Information Dissemination: December 2010

Thursday, December 30, 2024

The J-20 is What You Want it to Be

Bill Sweetman's post on the J-20 and the perils of interpretation is a must-read; we are likely to see in the J-20 what we expect and (not always the same thing) what we want to see. However, I'd also like to direct everyone to his old article on the Tu-22, which he linked in the above post. Simply put, this is a masterpiece of military writing. It includes close technical analysis based on available intelligence, an elaboration of the strategic consequences of tactical development, and an evaluation of the causes and consequences of misunderstandings about the capabilities of the Tu-22. It's a brilliant piece of work, and I'm glad he gave everyone the opportunity to read it.

Speaking of which, I've been slowly but surely working my way through this list of the "Best Magazine Articles Ever." There are a fair number of military themed articles (including R.A. Radford's Economic Organization of a POW Camp, SLA Marshall's First Wave at Omaha Beach, and others), but I suspect that this group could come up with a good list of excellent military themed magazine articles. Thoughts?

2010 Counter-Piracy Churn

As noted here and elsewhere, despite CMF’s efforts, Somali pirates enjoyed record successful attacks and revenue from ransoms this year. What follows are my marginally informed, highly unsolicited personal opinions on our counter-piracy efforts off HOA during 2010:

What Works:
1) Embarked security - No ship with an armed security team onboard has been captured by pirates. Despite much wanking about liabilities and escalation by shipping company attorneys, these teams are clearly the most effective defensive counter-measure.
2) Citadels - This passive counter-measure seems to be working when successfully implemented —but only until the pirates discover breaching tools.
3) Proactive hostage rescue - Ref. M/Vs Maersk Alabama, Magellan Star, Moscow University, etc.

What Doesn’t Work:
1) Law-fare - Very few captured pirates have been successfully tried and convicted, either in the courts of US, Europe, or the developing nations upon which they have been dumped and enticed with bribes, err, economic incentives. Jurisdictions are confused, evidentiary standards for successful prosecution are too high and the courts just don’t have the throughput to try and detain every captured pirate. Continued efforts on this line of operation are a waste.
2) Coalition naval ships floating around waiting for something to happen or pirates stupid enough to attack them - Given prolonged global fiscal austerity, how long can navies continue to spend money on these ineffective operations without success?
3) Fixing Somalia's long term governance, terrorist, and human development problems - Books could be written (and have) on the legion issues which contribute to Somalia's instability. But the important thing to note is that Somalia was a basket case before piracy took off in 2008 and will continue to be so long after piracy is finally addressed. I am all for a comprehensive international strategy to assist the Somali people in addressing their country's problems; however, defeating piracy should be divorced from those efforts and could be accomplished long before stability is achieved.

What should be tried:
1) Hit the camps - After several seasons of observation, the pirates’ patterns of life and TTPs are rather well understood by the coalition. Like any significant military operation, pirates rely on a logistics chain consisting of boats, fuel and other commodities that must be assembled before deployment. These assembly areas can be targeted kinetically with no collateral damage and minimal loss of life, while producing significant disruptive effects to the pirate’s operations.
2) Target key facilitators - There are literally tens of thousands of potential recruits with rusty Kalashnikovs in Somalia who can hold hundreds of hostages aboard dozens of ships for months on end. There are fewer, but still many, ex-fishermen/mariners who can navigate a skiff hundreds of miles over the horizon and capture an unprotected merchant. But there are a relatively small number of personalities in Somalia who are fluent in multiple languages, can facilitate hostage negotiations, and coordinate the movement and laundering of large sums of cash internationally. Kill them.
3) Dissuasive Information Operations - Reinforce the effectiveness of 1 and 2 and deter future piratical activity in Somalia and elsewhere.

Maybe piracy matters enough for the United States or another country to finally take the initiative and exert leadership to end the problem -- or maybe it doesn’t and we should just give up. Here's to happy hunting for those involved in 2011.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Navy Issues LCS Contracts

Here are the official announcements:

Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, Md., is being awarded a fixed-price-incentive contract for the fiscal 2010-2015 block buy of Flight 0+ Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The fiscal 2010 LCS Flight 0+ ship award amount is $436,852,639. There are additional line items totaling $54,742,639 for technical data package, core class services, provisioned items orders, ordering, a not-to-exceed line item for non-recurring engineering, and data items. The total amount of the contract is $491,595,278. The contract includes line items for nine additional ships and options for post delivery support, additional crew and shore support, special studies, class services, class standard equipment support, economic order quantity equipment, selected ship systems equipment for a second source and selected ship system integration and test for a second source which, if authorized/exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $4,570,604,367. The cumulative value excluding any option items related to the second source is $4,069,913,166. Work will be performed in Marinette, Wis. (56 percent); Walpole, Mass. (14 percent); Washington, D.C. (12 percent); Oldsmar, Fla. (4 percent); Beloit, Wis. (3 percent); Moorestown, N.J. (2 percent); Minneapolis, Minn. (2 percent); and various locations of less than one percent, each totaling seven percent. Work is expected to be complete by August 2015. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year, except for fiscal 2010 RDT&E. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website with two offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-11-C-2300).

Austal USA, LLC, Mobile, Ala., is being awarded a fixed-price-incentive contract for the fiscal 2010-2015 block buy of Flight 0+ Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The fiscal 2010 LCS Flight 0+ ship award amount is $432,069,883. There are additional line items totaling $33,398,998 for technical data package, core class services, provisioned items orders, ordering, a not-to-exceed line item for non-recurring engineering, and data items. The total amount of the contract is $465,468,881. The contract includes line items for nine additional ships and options for post delivery support, additional crew and shore support, special studies, class services, class standard equipment support, economic order quantity equipment, selected ship systems equipment for a second source and selected ship system integration and test for a second source which, if authorized/exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $4,386,301,775. The cumulative value excluding any option items related to the second source is $3,785,807,006. Work will be performed in Mobile, Ala. (50 percent); Pittsfield, Mass. (17 percent); Cincinnati, Ohio (3 percent); Baltimore, Md. (2 percent); Burlington, Vt. (2 percent); New Orleans, La. (2 percent); and various locations of less than two percent each totaling 24 percent. Work is expected to be complete by June 2015. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year, except fiscal 2010 RDT&E. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website with two offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-11-C-2301).

The Navy also has a very well done write up here, which includes these specific additional details.

Both contracts also include line items for nine additional ships, subject to Congressional appropriation of each year's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program requirements. When all 10 ships of each block buy are awarded, the value of the ship construction portion of the two contracts would be $3,620,625,192 for Lockheed Martin Corp., and $3,518,156,851 for Austal USA. The average cost of both variants including government-furnished equipment and margin for potential cost growth across the five year period is $440 million per ship. The pricing for these ships falls well below the escalated average Congressional cost cap of $538 million.

My new years resolution on the blog will be to treat everything Sean Stackley says on naval affairs in 2011 with the highest degree of credibility. He truly deserves tremendous credit for making these contracts happen. Did anyone believe the Navy would get fixed-price-incentive contracts for the Littoral Combat Ship at around $440 million per hull? I was expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million as the lowest bid after government furnished equipment, and I thought even that was wishful thinking.

