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【香港保衛戰當年今日・五】

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diff --git a/columns.xml b/columns.xml index 8d59b5fd..80fe0eea 100644 --- a/columns.xml +++ b/columns.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2023-12-22T16:01:05+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns.xmlThe Republic of Agora | ColumnsUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII理解宋朝・王安石【2】唯财是举2023-11-12T12:00:00+08:002023-11-12T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns/understand-the-song-dynasty-wang-anshi-2-money-first<p>王安石的“天道”，落到现实中，最重要的就是理财。这并非因为什么北宋朝廷“积贫积弱”，而是“先王之意”就是如此。</p> +Jekyll2023-12-24T12:49:48+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns.xmlThe Republic of Agora | ColumnsUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII理解宋朝・王安石【2】唯财是举2023-11-12T12:00:00+08:002023-11-12T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/columns/understand-the-song-dynasty-wang-anshi-2-money-first<p>王安石的“天道”，落到现实中，最重要的就是理财。这并非因为什么北宋朝廷“积贫积弱”，而是“先王之意”就是如此。</p> <!--more--> diff --git a/feed.xml b/feed.xml index 6ae0267f..e0e8cfb3 100644 --- a/feed.xml +++ b/feed.xml @@ -1 +1 @@ -Jekyll2023-12-22T16:01:05+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/feed.xmlThe Republic of AgoraUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII \ No newline at end of file +Jekyll2023-12-24T12:49:48+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/feed.xmlThe Republic of AgoraUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/heros.xml b/heros.xml index a84e234a..bc5122a3 100644 --- a/heros.xml +++ b/heros.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2023-12-22T16:01:05+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HerosUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII左翼政治的马氏难题2023-10-19T12:00:00+08:002023-10-19T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros/Anonymous-a1_l-the-machiavellian-dilemma-of-left-wing-politics<p>廿世纪中叶处于冷战风口浪尖的法国，对苏立场成为当时知识分子的分界线。</p> +Jekyll2023-12-24T12:49:48+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HerosUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII左翼政治的马氏难题2023-10-19T12:00:00+08:002023-10-19T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/heros/Anonymous-a1_l-the-machiavellian-dilemma-of-left-wing-politics<p>廿世纪中叶处于冷战风口浪尖的法国，对苏立场成为当时知识分子的分界线。</p> <!--more--> diff --git a/hkers.xml b/hkers.xml index 2b62d38d..342fd1b4 100644 --- a/hkers.xml +++ b/hkers.xml @@ -1,4 +1,295 @@ -Jekyll2023-12-22T16:01:05+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HkersUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIIIGetting On Track2023-12-18T12:00:00+08:002023-12-18T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/getting-on-track<p><em>The conflict in Ukraine has made it clear that missiles “are foundational to adversaries’ way of war.” Future missile threats, however, increasingly stress existing missile defenses, flying lower, faster, and on unpredictable trajectories. Most importantly, they are difficult to detect — defeating them will require elevated sensors, on aircraft or satellites, to track them at range.</em> <excerpt></excerpt> <em>As the Department of Defense begins to deploy a space-based sensor constellation, Getting on Track unpacks the design tradeoffs involved and key pitfalls to avoid. Using advanced simulation tools, the authors underscore the necessity of diversifying satellite orbits, designing constellations for early, persistent coverage, and retaining requirements for fire-control-capable sensors.</em></p> +Jekyll2023-12-24T12:49:48+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers.xmlThe Republic of Agora | HkersUNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIIINATO To Protect Undersea2023-12-19T12:00:00+08:002023-12-19T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/nato-to-protect-undersea<p><em>NATO is not ready to mitigate increasingly prevalent Russian aggression against European critical undersea infrastructure (CUI).</em> <excerpt></excerpt> <em>Despite its depleted ground forces and strained military industrial base, Russian hybrid tactics remains the most pressing threat to CUI in northern Europe. Despite its current limitations, NATO is the primary actor capable of deterring and preventing hybrid attacks on its allies and has expedited its approach to CUI protection by establishing new organizations to that aim. At the 2023 NATO Vilnius summit, allies agreed to establish the Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure within NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM), which focuses on preparing for, deterring, and defending against the coercive use of energy and other hybrid tactics. To help NATO planners and staff at the new center conceptualize and prioritize their efforts, this issue brief provides immediate and long-term recommendations to set the new center up for success.</em></p> + +<h3 id="introduction">INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<p>NATO is not prepared to defend its allies’ critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) from increasingly prevalent Russian hybrid tactics. The recent Balticconnector pipeline incident highlighted the risk of deliberate damage to CUI across Europe. It follows last year’s Nord Stream pipeline explosions, among other incidents, and bears the hallmarks of sabotage. Europe’s expansive and growing network of undersea infrastructure will remain vulnerable to attacks aimed at disrupting transatlantic cohesion and economic activity, undermining Western support for Ukraine, and shaping potential future military operations.</p> + +<p>Threats to undersea infrastructure are not new. In 2016 U.S. vice admiral James Foggo and Alarik Fritz warned of a “fourth battle of the Atlantic,” which included threats to “underwater infrastructure — such as oil rigs and telecommunications cables.” In 2017 the UK chief of the defence staff went public with previously classified Russian threats to undersea cables that posed a “new risk to our way of life,” while member of the UK Parliament Rishi Sunak (now UK prime minister) demanded enhanced protection of undersea data cables. Yet the Nord Stream incident has catalyzed a new focus in Europe on CUI resilience, including national, multinational, and institutional efforts through NATO and the European Union. Notably, this included the launch of a new NATO Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure at the Vilnius summit in July 2023.</p> + +<p>This issue brief examines NATO’s role in protecting CUI in more detail. It proceeds in four parts: It begins by assessing the threat “seascape” for CUI in northern Europe, including how the threat might evolve and how Europe has responded so far. The paper then turns to NATO’s approach to date, summarizing the key NATO initiatives related to CUI protection. The third part looks in more detail at the challenge of protecting CUI, proposing a basic framework to help understand the vast problem space. The final section draws on this framework to develop several immediate and longer-term recommendations to help planners in NATO’s new center prioritize their efforts.</p> + +<h3 id="the-evolution-of-threats-to-undersea-infrastructure-in-northern-europe">THE EVOLUTION OF THREATS TO UNDERSEA INFRASTRUCTURE IN NORTHERN EUROPE</h3> + +<p>The war in Ukraine has radically altered the threat landscape across Europe, particularly in the north. As the alliance remains focused on supporting Ukraine and shoring up its eastern flank, Sweden’s and Finland’s membership bids will provide new opportunities to deter Russian aggression in the Baltic and Arctic regions. But recent examples of CUI interference highlight vulnerabilities that will not be easily remedied. The sabotage of two Nord Stream pipelines off the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022 forced European governments to grapple with their limited ability to deter and defend against hybrid tactics in the undersea domain. Recent damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and a data cable between Finland and Estonia in October 2023 from a ship’s anchor is suspected as being deliberate, although attribution has not yet been declared.</p> + +<p>In this context, the main focus of critical maritime infrastructure debates has shifted from emphasis on terrorism and cyber threats toward the increasing frequency and efficacy of hybrid tactics. The aim of hybrid tactics is to cause significant damage to an adversary while operating below the threshold of detection, attribution, and response — and in so doing blur the conceptual lines between conflict and peace. The issue is compounded in the maritime realm by several conceptual and practical challenges, mainly related to poor definitions highly dependent on moral or political choices, a unique geophysical space, and the multitude of potential threats.</p> + +<p>Russian hybrid tactics represent the most pressing threat to CUI in northern Europe. Russia’s war against Ukraine has debilitated its ground forces and strained its military industrial base. Experts estimate it will take the Kremlin five to ten years to reconstitute its military. Meanwhile, however, Russia’s power projection capabilities in northern Europe — through naval, air, and missile bases in Kaliningrad and its Northern Fleet of submarines on the Kola Peninsula — have scarcely been depleted. In fact, while the Russian navy is underfunded and a large part of its fleet comprises Soviet legacy platforms, its underwater capacity continues to grow. In particular, Russia’s submarine program remains a priority amid other military budget cuts, exemplified by the Kremlin’s authorization of 13 new nuclear and conventional submarines since 2014. In broader terms, Russia’s ability to target critical infrastructure short of war and impose economic costs to deter external intervention in regional conflicts is an important component to Moscow’s doctrine and thinking on escalation management.</p> + +<p>However, even in the absence of a broader Russia-NATO conflict, hybrid tactics have been a staple in the Kremlin’s toolbox in Europe for years. As the Kremlin views itself in perpetual conflict with the West, hybrid tactics are instrumental to challenging NATO without resorting to conventional military means. Russia has likely targeted critical infrastructure throughout Europe at an increased frequency since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the undersea domain, Russia appears committed to mapping and threatening European energy and communications infrastructure, particularly strategically important Norwegian gas pipelines and fiber-optic cables.</p> + +<p>The Nord Stream attacks resulted in a flurry of initiatives to bolster Europe’s CUI. The European Union has updated its maritime strategy to better address evolving threats and adopted an expanded directive on CUI resilience, and the EU-NATO Task Force on Resilience of Critical Infrastructure was launched in January and reported its findings in June. The EU Hybrid Toolbox, including the Hybrid Fusion Cell and new Hybrid Rapid Response Teams, support member states and NATO to detect, deter, and respond to threats. More recently, the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Force ( JEF) agreed to focus on protecting CUI in its new vision and deployed a maritime task force in response to the Balticconnector incident to deter further attacks. Bilateral examples include the recent UK-Norway strategic partnership on undersea threats. Many nations have also expanded their ability to monitor and protect undersea infrastructure: France recently announced a new seabed warfare strategy and investments in ocean floor defense, and the United Kingdom has set up a Centre for Seabed Mapping and earmarked two new Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance (MROS) vessels to serve primarily as subsea protection ships.</p> + +<h3 id="protecting-critical-undersea-infrastructure-a-new-focus-for-nato">PROTECTING CRITICAL UNDERSEA INFRASTRUCTURE: A NEW FOCUS FOR NATO</h3> + +<p>While many stakeholders have increased their efforts to protect CUI, NATO remains the lead actor when it comes to deterring and preventing conventional and hybrid attacks on allies. NATO’s role in protecting CUI is grounded in its founding principles, such as Articles 2 and 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which call for the strengthening of free institutions, economic collaboration, and growing resilience to attack. At the 2023 Vilnius summit, allies reiterated that hybrid operations against the alliance could meet the threshold of armed attack and trigger Article 5, NATO’s collective defense guarantee.</p> + +<h4 id="the-value-of-nato">THE VALUE OF NATO</h4> + +<p>Today, the functioning of allied civil society and the prosperity of member states depends on the extensive network of CUI across the Euro-Atlantic. NATO is critical to its protection for several reasons.</p> + +<p>First, Russia — the primary threat — has the intent and capability, and it maximizes its opportunity to threaten allied CUI across NATO’s area of operational responsibility. Moreover, the destruction, disruption, or tapping of CUI could be the precursor to conflict through attempting to sever military and government communications. Second, the protection of CUI is part of NATO’s defense and deterrence posture across the Euro-Atlantic. As hybrid attacks on CUI may meet the threshold for armed attack, NATO must be heavily invested in their protection to ensure it can act decisively.</p> + +<p>Third, CUI spans NATO’s entire area of operational responsibility, so maintaining seamless situational awareness across the whole network is a challenge far too large for individual nations. Fourth, the challenge of protecting CUI will increasingly rely on technological solutions, and NATO possesses the financial heft and mechanisms to develop and scale these. Finally, there are complex political, legal, and technical considerations for the effective protection of CUI, and seams between national permissions and restrictions can create frictions best managed at the NATO level.</p> + +<h4 id="natos-approach">NATO’S APPROACH</h4> + +<p>NATO has been both proactive and reactive to CUI threats. In broad terms, NATO protects CUI in three ways. First, all of NATO’s forces contribute to the alliance’s Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA), which coheres all activity by region and domain. Many capabilities that contribute to CUI protection also contribute to wider deterrence activities, including standing naval and mine countermeasures groups and CUI-focused exercises.</p> + +<p>Second, NATO assets detect threats through intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities and space and cyber assets to gain and maintain situational awareness. Moreover, NATO can develop and scale new technologies to increase detection coverage, such as the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) pilot challenges, which include a focus on energy resilience and sensing and surveillance. The alliance’s new Digital Ocean Concept was endorsed in October 2023 to increase collective visibility of oceans, including</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>the creation of a global scale network of sensors, from sea bed to space, to better predict, identify, classify and combat threats. It envisages maritime domain awareness, subsea sensors, unmanned surface vessels, drones and satellites, and exploits AI [artificial intelligence], big data, and autonomous systems, alongside conventional assets.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Third, NATO has a range of response options once an incident or attack occurs, including counter hybrid support teams, the NATO Response Force (NRF) and Very High Readiness Task Force (VJTF), and ad hoc force deployments, such as the enhanced maritime patrol and mine hunter deployments in the Baltic Sea. National missions and regional frameworks outside of NATO command structures can also bolster deterrence against threats to CUI, including the JEF and the aforementioned EU initiatives.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/oQzj8nb.png" alt="image01" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Table 1: European Institutions Relevant for Protecting CUI.</strong> Source: Authors’ compilation.</em></p> + +<h4 id="natos-new-centers">NATO’S NEW CENTERS</h4> + +<p>In response to recent incidents in the Baltic Sea, NATO has expedited its approach to CUI protection by establishing two new organizations. In February 2023 the Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell was created at NATO headquarters. The rationale was to coordinate allied activity; bring military and civilian stakeholders together by facilitating engagement with private industry, which owns much of the infrastructure; and better protect CUI through jointly detecting and responding to threats. This new cell will be instrumental in building coordination across all the organizations, policies, and capabilities identified in Table 1 both within and external to NATO.</p> + +<p>Then, at the July 2023 Vilnius summit, allies agreed to establish the Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure within NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM). This new center focuses on</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>identifying and mitigating strategic vulnerabilities and dependencies . . . to prepare for, deter and defend against the coercive use of energy and other hybrid tactics by state and non-state actors. . . . NATO stands ready to support Allies if and when requested.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The center arrives at a crucial time for NATO as both new threats to CUI and new initiatives to deal with them proliferate across the alliance and beyond. To help NATO planners and staff at the new center conceptualize and prioritize their efforts, the next section considers in more detail the problem of protecting CUI.</p> + +<h3 id="understanding-threats-to-critical-undersea-infrastructure-a-conceptual-framework">UNDERSTANDING THREATS TO CRITICAL UNDERSEA INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK</h3> + +<p>This section develops a basic framework for thinking about protecting CUI. The purpose is to help NATO planners — particularly those in the new center — to understand the vast problem space and prioritize some initial efforts over others. The following section draws on this framework to develop several recommendations. The four elements of the framework for protecting CUI are outlined below.</p> + +<ol> + <li> + <p><strong>Infrastructure type:</strong> What counts as CUI? Which parts are most critical or most vulnerable?</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Threat type:</strong> What are the main threats to undersea CUI?</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Tasks:</strong> What is NATO’s role in protecting CUI?</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Geography:</strong> Where should limited resources be prioritized and focused across the Euro-Atlantic area?</p> + </li> +</ol> + +<h4 id="1-infrastructure-type">1. INFRASTRUCTURE TYPE</h4> + +<p>Maritime infrastructure is vital to basic societal functions such as trade, food and energy supplies, security and defense, communications, transport, tourism, and environmental management. The most important infrastructure is usually considered “critical,” meaning without it, society could not function for long. But critical infrastructure differs between nations given that some economies depend on fishing or tourism while others rely more on maritime trade, energy infrastructure, or data cables. What counts as CUI, therefore, is often more of a political decision than a technical one. There is no one-size-fits-all definition: it depends on the nation and region in question.</p> + +<p>Maritime infrastructure is often categorized by sector. One classification system lists five types: transport, energy, communication, fishing, and marine ecosystems. Of these, four have substantial elements of underwater infrastructure. Above-water transport is often precluded, while commercial submersibles — such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) used in pipeline maintenance — are considered part of the energy infrastructure they serve.</p> + +<p>Maritime infrastructure security policies traditionally focus on maritime transport (e.g., ports) and energy (e.g., gas and oil infrastructure) over other types. However, the infrastructure picture is changing rapidly. Undersea cable projects have proliferated in recent years, while offshore renewable energy technologies like wind and tidal systems will increase to help nations meet global carbon emissions targets. Future proliferation of AUVs — driven by new oil and gas exploration, military applications, reduced manufacturing costs, and improvements in AI and automation technology — could present both new types of CUI under the category of transport and new threats. As the recent NATO-EU task force on critical infrastructure summarizes,</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>These challenges are compounded for undersea energy infrastructure, which is extensive and more difficult to survey and protect. Moreover, the network of undersea energy infrastructure in the Euro-Atlantic area is expected to grow as offshore energy platforms become more numerous.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Meanwhile, fishing and marine ecosystems are increasingly important to some nations as fishing stocks decrease and marine habitats are degraded by pollution and the effects of climate change.</p> + +<p>Beyond rapid change, there are several challenges associated with coordinating CUI protection, including interdependence, the physical characteristics of the subsea domain, and the complex, transnational nature of undersea infrastructure. Meanwhile, fishing and marine ecosystems are increasingly important to some nations as fishing stocks decrease and marine habitats are degraded by pollution and the effects of climate change. This suggests a key challenge for NATO will be prioritizing between CUI sectors, which are critical to different NATO allies. This assessment will be driven to some extent by the next element of the framework: the threat picture.</p> + +<h4 id="2-threat">2. THREAT</h4> + +<p>Although most definitions of critical infrastructure depend on how vital it is to the functioning of society, in practice governments tend to designate infrastructure as critical if it is vulnerable to harm. While pipeline sabotage has driven the headlines, the range of threats to CUI is much broader. The threat picture has also changed in recent years.</p> + +<p>Maritime security threats have been driven by the rise of terrorism, international piracy, human trafficking, and the “blue economy,” defined by the World Bank as “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and ocean ecosystem health.” Protection of maritime and undersea infrastructure has typically focused on physical attacks from terrorism and blue crime (i.e., transnational organized crime at sea). However, the threat environment has changed markedly over the last decade — and drastically since 2022. After invading Ukraine, Russia became “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security,” according to NATO’s new Strategic Concept — a threat that includes the ability to “target our civilian and military infrastructure.”</p> + +<p>NATO’s new concept also points to hybrid threats to critical infrastructure and reaffirms their inclusion under Article 5. The maritime domain has been viewed as particularly vulnerable to hybrid threats. Attacks on underwater infrastructure have been a particular concern. Recent events appear to confirm these fears, with several incidents such as the Nord Stream pipeline explosions in the Baltic Sea or severed subsea cables near Svalbard that appear to follow the hybrid playbook of deniable attacks on undersea infrastructure. These incidents highlight the difficulty of dealing with ambiguous hybrid threats, which are difficult to distinguish from accidental damage. For example, around 70 percent of undersea cable faults are caused by fishing vessels or ship anchors, alongside natural causes or even shark bites.</p> + +<p>Hybrid aggressors can also use the cover of fishing, private, or research vessels, which are difficult to track. The rapid proliferation of AUVs will exacerbate the problem. Specialized vessels for the task also exist, such as Russia’s dedicated fleet of submarines, designed for infrastructure sabotage and manned by the Russian navy and the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI). Research vessels operated by GUGI are suspected of mapping networks of undersea infrastructure across Europe.</p> + +<p>For all these reasons, many assessments suggest a new era of hybrid threats is emerging and poses “a particular challenge” to protecting undersea infrastructure. As the NATO-EU task force puts it, “The seabed is a field of growing strategic importance, due to increasing reliance on undersea infrastructure and the particular challenges in protecting it from hybrid threats and physical damage.”</p> + +<h4 id="3-tasks">3. TASKS</h4> + +<p>The final element of the framework comprises the tasks and missions NATO may have to carry out to protect CUI. The most important role, short of war, is deterrence, which holds the promise of avoiding armed attacks altogether. Beyond deterrence, military forces perform a wide range of roles relevant to protecting CUI.</p> + +<p>One example is counterpiracy. During Operation Ocean Shield — NATO’s contribution to international efforts to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa during 2008–16 — the role of NATO forces spanned surveillance, interdiction, escort, and deterrence. Cooperation with international bodies and the private sector was also vital to mission success, which contributed to the cessation of attacks after 2012.</p> + +<p>Another relevant example is protecting national infrastructure. The U.S. National Infrastructure Protection Plan outlines threats to national infrastructure and a framework of missions to protect them. These are divided into two tasks: counterthreat missions and preparedness missions.</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>Counterthreat missions identify and counter threats and hazards: identify, deter, detect, disrupt, and prepare.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Preparedness missions reduce vulnerabilities and mitigate the consequences of damage: prevent, protect, mitigate, respond, recover.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>More broadly, several existing frameworks for countering hybrid threats may be applied to protecting CUI. NATO’s strategy is to “prepare, deter, defend,” while the European Union’s approach is based on “awareness, resilience, and response.” Another framework is proposed by the 14-nation Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC): “detect, deter, and respond.” This framework is used to examine NATO’s role in protecting CUI regarding all three functions below.</p> + +<h4 id="detect">DETECT</h4> + +<p>Countering any threat requires first detecting and identifying it. Detection is even more important for hybrid threats, which rely on deniability or ambiguity to delay, complicate, or prevent reprisal. However, the variety and complexity of hybrid threats make detection challenging.</p> + +<p>For protecting CUI, the main focus is on enhancing maritime domain awareness (MDA). MDA systems are “one of the core solutions in maritime security” but are focused on civil transport, fishing, and leisure. To rectify this, a 2018 report by CSIS advocates a renewed focus on undersea MDA to combat hybrid threats. Specific recommendations include establishing dedicated analytic centers (with teams focused on hybrid threats), training courses, a common classified data picture, and an operational framework that integrates surface and subsurface sensors. Another recent analysis recommends closing gaps in the surveillance of small boats, leisure craft, and underwater vehicles through “investments in new underwater sensors and drones which can enhance the overall picture of the domain.” The recent EU-NATO Task Force also recommends enhancing “maritime situational awareness.”</p> + +<p>One detection challenge is that malign activity often appears, by design, as an accident, whereas some suspected attacks could actually be accidents (most damage to cables and pipelines is accidental). This means NATO does not have the luxury of ignoring apparent accidents. Here, a conceptual distinction between monitoring (known threats) and discovering (new, unknown threats) can help establish situational awareness and distinguish signal from noise in the realm of detection. This task is also well suited to advances in AI and machine learning.</p> + +<h4 id="deter">DETER</h4> + +<p>Deterring hybrid threats to CUI is difficult but not impossible. The most promising strategy is deterrence by denial, which reduces the prospects of successful attack by hardening the target and strengthening resilience to damage. Denial in this context comprises two functions: prevention and resilience (see Figure 3). Preventing attacks is part of NATO’s core business and is achieved through a combination of detection (see above) and physical presence. For example, NATO’s Cold War deterrence strategy of basing substantial “shield forces” in central Europe was designed to physically prevent a Soviet attack.</p> + +<p>Resilience measures are designed to help CUI systems withstand or quickly recover from any damage sustained. Much of this amounts to good practice in the design and management of critical infrastructure systems. Such measures are therefore generally low cost and less reliant on detecting threats; best practices for resilience are based on understanding and mitigating one’s own vulnerabilities, regardless of whether they have been targeted. This is why resilience measures have become foundational to counter hybrid strategies. However, resilience building is a long-term strategy that will take years to deliver given the vast size and complexity of Euro-Atlantic CUI.</p> + +<h4 id="respond">RESPOND</h4> + +<p>Moreover, resilience is not a strategy on its own; deterrence by punishment also has a role. When it comes to punishing low-level aggression, celerity beats severity most of the time, putting a premium on credible response options that can be deployed quickly and reliably. These measures may not threaten vital interests but merely assure an aggressor will always face some costs for threatening CUI, however minor. This means simple measures such as enhanced presence or surveillance around key sites can work to deliver what has been referred to as “deterrence by detection.” More creative measures also play a role, such as attribution disclosure, legal interventions, or targeted sanctions (e.g., against implicated vessels, companies, or individuals).</p> + +<p>That credible responses are required suggests the utility of a preapproved playbook to counter hybrid threats to CUI. Too often such measures are ad hoc or post hoc, or not sufficiently tailored to the specific demands of protecting CUI. If military forces are part of the response (e.g., to provide surveillance or bolster presence), then a forward, flexible posture is required to ensure force elements are in the area of responsibility or held at high readiness to deploy to quickly generate effects.</p> + +<p>It is important to note that given the limited resources of allies, any increase in demand to protect CUI will likely require trade-offs with other tasks and missions. Any contribution to protecting CUI is important but not all-important. NATO’s unique role — and the focus of the strategic concept — remains deterring armed attack above the threshold of war, not protecting against all forms of hybrid aggression. Protecting CUI should therefore not be overemphasized in NATO’s overall posture or capability development at the expense of conventional deterrence and defense.</p> + +<h4 id="4-geography">4. GEOGRAPHY</h4> + +<p>The final element of the framework is geography. NATO is named after an ocean: the North Atlantic. But the alliance’s undersea infrastructure picture is more complex. NATO’s maritime areas of responsibility comprise the following:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>High North region (including the Norwegian Sea, Greenland Sea, Barents Sea, and Arctic Ocean)</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Baltic Sea</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>North Atlantic (including the North Sea, Irish Sea, English Channel, and Bay of Biscay)</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Mediterranean Sea (east and west)</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Black Sea</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>North Pacific Ocean</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>Within these areas, the seascape of undersea infrastructure is extensive and complex. Figures 1–2 show the extent of underwater energy infrastructure (Figure 1) and subsea data cables (Figure 2) across Europe.</p> + +<p>While data cables are uniformly spread across the Euro-Atlantic area, the picture is different for energy infrastructure, which is concentrated in northern Europe — namely the North Atlantic (North Sea) and High North (Norwegian Sea). This supply is critical to Europe: in the second quarter of 2023, the European Union imported 44.3 percent of its natural gas (in gaseous state) from Norway and 17.8 percent from the United Kingdom. That 16.5 percent was from Algeria (through three subsea Mediterranean pipelines) also shows the importance of energy infrastructure in southern Europe. This could increase in the future with new projects (such as the EastMed pipeline) and new gas field discoveries as Europe diversifies away from Russian supply. Offshore wind energy infrastructure (along with subsea electrical cables) is also concentrated in northern Europe but present in significant amounts across Europe. Such infrastructure is also expanding quickly: under the European Green Deal, for example, offshore wind energy will expand over 25 times by 2030.</p> + +<p>However, any judgment about prioritizing NATO’s efforts to protect CUI in one region cannot rely on the density of infrastructure alone because all undersea infrastructure is proportionately important to each ally. In addition to including the views of all allies, any assessment must combine geography with the other elements of the framework. This task is explored in the final section of this brief.</p> + +<h3 id="recommendations-winning-the-fourth-battle-of-the-atlantic">RECOMMENDATIONS: WINNING THE FOURTH BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC</h3> + +<p>The staff at NATO’s new Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure do not have the luxury of pondering future threats. NATO’s CUI is under attack right now. This situation may worsen as Russia tries to undermine Western support for Ukraine and cheaper, more advanced AUVs enable a wider range of actors to pose a threat. As Foggo, the former commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Allied Joint Force Command Naples, puts it: “the fourth battle of the Atlantic is underway.” Like its predecessors, this battle is “a struggle between Russian forces that probe for weakness, and US and NATO anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces that protect and deter. Just like in the Cold War, the stakes are high.”</p> + +<p>NATO and its new center must therefore act quickly. The final section provides a series of recommendations for NATO planners to conceptualize and prioritize their efforts in the coming years. The recommendations comprise two parts. The first is a general assessment of initial priorities for protecting CUI based on the four-part framework developed above. The second builds on this broad assessment to propose more specific and immediate actions.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Q63FfXa.png" alt="image02" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 1: Undersea Energy Infrastructure in Northern Europe.</strong> Source: Data from <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/atlas/maritime_atlas/">“European Atlas of the Seas,” European Commission</a>.</em></p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/r6J7v97.png" alt="image03" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 2: Undersea Data Cables in Europe.</strong> Source: Data from <a href="https://www.submarinecablemap.com/">“Submarine Cable Map,” TeleGeography</a>.</em></p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/C61OqXa.png" alt="image04" /> +<em>▲ <strong>Figure 3: A Framework for Protecting Critical Undersea Infrastructure.</strong> Source: Authors’ assessment.</em></p> + +<h4 id="general-assessment-of-initial-priorities-for-protecting-cui">GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF INITIAL PRIORITIES FOR PROTECTING CUI</h4> + +<p>This section presents a general indicative assessment of NATO’s role in protecting CUI based on the framework discussed in Figure 3. The shaded area suggests where NATO’s initial focus should be for protecting CUI. This assessment is discussed in more detail below, starting with the prioritization criteria for each element.</p> + +<p><em>Infrastructure Type</em></p> + +<p>Undersea infrastructure may be prioritized for protection by considering the criticality to NATO allies and vulnerability to different threats. Doing so suggests NATO focus on protecting energy and communications infrastructure — the most critical infrastructure to many NATO allies, whose developed economies depend on either importing or exporting energy and transmitting data. Such infrastructure is also the most vulnerable to attack, as recent attacks on pipelines and undersea cables have demonstrated. If further prioritization is required, it should be driven by an analysis of resilience of energy infrastructure compared to data cables: although both are vital and vulnerable, some systems are more resilient and easier to reconfigure in the event of damage.</p> + +<p>However, it is important to remember undersea infrastructure is much broader than pipelines and cables. Many NATO allies depend on fishing, the health of their marine ecosystems, and maritime security in the broadest sense. The rapid growth of AUVs may transform the transport sector, introducing new types of CUI and new threats. Most importantly, NATO’s approach to protecting CUI will need to incorporate the preferences of all allies.</p> + +<p><em>Threat</em></p> + +<p>Threats may be prioritized by considering the likelihood and consequences of an attack. With this in mind, NATO should focus on hybrid or gray zone threats to CUI, as these are the most likely threats in the near term. At the same time, the most dangerous threat to NATO allies remains the threat of armed attack on CUI as a prelude to aggression or during conflict.</p> + +<p>Terrorism targeted at CUI remains a risk, and blue crime is ever present. But other bodies should take the lead (e.g., national police and coast guards, multinational maritime security frameworks), with NATO providing support only where necessary, as with combating large-scale piracy. NATO can contribute to awareness of accidental damage through MDA and crisis response to natural damage and disaster, but these tasks should not drive alliance force structure or posture.</p> + +<p><em>Task</em></p> + +<p>The role of NATO assets in protecting CUI may be prioritized by considering the importance of relevant tasks and their role in NATO’s Strategic Concept. Deterrence and defense is the alliance’s core task. Deterring armed aggression is NATO’s raison d’être and remains its most important task. However, NATO’s capacity to do this is dependent on its general deterrence posture and is not related to the specific problem of protecting CUI — so it is not considered a primary focus here (see Figure 3). Within the context of protecting CUI, NATO should focus on three primary tasks:</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p><strong>Detect:</strong> NATO should focus on detecting threats to CUI, as detection is the foundation of deterrence and critical for removing the cloak of ambiguity around hybrid threats. Detection can be strengthened through enhanced MDA in priority regions. This may require increasing the persistent presence of forces and assets that can contribute to MDA in the maritime, air, space, and cyberspace domains.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Deter by denial:</strong> NATO should also focus on strengthening deterrence by denial by improving the defenses that can prevent attacks in the first place. This may also require strengthening the persistent presence of allied forces in regions of concern to protect key sites, reassure vulnerable allies, and deter aggressors. Wider resilience measures can also strengthen denial, but these are judged to be a lower priority for NATO because much of this infrastructure is owned and operated by civilian enterprises, not amenable to military solutions, and already subject to extensive efforts by other actors more suited to boosting public and private sector resilience — such as the European Union.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Deter by punishment:</strong> Responses to imminent threats or attacks should prioritize speed and reliability over severity. In the context of deterring low-end hybrid threats (rather than high-end conventional threats) to CUI, this suggests the utility of maritime forces that are forward based in priority regions — or at least persistently present or rapidly deployable (i.e., held at high readiness). More broadly, existing NATO units such as countering hybrid threat teams also have a role to play in immediate incident response and recovery.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p>However, although this assessment is focused on protecting allied CUI against hybrid threats, this should not unduly warp NATO’s force posture. Any trade-offs in posture, capability, or readiness to deal with hybrid threats should not come at the expense of the credibility of NATO’s ability to deal with — and thereby deter — armed aggression.</p> + +<p><em>Region</em></p> + +<p>Not all subregions within the Euro-Atlantic area are equal when it comes to protecting CUI. The extent of regional energy infrastructure, proximity to advanced Russian undersea capabilities, and track record of recent incidents (attacks and infrastructure mapping) suggest NATO should focus initially on the Baltic, North Atlantic, and High North regions. At the same time, NATO cannot afford to ignore other regions that are critical to allies and where Russian forces and other threats (such as terrorism and blue crime) are known to operate, including the Mediterranean and Black Sea region.</p> + +<h4 id="specific-recommendations">SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS</h4> + +<p>The general assessment above, combined with the previous discussion of the four framework elements, suggests several more recommendations for NATO’s role in protecting CUI. These are divided into two parts: immediate actions that the new NATO center should implement quickly and longer-term approaches that are equally important but may take more time.</p> + +<p><em>Immediate Recommendations</em></p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p><strong>Establish a new Standing NATO Maritime Group (SNMG) focused on protecting CUI.</strong> NATO’s four standing maritime groups are in high operational demand and none are focused on protecting CUI. Considering the growing threat, NATO should consider establishing an “SNMG3” to focus on protecting CUI in northern Europe, focused on the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Norwegian Sea (the areas of highest CUI density). The JEF task group that is currently deployed is a good example but only temporary. The capabilities of the group should include submarines, anti-submarine warfare, maritime surveillance, and seabed mapping, with contributions from allies who specialize in this domain. The group would play a vital role in organizing and delivering the functions of detecting, deterring, and responding to attacks on CUI in priority regions described in this report.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Commission a CUI vulnerability triage.</strong> Any approach to enhancing resilience starts with a vulnerability assessment. An initial triage assessment of criticality versus vulnerability to a range of threats can help MARCOM and NATO direct limited resources to protecting and defending those assets most at risk. The initial assessment presented here forms a starting point, but NATO’s own assessment must consider all forms of infrastructure, threats, regions, and the preferences of all allies.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Develop a fused MDA picture.</strong> A critical step in transforming MDA to improve detection and identification of threats to CUI will be fusing the existing intelligence picture across nations, the private and public sectors, and multinational and maritime domains (e.g., air, sea, subsea, space, and cyber). Assessing the highest-priority infrastructure and threats can help identify which ISR capabilities and combinations not currently available to MARCOM are necessary to rapidly attribute malign activity.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Produce regular CUI threat assessments.</strong> NATO already produces maritime threat assessments for governments and the commercial sector that focus on threats such as terrorism — for example, through the NATO Maritime Shipping Centre (MSC). These should either be expanded to include threats to CUI or be dedicated assessments that focus on nontraditional hybrid threats to CUI.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Clarify the role of NATO’s Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell.</strong> The cell is based in NATO headquarters, but its wide remit — which includes industry and civil-military engagement, best practice, and technology — and senior leadership may overlap with the new MARCOM center. The coordination cell could perform the role the MSC did during Ocean Shield of protecting CUI, which will be even more important given CUI is mostly owned and operated by private companies.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Implement a CUI exercise program.</strong> Exercises are a vital part of NATO’s deterrence and reassurance efforts and have been stepped up over the last year. Yet CUI exercises have been limited and focused on technology. A wider CUI exercise program using existing assets would deliver wider effects to deter adversaries and reassure allies and industry partners.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Update NATO’s maritime strategy.</strong> NATO’s maritime strategy is over 12 years old, does not mention Russia or China, and mentions undersea infrastructure only in passing. It needs updating to reflect the new threat environment and NATO’s new Strategic Concept — including a focus on protecting CUI. The new center should have a lead role in producing a new strategy — or at least a “Protecting CUI” annex.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<p><em>Longer-Term Recommendations</em></p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p><strong>Develop a NATO CUI resilience strategy.</strong> Building on the vulnerability assessment, a longer-term effort that the new center could lead is developing a NATO CUI resilience strategy. This would meet NATO’s Strengthened Resilience Commitment and could inform (and be informed by) a NATO resilience planning process.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Adopt a NATO CUI preparedness goal.</strong> As part of a strengthened approach to CUI resilience, allies could commit to a NATO CUI preparedness goal to bolster national and pan-NATO approaches to preparing for attacks on CUI.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Take a risk management approach.</strong> The sheer variety of threats to CUI and the number of potential targets require an approach that prioritizes and manages risk. Even better than a risk-centric strategy would be an uncertainty-centric approach that seeks robustness against a range of unknowable threats.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Develop a CUI attack response playbook.</strong> Effective deterrence against CUI attacks requires a credible and reliable set of measures to respond to threats or attacks on CUI. A counter-CUI playbook of military (and nonmilitary) response options would help. This playbook could also be the basis of a robust exercise program.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p><strong>Adopt a framework nation approach to regional CUI protection.</strong> A regional framework nation approach to protecting CUI could help tailor CUI protection to the differing concerns of regional allies. One example is the JEF, newly focused on protecting northern Europe’s CUI. Whatever the framework, any regional approach to protecting CUI should be directed by the alliance’s DDA concept, NATO’s guiding framework for all operations short of war, and align with new regional plans agreed at the Vilnius summit.</p> + </li> +</ul> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Sean Monaghan</strong> is a visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focuses on NATO, European security, and defense. His career as a civil servant in the UK Ministry of Defence has focused on international defense policy, including NATO, the European Union, and the United States. In recent years, his work as a policy analyst has seen him contribute to the United Kingdom’s Integrated Review and lead multinational research projects.</p> + +<p><strong>Otto Svendsen</strong> is a research associate with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at CSIS, where he provides research and analysis on political, economic, and security developments in Europe.</p> + +<p><strong>Mike Darrah</strong> is a military fellow with the International Security Program at CSIS. He is a commander and aviator in the U.S. Coast Guard and came to CSIS from Sector Humboldt Bay, where he served as deputy sector commander, overseeing all Coast Guard operations in the northern quarter of California.</p> + +<p><strong>Ed Arnold</strong> is a research fellow with the International Security department at the Royal United Services Institute.</p>Sean Monaghan, et al.NATO is not ready to mitigate increasingly prevalent Russian aggression against European critical undersea infrastructure (CUI).Getting On Track2023-12-18T12:00:00+08:002023-12-18T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/getting-on-track<p><em>The conflict in Ukraine has made it clear that missiles “are foundational to adversaries’ way of war.” Future missile threats, however, increasingly stress existing missile defenses, flying lower, faster, and on unpredictable trajectories. Most importantly, they are difficult to detect — defeating them will require elevated sensors, on aircraft or satellites, to track them at range.</em> <excerpt></excerpt> <em>As the Department of Defense begins to deploy a space-based sensor constellation, Getting on Track unpacks the design tradeoffs involved and key pitfalls to avoid. Using advanced simulation tools, the authors underscore the necessity of diversifying satellite orbits, designing constellations for early, persistent coverage, and retaining requirements for fire-control-capable sensors.</em></p> <h3 id="key-findings">Key Findings</h3> @@ -822,161 +1113,362 @@ <p><strong>Masao Dahlgren</strong> is a fellow with the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he writes on missile defense, space, and emerging technologies issues.</p> -<p><strong>Tom Karako</strong> is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and the director of the Missile Defense Project at CSIS, where he arrived in 2014. His research focuses on national security, missile defense, nuclear deterrence, and public law.</p>Masao DahlgrenThe conflict in Ukraine has made it clear that missiles “are foundational to adversaries’ way of war.” Future missile threats, however, increasingly stress existing missile defenses, flying lower, faster, and on unpredictable trajectories. Most importantly, they are difficult to detect — defeating them will require elevated sensors, on aircraft or satellites, to track them at range.From The Ground Up2023-12-11T12:00:00+08:002023-12-11T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/from-the-ground-up<p><em>Experts examine two aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural recovery that are critical to increasing its food production and exports: demining farmland and restoring farmers’ access to fertilizers.</em></p> +<p><strong>Tom Karako</strong> is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and the director of the Missile Defense Project at CSIS, where he arrived in 2014. His research focuses on national security, missile defense, nuclear deterrence, and public law.</p>Masao DahlgrenThe conflict in Ukraine has made it clear that missiles “are foundational to adversaries’ way of war.” Future missile threats, however, increasingly stress existing missile defenses, flying lower, faster, and on unpredictable trajectories. Most importantly, they are difficult to detect — defeating them will require elevated sensors, on aircraft or satellites, to track them at range.Euro SIFMANet Barna Report2023-12-14T12:00:00+08:002023-12-14T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/euro-sifmanet-barcelona-report<p><em>Participants discussed the key role that data plays in the success of sanctions.</em></p> <excerpt /> -<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> +<p>During the design of the sanctions packages imposed on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the initial focus was on throwing the net as wide as possible. The aim was to impose restrictive measures on a broad range of financial and trade activities. However, following the early flurry of activity, attention has now shifted towards ensuring effective implementation and enforcement.</p> -<p>In the two decades leading up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Ukraine had become a major producer and exporter of numerous agricultural commodities. In the 2020–2021 harvest season — the last season unaffected by Russia’s full-scale invasion — Ukraine was the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, honey, and walnuts worldwide; the third-largest exporter of maize, barley, and rapeseed; and the world’s top exporter of sunflower oil, sunflower meal, and millet.</p> +<p>Over nearly two years, the RUSI-led European Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network (SIFMANet) has highlighted the main structural challenges faced by EU member state national authorities, and businesses with sanctions responsibilities. It has also identified that all stakeholders – whether private sector actors seeking to improve their implementation or governments monitoring for circumvention and evasion – need better data. This would allow sanctions to be more effectively implemented, and circumvention and evasion more effectively tackled.</p> -<p>Due to Russia’s intentional attacks on all aspects of Ukraine’s agriculture sector, and collateral damage from hostilities, Ukraine’s production and exports are diminished today from prewar levels. As of June 2023, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated that Ukraine’s agriculture sector had incurred $8.7 billion in direct damages to agricultural machinery, equipment, and storage facilities, as well as from stolen or damaged agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and seeds, and outputs, such as crops and livestock. The sector’s $40.3 billion losses represent farmers’ diminished incomes due to foregone production, lower selling prices for products, and higher operational costs across all stages of the agri-food value chain.</p> +<p>To gain insights on this issue, the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS) at RUSI hosted a roundtable discussion in Barcelona in November 2023, with the support of Dow Jones Risk &amp; Compliance. The event gathered sanctions experts from the public and private sectors across different European jurisdictions to explore, under the Chatham House rule, the role of data in strengthening the implementation and enforcement of sanctions. This engagement was part of SIFMANet’s activities supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, and along with a video filmed on the day, this report presents the main findings from the discussion.</p> -<p>The Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, published in February 2023 by the World Bank in partnership with Kyiv School of Economics, the Ukrainian government, the European Union, and the United Nations, provides the most thorough evaluation of the war’s consequences for Ukraine and the investments required to ensure its future prosperity. However, the continuous and comprehensive nature of Russia’s assault complicates any estimate of damage and needs. Following the report’s publication, further losses and damages resulted from Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023 and its immediate intensification of attacks on agricultural export infrastructure along Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube River coasts. Between July and October, 17 separate attacks on Ukraine’s ports, grain facilities, and civilian ships destroyed 300,000 metric tons of grain and further reduced the country’s export potential.</p> +<h3 id="the-need-for-data-to-support-sanctions-implementation">The Need for Data to Support Sanctions Implementation</h3> -<p>This destruction has resulted in a further downward spiral in Ukraine’s agricultural economy. Limited export routes have raised transportation costs and reduced the volume of goods farmers can sell, decreasing farmers’ incomes and eliminating profitability. While incomes have fallen, the costs of agricultural inputs have risen, and damage to farms and equipment imposes additional, heavy costs on farmers. As a result, many farmers are curtailing their activities and reducing the size of their harvests. And despite the Ukrainian government’s efforts to insulate agricultural workers from the draft, active war has drawn farmers to the battlefield, reducing the size of Ukraine’s agricultural labor force.</p> +<p>Sanctions used to be an isolated task within the compliance departments of financial institutions, whose primary responsibility consisted of screening sanctions lists to check for individual and entity name matches with their client base and transaction activity.</p> -<p>In aggregate, this has significantly decreased Ukraine’s agricultural production and exports.</p> +<p>At the workshop, private sector representatives noted that this modus operandi started to change following the introduction in 2014 of sanctions against Russia, in response to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. This programme introduced sector-specific sanctions, which for the first time required financial institutions – and others from the private sector such as oil services companies – to have a deeper understanding of their clients and, critically, their activities.</p> -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/czTj1Z5.png" alt="image01" /></p> +<p>This task demanded increased resources from these elements of the private sector, as well as their clients, to obtain and process data that was far more complex than merely checking for sanctions-list name matches. Fast forward to February 2022 and the sanctions that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion dramatically increased this burden and introduced complex sanctions compliance to a large number of economic operators that had never been exposed in this way before.</p> -<p>Still, in 2022, Ukraine managed to remain among the world’s top producers and exporters of corn, wheat, sunflower oil and seeds, and soybeans, due to the determination of Ukraine’s agricultural labor force, the commitment of Ukraine’s government, and support from numerous other partners, including governments, multilateral organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and research institutes. According to Kyiv School of Economics president Tymofiy Milovanov, efforts to rebuild Ukraine’s agricultural sector should continue even as conflict continues because it is unlikely there will be a “clear end to the war.” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky established the National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine from the War just two months after the full-scale invasion began, and the council continues to develop the Ukraine Recovery Plan in partnership with Ukrainian civil society institutions, partner governments, and international organizations and companies. The overarching goal of this work is not just to reconstruct Ukraine, but to build on the country’s reforms in recent years and transform Ukraine’s economy for the future.</p> +<p>As a result, businesses place significant demands on national competent authorities to assist with identifying where they require licences to continue their operations, but also information regarding possible entities engaged in sanctioned activities, something that is not yet widely available from the typical vendors of sanctions screening services.</p> -<p>The importance of investing in Ukraine’s agricultural sector is threefold: to bolster Ukraine’s economy in wartime, to restore its capacity as a major global food supplier, and to strengthen its position as a bulwark to Russia’s influence through its own agricultural exports. Rebuilding and transforming Ukraine’s agriculture sector will require coordinated investments in its soil, labor force, agricultural institutions, and infrastructure. Adequate and low-cost routes must be secured for Ukraine’s agricultural exports; damaged farm, storage, transportation, and port infrastructure must be rebuilt; destroyed and stolen equipment and goods must be replaced; farmlands must be demined, tested, and restored; farmers’ access to seeds, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs much be secured; and farmers’ needs for additional financing and training to continue agricultural activity must be met. Investments to address immediate needs and obstacles are ongoing, but even more immense challenges will require international attention in the coming decades, including demining waterways, namely the Black and Azov Seas, modernizing the country’s irrigation infrastructure, and addressing the repercussions of the Kakhovka dam collapse on surrounding ecosystems and agricultural livelihoods. This work will take place in the context of Ukraine’s 2024 farmland market reform and the country’s candidacy for membership in the European Union, which will necessitate further reforms to Ukraine’s agriculture sector.</p> +<p>Participants from both governments and the private sector clearly articulated in the workshop that if sanctions are to be implemented effectively by the private sector, placed on the frontline by their governments, then a significant improvement in data is required. There was also strong agreement that banks should not be left to carry this burden on their own. Governments must clearly make those businesses engaging in trade exposed to sanctions aware of their responsibilities and must either have proper internal sanctions-monitoring controls or access to third-party tools that can provide them with the necessary compliance capacity.</p> -<p>This white paper focuses on two aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural reconstruction that are crucial to supporting transformation throughout the sector: demining Ukraine’s farmland and improving access to fertilizers in Ukraine. The information and insights included herein are the result of CSIS research, with input from numerous experts in Ukraine, Europe, and the United States. Information and policy recommendations regarding rebuilding other aspects of Ukraine’s agriculture sector can be found in other CSIS publications and will be the focus of future scholarship.</p> +<p>Given the purpose of the workshop was to focus specifically on data, the next section addresses specific tactical data that the private sector could leverage to improve its sanctions compliance, and how governments can use data to facilitate better private sector implementation.</p> -<h3 id="demining">Demining</h3> +<h3 id="what-data-is-helpful-for-implementing-sanctions">What Data is Helpful for Implementing Sanctions?</h3> -<h4 id="the-scale-and-nature-of-landmine-use">The Scale and Nature of Landmine Use</h4> +<p>The use of data for improved sanctions effectiveness falls into two parts: data used to support implementation by EU member states’ banks and businesses; and data (mainly related to trade) used to identify sanctions circumvention.</p> -<p>Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a significant proportion of combat has been waged across farmland in Ukraine’s rural areas, compromising Ukraine’s agricultural economy. The nature of the war’s impacts on Ukraine’s farmland varies by locale. War-related damage to Ukraine’s farmland includes craters and other physical destruction from munitions attacks; possible chemical contamination from munitions, fuel spills, shell remnants, and human remains; and depressions from armed vehicle tracks. According to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Russian troops were firing between 40,000 and 60,000 shells at Ukrainian positions every day as of August 2022. Up to 20 percent of ammunition fired does not detonate, and Russian troops regularly place landmines in fields and forests. Among threats to Ukraine’s farmland, unexploded ordnance and the extensive placement of landmines remain widespread concerns.</p> +<h4 id="improved-implementation">Improved Implementation</h4> -<p>A Reuters investigation into landmine use in Ukraine revealed “landmine contamination so vast it is most likely unprecedented in the 21st century,” with emplaced landmines numbering in the hundreds of thousands. By mid-2023, Ukraine had become the most mined country in the world, surpassing Afghanistan, Syria, Cambodia, and other countries in which landmines are a common feature of warfare. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 30 percent of Ukraine’s lands, or approximately 174,000 square kilometers (67,000 square miles), has been exposed to conflict and will require surveying and, if necessary, demining. According to Interfax, a further 13,500 square kilometers (over 5,200 square miles) of the Black Sea, Azov Sea, and Ukraine’s rivers and other inland bodies of water are potentially contaminated with landmines. Likewise, according to Human Rights Watch, the scale of landmine use in Ukraine has resulted in a “large, dispersed, and complex level of contamination that will threaten Ukrainian civilians and hinder recovery efforts for years to come.” One deminer (or “sapper”) is able to clear between 15 and 25 square meters per day, and given the current rate of progress, some estimate that complete demining of Ukrainian territory could take decades or even centuries.</p> +<p>For banks and businesses operating in the EU, data plays two roles: first, it facilitates better identification of sanctioned individuals and their assets; and second, it clarifies where clients might be involved in restricted sectors or activities.</p> -<p>Antipersonnel mines and anti-vehicle mines have been used in the ongoing war, with at least 13 types of mines identified in Ukraine to date, according to Human Rights Watch, which are located in at least 11 regions across central and eastern Ukraine (see [map]). The preponderance of landmines in Ukraine have been emplaced by Russia, which is not a signatory to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Mine Ban Treaty). Human Rights Watch has even identified in Ukraine several previously unseen Russian landmines produced as late as 2021, including antipersonnel mines. Though Ukraine is a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, Ukraine has used antipersonnel mines in at least one location since Russia’s invasion, according to Human Rights Watch.</p> +<p><em>Beneficial Ownership Registries</em></p> -<p>Landmines used in the war have been hand-emplaced, mechanically laid, scattered by truck-mounted projectors, and delivered by rocket. They include small, plastic-cased PFM-1 antipersonnel mines, which can be easily mistaken for harmless objects and overlooked by metal detectors; POM-3 anti-personnel mines, which can be scattered by air and detonated with mere vibrations, such as nearby footsteps; metal- and plastic-encased anti-vehicle mines, which can be buried in shallow holes and penetrate vehicles’ under-armor upon detonation; and PARM anti-vehicle mines, which can be placed above ground and fire a projectile into their target. Russian forces are also employing “Zemledelie” systems, which can remotely lay mines in areas as large as several football fields in short periods of time, creating minefields of varying complexities across Ukraine. The “Zemledelie” system, Russian for “agriculture,” was developed by the Russian company Rostec and was first observed in use in March 2022.</p> +<p>Beneficial ownership registries are useful sources of data on companies and their ownership structure and related natural persons involved in them. However, both public and private sector participants noted that registers, if accessible, often do not hold the same type of information in each country, they do not always hold reliable and updated information, and they are at times only accessible in certain languages. In addition, some jurisdictions have business registries that require subscriptions and have limited financial intelligence on, for example, companies’ financial statements.</p> -<p>Both the extent of Russia’s mine placements and the use of mining technology innovations within Ukraine have resulted in mine contamination of enormous complexity, scale, and lethality. As of September 2023, 246 civilians (including 13 children) had been killed by explosive devices, and 521 civilians (including 53 children) had been injured across Ukraine.</p> +<p>Participants defined public access to beneficial ownership registers as a crucial element for sanctions implementation and they regarded the ruling from the November 2022 European Court of Justice as a new and troubling challenge. A representative from the Spanish Treasury explained that one of the goals of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU is to harmonise information across EU registries.</p> -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/bGsCnWd.png" alt="image02" /></p> +<p><em>Client Documentation</em></p> -<h3 id="ukrainian-government-efforts">Ukrainian Government Efforts</h3> +<p>Given the lack of publicly available and machine-readable data, trying to map client activities involving Russia’s neighbouring countries and trading partners demands that the private sector devote substantial amounts of manual labour to check information submitted by clients on their transactions. Businesses hold the deepest knowledge of the sector in which they operate and of their own activities. So, the data they provide is essential. However, representatives from financial institutions noted that it is increasingly difficult to rely on information submitted by clients given that, as elaborated below, it may be subject to a lack of knowledge on the part of their clients or to obfuscation tactics used by those seeking to evade sanctions.</p> -<p>While the war continues, the Ukrainian government’s assistance for demining efforts continues to evolve. The Ukrainian government was already supporting demining efforts in Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022; previously occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk had been subject to demining efforts since 2015, following Russia’s 2014 invasion. In November 2021, the Ukrainian government announced the creation of the National Mine Action Authority, an interagency group led by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence that is responsible for the development of national policy and plans for demining as well as coordination of all actors involved in demining.</p> +<p>Businesses are not only trading in goods subject to sanctions, but also technical services, and many do not know the extent of their sanctions obligations. An example shared by a participant described that providing crew members for a vessel carrying Russian oil could fall under EU prohibitions, but many businesses do not know this, and rely on financial institutions to inform them that such activity is prohibited.</p> -<p>Among Ukraine’s mined territory is a significant proportion of Ukraine’s farmland. The precise proportion of Ukraine’s farmland that has been contaminated by landmines is impossible to determine while hostilities continue. Estimates of Ukraine’s farmland exposed to landmines range from 470,000 hectares (or 1,814 square miles), according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, to 2.5 million hectares (or 9,652 square miles), according to Ukraine’s first deputy minister of agrarian policy and food. GLOBSEC estimates that 5 million hectares (or 19,305 square miles, approximately 15.2 percent) of Ukraine’s farmland are unsuitable for use due to landmines, contamination with explosive ordnance, and exposure to armed hostilities.</p> +<p>Furthermore, participants noted that they are increasingly holding conversations with clients regarding suspicions of document forgery. Financial institutions explained that the supporting information provided to justify the submitted documentation is often useful to confirm or reject their suspicions. But again, this work creates a significant extra burden on the financial institutions’ sanctions compliance community.</p> -<p>In March 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence announced the creation of an Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land to facilitate spring sowing and fall harvesting of crops in 2023 and after. The Ministry of Defence is responsible for ensuring implementation of the plan and coordination among Ukrainian and international partners. To expedite humanitarian demining nationwide, the Ukrainian government announced the formation of the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining in June 2023, chaired by the Ministry of Economy, and the working group held its first meeting in September 2023, emphasizing the importance of creating a mine action strategy for Ukraine. Later in September 2023, Ukrainian prime minister Denis Shmyhal convened the first Demine Ukraine Forum among Ukrainian government representatives and international partners.</p> +<p>To effectively manage their monitoring burden, many financial institutions are thus following a risk-based approach. If a financial institution sees a client trading with a third country with which it has maintained trade relations in the past, then it can lower manual effort. On the contrary, if the business relationship was recently established or has now shifted to include controlled goods, the financial institution will increase the manual work required to check the transactions.</p> -<h3 id="humanitarian-demining">Humanitarian Demining</h3> +<p>While financial institutions monitor clients across all sectors, key corporates may serve as the most useful and expert sources of data. These include shipping companies, logistics firms and airlines. These businesses hold the raw data required to check goods that banks do not have access to, such as the bill of lading, the itinerary of vessels or identity location spoofing. The top companies in these sectors are screening these elements, but with a lower level of scrutiny than banks would like them to for sanctions-compliance purposes.</p> -<p>The ultimate purpose of mine removal dictates the level of investment — of time and funding — in demining efforts. Swiftly clearing an area of mines in the course of combat or immediately thereafter is called military, combat, or operational demining. Operational demining is conducted by special military units or other emergency services and is intended to clear a path for the safe advance or retreat of troops. Though it may quickly return access to roads, residential buildings, or other areas of common use, it does not necessarily guarantee the safety of these areas.</p> +<p>In sum, better data is required if the private sector is to be fully empowered to play its role on the frontline of sanctions implementation. As the complexity of sanctions has grown, the provision of and access to data has lagged. New tools need to be developed by those companies with expertise in providing data services; and governments need to provide access to additional sources of data that can enhance the effectiveness of the private sector.</p> -<p>Humanitarian demining, by contrast, aims to “clear land so that civilians can return to their homes and their everyday routines without the threat of explosive hazards,” according to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS). Humanitarian demining involves numerous, resource-intensive steps, all of which are required to guarantee that an area has been thoroughly searched and cleared of explosives and is safe for use. Steps required for humanitarian demining include a non-technical survey of land, involving interviewing communities and reviewing records of conflicts; a technical survey, involving the use of equipment or animals to determine the boundaries of minefields; mine removal, most commonly through mine detonation; and certification that mine removal is complete and land is safe for use.</p> +<h4 id="identifying-circumvention">Identifying Circumvention</h4> -<p>According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, humanitarian demining in Ukraine is presently carried out by 18 certified mine action operator organizations, including NGOs (e.g., the Danish Refugee Council, HALO Trust, the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action, the Norwegian People’s Aid, and DanChurchAid), companies (e.g., Demining Solutions, GK Group, and TetraTech), and Ukrainian entities (e.g., the Ukrainian Sappers Association, Ukrspecexport, and Ukroboronservice). Entities that wish to contribute to Ukraine’s demining efforts must complete a complex certification procedure before working as demining operators in Ukraine. In recognition of the need to expedite and streamline the certification process for demining operators, the State Emergency Service’s Interregional Center for Humanitarian Demining launched an online portal for interested organizations to apply for certification and keep apprised of the application’s status. After obtaining certification to demine its own farmland across Ukraine, the Ukrainian company Nibulon has recognized the use of its expertise across Ukraine’s farmland broadly and will offer its services to farmers and to the state. As of September 2023, 30 additional organizations are awaiting certification, including 18 governmental operators from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, State Transport Special Service, and armed forces.</p> +<p>As well as facilitating improved implementation, data – particularly trade data – can be used by governments to identify changes in trade flows that may be indicative of emerging sanctions circumvention routes used by Russia to procure the key goods it requires for its military.</p> -<p>At present, the Ukrainian government does not fund humanitarian demining services, so most farmers must pay for demining services themselves. At the Demine Ukraine Forum, Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko noted that Ukraine’s 2024 budget would include UAH 2.0 billion ($54.7 million) to partially compensate farmers for demining services. Minister Svyrydenko also announced the establishment of the Prozorro demining market, through which farmers are expected to select certified deminers. The Ukrainian government will compensate farmers for half the cost of demining through the Prozorro system, and the Ukrainian government is considering the best way to compensate farmers for demining costs borne before 2024. Ukraine’s state bank, “Ukragasbank,” has also launched a soft lending program to fund the demining of farmland within the framework of the “Affordable Loans at 5-7-9 percent” program, improving farmers’ access to demining financing and incentivizing farmers’ use of legal, certified demining operators.</p> +<p><em>Trade Data</em></p> -<h3 id="progress-demining-ukraines-agricultural-land">Progress Demining Ukraine’s Agricultural Land</h3> +<p>Public and private sector representatives acknowledged their initial positive assessment of the reported declines in their jurisdictions’ direct trade with Russia. This assessment changed once they identified the increasing exports – including of controlled and banned goods – to third countries regarded as high-risk for circumvention. This indicated that their trade with Russia continued, albeit indirectly. To properly observe and understand the specific transactions and flows, and the extent to which they represent sanctions circumvention, authorities and the private sector point to various data points to strengthen their sanctions compliance mechanisms.</p> -<p>Under the Ministry of Defence’s Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land, the Ukrainian government specified 470,000 hectares of agricultural land in nine regions of Ukraine that would need to be surveyed and, if necessary, demined. These regions are where “the problem of contamination is most urgent and the clearing of agricultural land is most feasible,” according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence. In addition to the National Mine Action Authority, coordinated by the Ministry of Defence, Ukraine’s Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining, coordinated by the Ministry of Economy, also supports humanitarian demining across Ukraine. In a press release from the Ministry of Economy in June 2023, the Ukrainian government noted that the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food would update the identification of territories that would need to be demined. According to the Ministry of Economy, 100,000 of the 470,000 hectares specified in the action plan had been cleared by June, and by the end of 2023, up to 165,000 hectares of land could be cleared for agricultural use.</p> +<p>Participants noted the difficulty of proving that goods exported from a specific jurisdiction to a third country are then re-exported to Russia through generic import/export trade data. Sources such as UN COMTRADE – described as not particularly user-friendly – or national customs data can serve as a good guide to identify suspicious trade flows, but do not provide sufficiently deep insights. A participant provided a visual example in which a member state exported apples to a third country, and the third country exported apples to Russia. The flow of apples can be identified in the member state’s national customs data but unless the items are specifically identified, it is hard to prove that it is the self- same apples that enter Russia. Participants added that the customs data from Russia and certain third countries may be a useful starting point but cannot be trusted and often entail language translation complications.</p> -<p>The Ukrainian government has continued to publicize progress under the action plan. By September 2023, the Ukrainian government had surveyed 188,600 hectares of agricultural land under the plan, of which over 124,000 hectares will require clearance, including through humanitarian demining. By October 2023, the Ukrainian government had surveyed more than 225,000 hectares of agricultural land identified in the action plan and had returned 170,000 hectares to economic use. In addition to these periodic updates, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine publishes daily updates regarding its progress demining Ukrainian territories through a portal that is only accessible within Ukraine. Between the beginning of the invasion and November 14, 2023, 454,827 explosive objects and 2,892 kilograms of explosive substance have been defused, including 3,124 aerial bombs. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has also partnered with the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining to maintain an interactive map of mine contamination across Ukraine.</p> +<p>To compensate for this lack of clarity, tools such as Import/Export Genius provide transaction-level tracking data, identify where a product was produced, and to where it was shipped. Authorities and financial institutions can use this data to then query companies involved on whether sanctions are being breached. A key piece of information employed in trade is Harmonised System (HS) codes. These describe the nature of a product.</p> -<h3 id="ukraines-needs-and-international-support">Ukraine’s Needs and International Support</h3> +<p>HS codes differ across jurisdictions, as countries incorporate additional digits to the six-digit HS codes for further classification. For example, in the EU they are known as TARIC codes and in the US they are HTS codes. This creates divergences among HS codes, which authorities and businesses must understand. HS codes are particularly useful to screen for dual-use goods. However, participants highlighted that not all dual-use goods have HS codes. This a critical challenge as the technical descriptions of HS codes in regulations often create confusion, which increases cost of compliance for businesses that must manually check them.</p> -<p>Despite recent progress, the demining needs of the Ukrainian government remain staggering. As of February 2023, the cost of clearance of explosive ordnance across Ukraine was estimated at $37.6 billion, according to the Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment produced by the Kyiv School of Economics, the World Bank, the Ukrainian government, the European Union, and the United Nations. This estimate represents the significant investments needed in equipment, training, and salaries, including to expand the strategic planning and operational capacities of Ukraine’s demining forces.</p> +<p>Furthermore, authorities and financial institutions have detected that some businesses will alter the HS codes of goods to pass them off as products not subject to prohibitions. This is related to the document forgery issue that is increasingly spotted by financial institutions in the information provided by clients. Participants explained that when a bank is financing trade through letters of credit, they will have more information on the operation than if the trade is conducted via “open account” through which their access to data is limited to just seeing the financial transaction. This makes it harder to spot irregularities. As one participant noted, “the task now consists of screening against information that is not there”.</p> -<p>Numerous countries, multilateral organizations, and NGOs have provided financial and other support for demining in Ukraine, including for the demining of agricultural land. In June 2023, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced a joint plan to clear landmines and other explosive remnants of war from agricultural land, in collaboration with the Fondation Suisse de Déminage and with support from the UN Ukraine Humanitarian Fund and private donors. In July 2023, the Ukrainian government announced that numerous partners — including the United States, the European Union, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, Austria, Switzerland, South Korea, and the Howard Buffett Foundation — together had pledged $244 million for humanitarian demining clearance. In July 2023, South Korea pledged to provide demining equipment to Ukraine, and Japan has similarly offered technical assistance in 2023. In September 2023, the U.S. Department of State announced $90.5 million in humanitarian demining assistance to Ukraine, in addition to the $47.6 million the State Department had announced in September 2022 for a similar purpose. Croatia hosted the first International Donors’ Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine in October 2023, attracting representatives from more than 40 countries, and Switzerland, which announced over €100 million (approximately $107 million) for humanitarian demining in Ukraine in October 2023, will host the Second International Donors’ Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine in 2024.</p> +<p>The collection of trade data is essential for the private sector to effectively implement sanctions and detect circumvention. However, trade data also plays a key role in the diplomatic efforts of authorities. The EU both requests trade data from third countries and also asks them to validate its own perspective on the third country’s trading activity, to assess their involvement in circumvention. Suspicious trade flows and confirmed circumvention activities identified through the aforementioned analysis of trade data by EU operators can be leveraged by authorities from sanctions-imposing countries to deter third countries from facilitating circumvention through their jurisdictions.</p> -<h3 id="the-reality-for-farmers">The Reality for Farmers</h3> +<p><em>Other Data</em></p> -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Tmi3T4H.jpg" alt="image03" /> -<em>▲ A farmer and a member of a demining team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine carry an unexploded missile near the village of Hryhorivka, Zaporizhzhia region, on May 5, 2022.</em></p> +<p>Throughout the roundtable, participants also pointed to other data sources that would be useful for authorities and businesses to exploit and process to enhance their investigations and compliance systems.</p> -<p>Despite the Ukrainian government’s recent progress on its Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land and considerable support from international partners, many farmers face difficulties accessing humanitarian demining services. One licensed company, for example, is reported to have offered demining services to farmers for $200 per acre of farmland. Because the war has reduced harvests and incomes, and increased the costs of inputs, most farmers are unable to afford such prices. Furthermore, Ukraine’s byzantine bureaucracy can lead to long wait times for demining services. Duplication of services across ministries and the constant evolution of priorities and plans can lead to bottlenecks, which the Ukrainian government admits and is seeking to redress.</p> +<p>For example, for individual financial transactions, Business Identifier Codes (BIC) are well-known sources of data used for addressing SWIFT messages, routing business transactions and identifying business parties, but the screening of less common items can also provide valuable information. One such example is screening IP addresses that may help identify businesses operating in high-risk jurisdictions. IP addresses can be disguised through VPNs, but their usage can be detected and as a result trigger a red flag to demand enhanced due diligence. As private sector participants noted, screening IP addresses is an increasingly common practice by larger financial institutions and e-commerce firms to block transactions from sanctioned jurisdictions and/or flag transactions for further scrutiny. They noted that national competent authorities could enhance the effectiveness of private sector sanctions implementation by providing this information in sanctions designations as and when available.</p> -<p>In the meantime, some farmers are resorting to conducting demining activities themselves. As one farmer reported to Foreign Policy, “At first we waited for the state to demine our fields. Then we understood it wouldn’t happen, so we decided to do it ourselves.” Three of this farmer’s employees scanned his farmland with handheld metal detectors, marking potential mines with flags. Another farmer operates a remote-controlled tractor, outfitted with panels stripped from Russian tanks, to scan his fields for landmines. One farmer in Kharkhiv explained the situation to local Ukrainian media (authors’ translation):</p> +<p>The need to leverage such additional data points to support sanctions implementation highlights the added complexity of the post-2022 regimes. Using these data sources to triangulate and identify evasion activity demands a considerable degree of manual work to check the entities involved and their activities. Yet, despite the resources required, going beyond basic due diligence and conducting open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis must now be a critical component of sanctions implementation.</p> -<blockquote> - <p>Out of 3,000 hectares, I have 1,000 hectares mined. I left the application for demining immediately after the de-occupation. The emergency department says that they will not clear the mines in the near future because they do not have time. We are now communicating with the neighboring farms to clear the fields [ourselves]. The situation with the neighbors is still worse, all their lands are “seeded” with explosives. We will look for a way out on our own, because today it is cheaper to buy a field than to demine it. We are considering the possibility of buying a drone that looks for mines or renting a special car. Otherwise, life will not return to our villages. . . . I need to clear the fields and sow crops this year.</p> -</blockquote> +<p>With regards to maritime transport, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) required by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)to locate vessels was also noted by both public and private sector participants as providing valuable data. Even though the AIS can be turned off, this should trigger a red flag in due diligence systems. AIS will also indicate changes in the draft of the vessel, which might reveal that transhipments took place due to a change in the vessel’s cargo. This can be complemented with the use of satellite imagery. Similarly, IMO identification numbers of designated vessels are key pieces of data that institutions should have at their disposal to monitor their activity such as reflagging or change of ownership.</p> -<p>In this context, many farmers opt to use the services of uncertified or “dark deminers,” who charge prices lower than certified deminers but who cannot guarantee that land they survey is clear of mines and safe for use. Among farmers who use dark demining services, accidents are reportedly common.</p> +<p>Private sector actors, particularly financial institutions that can afford to make such investments, are increasingly developing OSINT capabilities as they can provide invaluable data on clients, their partners and their activities. The information can be openly shared with authorities and other private institutions.</p> -<p>And among farmers in regions exposed to conflict, not only the presence but the fear of landmines can keep farmers from working their land, according to CSIS interviews. Kyiv School of Economics president Timofiy Milovanov characterized the current situation as two systems of demining at tension within Ukraine: the “legacy” system, whose adherence to international mine action standards renders it slow and expensive but best able to guarantee the safe clearance of lands, and the alternative system made up of Ukrainians that “have to work . . . [and] protect their children,” who “innovate right now, whether it’s certified or not.” Such demining “innovations” are borne from farmers’ need to continue agricultural activity for their livelihoods, but the risks of uncertified demining are severe. A farmer in Kherson who opted against planting in the face of mine contamination told Reuters, “I have no moral right to send workers to fields as it is dangerous for life.” CSIS interviews revealed the same tension between these two systems, with some Ukrainian entities advocating for equipping farmers with demining machines to expediate the process, and others insisting that farmers are not professional deminers and their participation in the process would risk lives and complicate the government’s coordination and planning.</p> +<h3 id="persisting-challenges">Persisting Challenges</h3> -<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that while overall production and export levels have fallen since Russia’s invasion, agricultural yields per acre have risen compared to last season for Ukraine’s major commodities, although the USDA estimates include crop production in Crimea and occupied territories, where Russia reaps the benefits of favorable harvests. For wheat, for example, yields are estimated at a 4.5 tons per hectare, up 17 percent from 2022 and 13 percent from the five-year average. This suggests that production losses are due primarily to reduced planting: the USDA estimates that harvested area has fallen 26 percent from the five-year average. In fact, farmland exposed to hostilities since February 2022 has left an impact visible from space, according to NASA’s Harvest program, which estimates that up to 2.8 million hectares (or over 10,800 square miles) of Ukraine’s agricultural land have been abandoned as a result of the war.</p> +<p>While available circumvention routes are increasingly limited, participants noted that supply chains are getting more layered with complex multi-jurisdiction corporate structures and operators increasingly struggling to control what is happening along a particular route. The manual work required to effectively obtain and screen the necessary data is a cumbersome burden for the private sector and the task of identifying companies owned or controlled by sanctioned individuals in the supply chain is challenging. Ownership data is relatively straightforward when it is publicly available – which, as indicated above, is not always the case – but determining “control” is a more difficult task, given that the necessary information might not be public and the concept of “control” can be judgemental.</p> -<h3 id="unique-considerations-for-agricultural-land">Unique Considerations for Agricultural Land</h3> +<p>In certain areas, participants explained that they face the challenge of combining contradictory datasets. For instance, when monitoring to confirm that a transaction was done below the oil price cap, both authorities and businesses must check data from shipping companies and customs pricing data, which do not always match. This intense screening is conducted for each individual transaction but if the goal is to disrupt the trade of oil or battlefield items before it happens, operators would need to develop foresight by identifying patterns and incorporate these mapping activities into their compliance procedures to anticipate potential evasion transaction.</p> -<p>The presence, or even the fear, of landmines on agricultural land has affected farmers’ harvests across Ukraine. At the same time, the process of demining farmland could also depress agricultural yields, as some farmers may experience long-term impacts once their land has been demined. A report from the NGO Mine Action Review, with funding from the Norwegian, Canadian, and Swiss governments, details the numerous destructive effects of demining on soil. The most common machinery employed in demining is equipped with flails, tillers, and rollers, which can disrupt soil structure, accelerate soil erosion, and disrupt water, carbon, and nutrient cycles. While the most expedient and safest method of landmine disposal is through remote detonation, detonation generates a crater that displaces topsoil while compacting subsoil into the crater. Finally, the detonation of landmines can release toxic pollutants into soils and waterways, including from explosive substances as well as the breakdown of other munitions components. In Cambodia, for example, researchers found that the content of heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and copper increased by 30 percent in soil in a 1-meter radius of the detonation point.</p> +<p>A further complication to these mapping efforts and the blocking of suspicious transactions is the decoupled nature of payment flows from their related trade flows. While payments are flowing between two jurisdictions, goods may be produced and transported from factories in third countries. For example, a Swedish entity can have a Dutch bank account, receive the payment from a shell company in Turkey, and ship controlled goods from Malaysia via a third country to Russia. Financial institutions emphasised that it is very challenging to block such transactions as they are often unaware of the trade flow connected with the payment, a trade flow involving countries outside the Western sanctions regime and thus not subject to local control. Furthermore, even if (in this case) the Turkish shell company is identified as facilitating sanctioned trade, a new shell company can easily be established in its place elsewhere with no transaction history.</p> -<p>Mitigation measures for such effects of landmine detonation are unclear, and data on the environmental impacts of landmine detonation are limited. The extent to which the detonation of landmines could affect soil fertility and water quality in heavily mined territories has not been widely examined or reported. Only one international covenant, the International Mine Actions Standard 07.13, addresses the impacts of demining on agricultural land, stating that national authorities and mine action operators have the responsibility to “ensure that all mine action activities . . . are carried out in accordance with applicable legislation, safely, effectively and efficiently, but also in a way that minimises any adverse impact on people, wildlife, vegetation and other aspects of the environment.” The standard further specifies that mechanical clearance and bulk demolition, or the process of clearing land with machines designed to detonate ordnance, require greater oversight than other clearance methods given that “these processes have the ability to severely impact the environment.”</p> +<p>One possible way of addressing this challenge, raised by finance experts at the roundtable, is to identify pinch points in the payment flows, for example by making more use of SWIFT messaging data by mandating greater use of currently discretionary fields, to help illuminate payments related to circumvention.</p> -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/GzdQD2W.jpg" alt="image04" /> -<em>▲ Employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine present to media the Ukraines first Armtrac 400 specialized mine clearance vehicle, purchased through the UNITED24 fundraising platform, near Kharkiv, on October 27, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.</em></p> +<p>The increasing burden placed on the private sector led participants to express their concern over the lack of clarity regarding the extent of their compliance obligations to confirm there is no risk of sanctions violation or circumvention. They have significantly increased their sanctions-dedicated resources and tools but at some point they have to make a judgement as to how far their due diligence obligations extend. Participants explained that investigations had traditionally been limited to checking two levels of ownership, but recent investigations have gone down many more levels of ownership to identify the real individual controlling an entity. Private sector representatives added that this may clash with the expectations of regulators, which will also differ across the jurisdictions they operate in. Even minute differences will be immense for internationally operating institutions.</p> -<p>Although detonation carries risks for agricultural land, leaving landmines in the ground can also lead to chemical contamination as the munitions age and corrode. The leaching of hazardous chemicals into soil and groundwater can take anywhere from 10 to 90 years, but Ukraine’s farmland may experience pollution from buried ordnances sooner rather than later. Russia has reportedly used Soviet-era landmines against Ukraine, which would corrode faster than landmines produced more recently. Further, the characteristics of Ukraine’s fertile soils that enable plants to thrive also enable the soil to “cling on to a lot of these toxins following the war,” according to soil geomorphologist Joe Hupy.