From the PACOM Playbook to PACOM's Plan B(MD)

WATERS TO THE WEST OF THE KOREAN PENINSULA (March 17, 2024) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), front, the Republic of Korea Navy Aegis-class destroyer ROKS Seoae-Yu-Seong-Ryong (DDG 993), middle, and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG 85) move into formation during exercise Foal Eagle 2013. McCampbell and McCain are members of Destroyer Squadron 15, forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, and are underway to conduct exercise Foal Eagle 2013 with allied nation Republic of Korea in support of regional security and stability of the Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Declan Barnes/Released)

Every year as winter ends in March, North Korea holds an annual military exercises as part of their spring training period that usually concludes with a big meeting with all the leaders in early April. This years meeting appears to have occurred on April 1st with the announcement that North Korea will restart their dead reactor. Despite news reports, I am skeptical that reactor will be back online this calendar year.

This annual training period in North Korea typically coincides with South Korea and the United States holding their annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises. For the past few years the pattern has been fairly consistent with North Korea being extra threatening (and feeling extra threatened) and usually a war of words breaks out for about a month or so. Once the US/South Korean military exercises end, North Korea will call for negotiations and take credit for resolving the crisis they manufactured in the first place. Last year when this chess game was over, many in the US had a bad taste in their mouth unhappy with the result, and as a result a lot of thought and planning by PACOM went into this years Foal Eagle 2013 exercises.

Everyone who follows me on Twitter might have noticed about mid-February that I was gearing up for this years annual chess match on the North Korean peninsula. I will never be an Asia expert, but I admit to being fascinated by the North Korean government that has somehow remained completely resilient to any type of external influence for over a half century. In particular North Korea, not China, is a subject I like to raise when talking about geopolitical issues in the Pacific with Admirals and Generals, because with North Korea the biggest threat is the lack of good intelligence.

Earlier this year I was following up with various Admirals and Generals I had met over 2012. As part of those calls I had a long conversation with someone I have gotten to know at PACOM on AirSea Battle and specifically the Pacific region; and more specifically we often discuss North Korea, not China. I was informed that the 2013 Foal Eagle exercise would be something I, in particular, would appreciate because it truly leverages public affairs within the context of both strategic communications and operations; a topic I have frequently written about. I was given no hints as to what this meant, except I was told Secretary Panetta had set aside extra funding for the Air Force for Foal Eagle 2013, and most of the details were already worked out. This conversation took place 2 months ago.

The Playbook

Adam Entous and Julian Barnes at the Wall Street Journal have revealed the US script that has played out over the month of March. Described as the 'Playbook', they detail events in their latest Wall Street Journal article.

The U.S. is putting a pause to what several officials described as a step-by-step plan the Obama administration approved earlier this year, dubbed "the playbook," that laid out the sequence and publicity plans for U.S. shows of force during annual war games with South Korea. The playbook included well-publicized flights in recent weeks near North Korea by nuclear-capable B-52 and stealth B-2 bombers, as well as advanced F-22 warplanes.

The U.S. stepped back from the plans this week, as U.S. officials began to worry that the North, which has a small nuclear arsenal and an unpredictable new leader, may be more provoked than the U.S. had intended, the officials said.

"The concern was that we were heightening the prospect of misperceptions on the part of the North Koreans, and that that could lead to miscalculations," a senior administration official said.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to detail the Playbook, even describing Secretary Hagel as one of the playbook's chief backers, even though I know for fact the Playbook was actually written by PACOM on Secretary Panetta's watch and with his full support. The article then highlights the meat of the politics.

The public-relations effort was designed not only to send a message to North Korea, but also to assure a hawkish new government in South Korea that it had full U.S. backing and there was no need for it to respond militarily to the North's provocations.

U.S. intelligence agencies assessed the risks associated with the playbook and concluded there was a low probability of a North Korean military response because the regime's top priority has been self-preservation. U.S. officials believe the North understands that taking military action could prompt a devastating U.S. and South Korean counter-strike that could destabilize the regime.

"Everyone is concerned about miscalculation and the outbreak of war. But the sense across the U.S. government is that the North Koreans are not going to wage all-out war," a senior Obama administration official said. "They are interested first and foremost in regime survival."

The U.S. plan was discussed during several high-level White House meetings, according to participants. The effort was backed by Mr. Hagel in one of his first acts as defense secretary. John Kerry, the new secretary of State, supported the Pentagon, as did other top administration officials, according to meeting participants.

In the deliberations, supporters said it was better for the U.S. to control the escalating steps, to ensure the situation didn't spin out of control. In part, according to these officials, the plan was an effort to ensure that South Korea's new government wouldn't feel compelled to respond to North Korean threats, which often emerge at the time of the exercises, as the North conducts its own annual legislative meeting.

But within the administration, some officials voiced concern about unintended consequences of provoking North Korea. Some of these officials questioned the faith the White House and Pentagon placed in the intelligence agencies, which have a mixed record of predicting North Korean behavior.

The intelligence gaps are particularly acute when it comes to reading new North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun, who remains an obscure figure and someone who intelligence agencies themselves have described as potentially more unpredictable than his father.

However, few objections were raised at the highest levels during the meetings, according to participants—unlike in other Obama administration deliberations about using military force abroad, including Libya, Northwest Africa and Syria, that have been marked by protracted debates. President Barack Obama gave the green light to proceed with the playbook, these people said.

The First Quarter: March

The Playbook was intended to function as escalation control by the Obama administration. As someone who jumps online every night at 8pm EST to read the morning news in North Korea, allow me to suggest the Playbook worked better than expected. When North Korea abandoned the Armistice back on March 10, it was clear to observers that North Korea was operating from a script. As I discussed at that time, escalation control was the key to managing the tensions, and I do think the US still maintains escalation control over the situation today, with or without the old Playbook.

As I have observed the US airpower show of force that has visited South Korea over the past month, I found myself in huge admiration for how well the US was playing the game with North Korea in 2013. What headlines that bluster the presence of US military power failed to mention is that every single aircraft that has been flown over South Korea over the past month had been planned many months ago as part of the planning process for the Foal Eagle 2013 exercise. This was never a secret btw, I exchanged emails with a public affairs officer who confirmed this for me right after B-52s made their appearance on March 19. The B-52s, the B-2s, the F-22s, etc... all those flights and activities were planned to appear in Foal Eagle long ago, and there was nothing new or reactionary by the United States taking place as events unfolded throughout March. While bombers and advanced fighters have been involved in previous Foal Eagle exercises, the key distinction this year was the announced use of those platforms.

Unlike previous years, this year the US publicized the presence of B-2s and F-22s through defense public affairs, because otherwise North Korea (or you and I) would never know they were involved in the exercises, even though the actual flights by those aircraft were planned and paid for months ago. So what is new this year? The public affairs piece that mentions their presence and activity, and the PA professionals who were able to mingle those activities into the context of the North Korean rhetoric - so reporters could go write plenty of news stories - is the only thing that is actually different from the US/SK perspective relative to previous years. Talk is cheap, which may explain why our defense public affairs folks are actually pretty good at it when given the green light.

