while also illustrating the Party’s engrained Maoist and Marxist-Leninist approach to conflict.4 This context helps analyze pandemic control as a means to understanding the separate event of a potential military crisis, and for projecting how the Party’s military arm might be controlled in a military engagement now or in the future. While pandemic control and military crisis are generally two distinct activities, China’s tightly controlled Party governance is structured to respond to both events with the same core leadership, doctrine, and control mechanisms, parallels which make this comparative analysis of value.

What Command and Control Means to China – From the State to the Individual Levels

The imperative of effective command and control in times of crisis is reflected in the Party’s own recent public discourse, particularly in the form of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) organizational reform. More apparently, discussions have highlighted impediments to effective command and control rather than assets to it. Since 2015, President Xi has often described the “Five Incapables,”5 a bleak self-assessment of the PLA’s officership. The concept questions whether “some” commanders can “judge situations, understand higher authorities’ intentions, make operational decisions, deploy troops, [or] deal with unexpected situations.” The stress of COVID-19 has tested the Party’s capacity to calibrate this control and command from the top-down, both in actions and in internal and external perception of its authority. As Jude Blanchette observed for CSIS back in January, at the emergence of the outbreak,

…in this environment, where the CCP must be seen to be completely in control and the situation as continually improving, the space for divergent or independent opinions will remain highly constrained. Rather than focusing on the already significant

4 VOA News, “China's Xi Declares 'People's War' on Coronavirus,” Voice of America, February 6, 2020, https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/chinas-xi-declares-peoples-war-coronavirus. As a strategic principle, see Ian H. Rinehart, “The Chinese Military: Overview and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, March 24, 2016, 40, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44196.pdf. 5 Dennis Blasko, “PLA Weaknesses and Xi’s Concerns about PLA Capabilities,” Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, February 7, 2019, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Blasko_USCC%20Testimony_FINAL.pdf.

challenge of containing a public health emergency, party-state officials are burdened with the extra load of considering the potential political costs of their actions.6

Here, China is forced to confront the seeming dissonance between the aspiration of cultivating initiative and judgment in subordinates and the reality of maintaining the discipline requisite for Party control.7 On the one hand, the strict authoritarian nature of the CCP and its Central Military Commission (CMC), both of which President Xi directly leads, leaves little maneuver space for individual initiative in decision-making and appears to feed directly into the problem. PLA organizational reforms implemented since January 2016 have sought to reassert central Party control rather than delegate it,8 to include the removal of many layers of bureaucracy that created a more direct line between the CMC and the PLA. Similarly, some observers have suggested that China’s significant investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is more focused on ensuring that PLA executes the CCP’s desires rather than giving the PLA the best tools to empower commanders to proactively fight and win wars.9 On the other hand, acknowledgment of the vulnerabilities presented by the Five Incapables comes from President Xi himself, who has publicly directed the development of training and education measures to mitigate these deficiencies in individual initiative, judgment, and decision-making.10 Xi’s established benchmarks for improving competency in these areas align with other PLA reform objectives en route to the 2049 National Rejuvenation goal, reflecting a realistic attempt at incremental improvements over the next few decades.

6 Jude Blanchette, “The Novel Coronavirus Outbreak,” Center for Strategic & International Affairs, January 28, 2020, Answer 3, https://www.csis.org/analysis/novel-coronavirus-outbreak. 7 “China Military Power: Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win,” Defense Intelligence Agency, January 2019, 6, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/China_Military_Power_FIN AL_5MB_20190103.pdf. 8 David Finkelstein, “Initial Thoughts on the Reorganization and Reform of the PLA,” Center for Naval Analyses, January 15, 2016, 4. https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/DOP-2016-U-012560-Final.pdf. 9 Elsa B. Kania, “Chinese Military Innovation in Artificial Intelligence,” Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on Trade, Technology, and Military-Civil Fusion, June 7, 2019, 30, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/June%207%20Hearing_Panel%201_Elsa%20Kania_Chinese%20Military% 20Innovation%20in%20Artificial%20Intelligence_0.pdf. 10 Blasko, “PLA Weaknesses,” 15.

The Five Incapables – In Theory and In Practice

The Five Incapables provide an analytical framework under which we can assess State and individual-level actions during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. From this, we can then project how the Party and its elements might behave if these deficiencies still exist in a future military crisis, where the reputation of the CCP is similarly at stake.

Incapable #1: Judge Situations.

Chinese warfighting strategy incorporates a heavy emphasis on algorithms, which can lead to a binary characterization of what is a “right” and what is a “wrong” judgment.

For the CCP, the “right” judgment is usually that which places the CCP in the most advantageous position. Front-line medical professionals in Wuhan exhibited what many in the scientific community would describe as a high capacity for judgment at the outbreak of the virus. Unfortunately for them, their assessments were incongruous with the objectives of the CCP, and the Party’s response was stifling. When Li Wenliang and Ai Fen stepped forward to issue warning about the gravity of the virus, they were quickly reprimanded for “spreading rumors” and violating state secrets laws.11 This was reminiscent of the CCP’s reaction to the 2003 SARS outbreak and the Party’s treatment of Jiang Yanyong, a PLA doctor who alerted the world to the CCP’s cover-up of that outbreak.12 Chinese Human Rights Defenders reports that hundreds more Chinese citizens have been reprimanded for statements and actions about COVID-19,13 demonstrating that the natural reflex of the Party continues to be a suffocation of dissent. The State’s response to individual-level “judgment” does not provide an optimistic model for how an observant PLA might react in a similar crisis, as officers might be reticent to get involved in determining the nature of difficult situations when under the CCP’s microscope during conflict. This, in conjunction

11 Scott Neuman, Emily Feng, and Huo Jingnan, “China To Investigate After Whistleblower Doctor Dies From Coronavirus,” National Public Radio, February 7, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/07/803680463/china-to-investigate-after-whistleblower-doctor- dies-from-coronavirus. 12 Yanzhong Huang, “The SARS epidemic and its aftermath in China: a political perspective,” in Learning From SARS: Preparing for the Next Disease Outbreak. Workshop Summary, ed. S. Knobler et al. (Washington, DC: National Institutes Press, 2004), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92479/. 13 Yuan Yang, Nian Liu, Sue-Lin Wong, and Qianer Liu, “China, Coronavirus, and Surveillance: The Messy Reality of Personal Data,” Financial Times, April 1, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/760142e6-740e-11ea-95fe- fcd274e920ca.

with the CCP's preference to fight under informatized conditions and execute effective control to mitigate conflict, decreases maneuver space even more. The events of the COVID-19 outbreak demonstrate that even if PLA officers make sound judgments, the pressure to act on those judgments may prove so overwhelming that the least offensive choice may be to do nothing at all.