</p> +<p>A clear message from participants was that many businesses lack experience regarding the availability and use of the data sources discussed at the workshop. This often means they resort to third-party data providers and vendors. These services ease the burden on businesses, but authorities have raised concerns of an over-reliance on these services without understanding how the tools they provide work. Participating authorities explained that their inspections showed that many businesses do not properly detect the right matches after inputting the data provided into their systems, and some screening systems struggle with fuzzy searches with multiple options per identifier. These fuzzy searches are themselves the outcome of vast discrepancies across sanctions lists, further complicating compliance tasks.</p> -<p>Efforts to identify the impacts on agricultural soil and groundwater resulting from exploded ordnance, unexploded ordnance, and landmines have only just begun within Ukraine, and CSIS interviews with in-country experts and operators revealed that more investment, time, and resources are needed before these impacts can be accurately determined. The Ukrainian Researchers Society, FAO, and WFP have partnered to map munition craters, soil pollution, and the presence of “bombturbation,” or incidences of explosives cratering, compacting, displacing, and ejecting hazardous materials into soil. Their preliminary study of contamination in the Kharkiv Oblast using remote sensing and soil sample analysis shows that over 420,000 craters across roughly 655,072 hectares of arable land have resulted in over 1.3 million cubic meters of displaced soil, 4,214 hectares of bombturbated soil, and 28,286 hectares of potentially contaminated soil, with only 1.76 percent of assessed soils found to be contaminated with heavy metals. A CSIS interview with the FAO Ukraine office confirmed this level of contamination is not concerning for the safe consumption of crops, but rather for the potential of reduced agricultural production in the future.</p> +<p>Furthermore, the heavy burden imposed on the private sector is met with a lack of incentives to actually comply with sanctions obligations. First, participants noted that HS codes are used for tax purposes, so businesses are not always interested in reporting them accurately. Furthermore, for intentional circumvention schemes, public and private sector representatives agreed that the consequences of breaching sanctions at the moment are not enough to deter violations, both in terms of low financial penalties but also low chances of detection.</p> -<p>A collection of researchers across Ukraine, Lithuania, Portugal, and Spain have conducted a similar assessment within the Kharkiv Oblast, also finding that explosions on and within soil have damaged soil structure and released heavy metals into surrounding soils. The researchers note these findings are concluded from a minimal sample size that may not reflect the full extent of the war’s impacts on soils, especially given the limited access to areas of intense combat. These preliminary analyses are a significant step toward understanding the war’s effects on Ukrainian farmland, but offer an incomplete picture of what will be required to restore agricultural soil following the war’s conclusion. The scale of soil analysis required to determine the unique impacts of this war on Ukraine’s black soils will necessitate improved access to in-country soil testing facilities and greater investment in Ukraine’s remote sensing capabilities.</p> +<p>This is partly related to the insufficient level of information exchanged within the EU, a major impediment to sanctions investigations and enforcement. Currently, many investigations are crippled when a national competent authority requests information from a member state where sanctions violations are not yet criminalised. A participant suggested that to improve the sharing of data and avoid duplication, the EU needs a sanctions-related institution such as OLAF, which is currently the only agency that coordinates member states regarding imports and exports. Regional initiatives for enhanced information-sharing within the EU are happening in areas such as the Baltic states, but this should be happening across the EU.</p> <h3 id="recommendations">Recommendations</h3> -<p>In October 2023, Ukraine’s minister of economy acknowledged, “Without demining, we will not be able to fully launch our economy. Mine clearance is therefore the starting point for the recovery of our country and its economy.” Significant progress against the challenge of demining Ukraine’s farmland is clear. At the same time, the scale of landmine contamination across Ukraine’s farmland and the importance of sustained agricultural activity to its economic recovery require unparalleled measures by the Ukrainian government along with support from international partners.</p> +<p>As one workshop participant noted, a key feature of the current sanctions regimes against Russia is that policymakers are expecting sanctions to achieve far more today than has been expected of sanctions regimes in the past, and governments’ messaging often seems to expect companies to screen transactions against non-existing data.</p> -<p>Following is a description of ongoing best practices and additional steps needed to demine Ukraine’s farmland.</p> +<p>A core pillar of the effectiveness of the current sanctions implementation and enforcement landscape is the availability, accessibility and quality of data. During the workshop, participants proposed a series of valuable sources of data for authorities and businesses to strengthen their investigations and compliance mechanisms. However, these data sources pose a series of challenges in themselves, which the EU must take measures to mitigate in order to improve the sanctions efforts across the public and private sectors. The importance of this is clear. Data can not only support better implementation of sanctions by EU member states and their financial institutions and businesses, it can also provide a strong basis from which to engage in dialogue with third countries that are vulnerable to – or indeed are already facilitating – sanctions circumvention.</p> -<ul> - <li> - <p>The Ukrainian government is prioritizing humanitarian demining at the highest levels, including by the leadership of the Ministries of Economy and Defence, as well as by the prime minister.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>In the course of adapting demining services to the ongoing war, the Ukrainian government recognizes that inefficiencies remain and is attempting to expedite the provision of humanitarian demining services and reduce the cost to Ukraine’s farmers through the recently launched demining market on the Prozorro system and through soft loans to farmers.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The Ukrainian government is also tracking the resources needed to demine Ukraine’s farmland, including demining equipment and training for deminers.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The Action Plan for Demining Ukraine’s Agricultural Lands aims to synchronize humanitarian demining of Ukraine’s farmland, and the Ukrainian government is attempting to unify all Ukrainian government demining activities under a forthcoming mine action strategy, which the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining is presently drafting.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>At the same time, the Ukrainian government should continue to take steps to reduce the prevalence of “dark demining” of Ukraine’s agricultural land and demining by farmers themselves, recognizing risks to the safety of farmers and other civilians.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Furthermore, the Ukrainian government is coordinating regularly with international partners to fill gaps and prevent overlaps in services, including through the International Donors’ Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Finally, the Ukrainian government and its partners appear to be aligning activities with UNMAS’s Five Pillars of Mine Action, including mine education, with Minister of Economy Svyrydenko recently emphasizing the need for a “nationwide awareness campaign to educate children from an early age about the dangers of explosive ordnance.”</p> - </li> +<p>With a focus on how governments can support the private sector in achieving their goals, some specific recommendations emerged from the workshop.</p> + +<ol> <li> - <p>The complete humanitarian demining of Ukraine will require 10,000 sappers, necessitating an additional 7,000 deminers to supplement the 3,000 specialists working across the country today, according to Prime Minister Shmyhal. Funding for deminers’ training and salaries must be increased, with training for one sapper costing up to $6,000.</p> + <p><strong>Clarity of obligations.</strong> Supervisors need to clarify what is required of the private sector. Too often requirements and expectations are ambiguous and lack specificity. Although ambiguity may be a means by which governments can ensure businesses do not merely restrict their compliance obligations to the bare minimum, the uncertainty faced in the private sector on whether they have done enough for a single transaction leads to inefficient responses, the investment of extensive (potentially unnecessary) resources and manual work, and economic costs.</p> </li> <li> - <p>Conducting non-technical surveys prior to other humanitarian demining procedures is the most cost-effective way to confirm the presence of landmine contamination and efficiently release non-contaminated land. In its action plan and national mine action strategy, the Ukrainian government should formalize the release of low- and no-risk land through non-technical surveys before conducting technical surveys in order to release more land for economic use as quickly as possible.</p> + <p><strong>Enhanced awareness in the private sector.</strong> Businesses must expand their understanding of the steps needed to conduct sanctions due diligence on clients, their trade partners, controlled products and sectoral risks. Governments must support this education process by providing briefings and access to new data sources that can facilitate sanctions implementation. As one participant noted, screening for “persons connected with Russia” is just not possible – or desirable; and placing the burden of policing businesses entirely on the banking sector is not efficient. Key industry sectors such as shipping and logistics must be made to feel equally responsible and empowered.</p> </li> <li> - <p>In completing non-technical surveys, technical surveys, and mine removal, sappers should have access to advanced demining technologies, including drones, ground-penetrating radar, and satellite imagery analysis enhanced by artificial intelligence, in order to expedite humanitarian demining and increase the safety of deminers.</p> + <p><strong>Harmonisation and consistency are key.</strong> Small inconsistencies in sanctions interpretations by authorities can have a significant impact on the private sector. For example, within the EU, the understanding of ownership and control differs across member states and, in consequence, guidance for businesses operating in several jurisdictions varies. Likewise, the quality and nature of information found in national beneficial ownership registers varies, is often not updated, is in different languages, and is not publicly available. Among the sanctions coalition, key identifiers such as HS codes also differ and alignment in this regard would facilitate the tasks of both authorities and the private sector. More broadly, the quality of trade data is lacking and should likewise be presented in a harmonised manner as much as possible.</p> </li> <li> - <p>Ukraine should continue to invest in its capacity to manufacture advanced demining equipment locally.</p> + <p><strong>Optimising use of trade data.</strong> First, trade data from EU member states can be trusted and should be the foundation of trade-related sanctions implementation. EU member state capacity in this field varies – development of an EU member state sanctions trade data expert working group could enhance the use of this data to identify EU-based weaknesses. Second, trade data should continue to be used to engage with third countries to ensure common understanding of the key items that are subject to restriction.</p> </li> <li> - <p>In the face of the rapid evolution of Ukrainian government demining processes, the Ukrainian government should continue to clearly communicate the steps farmers must take to access certified demining services and receive compensation for them, including through the newly announced demining market under the Prozorro system.</p> + <p><strong>Improve EU-wide trade data sharing.</strong> The EU should create an EU sanctions-related information-sharing mechanism similar to OLAF to ensure consistent interpretation of sanctions (particularly related to trade).</p> </li> <li> - <p>The Ukrainian government and international partners should also attempt to reduce the cost to farmers of humanitarian demining of their agricultural land, recognizing that any costs borne by farmers will detract from investments in agricultural production, resulting in lower farmer incomes, production, and exports nationwide.</p> + <p><strong>Consolidation must continue.</strong> The consolidation of regulations is essential for businesses with insufficient experience to navigate complex EU legislation. Furthermore, a consolidated – and more closely aligned – list of sanctioned individuals and entities from the international sanctions coalition would facilitate the task of businesses that aim to be compliant across all regimes.</p> </li> <li> - <p>Given the urgent need for actionable information about the impacts of demining on agricultural land, and the fragility of the ecosystems on which agricultural activity depends, Ukraine’s government and international partners should invest in research on the impacts of demining agricultural land and disseminate best practices for demining Ukraine’s farmland to minimize impacts on soil fertility, water, and agricultural productivity. Such considerations and steps should be codified in plans for demining Ukraine’s farmland today and in the future, for the awareness of Ukrainian and international deminers.</p> + <p><strong>Make greater use of SWIFT data.</strong> Tackling circumvention trade flows would benefit from identifying pinch points in the flow of payments, for example by making more use of SWIFT messaging data by mandating greater use of currently discretionary fields, to help illuminate payments related to circumvention.</p> </li> <li> - <p>The Ukrainian government and partners should also increase the availability of soil testing to ensure the absence of chemical contamination and the safety of crops produced.</p> + <p><strong>Technological advancements.</strong> The current level of manual work required to fulfil sanctions compliance obligations is an unsustainable burden on the private sector. Greater attention should be placed on developing tools that will facilitate the effective compliance of businesses. For example, a participant noted Singapore’s introduction of blockchain to track payments and trade.</p> + </li> +</ol> + +<p>In sum, data – in all its forms – is emerging as a key tool in enhancing the effectiveness of sanctions implementation against Russia. Yet, the provision and availability of data by governments to the private sector has lagged the growth in complexity of sanctions. Accessible data has the potential to enhance the ability of financial institutions and businesses across the EU to be fully empowered to correctly identify entities, industry sectors, activities and specific goods that should be blocked. It can further assist with the identification of circumvention activity and underpin diplomatic engagement with third countries. The challenge ahead is to enhance the quality and accessibility of these data sources to ensure the impact needed to further restrict the funding and resourcing of the Russian military.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Tom Keatinge</strong> is the founding Director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS) at RUSI, where his research focuses on matters at the intersection of finance and security. He is also currently a specialist adviser on illicit finance to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee ongoing enquiry.</p> + +<p><strong>Gonzalo Saiz</strong> is a Research Analyst at the Centre for Financial Crime &amp; Security Studies at RUSI, focusing on sanctions and counter threat finance. He is part of Project CRAAFT (Collaboration, Research and Analysis Against Financing of Terrorism) and Euro SIFMANet (European Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network).</p>Tom Keatinge and Gonzalo SaizParticipants discussed the key role that data plays in the success of sanctions.Comparing Conflicts In Gaza2023-12-12T12:00:00+08:002023-12-12T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/comparing-conflicts-in-gaza<p><em>With the outcome of the present confrontation between Israel and its opponents in Gaza remaining uncertain, a comparison with previous rounds of fighting may provide some insight into how events could develop.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>Following the traumatic attack it experienced on 7 October 2023, Israel completely changed its strategy for dealing with Hamas from containing and deterring the group to trying to destroy it. There are several scenarios for what might happen next. To determine how the present war is most likely to develop, it is essential to examine previous confrontations in the Gaza Strip.</p> + +<p>Since it took over in Gaza in 2007, Hamas and other groups – mostly the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – have engaged in a series of confrontations with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the two most significant of which were in 2008–2009 and in the summer of 2014. Other rounds of fighting were much smaller, such as those that occurred in November 2012, May 2021 and August 2022. Understanding the complexity and risks of the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip requires looking into the similarities and differences between previous confrontations and the current war.</p> + +<h3 id="victory-in-sight">Victory in Sight?</h3> + +<p>Israel fought several high-intensity wars with Arab states between 1948 and 1982. Since 1982, the IDF has confronted only Arab non-state actors (NSAs). In Lebanon, it fought Hizbullah in the 1980s and 1990s, and again in a major war in 2006. Since then, the IDF has confronted Hamas and other smaller Palestinian groups like the PIJ in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The main confrontations have taken place in Gaza, all of them ending in a tie – much to Israel’s frustration. Although Hamas and the PIJ are elusive, flexible and capable of putting up a tough fight, the IDF is still much stronger.</p> + +<p>During all of the previous confrontations, Israel hesitated on whether to try to destroy its foes due to various constraints and the negative implications of an all-out war in the Gaza Strip. Since destroying NSAs like Hamas is a tall order, Israel’s preferred method for containment and deterrence until now has been based on a strategy called ‘mowing the grass’. This meant that from time-to-time Israel had to degrade the military capabilities of its foes in the Gaza Strip by conducting a short and limited campaign.</p> + +<p>The last confrontation before the current one, that of August 2022, was in a way different from other clashes in the Gaza Strip because Israel considered its outcome to be a victory. Yet in reality, it was a minimal success. On that occasion Israel confronted only the PIJ, which paid a price but still survived. Nevertheless, it seems that the results of that campaign boosted Israel’s confidence and, together with other steps it took to upgrade its defences around the Gaza Strip, convinced Israel that it was ready to deal with any hostilities that might break out on the border. Israel also assumed that Hamas would not seek war. On 7 October 2023, Israel paid dearly for its blunders.</p> + +<p>Following the attack of 7 October, Israel concluded that it must revise its national security strategy. Such a highly important process should be carried out in a careful manner by methodically examining all the options. Yet Israel decided to go immediately on the attack, launching massive aerial bombardments followed by a large-scale land offensive. This made sense politically given that Israel received sympathy and, more importantly, support for its actions from the US, the UK and other Western powers. Yet it might lose some or even most of this support as the war progresses due to heavy casualties among the Palestinian population and the vast scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip.</p> + +<p>In each of the former rounds of fighting, Israel stuck to its policy of pursuing a limited campaign due to the constraints and negative ramifications of a war in the Gaza Strip. Now, Israel has drastically changed its policy, even though the constraints remain and some of them have even become more acute. Israel does not want to govern the Gaza Strip, but it cannot ignore the poor conditions there. In previous confrontations, it avoided toppling Hamas’s rule, leaving it to continue running the Gaza Strip. Hamas has, of course, done an awful job; instead of investing in improving Gazans’ standard of living, it has focused on preparing to confront Israel. This has meant that infrastructure and services for the Palestinian population have sharply deteriorated in recent years, up to a point where the Gaza Strip is on the verge of collapse.</p> + +<p>As long as Hamas has been in charge there, this has mostly remained its problem, but now that the IDF has seized a large part of the Gaza Strip, it has also become Israel’s concern. The war, with all its destruction, will of course make the dire situation in Gaza much worse. Israel wants to take ‘overall security responsibility’ in the Gaza Strip, while hoping that others will handle civilian affairs there. It would ideally like another government to do this, but no state – not even any of Israel’s Arab neighbours – is willing to deal with the giant mess in the Gaza Strip. The most reasonable choice seems to be the Palestinian Authority (PA); yet in previous confrontations, Israel assumed that the PA would not be up to the task if it were to bring down Hamas’s regime. There is now even less chance of this because in recent years the PA has become weaker, making it less likely that it could go back to controlling the Gaza Strip.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Thousands of young men in the Gaza Strip who will struggle to find a job in the present circumstances may agree to fight for Hamas for lack of a better choice</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>Another factor that has worsened in the last year is Israel’s internal stability, following a wave of protests against the government. While these have subsided since the war broke out, they could well erupt again later on. The current war in the Gaza Strip may also contribute to domestic instability, depending on its outcome – and a crisis inside Israel could make it harder to solve the huge problems in the Gaza Strip.</p> + +<p>Since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, the group has had several confrontations with Israel. The two main ones were in the winter of 2008–2009, lasting 22 days, and in the summer of 2014, lasting for 50 days. Other campaigns included the one in May 2021, which went on for 12 days, and the one in August 2022, which lasted only three days. The current war might go on for several months. Israel has to be ready for this, on several levels.</p> + +<p>Hamas’s leaders are ‘high on Israel’s target list’. On previous occasions, such as in 2004 and 2012, Israel has assassinated some of Hamas’s top leaders – yet the group not only survived those blows, but got stronger. Therefore, decapitating Hamas’s leadership now is unlikely to annihilate the group. It could even be counterproductive, because the new leaders might be more capable of fighting Israel.</p> + +<p>The IDF is also killing Hamas’s combatants, including senior figures like brigade and battalion commanders, in an effort to disrupt the group’s command and control. In the last major confrontation in the Gaza Strip in 2014, Hamas lost up to 1,000 combatants. During the present war it is absorbing many more casualties, but it could yet obtain new recruits. Iran will give Hamas money for this purpose, and thousands of young men in the Gaza Strip who will struggle to find a job in the present circumstances may agree to fight for Hamas for lack of a better choice. Others will doubtless join Hamas to avenge family members or friends lost during the war.</p> + +<h3 id="military-factors">Military Factors</h3> + +<p>Several factors made past confrontations easier for Israel, some of which are also relevant in the present conflict. The IDF has clear superiority over its foes in the Gaza Strip, enjoying major advantages in terms of firepower, manpower and technology. Yet it still has a tough task if it wishes to defeat Hamas, let alone destroy the group. This will be difficult because in previous confrontations in the Gaza Strip, the IDF was often able to exploit an element of surprise. The best-known example was at the start of the confrontation in December 2008, when the IDF launched an air raid that inflicted heavy casualties on Hamas. By contrast, on 7 October 2023, the IDF was taken completely by surprise, putting it in a state of shock and hindering its response. Although it subsequently recovered, its counterattack was obviously expected by Hamas, which was able to prepare accordingly. In this sense, the IDF will need to wait for a better opportunity if it wants to catch Hamas off-guard.</p> + +<p>In previous confrontations, the IDF was able to concentrate its efforts, such as deploying its best units on one front – that is, in the Gaza Strip. Now, however, the IDF has to secure its northern border with Lebanon and deal with clashes in the West Bank, even if the level of friction on those fronts is quite low. As long as there is no escalation in Lebanon, the IDF can focus its attention on the Gaza Strip.</p> + +<p>Hamas and the PIJ have fired more than 9,000 rockets and missiles since the start of the current war. In previous confrontations they have fired fewer, but on this occasion the rockets and missiles are not the main threat to Israel. While they can still cause harm, almost all the Israeli losses from the present conflict resulted from the ground invasion into Israel on 7 October. The firing of missiles and rockets is mostly an act of defiance and terror, forcing Israeli civilians to run for cover. Many in Israel do not have proper shelters, although they do receive an alert – a process that has improved over the years. Israel’s famous air defence system, the Iron Dome, has once again proved to be very effective. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is trying to suppress the firing of rockets as it has done in previous rounds of fighting, with ground forces now also participating in this task.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Trying to defeat Hamas by assassinating its leadership and killing as many of its combatants as possible might not work</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>During the confrontation in 2008–2009, the IDF cut the Gaza Strip in half. It has done the same in the current war, but the present Israeli operation has reached deeper inside the Strip, exposing the IDF’s lines of communication to ambushes. Still, it has taken this risk as part of a strategy to encircle and isolate Hamas’s positions. This large-scale manoeuvre has had an impact on Hamas and its performance. The group might lose control of the Gaza Strip, although it may yet avoid collapse.</p> + +<p>The IDF avoided a major land offensive in previous rounds of fighting because of the fear of losses. Israel as a country is very sensitive to casualties, yet following the horrible events of 7 October, it is more willing to pay the price. The IDF is also striving to avoid harming the Arab population for moral and political reasons. In the current war, the fighting is more large-scale and intense, so unfortunately there is more collateral damage.</p> + +<p>The IDF recently called up over 350,000 reserves, mostly from the ground forces. This is Much more than in former confrontations, and serves to indicate how this war is different. Many of Israel’s reserves have not trained much if at all in recent years. The IDF is trying to fix this now by conducting exercises, but returning soldiers to top form takes time. There are also difficulties in providing enough equipment, such as body armour, for so many troops. This is hardly a surprise because before the war the IDF had based its level of build-up on recent confrontations in the Gaza Strip, assuming there would be more of the same. The strategy was to depend on the IAF and intelligence rather than on massed ground units. According to this concept, budgets were allocated to other areas at the expense of providing training, equipment and so on to a large part of the ground forces.</p> + +<p>Another problem for the IDF is that the last time it fought an urban conflict in the Gaza Strip was in 2014. Since then, the IDF has conducted several operations in Gaza but without using ground forces, let alone penetrating the Strip by land. This lack of combat experience might have affected current operations, including their cost to the IDF. Nevertheless, the motivation of Israeli troops is high because they are convinced this war was forced on Israel and they want to make sure Hamas will not be able to conduct an attack like that of 7 October ever again.</p> + +<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3> + +<p>Since 2008, Israel has engaged in several rounds of fighting in the Gaza Strip with Hamas and the PIJ. Analysing these previous confrontations is crucial to understanding the current war. Almost all of the clashes that occurred from 2008 to 2022 ended in a tie, and some in Israel even saw them as a failure. Israel considered the last confrontation it had there, in August 2022, to be a success, which may have boosted its confidence too much. Now, following the terrible events of 7 October, Israel has drastically changed its strategy from containment to annihilating Hamas, but this is a tall order. The current war is costlier and longer than any previous confrontations. Trying to defeat Hamas by assassinating its leadership and killing as many of its combatants as possible might not work. Israel has to have realistic goals to begin with. It can inflict on Hamas the biggest blow it has ever suffered and topple its rule of the Gaza Strip. Yet, as in previous confrontations, Hamas as a movement might manage to hold on.</p> + +<p>The IDF failed on 7 October 2023 in terms of its intelligence and readiness. Yet it has managed to recover and enjoys similar advantages to previous rounds of fighting, such as superiority in both firepower and technology. There is also high motivation among its troops, and the Iron Dome is proving itself once again. For the time being, the IDF can concentrate on one front, as in previous confrontations, although this might change. Unlike in the confrontation of 2008, however, the IDF does not enjoy the element of surprise. Other aspects unique to this confrontation include the mass mobilisation of reserves, with some troops not being well trained or equipped. A lack of combat experience in urban warfare is another challenge for the IDF, having relied on the IAF in former confrontations.</p> + +<p>Overall, there is some similarity between the current war and previous confrontations, but there are also major differences. Israel must be aware of these in order to avoid crucial mistakes as it becomes more and more committed to this showdown.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Ehud Eilam</strong> has been dealing with and studying Israel’s national security for the last 35 years. He served in the Israeli military and later worked as a researcher for the Israeli Ministry of Defense.</p>Ehud EilamWith the outcome of the present confrontation between Israel and its opponents in Gaza remaining uncertain, a comparison with previous rounds of fighting may provide some insight into how events could develop.From The Ground Up2023-12-11T12:00:00+08:002023-12-11T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/from-the-ground-up<p><em>Experts examine two aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural recovery that are critical to increasing its food production and exports: demining farmland and restoring farmers’ access to fertilizers.</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> + +<p>In the two decades leading up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Ukraine had become a major producer and exporter of numerous agricultural commodities. In the 2020–2021 harvest season — the last season unaffected by Russia’s full-scale invasion — Ukraine was the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, honey, and walnuts worldwide; the third-largest exporter of maize, barley, and rapeseed; and the world’s top exporter of sunflower oil, sunflower meal, and millet.</p> + +<p>Due to Russia’s intentional attacks on all aspects of Ukraine’s agriculture sector, and collateral damage from hostilities, Ukraine’s production and exports are diminished today from prewar levels. As of June 2023, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated that Ukraine’s agriculture sector had incurred $8.7 billion in direct damages to agricultural machinery, equipment, and storage facilities, as well as from stolen or damaged agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and seeds, and outputs, such as crops and livestock. The sector’s $40.3 billion losses represent farmers’ diminished incomes due to foregone production, lower selling prices for products, and higher operational costs across all stages of the agri-food value chain.</p> + +<p>The Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, published in February 2023 by the World Bank in partnership with Kyiv School of Economics, the Ukrainian government, the European Union, and the United Nations, provides the most thorough evaluation of the war’s consequences for Ukraine and the investments required to ensure its future prosperity. However, the continuous and comprehensive nature of Russia’s assault complicates any estimate of damage and needs. Following the report’s publication, further losses and damages resulted from Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023 and its immediate intensification of attacks on agricultural export infrastructure along Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube River coasts. Between July and October, 17 separate attacks on Ukraine’s ports, grain facilities, and civilian ships destroyed 300,000 metric tons of grain and further reduced the country’s export potential.</p> + +<p>This destruction has resulted in a further downward spiral in Ukraine’s agricultural economy. Limited export routes have raised transportation costs and reduced the volume of goods farmers can sell, decreasing farmers’ incomes and eliminating profitability. While incomes have fallen, the costs of agricultural inputs have risen, and damage to farms and equipment imposes additional, heavy costs on farmers. As a result, many farmers are curtailing their activities and reducing the size of their harvests. And despite the Ukrainian government’s efforts to insulate agricultural workers from the draft, active war has drawn farmers to the battlefield, reducing the size of Ukraine’s agricultural labor force.</p> + +<p>In aggregate, this has significantly decreased Ukraine’s agricultural production and exports.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/czTj1Z5.png" alt="image01" /></p> + +<p>Still, in 2022, Ukraine managed to remain among the world’s top producers and exporters of corn, wheat, sunflower oil and seeds, and soybeans, due to the determination of Ukraine’s agricultural labor force, the commitment of Ukraine’s government, and support from numerous other partners, including governments, multilateral organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and research institutes. According to Kyiv School of Economics president Tymofiy Milovanov, efforts to rebuild Ukraine’s agricultural sector should continue even as conflict continues because it is unlikely there will be a “clear end to the war.” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky established the National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine from the War just two months after the full-scale invasion began, and the council continues to develop the Ukraine Recovery Plan in partnership with Ukrainian civil society institutions, partner governments, and international organizations and companies. The overarching goal of this work is not just to reconstruct Ukraine, but to build on the country’s reforms in recent years and transform Ukraine’s economy for the future.</p> + +<p>The importance of investing in Ukraine’s agricultural sector is threefold: to bolster Ukraine’s economy in wartime, to restore its capacity as a major global food supplier, and to strengthen its position as a bulwark to Russia’s influence through its own agricultural exports. Rebuilding and transforming Ukraine’s agriculture sector will require coordinated investments in its soil, labor force, agricultural institutions, and infrastructure. Adequate and low-cost routes must be secured for Ukraine’s agricultural exports; damaged farm, storage, transportation, and port infrastructure must be rebuilt; destroyed and stolen equipment and goods must be replaced; farmlands must be demined, tested, and restored; farmers’ access to seeds, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs much be secured; and farmers’ needs for additional financing and training to continue agricultural activity must be met. Investments to address immediate needs and obstacles are ongoing, but even more immense challenges will require international attention in the coming decades, including demining waterways, namely the Black and Azov Seas, modernizing the country’s irrigation infrastructure, and addressing the repercussions of the Kakhovka dam collapse on surrounding ecosystems and agricultural livelihoods. This work will take place in the context of Ukraine’s 2024 farmland market reform and the country’s candidacy for membership in the European Union, which will necessitate further reforms to Ukraine’s agriculture sector.</p> + +<p>This white paper focuses on two aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural reconstruction that are crucial to supporting transformation throughout the sector: demining Ukraine’s farmland and improving access to fertilizers in Ukraine. The information and insights included herein are the result of CSIS research, with input from numerous experts in Ukraine, Europe, and the United States. Information and policy recommendations regarding rebuilding other aspects of Ukraine’s agriculture sector can be found in other CSIS publications and will be the focus of future scholarship.</p> + +<h3 id="demining">Demining</h3> + +<h4 id="the-scale-and-nature-of-landmine-use">The Scale and Nature of Landmine Use</h4> + +<p>Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a significant proportion of combat has been waged across farmland in Ukraine’s rural areas, compromising Ukraine’s agricultural economy. The nature of the war’s impacts on Ukraine’s farmland varies by locale. War-related damage to Ukraine’s farmland includes craters and other physical destruction from munitions attacks; possible chemical contamination from munitions, fuel spills, shell remnants, and human remains; and depressions from armed vehicle tracks. According to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Russian troops were firing between 40,000 and 60,000 shells at Ukrainian positions every day as of August 2022. Up to 20 percent of ammunition fired does not detonate, and Russian troops regularly place landmines in fields and forests. Among threats to Ukraine’s farmland, unexploded ordnance and the extensive placement of landmines remain widespread concerns.</p> + +<p>A Reuters investigation into landmine use in Ukraine revealed “landmine contamination so vast it is most likely unprecedented in the 21st century,” with emplaced landmines numbering in the hundreds of thousands. By mid-2023, Ukraine had become the most mined country in the world, surpassing Afghanistan, Syria, Cambodia, and other countries in which landmines are a common feature of warfare. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 30 percent of Ukraine’s lands, or approximately 174,000 square kilometers (67,000 square miles), has been exposed to conflict and will require surveying and, if necessary, demining. According to Interfax, a further 13,500 square kilometers (over 5,200 square miles) of the Black Sea, Azov Sea, and Ukraine’s rivers and other inland bodies of water are potentially contaminated with landmines. Likewise, according to Human Rights Watch, the scale of landmine use in Ukraine has resulted in a “large, dispersed, and complex level of contamination that will threaten Ukrainian civilians and hinder recovery efforts for years to come.” One deminer (or “sapper”) is able to clear between 15 and 25 square meters per day, and given the current rate of progress, some estimate that complete demining of Ukrainian territory could take decades or even centuries.</p> + +<p>Antipersonnel mines and anti-vehicle mines have been used in the ongoing war, with at least 13 types of mines identified in Ukraine to date, according to Human Rights Watch, which are located in at least 11 regions across central and eastern Ukraine (see [map]). The preponderance of landmines in Ukraine have been emplaced by Russia, which is not a signatory to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Mine Ban Treaty). Human Rights Watch has even identified in Ukraine several previously unseen Russian landmines produced as late as 2021, including antipersonnel mines. Though Ukraine is a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, Ukraine has used antipersonnel mines in at least one location since Russia’s invasion, according to Human Rights Watch.</p> + +<p>Landmines used in the war have been hand-emplaced, mechanically laid, scattered by truck-mounted projectors, and delivered by rocket. They include small, plastic-cased PFM-1 antipersonnel mines, which can be easily mistaken for harmless objects and overlooked by metal detectors; POM-3 anti-personnel mines, which can be scattered by air and detonated with mere vibrations, such as nearby footsteps; metal- and plastic-encased anti-vehicle mines, which can be buried in shallow holes and penetrate vehicles’ under-armor upon detonation; and PARM anti-vehicle mines, which can be placed above ground and fire a projectile into their target. Russian forces are also employing “Zemledelie” systems, which can remotely lay mines in areas as large as several football fields in short periods of time, creating minefields of varying complexities across Ukraine. The “Zemledelie” system, Russian for “agriculture,” was developed by the Russian company Rostec and was first observed in use in March 2022.</p> + +<p>Both the extent of Russia’s mine placements and the use of mining technology innovations within Ukraine have resulted in mine contamination of enormous complexity, scale, and lethality. As of September 2023, 246 civilians (including 13 children) had been killed by explosive devices, and 521 civilians (including 53 children) had been injured across Ukraine.</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/bGsCnWd.png" alt="image02" /></p> + +<h3 id="ukrainian-government-efforts">Ukrainian Government Efforts</h3> + +<p>While the war continues, the Ukrainian government’s assistance for demining efforts continues to evolve. The Ukrainian government was already supporting demining efforts in Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022; previously occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk had been subject to demining efforts since 2015, following Russia’s 2014 invasion. In November 2021, the Ukrainian government announced the creation of the National Mine Action Authority, an interagency group led by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence that is responsible for the development of national policy and plans for demining as well as coordination of all actors involved in demining.</p> + +<p>Among Ukraine’s mined territory is a significant proportion of Ukraine’s farmland. The precise proportion of Ukraine’s farmland that has been contaminated by landmines is impossible to determine while hostilities continue. Estimates of Ukraine’s farmland exposed to landmines range from 470,000 hectares (or 1,814 square miles), according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, to 2.5 million hectares (or 9,652 square miles), according to Ukraine’s first deputy minister of agrarian policy and food. GLOBSEC estimates that 5 million hectares (or 19,305 square miles, approximately 15.2 percent) of Ukraine’s farmland are unsuitable for use due to landmines, contamination with explosive ordnance, and exposure to armed hostilities.</p> + +<p>In March 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence announced the creation of an Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land to facilitate spring sowing and fall harvesting of crops in 2023 and after. The Ministry of Defence is responsible for ensuring implementation of the plan and coordination among Ukrainian and international partners. To expedite humanitarian demining nationwide, the Ukrainian government announced the formation of the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining in June 2023, chaired by the Ministry of Economy, and the working group held its first meeting in September 2023, emphasizing the importance of creating a mine action strategy for Ukraine. Later in September 2023, Ukrainian prime minister Denis Shmyhal convened the first Demine Ukraine Forum among Ukrainian government representatives and international partners.</p> + +<h3 id="humanitarian-demining">Humanitarian Demining</h3> + +<p>The ultimate purpose of mine removal dictates the level of investment — of time and funding — in demining efforts. Swiftly clearing an area of mines in the course of combat or immediately thereafter is called military, combat, or operational demining. Operational demining is conducted by special military units or other emergency services and is intended to clear a path for the safe advance or retreat of troops. Though it may quickly return access to roads, residential buildings, or other areas of common use, it does not necessarily guarantee the safety of these areas.</p> + +<p>Humanitarian demining, by contrast, aims to “clear land so that civilians can return to their homes and their everyday routines without the threat of explosive hazards,” according to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS). Humanitarian demining involves numerous, resource-intensive steps, all of which are required to guarantee that an area has been thoroughly searched and cleared of explosives and is safe for use. Steps required for humanitarian demining include a non-technical survey of land, involving interviewing communities and reviewing records of conflicts; a technical survey, involving the use of equipment or animals to determine the boundaries of minefields; mine removal, most commonly through mine detonation; and certification that mine removal is complete and land is safe for use.</p> + +<p>According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, humanitarian demining in Ukraine is presently carried out by 18 certified mine action operator organizations, including NGOs (e.g., the Danish Refugee Council, HALO Trust, the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action, the Norwegian People’s Aid, and DanChurchAid), companies (e.g., Demining Solutions, GK Group, and TetraTech), and Ukrainian entities (e.g., the Ukrainian Sappers Association, Ukrspecexport, and Ukroboronservice). Entities that wish to contribute to Ukraine’s demining efforts must complete a complex certification procedure before working as demining operators in Ukraine. In recognition of the need to expedite and streamline the certification process for demining operators, the State Emergency Service’s Interregional Center for Humanitarian Demining launched an online portal for interested organizations to apply for certification and keep apprised of the application’s status. After obtaining certification to demine its own farmland across Ukraine, the Ukrainian company Nibulon has recognized the use of its expertise across Ukraine’s farmland broadly and will offer its services to farmers and to the state. As of September 2023, 30 additional organizations are awaiting certification, including 18 governmental operators from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, State Transport Special Service, and armed forces.</p> + +<p>At present, the Ukrainian government does not fund humanitarian demining services, so most farmers must pay for demining services themselves. At the Demine Ukraine Forum, Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko noted that Ukraine’s 2024 budget would include UAH 2.0 billion ($54.7 million) to partially compensate farmers for demining services. Minister Svyrydenko also announced the establishment of the Prozorro demining market, through which farmers are expected to select certified deminers. The Ukrainian government will compensate farmers for half the cost of demining through the Prozorro system, and the Ukrainian government is considering the best way to compensate farmers for demining costs borne before 2024. Ukraine’s state bank, “Ukragasbank,” has also launched a soft lending program to fund the demining of farmland within the framework of the “Affordable Loans at 5-7-9 percent” program, improving farmers’ access to demining financing and incentivizing farmers’ use of legal, certified demining operators.</p> + +<h3 id="progress-demining-ukraines-agricultural-land">Progress Demining Ukraine’s Agricultural Land</h3> + +<p>Under the Ministry of Defence’s Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land, the Ukrainian government specified 470,000 hectares of agricultural land in nine regions of Ukraine that would need to be surveyed and, if necessary, demined. These regions are where “the problem of contamination is most urgent and the clearing of agricultural land is most feasible,” according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence. In addition to the National Mine Action Authority, coordinated by the Ministry of Defence, Ukraine’s Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining, coordinated by the Ministry of Economy, also supports humanitarian demining across Ukraine. In a press release from the Ministry of Economy in June 2023, the Ukrainian government noted that the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food would update the identification of territories that would need to be demined. According to the Ministry of Economy, 100,000 of the 470,000 hectares specified in the action plan had been cleared by June, and by the end of 2023, up to 165,000 hectares of land could be cleared for agricultural use.</p> + +<p>The Ukrainian government has continued to publicize progress under the action plan. By September 2023, the Ukrainian government had surveyed 188,600 hectares of agricultural land under the plan, of which over 124,000 hectares will require clearance, including through humanitarian demining. By October 2023, the Ukrainian government had surveyed more than 225,000 hectares of agricultural land identified in the action plan and had returned 170,000 hectares to economic use. In addition to these periodic updates, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine publishes daily updates regarding its progress demining Ukrainian territories through a portal that is only accessible within Ukraine. Between the beginning of the invasion and November 14, 2023, 454,827 explosive objects and 2,892 kilograms of explosive substance have been defused, including 3,124 aerial bombs. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has also partnered with the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining to maintain an interactive map of mine contamination across Ukraine.</p> + +<h3 id="ukraines-needs-and-international-support">Ukraine’s Needs and International Support</h3> + +<p>Despite recent progress, the demining needs of the Ukrainian government remain staggering. As of February 2023, the cost of clearance of explosive ordnance across Ukraine was estimated at $37.6 billion, according to the Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment produced by the Kyiv School of Economics, the World Bank, the Ukrainian government, the European Union, and the United Nations. This estimate represents the significant investments needed in equipment, training, and salaries, including to expand the strategic planning and operational capacities of Ukraine’s demining forces.</p> + +<p>Numerous countries, multilateral organizations, and NGOs have provided financial and other support for demining in Ukraine, including for the demining of agricultural land. In June 2023, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced a joint plan to clear landmines and other explosive remnants of war from agricultural land, in collaboration with the Fondation Suisse de Déminage and with support from the UN Ukraine Humanitarian Fund and private donors. In July 2023, the Ukrainian government announced that numerous partners — including the United States, the European Union, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, Austria, Switzerland, South Korea, and the Howard Buffett Foundation — together had pledged $244 million for humanitarian demining clearance. In July 2023, South Korea pledged to provide demining equipment to Ukraine, and Japan has similarly offered technical assistance in 2023. In September 2023, the U.S. Department of State announced $90.5 million in humanitarian demining assistance to Ukraine, in addition to the $47.6 million the State Department had announced in September 2022 for a similar purpose. Croatia hosted the first International Donors’ Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine in October 2023, attracting representatives from more than 40 countries, and Switzerland, which announced over €100 million (approximately $107 million) for humanitarian demining in Ukraine in October 2023, will host the Second International Donors’ Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine in 2024.</p> + +<h3 id="the-reality-for-farmers">The Reality for Farmers</h3> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Tmi3T4H.jpg" alt="image03" /> +<em>▲ A farmer and a member of a demining team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine carry an unexploded missile near the village of Hryhorivka, Zaporizhzhia region, on May 5, 2022.</em></p> + +<p>Despite the Ukrainian government’s recent progress on its Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land and considerable support from international partners, many farmers face difficulties accessing humanitarian demining services. One licensed company, for example, is reported to have offered demining services to farmers for $200 per acre of farmland. Because the war has reduced harvests and incomes, and increased the costs of inputs, most farmers are unable to afford such prices. Furthermore, Ukraine’s byzantine bureaucracy can lead to long wait times for demining services. Duplication of services across ministries and the constant evolution of priorities and plans can lead to bottlenecks, which the Ukrainian government admits and is seeking to redress.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, some farmers are resorting to conducting demining activities themselves. As one farmer reported to Foreign Policy, “At first we waited for the state to demine our fields. Then we understood it wouldn’t happen, so we decided to do it ourselves.” Three of this farmer’s employees scanned his farmland with handheld metal detectors, marking potential mines with flags. Another farmer operates a remote-controlled tractor, outfitted with panels stripped from Russian tanks, to scan his fields for landmines. One farmer in Kharkhiv explained the situation to local Ukrainian media (authors’ translation):</p> + +<blockquote> + <p>Out of 3,000 hectares, I have 1,000 hectares mined. I left the application for demining immediately after the de-occupation. The emergency department says that they will not clear the mines in the near future because they do not have time. We are now communicating with the neighboring farms to clear the fields [ourselves]. The situation with the neighbors is still worse, all their lands are “seeded” with explosives. We will look for a way out on our own, because today it is cheaper to buy a field than to demine it. We are considering the possibility of buying a drone that looks for mines or renting a special car. Otherwise, life will not return to our villages. . . . I need to clear the fields and sow crops this year.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In this context, many farmers opt to use the services of uncertified or “dark deminers,” who charge prices lower than certified deminers but who cannot guarantee that land they survey is clear of mines and safe for use. Among farmers who use dark demining services, accidents are reportedly common.</p> + +<p>And among farmers in regions exposed to conflict, not only the presence but the fear of landmines can keep farmers from working their land, according to CSIS interviews. Kyiv School of Economics president Timofiy Milovanov characterized the current situation as two systems of demining at tension within Ukraine: the “legacy” system, whose adherence to international mine action standards renders it slow and expensive but best able to guarantee the safe clearance of lands, and the alternative system made up of Ukrainians that “have to work . . . [and] protect their children,” who “innovate right now, whether it’s certified or not.” Such demining “innovations” are borne from farmers’ need to continue agricultural activity for their livelihoods, but the risks of uncertified demining are severe. A farmer in Kherson who opted against planting in the face of mine contamination told Reuters, “I have no moral right to send workers to fields as it is dangerous for life.” CSIS interviews revealed the same tension between these two systems, with some Ukrainian entities advocating for equipping farmers with demining machines to expediate the process, and others insisting that farmers are not professional deminers and their participation in the process would risk lives and complicate the government’s coordination and planning.</p> + +<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that while overall production and export levels have fallen since Russia’s invasion, agricultural yields per acre have risen compared to last season for Ukraine’s major commodities, although the USDA estimates include crop production in Crimea and occupied territories, where Russia reaps the benefits of favorable harvests. For wheat, for example, yields are estimated at a 4.5 tons per hectare, up 17 percent from 2022 and 13 percent from the five-year average. This suggests that production losses are due primarily to reduced planting: the USDA estimates that harvested area has fallen 26 percent from the five-year average. In fact, farmland exposed to hostilities since February 2022 has left an impact visible from space, according to NASA’s Harvest program, which estimates that up to 2.8 million hectares (or over 10,800 square miles) of Ukraine’s agricultural land have been abandoned as a result of the war.</p> + +<h3 id="unique-considerations-for-agricultural-land">Unique Considerations for Agricultural Land</h3> + +<p>The presence, or even the fear, of landmines on agricultural land has affected farmers’ harvests across Ukraine. At the same time, the process of demining farmland could also depress agricultural yields, as some farmers may experience long-term impacts once their land has been demined. A report from the NGO Mine Action Review, with funding from the Norwegian, Canadian, and Swiss governments, details the numerous destructive effects of demining on soil. The most common machinery employed in demining is equipped with flails, tillers, and rollers, which can disrupt soil structure, accelerate soil erosion, and disrupt water, carbon, and nutrient cycles. While the most expedient and safest method of landmine disposal is through remote detonation, detonation generates a crater that displaces topsoil while compacting subsoil into the crater. Finally, the detonation of landmines can release toxic pollutants into soils and waterways, including from explosive substances as well as the breakdown of other munitions components. In Cambodia, for example, researchers found that the content of heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and copper increased by 30 percent in soil in a 1-meter radius of the detonation point.</p> + +<p>Mitigation measures for such effects of landmine detonation are unclear, and data on the environmental impacts of landmine detonation are limited. The extent to which the detonation of landmines could affect soil fertility and water quality in heavily mined territories has not been widely examined or reported. Only one international covenant, the International Mine Actions Standard 07.13, addresses the impacts of demining on agricultural land, stating that national authorities and mine action operators have the responsibility to “ensure that all mine action activities . . . are carried out in accordance with applicable legislation, safely, effectively and efficiently, but also in a way that minimises any adverse impact on people, wildlife, vegetation and other aspects of the environment.” The standard further specifies that mechanical clearance and bulk demolition, or the process of clearing land with machines designed to detonate ordnance, require greater oversight than other clearance methods given that “these processes have the ability to severely impact the environment.”</p> + +<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/GzdQD2W.jpg" alt="image04" /> +<em>▲ Employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine present to media the Ukraines first Armtrac 400 specialized mine clearance vehicle, purchased through the UNITED24 fundraising platform, near Kharkiv, on October 27, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.</em></p> + +<p>Although detonation carries risks for agricultural land, leaving landmines in the ground can also lead to chemical contamination as the munitions age and corrode. The leaching of hazardous chemicals into soil and groundwater can take anywhere from 10 to 90 years, but Ukraine’s farmland may experience pollution from buried ordnances sooner rather than later. Russia has reportedly used Soviet-era landmines against Ukraine, which would corrode faster than landmines produced more recently. Further, the characteristics of Ukraine’s fertile soils that enable plants to thrive also enable the soil to “cling on to a lot of these toxins following the war,” according to soil geomorphologist Joe Hupy.</p> + +<p>Efforts to identify the impacts on agricultural soil and groundwater resulting from exploded ordnance, unexploded ordnance, and landmines have only just begun within Ukraine, and CSIS interviews with in-country experts and operators revealed that more investment, time, and resources are needed before these impacts can be accurately determined. The Ukrainian Researchers Society, FAO, and WFP have partnered to map munition craters, soil pollution, and the presence of “bombturbation,” or incidences of explosives cratering, compacting, displacing, and ejecting hazardous materials into soil. Their preliminary study of contamination in the Kharkiv Oblast using remote sensing and soil sample analysis shows that over 420,000 craters across roughly 655,072 hectares of arable land have resulted in over 1.3 million cubic meters of displaced soil, 4,214 hectares of bombturbated soil, and 28,286 hectares of potentially contaminated soil, with only 1.76 percent of assessed soils found to be contaminated with heavy metals. A CSIS interview with the FAO Ukraine office confirmed this level of contamination is not concerning for the safe consumption of crops, but rather for the potential of reduced agricultural production in the future.</p> + +<p>A collection of researchers across Ukraine, Lithuania, Portugal, and Spain have conducted a similar assessment within the Kharkiv Oblast, also finding that explosions on and within soil have damaged soil structure and released heavy metals into surrounding soils. The researchers note these findings are concluded from a minimal sample size that may not reflect the full extent of the war’s impacts on soils, especially given the limited access to areas of intense combat. These preliminary analyses are a significant step toward understanding the war’s effects on Ukrainian farmland, but offer an incomplete picture of what will be required to restore agricultural soil following the war’s conclusion. The scale of soil analysis required to determine the unique impacts of this war on Ukraine’s black soils will necessitate improved access to in-country soil testing facilities and greater investment in Ukraine’s remote sensing capabilities.</p> + +<h3 id="recommendations">Recommendations</h3> + +<p>In October 2023, Ukraine’s minister of economy acknowledged, “Without demining, we will not be able to fully launch our economy. Mine clearance is therefore the starting point for the recovery of our country and its economy.” Significant progress against the challenge of demining Ukraine’s farmland is clear. At the same time, the scale of landmine contamination across Ukraine’s farmland and the importance of sustained agricultural activity to its economic recovery require unparalleled measures by the Ukrainian government along with support from international partners.</p> + +<p>Following is a description of ongoing best practices and additional steps needed to demine Ukraine’s farmland.</p> + +<ul> + <li> + <p>The Ukrainian government is prioritizing humanitarian demining at the highest levels, including by the leadership of the Ministries of Economy and Defence, as well as by the prime minister.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>In the course of adapting demining services to the ongoing war, the Ukrainian government recognizes that inefficiencies remain and is attempting to expedite the provision of humanitarian demining services and reduce the cost to Ukraine’s farmers through the recently launched demining market on the Prozorro system and through soft loans to farmers.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The Ukrainian government is also tracking the resources needed to demine Ukraine’s farmland, including demining equipment and training for deminers.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The Action Plan for Demining Ukraine’s Agricultural Lands aims to synchronize humanitarian demining of Ukraine’s farmland, and the Ukrainian government is attempting to unify all Ukrainian government demining activities under a forthcoming mine action strategy, which the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining is presently drafting.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>At the same time, the Ukrainian government should continue to take steps to reduce the prevalence of “dark demining” of Ukraine’s agricultural land and demining by farmers themselves, recognizing risks to the safety of farmers and other civilians.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Furthermore, the Ukrainian government is coordinating regularly with international partners to fill gaps and prevent overlaps in services, including through the International Donors’ Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Finally, the Ukrainian government and its partners appear to be aligning activities with UNMAS’s Five Pillars of Mine Action, including mine education, with Minister of Economy Svyrydenko recently emphasizing the need for a “nationwide awareness campaign to educate children from an early age about the dangers of explosive ordnance.”</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The complete humanitarian demining of Ukraine will require 10,000 sappers, necessitating an additional 7,000 deminers to supplement the 3,000 specialists working across the country today, according to Prime Minister Shmyhal. Funding for deminers’ training and salaries must be increased, with training for one sapper costing up to $6,000.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Conducting non-technical surveys prior to other humanitarian demining procedures is the most cost-effective way to confirm the presence of landmine contamination and efficiently release non-contaminated land. In its action plan and national mine action strategy, the Ukrainian government should formalize the release of low- and no-risk land through non-technical surveys before conducting technical surveys in order to release more land for economic use as quickly as possible.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>In completing non-technical surveys, technical surveys, and mine removal, sappers should have access to advanced demining technologies, including drones, ground-penetrating radar, and satellite imagery analysis enhanced by artificial intelligence, in order to expedite humanitarian demining and increase the safety of deminers.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Ukraine should continue to invest in its capacity to manufacture advanced demining equipment locally.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>In the face of the rapid evolution of Ukrainian government demining processes, the Ukrainian government should continue to clearly communicate the steps farmers must take to access certified demining services and receive compensation for them, including through the newly announced demining market under the Prozorro system.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The Ukrainian government and international partners should also attempt to reduce the cost to farmers of humanitarian demining of their agricultural land, recognizing that any costs borne by farmers will detract from investments in agricultural production, resulting in lower farmer incomes, production, and exports nationwide.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Given the urgent need for actionable information about the impacts of demining on agricultural land, and the fragility of the ecosystems on which agricultural activity depends, Ukraine’s government and international partners should invest in research on the impacts of demining agricultural land and disseminate best practices for demining Ukraine’s farmland to minimize impacts on soil fertility, water, and agricultural productivity. Such considerations and steps should be codified in plans for demining Ukraine’s farmland today and in the future, for the awareness of Ukrainian and international deminers.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>The Ukrainian government and partners should also increase the availability of soil testing to ensure the absence of chemical contamination and the safety of crops produced.</p> </li> </ul> @@ -1395,7 +1887,57 @@ <hr /> -<p>案件編號：HCCC69/2022</p>獨媒報導辯方指「非法手段」應限「武力」相關 官關注普通法原則是否適用《國安法》 何桂藍結案：控方將政治問題變刑事、議員只向選民問責法庭不應干預【初選47人案・審訊第 117 日】2023-11-30T12:00:00+08:002023-11-30T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-democrat-primary-elections-day-117<ul> +<p>案件編號：HCCC69/2022</p>獨媒報導辯方指「非法手段」應限「武力」相關 官關注普通法原則是否適用《國安法》 何桂藍結案：控方將政治問題變刑事、議員只向選民問責法庭不應干預Too Fast, Too Furious?2023-12-04T12:00:00+08:002023-12-04T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/too-fast-too-furious<p><em>What can countries learn from recent experiments in adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender?</em></p> + +<excerpt /> + +<p>Currently, only a handful of countries have decided to adopt cryptocurrency as a legal tender, most prominently among them El Salvador and the Central African Republic (CAR). While attracted by the potential economic and monetary incentives that this move has to offer, both countries have faced significant implementation challenges, threatening to undermine their objectives and any foreseeable economic benefits.</p> + +<p>As more countries – and developing economies in particular – have begun to consider integrating cryptocurrency into their national financial systems, these experiments highlight that adopting cryptocurrency as a national legal tender necessitates a certain level of preparedness, including appropriate infrastructure, public education, building trust and – last but not least – the establishment of robust financial crime prevention measures.</p> + +<h3 id="two-routes">Two Routes</h3> + +<p>While El Salvador and the CAR sought to adopt cryptocurrency for similar reasons, their national experiences have been quite different.</p> + +<p>El Salvador took the step of adopting Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, with the goal of increasing investment and assisting citizens that lack access to traditional financial services. Initially, to integrate Bitcoin into its economy, the country contracted third-party companies to develop centralised cryptocurrency wallets known as “Chivo Wallets” and cryptocurrency ATMs. This government-funded project allows citizens to transfer funds quickly through the use of the “lightning network” – a solution that increased the speed of Bitcoin transactions – and without commission fees.</p> + +<p>The CAR moved to adopt Bitcoin in April 2022, but the government reversed its decision when the Constitutional Court declared the proposal unlawful a month after it was introduced. After this reversal, the government took a different route and created a partially Bitcoin-backed cryptocurrency, known as the Sango Coin, to be introduced in phases. The first phase would allow the public to buy into the crypto-backed currency, while the subsequent phases would allow the use of the currency for certain government services, like purchasing citizenship, e-residency and land. The CAR’s Constitutional Court ultimately rejected a scheme that would have allowed foreign investors to acquire citizenship for $60,000 worth of Sango Coins or a 250 square metre plot for $10,000 worth of Sango Coins, ruling that nationality cannot be priced in a market and that residency requires physical presence in the country.</p> + +<p>At the onset of the project, the coin also promoted the tokenisation of natural resources within the country. Despite the project not initially gaining traction, as of July 2023, the CAR National Assembly revisited the concept and passed a law allowing the tokenisation of land and natural resources.</p> + +<h3 id="same-motives-different-challenges">Same Motives, Different Challenges?</h3> + +<p>The countries’ respective political leaders generally cited the potential economic benefits as their underlying rationale for promoting cryptocurrency as a national legal tender. Both countries regard this as an innovative solution to economic stagnation, poor revenue and foreign direct investment, and a reliance on third country-backed currencies. In the CAR, for example, its national currency – the CFA Franc – is backed by France and pegged to the Euro, with several restrictions in place, such as keeping 50% of the CAR’s foreign assets with the French Treasury. Some saw the CAR’s interest in cryptocurrencies as a political move away from France in an effort to lessen reliance.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">Both El Salvador and the Central African Republic suffer from a lack of appropriate infrastructure to fully realise the adoption of crypto</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>But in addition to these legitimate economic concerns, both El Salvador and the CAR faced stark challenges in adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender.</p> + +<p>Firstly, both countries suffer from a lack of appropriate infrastructure to fully realise the adoption of crypto. For instance, in El Salvador, 40% of the population lacks access to the internet, a critical factor for allowing the cryptocurrency industry to flourish. Fewer than 60% of those who had internet access and mobile phones downloaded Chivo Wallet, and only 20% continued to use it. Also, according to estimates, 40% of all downloads occurred when it was launched in September 2021, and virtually no downloads took place in 2022. Meanwhile, in the CAR, according to 2021 estimates, only 11.4% of the country’s population has internet access, the electricity supply is patchy and unreliable, and mobile phone usage is low.</p> + +<p>Software reliability and cyber security safeguards have also become an issue for El Salvador. When the Bitcoin software first went online in the country, it struggled to verify the identity of its users. The public’s scepticism was exacerbated when hackers were able to create accounts and withdraw the $30 in Bitcoin that the country was offering to its citizens.</p> + +<p>Secondly, transparency has been a persistent problem. The president of El Salvador’s tweets, for example, have been the only source of information enabling the public to know the amount of Bitcoin that the government has bought or sold. Similarly, the CAR declared that a Treasury-maintained partial Bitcoin reserve would support the Sango Coin, although little information about the related technicalities has been made available to the general public. Consequently, public trust in these initiatives has been low. There have also been allegations that in the case of the CAR, adopting cryptocurrency would provide a convenient avenue for Russia to evade Western sanctions, given its close ties with the country.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, appropriate regulatory and legal regimes were not in place prior to the introduction of a government-sponsored cryptocurrency application. The lack of anti-financial crime measures, like Know Your Customer and transaction monitoring, presented a major risk of increased illicit financial flows, especially when converting cryptocurrency to fiat currency – a risk that could also spread beyond the country’s borders. In the CAR, experts conveyed their concerns over the increased risk of financial crime due to the adoption of Bitcoin, which would ultimately impact other countries in the region.</p> + +<p><strong><em><code class="highlighter-rouge">What is clear is that adopting cryptocurrency as legal tender requires a certain amount of readiness in terms of digital infrastructure, transparency and accountability</code></em></strong></p> + +<p>Finally, in addition to low transparency, the price volatility of Bitcoin has raised eyebrows as to whether or not these initiatives are truly worthwhile. Even though Bitcoin’s price volatility appears to be a better alternative for some countries than hyperinflation, El Salvador’s inflation rates are rather low, raising doubts about the effort. Besides, securing convertibility is a tough procedure with Bitcoin’s price fluctuation. Given that the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador is entirely sponsored by public funds via a trust, there is a major risk that the trust’s resources will be drained if the price of Bitcoin declines. According to estimates of the reported amount of Bitcoin purchased by El Salvador, the country has lost approximately $56 million as of June 2022. The IMF has proposed that El Salvador should support the trust through new resources or debt issuance to ensure financial stability and convertibility.</p> + +<h3 id="important-planning-for-future-initiatives">Important Planning for Future Initiatives</h3> + +<p>What is clear from the El Salvador and CAR experiments is that adopting cryptocurrency as legal tender requires a certain amount of readiness in terms of digital infrastructure, transparency and accountability. The most fundamental requirement is physical infrastructure. Countries must be prepared to ensure that the majority of the population has access to reliable electricity, the internet and smartphones.</p> + +<p>Firstly, transparency is key. There should be a continuous process of informing the public through official channels about advancements, Bitcoin reserves and other related topics. This should translate into teaching the public how to use crypto, as well as education on the financial risks that cryptocurrencies pose. One notable example is that El Salvador’s Ministry of Education intends to introduce a curriculum centred around Bitcoin in schools beginning in 2024.</p> + +<p>Secondly, countries also need a robust regulatory framework in place to reduce the risk of financial crime. Without proper implementation of cyber security procedures and anti-money laundering (AML) measures around government-funded cryptocurrency applications, there is inherently a higher risk of criminal exploitation. There is already a steady threat of cryptocurrency businesses being hacked. When government funds are involved, this draws more attention from both regular users and criminals alike, and the threat only increases.</p> + +<p>Ultimately, countries thinking about taking the same path would be remiss to ignore these lessons. While the adoption of cryptocurrency as legal tender may have advantages, problems such as a lack of trust, transparency and accountability, as well as the absence of appropriate infrastructure and robust financial crime prevention measures, may hinder the realisation of the desired economic benefits of cryptocurrency.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><strong>Fatima Alsancak</strong> is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI focusing on countering proliferation financing.</p>Fatima AlsancakWhat can countries learn from recent experiments in adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender?【初選47人案・審訊第 117 日】2023-11-30T12:00:00+08:002023-11-30T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/trial-of-hk-democrat-primary-elections-day-117<ul> <li>辯方質疑控方詮釋「非法手段」無邊無際 僅搬《國安法》「尚方寶劍」</li> </ul> @@ -7871,1938 +8413,4 @@ <hr /> -<p><strong>Gregory C. Allen</strong> is the director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prior to joining CSIS, he was the director of strategy and policy at the Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, where he oversaw development and implementation of the DOD’s AI Strategy, drove policy and human capital reforms to accelerate the DOD’s adoption of AI, and developed mechanisms for AI governance and ethics.</p>Gregory C. AllenWith a new smartphone and new chip, Huawei has returned to the 5G smartphone business in defiance of U.S. sanctions. This report assesses the implications from this latest development for China’s AI industry and the future of semiconductor export controls.Waterfall’s Shadow In Mekong2023-09-29T12:00:00+08:002023-09-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/waterfalls-shadow-in-mekong<excerpt /> - -<p><em>Infrastructure programs like China’s Belt and Road Initiative further authoritarian influence in climate and water-stressed regions. The United States needs strategies that simultaneously advance water security and national security to compete with China.</em></p> - -<h3 id="the-issue">The Issue</h3> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>The United States and its network of democratic partners and allies increasingly find themselves struggling to safeguard the rule of law, free markets, civil liberties, and human security in countries most at risk from climate change and its impact on water security.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>A network of authoritarian states led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are using infrastructure investment programs like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) alongside gray zone campaigns to gain access and influence, often in areas most at risk of further climate shock and water insecurity, particularly in the Mekong region.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>As a result, continuing to develop water strategies offers a viable means of integrating development and deterrence to address core human security challenges and deny further authoritarian access and influence across the world’s most climate-stressed societies.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Taiwan is not the only flash point in the growing contest between the United States and China. As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exports its authoritarian model for governance and development, it creates new arenas for competition beyond the military sphere. From the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and infrastructure investments to the use of political warfare, Beijing is creating a new sphere of influence.</p> - -<p>Through a combination of trade, diplomacy, development, and coercion, the CCP is securing key terrain in a new geopolitical race. This terrain is centered on critical transportation and trade corridors beyond the traditional focus on sea lines of communication vital for securing its trade and power projection. This logic extends beyond the sea to river and ground lines of communication. For decades, China has been using multiple instruments of power to gain access and influence in the Lower Mekong River Basin. Over 245 million people live in the Mekong Region, and this population is projected to grow by as much as 100 percent by 2050. Trade between China and countries in the Lower Mekong has grown to over $400 billion, and Beijing uses its economic and diplomatic influence to gain military access, including increasing its regional force posture and building secret military bases.</p> - -<p>The Lower Mekong region, which includes Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, is one of the most vulnerable to climate change, with an estimated 55 percent of the Mekong Delta population likely to be affected in the coming years. China funds dam projects in multiple countries that complicate water management and exacerbate environmental stress. The region is sinking as sea levels rise, leading to increased salinity and flooding in areas that Southeast Asia relies on to feed its growing population. In Vietnam alone, 500 hectares are lost each year to erosion thanks to these twin forces. This combination of rising seas, changing weather patterns, and water management issues, including upstream dams in China, is threatening food security. The Mekong is thereby a portrait of how population growth, environmental degradation, and climate change coalesce to threaten human security.</p> - -<p>The states along the Mekong River are also a focal point for a new era of great power competition. After decades of inattention, the United States is working with allies like Japan and a network of international institutions to make the region more resilient to Chinese influence. Since 2009, the United States has promoted a series of initiatives in the region, including the Lower Mekong Initiative and Mekong-U.S. Partnership, to promote projects ranging from food security and education to energy and water security. These initiatives are part of a larger regional strategy designed to outflank the growing influence of the CCP and related businesses with direct links to Beijing. As a result, water security — the ability of people to access clean, safe water for personal and agricultural use — is converging with national security.</p> - -<p>Water programming can play a central role in U.S. infrastructure development initiatives and development assistance in the Lower Mekong River Basin, where water access and management issues collide with great power competition and climate fragility. The region is also a focal point for China’s BRI, which intensifies the dilemma. Southeast Asian states must balance the promise of economic development they need to support rising living standards and growing populations with the loss of autonomy that comes with debt trap diplomacy, corruption, and gray zone campaigns. This challenge makes water a key cross-cutting issue that connects multiple U.S. government and Group of Seven (G7) initiatives designed to counter the growth of authoritarian access and influence under the guise of development assistance.</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>Water security — the ability of people to access clean, safe water for personal and agricultural use — is converging with national security.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>This brief reports on a series of tabletop exercises (TTXs) used to explore how water programming, in coordination with a broader infrastructure strategy, can address both human security and national security challenges. Like earlier CSIS TTXs on water security focused on the Sahel, this series, which focuses on the Lower Mekong River Basin, examines the interplay of economic development and climate change with water security. Unlike the earlier TTX on the Sahel, however, this installment addresses long-term competition and explores how development initiatives interact with broader national security priorities.</p> - -<p>Based on the TTXs, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the broader interagency network committed to development should use water as a focal point for competitive foreign policy. By combining development projects that address core human needs with ongoing infrastructure initiatives designed to create regional and global economic corridors using theater strategy, the United States can take a new approach to competition with China. This competition complements the pivot to integrated deterrence by reassuring partners and offering a viable alternative to the BRI. Seen in this light, making water projects a focal point for strategy better aligns resources both within the U.S. government and across its network of allies and private sector partners. This alignment will help overcome common pitfalls of water projects, which tend to be underfinanced and require multiyear implementation plans. More importantly, it can show how new infrastructure networks offer an alternative to debt trap diplomacy and authoritarian influence that flows through the BRI around the world.</p> - -<h3 id="control-the-water-control-the-region">Control the Water, Control the Region</h3> - -<p>China uses BRI infrastructure investments to connect the Mekong River Basin and further bind states to its economy and geopolitical interests by focusing on water and trade. Through the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) initiative, China seeks to gain leverage over water management while promoting economic development. Along these lines, China conducts “hydro-diplomacy” to build dams across the region. While these dams generate electricity, they also often create significant environmental strain that affects downstream water levels and food security. In addition to environmental stress, the projects often involve forcible displacement and uproot entire communities.</p> - -<p>China also supports projects that increase trade along the Mekong. Beijing has funded the construction of multiple river ports, often expanding existing sites to handle larger cargo ships. These efforts include shadowy investment vehicles that combine the state with business figures, including a significant investment in a Laos river port by a sanctioned Chinese businessman linked to casinos and illicit trade. These port investments frequently accompany larger special economic zones where sovereign governments cede more extensive tracts of land to Chinese business interests. Some of these special zones have become magnets for illegal wildlife trade. Parallel to these ports, China invests in rail lines, including major projects in Thailand and Laos.</p> - -<p>These projects bolster China’s centrality in the region. If nineteenth- and twentieth-century geopolitics are about ground and sea lines of communication connecting the world, then twenty-first-century strategy revolves around the infrastructure that enables modern trade. By connecting the Mekong region, China makes itself a principal node in the larger regional network and diminishes the influence of other states like the United States, Japan, and Australia. The CCP can also use a mix of subtle threats and espionage to turn otherwise independent nations into a new category of client states — a dependence compounded by upstream dams. Through the BRI, China has put itself in a position to dictate the terms of trade and the flow of water.</p> - -<h3 id="using-water-security-and-infrastructure-to-counter-the-chinese-communist-party">Using Water Security and Infrastructure to Counter the Chinese Communist Party</h3> - -<p>Over the last 10 years, thought leaders in Congress, academia, and successive presidential administrations have begun to see the importance of using increased focus on water strategy and large-scale infrastructure projects to promote the interests of the United States and its democratic partners and allies globally. In 2017, USAID launched the U.S. Global Water Strategy, a five-year planning framework focused on increasing water security. The same year, water security made its way into the National Security Strategy. These efforts built on earlier initiatives across the U.S. government.</p> - -<p>As a more recent example, the 2022 U.S. Global Water Strategy and supporting action plan approach water security as both a risk and an opportunity. Consistent with earlier USAID efforts, the strategy envisions using a mix of increased access to safe drinking water and sanitation (WASH), improved water resources management (WRM), and water productivity (WP) to reduce water-related conflict and fragility. The strategy envisions allocating additional resources to existing water security programs in an effort to increase access to safe WASH while addressing climate resilience and food security challenges associated with water sheds like the Mekong River Basin.</p> - -<p>These investments promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), advance U.S. foreign policy interests, and expand water access, which is a core human need. Building water projects that encourage better environmental stewardship and trade through a network of local governments, U.S. partners and treaty allies, nongovernmental organizations, and international institutions would offer a rival network to the BRI and authoritarian influence. Since modern geopolitics is more about networks than nations, any project that increases access to different political, economic, and human networks therefore creates a strategic advantage and offers a viable alternative to countries whose sovereignty is under threat from authoritarian states.</p> - -<p>While interest in water strategy has been growing since 2008, a new development involves infrastructure projects that link democratic states and the private sector to promote trade and human security while offering an alternative to the BRI. Parallel to a domestic focus on infrastructure investment in 2021, the administration under U.S. president Joseph Biden announced the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative, which became the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) in 2022. The effort called for aligning foreign policy and sustainable development through projects that address climate change, health security, digital innovation and access, and gender equality. These pillars act as focal points for investments by G7 nations and create new opportunities for public-private partnerships.</p> - -<p>In other words, to counter the $1 trillion China has invested in the BRI, the Biden administration would create a rival infrastructure network that links free states and private companies. This approach is consistent with the network theory of victory, articulated above, wherein power stems from greater participation in one network over another. In 2022 the G7 committed to investing $600 billion dollars in public-private sector initiatives by 2027. PGII investments, in addition to the B3W pillars, would be guided by transparency, good governance, and respect for human rights, thus providing an alternative to the BRI and authoritarian overreach.</p> - -<p>These efforts reflect an increased focus on economic corridors as a central pillar of strategy in the Biden administration. These corridors combine public-private sector investments in transportation infrastructure (rail lines, riverine ports, and roads) with investments in clean energy and information and communication technology (ICT). The result is hubs that promote food security and access to healthcare as much as economic growth. For example, the Lobito corridor in southern Africa will link the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Angola, creating the network of rail lines, economic hubs, and ports required to develop the region and ensure access to key minerals for a clean energy transition.</p> - -<p>In many respects, the strategic vision articulated in both the PGII and 2022 Global Water Strategy builds on USAID and U.S. allied water programs in the Mekong River Basin. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is investing in infrastructure projects, many of which also complement G7 partner initiatives. For example, the Japan-U.S.-Mekong Power Partnership (JUMPP) funds projects that combine regional trade integration with energy security.</p> - -<p>From this perspective, the Mekong River offers an ideal regional case study for refining the complementary strategic initiatives envisioned by the Biden administration to counter the BRI. The challenge is to develop new policy playbooks that help visualize and describe a regional strategy for countering malign influence by the CCP while helping populations most affected by forces like climate change.</p> - -<h3 id="using-tabletop-exercises-to-refine-water-strategy">Using Tabletop Exercises to Refine Water Strategy</h3> - -<p>Because water and infrastructure projects are, by definition, interagency concerns, they create coordination challenges. These challenges are exacerbated by the focus on public-private partnerships in PGII and emphasis on combining diverse stakeholders specified in the 2022 Global Water Strategy. As a result, policymakers need creative forums to conduct stress tests and refine their strategy to bridge traditional governmental divides. Because strategy involves competing interests and uncertainty, these forums must include modeling how rival states like China and local spoilers might respond. Water strategy must find a way to combine development and deterrence, so PGII should complement broader theater campaign plans and efforts to deny malign Chinese influence. It is difficult to create a viable long-term strategy without illustrating how conflicting interests create alternative futures and shift the logic of programmatic investments over time. A TTX can help flesh out these types of programmatic uncertainties.</p> - -<p>TTXs, alongside crisis simulations and gaming in general, are tailor made for strategic problems like the challenge of advancing a water strategy that addresses human security and counters malign authoritarian influence. These forums allow expert players to simulate the fog, friction, and uncertainty at the heart of great power competition. This experience, in turn, promotes critical analysis and reflections on how to refine strategies that advance U.S. interests. Because strategy involves thinking about the clash of interests over time and space, it requires thinking about alternative futures and red teaming the different pathways to those futures.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/m8yONlG.jpg" alt="image01" /></p> - -<p>To this end, CSIS constructed a series of water security TTXs that focused on WASH and WRM efforts in the face of great power competition. The first iteration explored the Sahel and how a mix of political and public health shocks interacted with climate stress in the region. Players aligned PGII investments and water security to counter these crisis events.</p> - -<p>Based on the findings, CSIS built a second TTX that shifted the geographic focus to the Mekong River Basin and transformed the game design from crisis response to competitive strategy. The scenario explored how rival groups of players with a mix of military and development experience set strategic priorities and developed plans around water and infrastructure investments in the Mekong River Basin.</p> - -<p>The TTX started with an orientation that helped players understand prevailing water security issues in the region. The purpose was to illustrate the convergence of infrastructure investments and environmental insecurity with great power competition in the Mekong River Basin. The orientation included the following data:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>whether the country is part of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), a large U.S. trade initiative in the region</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>existing USAID water-related needs score by country</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Freedom House trends for each country (2022 Global Freedom index)</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>China’s trade and debt trap diplomacy metrics, including countries’ imports from China and debt held by Beijing</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>U.S. foreign aid obligated and dispersed by country</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>resilience indicators including the Fragile States Index and Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Index, which evaluates how well states can adapt to climate change</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/L5nBJjR.jpg" alt="image02" /></p> - -<p>The scores helped participants understand water and infrastructure issues as they relate to foreign policy across the region. The USAID WASH Needs Index ranks countries in terms of their overall lack of access to clean water. The higher the score, the less access to reliable, safe water. In the Mekong, Thailand has the most reliable access to water, while Cambodia has the worst. By way of comparison, China ranks 61 with an index score of 0.31. Over 80 million people lack basic water access, and over 100 million lack basic sanitation. The score does not directly address issues related to climate change, such as growing salinity due to rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, and dam construction, and their combined effect on food security.</p> - -<p>The ND-GAIN Index addresses vulnerability to climate change and how well prepared states are to respond in terms of institutional readiness. The higher the score, the more prepared states are to adapt to the reality of climate change. As Table 1 shows, multiple countries (red highlighted cells) along the Mekong River Basin are rated as highly vulnerable to future climate shocks. Combined with foreign aid and trade data, the orientation helped players understand the growing influence of China in the region alongside the deterioration of freedom and growing state fragility, such as due to climate-induced stress.</p> - -<p>After the orientation, the U.S. team was briefed that additional funds were available to combine interagency efforts to counter BRI activities in Southeast Asia with a focus on the Mekong River Basin. The teams had to articulate a larger competitive strategy and three water security projects (WASH, WRM, WP) for the region as part of the larger PGII.