Throughout the entire month of March as North Korea has stepped through their well orchestrated script for escalating tensions in the region, the US has been following a script of their own; a script written long ago for the Foal Eagle exercises and supported fully by the White House. In my opinion, everything North Korea is doing - even through today - is part of their script, and everything we have been doing has been part of our script. The intelligence officials in the WSJ report are right, there is no evidence that North Korea is off script. We do not know what their script is, but there does appear to be broad agreement that North Korea didn't write a script that ends with them being wiped out in a war. Neither script was written in a way that predicted the others actions, and public affairs and the use of media by both North Korea and the US is solely responsible for connecting the activities of the other side.

It would appear that in the end, the actions contained in the North Korean script forced us to abandon our script.

April Fools Day

If the US and North Korea have been playing a game of chicken as each side executed their scripted events in the public sphere, it is now clear that beginning on April Fools Day North Korea won that game of chicken, and the US was the first to flinch.

Every military activity related to the Korean peninsula discussed in the public was part of the script until on Tuesday - for the first time - the narrative being produced by US media was no longer fully incorporated into the Playbook. The retasking of USS Decatur (DDG 73) to head towards North Korea was a new event, and everyone who follows naval power closely knew it. The problem was, PACOM was one ballistic missile defense destroyer short of what was needed to meet demand signal coming from North Korean activities.

While most of the media made a big deal about the USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) being close to the Korean peninsula, the fact is the US Navy has a BMD capable destroyer on that patrol every single day of the year. Without going into too much detail, USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) is on a regular patrol that gives the United States an early warning detection capability should someone in Asia launch a ballistic missile at us. There is an AEGIS warship there 24/7/365 and on leap year day too. As soon as the media started talking about USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) and USS Decatur (DDG 73), neither of which has any attachment to Foal Eagle 2013 or the Playbook, apparently that is when the Obama administration got nervous and pulled back on the Playbook.

But here is the issue: PACOM needed USS Decatur (DDG 73) because there wasn't another BMD ship available. Attention Congress, there is a capacity issue in 7th Fleet for BMD capable destroyers in the Obama administrations 'pivot to Asia' plan, because the Navy fell short one forward deployed BMD capable warship when PACOM came calling in regards to a North Korean crisis.

The challenge PACOM faces is that PACOM believes North Korea is going to be launching a ballistic missile soon, but the difference between this ballistic missile and previous North Korean ballistic missile launches is that this missile has a mobile launching platform. That makes the launch time of the next ballistic missile an unknown, and just as important the launch point for the next ballistic missile an unknown. This combination of unknown time and unknown launch location requires PACOM to cover every threat axis from North Korea in this threat environment, just in case, to insure regional security.

What you have been reading in the press is only partially correct, because there are actually nine US Navy ballistic missile defense capable warships operating throughout the 7th Fleet today, not two or three as has been reported. As we navalists know, AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense is an integrated network approach to developing a very large regional shield where each ship is both a radar and a shooter, and by integrating other assets in the region, the Navy can track a ballistic missile at launch and potentially develop a firing solution within only a handful of seconds. The more sensors and the better the quality of data, the faster a threat assessment can be made by AEGIS thereby enabling options for response quickly. This process is one that the Navy is well trained for, and in complicated exercises has practiced successfully in actual intercept events that last no longer than 20-30 seconds in practice windows that have spanned days.

While Foal Eagle and the "Playbook" was essentially a strategic communications exercise with North Korea in this environment of higher tension, when PACOM faced a situation where the potential for an actual missile launch in this environment became a legitimate possibility, PACOM has reacted by establishing a regional ballistic missile shield around our partners and bases. This regional ballistic missile defense shield layers around the Japanese ballistic missile defense capabilities, which can be integrated with the US Navy capability through AEGIS.

The US already has an X-Band radar in Japan that can track launches, additional radars in South Korea that can be utilized for launch detection, and nine BMD capable warships that can help track and develop firing solutions for intercepting any ballistic missile threat. Because the area that requires defense from the particular missile North Korea intends to launch is fairly vast, the US Navy ultimately was one ship short to meet the ballistic missile shield demand PACOM needed for full protection. When USS Decatur (DDG 73) was retasked, as a public asset outside the Playbook, political leaders got the impression they had lost escalation control with the Playbook and apparently gave it up. It is somewhat disappointing the Playbook was so rigid it couldn't adapt when inserting a new asset into it's strategic messaging.

Seapower as Strategic Deterrent

Throughout the duration of the cold war, mutually assured destruction is often credited for deterring nuclear war. While the debate over mutually assured destruction still exists today regarding the wisdom of the policy; the bottom line is MAD worked. Ballistic missile defense, in theory, adds a new strategic option for the United States in dealing with nuclear powers like North Korea that have limited capabilities. For the first time in human history, the United States is fielding a fully mature and developed ballistic missile defense shield to protect US allies and territories from an announced threat of nuclear attack.

One of the key strategic differences between ballistic missile defense as a deterrent and mutually assured destruction as a deterrent is that the United States is basically saying the enemy can shoot first, and if the attack is a nuclear attack but is also successfully defended against, then the United States reserves the option of responding without using nuclear weapons. This is a critical point critics of ballistic missile defense apparently don't believe is important, because a successful nuclear attack against US allies or territories requires a nuclear response. The option of not having to respond to a nuclear attack with nuclear weapons is the value of successful ballistic missile defense, and why smart investment and stewardship of ballistic missile defense is in the best interests of the United States.

It has been reported that the deployment of land based interceptors to Alaska is going to cost one billion dollars. That suggests the latest announcement that THAAD interceptors will be deployed to Guam will probably also cost one billion dollars. THAAD interceptors are expensive, and about half the time they even work. Those two land based ballistic missile defense deployments cost as much as a single new AEGIS ballistic missile defense destroyer, and while the AEGIS system is only capable of intercepting ballistic missiles in the very early and final stages of a ballistic missiles flight, the AEGIS BMD system has a much more reliable track record and has been tested under much more realistic conditions, including multiple targets and decoys, unlike the THAAD system. An AEGIS ballistic missile defense destroyer is also mobile, which is why the US Navy will be protecting Guam with an AEGIS ballistic missile defense warship for the next several weeks until the THAAD system can be deployed to Guam.

In theory THAAD is more capable than the AEGIS system because it can intercept at a higher altitude. The problem is THAAD is less reliable than AEGIS, less mature than AEGIS, and more expensive than AEGIS; but for now it is all the US has.

There is another reason why I believe Seapower is important right now as a strategic deterrent. I believe North Korea's creativity is interesting primarily because they are limited by means and are simplistic in method, and sometimes North Korean methods are so simple they appear absurd at first glance. North Korea publicized today that they have "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons, which in theory makes some sense because they have only a limited supply of material to make nuclear weapons with. I know it has been something of a running joke for years, but if things go hot I would not be surprised if North Korea tried to deliver a nuclear weapon via a sea mine rather than by missile. North Korea is very skilled in developing sea mines, but not so much when it comes to rocket technologies. The ability to keep North Korea's naval forces from causing any problems is going to be important over the next month in preventing a war. An incident like the sinking of the Cheonan 3 years ago right now could spark a chain of events that leads to Korean War II, but an even worst case scenario is if North Korea was to find a way to sink a US or Japanese warship, because that puts South Korea in the middle of a crossfire.

Halftime Adjustments

While I can understand why PACOM called in the US Navy to build a regional ballistic missile defense shield when it became clear North Korea might launch a ballistic missile from a mobile launcher, I don't understand why the Obama administration threw out the Playbook and then ran off to tell the Wall Street Journal about it. Regardless, someone clearly needs to clue Hagel in on a little secret: Seapower is the winning playbook if the objective is to prevent war.