Incapable #2: Understand Higher Authorities’ Intentions.

The true nature of the Party’s intent in any crisis can be difficult to discern from an outside perspective. While the PRC is very transparent in some regards, the internal guidance it provides to its political, military, and diplomatic arms can be shrouded in secrecy.

Based on available information, it appears that there was an initial hesitancy of local leaders in Wuhan to fully communicate the scope of the outbreak to both the central government and the public, reminiscent of the same hesitancy during the SARS outbreak.14 President Xi has asserted that he did not have early knowledge of the outbreak and that he should have been informed earlier of the virus’s growing death toll.15 If Xi’s statement is true, the decisions of local leaders reflect a substantively inaccurate understanding of higher authorities’ intentions. If Xi’s statement is untrue, it still creates confusion about the Party’s threshold for negative reporting. This friction exists despite the fact that local and regional government in China consists almost exclusively of Party-backed representatives.16 This level of political influence rivals the way the PLA is staffed with political commissars, all of whom serve as direct lines to national-level Party governance. The failure of local government to execute even with these embedded representatives should give pause to a CCP that seeks to capitalize on the PLA reforms of the past four years, with the realization that appointed political representatives do not directly translate into “understanding” by local commanders. In fact, the presence of these representatives

14 Chris Buckley and Steven Lee Myers, “As New Coronavirus Spread, China’s Old Habits Delayed Fight,” The New York Times, February 1, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html. Huang, “The SARS epidemic,” 2004, 120. 15 For discussion on why Xi may not have had early knowledge of the outbreak, see Zeynep Tufekci, “How the Coronavirus Revealed Authoritarianism’s Fatal Flaw,” The Atlantic, February 22, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/. 16 Javier C. Hernandez, “‘We Have a Fake Election’: China Disrupts Local Campaigns,” The New York Times, November 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/world/asia/beijing-china-local-elections.html.

may encourage PLA officers to wait for guidance rather than executing based on perceived understanding. At the same time, the flattening of the hierarchy and removal of legacy institutional barriers evident in the 2016 reforms may put the PLA on a trajectory of having more direct access to CMC and CCP intent in the future.

Incapable #3: Make Operational Decisions.

“The PLA’s traditional identity as a party army with a military culture that is hierarchical and where decision-making is top-down and centralized in some ways is incongruous with efforts to professionalize the PLA and imbue it with a culture that values individual decision-making and embraces mission delegation.”17

China’s actions in COVID-19 containment demonstrated a capacity for overcoming individual-level decision-making deficiencies through the centralized application of control mechanisms. The decision to lock down virus epicenters in China was made by the central government rather than by local leaders; this could have been the result of indecision by local leaders, but may more accurately have been because the central government was in the best position to enact these measures.18 The most apparent method used to effect this model was via the increased employment of surveillance technology and AI. From contact tracing to facial recognition, to drone patrols, to other surveillance methodologies,19 the PRC has leveraged technology to aggregate data and facilitate centralized decision-making consistent with CCP intent. This has been compounded by pervasive AI-driven censorship to control internal and external messaging. Application of such a system provides proof of concept for plans to “intelligentize” war by arming the PLA with AI designed to meet the intent of the Party.20 In the future, China’s ability to leverage this centralized approach to

17 “China Military Power,” DIA, 2019, 6. 18 Buckley and Myers, “As New Coronavirus Spread” The New York Times, 2020. 19 Cate Cadell, “China's coronavirus campaign offers glimpse into surveillance system,” Reuters, May 26, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-surveillance/chinas-coronavirus-campaign-offers- glimpse-into-surveillance-system-idUSKBN2320LZ. 20 “For our military, we must pay attention to the bottom line thinking; ensure that AI obeys commands at any time; and uphold the fundamental principles and system of the [Chinese Communist] Party's absolute leadership over the military. There must not be the slightest disloyalty.” Wang Zhaobing and Chang Sheng, “Shaping the Political Attributes of Military Applications of Artificial Intelligence,” Study Times, November 14, 2018, translation by Elsa B. Kania, https://www.battlefieldsingularity.com/post/intersections-of-ideology-with-china-s-approach-to-military- applications-of-artificial-intelligence.

decision-making in conflict will be dependent on a certain level of space and cyberspace superiority to facilitate data collection, analysis, and communication. If the information environment is not conducive to sustaining these tools, the ability of PLA officers to make their own decisions will be put to the test.

Incapable #4: Deploy Troops.

While the mobilization of military Theater Commands is fundamentally different from the deployment of civilian infrastructure in many ways, the infrastructure behind either action capitalizes on the Party’s control of logistics, supplies, and manpower across the country.

Once the CCP publicly acknowledged the existence of the coronavirus, the government effectively mobilized its healthcare, security, and logistics infrastructure to respond to the outbreak. These elements were directed to accomplish tasks such as the lockdown of Wuhan, the expeditious building of multiple hospitals with a total of 2,600 new beds, the manufacture and distribution of medical supplies, and the associated propaganda to continue to project an image of control.21 Much of this was enabled by the CCP’s use of AI to track people, move goods, and develop medical treatments.22 This civilian-sector response provides a model of joint and interagency efficacy that remains a goal for ongoing PLA modernization, even if the genesis of it came from the auspices of heavy-handed CCP control.23 This projects a positive outlook for the PLA’s efforts to emulate the model, but it is also difficult to predict how this concept would play out in a more distributed, constantly evolving military environment. Since the COVID response necessitated firm Party control in execution, it remains to be seen whether this model is replicable when there is little time for the CMC to make decisions about how to deploy and employ troops.

21 Emma Graham-Harrison, “What China’s empty new coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system,” The Guardian, February 12, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/12/what-chinas-empty-new- coronavirus-hospitals-say-about-its-secretive-system. 22 Bernard Marr, “Coronavirus: How Artificial Intelligence, Data Science And Technology Is Used To Fight The Pandemic,” Forbes, March 13, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/03/13/coronavirus-how- artificial-intelligence-data-science-and-technology-is-used-to-fight-the-pandemic/#527a07a05f5f. 23 Finkelstein, “Initial Thoughts,” 2016, 22.

