Global Strategic Assessment
A global war with hybrid characteristics has been raging for some years already
Washington DC 30 OCT 2022
Since 9/11 the United States has been engaged in a world war against what Robert Taber characterized as ‘the flea’, by which he meant multitudinous, ubiquitous, small, and agile terrorist movements (political and paramilitary) taking on the large and ponderous ‘dog’ of the major powers. The war of the flea has always involved major powers and not just as victims. Variously, Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and the United States, have engaged proxies to fight their battles or have themselves been confronted by the proxies of others. Afghanistan has been a persistent cauldron of multi-dimensional proxy war and warfare since Alexander the Great, or for a modern example, since Churchill was a war correspondent in 1897. America’s failure to swiftly bring bin Laden to justice undermined the perception of US omnipotence and encouraged fleas the world over to take on the biggest dog of them all - Uncle Sam. Soon the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia, became persistent running sores. But it was the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq (that spread to Syria and Libya) that eventually overwhelmed America and empowered the other dogs to become more directly assertive - Russia across its western flank and China in the South China Sea.
Today the global war of the flea persists but the attention it commands has diminished with its comparative importance. As the fleas continue to nibble, the big dogs of war have shifted their emphasis away from proxies and are increasingly barking loudly and bearing their fangs directly at one another. Ukraine was the first bite and others cannot be too far away. The risk is escalation into a savage mauling by a pack of crazed hounds.
In consequence, ‘great power competition’ (GPC) is a bit of a misnomer. What competitiveness there was over the past 20 years transitioned into great power world war with hybrid characteristics some time ago. While some Western military leaders and politicians grasp this reality (notably those closest to Russia’s borders), it is not readily cognizable by the general public because it does not conform to culturally sticky WWII stereotypes of warfare. That inadvertent ‘masking’ enables aggressors to make gains before the public in target states fully seize on what is happening.
In Europe, all the free countries on the continent (including traditionally neutral states - some of which have joined NATO) have united to resist direct Russian aggression towards Ukraine and indirect Russian attacks against common regional interests. This is a hybrid war on both sides: a mix of propaganda, energy, trade, finance, and conventional, warfare. The consequences of Putin’s manifest miscalculations are leading him to consider use of a single nuclear weapon on a non-Treaty, non-US nuclear umbrella country. I characterize scenarios such as these ’unconventional nuclear war’ which have gone largely unaddressed and for which preparations are sorely lacking. I am addressing these dilemmas in a book by the same name.
In Asia, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is about to abandon all of the political progress it has made since Deng’s reforms initiated in 19781. By the time you read this, Maoist strong-man rule will have supplanted institutionalist rotation of technocratic party leaders. This is a major reversal of the professionalization of the Chinese political class achieved in the 1990s. Equally, Xi Jinping has dumped Deng’s “hide your strength, bide your time” foreign policy dicta, in favor of hyper-nationalist wolf-warrior aggression. This reflects the strong-mans impatient rush to assert Chinese greatness after ‘the century of humiliation' and related perceived political, economic and cultural injustices. It is also born of two decades watching America do nothing about CCP military encroachment deep into the first, second, and now third island chain. Domestically, Xi wants to demonstrate his raw power in order to put himself on a par with Mao in the pantheon of leaders.
Xi’s rush to greatness belies the significant fault-lines that have emerged under his helmsmanship. Economically, China’s export-led growth has slowed significantly and the economy is maturing sooner than anticipated, leaving the party in a precarious position. The limits of state planning with respect to commercially viable investments (at home and abroad), the property bubble, stock market and currency vulnerabilities, and global supply chain disaster in the wake of strict ideological application of covid lockdowns - with related domestic political backlash; are all significant challenges that are not easily or quickly fixed even in an authoritarian system that Xi is peddling as superior to democracy. Xi’s personal flagship program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is finally being recognized internationally as often resulting in a debt trap in which the tributary state cedes sovereignty to the CCP when it defaults on its payments. The failed railway in Kenya or the port in Sri Lanka are exemplars of this awakening. The less discussed side of this equation is the often poor investment choices made by the Chinese in the first place. Domestic fiscal responsibility may end up doing more to curb the BRI than any orchestrated international political backlash.