The ballistic missile defense shield PACOM is setting up is a defensive capability. It is also a very limited piece of the US Navy's capability - indeed it's only a small piece of the surface combatants being used for the ballistic missile defense shield. There are no carriers projecting power into the Yellow Sea, there are no submarines launching missiles, and there are no amphibious ships preparing to send Marines ashore in South Korea.

If North Korea does continue to escalate further, and I believe they will, the Stennis Carrier Strike Group is deployed and is currently in port in Singapore, and the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group is deployed currently off the US west coast heading east. Those two carriers represent 100+ aircraft that can project power as needed in any contingency, and can do so right into downtown Pyonyang if necessary.

And if tensions result in a hot war, those submarines nobody in North Korea can detect will be the first strike that knocks out the Command and Control capabilities of North Korea in the first minutes of hot war.

And if for some reason the US needs to reinforce the South Korean Army, US Marines will be delivered into theater from amphibious ships.

And if, God forbid, a nuclear device goes off in South Korea, the nearby SSBN that no nation on the planet can find today will make sure Pyonyang is melted off the face of the planet.

American Seapower is inherently designed to be an escalation control mechanism for political leaders during a crisis. Seapower is a stabilizing presence capable of preserving peace through projecting strength or providing defensive, and an enabling capability when it is time to deliver the US Army to win a war.

No matter what the Playbook was last week, the winning Playbook for the US going forward dealing with North Korea is Seapower. Military strategists have spent most of the 21st century convincing political leaders in Washington that US military power is best exercised with land power - in Asia of all places, but hopefully with a splash of cold water called the threat of nuclear war, political leaders are waking up to the historical reality that Seapower is how Superpowers manage enduring peace without being intrusive on the sovereignty of partners. Seapower enables nations to enjoy enduring prosperity through maintenance of stability, lines of communication for trade, and security. Seapower is also going to be how PACOM will be managing peace in the Pacific crisis of the present and future, so I hope those involved with Hagel's strategic review are paying attention.

It's only April 4th, Foal Eagle still has 25+ more days. It is going to be a long month with plenty more threatening rhetoric and behavior ahead. Is a ballistic missile launch how this ends? Maybe, but I still believe North Korea desires a limited skirmish of some sort as part of their script, although it could be that the Playbook has actively deterred that potential outcome.

There is a lot of good analysis of the situation in North Korea out there. I highly recommend two sites in particular that may not be part of your regular web readings. The Interpreter Blog at the Australian Lowy Institute is always a great source for analysis of events in the Pacific, and in particular North Korea right now; and just about everything written by Jeffery Lewis these days covers every angle of North Korean nukes and missiles.

BMD and Theater Stability in Northeast Asia

This is another interesting development in the context of the upcoming North Korean rocket launch. It would appear it isn't just South Korea and Japan preparing to shoot the rocket down if necessary, but Taiwan as well.

A military spokesman yesterday refused to comment on media reports alleging that two advanced anti-missile systems — the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and Tien Kung-III “Sky Bow” (TK-III) air defense systems — had been deployed in eastern Taiwan to deal with the possible launch of a North Korean rocket later this month.

Ministry of National Defense spokesperson David Lo (羅紹和) said the military was collecting information about Pyongyang’s anticipated rocket launch and added that the military had requested its anti-missile units monitor and respond to the situation as appropriate.

Something has been on my mind, and it goes back to something discussed on the blog last week by Bryan McGrath. A lot of people were up in arms about the President making the comment that he would be better positioned to negotiate with Russia on nuclear issues after the election - because he won't be running for reelection. In a democracy we elect our leaders to represent us, and we bestow upon them through that election process the trust to make decisions for the people in scenarios like a nuclear agreement with Russia. Some are really bent out of shape that the President would suggest this issue would be easier to manage after an election. I am not one of those people, the exchange itself didn't bother me, what bothered me was what Bryan quoted in the speech given the next day by President Obama in his attempt to address the issue. Specifically:

"I don't think it's any surprise that you can't start that a few months before a presidential and congressional elections in the United States, and at a time when they just completed elections in Russia and they're in the process of a presidential transition where a new president is going to be coming in in a little less than two months.

So it was a very simple point, and one that essentially I repeated when I spoke to you guys yesterday, which is that we're going to spend the next nine, 10 months trying to work through some of the technical aspects of how we get past what is a major point of friction -- one of the primary points of friction between our two countries, which is this whole missile defense issue. And it involves a lot of complicated issues. If we can get our technical teams to clear out the underbrush, then hopefully, in 2013, there's a foundation to actually make some significant progress on this and a lot of other bilateral issues.

So I think everybody understands that -- if they haven't they haven't been listening to my speeches -- I want to reduce our nuclear stockpiles. And one of the barriers to doing that is building trust and cooperation around missile defense issues. And so this is not a matter of hiding the ball, I'm on record. I made a speech about it to a whole bunch of Korean university students yesterday. I want to see us, over time, gradually, systematically, reduce reliance on nuclear weapons."

Bryan McGrath is right, the two issues of Russian nuclear weapons and Ballistic Missile Defense cannot be linked, and the President needs to seek better advice regarding Ballistic Missile Defense if he has somehow confused it with an issue he appears to care a lot about - which is a nuclear free world. I appreciate that President Obama has high goals regarding nuclear weapons, but I am not convinced at all that President Obama appreciates Ballistic Missile Defense and the strategic role it is playing in the 21st century that has absolutely nothing to do with cold war era nuclear exchanges.

Playing out before our eyes in Asia is politics of the highest order with North Korea, and it is almost certain that the President's own National Security Council has warned him by now that under no circumstances can North Korea be allowed to launch the rocket planned for launch sometime during the next 2 weeks. The Obama administrations policy for North Korea has been to break the cycle of North Korean provocations and specifically to get North Korea to stand by agreements made within the six-party talks framework. By every definition the rocket launch will repeat a cycle of breaking agreements within the six-party talks, and if allowed to be successful will signal to regional partners that the US policy for North Korea has failed - again. Given the amount of attention without detail that China is putting into North Korea over the last few weeks, it appears that China is becoming increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang like everyone else.

The US is pulling back food aid to North Korea because the US claims that the food deal agreed to last month included a moratorium on long range missile tests, and the rocket launch is seen as a long range missile test. North Korea sees the suspension of US food aid as us breaking the agreement first. Whether you agree or not that the US should be pulling back food aid, it is very hard to claim the US has broken the cycle of provocation with North Korea, and many experts are suggesting that no matter what happens - North Korea will simply test another nuclear weapon at the end of this current diplomatic dustup - which is the very definition of repeating the cycle of provocation the Obama administration policy for North Korea claims to be aimed to prevent.

All we are learning is that the Obama administration is not having any more success than the Bush administration or the Clinton administration did, and that US diplomacy with North Korea is struggling to be relevant in curbing North Korean provocative behavior under any internationally agreed upon process model. It is unknown what impact shooting down the North Korean rocket may have, although it is noted in several circles that taking aggressive action like this with North Korea is in itself a way for the US to attempt to break the cycle of provocation by North Korea - by being provocative ourselves.

I think the US should allow nations in the region deal with the rocket, and the US should simply sit back and provide support for those nations - any and all support requested, but no more or less.