I'll be watching for comments by Tim Colton - who I hope decides to write a full essay on the topic - because I'm thinking there are reasons for the low price from the small yards that the rest of us completely didn't understand, and only someone like Tim will be able to explain it.

Going Forward

The Littoral Combat Ship program is one of the most criticized programs in the DoD today. A lot of that criticism comes from cost, but the cost criticism is a direct result of unreasonably low budget expectations for building a ~3000 ton ship - and is solely the Navy's fault. $220 million was never realistic, and the budget cost cap of $480 million per ship in FY08 dollars was considered much more reasonable. Note, the US Navy has ultimately achieved $440 million per ship in FY10 dollars (or is it FY11, unclear?) - a lower price than anyone expected.

Something else worth thinking about, because I'd bet a steak dinner Bob Work will be citing figures in the near future that say as much - at $440 million per hull, the next 20 Littoral Combat Ships are under fixed-cost-incentive contracts that are less expensive per 1000 tons than the Avenger MCMs, the Osprey MCHs, and the Perry FFGs. Said another way, the LCS is less expensive per 1000 tons than every other small surface combatant class built over the last 3 decades - and that includes the cost of the mission modules based on the 2010 SAR report (with a lot of cost growth to spare on mission modules, which may actually be needed!).

Did anyone believe that would end up true?

In many ways I think the cost criticism only exists in the context of what the LCS capability provides. Within that context, compelling arguments by critics can be made because payload questions with mission modules, not to mention the numerous and increasing number of logistics issues, still have not been addressed with the LCS program.

There is one counter-argument that also has not been made however, but is important if the Navy is to mean what it says. If the Littoral Combat Ship is indeed a warship, but potentially incapable of fighting in high end modern warfare environments, then we must accept that the LCS represents a warship designed for environments other than full scale war. If the mission statement in the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower is preventing wars is as important as winning wars, and that in turn represents a range of capabilities needed for both warfighting and peacemaking, then a reasonable assessment would be to suggest the Littoral Combat Ship represents the largest single SCN budget investment in peacemaking by the US Navy since when... before the Great White Fleet?

It is not trivial by any standard to throw $8,172,108,781 of scarce SCN budget funding over the next 5 years towards a set of capabilities most likely to be disruptive in peacetime - capabilities like sea mines (1987-1988 Iran), swarming boats (Somali Piracy), or littoral submarines (Cheonan sinking). All three of those threats represent threats that US Navy forces have had to address in what are politically described as peacetime security events. While folks don't like it, primarily because the LCS isn't designed to blow shit up like traditional naval vessels, the LCS represents one of the most visible DoD investments in exercising military power during peacetime in the 21st century. That is a significantly positive political statement that the Navy would be wise to insure the American people, and in particular Congress, are informed regarding.

Considering the Austal version of the LCS looks like a super fast waterborne Star Destroyer, with visual assistance like that it seems to me that only epic leadership failure can screw up the messaging on this program.

Looking to the Future

Lets ask some questions. The Navy is probably going to SLEP the MCMs and will allow the FFGs to retire. The question to be asked now is whether the 24 Littoral Combat Ships are replacing the MHCs and MCMs, or are they replacing the FFGs? This question doesn't need an immediate answer, but as the Navy examines the evolving global maritime threat matrix it is a question worth debating.

Does the US Navy still need a frigate? The LCS is conceptually very smart (dedicated motherships are smart), but LCS is not and should never be described as a frigate. This question also doesn't need an immediate answer, but Navy leadership cannot make the mistake of attempting to sell Congress on the idea that the LCS is a frigate - because doing so would seriously undermine the ability of future Naval leadership to be adaptive when explaining emerging threats that might require a future frigate force to hedge with. Besides, what does a US armed version of LCS hulls look like anyway, and how much would that cost?

Does the Navy need LCS tenders or LCS specific logistics vessels? Logistics, maintenance, and even modularity suggests tenders would be a good idea. I think the Navy would be smart to discuss the possibility with Congress, because that discussion would reach the American people. With this program under a 5 year contract and still facing a great deal of uncertainty beyond those five years, it would be a wise choice for the Navy to float ideas and concepts as part of the LCS discussion just for the purposes of headlines and conversation. Just saying...

Wednesday, December 29, 2024

Four Interesting Articles

If you didn't catch this Esquire Magazine piece by Thomas Barnett right before Christmas, you missed a good one. Credit the editor for giving the piece the title:

When China Ruled the World
Or why the "China Century" will be the shortest on record

There's a moment in part two of Quentin Tarantino's revenge epic, Kill Bill, in which legendary martial-arts master Pai Mei teaches the Bride how to exact her revenge by delivering the killer blows instantly and then waiting for her nemesis to drop. Pai Mei "hits you with his fingertips at five different pressure points on your body, and then lets you walk away. But once you've taken five steps, your heart explodes inside your body and you fall to the floor."

And the battle is over before it really begins.

Okay, a gruesome analogy, perhaps, but apt. I'm here to tell you that America plunged its fingertips into the Middle Kingdom's body politic across the 1970s, beginning with Nixon going to China in 1972 and culminating with Jimmy Carter's normalization of relations in 1979. The first embrace allowed aged Mao Tse-tung to extinguish his nonstop internal purge known as the Cultural Revolution by firewalling his fears of Soviet antagonism. The second cemented China's wary-but-increasingly-warm relationship with the United States and allowed Deng Xiaoping, who narrowly survived Mao's insanities, to dismantle the dead emperor's dysfunctional socialist model, quietly burying Marx with the most revolutionary of eulogies — to get rich is glorious!

Deng chose wisely: Reversing Mikhail Gorbachev's subsequent logic, he focused on the economics while putting off the politics. This decision later earned him the sobriquet "the butcher of Tiananmen" when, in 1989, the political expectations of students quickly outpaced the Party's willingness for self-examination. But it likewise locked China onto a historical pathway from which it cannot escape, or what I call the five D's of the dragon's decline from world-beater to world-benefactor: demographics, decrepitude, dependency, defensiveness, and — most disabling of all — democratization.

Let us begin this journey right where Deng did, with a focus on the family.

Continue reading at Esquire, a really interesting piece that reminds us China's window is closing sooner rather than later.

Also worth reading... the Lowy Institute has decided to take the rest of the year off, but not before they leave us with three items in a theme worth reading:

Three things I have changed my mind about this year by Rory Medcalf

India's prospects
Peace in East Asia
The limits of security engagement with China

Read the details here.

What have I changed my mind about this year? China in the Pacific by Jenny Hayward-Jones

I have for some time been relatively sanguine about the rise of China in the Pacific. I believed that, like most powers which engage with Pacific Island countries, China wanted a stable and prosperous Pacific region. Chinese trade, aid and investment in the Pacific were good if they created wealth and improved infrastructure. China's truce with Taiwan over the race for diplomatic recognition in the Pacific offered an opportunity for China to mature as a donor.