Militarily, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) which is a party army, has achieved its objective of denying access to its eastern approaches by foreign powers by building a ‘great sea wall’ of sand forts and substantial in-shore conventional multi-domain strike capability. The graphic below illustrates China’s extant reach from mainland based missile systems. These ranges would be significantly extended if these systems were placed on the island forts as might be expected under conditions of rising tensions. Such systems are only as good as the sensors that support them. In this regard, Vice Chief of Space Operations, Gen. David D. Thompson said in Oct 2022
“What the Chinese have done is they have started with a clean sheet and they have built a military space reconnaissance strike enterprise that starts in space, with the ability to collect intelligence—now, by the most recent count, more than 260 ISR satellites,” Thompson said. “They have connected data relays. They have created their own global precision positioning, navigation, and timing system, the BeiDao, to the tune of 49 satellites today. And they have demonstrated that they learned the importance and the value of space power, and they intend to use those capabilities against us should it come time.”
Of very serious concern, the CCP has recently extended the potential of this denial zone way past the third island chain through its aggressive pocketbook ‘diplomacy’ in the South Pacific. Starting with the Solomon Islands, the CCP are now focused on PNG, Vanuatu, and Kiribati. In fact, all the same islands that were critical to victory in the Pacific campaign in WWII. Actors, motives, and capabilities might change, but geography is a strategic constant. The declared or covert placement of Chinese IRBMs on the Solomons for example, would put them just within range of the Hawaiian islands, give them control of Guam, and all of Australia’s maritime approaches. All US intelligence stations based in Australia and all host nation defense bases would also be within comfortable reach. Denial of a vital rear echelon with sufficient territory within which to conduct strategic force protection by deception would leave the western alliance with no safe haven in the region from which to generate combat power. This is highly undesirable.
The PLA is not 100 foot tall
However, the PLA is not 100 ft tall. At least not yet. There are still key weaknesses, but the window of opportunity to exploit them is rapidly closing. In about a decade, the PLA has transformed from a mass conscript army with little serious air, naval and space capabilities, to a major conventional military power with an ORBAT that mirrors key US military technologies. This is a stunning achievement. But rapid change in the biggest institution in a state controlling a billion people brings with it all sorts of cultural issues for the nation and for the military undergoing that change. Western militaries have taken a century to evolve from massed armies slogging it out to high-tech, networked, joint forces. It is possible to steal the blueprints and build cheap ‘knock-off’ JSFs, C17s, AEGIS DDGs etc, but a bright shiny new set of platforms does not an advanced military make. As impressive as its platforms look in propaganda videos, the new PLA has only existed for around ten years and their industrial espionage has not captured the full technical details of US capabilities in every case. What they lack in technology they still make up for in mass - that is not entirely a criticism, mass can still be relevant. But it makes the point that stolen blueprints do not always have the complete suite of niche systems that may make up for the edge in mass. Even with their extraordinary adaptability and capacity for learning, it would be a mistake to assume that the PLA will unquestionably impose a modern Battle of Tsushima victory against America. Equally, it would be a mistake to simply assume endless American superiority. The mistakes leading up to, and during, the Battle for Singapore illustrate that mistake. The key point remains that the PLA are closer to the bottom of a long learning curve than the top, but they are moving faster up the curve than many appreciate.
PLA weaknesses do not end there. They include the fact that China has not achieved MAD against the US (or India), is over dependent on land-based missile defense, is not joint, not very logistically robust, unable to sustain expeditionary combat operations, and their amphibious capability is comparatively weak (designed around short range contingencies). Like the Russians, they still suffer military-industrial corruption, obedience to hierarchy (party and military) that stifles adaptive leadership (mission-command), and their junior officer and NCO cadre are a critical weakness. All these factors will soon change because they have recognized these are areas that need work. Again, cultural limitations may prove harder to surmount than just building platforms.
A key PLA weakness is inexperience exacerbated by rapid change. Unlike US forces that have been in constant global joint combat operations since 2001, the PLA is untested in every respect (except regional hybrid operations in a zero threat setting thanks to American inattention). The last time the PLA was tested in major combat operations was in 1979 when the battle hardened Vietnamese did not take long to teach the Chinese they had a lot to learn about warfare. Of course that was the old PLA, so the salience of the comparison is low, beyond the obvious. The Chinese have demonstrated great speed when they determine new policy directions. After all, they went from zero to a space station in a decade. But they are likely to discover that in major conventional combat operations there is a lot more involved in securing victory against a mature military like the United States than is currently demonstrated by their forces. [Update - weaknesses in the education of their personnel have recently been highlighted].