Incapable #5: Deal with Unexpected Situations.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy, and PLA soldiers will be paralyzed without a plan. The PLA may be fine in the early stages of a tightly controlled military engagement, but it is hard to imagine it doing well once the chaos of war descends.”24

Rapidly evolving situations like pandemics require leaders to synthesize the previous four “incapables,” going beyond being able to understand higher intent or make operational decisions: they must be able to adapt when the situation is not in the playbook, and the “right” answer is not apparent. The nuance here is that a virus outbreak was not entirely an unexpected situation for China, as they dealt with SARS in 2003. What was unexpected in this situation was the climate of the information environment, as China struggled to control the narrative in an age of social media and increased international transparency. Therefore, clumsy attempts to react were magnified at a greater scale, and the central government’s reactions reflected more damage and information control than proactive, productive measures. More recently, Chinese efforts to aggressively push disinformation on its handling of the situation reflect a dangerous overcorrection, but one which is not inconsistent with Chinese behavior in other situations. In the event of some future conflict in which the PLA is engaged, we must consider whether the PRC will have the appetite for letting its tactical elements adapt to unexpected situations on the ground, at the risk of “wrong” decisions being highlighted to the world, or whether they will quickly come to the rescue and reestablish central authority for every minute issue.

Additional Considerations

Challenges to this framework must consider the validity of the “incapables” in the first place and the fairness of assessing a military evolution that is still in its infancy. For the former, some interpretations offer that the Five Incapables concept is less so about fixing deficiencies, and more serves as a mechanism for Xi to reassert the authority of the CCP over the PLA. An over-confident military poses a danger to the Party’s control, and

absolute discipline is a prerequisite for reform.25 For the latter, it is important to consider that the PLA is less than four years into its military modernization effort, and the weaknesses evident in this examination are specific to the Party’s command and control capacity right now. In that vein, this discussion is more illuminating for a conflict that might occur in the near future, such as engagements that look like the current Sino-Indian border dispute or ongoing riot control efforts in Hong Kong. For engagement in 2035 or 2049, it remains to be seen whether the PLA will remain on track and become a more competent adversary during a time of crisis. As Dennis Blasko describes in his USCC testimony,

Based on their own timeline, the PLA leadership would prefer to continue experimentation and systems trouble-shooting until 2035 when modernization is scheduled to be completed. It will then use the following decade to perfect its skills to become a world-class military. However… should deterrence fail, and the PLA is compelled to fight, its leadership will respond.

25 “What is clear, and has been clear since the Third Plenum and reinforced in the CMC Opinion, is that Party control of the PLA is viewed as a prerequisite for pushing through this reorganization and reform because so many institutional and personal interests throughout the military are going to be adversely affected. Party discipline will be required in order to make and execute tough choices.” Finkelstein, “Initial Thoughts,” 2016, 5-6.

A Cognitive Domain of Warfare: The Intellectual Competition Between the US and China Staff Sergeant Christopher Wilson, USMC

There is an axiom stated by British historian B. H. Lindell Hart, which states that “The real target in war is the mind of the enemy commander, not the bodies of his troops.”1 Although this statement is concerning tactics in attrition warfare, this truism of war is as relevant today as it was in 1944. In order to overcome an adversary, U.S. forces must be willing to out-think adversarial commanders. One way for this to be accomplished is for the Department of Defense to advocate a new domain of warfare that emphasizes the importance of cognitive capability. The Chinese government and Chinese intellectuals are calling this proposed warfighting area the Cognitive Domain of warfare. It is understood that in a battle, domination in one or more domains is important, but to overcome today’s enemies, the U.S. must not only maintain dominance in all domains, but it must also be able to fluidly maneuver between all of them, including those developing as a part of the new era of warfare we are moving in to.

I believe the U.S. military, like China, should create a new domain of warfare that encourages the ability to influence every other domain and allow its service members to think more fluidly between the other domains. Similar to how information recently became a seventh warfighting function because of its ability to translate into every other function, the U.S. must consider the idea that its means to control its ability to learn, innovate, and adapt in the rapidly changing face of warfare will have long-lasting and far-reaching implications2. One way of improving the US’ ability to fight in the cognitive domain is through a more progressive, information-age tailored style of professional military education. Only through the understanding of the theoretical “cognitive domain,” application of collective military thought in professional education, and research into new

1 B. H. Liddell Hart. (1944). Thoughts on War. quoted in Air University, Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center, “Target Selection”. London, UK: Faber and Faber. Retrieved from: https://secure.afa.org/quotes/quotes.pdf (Last Accessed 9 February 2020). 2 BGen Grynkewich, A.G. (2018). Introducing Information as a Joint Function. Joint Forces Quarterly 89, (2nd Qtr 2018).

cognitive styles of warfare, such as the siphoning of intellectual capital, can we truly maintain dominance throughout the domains of warfare. Ultimately, by codifying the cognitive domain, the U.S. will be better prepared to compete with near-peer threats.

What is the Cognitive Domain?

In the industrial age, the U.S. was able to maintain dominance in the more traditional, physical domains of warfare – air, land, sea, and space. Industrial age warfare is the commonly understood means of attrition warfare demonstrated in wars ranging from World War I through Operation Desert Storm. However, as the world moves towards a fourth industrial revolution, benchmarked by its innovations in connectivity, silicon-based technologies, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, this form of industrial age-fighting cannot fully persist3. As the U.S. moves into this era where more of the threat comes from non-traditional domains of warfare, it should readdress its innovations and the drive that made it successful during both World War I and World War II in combatting the strategic issues it faced from its pacing threats. According to Emily Goldman, as national survival often depends on battlefield success, states should be highly responsive to threats, whether defined by the capabilities of others, by their intentions, or both4.