It is also vital for the Pacific to have access to a greater range of advice than that provided by Australia and New Zealand, and to have advice from other developing countries. China provides an alternative development model that offers some useful lessons for decision-makers in Pacific Islands.

But I am no longer convinced that China is a force for good in the Pacific:

Her analysis is worth reading in full.

What have I changed my mind about this year? China's naval build-up by Sam Roggeveen

Hugh White has already written about China's growing maritime assertiveness in 2010, but there's also the question of hardware. It's barely two-and-a-half months ago that I wrote a blog post which described China's naval modernisation as 'methodical' and 'modest'. I even used the phrase 'slow and steady' in the headline, and threw in a picture of the tortoise and the hare to drive home the point.

But the evidence that has emerged since that time — mainly from Chinese military-themed blogs and forums — throws that characterisation into serious doubt.

The rest can be read here.

Statistic of the Day

IMB, from 2009:

The total number of incidents attributed to the Somali pirates stands at 217 with 47 vessels hijacked and 867 crewmembers taken hostage. Somalia accounts for more than half of the 2009 figures, with the attacks continuing to remain opportunistic in nature.

IMB, from 2010:

Incidents Reported for Somalia:
Total Incidents: 210
Total Hijackings: 45
Total Hostages : 948

Those statistics for 2010 are as of December 22, 2024 meaning if I am reading this log over at NATO shipping correctly, 2010 has been another record breaking year for Somali piracy.

As always, Eaglespeak has the latest Somalia piracy information details, including the latest incidents that have occurred since December 22, 2010.

The J-20 Lives

There are a number of areas where the PLA has adopted approaches to operational requirements that differ significantly from U.S. approaches to the same requirement. Examples include the heavy reliance on ballistic and cruise missiles, rather than stealth aircraft, to attack ground targets inside heavily defended airspace; an array of systems to attack intelligence, communications, and navigation satellites, seeking to neutralize the U.S. advantage in space; an approach to computer network exploitation that harvests huge volumes of data; an emphasis on offensive and defensive electronic warfare in recent years; and the “three warfares” doctrine.

Congress Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010 (PDF)

I'm not saying the annual DoD report to Congress on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010 is a pile of paper crap, but I am ready to suggest the possibility the report might be something similar.

I've been reading Wired and Aviation Week, but until The DEW Line came around I decided to remain skeptical. Got these from Twitter and think they are worth a look.

Someone please tell me how we learn about this PLAAF development from cell phone photography technology and Chinese bulletin boards instead of from the annual DoD report?

In less than one week we have:

Confirmation new PLAN aircraft carrier is under construction
PACOM confirming DF-21D is now at IOC.
4/5 Generation Stealth technology demonstrators on the runway

All of which is either well ahead of projected schedules or was never before thought to exist, at least publicly? Perhaps it is time the Secretary of Defense answers a few tough questions, like why the DoD appears to be caught with their pants around their ankles when it comes to major PLA developments.

See hi-Res here and here. More pictures here, here, and here. Even more over at War is Boring. When I look at this aircraft, for some reason my first thoughts are of a stealthy F-111.

Tuesday, December 28, 2024

Navy Supply Corps Officer Dies in Custody in Manila

There are many, many questions that deserve answers in this tragic story.

According to news reports, Navy Lieutenant Scintar Mejia of Los Angeles, CA died Monday as a result of injuries suffered after reportedly jumping to his his death while in custody for alleged possession of cocaine. Mejia was a Filipino-American Navy Supply Corps officer selected for promotion to Lieutenant Commander.

A day earlier, Mejia was arrested at Ninoy Aquino International Airport as he passed through Terminal 2 security when security officials reportedly discovered a small packet containing .03 grams of a white powdery substance, initially reported as cocaine. Mejia allegedly became unruly, denied that he was carrying drugs, threw the packet at authorities, and accused them of setting him up for a crime. It was later determined that the substance was not cocaine.

Held overnight at the Police Center for Aviation Security at Terminal 1 at the airport, Mejia asked aviation police for permission to use the restroom. Reportedly, the restroom was in use and Mejia asked permission urinate outside. As he was escorted outside, Mejia reportedly dashed toward the stairs and dove toward the ground landing on the cement below.

The U.S. Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) is conducting an investigation in parallel with Pasay City police authorities.

There are many questions and contradicting information surrounding the circumstances of Mejia's arrest and death. The more recent reports from the Philippines are subsequent to the announcement that NCIS would participate in the investigation. These reports also seemingly attempt to paint Mejia as a drug trafficker, although there is little or nothing to back that up in the earlier reports.

Some of the relevant questions:

When did Mejia arrive in the Philippines? Earlier reports said he arrived sometime last week. More recent reports said he arrived on Christmas Day, just a day earlier.
How was the substance discovered? In the Philippine Star report, airport security Superintendent Manuel Pintado stated he was informed that Mejia himself removed the packet from his carry-on bag after it passed through the X-Ray machine. The AP reported that security officials discovered the packet.
How could Mejia have thrown the packet at security? If it was discovered by security, it was likely never in Mejia's hands. If Mejia pulled it from his bag, why would he have thrown it at security?
How much money did he have in his possession? Earlier reports made no mention of carrying a large amount of money. More recent reports state that he had over $30,000 in his possession.
What actually happened to Mejia while he was in custody?

Beyond the many inconsistencies in the reporting, there are a thousand questions that could be asked surrounding his time in custody and the exact circumstances surrounding the fatal fall. The one overarching question in this case is whether this whole tragedy is the result of a hudilap.

We may never find out.

Chinese Fortune Cookies and CS-21

It is noteworthy that in today's edition of China Daily there is a complaint being directed towards the United States for a deployment yet to actually happen.

The JoongAng Daily, in the ROK, reported last week that the US decided to send another nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, to East Asia.

If true, this will be the third US aircraft carrier deployed in the area, in addition to the USS George Washington, which earlier took part in Washington's joint military drills with Seoul and Tokyo, and the USS Carl Vinson, which just arrived at Guam in the western Pacific.

Analysts accused the US of increasing the danger of war in the region even though the DPRK has shown restraint amid a number of recent ROK drills.

"Three aircraft carriers in the same region are going to be interpreted as a signal of preparing for war," Major General Luo Yuan, with the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, told China Daily.

What is this about? The scheduled deployment of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) is in the near future, and China believes the aircraft carrier will immediately be heading to show the flag near North Korea. That may be true, although it may not be true.

Because it might be true, China is filing a complaint about that possibility today, in sort of a preemptive complaint about a future deployment. It is interesting to note, but won't impact where the US sends aircraft carriers - after all if you browse other news you will notice how many folks are discussing the very possibility that North Korea plans to be very provocative in 2011, and you will also notice that China appears to be unable to do anything about that.

While three carriers is a big show of force, I think more realistically what we can expect in the near future is the continuous presence of 2 US aircraft carriers in the Pacific for the first half of 2011. They won't always be around North Korea, as there will be other requirements, but North Korea will be the reason the Pacific will be more crowded in 2011 than it was in 2010. China won't be happy about that, so I suspect a lot of complaining will be the new normal from China.