China's paramount security concern is not the United States, Taiwan or the South China Sea. It is internal security (admittedly it does contextualize Taiwan as an internal issue but operationally the Taiwan question is a completely different beast). The CCP has created the most profound surveillance state whose social control far exceeds anything George Orwell’s fecund imagination could conjure - precisely because the Party is acutely aware that its greatest enemy is dissent and ethnic diversity. Indeed, the party perception of non-Han Chinese nationals as a threat in and of themselves is a key weakness in a state that seeks harmony. The choices are integrate and assimilate or isolate and repress. The party has been so heavy handed that they naturally default to the latter even when they try to promote inclusiveness. As noted, dissent has been exacerbated by gross covid mismanagement.
China also has a powerful, if latent, jihad problem. The imprisonment of a million innocent muslim military age males, adjacent to highly organized, trained and battle hardened jihadi’s in Afghanistan and nuclear armed Pakistan, may not guarantee domestic tranquility as the CCP assumes.
Having check-mated the Western alliance on its eastern flank, many are asking what should be our policy. In my new book, The Third Offset Strategy: A Return to Ungentlemanly Warfare, I propose that we threaten what the CCP holds most dear: China’s internal security. The BRI is an influence superhighway that people tend to forget runs in two directions. Of interest to the west, the BRI runs deep into the Chinese homeland through its porous and fragile western flank. This should be exploited by human network operations to keep the CCP so preoccupied with internal issues it is reluctant to embark upon long-range adventurism. As there is no chance that Chinese jihadists would conquer all of China and turn it on America as happened in Afghanistan, agitation of this group would not have blowback potential. At the same time, allied conventional forces will be needed to keep the PLA in check on their other flank.
An important addition to containing China and diverting its attention inward is a much needed allied Anti Access and Area Denial (A2AD) missile capability spread across the South China Sea that hems-in the PLA to its maritime interior lines of communication. To achieve this, we must develop and deploy these systems into the 3rd island chain, home to US allies and partners. The difficulty in this case is the perception of America as a fair weather friend in light of our performance in Afghanistan and threats by domestic political actors to cut off support to Ukraine. Nevertheless, if we are serious about not losing all of Asia, or most of the 7th fleet, III MEF and the 25th Inf Div in combat, this is the challenge we must answer. We must turn the CCP’s A2AD into a maritime Maginot line and this is the key way to do it. However, there is not much indication we are moving in this direction.
There are additional problems for the US to achieve its national interests in the region using conventional force. We have enjoyed all-domain dominance for far too long. PLA advances in the first island chain have eroded our comparative advantage from dominance down through superiority to parity. Future major combat operations will be conducted in a remote austere environment where space-based navigation, communication, sensing and related capabilities are degraded or destroyed. We have suitable adjunct and substitute technologies (based on a large number of small cheap expendable systems - at least in theory) but they are only just starting to be tested. Big question marks hang over whether sufficient numbers can be acquired and fielded in time to make an operational impact. This is just one example. Notable here is the trend toward large numbers of semi autonomous swarming capabilities vice big platform engagements in all domains. One thing is certain, the war of the flea has impacted our thinking about conventional warfare.
Block-obsolescence of key platforms is undermining US capabilities at a sensitive time. Capability gaps are emerging due to legacy procurement processes and budgetary malaise. The legislative branch that has become dependent on a Russian roulette system of Continuing Resolutions (CRs) that fundamentally undermines US national security by removing the key planning structure around which to build and maintain the force. Beyond budgetary constraints, it is lamentable that the entire US military industrial complex can only produce 3 DDGs and 2 SSNs a year, with the new Columbia Class SSBNs likely to be produced at one every 2-3 years. The propensity to choose brand new state of the art replacement platforms also negatively impacts replacement rates because, more often than not, platform retirement timelines, R&D and budget problems are not successfully worked into timing. The USS Ford is the latest example. By comparison, the PLA is pumping out a destroyer every 4 weeks, new ‘corvettes’ (really a frigate) every 6 weeks, all on top of a variety of other classes of platforms and a carrier every few years. Consumption rates of munitions to service Ukraine far exceeds war stock usage estimates and replacement rates are measured in years. This is unacceptable in light of on going operations in Ukraine, anticipated emerging Taiwanese requirements for arms that have performed so well in Ukraine, and adjusted US needs to service a major war in either theater.