With the world’s movement into the information age, the face of warfare is changing. Foreign international powers that previously deterred from engaging the U.S. military forces in armed conflict in the physical dimensions of warfare are now attempting to dominate the domains. There has been a massive rise in foreign competitors using “cognitive domains” by conducting cyberspace and information operations such as intellectual property theft, government disruption (such as voter tampering), and the creation of threats to our critical infrastructure5. Carl von Clausewitz once described war as an “act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.” This was once accomplished through sheer manpower and technological domination. Today, it will be

3 Major General Mick Ryan, AM. (2020). The Intellectual Edge: A Competitive Edge for Future War and Strategic Competition. Joint Forces Quarterly 96, (1st QTR2020). 4 Brooks, R. A. & Stanley, E. A., eds., Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). 5 Holbrook, D.J. (2018) Information-Age Warfare and Defense of the Cognitive Domain. Real Clear Defense. www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/12/13/information- age_warfare_and_defense_of_the_cognitive_domain_114024.html.

bent through subversion of a population and government through technological means. Thus, the U.S. should be prepared to adjust its industrial-centered doctrine towards future warfare. Activities other than violence are increasingly being used to bend the will of opposing nations6. According to Sean McFate, in this new information-centric era, it is believed that wars may be fought in the shadows, and “plausible deniability will prove more effective than firepower.”7 While U.S. supremacy and dominance in the physical domains of warfare may have once created major power conflict deterrence, it has also stirred competitive nations to seek dominance in other domains such as what the Chinese have dubbed “Cognitive Domain Operations.”8

The effects of domination in this theoretical space can be felt across every other domain of warfare as reaching political objective through cognitive domains are easier, cheaper, and potentially more effective than using military power alone. China and Russia have expanded competition to include continuous, far-reaching strategic influence campaigns against the US cognitive domain, i.e., that human space where mental skills development and knowledge is acquired, to achieve victories where their military could not9. Degradation of the US’s ability to maintain cyberspace security and other functions of the cognitive domain will diminish its ability to wage prolonged physical warfare as China seeks to bolster its air and sea dominance. While Chinese military planners are not openly preparing for war against the United States, President Xi’s reorganization of his military and focus of efforts are readily viewed as seeking an ability to overcome and defeat any adversary, particularly the United States. Many experts agree that his war, if it becomes unavoidable, will happen at sea, but it will be precluded by information warfare, the likes of which have never been seen10. Exploring the cognitive domain gives the Chinese a viable option for achieving their strategic objectives in both planes of warfare.

6 Holbrook, D.J. (2018) 7 McFate, S. (2019). New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder. New York, NY: William Morrow. 8 Beauchamp-Mustafaga, N. (2019). Cognitive Domain Operations: The PLA’s New Holistic Concept for Influence Operations. China Brief (19), 16. https://jamestown.org 9 Holbrook, D.J. (2018) Information-Age Warfare and Defense of the Cognitive Domain. www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/12/13/information- age_warfare_and_defense_of_the_cognitive_domain_114024.html. 10 Graham Allison, “What Xi Jinping Wants,” The Atlantic, May 31, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/what-china-wants/528561/

What can the US do to improve the Cognitive Domain?

The US must develop a Cognitive Domain of warfare, much like China, to face future security challenges. As Marine General Joseph Dunford discussed while he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, technological and intellectual strategic thinking are growing exponentially. Maintaining an intellectual edge is our means of being secure while being in the middle of a world power struggle. We face an era wherein, on the occasion of militarily generated capabilities and advantages are achieved, they are and will remain short-lived. This is occurring more than we have experienced in any other generation of warfare. Major General Mick Ryan of the Australian Defense College goes on to say that, “increasingly, this intellectual edge for an individual will be underpinned by cognitive support through human-artificial intelligence teaming.”11 In order for the US to improve its ability to fight in the Cognitive Domain, three lines of efforts should be considered: expanding research into artificial intelligence, continue to improve is professional military education, and institute a national strategy focused on denying pacing threats the ability to siphon US intellectual capital.

First, US military forces should begin to research and understand the Cognitive Domain of Warfare and its military applications. For example, the integration of AI-human teams may well be the most important direction our militaries can take towards maintaining a position of national security in the future of warfare. However, while AI-Human teaming is one means of keeping pace with emergent threats such as the competition between the US and China, there are many other areas Major General Ryan points out should also be at the forefront of our cognitive domain discussions. These areas include our U.S. and allied partner combined strategic visions, our strategic engagement, designing and encouraging continuous career-long learning opportunities, implementing guided self-development in a global professional military education ecosystem, and fostering military innovation in delivery and learning engagement12. His research indicates that the realm of the cognitive domain is achieved through how the military approaches professional military education.

11 Major General Mick Ryan, AM. (2020). The Intellectual Edge: A Competitive Edge for Future War and Strategic Competition. Joint Forces Quarterly 96, (1st QTR2020). 12 Major General Mick Ryan, AM. (2020).

Our ability to learn and innovate with and through AI can become the key to preserving our way of life.

Next, as demonstrated by Major General Ryan, the US DoD must improve its military education system. Progress has been made in many different facets of education for both officer and enlisted service members, but as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, education command strategies must evolve to keep pace with the exponential technological growth we are experiencing in what could be labeled as the fourth industrial revolution. Many prestigious US universities, such as the Harvard Business School, have demonstrated the advanced application of online and virtual classrooms. These models could easily be modified, adopted, and even improved by US military educators. Virtual learning provides one of the greatest opportunities for collective military thought. It has the potential of increasing the intellectual growth in an exponential way military service members have yet to see in the past.

Finally, the US should prevent the ability of the Chinese military to siphon our intellectual capital. China currently operates Confucius Institutes in higher education institutions and sponsoring Confucius Institute culture clubs in American high schools. They are openly using these programs to infiltrate American colleges and schools in a bid to both recruit spies and to indoctrinate students to advocate for positions favorable to China. Additionally, they are generously funding thousands of Chinese national students studying at the top ten international universities. There is a growing percentage of Chinese nationals attending these universities and then returning to China with the advantage of western education13. They are furthering this by conducting their research into western- style education technology industries mirroring software such as Moodle and Blackboard (such as China’s Alo-7 and Squirrel). These efforts underscore the emphasis Chinese government officials are placing on the importance of gaining the intellectual edge and applying that edge to the cognitive domain of warfare. As China and Russia are both reportedly drastically closing the technological advantage gap between themselves and the US, preventing their ability to siphon intellectual capital could protect the US advantage.

13 All information and independent research attained from Ratemycollege.com

Our ability to harness the intellectual capabilities of our human capital coming out of worldwide universities and applying them to US-centric corporations and innovators could be one of the best ways for us to safeguard the western democratic way of life.