It doesn't need to be that way though. Strait of Malacca piracy is up, and within problems like that lies opportunity for the US and China to find common ground and work together in the Pacific. I don't see it though, I think China believes it is in their best interest to complain about the US Navy rather than work with the US Navy, even though that will continue to be a failing strategy. Let me explain.

Today over at the USNI Blog CDR Salamander said something I disagree with.

The Maritime Strategy is unclear, ineffective, and seen as irrelevant to tomorrow’s challenges. When looking forward, our maritime strategy documents should be Ref. A. They are not. That is probably part of the problem, for reasons I covered over at my home blog over three years ago.

I think this analysis fails to study what messages have worked and what messages haven't worked in the maritime strategy, because the record appears to be more of a mixed bag rather than an absolute. For example, one of the developments we are seeing in the maritime domain is the rising expectation of multilateral security cooperation over bilateral security agreements. It started with the anti-terrorism task forces both in the Mediterranean Sea and Gulf of Aden, but now involves the development of multinational working groups for specific issues including piracy and global partnership stations.

Multinational, shared security in the maritime domain is one compelling idea from the maritime strategy that did resonate, and it has changed the way business is being done. The united front of US, Japan, and South Korea in dealing with North Korea is just the latest example. It was only recently that ADM Roughead suggested that the model for addressing piracy has application in the Pacific - which in itself represents an operational evolution of a specific strategic concept promoted from the Cooperative Strategy on 21st Century Seapower (CS-21). One might claim the idea itself isn't new, but it is also true the idea didn't resonate until communicated through the maritime strategy.

And that is key. The Pacific region has changed as a result of CS-21, because everyone's expectations of what a security solution looks like - multinational shared solutions - has evolved to become the US vision of what security should look like. We see it in the way Vietnam has reached out to neighbors to balance their security interests with China. We see it in the way Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia have all begun making security arrangements both with China, and without. China expected to become a hegemony influencing the Pacific to be that of harmony with Chinese characteristics, and instead has found every initiative that is absent a multinational character to result in outreach from a neighbor to the US, Russia, or even India.

That is why when I look at CS-21 I see mixed results. I think it is fair to suggest that CS-21 was intended to resonate domestically as a way for the US to manage global security challenges as an alternative to large deployments of ground forces, but in execution it ultimately has become a way the global security environment has shaped its expectations as a hedge in balancing security concerns associated with rising powers - most specifically China but also to some degree Russia and India.

What does another aircraft carrier strike group in the Pacific Ocean represent in 2011? Try Forward Presence, Deterrence, Sea Control, Power Projection, Maritime Security, Humanitarian Assistance, and Disaster Response. To Japan and South Korea it represents a US commitment that preventing wars is as important as winning wars, and our intentions are to achieve results through collective security. Another CSG represents insistence that trust and cooperation cannot be surged, so it must be present at all times.

A CSG represents the full range of military operations for purposes of cooperation. Another carrier represents Regionally Concentrated, Credible Combat Power as part of Globally Distributed, Mission-Tailored Maritime Forces. If you want to treat these words from CS-21 as slogans, be my guest, but it is the follow through with the actual deployment of naval forces that puts meaning behind the words.

I note the Chinese expectation that US Navy actions will match the words in CS-21 is why China is complaining preemptively about an upcoming deployment in the Pacific. That same expectation by everyone else in the region is why the words of CS-21 have become more than just slogans.

The American elected leadership may not be buying what the US Navy is selling to our satisfaction, but in no small part due to CS-21, the rest of the world absolutely is buying what the US Navy is selling - and I would suggest the front page headlines of every maritime security issue in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean represents evidence as such.

Monday, December 27, 2024

ADM Willard: DF-21D Reaches “Initial Operational Capability” (IOC)

When the 4 Star running PACOM says it (ADM Willard), and one the nations most prominent PLA analysts reports it (Andrew Erickson), it would be difficult to find two better sources for confirmation. Indeed, it might be impossible to find two better sources for confirmation.

From Andrew Erickson's fantastic blog.

As we enter the Year of the Hare, China has achieved a major military milestone far faster than many foreign observers thought possible.[i] In a December 2010 interview with veteran national security journalist Yoichi Kato of the Asahi Shimbun, Admiral Robert F. Willard, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, offered significant new revelations:

Kato: Let me go into China’s anti-access area denial (A2AD) capabilities. What is the current status of China’s anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) development, and how close is it to actual operational deployment?

Willard: The anti-ship ballistic missile system in China has undergone extensive testing. An analogy using a Western term would be “initial operational capability (IOC),” whereby it has—I think China would perceive that it has—an operational capability now, but they continue to develop it. It will continue to undergo testing, I would imagine, for several more years.

Q: China has IOC?

A: You would have to ask China that, but as we see the development of the system, their acknowledging the system in open press reporting and the continued testing of the system, I would gauge it as about the equivalent of a U.S. system that has achieved IOC.

Q: China has already perfected the technology to fly that missile and also the sensor systems for targeting. Has the entire system integration been completed?

A: Typically, to have something that would be regarded as in its early operational stage would require that that system be able to accomplish its flight pattern as designed, by and large.

Q: But they have not conducted the actual flight test or the test to attack moving ships yet, have they?

A: We have not seen an over-water test of the entire system.

Q: But do you believe they already have that capability?

A: I think that the component parts of the anti-ship ballistic missile have been developed and tested.

Q: Is it a bigger threat to the United States than submarines in terms of their anti-access area denial?

A: No, I don’t think so. Anti-access area denial, which is a term that was relatively recently coined, is attempting to represent an entire range of capabilities that China has developed and that other countries have developed.

It’s not exclusively China that has what is now being referred to as A2/AD capability. But in China’s case, it’s a combination of integrated air defense systems, advanced naval systems such as the submarine, advanced ballistic missile systems such as the anti-ship ballistic missile, as well as power projection systems into the region.

The anti-access area denial systems, more or less, range countries, archipelagos such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, so there are many countries in the region that are falling within the envelope of this, of an A2AD capability of China. That should be concerning—and we know is concerning—to those countries.

While it may be largely designed to assure China of its ability to affect military operations within its regional waters, it is an expanded capability that ranges beyond the first island chain and overlaps countries in the region. For that reason, it is concerning to Southeast Asia, (and) it remains concerning to the United States.

Read the rest at Andrew Erickson's blog. There is no greater source on the internet for the DF-21D and Andrew's blog is one of the best link libraries on the internet for finding additional information.

Five days before the new year and this becomes the most important Navy story of 2010. Nelson once said "A Ship's a Fool to Fight a Fort," but in the next decade US Naval forces are being developed and shaped to fight the fortress of defensive capabilities contained in modern maritime Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2AD) defensive systems. The Navy has been careful not to describe the rise of China's Navy as an arms race, but there is an arms race taking place between the DF-21D and the AEGIS combat system - and for the present time, it would appear the DF-21D is winning.