</p> - -<p>To frame this strategy, the U.S. team was briefed that the strategic end state, according to guidance developed through the National Security Council (NSC), was to sustain U.S. and partner nation access and influence in Southeast Asia, consistent with the vision of a rules-based international order. The two principal objectives to achieve this end state were (1) promote PGII initiatives focused on water security and (2) reassure U.S. partners and allies. In other words, the TTX asked U.S. players to think about how development merges with deterrence in modern great power competition. To that end, the U.S. players filled out Table 2 to prioritize water security investments. Players could nominate three water programs (WASH, WRM, WP); each had to align with at least one PGII pillar and country. Based on the enhancement, players rated the extent to which the new water program would increase the access of the United States and its democratic partners to the region while denying China access and influence. For example, a player could propose a WASH initiative in Vietnam to counter increased water salinity owing to climate change and its effect on food security as one of the three expanded water programs.</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>In other words, the TTX asked U.S. players to think about how development merges with deterrence in modern great power competition.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Q7OFTlp.jpg" alt="image03" /></p> - -<p>The U.S. team then revealed its plans and discussed its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a team playing the CCP. This action-reaction dynamic helped facilitate dialogue about the opportunity costs inherent in using water security programs and larger infrastructure projects to compete with China. Overall, players saw water strategy as a viable tool for countering the BRI but found that it required better integration with other instruments of power to support long-term competition.</p> - -<p>U.S. players tended to take a mixed approach to the region with two major strategies and one minority opinion. Two teams focused on Thailand and Vietnam — the countries they thought the most accessible and open to countering the CCP. The third team focused its efforts on the countries with higher WASH needs scores: Cambodia and Laos.</p> - -<p>The Thailand group proposed focusing on cultivating public-private partnerships to make Thailand the focal point for regional projects. These projects were concentrated in the digital and gender pillars of the PGII. The theory of competition was that creating new technical skills and increasing female employment in key sectors would benefit Thailand while creating a regional champion for water security projects.</p> - -<p>Since Thailand had the best WASH scores in the region, the group proposed investing in water-related businesses based in Thailand that could access Cambodia and Laos, which are closer to Beijing. The idea was to promote a new cadre of local businesses, including increased opportunities for more diverse workplaces that could build water projects across the region. The U.S. players rated this approach as likely to draw both G7 interest and private sector capital.</p> - -<p>The red team replicating the CCP noted that while Beijing would not challenge Thai businesses directly, China maintains indirect economic mechanisms it could use to counter a U.S.-led initiative. For example, one red player noted China could apply economic pressure by curtailing the number of tourists that travel to Thailand, a practice it used against South Korea in 2017. The red team also saw opportunities to use low-level cyber operations and propaganda, consistent with political warfare, to undermine trust and confidence in U.S.-backed businesses. In other words, U.S. efforts to work through a local partner to promote water security could be effective but would not remove all the ways and means Beijing has to apply pressure to states in the Mekong River Basin.</p> - -<p>A separate strategy that emerged focused on combining water projects with food security efforts to build resilience to climate shocks. The focus was on the climate pillar. This group assessed the magnitude of the climate challenge confronting Vietnam. Countries critical to regional food supplies, like Thailand, justified the focus, as Thailand and Vietnam two of the three top rice exporting countries in the world. The group also recommended a water-related project linked to agriculture and climate stress in Thailand. The focus of these efforts was more on mitigating future food security issues than on addressing current challenges. The team also assessed that these water programs could complement recent U.S. military outreach to Vietnam. Furthermore, given the size of the population and economic growth trends, the players rated projects in Vietnam as very attractive to both G7 and private sector partnerships.</p> - -<p>The red team noted that while these issues would produce regional benefits in the long run, they were unlikely to shift the U.S.-Vietnam relationship to a strategic partnership in the short term. Beijing would still retain the ability to drive a wedge between Washington and Hanoi. China retains significant military, economic, and ideological instruments to influence Vietnam, despite long-standing differences between the two countries.</p> - -<p>This discussion led to a debate about the balance of U.S. foreign assistance and how much should be linked to larger interagency strategies to counter China. Some saw addressing climate change and increasing water security as goals in themselves. The majority assessed that the United States, especially if its foreign assistance budgets increased, could integrate a focus on engaging local government and civil society, foreign assistance linked to poverty reduction and environmental growth, infrastructure-linked economic development, and governance programs with long-term competition without falling victim to the traps of the Cold War.</p> - -<p>These practitioners highlighted a need to refine interagency coordination along these lines and run periodic TTXs as a form of further calibrating regional strategies. These events would have to integrate multiple Biden administration strategies like the Indo-Pacific Strategy with PGII and the 2022 Global Water Strategy. In fact, the myriad of strategies published by the Biden administration led one player to express a need for more dynamic interagency coordination than traditional NSC meetings. Participants viewed the TTXs as a way of investigating opportunities to achieve the objectives in multiple strategy documents and avoid policy fratricide. One participant noted that this effort would also need to include integrated country strategies to balance regional, functional, and country-specific aspects of foreign policy. Another participant noted that while there is an agency strategic planning process in the U.S. Department of State and USAID, as well as different interagency coordination processes, efforts tended to have too many objectives to easily prioritize. This participant saw the focus on water security, infrastructure, and integrating development with deterrence as a way to synchronize and prioritize objectives.</p> - -<p>The third strategy to emerge from the TTX — and the minority perspective — was to focus on Cambodia and Laos, the countries with the worst WASH scores and projects linked to the health and digital pillars. Specifically, the players wanted to invest in low-cost internet of things (IoT) networks linked to local cellular service for remote monitoring — an opportunity to use ICT for WASH. The team assessed that they could address local needs in these countries in a way that offset some of the negative effects of Chinese dam construction on water and food security. One participant discussed how changing water flows were disrupting local economies and leading to migration. Another participant noted that despite Laos’s high dependence on China, the relationship between water governance and agriculture in Laos created a way to both address water security and show the population the negative effects of the Chinese authoritarian development model. Other players noted that this messaging could be enhanced by coordinating with elements like the Global Engagement Center (GEC). The player wanted to use the GEC’s data-driven approach to studying the information environment to tailor messages about the water security programs while monitoring for China’s efforts to undermine confidence in U.S. and allied water and infrastructure investments.</p> - -<p>The red team responded that while the effort might increase WASH scores in both countries, it would not significantly alter the influence of the CCP. Cambodia and Laos depend heavily on the Chinese economy. Furthermore, China could use its own propaganda and concepts like “Three Warfares” — influence operations that combine psychological and legal warfare with traditional propaganda — to promote rival narratives about the importance of each country’s relationship to Beijing. One red team member even said China could use this construct to take credit for Western money invested in water security while pinning the negative effects of its dam construction on foreign (G7) business interests.</p> - -<p>The discussion around the third strategy again highlighted the need to coordinate different agency planning processes with a focus on the information environment. One player suggested a need for an interagency competition manual similar to the recent U.S. Department of Defense Joint Concept for Competing. The group agreed the interagency collaboration needed a framework for conceptualizing long-term competition beyond deterrence and departmental interests. The challenge was how to develop this framework and balance military strategy with diplomacy and development. One player asked bluntly, “Who owns competition?” While the U.S. Department of State has processes to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives at the country and regional levels, it was not clear these formed critical components of major U.S. Department of Defense campaign plans that focus on competition. This insight brought some of the players back to recommending additional interagency TTXs to visualize and describe how to synchronize and prioritize objectives across multiple government agencies oriented toward long-term competition.</p> - -<p>The discussion led one player to note the missing role of the U.S. Congress in the debate. Congressional action led to prioritization of water security, and Congress must be brought into any discussion about increasing the foreign assistance budget. The participant noted increasing signs that Congress was interested in TTXs and creative forums for analyzing policy, though the initial forays focused on military matters. The player proposed designing the TTXs on long-term competition in a manner that allowed congressional staffers — and, if possible, entire committees — to play, building on recent efforts by the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. The player advocated starting a new series of congressional games that touch multiple committees, including the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and House Armed Services Committee.</p> - -<h3 id="connect-the-world-to-compete-with-china">Connect the World to Compete with China</h3> - -<p>Modern competition is about more than military balances. It extends to development projects and building a network that connects people and creates conditions for solving collective action problems plaguing the twenty-first century: climate change, water access, food insecurity, and poverty. In the process, it also creates a new positional advantage that prevents authoritarian states from co-opting economic corridors. It is a new great game that must be played with a different set of rules than the cold wars of old.</p> - -<p>The more the Biden administration can synchronize its development and diplomacy with theater strategy, the more likely it will be to gain an enduring advantage in long-term competition with China. This advantage starts with visualizing and describing regions in terms of people’s needs, likely environmental shocks, and transportation corridors to identify clusters of projects that offset authoritarian overreach while helping local communities address core human security challenges.</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p><strong>Calibrate regional strategies.</strong> The United States should look for opportunities to better align foreign assistance and defense budgets. Unfortunately, aid budgets are unlikely to grow in the near term based on the budget deal and election cycle. As a result, USAID — along with the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the DFC — will need to work with Congress and interagency partners to identify how best to align existing programs and resources. Based on standing legislation, USAID will continue to spend on water projects. These efforts could be coordinated with less confrontational defense dollars linked to efforts like the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and ongoing theater campaigns. The net results would be a two-level prioritization framework that better aligns ends, ways, and means. USAID should prioritize projects likely to draw the most traction across agencies as a means of making each development dollar go further and extend U.S. strategic interests.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Conduct stress tests and refine regional strategies through TTXs.</strong> USAID and other interagency partners will need to augment traditional approaches to long-term planning to embrace more dynamic methods aligned with understanding the new era of competition. Turning traditional war games into peace games and TTXs is the first step and will help leaders analyze complex interactions almost certain to accompany water and broader infrastructure projects. These games should occur at three levels. First, they should be part of program design and help identify opportunities for interagency as well as private sector partnerships. Second, they should be conducted through existing interagency processes and evaluate how guidance ranging from the Indo-Pacific Strategy to integrated country strategies align with PGII and the 2022 Global Water Strategy. Third, the games must involve Congress and bring a mix of staffers and elected representatives into the dialogue. Too often, U.S. strategy — whether defense or development — has been stovepiped and segmented by branch and agencies, producing unhealthy tension and friction. Games offer a means to overcome these self-imposed barriers that help different stakeholders develop a common understanding of modern competition. These congressional games should also focus not just on optimal resourcing but also on authorities and how best to tailor the interagency framework to support long-term competition. If twenty-first-century competition is as much as about development as deterrence, the United States needs to ensure it has both the ways and means to gain an enduring advantage.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Amplify regional strategies.</strong> In a connected world, the message matters as much as the facts. Efforts to better integrate water projects with public-private sector infrastructure initiatives and theater strategy require global messaging that counters authoritarian influence campaigns. This messaging campaign should be integrated with existing initiatives like the GEC and embassy-level outreach and should be built into programmatic requirements for the network of vendors that support modern development. The messages should be tailored to audiences across diverse regions and retain the ability to counter malign foreign influence campaigns. The result is not propaganda but ensuring affected populations can cut through the noise to understand why the U.S. government, alongside its partners and the private sector, is investing in water infrastructure.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Benjamin Jensen</strong> is a senior fellow for future war, gaming, and strategy in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.</p> - -<p><strong>Daniel F. Runde</strong> is a senior vice president, director of the Project on Prosperity and Development, and holds the William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis at CSIS.</p> - -<p><strong>Thomas Bryja</strong> is a program coordinator in the Project on Prosperity and Development at CSIS.</p>Benjamin Jensen, et al.Project Atom 20232023-09-29T12:00:00+08:002023-09-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/project-atom-2023<p><em>How can the United States deter two peer competitors? To assist U.S. policy makers in addressing this question, the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) invited a group of experts to develop competing strategies for deterring Russia and China through 2035.</em></p> - -<excerpt /> - -<h3 id="project-atom-2023-first-principles-for-deterring-two-peer-competitors">Project Atom 2023: First Principles for Deterring Two Peer Competitors</h3> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="heather-williams-kelsey-hartigan-and-lachlan-mackenzie">Heather Williams, Kelsey Hartigan, and Lachlan MacKenzie</h4> -</blockquote> - -<p>How can the United States deter two peer competitors? Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated Putin’s willingness to rely on nuclear threats to pursue regional ambitions. Conventional losses in Ukraine may also increase Russian reliance on nuclear weapons in the years to come. China’s expanding and increasingly diverse nuclear arsenal suggests that it, too, has ambitions that may rely on nuclear threats. Beijing has proven itself to be a patient but ambitious actor, described as a “pacing” threat in the 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy, which will also present challenges for U.S. nuclear strategy and policy in the coming decade. U.S. political and military leaders need to determine the nation’s strategy to deter and, if necessary (and possible), defeat two nuclear peers simultaneously or in sequence. In doing so, leadership must also consider the implications of this strategy for nuclear force posture, nuclear modernization, extended deterrence and assurance, and arms control and disarmament strategy and commitments.</p> - -<p>To assist in addressing these challenges for U.S. strategy, the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) invited a group of experts to develop competing strategies for deterring two peer competitors through 2035. This study revives a concept and approach that the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) developed a decade ago to review U.S. nuclear strategy and posture for 2025 through 2050. This project is predicated on the assumption that the vision of a world without nuclear weapons is not likely in the near future given the behavior of multiple potential adversaries. It is unconstrained by current strategy (e.g., sizing the conventional force to fight and win one major conflict, reducing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy) and current policy (e.g., the decision to cancel or not move forward with additional nuclear capabilities) unless explicitly stated otherwise in the assumptions. However, it is constrained by likely technological trends and industrial constraints on nuclear modernization. These constraints proved to be important both in assessments of modernization options and recommendations. Beyond that, authors were asked to provide a brief picture of the world in 2035 regarding nuclear and strategic issues, to identify any other underlying assumptions of their analysis. The strategies focused on four specific themes: force posture, modernization, extended deterrence and assurance, and arms control. The strategies demonstrate surprising agreement on key issues, such as the need to assure allies and why now is not the time for nuclear reductions. But they also highlight ongoing areas of disagreement about the nature of the threats from Russia and China, requirements for U.S. nuclear forces, and the role of arms control.</p> - -<p>After providing an overview of the competing strategies, this introductory analysis distills 10 “first principles” for a strategy to deter two peer competitors. These principles capture areas of consensus among the strategies but also engage with areas of disagreement to identify which strategy options are best suited for the current threat environment. The introduction ends with a summary of specific recommendations about the way forward for U.S. decisionmakers.</p> - -<h4 id="competing-strategies-for-deterring-two-peer-competitors">Competing Strategies for Deterring Two Peer Competitors</h4> - -<p>The PONI team provided experts with four assumptions and respective guiding questions as an analytical framework. This report contains five chapters, each of which constitutes a distinct strategy for deterring two peer competitors. A comparison of the strategies across the analytical framework is provided in Tables 1–4.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/KBjuPFj.png" alt="image01" /> -<em>▲ Table 1: Comparing Strategies for Deterring Two Peer Competitors — Deterrence Strategy.</em></p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/OtAjjLR.png" alt="image02" /> -<em>▲ Table 2: Comparing Strategies for Deterring Two Peer Competitors — Modernization.</em></p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/agPMi3F.png" alt="image03" /> -<em>▲ Table 3: Comparing Strategies for Deterring Two Peer Competitors — Extended Deterrence.</em></p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/LO31CST.png" alt="image04" /> -<em>▲ Table 4: Comparing Strategies for Deterring Two Peer Competitors — Arms Control.</em></p> - -<p>It is important to acknowledge at the outset that some of the Project Atom experts questioned the premise of the exercise. Multiple strategies make a case for maintaining the status quo despite the two peer competitor problem and caution that changes to the nuclear posture or modernization plans could have an escalatory effect. One expert disagrees that China is a “competitor” and focuses the analysis on why China should not be treated similarly to Russia. These definitional issues underpin areas where the strategies align and where there are areas of disagreement.</p> - -<p>Important areas of agreement include:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>China and Russia’s nuclear arsenals pose significant challenges for the United States and its allies.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The United States should not pursue unilateral nuclear reductions at this time.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The United States does not need to match Russia and China’s combined arsenal numbers.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The United States needs more flexibility and agility in its arsenal, whether that be with more advanced conventional capabilities, additional new nuclear delivery platforms, or the ability to adjust modernization plans.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>U.S. credibility with allies is fragile, and Washington can take steps, such as more consultations and joint planning, to improve this.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Prospects for arms control in the near term are bleak, but verifiable arms control that constrains adversary capabilities, reduces the risk of war, and avoids unnecessary nuclear arms competition remains in the U.S. national interest. More informal risk reduction options are a better way forward for the time being.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>While the strategies are largely aligned on these overarching principles, they differ on details of how to manage complexity and uncertainty in the evolving geopolitical and technological landscapes. Areas of disagreement include:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Beijing’s intentions, and how the United States can influence China’s strategic calculus.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Whether or not the United States should expand and diversify its nuclear arsenal, such as with nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM-Ns) or with a warhead buildup when New START expires.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The escalatory risks of nuclear weapons, particularly in the face of advanced conventional weapons and nonnuclear strategic capabilities.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Reliance on nuclear weapons for extended deterrence and as a tool to strengthen credibility with allies.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>How the United States might incentivize China to join arms control agreements.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>The remainder of this section offers a more in-depth analysis of how the competing strategies address questions of force posture, modernization, extended deterrence, and arms control. The authors were given a series of assumptions and guiding questions, which are included here for context.</p> - -<h4 id="framing-assumptions">Framing Assumptions</h4> - -<p>DETERRENCE STRATEGY AND NUCLEAR POSTURE REQUIREMENTS</p> - -<p><strong>Assumption #1</strong>: The United States will pursue a multi-domain deterrence strategy to deal with complexity and uncertainty in the current and future threat environment, and nuclear weapons will remain one element of a broader approach. This raises the following questions with regards to deterring two peer competitors:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>What should the United States’ core deterrence objectives be in 2035?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Does deterring two peer competitors require overhauling current U.S. thinking about deterrence? How, and in what way?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>How might nuclear force structure requirements change in the future, and what factors should the United States consider when setting those requirements going forward?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>How should the United States approach integrating nuclear and conventional capabilities, as well as cyber and space operations, to deter two peer competitors while at the same time managing escalation dynamics?</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Force posture refers to day-to-day and readiness status and the deployment location of various elements of the force; force structure refers to the kinds of nuclear forces to field.</p> - -<p>In any future strategy, establishing who and what specifically the United States and its allies intend to deter is critical. The strategies agree that deterring nuclear use by U.S. adversaries should continue to be an enduring objective, as well as that Russia and China pose the most significant deterrence challenges, with North Korea posing a lesser threat. But these strategies do not simply approach the issue with a blank slate. The challenge of deterring two nuclear peers may be less about overhauling U.S. nuclear strategy and current thinking about deterrence and more about what capabilities and approaches are required to achieve the United States’ broader, long-standing objectives. Each of the strategies make clear that deterring nuclear use must be part and parcel of a broader deterrence strategy that seeks to deter aggression below the nuclear threshold — a goal consistent with the current U.S. strategy of deterring both aggression and strategic attacks on the United States and its allies and partners.</p> - -<p>Much of the analysis and many of the recommendations in this report deal primarily with two separate but related deterrence challenges. The first is deterring limited nuclear use, a particularly pronounced challenge considering the prospects for a regional conflict to escalate beyond the conventional level and the fact that limited nuclear use is perhaps the most likely pathway to large-scale escalation. The strategies differ on the question of what will deter Russia or China from escalating to limited nuclear use in a regional conflict and what options a president might want available if deterrence fails. Miller as well as Karako and Soofer weigh different options for augmenting existing low-yield capabilities and conclude that the United States should move forward with the SLCM-N to increase the availability of credible response options. Tomero, Mastro, and Wolfsthal reject this notion. Wolfsthal argues there is no need to change U.S. force posture and what he identifies as the “five current modes of nuclear employment.” Tomero argues instead that deterring limited nuclear war “requires credible signaling that an adversary will not gain any military or political advantage from using nuclear weapons,” and that “adding ever more low-yield nuclear weapons cannot substitute for credible threats clearly communicated.” Alternatives for signaling threat credibility are relatively under-explored in some of the papers, however. Supporters of SLCM-N argue that signaling to adversaries that they cannot gain an advantage may be difficult or impossible with non-nuclear capabilities, whereas appropriate nuclear capabilities have a unique ability to signal resolve to adversaries and allies alike.</p> - -<p>The second deterrence challenge is deterring collusion and opportunistic aggression, or the notion that Russia and China (or a regional actor) could conduct simultaneous or sequential attacks that would force the United States to deter and possibly wage large-scale conflicts in two theaters against two nuclear peers. The strategies make slightly different assumptions about what “opportunistic aggression” or simultaneous conflicts might entail. Soofer and Karako argue that the need to deter a simultaneous conflict with Russia and China places “an increasing burden on the role of nuclear weapons to deter conventional aggression.” Mastro, on the other hand, argues that “nuclear weapons do not deter admittedly problematic conventional activities,” and that “the United States should avoid this pathway for the sake of assuring allies because it could encourage China to then threaten nuclear use in response to U.S. conventional activity, which would seriously complicate defense planning.” And Miller stresses the importance of simultaneous deterrence because of the risk of collusion.</p> - -<p>MODERNIZATION</p> - -<p><strong>Assumption #2</strong>: The United States will continue to strategically compete with adversaries by modernizing U.S. nuclear forces and developing emerging technologies. This raises the following questions in regard to two peer competitors:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Are current modernization plans and the nuclear triad fit for the purpose of deterring two peer competitors?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>If deterring two peer adversaries requires adjustments to current modernization plans, what changes might be required, what limitations exist, and how could the United States manage the risks of a future arms race?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Will the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies by the United States and its adversaries confer greater benefits to U.S. deterrence efforts?</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>The United States is currently in the midst of a massive effort to modernize every element of its nuclear forces. The strategies differ on what changes can and should be made to the current program of record, but they largely agree on the importance of building a more responsive nuclear infrastructure and prioritizing investments in nuclear command and control upgrades. Mastro takes a wide look at the trade-offs between nuclear force modernization and conventional force posture investments and concludes that “in instances in which nuclear modernization may come at the expense of conventional force development, conventional force development should have priority.” Miller, on the other hand, argues that the “current U.S. nuclear modernization plan itself is necessary but not sufficient.” He explains, “simple logic and arithmetic suggest that the force level enshrined in the New START treaty in the 2010s and designed for a world far different from today’s is insufficient for 2023 — let alone for later in this decade and on into the 2030s.” Given the long lead times and industrial capacity constraints that currently exist, Miller as well as Soofer and Karako make the case for uploading additional warheads on existing platforms, or at least ensuring that U.S. forces can do so if and when necessary.</p> - -<p>Tomero, on the other hand, does not support an increase to the current U.S. stockpile but leaves open the possibility of changes to the current modernization program, arguing that the United States should “prioritize survivable platforms and architectures to provide stability and resilience” and “think more creatively about basing modes and concepts of operation.” Wolfsthal agrees with Tomero that the current program of record is “more than adequate” but highlights the importance of investment in nuclear command and control and early warning capabilities. How many and what kinds of nuclear weapons the United States needs to support its strategy is a matter of significant debate in this series, and one that comes down to, in part, how the strategies consider the trade-offs between nuclear modernization and investments in conventional capabilities and forces. These debates fundamentally revolve around the question of the role of nuclear weapons in different strategies and what forces will be required to enable those strategies.</p> - -<h4 id="extended-deterrence-and-assurance">Extended Deterrence and Assurance</h4> - -<p><strong>Assumption #3</strong>: The United States will continue to provide extended deterrence and assurance guarantees to allies in Europe and Asia. This raises the following questions:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>How can the United States assure a diverse group of allies against two peer competitors and other regional threats, and how might allies contribute more to their own security?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>What synchronization challenges with allies should the United States expect to face in the future? How can the United States best prepare to overcome these challenges?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>How might divergent threat perceptions among allies affect the future of U.S. extended deterrence and perceptions of U.S. credibility?</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>All strategies recognized the need for the United States to strengthen its credibility with allies. The majority of strategies recognized that nuclear risks will be highest in regional conflicts, likely involving U.S. allies. Extended deterrence and assurance, therefore, will be essential for a U.S. strategy in deterring two peer competitors, but it will also be challenging. As such, the United States needs to take steps to strengthen credibility with allies. All strategies spoke to this point, with varying recommendations for how to do so. Tomero focuses on more non-nuclear interoperability, Karako and Soofer recommend more consultations, and Mastro also suggests more consultations along with joint planning. Miller offers the most ambitious strategy for assurance, identifies why new capabilities, such as SLCM-N, serve important extended deterrence and assurance functions, and recommends integrating Japan and South Korea into AUKUS.</p> - -<p>The strategies differ, however, in the escalatory risks of these assurance strategies, with Mastro particularly cautioning against increased reliance on nuclear weapons because of how this could be perceived in Beijing. Namely, Beijing could see an increased U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, a nuclear buildup, or any change in U.S. nuclear posture for the purposes of extended deterrence and assurance as a sign of the United States’ desire to gain supremacy over China in a future conflict, prompting an arms race in the region. Similarly, Wolfsthal warns that “being willing to resort to early and first use may have negative implications for crisis stability and arms racing.” Tomero and others consider nonnuclear options for assurance that may strike a delicate balance of strengthening extended deterrence and credibility with allies while avoiding an action-reaction cycle with China or Russia. But shifting away from nuclear weapons in signaling credibility and commitment could be risky in the security environment of the next decade.</p> - -<p>The strategies briefly touch on an important question as to whether or not U.S. allies should pursue independent nuclear programs. Mastro urges restraint on the part of the United States in supporting allies’ proliferation interests because of the potential risk that “this could undermine the global nonproliferation regime and increase the likelihood of nuclear use due to accident.” Conversely, Karako and Soofer suggest that over the long term it may become necessary to revisit the question of nuclear nonproliferation, and they consider the potential risks and benefits for Japan, for example, pursuing an independent nuclear program. To be clear, Karako and Soofer do not go so far as recommending this as a policy option, but they point to it as an important consideration as the United States develops a strategy for deterring two peer competitors.</p> - -<p>ARMS CONTROL</p> - -<p><strong>Assumption #4</strong>: The United States will continue to be obligated to comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and will continue to pursue a dual-track approach of arms control and deterrence. It will complete implementation of New START in 2026, but whether or not there is a follow-on arms control effort is undecided and up to the discretion of the authors. This raises the following questions:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>How can the United States continue to pursue progress toward arms control and disarmament while deterring two peer competitors?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>What are the risks to U.S. interests if arms control efforts stall? How can the United States mitigate those risks?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Can the United States consider making meaningful progress toward Article VI commitments when Russia does not seem to be committed to making reciprocal moves and China has shown no willingness to limit its nuclear growth and modernization efforts?</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>One area of consistency across the strategies is support for arms control efforts, albeit in different forms. Mastro, for example, outlines options for engaging China on arms control for emerging technologies, which aligns with Tomero’s focus on the potentially escalatory nature of many of these capabilities. Miller recommends that the three competitors immediately pursue a test ban on fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS). Wolfsthal outlines priorities for modernization that will lay the groundwork for future arms control, such as increasing predictability and decisionmaking time, but stresses that the United States should not “pursue modernization to enhance arms control prospects.”</p> - -<p>While all strategies recognize the intersection of arms control and deterrence, there is disagreement in how they should operate in relationship to one another. Miller and Karako and Soofer emphasize that deterrence, to include force posture and modernization plans, should be the priority and precede any decisions about arms control. Conversely, Wolfsthal recommends that the United States “seek concepts that make nuclear weapon use less likely and less acceptable.” While these would seemingly be obvious priorities, they may be at odds with a deterrence strategy that will rely on moving deterrence “to the left,” deterring opportunistic aggression, and strengthening U.S. credibility among allies.</p> - -<p>By raising the question about the long-term desirability of nonproliferation, as discussed above, Karako and Soofer also challenge the assumption that implementing the disarmament envisioned by the NPT is in the United States’ long-term interests. For Wolfsthal in particular, remaining committed to reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and disarmament over the long term should be a priority. Undermining the NPT either by supporting proliferation or failing to commit to continued implementation of Article VI could have wider repercussions for the nuclear order.</p> - -<h4 id="first-principles-for-deterring-two-peer-competitors">First Principles for Deterring Two Peer Competitors</h4> - -<p>Plans and requirements for U.S. force posture, modernization, extended deterrence, and arms control will all fundamentally depend on the overarching U.S. deterrence strategy. The competing strategies — including their areas of agreement and disagreement — help to tease out certain fundamentals that should guide such a deterrence strategy. Based on these arguments, this report identifies 10 “first principles” to inform strategy and policymaking across the U.S. government. These principles are not agreed to by all the authors but are the analysis of the PONI research team based on reviewing the competing strategies.</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Principle 1: The fundamentals of how deterrence works have not changed. U.S. decisionmakers should be specific about who and what they are attempting to deter. Deterrence continues to rely on capability, credibility, and communication. It requires convincing an adversary’s leadership that they cannot achieve their objectives through aggression or escalation and that they will incur costs that far exceed any gains they hope to achieve. This requires, in part, identifying and holding at risk what an adversary values most, being able to deliver on that threat, and being able to impose unacceptable costs. The impending two-peer threat environment is unprecedented and requires tailoring deterrence to two different competitors, separately and in combination. Specifically, it requires a strategy that identifies who the United States is trying to deter, what it is trying to deter, and under what conditions. Extended deterrence fundamentals are also the same as they have always been, but they require tailoring to multiple allies with diverse requirements and concerns.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 2: The United States does not need to match Russia and China’s combined arsenal size, but it does need to evaluate U.S. force requirements in order to compete with Russia and China to strengthen strategic stability, maintain a credible deterrent, reassure allies, and achieve U.S. objectives if deterrence fails. This competition will likely require some nuclear buildup, particularly for more flexible systems; however, it can also entail nonnuclear capabilities and finding new applications of emerging technologies that enhance deterrence. Any nuclear buildup should take into account the potential risks of misperception and escalation by Beijing and Moscow.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 3: The United States should not make any unilateral reductions to its nuclear arsenal or cut back on the current program of record. Doing so would limit options for a U.S. president in future crisis scenarios. It could undermine the fundamentals of deterrence — the ability to deliver upon a threat in a way that is credible. Additionally, any unilateral reductions at this time would further weaken the United States’ credibility with allies and the credibility of threats to adversaries. This includes any unilateral reductions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) nuclear mission or by other NATO nuclear actors.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 4: Flexibility should be a priority in both force posture and force structure. The president should have more options, nuclear and non-nuclear, in the event of a catastrophic threat to the United States or its allies. More flexibility will also strengthen credibility. In terms of force posture, this might require more ambiguity in the United States’ declaratory policy and removing mention of plans to work toward a “sole purpose” doctrine. And in terms of force structure, this means reconsidering supplemental nuclear delivery platforms that are survivable, rapidly available in theater, and credible, such as SLCM-N, along with more advanced conventional options that can deliver deep precision strikes and hit hard and deeply buried targets. Overall, the nuclear enterprise will need to become more agile to respond to these changes.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 5: Emerging technologies are an essential domain of competition. Many of these technologies risk giving an adversary an asymmetric strategic advantage, undermining strategic stability, and increasing nuclear risks. At a minimum, the United States should commit — unilaterally or multilaterally, such as through the P5 process — to keeping a human in the loop in nuclear decisionmaking. The United States should compete in emerging technologies, to include AI and hypersonics, both to avoid strategic surprise and to provide the president with more response options, including non-kinetic ones. Any strategy for deterring peer competitors should capitalize on the potential advantages of emerging technologies but also balance these developments with efforts to avoid their potentially destabilizing effects, such as by including them in a future strategic stability dialogue with Beijing.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 6: U.S. strategy should give more attention to preventing and managing escalation at the regional level. Deterrence strategy should focus on deterring regional coercion and aggression, to include opportunistic aggression, re-establishing deterrence in the event of escalation, and signaling resolve to defend allies. At the same time, the United States will need to ensure a capability to deter and defend against attacks on the homeland and ensure the survivability of the U.S. arsenal. This will require a more diverse deterrence tool kit, to include nonnuclear strategic capabilities.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 7: Allies are a force-multiplier. Strengthening U.S. credibility with allies should be a priority. Assuring allies may require even more effort than deterring adversaries. Potential tools for doing so include additional capabilities, such as SLCM-N and rapid deployment of the nuclear-capable F-35, as the best way to strengthen credibility with allies. Washington can also improve nonnuclear interoperability with allies and address long-standing classification and export control challenges that impede its ability to share technologies and information with its closest allies. Other means of doing so include sustained investment in the nuclear enterprise, to include the National Nuclear Security Administration and the National Laboratories, more frequent and in-depth planning, consultations and exercises, and additional high-level standing dialogues.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 8: Arms control and risk reduction initiatives can provide tools for escalation management and work hand-in-hand with deterrence. As deterrence becomes more integrated, so must arms control. Some specific arms control and risk reduction proposals to be considered include a multilateral FOBS test ban, joint P5 statements on a “human in the loop,” investment in new verification tools, cross-generational arms control knowledge transfer, and remaining open to dialogue with Beijing. Any future arms control with Russia will likely depend on the outcome of the war in Ukraine and on how China’s rapid nuclear force expansion affects U.S. nuclear force requirements.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 9: Now is not the time to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy. Reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and making more progress toward “general and complete disarmament,” as outlined in NPT Article VI, should remain a goal for long-term policy both for nonproliferation purposes and to uphold the rules-based international order. On the one hand, continuing to express this objective demonstrates U.S. commitment to the NPT and to upholding the nuclear order. Additionally, these signals are important for some allies with strong disarmament legacies and movements. On the other hand, in the current climate, such statements risk setting unrealistic expectations and undermining U.S. deterrence and assurance priorities. The United States can find other avenues for demonstrating commitment to Article VI, such as leading in the P5 process, combatting Russian and Chinese disinformation that threatens to undermine the NPT, and offering new arms control and risk reduction initiatives that will help avoid arms racing and nuclear use, the most fundamental shared objective among deterrence supporters and skeptics alike.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Principle 10: The United States should be a leader in the global nuclear order. This should include at least three main components. First and foremost, the United States should strengthen existing institutions, particularly the NPT. More states with nuclear weapons mean more nuclear risks. The nonproliferation regime still serves U.S. interests. It should discourage allies’ proliferation, which may require additional signals and capabilities as a demonstration of the United States’ commitment to their security. Second, the United States should prioritize more informal approaches to arms control and risk reduction measures. And finally, the United States can lay important groundwork now by investing in people, not just capabilities. The complexity of the security environment requires developing different kinds of analysts and leaders who can think holistically about deterrence and managing competition across both the nuclear and conventional realms. Developing a clear strategy, tailoring deterrence to specific adversaries, assuring allies, and making difficult decisions about how to plan, invest in, and employ U.S. forces are fundamentally human tasks that require investing in people — not just things. This means focusing on education, cognitive understanding and decisionmaking, and communication skills.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<h4 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h4> - -<p>The overarching finding of these strategies is that the United States needs increased flexibility. A flexible strategy will require focusing on investing in the nuclear enterprise so that it can become more agile and can respond to leadership demand signals and further changes in the threat environment. The United States should also immediately focus on strengthening its credibility with allies through consultations. It can lead on arms control and risk reduction by exploring multilateral opportunities, though these are likely to be informal and allow for flexibility in adapting to the new security environment. Over the medium and long term, that might require developing new conventional capabilities or new delivery platforms and building up the arsenal, which would require making decisions now about force structure and acquisition. Many of the necessary capabilities for deterring two peer competitors will have long lead times, and part of a flexible deterrence strategy requires flexibility in the nuclear enterprise that does not currently exist.</p> - -<p>There are challenges to these first principles and recommendations. One potential risk is U.S. force posture and modernization decisions being misinterpreted by adversaries as aggression rather than a response to their actions. Another is further inhibiting prospects for arms control. Over the long term, many of these questions will depend on the evolution of the security environment; therefore, a flexible strategy is the best option for the strategic landscape of the next 10 years.</p> - -<h3 id="project-atom-defining-us-nuclear-strategy-20302050">Project Atom: Defining U.S. Nuclear Strategy, 2030–2050</h3> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="rob-soofer-and-tom-karako">Rob Soofer and Tom Karako</h4> -</blockquote> - -<h4 id="introduction">Introduction</h4> - -<p>In August 2021, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, issued a public challenge for fresh thinking about deterrence theory and nuclear strategy:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>At STRATCOM, we are re-writing operational deterrence theory and asking the hard questions. This will take a national and academic undertaking. Only when we gain a fundamental understanding of how deterrence theory is applicable in today’s strategic environment, can we inform strategy, create a mutual understanding of that strategy and threat, and then execute plans in support of our national defense.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Consistent with Admiral Richard’s charge, Project Atom’s study objective is to determine the “best U.S. strategy for deterring two peer competitors” and to assist the United States in making “crucial decisions about its future nuclear strategy and forces.” While the broader question of deterring Russian and Chinese conventional aggression and adventurism must be foremost in these considerations, the focus of this paper is on the nuclear concepts, policies, strategies, forces, and posture necessary to deter and prevent nuclear use by Russia and China — the two nuclear peer (2NP) competitors. How the government addresses the 2NP, or three-party, problem also has implications for and will be influenced by budget and arms control considerations.</p> - -<p>For each of the research questions, this paper first outlines principles of theory and strategy, then applies these to the new Russian and Chinese strategic contexts.</p> - -<h4 id="understanding-the-problem">Understanding the Problem</h4> - -<p>It has been the long-standing national security policy of the United States to deter aggression by Russia, China, and other states posing a threat to U.S. vital interests. As noted in the 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy, the United States’ top-level priority is to deter threats against and strategic attacks against the United States and its allies and partners. With respect to nuclear threats, the strategy and forces necessary to deter Chinese aggression and nuclear escalation have largely been considered a lesser included case: if the United States maintains the strength necessary to deter Russia, it can also deter a much smaller Chinese nuclear force. The expansion of Chinese power in all its dimensions (e.g., economic, conventional, nuclear, cyber, and space) means that China must be considered a true rival in its own right and no longer a lesser included nuclear case.</p> - -<p>Complicating the strategic problem is the possibility that the United States may find itself in a crisis or conflict with both Russia and China at the same time — including the scenario of opportunistic aggression. This may be the result of intentional collusion or alliance between Russia and China, although it is difficult to be predictive on this score. As noted in the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review: “In a potential conflict with a competitor, the United States would need to be able to deter opportunistic aggression by another competitor. We will rely in part on nuclear weapons to help mitigate this risk, recognizing that a near simultaneous conflict with two nuclear armed states would constitute an extreme circumstance.”</p> - -<p>The phrase “extreme circumstance” is noteworthy because it refers back to the long-standing U.S. policy that the nation would only employ nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend its vital interests. This phrasing suggests that in a circumstance where U.S. and allied conventional forces may not be adequate to address a simultaneous conflict with Russia and China, nuclear weapons may come into play. If this were the case in any particular scenario, then U.S. nuclear forces and strategy would play an important role.</p> - -<p>The recognition that China has now amassed significant conventional capabilities makes the challenge more complex. In the context of renewed long-term strategic competition, the 2018 National Defense Strategy’s approach to conventional forces and a blunting strategy (i.e., forces in place to resist the initial aggression) is important to preclude nonnuclear strategic defeat. Strategic deterrence in the 2NP problem is more than just nuclear deterrence. The problem also includes the need to deter major aggression short of nuclear employment and to do so under two major nuclear shadows.</p> - -<p>The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) notes that the United States must “be able to deter both large-scale and limited nuclear attacks from a range of adversaries” and that “the ability to deter limited nuclear use is the key to deterring non-nuclear aggression.” U.S. conventional forces alone are not currently adequate to address a simultaneous conflict with Russia and China (and possibly on the Korean peninsula), thus placing an increasing burden on the role of nuclear weapons to deter conventional aggression. In the face of the significant Chinese conventional force buildup, this relationship seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Increased conventional forces and air and missile defenses, however, will be critical to contribute to raising the threshold at which nuclear employment may be required to blunt non-nuclear aggression.</p> - -<p>In summary, potential Russian and Chinese cooperation poses a challenge to U.S. interests in peacetime, crisis, and war. In peacetime, the United States and its allies must be prepared to respond in a timely manner to potential future developments in the strategic postures of China and Russia, whether qualitative or quantitative. The United States must persuade Beijing and Moscow through words and deeds that nuclear competition is a failing proposition that will provide no strategic advantage. In a time of crisis, the United States and its allies would have to strengthen deterrence simultaneously in two theaters. This is not a new problem for U.S. military strategy, but the 2NP challenge puts a rising premium on the capacity of U.S. allies and partners to contribute to alliance deterrence postures in new ways.</p> - -<p>In war against one adversary, the United States would have to contemplate the possibility of war with the other, whether simultaneously or in close succession. This implies the need to be capable of strategic nuclear attacks against both Russia and China even after either or both engage in a preemptive nuclear attack on U.S. forces. The United States and its allies would also need to anticipate the consequences of (perhaps limited) nuclear strikes in one theater on the deterrence and escalation dynamics in the other theater. Would the third party conclude that the United States still would be willing to run additional risk after suffering nuclear strikes, or would they conclude instead that the United States would retreat in hope of avoiding further escalation?</p> - -<h4 id="deterrence-theory-and-strategy">Deterrence Theory and Strategy</h4> - -<p>While the nature of deterrence does not change, its character must adjust for new actors, circumstances, and weapons. To deter, one must create in the mind of the adversary the fear not to attack — to convince them that costs will outweigh the benefits and that the use of nuclear weapons is the worst possible choice. The credibility of nuclear deterrence depends on a combination of resolve and capabilities.</p> - -<p>While China’s emergence as a serious nuclear competitor requires that the United States tailor its deterrence strategies, it is not clear that the central problems of nuclear deterrence have changed. The dilemmas of extended deterrence — that is, threatening to use nuclear weapons on behalf of distant allies despite one’s own vulnerability to nuclear retaliation — that existed during the Cold War in the U.S.-Russia context will be relived, albeit in a three-way contest. This may have implications for force structure but should not affect the theoretical underpinning and complexity of deterrence.</p> - -<p>As during the Cold War, the United States must convince both Chinese and Russian leaders that the costs and risks of nuclear use will outweigh any benefits — that any nuclear use will make them worse off. This requires a belief in the credible use of nuclear weapons by the United States in response to the adversary’s use of nuclear weapons.</p> - -<p>Does nuclear deterrence become more complicated in a three-way game? Three is not inherently more unstable than two, although that appears to be the conventional wisdom in the academic literature. One recent article compares the 2NP problem to the “three-body” problem in astrophysics, where it is impossible to predict the motion of three celestial bodies. Others fear the increasing prospect for misunderstanding or inadvertent nuclear use resulting from a greater number of nuclear great powers.</p> - -<p>It is also possible that a tripolar nuclear context would induce greater caution and stability. For instance, if Russian and U.S. leaders were to contemplate nuclear use against each other during a conventional conflict, they must also consider that China may be the unharmed beneficiary from that nuclear exchange — the last country standing, so to speak.</p> - -<p>What if Russia and China collude to attack the United States simultaneously? Or what if one country takes the opportunity to challenge U.S. interests in one region while the United States is occupied with the other adversary? Does this weaken the United States’ ability to deter both at the same time? It is a challenging set of questions, to be sure, but in theory nuclear deterrence can hold if the United States successfully creates the necessary fear of nuclear use against both Russia and China under all circumstances. The concern is whether the United States may be so weakened by the first nuclear attack (or not be able to communicate with its nuclear forces) that this lessens the fear in the mind of the second adversary. It also begs the question of whether a combined nuclear attack would be able to effectively disarm the United States. The solution to these concerns is one of strategy and forces, not deterrence theory.</p> - -<p>This dilemma is related to, but not to be confused with, the traditional “two-war” problem that U.S. presidents have faced since the end of the Cold War. In 1993, President Bill Clinton adopted a readiness standard to fight a large offensive ground war in the Persian Gulf and another on the Korean peninsula, while George W. Bush laid out the requirement to simultaneously fight a war in two critical areas and be expected to win decisively in one of those conflicts, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Nuclear deterrence is not a substitute for strong conventional forces, which are needed to address the two-war problem.</p> - -<p>On balance, it is not necessary to reconsider the nuclear deterrence theories developed during the Cold War to confront this environment. Nevertheless, the United States must ensure that it can operationalize deterrence through its nuclear strategy and forces. U.S. nuclear strategy must be able to achieve the political and military objectives established by the president for those forces. More fundamentally, U.S. nuclear employment must credibly be able to impose costs on the adversary that are out of all proportion to the assumed benefits of its action. If it can do so, this contributes to deterrence against both adversaries; if it is unable to do so, the United States must either alter the strategy or provide additional forces to implement the strategy against two nuclear peers.</p> - -<h4 id="the-logic-of-us-nuclear-strategy">The Logic of U.S. Nuclear Strategy</h4> - -<p>Nuclear strategy is the employment or threatened employment of nuclear weapons to achieve policy-related or wartime objectives. These objectives could include defense of the United States, an ally, or other vital interests, or terminating a nuclear exchange as quickly as possible. Political and military objectives could change during a conflict, and it may be necessary for nuclear strategy to adapt accordingly.</p> - -<p>Nuclear strategy is related to nuclear deterrence because if the nuclear strategy is credible, it is more likely to persuade an adversary that the risks and costs of aggression outweigh any supposed benefits. If the nuclear strategy or its employment is not credible (either because the United States lacks capabilities or is threatened with unacceptable retaliation), this diminishes the deterrent effect. As former secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara said, “One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an incredible act.”</p> - -<p>U.S. nuclear strategy rests on the idea that the country’s ability to meet all nuclear provocations — large and small — can encourage adversaries to rethink their use of nuclear weapons. It is not a strategy of preemption or disarming first strikes. It does not require superiority or escalation dominance — only that the adversary likewise does not enjoy these advantages.</p> - -<p>It is a strategy of resolve and restraint. U.S. employment of nuclear weapons could seek to restore deterrence (avert further escalation) after an adversary’s initial limited use of nuclear weapons in a theater of operations; to cease nuclear escalation at the lowest possible level of violence; or to convince the adversary that whatever led them to believe that using nuclear weapons would provide them an advantage was a mistake.</p> - -<p>U.S. nuclear strategy deters large-scale nuclear attacks against the homeland by maintaining the capability to inflict costs unacceptable to an opponent. As such, U.S. nuclear forces would target an adversary’s senior leadership and political structures, nuclear and theater conventional forces, and war-supporting industry.</p> - -<p>Maintaining the ability to retaliate against large-scale attacks against the United States reinforces the country’s ability to restore nuclear deterrence at lower levels because the adversary has nothing to gain from further nuclear escalation to the strategic nuclear level.</p> - -<p>In terms of ends, ways, and means:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>The ends of U.S. nuclear strategy are to help deter both large-scale conventional aggression and nuclear use and, should deterrence fail, restore deterrence with the least amount of nuclear destruction and on the best possible terms for the United States and its allies.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The means include a range of nuclear delivery systems with various yields to address a variety of regional and strategic scenarios. U.S. nuclear strategy calls for forces capable of delivering large-scale nuclear responses as well as limited and graduated response options.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The ways include nuclear strikes that limit further attacks on civilians by targeting adversary nuclear and conventional forces, strikes that hold at risk what the United States assesses that the adversary values, and, through selective restraint, incentivizes them from engaging in further attacks.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>It is difficult to know whether further exchanges could be limited once nuclear use occurs. But it is prudent to develop strategies for confronting limited nuclear use because the United States’ adversaries field capabilities to do so. There is always the risk that the adversary will ignore or misinterpret a U.S. signal of restraint and respond with large-scale attacks, though this would be tantamount to national suicide because the United States maintains the option for a large-scale nuclear response (an assured destruction capability).</p> - -<p>This inherent uncertainty about what happens after limited nuclear use is one reason it is important to remember that nuclear forces do not exist in isolation and would not exist in isolation even after their employment. The dial does not simply switch from “conventional war” to “nuclear war.” Conventional forces, including long-range strike, continue to be relevant as both deterrents themselves and for damage limitation purposes. The war could well continue, even if it does not include further nuclear employment. U.S. Global Strike Command has control of significant nuclear forces, but they also control significant conventional strike, and there is little reason to suppose that conventional forces would cease even after limited nuclear use. The goal of stemming further escalation could even be enhanced by the simultaneous signals of restraint and resolve that would be communicated by returning to conventional strikes.</p> - -<p>In addition to conventional strike, another aspect of conventional forces relevant to nuclear posture is air and missile defenses, which may contribute to the survivability of both nuclear and nonnuclear strategic assets. As the prospects increase for nonnuclear strategic attack, including through air and missile forces in particular, those assets that cannot be moved or hidden may require active defense. Such an approach underlies the Biden administration’s approach, led by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, to the 360-degree air and missile defense for Guam. Given its salience for power projection and broad U.S. deterrence and defense goals in the region, including for bomber forces, a significant attack that negated U.S. ability to project power from Guam would be a strategic event, irrespective of whether or not nuclear weapons were used. By raising the threshold for a successful attack on strategic power-projection abilities, air and missile defenses can contribute to crisis stability and to escalation control.</p> - -<p>The risk that a limited nuclear escalation could, however, rise to large-scale nuclear attack adds to the deterrent effect at the outset. As noted in the 2020 Report to Congress on Nuclear Employment Guidance:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>A tailored and graduated nuclear response does not mean an adversary can confidently predict only a symmetrical response or that the adversary can define escalation thresholds by the matter of its initial nuclear use. What an adversary can confidently anticipate is the certainty of an effective U.S. response to nuclear attack, at any level, and in any context, in ways that will impose greater costs than any expected or hoped-for gain.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>U.S. nuclear strategy seeks to deter adversary nuclear use by convincing them that there is no scenario for nuclear use to which the United States cannot respond in an unacceptably costly manner to the adversary. Should nuclear deterrence fail, the U.S. response is intended to demonstrate both resolve and restraint in the hope of convincing the adversary to abandon further nuclear use.</p> - -<p>But will this strategy hold up against two nuclear peers at the same time?</p> - -<p>STRESS TESTING THE STRATEGY</p> - -<p>How does the logic of U.S. nuclear strategy stand up in a 2NP environment? Here is where the analysis becomes speculative and where assumptions can make a big difference. For the sake of discussion, the authors postulate the following to be the case by 2035:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Russia and China deploy a triad of strategic nuclear delivery systems at roughly New START force levels (1,550 warheads and approximately 700 delivery systems).</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Russia and China enjoy significant regional nuclear superiority. Russia retains over 2,000 land, air, and sea-based “nonstrategic” nuclear weapons. China possesses over 900 nuclear-capable theater-range missiles.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>All nuclear forces will be on alert during a crisis; all adversaries will maintain the capability to launch under attack; and mobile land and sea forces will be dispersed, ensuring each country maintains an assured second-strike capability.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The United States will continue to be vulnerable to the second-strike capabilities of Russia and China and unable to limit damage to politically acceptable levels through precision non-nuclear strikes, a disarming preemptive nuclear first-strike, or missile defense. The same is true for Russia and China in relation to potential strikes from the United States. All three powers, however, have significant air and missile defenses that could impede the penetration ability of some delivery systems.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Russian and Chinese doctrines, like that of the United States, allow for limited nuclear use and escalation management. In other words, escalation to massive strategic nuclear strikes is not an inescapable conclusion but remains a possibility for which the United States must plan.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>U.S. nuclear strategy for deterring limited or regional nuclear use is predicated on restoring deterrence (i.e., preventing further nuclear escalation) at the lowest level possible through flexible, limited, and graduated response options and by withholding strikes on what the adversary values most, to encourage restraint. The growth of Russian and Chinese nonstrategic nuclear forces suggest that the deterrent effect of this strategy may be diminished during a regional conflict. Russia and China have many more regional nuclear options, while the options available to the United States are not necessarily prompt, may lack survivability, and may be exposed to Russian and Chinese air defenses.</p> - -<p>This rationale supported the 2018 NPR’s recommendation for the W76-2 low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead and the nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) to strengthen nuclear strategy and bolster nuclear deterrence at the regional level. The principal advantage of the SLCM-N over other theater nuclear options is that it provides a timely response from a platform already located in the theater rather than from fighter aircraft or long-range bombers generated from the U.S. homeland. Based at sea on attack submarines, the SLCM-N is inherently more survivable than land-based options and avoids potential political problems associated with asking host nations to base nuclear forces on their territory. Placing SLCM-N on attack submarines also complicates the anti-submarine warfare problem for adversaries, enhancing the overall survivability of the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad.</p> - -<p>Assuming the United States continues to deploy the W76-2 and by 2030 deploys SCLM-N to bolster regional deterrence options, then the current U.S. nuclear strategy, forces, and force posture could be sufficient to enable U.S. nuclear strategy against both China and Russia at the theater level. Additionally, the United States must maintain sufficient survivable strategic nuclear forces to ensure that China or Russia do not contemplate disarming the United States at any point during the crisis. The assured retaliatory force must be large enough, at the end of whatever escalation ladder has been played out, to target what the leadership of both adversaries holds dear — presumably political and military control structures, strategic forces, and war recovery targets.</p> - -<p>What if U.S. strategy fails to induce restraint and one of the two adversaries escalates from limited to large-scale nuclear attacks against the U.S. homeland? At this point, the United States would need sufficient and enduring nuclear forces to keep fighting or deterring limited use in one theater while retaliating against a large-scale attack from the other adversary.</p> - -<p>The requirements here are considerable. In addition to maintaining nuclear weapons of ample diversity, survivability, and adaptability to deter or respond to limited nuclear use by both adversaries, the United States must be capable of inflicting intolerable damage against both adversaries to deter up to two simultaneous, large-scale attacks against the U.S. homeland. It is a difficult (though not totally unlikely) scenario to imagine because U.S. nuclear forces will be on alert: even combined adversary attacks against U.S. nuclear forces should not be able to prevent the United States’ ability to respond, assuming it ensures that its forces and nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) are survivable and can operate over a protracted period.</p> - -<h4 id="modernization-and-force-posture">Modernization and Force Posture</h4> - -<p>To deter limited or large-scale nuclear escalation by an adversary, the United States requires a credible strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons in all circumstances against any combination of aggressors. This calls for a strategic nuclear force capable of limited and graduated nuclear options, backed by a secure capability for inflicting intolerable damage after absorbing a large-scale nuclear attack by, potentially, Russia and China. This leads to three force posture recommendations.</p> - -<p>First, the United States must never enter a position where adversaries could think that it could conduct a disarming first strike against U.S. nuclear forces. Therefore, the survivability and durability of U.S. nuclear forces remain the first priority. As China and Russia increase the size of their strategic nuclear forces, the United States can respond either by increasing the size of its strategic nuclear forces or by making its existing nuclear force more survivable and less targetable (or a combination of the two). While a full military-technical-political analysis of these measures is beyond the scope of this paper, some ways to improve that survivability may include:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Making a portion of the ICBM force road-mobile (garrison-based);</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Adding more redundant NC3 channels and pathways;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Enhancing bomber survivability earlier in a crisis (e.g., place on strip alert);</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Re-examining the relationship between warning, alert, stability, and dispersal levels (e.g., consider raising to higher alert levels, earlier in a crisis);</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Modifying procedures for SSBN deployment and operations to get more boats out to sea sooner; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Defending strategic forces and other critical infrastructure with limited air and missile defense with the objective of increasing the uncertainty of a successful disarming first strike against U.S. strategic nuclear forces.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Second, the United States must be capable of convincing adversaries that their limited nuclear usage in a regional confrontation would not succeed and would induce unacceptable risk and cost. The United States requires additional nuclear forces at the regional level to address Russia and China’s significant advantages in the numbers and types of nuclear weapons they have available in the region.</p> - -<p>Matching adversary numbers is not necessary. Rather, the deployment of some additional theater nuclear forces would signal to Russia and China that the United States is prepared to meet any potential limited or theater nuclear escalation without having to rely on strategic nuclear forces, which may not appear credible to the adversary or timely in certain circumstances. While the recommended course of action is to deploy a modest number of SLCM-Ns on attack submarines, other options to explore could include the following (though none of these options match the advantages in survivability and presence granted by SLCM-N):</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Regionally deploy nuclear ground-launched, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty-range ballistic and cruise missiles;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Forward deploy dual-capable fighter aircraft to the Indo-Pacific, similar to U.S. deployment in Europe;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Demonstrate the ability to forward deploy B-52s with cruise missiles when needed; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Establish new nuclear burden-sharing, planning, and training arrangements with allies.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Third, with respect to strategic nuclear forces, it has been a long-standing policy requirement of U.S. strategic nuclear forces to target adversary nuclear forces, to the extent practicable, to limit the damage of retaliatory strikes. If this remains a critical targeting objective, then the United States may require additional nuclear forces to meet the growth in Chinese and Russian nuclear forces, though not on a weapon-for-weapon basis. Despite recent improvements in the accuracy and hard-target-kill capability of nuclear forces, the United States may find it difficult to limit adversary retaliation regardless of how many additional offensive forces it deploys because Russian and Chinese nuclear forces have become more survivable through mobility. Russian and Chinese early warning systems may also permit launch under attack. Still, there are other targets of value to the adversary, and that number is likely to rise in the case of deterring Russia and China simultaneously. How the United States responds to the growth of Chinese and Russian nuclear forces will depend on the timing and nature of that expansion and will require a formal analysis conducted by U.S. Strategic Command in concert with political authorities.</p> - -<p>Prudence dictates that the United States should anticipate and hedge against a Chinese race for nuclear parity or superiority by ensuring the capability to upload reserve warheads onto the SLBM and perhaps the ICBM force and additional cruise missiles and bombs to the strategic bomber force upon expiration of the New START treaty in February 2026. The extent to which the United States deploys additional warheads above current levels should be based in part on the number and trajectory of the Chinese and Russian nuclear threats, as well as prospects for further arms control measures. At a minimum, preparation must begin in the near term to ensure nuclear warheads in the inactive stockpile are brought to an active status — not a trivial process.</p> - -<p>Hedging is necessary to avoid or mitigate risks to the nuclear force that could develop over time, such as an unforeseen technical difficulty with a particular category of warhead or delivery system or advances in adversary offensive and defensive capabilities. Hedging can also dissuade adversaries from seeking to gain advantage through “breakout” (i.e., quickly deploying additional nuclear forces) by maintaining a U.S. capability to produce and deploy additional weapons if needed. Though the 2022 NPR does not include “hedging” as a formal goal (as was the case in the 2018 NPR), it does place emphasis on “a resilient and adaptive nuclear security enterprise” to “be able to respond in a timely way to threat developments and technology opportunities, maintain effectiveness over time, and at all times ensure that Presidential guidance can be achieved.” Central to the administration’s approach is a “production-based resilience program” to efficiently produce weapons required in the near term and beyond. This will be important to rebuild the “hedge” should it become necessary to upload warheads from the inactive reserve.</p> - -<p>Finally, as the United States anticipates the need to upload reserve warheads onto the existing deployed force, it must redouble efforts to build a responsive nuclear infrastructure capable of reconstituting the nuclear warhead hedge for the future. Likewise, as noted in the 2022 NPR, the United States will have to reevaluate the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration programs and requirements as the security environment evolves. Time is of the essence. According to Deborah Rosenblum, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, “We find ourselves at an urgent inflection point. . . . we have a third imperative task before us: to look over the next 20 years to identify the capability that we believe we will need based on the threat picture and start expending the necessary resources now to pace those threats.”</p> - -<h4 id="extended-deterrence-and-assurance-1">Extended Deterrence and Assurance</h4> - -<p>The emerging strategic environment will have important implications for extended deterrence and, by extension, assurance of allies. Russia and China have increasingly threatened the United States and its allies with hybrid, conventional, and nuclear forces. Accordingly, allied dependence on U.S. extended deterrence will remain a key feature of the international system between 2030 and 2050. As Kurt Campbell, the president’s coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs, recently pointed out, allies are nervous — there can be no doubt about this. Whether certain allies will act upon this loss of confidence to develop their own nuclear capabilities or to accommodate Russia or China is unknowable, but it is best not to find out. Instead, the United States should continue to provide credible security assurances backed up by effective nuclear capabilities.</p> - -<p>The United States faced the problem of assuring allies for most of the Cold War. For U.S. extended deterrence and assurance to remain credible, the United States must continue to provide political assurances while also convincing its allies and adversaries that it is willing and able to employ nuclear weapons on behalf of its allies even in the most stressing circumstances. Effective deterrence is the foundation for effective assurance; as the requirements for extended deterrence increase, so do the requirements for assurance.</p> - -<p>Nuclear tripolarity exacerbates this problem. Allies may worry that the United States will be reluctant to fight an adversary if doing so could lead to nuclear escalation against two nuclear powers. The United States will have to reassure allies that it has sufficient conventional and nuclear forces to deal with two nuclear peers at the same time, and that it is willing to run risks on their behalf. It is not clear, however, if the United States has enough bombers and dual-capable fighter aircraft to meet both conventional and nuclear missions in two major theaters of war. Finally, allies could worry that they will not be the primary theater of concern if the United States is forced to choose between two.</p> - -<p>Allies recognize that the United States is vulnerable to nuclear retaliation and pay close attention to the United States’ response to China’s (and North Korea’s) nuclear modernization. If the United States does little to address the new situation, allies will question U.S. commitment to their security. Adaptations to nuclear deterrence — to extended deterrence posture — will be necessary. Changes are needed to both the “hardware” (i.e., capabilities and force posture) and “software” (i.e., planning, consultations, and exercises) of U.S. nuclear strategy. The United States must ask allies to do more and provide enhanced consultative mechanisms — the time is ripe for more extensive nuclear burden sharing and consultation, such as the newly constituted Nuclear Consultative Group between the United States and South Korea. If allies lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, this failure could cause them to accommodate regional adversaries, reduce alliance cohesion, or seek nuclear arsenals of their own.</p> - -<h4 id="adjusting-extended-deterrence-postures">Adjusting Extended Deterrence Postures</h4> - -<p>The current extended deterrence posture and assurance frameworks are products of a post-Cold War goal to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in foreign policy. For example, the United States has withdrawn its nuclear weapons from the Indo-Pacific region and all but the B61 nuclear gravity bomb from Europe. The United States does not have a multilateral consultative framework in the Indo-Pacific as it does in Europe through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).</p> - -<p>The increased threat from China, Russia, and North Korea provides an opportunity to reconsider these architectures, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Today, Japan, South Korea, and Australia may be more willing to enter a more formal consultative arrangement with the United States similar to the NATO Nuclear Planning Group. A new arrangement could offer opportunities for defense ministers to weigh in on nuclear posture, planning, tabletop exercises, and other matters. It is also worth exploring how current diplomatic structures could be expanded to encompass issues and activities pertaining to force posture, basing, nuclear sharing, training, and other matters related to nuclear deterrence.</p> - -<p>The United States must ask more of allies in terms of conventional forces as well as participation in nuclear deterrence activities because a strong conventional defense could obviate the need for or increase reliance upon nuclear weapons to deter aggression.</p> - -<p>One could explore these possible nuclear-related options to bolster extended deterrence. Some measures are already underway, and some are politically fraught. This analysis provides a range of options for illustrative purposes which could be pursued with allies.</p> - -<p><strong>NATO</strong>:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Continue the planned nuclear force modernization and survivability measures;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Modernize dual-capable aircraft (e.g., realistic training, planning, and exercises);</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Improve the survivability of NATO’s nuclear forces through dispersal and other active and passive measures;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Expand nuclear burden sharing by seeking other allies to fly nuclear-armed aircraft or base nuclear weapons in their countries, although the U.S. president will maintain control over these weapons; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Deploy ground- and sea-based nuclear forces, with SLCM-N being the preference.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p><strong>U.S. Indo-Pacific Command</strong>:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Complete the robust air and missile defense capabilities for Guam in the 2020s, including with robust fire control integration, consistent with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s prioritization;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Build on existing bilateral consultative forums, including the new Nuclear Consultative Group between the United States and South Korea;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Consider multilateral consultative frameworks similar to the NATO Nuclear Planning Group;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Consider more tangible U.S. nuclear force presence, such as demonstrating the ability to deploy U.S. nuclear-capable fighter aircraft to the region; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Prioritize the conventional long-range strike capability and capacity of key allies such as Japan and Australia.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p><strong>Forward Deployment</strong>:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Deploy F-35s with gravity bombs or standoff weapons in one or more regions;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Regionally deploy nuclear-capable bombers (or place on rotational deployment);</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Deploy SLCM-N on U.S. attack submarines;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Acquire the capability to regionally deploy ground-launched cruise or ballistic missiles, and diplomatically explore contingency basing operations for the same;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Exercise and prepare contingency operations for mobile air and missile defenses to protect both U.S. and allied interests;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Acquire the capability and significant capacity for rapidly deployable ground-based, long-range precision fires; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Field long-range hypersonic weapons based in multiple domains.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>To be sure, some of these recommended courses of action will face political, operational, and funding challenges, while others could be perceived as escalatory by adversaries. This includes allied basing requirements, survivability of the systems and command and control, and congressional considerations. For reasons stated elsewhere, the authors believe the SLCM-N provides the best combination of survivability, responsiveness, and flexibility with little or no political costs associated with host-nation basing.</p> - -<h4 id="arms-control">Arms Control</h4> - -<p>Arms control could be a useful tool in managing and bounding the 2NP problem, but the United States needs willing partners. Expiration of the New START in February 2026 will drive the search for a follow-on framework sooner rather than later. Russia’s suspension of participation in inspections and reporting requirements under the treaty is not encouraging. Nevertheless, the United States should not determine its negotiating position until it first settles on a nuclear deterrence strategy and the forces necessary to implement employment guidance, and discussions take place between the administration and Congress on this approach. Regardless of whether the United States can secure limitations on nuclear forces, there are a range of other risk reduction measures that should be explored with Russia and China (i.e., so-called “arms control without treaties”).</p> - -<p>China will be difficult to bring to the table, but any future arms control treaty or framework with Russia to replace New START must consider Chinese nuclear forces even if China is not a party to the formal agreement. A follow-on agreement or framework does not require the United States to match the combined nuclear strength of both Russia and China — only that it maintains sufficient survivable and flexible forces to deter both regional and strategic nuclear threats under all likely circumstances. This reality will require a modest increase in the size of the deployed U.S. nuclear arsenal, but one that the authors believe Russia can accommodate, rather than an unlimited nuclear arms race that it cannot afford to run.</p> - -<p>The New START limited Russia and the United States to 1,550 warheads on 700 strategic delivery vehicles (i.e., ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers). This limit may be too low to accommodate the additional regional nuclear capabilities (if they are captured in a new agreement) and potential strategic warhead uploads necessary to address the 2NP problem after 2030. The New START also does not limit Russian nonstrategic nuclear warheads, estimated at about 2,000 for land-, air-, and sea-based regional dual-capable forces.</p> - -<p>The arms control objective, therefore, is to negotiate a new overall warhead ceiling that provides room for a modest expansion of U.S. nuclear forces to address the 2NP problem while reducing or capping the growth of Russian nonstrategic and novel nuclear weapons. One Project Atom contributor suggests a ceiling of about 3,500 total warheads with sub-limits for strategic forces covered under New START. That number could be smaller. Arms control advocates will no doubt blanche at raising the New START warhead ceiling and question whether it serves U.S. national security to return to larger mutual strategic nuclear force levels with Russia, but for those who believe the United States needs a larger strategic arsenal to deal with China, this option is preferable to an open-ended nuclear competition. Others may question whether increasing U.S. and Russian strategic forces will cause China to increase its nuclear forces beyond the levels currently projected.</p> - -<p>While current Russian noncompliance with the New START suggests that any treaty will be a hard sell in the current environment, Vladimir Putin did indicate toward the end of the Trump administration that he might accept a one-year freeze on all Russian nuclear weapons. If one assumes that the war in Ukraine is creating budgetary pressures for Russia, then treaty limits on U.S. strategic nuclear forces will likely remain in Russia’s interest after New START expires. The United States will require negotiating leverage to include all warheads in a new agreement, which it can obtain in the near term through the threat of additional warhead uploads onto U.S. strategic nuclear forces and in the longer term by threatening to continue production of new ICBMs, nuclear ballistic missile submarines, air-launched cruise missiles, and heavy bombers after the 2030s.</p> - -<p>While the prospects for negotiated arms control treaties seem bleak now, this does not mean the United States should eschew other forms of nuclear risk reduction — what some might call arms control without treaties. Covered more extensively by other contributors to Project Atom, one could imagine creating and continuing dialogues with Russia and China on what sometimes is referred to as “strategic stability” or “crisis stability” issues. This might include dialogue on crisis communications, nuclear strategy and doctrine, and transparency of nuclear and non-nuclear strategic forces, for both long-range strike and missile defenses, as well as unilateral and parallel reciprocal measures to provide transparency and constraints on nuclear forces.</p> - -<p>Given the strategic environment and doubts about either Russian or Chinese reductions or even transparency, it is doubtful that there can or should be meaningful progress toward the NPT commitments for disarmament in the near term. Article VI’s obligations for pursuing negotiations toward “a treaty on general and complete disarmament” is unlikely to be a productive topic of discussion. Recognizing that fact candidly is important. Indeed, under the current circumstances, whispers are growing louder in Japan and South Korea for potential nuclear capabilities of their own, or for a nuclear sharing arrangement with the United States. Former prime minister Abe Shinzo suggested such an arrangement publicly in February 2022, in the days after Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine.</p> - -<p>This suggestion may strike some as discordant with the long-standing policies and postures toward nuclear disarmament. It is. The charge of Project Atom is to consider a far-reaching timeline, for which the strictures and solutions of the mid-twentieth century may require adjustment. Inasmuch as renewed long-term strategic competition is the central challenge of the current era, it may in time even become necessary to revisit the question of nuclear nonproliferation more broadly. A nuclear-armed Japan, for instance, could be preferable to failing to deter a major war with China, and it could become necessary if Japan’s defense buildup does not progress sufficiently fast. In the near term, however, the conventional munitions and forces buildups for Japan, Australia, and the United States in the Indo-Pacific should continue to be pursued with prioritization. If the United States wishes to avoid a nuclear arms race, it may need to be more serious about a conventional arms race.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-1">Conclusion</h4> - -<p>Project Atom asked the several competitive teams to frame an approach to U.S. nuclear strategy that wrestles with the need to simultaneously deter two nuclear great powers while considering the broader implications for U.S. nuclear modernization, extended deterrence, and arms control.</p> - -<p>This paper contends that no major changes are warranted to the fundamentals of deterrence theory or to current U.S. nuclear strategy and employment guidance. The complexities and difficulties of sustaining nuclear deterrence will not be appreciably intensified due to China’s nuclear expansion. Moreover, the long-standing U.S. nuclear strategy of flexible and tailored response remains preferable to the alternatives of minimum deterrence or nuclear primacy. Nevertheless, while theory and employment guidance remain valid in the emerging strategic environment, some modest changes to the ways and means of U.S. nuclear strategy may be in order. The United States today lacks certain nuclear forces necessary to ensure deterrence against two nuclear great powers, potentially at the same time.</p> - -<p>First and foremost, force posture changes are necessary to improve the survivability and endurance of U.S. strategic nuclear forces and increase the flexibility and readiness of forward-based nuclear forces. Next, a modest number of additional regional nuclear forces, including the SLCM-N, would reinforce deterrence at the regional level — where war is likely to start — and compensate for Russian and Chinese advantage in nonstrategic nuclear forces. These changes should be supplemented by increased and survivable conventionally armed munitions, improved regional air and missile defenses, and improved conventional-nuclear integration. Additional hedging options, such as warhead uploading, are necessary to enable a timely increase in the size of U.S. strategic forces if needed to respond to the growth of Chinese strategic nuclear forces after 2030.</p> - -<p>Domestic political and production limitations will pose challenges for the United States to grow its nuclear forces in the near to mid term. The ongoing debate between the administration and Congress over the development and fielding of a SLCM-N suggests it will be difficult to reach political consensus on the augmentation of U.S. nuclear forces. In the near term, it is more feasible to improve the survivability and endurance of existing nuclear forces, although not without cost. Increased capability and capacity of conventional strike forces and air and missile defenses will also play a critical role in increasing stability, supporting escalation control, and improving survivability of strategic assets. It is, however, possible to envision political compromises that combine support for a modest increase in U.S. nuclear forces with support for a follow-on arms control framework that limits nuclear growth after New START and addresses the expansion of Chinese nuclear forces. Deterrence in a 2NP environment will be difficult but not impossible; it is less a matter of strategic imagination than of commitment and sustained effort.</p> - -<h3 id="chinas-nuclear-enterprise">China’s Nuclear Enterprise</h3> - -<p><em>Trends, Developments, and Implications for the United States and Its Allies</em></p> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="oriana-skylar-mastro">Oriana Skylar Mastro</h4> -</blockquote> - -<p>The focus of this volume is how the United States should respond to deterring two peer competitors: Russia and China. This paper’s main contention is that the nature of U.S.-China military competition from 2035 to 2050 will exhibit some unique characteristics compared to the U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship that require new thinking on these topics. As such, this paper differs from others in this volume by focusing on what changes in Chinese military posture, doctrine, and modernization mean for U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy, modernization, reassurance of allies, and arms control efforts. The reason for focusing on China is to challenge the premise that the United States should treat Russia and China as similar peers, and because assumptions among nuclear experts about what modernization efforts in China mean for Chinese nuclear policy are limiting thinking on ideal policy responses. The details of force modernization are consistent with the idea that China is maintaining the same nuclear policy it has had since 1964. This is advantageous for the United States, and thus most of this paper’s recommendations revolve around discouraging deviations. Admittedly, this piece raises more questions than it answers, but understanding which components of U.S. thinking will also serve the United States well in the future, and which require additional consideration, is the first step to devising any useful responses. Each section lays out relevant Chinese approaches, U.S. assumptions, and key issues that color best responses. While this paper focuses on Chinese nuclear modernization, what it means for U.S. strategy, and how the United States should respond, it should not be interpreted as dismissing the challenges of responding to Russian nuclear aggression and expansion. Rather, it focuses on challenging the premise that the United States needs to make significant changes in posture or policy to deter China.