Conclusion

The information age appears to have catalyzed a new revolution in military affairs. The exploitation of the information environment has always occurred throughout the history of warfare; the sophistication and intensity of how information is disseminated and weaponized alter the character of the information environment in the 21st Century. Paraphrasing Clausewitz, one could argue that while the nature of war remains constant, a revolution in information affairs has fundamentally changed the character of war. Our adversaries are exploiting non-traditional/unconventional/asymmetric means to wage war and are operating in the Cognitive Domain to more effectively wage information warfare. Modern warfare seems to occupy the gray space between war and peace and fought in the information/cognitive domain. Arguably, in the information age, influence is more decisive than firepower - “more potent than bullets.”14 China’s ability to harness this power and employ it against us through the development of their education and incorporation of AI into their decision-making processes currently makes them more proficient in the theoretical Cognitive Domain. However, as the U.S. and its allies will not have a solid foundation to compete in the information space unless it creates a new military domain focused on the cognitive aspects of warfare.

14 Mcfate, S. (2019). New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder. New York, NY: William Morrow.

Cyberspace Operations in the South China Sea Major Sara Wood, USMC

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) describes the South China Sea (SCS) territorial dispute as a core issue of national interest and security.1 Since December of 2013, the PRC has undertaken aggressive land reclamation operations to include building and militarizing numerous islands in the SCS despite opposition from the United States, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other regional nations. These operations have continued despite a 2016 ruling against the PRC’s activity by a tribunal established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).2 Along with physical operations, including harassing fishermen and escalatory maneuvers with naval vessels, the PRC has engaged in information warfare, employing their Three Warfares doctrine through operations in cyberspace. These operations, generally conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or through Persistent Advanced Threats (APT), are textbook examples of the application of the Three Warfares designed to advance PRC interests without triggering a conventional conflict, oftentimes referred to as “gray zone” operations. “In 2003, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC) approved the concept of “Three Warfares,” a PLA information warfare concept aimed at preconditioning key areas of competition in its favor.” 3 This concept focused on three different types of warfare: media, psychological, and legal. The creation of the Strategic Support Force, which places cyberspaces operations, space operations, electromagnetic spectrum operations, and information warfare to include psychological operations, under one structure with overlapping missions, was designed to improve efficiency and coordination of the PRC’s Political Warfare mission.

1 Li Jing. “Xi Jinping uses tougher tone on South China Sea disputes at Asean meeting,” South China Morning Post, September 22, 2012, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1042712/xi-jinping-uses-tougher- tone-south-china-sea-disputes-asean-meeting. 2 “South China Sea: Tribunal backs case against China,” British Broadcasting Corporation, July 12, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36771749. 3 Timothy A. Walton, “China’s Three Warefares,” Delex Special Report-3, Delex Consulting, Studies, and Analysis, January 18, 2012: 4 www.delex.com/data/files/Three Warfares.pdf

This paper will examine how the PRC is employing cyberspace operations, through both traditional cyberspace operations by the PLA’s Strategic Support Force (SSF) and private APTs, in the South China Sea (SCS) to support its Three Warfares doctrine to avoid kinetic operations while it continues to build military and economic power. The execution of the Three Warfares Doctrine has allowed the Chines Communist Party (CCP) to gain an advantage in the South China Sea (SCS) over the past ten years by employing traditional information warfare tactics and new capabilities, specifically cyberspace operations, to slowly gain territory. Understanding the use of this doctrine is crucial, especially during the current global unrest due to the COVID 19 pandemic, as these tactics are also being demonstrated in Hong Kong and in support of the One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR).

Three Warfares China’s doctrine of the Three Warfares, approved in 2003, recognizes how war is changing in the information age and that physical dominance is not the only way to defeat an adversary.4 “While kinetic force remains necessary as a potent deterrent, the doctrine argues that it may no longer be sufficient.”5 The doctrine is focused on discrediting and international organizations and institutions, challenging and re-drawing borders on both land and sea, and destabilizing worldwide media and social media without engaging in a lethal conflict. The underlining questions that the Three Warfares examines are: “What is war?” and “Is winning possible without fighting?”6. The Three Warfares doctrine nests within China’s overall concept of Political Warfare, which is driven by the needs of the CCP, which utilizes the PLA as its action arm as well as coordinating with private APTs that often have links to the PLA cyberspace forces. The Western world only recently addressed these questions, shifting the focus from infrastructure and kinetic weapons, to “How do we win a

4 Stefan Halper, China: The Three Warfares, May 2013, page 11. https://cryptome.org/2014/06/prc-three- wars.pdf 5 Ibid, pg.12 6 Stefan Halper, China: The Three Warfares, May 2013, page 19. https://cryptome.org/2014/06/prc-three- wars.pdf

war of ideas when we are bound by legal and political restrictions and don’t understand our opponent’s endgame?” Before examining how the PRC is conducting cyberspace operations in the SCS, it’s important to understand the underlying doctrine of the Three Warfares. Stefan Halper describes psychological warfare as it “seeks to influence and disrupt the decision-making capabilities of an opponent, to foster doubts about an opponent’s ability, to demoralize both military personnel and civilian populations, and thus, over time, to diminish their will to act.”7, 8. This type of warfare recognizes that the purpose of conflict is to attack and influence the mind of the adversary as opposed to just conducting kinetic/physical attacks on people or equipment. For example, China seeks to influence how foreign leaders and domestic audiences think through false narratives in political speeches or through social media, the employment of diplomatic pressure, often through economic means, and recently, harassment of the fishing and coastguard vessels of China’s neighbors in disputed waters.9 “Media warfare (also known as public opinion warfare) is a constant, ongoing activity aimed at long-term influence of perceptions and attitudes.”10 This type of warfare can be seen through the constant manipulation of newspaper articles in both China and worldwide outlets, books, films, and the Internet. New social media monitoring and censorship programs led by the “public opinion analysts,” an arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), continue to target outlets such as Sina Weibo, which is China’s Twitter-like platform, as a way to quell a dissention with the CCP views.11 “China’s extensive global media network, most notably the Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television (CCTV), also plays a key role, broadcasting in foreign languages and providing programming to stations throughout Africa, Central Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

7 Ibid, pg.12 8 Laura Jackson. Revisions of Reality: The Three Warfares—China’s New Way of War, July 2016, pg. 5. https://www.integrityinitiative.net/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/2016-07/china-three-warfares.pdf 9 Ibid, pg. 5 10 Dean Cheng. ‘Winning Without Fighting: Chinese Public Opinion Warfare and the Need for a Robust American Response’. The Heritage Foundation: Backgrounder Number 2745. November 26, 2012. pg.3 11 Oiwan Lam, “Leaked Documents Reveal How the Chinese Communist Party Channels Public Opinion”, Global Voices Advocacy, August, 25, 2014,pg.84. https://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2014/08/25/leaked-documentsreveal-how-the-chinese- communistparty-channels-public-opinion