American military leaders now openly admit that the paradigm of two simultaneous major regional contingencies (MRCs) is already beyond the scope of American capabilities. Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee the USN
“is not sized to handle two simultaneous conflicts, it’s sized to fight one and keep a second adversary in check, but in terms of two all-out conflicts, we are not sized for that.”
Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark Kelley said recently that
"China has advanced so far and so fast in its air and space power that the Air Force’s ability to deter through conventional forces is at risk". US “combat air forces are less than half the size they were in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and well below where various unclassified studies have said they need to be”, Kelly said.
A similar assessment has been made by the leadership of the Mitchell Institute. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen David A. Deptula plainly states that the USAF
“now lacks the capacity to fight a peer conflict, deter elsewhere, and defend the homeland as required by the National Defense Strategy.”
Even with a technological edge, at some point some mass is needed, especially against a large opposing force in a huge theater of operations. Of course the unstated problem is personnel - you can buy more highly advanced kit but you need capable and well trained operators. The recruitment crisis currently effecting the Army and its unnecessary politicization by media entertainers with a pro-Putin propagandistic agenda does not help. [Parenthetically, this unwelcome trend in civil-military relations is so alien to recent experience that the Army has understandably publicly struggled to comprehend it. Nevertheless as the Army learned in the 1950s, it cannot ignore attacks of this kind. It must develop effective COAs.2
Even excluding the issue of the MRCs, for the first time since WWII, the United States does not have multi-domain superiority in the western pacific theater. The US Marine Corps is undergoing a highly controversial force restructuring, Force Design 2030 (FD2030), because it has concluded, rightly, that the current construct for Joint Forcible Entry Ops (JFEO) exposes naval ships and Marines to too much risk against the saturation effects of the PLA’s A2AD shield at the second and especially first island chain.
It is worth observing that some of the ideas and systems the Marines are considering, like HIMARS, are already in service in the US Army Pacific. Similarly, the threat environment and operational sustainment challenges are the same for the Army. A key failure of the current Marine civil war is any consideration of other joint force elements beyond amphibious ships. Thus the Marine tank force transferred to the Army can still have a role in the Pacific in the unique circumstances in which they might be needed - namely very large island campaigns - where the effort would be leaning heavily on the US Army.
Possibly mindful of these complex issues, Putin and Xi have been coordinating their geo-static plans to confront the United States with two simultaneous major regional contingencies (MRCs). In early 2022 I assessed that were it not for the CCP Party congress taking place this week, President Xi would have likely timed his invasion of Taiwan to coincide with Putin’s escalation in Ukraine, presenting the world with a severe dilemma. In that same estimate, I pointed to Nov 2024 as the next most likely window for a CCP assault on Taiwan based on a variety of factors including the anticipated turmoil arising out of the now unstable US election system.
In 2021 Admiral Philip Davidson, then-head of Indo-Pacific Command, told Congress that the Chinese military could take action against Taiwan before 2027. That number has now been revised to a date reflecting my estimate by Secretary of State Antony Blinken who said recently that
“there has been a change in the approach from Beijing toward Taiwan in recent years,” this includes “a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline".
Admiral Gilday followed this announcement by specifying
“when we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window,” Gilday told the Atlantic Council. “I don’t mean at all to be alarmist . . . it’s just that we can’t wish that away.”
At the Party Congress this week, Xi reiterated the "the complete reunification of the motherland must be realized”. He noted
“serious provocations from separatist activities by Taiwan independence forces and interference in Taiwan affairs by external forces” and stressed while peaceful means were preferred “there is no commitment to renounce the use of force and the option to take all necessary measures is retained."
The war in Ukraine is pregnant with lessons for the future of warfare in the Pacific. In the initial stages, the Ukrainians were in desperate need of all kinds of MANPADs, loitering munitions, and nimble C4ISR, all lashed to distributed kill chains spanning time/space/conops, where a US P-8 could send data to a shore based Ukrainian ASM that could fire undetected while COTS drones manned by civilians hobbyists distracted a guided missile cruiser bristling with sensors and missiles. The Moskva sank without firing a shot in response to its attackers. [There is as yet an untold story about the extraordinary contribution of unmanned systems in all domains that is outside the scope of this essay.] Russian incompetence no doubt made a major contribution to this outcome and that in itself poses difficult questions for Beijing about the wartime competence of its forces.