</p> - -<p>The advisable U.S. approaches to force modernization, deterrence, and arms control depend on understanding Chinese nuclear modernization. While there are recent indications from the U.S. Department of Defense that China will increase its nuclear arsenal, these changes are insufficient to suggest that China has abandoned core aspects of its nuclear policy such as no-first-use, no tactical nuclear weapons, and not striving for parity with the United States in terms of the size of its arsenal. China’s modernization efforts are compatible with maintaining its policy, but it is adjusting its posture given advancements in U.S. missile defense and increased tensions in U.S.-China relations. These points have important implications for ideal U.S. modernization plans, deterrence of China, reassurance of allies, and arms control. One of the most important takeaways is that the United States should avoid relying on nuclear weapons to deter China’s conventional threats, as this might encourage China to threaten nuclear use in response to the United States’ conventional activities.</p> - -<p>This paper first outlines fundamental principles of China’s nuclear policy, to include limited assured retaliation. It then explores the implications of China’s nuclear policy for U.S. force posture, modernization, extended deterrence, and arms control.</p> - -<h4 id="chinas-nuclear-policy">China’s Nuclear Policy</h4> - -<p>CHINA’S MINIMAL RETALIATION CAPABILITY AND NO-FIRST-USE PLEDGE</p> - -<p>The expansion of and improvements in China’s nuclear arsenal by 2050 do not necessarily mean that China is abandoning its limited assured retaliation strategy. The buildup in numbers is consistent with China’s traditional nuclear policy of a minimal retaliation capability with a no-first-use pledge.</p> - -<p>First, the Chinese strategy of assured retaliation requires that Beijing develop enough weapons to absorb a strike and still impose unacceptable damage from the adversary’s perspective. In the strategic doctrine of the Second Artillery, the predecessor of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, China’s strategic nuclear forces focus on “effective and limited nuclear counterattack” as the core of nuclear deterrence. As China makes a no-first-use promise regarding nuclear weapons and only has a limited number of nuclear weapons, this doctrine emphasizes the need for the preservation of nuclear forces as a prerequisite to carry out “focused strikes,” as well as “scientific use of nuclear firepower, and carefully crafted strike plans” in order to “achieve the greatest political and military benefits at a relatively small cost.” Although China’s nuclear weapons are limited, the nuclear forces that survive a surprise attack by a nuclear adversary are still sufficient to carry out a nuclear counterattack, and a few nuclear weapons attacking important targets in the adversary’s territory could destroy its industry, society, and mentality and paralyze its state apparatus. This posture leaves some flexibility in terms of specific numbers; Chinese strategists want sufficient forces but are careful not to fall into the track of building “excessive” ones.</p> - -<p>Second, the contours of Chinese nuclear modernization are consistent with the view that nuclear weapons are only useful for deterring nuclear use and do not have a warfighting component. Although the United States has assessed that China may be moving toward a launch-on-warning posture, which means they would launch a nuclear strike upon detecting an incoming attack, this policy is compatible with China’s no-first-use policy. Chinese leaders have also increasingly focused on growing regional nuclear options such as the DF-26 and DF-21A/C missiles, but these are attractive mainly because they are regional weapons lower on the escalation ladder and thus their use is more strategically feasible in the event of a conflict.</p> - -<p>Lastly, the “sudden” change in nuclear policy around 2018 and 2019 can be explained within the context of China’s traditional nuclear policy. China’s level of concern regarding U.S. nuclear capabilities “suddenly” surged around this time period, consequently accelerating its nuclear force development. Advancements in missile defense which reduced the retaliatory capacity of a smaller arsenal further supported the need. The Pentagon notes in its 2022 report to Congress that China’s “long-term concerns about United States missile defense capabilities” have likely spurred investments in hypersonic glide vehicles and fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS).</p> - -<p>Additionally, Chinese leaders likely aspired to strengthen their nuclear deterrent long before 2018 given U.S. dominance. Chinese leaders have multi-stage plans in their military modernization; in the conventional domains of competition, the strategy was to modernize the force first (i.e., increase the proportion of modern equipment) and then to expand the numbers of certain platforms. Notably, Xi Jinping explicitly directed the military in 2012 to “accelerate the construction of advanced strategic deterrent” capabilities; this has been the strongest and most unambiguous public statement on the matter. Coupled with recent investments in strategic nuclear submarines, China’s emphasis on quality has expanded to include a growing willingness to invest in quantity long before 2018.</p> - -<p>CHINA IS NOT SEEKING PARITY</p> - -<p>China is not striving for parity with the United States. Chinese leaders have long understood, since 1964, that they cannot compete with the United States in the quantity of nuclear weapons, and thus they have needed to embrace a different approach. As Mao Zedong stated in December 1963, China needed to have the atomic bomb but could not afford to compete for parity in numbers.</p> - -<p>Recent reporting has caused heightened concern that China is building up its nuclear arsenal. In 2021, anxiety amassed over China’s nuclear modernization: satellite imagery showed that approximately 360 silos were under construction at facilities in Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and eastern Xinjiang. In a worst-case scenario, with DF-41s carrying three warheads in each silo, Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) could “carry more than 875 warheads.” The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress estimated that the the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now has over 400 nuclear warheads; if current production trends continue, China could have as many as 1,500 by 2035. The report also estimated that China currently has at least 300 ICBMs.</p> - -<p>But it would be a mistake to take these projections at face value or to conclude that such an uptick signifies that China is now striving for parity, as some experts have posited. Admittedly, China’s avoidance of direct competition in nuclear power was starker in the early 1990s, when the United States had 47 times more nuclear weapons than China. But even the worst-case projections of 1,000 weapons puts the Chinese arsenal at less than a quarter of the current U.S. level of 5,244 nuclear weapons. Additionally, the fact that China has more land-based launchers than the United States is more a testament to the differences in nuclear posture than heightened threat; about three-fourths of China’s arsenal is land based, compared to one-fifth for the United States.</p> - -<p>One critique of these numerical comparisons is that the most strategically relevant metric is not total numbers; instead, strategists need to consider deployed nuclear weapons versus stockpiled weapons. The United States has 1,770 deployed in accordance with the New START (technically 1,550 are allowed, but bombers count as “one” even though they can carry multiple nuclear weapons). In other words, when comparing arsenals, some might use the 1,770 deployed number instead of the 5,244 that quantifies the United States’ total inventory.</p> - -<p>But even here, the evidence for a China striving for parity is weak. Under the New START conception of “deployable” nuclear weapons — carried by ICBMs on alert, submarines out on patrols, and bombers — China’s nuclear weapons are not deployable; they are in fixed locations and cannot be deployed to the Western Pacific or the South China Sea. But there is evidence that China might want some “deployable” nuclear weapons in the future; solid-fueled missiles such as the DF-41 and DF-31AG have much faster fueling times and require fewer support vehicles, and China’s Jin-class submarines have fueled the nuclear-armed JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) since 2015. In total, China has six Jin-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and the Pentagon has confirmed that they are “conducting continuous at-sea deterrence patrols” as of February 2023.</p> - -<p>CHINA’S SECOND-STRIKE CAPABILITY</p> - -<p>Chinese modernization is driven by concerns about maintaining a second-strike capability needed for deterrence.</p> - -<p>From China’s perspective, the strategic environment has changed in ways that call for a larger, more survivable arsenal even under its current nuclear policy. The United States has intensified the construction of a missile defense system in the East Asian region: the Aegis system. This is deployed on 17 U.S. Navy destroyers and cruisers in the region to detect, target, and engage ballistic missiles. These Aegis ballistic missile defense (BMD) ships have the capability to intercept short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their midcourse or terminal flight phases. They also play a role in defending the United States by detecting and tracking ICBMs and relaying this information to Ground-Based Interceptors in Alaska and California. As of December 2018, the system had a success rate of 40 out of 49 attempts in intercepting ballistic missile targets. China believes this poses a serious threat to the reliability and effectiveness of China’s nuclear counterattack capability. Second, the nuclear arsenals of neighboring countries like India, Pakistan, and North Korea have increased in recent years. Possibly as part of a move toward a launch-on-warning posture, China has been increasing its inventory of regional nuclear-capable systems, such as the DF-26 and DF-21A/C missiles. These are designed to target various assets, including naval vessels and land-based targets, enhancing China’s strategic capabilities and potentially altering the regional balance of power. Additionally, major countries are vigorously developing new types of conventional military capabilities that could be used against its nuclear capabilities.</p> - -<p>China has also built up and tested its own missile defense program in recent years. Specifically, China has focused on developing a ground-based mid-course missile defense systems capable of intercepting short- and medium-range ICBMs, including the HQ9 and HQ19 missile defense systems. Despite increased ground-based interception capabilities, it is unlikely that China would deploy this technology at scale. Rather, these missile defense systems would be deployed at fixed sites including command and control (C2) facilities and missile silos. In April 2023, China’s defense ministry announced that it successfully conducted a ground-based mid-course missile interception test. Details of the target of the test and the number of interceptors launched were not provided by state officials. Despite progress in interception capabilities for short- and medium-range missiles, China has not announced the development of a long-range system as of 2022.</p> - -<p>Thus, the likely explanation is that China is developing capabilities to ensure that it has a second-strike capability. In the 1980s, China began making significant advances in ICBM development and deployment, and from the mid-1990s onwards, China’s rocket force has moved from fixed silos to mobile launchers, shifted from liquid to solid fuel, and modestly expanded the number of warheads and ICBMs that include multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs). Now with an arsenal of at least 60 DF-5s, 78 DF-31s, and 54 DF-41s coming online, China can deliver 90 missiles with 130 warheads to the continental United States. The number of warheads on China’s land-based ICBMs capable of threatening the United States is expected to grow to roughly 200 by 2025. The United States does not consider ICBMs second-strike systems, but that is because the United States puts them on high-readiness, maintains a launch-on-warning posture, and relies much more on its sea and air legs of the triad than on its land-based systems (while about three-fourths of Chinese forces are land-based).</p> - -<p>This could signal a shift to a launch-on-attack posture, but it is also consistent with the need to take measures such as deploying mobile defenses to key sites including fixed silos and C2 facilities to reduce the impact of a first strike in order to maintain a second strike. Moreover, China has been making significant advancements in its early warning radar and satellite capabilities. These developments aim to enhance its ability to detect and track incoming threats, such as ballistic missiles, and improve its overall situational awareness. The deployment of advanced early warning radars, such as the JY-26 and JY-27A, demonstrates China’s commitment to strengthening its air defense capabilities. Additionally, China’s growing network of reconnaissance and early warning satellites, including the Yaogan and Gaofen series, contribute to its ability to monitor regional and global activities more effectively. These advancements in early warning systems not only bolster China’s defense capabilities but also have a positive impact on stability, as they contribute to China’s confidence in its second-strike capabilities.</p> - -<p>China has also been developing hypersonic weapons, which pose particular challenges to missile defense systems because of features such as their long range, low altitude, high maneuverability, and adjustability. The Chinese military has also increased the number of ballistic missile brigades by around a third in the past three years both to enhance its nuclear-strike capabilities amid escalating tensions with the United States and to prepare for a possible war against Taiwan (which includes the need to deter U.S. nuclear coercion). One Beijing-based military source said that China has deployed its most advanced hypersonic missile, the DF-17, to the area. In this way, it is possible that technological developments, in particular China’s ability to defeat U.S. missile defense systems, will create more stability by convincing Beijing its arsenal is sufficient to deter nuclear use.</p> - -<p>THE POSSIBILITY OF A CHINA-RUSSIA ALLIANCE</p> - -<p>China has no interest in forming a traditional military alliance with Russia. The results of a long-term research project the author has been conducting on the China-Russia military relationship suggests that China and Russia are significantly aligned, but their alignment is limited to facilitating China’s challenge to U.S. hegemony in Asia; it does not include helping Russia to take on the United States in Europe. Additionally, military support from Russia mainly comes in the form of assisting China in building up its own combat capabilities, though recent activities suggest movement toward supporting China, to a limited degree, in wartime as well. In other words, the two sides are not preparing to fight together in the traditional sense of allies. China also prefers that Russia not threaten the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if it is fighting the United States because that increases the likelihood that U.S. allies will become deeply and directly involved, in which case the likelihood of victory plummets and the economic costs of war become too high. This means that Russia and China can be analytically treated as separate cases; hence, this essay is about what is needed to deter China. What is required to maintain nuclear deterrence and promote arms control with Russia is likely very different. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that China and Russia will actively collude in the context of a nuclear crisis or other major conventional war in Asia, but that does not negate the possibility of Russia taking advantage of a crisis in East Asia to advance its own objectives independently.</p> - -<h4 id="implications-for-us-policy">Implications for U.S. Policy</h4> - -<p>IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. NUCLEAR MODERNIZATION</p> - -<p>Assumptions about Chinese nuclear intentions lead to a popular recommendation in Washington: that the United States needs to build more nuclear weapons and delivery systems, or at the very least deploy more from its stockpiles. But it is far from clear that such a costly endeavor would have positive impacts on deterrence and stability in the region. Based on an assessment of Chinese thinking through readings and interaction with Chinese counterparts, more U.S. nuclear weapons would have a negligible impact on China’s calculus. The United States already has nuclear dominance, its elites are largely confident in its nuclear deterrent against China, and China’s minimal deterrence posture has traditionally been based on the belief (correct, in the author’s view) that the prospect of even one nuclear detonation on U.S. soil is enough to deter a U.S. nuclear attack.</p> - -<p>Moreover, more nuclear weapons will not solve other perennial issues, such as deterring a range of more limited Chinese military actions or non-military coercive activities, as their use in these scenarios is not credible. And given that collusion between Russia and China is unlikely in the nuclear realm (indeed, China is likely cautioning Russia to not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine), the United States need not match the combined arsenals of China and Russia for deterrence to hold. Moreover, even if China is increasing its arsenal to maintain a second-strike capability, and maintain a limited retaliatory capability, and even if it increases its arsenal to 1,000 weapons, this does not undermine U.S. deterrence.</p> - -<p>While more work should be done to confirm these views, based on current trends and developments China will not necessarily change its nuclear strategy and posture away from the core components of treating nuclear weapons mainly as tools to deter nuclear use. Moreover, the existence of additional U.S. nuclear weapons does not fundamentally change China’s thinking on its strategy, doctrine, and posture — at least not in ways that benefit the United States. It is possible that such moves could encourage changes in China’s nuclear strategy that the United States should seek to avoid, such as China threatening nuclear use against any country that intervenes in its territorial disputes or against non-nuclear claimants to make gains. Indeed, dissuading China from moving away from the strategy that has served it well since 1964 should be the key objective of U.S. deterrence strategy and will be discussed more in the next section. What should the United States do, if not build up its own nuclear arsenal? It should use the Chinese buildup to make gains in other areas, such as conventional deterrence. This will be discussed more in the section on arms control.</p> - -<p>IMPLICATIONS FOR NUCLEAR DETERRENCE</p> - -<p>The most important role of nuclear weapons is to enhance deterrence. However, how nuclear weapons impact other countries’ calculus on using force and what exactly states hope to deter can be debatable and evolve over time. This section focuses on the trade-offs between conventional and nuclear deterrence. This starts with the premise, developed in the previous section, that China’s unique nuclear strategy to date ensures that the balance of nuclear warheads and delivery systems in the 2035 to 2050 period is as likely to deter Chinese nuclear use as any U.S. force posture could. This does not mean that there are not problematic deterrence and escalation dynamics; allies and partners might be reassured by a larger arsenal (even though logically they should not be). But the likelihood and nature of a war with China are unlikely to be significantly impacted by improvements in U.S. nuclear force posture.</p> - -<p>This section addresses one of the primary topics in deterrence: the relationship between nuclear and conventional deterrence. During the Cold War, the United States adopted nuclear deterrence as an “asymmetrical response” against the Soviet Union. The approach reinforced Washington’s strength in nuclear weapons and, in turn, neutralized Moscow’s advantage in conventional forces. The Eisenhower administration believed that nuclear weapons make deterrence more credible and decrease the risk of aggression at minimal cost. Conventional and mutual deterrence, however, were still valued among other administrations: Kennedy pursued a flexible response that would equip the United States with numerous feasible options against different types of aggressions as potential alternatives to resorting to nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence is relatively stable between China and the United States, but because of China’s unique approach, characterized by no-first-use, minimal deterrence, and a lack of tactical warheads, the presence of nuclear weapons does not impose the level of caution on each side that deterrence theory might espouse.</p> - -<p>The fact that both the United States and China possess nuclear weapons means that any war could escalate to the nuclear level, which should impose caution on both sides. There is reason to believe, however, that the power of nuclear weapons to deter conventional conflict is relatively weak in the U.S.-China case. This is because of China’s view that nuclear weapons are only for deterring nuclear use and U.S. confidence in its escalation dominance in the nuclear realm. China firmly believes that nuclear war cannot be controlled once it begins; societal pressure on leaders not to back down, the circumstances of the country, and uncertainty about reactions from adversaries incentivize escalation. As such, China poses that strategic weapons are better than tactical weapons, and that they are only useful for signaling resolve, not waging war. Combined with practical concerns about having a weaker nuclear arsenal than the United States — where only half of its weapons can strike the continental United States — China is dedicated to maintaining a no-first-use policy.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the concept of mutually assured destruction was based on the U.S.-Soviet nuclear relationship, in which both countries had thousands of nuclear weapons and relative parity with one another. This is not the case for the United States and China, the latter of which has chosen to pursue an assured retaliation posture. China also arguably did not have a second-strike capability until relatively recently. With only a few hundred warheads, and with the majority of its systems comprised of older missiles that were land-based, liquid-fueled, slow-launching, and stored in easily targeted silos, there was the possibility of a successful debilitating first strike. But China started to modernize its nuclear force in the 1990s, and now it has 50 to 75 ICBM launchers, of which 33 are the newer, road-mobile DF-31 and DF-31A. In 2017, China also showcased the DF-31AG, an improved version of the DF-31A missile, featuring an enhanced launcher, reduced support needs, and a wheeled transporter erector launcher capable of navigating off-road terrain. As of 2015, China also has a sea-based nuclear deterrence in its four Jin-class nuclear submarines, each of which carries 48 nuclear-capable JL-2 SLBMs. However, China’s mobile missiles still have the highest survival rate. This is because the Jin-class submarines are easily tracked. Given advances in U.S. missile defense, it is possible that China could not deliver a sufficient retaliatory strike against the United States after absorbing an attack. Even if the United States needed 80 warheads to destroy one DF-31, given the challenges of detection, Washington could probably destroy enough that China could not reliably retaliate after absorbing an attack on its nuclear forces.</p> - -<p>The fact that the United States and China both possess nuclear weapons reduces the likelihood of conventional conflict, but it does not make it unthinkable, given the persistent asymmetry in vulnerability. Whether it should be the case or not, the reality is that Chinese military planners believe it is very possible to fight a conventional war with the United States without escalating to the nuclear level. This is in part because they believe that once nuclear weapons are used, escalation would be uncontrollable, and therefore neither side will strike first. Additionally, many Chinese experts believe that the United States would avoid intervening in a conflict between a U.S. ally and China if doing so would ultimately lead to a nuclear confrontation. PLA strategists, not unlike some U.S. strategists, believe that advancements in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities as well as C2 capabilities and precision weapons have further strengthened the ability to control war. Indeed, most of U.S. war planning over Taiwan makes this assumption implicitly or explicitly. Whether or not a war escalates to the nuclear level depends on whether the two sides can negotiate a mutually acceptable settlement and can prevent accidents.</p> - -<p>In other words, the nuclear relationship between China and the United States has less of an impact on Chinese calculations about use of force than its perception of conventional balance of power. Unlike the Cold War, the United States cannot use nuclear threats to compensate for conventional issues given that China has no plans to attack and occupy other inhabited entities, with Taiwan being the exception — and this level of threat and cost makes U.S. willingness to fight nuclear wars relatively incredible. Indeed, in the case of U.S.-China tensions, the atrophy of U.S. conventional deterrence is the main driver for an increased likelihood of war, and thus the United States needs to prioritize re-establishing conventional deterrence. This means that in instances in which nuclear modernization may come at the expense of conventional force development, conventional force development should have priority. A good example of this was the United States pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019 following “Russia’s repeated violations of the treaty,” which allows the United States to now develop a key class of new conventional weapons to deter China.</p> - -<p>There are two policy changes in particular that U.S. strategy should be designed to deter. First is a Sino-Russian alignment to the degree to which each provides some form of extended deterrence to the other. There is no consideration of this in China, so it does not present a real threat in the foreseeable future, but it is still worth mentioning.</p> - -<p>Instead, the most important goal for U.S. deterrence policy should be to ensure it does not encourage a change in China’s nuclear policy and in posture. To state this more clearly, if China starts to threaten nuclear use in response to U.S. conventional intervention in conflicts, this will severely impact U.S. war planning. China has never leveraged its nuclear arsenal to make up for conventional inferiorities, even in the 1990s when it was outclassed by far by the United States. But China might believe it could improve its ability to coerce U.S. partners and allies in Asia without risking confrontation with the United States. If the Chinese threat is credible, the United States will find itself with limited options to defend its allies in lower-level conflicts, in effect forcing the United States to concede the region to China. In other words, any movement in the United States to integrate conventional and nuclear operations, or to use nuclear weapons to make up for issues in U.S. regional conventional force posture, should be avoided, as they could encourage China to do the same.</p> - -<p>In line with these concerns, the Biden administration’s decision to cancel the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) program in 2022 demonstrates a commitment to avoiding the co-mingling of conventional and nuclear systems on vessels that are not SSBNs. This decision helps reduce the risk of platform ambiguity in the Indo-Pacific region, which could potentially escalate conflicts due to misinterpretation of intentions. By taking this step, the United States is actively working to prevent any changes in China’s nuclear policy and posture that could result from the integration of conventional and nuclear operations, thus maintaining stability in the region and safeguarding the interests of its allies.</p> - -<p>Given the limited nature of Chinese ambitions, the United States should also rethink the objectives of extended deterrence and how to best reassure allies and partners. First, given China’s limited nuclear arsenal and policy of not using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, China’s nuclear threat to U.S. allies in Asia is more limited than Russia’s threat to NATO allies, especially during the Cold War. The big question concerns China’s willingness to use nuclear weapons against U.S. assets in Asia, which might be on allied soil, as an intermediate rung on the escalation ladder to using them against the U.S. homeland. This is likely the motivation behind recent Chinese posture changes that show much greater interest in intermediate escalation options such as the DF-26, air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBMs), the DF-21, and the DF-17.</p> - -<p>Notably, the DF-26 is often referred to as the “Guam Killer” due to its ability to target U.S. military installations on the island of Guam in the Western Pacific. ALBMs can be launched from aircraft and offer the potential for rapid response, mobility, and the ability to launch nuclear strikes outside of the coverage areas of traditional missile defense systems. The DF-21 is commonly referred to as the “Carrier Killer” because of its intended capability to target aircraft carriers and other large warships. The DF-17 is known for its maneuverability and ability to fly at extremely high speeds, making it more difficult for existing missile defense systems to intercept. Additionally, as per the previous discussion, nuclear weapons do not deter admittedly problematic conventional activities. And the United States should avoid this pathway for the sake of assuring allies because it could encourage China to then threaten nuclear use in response to U.S. conventional activity, which would seriously complicate defense planning.</p> - -<h4 id="implications-for-extended-assurance-and-deterrence">Implications for Extended Assurance and Deterrence</h4> - -<p>U.S. strategists should also revisit whether there are more costs than benefits associated with its allies in Asia possessing nuclear weapons, namely South Korea, Japan, and Australia. The downsides include that this could undermine the global nonproliferation regime and increase the likelihood of nuclear use due to an accident. Historical records show that the United States had many “close calls” where the “accidental or unauthorized detonation” of a nuclear weapon was a real possibility. The upside is that Chinese conventional attack, and subsequent escalation to nuclear war, becomes less likely.</p> - -<p>China’s growing conventional and nuclear capabilities in the Indo-Pacific have driven many in allied countries to question their current approaches. Many in South Korea are worried by the possibility that U.S. extended deterrence could fail. In their eyes, North Korea’s ability to hit any U.S. city could prevent U.S. assistance in the event of a restarted Korean war, making a South Korean nuclear deterrent the only guarantor of the country’s safety — a logic that applies to China as well. South Koreans are historically more open to the idea of developing a nuclear bomb than their Japanese counterparts, and in recent years that option has been discussed more frequently. In January 2023, President Yoon Suk Yeol commented that the nation may have to pursue nuclear weapons development or “demand redeployment of U.S. nuclear arms” to South Korea in response to the North Korean nuclear threat. According to a 2022 poll, 71 percent of South Koreans were in support of the nation pursuing its own nuclear weapons. The North Korean nuclear threat has also influenced thinking in this area. While no country has taken steps toward this option, what was once an unthinkable topic has now become more mainstream.</p> - -<p>In Japan, the specter of a rising China and the Trump administration’s unreliability undermined Tokyo’s faith in extended deterrence. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has done even more to drive the debate underway in Japan. And whereas advocates of pursuing a nuclear weapon are traditionally found on the far right, this formerly taboo opinion is becoming more mainstream, with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, shortly before his death, publicly raising the idea of housing U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan (i.e. through a nuclear-sharing arrangement). While the current prime minister, Kishida Fumio, quickly rejected the suggestion, Kishida was also severely criticized for failing to “mention the [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] and for not clarifying Japan’s future role in nuclear disarmament” in the 2022 NPT Review Conference. It is important to note here that besides Russia’s invasion, China’s conventional buildup and increasingly aggressive foreign policy are likely driving most of Japanese anxiety. China’s nuclear buildup is probably only a secondary driver. Japan’s 2022 National Defense Strategy, for instance, discusses China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) network, aggressive activities around the Senkakus, and threat to Taiwan much more than its nuclear forces.</p> - -<p>While the Australian government maintains its firm stance on nuclear nonproliferation, the development of China’s military capacity has posed increasing security risks to the nation and prompted discussion on the strengthening of U.S. extended deterrence. Australian minister for defense Richard Marles expressed his concerns toward China’s use of force in the South China Sea and called for increased U.S. military presence as part of Australia’s new defense strategy. Some defense analysts have questioned U.S. extended deterrence and suggested the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. A 2022 poll revealed that 36 percent of Australians were in favor of obtaining nuclear weapons — more than double the amount in a 2010 poll conducted on a similar (though differently phrased) question.</p> - -<p>How can the United States deal with these growing concerns about U.S. extended deterrence? First, deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Asia is not the answer. At best, this has little impact on Beijing’s thinking, and at worst, it may enhance the legitimacy of China’s attacks on U.S. regional bases and even on Taiwan if nuclear weapons were discussed as an option for cross-strait stability. That leaves the software options of greater consultations and joint defense planning, which might reassure allies and partners of U.S. intentions even as they have minimal impact on Chinese contingency planning.</p> - -<h4 id="implications-for-arms-control-approaches">Implications for Arms Control Approaches</h4> - -<p>Political scientist Joseph Nye defines arms control as efforts between nations to “limit the numbers, types, or disposition of weapons.” There are two key data points that drive the following recommendations on the potential of arms control agreements with China. First, China’s participation in arms control regimes to date is largely driven by the belief that these arrangements give them a competitive edge. Granted, China’s participation in arms regimes is widely touted as a success story. In 1980, Beijing was essentially uninvolved in international arms control agreements, but by the late 1990s, its participation rate was on par with that of other major powers. China joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1984, agreed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1992, helped negotiate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, and signed and ratified the 1993 Chemical Weapons Ban Treaty.</p> - -<p>But given China’s different approach to nuclear weapons and conventional arms sales, China has sacrificed little in terms of potential power gains. It makes sense, therefore, for China to work to constrain the United States’ ability to leverage its advantages in these areas. Indeed, Chinese experts such as Tang Yongsheng, professor at the PLA National Defence University, have been direct about the strategy, arguing that China should “use the UN arms control and disarmament institutions to restrain U.S. arms development and deescalate the U.S.-China arms race.” China has gone further than current regimes, advocating for a complete ban and destruction of nuclear weapons and advocating for a global no-first-use treaty for nuclear states. Indeed, this self-serving approach to arms control best explains why China has more of a spotty record on export controls.</p> - -<p>Second, taking into account the modernization discussion in the first section, which argues that China has yet to deviate from its minimal-deterrent nuclear strategy and posture, there is likely no possibility of China joining bilateral arms control arrangements between Russia and the United States that focus on restricting the quantity of its nuclear weapons or the effectiveness of its delivery systems until Russia and the United States reduce their arsenals to China’s level. Fu Cong, the head of the arms control department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explicitly stated that “China has no interest in joining the so-called trilateral negotiations, given the huge gap between the nuclear arsenal of China and those of the U.S. and the Russian Federation.” In the eyes of Chinese military strategists, arms control is generally seen as a tool by the strong to keep down the weak. This inherent suspicion is illustrated in the Science of Military Strategy, a core textbook for senior PLA officers, in which arms control is described as a “struggle” between self-interested great powers. Chinese leaders are particularly suspicious of U.S.-led arms control regimes, which Chinese strategists see as a “trap” designed to solidify U.S. nuclear dominance and undermine China’s nuclear deterrent. Indeed, China mostly uses arms control as a notion to protest against other countries’ arm deployment and development.</p> - -<p>This does not mean progress cannot be made, but U.S. objectives need to shift. First, to support the argument in the deterrence section about instability in conventional deterrence, the United States could consider asymmetric arms control arrangements, such as reductions in U.S. theater missile defense capabilities or even in the number of nuclear warheads, in exchange for demobilization of certain types and numbers of Chinese conventional missiles. Chinese interlocutors have often expressed interest in a U.S. statement of mutual vulnerability. What would make such a concession to China worthwhile to the United States? The United States could maintain that it possesses a strong nuclear capability, and that China would certainly suffer far more than the United States in any nuclear exchange, while also admitting at the same time that the United States is vulnerable to nuclear attack.</p> - -<p>China, the United States, and Russia have been focused on developing artificial intelligence (AI), but through different approaches. The Russian projects are directed at creating military hardware which relies on AI but leaves decisions entirely in human hands, while the U.S. approach is also more conservative, with the goal of producing computers that can assist human decisionmaking but not contribute on their own. China has the most aggressive approach, focusing on developing advanced AI that could contribute to strategic decisionmaking. In China’s 2017 New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, which lays out its goal of leading the world in AI by 2030, China aims to have AI systems that can outperform humans in complex, changing environments and that can process more battlefield information than humans. This would give the PLA a substantial advantage over its adversaries that have less ability to utilize information. Despite these lofty goals, much more research and development needs to be done before any existing AI system is advanced enough to advise battlefield operations.</p> - -<p>China understands that the proliferation of AI brings new risks and challenges to the global stage and wants to be in charge of setting the norms for this new technology. As such, China’s New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan calls on minimizing the risks of AI to ensure a “safe, reliable, and controllable” development of the technology. This includes formulating laws, regulations, ethical norms, and safety mechanisms for AI.</p> - -<p>Chinese officials have also expressed concerns about an AI arms race and emphasized the need for international cooperation and potential arms control. PLA scholars have indicated that they are concerned that AI “will lower the threshold of military action” because states may be more willing to attack each other with AI military systems due to lowered casualty risks. Chinese officials have also expressed that they are concerned about increased misperceptions through the use of these systems. China’s private sector, which plays a big role in developing a lot of AI systems — for example, Baidu makes autonomous vehicles, Alibaba Cloud is in charge of smart cities, and Tencent makes medical imaging — have also voiced their worries. Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba, explicitly stated at the 2019 Davos World Economic Forum that he was concerned that the global competition over AI could lead to war.</p> - -<p>There may be more room to maneuver, therefore, to discuss how cyber warfare, counterspace capabilities, or AI-enabled systems could create crisis dynamics that neither side favors, and thus China may be willing to agree to mutual constraints in these areas to protect C2 and otherwise reduce the likelihood of accidents and miscalculation. For instance, the U.S. 2022 Nuclear Posture Review emphasizes the importance of keeping a human in the loop for nuclear employment and decisionmaking. This approach aims to maintain control and reduce risks associated with AI-driven systems. A general agreement with China on this matter could be useful in promoting transparency, trust, and stability between the United States and China. Given China’s concerns about AI arms races, misperceptions, and the potential for conflict, it is possible that it may be open to such an agreement, as it aligns with its security interests.</p> - -<p>On space, China has been promoting the Prevention of Placement of Weapons in Outer Space Treaty, which aims to prohibit the placement of weapons in outer space. China supports this treaty to prevent a space arms race. However, the United States opposes the agreement, as it believes the treaty lacks proper verification mechanisms and could potentially limit its ability to defend its space assets. Furthermore, the United States has been advocating for international norms and rules to regulate space activities, while Beijing has expressed reservations about this approach. China’s 2013 Science of Military Strategy prefers to argue that “seizing command of space and network dominance will become crucial for obtaining comprehensive superiority on the battlefield and conquering an enemy.” Despite these disagreements, reaching a consensus would be challenging but possible. As China and the United States consider space weaponization and threats to space assets, including satellite systems that support nuclear C2 on the ground, agreements on protecting these systems will become critical points for maintaining control over nuclear forces — something of mutual interest to both nations.</p> - -<p>In addition to refining which capabilities to control and restrict, U.S. strategists should also consider whether bringing China into bilateral agreements currently in place with Russia is the right strategy. This largely depends on alliance dynamics between China and Russia. If it looks like the two countries might team up to promote their preferred norms, trilaterals may not be superior to two separate bilateral channels. However, if China’s participation will impose constraints on Russia or vice versa, or the two countries are so clearly in alignment that they concede deterrence is determined by the balance of U.S. forces against an aggregate of Chinese and Russian nuclear forces (such that then the United States is outnumbered and may have to make some concessions), trilateral and broader multilateral arrangements may be the optimal future modality.</p> - -<p>Lastly, China tends to exploit gaps in the international order, making advances at the expense of others when international norms are not solid. Many of the main concepts central to arms control — such as what defines a strategic system, a deployed system, or a tactical nuclear weapon — are debatable. This ambiguity creates space for China to pursue its modernization goals with relatively less pushback and reputational costs. Even if China and the United States cannot agree on force posture, a first step in arms control should be to reach agreement about these fundamental concepts and their meanings and implications.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-2">Conclusion</h4> - -<p>China’s nuclear modernization and buildup requires new thinking on deterrence, force posture, and arms control. However, it is not necessarily the case that the solutions of the past suit the challenges in store for the coming period between 2035 and 2050. A best-case scenario for U.S. and allied security is for Chinese nuclear doctrine and strategy to treat nuclear weapons as only relevant for nuclear deterrence, serving no war fighting use. As the United States considers changing its approach to its own nuclear modernization, extended deterrence, or arms control, a primary question should be how these changes might alter the role of nuclear weapons in China’s strategy. This does not need to be a two-peer competition, as this volume posits, but rather the United States could avoid creating a strategic adversary in Beijing altogether. Preventing a more permissive Chinese nuclear strategy should be the top priority of all efforts, even if it means living with a larger, more survivable Chinese nuclear arsenal.</p> - -<h3 id="us-nuclear-policy-in-a-two-peer-nuclear-adversary-world">U.S. Nuclear Policy in a Two Peer Nuclear Adversary World</h3> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="franklin-c-miller">Franklin C. Miller</h4> -</blockquote> - -<h4 id="prologue-how-did-we-get-to-where-we-are">Prologue: How Did We Get to Where We Are?</h4> - -<p>Beginning in the late 1940s, nuclear forces first dominated, and then were a dominating factor in, U.S. defense policy for over 40 years. As the Cold War ended, and the threat of al Qaeda and global terrorism emerged, the U.S. defense establishment turned its focus away from nuclear deterrence and the forces which it supported. Systems which were first built in the 1960s and were then modernized or replaced in the 1980s should have been similarly modernized or replaced beginning in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, but they were not. As a result, as the Obama administration ended, the outgoing secretary of defense, the late Ashton Carter, observed:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>. . . the Defense Department cannot further defer recapitalizing Cold War-era systems if we are to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear force that will continue to deter potential adversaries that are making improvements in their air defenses and their own nuclear weapons systems. The choice is not between replacing these platforms or keeping them, but rather between replacing them and losing them altogether. The latter outcome would, unfortunately, result in lost confidence in our ability to deter. The United States cannot afford this in today’s security environment or in any reasonably foreseeable future security environment.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Concurrent with this neglect of force posture, the U.S. government failed to view nuclear deterrence policy as a major area of interest, and even the idea that a nuclear deterrent relationship with Russia, or even the small but growing nuclear forces of China or North Korea, required high-level attention attracted little support. Russia’s invasion of Crimea, North Korea’s continued expansion of its nuclear arsenal, and the emergence of the aggressive Xi Jinping as China’s next leader caused the Obama administration in mid-stream to rediscover the importance of nuclear deterrence. Successive U.S. administrations have continued on that path, but as they have done so, the global scene has become more unsettled.</p> - -<h4 id="an-unsettling-echo-of-the-past">An Unsettling Echo of the Past</h4> - -<p>By any reasonable measure, the world has become a more dangerous place over the past 10 years. Russia, China, and North Korea are increasingly dangerous. All three nations’ autocratic leaders seek to intimidate their democratically oriented neighbors, and all three harbor ambitions of imperial aggression.</p> - -<p>A student of history would observe that the 2020s are eerily reminiscent of the 1930s. Adolf Hitler doubted the will of the Western democracies and went to war against them despite the advice of his military. (His claim that wherever the German language was spoken must be incorporated into the Nazi state resembles Putin’s claims about Russophone territory.) In Tokyo, Premier Togo Shigenori and his ruling clique were similarly convinced, in highly racist terms, that the United States and United Kingdom were weak, failing nations that lacked the will to defend themselves. Both Berlin and Tokyo were convinced that the internal domestic political divisions in the United States and United Kingdom would prevent any unity to rally against aggression. All of this rings true today, with the exception that Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong-un also possess nuclear weapons their twentieth-century forebears lacked. As a result, the United States’ credibility and its commitment to defend allies are once again being called into question by aggressive authoritarian regimes — but today these countries’ possession of nuclear weapons allows them to add a dangerous new element of intimidation and coercion.</p> - -<p>Putin, Xi, and Kim believe deeply in the political power of nuclear weapons. This is evidenced by their significant investment in the modernization and growth of their nuclear forces, for both long-range and theater/tactical purposes. It is made evident by their use of nuclear blackmail, in Xi’s case a more subtle exercise of that blackmail than Putin or Kim’s efforts; but in all three cases, such blackmail had an effect on regional politics and stability. None of them accepts traditional Western ideas of “strategic stability” (despite decades of well-meaning Westerners seeking to “educate” them). This can be seen in their continued embrace of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) equipped with multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs), their continued rejection of transparency, and their continued willingness to push the envelope with respect to state-sanctioned dangerous military activities and incidents at sea (despite Moscow and Beijing’s membership in accords which prohibit such reckless behavior). All of this is compounded by investments in massive conventional forces and offensive space and cyber capabilities.</p> - -<p>Accordingly, as the United States faces the present and the future, its overriding priority must be to protect U.S. and allied security and territorial integrity without having to fight a war. This means the United States must deter major aggression and blackmail by an enemy (or enemies) using conventional forces, nuclear forces, cyber forces, or space capabilities. That is the country’s deterrent task for today and for tomorrow.</p> - -<h4 id="the-essence-of-deterrence-policy">The Essence of Deterrence Policy</h4> - -<p>The Biden administration, in its October 2022 National Security Strategy, recognized the gravity of the threats facing the United States and its allies:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown. The PRC, by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>These twin political challenges are made more fraught by the fact that, due to the buildup of its nuclear arsenal, China has now essentially joined Russia as a “nuclear peer” of the United States. (While some will point out that China’s strategic arsenal is today considerably smaller than that of the United States, two facts — that it (1) now fields an operational strategic nuclear triad and a large number of theater and tactical-range nuclear weapons, and (2) that it is continuing to deploy more nuclear weapons — certainly qualifies it to be a “nuclear peer” of the United States.) Never before in the nuclear age has the United States faced two potential nuclear peer adversaries, each of which can act alone or, potentially, in concert with the other. This is the reality of the “new nuclear world.”</p> - -<p>To preserve peace and prevent war, the United States must return to the fundamental constructs of deterrence policy. The basic and traditional deterrence policy construct holds for this new world: the leadership of potential aggressors must see the United States as capable of inflicting various amounts of unacceptable pain should they decide to attack the United States or its allies at any level. The 1983 Scowcroft Commission produced the best statement of this principle:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>Deterrence is not and cannot be bluff. In order for deterrence to be effective we must not merely have weapons, we must be perceived to be able, and prepared, if necessary, to use them effectively against the key elements of [an enemy’s] power. Deterrence is not an abstract notion amenable to simple quantification. Still less is it a mirror of what would deter ourselves. Deterrence is the set of beliefs in the minds of the [enemy] leaders, given their own values and attitudes, about our capabilities and our will. It requires us to determine, as best we can, what would deter them from considering aggression, even in a crisis — not to determine what would deter us.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>To continue to deter effectively today and for the foreseeable future, the United States must credibly continue to hold at risk what potential enemy leaders value most: themselves, the security forces which keep them in power, their military forces, and their war-supporting industry.</p> - -<p>As noted above, what has changed in this new world is the emergence of China as a second nuclear peer to the United States. Recognizing this, the United States needs, for the first time in the nuclear age, to be able to deter Russia and China simultaneously (not just sequentially). Dictators can act quickly and with great secrecy. The United States must be ever mindful of the possibility that, like Hitler and Stalin, Xi and Putin could unveil at any point, most dangerously in a crisis, a treaty of military and political alliance.</p> - -<h4 id="from-policy-to-forces-why-a-triad">From Policy to Forces: Why a Triad?</h4> - -<p>The United States’ continued investment in a strategic nuclear force based on a triad of land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and manned bombers equipped with either stand-off cruise missiles or gravity bombs remains, despite skepticism in some quarters, the optimal manner in which to deploy a nuclear deterrent. The triad started life, admittedly, as the offspring of the inter-service rivalries of the 1950s. During the 1960s, however, strategists recognized that the combination of three different basing modes, each with unique strengths and different but offsetting vulnerabilities, separate attack azimuths, and complementary alert postures, presented potential enemy offenses and defenses with insurmountable obstacles. All of this remains true today. As a result, the three-legged combination continues to provide maximum deterrent stability because an aggressor cannot pre-emptively destroy the triad or prevent the retaliation it could impose. Interestingly, while some U.S. critics deride the triad concept, it is worth noting that it has been copied by Russia, China, Israel, and India.</p> - -<h4 id="why-a-modernized-triad">Why a Modernized Triad?</h4> - -<p>As former secretary of defense Ash Carter’s comment indicates, the viability of the U.S. deterrent is slowly deteriorating. The Minuteman III ICBMs were first deployed in the 1970s. Their electronics, guidance systems, and motors have all been modernized several times over the last 50 years, but those options are no longer available to prolong their lifespan. The existing force will have to be retired within the next 10 years. The new Sentinel ICBM will replace the 450 Minuteman missiles on a one-for-one basis, thereby ensuring the continuation of a sovereign-based force which will possess high responsiveness and accuracy as well as rapid, secure communications. Ohio-class submarines, the first of which began its service in 1982, have served longer than any previous class of U.S. nuclear-powered submarine. A submarine’s safety is affected principally by the pressure its hull has endured throughout its lifetime and whether the equipment associated with the nuclear plant has become brittle. Based on these indicators, the Ohio-class submarines must be retired within the next 10 to 15 years. A “minimum of 12” Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) will begin replacing the 14 Ohio-class boats starting in the late 2020s. The bomber force consists of (modernized) 1960s-era B-52s and a small number of 1990s-era B-2s. The B-52s have been incapable for decades of penetrating heavily defended airspace and have been equipped with cruise missiles as a result. Those cruise missiles, however, entered into service in the early 1980s and had a designed service life of 10 years. They will not pose a credible threat by the end of this decade. A replacement cruise missile, the Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) cruise missile is scheduled to enter service in 2029–2030, thereby ensuring the B-52’s continued relevance. Only 19 stealth penetrating B-2 bombers exist, and these are scheduled to be replaced by 120 new penetrating B-21 bombers.</p> - -<p>Ever since the current strategic modernization program was first approved during the Obama administration, twin questions have been raised as to its affordability and its priority among other defense needs. The program is affordable. The Department of Defense (DOD)’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (basing its figures on a smaller DOD budget than exists today) stated:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>While estimates of the cost to sustain and replace U.S. nuclear capabilities vary . . . even the highest of these projections place the highpoint of the future cost at approximately 6.4 percent of the current DoD budget. Maintaining and operating our current aging nuclear forces now requires between two and three percent of the DoD budget and the replacement program to rebuild the triad for decades of service will peak for several years at only approximately four percent beyond the existing sustainment level of spending. This 6.4 percent of the current DoD budget required for the long-term program represents less than one percent of today’s overall federal budget.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Prioritizing nuclear modernization is not a real issue when one considers that nuclear deterrence fundamentally underwrites U.S. strategic interests and military missions around the world. To be sure, the United States is currently in urgent need of, among other things: deployed conventional prompt strike systems; rebuilt war reserve munitions stockpiles across the board for ground, air, and naval forces; more robust space offensive and defensive systems; advanced cyber warfare capabilities; and dramatically more tanker aircraft than today. All contribute to the United States’ ability to deter adventurism, aggression, and war. But their deterrent effect in a world defined by two nuclear peer states depends first and foremost on an unquestioned strategic nuclear deterrent.</p> - -<h4 id="how-much-is-enough">How Much Is Enough?</h4> - -<p>Deterring China and Russia simultaneously leads to a need for an increased level of U.S. strategic warheads: simple logic and arithmetic suggest that the force level enshrined in New START during the 2010s and designed for a world far different from today’s is insufficient for 2023 — let alone for later in this decade and on into the 2030s. Therefore, it follows that the current U.S. nuclear modernization plan itself is necessary but not sufficient. While the triad concept remains sound, the modernization plan was conceived to deal with a far less dangerous world. Within the next several years, either as a result of an ignominious early end to New START or its expiration in 2026, the United States will have to begin to deploy a larger deterrent force. For the near term, and probably through at least the mid-2030s, the United States will need to take warheads out of the “reserve hedge” and place them in the field. This will require increasing the loadout on the Minuteman 3 ICBM from one to two or three warheads (and in the future continuing this on the new Sentinel ground-based strategic deterrent ICBM system), increasing the loadout on the Trident II/D-5 SLBM up to eight (as well as restoring to operational status the four missile tubes on each Ohio-class submarine which were “neutered” under New START), and increasing to the maximum number possible the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM-Bs) and B61-12 bombs assigned to the B-52s and B-2s. (The United States should also take steps to return to nuclear-capable status those B-52s “neutered” under New START, although there will not be sufficient LRSOs to arm them until the 2030s.) None of this can be achieved overnight. The United States can, however, begin to reach the levels required to deter Moscow and Beijing simultaneously by preparing now to upload and doing so after New START constraints have been removed. This will sustain deterrence through the 2030s as replacement systems come online. Assuming no diminution in the threat, and therefore the continued need to maintain those force levels in the 2030s and beyond, the United States can sustain deterrence by extending the modernization programs for the Columbia SSBN, B-21, and LRSO — building more than 12 Columbia SSBNs and more than 120 B-21s and ensuring that the Air Force has sufficient LRSOs to hang one on every mounting point on the B-52s and B-21s (which is not the current Air Force plan).</p> - -<p>Russia, China, and North Korea all have significant short-range and mid-range nuclear forces, and Putin and Kim often indulge in threats to use these systems. (As noted, Xi’s threats are more subtle but nevertheless real). The United States needs to have a clear range of options below the strategic level to deter the use of these weapons in wartime. The United States’ sub-strategic options outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Europe (where the country has NATO-deployed dual-combat aircraft) are confined to the W76-2 SLBM warhead. Having only one type of response option is never a sound deterrent approach; the United States needs to augment the W76-2 particularly for non-NATO contingencies. As a result, the country must proceed to develop and deploy a new sea-launched, nuclear-tipped cruise missile to bolster theater deterrence.</p> - -<p>Underwriting the weapons systems is an aging nuclear command and control structure which also must be upgraded and modernized.</p> - -<h4 id="how-much-is-too-much">How Much Is “Too Much”?</h4> - -<p>The measure of whether the United States’ strategic nuclear force is sufficient should be whether it allows the country to hold at risk the valued assets of the Russian, Chinese, and North Korean leaderships and to maintain an adequate reserve force. The idea that the United States must maintain “parity” or rough equivalence with Russian or Chinese nuclear force levels should not be a factor in force sizing. As long as the United States is confident in its ability to cover its targets — and it can make that convincingly clear to potential adversaries — it should not enter into a competition to achieve numerical parity. It should be of no consequence if Moscow or Beijing (or both) seek to build and deploy forces which exceed U.S. levels; their ability “to make the rubble bounce” is not strategically significant and should not be perceived as such. The only area where parity or equality is required is in arms control — any treaty the United States enters into must provide the right to deploy the same force levels as the other treaty parties.</p> - -<h4 id="integrated-deterrence">Integrated Deterrence?</h4> - -<p>While a robust strategic nuclear deterrent undergirds everything the United States undertakes around the world, it is a necessary but insufficient counter to potential aggression in a world in which Russia, China, and even several rogue states maintain capable conventional forces as well as offensive space and cyber capabilities. While those particular threats are not the subject, per se, of Project Atom’s work, it would be wrong not to comment on them, however briefly. A credible deterrent must provide responses to all forms of a potential enemy’s aggression.</p> - -<p>Given Russian and Chinese capabilities, the United States must continue to deploy powerful air, naval, and ground conventional forces, offensive and defensive counterspace systems, and world-class offensive and defensive cyber assets. There are significant gaps in these nonnuclear areas. For one, the United States currently lacks adequate offensive and defensive counterspace capability. In another example, given Moscow and Beijing’s extensive anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities designed to prevent U.S. naval forces from operating successfully in the Baltic and South China Seas, respectively, the United States requires but has not fielded the means — the Conventional Prompt Strike system — to destroy the A2/AD threat. While a joint Army and Navy program has developed this long-range conventional hypersonic missile, both service’s bureaucracies are treating deployment as a matter of routine business rather than an urgently needed requirement. Similarly, the Air Force tanker fleet is woefully inadequate to support a major war in the Pacific, let alone a world in which U.S. forces might have to fight in both Europe and Asia. The real issue in all of this is the non-responsive, process-oriented, and deeply risk-averse nature of the service bureaucracies — the organizations focus on numbers of platforms rather than needed capabilities, including for both cutting-edge technologies and mundane but essential items such as war reserve munitions. This problem is compounded by a defense-industrial base which has been deliberately allowed (even encouraged) to atrophy since the end of the Cold War and which requires major rejuvenation — a task in which the DOD and Congress must both play a role.</p> - -<p>Finally, an effective deterrent requires integration of all of these military capabilities and, to a larger degree, integration of whole-of-government activities to deter aggression and prevent war. This is an area where the United States has not particularly excelled for decades; today, despite the administration’s rhetorical commitment to “integrated deterrence,” the DOD does not plan in an integrated manner. The bureaucratic barriers and baronial and territorial instincts of the various combatant command staffs have proved a major impediment to integrating regional and functional forces and even to planning most effectively for such employment — all despite well-meaning commitments at the four-star level in the Pentagon to create cross-cutting planning and operations. A failure to address this meaningfully will undercut U.S. combat capability globally. There are various ways to force the regional and functional combatant commands to plan in an integrated manner. All would be bureaucratically difficult to create, but the function is absolutely necessary.</p> - -<p>Of all the various approaches, the best would be to build on the experience of the Omaha-based Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, which was co-located with Strategic Air Command from 1960 until the demise of both in 1992. A new Joint Strategic Planning Staff, reporting to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be created to ensure the geographic combatant commanders’ war plans include not only air, ground, and maritime operations but also integrated space, cyber, and nuclear ones as well.</p> - -<h4 id="the-nuclear-weapons-complex">The Nuclear Weapons Complex</h4> - -<p>In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration advocated for the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. While never ratified by the U.S. Senate, the treaty’s existence and the administration’s view of the international security situation led it to slash funding for the agency responsible for the maintenance and production of U.S. nuclear weapons: the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The result over time was a production complex housed more often than not in World War II-era buildings, unable to produce new uranium pits or new warhead designs, and largely focused on the life extension of existing weapons. Funding increases beginning in 2020 and continuing today have been unable to significantly change the capabilities of the nuclear weapons complex. Construction of new facilities has been delayed, and costs have risen accordingly. To exacerbate the situation further, significant numbers of skilled and experienced workers and scientists are reaching retirement age, and the NNSA has been unable to attract and retain adequate numbers of replacements. All of this has led to a situation where, despite having stellar leadership today, the NNSA has become the single greatest impediment to modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent. A recent NNSA internal study observed: “On the current path, warhead modernization programs, facility construction, and capability recapitalization will continue to slip and, even worse, we may not be able to attract and retain the needed workforce.”</p> - -<p>There may be no good answers to solving this crucial but seemingly intractable problem. Drawing on the work of the 2014 Mies-Augustine report, it is possible to advance several potential remedies:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>The NNSA should be removed from the Department of Energy (whose leadership’s focus has traditionally been on non-defense issues) and be made an independent agency;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The administration should accord the rebuilding of the nuclear weapons complex a “Moonshot-like” priority and act expeditiously to resolve the myriad problems which have made it a major vulnerability in the overall U.S. deterrent posture; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The administration should undertake the politically difficult but nonetheless necessary task of persuading Congress to remove NNSA funding from the Energy and Water Committees and place it under the Armed Services Committees.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<h4 id="allies-and-extended-deterrence">Allies and Extended Deterrence</h4> - -<p>While somewhat of a truism, the fact is that the United States’ biggest single advantage over Russia, China, and North Korea in international affairs is that it has allies and they do not. The United States shares democratic forms of government and a strong belief in the Western liberal political tradition with those allies. It also has strong trading relationships. But a key factor which binds the United States’ European and Asia-Pacific allies is their perceived need for protection from blackmail, coercion, and attack from their nuclear-armed neighbors. Much of the concerns of U.S. allies faded after the end of the Cold War, only to return with heightened fears over the past four to five years, given Putin’s murderous aggression against Ukraine and nuclear threats, Xi’s many attempts to intimidate Tokyo, Canberra, Seoul, and Taipei, and Kim’s occasional outbursts. Reassuring allies that the United States can and will continue to protect them involves a mixture of diplomacy and demonstration of military capability; based on history and geography, the elements of that mixture are different in Europe than in the Asia-Pacific.</p> - -<p>EUROPE</p> - -<p>Faced with the threat of invasion by a large Red Army following World War II, and confronting an unwillingness to pay the sums deemed necessary to provide a conventional force equal to it, the United States and its European allies formed a defensive alliance — NATO — and based its defense posture principally on the threat of a nuclear response. The purpose of NATO was simple: to prevent a third major conventional war which would devastate the homelands of the European members of the alliance. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the United States began deploying thousands of mid-range and short-range weapons to NATO Europe for potential use in wartime by both U.S. and allied forces. This demonstration of military capability contributed to an effective deterrent throughout the Cold War. In the 1960s, NATO governments increasingly evinced concern about how the Europe-based weapons might be used in wartime and pressed for a consultative mechanism on the topic, an arrangement the United States agreed to in 1967.</p> - -<p>Over the past 55 years, allied governments and their polities have remained essentially supportive of NATO’s nuclear arrangements. The consultation process is long established and accepted. The size and scope of the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons has been reduced dramatically as a result of the end of the Cold War, and the lowered threat perception derived from the demise of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union led to calls from some quarters for their complete removal. However, as Russia’s aggressive nuclear diplomacy increased, coupled with its invasion of Georgia, its occupation of Crimea, and its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, there is a general acceptance of the value of and need for NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements. Indeed, Putin’s declarative threats against NATO have heightened a collective awareness among publics, politicians, and governments of the danger posed by Russia. Many are and will be watching carefully how the Biden administration deals with the war in Ukraine, including potential Russian use of nuclear weapons; any perceived weakness will inevitably undermine confidence in the United States’ commitment to defend NATO from Russian aggression. It will also be important politically, both within NATO’s European members as well as among political elites in Washington, for alliance members to meaningfully carry out their commitments to increase their own defense capabilities. Augmenting U.S. military prowess with increased allied conventional (particularly ground) forces, cyber capabilities, and, to some much smaller extent, space assets will be seen as key to success here.</p> - -<p>ASIA</p> - -<p>The United States’ extended deterrence posture in the Asia-Pacific has, mostly for historical reasons, been markedly different from that in NATO Europe. The possibility of war, except perhaps on the Korean peninsula, was largely discounted by regional allies historically. U.S. nuclear weapons had been deployed only in one Asia-Pacific allied nation, South Korea, and they were earmarked for wartime use solely by U.S. forces. With U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and patrol squadrons removed from nuclear roles at the end of the Cold War, the only U.S. non-strategic weapon available to the region was the nuclear-tipped Tomahawk SLCM, and it was retired without replacement by the Obama administration (over Japanese objections). Given the U.S.-centric nature of regional nuclear deployments, no consultative arrangements with Asian allies were ever created or sought.</p> - -<p>Within the last 15 years or so, however, the need for both diplomatic and hardware solutions has emerged. Successive governments in Japan have been increasingly unsettled by China’s provocative behavior in and around Japanese airspace and its maritime borders. The steady buildup of Chinese and North Korean nuclear forces has led to concerns in Tokyo that there are “holes” in the U.S. extended deterrence umbrella, and senior politicians have even floated the idea that Japan should become a nuclear weapons state. Similar sentiments have emerged in Seoul as well. The Obama administration sought to allay these concerns by establishing recurring nuclear policy discussions with both Japan and South Korea. While these discussions have been an important first step in restoring confidence in the extended deterrent, they are only that — a first step. Follow-on steps should include:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>The United States should proceed with the development and deployment of SLCM-N aboard U.S. submarines.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) agreement should be expanded to include Japan and South Korea in a broad and loose alliance that features enhanced information and technology sharing, joint exercises, and joint planning conferences.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The United States should build a broad and loose alliance that also encourages allied development of conventional, cyber, and potentially space capabilities which are interoperable with and complementary to U.S. systems.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Finally, the United States must put to rest the notion, popular in some quarters, that it cannot successfully fight simultaneously in Europe and the Pacific. Europe is primarily a ground war augmented by allied air power; the Pacific is a maritime and air war. Space and cyber will occur on a global basis regardless of which adversary the United States faces. The United States can fight successfully in both theaters with allied help.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<h4 id="arms-control-and-its-future">Arms Control and Its Future</h4> - -<p>The pursuit of arms control grew from a cottage industry in the 1970s into an area of major U.S. and international government focus in the 1980s, in many ways obtaining a position of primacy among national security theorists and even some practitioners. Along the way, a fundamental truth was lost. Arms control is a tool which can contribute to national and international security and to reduced tensions. Arms control is not and never can be a substitute for a strong deterrent capability. As the United States enters the world of two potential nuclear adversaries, it should do so with a deterrent force equal to that situation. While advocates of maintaining New START (or a follow-on keeping its limits) will oppose any attempt to move beyond its limits, such a point of view is dangerous. Deterrence should be the United States’ first priority. Arms control agreements can moderate the threat, but the United States cannot allow arms control to undercut what it needs for deterrence — nor does it have to (more on this below). Finally, looking to the future, the United States should broaden the focus on great power arms control beyond intercontinental weapons to include all nuclear weapons, including short- and medium-range weapons as well as exotic and long-range ones. The rationale for this should be clear: Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons threaten U.S. allies (whom the United States has committed to defend), and any initial use of nuclear weapons would almost certainly begin not through intercontinental strikes but as a result of nuclear use in a war which starts in the theater. It is intellectually dishonest to argue that arms control is an important element of moderating international conflict and then to ignore the weapons most likely to be used first in a war.</p> - -<p>Setting the above aside momentarily, it must be acknowledged that the future of arms control in the near term is bleak:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>It is difficult to conceive of how the United States can return to an arms control negotiation with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin remains its president.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The Chinese government has long been dismissive of entering arms talks (and views transparency and inspection regimes — both fundamental to a successful arms control accord — as weakness).</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>And disarmament is unrealistic and not in the cards. In this regard, it is instructive and curious that of the P5 countries, only the United States, the United Kingdom, and to some degree France are sensitive to the domestic and international criticism that they have not fulfilled their Article VI commitment of the Treaty on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (itself an ambiguous commitment based on the negotiating record and the U.S. government’s interpretation of it). Russia and China both appear impervious to such commentary, and international critics largely ignore Moscow and Beijing’s nuclear buildups.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Even before Russia destabilized Europe by invading Ukraine, the idea of arms control was under significant stress, as major actors showed an inclination to violate basic norms:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Under Putin, Russia has violated nine treaties and agreements which his predecessors had signed with the United States. In addition, Russian air and naval assets, as an element of state policy, routinely violate the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement and the 1989 Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Chinese air and naval forces, as a matter of state policy, routinely violate the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Furthermore, difficulties have arisen when sensitive sources have uncovered cheating, but the United States cannot expose the offender or inform allies or the public due to concerns about “sources and methods.” Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is the poster child in this regard.</p> - -<h4 id="a-possible-way-forward">A Possible Way Forward</h4> - -<p>Beginning with two big “ifs” — if Putin is no longer ruling Russia in several years, and if Ukraine is able to successfully repel its Russian invaders to the degree it is prepared to sign a peace treaty with Moscow — it is possible to imagine a U.S.-Russian arms control treaty along the following lines:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Washington and Moscow would agree that all deployed air-, naval- and ground-launched nuclear weapons on both sides would be subject to a new quantitative agreement. This would include traditional intercontinental weapons, exotic intercontinental weapons such as the Poseidon/Status 6 system, mid- and short-range nuclear weapons (to include land mines), dual-capable aircraft and B-61s in NATO, and the United States’ SLCM-N.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The agreement would permit complete freedom to mix; within the overall agreed cap, each side would be free to declare, and alter in the future, subject to notification and inspections, the composition of its nuclear forces.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Reporting and intrusive verification provisions similar to those found in START I would apply.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>China would be welcome to join the treaty’s initial negotiations or to join it after its entry into force.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>An entering rule for beginning negotiations would be that the negotiations would cover only nuclear weapons and dual-capable weapons systems; missile defense, offensive space systems, and offensive cyber systems — the inclusion of any of which would doom a successful conclusion and ratification — would be excluded.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Before entering into negotiations, the U.S. government would need to determine the size and composition of the nuclear arsenal it requires to have a successful deterrent against Russia and China both for itself and for its allies, and it would have to protect that number in the treaty’s outcome. While such an idea might appear farfetched and totally unrealistic, it is difficult to imagine any other negotiated approach which would provide security for the United States and its allies.</p> - -<p>As a final note, it would be important for the United States, Russia, and China to seek, urgently and before additional tests might occur to validate a system’s reliability, a ban on fractional orbital bombardment systems. China’s deployment of such a system, allowing it to conduct an unwarned decapitation strike against its enemies’ nuclear command and control apparatus, would be a highly destabilizing act. Banning this highly dangerous technology before it reaches maturity would contribute to nuclear stability and inhibit its adoption by other nuclear powers.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-3">Conclusion</h4> - -<p>Students of U.S. history understand that the United States accepted its role as the protector of Western European and Asian-Pacific democracy with great reluctance. The role was thrust upon the United States in the wake of two world wars that devastated Europe and Asia, and in light of perceived threat of further invasion and conflict by Russia and China. Nuclear deterrence and extended nuclear deterrence have been fundamental to the United States’ success in this role.</p> - -<p>It is worth considering the number of times Europe’s great powers went to war with one another after 1648, the date when the Treaty of Westphalia ushered the modern nation-state into existence. From 1648 to 1800, there were at least seven significant wars. From 1800 to 1900, there were at least six significant wars, and that includes lumping all the Napoleonic Wars into one and similarly counting the three wars of Italian independence as one. In 1914, there was World War I, the “war to end all wars,” whose massive carnage and destruction of a generation of European males was not sufficient to prevent World War II.</p> - -<p>Then, after 1945, a historic pause suddenly began. Did humankind change? Did the nature of governments change? No, the existence of nuclear weapons made war between the major powers too dangerous to contemplate as an instrument of prudent policy. As long as the United States maintains a strong deterrent, and as long as potential enemy leaders act rationally, it will be possible to prevent major war. Popularly appealing but ill-thought-out slogans such as “reducing the role of nuclear weapons” both threaten the basis of the United States’ policy success over the past many decades and appear risible in a world in which potential enemies have demonstrably increased their reliance on nuclear weapons and routinely employ nuclear blackmail to try to intimidate the United States and its allies.</p> - -<h3 id="deterring-two-peer-competitors-for-us-deterrence-strategy">Deterring Two Peer Competitors for U.S. Deterrence Strategy</h3> - -<p><em>Time to Innovate</em></p> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="leonor-tomero">Leonor Tomero</h4> -</blockquote> - -<p>Geopolitical reality and nuclear modernization in Russia and China will soon require the United States to deter two peer competitors. Meanwhile, dramatic technological changes are emerging from the commercial sector in areas related to deterrence. These changes include not only new nuclear dangers but more broadly increased risks of miscalculation and rapid escalation that could lead to nuclear war. The United States needs to adapt and strengthen its deterrence posture against these new challenges and use innovation for deterrence resilience to prevent nuclear war.</p> - -<p>Given the increasing threat environment and higher risks of inadvertent escalation, the core objective of future U.S. strategic deterrence should be to prevent nuclear war. This goal entails concurrently deterring conflict with Russia and China as early as possible by denying any potential adversary the benefit of attack while reducing the risk of escalation to nuclear weapons use. While nuclear deterrence remains central to national security, the United States should harness innovation to pursue a stable deterrence architecture that is more resilient against inadvertent escalation. This paper will examine:</p> - -<ol> - <li> - <p>how increasing threats, technological disruption, and increased risk of miscalculation are impacting deterrence strategy, including why and how deterrence doctrine must evolve to address new threats and prevent nuclear war, such as the need to adapt nuclear deterrence strategy;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>how modernization should prioritize survivable nuclear forces and provide modern capabilities to move deterrence to the left, meaning strengthen deterrence earlier in a crisis or conflict, as well as why modernization should leverage innovation and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, new space and cyber domains, and the private sector, to enhance deterrence and reduce the risk of miscalculation;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>extended deterrence, including the importance of interoperability; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>arms control, including applying emerging technologies.</p> - </li> -</ol> - -<p>In summary, preventing nuclear war now demands a better understanding of emerging escalation pathways and a concerted effort to move deterrence to further “left” of nuclear weapons use. Incremental changes to twentieth-century architecture and Cold War strategy will not keep pace with technological change. To reliably deter U.S. adversaries, a modernized deterrence should recognize that emerging technologies and commercialization of outer space are critical to strategic stability and resilience. This requires harnessing new capabilities and private sector innovation to ensure resilience through survivability, adding decisionmaking time and opportunities for de-escalation, and undertaking rapid acquisition to reduce the risks of unintended nuclear war.</p> - -<h4 id="deterrence-strategy">Deterrence Strategy</h4> - -<p>Adversary threats are shifting across several domains — nuclear, space, and emerging technologies — and, when combined with an increased risk of miscalculation and inadvertent escalation — could lead to nuclear war. To understand the requirements for deterrence strategy, it is critical to understand the scope of new threats.</p> - -<p>INCREASING NUCLEAR THREATS</p> - -<p>First, nuclear threats are growing, including in sheer numbers as well as increased likelihood of nuclear weapons use. China is adding hundreds of nuclear weapons and will reach at least 1,500 by 2035. China is aggressively modernizing its nuclear force, developing launch-on-warning capabilities, and diversifying its nuclear weapons, achieving a nascent nuclear triad. Combined with a new launch-under-attack posture that exacerbates time-pressure on Chinese decisionmakers and its persistent refusal to negotiate nuclear constraints or risk reduction, this expansion could increase the risks of miscalculation and of nuclear weapons use. China’s modernization implies new basing modes and a nuclear warfighting capability, which introduces risks of miscalculation not present in smaller, less ready forces.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Russia is taking more risks with nuclear weapons. It has implied that it may use nuclear weapons to sustain its illegal war against Ukraine. It is also expanding its numbers of nonstrategic nuclear weapons and plans to deploy some of them in Belarus. Russia is developing novel nuclear weapons systems to overcome potential U.S. missile defenses and could rapidly upload nuclear weapons if and when New START terminates. Russian leadership is also increasing its reliance on nuclear weapons and dangerously has raised the specter of using nuclear weapons in Europe, increasing the risk of inadvertent escalation.</p> - -<p>In addition, China and Russia have committed to a friendship “without limits.” While a formal alliance between Russia and China still seems unlikely today, they are cooperating more closely as their interests align to counter the United States. Russia and China are deepening economic and defense cooperation. For example, they have held bilateral summits, and Russia is supplying enriched uranium for China’s fast breeder reactors.</p> - -<p>These nuclear threats and the prospect of two nuclear peer adversaries are raising questions about whether the United States must match, or prepare to match, adversary advances qualitatively and quantitatively, whether it should increase its numbers of nuclear weapons, and whether it should develop new low-yield nuclear weapons. U.S. nuclear modernization could use open production lines and new investments to increase numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), bombers, and associated warheads. Admiral Charles Richard, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, testified in March 2022 that more U.S. nuclear weapons may be needed. After Russia suspended New START, House Armed Services Committee chairman Mike Rogers stated, “All options must be on the table, including deploying additional nuclear forces and increasing the readiness of our nuclear triad.”</p> - -<p>THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGICAL DISRUPTION ON DETERRENCE STRATEGY REQUIREMENTS</p> - -<p>Strategic threats are more complicated than just increasing the number and types of nuclear weapons. Considering the nuclear threat in a vacuum will lead to flawed recommendations. China and Russia are concurrently pursuing emerging and non-kinetic technologies, including cyberattacks, electronic warfare, and directed energy attacks. Both China and Russia have expanded and demonstrated counterspace capabilities, including anti-satellite weapons, that threaten U.S. and allied space assets. According to the 2020 U.S. Defense Space Strategy, “China and Russia each have weaponized space as a means to reduce U.S. and allied . . . freedom of operation in space.” In response, the United States in 2017 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2019 declared space a new warfighting domain.</p> - -<p>The Office of the Director of National Intelligence noted in its Global Trends 2040 report that “in this more competitive global environment, the risk of interstate conflict is likely to rise because of advances in technology and an expanding range of targets, new frontiers for conflict and a greater variety of actors, more difficult deterrence, and a weakening or a lack of treaties and norms on acceptable use.” Further increasing this risk, a strategic conflict with China or Russia could begin in the context of a regional conventional conflict and escalate rapidly in the space or cyber domains, leading to strategic effects such as targeting and potentially endangering and degrading strategic deterrence capabilities or critical infrastructure.</p> - -<p>In addition, China and Russia are taking a much broader view of conflict and using nontraditional tools, including disinformation, to attack U.S. political cohesion and decision space. They have demonstrated the willingness and capability to use emerging technology to disrupt the cohesion of the United States’ society and its constitutional democracy by interfering in elections (as Russia did in 2016 and 2020), targeting critical infrastructure, and sowing division. Lieutenant General Jack Weinstein, former Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, observed in 2021:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>We are having the wrong national-security debate in this country. Neither Russia’s nuclear arsenal, China’s rapidly modernizing nuclear force, or even North Korea’s advancing nuclear capability pose the most pressing existential threat to this nation. International and domestic disinformation campaigns targeting Americans is our most pressing and dire threat to the security of our republic.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>This use of new tools and the expanding reach of disinformation campaigns pose potentially enormous dangers to deterrence, which is fundamentally about using information to influence adversary behavior. Successful weaponization of social media could tempt U.S. adversaries to believe they can degrade, shape, or otherwise limit U.S. deterrence resolve, leading to dangerous new possibilities for miscalculation. In her seminal article, “Wormhole Escalation in the New Nuclear Age,” Dr. Rebecca Hersman, director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, stated:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>Adversaries can amplify effects, obscure attribution, and prime the information space to their advantage long before a crisis begins, as well as shape it during such a crisis. By promoting false narratives, flooding the information zone with contradictory claims, manipulating social and economic institutions, and instigating general or targeted social unrest, potential adversaries can break confidence in U.S. and allied institutions, increase distrust and confusion, and coerce desirable outcomes at lower levels of conflict.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Nuclear experts such as Dr. Heather Williams of CSIS are exploring how social media may affect escalation and deterrence, and more focus is needed in this area. Attacks on U.S. deterrence resolve could be compounded by new vulnerabilities and attack surfaces in the space and cyber domains, sowing further confusion, targeting the Unted States’ will to fight, and degrading critical capabilities. These new attack vectors are expanding conflict and impacting deterrence in unprecedented ways that must be better understood. New ways to target and influence either senior decisionmakers or the broader public will affect deterrence credibility and strategy.</p> - -<p>THE INCREASED RISK OF MISCALCULATION AND INADVERTENT ESCALATION LEADING TO NUCLEAR WAR</p> - -<p>The risk of miscalculation that led to near misses during the Cold War has not been sufficiently prioritized as a key consideration in deterrence strategy and has become an even greater danger today. The Cold War is replete with instances of close calls. Aside from the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the word came perilously close to nuclear war, examples of false warning triggering increased nuclear alerts include the 1979 U.S. false warning of a Soviet nuclear missile attack; the 1985 Able Archer exercise, whereby the Soviets mistook a NATO military exercise as initial steps of a nuclear invasion of the Soviet Union; and the 1995 Norwegian sounding rocket mistaken for U.S. nuclear missiles. Technology improvements and a few historic policy solutions such as the Hot Line and Open Ocean Targeting agreements contributed significantly to risk reduction. However, U.S. deterrence posture generally has, and continues to be, focused on intentional lethality, to the exclusion of unintentional escalation.</p> - -<p>Today, new technologies and domains as well as risk-prone bravado from adversaries are increasing the risks of unintended escalation. In their book, The Age of AI, Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher warn that “the current and foreseeable increased threat of inadvertent rapid escalation and miscalculation that could lead to nuclear use or large-scale nuclear war represent a renewed threat that was never adequately addressed.” Specifically, these risks are exacerbated by leaders who miscalculate or are willing to take more risks. Putin takes extreme risks. Examples range from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to threatening the use of nuclear weapons, to expanding Russia’s reliance on non-strategic nuclear weapons in its so-called “escalate-to-deescalate” doctrine, to suspending implementation New START. U.S. national defense must be resilient against Putin’s tendency to miscalculate.</p> - -<p>Similarly, the risk of miscalculation in the context of a war with China over Taiwan is significant. China is fielding a nuclear triad and new launch-on-warning capabilities as a major departure from its decades-long minimum-deterrence strategy. China lacks the shared experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis and decades of effective nuclear arms control with the United States. This absence of shared understanding is exacerbated by China’s aggressive pursuit of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.</p> - -<p>Ambiguity and conflict in space imply unprecedented challenges for deterrence, due in part to the difficulty of attribution in the space and cyber domains, the reversibility of some forms of attack, the brittleness of legacy systems, and the potential for strategic attacks that materially degrade critical deterrence capabilities without any kinetic attack on the ground and, potentially, without loss of life, such as against space nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) capabilities. An adversary may attack assets in space in the context of a conventional war, but those could be perceived as escalatory if they targeted strategic assets such as nuclear command and control satellites (which currently provide tactical as well as strategic communications). In addition, attacks against space assets, such as the Global Positioning System could prove more escalatory than an adversary might intend, as many systems depend on it.</p> - -<p>EVOLVING DETERRENCE DOCTRINE AND STRATEGY TO ADDRESS NEW THREATS AND PREVENT NUCLEAR WAR</p> - -<p>While the United States faces two peer competitors and new threats have increased the risk of nuclear war, nuclear deterrence doctrine and strategy have largely been static for over 40 years. Kissinger, Schmidt, and Huttenlocher note that “the management of nuclear weapons, the endeavor of half a century, remains incomplete and fragmentary” and that the “unsolved riddles of nuclear strategy must be given new attention and recognized for what they are: one of the great human strategic technical and moral challenges.”</p> - -<p>New threats require that the United States adapt its doctrine and strategy not just because of increased numbers, but more so because of new non-nuclear strategic capabilities that could precipitate a conflict much earlier in a crisis, nuclear conflict, or conventional war. Sputnik may have been the single greatest disruption to Cold War deterrence, dwarfing the supposed bomber and missile “gaps.” Today, the United States should focus not just on numerical gaps but on the emergence of the next Sputnik moment.