Bigger Picture

Consider for a moment what it looks like if the North Korean rocket goes over Japanese soil. Would a successful shoot down of a North Korean rocket make it more or less likely that Japan would develop nuclear capabilities? What happens if Japan tries to shoot down the rocket and fails? How many scenarios exist in the upcoming North Korean launch where the outcome leaves the Japanese public asking whether they need nuclear weapons to protect themselves? I imagine the Chinese are studying the various possible answers to that last question with considerable detail.

Ballistic missile defense is playing out in Northeast Asia in front of all of us as a major strategic capability bringing allies together against a common foe. South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are all fielding US Ballistic Missile Defense technology to - perhaps - be used to shoot down the North Korean rocket. At its core, Ballistic Missile Defense is the strategic capability in play right now that forms the foundation of our regional alliances dealing with the regional threat of North Korea, and most importantly (and something President Obama needs to apparently get a briefing on) strategic Ballistic Missile Defense is acting as an alternative for Japan to developing nuclear weapons to counter North Korean nuclear and ballistic weapons development. As a capability, the diplomatic value of Ballistic Missile Defense at this moment in time may be higher than it has ever been in the capabilities history, because BMD serves as a visible reminder of what it means to be in a working strategic relationship where United States is in full support of a nation.

I believe the scenario playing out leads to an important question and discussion - could China or Russia shoot down the North Korean rocket even if they wanted to? Short of the rocket turning towards the Chinese mainland, I am not certain even if under those conditions China could shoot the North Korean rocket down. As for Russia, they have the capability to shoot the missile down, but whether that capability is deployed, trained, and ready to respond in immediate crisis is certainly questionable - and it is important to note that the naval forces of both nations is currently not capable of deploying for purposes of strategic protection from a ballistic missile attack against a partner, friend, or in support of allies.

Both Russia and China have some of the most sophisticated ballistic missiles in the world, but neither country has a credible defense from ballistic missiles that is fielded within the context of an alliance like the US capabilities are, nor are they globally deployable like the BMD capabilities of the US Navy. BMD is a strategic capability that neither Russia nor China has as an offering to friends as a protection in a time of need. When you consider the enormous advantage legitimate Ballistic Missile Defense gives the United States at the strategic and geopolitical level with our Asian allies today, it strikes me as remarkably foolish that on any level the President could potentially be considering conceding that advantage to any competitor for any purpose in a diplomatic negotiation.

The United States should not take for granted the strategic advantage of Ballistic Missile Defense, nor how Ballistic Missile Defense capability translates throughout our alliances to our friends and allies. With all due respect to the President, the suggestion that Ballistic Missile Defense is in play in negotiations with Russia related to nuclear arsenals is a serious miscalculation on his part.

In 2012 Ballistic Missile Defense has become one of the big puzzle pieces that is keeping several of our allies (like Japan and Saudi Arabia, to name a few big ones) from developing their own nuclear arsenals, and removing that incentive from our allies in an effort to simply reduce Russia's nuclear stockpile is counterproductive towards efforts of curbing development of nuclear weapons, and potentially destabilizing in the specific parts of the world the US defense strategy is specifically committed to maintaining stability.

Russia's Nuclear Battlecruiser Ambitions

This National Defense Magazine article discussing Russian nuclear powered warship ambitions for the future is interesting.

The Russian navy recently announced plans to build either a nuclear powered destroyer or cruiser — depending on translation — by 2016.

The pronouncement, made at the 5th Maritime Defense Show in St. Petersburg, caused an uncomfortable surprise in many naval circles.

A move to build a nuclear surface ship would give Russia a capability that is not currently possessed by most navies around the world. These potential nuclear powered surface ships would be faster, not as dependent on supply ships for refueling, and have the ability to traverse greater distances. In terms of future technology capacity, it could also provide greater energy resources to charge directed energy weapons.

The Russian navy’s ambition is worth examining because it suggests that the Russians have a different view of the cost versus benefits of fulfilling their evolving mission needs. These developments, further, should be analyzed in the context of planning and designing future U.S. combatant warships.

I believe we are past that point considering recent laws that have been passed related to nuclear power for surface vessels, laws that require nuclear power for ship types over a certain tonnage absent a waiver. One would imagine that the waiver for nuclear power for future Navy vessels includes a cost-benefit analysis.

Either way, nuclear power is already part of the future US Navy, indeed the new laws are one of many reasons the US Navy is calling the AMDR warship a DDG-51 Flight III instead of DDG(X). By using an old warship program to move forward, the Navy is avoiding Congressional requirements of new ship classes; requirements like nuclear power but also to leverage previous success of the DDG-51 program to avoid any potential Nunn-McCurdy issues. Maybe that isn't the intent by the Navy, but with a complete redesign for the AMDR ship, it sure looks like it.

Still, the NDM article goes on to make several interesting points about nuclear power in the Russian fleet. Worth reading in full.

Meanwhile, the Russian Navy is reportedly showing the flag off Syria. While it represents a show of support for Assad, via naval diplomacy, it is noteworthy in the regional media Russia is getting a lot of political mileage out of an old Kashin frigate .

Naval diplomacy - in the words of my teenage daughter, it's so underrated. Except, when naval diplomacy comes in the form of those large nuclear surface combatants, it isn't really overrated at all.

Blame the Vodka

I am in disbelief in the epic fail described in this Associated Press story.

The Russian navy says that one of its nuclear submarines has been hit by a fishing trawler and suffered minor damage.

The Interfax news agency quoted Pacific Fleet spokesman Roman Martov as saying that the collision occurred Wednesday in the Avachino Bay on the fareastern Kamchatka Peninsula.

Martov said Thursday that the incident caused no injuries and inflicted only "insignificant" damage to the anchored submarine. Interfax quoted the navy as saying that there was no radiation leak.

Martov said the submarine's crew had seen the approaching trawler and tried to warn it of the imminent collision, but the vessel ignored the signals. Interfax reported that a navy inspection team checked the trawler and found all of its crew drunk.

The submarine that was reported to have been hit is the Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets (Saint George the Victorious) (K-433), a Delta III class submarine capable of carrying 16 nuclear ballistic missiles. At anchor in the bay it is unlikely the submarine was carrying the missiles, although that has not been confirmed.

I nominate Russian fishing trawlers as the asymmetrical weapon of choice for the next attack against the Pacific fleet Russian nuclear submarine fleet, because apparently all one needs is a little vodka to get right up to the hull of a Russian nuclear ballistic submarine. I find that more than a little disturbing. Where is the armed escort for an anchored nuclear ballistic submarine? Someone please tell me it isn't this easy...

Stories like this seriously makes me wonder how well the Russians protect their nuclear technology.

Russia Dreams of a Nuclear Navy

What are the odds of this actually happening.

Russian officials on Thursday said that the country will be completing the construction of a new class nuclear-powered destroyer by 2016.

Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky told RIA Novosti that the prototype of the new class destroyer, which is designed to be used at sea, would be finished in around five years, adding that the warship had a 90 percent chance of being powered by nuclear energy.


Vysotsky spoke at the 5th International Maritime Defense Show, IMDS-2011, in St. Petersburg, Russia, after Roman Trotsenko, President of United Shipbuilding Corporation, had previously stated that the company was beginning the design for a new nuclear-powered destroyer.

Trotesenko said the design phase alone, which is expected to begin this fall, would last around two years, and that it would be constructed for the Russian Navy.