Thus the war in Ukraine at first appeared to be a proof of concept of new Marine thinking as expressed in FD2030 (this will be used as an exemplar. The author is aware of the 25th IDs advanced thinking in this regard). For example, Russian tank operations were a disaster against the nimble MANPAD-armed, hobbyist drone-supported, ‘shoot and scoot squads’ tearing about the countryside on ATVs. Russian coms insecurity was a targeteer’s dream. Yet over time, critics of FD2030 were energized because the Ukrainians shifted their requests to heavy combined arms capabilities, like tanks and artillery. Both contexts are true. Except in the latter context, the Ukrainians had a strong preference for longer range guided munitions deployed from HIMARs than standard field artillery. They would take the latter, but strongly preferred the former due to its superiority in range and precision compared to volume of fires. Additionally, the Russians failed to use dismounted infantry to support their tanks rendering them vulnerable. Their many other failures, particularly in leadership and logistics, are legion.
On balance then, the new kind of TTPs we are witnessing in Ukraine are applicable in the pacific. This is especially so when differences in geography are taken into account and set against the PLA ORBAT. In short, heavy combined arms operations will be limited to big islands where the PLA are able to land their own capabilities of this kind. The bulk of the emphasis of the defense will, and should, be focused on preventing that from happening in the first place. The ‘new’ Ukrainian way of warfare - small shoot and scoot self reliant squads able to act independently in austere and denied (easy coms/resupply) conditions will be of significant utility if used as part of a layered defense in depth. They will help create no-go zones thereby channeling capital assets into maritime ambush sites. The Falklands war is a useful study in this context, given it involved two modern forces where one had to travel great distances into the others ‘backyard’ to liberate two island groups (the Falklands and South Georgia). It is notable what a close run thing that war was for both sides. The British lost five ships and 34 aircraft, which poses interesting questions for Chinese and American domestic reactions to future comparable levels of losses.
China has perhaps even more to learn from the war in Ukraine. As impatient as he is, even Xi must have been grateful for the restraint imposed upon him by having to keep things peaceful for the party congress. His declaration of endless friendship with Putin in hindsight suggests that Xi was played by Putin. As global opprobrium crashed down on Putin with stunning speed and comprehensiveness, Xi realized he was in a bind. After all the fanfare, he had to do something to support Moscow, but he now had to minimize China’s exposure to association with Putin’s many failures. Consequently, China seems to have limited itself to extra-legal energy purchases but has thus far avoided overt supply of much needed arms or other forms of military support.
As Russia continues to collapse on the battlefield, Xi should be asking himself just how much the PLA continues to carry the same kinds of disadvantages of their Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ally. For example, how much of China’s military modernization money has been siphoned off leaving Potemkin capabilities in their wake? Many years ago, I met a delegation of visiting Chinese generals and colonels. I asked the senior general an innocuous question about the Strait of Malacca. He responded that such a question was only answerable by the central committee. When I asked him why he did not wear wings like the other air force members of the delegation, the PLA colonels failed to stifle their giggling. He was forced to admit he was the commissar general. Things may have changed since then, but it was telling that even the head political general (#2 in their air force overall) could not answer a simple operational question. Nor was he hiding from an answer - he was humiliated by the question as demonstrated by his own men laughing at him. I was reminded of that interaction reading accounts of senior Russian unit commanders seeking permission to do basic maneuvers in Ukraine. Any graduate of US PME could have answered that question with aplomb. That is a striking weakness of the PLA.
At the recent SCO summit, both Xi and India’s Modi publicly backed away from support of Putin’s war. In private, it should be expected that they are both strongly cautioning against nuclear escalation, mindful of Putin's growing desperation and the dire consequences for their own countries should Putin engage in ‘unconventional nuclear warfare’. Once that genie is released into the wild, the second and third order consequences, in all contexts - military, economic, political - for all players will change forever. That applies even if we somehow avoid escalation into general nuclear war. For just one immediate example, the flightpath of an American ICBM targeted at Russia is indistinguishable from one targeted at China until the last seconds of its terminal phase.