Chinese media warfare operations reflect familiar themes, including the claims that: “the West (most notably the US) and certain regional players (Japan) do not respect Chinese domestic law and the US, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan are to blame for the multitude of incidents and incursions that occur on China’s periphery, particularly in the East and South China Seas and the airspace above.”12, 13 The final warfare, legal warfare (or ‘lawfare’), “uses and exploits international and domestic law to claim the legal high ground or assert Chinese interests.”14 Of utmost concern is the underlying fact that this interpretation of the law by the CCP is a direct result of the difference of how the West understands and applies law (as a “distinct autonomous entity” and applies to both the ruler and the ruled”) and how the Chinese view law (“as a means by which those in authority can enforce control over the population”).15 16 Lawfare can be employed to inhibit how a perceived adversary defines boundaries and borders. For example, Larry Wortzel, in his article, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Information Warfare,” describes how “China continuously takes aim at the law of the sea, as codified in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)— manipulating it to its advantage to establish a greater footing in the South and East China Seas. China aims to both undermine its opponent’s legal cases, which are based upon existing treaty law as embodied in UNCLOS, and also to establish arguments in customary international law for China’s position on an issue by setting precedents.”17 This example is one of the leading reasons for China’s inclusion in the National Security and Defense Strategies and America’s pivot to the Pacific.

12 Laura Jackson. Revisions of Reality: The Three Warfares—China’s New Way of War, July 2016, pg. 5. https://www.integrityinitiative.net/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/2016-07/china-three-warfares.pdf 13 Lam, pg. 84 14 Office of the Secretary of Defense (DoD), Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2011, Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: DoD, 16 August 2011). Pg.26 https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2011_CMPR_Final.pdf 15 Lam, pg. 49 16 Jackson, pg. 6 17 Larry M. Wortzel “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Information Warfare”, Strategic Studies Institute and US Army War College Press, March 5, 2014, pg. 30. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1191

Cyberspace Operations In late 2015, the PLA underwent its largest modern reorganization to date, that brought changes to its structure, model of warfighting, and organizational culture, including the creation of a Strategic Support Force (SSF) that centralizes most PLA space, cyberspace, electromagnetic, and psychological warfare capabilities 18 (see Figures 1 and 2). The two primary roles of the SSF, strategic information support, and strategic information operations, will enable the PRC to more effectively support the Three Warfares doctrine through integrated cyberspace and information operations. Recently, cyberspace operations oftentimes conducted covertly, have led to major system breaches of the PRC’s territorial rivals in the SCS. These breaches, generally conducted in coordination with another military/governmental or private entities (APTs), have gained system access to confidential information on rival’s military capabilities and diplomatic negotiating positions.19 These targeted breaches have also given cyber operators access to networks in rivals’ military and critical infrastructure and private companies. This access could be exploited during future operations by the SSF for espionage, blackmail, disinformation campaign, or possibly physical destruction through kinetic or non-kinetic strikes.

18 John Costello. China’s Strategic Support Force: A Force for a New Era. Testimony to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, February 15, 2018. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Costello_Written%20Testimony.pdf 19 Anni Piiparinen. “Phishing in the South China Sea: Cyber Operations and Hybrid Warfare in the Troubled Waters,” July 12, 2017. https://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/phishing-in-the-south-china-sea- cyber-operations-and-hybrid-warfare-in-the-troubled-waters

Figures 1 and 2 (Costello and McReynolds – China’s Strategic Support Force: A Force for a New Era)

Figures 1 and 2: John Costello and Joe McReynolds. China’s Strategic Support Force: A Force for a New Era, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, No 13, Oct 2018.

Three Warfares (Organization) It’s likely that PLA cyber operations supporting the Three Warfares doctrine in the South China Sea began in April of 2012 following the intense standoff between Chinese and Filipino vessels docked at the Scarborough Shoal, which had been claimed by the Philippines.20 A Chinese cyber unit breached government and military networks in the Philippines, resulting in the theft of military documents and sensitive communications related to the SCS conflict. Since this initial breach, the Philippines and Vietnam, the two strongest opponents in Southeast Asia to China’s SCS operations, along with the headquarters of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and private critical infrastructure companies, have experienced an onslaught cyber espionage and attacks originating from China.21 Another publicized example occurred in July of 2015 when China-based hackers launched a massive cyber espionage campaign. During a hearing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague over China and the Philippines’ overlapping claims, the court’s website was reportedly infected with malware originating from China. This malware attack, targeted at diplomats, journalists, and lawyers, resulted in massive data theft of anyone utilizing the courthouse’s website and leaving those individuals vulnerable to future attacks.22 A year after the 2015 incident, numerous websites in the Philippines were crippled by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack hours after the Permanent Court of Arbitrations unanimous rebuke of China’s nine-dash-

20 Anni Piiparinen. “Phishing in the South China Sea: Cyber Operations and Hybrid Warfare in the Troubled Waters,” July 12, 2017. https://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/phishing-in-the-south-china-sea- cyber-operations-and-hybrid-warfare-in-the-troubled-waters 21 Anni Piiparinen. “The Chinese Cyber Threat in the South China Sea,” September 18, 2015. https://thediplomat.com/2015/09/the-chinese-cyber-threat-in-the-south-china-sea/ 22 Anni Piiparinen. “Phishing in the South China Sea: Cyber Operations and Hybrid Warfare in the Troubled Waters,” July 12, 2017. https://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/phishing-in-the-south-china-sea- cyber-operations-and-hybrid-warfare-in-the-troubled-waters

line. The DDoS hit key government agencies to include the Department of Foreign Affairs and National Defense, the Central Bank, and local medical centers.23 According to reporting by ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc. (DGI), Naikon, also known as APT-30, is a threat group that has focused on targets around the South China Sea.24 The group has been attributed to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Chengdu Military Region Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (Military Unit Cover Designator 78020).25 Naikon reportedly infects its victims with spear-phishing emails in which malicious executables masquerade as seemingly relevant document attachments. When a victim opens one of these malicious attachments, a decoy document appears as an executable file and quietly exploits an old Microsoft Office vulnerability, installing malware on the victim’s machine.26 ThreatConnect and DGI report that all of China’s activities in the South China Sea, whether military, diplomatic or economic, have long been supported by a well-sourced covert signals intelligence and digital exploitation unit that maintained deep access within China’s Southeast Asian neighbor’s public and private sector enterprises.27 This support implies a direct link to Chinese military cyberspace operators that is likely strengthening due to the creation of the SSF, which now coordinates all information warfare activities under one bureau. In addition to the coordination with the SSF, APT-30 has employed cultural liaisons for each of its target countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, and Nepal. This has allowed Naikon to exploit cultural tendencies, such as the reliance on personal email addresses to conduct business, and tailor their operations for each operation. Attackers exploited this reality by creating email addresses that appeared similar to those in actual use, which the attackers were able to leverage to send more effective phishing messages.28