</p> - -<p>More specifically, the heightened nuclear threat in the context of the war in Ukraine and the increased risk of conflict over Taiwan, combined with a potential future in which neither Russia nor China participate in strategic stability and risk reduction through negotiation, demand a new deterrence strategy. Ignoring the need for this shift may mean that in a crisis or conventional conflict, the United States could suffer debilitating losses well before a nuclear conflict. As Dr. Rebecca Hersman stated, “Increasingly capable and intrusive digital information technologies, advanced dual-use military capabilities, and diffused global power structures will reshape future crises and conflicts between nuclear-armed adversaries and challenge traditional ways of thinking about escalation and stability” and “will require new concepts and tools to manage the risk of unintended escalation and reduce nuclear dangers.”</p> - -<p>The United States urgently needs to better understand how emerging technologies, cyber and social media, and space affect nuclear deterrence. At the 20th anniversary of Nunn-Lugar, late secretary of defense Ashton Carter noted “the nuclear systems that supported the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union were fundamentally social and human.” As another example of policymakers’ recognition of these new attack vectors, the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act mandated an independent review of the safety, security and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons (the so-called “new failsafe report”), which mandated an examination of potential cyber and other vulnerabilities.</p> - -<p>A novel deterrence concept for reducing the risk of nuclear war starts with moving deterrence to the left, meaning strengthening deterrence well before the threat of nuclear war. While nuclear deterrence remains central to national security, the United States needs a more resilient and broader strategic deterrence strategy that prevents escalation earlier in a crisis or conflict. Because of the risk of rapid or inadvertent escalation in the modern strategic environment and because of the inability to ensure the United Sates will be able to “restore deterrence” once nuclear conflict begins, reducing the risk of nuclear war increasingly means reducing the risk of conventional war. Herman Kahn’s historic effort to strengthen nuclear deterrence by thinking “right of boom,” to consider the difference between potential aftermaths of nuclear war scenarios, has taken planning for nuclear warfighting to implausible extremes. As emerging technologies imply new counterforce vulnerabilities and escalation pathways, as well as opportunities to control these pathways, U.S. deterrence planning must extend just as far “left of boom” to prevent nuclear war.</p> - -<p>ADAPTING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE STRATEGY</p> - -<p>With regard to the narrower question of nuclear deterrence and strategy requirements to address two peer competitors, the United States should balance reflexive appetites for additional nuclear weapons with other measures and capabilities to deny adversaries any benefit from nuclear weapons use. Nuclear deterrence requirements must be distinguished from requirements to meet military objectives if deterrence fails. With 3,750 nuclear warheads in the U.S. nuclear stockpile (as of 2020), no changes are needed to deter both Russia and China. Referring to the U.S.-Russian nuclear balance, J. Robert Oppenheimer stated in 1953 that “Our twenty thousandth bomb will not in any deep strategic sense offset their two thousandth.” While the United States maintains rough parity with Russia today with regard to strategic nuclear weapons (and not with regard to nonstrategic nuclear weapons), there is no evidence that building up conveys any meaningful added capability that would be required either politically or militarily. Despite claims of a perceived deterrence gap requiring new low-yield nuclear weapons, there is no evidence of such a gap. The United States maintains a nuclear triad comprised of varied, complementary, and redundant capabilities, including a variety of low-yield options, such as air-launched and now sea-based options with deployment in 2019 of the W76-2 nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM-N). There is no evidence that adding more low-yield options would deter adversaries from expanding their nuclear arsenals or considering the use of a low-yield nuclear weapons in the context of losing a conventional fight. While proponents of additional low-yield options point to thousands of Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons, this claim sidesteps that the main driver for Russia’s non-strategic arsenal is NATO’s conventional superiority.</p> - -<p>In the case of a limited nuclear war escalating to a larger nuclear war, U.S. deterrence capability — including the numerical strength and reliability of its nuclear arsenal, with more than 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons (and the capacity to upload in the absence of New START, and to keep production lines open) — is also beyond dispute. Therefore, nuclear deterrence does not require new or additional nuclear weapons.</p> - -<p>However, the question remains how many nuclear weapons would be needed to meet U.S. military objectives if deterrence fails (including, for example, counterforce targets and damage limitation objectives). Current numbers appear sufficient to fight one nuclear war while deterring another. No changes in U.S. numbers will be needed before the 2030s as China builds up its arsenal over a decade to its goal of at least 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035. Nearing 2035, the current objectives for nuclear weapons employment in the event of escalation to a large-scale nuclear war with China and Russia may require higher numbers to cover additional targets. The value of meeting these objectives should be evaluated critically against adversary reactions to new capabilities.</p> - -<p>First, adding more low-yield nuclear options will not keep a limited nuclear war limited. Rather, it may lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in the context of a regional war, risk normalizing planning for extensive, multi-round nuclear warfighting, and fail to prevent uncontrolled escalation. There is no evidence that additional low-yield options (including more prompt options for using low-yield nuclear weapons) would deter Russia from using low-yield nuclear weapons. Instead, managing deterrence of limited nuclear war requires credibly signaling that an adversary will not gain any military or political advantage from using nuclear weapons. Strong warnings from President Joe Biden and attention to the risk of miscalculation probably helped defuse the risk of Russian use of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2022. Adding ever more low-yield nuclear weapons cannot substitute for credible threats clearly communicated.</p> - -<p>Second, beyond deterring limited nuclear war and because escalation beyond a limited war cannot be controlled reliably, the United States needs to consider the possible scenario of a large-scale nuclear war. This threat is not new. The new question is whether the United States should prepare for two large-scale nuclear wars (one with Russia and another with China, in the unlikely case of strategic alliance or in the case of opportunistic aggression). The author’s answer to this question is no, as it is not in any way realistic for the United States to fight two nuclear wars to acceptable outcomes — one large-scale nuclear war would end civilization as we know it. During a massive nuclear exchange with Russia (or China), a U.S. president would be faced with catastrophic loss of life, devastation, economic ruin, and humanitarian abyss. It is hard to imagine any likely geopolitical circumstance that would require a second, concurrent large-scale nuclear war. Amid or after a major nuclear war with Russia or China, it is highly unlikely that a U.S. president would have any plausible incentive to fight a second large-scale nuclear war. Thus, a scenario where the United States fights one nuclear war and deters another nuclear war is realistically sufficient. The specific assumptions that drive requirements for capabilities to employ large numbers of nuclear weapons against two peer competitors simultaneously should be assessed critically against alternatives (such as building up conventional capabilities) that may be more useful for deterring or fighting a war against China, Russia, or both.</p> - -<p>The United States needs a careful re-look at objectives (including counterforce targets and damage limitation). What classes of targets is the United States holding at risk? How much damage or what kind of destruction is needed, including for damage limitation? For how long are these effects needed and with what conventional or nuclear capabilities can they be delivered? Military capacity and options must be weighed against the political reality and likelihood of what a U.S. president would be inclined to do. Are nuclear weapons necessary for all current targets? If additional conventional weapons are needed, what kind and how many? What risks of arms-racing or escalation do new capabilities pose? These considerations need serious and informed debate and should not be papered over. If this review must be classified (because objectives and targets are classified), Congress and the public should ensure that it is done rigorously.</p> - -<p>Preventing nuclear war demands that the United States address the risks of miscalculation and unintended escalation directly. Theories of victory in nuclear war must be balanced against this imperative. In the face of the renewed and dynamic risk of nuclear war, the United States must pursue creative solutions rather than become self-satisfied with decades-old answers that are now insufficient or ill-suited to new threats. The United States must question and assess the assumptions of deterrence to ensure they are adapted to new environments, new threats, and effective modern deterrence requirements and objectives beyond arithmetic and implausible political scenarios of two large-scale nuclear wars.</p> - -<h4 id="modernization">Modernization</h4> - -<p>MODERNIZING NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES BY PRIORITIZING SURVIVABILITY</p> - -<p>A strategy that drives higher numbers of vulnerable weapons is ill-suited to stable deterrence. Matching on number of silos and missiles will lead to a dangerous, expensive, and counter-productive arms race. The United States must move beyond nuclear modernization constrained to incremental changes to a twentieth-century construct of vulnerable platforms and architectures. In this context, silo-based ICBMs are more vulnerable than they were in the 1960s because they are use-or-lose weapons if attacked and drive short decision times.</p> - -<p>While the United States may not need additional nuclear weapons, it does need new concepts and capabilities that are survivable for stable deterrence. When the triad was first deployed, strategic nuclear weapons platforms were survivable. Recognizing adversary advances in defensive capabilities and improved accuracy, the United States should adapt its modern nuclear forces to ensure they remain survivable. Modernization should prioritize survivable platforms and architectures to provide stability and resilience. The United States must think more creatively about basing modes and concepts of operation. Specifically, if additional platforms are needed, the United States should prioritize adding SSBNs and shift to, or at least include, the option of mobile ICBMs (that would be kept in garrison but could be flushed in a crisis or conflict), understanding potential escalation risks from flushing mobile missiles (as there would be with dispersing nuclear bombers or putting more SSBNs to sea). The United States must prioritize resilient and layered nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems. While much of the financial investments and planning focus on new platforms and warheads, the critical need to upgrade NC3 systems is usually less salient. U.S. nuclear modernization must also prioritize infrastructure resilience and more agility to adapt to new requirements.</p> - -<p>MODERN CAPABILITIES THAT MOVE DETERRENCE TO THE LEFT</p> - -<p>Modernization plans must account for historic changes beyond the growth of Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals that will impact deterrence well before consideration of using nuclear weapons. The United States must apply solutions to prioritize and adequately address the increased risk of miscalculation rather than further exacerbating this risk. The Cold War showed that deterrence architectures can be more or less stable against arms racing and in crises. Modernizing strategic deterrence by moving deterrence to the left requires building more stable architectures by using new capabilities including cyber, space, private sector innovation, and resilience, including rapid acquisition. Conversely, without these tools, vulnerabilities may emerge that threaten debilitating losses early in a conflict or result in the unproductive option of escalating to using nuclear weapons first. The United States should pursue the most stable deterrence architecture possible with the best available technology.</p> - -<p>INNOVATION</p> - -<p>New capabilities are transforming the battlefield, moving beyond modernization of the nuclear triad and beyond a twentieth-century construct. Ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith noted in a broader context that “we need to modernize deterrence by updating . . . the military to the modern fight: information systems, missiles, drones, missile defense, counter-drone — we need to get better at these things. Large legacy platforms still have a place, but they are not as invulnerable as they used to be.” Legacy systems may no longer be optimized or appropriate for effective nuclear deterrence, and new technologies offer new tools. Air Force chief of staff General Charles Q. Brown and commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps General David H. Berger wrote in a 2021 article that “without a fundamental reexamination of the concept of readiness, we will continue to spend limited resources on maintaining legacy capabilities, at the expense of investing in the modern capabilities the United States needs to compete with the People’s Republic of China and Russia.” This warning should be applied to strategic deterrence.</p> - -<p>“The threat that leaves something to chance” has been interpreted as nuclear threats that would lead to millions of civilian deaths. The United States should not be satisfied with an approach that unduly risks its national survival and endangers human civilization. The United States should prefer a strategic posture that is stabilizing, depends less on chance (or on Vladimir Putin or the Chinese Communist Party), and provides options other than rapid escalation toward nuclear war. To achieve a more modern and stable deterrence architecture, the United States should lead through innovation to create options that do not force escalation or lead to mass annihilation of civilians. U.S. deterrence that reflects U.S. values is inherently more credible than threats that do not. Schmidt notes that “the ability to innovate faster and better — the foundation on which military, economic, and cultural power now rest — will determine the outcome of the great-power competition between the United States and China.” He continues, “At stake is nothing less than the future of free societies, open markets, democratic government, and the broader world order. . . . Silicon Valley’s old mantra holds true not just in industry but also in geopolitics: innovate or die.” Innovation is the United States’ unique competitive edge vis-à-vis China and Russia.</p> - -<p>EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AND SPACE: NEW KEYS TO DETERRING CONVENTIONAL WAR AND TO PREVENTING ESCALATION</p> - -<p><em>Artificial Intelligence</em></p> - -<p>Being in a strategic competition with China and Russia means understanding and managing competition in AI and emerging technology. AI and machine learning (including machine reinforcement) could determine the outcome of a crisis or conflict early. Marc Andreesen, founder of a16z, stated in 2011: “Software is eating the world,” meaning that the virtual is displacing the material across the global economy. Trae Stephens, founder of the Founders Fund, more recently said that “software is finally eating the battlefield, whether the defense industry likes it or not.” Last year, Gilman Louie observed that “tomorrow it is real-time speed, algorithm warfare. It’s gonna be algorithms trying to outsmart the other algorithms. It’s gonna be machine-on-machine, algorithm-on-algorithm. Those are the systems of the future, and that requires total integration.” AI and machine learning offer new solutions. Quantum computing will also allow faster processing of even larger amounts of data. Eric Schmidt warned recently that a breakthrough in artificial general intelligence (AGI) — a more comprehensive AI, which is currently used to solve discrete problems — “could usher in an era of predominance not unlike the short period of nuclear superiority the United States enjoyed in the late 1940s.”</p> - -<p>AI and big data processing are key to enable faster and better information for decisionmakers, and support “information dominance.” Effective and rapid information could provide time warning of adversary action, holding them accountable and increasing options for de-escalation. Noting that the military currently processes 2 percent of the data it collects, General Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command, emphasized that “we can’t apply what I say are industrial age, industrial base processes to software-driven capabilities in today’s environment,” adding that “machines . . . can start counting numbers and tell you when there’s changes in . . . vehicles in a parking lot, vehicles in a weapons storage area.” The early impact of emerging technology on the battlefield is already becoming apparent; as Schmidt noted: “Ukraine offers a preview of future conflicts: wars that will be waged and won by humans and machines working together.”</p> - -<p><em>Space</em></p> - -<p>Second, space is a key tool for increasing survivability and transparency, reducing the risk of surprise in a crisis or conflict, and increasing accountability of U.S. adversaries. Cheaper and ubiquitous space imagery is a tool that has already transformed conflict with Russia. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the value of unclassified commercial imagery from space start-ups. Capella’s synthetic aperture radar imagery can see through clouds, and space imagery from Maxar and Planet have provided the world with irrefutable images of Russia’s brutal invasion and intent to subvert the global order, unifying U.S. and European allies, including by documenting advancing Russian tank columns and the evidence of Russia targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure such as apartments and hospitals. Drone- and space-provided images also showed columns of tanks stopped due to mechanical and logistical problems, laying bare Russia’s military readiness challenges. As another example of new tools giving the world sharable information, open-source analysis is providing rapid information, with Google Maps revealing the exact time that the Russian invasion began, even as Russia denied that they were invading Ukraine.</p> - -<p>To this end, the United States must innovate to adapt its space capabilities and architectures and make them more survivable. General John Hyten, former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted the vulnerability of a “few juicy targets” in space and the need to change acquisition strategy and architectures. Making space resilient means using various orbits and more numerous, smaller and cheaper satellites at proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) to complicate attack options, and using both military and commercial systems for added layers of operational capability. The Space Development Agency, the U.S. Space Force, and the Missile Defense Agency are deploying a resilient missile warning and tracking constellation in pLEO and medium earth orbit and are developing cheaper and smaller payloads to provide a mesh-layer of redundancy. Moreover, Congress is rightly prioritizing tactically responsive launch and tactically responsive space capabilities. In addition, disaggregation (not comingling tactical and strategic communications capabilities on the same satellite) will also enable a more stable deterrence architecture that reduces the risk of inadvertent escalation.</p> - -<p><em>Private Sector</em></p> - -<p>Third, for both the space and cyber domains, an increasing share of the infrastructure necessary for strategic deterrence is owned by private sector companies, such as SpaceX and Google as well as hundreds of new start-ups such as Planet. For example, SpaceX has provided Ukraine with receivers and access to Starlink connectivity, though it also has sought to limit this access. The United States needs to partner with the private sector to move deterrence left of mass destruction. In The Age of AI, Kissinger, Schmidt, and Huttenlocher state that “the expertise required for technological preeminence is no longer concentrated in government. . . . [A] process of mutual education between industry, academia, and government can help . . . ensure that . . . AI’s strategic implications are understood in a common conceptual framework.” Creating the incentives and culture to leverage private sector innovation is crucial to national security. Former House Armed Services Committee chairman Mac Thornberry warned, “We need a culture of collaboration that opens new pathways to work with the private sector, relooks at our approach to interactions with outside organizations and reframes the department [Department of Defense] as open to sharing research and information rather than one that is uncooperative both internally and externally.”</p> - -<p>Leveraging private sector innovation requires processes for agile and rapid acquisition. Congress enabled the Department of Defense (DOD) to conduct more rapid acquisition in section 804 of the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. While the DOD is beginning to leverage transformational breakthroughs and innovation in the private sector for national security, sustained and focused senior leadership and new processes to break through legacy bureaucratic challenges will be required. General Hyten noted “the Department of Defense doesn’t know how to buy it [innovation]. We think we can buy software like we buy tanks.” Schmidt warned that “business as usual will not do. Instead, the U.S. government will have to overcome its stultified bureaucratic impulses, create favorable conditions for innovation. . . . It needs to commit itself to promoting innovation in the service of the country and in the service of democracy.” Pockets within the DOD, such as AFWERX, SPACEWERX, the Defense Innovation Unit, and the Space Development Agency, are establishing an innovative acquisition culture that incentivizes using private sector innovation, allowing early failure and learning, and prioritizing rapid acquisition. Continued focus and expansion of these models are necessary.</p> - -<h4 id="extended-deterrence-and-assurance-2">Extended Deterrence and Assurance</h4> - -<p>Alliance, like innovation, is at the core of the United States’ competitive edge and U.S. strength to address Russian and Chinese threats. Strengthening extended deterrence and alliances requires increasing partnership and interoperability with allied conventional deterrence capabilities. Allied and partner contributions to conventional deterrence, missile defense, and innovation significantly enhance deterrence and help move deterrence to the left to prevent a regional conventional war. For example, the European Union’s Innovation Fund could enhance deterrence and rapidly contribute new commercial and innovative capabilities. To better leverage U.S. international partnerships and to maximize capacity and redundancy for deterrence, the DOD should prioritize processes for enabling interoperability with European and Asian allies’ defense systems while safeguarding cybersecurity. Making progress on interoperability entails not only focused senior leadership but also overcoming deep-seated bureaucratic stumbling blocks, including overclassification and export control hurdles.</p> - -<p>Increased NATO and European cohesion in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and unified support for Ukraine, including significant funding and transfers of military equipment to Ukraine as well as financial sanctions on Russia, strengthen deterrence to protect NATO countries. These actions also strengthen deterrence in the Pacific as China assesses lessons learned with regard to potential implications of invading Taiwan. Japan and South Korea’s attendance at the 2022 NATO summit as observers and hosting of NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg in 2023 indicate opportunities for closer defense cooperation and strengthening unity among U.S. allies in the face of the growing Russian and Chinese threats.</p> - -<p>Credible assurance is a product of presidential and senior-level communication and engagement more than boutique capabilities. Consultation and understanding U.S. conventional and nuclear forces are key to credibility. Credible assurances to U.S. allies have been undermined by a range of actions, including (1) promising unnecessary and controversial new nuclear capabilities (such as the SLCM-N, which the Trump administration proposed and the Biden administration canceled); (2) focusing on unrealistic or difficult-to-execute new deployments of platforms that are unsuited to temporary forward deployment (such as promising forward deployment of nuclear-capable dual-capable aircraft to Asian allies); or (3) discussing new permanent stationing of forward-deployed nuclear weapons in allied territory in Asia (which would likely contravene the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons). Instead, the United States should increase both tabletop exercises and joint military exercises; enable a better understanding of nuclear deterrence through deeper and frequent consultations; rely on and demonstrate eminently forward-deployable nuclear platforms such as B52s, B2s, the future B21s, and submarines; and increase joint senior public messaging to adversaries of allied unity (as Jens Stoltenberg has done within NATO).</p> - -<h4 id="arms-control-1">Arms Control</h4> - -<p>While future arms control would continue to significantly benefit national security and continues to be possible with effective U.S. and Russian (and Chinese) leadership, it seems unlikely absent a political breakthrough that would allow both effective international negotiations and domestic political support.</p> - -<p>The specific tool of arms control — meaning legally binding constraints on nuclear platforms — may no longer be available to maintain strategic stability, and New START may expire without any follow-on treaty. Russia suspended implementation of the New START, which expires in 2026, leading to the risk of an impending new era without verifiable nuclear weapons limits. It is unclear whether this latest development is a signal that Russia is gambling with New START to seek leverage in its losing war in Ukraine, or whether it is willing to abandon legally binding nuclear arms control as a tool for predictability for the first time in six decades. In the United States, arms control has become dangerously polarized, and the U.S. Senate no longer has the expertise and long-standing bipartisan agreement that arms control benefits national security.</p> - -<p>The United States must continue to press for follow-on nuclear weapons constraints on the total number of nuclear warheads (not just the number of platforms or the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons). However, it cannot count on New START or any future nuclear arms control agreement being in effect in the next few years, let alone in 2035, and should plan to prevent nuclear war in an environment without any legally binding or verifiable numerical limits.</p> - -<p>Therefore, the United States must reconsider arms control with a broader focus on avoiding a nuclear war, rather than a narrow focus on nuclear weapons. The P5 restated the Reagan-Gorbachev statement that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Recalibrating and expanding the scope of risk reduction should consider cross-domain arms control. Such an approach could include as examples: (1) constraining missile defenses that the United States would not pursue in exchange for constraints on Russia’s novel nuclear weapons; (2) defending priority critical infrastructure; (3) constraining the number or location of certain conventional capabilities in exchange for nuclear weapons constraints; and (4) pursuing dialog on understanding the implications and dangers of AI for NC3 systems.</p> - -<p>Increased investment in new commercial and innovative technologies, such as crypto and blockchain technology, that could be applied to verification should also be prioritized.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-4">Conclusion</h4> - -<p>In conclusion, new threats are rapidly materializing, including the risk of rapid escalation to nuclear war, requiring that the United States adapt and evolve deterrence strategy and modernization requirements. Making changes on the margins of twentieth-century deterrence architecture, including adding more nuclear missiles, especially lower-yield weapons, will not make the United States safer and could exacerbate the risks of a nuclear arms race and lower the threshold for nuclear weapons use. The United States must expand its focus from a narrow emphasis on nuclear strategy and nuclear weapons to take advantage of new tools and U.S. innovation as part of its modernization plans. The United States urgently needs more resilient and agile architectures and platforms for deterrence stability and more agile acquisition processes that leverage private sector innovation. As the land of SpaceX and Google, the United States’ competitive edge must enhance strategic deterrence and prevent the risk of nuclear war in a two-peer environment.</p> - -<h3 id="the-challenges-of-deterrence-reassurance-and-stability-in-a-world-of-growing-nuclear-competition">The Challenges of Deterrence, Reassurance, and Stability in a World of Growing Nuclear Competition</h3> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="jon-wolfsthal">Jon Wolfsthal</h4> -</blockquote> - -<p>The future challenge of managing the risks inherent in the existence and possession of nuclear weapons and in competition among multiple nuclear armed states will be more complicated than those of the recent past. In many ways, these risks will be more difficult to manage than those faced during the Cold War. Having not one but two nuclear peer competitors, along with a host of smaller nuclear possessor states, will pose new burdens and dangers for the United States and its allies. Yet, despite these risks, the basic concept for how one may use nuclear weapons to deter aggression (nuclear and otherwise) against the United States and its allies has not changed. To deter, one needs to be able to deny an adversary the thing they hope to gain through aggression or punish them so that the gains of an aggression are outweighed by the cost. Deterring means knowing what your adversary values, holding those things at risk, and making clear your ability and willingness to follow through on those threats. This was true even before nuclear weapons were invented.</p> - -<p>Even sound deterrence policy comes with grave risks. Deterrence can fail — and can do so with global consequences. Thus, there is an inherent risk to over-relying on nuclear weapons for deterrence. Aside from the prospects that a country just gets it wrong or miscalculates, or a leader proves incapable of handling a crisis with rational precision, arms races are costly and pose significant risks through both escalation and misunderstandings. One country’s rational nuclear strategy can look highly threatening and destabilizing to another. Arms racing and instability also bring a greater pace of nuclear operations, which in turn increases the risk of nuclear accidents that can have unimaginable consequences. And managing relationships in a time of tension when nuclear weapons are a feature of state competition is inherently unpredictable. Every clash of forces has a nuclear tint and every confrontation can become a nuclear test of wills. Thus, the United States has a strong incentive as a status-quo power to avoid constructs that rely on matching both Russian and Chinese nuclear capabilities at the same time as a recipe for stable deterrence. It does not appear strategically necessary, nor does it offer anything in terms of stability or broader security.</p> - -<p>Put simply, ensuring credible deterrence of both Russia and China does not appear to require holding all Russian or Chinese nuclear weapons at risk simultaneously. Doing so may be useful for other purposes, such as nuclear war fighting, damage limitation, or alliance management (in some but not all cases). But unless there is evidence that Russia or China values its nuclear weapons more than other assets (such as regime survival, economic centers, and broader elements of state control), then holding Moscow and Beijing’s nuclear weapons at risk one for one is not needed for effective deterrence.</p> - -<p>While the need to match both states at once is in question, there is little doubt that U.S. allies will be looking to Washington for enhanced reassurances about the United States’ ability and commitment to protect them in this new, more complex environment. U.S. nuclear weapons and pledges to rely on nuclear use in the face of extreme threats will likely be part of any U.S. strategy. However, relying predominantly on additional U.S. nuclear capabilities to do so — either in increased numbers or type — will likely prove ineffective. Nuclear weapons reassurance has limits, especially when the main concern about the United States is focused on its willingness to provide defense, not its ability to do so. Put simply, a credibility problem cannot be solved only with capabilities. Thus, for both nuclear deterrence and reassurance purposes, investments in current and projected U.S. nuclear forces over the next few decades appear analytically sufficient, if not excessive.</p> - -<p>Alliance management, including credible extended deterrence, has always relied on much more than nuclear weapons, or military forces overall. Deterrence is about both capabilities and commitment to act in the face of threats. The possible rise of a new near-peer competitor in China, combined with the continued dangers posed by a revanchist Russia, will demand more (politically and financially) from U.S. reassurance and alliance management strategy. If U.S. alliances are to continue to benefit both allied and U.S. security, the United States will need to do more to enhance its military and its non-military means of reassuring Washington’s allies of its willingness and capability to defend them. On the military side, these goals will require greater investments in conventional and non-conventional military capabilities — including cyber, space, intelligence, and command, control, and communications (C3) — and could create additional cost constraints on the U.S. defense budget, which is already rapidly approaching $1 trillion per year. And nuclear weapons will continue to be an important component in these efforts. However, it would be ineffective and counterproductive for the United States to rely predominantly on nuclear capabilities to address the requirements for extended deterrence, or indeed to depend solely on its military strength for allied management. The reality is that the United States relies more on its allies today than ever before for its economic, technical, political, and cultural strength. The United States and its allies have never been more reliant on each other, and the loss of any one major U.S. ally could irreparably damage the safety, security, and prosperity of the American people. This reality — U.S.-allied interdependence — should be a key part of U.S. alliance management strategy, especially for states who worry that the United States might abandon them in a crisis.</p> - -<p>Lastly, the United States continues to have a strong continued incentive to reduce the role nuclear weapons play globally, to impose costs on states who seek to use their nuclear weapons for coercion or blackmail, and to prevent nuclear proliferation to both U.S. adversaries and allies. The growing emphasis on “responsible nuclear behavior” by the United States is a continued recognition of this reality. Both for hard self-interest and for the ways pursing a less nuclear world can enhance allied cohesion and cooperation and U.S. global leadership, continuing to champion the vision of disarmament and the near-term effort to prevent proliferation will continue to pay benefits for U.S. and allied security. That such efforts appear harder to achieve now than in the past should not, in itself, undermine the support for these important objectives.</p> - -<p>The United States and its allies will continue to face military threats in the coming decades, and thus will rely on military means for defense and deterrence. For the foreseeable future, it is also clear that the country will rely on nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of U.S. security and of its extended deterrent commitments. But longer-term security will require far more than maintaining certain nuclear capabilities, and nuclear weapons may not be very well suited in scenarios where U.S. allies are uncertain, and U.S. adversaries undermine U.S. interests. For example, if and when the United States loses its conventional superiority in East Asia, the threat to use nuclear weapons to respond to nonnuclear scenarios may be seen as less credible to both adversaries and allies alike, regardless of how many nuclear weapons the United States possesses. Threats to escalate to the nuclear level against a nuclear armed opponent are harder to make credible. Thus, to enhance security, the United States and its allies and partners should sustain a broader set of military, economic, political, and diplomatic capabilities to ensure it retains the ability to deter adversary decision making and reassure partners in a variety of scenarios. At the same time, U.S. strategy should also remember that nuclear weapons can also work against U.S. and allied interests, and that proliferation can threaten U.S. military and technological superiority in a number of ways. One need to look no further than the way Russia has used nuclear threats to deter greater U.S. involvement in Ukraine to see that deterrence and coercion can work against U.S. and allied interests. As such, there remains a strong interest for the United States to reduce the global role played by nuclear weapons and to continue to slow or reverse their vertical and horizontal spread.</p> - -<p>Thus, the needs of deterrence and nuclear reassurance need to be balanced against the risk that nuclear overreliance can create risks of escalation, pre-emption, crisis instability, and arms race instability. Nothing is cost-free. In addition, the extent to which the United States emphasizes its nuclear commitments to allies could further enhance domestic demands for independent nuclear capabilities if and when U.S. commitments are seen as being less credible. To the extent that these tools of nuclear reassurance further normalize nuclear reliance, U.S. efforts to reassure could erode norms against proliferation and nuclear possession.</p> - -<p>There are some who discount or reject the serious risks that come with reliance on nuclear deterrence. This stance belies the imperial evidence of near-misses, accidents, averted escalation, and the ever-present risk of miscalculation. These dangers were constant features of the Cold War, and historical research indicates that Soviet fear of U.S. superiority and aggression was a more dominant factor in the Soviet Union’s nuclear procurement than ambitions of territorial aggression. Thus, it remains important for the United States to continue to evaluate the missions assigned to nuclear weapons and consider reducing or replacing them with more credible and effective capabilities where practicable.</p> - -<h4 id="background">Background</h4> - -<p>The United States maintains nuclear weapons to deter nuclear and other attacks on the United States and its friends and allies around the world. Should deterrence fail, the president has directed the U.S. military to be able to employ nuclear weapons in order to achieve certain outcomes. These deterrence goals can be broken down into three main components: core nuclear deterrence (deterring nuclear use against the United States), extended nuclear deterrence (deterring nuclear use against U.S. allies and partners), and what this paper refers to as “expanded” nuclear deterrence (deterring nonnuclear attacks against the United States and its allies and partners). Core deterrence — deterring nuclear attacks on the United States and its allies — is a widely accepted mission for nuclear weapons and has received sustained political and policy support in the United States. It has been highly credible for decades and mostly stable. Extended nuclear deterrence is also a long-standing and sustained U.S. policy and forms a key part of U.S. alliance commitments. Even so, there have always been questions about the credibility of these commitments. Pledging to risk yourself for another state is not a common act in geopolitical affairs. Yet extended deterrence is widely credited as having reduced, but not eliminated, the demand for independent nuclear capabilities among U.S. allies, a key benefit of U.S. alliance efforts over decades. A more nuclear world is a less stable one for all, especially the United States. The credibility of these extended deterrence commitments is a function of both U.S. capability and projected intent to follow through on pledges and legal obligations to protect allies. There are times when capability has been in doubt, just as there are times when intent has been seen as less dependable.</p> - -<p>The definition of expanded nuclear deterrence has changed over time but has predominantly focused on use of nuclear weapons to respond to large-scale conventional attacks (or other attacks) that threaten the existence of the United States or its allies that cannot be deterred or defeated solely through conventional and other means. The relative emphasis on this aspect of U.S. policy has ebbed and flowed over time and remains the subject of debate both among allies and inside U.S. policy circles. During the 1950s and 1960s, extended deterrence led the United States to deploy a wide variety of nuclear weapons in Europe and develop a nuclear ladder of escalation due to the perceived conventional inferiority to Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of both the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union saw Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton withdraw and destroy most U.S. forward-deployed nuclear weapons from around the world. As the perceived threat has changed, U.S. capabilities and deployment strategy have also changed.</p> - -<p>Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has relied less on nuclear weapons, both because it has not needed to do so and because it recognized that doing so would increase the demand for nuclear weapons by some states, as well as their incentive to use weapons early. The threat to use nuclear weapons first has been less credible because it has been less necessary. But even when the perceived need was higher, there have always been questions about the willingness of a U.S. president to use nuclear weapons first (or at all) against a nuclear adversary to protect U.S. allies. The United States has never had to prove that it would trade Boston for Berlin, but there has never been an instance where U.S., European, and adversary leaders all believed the United States would take such a step with absolute certainty. For the most part, U.S. decisionmakers have preferred to leave these questions unanswered and have taken the lack of an attack against U.S. allies as evidence — in the absence of conclusive proof — that these threats are effective. That the threat was even remotely credible was seen as enough to justify its continuation.</p> - -<p>While nuclear weapons clearly influence adversary and allied behavior, there has been an overconfidence in the role deterrent commitments have had over time and overreliance on nuclear weapons — particularly in the role of expanded nuclear deterrence — can be detrimental to U.S. security. It is understandable that the United States might seek to rely on nuclear weapons to counter larger conventional threats if it has no alternatives, yet doing so is less credible than conventional countermeasures and raises questions about credibility that can never be satisfied. And over time, U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons informs decisions by other states to increase their own nuclear and conventional military capabilities. It seems at least likely, if not probable, that China’s long-delayed decision to seek nuclear parity with the United States is driven by a desire to no longer be potentially vulnerable to coercion from expanded nuclear deterrence by Washington. The United States is already in an action-reaction cycle with China, just as it has been with Russia for decades. Ignoring this reality will make it much harder to find stable outcomes.</p> - -<h4 id="bilateral-deterrence-vs-the-three-body-problem">Bilateral Deterrence vs. the “Three-Body Problem”</h4> - -<p>U.S. nuclear forces will remain directly relevant to preventing nuclear attack by Russia, China, and North Korea. Understanding the nature of each adversary, identifying how they are likely to act in various situations, and being able to maintain the key tenets of deterrence through denial or punishment remain key parts of any U.S. nuclear strategy toward these states.</p> - -<p>However, due to the fallible nature of deterrence (it works until it fails) and the humanity-changing consequences of any future nuclear use, the United States should remain committed to and enhance its efforts to engage Russia, China, and North Korea to reduce the number of nuclear weapons all states possess as its works toward broader multilateral efforts to eliminate all nuclear weapons under effective verification. Nothing suggests this process will be easy or quick, but neither are the demands of deterrence and defense. But nuclear deterrence is an unstable and ultimately unreliable means to an end — security — and should not be seen as a means unto itself. Alternatives to permanent nuclear constructs must be part of a balanced approach to stability and security.</p> - -<p>To date, U.S. nuclear strategy has focused predominately on deterring nuclear use by the Soviet Union, and later the Russian Federation. The focus on Russia was due to the global competition between these two states, Russia’s ability to threaten U.S. allies and trading partners, and the comparative size of their nuclear and other military capabilities. This size factor should not be discounted; in a world where the Soviet Union’s leaders viewed their nuclear-peer status as a key part of their global position, holding Soviet nuclear forces at risk developed into a key feature of deterrence. (They cared about them, so the United States held them at risk.)</p> - -<p>Over time, deterrence efforts have expanded to include possible threats from China and more recently North Korea. However, due to the mismatch in defense, and particularly nuclear capabilities, between these states and the United States, successive U.S. presidents and their military and civilian advisers have agreed that the nuclear and conventional capabilities needed to address the potential threat from Moscow has been adequate to handle any realistic contingency from Beijing or Pyongyang. Also, while it is clear that North Korea’s leaders view their nuclear forces as keys to survival and power, nuclear weapons have not been seen as central to Chinese leaders’ status or control. The growth of China’s conventional and nuclear capabilities demands that the United States constantly reassess these conclusions, which could lead to new requirements. North Korea, even with its growing nuclear forces, will not be in a position to challenge the United States conventionally, so it poses a different kind of deterrent challenge beyond the scope of this paper.</p> - -<p>CHINA</p> - -<p>There is mounting concern over China’s growing conventional and nuclear capabilities and its more assertive behavior in East Asia. It appears (and China’s lack of direct engagement and discussion leaves some motives to guesswork) that China has determined that possessing a larger nuclear force, perhaps even similar in size and composition to that of Russia or the United States, is required to assert a position of global power and influence. The growth in China’s forces has led some U.S. strategists to worry that the United States must increase its nuclear forces to maintain effective deterrence of Beijing and reassure nervous allies. However, the fundamental requirements for deterrence — the ability to hold what Chinese leaders value at risk or deny them the thing they may seek to achieve through means of force — do not change just because China has more nuclear weapons, unless, of course, the United States determines that nuclear weapons are what China values most and that each weapon must be held at risk to make deterrence credible. There are strong reasons to doubt that this is the case. Thus, it cannot be assumed that the United States will need to significantly alter its nuclear force structure to maintain effective nuclear and extended deterrence vis-à-vis China in the coming decade or beyond. Enhanced conventional investment to ensure China does not believe it can beat U.S. and allied forces is likely to be an even more relevant factor in stability and deterrence in East Asia. Of course, it should also not be taken for granted that what the United States has today will be enough to deter Chinese aggression in the future. Significant investments in both direct diplomacy and engagement with China are a must, as are greater investments in intelligence and analytic capabilities to understand Chinese thinking, behavior, and decisionmaking.</p> - -<p>Why? Because deterrence is not static. Having high confidence in what U.S. adversaries care about and being able to credibly (both in terms of capability and intent) hold them at risk (deterrence by punishment) or deny them those things (deterrence by denial) are basic requirements of deterrence. Before spending hundreds of billions on nuclear weapons that may not add to deterrence, the United States would do better to spend the money needed to hire more Chinese language and military and economic experts who can help understand and interpret Chinese actions and intentions. There is currently a serious shortfall of experienced, trained, and informed analysts on nuclear deterrence, strategy, and stability issues. The community of experts is a fraction of what it was during the Cold War, and greater investments in this area are critically needed. There is and will be a continuing need to reevaluate the credibility of deterrence commitments (nuclear and nonnuclear) and to constantly reassess what adversaries value.</p> - -<p>There is also today a tendency in the United States to assume that China will behave in ways similar to the Soviet Union in the Cold War. This forgets that the United States did not correctly assess Soviet actions or intentions then, that the two are very different states, and that the nature of the U.S. relationship with China today is very different from the U.S.-Soviet ties in the 1950s to 1980s. The United States and the Soviet Union had few economic or cultural ties, whereas the United States and China are economically interdependent and millions of Americans claim Chinese ancestry. The United States and the Soviet Union did not have any significant trade or technical interactions, and Europe had very little at all. By comparison, China, the United States, and Europe are all economically and financially interdependent, which increases the levers to influence policy and actions as well as the costs of conflict, competition, and war.</p> - -<p>RUSSIA</p> - -<p>Deterring Russian nuclear attack against the United States or its allies and partners remains a major U.S. objective, but one the United States understands well and remains highly capable of achieving. Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that Russia remains highly deterred from taking action against the United States and its allies, and especially nuclear action. If one assumes that Russia leaders will remain rational, holding Russian nuclear forces and other means of military and state control at risk, combined with other non-nuclear means of state influence, should continue to be sufficient to deter nuclear attack on the United States and its allies. Moreover, while Russia is likely to value its nuclear forces more in the decades to come, especially now that its conventional forces have proven to be ineffective in Ukraine and elsewhere, it remains far from certain that Putin and Russian leaders value nuclear force above financial or other means of political and state control. As such, nuclear weapons will remain a part of but by no means the most important or most dominant feature of U.S. deterrence and reassurance strategy.</p> - -<p>Reassurance of U.S. allies in Europe in the face of a less stable and predictable Russia — especially one that is less invested in the global financial system and less interdependent with Europe — will remain a major U.S. political and strategic challenge. Since the invasion of Ukraine, however, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have responded remarkably well, with increased investments in European defense, the strongest U.S. leadership in NATO in a generation, and the enlargement of NATO to include Finland and soon Sweden, which both represent major additions to the ability of Europe to deter and respond to Russian aggression. These challenges will continue as long as Russia remains a non-status quo state and will require constant attention and political commitments from the United States. In addition, the United States has let much of its nuclear and Russian expertise erode over the past 30 years, and government investment in experts who understand nuclear weapons, stability, risk reduction, and negotiations as well as the Russian language and Russian economic and political factors is sorely needed. The United States’ overestimation of Russia’s conventional military capabilities, and indeed Putin’s flawed decisionmaking in deciding to invade Ukraine, demonstrates that the United States has gaps in its ability to accurately predict what Russia is and what it may do.</p> - -<p>RUSSIA-CHINA COLLABORATION?</p> - -<p>Deterring one state is hard. Deterring two states at the same time is even harder. But what about two states working in concert? The concern that Russia and China might somehow coordinate their nuclear attacks or threats is gaining attention in the U.S. nuclear community. Simply put, does the potential for collaboration between Moscow and Beijing extend so far that the United States must be prepared to fight two nuclear wars — one against Russia and another against China — at the same time?</p> - -<p>There is no indication that the coordination of policy or closer relationship between Russia and China has developed into a full-fledged nuclear alliance. If there were credible and convincing evidence that Russia-China relationship had changed to such a degree that this were likely, then it could lead to a determination that the United States might have to match both Russia and China at the same times as part of a damage limitation or warfighting strategy. It is hard to overstate the global and strategic consequences of such a determination. Moreover, seeking to maintain dual parity with both countries could, in turn, lead Russia and China to each build up individually to restore their own parity with the United States — a cycle that could lead to a global arms race of unparalleled scope. However, as there is as yet no indication that the nature of the relationship between the two states is anywhere close to one that would involve joint nuclear war fighting, or indeed putting one state at risk for the benefit of the other. The relationship, as of today and for the foreseeable future, remains highly transactional. Any suggestions that the Russia-China relationship has evolved to this level requires the highest level of scrutiny both for its consequences but also for how it would go against many hundreds of years of political history between the two states.</p> - -<p>In sum, as indicated under President Biden, it would appear that the United States can deter nuclear use by Russia and China without needing to match the combined nuclear forces of each. Of course, a future president might determine that U.S. nuclear forces need to be configured in a way to hold all nuclear forces in both Russia and China at risk at the same time for other reasons. Those needs cannot be discounted, but that would be distinct from any deterrence requirements. The financial and security implications of having to match the nuclear arsenals of both countries at the same time would be significant, and any allied demands or presidential determination along those lines would have to be balanced against the financial and opportunity costs. Options for dealing with such requirements, including reducing reliance on land-based systems, increasing less vulnerable submarine-based nuclear options, and further enhancing nonnuclear options that can replace nuclear missions, would also have to be part of those deliberations. Likewise, to the extent that reassurance of allies is a major driving force in U.S. nuclear requirements, other factors, including economic, geopolitical, technical, and domestic political factors, must also be taken into account. It should be recognized within the nuclear security and deterrence communities that there is a limit to what can be accomplished by seeking to compensate for a lack of confidence in U.S. intent with enhanced nuclear capability.</p> - -<p>Reassuring of allies in a world with more than one nuclear peer will clearly be among the more difficult challenges for the United States. As relative U.S. power and influence wanes, the United States’ commitments to its allies will come increasingly into question. To address this, the United States must continue to encourage allies to take on a greater portion of conventional deterrence and defenses capabilities; improve alliance military integration and economic and diplomatic coordination; maintain unified policies designed to protect territorial integrity and the global rule of law; and develop more nuanced strategies for deterring key dangers without overextending U.S. capabilities. This is a tall order and goes well beyond nuclear strategy. The risk, however, is that in such an environment U.S. policymakers will assign to nuclear weapons more missions to which they are not well suited, enhancing the perceived value and utility of nuclear weapons.</p> - -<p>In an era where U.S. assurances are seen more skeptically, there will temptation for allies to pursue their own nuclear capabilities and for the United States to tolerate or even accept such trends. U.S. policy needs to anticipate this and develop more holistic approaches that discourage and increasingly stigmatize the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons by more states, friends and foes alike. This requires the United States to invest more heavily in developing effective arms control strategies that consider trade-offs between categories of weapons — nuclear and nonnuclear — and set strategic priorities for negotiated agreements. Determining what the United States is trying to do (e.g., increase decision time, reduce the risk of battlefield nuclear use, and enhance crisis stability) and developing the means to verify commitments that can achieve those goals should be far higher priorities than they are today. This should include a willingness of the United States and its allies to more openly consider constraints on Western defense and nuclear capabilities if they can achieve valuable and verified constraints on the part of major adversaries. Just as arms control should not become a means unto itself, nuclear and conventional force modernization should not be an end, but a means to an end — achieving enhanced stability and security. Pursuing military capabilities without an integrated diplomatic and arms control strategy is a recipe for a never-ending arms race and crisis instability.</p> - -<h4 id="force-structure-and-modernization">Force Structure and Modernization</h4> - -<p>The nuclear triad is a misnomer. The United States currently maintains a nuclear pentad, with five distinct platforms for delivering nuclear weapons: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), air-launched cruise missiles, air-dropped gravity bombs on strategic bombers, and air dropped-gravity bombs on shorter-range fighter/bomber aircraft. All aspects of this pentad of nuclear delivery platforms are in the process of being replaced with modern versions with life-extended warheads and nuclear explosive packages.</p> - -<p>This program is more than adequate to ensure the United States has a diverse and survivable nuclear force for core and extended nuclear deterrence for decades to come, assuming there is general consistency — as there has been for decades — in presidential employment guidance. Far more pressing are long overdue investments in nuclear command and control and early warning capabilities and efforts to carry out long-term warhead surveillance and nuclear infrastructure modernization to maintain the United States’ nuclear weapons. As long as the United States determines that it needs nuclear weapons for its defense and the defense of others, those weapons need to be safe, secure, and effective. Moreover, great efforts must continue to be made and enhanced to ensure that the United States can communicate with its allies and its adversaries in a crisis as needed and to ensure that nuclear weapons are only used when legally authorized by the commander in chief.</p> - -<p>There is little potential in today’s political and financial environment to debate the prospects for major changes in U.S. force structure. While adjustments to the forces may be made over time due to operational, cost, or technical factors (it is unlikely that the current program of record will come in anywhere close to on schedule or at estimated costs), the reality is the United States will likely continue to maintain all five current modes for nuclear employment. Those are more than sufficient to deter and, if necessary, carry out current or prospective U.S. presidential employment guidance. There are no compelling military or strategic rationales for pursuing other modes of employment, with a few exceptions discussed before on modernization. That being said, if there were a political opening to discuss strategic costs and benefits for U.S. force structure, there are strong arguments for the United States to move away from large silo-based ICBM forces, which risk creating escalatory pressures in a conflict, since these are easily targeted by an enemy and risk putting pressure on a U.S. president to use or lose these force in a crisis. Despite arguments from states that host ICBMs, these systems are the least stabilizing and most vulnerable part of the U.S. nuclear force.</p> - -<p>It remains unclear whether the size of U.S. nuclear forces will need to change as China’s force grows. However, the capabilities the United States will need to have to reassure allies in East Asia remains a complex question. There is a strong numerical component to the perception that the United States is capable and prepared to protect U.S. allies in the face of a rising China. This is also the case vis-à-vis Russia. The question of “rough parity” may become more acute if and when China’s forces come within range of the United States’ deployed arsenal. However, this is not the case now, nor will it be for perhaps the next decade, with China having perhaps 400 total weapons to the United States’ 1,500 to 2,000 deployed nuclear weapons and just under 4,000 total weapons. Yet numbers may not resolve this debate. Already there are strong U.S. advocates for a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) in order to reassure allies. The United States retired the previous version of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile-Nuclear in 2009. While it is understandable that analysts who want to reinforce U.S. alliances and reassure allies would seek a capability-based solution, there is a lack of a compelling military or force-exchange argument for these weapons. This is why the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of defense have advised the current administration not to pursue the SLCM-N. Instead, the main case for the SLCM-N rests on the argument that the United States must do something new to demonstrate its commitment to allies and its ability to act quickly in the region in the face of growing Chinese military capabilities.</p> - -<p>In the absence of a clear military case for nuclear SCLMs, however, the United States should instead work with allies on a broader range of deterrence and reassurance options — nuclear and nonnuclear — to determine if other forms of reassurance may be equally or more credible than new nuclear weapons without the commensurate costs and risk associated with developing and deploying yet another new nuclear system. It is worth noting that U.S. allies will continue to ask for whatever options might be available for the United States, particularly if they do not have to pay for or face the consequences of those procurement decisions. To determine how valuable such systems might be for deterrence, it would be useful for U.S. allies to be asked to invest in the development and procurement of those systems to determine where they actually sit on these countries’ lists of defense priorities. There should be little debate that the United States should continue to work to reassure its allies. However, U.S. actors have a responsibility to understand that much of the doubt among U.S. allies comes not from the range of U.S. nuclear or conventional military capabilities, but due to domestic political and geostrategic factors. There would seem to be little the United States can do with a SLCM-N to address those doubts and concerns. For now, the United States seems to have found a mix of interoperability with Japan and enhanced nuclear communication and coordination with South Korea that may provide time for the United States and its allies to find more effective and less nuclear-focused options to enhance reassurance and defense.</p> - -<p>Beyond deterrence and reassurance, it remains possible that a future U.S. president may determine that it is important for the United States to hold all Chinese nuclear forces at risk, for either force-exchange or nuclear war-fighting reasons. The determination of what U.S. nuclear weapons are for and when they might be used is exclusively the president’s decision. To prepare for this option, without having to pursue it prematurely, the United States should continue to invest in a flexible and responsive nuclear infrastructure. Investments to date have not been adequate, nor is the defense-industrial capacity in place to quickly and safely ensure the United States can respond to geopolitical developments. Instead, the United States has chosen to prioritize new delivery systems — a balance that risks leaving it with fewer deployed weapons than it might need as well as a less than responsive infrastructure. In short, there is not enough money, people, and capable companies to go around. At the same time, the need to upgrade U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications (C3) systems remains both relevant and pressing. Instead of making nuclear planning decisions on the basis of numbers alone, the United States should adopt a nuclear strategy that ensures the survivability of forces, as well as the responsiveness of people and facilities, and invests needed resources in broader forms (mostly nonnuclear) of defense, deterrence, and reassurance. A wide variety of options for pursuing this exists.</p> - -<p>In short, the United States, for now and the foreseeable future, has a nuclear force capable of deterring China and reassuring allies, but over time this may not be true and should be routinely reassessed. The balance that needs to be struck cannot be defined now but should include a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the role that enhanced capabilities (especially nuclear) can provide, instead relying on a more tailored and nuanced set of defense, deterrence, and reassurance strategies.</p> - -<p>It also remains important to keep in mind the significant expense associated with nuclear modernization. While a price tag of some $50 billion a year is small compared with an overall defense budget rapidly approaching $1 trillion per year, the long-term sustainability of such a program over the next 30 years — especially given the likelihood of cost overruns and project delays — cannot be assumed. There is renewed evidence that, in fact, the cost of U.S. nuclear modernization does compete with other defense priorities and obligations. The pronounced necessity for the United States to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine due to an acute shortage of even basic 155 mm artillery shells shows that U.S. defense investments may need to be dramatically realigned given actual defense conditions globally. The costs of nuclear weapons must also be considered, as voices within the U.S. domestic political scene call increasingly for the government to do less abroad and more at home, calls that stem from both the conservative and progressive sides of the political spectrum. It is just as common to hear unilateralist Republicans call for more fire stations at home as it is to hear similar statements from extremely progressive voices, echoing the old “guns versus butter” debate. Supporters of the nuclear modernization program like to point to what they call a consensus for nuclear modernization, but there remains a real prospect that this “consensus” is fragile, as it exists inside a very narrow band and can change rapidly. Should support for nuclear programs change, three options in particular should be considered:</p> - -<ol> - <li> - <p>Reduce the ICBM buy and consider multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs). It remains unclear why the United States needs to maintain 450 ICBM silos from a deterrence perspective. The idea that a widely dispersed set of ICBMs complicates targeting by an adversary is not unreasonable, but the distinction between 300 and 450 seems far from critical in this case. Moreover, unlike in the Cold War, it is not credible to be concerned that the difference between 300 and 450 aim points will prove a tipping point for a state in deciding whether or not to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.</p> - - <p>Moreover, the impetus for moving to single-warhead ICBMs was part of a negotiating process with Russia that sought to reduce its reliance on MIRVed ICBMs. That decision has already been made, and Russia has invested heavily in and is deploying such weapons. While it would be more stabilizing in a crisis for both the United States and Russia to have ICBMs with single reentry vehicles, the importance of doing so is no longer as relevant as it was in the 1990s when the concept was developed. Thus, the United States should consider the option of deploying fewer ICBMs and equipping some with multiple reentry vehicles. A reasonable option could be 300 ICBMs with some combination of one or two reentry vehicles. This option may prove valuable if ICBM production is affected by challenges such as slipping timelines or cost increases.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Invest in mobile ICBMs. If the United States plans to continue to consider its nuclear forces as retaliatory and wants to ensure their ability to survive a first strike, the option of mobility should be considered. If cost is not an issue, then there is all the more reason to consider whether the United States should pursue a mobile ICBM program instead of or as a partial replacement for the planned ICBM modernization program. Systems could be kept in bastions during normal times and scrambled as a signal in times of crisis. Such system could be far more survivable than fixed ICBMs. The cost implications are not insignificant and should be studied. This is also an important issue in the highly unlikely but not fully dismissible case that U.S. ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) become more vulnerable due to advances in anti-submarine warfare capabilities enhanced by underwater drones and artificial intelligence. Mobility and survivability for U.S. ICBMs would seem to be justified and are worth considering, especially if they could result in a smaller production run for missiles.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Consider expanded Columbia-class submarine buys in lieu of ICBM construction. U.S. submarines remain highly survivable and critical elements for deterrence. They are more stabilizing than ICBMs because they are hard to target and do not need to be used early in a conflict. As the U.S. need to reassure allies increases, there may be a greater need to enable port visits for U.S. SSBNs to U.S. allies. In a future where U.S. requirements for deterrence or reassurance increase, building a larger SLBM force — with equal or reduced loading of weapons — may make sense.</p> - </li> -</ol> - -<p>Overall, the United States should prioritize, to the extent that such trade-offs prove necessary, its submarine and bomber development programs and stockpile stewardship and surveillance programs over the ICBM modernization effort. ICBMs remain the most vulnerable and arguably the least stabilizing leg of the nuclear force structure, and their reduction and even elimination would not inherently undermine U.S. deterrence goals, depending on broader employment guidance and geopolitical circumstances. There also remain questions about the eventual scope of the B-21 bomber acquisition program. There are hopes that this effort will not replicate the B-2 effort that sought to purchase 100 bombers and ended with only one-fifth of that fleet, but the significant costs of the program suggest that there remain long-term obstacles to the program reaching its full size.</p> - -<p>Also, the United States should avoid the tendency to develop nuclear weapons systems solely as part of either an arms control or reassurance strategy. The temptation to develop a SLCM-N in order to provide enhanced assurance to East Asian allies in ineffective, counterproductive, and anachronistic. Dubbed “shiny object reassurance,” the idea that the deterrence credibility of the United States is significantly enhanced if it buys a dedicated nuclear system for the protection of allies lacks evidence and does not withstand serious scrutiny.</p> - -<p>As the United States pursues nuclear modernization, it is critical that U.S. nuclear policy and investments not be made in a vacuum or in isolation from other critical components of U.S. military and diplomatic strategy. The Biden administration’s decision to approach the Nuclear Posture Review and National Defense Strategy as a cohesive process was a step in the right direction, but it still drew upon stovepipes within the nuclear process to inform its policies. Instead, a broader frame is needed for future strategic planning. As the United States pursues these strategies, there are certain guidelines that should be followed, including investments in three key areas:</p> - -<ol> - <li> - <p>Ensure the integrated foundations of deterrence. The key to a stable deterrent dynamic is ensuring the combined capabilities of the United States and its allies conventional and nonnuclear, nonconventional capabilities (e.g., space, cyber, AI, and non-kinetic), and political strategies are sufficient to deny China (and to a lesser extent Russia) the ability to unilaterally undermine the security of U.S. allies and partners without facing significant consequences that put the success of any such attack in doubt.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Enhance U.S. intelligence and broader analytical understanding of Russian and Chinese goals, objectives, and priorities to inform both U.S. deterrence and diplomatic strategy. If the goal of U.S. nuclear forces is to, inter alia, hold key targets that Russia and China value at risk, then it needs to have high confidence that it knows what those military targets are and the ability to put them at risk through a variety of means. It remains far from certain that either state (especially China) views its strategic nuclear assets as among its most valued targets.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Enhance the ability of the United States to use nonnuclear and nonmilitary means to influence Russian and Chinese behavior and actions. There are far more opportunities to influence China, given that it is far more economically integrated into the world system now than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. These opportunities should be emphasized, and a broader deterrence and influence strategy should be developed to lessen the need to rely on either conventional or nuclear response options.</p> - </li> -</ol> - -<h4 id="extended-deterrence-and-assurance-3">Extended Deterrence and Assurance</h4> - -<p>As discussed above, the United States should seek to sustain its core and extended nuclear deterrence commitments and capabilities. Doing so enhances U.S. and allied security and supports broader goals of preventing nuclear proliferation. Core nuclear and extended nuclear deterrence are seen as credible and stabilizing in normal times and as long as broader deterrence holds.</p> - -<p>The effort to use nuclear weapons to deter nonnuclear threats by nuclear-armed states, however, especially against allies, is seen by many as less credible and creates certain risks, including what is widely known as a commitment trap. By saying that the United States might be willing to use nuclear weapons in certain scenarios, the pressure to follow through on those pledges if those circumstances come to pass is significant. The long-standing debate over the value of trying to deter nonnuclear threats through the use of nuclear weapons is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. While it remains possible that a stated willingness to use nuclear weapons first in certain nonnuclear scenarios may influence a nuclear-armed adversary’s course of action, U.S. policies that include options for first use can also make it more politically acceptable for U.S. adversaries to do the same (see Russian threats and justifications as one example). It is hard to determine the net effect of first-use options by the United States, but it would seem useful to consider not only whether ambiguity or possible first-use options might contribute to deterrence but also look at broader secondary and follow-on effects and how they impact U.S. security objectives. And as discussed above, determining on balance if the costs of such commitments are worth the benefits relies on subjective analysis. There is no question that allies want the United States to be ready and to project a willingness to use nuclear weapons early in a crisis. The maintenance of first-use options is driven mainly by a strong set of allied views that the adoption of more restrictive declaratory policies would undermine the goal of deterrence. Allied views on such issues were formed largely during the Cold War, based mainly on a logic that nuclear use would ensure the conflict is between the United States and its opponent and not fought only on allied territory. This logic still holds for many supporters of the status quo. That desire needs to be balanced against the very real evidence that being willing to resort to early and first use may have negative implications for crisis stability and arms racing, especially when combined with missile defenses and other strategic nonnuclear capabilities. Just as allied views need to be taken into account for many security issues, they should not be seen as absolute, as in the case of the decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine.</p> - -<p>What is clear is that there is no one-size-fits-all policy for providing assurances to allies and partners. Just as the United States has pursued tailored deterrence with regards to its adversaries, it must pursue tailored and expanded reassurance with regards to its allies, and this must include more than just nuclear or military components. An enhanced set of reassurance initiatives that focus on economic, political, technical, cultural, people-to-people, and other ties is critical to reinforcing extended reassurance in the coming decades. Moreover, in the defense and security spaces, it is clear that what works in Japan, as evidenced by their newly adopted defense policy and expanded conventional, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and space investments, may not be as effective in South Korea, and vice versa.</p> - -<p>Given the trajectory of Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear and other defense capabilities, the United States should be guided by three main objectives in managing its alliance relationships:</p> - -<ol> - <li> - <p>Strengthen the credibility of core and extended nuclear deterrence;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Enhance nonnuclear defense and deterrence capabilities through greater investments, integration, and cooperation with and among allies (U.S.-Japan defense planning offer an attractive model); and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Reduce, to the extent possible, the role of nuclear weapons in deterring nonnuclear threats and reinforce the barriers to acquisition of nuclear weapons or nuclear latency by allies.</p> - </li> -</ol> - -<p>This last point remains critical. With a few exceptions in the 1950s and 1960s, the United States has remained committed to a basic axiom that the consequences of more countries acquiring nuclear weapons are negative for U.S. and global security and stability. Proliferation increases the risk of nuclear use, theft, and broader proliferation. All of these make it harder to maintain U.S. power and influence and the stability that has brought with it unparalleled American prosperity. The temptation to accept the acquisition of nuclear weapons by U.S. friends and allies is a siren song that should be resisted at all costs.</p> - -<p>It is appropriate for arms control to be considered in the context of broader deterrence and allied management policy. NATO itself has integrated deterrence and arms control as integral components of security for the alliance. The same concept holds true for U.S. allies in East Asia, as well as for U.S. security on its own.</p> - -<h4 id="arms-control-2">Arms Control</h4> - -<p>It is commonly stated today that arms control is either a policy of the past or that arms control is not possible without willing partners. Rumors of arms control’s demise remain premature, but it is accurate that effective arms control agreements are not possible without willing partners. That does not mean the work of thinking about, planning for, and pursuing arms control begins only when another country decides it is ready to talk. The United States continues to have a strategic incentive to develop and pursue policies that reduce the role of nuclear weapons in ways that enhance U.S. and allied security, predictability, and stability. Being committed to nuclear engagement and arms control shows the rest of the world, and importantly U.S. allies, that it is taking a balanced approach to security and threat management. Support for arms control has been and remains a valuable component of alliance management strategy. While defense procurements and deployments, as well as changes in policy, can influence alliance management and deterrent policies, arms control strategies and approaches can as well, including ones that help shape the strategic political and diplomatic landscape. By demonstrating over and over that the United States is the one interested in pursuing practical and serious arms control efforts to reduce nuclear risks and pursue reductions, it can either convince Russia and China to engage or demonstrate that it is Moscow and Beijing, not Washington, that is the obstacle to progress. Both goals are in the U.S. and allied interest. This approach is also a key component in demonstrating what the United States now calls “responsible nuclear behavior,” with important implications for its global diplomatic strategy.</p> - -<p>The United States must remain active in developing bilateral and multilateral strategies for how arms control can enhance U.S. and allied security, alliance management, and deterrence. This includes doing complicated analysis on what adjustments the United States and its allies would be prepared to make in order to find agreement with Russia or China, for example, on changes to their military capabilities. Knowing what the United States would want Russia and China do to, and for what purpose as part of constraint agreements, is a key component, currently lacking from U.S. strategy. This was the type of net assessment that was inherent in the negotiation and adoption of the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile, Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty (SALT) I, and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreements.</p> - -<p>In order to develop and shape the diplomatic landscape for future arms control with Russia and China, the United States and its allies should:</p> - -<ol> - <li> - <p>seek concepts that make nuclear weapons use less likely and less acceptable;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>enhance decision times for leaders on all aides;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>find ways to reduce the possible incentives for states to use nuclear weapons easily in a crisis or under threat of nuclear attack;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>create predictability in nuclear force structure changes that can reduce the pressure to pursue worst- case planning on all sides;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>ensure that arms control and reduction requirements are factored into procurement and modernization decisions (contract adjustments that include opt-outs for procurement by the Department of Defense and National Nuclear Security Administration);</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>do not pursue modernization to enhance arms control prospects. Be prepared to adjust modernization efforts as part of negotiated agreements or new arrangements if possible, and develop and pursue proposals for them before modernization programs come to an end; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>pursue broader public diplomacy efforts to demonstrate that the United States is seeking stability and security through arms control as well as defense and modernization efforts.</p> - </li> -</ol> - -<p>Based on current trends, it will be exceedingly hard for the United States to negotiate and adopt legally binding agreements with Russia that limit the size of each country’s strategic nuclear forces for several years. Likewise, China’s refusal to engage in direct strategic stability discussions with the United States suggests that any such efforts with Beijing will take longer to achieve. It may be possible that China will refuse any such engagement until its modernization efforts reach a level that gives Beijing confidence that it is able to maintain a fully survivable retaliatory capability that can withstand U.S. attack and U.S. and allies middle defense efforts.</p> - -<p>In this environment, the United States and its allies should pursue two strategies. The first is to be prepared to pursue arms control negotiations and reductions with either or both states if and when possible. This means investing in the people, technologies, and analysis to support rapid restart of arms control if and when geostrategic circumstances allow. The United States was not properly organized and prepared in the 1980s and 1990s when negotiating opportunities presented themselves, and any potential future capability gaps should be avoided. National and regional circumstances can change without warning, and the United States needs to be prepared to respond quickly on complicated diplomatic issues in the same way it seeks the ability to be able to respond to unpredictable military developments. The United States should be prepared to lead in these efforts and, even if not convinced that U.S. and allied adversaries will follow suit, should consider steps that do not significantly compromise U.S. and allied security in order to create global political and other pressure on adversaries in other ways. A prime example is the issue of transparency, where the United States can continue to demonstrate its commitment to predictability by sharing the size and general disposition of its nuclear forces and contrast its behavior with that of China and Russia, who refuse even the most basic steps toward predictability and transparency. Other steps, such as the anti-satellite direct ascent policy, offer examples where the United States loses little but can use the moral and political upper hand to contrast behavior among nuclear states.</p> - -<p>The development of serious, strategic, and viable arms control initiatives requires a whole-of-government effort within the United States. However, the knowledge and skill sets needed to develop, assess, and pursue such programs are in short supply. The retirement of an entire generation of U.S. experts and officials who pursued and implemented arms control in in the late twentieth-century means that the U.S. government and security community lack the necessary skills and experience to effectively pursue constructive arms control. Likewise, the political space to consider or even propose legal agreements to enhance U.S. security with Russia and China is hard to find. The political environment for restraint has always been hard, but the domestic political landscape has made it — and indeed many things that could benefit U.S. security — harder to pursue. The political will to pursue a balanced approach to security will clearly involve defense and deterrent investments, but the United States should also make investments in the ability to understand Russian and Chinese thinking and strategy, develop effective verification approaches, and pursue coordinated diplomatic strategies to achieve effective outcomes, whether normative, legal, or otherwise.</p> - -<p>At a time when the United States is spending $50 billion per year on nuclear weapons alone, not including associated strategic programs, the investment in the future people, skills, technology, and analytical capacity needed in the sphere is unfathomably small. This mismatch will create a self-fulfilling policy outcome, where every problem has a nuclear solution but the ability to pursue offramps to arms race instability and de-escalation approaches has disappeared or largely atrophied. Likewise, the need for a robust civil society and academic and policy community outside government to inform, drive, and, when appropriate, support U.S. government efforts is also acute. A shortage of investment and career opportunities within the broader nuclear security and arms control field will deprive the U.S. government of a historical source of thinking and analysis on these important issues. Investments from both government and private foundations are needed to address these shortfalls.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-5">Conclusion</h4> - -<p>The world faces a complex and extended period of global competition where the demands of managing nuclear risk will continue to grow. Understanding the limits of U.S. nuclear capabilities in both deterring adversaries and reassuring allies is a key part of getting this critical issue right. There are things the U.S. nuclear arsenal can do and some things it cannot, and nothing (just as in life) is cost-free. The balance — between (1) using U.S. nuclear weapons to deter and reassure while (2) seeking a change in global strategic conditions to permit a broader effort to curb proliferation and pursue nuclear restraint, reductions, and eventually elimination — needs to be kept in mind as the United States and its friends, allies, and partners navigate this complex era. Nuclear skepticism is needed to balance faith in nuclear deterrence. Investments in non-nuclear and even non-military approaches to both reassurance and deterrence, as well as serious efforts to reinvigorate arms control, will be as important as investments in new nuclear weapons and their associated delivery systems. A failure to pursue all of these approaches together will lead to negative outcomes for U.S. security and global stability.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Heather Williams</strong> is the director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a senior associate fellow with the European Leadership Network, and a member of the Wilton Park Advisory Council.</p> - -<p><strong>Kelsey Hartigan</strong> is the deputy director of the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) and a senior fellow with the International Security Program at CSIS. In this role, she is responsible for managing the country’s preeminent national program for developing the next generation of nuclear experts.</p> - -<p><strong>Lachlan MacKenzie</strong> is a program coordinator and research assistant with the Project on Nuclear Issues in the International Security Program at CSIS.</p> - -<p><strong>Robert M. Soofer</strong> is a senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he leads its Nuclear Strategy Project. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, teaching courses in nuclear strategy, missile defense, and arms control.</p> - -<p><strong>Thomas Karako</strong> is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and the director of the Missile Defense Project at CSIS, where he arrived in 2014. His research focuses on national security, missile defense, nuclear deterrence, and public law.</p> - -<p><strong>Oriana Skylar Mastro</strong> is a center fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, nuclear dynamics, and coercive diplomacy. She is also the courtesy assistant professor in the political science department at Stanford University and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she works as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) to the Policy and Posture Branch Chief at INDOPACOM J5, Camp Smith, Hawaii.</p> - -<p><strong>Frank Miller</strong> served from January 2001 to March 2005 as a special assistant to President George W. Bush and as senior director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council staff. At the White House he was responsible for a wide range of presidential policy initiatives related to nuclear deterrence policy, strategic arms reductions, national space policy, defense trade reform, land mines, and transforming the U.S. and NATO militaries. He directed interagency support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.</p> - -<p><strong>Leonor Tomero</strong> served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from January 2021–October 2021, supporting the under secretary of defense for policy and the assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities by developing strategies, informing policies, and conducting oversight of nuclear deterrence policy, arms control and missile defense policy.</p> - -<p><strong>Jon Wolfsthal</strong> is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He served from 2014 to 2017 as special assistant to former U.S. president Barack Obama as senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council. In that post, he was the most senior White House official setting and implementing U.S. government policy on all aspects of arms control, nonproliferation, and nuclear policy.</p>Heather Williams, et al.How can the United States deter two peer competitors? To assist U.S. policy makers in addressing this question, the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) invited a group of experts to develop competing strategies for deterring Russia and China through 2035.Prime The Innovation System2023-09-29T12:00:00+08:002023-09-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/priming-the-innovation-system<p><em>In an age when innovation is the primary engine for accelerating national competitiveness and strength, the United States needs to make significant and sustained investments to raise its game.</em></p> - -<excerpt /> - -<p>To secure the economic and geopolitical advantage in the twenty-first century, the United States needs a technology strategy that reflects new realities, learns from the past, and is committed for the long term.</p> - -<p>The United States has long been the global leader in advanced technology. But accelerating global competition — especially from China — and a diminished U.S. ability to invent, produce, and refine new high-tech products means that we cannot take this position for granted.</p> - -<p>Recognizing that an effective innovation system is a strategic priority, Congress in 2022 passed bipartisan legislation including the CHIPS and Science Act to renew the nation’s infrastructure, reshore advanced manufacturing networks, and accelerate the commercialization of green and emerging technologies.</p> - -<p>These measures are a continuation of a long and effective tradition of U.S. policies and partnerships to support science, technology, and innovation.</p> - -<p>In forging the innovation system for the twenty-first century, policymakers need to make sure that they apply the positive lessons from the past. Importantly, these include sustained policy commitment followed by significant public support for the development of new technologies.</p> - -<h3 id="government-role-in-the-innovation-system">Government Role in the Innovation System</h3> - -<blockquote> - <p>“Government has played an important role in the technology development and transfer in almost every U.S. industry that has become competitive on a global scale.”</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="vernon-ruttan-technology-growth-and-development">Vernon Ruttan, Technology Growth and Development</h4> -</blockquote> - -<p>The foundations of the American innovation system can be found in the U.S. Constitution, which calls for patents to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” Patents turn ideas into property that their owners can further develop in cooperation with others. To further promote coordination and interoperability, the Constitution also gives Congress the power to “fix the standard of weight and measurement.”</p> - -<p>Throughout its history, the United States has developed successful industrial policies to respond to national needs and new global realities.</p> - -<p>In the modern context, industrial policy refers to active government support for the development of technologies that are deemed strategically important. This support has also taken the form of broader government investments in research and education followed by procurement. One recent successful U.S. industrial policy is the Trump administration’s effort to develop and produce vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic.</p> - -<p>Some orthodox economists deride industrial policies, seeing them as aid to businesses unable to successfully compete. In some cases, efforts to support ailing firms have failed. But in many of these cases, their inability to compete is rooted in the policies and market protection of other nations, or is simply the result of ineffective management. The Obama administration’s effort to resuscitate General Motors and Chrysler is one example where changes in management and re-capitalization proved hugely successful.</p> - -<h3 id="roots-of-innovation-policy">Roots of Innovation Policy</h3> - -<p>American industrial policy has a strong track record of supporting innovation and enabling new technologies through long-term policy continuity and support. This strategy has been successful. Indeed, many of these technologies have fundamentally transformed the U.S. economy.</p> - -<h4 id="foundations-of-innovation">Foundations of Innovation</h4> - -<p>The earliest call for a U.S. industrial policy dates back to shortly after the nation’s founding. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, approached Congress with his Report on the Subject of Manufactures. Breaking with those who thought the United States should remain an agricultural nation, the report outlined a strategy to develop manufacturing. Its goals were to reduce dependency on Britain and ultimately build the material base for an independent national defense.</p> - -<p>Since then, Hamilton’s call has been realized in an effective and evolving U.S. industrial policy. Throughout its history, the United States has used these policies to spur important innovations that have enhanced its security and technological leadership.</p> - -<h4 id="the-postwar-strategy">The Postwar Strategy</h4> - -<p>The pace of technological change picked up in the years following World War II. At that time, the U.S. manufacturing base was robust, having geared up for war production and postwar reconstruction.</p> - -<p>But, as President Truman’s advisor Vannevar Bush pointed out at the time, the nation’s research base needed to be strengthened. To address this need, the U.S. government invested heavily in basic research, including through the creation of the National Science Foundation and the expansion of the National Laboratory system. It also actively recruited leading scientists and engineers from Europe.</p> - -<p>This strategy contributed to new technological innovations that helped win the Cold War. Moreover, the new information and communications technologies generated by this strategy transformed the U.S. economy and underpin its economic leadership today.</p> - -<h4 id="capitalizing-on-us-research">Capitalizing on U.S. Research</h4> - -<p>In the 1970s and 80s, Japan emerged as a major competitor in technology development and manufacturing. In response, new U.S. policies sought to more efficiently connect the research advances made at U.S. universities into development and commercialization of new competitive products by the private sector.</p> - -<p>Together, these public-private partnerships promote cooperation across the innovation system. Widely seen as best practices in innovation policy, many have been adapted around the world. For example, countries as diverse as India and the United Kingdom have adopted or adapted Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) in an attempt to engage innovative small businesses more effectively in their national economies.</p> - -<h4 id="an-ecosystem-approach-to-innovation">An Ecosystem Approach to Innovation</h4> - -<p>Throughout this postwar period, U.S. innovation strategy has relied on a relatively simple linear model of innovation.</p> - -<p>This model concentrated on public funding of basic research at the front end. From there, private actors would take the lead in applying that research to new products and bringing them to the market.