It is incredible to think that we are at a much greater risk of nuclear war now than during the Cuban Missile Crisis and yet no one really seems to have a clue what is going on. The world is not standing still holding its breath like it did for those thirteen days. Khrushchev was not a cornered rat, about to lose a major war, and out of all other options, desperate to try and flip the table on his opponent. Khrushchev realized he misjudged Kennedy whom he thought he could intimidate. All Khrushchev lost was a little face. Putin knows that if he fails he will die. He has nothing left to lose.
The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching lesson of the war in Ukraine is will. Consequently, all eyes will be on Taiwan to discern whether the people and military share the conviction of the political leadership in Taipei to resist CCP aggression. Being an island still confers enormous advantages to the defense. The Taiwanese have very significant opportunities to repel the CCP if they organize themselves according to the lessons of Ukraine and related layered defense concepts. Advanced deception plans on the island and a SOF campaign on the mainland will be essential to Taiwanese success. The key ingredient will be belief in themselves to resist. That cant be manufactured. Should they be able to repel an attempted invasion that will fundamentally alter the strategic balance in Asia for decades to come. This is why their success is important to the entire region.
America has abandoned strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan. Some see this as a striking change in policy. It isn’t. The ‘one China’ policy was always a sophisticated diplomatic balance between agreeing the PRC and Republic of China (ROC) were one and the same in theory, but their union could only be achieved peacefully on the basis of mutual agreement. In order to ensure that outcome, the United States agreed to continue to supply the ROC with advanced weapons systems to maintain the balance of power and thereby ensure a peaceful transition should one be so desired. Previously, strategic circumstances were such that a direct US commitment to the defense of the ROC was unnecessary. As the CCP has escalated its rhetoric and military activities against the ROC (and it must be added, Japan), the United States has felt it necessary to drop the ambiguity as a hedge against intensifying Chinese operations. This is the right policy so long as the US is willing and able to back it up.
The ROC is of significant strategic value because of its dominance of the global semi conductor market and also because of its democratic values and vital geostrategic position astride sea lines of communication (on the surface and on the sea bed). Taiwan is what America always hoped the PRC would become over decades of exposure to capitalism. This was a factor in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet empire.
However, more attention needed to be paid in Washington to the fact that whereas Gorbachev decided not to send in the tanks in 1989, Deng Xiaoping did. His economic reforms and absence of expensive military conflict positioned Chinese authoritarianism to survive and prosper as Russian communism disappeared due to the burden of military spending and a broken economy. Tellingly, Afghanistan was the Soviet Union’s nadir.
A final point needs to be made about American policy toward Ukraine and Taiwan. As things have fallen apart, Putin has struggled to pin the blame on NATO. Anticipating this, the United States and its allies have been masterful at not crossing a threshold of support that would make Putin’s claims plausible. Thus claims of defending the homeland against external aggression, which are necessary for both internal political and nuclear escalation justification reasons, have fallen flat except to the ‘true believers’ who would support Putin no matter how desperate he gets.
A central tenant of this NATO restraint beyond the reasons already cited, has been Russian nuclear capabilities and threats to use them. According to Russian nuclear doctrine, Russia will only use such weapons
“in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” Or the “arrival [of] reliable data on a launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies” or an “attack by [an] adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions.”
This is why Russian annexation of the eastern regions of Ukraine are perceived by the Russians as technically needed in order to attempt to frame conventional “aggression against the Russian Federation”.
However, it is important to recall that the US gave security guarantees to Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. The specifics of those guarantees are contained in the Budapest Memorandum. It is not the same as the US nuclear umbrella offered to treaty partners like Japan, South Korea or Australia. Frankly, I have never believed in the umbrella in any context. Risking escalation to general nuclear war between Russia and the US for a strike on Canberra? The only thing that mattered was the Russians believed it. Perhaps they did in the Cold War. But now? Against a non-umbrella state? Not at all.
Russia has already flagrantly violated all the other clauses of the Budapest Memorandum. Point 5, dealing with nuclear weapons has not been tested, yet. It states
[The parties] reaffirm, in the case of Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State.
I suspect the current Administration had this in mind WRT to reluctance to cross an imaginary line of support for Ukraine. It is imaginary because we do not know where that line might lie in reality and we really dont want to find out.