I expect to see nuclear powered destroyers being built in Russia right after those aircraft carriers expected to start construction in 2015 get going. Unlikely. Russia does have the infrastructure to build nuclear powered ships, but those ships are icebreakers, not destroyers.

I guess I am just very skeptical. I don't see this as mission impossible for Russia, rather mission "highly unlikely."

China Exporting Submarines For Pakistans Nuclear Triad

From the June 2011 issue of FORCE magazine, an Indian National Security and Defense magazine, comes this remarkable article.

Pakistan’s efforts to have a sea-based minimum credible nuclear deterrent vis-a-vis India took a significant step forward last month when the state-owned, Wuhan-based China State Shipbuilding Industrial Corp (CSIC) ferried the first Qing-class conventional attack submarine (SSK) to Shanghai to begin a year-long series of sea trials, which is likely to include the test-firing of three CJ-10K submarine-launched, 1,500km-range land attack cruise missiles (LACM) capable of being armed with unitary tactical nuclear warheads. Called the Qing-class SSK, it is a variant of the Type 041A Improved Yuan-class SSK, which is also due to begin its sea trials later this month.

It is now believed that the contract inked between CSIC and Pakistan early last April (see FORCE April 2011, pages 16-17) calls for the CSIC’s Wuhan-based Wuchang Shipyard to supply six Qing-class SSKs, all of which will be equipped with a Stirling-cycle AIP system and will be able to carry up to three nuclear warhead-carrying CJ-10K LACMs each. The double-hulled Qing-class SSK, with a submerged displacement close to 3,600 tonnes, bears a close resemblance to the Russian Type 636M SSK, and features hull-retractable foreplanes and hydrodynamically streamlined sail. The first such SSK was launched in Wuhan on September 9 last year, and a total of three such SSKs are on order from China’s PLA Navy as well. The AIP system for the Qing-class SSK was developed by the 711th Research Institute of CSIC. R&D work began in June 1996, with a 100-strong team of scientists and engineers led by Dr Jin Donghan being involved in developing the Stirling-cycle engine, while another team led Professor Ma Weiming of China’s Naval Engineering University began developing the all-electric AIP system. The two projects entered the production engineering stage in 2007, with the Shanghai Qiyao Propulsion Technology Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the 711th Institute, becoming the principal industrial entity charged with producing the AIP system. Incidentally, the Qing-class SSK’s all-electric propulsion system is a derivative of a similar system that was developed about a decade ago for the PLA Navy’s six Type 093 Shang-class SSGNs and three Type 094 Jin-class SSBNs.

For those who got lost in the trade speak, basically China is exporting submarines specifically designed to deliver nuclear weapons. The submarines will be armed with cruise missiles designed, built, and delivered by China to Pakistan intended to launch Pakistan nuclear warheads.

The most troubling part of this article is that it is very probably accurate. The article is worth reading in full, as it also claims China is giving the Pakistan Navy two Jiangkai I-class Type 054 frigates.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot in Japan

This popped up today on Facebook.

Good morning PSNS & IMF family,

I would like to share with you a recent update from U.S. 7th Fleet. USS George Washington (CVN 73) got underway from Yokosuka last night to assure she can sustain a state of readiness in the long term for the defense of Japan. The forward deployed carrier remains in the local waters off Japan. Moving George Washington is a precaution given the capabilities of the vessel and the complex nature of this disaster.

PSNS & IMF has more than 460 project personnel onboard George Washington, nine of whom are our Yokosuka Detachment workers. This team continues to perform work on her Selected Restricted Availability. I have every confidence our team will accomplish this availability despite the additional challenges presented over the last week and a half.

Also as a precautionary measure, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Japan, ordered that Potassium Iodide (KI) be available for all DoD personnel and dependents currently located at Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Ikego Housing Detachment, Negishi Housing Detachment, and Naval Air Facility Atsugi in case a need is identified. People are being directed not to take any KI until official notification is given, and then only to take the recommended dosage; there is enough KI for all personnel. Medical personnel will be standing by at each distribution location to answer any questions and explain about possible side effects from KI.

To those of you still in Japan, and to the many of you onboard George Washington—know you have the support, respect and admiration of your Command family. We are all proud of you working through the disaster that hit Japan and the resulting transitional challenges of shifting location and, in some cases, your families.

To those of you stateside—it’s because of your tremendous support, planning and flexibility that we are able to continue our work to meet the fleet’s needs.

We continue to monitor the situation in Japan, and it is still our top priority to look out for the safety and well-being of our workers and their families.

R/CAPT Mark Whitney
Commander, PSNS & IMF

Followed by this on Facebook.

There will be a Town Hall meeting tonight, Tuesday, March 22, 2024 at the Benny Decker Theater. The meeting begins at 1730. Taking your questions will be Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Admiral Robert F. Willard, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command. We hope to see you there.

Followed by this by CNN.

The U.S. military is considering the mandatory evacuation of thousands of American troops and their families in Japan out of concern over rising radiation levels, a senior defense official tells CNN.

The official, who did not want to be on the record talking about ongoing deliberations, says there are no discussions to evacuate all U.S. troops across the country. The talks have focused exclusively on U.S. troops in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo, the official said. Yokosuka is home to America's largest naval base in Japan. The military is monitoring radiation levels on a constant basis.

As of Monday, the U.S. Navy had no more warships in port at the base. The aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which had been undergoing maintenance in Yokosuka, left port Monday in order to get away from the plume of radioactive particles that could blow over the base. Because it left port with a much smaller than normal crew, the George Washington will not take part in the Japanese relief effort.

No organization on the planet has more experience and expertise with all things nuclear than the United States Navy. No ship in the world is better equipped in a nuclear emergency than a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. When the US Navy and US Navy aircraft carriers start leaving Japan, something serious is happening. The US even contemplating pulling out of Japan right now would represent an extraordinary shift in the balance of power in the Pacific, and yet that they are even considering doing so suggests the seriousness of the situation at Fukushima.

It is going to take someone near the very top of government, at minimum Secretary Gates, to interrupt the maintenance of the nations only forward deployed aircraft carrier and put her out to sea with a skeleton crew while still undergoing maintenance. USS George Washington (CVN 73) isn't just some warship, it is one of the 10 most expensive and capable strategic assets on the planet run by an organization with a thorough understanding of the dangers of nuclear radiation. Simply moving the carrier out of dry dock and out to sea during an emergency is no small thing.

When combined with news that ADM Walsh and ADM Willard, the two most senior Navy officers in the Pacific, addressed the families of the USS George Washington (CVN 73) what are we supposed to think? That meeting is followed by news reports concerning a potential mandatory evacuation from Yokosuka in the works?

If the US Navy pulls their families out of Yokosuka, the carrier won't be returning there for a long time, if ever. The question is, where can the US Navy move the forward deployed ships? A few destroyers to Guam? Would GW be pulled all the way back to Pearl Harbor? Would South Korea, Australia, or Singapore be interested in hosting a US Navy DESRON?

What is the message being sent to Japan? Tokyo is on the other side of the bay from Yokosuka; Tokyo is closer to Fukushima than Yokosuka is. Our national decision makers are considering all options with a full understanding that once the US Navy leaves Japan, the political fallout most likely will be we will never be allowed to return.