I don't care what Lockheed Martin says, the latest version of AEGIS BMD was not designed to defeat this weapon. Tomorrows version will be capable of doing so, but not todays. AEGIS BMD is still based on tracking the trajectory of ballistic missiles at launch, which means once the DF-21D changes course in mid-flight it is almost a certainty that whatever interceptor is launched from sea will be hundreds of miles off course. It is a problem that can and is being addressed.

Once again it is noteworthy, the US underestimated China's ability to develop and field a military system - something the US has been doing a lot over the last few years - and now we are the one playing catch up.

Sunday, December 26, 2024

Book Review: Red Star over the Pacific

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to read Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes' Red Star Over the Pacific. A couple of minor quibbles aside, the book is an excellent overview of emerging Chinese naval capabilities and doctrine, set against the background of China's strategic maritime thought. The volume discusses Chinese naval thought in terms of two major strategic thinkers, Mao Zedong and Alfred Thayer Mahan. It also draws out the implications of technological change, and of shifts in US doctrine and force structure. The book is valuable for its insights into the interplay of USN and PLAN doctrine, but also for its use of Chinese language source material.

The authors begin by contrasting Maoist and Mahanian theory, which is an understandable but ultimately unfortunate choice. The section on the military thought of Mao Zedong is not particularly helpful. The authors note that Mao didn't think very long or very deeply about naval warfare, or indeed about maritime affairs at all. Nevertheless, they attempt to draw some lessons from Maoist military theory for how the PLAN might fight, and how it will go about procurement. This attempt is not particularly successful. What we learn is that the Chinese may fight using a combination of orthodox and unorthodox methods, that they may attack small concentrations of US warships in preference of capital ship battlegroups, that they may attack "in depth," instead of concentrating on forward deployed US forces, and they may combine political and military methods to achieve victory. With due respect, I didn't need to read an analysis of Mao Zedong military thought to learn any of these things, nor do I think that any of them represent singular implications of a Maoist approach to maritime conflict. Frankly, the section on seems leftover from the ruins of a larger argument that never quite came together. Indeed, in a later chapter the authors suggest that the beliefs and pronouncements of Mao Zedong on nuclear theory are wholly irrelevant to analysis of China's SLBM deterrent. While the authors claim that "Maoist theory, then, informs the logic of Chinese statecraft and grand strategy as well as its operational and tactical grammar," they fail to marshal sufficient evidence for that claim, or for the argument that Maoist theory has any specific, direct implications for China's maritime development.

The analysis of Chinese views of Mahan is much more useful. The reading of Mahan doesn't necessitate any direct policy consequences, but it is nevertheless interesting that the Chinese are taking Mahan seriously, and are talking about Mahan in terms of their own future naval development. Yoshihara and Holmes draw extensively from Chinese language analysis of Mahan, discussing the intra-Chinese debates over the utility of Mahanian theory and also of its direct implications for PLAN modernization. The authors are a bit cagey on the quality of Chinese analysis of Mahan, and hold out the possibility that Chinese naval advocates are invoking Mahan primarily to justify large scale naval acquisition. It bears noting that this would hardly be the first time that Mahan has been used in such a fashion.

The chapter on the strategic implications of tactical developments is quite good, although its insights won't be news to many who read ID and similar naval blogs. The authors focus on the effect that the development of ASBMs could have on the strategic balance in the Pacific, and give a good overview of the effect that such a development might have. In particular, Yoshihara and Holmes give several examples of Chinese thought on the strategic interaction of ASBMs and BMD systems, as well as on potential tactics to defeat Japanese BMD capabilities.

The authors also do excellent work distilling Chinese efforts to create a "usable history" of Chinese maritime endeavour. Nicely framing the idea of "usable history" as narrative that emphasizes certain facts and produces a template for thinking about the future, they focus on how Chinese historians and propagandists have focused on the career of Zheng He, the fifteenth century Chinese mariner who led expeditions as far as the coast of Africa. The elevation of Zheng He serves two major ideational purposes. First, his story places China as a major maritime power, one capable of carrying out large scale maritime operations at long distances. Second, the expeditions of Zheng He can be put in terms of peaceful expansion of trade and social contact, rather than in terms of conquest. This provides a nice contrast to post-colonial understandings of European maritime expansion. That this picture excludes much of what we know about China's maritime efforts, its later turn from the sea, and European maritime expansion isn't particularly relevant to the usefulness of the history.

A late chapter provides a good summary of the development of US naval doctrine since the 1970s, ending with the Cooperative Maritime Strategy. Again, the account will be familiar to those who have read John Hattendorf's Newport papers, but the summary is economical and draws out implications for the US response to the rise of Chinese naval power. As for CS-21, Yoshihara and Holmes worry that prospective American allies in the region (particularly China and Japan) will see the cooperative emphasis as insufficiently assertive.

There is more to this book than this review indicates; for example, the authors have a chapter on the development of Chinese nuclear deterrence doctrine. The minor quibbles aside, the volume is extremely valuable, and most who have an interest in Chinese naval doctrine (most of the audience of this blog, I would expect) will find it useful.

Saturday, December 25, 2024

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

These are my girls just last week. Feel the Joy! We live in the greatest country on earth, in no small part due to the people who read this blog every week. For those traveling this holiday season, stay safe. For those deployed overseas - Thank you for what you do and God bless.

Friday, December 24, 2024

Smoke coming out of the furnace of Varyag?

It looks like there are smoke coming out of the furnace of Varyag. I think we are finally seeing the steam turbines getting turned on. I will let you guys be the judge.

Thursday, December 23, 2024

Behind the Scenes of Yeonpyeong Island Exercise

A really interesting report from the Korea JoongAng Daily (English JoongAng Ilbo) describing some of the behind the scenes activities leading up to and during the Yeonpyeong Island exercise. First some interesting diplomacy.

A diplomatic source in Seoul believes that North Korea did not go any further to provoke the South because of a recent visit made by high-ranking U.S. officials to China.

The delegation that visited Beijing included Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Jeff Bader, senior director for Asian Affairs of the National Security Council. They were said to have delivered a “very tough message” to China...

The diplomatic source said the delegation had told Chinese officials that if North Korea launches another attack, the U.S. would not stand in the way of South Korean military retaliation.

“Steinberg and his delegation also informed China that if it did not take up a responsible role in blocking North Korea’s provocations, then North Korea will inevitably be brought up during summit talks between President Obama and Hu Jintao next year,” the source added. “We believe that China delivered this message to North Korea because of the pressure, and urged them to tone down their response to the South Korean firing exercise on Yeonpyeong Island.”

This New York Times article outlines how the diplomacy situation is changing with the US and China finding common ground. This is a most interesting, and very welcome development.

During the exercises North Korea was engaged, sort of.

The South Korean Armed Forces had deployed unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor unusual activity from the North, but its military jammed the plane’s navigation system, rendering the aerial vehicle ineffective.