</p> - -<p>Through the years, our understanding of the innovation process has advanced. Instead of a linear process, innovation is now understood as an “ecosystem” in which various networks each play a role in developing new technologies and bringing them to market. For innovation to move at its full potential, each of these networks need to operate individually as well as connect with the other networks through partnerships across the innovation ecosystem.</p> - -<ol> - <li> - <p>Research Networks</p> - - <p>American universities, research institutes, and national labs are rich sources of new ideas and concepts.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Financial Networks</p> - - <p>Banks, venture capital funds, and other sources of capital provide the wherewithal for entrepreneurs to fund and develop these concepts into products and services for the market.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Entrepreneurial Networks</p> - - <p>Start-ups, innovative firms, and small and medium manufacturers are key actors in the innovation system, drawing on new ideas, seeking funding, and driving innovation to the marketplace.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Educational and Training Networks</p> - - <p>Universities, colleges, and vocational institutes provide the skills and workforce needed by industry to scale up and produce new products and services.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Manufacturing and Distribution Networks</p> - - <p>Firms that make innovative products and services and find and develop markets are an integral part of the innovation system. R&amp;D and manufacturing are tightly intertwined — it is often not possible to design a product without understanding how it could be manufactured. Feedback from manufacturers and markets provides important feedback and financial returns for other stakeholders within the innovation system.</p> - </li> -</ol> - -<h4 id="a-complete-ecosystem">A Complete Ecosystem</h4> - -<p>A healthy innovation ecosystem contains strong, dynamic, and distributed networks, with effective connections across networks. These make the system more resilient, more adaptive, and more capable of making use of the knowledge within the system — especially when compared to more planned systems. American traditions in individual initiative and entrepreneurship, combined with what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the spirit of association,” give the United States an innate advantage in building these innovation networks.</p> - -<h3 id="todays-challenges">Today’s Challenges</h3> - -<p>Emerging challenges have the potential to disrupt the United States’ innovation system. Understanding these challenges will be key to restoring U.S. leadership in innovation.</p> - -<h4 id="the-loss-of-manufacturing">The Loss of Manufacturing</h4> - -<p>Over the past few decades, U.S. companies embraced outsourcing to capitalize on lower wages in Mexico and especially East Asia with the goal of lowering costs and increasing short-term shareholder returns. This has degraded U.S. manufacturing capabilities.</p> - -<p>Without a strong domestic manufacturing network, which is a close complement to research and commercialization activities, the entire domestic innovation system becomes less effective. For example, the drive by U.S. firms to offshore manufacturing of display screens to East Asia, combined with South Korea’s strategic investments in its domestic R&amp;D and manufacturing systems, led to the loss of the U.S. display industry to South Korea.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/9Woda9v.png" alt="image01" /></p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/C0wFIG0.png" alt="image02" /></p> - -<h4 id="the-china-challenge">The China Challenge</h4> - -<p>China has implemented a focused strategy to become a manufacturing powerhouse and innovation leader. It has massively increased its spending on R&amp;D — now second only to the United States — and importantly, much more of its R&amp;D budget is focused on applied rather than basic research.</p> - -<p>In addition, China is pursuing determined policies to ensure its dominance in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and quantum computing. It is especially focused on advanced semiconductor manufacturing, which the Chinese government correctly sees as a critical enabling technology for both civilian and military applications. China’s goal is to create a world-class high-tech manufacturing sector that is not reliant on inputs from other countries, and ultimately to make other countries dependent on its outputs.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/PyEDSGZ.png" alt="image03" /></p> - -<h4 id="meeting-the-challenges">Meeting the Challenges</h4> - -<p>Being a global hub for innovation has conferred innumerable geopolitical and commercial benefits for the United States over the last century. But without a concerted effort to match its innovation policy to the challenges of today, the United States will not enjoy those same benefits in the century to come. And it risks ceding them to geopolitical rivals with different visions of global order.</p> - -<p>To maintain its lead in innovation, the United States has to invest in and maintain the ecosystem supporting R&amp;D, workforce development, and the manufacture of new products and services for the global market. Fortunately, the Biden administration has passed several important pieces of legislation recommitting to U.S. leadership in the twenty-first century, though much of the resources are yet to be committed to those efforts.</p> - -<p>While these efforts are promising initial steps to prime American innovation, sustained follow-through is needed. As a start, Congress now needs to make good on the important initiatives it has recently passed and appropriate the funds to sustain and grow a competitive economy for the twenty-first century. The money appropriated (actual dollars released) for innovation initiatives in the CHIPS and Science Act has so far fallen far short of the amounts authorized (dollars promised). This represents a concerning trend that could cause these programs to underperform their potential.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/1LlkqLL.png" alt="image04" /></p> - -<h4 id="renewing-american-innovation">Renewing American Innovation</h4> - -<p>In an era when allies and rivals are making major investments to capture leading positions in powerful new technologies, the United States needs to upgrade its own policy structures and make large and sustained investments in R&amp;D and in its industrial infrastructure, building out the innovation ecosystem.</p> - -<p>The United States has set the global standard for fostering innovation multiple times in its history, and there is every reason to believe that it is capable of doing so again. But doing so will require both effective long-term planning and the financial commitments to realizing those plans. The future of the global order, and the United States’ leading role in it, depends on the success of these efforts.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Sujai Shivakumar</strong> is the Director and Senior Fellow, Renewing American Innovation Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).</p>Sujai ShivakumarIn an age when innovation is the primary engine for accelerating national competitiveness and strength, the United States needs to make significant and sustained investments to raise its game.In The Shadow Of Ukraine2023-09-29T12:00:00+08:002023-09-29T12:00:00+08:00https://agorahub.github.io/pen0/hkers/in-the-shadow-of-ukraine<p><em>Russian leaders are committed to a reconstitution of the Russian military — especially the Russian army — over the next several years, though achieving this goal will be challenging. In addition, Russia views the United States as its main enemy for the foreseeable future.</em></p> - -<excerpt /> - -<blockquote> - <p>“Each war has to be matched with a special strategic behavior; each war constitutes a particular case that requires establishing its own special logic instead of applying some template.”</p> -</blockquote> - -<blockquote> - <h4 id="aa-svechin">A.A. Svechin</h4> -</blockquote> - -<h3 id="executive-summary">EXECUTIVE SUMMARY</h3> - -<p>This report asks two main questions: how is the Russian military thinking about the future of warfare, and how is the Russian military thinking about force design over the next five years? As used here, force design includes the overall plan for structuring, staffing, training, and equipping military forces, including in the maritime, land, air, cyber, and space domains. Since the goal of this analysis is to better understand Russian military thinking, this report relies primarily on Russian military journals and other sources, supplemented by interviews with U.S., European, and Ukrainian officials.</p> - -<p>The report has several findings.</p> - -<p>First, Russian military thinking is dominated by a view that the United States is — and will remain — Moscow’s main enemy (главный враг) for the foreseeable future. This view of the United States as the main enemy has increased since the 2022 invasion, with significant implications for the future of warfare and force design. Russian political and military leaders assess that Russian struggles in Ukraine have been largely due to aid from the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which Russian leaders interpret as direct participation in the war. In addition, Russian leaders believe that the United States is attempting to expand its power, further encircle Russia, and weaken Russia militarily, politically, and economically. These sentiments make Russia a dangerous enemy over the next five years and will likely drive Moscow’s desire to reconstitute its military as rapidly as possible, strengthen nuclear and conventional deterrence, prepare to fight the West if deterrence fails as part of a strategy of “active defense” (активная оборона), and engage in irregular and hybrid activities.</p> - -<p>Second, Russian analyses generally conclude that while the nature of warfare — its essence and purpose — is unchanging, the character of future warfare will rapidly evolve in ways that require adaptation. This report focuses on four categories of interest to Russia: long-range, high-precision weapons; autonomous and unmanned systems; emerging technologies; and the utility of hybrid and irregular warfare. In these and other areas, Russian leaders assess that it will be critical to cooperate with other countries, such as China and Iran.</p> - -<p>Third, Russian political and military leaders are committed to a major reconstitution of the Russian military — especially the Russian army — over the next several years, though achieving this goal will be challenging. Force design may evolve in the following areas:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Land: Russian force design in land warfare will likely include an attempt to reconstitute the Russian army over the next five years. In particular, the army will likely continue to shift to a division structure, though it is unclear whether Russia can fill the ranks of larger units. These changes are a sharp divergence from the changes implemented under former minister of defense Anatoly Serdyukov. In addition, the Russian military has indicated a desire to restructure the army to allow for more mobility and decentralization in the field in response to the United States’ and NATO’s long-range precision strike capabilities.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Air: Force design in the air domain will likely involve some reversals initiated by Serdyukov, as well as a major focus on unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). For example, the Russian military wants to increase the size of the Russian Aerospace Forces beyond the current force structure. Future developments may also include the use of UASs for logistics in contested environments, which will require new organizational structures.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Maritime: The Russian military has expressed a desire to expand its naval forces in response to growing tensions with the United States and NATO. The Russian Ministry of Defense has outlined the creation of five naval infantry divisions for the navy’s coastal troops. In addition, the Russian navy will likely increase the presence of unmanned maritime vessels as part of force design and focus on the development, production, and use of submarines.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Space and Cyber: The Russian military will attempt to further develop its space and cyber capabilities, including offensive capabilities. It will also likely attempt to expand the size and activities of Russian Space Forces and a range of Russian cyber organizations, such as the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Federal Security Service (FSB), though it will likely struggle in such areas as space because of Western sanctions.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Russia retains a significant arsenal of nuclear weapons, a relatively strong navy and air force that remain largely intact, and a reasonably good relationship with China and other countries, such as Iran, that could provide a much-needed jump start.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Russia faces a suite of financial, military, political, social, and other issues that will force political and military leaders to prioritize changes in force design. Building a bigger navy and air force will be expensive, as will increasing the size of Russian ground forces. While it is impossible to predict with certainty how Russian leaders will prioritize force design changes, likely candidates are ones that are relatively cheap or essential to improve fighting effectiveness.</p> - -<p>In the land domain, for example, the Russian army may prioritize restructuring its land forces around divisions, strengthening its defense industrial base to develop and produce precision munitions and weapons systems for a protracted war, and experimenting with tactical units to allow for greater mobility and autonomy against adversaries that have precision strike capabilities. Russia will likely rely on such countries as China, Iran, and North Korea for some weapons systems and components.</p> - -<p>However, a successful reconstitution of the military and a redesign of the force, especially the army, will be difficult for several reasons.</p> - -<p>First, Russia’s deepening economic crisis will likely constrain its efforts to expand the quantity and quality of its ground, air, and naval forces. The war in Ukraine has fueled Russia’s worst labor crunch in decades, and the Russian economy has been stressed by low growth, a decrease in the ruble against the dollar, and inflation. Second, corruption and graft remain rampant in the Russian military, which could undermine Moscow’s overall plan to effectively structure, staff, train, and equip its forces. Third, Russia’s defense industrial base will likely face challenges because of the war in Ukraine. Russia has already expended significant amounts of precision-guided and other munitions in the Ukraine war, and many of its weapons systems and equipment have been destroyed or severely worn down. Economic sanctions may create shortages of higher-end foreign components and force Moscow to substitute them with lower-quality alternatives. Fourth, Russia could face a significant challenge because of growing civil-military friction. Tension between the Russian military and population could worsen over time because of a protracted war in Ukraine, a languishing economy, and an increasingly authoritarian state. A reconstitution of the Russian military will likely require some level of support and sacrifice from the Russian population.</p> - -<h3 id="1-introduction">1 INTRODUCTION</h3> - -<p>The Russian military has faced a wide range of shortcomings following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Examples include a failure to conduct effective joint and combined arms operations, low morale of soldiers, inadequate leadership, poor logistics support to combat forces, and erroneous intelligence analyses. These problems have occurred despite considerable efforts by the Russian military to examine the future of war and to design a force capable of conducting effective conventional and hybrid operations. Russia’s challenges in Ukraine have also severely undermined its security position. Finland and Sweden have opted to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the West has imposed economic sanctions against Russia (including its defense industry), and the United States and other Western countries have provided significant military, economic, and political support to Ukraine.</p> - -<p>These challenges have enormous implications for the future of the Russian military in an increasingly competitive security environment. After all, if the Russian military has struggled against Ukraine, how might Russia fare in a future war with the United States and other NATO countries?</p> - -<h4 id="research-design">RESEARCH DESIGN</h4> - -<p>To better understand Russian military thinking, this report asks two sets of questions. First, how is the Russian military thinking about the future of warfare? Second, how might the Russian military evolve its force design over the next five years? As used here, “force design” includes the overall plan for structuring, staffing, training, and equipping military forces, including maritime, land, and air forces. Force design directly affects manpower policies and retention goals. It also impacts “force structure,” which includes the number and type of combat units a military can sustain, the forces a military has available, how they are equipped, and how they are organized.</p> - -<p>To answer the main questions, this report uses a mixed-methods approach. First, the research involved a compilation and translation of primary- and secondary-source Russian analyses of warfare and force design across multiple domains of war. Examples included Военная Мысль [Military Thought] and Вестник Академии Военных Наук [Journal of the Academy of Military Sciences]. A limited number of analytical opinion and commentary in such publications as Военно-промышленный курьер [Military-Industrial Courier], Красная звезда [Red Star], TASS, and others were also included.</p> - -<p>While reviewing these documents is important, there are some limitations. For example, the quality of Russian military journals has declined over time — especially following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Articles frequently lack innovative thought. Part of the reason may be because Russian military thinkers have few incentives to write critical and reflective pieces during a war that has gone poorly for the Russian military and in a country that has become increasingly totalitarian and wary of any criticism — explicit or implicit. In addition, this analysis uses only unclassified material. An assessment on Russian military thinking with access to classified information and analysis would still face information hurdles and gaps in knowledge. But a reliance on open-source information presents even greater hurdles. Nevertheless, taking precautionary steps — such as qualifying judgments where appropriate and identifying gaps in information — still leads to a useful understanding of Russian thinking on the future of warfare and force design.</p> - -<p>Second, this report benefited from interviews with numerous government and subject matter experts. One example was a trip to NATO’s eastern flank — including Finland, the Baltics, and Poland — to talk with military, political, and intelligence officials about how Russian military leaders view the future of warfare and force design. The report also benefited from interviews with officials from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, the United States, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Poland, and NATO, as well as discussions with a range of subject matter experts from such organizations as the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.</p> - -<h4 id="organization-of-the-report">ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT</h4> - -<p>The rest of this report is divided into the following chapters. Chapter 2 examines the historical evolution of Russian thinking about the future of warfare and force design. Chapter 3 analyzes contemporary Russian thinking about the future of warfare and force design. Chapter 4 provides an overview of challenges that the Russian military may face in implementing these changes.</p> - -<h3 id="2-the-historical-context">2 THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT</h3> - -<p>This chapter briefly examines the evolution of Russian views on warfare and force design from the end of the Cold War to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It is not meant to be a comprehensive examination of historical trends in Russian views on warfare and force design, but rather is intended to establish a baseline for analyzing Russia today. Consequently, it focuses on three developments that are representative of the evolution of Russian military thinking on future warfare: precision weapons and related concepts, such as the reconnaissance-strike complex and reconnaissance-fire complex; force design, including the creation of battalion tactical groups (BTGs); and irregular and hybrid warfare.</p> - -<p>The rest of this chapter is divided into four sections. The first examines the evolution in Russian thinking about precision weapons and related developments. The second section outlines the evolution of Russian force design. The third assesses Russian thinking about hybrid and irregular warfare. The fourth section provides a brief conclusion.</p> - -<h4 id="precision-weapons">PRECISION WEAPONS</h4> - -<p>Beginning in the 1970s, Soviet military thinkers were at the forefront of grappling with the implications of technological innovations on warfare, what some called the Military-Technical Revolution (MTR). One of the most influential figures was Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Union. According to Ogarkov, emerging technologies made it possible to see and strike deep in the future battlefield. These advances required organizational and conceptual changes to adjust force design and structure in each military service.</p> - -<p>Among the most significant advances were long-range, high-precision weapons, which could increase the potential for attacking an adversary’s command-and-control facilities and lead to a compressed sensor-to-shooter kill chain. By the 1980s, the debate about the impact of the MTR led to the development of several concepts: deep operations battle, the reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire complexes; and operational maneuver groups. In a 1983 article in Red Star, Ogarkov concluded that there were significant changes afoot in warfare because of “precision weapons, reconnaissance-strike complexes, and weapons based on new physical principles.” In a 1984 interview with Red Star, he noted that “the development of conventional means of destruction . . . is making many kinds of weapons global” and is triggering a rise “in the destructive potential of conventional weapons, making them almost as effective as weapons of mass destruction.”</p> - -<p>After the end of the Cold War, Russian views on the future of warfare and force design were significantly impacted by a close examination of U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Balkans, and other areas, as well as Moscow’s own experience in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine. Russian military thinkers paid close attention to U.S. military operations and strategic thinking. The First Gulf War (1990–1991) and Second Gulf War (2003) were, in many ways, watershed moments for the Russian military. According to Russian analyses, the United States’ technological superiority over the Iraqi military overwhelmed the numerical advantages of the Iraqi military. As one assessment concluded, “Reconnaissance, fire, electronic, and information warfare forces of different branches and arms of the service were integrated the first time ever into a shared spatially distributed reconnaissance and strike system making wide use of modern information technologies and automated troops and weapons control systems.”</p> - -<p>The U.S. military began with a massive attack by some of the latest electronic warfare capabilities and then launched, in parallel, an offensive by the U.S. Air Force and sea-based cruise missiles, reinforced with reconnaissance strike aircraft and artillery barrages.</p> - -<p>In these operations, the U.S. military effectively used technologies to conduct non-contact warfare (бесконтактная война) in which much of the fighting would take place using stand-off precision weapons. Medium- and long-range strikes from air, maritime, land, cyber, and even space-based platforms aided ground forces. As Major General Vladimir Slipchenko argued, for example, new technologies increased the importance of precision-guided weapons (or высокоточное оружие) and increased the role of airpower and the information components of war (including psychological operations, electronic warfare, and cyber warfare). The origins of Russian approaches toward non-contact warfare stem, in part, from the leading Russian military theorists inspired by the intellectual legacy of Ogarkov’s revolution in military affairs.</p> - -<p>Integrating these technologies into warfare would also require an evolution in concepts. One of the most important was an evolution in the reconnaissance strike complex (or разведивательно-ударный комплех) for stand-off strike, which involved the need to collect real-time intelligence and quickly push information to air, ground, and maritime units for strikes. A major goal of the reconnaissance strike complex was to improve command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) on the battlefield to facilitate the coordinated employment of high-precision, long-range weapons linked to real-time intelligence data.</p> - -<p>Russian operations in Syria underscored the growing importance of precision strike to support ground force advances and to hit adversary logistics hubs and other targets. A growing reliance on long-range strike requires sufficient stockpiles of munitions (especially precision-guided munitions); an arms production capacity able to produce munitions in sufficient quantities; adequate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to identify potential targets; and an all-domain command-and-control system that allows users to quickly take advantage of real-time intelligence.</p> - -<p>Russia integrated its air operations into a reconnaissance-strike complex. The Russian military heavily relied on medium-range and long-range strike from air, land, and maritime platforms and systems to help ground forces take — and retake — territory. Moscow combined air operations with ground-based fires and sea-launched stand-off weapons. At the tactical level, Russia attempted to establish kill chains that flowed from sensors to warfighters. In addition, Russia took advantage of the relatively permissive environment in Syria to test and refine this concept, integrating strikes from fixed-wing aircraft with unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), such as the Orlan-10, Forpost, and Eleron-3SV; electronic warfare; space-based systems; and other ISR platforms and systems.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Y9xYjcp.png" alt="image01" /> -<em>▲ <strong>A Forpost from Russia’s Baltic Fleet flies overhead in the Kaliningrad region.</strong> Source: Russian Ministry of Defense.</em></p> - -<p>However, there were challenges with the reconnaissance-strike complex. To begin with, Russia lacked sufficient numbers of precision-guided munitions. Roughly 80 percent of ordnance dropped over the first few months of the war in Syria were unguided bombs from Su-24s and Su-25s. In addition, the only dedicated airborne ISR assets that the Russian air force maintained in Syria were a small number of IL-20 Coots and the intermittent presence of a Tu-214R ISR testbed aircraft. The Russian air group’s pool of potential intelligence collectors was further thinned by a shortage of targeting pods that impaired the ability of Russian fighters to provide the kind of nontraditional ISR that Western militaries possess. The Russian air force could not match the 1:2 ISR-to-strike sortie ratio maintained by U.S. and coalition air forces in Iraq and Syria, much less the 4:1 ratio that NATO executed over Afghanistan.</p> - -<p>In addition, most Russian sorties in Syria were still deliberately planned missions. The Russian air force did not effectively operationalize the processes necessary to react on the fly to unexpected battlefield emergencies and was unable to take full advantage of its reconnaissance-strike complex. Russia failed to conduct the ground-directed dynamic targeting that has come to define most Western air operations.</p> - -<h4 id="force-design">FORCE DESIGN</h4> - -<p>Based on the Russian military’s views about the future of warfare, Russian force design evolved through the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian thinkers based force design, in part, on a strategy of active defense (активная оборона). The concept of a strong defense has a long and rich tradition in Russian military thinking, including from such individuals as Alexander Svechin. It involved integrating preemptive measures and — if that failed — denying an opponent a decisive victory in the initial period of war by degrading their effort and setting the conditions for a counteroffensive. The strategy privileged a permanent standing force, arrayed as high-readiness operational formations in each strategic direction.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/lLteJwp.png" alt="image02" /> -<em>▲ <strong>Figure 2.1: Example of a Russian Battalion Tactical Group.</strong> Sources: Mark Galeotti, Armies of Russia’s War in Ukraine (New York: Osprey, 2019), 40; and Dmanrock29, “Russian Battalion Tactical Group,” Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).</em></p> - -<p>One important period in force design was defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov’s “New Look” reform beginning in 2008, which led to one of the most radical changes in the Russian military since World War II. The goal was to create a flexible, professional army in a permanent combat-ready state that was able to mount a spectrum of operations from small-scale interventions to high-end warfare. Serdyukov reduced the size of the armed forces from 1.13 million to 1 million by 2012, and he decreased the size of the officer corps as well. As Serdyukov put it, “our army today is reminiscent of an egg which is swollen in the middle. There are more colonels and lieutenant colonels than there are junior officers.” Overall, the division gave way to a smaller, more flexible structure at the battalion level.</p> - -<p>The reforms led to the dismissal of 200 generals, and the military cut nearly 205,000 officer positions. Before the reforms, the Russian order of battle resembled a smaller Soviet one, with 24 divisions, 12 independent brigades, and two separate external task forces deployed to Armenia and Tajikistan. However, only six divisions — five motor rifle divisions and a tank division — were at full strength and operational. Russian leaders believed that a smaller but better-equipped and -trained military could handle a range of conflicts. This process took place largely between 2008 and 2012. The army’s fighting force comprised 4 tank brigades, 35 motor rifle brigades and a cover, or fortification, brigade, supported by 9 missile, 9 artillery, 4 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, 9 air defense, and 10 support brigades. This left the army with 85 brigades, 40 of which were frontline combat units.</p> - -<p>Around 2015, however, the Russian military partially revived larger formations geared for major wars. In 2016, the military reactivated the First Tank Army in the Western Military District, including two reestablished divisions of long and revered history: the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division and a reformed 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motorized Rifle Division that had been the first converted to a brigade.</p> - -<p>The Russian military eventually adopted a force structure that could deploy as BTGs, or as the entire formation, such as a regiment or brigade. BTGs were combined arms units, which were typically drawn from all-volunteer companies and battalions in existing brigades. They were task-organized motorized rifle or tank combat entities designed to perform semi-independent combined arms operations. The goal was for Russians to deploy meaningfully sized field forces drawn from “kontraktniki” (or контрактники) — professionals who were better trained than conscripts and legally deployable abroad. While the structure of the BTGs varied somewhat based on operational needs and available personnel, most included roughly 600 to 800 soldiers. As highlighted in Figure 2.1, they were generally mechanized battalions, with two to four tank or mechanized infantry companies and attached artillery, reconnaissance, engineer, electronic warfare, and rear support platoons. The support platoon generally consisted of motor transport, field mess, vehicle recovery, maintenance, and hygiene squads. The result was a somewhat self-sufficient ground combat unit with disproportionate fire and rear support. Most BTGs had sufficient ammunition, food, and fuel in high-intensity combat for one to three days before needing logistics support.</p> - -<h4 id="hybrid-warfare">HYBRID WARFARE</h4> - -<p>Finally, Russia relied on a mix of regular and irregular actions — or hybrid warfare (гибридная война). As used here, irregular warfare refers to activities short of regular (or conventional) warfare that are designed to expand a country’s influence and weaken its adversaries. Examples include information and disinformation operations, cyber operations, support to state and non-state partners, covert action, espionage, and economic coercion. In addition, hybrid warfare involves the combination of regular and irregular warfare.</p> - -<p>State and non-state partner forces played a critical role in conducting ground operations — including fire and maneuver — with outside training, advising, and assistance efforts. In Syria, for example, Russia benefited from competent and well-trained Lebanese Hezbollah forces, which were well equipped and had significant experience fighting highly capable Israel Defense Force units in 2006 in Lebanon. Hezbollah forces were tactically and operationally proficient at cover and concealment, fire discipline, mortar marksmanship, and coordination of direct-fire support, which were helpful for their involvement in the Syrian war. Moscow also worked with militias whose members were recruited from Iraq, Palestinian territory, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other locations.</p> - -<p>Russia also leveraged private military companies (PMCs), such as the Wagner Group, which trained and advised Syrian army units and a number of pro-Assad and foreign militias fighting for the regime, including the 5th Corps and Shia militias such as the Palestinian Liwa al-Quds. PMCs provided training to other Russian-backed Syrian militias, such as Sayadou Da’esh (Islamic State Hunters), which emerged in early 2017 and was deployed to protect installations in and around Palmyra, including the military airport and oil and gas fields. Other Russian PMCs, such as Vegacy Strategic Services, conducted smaller training missions for pro-regime militia forces, such as Liwa al-Quds. In addition, PMCs engaged in some urban clearing operations. Wagner Group forces, for example, participated in operations at Latakia, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and greater Damascus, as well as the counteroffensive to retake Palmyra in 2016 and 2017.</p> - -<p>More broadly, Moscow expanded its overseas use of PMCs to over two dozen countries, such as Ukraine, Libya, Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and Venezuela. These countries spanned Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Russian PMCs cooperated closely with the Russian government, including various combinations of the Kremlin, Ministry of Defense, Foreign Intelligence Service, and Federal Security Service. PMCs performed a variety of tasks, such as combat operations, intelligence collection and analysis, protective services, training, site security, information operations, and propaganda to further Moscow’s interests.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion">CONCLUSION</h4> - -<p>By Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the military had become a partial-mobilization force. Its leaders hoped to have more forces and equipment, reduced staffing and costs, and the ability to generate substantial combat power on short notice. The Russian military had also shed much of its Soviet legacy. It was ostensibly well suited to short, high-intensity campaigns defined by a heavy use of artillery and precision weapons, bolstered by such concepts as the reconnaissance-strike complex and reconnaissance-fire complex. The military could also conduct hybrid warfare by combining regular and irregular operations. Russian leaders were bolstered by the military’s success in helping the Bashar al-Assad government retake much of its territory in Syria. As would soon become clear, however, the Russian military was unprepared — at least initially — for a conventional war of attrition.</p> - -<h3 id="3-the-future-of-warfare-and-russian-force-design">3 THE FUTURE OF WARFARE AND RUSSIAN FORCE DESIGN</h3> - -<p>This chapter asks two questions: how is the Russian military thinking about the future of warfare, and how might the Russian military evolve its force design over the next five years? The chapter makes two main arguments based on a review of Russian documents, supplemented by interviews. First, Russian analyses generally conclude that while the nature of warfare — its essence and purpose — is unchanging, the character of future warfare is rapidly evolving in ways that may force Moscow to adapt more quickly. Of particular interest to Russian military thinkers is the continuing growth in precision weapons; autonomous and unmanned systems; specific emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), stealth, and electronic warfare; and hybrid warfare.</p> - -<p>Second, Russian political and military leaders are committed to a major reconstitution of the Russian military — especially the Russian army — over the next several years, making Russia a serious threat. Future force design will likely focus on deterring and — if deterrence fails — fighting the United States and NATO if necessary. According to Russian assessments, the Russian military is considering evolving force design in several areas:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p><strong>Land</strong>: Russian force design in land warfare will likely include a continuing shift to divisions, although it is unclear whether the army can sufficiently fill the ranks of larger units. These changes mark a major shift away from the changes implemented under former minister of defense Anatoly Serdyukov. In addition, Russia will likely attempt to restructure its forces to allow for more mobility and decentralization in the field in response to U.S. and NATO long-range precision strike capabilities.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Air</strong>: Force design in the air domain will likely involve some reversals initiated by Serdyukov, as well as a major focus on unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). For example, the Russian military will likely attempt to increase the size of the Russian Aerospace Forces. The Russian military may also partially restructure its air forces to incorporate a significant increase in the use of UASs. Future developments may include the use of UASs for logistics in contested environments, which will require new organizational structures.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Maritime</strong>: Russia may expand its naval forces in response to growing tensions with the United States and NATO. The Ministry of Defense has expressed an interest in creating five naval infantry divisions for the navy’s coastal troops based on existing naval infantry brigades.</p> - </li> - <li> - <p><strong>Space and Cyber</strong>: The Russian military will continue to develop its offensive space and cyber capabilities, including its electronic warfare capabilities. It will also likely try to expand the size and activities of the Russian Space Forces and a range of Russian cyber organizations, such as the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Federal Security Service (FSB). But Russia will likely face serious challenges in implementing some of these changes, especially to the Russian Space Forces, because of Western sanctions and other factors.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>Russia will likely face significant challenges in making all — or even most — of these changes, as outlined in the next chapter. Consequently, Russia will need to prioritize which steps it takes, as discussed in the last section of this chapter.</p> - -<p>The rest of this chapter is divided into three sections. The first examines Russia’s current thinking about the future of warfare. The second section assesses Russian thinking about force design. The third focuses on how Russia may prioritize among force design options.</p> - -<h4 id="the-future-of-warfare">THE FUTURE OF WARFARE</h4> - -<p>Russian military thinking generally assumes that the character of warfare is rapidly evolving, though the nature of warfare remains a violent struggle between opponents. If there were any doubts before, the war in Ukraine has been a stark reminder. “War,” Carl von Clausewitz writes, “is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.” War is still nasty and brutish. By contrast, the character of warfare — including the conduct of warfare, the speed and complexity of tactical decisionmaking, and the technology and weapons systems that militaries use and need — is evolving. In particular, technology is advancing in such areas as robotics, sensors, AI, cyber, space, long-range precision strike, hypersonics, and advanced communications, command, and control. There will also be an overload of information available to military and intelligence personnel that will be collected by space-based, aerial, ground, surface, sub-surface, and cyber sensors.</p> - -<p>Overall, there are several themes about the future of warfare in Russian military thinking: contact versus non-contact warfare, autonomous and unmanned systems, technological innovation, and hybrid warfare. These are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather representative of some of the most important themes debated by Russian military thinkers.</p> - -<p><strong>Contact vs. Non-Contact Warfare</strong>: There remains a tension in Russian military thinking between the future prevalence of contact warfare (контактная война) and non-contact warfare (бесконтактная война). On the one hand, numerous Russian military thinkers believe that warfare involving long-range precision weapons will become ubiquitous. On the other hand, many also believe that warfare will still involve violent contact between opposing ground forces that fight for control of territory. Russian military thinkers appear to be grappling with how to fight for control of territory while dealing with an adversary’s long-range precision strike.</p> - -<p>Russian military analysts generally agree that there will be a continuing development of advanced precision weapons that allow for a “high level of target destruction.” The goal of non-contact warfare is to destroy the adversary’s will and ability to fight at a distance before any contact occurs — or, at the very least, to strike fixed-wing aircraft, air defense systems, and other targets and weaken the adversary’s ability to hit back or defend itself. Conducting these types of attacks will increasingly require good intelligence about the adversary’s locations, plans, and intentions.</p> - -<p>The importance of long-range air, ground, and naval fires in Ukraine has reinforced the need to continue developing precision capabilities and the reconnaissance-strike complex (разведивательно-ударный комплех) and reconnaissance-fire complex (разведивательно-огновой комплех). After all, Russian forces have failed to conduct dynamic targeting in Ukraine and to quickly move from sensor to shooter in a kill chain. Ukraine has also demonstrated that long-range precision strike may require large volumes of munitions when facing an adversary with good — or reasonably good — air defense capabilities.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Ukraine has highlighted the persistence of contact warfare and the need to fight for control of physical territory. As one Russian analysis concludes, “There is no reason to expect that [long-range precision weapons] will render useless the more advanced forms and methods of contact warfare. . . . The supporters of this theory spread false information, arguing that modern and, above all, future wars will only be non-contact.” Warfare will still hinge, in part, on the struggle for territorial control that involves the use of brute force among armies.</p> - -<p>The broader debate about contact and non-contact warfare has at least three implications. First, Russia and its partners (such as China) will be in a race with its adversaries (such as the United States) to develop precision weapons that are faster, stealthier, longer range, and carry a higher payload. Examples include the use of more advanced seekers, improved surface material on missiles, laser guidance, anti-jamming capabilities, sensors, and robust algorithms for precision strike. Second, the growth in precision weapons will present significant dangers to ground forces, which will be exposed to saturation from medium- and long-range strikes. As discussed later in this chapter, ground forces will likely need to be more mobile and decentralized. Third, Russian assessments conclude that the military needs to expedite defensive measures to protect civilian and military targets. One area is integrated air and missile defense to defend against incoming stand-off weapons. Another is denial and deception (maskirovka, or маскировка) to make it more difficult for adversaries to identify and hit targets, including the use of concealment, thermal camouflage, anti-thermal material, imitation with decoys and dummies, denial, disinformation, and other tactics, techniques, and procedures.</p> - -<p><strong>Autonomous and Unmanned Systems</strong>: Russian assessments of the future of war assume a growing role for all types of unmanned systems — air, land, surface, and sub-surface. The importance of unmanned systems also means that a key aspect of future warfare will be countering these systems.</p> - -<p>UASs — including micro- and mini-UASs — offer a useful example of Russian thinking on unmanned systems. According to a range of Russian military analysis, UASs will be increasingly critical for future warfare because of their utility for aerial reconnaissance, target designation for artillery and other weapons systems, precision strike, attack assessment, survey of terrain to produce digital maps, logistics (such as moving cargo), aerial refueling, communications, and electronic warfare. While UASs were often utilized in the past for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike operations, they will likely be important for combined arms operations in the future — including a critical part of Russia’s reconnaissance-strike complex. As Russian president Vladimir Putin remarked:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>The use of drones has become practically ubiquitous. They should be a must-have for combat units, platoons, companies and battalions. Targets must be identified as quickly as possible and information needed to strike must be transferred in real time. Unmanned vehicles should be interconnected, integrated into a single intelligence network, and should have secure communication channels with headquarters and commanders. In the near future, every fighter should be able to receive information transmitted from drones.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Numerous countries — including the United States — are pouring research and development resources into autonomous and unmanned systems. As Russian analysts recognize, for example, the U.S. Department of Defense and defense industry are working on such unmanned systems as the collaborative combat aircraft (including the Gambit, X-62 Vista, and XQ-58 Valkyrie), MQ-28 Ghost Bat, MQ-25 Stingray, MQ-1C Gray Eagle Extended Range, and loitering munitions such as the Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade lines. These efforts also include the development of AI so that unmanned systems can be entirely autonomous.</p> - -<p>The Russian military is also working to develop future swarming tactics for UASs. A swarm involves a large number of drones flying in a coordinated fashion. The integration of AI would allow UASs to make decisions on their own. Swarms could be particularly beneficial for strike operations if UASs could independently search for — and destroy — targets and adapt quickly to evolving conditions. Russia has watched with interest the swarming programs of adversaries, including the United States and United Kingdom. Development efforts may focus on intensifying information exchange among UASs, reducing their dimensions, enhancing their maneuverability, and minimizing their construction costs.</p> - -<p>Russian assessments also conclude that the Russian military will need to improve its ability to counter unmanned systems. While Russia needs to develop and produce unmanned systems, so will its state and non-state adversaries. UASs will increasingly proliferate to state and non-state actors because the barriers to acquisition are so low. Many are inexpensive and commercially available. In addition, some Russian analysis suggests that advancements in engines, energy-saving technologies (such as high-energy solar arrays made from silicon, lithium, iron, and phosphate technologies), batteries, and lightweight material will increase the range, speed, and payload capacities of UASs.</p> - -<p>Russian assessments generally conclude that surface-to-air missiles and artillery are not cost effective against UASs. In addition, ground radar detection of micro- and mini-UASs will be difficult because UASs can hover for protracted periods and some types have a low Doppler frequency, making them difficult to detect. As one Russian assessment concludes, “The use of drones at all levels of armed formations, as well as the range of missions they perform, will constantly expand. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years. Thus, a program for designing and developing specialized radars and weapons of the given and prospective classes of micro- and mini-UAVs needs to be adopted.”</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/60gS6uC.png" alt="image03" /> -<em>▲ <strong>Figure 3.1: Russian Assessments of Vulnerable UAS Components.</strong> Source: Г.А. Лопин, Г.И. Смирнов, И.Н. Ткачёв [G.A. Lopin, G.I. Smirnov, and I.N. Tkachov], “Развитие Средств Борьбы С Беспилотными Летательными Аппаратами” [Development of Assets to Counter Unmanned Vehicles], Военная мысль [Military Thought] 32, no. 2 (June 2023): 58–67.</em></p> - -<p>Consequently, Russia is working on possible solutions that target critical subsystems of UASs using advanced electronic warfare systems, lasers, microwave weapons, and acoustic weapons. As Figure 3.1 highlights based on one Russian analysis, electronic warfare may be particularly useful against UAS electronic assets and optoelectronic systems, lasers against all key subsystems, microwaves against electronic assets and optoelectronic systems, acoustics against engines and electronic assets, and strike against all major subsystems. Electronic warfare appears to be especially promising for Russian military analysts.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Ey8LzKa.png" alt="image04" /> -<em>▲ <strong>Figure 3.2: Russian Analysis of UASs to Counter Unmanned Systems.</strong> Sources: Мариам Мохаммад, В. Н. Похващев, Л. Б. Рязанцев [Mariam Mohammad, V.N. Pokhvashchev, and L.B. Ryazantsev], “К Вопросу Повышения Эффективности Противодействия Малоразмерным Беспилотным Летательным Аппаратам” [Improving the Efficiency of Countering Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles], Военная мысль [Military Thought] 31, no. 4 (December 2022), 71.</em></p> - -<p>Russia has devoted research and development resources to examine various ways to counter UASs, such as installing miniature radars on UASs to double or triple the range for detecting incoming UASs. As Figure 3.2 highlights, this could include UASs operating in threatened sectors, while transmitters on antenna masts illuminate the reconnaissance area from protected positions.</p> - -<p><strong>Emerging Technologies</strong>: Another major theme of Russian military thinking is the growing importance of emerging technologies. As Russian strategic thinkers recognize, the United States and other NATO countries are investing in significant technological innovations. The previous section highlighted one area: unmanned systems. This section examines several others that Russian military thinkers believe may be important for future warfare.</p> - -<p>One emerging technology is the use of AI. According to some Russian analyses, AI will lead to the emergence of new forms of offense and defense, such as swarms, autonomous unmanned systems, global cyber operations, and missile defense. As one Russian assessment concludes, the future will likely include “the emergence of highly autonomous combat systems in all areas of armed struggle, the transition from individual tactical unit control (items of weapons, military, and specialized hardware) and tactical groups to control systems based on AI.” Russia is engaged in AI development in multiple areas, such as image identification, speech recognition, control of autonomous military systems, and information support for weapons.</p> - -<p>Another example is hypersonic technology. Hypersonic weapons combine the speed and range of ballistic missiles with the low altitude and maneuverability profile of a cruise missile, making them difficult to detect and capable of quickly striking targets. As one Russian assessment concludes, future warfare will involve the “widespread proliferation of hypersonic weapons in the air environment and supersonic weapons in the marine environment.” The Russian military is particularly interested in hypersonic technology because hypersonic cruise and ballistic missiles can overcome an adversary’s integrated air and missile defense and destroy its retaliatory strike systems.</p> - -<p>The Russian military is also interested in the future military application of other technologies, such as biotechnology, telecommunications, nanotechnology, quantum computing, stealth technology, laser weapons, and directed energy weapons.</p> - -<p>While this section highlights Russian interest in integrating emerging technology into its military, Russia is not a global leader in many of these technologies. Consequently, Moscow will likely lag behind such countries as the United States and China, which are pouring more money into the defense sector and have much greater capabilities. Russia has also suffered from a brain drain of talent in the technology sector. More founders of “unicorn” startups — privately held startup companies with a value of over $1 billion — leave Russia than any other country, according to one study. Another assesses that the Russian tech sector is hemorrhaging and is in danger of being “cut off from the global tech industry, research funding, scientific exchanges, and critical components.”</p> - -<p><strong>Hybrid Warfare</strong>: Finally, Russian military thinkers assess that the future of warfare will include a combination of both state and non-state actors involved in regular and irregular operations, which may be best characterized as hybrid warfare. The concept of hybrid warfare has a long and rich tradition in Russian military thinking. Over the past several years, Russia has used government forces (such as special operations forces and intelligence units) and non-government forces (such as private military companies and Lebanese Hezbollah) to conduct extraterritorial actions. The Russian military may be cautious about leveraging some types of non-state or quasi-state actors in light of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s tension with the Russian military and insurrection against the Russian government in June 2023. But hybrid warfare will likely remain important for the Russian state. In fact, Russia’s challenges in conducting conventional warfare in Ukraine may increase Moscow’s proclivity for hybrid warfare, especially against the United States and other NATO countries that have superior conventional capabilities.</p> - -<p>According to Russian analyses, future warfare will continue to involve non-state actors. After all, Russian analysts believe that such adversaries as the United States will utilize a wide range of non-state actors in the future to sow discord and instability. Based on the Ukraine case, Russian analyses also assume that adversaries such as the United States will use Western companies in multiple domains of warfare, including cyber (such as Microsoft and Amazon) and space (such as SpaceX, Hawkeye 360, and Maxar).</p> - -<h4 id="force-design-1">FORCE DESIGN</h4> - -<p>This section examines Russian thinking on force design, based in part on Russian assessments about the future of warfare. It focuses on several aspects of force design: land, air, maritime, cyber, and space. Chapter 4 then examines the challenges Moscow will likely face in implementing many of these changes.</p> - -<p>Russian military thinking about force design is based on an assumption that the United States — and NATO more broadly — will be Russia’s main enemy (главный враг) and greatest threat for the foreseeable future. Russian leaders have expressed concern about the expansion of NATO to Finland and Sweden, as well as the buildup of Western forces — especially U.S. forces — on NATO’s eastern flank. In addition, Russian political and military leaders assess that Russia’s struggles in Ukraine have been due to U.S. and broader NATO aid.</p> - -<p>Consequently, Russia has closely examined U.S. force design efforts, such as the U.S. Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030. Force Design 2030 is in some ways an odd concept for Moscow to examine since it focuses on fighting a maritime conflict in the Indo-Pacific. But there are some broader discussions of the importance of precision fires and logistics in a contested environment. As Force Design 2030 concludes, the future of the U.S. Marine Corps will center around such capabilities as:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>Long-range precision fires; medium- to long-range air defense systems; short-range (point defense) air defense systems; high-endurance, long-range unmanned systems with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), Electronic Warfare (EW), and lethal strike capabilities; and disruptive and less-lethal capabilities appropriate for countering malign activity by actors pursuing maritime “gray zone” strategies.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Russian military thinkers have also followed discussions about the U.S. military’s Joint Warfighting Concept and other efforts that outline U.S. views about future threats and force design. Russian analyses generally assume that the United States will attempt to conduct several actions that impact Russian force design:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>Destroy early warning systems, air defense, missile defense, electronic warfare, and long-range precision weapons systems and capabilities;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Destroy or disable critical civilian and government installations, as well as key parts of the defense industrial base;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Disrupt command and control systems; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Disrupt transport infrastructure facilities.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>The rest of this section examines five areas: land, air, maritime, space, and cyber.</p> - -<p><strong>Land</strong>: Russian force design in land warfare will likely focus on revitalizing the Russian army over the next five years. Russia’s offensive maneuver formations in Ukraine have been heavily weighted toward artillery, armor, support, and enablers rather than infantry. This structure has undermined Russia’s ability to operate in urban terrain, support armor with dismounted infantry, conduct effective combined arms operations, and control terrain. There have also been shortages of key personnel, from enablers to logistics. The BTG structure is likely better suited to small-scale wars than to a large-scale conventional war.</p> - -<p>Russian design of land forces may include several aspects, based on Russian military thinking.</p> - -<p>First, there will likely be a continuing shift away from BTGs to divisions to prepare for deterrence and warfighting against NATO. In particular, the Russian army will likely continue to move away from battalion formations to infantry, marine, and airborne divisions. This would mark a significant shift away from the changes implemented under former minister of defense Anatoly Serdyukov, who scrapped the Soviet-era structure of the armed forces that included large divisions as part of the “New Look” reforms. A substantial number of Seryukov’s changes are likely to be reversed over the next several years.</p> - -<p>For example, Russian military leaders have indicated an intention to create at least nine new divisions: five artillery divisions, including super-heavy artillery brigades for building artillery reserves; two air assault divisions in the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV), bringing its force structure to roughly equal with Soviet times; and two motorized infantry divisions integrated into combined arms forces. The Ministry of Defense will likely transform seven motorized infantry brigades into motorized infantry divisions in the Western, Central, and Eastern Districts, as well as in the Northern Fleet. It will also likely expand an army corps in Karelia, across the border from Finland. In addition, each combined arms (tank) army may have a composite aviation division within it and an army aviation brigade with 80 to 100 combat helicopters under the control of ground force units — not the Russian Aerospace Forces. This decision was likely a result of the poor joint operations in Ukraine, especially air-land battle, though it does not fix poor coordination between Russian land and air forces.</p> - -<p>As part of a restructuring plan, the military also re-established the Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts as joint force strategic territorial units within the armed forces. This was another blow to the Serdyukov “New Look” reforms, since he had condensed six military districts into four, as well as changed their command-and-control relationships. The Western Military District’s failure during the invasion of Ukraine may have contributed to its downfall. The Russian military will also likely increase the number of contract service members, or kontraktniki (контрактники), and raise the age ceiling for conscription.</p> - -<p>Second, the Russian army may experiment with different formations at the tactical level, according to some Russian military thinkers. During the war in Ukraine, Russian infantry structures at the tactical level have evolved from deploying uniform BTGs as combined arms units to a stratified division by function into line, assault, specialized, and disposable troops. These infantry unit types might be formed into task-organized groupings in the future.</p> - -<p>For example, line units could be largely used for holding territory and conducting defensive operations, and they could be based on mechanized units. They may not receive specific assault training, ensuring that they are largely used for defensive tasks. Assault units might include battalion-sized forces that are essentially reinforced battalions with a focus on urban and rural assault operations, including VDV and naval infantry units. They would receive additional training, perhaps akin to U.S. or other light infantry forces, and would likely be a skilled and valuable asset. Specialized units, particularly infantry, could be generated through the normal Russian recruitment and training system, and they might include VDV or Spetsnaz. In ground combat, they would likely be held back from the front lines, fight from well-defended positions, and include snipers, artillery spotters, and support weapon operators. Disposable units might be drawn from local militias, private military companies, or under-trained mobilized Russian civilians. These forces might be assigned the initial advances to adversary positions and would likely be susceptible to high casualties. They could be used for skirmishing in order to identify adversary firing positions, which are then targeted by specialized infantry, or to find weak points in defenses that could be prioritized for assault.</p> - -<p>Third, the Russian army will likely attempt to restructure its units to allow for more mobility in the field. The Russian Ministry of Defense has already indicated a desire to focus on motorized rifle and air assault divisions. The evolution of Ukraine to a war of attrition has been costly for Russian ground forces. With the growth in non-contact warfare and long-range precision strike, concentrated forces are likely to be highly vulnerable in the future. Some solutions for Russian units may include greater autonomy among soldiers at the squad, platoon, and company levels; standardized equipment among forces to maximize interchangeability; and a clearer understanding of the commander’s intent before operations begin. Each of these groups should have its own artillery mortars, field guns, launchers, UASs, and additional equipment.</p> - -<p>Fourth, Russian military thinkers have encouraged greater decentralization of Russian units, though this may be difficult in a military without a significant culture of delegation. Some assessments have concluded that Russian forces have lacked sufficient initiative in Ukraine because of poor training and command-and-control arrangements. As one assessment noted, Russian “commanders of primary tactical units (platoon, squad, crew, or team) have poor skills in organizing and performing independent actions. This, in turn, leads to the fact that when command and control is excessively centralized during combat, military units instinctively gather in dense combat formations, marching columns, and concentration areas.” These problems can lead to “sluggishness, situational blindness, and vulnerability of the tactical or operational groups. As a result, an adversary with low density and network-structured combat formations . . . has an undeniable advantage over such unwieldy, sluggish, and vulnerable groups.”</p> - -<p>Due to the over-centralization of Russia’s military command structure in the early stages of the war in Ukraine, Russian officers deployed increasingly close to the front — even for brief visits. This risky decision made them targets for Ukrainian strikes and resulted in high casualties among senior officers. The loss of senior- and mid-level officers, who played a large role in tactical operations, undermined command-and-control and initiative at lower-unit levels. One proposed solution in Russian military thinking is a reduction in the size of active tactical units on the battlefield. A frontal assault might involve a reinforced motorized rifle battalion with extended intervals between squad, platoon, and company formations. According to one proponent of this structure, “One of the new features of modern combined arms combat (combat operations) is the reduction of the main, active tactical unit on the battlefield while increasing the number of such units. The latter enjoy increased autonomy; in addition, they are homogeneous and independent, and horizontal coordination between them is important.”</p> - -<p>Fifth, Russian land forces may struggle to restructure their relationship with non-state and quasi-state actors, including Russian private military companies. As already noted, Russian military analyses assume that Russia, like many of its competitors, will continue to work with irregular forces in future wars. Following Prigozhin’s insurrection in June 2023, however, the Russian military began an effort to reintegrate the Wagner Group and other contractors into the military. Following the death of Prigozhin in August 2023, almost certainly at Putin’s instruction, the Russian government will likely attempt to reign in the Wagner Group and other private military companies under tighter Russian command-and-control.</p> - -<p><strong>Air</strong>: Force design in the air domain will also involve some reversals of reforms initiated by Serdyukov, as well as a major focus on UASs. Some of these changes are likely to be a reaction to problems encountered in Ukraine, while others are meant to deal with an expanded NATO viewed as a more significant threat and growing U.S. capabilities in global strike.</p> - -<p>In Ukraine, the Russian Aerospace Forces (Воздушно-космические силы, or VKS) has failed to achieve air superiority against a Ukrainian military with reasonable air defense capabilities, such as SA-10 and SA-11 surface-to-air missile systems, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), IRIS-T SL mobile air defense systems, and Patriot batteries. The success of Ukrainian air defenses, as well as the failure of Russian suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) operations to take out Ukrainian air defense capabilities, has deterred Russian aircraft from operating over most of Ukrainian-controlled territory. This means that Russia’s primary option to strike deep into Ukraine has been through cruise and ballistic missiles launched from Russia, Belarus, Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine, or maritime vessels in the Black Sea. In a war with U.S. and NATO forces, Russian air units would face an exponentially greater air defense threat.</p> - -<p>As part of future restructuring, the Russian military has raised the possibility of increasing the size of the VKS by nine aviation regiments, including eight bomber regiments and one fighter regiment. This addition would come on top of three existing bomber regiments and six fighter regiments, as well as five mixed regiments with fighter and ground-attack units, four long-range bomber squadrons, and one expeditionary fighter squadron. In addition, the Russian Ministry of Defense created three new operational commands of aviation divisions within the Russian air force. This restructuring was a significant departure from the 2009 changes initiated by Serdyukov. He attempted to scrap the Russian air force’s regimental structure inherited from the Soviet Union and to transition to the airbase as the main structural unit composed of squadrons. But Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reversed several of Serdyukov’s decisions, and an aviation regiment became roughly comparable to an airbase in size.</p> - -<p>In addition, the Russian military will likely expand the use of UASs into the overall plan for structuring, staffing, training, and equipping air forces — as well as land and maritime forces. The Russians are not alone. The evolution of UASs is one of the most significant components of future force design, including with the U.S. focus on a range of unmanned systems such as the collaborative combat aircraft, loitering munitions, and fully autonomous UASs. UASs are likely to be a critical part of Russia’s reconnaissance-strike complex.</p> - -<p>There are several Russian themes about unmanned systems and the future of warfare.</p> - -<p>First, UASs may increasingly replace some types of missiles, artillery, and even fixed-wing aircraft for medium- and long-range strike for air, land, and maritime forces. UASs will likely be integrated into key areas of the force, including land forces described in the previous section. According to some Russian assessments, future UASs with advances in precision, speed, payload, and range will likely offer several advantages over manned fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters: low radar visibility, an ability to perform most of the combat flight in complete silence, relatively low cost, and no casualties. In addition, Russian military thinkers have also raised the possibility that UASs could operate in low Earth orbit, though it is unclear whether Russia has the technical capability to achieve this over the next three to five years. As one Russian analysis notes: “Unmanned aerospace attack weapons capable of operating both in air space and in outer space, performing numerous high-altitude maneuvers, will become widespread.”</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/OwfOBCl.png" alt="image05" /> -<em>▲ <strong>Figure 3.3: Main Types and Payloads of Proposed Russian Cargo UASs.</strong> Sources: А. В. Топоров, М. С. Бондарь, Р. В. Ахметьянов [A.V. Toporov, M.S. Bondar, and R.V. Akhmetyanov], “Материально-техническая Поддержка В Бою И Операции: Проблемный Вопрос И Направления Его Разрешения” [Logistical Support in Combat and Operations: A Problem and Potential Solutions],” Военная мысль [Military Thought] 32, no. 2 (June 2023), 25.</em></p> - -<p>Second, Russia is interested in utilizing unmanned systems for military logistics in contested environments, though the Russian military has not yet operationalized this capability. An important goal is to develop and use UASs and other unmanned systems to deliver weapons, munitions, food, fuel, and other supplies to land, naval, and air forces. Used in this way, Russian forces would need to develop the necessary infrastructure, organizational structures, and processing systems to facilitate the use of UASs for logistics. As illustrated in Figure 3.3, there has been some Russian analysis about the different types and payloads necessary for cargo UASs.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Seo3aZt.png" alt="image06" /> -<em>▲ <strong>Figure 3.4: Diagram of the System for Cargo UASs.</strong> Sources: А. В. Топоров, М. С. Бондарь, Р. В. Ахметьянов [A.V. Toporov, M.S. Bondar, and R.V. Akhmetyanov], “Материально-техническая поддержка в бою и операции: проблемный вопрос и направления” [Logistical Support in Combat and Operations: A Problem and Potential Solutions], Военная мысль [Military Thought] 32, no. 2 (June 2023): 17–31.</em></p> - -<p>The use of UASs for logistics will require new organizational structures. There is some consideration of a new special-purpose logistics service for the Russian military, as highlighted in Figure 3.4.</p> - -<p>Some Russian assessments judge that fixed-wing manned aircraft — especially fighter aircraft — may be less relevant in the future. As one Russian assessment concluded:</p> - -<blockquote> - <p>Unmanned aviation has gained prevalence in airspace over manned aviation in performing air reconnaissance and target acquisition. Special significance in performing strike missions both over the front line and in the depth of Ukrainian territory has been demonstrated by strike UAS capable of delivering considerable destruction to both small moving targets and large installations of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>There is considerable Russian interest in such U.S. programs as the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation air superiority initiative, including a U.S. Air Force manned fighter aircraft and a supported unmanned collaborative combat aircraft using manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T). To compete with the U.S. B-21, Russia will still likely continue its future long-range aviation complex (Prospective Aviation Complex of Long-Range Aviation, or PAK DA) project, with a subsonic low-observable flying wing and stealth capabilities. Russia will also continue its next-generation Tu-160M Blackjack strategic bomber. Some Russian analyses on sixth-generation aircraft emphasize the importance of developing technology that increases stealth; maximizes networking capabilities; integrates highly sensitive sensors; and develops hypersonic modes of flight, including near-space entry capability. For Russia, a major component of sixth-generation fighters is the “system of systems” concept to integrate aircraft into a broader system of surface ships, ground forces, command centers, satellites, and other manned and unmanned aircraft.</p> - -<p><strong>Maritime</strong>: Unlike the army, the Russian navy remains largely intact. It lost the Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, and several auxiliaries. But Russia’s four fleets — the Northern, Baltic, Black Sea, and Pacific Fleets — and Caspian Flotilla are still in reasonable shape. Nevertheless, Russia’s future force design may evolve in several ways, based on a review of Russian military thinking.</p> - -<p>First, Russian leaders have expressed an interest in strengthening Russian naval forces — including submarines — in response to growing tensions with the United States and NATO. The Ministry of Defense has announced a desire to create five naval infantry brigades for the navy’s coastal troops based on existing naval infantry brigades. This expansion followed Russia’s adoption of a new maritime doctrine in July 2022, which identified the United States and NATO as major threats. In addition, the doctrine expressed an interest in building modern aircraft carriers, though it also highlighted the challenges of Russia’s lack of overseas naval bases and the constraints on Russia’s shipbuilding industry because of the West’s economic sanctions. Senior Russian officials have identified nuclear-powered submarines as critical in future force design.</p> - -<p>Second, the Russian navy will likely increase the presence of unmanned maritime vessels as part of force design. As one assessment notes: “Direct armed confrontation between ships will become predominantly auxiliary in nature. In the Navy, similar to the Aerospace Forces, the proportion of surface and submarine unmanned ships, both attack and support (reconnaissance, EW [electronic warfare], communications, transport), will increase significantly.” Along these lines, navies will likely position their crewed vessels — such as frigates, cruisers, corvettes, patrol boats, and destroyers — outside of the range of enemy fire and serve as control centers and carriers for unmanned vessels and UASs. Future warfare in the naval domain will increasingly involve armed confrontation between unmanned ships and UASs, including in swarms.</p> - -<p><strong>Space and Cyber</strong>: Military space and counterspace capabilities fall under the Russian Space Forces, which sits within the VKS.</p> - -<p>Russia will likely attempt to expand its counterspace capabilities, including kinetic physical weapons, such as direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons in low Earth orbit and co-orbital weapons; non-kinetic physical weapons, such as ground-based laser systems; electronic capabilities, including GPS jamming; and cyber intrusions. However, there is little evidence that Russia is likely to implement any major changes in force design in the space domain, and Russia has been hampered by sanctions and a loss of international partnerships and funding. One example of Russian struggles in the space domain was the August 2023 crash of the Luna-25 spacecraft, which was Russia’s first space launch to the moon’s surface since the 1970s.</p> - -<p>Russia will likely attempt to expand its cyber capabilities under the GRU, SVR, and FSB, though Russia does not have a cyber command. The Presidential Administration and the Security Council coordinate cyber operations, but they are not a true cyber command. It is unclear whether Russia will create a veritable cyber command. What may be more likely is that Russian organizations, such as the GRU (including GRU Unit 26165, or the 85th Main Special Service Center), will recruit additional personnel, build new infrastructure, and increase their offensive cyber activities.</p> - -<p>While a priority, Russian offensive cyber operations have failed to significantly blind Ukrainian command-and-control efforts or threaten critical infrastructure for a prolonged period. In the early phases of the invasion of Ukraine, for example, cyberattackers associated with the GRU, SVR, and FSB launched cyberattacks against hundreds of systems in the Ukrainian government and in Ukraine’s energy, information technology, media, and financial sectors. Examples of Russian malware have included WhisperGate/WhisperKill, FoxBlade (or Hermetic Wiper), SonicVote (or HermeticRansom), and CaddyWiper. But Russian cyber operations have failed to undermine Ukraine’s ability or will to fight, in part because of outside state and non-state assistance to Ukraine to identify cyber and electronic warfare attacks, attribute attacks to the perpetrators, and assist with remediation.</p> - -<p>In addition, a number of Russian military thinkers continue to focus on electronic warfare as a key aspect of force design. This includes using the electromagnetic spectrum — such as radio, infrared, and radar — to sense, protect, and communicate, as well as to disrupt or deny adversaries the ability to use these signals. The demand for electronic warfare products will also likely trigger a growing push for electronic warfare technologies, including AI, so that electronic warfare systems can operate in the dense radio-frequency environment of the battlefield.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-1">CONCLUSION</h4> - -<p>As this chapter argued, most Russian military thinkers believe that while the nature of warfare remains the same, the character of warfare is evolving in such areas as long-range, high-precision weapons; autonomous and unmanned systems; emerging technologies, such as AI; and the utility of non-state and quasi-state actors in warfare. In these and other areas, Russian leaders assess that it will be critical to cooperate with other countries, especially China. In addition, Russian political and military leaders are committed to a major reconstitution of the Russian military — especially the Russian army — over the next several years. Russia is likely to adopt a force design that centers around the division, yet also attempt to create forces that are more mobile and decentralized.</p> - -<p>Achieving many of these goals will be challenging, if not impossible, as the next chapter explains. Russian leaders may want to make numerous changes, but they will be highly constrained. Russia faces a suite of financial, military, political, social, and other issues that will force political and military leaders to prioritize changes in force design. Building a bigger navy and air force will be expensive, as will increasing the size of Russian ground forces by 22 total divisions. Moscow plans to boost its defense budget in 2024 to roughly 6 percent of gross domestic product, up from 3.9 percent in 2023. But this increase will not be sufficient to implement all the changes Moscow’s leaders have discussed.</p> - -<p>While it is impossible to predict with certainty how Russian leaders will prioritize force design changes, likely candidates are ones that are relatively cheap or essential to improve fighting effectiveness.</p> - -<p>Russia will likely prioritize rebuilding its army, which suffered significant attrition during the war in Ukraine and failed in numerous areas such as combined arms operations. Russia’s army is essential to fight a protracted war in Ukraine and deter NATO. Indeed, it is difficult to envision Russia developing a modern force mix until it overhauls the army. Based on a review of Russian military assessments, it is reasonable to assume that the army will focus on restructuring its land forces around divisions; developing fires-centric capabilities, such as long-range artillery and laser-guided shells that maximize accuracy; and experimenting with tactical organizational structures that allow for greater mobility and autonomy against adversaries that have precision strike capabilities.</p> - -<p>In the air domain, Russia will likely invest its limited resources in developing a broad suite of unmanned systems and long-range precision strike capabilities. UASs will likely be essential for future Russian warfighting to conduct a wide of missions, such as logistics in a contested environment, battlefield awareness, targeting for medium- and long-range fires, strike, information operations, and electronic warfare. In Ukraine, Russia increased the complexity, diversity, and density of UASs, with more lethal warheads and advances in noise reduction and counter-UAS capabilities. Russia will also continue to invest heavily in electronic warfare, based in part on successes of the Zhitel R330-Zh, Pole-21, and other systems in Ukraine.</p> - -<p>In the maritime domain, Russia will likely focus on submarines and unmanned systems. Submarines are essential for Russia’s nuclear deterrence posture. Of particular focus may be construction of the Project 955A (Borei-A) class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which are built at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk. They are armed with Bulava submarine launched ballistic missiles, and Russia is continuing to develop technologies that reduce their acoustic signature. The Borei-class submarines will replace Russia’s ageing, Soviet-era Delta III-class and Delta IV-class ballistic missile submarines. More broadly, Russia is likely to prioritize maintenance of the nuclear triad, including its submarines, which is Moscow’s main guarantee of security with a degraded conventional land force.</p> - -<p>The Russian military will also likely focus on revitalizing its industrial base, with support from China, North Korea, Iran, and other countries. This means outsourcing some weapons systems (such as UASs) and components that Russian can’t manufacture in sufficient quantities or lacks the technology or parts. As the war in Ukraine highlighted, an important prerequisite for offense and defense is fires dominance. Russia will likely focus on building stockpiles of precision munitions for both Ukraine and NATO’s eastern front.</p> - -<p>The next chapter examines Russian challenges in implementing many of these reforms.</p> - -<h3 id="4-conclusion">4 CONCLUSION</h3> - -<p>This chapter focuses on implications for the United States and NATO and makes two main arguments. First, Russian views of the future of warfare and efforts to restructure the military will likely be shaped by a strong view that the United States and NATO represent a clear and present threat to Moscow. The West’s aid to Ukraine, expansion of NATO to Finland and likely Sweden, deployment of forces along NATO’s eastern flank, and continuing military buildup will likely increase Moscow’s perception of insecurity. Second, Moscow will likely face considerable challenges in implementing many of its changes. Moscow’s lagging economy, rampant corruption, strained defense industrial base, and stovepiped military structure will likely create significant hurdles in implementing Russian force design goals. Despite these challenges, Russia still possesses some formidable capabilities with its strategic forces, navy, and air force.</p> - -<p>The rest of this chapter is divided into three sections. The first examines the United States as Russia’s main enemy. The second section assesses challenges in implementing Russian force design. The third provides a brief summary.</p> - -<h4 id="russias-main-enemy">RUSSIA’S MAIN ENEMY</h4> - -<p>The United States — and NATO more broadly — will likely remain Russia’s main enemy for the foreseeable future for at least two reasons.</p> - -<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/gc4xzNY.png" alt="image07" /> -<em>▲ <strong>Figure 4.1: Number of Soviet and Russian Soldiers Killed, 1950 to 2023.</strong> Source: Author’s compilation. See endnotes for more details.</em></p> - -<p>First, Russian political and military leaders assess that the country’s struggles in Ukraine have been largely due to U.S. and broader NATO assistance. As highlighted in Figure 4.1, the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine during the first year of the war was greater than the combined number of Russian soldiers killed in all Russian and Soviet wars since World War II. As one senior Russian diplomat remarked about Ukraine, “The United States became a direct participant of this conflict long ago, and they have long been waging a hybrid war against my country. Ukraine is only an instrument in their hands, a tip of the spear held by the US-led collective West. Their goal is to destroy a sovereign, independent Russia as a factor in international politics.” This view that the United States and NATO are direct participants in the Ukraine war will likely persist and shape Moscow’s views of the future of war and force design.</p> - -<p>Second, Russian leaders believe that the United States is expanding its influence, attempting to further encircle Russia, and trying to weaken Russia militarily, politically, and economically. NATO’s June 2022 summit in Madrid also unambiguously stated that the “Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” In addition, the U.S. Department of Defense deployed or extended over 20,000 additional forces to Europe, bringing the total number of U.S. personnel in Europe to over 100,000. Examples included the deployment of an Armored Brigade Combat Team, a High-Mobility Rocket Artillery Battalion (HIMARS) battalion, and KC-135 refueling aircraft, among other forces. Other steps of concern to Russia have included:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>A permanent forward station of V Corps Headquarters Forward Command Post, an Army garrison headquarters, and a field support battalion in Poland;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The deployment of an additional rotational brigade combat team in Romania;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Enhanced rotational deployments in the Baltics;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>An increase in the number of destroyers stationed at Rota, Spain, from four to six;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The forward stationing of two F-35 squadrons in the United Kingdom;</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The forward stationing of an air defense artillery brigade headquarters, a short-range air defense battalion, a combat sustainment support battalion headquarters, and an engineer brigade headquarters in Germany; and</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>The forward stationing of a short-range air defense battery in Italy.</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>While these steps are a reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and entirely legitimate, they have increased Russian fears of encirclement. As Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu remarked at the December 2022 meeting of Russian’s Defense Ministry Board, “Of particular concern is the buildup of NATO’s advance presence near the borders of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus . . . to further weaken our country.” Shoigu also noted, “Considering NATO’s aspirations to build up its military capabilities close to the Russian border, as well as expand the alliance by accepting Finland and Sweden as new members, we need to respond by creating a corresponding group of forces in Russia’s northwest.”</p> - -<p>The result is that the Russia’s insecurity and animosity toward the West — and the United States in particular — will likely deepen. These sentiments will likely drive a desire to reconstitute the Russian military over the next several years, strengthen nuclear and conventional deterrence, and prepare to fight the West if deterrence fails. Russian military thinking on the future of warfare and force design is dominated by a view that the United States is — and will remain — Moscow’s primary enemy.</p> - -<h4 id="challenges-to-force-design">CHALLENGES TO FORCE DESIGN</h4> - -<p>Russia faces enormous challenges in implementing its force design, despite its ambitions. Russia’s military almost certainly lacks the caliber of some of the great historical Russian and Soviet military thinkers, such as Mikhail Tuchachevsky, Aleksandr Svechin, Vladimir Triandafilov, and Georgii Isserson. As noted earlier in this report, Russian military journals generally lack innovative thought and self-criticism, almost certainly a result of Russia’s increasingly authoritarian climate. In addition, Russia’s military has been unable to attract the best and brightest of young Russians in the face of competition from the civilian labor market, despite some pay raises.</p> - -<p>There are at least five additional challenges to Russian force design over the next several years.</p> - -<p>First, Russia’s deepening economic crisis will likely constrain its efforts to expand the quantity and quality of its ground, air, and naval forces. The war in Ukraine has fueled Russia’s worst labor crunch in decades; hundreds of thousands of workers have fled the country or have been sent to fight in Ukraine, weakening an economy weighed down by economic sanctions and international isolation. The country’s biggest exports — gas and oil — have lost major customers. Government finances have been strained and the ruble has decreased against the dollar. Numerous Western banks, investors, and companies have fled Russia and its financial markets. In addition, the International Monetary Fund has estimated that Russia’s potential growth rate — the rate at which it could grow without courting inflation — was around 3.5 percent before 2014, the year Russia seized Crimea, but fell to around roughly 0.7 percent in 2023 as productivity declined and the economy became increasingly isolated. The fall in exports, tight labor market, and increased government spending have worsened inflation risks.</p> - -<p>Russian force design will not be cheap. The Russian army wants to create new divisions and recruit additional soldiers, which will drive up costs because of salaries, signing bonuses, healthcare, lodging, food, equipment, and other factors. Russia will need to make military service more attractive. For example, housing remains a problem for Russian officers with families, and salaries have not kept pace with inflation for several years. The development and production of emerging technologies can be enormously expensive. So are major platforms, such as bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, and fifth- and sixth-generation aircraft.</p> - -<p>Second, corruption remains rampant in the Russian military, which could undermine Moscow’s overall plan to structure, staff, train, and equip its forces. Corruption has long been a problem in the Russian military. In Ukraine, the Russian military has provided some soldiers on the front lines with ration packs that were seven years old, other soldiers have crowdsourced for body armor because Russian supplies dried up, some have sold fuel on the black market that was intended for Russian main battle tanks and other vehicles, and supply chains have failed. Russian morale likely has suffered. Russian soldiers have also engaged in false reporting, committed outright theft, overstated the number of enlistees in some units (and skimmed the difference), and conducted other forms of graft. Corruption in the Russian military is not surprising. According to some estimates, one-fifth or more of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s budget is siphoned off by officials. These factors help explain why former Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev referred to the Russian armed forces as a “Potemkin military.”</p> - -<p>Third, Russia’s defense industrial base will likely face at least two types of challenges which could impact force design. One is replacement of losses from the war in Ukraine. Russia has already expended significant amounts of precision-guided and other munitions in the Ukraine war, and many of its weapons and equipment have been destroyed or severely worn down. According to some estimates, for example, Russia lost approximately 50 percent of its modern T-72B3 and T-72B3M main battle tanks over the first year of the war, along with roughly two-thirds of its T-80BV/U tanks. A protracted war in Ukraine will likely compound these challenges. Replacing these losses will be necessary before implementing new initiatives or building new forces.</p> - -<p>Another challenge is that economic sanctions will likely create shortages of higher-end foreign components and may force Moscow to substitute them with lower-quality alternatives. These challenges could impact Russia’s ability to manufacture, sustain, and produce advanced weapons and technology. As Russia’s 2022 maritime doctrine concluded, one of the main risks to Russia’s maritime activities is “the introduction of restrictions, which include the transfer of modern technologies, deliveries of equipment and attraction of long-term investments, imposed by a number of states against Russian shipbuilding enterprises of the defense industrial complex and oil and gas companies.” Supply-chain problems have also delayed deliveries. Money to replace outdated machine tools and pay for research and development is lacking, while neglect of quality control is common. Continuing assistance from China, Iran, North Korea, and other countries could help ameliorate some of these challenges.</p> - -<p>Fourth, Russia may face a significant challenge because of growing civil-military tension. As Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington wrote in his book The Soldier and the State, “The military institutions of any society are shaped by two forces: a functional imperative stemming from the threats to the society’s security and a societal imperative arising from the social forces, ideologies, and institutions dominant within the society.” The need to balance military institutions and societal forces is no less true for Russia today. It is conceivable that tension between the Russian military and population could worsen over time because of a protracted war in Ukraine, a languishing economy, and an increasingly authoritarian state.</p> - -<p>The June 2023 rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin was one indicator of domestic frustration, although it is difficult to assess the breadth and depth of popular anger. A reconstitution of the Russian military will likely require some level of support and sacrifice from the Russian population.</p> - -<p>Fifth, Russia has struggled to coordinate strategy and operations across its services. Russian military exercises are often stovepiped, with poor coordination and limited jointness across the army, air force, and navy. The Russian military has failed to effectively conduct joint operations in Ukraine. These challenges raise major questions about whether the Russian military can create a truly joint force.</p> - -<h4 id="conclusion-2">CONCLUSION</h4> - -<p>In the months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. government assessments were generally accurate in predicting that Russian forces would invade Ukraine. But many were wrong in their assessment of the war’s outcome. Most assumed that Russian forces would defeat Ukrainian forces in a matter of days or weeks. But they overstated the effectiveness of Russian forces and understated the will to fight, combined arms capabilities, leadership, and morale of Ukrainian forces, political leaders, and the population. These errors may have occurred because it is generally easier to analyze tangible aspects of a military, such as doctrine and air, land, naval, cyber, and space capabilities, but much more difficult to assess the intangible aspects of warfare, including morale, will to fight, readiness, impact of corruption, and force employment.</p> - -<p>These analytical challenges raise important questions about how to assess Russian military reconstitution, views on the future of warfare, and force design. Moving forward, U.S. and allied policymakers should routinely ask and attempt to answer several questions regarding Russian views of warfare and force design:</p> - -<ul> - <li> - <p>How will Russia attempt to improve the “intangibles” of warfare, such as the will to fight and readiness?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>How will Russia prioritize its force design ambitions given its many competing needs?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Can Russia continue to secure significant support from China, Iran, North Korea, and other countries for its military, including technology, weapons systems, and money? How might such support impact force design?</p> - </li> - <li> - <p>Can Russia overcome historic problems, such as corruption? If so, how?</p> - </li> -</ul> - -<p>While there may be a temptation to examine Russian views of the future of warfare primarily through a Ukraine lens, this would be a mistake. The war in Ukraine has impacted Russian military thinking, but it is only one war at one point in time.</p> - -<p>In his book Strategy, Russian military leader and theorist Alexander Svechin remarked that “each war has to be matched with a special strategic behavior; each war constitutes a particular case that requires establishing its own special logic instead of applying some template.” Svechin believed in the uniqueness of war. The challenge in understanding Russian thinking about the future of warfare is to step back and attempt to understand how Russian leaders view the evolving international environment and to how they can best maximize their security given the resources at their disposal.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><strong>Seth G. Jones</strong> is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, director of the International Security Program, and director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He focuses on defense strategy, military operations, force posture, and irregular warfare. He leads a bipartisan team of over 50 resident staff and an extensive network of non-resident affiliates dedicated to providing independent strategic insights and policy solutions that shape national security. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.</p>Seth G. JonesRussian leaders are committed to a reconstitution of the Russian military — especially the Russian army — over the next several years, though achieving this goal will be challenging. In addition, Russia views the United States as its main enemy for the foreseeable future. \ No newline at end of file +<p><strong>Gregory C. Allen</strong> is the director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prior to joining CSIS, he was the director of strategy and policy at the Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, where he oversaw development and implementation of the DOD’s AI Strategy, drove policy and human capital reforms to accelerate the DOD’s adoption of AI, and developed mechanisms for AI governance and ethics.</p>Gregory C. AllenWith a new smartphone and new chip, Huawei has returned to the 5G smartphone business in defiance of U.S. sanctions. This report assesses the implications from this latest development for China’s AI industry and the future of semiconductor export controls. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/hkers/2023-12-04-too-fast-too-furious.html b/hkers/2023-12-04-too-fast-too-furious.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3e5344b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/hkers/2023-12-04-too-fast-too-furious.html @@ -0,0 +1,143 @@ + + + + + + + + + + Too Fast, Too Furious? · The Republic of Agora + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Too Fast, Too Furious?