Message to American Citizens from Ambassador to Japan John V. Roos

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Department of Energy and other technical experts in the U.S. Government have reviewed the scientific and technical information they have collected from assets in country, as well as what the Government of Japan has disseminated, in response to the deteriorating situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Consistent with the NRC guidelines that apply to such a situation in the United States, we are recommending, as a precaution, that American citizens who live within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant evacuate the area or to take shelter indoors if safe evacuation is not practical.

We want to underscore that there are numerous factors in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, including weather, wind direction and speed, and the nature of the reactor problem that affect the risk of radioactive contamination within this 50 mile (80 km) radius or the possibility of lower-level radioactive materials reaching greater distances.

The U.S. Embassy will continue to update American citizens as the situation develops. U.S. citizens in need of emergency assistance should send an e-mail to [email protected] with detailed information about their location and contact information, and monitor the U.S. Department of State website at travel.state.gov.

The United States is continuing to do everything in its power to help Japan and American citizens who were there at the time of these tragic events. To support our citizens there, the Embassy is working around the clock. We have our consular services available 24 hours a day to determine the whereabouts and well-being of all U.S. citizens in Japan and we have offered our Japanese friends assistance, including disaster response experts, search and rescue teams, technical advisers with nuclear expertise, and logistical support from the United States military.

Comment:

I'm curious what people think. We are clearly sending a message that is different than the government of Japan, who insists 12.5 miles (20km) is the appropriate evacuation zone. Whether this undermines Japanese government statements about the risk of radiation and fallout is entirely up to how the Japanese interpret the meaning of the difference in opinions between the US and Japanese government.

Is this the US government being abundantly cautious in protecting US citizens? Is this the US being paranoid? I personally believe it is the responsibility of governments to make independent assessments based on the facts as they know it, and in this case I believe the Obama administration is taking a prudent and responsible action that they believe will protect the lives of US citizens.

I am curious how others see it though.

Murphys Law at Fukushima

Just followed the press conference from Japan that updated the situation.

As of this writing, there is a fire around reactor 4. There is no fuel on fire, yet, but this will not be an easy fire to put out.

There is a leak in reactor 2. The extent of the leak is being hid in the TEPCO translation.

These are the figures passed around:

30mSv/h (30,000 uSv) near Unit-2 & 100mSv/h (100,000 uSv) near Unit-4.

This is legit contamination. The fire is producing higher contamination, and we will know more about that once the fire is out.

Pray for those firefighters. That is one fire no firefighter wants to ever fight in their life.

This is not a meltdown yet, but there is a contamination problem at Fukushima and it will contribute to making everything else hard. The government is advising total evacuation 20km away and stay indoors of 30km.

New York Times: US Navy Helicopter Exposed to Radiation

This almost sounds scary, but I have a feeling that when the details omitted in the article emerge from the Navy it will not be as scary as the New York Times article suggests.

The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.

The officials added that American helicopters flying missions about 60 miles north of the damaged reactors became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off.

The key detail missing in all of these stories is the levels of radiation being detected measured in micro sievert (mSv). Instead of using the popular media comparison of average over a year, lets use the example of a CT scan which runs about 2,000 - 2,200 micro sieverts in one use.

As best we have been informed to date, the radiation levels at the Fukushima power plant run about 100 to 1,200 microsieverts per hour, and have peaked around the time of the explosions. While you can read the New York Times article and be alarmed, I actually quoted the safety measure necessary for this radiation exposure from the article - wash it off.

According to various news reports, the maximum level detected so far around the Fukushima plant is 1,557.5 micro sievert logged Sunday. In the open atmosphere, this number would drop considerably due to disipation. We will likely learn details of the Navy exposure and remedy taken, and I do think the Navy will take an abundance of caution, but if the Navy is smart they will also use this opportunity to educate regarding nuclear power - since the Navy is an organization with many thousands of nuclear specialists.

The New York Times article goes on to say this:

The plume issue has arisen before. In 1986, radiation spewing from the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine was spread around the globe on winds and reached the West Coast in 10 days. It was judged more of a curiosity than a threat.

The comparison to Chernobyl remains popular, but is also good way to identify if someone talking about Fukushima knows what they hell they are talking about. If someone suggests any comparison between the two based on the current data, they are an idiot - not an expert.

Here is how to put Fukushima in the context of Chernobyl. The radiation levels at Chernobyl were of the order of 30,000 roentgens per hour near the plant.

30,000 roentgens is 3,579 sieverts. One million micro sieverts to one sievert. Doing a little quick math, if we are comparing the magnitude of radiation levels coming from 'meltdown' at the Fukushima power plant to the 'meltdown' at Chernobyl we get 1 / 3,579,000

Again, doing the math, a relative comparison suggests Fukushima is 0.00002% of the Chernobyl levels of radiation. These 'meltdowns' have nothing in common, unless you believe .000002% - below the mSv of a CT scan - is a public health threat.

For the record, 7th Fleet is repositioning ships after the contamination detection. This is a wise precaution, because as many have pointed out, it is one thing to trust the Japanese numbers but it is more important to verify them.

Updated:

The New York Times has already followed up with another article on the topic. 17 Navy personnel were exposed to radiation according to the report.

Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the American Seventh Fleet in Japan, said the Navy personnel — who apparently had flown through a radioactive plume from a damaged nuclear power plant — had been ordered to dispose of their uniforms and to undergo a decontamination scrub that had successfully removed radioactive particles.

“They received very, very low levels of contamination,” Commander Davis said in a telephone interview from Japan early Monday.

“It certainly is not cause for alarm,” he said. “It is something we have to watch very carefully and make sure we are able to monitor, and to mitigate against this environmental hazard.”

Like I said, the Navy will take an abundance of caution dealing with this issue. You do not discuss nuclear power without also discussing safety. I also note that on the nuclear powered USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), the detection systems for radiation are very good.

I once read an article that suggested the US Navy has more nuclear trained engineers than the Department of Energy. I don't know if that is actually true, but I do know that there are probably hundreds of nuclear trained US Navy readers who visit here daily and if I get something wrong regarding nuclear issues - I am going to get a hurricane of email and comments that will highlight my mistakes.

Fukushima FUD

There is a lot of hype and even some stupid nonsense being thrown around in the media about the nuclear situation at Fukushima. If you don't understand nuclear power, seek out discussions on the topic from the retired Navy communities, many of whom work on civilian reactors today and are discussing this issue in numerous places all over the web. A good place to start is the comments of this post at Bubblehead. Also see Dr. Josef Oehmen's comments here, a very useful read for context and perspective.

A few details that folks might want to note:

The reactors that are being discussed in the news were successfully shut down. The problems are related to post shutdown safety.

People who compare Fukushima and Chernobyl don't know anything about Fukushima or Chernobyl. This is like comparing the safety, survivability, and resilience of row boats and battleships. Everything that made Chernobyl a disaster - lack of safety, redundancy, etc.. - is what is making Fukushima a successful containment of a serious problem.

This event in Japan is the worst case scenario. First you have a 9.0 earthquake, then you have this massive tsunami, then you have the freezing weather that compounds your water problems. In the case of Fukushima the earthquake knocked out the power, forcing them to move to generators. The tsunami came along and knocked out the generators, forcing them to move to battery power.

The battery power has very limited life, somewhere between 8-24 hours, and we are somewhere north of 54 hours on battery power now at the nuclear plants. Obviously that creates a serious problem with these old reactors that require electricity for cooling. BTW, worth noting, the new nuke tech does not require electricity to cool.