There was also intelligence that North Korea was preparing to fire antiaircraft missiles. A South Korean military source said that light beams to guide surface-to-air missiles had been detected on Monday at an antiaircraft base in northern Hwanghae Province, but no missiles were launched.

“The F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets were targeted. Mobile missile launch pads were continuously deployed, then removed; we thought these were tactics to throw us off,” the military source told the JoongAng Ilbo.

The degree of disruption to the unmanned aircraft is unclear based on this article, but I can't say I am surprised. It is an unwelcome new normal that South Korean pilots flying over South Korea must hold steady while North Korean SA-2 systems are clearly locking the aircraft as targets.

To me that sounds like a recipe for escalation. Despite the tension, the good news for Christmas is that diplomacy is working, and the US and China are starting to find mutual ground to work with. That was always the prerequisite for any diplomatic solution.

Final Exams!

Here is my fall 2010 National Security Policy final exam:

Answer one of the following three questions. Your exam is due in two hours.

The Obama administration has pursued a “reset” of relations with Russia. What security dividends, if any, has this reset paid? What costs has the reset incurred to the United States? How important to the US is a good relationship with Russia?
Outline the pitfalls associated with the use of military force in response to North Korean provocations. How should the US and its allies (Japan and South Korea) evaluate the utility of force in their relationship with North Korea?
Discuss the costs and benefits of a long-term NATO commitment to Afghanistan. How important is it that the US achieve its preferred objectives in Afghanistan, and what should those objectives be?

The exam takes the form of (and is designed as preparation for) a minor MA field exam in National Security. National Security majors have to answer two of four questions. The questions are typically tailored with the specific interests of the students vaguely in mind (a China specialist is likely to receive a China question), but also reflect the idea that students graduating with a national security credential should have some baseline knowledge of the most important problems and issues.

The full comprehensive normally involves two major questions, one minor, and two "professional," with the latter being drawn from the general Patterson curriculum, and from current events. Students have eight hours to write on those five questions, and must defend their answers in a one hour oral exam.

It's a fun process. My column this week at WPR is about the archipelago of foreign policy schools in the United States, and is the first in what should be an intermittent series of columns about graduate foreign policy education.

China's newest cutter

There has been a lot of new constructions in the Chinese shipyards recently of new maritime patrol/law enforcement vessel. Here is a quick look at China's newest and biggest cutter design.

According to earlier articles, this cutter will be built and delivered in May of 2012 by the WuChang shipyard. This vessel will cost 350 million RMB (about $50 million). It will be 128.6 m long, 5418 ton in displacement with a maximum speed of 20.4 knots. It can sustain 16 knots from 10,000 nm. It will also have a hangar for a medium size helicopter and be able to land a large size helicopter. Please note that while this is a big step up compared to China's existing fleet, it is still inferior to the size/performance of PLH31 (the largest patrol vessel of Japanese Coast Guard)

This cutter will serve in Maritime Safety Administration (MSA). Most of the recent constructions we've seen are for the Chinese maritime surveillance(CMS). Please refer to my earlier post on Chinese maritime law enforcement to see the difference.

Something Clearly Went Wrong With USS Philippine Sea

U.S Code Title X, 7304 requires a Board of Naval Officers to conduct a Material Inspection of all naval ships at least once every three years, if practicable.

SECNAVINST 5040.3, Department of The Navy Inspection Program (DONIP) and OPNAVINST 4730.5(series) Trials and Material Inspections of Ships provides additional directions and responsibilities to the President, Board of Inspection and Survey (PRESINSURV).

Instructions and procedures established by PRESINSURV for conducting inspections, surveys and trials are found in the following instructions; a)INSURVINST 4730.1, Material Inspections of Surface Ships, b) INSURVINST 4730.2, Material Inspections of Submarines, c) INSURVINST 4730.3, Trials of Surface Ships.

Lets talk about this news report.

Two East Coast-based ships — a cruiser and a frigate — registered unsatisfactory grades following early-December material readiness assessments by the Navy Board of Inspection and Survey, Fleet Forces Command has confirmed.

The grades were the worst of 41 ships assessed by the INSURV so far in 2010.

The Mayport, Fla.-based cruiser Philippine Sea “demonstrated challenges” in the areas of main propulsion, environmental protection, electrical, weapons, ventilation and aviation, according to Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a Fleet Forces Command spokesman. The Norfolk-based frigate Nicholas, he said, was similarly “challenged” in the areas of main propulsion, environmental protection, combat systems and aviation.

The first instinct lately with INSURVs has been to focus in on the ships leadership and crew, but I'll let the Navy handle that aspect. What I want to look at is some history.

USS Nicholas (FFG 47)

I do not know when the last INSURV was for USS Nicholas (FFG 47), but I am going to assume that it was sometime between August 18th, 2008 when the ship returned from a six month patrol in the 6th Fleet and December 2009 when the ship deployed to participate in Africa Partnership Station (APS) in support of U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM). The ship was commissioned on March 10, 2024 and is now 26.8 years old. The public record suggests the ship hasn't been doing much since returning from that deployment on June 3, 2010.

I see a very old ship that never underwent modernization among a class of ships that was stripped of weapons long ago that has undergone a lifetime of command and crew changes that just spent 6 months in one of the few places on the planet parts are virtually impossible to come by and the result doesn't surprise me any. In all likelihood the CO saw this coming months ago, alerted the Navy, and the crew has done what it could with what little it had - while probably also being looted for IA and any number of other training or assignment tasks - and ultimately the ship didn't pass INSURV. Even without knowing the details, there is very little about this case that I find out of the ordinary or unexpected - indeed it would have been heroic had the ship passed INSURV based on what public information is available.

USS Philippine Sea (CG 58)

The USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) has a much different history than USS Nicholas (FFG 47), and if we examine the results of a bad INSURV in the context of public information - someone needs to be asking questions. On September 29, 2024 USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) participated in an Expeditionary Strike Group Integration exercise (ESGINT), with the USS Nassau (LHA 4) ESG, in preparation for a deployment in 2008. On December 15, 2024 USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) successfully completed a 17-day Composite Unit Training Exercise (COMPTUEX).

USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) returned from a five month deployment on July 10, 2008, and wasn't heard from in the news again until USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) became the school ship for Surface Warfare Officers School (SWOS) in January 31, 2009.

On March 10, 2024 USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), along with USS Anzio (CG 68) and USS Porter (DDG 78), was conducting Fleet Irregular Warfare Training in the vicinity of the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) and in the Jacksonville Operating Areas according to news reports. On April 23, 2024 the Philippine Sea performed an airborne medical evacuation of a 70-year old passenger aboard the cruise ship Motor Vessel Braemar, while underway in the Atlantic Ocean. The guided-missile cruiser was en route to Plymouth, United Kingdom, to participate in a multinational NATO exercise Joint Warrior at the time. USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) spent all of May at sea in Europe returning to Virginia by June 1. Then this happened.