Looking at things from Putin's perspective (to the extent a former Australian sitting in America can see things from Putin’s eyes) he is running out of options fast. His conventional military is likely past its culmination point. That does not mean the “war will be over by Christmas”. It may take a year or two yet. Gettysburg was nearly 2 years before Appomattox. But it seems pretty clear that Russia is unable to take much, if anything of Ukraine, and may in fact lose Crimea. Nor will Ukraine negotiate. Winners don't concede. Unless they are forced too. Putin might think a singular tactical nuke will bring about that outcome. He might also judge that America and the EU will finally be divided over deciding a COA. But this would be a mistake. Just this week, 15 NATO allies raised concerns that the alliance “must not give in to Putin’s nuclear blackmail. Given the rising volume and scale of Russia’s nuclear rhetoric, allies requested continued consultations at NATO to ensure continued readiness"
Putin has drastically miscalculated on EU and NATO unity already. This has resulted in a catastrophe for Russia. It lost a neutral buffer state and gained a substantially enhanced NATO force spread directly along its 830m border with Finland. Additionally, the Finns have a proud legacy of victory against a numerically superior Russian force in the 1939-40 war. Russian threats against those joining NATO are falling on deaf ears. Intelligence on both sides of the line point to a second Finish war ending like the first. Even a conventional escalation of the war in Ukraine to include an attack on Finland as punishment for joining NATO would force Putin to fight a two front war that would be the end of the Russian army, or what’s left of it.
Any NATO retaliation to a Russian nuclear weapon that remains under a nuclear threshold will be seen as weak and invite further Russian aggression. Yet a nuclear retaliation by NATO will trigger escalation to general nuclear war - according to both Russian doctrine and even the terms of the Budapest Memorandum. Thus Putin has a first mover advantage in using a tactical nuke. This would be the ultimate last option. His mobilization appears to be failing and stirring up trouble at home. If his "professional" army failed against Ukraine it is hard to see how a conscript army of unmotivated or even antagonistic troops will fare any better.
One is reminded of Hitler’s “Nero Decree” - to destroy Germany in order to leave Russia a pile of ashes as its spoils of war. As fanatical as the Nazi’s were, they largely did not execute the order. Even Paris was saved by its Nazi governor who refused orders to raze the city. Short of a special operation to deny Putin the ability to issue a Nero Decree (I have some ideas on this), the fate of humanity hangs on a willingness of Putin insiders to act against the dictator. This is not something I’d bet the farm on, because any move, if it fails, results in certain death - the Valkyrie scenario. Yet ironically, failure to remove him also results in certain death, it would just take longer and come at the point of an American ICBM.
This raises the last and most important point about a future war with China. How is it that the US has been so careful to avoid directly confronting Russia and yet has been so willing to directly confront a nuclear armed China over Taiwan? This contradiction is baffling. So too is the conundrum posed by former SECDEF Robert Gates in 2011
“When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect,” he quipped. “We have never once gotten it right, from the Mayaguez to Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Kuwait, Iraq, and more – we had no idea a year before any of these missions that we would be so engaged. The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq – invading, pacifying, and administering a large third world country – may be low.” Gates said. In the coup de grace he added “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia … should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”
This is sound advice but there is a problem. Even if we wanted to, the entire US military could not take and pacify Shanghai - assuming we would not be greeted as liberators - let alone a province of the PRC. So sending a big land army into Asia proper is off the table. Yet at the same time, in any conceivable shooting war scenario we would have to attack key C4ISR nodes on the Chinese mainland in order to degrade their forward units. That in turn would automatically escalate into nuclear brinkmanship. Cyber offers great possibilities for more stealthy options that might exclude large scale civilian infrastructure impacts, but will the Chinese merely accept that as the cost of war? If they did, then US cities would be exposed to a Chinese cyber retaliation. At the same time some believe that cyber operations should be treated the same as kinetic missions - namely acts of war inviting a kinetic or greater response.