Observing that this is the worst case scenario and that Fukushima is Japans oldest nuclear power plant; worth highlighting that there is still no evidence that there has been loss of containment or a leak that represents a public health concern. The leaks to date have been controlled and regulated as part of the safety procedures. Keep your head on folks, all of the public safety being done from iodine to evacuations is part of the stated Japanese nuclear safety plan which can be found online (I have not seen an English version).

The Fukushima plant situation is serious, but it is not some emerging catastrophe some are making it out to be.

Report: North Korea Developing Nuclear Sea Mines

The English language version comes courtesy of Bill Gertz in Inside the Ring. It is worth reading in full, but this is how it begins.

U.S. intelligence agencies are working to track down an alarming report from inside North Korea revealing that the communist regime is secretly developing underwater nuclear torpedoes and mines.

According to a newsletter run by dissident North Koreans, the report states that North Korea's government has a special group of researchers at the National Defense Technology Institute that is "developing underwater weapons using nuclear warheads." The report was published Dec. 3 by the Korean-language newsletter NK Chisigan Yondae, or NK Intellectual Solidarity.

The U.S. Navy once had nuclear torpedoes and mines, as did the Soviet navy, and China's military also has discussed the use of nuclear torpedoes in its military writings as recently as 2006.

The original report in Korean that is being discussed can be found here.

Keep in mind this is an unconfirmed report from a group of North Korean defectors. What seems to add some credibility to this new report is a "secret" Wikileaks cable dated September 26, 2024 when a Chinese diplomat told a US diplomat that North Korea failed to report "critical information about secret underwater nuclear facilities located on North Korea's coast."

The idea of nuclear sea mines is not a new idea, there are several Chinese articles that have discussed the nuclear sea mine capability over the last decade. In China's Underseas Sentries, a Winter 07 Underwater Magazine article by Andrew Erickson, Ph.D., Lyle Goldstein, Ph.D., & William Murray, the Chinese discussion is mentioned:

Submarines have attracted particular attention as a deployment platform for rising mines. An article by Dalian Naval Academy researchers suggests significant PLAN interest in SLMMs. A researcher at Institute 705 advocates acquisition of an encapsulated torpedo mine, similar to the Cold War-era U.S. Captor mine, which could be laid in very deep waters to attack passing submarines. Mine belts—external conformal containers designed to carry and release large numbers of mines—can be fitted to submarines in order to bolster their otherwise limited payloads. One article emphasizes that the Soviet navy developed a “mine laying module capable of carrying 50 sea mines on either side of the submarine” and states, “For the past few years related PLA experts have expressed pronounced interest in submarine mine belts…. The PLA very probably has already developed submarine mine belts.” Another source notes, however, that “submarines built after World War II rarely carry mines externally.”

Disturbingly, there is some discussion of a theoretical nature in Chinese naval analyses concerning arming sea mines with tactical nuclear weapons. One such analysis, in the context of discussing Russian MIW, notes that nuclear sea mines could sink adversary nuclear submarines from a range of 2000 meters.... A second article finds that a nuclear payload is one logical method to increase the destructive power of sea mines, while a third analysis argues that nuclear MIW is especially promising for future deep-water ASW operations. It concludes: “At this time, various countries are actively researching this extremely powerful nuclear-armed sea mine.”43 An article in the July 2006 issue of Modern Navy (Dangdai Haijun), published by the PLA Navy itself, in the context of discussing potential future PLA Navy use of sea mines, also notes the potential combat value of nuclear-armed sea mines. While there is no direct evidence of the existence of such naval tactical nuclear weapons programs in China, these articles do perhaps suggest the need to closely monitor any Chinese efforts in this direction.

The specific citations for the nuclear mine discussion are below:

焦方金 [Jiao Fangjin], “双头鹰的水中伏兵” [The Double-Headed Eagle's Ambush at Sea], 国防科技 [Defense Science], July 2003, p. 91.
王伟 [Wang Wei], “历久弥新话水雷” [Enduring and Yet Fully Relevant: A Discussion of Sea Mines], 国防 [National Defense], November 2002, p. 58.
陈冬元 [Chen Dongyuan], p. 45.

Is North Korea a signatory of the 1971 Seabed Treaty? I don't think North Korea takes such things seriously, but use of a nuclear sea mine would be a clear violation.

In the focus of the Iranian nuclear program, I have discussed red lines that once crossed, means a military attack will likely come soon after. We have never really seen where a red line was crossed in regards to an Iranian nuclear program, but I am starting to wonder if someone in Seoul has decided North Korea has crossed that red line with the North Korean nuclear program. If so, it might help explain why the Obama administration seems to be committed to the new South Korean led strategy in dealing with North Korea, even if supporting that strategy takes the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.

The US and the Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent

At World Politics Review, I argue that replacement of the British SSBN force is not in the interests of the United States:

Just as important, however, is the money that would be saved from foregoing Trident replacement, which could be spent in other areas. The United States has depended on the United Kingdom as a military partner for the last 60 years. During that time, robust British naval and expeditionary warfare capabilities have supported and substituted for U.S. capabilities in key areas. Simply put, nuclear missile submarines are deployed to hide and wait. As a result, they can't address the highest-priority threats to global security today, such as countering terrorists, deterring pirates, and conducting disaster relief, most of which require a visible presence. A hollow, gutted British military, albeit one in possession of a formidable nuclear deterrent, is of little use to the United States.

The Sub Community Responds

Check out Joel's blog entry on the SSN cheating scandal - and the huge number of comments on the subject by the submarine blog reading community.

Cheating the SSN Exam

Via DT, this is alarming:

During my on-board training, while I studied more than 70 hours per week, my fellow officers regularly warned me, “Don’t let knowledge stand in the way of your qualifications.” They urged me not to, “learn too much… just check the box and get qualified.” But when my exam arrived, it seemed impossibly difficult. I failed miserably, despite having made a very serious five-month long effort to pass.

My fellow officers were surprised by my failure, and wondered aloud why I hadn’t used the “study guide.” When my second exam arrived, so did the so-called study guide, which happened to be the answer key for the nuclear qualification exam I was taking. I was furious. Defiantly, I handed back the answer key to the proctor and proceeded to take the exam on my own. I failed again. My boss, the ship’s engineer officer, started to document my failures with formal counseling so that he could fire me.

The most competent junior officer on our ship ran to my rescue, confiding that none of the other officers had passed the exam legitimately; the exam was just an administrative check-off. “Swallow your pride,” he told me, and just get it done.
The ship’s engineer and executive officer didn’t believe me when I complained of the cheating, and swept my allegations under the rug. It took me five attempts before I finally passed the "basic" qualification exam. Unbeknownst to me, senior members of my crew even went so far as to falsify my exam scores in order to avoid unwanted attention from the headquarters. But strangely, the exam was anything but basic. The expectations on paper were astronomically high compared to the banal reality of how our ship actually worked.

The USS Hartford had many serious problems. Later that year, the ship ran itself aground off the coast of Italy, resulting in the firing of our captain and several senior officers. But sadly, the nuclear cheating scandal was not isolated to the Hartford. Two years later, when I began to teach at the Naval Submarine School in Connecticut, my colleagues whispered of cheating scandals aboard their own boats. Did it happen on the Scranton? What about the Seawolf? The results were not pretty. From our extensive whispered surveys, several other officers and I concluded that the vast majority of the fleet had some odious practice that resembled the cheating scandal I witnessed firsthand aboard the Hartford.