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Cryptocurrency as Legal Tender

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Fatima Alsancak | 2023.12.04

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What can countries learn from recent experiments in adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender?

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Currently, only a handful of countries have decided to adopt cryptocurrency as a legal tender, most prominently among them El Salvador and the Central African Republic (CAR). While attracted by the potential economic and monetary incentives that this move has to offer, both countries have faced significant implementation challenges, threatening to undermine their objectives and any foreseeable economic benefits.

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As more countries – and developing economies in particular – have begun to consider integrating cryptocurrency into their national financial systems, these experiments highlight that adopting cryptocurrency as a national legal tender necessitates a certain level of preparedness, including appropriate infrastructure, public education, building trust and – last but not least – the establishment of robust financial crime prevention measures.

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Two Routes

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While El Salvador and the CAR sought to adopt cryptocurrency for similar reasons, their national experiences have been quite different.

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El Salvador took the step of adopting Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, with the goal of increasing investment and assisting citizens that lack access to traditional financial services. Initially, to integrate Bitcoin into its economy, the country contracted third-party companies to develop centralised cryptocurrency wallets known as “Chivo Wallets” and cryptocurrency ATMs. This government-funded project allows citizens to transfer funds quickly through the use of the “lightning network” – a solution that increased the speed of Bitcoin transactions – and without commission fees.

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The CAR moved to adopt Bitcoin in April 2022, but the government reversed its decision when the Constitutional Court declared the proposal unlawful a month after it was introduced. After this reversal, the government took a different route and created a partially Bitcoin-backed cryptocurrency, known as the Sango Coin, to be introduced in phases. The first phase would allow the public to buy into the crypto-backed currency, while the subsequent phases would allow the use of the currency for certain government services, like purchasing citizenship, e-residency and land. The CAR’s Constitutional Court ultimately rejected a scheme that would have allowed foreign investors to acquire citizenship for $60,000 worth of Sango Coins or a 250 square metre plot for $10,000 worth of Sango Coins, ruling that nationality cannot be priced in a market and that residency requires physical presence in the country.

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At the onset of the project, the coin also promoted the tokenisation of natural resources within the country. Despite the project not initially gaining traction, as of July 2023, the CAR National Assembly revisited the concept and passed a law allowing the tokenisation of land and natural resources.

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Same Motives, Different Challenges?

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The countries’ respective political leaders generally cited the potential economic benefits as their underlying rationale for promoting cryptocurrency as a national legal tender. Both countries regard this as an innovative solution to economic stagnation, poor revenue and foreign direct investment, and a reliance on third country-backed currencies. In the CAR, for example, its national currency – the CFA Franc – is backed by France and pegged to the Euro, with several restrictions in place, such as keeping 50% of the CAR’s foreign assets with the French Treasury. Some saw the CAR’s interest in cryptocurrencies as a political move away from France in an effort to lessen reliance.

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Both El Salvador and the Central African Republic suffer from a lack of appropriate infrastructure to fully realise the adoption of crypto

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But in addition to these legitimate economic concerns, both El Salvador and the CAR faced stark challenges in adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender.

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Firstly, both countries suffer from a lack of appropriate infrastructure to fully realise the adoption of crypto. For instance, in El Salvador, 40% of the population lacks access to the internet, a critical factor for allowing the cryptocurrency industry to flourish. Fewer than 60% of those who had internet access and mobile phones downloaded Chivo Wallet, and only 20% continued to use it. Also, according to estimates, 40% of all downloads occurred when it was launched in September 2021, and virtually no downloads took place in 2022. Meanwhile, in the CAR, according to 2021 estimates, only 11.4% of the country’s population has internet access, the electricity supply is patchy and unreliable, and mobile phone usage is low.

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Software reliability and cyber security safeguards have also become an issue for El Salvador. When the Bitcoin software first went online in the country, it struggled to verify the identity of its users. The public’s scepticism was exacerbated when hackers were able to create accounts and withdraw the $30 in Bitcoin that the country was offering to its citizens.

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Secondly, transparency has been a persistent problem. The president of El Salvador’s tweets, for example, have been the only source of information enabling the public to know the amount of Bitcoin that the government has bought or sold. Similarly, the CAR declared that a Treasury-maintained partial Bitcoin reserve would support the Sango Coin, although little information about the related technicalities has been made available to the general public. Consequently, public trust in these initiatives has been low. There have also been allegations that in the case of the CAR, adopting cryptocurrency would provide a convenient avenue for Russia to evade Western sanctions, given its close ties with the country.

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Thirdly, appropriate regulatory and legal regimes were not in place prior to the introduction of a government-sponsored cryptocurrency application. The lack of anti-financial crime measures, like Know Your Customer and transaction monitoring, presented a major risk of increased illicit financial flows, especially when converting cryptocurrency to fiat currency – a risk that could also spread beyond the country’s borders. In the CAR, experts conveyed their concerns over the increased risk of financial crime due to the adoption of Bitcoin, which would ultimately impact other countries in the region.

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What is clear is that adopting cryptocurrency as legal tender requires a certain amount of readiness in terms of digital infrastructure, transparency and accountability

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Finally, in addition to low transparency, the price volatility of Bitcoin has raised eyebrows as to whether or not these initiatives are truly worthwhile. Even though Bitcoin’s price volatility appears to be a better alternative for some countries than hyperinflation, El Salvador’s inflation rates are rather low, raising doubts about the effort. Besides, securing convertibility is a tough procedure with Bitcoin’s price fluctuation. Given that the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador is entirely sponsored by public funds via a trust, there is a major risk that the trust’s resources will be drained if the price of Bitcoin declines. According to estimates of the reported amount of Bitcoin purchased by El Salvador, the country has lost approximately $56 million as of June 2022. The IMF has proposed that El Salvador should support the trust through new resources or debt issuance to ensure financial stability and convertibility.