PSE arrived at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, VA on June 1st and commenced a weapons offload. On the 2nd, ATG inspectors arrived, inbriefed the 3M Certification, and began the inspection the very next day. After completing the certification with Mayport Basin record-breaking scores, Phil Sea returned to homeport and entered her 10-month availability on the 8th. This availability encompassed what is known as Cruiser Modernization fleet-wide. USS Philippine Sea would soon become the 2nd cruiser in the fleet to complete Cruiser Modernization, the 1st on the east coast. The month was filled with crew move ashore, defueling, planning and coordination meetings, and finally entering Atlantic Marine Drydock on the 24th.

Captain Herbert M. Hadley took over command of the ship on November 19, 2024 according to the ships own history. Cruiser Modernization completed in February 17, 2024 when the ship returned to sea. In May 2010 the ship participated in New York City Fleet Week and as recently as October 22, 2024 the ship was reportedly conducting training operations with the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) Carrier Strike Group in preparation of a deployment next year.

Something Clearly Went Wrong

Someone explain to me what just happened. USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) is 21.9 years old and just underwent cruiser modernization, which includes "smartship" and all electric modifications to the ship. The ship was in the yard from June 1st, 2009 until getting back to sea on February 17, 2024 and by December - 10 months after cruiser modernization - the ship fails INSURV? How can a ship be 10 months out of cruiser modernization and INSURV reports the ship “demonstrated challenges” in the areas of main propulsion, environmental protection, electrical, weapons, ventilation and aviation? Doesn't "smartship" reduce the crew size, extra hands that would have been nice during maintenance prior to INSURV?

From 1868-2009 INSURV reports were unclassified information. It is unclear why INSURV reports are classified, because the only thing one can learn from an INSURV report is that a ship isn't in good condition at some point in time. Clearly the enemy is unaware that ships can potentially wear down.

Because INSURVs are classified, we have no idea what went wrong with USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), but something clearly did. When a ship is only 10 months out of the yard following the ships single most important, and expensive modernization availability period and fails an INSURV, something is clearly not right. Inspections of Navy ships are required by law, and here is a great example where an INSURV report being classified conceals the material condition of USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), among the three CGs to be modernized, from Congress.

Did the Navy just flush millions in taxpayer money down the toilet with the modernization of USS Philippine Sea (CG 58)? How can we spend multiple millions on upgrades but fail to spend the multiple thousands necessary for upkeep? Sorry Congressman, unless you ask the question yourself while the Navy is under oath, you may never get the answer.

Here is another question the new Congress should think about - did the delay in the FY2011 defense budget impact maintenance funding for these ships? As a taxpayer and a voter, I think Americans should know that answer because warships are incredibly expensive, and shouldn't be allowed to fall into poor condition because money isn't available (when it could be made available in a CR) during a maintenance period due to political obstacles in passing a budget on time.

Wednesday, December 22, 2024

Western European Navies (week 50)

Political News
France, Germany and Poland have sent a letter to the EU in which they plea for closer military cooperation in the EU.

Global Operations
For Operation Atalanta: see their website.

Denmark has handed over command of Operation Ocean Shield to the Netherlands.

FS Tonnerre has replaced FS Sirocco in the Gulf of Guinea. The French also have 900 men and 8 helis in Cote d'Ivoire and are the country in charge of coordinating the EU efforts there.

Shipbuilding
HMS Albion has assumed the role of flagship of the Royal Navy.

The official website for the new Astute Class nuclear subs from the Royal Navy has been launched. And the Second Astute-class submarine fhas been launched and named Ambush.

Following the SDSR the Royal Navy will be decommissioning the following ships:
HMS Ark Royal (December 2010)
HMS Chatham (January 2011)
HMS Campbeltown (April 2011)
HMS Cumberland (April 2011)
HMS Cornwall (April 2011)
RFA Bayleaf (April 2011)
RFA Fort George (April 2011)
RFA Largs Bay (April 2011)
HMS Illustrious (2014)

Virtual 360° tours of the FS Mistral (LPH) and FS Forbin (AAW frigate).

Why Korean Peninsula Remains Hot

A lot of people will wake up on Wednesday and be alarmed to learn that South Korea is planning a live fire military exercise of "unprecedented scale" along the DMZ on Thursday. People might also notice the ROK 6 ship naval firing exercise that began on Tuesday and is expected to last 3 days. For those who are curious, the naval exercise is intended as practice to track, target, and sink midget submarines.

As I was watching the reaction to the lack of war outcome from the Yeonpyeong island incident I kept thinking to myself the collective sigh of relief was premature, and I also found myself very concerned that South Korea had presumed some form of victory. Thankfully with the latest developments of more exercises, sooner rather than later, South Korea still has their eye on the ball. Lets try to make sense of the last few days...

If we analyze the events of the Yeonpyeong Island exercise, all we really learned is that North Korea cannot be baited to fight on the terms of South Korea. All night as I observed the drill there were numerous reports that indicated that both South Korean and US aircraft were in the air. Open source reports from Guam indicated there was 'unusually high activity' several hours before the drill began, giving the impression the 30th air wing there had numerous bombers in the air in preparation for the ROK military exercise. To what extent the South Korean and US military's were prepared to fight is unclear, but what is clear is that the bar has been raised in terms of cost for South Korea to even hold an exercise.

And that is the point. The North Koreans can sink a naval ship and no one, including the UN Security Council, will do anything about it. The North Koreans can fire artillery into civilian neighborhoods in response to shells hitting open water not even in the direction of North Korea - even kill soldiers and civilians - and no one, including the UN Security Council, will do anything about it. Now North Korea has raised the cost of even conducting a military drill along the DMZ, something South Korea has done without incident for decades until November, to the point South Korea must scramble their Air Force just in case.

What is odd however is how we are observing events we cannot easily explain. For example, why didn't South Korea warn citizens to take shelter during the exercise? Why hasn't the US State Department not issued any sort of warning to Americans traveling to South Korea? Why hasn't the military begun the process of encouraging family members in South Korea to return to the States for reasons of safety? It is noteworthy that the travel ban on South Korean workers to the Kaesong Industrial Complex was lifted after the exercise, suggesting perhaps tensions had settled.

Then we see other acts of intentional defiance by South Korea beyond the new military exercises. For example, the giant Christmas tree along the DMZ was lit up tonight, protected by Marines, and Christmas carols sung at the site could be heard in North Korea. North Korea has threatened to destroy the Christmas tree. What comes next? More military exercises and if we are looking for another step beyond that; we might read soon that the loud speaker broadcasts of anti-regime and pro-democracy messages over the border have begun again. Previously North Korea has threatened to shoot out the speakers.

Understanding the WHYS

One might look at events and start asking lots of questions. Lets look at a few.

Why no 6-party talks? That answer comes in an excellent interview over at the Wall Street Journal blog with Gordon Flake (part 1 and part 2).

WSJ: Is there any chance of getting back to the six-party talks?

Mr. Flake: There’s no short-term prospect for going back. There is a reason to go back. It’s a nuance that’s hard to grab, but here it is.

The six-party talks is not about a format right now. It’s about a set agreement. The fundamental question is: Is North Korea a nuclear power or not?