23 Anni Piiparinen. “Phishing in the South China Sea: Cyber Operations and Hybrid Warfare in the Troubled Waters,” July 12, 2017. https://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/phishing-in-the-south-china-sea- cyber-operations-and-hybrid-warfare-in-the-troubled-waters 24 Baumgartner, K., Golovkin, M. (2015, May). The MsnMM Campaigns: The Earliest Naikon APT Campaigns. Retrieved December 17, 2015. 25 ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc. (DGI). (2015, September 23). Project CameraShy: Closing the Aperture on China's Unit 78020. Retrieved December 17, 2015. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc. (DGI). (2015, September 23). Project CameraShy: Closing the Aperture on China's Unit 78020. Retrieved December 17, 2015.

Implications & Outlook The recent National Defense Strategy (NDS) states that the “fundamental” challenge to US security “is the re-emergence of long-term, strategic competition” by “revisionist” powers, Russia and China.29 The competition encompasses “all dimensions of power” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pursuing “efforts short of armed conflict by expanding coercion to new fronts, violating principles of sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and deliberately blurring the lines between civil and military goals.”30 The execution of the Three Warfares Doctrines has allowed the CCP to gain an advantage in the South China Sea (SCS) over the past ten years by employing traditional information warfare tactics and new capabilities, specifically cyberspace operations, to slowly gain territory. Peter Mattis states, “ultimately, China’s strategy in the SCS has effectively been to bet that Washington is unwilling to militarily confront its “probing” behavior.”31 Thus far, this strategy has kept its opponents off balance and reluctant to engage in any actions that may trigger kinetic military action. The new SSF will likely continue to employ integrated cyberspace operations in the SCS in support of the Three Warfares, and these forces likely can transition to cyberspace operations that result in physical damage and have extreme monetary implications. The addition of APTs operating in support of the SSF allows China to utilize capabilities outside the traditional military structure. Placing all information warfare capabilities under one umbrella organization will increase the coordination and effectiveness of the PRC’s Political Warfare goals.

29 Summary of the National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, p, 2. 30 Ibid. 31 Peter Mattis, “The Great Unravelling: US Policy in the South China Sea”, The National Interest, 29 September 2015, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-great-unraveling-us-policy-the-south-china- sea13958?page=0%2C1

US Great Power Competition and China: Heavy on Effort but Thin on Vision Major Adam Yang, USMC

Through the 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), the Trump Administration unilaterally declared the beginning of a new era, one characterized by great power competition between the United States (US) and China. This ideological framing within the NSS is important because it demands that all federal agencies recalibrate their internal strategies accordingly, and, perhaps more importantly, it also serves as an ideological start point for all political interaction with its newly minted opponent. The first major shot across the bow was economical and occurred in March 2018 when the Trump Administration initiated $50 billion in tariffs on China due to decades of Chinese spying and theft of US intellectual property. To China’s dismay, the Trump Administration has also labeled it as a current manipulator, supported Hong Kong protestors, cozied up with Taiwan, and restricted entry by its journalists and students according to the notion of “reciprocity.”1

Recently, the White House issued the United States Strategic Approach to The People’s Republic of China. The document reaffirms many of the same goals as the NSS but directly accuses the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) of falling-short in becoming a “constructive and responsible global stakeholder.” The strategic document also chides them for exploiting the “free and open rules-based order” and trying to “reshape the international system in its favor.”2 With the diplomatic “gloves off,” the US has firmly

1 Vivian Wang and Edward Wong, “U.S. Hits Back at China With New Visa Restrictions on Journalists,” The New York Times, May 9, 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/china- journalists-us-visa-crackdown.html. 2 The United States of America, “United States Strategic Approach to The People’s Republic of China” (The White House, May 20, 2020), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic- Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.20.20.pdf.

accused China of deceiving the world on the spread of COVID-19 and manipulating the World Health Organization in tandem as well.3

Clearly, from the US vantage, China has failed its global responsibilities and, thus, they are not suitable to lead the world. However, turning the tables around, one may be hard-pressed to find a compelling rationale that explains why the world should follow the US into the future. Unlike the grand strategy of “containment” that guided US foreign policy for decades during the Cold War, the nation’s current strategic behavior feels more like a series of belated economic reactions, aggressive military buildups, and angry finger- pointing rather than a compelling plan for its geostrategic leadership. In other words – what is America’s long-term vision for a better world future?

China’s Vision

China’s global vision is embodied by its Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Though this geopolitical effort is not perfect, the CCP diplomatic and propaganda apparatus pushes an attractive and marketable narrative. From their 2015 Action Plan, the Chinese government – harkening back to the ancient Silk Road – seeks to build a “brighter future together,” foster “win-win cooperation,” and to promote “mutual learning and mutual benefit.”4 Critics may argue that these phrases are empty, deceptive, and just part of their state-wide propaganda. These critiques are difficult to challenge, and may all be true.

Nevertheless, the same critics should also wonder why so many countries are supportive of the BRI despite US warnings. According to one report, approximately 120 countries have signed BRI memorandum agreements with an estimated total value of $1 trillion in related contracts.5 Many of these countries are from the Middle East, Africa, Latin

3 Donald G. McNeil Jr and Andrew Jacobs, “Blaming China for Pandemic, Trump Says U.S. Will Leave the W.H.O.,” The New York Times, May 29, 2020, sec. Health, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/health/virus-who.html. 4 The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, “Action Plan on the Belt and Road Initiative,” March 30, 2015, http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/publications/2015/03/30/content_281475080249035.htm. 5 Elaine K. Dezenski, “Below the Belt and Road: Corruption and Illicit Dealings in China’s Global Infrastructure,” Center on Economic and Financial Power (Washington, DC: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, May 2020), 20, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/05/04/below-the-belt-and-road.