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Important Planning for Future Initiatives

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What is clear from the El Salvador and CAR experiments is that adopting cryptocurrency as legal tender requires a certain amount of readiness in terms of digital infrastructure, transparency and accountability. The most fundamental requirement is physical infrastructure. Countries must be prepared to ensure that the majority of the population has access to reliable electricity, the internet and smartphones.

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Firstly, transparency is key. There should be a continuous process of informing the public through official channels about advancements, Bitcoin reserves and other related topics. This should translate into teaching the public how to use crypto, as well as education on the financial risks that cryptocurrencies pose. One notable example is that El Salvador’s Ministry of Education intends to introduce a curriculum centred around Bitcoin in schools beginning in 2024.

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Secondly, countries also need a robust regulatory framework in place to reduce the risk of financial crime. Without proper implementation of cyber security procedures and anti-money laundering (AML) measures around government-funded cryptocurrency applications, there is inherently a higher risk of criminal exploitation. There is already a steady threat of cryptocurrency businesses being hacked. When government funds are involved, this draws more attention from both regular users and criminals alike, and the threat only increases.

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Ultimately, countries thinking about taking the same path would be remiss to ignore these lessons. While the adoption of cryptocurrency as legal tender may have advantages, problems such as a lack of trust, transparency and accountability, as well as the absence of appropriate infrastructure and robust financial crime prevention measures, may hinder the realisation of the desired economic benefits of cryptocurrency.

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Fatima Alsancak is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI focusing on countering proliferation financing.

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Comparing Conflicts In Gaza

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Conflict in Gaza, Past and Present

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Ehud Eilam | 2023.12.12

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With the outcome of the present confrontation between Israel and its opponents in Gaza remaining uncertain, a comparison with previous rounds of fighting may provide some insight into how events could develop.

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Following the traumatic attack it experienced on 7 October 2023, Israel completely changed its strategy for dealing with Hamas from containing and deterring the group to trying to destroy it. There are several scenarios for what might happen next. To determine how the present war is most likely to develop, it is essential to examine previous confrontations in the Gaza Strip.

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Since it took over in Gaza in 2007, Hamas and other groups – mostly the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – have engaged in a series of confrontations with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the two most significant of which were in 2008–2009 and in the summer of 2014. Other rounds of fighting were much smaller, such as those that occurred in November 2012, May 2021 and August 2022. Understanding the complexity and risks of the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip requires looking into the similarities and differences between previous confrontations and the current war.

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Victory in Sight?

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Israel fought several high-intensity wars with Arab states between 1948 and 1982. Since 1982, the IDF has confronted only Arab non-state actors (NSAs). In Lebanon, it fought Hizbullah in the 1980s and 1990s, and again in a major war in 2006. Since then, the IDF has confronted Hamas and other smaller Palestinian groups like the PIJ in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The main confrontations have taken place in Gaza, all of them ending in a tie – much to Israel’s frustration. Although Hamas and the PIJ are elusive, flexible and capable of putting up a tough fight, the IDF is still much stronger.

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During all of the previous confrontations, Israel hesitated on whether to try to destroy its foes due to various constraints and the negative implications of an all-out war in the Gaza Strip. Since destroying NSAs like Hamas is a tall order, Israel’s preferred method for containment and deterrence until now has been based on a strategy called ‘mowing the grass’. This meant that from time-to-time Israel had to degrade the military capabilities of its foes in the Gaza Strip by conducting a short and limited campaign.

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The last confrontation before the current one, that of August 2022, was in a way different from other clashes in the Gaza Strip because Israel considered its outcome to be a victory. Yet in reality, it was a minimal success. On that occasion Israel confronted only the PIJ, which paid a price but still survived. Nevertheless, it seems that the results of that campaign boosted Israel’s confidence and, together with other steps it took to upgrade its defences around the Gaza Strip, convinced Israel that it was ready to deal with any hostilities that might break out on the border. Israel also assumed that Hamas would not seek war. On 7 October 2023, Israel paid dearly for its blunders.

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Following the attack of 7 October, Israel concluded that it must revise its national security strategy. Such a highly important process should be carried out in a careful manner by methodically examining all the options. Yet Israel decided to go immediately on the attack, launching massive aerial bombardments followed by a large-scale land offensive. This made sense politically given that Israel received sympathy and, more importantly, support for its actions from the US, the UK and other Western powers. Yet it might lose some or even most of this support as the war progresses due to heavy casualties among the Palestinian population and the vast scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip.

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In each of the former rounds of fighting, Israel stuck to its policy of pursuing a limited campaign due to the constraints and negative ramifications of a war in the Gaza Strip. Now, Israel has drastically changed its policy, even though the constraints remain and some of them have even become more acute. Israel does not want to govern the Gaza Strip, but it cannot ignore the poor conditions there. In previous confrontations, it avoided toppling Hamas’s rule, leaving it to continue running the Gaza Strip. Hamas has, of course, done an awful job; instead of investing in improving Gazans’ standard of living, it has focused on preparing to confront Israel. This has meant that infrastructure and services for the Palestinian population have sharply deteriorated in recent years, up to a point where the Gaza Strip is on the verge of collapse.

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As long as Hamas has been in charge there, this has mostly remained its problem, but now that the IDF has seized a large part of the Gaza Strip, it has also become Israel’s concern. The war, with all its destruction, will of course make the dire situation in Gaza much worse. Israel wants to take ‘overall security responsibility’ in the Gaza Strip, while hoping that others will handle civilian affairs there. It would ideally like another government to do this, but no state – not even any of Israel’s Arab neighbours – is willing to deal with the giant mess in the Gaza Strip. The most reasonable choice seems to be the Palestinian Authority (PA); yet in previous confrontations, Israel assumed that the PA would not be up to the task if it were to bring down Hamas’s regime. There is now even less chance of this because in recent years the PA has become weaker, making it less likely that it could go back to controlling the Gaza Strip.

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Thousands of young men in the Gaza Strip who will struggle to find a job in the present circumstances may agree to fight for Hamas for lack of a better choice

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Another factor that has worsened in the last year is Israel’s internal stability, following a wave of protests against the government. While these have subsided since the war broke out, they could well erupt again later on. The current war in the Gaza Strip may also contribute to domestic instability, depending on its outcome – and a crisis inside Israel could make it harder to solve the huge problems in the Gaza Strip.

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Since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, the group has had several confrontations with Israel. The two main ones were in the winter of 2008–2009, lasting 22 days, and in the summer of 2014, lasting for 50 days. Other campaigns included the one in May 2021, which went on for 12 days, and the one in August 2022, which lasted only three days. The current war might go on for several months. Israel has to be ready for this, on several levels.

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Hamas’s leaders are ‘high on Israel’s target list’. On previous occasions, such as in 2004 and 2012, Israel has assassinated some of Hamas’s top leaders – yet the group not only survived those blows, but got stronger. Therefore, decapitating Hamas’s leadership now is unlikely to annihilate the group. It could even be counterproductive, because the new leaders might be more capable of fighting Israel.

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The IDF is also killing Hamas’s combatants, including senior figures like brigade and battalion commanders, in an effort to disrupt the group’s command and control. In the last major confrontation in the Gaza Strip in 2014, Hamas lost up to 1,000 combatants. During the present war it is absorbing many more casualties, but it could yet obtain new recruits. Iran will give Hamas money for this purpose, and thousands of young men in the Gaza Strip who will struggle to find a job in the present circumstances may agree to fight for Hamas for lack of a better choice. Others will doubtless join Hamas to avenge family members or friends lost during the war.

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Military Factors

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Several factors made past confrontations easier for Israel, some of which are also relevant in the present conflict. The IDF has clear superiority over its foes in the Gaza Strip, enjoying major advantages in terms of firepower, manpower and technology. Yet it still has a tough task if it wishes to defeat Hamas, let alone destroy the group. This will be difficult because in previous confrontations in the Gaza Strip, the IDF was often able to exploit an element of surprise. The best-known example was at the start of the confrontation in December 2008, when the IDF launched an air raid that inflicted heavy casualties on Hamas. By contrast, on 7 October 2023, the IDF was taken completely by surprise, putting it in a state of shock and hindering its response. Although it subsequently recovered, its counterattack was obviously expected by Hamas, which was able to prepare accordingly. In this sense, the IDF will need to wait for a better opportunity if it wants to catch Hamas off-guard.

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In previous confrontations, the IDF was able to concentrate its efforts, such as deploying its best units on one front – that is, in the Gaza Strip. Now, however, the IDF has to secure its northern border with Lebanon and deal with clashes in the West Bank, even if the level of friction on those fronts is quite low. As long as there is no escalation in Lebanon, the IDF can focus its attention on the Gaza Strip.

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Hamas and the PIJ have fired more than 9,000 rockets and missiles since the start of the current war. In previous confrontations they have fired fewer, but on this occasion the rockets and missiles are not the main threat to Israel. While they can still cause harm, almost all the Israeli losses from the present conflict resulted from the ground invasion into Israel on 7 October. The firing of missiles and rockets is mostly an act of defiance and terror, forcing Israeli civilians to run for cover. Many in Israel do not have proper shelters, although they do receive an alert – a process that has improved over the years. Israel’s famous air defence system, the Iron Dome, has once again proved to be very effective. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is trying to suppress the firing of rockets as it has done in previous rounds of fighting, with ground forces now also participating in this task.

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Trying to defeat Hamas by assassinating its leadership and killing as many of its combatants as possible might not work

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During the confrontation in 2008–2009, the IDF cut the Gaza Strip in half. It has done the same in the current war, but the present Israeli operation has reached deeper inside the Strip, exposing the IDF’s lines of communication to ambushes. Still, it has taken this risk as part of a strategy to encircle and isolate Hamas’s positions. This large-scale manoeuvre has had an impact on Hamas and its performance. The group might lose control of the Gaza Strip, although it may yet avoid collapse.

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The IDF avoided a major land offensive in previous rounds of fighting because of the fear of losses. Israel as a country is very sensitive to casualties, yet following the horrible events of 7 October, it is more willing to pay the price. The IDF is also striving to avoid harming the Arab population for moral and political reasons. In the current war, the fighting is more large-scale and intense, so unfortunately there is more collateral damage.

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The IDF recently called up over 350,000 reserves, mostly from the ground forces. This is Much more than in former confrontations, and serves to indicate how this war is different. Many of Israel’s reserves have not trained much if at all in recent years. The IDF is trying to fix this now by conducting exercises, but returning soldiers to top form takes time. There are also difficulties in providing enough equipment, such as body armour, for so many troops. This is hardly a surprise because before the war the IDF had based its level of build-up on recent confrontations in the Gaza Strip, assuming there would be more of the same. The strategy was to depend on the IAF and intelligence rather than on massed ground units. According to this concept, budgets were allocated to other areas at the expense of providing training, equipment and so on to a large part of the ground forces.

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Another problem for the IDF is that the last time it fought an urban conflict in the Gaza Strip was in 2014. Since then, the IDF has conducted several operations in Gaza but without using ground forces, let alone penetrating the Strip by land. This lack of combat experience might have affected current operations, including their cost to the IDF. Nevertheless, the motivation of Israeli troops is high because they are convinced this war was forced on Israel and they want to make sure Hamas will not be able to conduct an attack like that of 7 October ever again.

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Conclusion

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Since 2008, Israel has engaged in several rounds of fighting in the Gaza Strip with Hamas and the PIJ. Analysing these previous confrontations is crucial to understanding the current war. Almost all of the clashes that occurred from 2008 to 2022 ended in a tie, and some in Israel even saw them as a failure. Israel considered the last confrontation it had there, in August 2022, to be a success, which may have boosted its confidence too much. Now, following the terrible events of 7 October, Israel has drastically changed its strategy from containment to annihilating Hamas, but this is a tall order. The current war is costlier and longer than any previous confrontations. Trying to defeat Hamas by assassinating its leadership and killing as many of its combatants as possible might not work. Israel has to have realistic goals to begin with. It can inflict on Hamas the biggest blow it has ever suffered and topple its rule of the Gaza Strip. Yet, as in previous confrontations, Hamas as a movement might manage to hold on.

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The IDF failed on 7 October 2023 in terms of its intelligence and readiness. Yet it has managed to recover and enjoys similar advantages to previous rounds of fighting, such as superiority in both firepower and technology. There is also high motivation among its troops, and the Iron Dome is proving itself once again. For the time being, the IDF can concentrate on one front, as in previous confrontations, although this might change. Unlike in the confrontation of 2008, however, the IDF does not enjoy the element of surprise. Other aspects unique to this confrontation include the mass mobilisation of reserves, with some troops not being well trained or equipped. A lack of combat experience in urban warfare is another challenge for the IDF, having relied on the IAF in former confrontations.

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Overall, there is some similarity between the current war and previous confrontations, but there are also major differences. Israel must be aware of these in order to avoid crucial mistakes as it becomes more and more committed to this showdown.

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Ehud Eilam has been dealing with and studying Israel’s national security for the last 35 years. He served in the Israeli military and later worked as a researcher for the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

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Euro SIFMANet Barna Report

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European Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network: Barcelona Report - The Role of Data in Sanctions Implementation

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Tom Keatinge and Gonzalo Saiz | 2023.12.14

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Participants discussed the key role that data plays in the success of sanctions.

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During the design of the sanctions packages imposed on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the initial focus was on throwing the net as wide as possible. The aim was to impose restrictive measures on a broad range of financial and trade activities. However, following the early flurry of activity, attention has now shifted towards ensuring effective implementation and enforcement.

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Over nearly two years, the RUSI-led European Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network (SIFMANet) has highlighted the main structural challenges faced by EU member state national authorities, and businesses with sanctions responsibilities. It has also identified that all stakeholders – whether private sector actors seeking to improve their implementation or governments monitoring for circumvention and evasion – need better data. This would allow sanctions to be more effectively implemented, and circumvention and evasion more effectively tackled.

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To gain insights on this issue, the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS) at RUSI hosted a roundtable discussion in Barcelona in November 2023, with the support of Dow Jones Risk & Compliance. The event gathered sanctions experts from the public and private sectors across different European jurisdictions to explore, under the Chatham House rule, the role of data in strengthening the implementation and enforcement of sanctions. This engagement was part of SIFMANet’s activities supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, and along with a video filmed on the day, this report presents the main findings from the discussion.

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The Need for Data to Support Sanctions Implementation

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Sanctions used to be an isolated task within the compliance departments of financial institutions, whose primary responsibility consisted of screening sanctions lists to check for individual and entity name matches with their client base and transaction activity.

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At the workshop, private sector representatives noted that this modus operandi started to change following the introduction in 2014 of sanctions against Russia, in response to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. This programme introduced sector-specific sanctions, which for the first time required financial institutions – and others from the private sector such as oil services companies – to have a deeper understanding of their clients and, critically, their activities.

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This task demanded increased resources from these elements of the private sector, as well as their clients, to obtain and process data that was far more complex than merely checking for sanctions-list name matches. Fast forward to February 2022 and the sanctions that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion dramatically increased this burden and introduced complex sanctions compliance to a large number of economic operators that had never been exposed in this way before.

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As a result, businesses place significant demands on national competent authorities to assist with identifying where they require licences to continue their operations, but also information regarding possible entities engaged in sanctioned activities, something that is not yet widely available from the typical vendors of sanctions screening services.

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Participants from both governments and the private sector clearly articulated in the workshop that if sanctions are to be implemented effectively by the private sector, placed on the frontline by their governments, then a significant improvement in data is required. There was also strong agreement that banks should not be left to carry this burden on their own. Governments must clearly make those businesses engaging in trade exposed to sanctions aware of their responsibilities and must either have proper internal sanctions-monitoring controls or access to third-party tools that can provide them with the necessary compliance capacity.

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Given the purpose of the workshop was to focus specifically on data, the next section addresses specific tactical data that the private sector could leverage to improve its sanctions compliance, and how governments can use data to facilitate better private sector implementation.

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What Data is Helpful for Implementing Sanctions?

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The use of data for improved sanctions effectiveness falls into two parts: data used to support implementation by EU member states’ banks and businesses; and data (mainly related to trade) used to identify sanctions circumvention.

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Improved Implementation

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For banks and businesses operating in the EU, data plays two roles: first, it facilitates better identification of sanctioned individuals and their assets; and second, it clarifies where clients might be involved in restricted sectors or activities.

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Beneficial Ownership Registries

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Beneficial ownership registries are useful sources of data on companies and their ownership structure and related natural persons involved in them. However, both public and private sector participants noted that registers, if accessible, often do not hold the same type of information in each country, they do not always hold reliable and updated information, and they are at times only accessible in certain languages. In addition, some jurisdictions have business registries that require subscriptions and have limited financial intelligence on, for example, companies’ financial statements.

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Participants defined public access to beneficial ownership registers as a crucial element for sanctions implementation and they regarded the ruling from the November 2022 European Court of Justice as a new and troubling challenge. A representative from the Spanish Treasury explained that one of the goals of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU is to harmonise information across EU registries.

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Client Documentation

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Given the lack of publicly available and machine-readable data, trying to map client activities involving Russia’s neighbouring countries and trading partners demands that the private sector devote substantial amounts of manual labour to check information submitted by clients on their transactions. Businesses hold the deepest knowledge of the sector in which they operate and of their own activities. So, the data they provide is essential. However, representatives from financial institutions noted that it is increasingly difficult to rely on information submitted by clients given that, as elaborated below, it may be subject to a lack of knowledge on the part of their clients or to obfuscation tactics used by those seeking to evade sanctions.

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Businesses are not only trading in goods subject to sanctions, but also technical services, and many do not know the extent of their sanctions obligations. An example shared by a participant described that providing crew members for a vessel carrying Russian oil could fall under EU prohibitions, but many businesses do not know this, and rely on financial institutions to inform them that such activity is prohibited.

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Furthermore, participants noted that they are increasingly holding conversations with clients regarding suspicions of document forgery. Financial institutions explained that the supporting information provided to justify the submitted documentation is often useful to confirm or reject their suspicions. But again, this work creates a significant extra burden on the financial institutions’ sanctions compliance community.

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To effectively manage their monitoring burden, many financial institutions are thus following a risk-based approach. If a financial institution sees a client trading with a third country with which it has maintained trade relations in the past, then it can lower manual effort. On the contrary, if the business relationship was recently established or has now shifted to include controlled goods, the financial institution will increase the manual work required to check the transactions.

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While financial institutions monitor clients across all sectors, key corporates may serve as the most useful and expert sources of data. These include shipping companies, logistics firms and airlines. These businesses hold the raw data required to check goods that banks do not have access to, such as the bill of lading, the itinerary of vessels or identity location spoofing. The top companies in these sectors are screening these elements, but with a lower level of scrutiny than banks would like them to for sanctions-compliance purposes.

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In sum, better data is required if the private sector is to be fully empowered to play its role on the frontline of sanctions implementation. As the complexity of sanctions has grown, the provision of and access to data has lagged. New tools need to be developed by those companies with expertise in providing data services; and governments need to provide access to additional sources of data that can enhance the effectiveness of the private sector.

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Identifying Circumvention

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As well as facilitating improved implementation, data – particularly trade data – can be used by governments to identify changes in trade flows that may be indicative of emerging sanctions circumvention routes used by Russia to procure the key goods it requires for its military.

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Trade Data

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Public and private sector representatives acknowledged their initial positive assessment of the reported declines in their jurisdictions’ direct trade with Russia. This assessment changed once they identified the increasing exports – including of controlled and banned goods – to third countries regarded as high-risk for circumvention. This indicated that their trade with Russia continued, albeit indirectly. To properly observe and understand the specific transactions and flows, and the extent to which they represent sanctions circumvention, authorities and the private sector point to various data points to strengthen their sanctions compliance mechanisms.

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Participants noted the difficulty of proving that goods exported from a specific jurisdiction to a third country are then re-exported to Russia through generic import/export trade data. Sources such as UN COMTRADE – described as not particularly user-friendly – or national customs data can serve as a good guide to identify suspicious trade flows, but do not provide sufficiently deep insights. A participant provided a visual example in which a member state exported apples to a third country, and the third country exported apples to Russia. The flow of apples can be identified in the member state’s national customs data but unless the items are specifically identified, it is hard to prove that it is the self- same apples that enter Russia. Participants added that the customs data from Russia and certain third countries may be a useful starting point but cannot be trusted and often entail language translation complications.

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To compensate for this lack of clarity, tools such as Import/Export Genius provide transaction-level tracking data, identify where a product was produced, and to where it was shipped. Authorities and financial institutions can use this data to then query companies involved on whether sanctions are being breached. A key piece of information employed in trade is Harmonised System (HS) codes. These describe the nature of a product.

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HS codes differ across jurisdictions, as countries incorporate additional digits to the six-digit HS codes for further classification. For example, in the EU they are known as TARIC codes and in the US they are HTS codes. This creates divergences among HS codes, which authorities and businesses must understand. HS codes are particularly useful to screen for dual-use goods. However, participants highlighted that not all dual-use goods have HS codes. This a critical challenge as the technical descriptions of HS codes in regulations often create confusion, which increases cost of compliance for businesses that must manually check them.

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Furthermore, authorities and financial institutions have detected that some businesses will alter the HS codes of goods to pass them off as products not subject to prohibitions. This is related to the document forgery issue that is increasingly spotted by financial institutions in the information provided by clients. Participants explained that when a bank is financing trade through letters of credit, they will have more information on the operation than if the trade is conducted via “open account” through which their access to data is limited to just seeing the financial transaction. This makes it harder to spot irregularities. As one participant noted, “the task now consists of screening against information that is not there”.

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The collection of trade data is essential for the private sector to effectively implement sanctions and detect circumvention. However, trade data also plays a key role in the diplomatic efforts of authorities. The EU both requests trade data from third countries and also asks them to validate its own perspective on the third country’s trading activity, to assess their involvement in circumvention. Suspicious trade flows and confirmed circumvention activities identified through the aforementioned analysis of trade data by EU operators can be leveraged by authorities from sanctions-imposing countries to deter third countries from facilitating circumvention through their jurisdictions.

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Other Data

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Throughout the roundtable, participants also pointed to other data sources that would be useful for authorities and businesses to exploit and process to enhance their investigations and compliance systems.

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For example, for individual financial transactions, Business Identifier Codes (BIC) are well-known sources of data used for addressing SWIFT messages, routing business transactions and identifying business parties, but the screening of less common items can also provide valuable information. One such example is screening IP addresses that may help identify businesses operating in high-risk jurisdictions. IP addresses can be disguised through VPNs, but their usage can be detected and as a result trigger a red flag to demand enhanced due diligence. As private sector participants noted, screening IP addresses is an increasingly common practice by larger financial institutions and e-commerce firms to block transactions from sanctioned jurisdictions and/or flag transactions for further scrutiny. They noted that national competent authorities could enhance the effectiveness of private sector sanctions implementation by providing this information in sanctions designations as and when available.

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The need to leverage such additional data points to support sanctions implementation highlights the added complexity of the post-2022 regimes. Using these data sources to triangulate and identify evasion activity demands a considerable degree of manual work to check the entities involved and their activities. Yet, despite the resources required, going beyond basic due diligence and conducting open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis must now be a critical component of sanctions implementation.

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With regards to maritime transport, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) required by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)to locate vessels was also noted by both public and private sector participants as providing valuable data. Even though the AIS can be turned off, this should trigger a red flag in due diligence systems. AIS will also indicate changes in the draft of the vessel, which might reveal that transhipments took place due to a change in the vessel’s cargo. This can be complemented with the use of satellite imagery. Similarly, IMO identification numbers of designated vessels are key pieces of data that institutions should have at their disposal to monitor their activity such as reflagging or change of ownership.

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Private sector actors, particularly financial institutions that can afford to make such investments, are increasingly developing OSINT capabilities as they can provide invaluable data on clients, their partners and their activities. The information can be openly shared with authorities and other private institutions.

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Persisting Challenges

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While available circumvention routes are increasingly limited, participants noted that supply chains are getting more layered with complex multi-jurisdiction corporate structures and operators increasingly struggling to control what is happening along a particular route. The manual work required to effectively obtain and screen the necessary data is a cumbersome burden for the private sector and the task of identifying companies owned or controlled by sanctioned individuals in the supply chain is challenging. Ownership data is relatively straightforward when it is publicly available – which, as indicated above, is not always the case – but determining “control” is a more difficult task, given that the necessary information might not be public and the concept of “control” can be judgemental.

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In certain areas, participants explained that they face the challenge of combining contradictory datasets. For instance, when monitoring to confirm that a transaction was done below the oil price cap, both authorities and businesses must check data from shipping companies and customs pricing data, which do not always match. This intense screening is conducted for each individual transaction but if the goal is to disrupt the trade of oil or battlefield items before it happens, operators would need to develop foresight by identifying patterns and incorporate these mapping activities into their compliance procedures to anticipate potential evasion transaction.

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A further complication to these mapping efforts and the blocking of suspicious transactions is the decoupled nature of payment flows from their related trade flows. While payments are flowing between two jurisdictions, goods may be produced and transported from factories in third countries. For example, a Swedish entity can have a Dutch bank account, receive the payment from a shell company in Turkey, and ship controlled goods from Malaysia via a third country to Russia. Financial institutions emphasised that it is very challenging to block such transactions as they are often unaware of the trade flow connected with the payment, a trade flow involving countries outside the Western sanctions regime and thus not subject to local control. Furthermore, even if (in this case) the Turkish shell company is identified as facilitating sanctioned trade, a new shell company can easily be established in its place elsewhere with no transaction history.

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One possible way of addressing this challenge, raised by finance experts at the roundtable, is to identify pinch points in the payment flows, for example by making more use of SWIFT messaging data by mandating greater use of currently discretionary fields, to help illuminate payments related to circumvention.

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The increasing burden placed on the private sector led participants to express their concern over the lack of clarity regarding the extent of their compliance obligations to confirm there is no risk of sanctions violation or circumvention. They have significantly increased their sanctions-dedicated resources and tools but at some point they have to make a judgement as to how far their due diligence obligations extend. Participants explained that investigations had traditionally been limited to checking two levels of ownership, but recent investigations have gone down many more levels of ownership to identify the real individual controlling an entity. Private sector representatives added that this may clash with the expectations of regulators, which will also differ across the jurisdictions they operate in. Even minute differences will be immense for internationally operating institutions.

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A clear message from participants was that many businesses lack experience regarding the availability and use of the data sources discussed at the workshop. This often means they resort to third-party data providers and vendors. These services ease the burden on businesses, but authorities have raised concerns of an over-reliance on these services without understanding how the tools they provide work. Participating authorities explained that their inspections showed that many businesses do not properly detect the right matches after inputting the data provided into their systems, and some screening systems struggle with fuzzy searches with multiple options per identifier. These fuzzy searches are themselves the outcome of vast discrepancies across sanctions lists, further complicating compliance tasks.

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Furthermore, the heavy burden imposed on the private sector is met with a lack of incentives to actually comply with sanctions obligations. First, participants noted that HS codes are used for tax purposes, so businesses are not always interested in reporting them accurately. Furthermore, for intentional circumvention schemes, public and private sector representatives agreed that the consequences of breaching sanctions at the moment are not enough to deter violations, both in terms of low financial penalties but also low chances of detection.

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This is partly related to the insufficient level of information exchanged within the EU, a major impediment to sanctions investigations and enforcement. Currently, many investigations are crippled when a national competent authority requests information from a member state where sanctions violations are not yet criminalised. A participant suggested that to improve the sharing of data and avoid duplication, the EU needs a sanctions-related institution such as OLAF, which is currently the only agency that coordinates member states regarding imports and exports. Regional initiatives for enhanced information-sharing within the EU are happening in areas such as the Baltic states, but this should be happening across the EU.

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Recommendations

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As one workshop participant noted, a key feature of the current sanctions regimes against Russia is that policymakers are expecting sanctions to achieve far more today than has been expected of sanctions regimes in the past, and governments’ messaging often seems to expect companies to screen transactions against non-existing data.

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A core pillar of the effectiveness of the current sanctions implementation and enforcement landscape is the availability, accessibility and quality of data. During the workshop, participants proposed a series of valuable sources of data for authorities and businesses to strengthen their investigations and compliance mechanisms. However, these data sources pose a series of challenges in themselves, which the EU must take measures to mitigate in order to improve the sanctions efforts across the public and private sectors. The importance of this is clear. Data can not only support better implementation of sanctions by EU member states and their financial institutions and businesses, it can also provide a strong basis from which to engage in dialogue with third countries that are vulnerable to – or indeed are already facilitating – sanctions circumvention.

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With a focus on how governments can support the private sector in achieving their goals, some specific recommendations emerged from the workshop.

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    Clarity of obligations. Supervisors need to clarify what is required of the private sector. Too often requirements and expectations are ambiguous and lack specificity. Although ambiguity may be a means by which governments can ensure businesses do not merely restrict their compliance obligations to the bare minimum, the uncertainty faced in the private sector on whether they have done enough for a single transaction leads to inefficient responses, the investment of extensive (potentially unnecessary) resources and manual work, and economic costs.

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    Enhanced awareness in the private sector. Businesses must expand their understanding of the steps needed to conduct sanctions due diligence on clients, their trade partners, controlled products and sectoral risks. Governments must support this education process by providing briefings and access to new data sources that can facilitate sanctions implementation. As one participant noted, screening for “persons connected with Russia” is just not possible – or desirable; and placing the burden of policing businesses entirely on the banking sector is not efficient. Key industry sectors such as shipping and logistics must be made to feel equally responsible and empowered.

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    Harmonisation and consistency are key. Small inconsistencies in sanctions interpretations by authorities can have a significant impact on the private sector. For example, within the EU, the understanding of ownership and control differs across member states and, in consequence, guidance for businesses operating in several jurisdictions varies. Likewise, the quality and nature of information found in national beneficial ownership registers varies, is often not updated, is in different languages, and is not publicly available. Among the sanctions coalition, key identifiers such as HS codes also differ and alignment in this regard would facilitate the tasks of both authorities and the private sector. More broadly, the quality of trade data is lacking and should likewise be presented in a harmonised manner as much as possible.

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    Optimising use of trade data. First, trade data from EU member states can be trusted and should be the foundation of trade-related sanctions implementation. EU member state capacity in this field varies – development of an EU member state sanctions trade data expert working group could enhance the use of this data to identify EU-based weaknesses. Second, trade data should continue to be used to engage with third countries to ensure common understanding of the key items that are subject to restriction.

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    Improve EU-wide trade data sharing. The EU should create an EU sanctions-related information-sharing mechanism similar to OLAF to ensure consistent interpretation of sanctions (particularly related to trade).

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    Consolidation must continue. The consolidation of regulations is essential for businesses with insufficient experience to navigate complex EU legislation. Furthermore, a consolidated – and more closely aligned – list of sanctioned individuals and entities from the international sanctions coalition would facilitate the task of businesses that aim to be compliant across all regimes.

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    Make greater use of SWIFT data. Tackling circumvention trade flows would benefit from identifying pinch points in the flow of payments, for example by making more use of SWIFT messaging data by mandating greater use of currently discretionary fields, to help illuminate payments related to circumvention.

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    Technological advancements. The current level of manual work required to fulfil sanctions compliance obligations is an unsustainable burden on the private sector. Greater attention should be placed on developing tools that will facilitate the effective compliance of businesses. For example, a participant noted Singapore’s introduction of blockchain to track payments and trade.

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In sum, data – in all its forms – is emerging as a key tool in enhancing the effectiveness of sanctions implementation against Russia. Yet, the provision and availability of data by governments to the private sector has lagged the growth in complexity of sanctions. Accessible data has the potential to enhance the ability of financial institutions and businesses across the EU to be fully empowered to correctly identify entities, industry sectors, activities and specific goods that should be blocked. It can further assist with the identification of circumvention activity and underpin diplomatic engagement with third countries. The challenge ahead is to enhance the quality and accessibility of these data sources to ensure the impact needed to further restrict the funding and resourcing of the Russian military.

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Tom Keatinge is the founding Director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS) at RUSI, where his research focuses on matters at the intersection of finance and security. He is also currently a specialist adviser on illicit finance to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee ongoing enquiry.

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Gonzalo Saiz is a Research Analyst at the Centre for Financial Crime & Security Studies at RUSI, focusing on sanctions and counter threat finance. He is part of Project CRAAFT (Collaboration, Research and Analysis Against Financing of Terrorism) and Euro SIFMANet (European Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network).

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NATO To Protect Undersea

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NATO’s Role in Protecting Critical Undersea Infrastructure

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Sean Monaghan, et al. | 2023.12.19

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NATO is not ready to mitigate increasingly prevalent Russian aggression against European critical undersea infrastructure (CUI). Despite its depleted ground forces and strained military industrial base, Russian hybrid tactics remains the most pressing threat to CUI in northern Europe. Despite its current limitations, NATO is the primary actor capable of deterring and preventing hybrid attacks on its allies and has expedited its approach to CUI protection by establishing new organizations to that aim. At the 2023 NATO Vilnius summit, allies agreed to establish the Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure within NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM), which focuses on preparing for, deterring, and defending against the coercive use of energy and other hybrid tactics. To help NATO planners and staff at the new center conceptualize and prioritize their efforts, this issue brief provides immediate and long-term recommendations to set the new center up for success.

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INTRODUCTION

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NATO is not prepared to defend its allies’ critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) from increasingly prevalent Russian hybrid tactics. The recent Balticconnector pipeline incident highlighted the risk of deliberate damage to CUI across Europe. It follows last year’s Nord Stream pipeline explosions, among other incidents, and bears the hallmarks of sabotage. Europe’s expansive and growing network of undersea infrastructure will remain vulnerable to attacks aimed at disrupting transatlantic cohesion and economic activity, undermining Western support for Ukraine, and shaping potential future military operations.

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Threats to undersea infrastructure are not new. In 2016 U.S. vice admiral James Foggo and Alarik Fritz warned of a “fourth battle of the Atlantic,” which included threats to “underwater infrastructure — such as oil rigs and telecommunications cables.” In 2017 the UK chief of the defence staff went public with previously classified Russian threats to undersea cables that posed a “new risk to our way of life,” while member of the UK Parliament Rishi Sunak (now UK prime minister) demanded enhanced protection of undersea data cables. Yet the Nord Stream incident has catalyzed a new focus in Europe on CUI resilience, including national, multinational, and institutional efforts through NATO and the European Union. Notably, this included the launch of a new NATO Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure at the Vilnius summit in July 2023.

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This issue brief examines NATO’s role in protecting CUI in more detail. It proceeds in four parts: It begins by assessing the threat “seascape” for CUI in northern Europe, including how the threat might evolve and how Europe has responded so far. The paper then turns to NATO’s approach to date, summarizing the key NATO initiatives related to CUI protection. The third part looks in more detail at the challenge of protecting CUI, proposing a basic framework to help understand the vast problem space. The final section draws on this framework to develop several immediate and longer-term recommendations to help planners in NATO’s new center prioritize their efforts.

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THE EVOLUTION OF THREATS TO UNDERSEA INFRASTRUCTURE IN NORTHERN EUROPE

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The war in Ukraine has radically altered the threat landscape across Europe, particularly in the north. As the alliance remains focused on supporting Ukraine and shoring up its eastern flank, Sweden’s and Finland’s membership bids will provide new opportunities to deter Russian aggression in the Baltic and Arctic regions. But recent examples of CUI interference highlight vulnerabilities that will not be easily remedied. The sabotage of two Nord Stream pipelines off the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022 forced European governments to grapple with their limited ability to deter and defend against hybrid tactics in the undersea domain. Recent damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and a data cable between Finland and Estonia in October 2023 from a ship’s anchor is suspected as being deliberate, although attribution has not yet been declared.

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In this context, the main focus of critical maritime infrastructure debates has shifted from emphasis on terrorism and cyber threats toward the increasing frequency and efficacy of hybrid tactics. The aim of hybrid tactics is to cause significant damage to an adversary while operating below the threshold of detection, attribution, and response — and in so doing blur the conceptual lines between conflict and peace. The issue is compounded in the maritime realm by several conceptual and practical challenges, mainly related to poor definitions highly dependent on moral or political choices, a unique geophysical space, and the multitude of potential threats.

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Russian hybrid tactics represent the most pressing threat to CUI in northern Europe. Russia’s war against Ukraine has debilitated its ground forces and strained its military industrial base. Experts estimate it will take the Kremlin five to ten years to reconstitute its military. Meanwhile, however, Russia’s power projection capabilities in northern Europe — through naval, air, and missile bases in Kaliningrad and its Northern Fleet of submarines on the Kola Peninsula — have scarcely been depleted. In fact, while the Russian navy is underfunded and a large part of its fleet comprises Soviet legacy platforms, its underwater capacity continues to grow. In particular, Russia’s submarine program remains a priority amid other military budget cuts, exemplified by the Kremlin’s authorization of 13 new nuclear and conventional submarines since 2014. In broader terms, Russia’s ability to target critical infrastructure short of war and impose economic costs to deter external intervention in regional conflicts is an important component to Moscow’s doctrine and thinking on escalation management.

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However, even in the absence of a broader Russia-NATO conflict, hybrid tactics have been a staple in the Kremlin’s toolbox in Europe for years. As the Kremlin views itself in perpetual conflict with the West, hybrid tactics are instrumental to challenging NATO without resorting to conventional military means. Russia has likely targeted critical infrastructure throughout Europe at an increased frequency since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the undersea domain, Russia appears committed to mapping and threatening European energy and communications infrastructure, particularly strategically important Norwegian gas pipelines and fiber-optic cables.

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The Nord Stream attacks resulted in a flurry of initiatives to bolster Europe’s CUI. The European Union has updated its maritime strategy to better address evolving threats and adopted an expanded directive on CUI resilience, and the EU-NATO Task Force on Resilience of Critical Infrastructure was launched in January and reported its findings in June. The EU Hybrid Toolbox, including the Hybrid Fusion Cell and new Hybrid Rapid Response Teams, support member states and NATO to detect, deter, and respond to threats. More recently, the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Force ( JEF) agreed to focus on protecting CUI in its new vision and deployed a maritime task force in response to the Balticconnector incident to deter further attacks. Bilateral examples include the recent UK-Norway strategic partnership on undersea threats. Many nations have also expanded their ability to monitor and protect undersea infrastructure: France recently announced a new seabed warfare strategy and investments in ocean floor defense, and the United Kingdom has set up a Centre for Seabed Mapping and earmarked two new Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance (MROS) vessels to serve primarily as subsea protection ships.

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PROTECTING CRITICAL UNDERSEA INFRASTRUCTURE: A NEW FOCUS FOR NATO

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While many stakeholders have increased their efforts to protect CUI, NATO remains the lead actor when it comes to deterring and preventing conventional and hybrid attacks on allies. NATO’s role in protecting CUI is grounded in its founding principles, such as Articles 2 and 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which call for the strengthening of free institutions, economic collaboration, and growing resilience to attack. At the 2023 Vilnius summit, allies reiterated that hybrid operations against the alliance could meet the threshold of armed attack and trigger Article 5, NATO’s collective defense guarantee.

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THE VALUE OF NATO

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Today, the functioning of allied civil society and the prosperity of member states depends on the extensive network of CUI across the Euro-Atlantic. NATO is critical to its protection for several reasons.

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First, Russia — the primary threat — has the intent and capability, and it maximizes its opportunity to threaten allied CUI across NATO’s area of operational responsibility. Moreover, the destruction, disruption, or tapping of CUI could be the precursor to conflict through attempting to sever military and government communications. Second, the protection of CUI is part of NATO’s defense and deterrence posture across the Euro-Atlantic. As hybrid attacks on CUI may meet the threshold for armed attack, NATO must be heavily invested in their protection to ensure it can act decisively.

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Third, CUI spans NATO’s entire area of operational responsibility, so maintaining seamless situational awareness across the whole network is a challenge far too large for individual nations. Fourth, the challenge of protecting CUI will increasingly rely on technological solutions, and NATO possesses the financial heft and mechanisms to develop and scale these. Finally, there are complex political, legal, and technical considerations for the effective protection of CUI, and seams between national permissions and restrictions can create frictions best managed at the NATO level.

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NATO’S APPROACH

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NATO has been both proactive and reactive to CUI threats. In broad terms, NATO protects CUI in three ways. First, all of NATO’s forces contribute to the alliance’s Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA), which coheres all activity by region and domain. Many capabilities that contribute to CUI protection also contribute to wider deterrence activities, including standing naval and mine countermeasures groups and CUI-focused exercises.

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Second, NATO assets detect threats through intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities and space and cyber assets to gain and maintain situational awareness. Moreover, NATO can develop and scale new technologies to increase detection coverage, such as the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) pilot challenges, which include a focus on energy resilience and sensing and surveillance. The alliance’s new Digital Ocean Concept was endorsed in October 2023 to increase collective visibility of oceans, including

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the creation of a global scale network of sensors, from sea bed to space, to better predict, identify, classify and combat threats. It envisages maritime domain awareness, subsea sensors, unmanned surface vessels, drones and satellites, and exploits AI [artificial intelligence], big data, and autonomous systems, alongside conventional assets.

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Third, NATO has a range of response options once an incident or attack occurs, including counter hybrid support teams, the NATO Response Force (NRF) and Very High Readiness Task Force (VJTF), and ad hoc force deployments, such as the enhanced maritime patrol and mine hunter deployments in the Baltic Sea. National missions and regional frameworks outside of NATO command structures can also bolster deterrence against threats to CUI, including the JEF and the aforementioned EU initiatives.

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image01 +▲ Table 1: European Institutions Relevant for Protecting CUI. Source: Authors’ compilation.

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NATO’S NEW CENTERS

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In response to recent incidents in the Baltic Sea, NATO has expedited its approach to CUI protection by establishing two new organizations. In February 2023 the Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell was created at NATO headquarters. The rationale was to coordinate allied activity; bring military and civilian stakeholders together by facilitating engagement with private industry, which owns much of the infrastructure; and better protect CUI through jointly detecting and responding to threats. This new cell will be instrumental in building coordination across all the organizations, policies, and capabilities identified in Table 1 both within and external to NATO.

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Then, at the July 2023 Vilnius summit, allies agreed to establish the Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure within NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM). This new center focuses on

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identifying and mitigating strategic vulnerabilities and dependencies . . . to prepare for, deter and defend against the coercive use of energy and other hybrid tactics by state and non-state actors. . . . NATO stands ready to support Allies if and when requested.

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The center arrives at a crucial time for NATO as both new threats to CUI and new initiatives to deal with them proliferate across the alliance and beyond. To help NATO planners and staff at the new center conceptualize and prioritize their efforts, the next section considers in more detail the problem of protecting CUI.

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UNDERSTANDING THREATS TO CRITICAL UNDERSEA INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

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This section develops a basic framework for thinking about protecting CUI. The purpose is to help NATO planners — particularly those in the new center — to understand the vast problem space and prioritize some initial efforts over others. The following section draws on this framework to develop several recommendations. The four elements of the framework for protecting CUI are outlined below.

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    Infrastructure type: What counts as CUI? Which parts are most critical or most vulnerable?

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    Threat type: What are the main threats to undersea CUI?

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    Tasks: What is NATO’s role in protecting CUI?

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    Geography: Where should limited resources be prioritized and focused across the Euro-Atlantic area?

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1. INFRASTRUCTURE TYPE

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Maritime infrastructure is vital to basic societal functions such as trade, food and energy supplies, security and defense, communications, transport, tourism, and environmental management. The most important infrastructure is usually considered “critical,” meaning without it, society could not function for long. But critical infrastructure differs between nations given that some economies depend on fishing or tourism while others rely more on maritime trade, energy infrastructure, or data cables. What counts as CUI, therefore, is often more of a political decision than a technical one. There is no one-size-fits-all definition: it depends on the nation and region in question.

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Maritime infrastructure is often categorized by sector. One classification system lists five types: transport, energy, communication, fishing, and marine ecosystems. Of these, four have substantial elements of underwater infrastructure. Above-water transport is often precluded, while commercial submersibles — such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) used in pipeline maintenance — are considered part of the energy infrastructure they serve.

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Maritime infrastructure security policies traditionally focus on maritime transport (e.g., ports) and energy (e.g., gas and oil infrastructure) over other types. However, the infrastructure picture is changing rapidly. Undersea cable projects have proliferated in recent years, while offshore renewable energy technologies like wind and tidal systems will increase to help nations meet global carbon emissions targets. Future proliferation of AUVs — driven by new oil and gas exploration, military applications, reduced manufacturing costs, and improvements in AI and automation technology — could present both new types of CUI under the category of transport and new threats. As the recent NATO-EU task force on critical infrastructure summarizes,

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These challenges are compounded for undersea energy infrastructure, which is extensive and more difficult to survey and protect. Moreover, the network of undersea energy infrastructure in the Euro-Atlantic area is expected to grow as offshore energy platforms become more numerous.

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Meanwhile, fishing and marine ecosystems are increasingly important to some nations as fishing stocks decrease and marine habitats are degraded by pollution and the effects of climate change.

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Beyond rapid change, there are several challenges associated with coordinating CUI protection, including interdependence, the physical characteristics of the subsea domain, and the complex, transnational nature of undersea infrastructure. Meanwhile, fishing and marine ecosystems are increasingly important to some nations as fishing stocks decrease and marine habitats are degraded by pollution and the effects of climate change. This suggests a key challenge for NATO will be prioritizing between CUI sectors, which are critical to different NATO allies. This assessment will be driven to some extent by the next element of the framework: the threat picture.

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2. THREAT

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Although most definitions of critical infrastructure depend on how vital it is to the functioning of society, in practice governments tend to designate infrastructure as critical if it is vulnerable to harm. While pipeline sabotage has driven the headlines, the range of threats to CUI is much broader. The threat picture has also changed in recent years.

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Maritime security threats have been driven by the rise of terrorism, international piracy, human trafficking, and the “blue economy,” defined by the World Bank as “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and ocean ecosystem health.” Protection of maritime and undersea infrastructure has typically focused on physical attacks from terrorism and blue crime (i.e., transnational organized crime at sea). However, the threat environment has changed markedly over the last decade — and drastically since 2022. After invading Ukraine, Russia became “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security,” according to NATO’s new Strategic Concept — a threat that includes the ability to “target our civilian and military infrastructure.”

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NATO’s new concept also points to hybrid threats to critical infrastructure and reaffirms their inclusion under Article 5. The maritime domain has been viewed as particularly vulnerable to hybrid threats. Attacks on underwater infrastructure have been a particular concern. Recent events appear to confirm these fears, with several incidents such as the Nord Stream pipeline explosions in the Baltic Sea or severed subsea cables near Svalbard that appear to follow the hybrid playbook of deniable attacks on undersea infrastructure. These incidents highlight the difficulty of dealing with ambiguous hybrid threats, which are difficult to distinguish from accidental damage. For example, around 70 percent of undersea cable faults are caused by fishing vessels or ship anchors, alongside natural causes or even shark bites.

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Hybrid aggressors can also use the cover of fishing, private, or research vessels, which are difficult to track. The rapid proliferation of AUVs will exacerbate the problem. Specialized vessels for the task also exist, such as Russia’s dedicated fleet of submarines, designed for infrastructure sabotage and manned by the Russian navy and the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI). Research vessels operated by GUGI are suspected of mapping networks of undersea infrastructure across Europe.

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For all these reasons, many assessments suggest a new era of hybrid threats is emerging and poses “a particular challenge” to protecting undersea infrastructure. As the NATO-EU task force puts it, “The seabed is a field of growing strategic importance, due to increasing reliance on undersea infrastructure and the particular challenges in protecting it from hybrid threats and physical damage.”

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3. TASKS

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The final element of the framework comprises the tasks and missions NATO may have to carry out to protect CUI. The most important role, short of war, is deterrence, which holds the promise of avoiding armed attacks altogether. Beyond deterrence, military forces perform a wide range of roles relevant to protecting CUI.

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One example is counterpiracy. During Operation Ocean Shield — NATO’s contribution to international efforts to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa during 2008–16 — the role of NATO forces spanned surveillance, interdiction, escort, and deterrence. Cooperation with international bodies and the private sector was also vital to mission success, which contributed to the cessation of attacks after 2012.

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Another relevant example is protecting national infrastructure. The U.S. National Infrastructure Protection Plan outlines threats to national infrastructure and a framework of missions to protect them. These are divided into two tasks: counterthreat missions and preparedness missions.

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    Counterthreat missions identify and counter threats and hazards: identify, deter, detect, disrupt, and prepare.

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    Preparedness missions reduce vulnerabilities and mitigate the consequences of damage: prevent, protect, mitigate, respond, recover.

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More broadly, several existing frameworks for countering hybrid threats may be applied to protecting CUI. NATO’s strategy is to “prepare, deter, defend,” while the European Union’s approach is based on “awareness, resilience, and response.” Another framework is proposed by the 14-nation Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC): “detect, deter, and respond.” This framework is used to examine NATO’s role in protecting CUI regarding all three functions below.

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DETECT

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Countering any threat requires first detecting and identifying it. Detection is even more important for hybrid threats, which rely on deniability or ambiguity to delay, complicate, or prevent reprisal. However, the variety and complexity of hybrid threats make detection challenging.

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For protecting CUI, the main focus is on enhancing maritime domain awareness (MDA). MDA systems are “one of the core solutions in maritime security” but are focused on civil transport, fishing, and leisure. To rectify this, a 2018 report by CSIS advocates a renewed focus on undersea MDA to combat hybrid threats. Specific recommendations include establishing dedicated analytic centers (with teams focused on hybrid threats), training courses, a common classified data picture, and an operational framework that integrates surface and subsurface sensors. Another recent analysis recommends closing gaps in the surveillance of small boats, leisure craft, and underwater vehicles through “investments in new underwater sensors and drones which can enhance the overall picture of the domain.” The recent EU-NATO Task Force also recommends enhancing “maritime situational awareness.”

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One detection challenge is that malign activity often appears, by design, as an accident, whereas some suspected attacks could actually be accidents (most damage to cables and pipelines is accidental). This means NATO does not have the luxury of ignoring apparent accidents. Here, a conceptual distinction between monitoring (known threats) and discovering (new, unknown threats) can help establish situational awareness and distinguish signal from noise in the realm of detection. This task is also well suited to advances in AI and machine learning.

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DETER

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Deterring hybrid threats to CUI is difficult but not impossible. The most promising strategy is deterrence by denial, which reduces the prospects of successful attack by hardening the target and strengthening resilience to damage. Denial in this context comprises two functions: prevention and resilience (see Figure 3). Preventing attacks is part of NATO’s core business and is achieved through a combination of detection (see above) and physical presence. For example, NATO’s Cold War deterrence strategy of basing substantial “shield forces” in central Europe was designed to physically prevent a Soviet attack.

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Resilience measures are designed to help CUI systems withstand or quickly recover from any damage sustained. Much of this amounts to good practice in the design and management of critical infrastructure systems. Such measures are therefore generally low cost and less reliant on detecting threats; best practices for resilience are based on understanding and mitigating one’s own vulnerabilities, regardless of whether they have been targeted. This is why resilience measures have become foundational to counter hybrid strategies. However, resilience building is a long-term strategy that will take years to deliver given the vast size and complexity of Euro-Atlantic CUI.

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RESPOND

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Moreover, resilience is not a strategy on its own; deterrence by punishment also has a role. When it comes to punishing low-level aggression, celerity beats severity most of the time, putting a premium on credible response options that can be deployed quickly and reliably. These measures may not threaten vital interests but merely assure an aggressor will always face some costs for threatening CUI, however minor. This means simple measures such as enhanced presence or surveillance around key sites can work to deliver what has been referred to as “deterrence by detection.” More creative measures also play a role, such as attribution disclosure, legal interventions, or targeted sanctions (e.g., against implicated vessels, companies, or individuals).

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That credible responses are required suggests the utility of a preapproved playbook to counter hybrid threats to CUI. Too often such measures are ad hoc or post hoc, or not sufficiently tailored to the specific demands of protecting CUI. If military forces are part of the response (e.g., to provide surveillance or bolster presence), then a forward, flexible posture is required to ensure force elements are in the area of responsibility or held at high readiness to deploy to quickly generate effects.

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It is important to note that given the limited resources of allies, any increase in demand to protect CUI will likely require trade-offs with other tasks and missions. Any contribution to protecting CUI is important but not all-important. NATO’s unique role — and the focus of the strategic concept — remains deterring armed attack above the threshold of war, not protecting against all forms of hybrid aggression. Protecting CUI should therefore not be overemphasized in NATO’s overall posture or capability development at the expense of conventional deterrence and defense.

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4. GEOGRAPHY

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The final element of the framework is geography. NATO is named after an ocean: the North Atlantic. But the alliance’s undersea infrastructure picture is more complex. NATO’s maritime areas of responsibility comprise the following:

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    High North region (including the Norwegian Sea, Greenland Sea, Barents Sea, and Arctic Ocean)

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    Baltic Sea

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    North Atlantic (including the North Sea, Irish Sea, English Channel, and Bay of Biscay)

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    Mediterranean Sea (east and west)

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    Black Sea

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    North Pacific Ocean

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Within these areas, the seascape of undersea infrastructure is extensive and complex. Figures 1–2 show the extent of underwater energy infrastructure (Figure 1) and subsea data cables (Figure 2) across Europe.

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While data cables are uniformly spread across the Euro-Atlantic area, the picture is different for energy infrastructure, which is concentrated in northern Europe — namely the North Atlantic (North Sea) and High North (Norwegian Sea). This supply is critical to Europe: in the second quarter of 2023, the European Union imported 44.3 percent of its natural gas (in gaseous state) from Norway and 17.8 percent from the United Kingdom. That 16.5 percent was from Algeria (through three subsea Mediterranean pipelines) also shows the importance of energy infrastructure in southern Europe. This could increase in the future with new projects (such as the EastMed pipeline) and new gas field discoveries as Europe diversifies away from Russian supply. Offshore wind energy infrastructure (along with subsea electrical cables) is also concentrated in northern Europe but present in significant amounts across Europe. Such infrastructure is also expanding quickly: under the European Green Deal, for example, offshore wind energy will expand over 25 times by 2030.

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However, any judgment about prioritizing NATO’s efforts to protect CUI in one region cannot rely on the density of infrastructure alone because all undersea infrastructure is proportionately important to each ally. In addition to including the views of all allies, any assessment must combine geography with the other elements of the framework. This task is explored in the final section of this brief.

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RECOMMENDATIONS: WINNING THE FOURTH BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

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The staff at NATO’s new Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure do not have the luxury of pondering future threats. NATO’s CUI is under attack right now. This situation may worsen as Russia tries to undermine Western support for Ukraine and cheaper, more advanced AUVs enable a wider range of actors to pose a threat. As Foggo, the former commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Allied Joint Force Command Naples, puts it: “the fourth battle of the Atlantic is underway.” Like its predecessors, this battle is “a struggle between Russian forces that probe for weakness, and US and NATO anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces that protect and deter. Just like in the Cold War, the stakes are high.”

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NATO and its new center must therefore act quickly. The final section provides a series of recommendations for NATO planners to conceptualize and prioritize their efforts in the coming years. The recommendations comprise two parts. The first is a general assessment of initial priorities for protecting CUI based on the four-part framework developed above. The second builds on this broad assessment to propose more specific and immediate actions.

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image02 +▲ Figure 1: Undersea Energy Infrastructure in Northern Europe. Source: Data from “European Atlas of the Seas,” European Commission.

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image03 +▲ Figure 2: Undersea Data Cables in Europe. Source: Data from “Submarine Cable Map,” TeleGeography.

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image04 +▲ Figure 3: A Framework for Protecting Critical Undersea Infrastructure. Source: Authors’ assessment.

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GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF INITIAL PRIORITIES FOR PROTECTING CUI

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This section presents a general indicative assessment of NATO’s role in protecting CUI based on the framework discussed in Figure 3. The shaded area suggests where NATO’s initial focus should be for protecting CUI. This assessment is discussed in more detail below, starting with the prioritization criteria for each element.

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Infrastructure Type

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Undersea infrastructure may be prioritized for protection by considering the criticality to NATO allies and vulnerability to different threats. Doing so suggests NATO focus on protecting energy and communications infrastructure — the most critical infrastructure to many NATO allies, whose developed economies depend on either importing or exporting energy and transmitting data. Such infrastructure is also the most vulnerable to attack, as recent attacks on pipelines and undersea cables have demonstrated. If further prioritization is required, it should be driven by an analysis of resilience of energy infrastructure compared to data cables: although both are vital and vulnerable, some systems are more resilient and easier to reconfigure in the event of damage.

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However, it is important to remember undersea infrastructure is much broader than pipelines and cables. Many NATO allies depend on fishing, the health of their marine ecosystems, and maritime security in the broadest sense. The rapid growth of AUVs may transform the transport sector, introducing new types of CUI and new threats. Most importantly, NATO’s approach to protecting CUI will need to incorporate the preferences of all allies.

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Threat

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Threats may be prioritized by considering the likelihood and consequences of an attack. With this in mind, NATO should focus on hybrid or gray zone threats to CUI, as these are the most likely threats in the near term. At the same time, the most dangerous threat to NATO allies remains the threat of armed attack on CUI as a prelude to aggression or during conflict.

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Terrorism targeted at CUI remains a risk, and blue crime is ever present. But other bodies should take the lead (e.g., national police and coast guards, multinational maritime security frameworks), with NATO providing support only where necessary, as with combating large-scale piracy. NATO can contribute to awareness of accidental damage through MDA and crisis response to natural damage and disaster, but these tasks should not drive alliance force structure or posture.

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Task

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The role of NATO assets in protecting CUI may be prioritized by considering the importance of relevant tasks and their role in NATO’s Strategic Concept. Deterrence and defense is the alliance’s core task. Deterring armed aggression is NATO’s raison d’être and remains its most important task. However, NATO’s capacity to do this is dependent on its general deterrence posture and is not related to the specific problem of protecting CUI — so it is not considered a primary focus here (see Figure 3). Within the context of protecting CUI, NATO should focus on three primary tasks:

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    Detect: NATO should focus on detecting threats to CUI, as detection is the foundation of deterrence and critical for removing the cloak of ambiguity around hybrid threats. Detection can be strengthened through enhanced MDA in priority regions. This may require increasing the persistent presence of forces and assets that can contribute to MDA in the maritime, air, space, and cyberspace domains.

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    Deter by denial: NATO should also focus on strengthening deterrence by denial by improving the defenses that can prevent attacks in the first place. This may also require strengthening the persistent presence of allied forces in regions of concern to protect key sites, reassure vulnerable allies, and deter aggressors. Wider resilience measures can also strengthen denial, but these are judged to be a lower priority for NATO because much of this infrastructure is owned and operated by civilian enterprises, not amenable to military solutions, and already subject to extensive efforts by other actors more suited to boosting public and private sector resilience — such as the European Union.

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    Deter by punishment: Responses to imminent threats or attacks should prioritize speed and reliability over severity. In the context of deterring low-end hybrid threats (rather than high-end conventional threats) to CUI, this suggests the utility of maritime forces that are forward based in priority regions — or at least persistently present or rapidly deployable (i.e., held at high readiness). More broadly, existing NATO units such as countering hybrid threat teams also have a role to play in immediate incident response and recovery.

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However, although this assessment is focused on protecting allied CUI against hybrid threats, this should not unduly warp NATO’s force posture. Any trade-offs in posture, capability, or readiness to deal with hybrid threats should not come at the expense of the credibility of NATO’s ability to deal with — and thereby deter — armed aggression.

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Region

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Not all subregions within the Euro-Atlantic area are equal when it comes to protecting CUI. The extent of regional energy infrastructure, proximity to advanced Russian undersea capabilities, and track record of recent incidents (attacks and infrastructure mapping) suggest NATO should focus initially on the Baltic, North Atlantic, and High North regions. At the same time, NATO cannot afford to ignore other regions that are critical to allies and where Russian forces and other threats (such as terrorism and blue crime) are known to operate, including the Mediterranean and Black Sea region.

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SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS

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The general assessment above, combined with the previous discussion of the four framework elements, suggests several more recommendations for NATO’s role in protecting CUI. These are divided into two parts: immediate actions that the new NATO center should implement quickly and longer-term approaches that are equally important but may take more time.

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Immediate Recommendations

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    Establish a new Standing NATO Maritime Group (SNMG) focused on protecting CUI. NATO’s four standing maritime groups are in high operational demand and none are focused on protecting CUI. Considering the growing threat, NATO should consider establishing an “SNMG3” to focus on protecting CUI in northern Europe, focused on the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Norwegian Sea (the areas of highest CUI density). The JEF task group that is currently deployed is a good example but only temporary. The capabilities of the group should include submarines, anti-submarine warfare, maritime surveillance, and seabed mapping, with contributions from allies who specialize in this domain. The group would play a vital role in organizing and delivering the functions of detecting, deterring, and responding to attacks on CUI in priority regions described in this report.

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    Commission a CUI vulnerability triage. Any approach to enhancing resilience starts with a vulnerability assessment. An initial triage assessment of criticality versus vulnerability to a range of threats can help MARCOM and NATO direct limited resources to protecting and defending those assets most at risk. The initial assessment presented here forms a starting point, but NATO’s own assessment must consider all forms of infrastructure, threats, regions, and the preferences of all allies.

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    Develop a fused MDA picture. A critical step in transforming MDA to improve detection and identification of threats to CUI will be fusing the existing intelligence picture across nations, the private and public sectors, and multinational and maritime domains (e.g., air, sea, subsea, space, and cyber). Assessing the highest-priority infrastructure and threats can help identify which ISR capabilities and combinations not currently available to MARCOM are necessary to rapidly attribute malign activity.

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    Produce regular CUI threat assessments. NATO already produces maritime threat assessments for governments and the commercial sector that focus on threats such as terrorism — for example, through the NATO Maritime Shipping Centre (MSC). These should either be expanded to include threats to CUI or be dedicated assessments that focus on nontraditional hybrid threats to CUI.

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    Clarify the role of NATO’s Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell. The cell is based in NATO headquarters, but its wide remit — which includes industry and civil-military engagement, best practice, and technology — and senior leadership may overlap with the new MARCOM center. The coordination cell could perform the role the MSC did during Ocean Shield of protecting CUI, which will be even more important given CUI is mostly owned and operated by private companies.

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    Implement a CUI exercise program. Exercises are a vital part of NATO’s deterrence and reassurance efforts and have been stepped up over the last year. Yet CUI exercises have been limited and focused on technology. A wider CUI exercise program using existing assets would deliver wider effects to deter adversaries and reassure allies and industry partners.

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    Update NATO’s maritime strategy. NATO’s maritime strategy is over 12 years old, does not mention Russia or China, and mentions undersea infrastructure only in passing. It needs updating to reflect the new threat environment and NATO’s new Strategic Concept — including a focus on protecting CUI. The new center should have a lead role in producing a new strategy — or at least a “Protecting CUI” annex.

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Longer-Term Recommendations

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    Develop a NATO CUI resilience strategy. Building on the vulnerability assessment, a longer-term effort that the new center could lead is developing a NATO CUI resilience strategy. This would meet NATO’s Strengthened Resilience Commitment and could inform (and be informed by) a NATO resilience planning process.

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    Adopt a NATO CUI preparedness goal. As part of a strengthened approach to CUI resilience, allies could commit to a NATO CUI preparedness goal to bolster national and pan-NATO approaches to preparing for attacks on CUI.

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    Take a risk management approach. The sheer variety of threats to CUI and the number of potential targets require an approach that prioritizes and manages risk. Even better than a risk-centric strategy would be an uncertainty-centric approach that seeks robustness against a range of unknowable threats.

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    Develop a CUI attack response playbook. Effective deterrence against CUI attacks requires a credible and reliable set of measures to respond to threats or attacks on CUI. A counter-CUI playbook of military (and nonmilitary) response options would help. This playbook could also be the basis of a robust exercise program.

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    Adopt a framework nation approach to regional CUI protection. A regional framework nation approach to protecting CUI could help tailor CUI protection to the differing concerns of regional allies. One example is the JEF, newly focused on protecting northern Europe’s CUI. Whatever the framework, any regional approach to protecting CUI should be directed by the alliance’s DDA concept, NATO’s guiding framework for all operations short of war, and align with new regional plans agreed at the Vilnius summit.

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Sean Monaghan is a visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focuses on NATO, European security, and defense. His career as a civil servant in the UK Ministry of Defence has focused on international defense policy, including NATO, the European Union, and the United States. In recent years, his work as a policy analyst has seen him contribute to the United Kingdom’s Integrated Review and lead multinational research projects.

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Otto Svendsen is a research associate with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at CSIS, where he provides research and analysis on political, economic, and security developments in Europe.

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Mike Darrah is a military fellow with the International Security Program at CSIS. He is a commander and aviator in the U.S. Coast Guard and came to CSIS from Sector Humboldt Bay, where he served as deputy sector commander, overseeing all Coast Guard operations in the northern quarter of California.

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Ed Arnold is a research fellow with the International Security department at the Royal United Services Institute.

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UNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.35 © MMXXIII ♢ C2
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NATO To Protect Undersea

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Sean Monaghan, et al. | 2023.12.19
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NATO is not ready to mitigate increasingly prevalent Russian aggression against European critical undersea infrastructure (CUI).

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Comparing Conflicts In Gaza

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Ehud Eilam | 2023.12.12
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With the outcome of the present confrontation between Israel and its opponents in Gaza remaining uncertain, a comparison with previous rounds of fighting may provide some insight into how events could develop.

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Indo-Pacific Divergence

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Ben Bland, et al. | 2023.11.28
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This Policy Brief seeks to explore how key partners in the Indo-Pacific have perceived and responded to recent Western efforts in the region.

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European Security Transformed

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Ed Arnold and Peter Jones | 2023.11.24
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The European security in transformation is starting to settle into new patterns, accelerated by Russia’s war on Ukraine, as new actors and groupings emerge. For the UK, this shifting landscape creates both challenges and leadership opportunities as it heads towards its next general election.

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N. Korea’s Sanctions-Busting

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Daniel Salisbury | 2023.11.22
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Pyongyang’s alleged decision to close around a quarter of its overseas missions reflects both the evolving sanctions-busting landscape and more concerning rapidly shifting geopolitical realities.

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