North Korea claims they are a nuclear power. They assert that they must be negotiated with as a nuclear power and that one day they will talk about theoretical denuclearization, but that’s mutual, with the U.S. doing it, as well as leaving the alliance with South Korea and going away from the South.

North Korea says pi-hae-kwa. We translate that as denuclearization. But they are explicit about what they mean. To them, it means being recognized as a nuclear power first, getting a peace treaty and all their issues solved and way down the road we will have a mutual disarmament discussion as an equal.

But the Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement from the six-party talks says the exact opposite. It says North Korea is one of 180 other members of the NPT, that they must abandon all existing nuclear weapons and programs and return at an early date to the IAEA. And North Korea agreed to that. They agreed to unilateral disarmament, being a normal nation and part of the NPT.

The reason we won’t abandon the six-party talks is the U.S. is going to hold North Korea to the commitment they made in that process. The real problem with the six-party talks right now is the danger that the U.S. and South Korea are going to be portrayed as being obstacles to restarting it because we have preconditions. That’s what some people seem to be saying. Everybody [in Washington and Seoul] is being careful to say we don’t have preconditions for the talks. The question is what are the talks?

North Korea’s position is we’ll come to the six-party talks as a nuclear power. Those aren’t the six-party talks. The six-party talks are about the denuclearization of North Korea and they’re about the implementation of the Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement, which North Korea rejects. The real precondition, if you want to call it that, is that they agree to the terms of the talks.

This is the other reason why the Chinese proposal for an emergency meeting of the six-party powers over the Yeonpyeong incident was just rejected out of hand. It conflates two different things.

Why is South Korea conducting more military exercises? For that we turn to Robert Haddick at the Small Wars Journal.

South Korea called the North’s bluff and the North folded its hand, at least for now. The South boosted its leverage in several ways. First, it evacuated civilians on the island and in other forward locations. Second, it waited for clear weather and put F-15 fighter-bombers in the air, presumably in preparation for counter-battery strikes against North Korean artillery positions. Finally, about 20 U.S. soldiers participated in the exercise as observers, or more accurately as “trip-wires” for a U.S. retaliatory response against the North. The North’s leaders likely concluded that in this case they did not possess escalation dominance. The North has exposed itself as a bluffer and will have to run much greater risks in the future to reestablish its reputation for ferocity.

This weekend’s drama was a breakthrough for the South Korean government. Previous sable-rattling by the North typically resulted in multilateral negotiations, which usually concluded with some kind of payoff for the North in exchange for promises of future good behavior. The South Korean government now has an opportunity to break from that pattern.

I disagree with some of the other points that Mr. Haddick makes in that article, but on this point he has it right. The military drill over the weekend was intended to shape a conclusion that gave a sense of shifting political momentum. I am not in full belief that this momentum is real, but in politics perception is often enough to skew what is and isn't real. South Korea finds itself backed into a corner, losing in every effort, and needing to reset conditions back to normal. For awhile, that new normal will include tension, but after the deaths of 48 military personnel and 2 civilians, not to mention the incalculable political damage caused by an attack against South Korean soil, expect a lot of hard line diplomacy until conditions reset.

Where does the US and China fit into ongoing events? This is where it starts getting tougher, because one might conclude the US is winning and China is losing. Short term, this appears true. Following the Cheonan sinking incident we have seen Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and South Korea all seeking security arrangements with strategic partners like the US, India, and Russia as an alternative to China in the region. Those efforts are counter to stated Chinese goals of regional hegemony, and are not insignificant. I have not seen evidence, yet, that China's reaction to the latest attack by North Korea against South Korea has strengthened China's image with their neighbors as a responsible actor towards regional security. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of China in the latest crisis is that the US is no longer talking about China in the role of an indifferent bystander, but in statements appears to be holding China partly responsible.

With that said, I think Hugh White's analysis at The Lowy Institute Interpreter blog highlights the dangers for the US in the evolving situation.

We might assume that China has failed because its aim has been to demonstrate its power by controlling North Korea, or expand its influence by wooing South Korea, or both. But China has never claimed to control North Korea; it is the US that promotes the idea that Beijing has such control. So why should China see controlling North Korea as a test of its power, when they judge that America cannot control it either? Beijing may calculate that America's rash and easily falsifiable implication that it can stop further Northern provocations will make America look weak and China look wise.

Likewise, I don't think it has ever been part of China's plan to woo South Korea by promising to protect it from the North. Beijing's major card with Seoul is not its ability to control Pyongyang's actions today, but its central role in managing the consequences of the North's presumed eventual collapse. When Pyongyang crumbles, China will decide what happens, and Seoul will have to rely on Beijing to help manage the crisis and facilitate South Korea's absorption of the North. That remains true today, and it gives Beijing a strong hand to play.

In fact, I have a hunch — nothing more - that China's refusal to even condemn North Korea may have been intended to punish South Korea for its recent lean towards Washington. Beijing wants to remind Seoul that there is nothing much Washington can do to help when push comes to shove on the Peninsula. The message to Seoul is, 'Do not think you can cosy up to Washington and still expect us to jump when you call. If you want our help with North Korea, you need to lean back towards us. In the end, we are more use to you than America.'

That message might well have some traction in Seoul if, next time Pyongyang misbehaves, Washington does no more than talk tough again.

All three articles look at the events unfolding on the Korean Peninsula, and all three authors see the unfolding situation differently. I still believe there is an effort underway, either by South Korea or by the United States, to get back at North Korea for the attacks this year. When I hear news reports of an impending nuclear test in March, I can't help but think that sets a time line by which we will see some random action take place that has incredibly negative consequences for North Korea, but is very difficult if not impossible to trace back to any specific country like South Korea or the United States - even though everyone will know it was one, the other, or both. I would not immediately expect such random action to be military in nature.

Perhaps my analysis is callous, but I do not see the present situation as defused and I do see the situation getting much more tense before a format for official diplomatic negotiations is even discussed by South Korea, Japan, or the United States. The crisis on the Korean Peninsula will continue to be one of calculated steps that involves a number of public demonstrations of military power and plenty of bellicose statements from all sides.

Ultimately, I do not expect any military confrontations between South Korea and North Korea until at least after Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington, DC in January, no matter how many military exercises South Korea conducts. It is also important to note that the unofficial New York channel for diplomacy has been reopened. This might be important to events because if North Korea conducts a military action while engaged in negotiation, the consequences would be devastating for prospects of any future diplomacy for a long time - and diplomatic concessions for food, among other things, is something North Korea needs in the short term.

The one diplomatic issue that seems to be on everyones mind is the sale of the 12,000 plutonium fuel rods to South Korea. This concession by North Korea is very being hard to believe, but it is also outrageous to believe that South Korea should buy these fuel rods from North Korea after recent events. The best way I see the diplomatic ball moving down the court is if the US can somehow convince China to purchase and remove all 12,000 plutonium fuel rods. In order for this crisis to end well, somehow the US and China have to get on the same page on at least one of the major North Korean issues on the table. If China purchases the fuel rods and disposes of them, that action helps build up China's credibility as being committed to regional security.