America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Western Europe is the true prize, and so far, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland have signed up.6 As expected, with each public signing of a memorandum, the Chinese information machine ramps up with its usual praise for President Xi Jinping and reinvigorates the circle of life of their strategic narrative – or propaganda (whatever term you prefer).

An American Global Vision?

So, what is America’s competing vision today? Though difficult to define, the most common articulation of its global vision is the advocacy for a “free and open,” “rules-based,” or “reciprocal” international system.7 These principles of “free and open” were particularly valuable during the Cold War because it promoted the spread of ideas, liberal democracy, and Western-dominated economies that disproportionately bolstered the US and allies.8 However, these principles failed in shaping China towards becoming the compliant partner, the US would hope to have; and unexpectedly created a near-peer rival across many lanes. Looking within the United States Strategic Approach to The People’s Republic of China, which echoes the NSS, the US aims to "(1) protect the American People, homeland, and way of life; (2) promote American prosperity; (3) preserve peace through strength, and (3) advance American influence."9 These aims necessarily promote America first, but they are also hollow rallying cries when it comes to maintaining the cohesion of alliances and generating global support for its initiatives.

Richard Wike of the Pew Research Center warns of growing “anti-Americanism” due to its retreating global leadership. Of note, the global favorability amongst 24 countries dropped from 64 percent under President Barack Obama to 53 percent under President

6 Evelyn Cheng, “China Tackles Worries about Belt and Road Debt as It Notches a Swiss Endorsement,” CNBC, May 7, 2019, sec. China Economy, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/01/china-signs-mou-with-finance-giant- switzerland-on-belt-and-road.html. 7 Michael Pence, “Remarks by Vice President Pence on the Administration’s Policy Toward China” (Speech, The Hudson Institute: Washington, D.C., October 4, 2018), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings- statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-administrations-policy-toward-china/. 8 G. John Ikenberry, “The End of Liberal International Order?,” International Affairs 94, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 7–23, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iix241. 9 The United States of America, “United States Strategic Approach to The People’s Republic of China,” 1.

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Trump in 2019 for a commensurate period.10 Interestingly, however, China’s favorability also dropped between 2018 and 2019, where 17 out of 26 countries surveyed viewed China as less favorable than the year prior. Assuming great power competition also includes the national hearts and minds of the international order, the US cannot forfeit its global leadership and berate its allies yet expect others to follow. Instead, the US must reimagine its role as a global leader and communicate a genuine vision across all political fronts. Without a positive ideological engine from the US, China will undoubtedly attempt to fill America’s seat wherever it can, amidst its global retreat.

Fine Tuning and Broadcasting

Two lines of effort – one ideological and the other bureaucratic-- may help resolve America’s leadership gap. First, before the US develops a narrative that promotes its global leadership, it needs a global strategy to underpin global strategic logic. An update to the NSS should expand beyond, but not wholly abandon, the idea of great power competition. Great power competition is an ill-defined concept and leaves too much to the imagination of self-interested federal organizations. It seems like a valuable proposition for the Department of Defense as it secures a larger budget, but it is less clear what other parts of the government should be doing.11 Instead, an updated NSS must include a global proposition that appeals to the political and economic desires of allies and other nations to reaffirm the US leadership role. This is not an easy proposition, but as Shakespeare writes in Henry IV, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” The US must remember that global leadership is not a right, but a privilege that must be earned and constantly re-earned as political climates change and power-balances shift.

10 Richard Wike, “The New Anti-Americanism,” Foreign Affairs, January 13, 2020, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-01-08/new-anti-americanism. 11 Katie Bo Williams, “What’s Great Power Competition? No One Really Knows,” Defense One, May 13, 2019, https://www.defenseone.com/news/2019/05/whats-great-power-competition-no-one-really- knows/156969/.

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Second, from a bureaucratic perspective, much like the creation of the Space Force, the White House and Congress should work together in reestablishing something akin to the former United States Information Agency (USIA). During the Cold War, the USIA served as the public face of American political warfare, and they supported authors, artists, magazines, radio broadcasts, political parties, unions, and businesses to advance American narratives in various regions.12 Now more than ever, with the ubiquity, speed, and reach of social media and the like, the US desperately needs an organization to resume this centralized activity. Even the 2017 NSS states, “US efforts to counter the exploitation of information by rivals have been tepid and fragmented. US efforts have lacked a sustained focus and have lacked a sustained focus and have been hampered by the lack of properly trained professionals.”13 As the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come” – and there is no shortage of highly-intelligent people in Washington that could rapidly fill these seats and perform this critical function.

Conclusion

In sum, if the US is fearful of China dismantling the liberal international order it helped create, political leaders need to reassert a vision beyond an ill-defined bilateral competition. Washington’s awkward condemnation of China on some issues and willingness to cooperate on others sends a confusing message for the US domestic population and the international community. Today’s competitive angle is overly negative – negative in the sense that it is heavily geared towards keeping China down and out, rather than propelling the US way ahead of the race. Overall, the notion of great power competition is still valuable because it has helped turned the giant strategic wheel deep beneath Washington; however, this should not be the end of the line for American grand strategy or its political imagination.

12 Linda Robinson et al., Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible Responses (RAND Corporation, 2018), xv, https://doi.org/10.7249/RR1772. 13 The President of the United States, “National Security Strategy of the United States of America” (Washington, D.C., December 2017), 35.

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Founding Members

Major Austin Duncan, USMC – A Marine intelligence officer and an information operations planner currently serving as a speechwriter on the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps’ staff group.

Major Gary J. Sampson, USMC – Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Ph.D. candidate, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; and 2019-20 Public Intellectuals Program Fellow, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Major Sara Wood, USMC – Signature Management Specialist, Marine Corps Information Operations Center (MCIOC).

Major Adam Yang, USMC – Communications Officer and Technical Information Operations Officer. He currently serves as a Ph.D. Fellow for the Commandant of the Marine Corps Strategist Program and attends the School of International Service at American University.

Operational Team

Major Jared Cooper, USMC – Barrow Fellowship Operations Officer and Krulak Center Operations & Outreach Officer, integrator of Krulak Center-partner functions and engagement.

Andrew Scobell, Ph.D. – Donald Bren Chair of Non-Western Strategic Thought at the Krulak Center

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