All of the above assumes the CCP does not start a shooting war the way I would - by nuking Guam and EMPing Hawaii. The Guam option is another under assessed ‘unconventional nuclear warfare’ scenario. Destruction of the outpost would be militarily catastrophic and have war-terminating implications for the ability of the US to prosecute a conventional war against the PLA. More significantly, the Chinese would be putting any retaliatory escalation threat to general nuclear war back on the United States. Washington would know, and likely not risk, that the next Chinese response to an American nuke on Hainan island (a proportionate exchange for Guam), would have to be a major American city. Consequently, in all likelihood America would have to concede that without Guam, and with INDOPACOM incapacitated, the chances of success of future operations against the Chinese aggressors would be so low as to not be worth the risk and capitulation the only viable option compared to MAD. It should be noted with concern that we have no plans for this or similar contingencies.
Nuclear Dangers
Here is a related piece from our sister site
Update 7 NOV 22
PLA analysis above is confirmed by a new study issued by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Its headline findings touch on exactly the same issues noted in this Third Offset Report. For example, the problem of Commissar officers has not improved since my interactions with PLA leaders. Mission command is a long way off, and NCOs remain a critical weakness.
As stated in the above assessment, culture is the critical component. Strategic culture, military culture, service culture, and the cultural traditions and values of the society from which the force is generated. There is a big difference between buying a capable order of battle and successfully fielding it against a mature and well practiced foe steeped in long range expeditionary global joint ops.
Executive summary of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission study follows:
Xi Jinping has had continued doubts about personnel competence and loyalty since becoming the Chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2012, and thus has focused on both force modernization and Party loyalty. Despite this emphasis, many commanders are still judged as incapable of properly assessing situations, making operational decisions, deploying forces, or leading forces in a modern, joint, informationized war.
The PLA remains concerned about improving political officers’ operational knowledge, seeking to make political officers an asset rather than a liability in the command tent. Political officers and Party Committees within the PLA are emphasized as the key conduit for ensuring Party control and often play a key role in unit affairs, including in personnel issues and day-to-day training and operations. They often struggle to play a productive role in the latter, however.
The PLA has emphasized recruitment of college-educated and more technically proficient personnel at all levels since 2009. It has succeeded in recruiting more educated personnel, though it continues to face serious challenges with retention and proper utilization of talent.
The PLA has also worked to improve the professionalism of its non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps through a range of new initiatives, with the goal of increasing NCO responsibilities and allowing NCOs to take over billets previously held by junior officers.
Significant changes have been made to improve training and standardize bases and academic institutions, while basic training times have nearly doubled. Most significantly, in 2020 the PLA shifted from a single conscription cycle per year to two cycles per year, with the aim of eliminating uneven levels of unit combat-readiness at certain times of the year.
While progress has been uneven, the sum of these initiatives is likely to produce a PLA that is more educated, professionalized, and technically proficient in the coming years.
This assessment intentionally differentiates the CCP (which is both a political and military apparatus - the PLA is a party military) from the Chinese people. This is because in so many instances the CCP fears the people - however defined.
Being politically attacked has flummoxed the normally apolitical armed services. At the recent Army conference, Secretary Wormuth and senior generals appeared to stumble when it came to public messaging in response to these attacks. This threat to civil-military relations will only grow into the future and the military must get its hands around it if it is to, first, be able to recruit from a shrinking pool that is ever increasing in diversity, and second, continue to enjoy the support of a society with growing cleavages that have been artificially created by entertainers (some masquerading as politicians) who wittingly or not, are stooges for eastern European dictators.
Even raising this issue is uncomfortable in a military where apolitical treatment of strategic questions is essential to getting to the right, or least worse, answers for how to defend the nation. But at the same time, those so engaged in these activities are playing on this discomfort and owning the Army in the process. Of course when attacked by partisans any response can be itself painted as partisan, which makes it impossible to be or appear apolitical. It's a nice trick for the attacker. This is why President Eisenhower did not get in the gutter with McCarthy. But as he discovered, you cannot ignore these kinds of attacks - they have to be confronted or else they will fester to the attackers advantage.
This problem is not new. The last time it happened it was allowed to fester for a long time before the Army shut it down. Senator Joe McCarthy accused wartime legend Gen George C. Marshall of being a Soviet agent and engaging in an anti-American "conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.” In the same vein, years later a McCarthyite accused President Eisenhower of being “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy”, and his brother Milton as the President’s “superior and boss within the Communist party”.
Joseph Nye Welch the chief counsel for the US Army which McCarthy and his chief counsel Roy Cohn accused of being run by Soviet agents, finally got fed up and confronted the Senator in what is now understood as the culminating point of McCarthyism:
"Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness… You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”