Thus far, the U.S. Navy has maintained a perfect nuclear safety record. But, having attained the senior supervisory certification of a ship’s nuclear engineer officer, I am deeply disturbed by what I consider to be a threat to the nuclear Navy’s integrity.

There's more, some of it of value and some not so much. The general point of the article was that since 9/11 (and more generally in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union) the importance of the nuclear submarine fleet has waned, and standards of training and maintenance have correspondingly declined. This is an argument that has been made in several quarters about nuclear weapons handling in the Air Force; as nukes became less core to the USAF mission, standards decline and we get incidents like Minot. I should say that while there's a certain organizational logic to this argument, I'm not yet entirely convinced on the empirical side. In the case described above, we would need a sense of how seriously such tests were taken before the collapse of the Soviet Union to have any standard of comparison. Similarly, Minot was not the first nuclear weapons handling incident in the history of the USAF. That said, it's generally correct to assume that missions de-prioritized by senior service leadership will attract less attention, less prestige, and fewer of the very best available personnel, creating the conditions under which errors and cheating can take place.

History of Nuclear Testing

Fascinating graphic via Dave Noon, via Ralph Luker:

Curious, in case anyone knows; how many, if any, of the Soviet and French tests were designed to measure the effectiveness of nuclear weapons against naval vessels?

Nuclear Numbers

An interesting proposal for pairing down our strategic nuclear forces to 311 warheads. I have little background in these matters, and I question retaining all that force structure in order to employ so few warheads, but this idea strikes me as a serious option to consider.

Bryan McGrath

SSN Problems in the RN

This is a problem:

Two British nuclear submarines went to sea with a potentially disastrous safety problem that left both vessels at risk of a catastrophic accident, the Guardian can reveal.

Safety valves designed to release pressure from steam generators in an emergency were completely sealed off when the nuclear hunter killers Turbulent and Tireless left port, a leaked memo discloses.

The problem went undetected on HMS Turbulent for more than two years, during which time the vessel was on operations around the Atlantic, and visited Bergen in Norway, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and Faslane naval base near Glasgow.

It was not noticed on HMS Tireless for more than a year, and was finally detected last month, two months after Tireless started sea trials from its home port at Devonport naval base in Plymouth.

Turbulent and Tireless obviously aren't SSBNs, but the RN really didn't need this kind of press for its submarine force while Trident replacement remains up for debate.

Trident and the Lib Dems

During last week's debate, Lib Dem frontman Nick Clegg repeatedly brought up the question of replacing Trident. Jeffrey Lewis interviewed Paul Ingram on the potential implications of Lib Dem strength for the Trident program:

Last Thursday Britain had its first ever election leader TV debate, and it confounded the pundits, not only for being more interesting than anyone expected, not only because it turned out to be a genuinely three-horse contest (why should that be surprising when you put three horses in the track?), but also because little-known Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg (Nick who?) raised the cost of Britain’s Trident replacement plans not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but four times, before the other two were forced to respond. Tory leader David Cameron reluctantly responded with the usual response about defending the UK but committing: “I say we should always have the ultimate protection of our independent nuclear deterrent”, followed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who after describing the need for a united front against potential proliferators, said, “I don’t favour Nick’s proposal which would unilaterally abandon our nuclear deterrent when we know Iran and North Korea and other countries are trying to get…” Since the debate the universal media and public opinion is that Clegg scored a hit on the night (not necessarily on this issue) and the Lib Dems are soaring in the polls. So, is there something exciting going on around Britain’s nuclear deterrent? Could we see some sort of momentum behind a policy shift? What?s the background?

The Lib Dems could end up holding the balance of power, so their opinion is important. But don’t expect an FDP moment — where after last October’s elections Germany’s new Foreign Minister is pushing hard within NATO for the withdrawal of US B-61s from Germany — there is strong cross-party and public support for such a move in Germany where it does not yet exist in the UK. Even in their own party the Lib Dems are badly divided on the issue of what to do, and national representatives have been on all the UK media since the debate clarifying that they are not in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament, simply looking for cheaper alternatives to buying UK nukes systems off the US shelf.

For my part, I'm glad that Trident replacement is being debated inter-party forums. I have long believed that the UK's nuclear deterrent is redundant, and that funds would be better spent on maintaining Royal Navy surface and expeditionary capability. The discussion probably won't get to the point of debating the merits of the Queen Elizabeth vs. a Trident replacement, but Clegg's presence at least pushes the strategic debate to the fore.

Joint UK-French SSBN Fleet?

This is an interesting notion that is unlikely to happen in anything but a very limited sense:

France has offered to create a joint UK-French nuclear deterrent by sharing submarine patrols, the Guardian has learned. Officials from both countries have discussed how a deterrence-sharing scheme might work but Britain has so far opposed the idea on the grounds that such pooling of sovereignty would be politically unacceptable.

In a speech this morning in London, Gordon Brown said he had agreed to further nuclear co-operation with France last week after talks with Nicolas Sarkozy. The prime minister did not comment explicitly about submarines, saying only that the UK and France would both retain "our independent nuclear deterrent".

"We have talked about the idea of sharing continuity at sea as part of a larger discussion about sharing defence burdens," a French official said.

A British official confirmed that the French government had raised the idea of shared "continuous at-sea deterrence", but added that any such scheme would cause "outrage" in the midst of an election campaign.

Today, Brown said of his talks with the French president: "We have agreed a degree of co-operation that is, I think, greater than we have had previously but we will retain, as will France, our independent nuclear deterrent....

Sarkozy hinted at the potential for shared deterrence in a speech at Cherbourg. "Together with the United Kingdom, we have taken a major decision: it is our assessment that there can be no situation in which the vital interests of either of our two nations could be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened," he said.

Britain and France could synchronise nuclear deterrent patrols and co-operate in the deployment of surface fleet task forces, sources say. However, British officials played down the possibility of formal agreements on the nuclear deterrent - or on sharing each other's aircraft carriers.

The idea of a shared deterrent is certainly interesting; during the Cold War, the NATO alliance essentially "shared" the nuclear umbrellas provided by the US, the UK, and France. Italy and West Germany did not need to invest in their own nuclear weapon programs because it was impossible to imagine an attack that would not also involve one of the three nuclear states. The current situation for France and the United Kingdom is very similar. While it's obviously possible to imagine France or the UK going to war independent of one another, it's difficult to envision scenarios where the nuclear deterrent of either country would become militarily relevant in an independent conflict. If anyone flings a nuke at either London or Paris, the expectation would be that the other would become involved (not to mention the United States). Thus, the idea of a shared deterrent has some appeal, especially given the high cost that both countries face in replacing their SSBN fleets.

That said, nuclear weapons play other roles besides deterrence. Nukes remain a prestige weapon, and in some sense guarantee a seat at the big power table. Without nukes, it would be much harder to distinguish France or the UK from the bevy of second tier powers (Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Canada) that lack nuclear weapons but have otherwise similar defense profiles. Indeed, it becomes very hard to justify the two security council seats for France and the UK if they're sharing one of the key elements of their national power. Again, the idea of folding the two European permanent seats together (and replacing with, say, India or Japan or Brazil) makes some intuitive sense, but would be procedurally very difficult.

The command and control details of a shared deterrent would also be difficult to work out. There are a variety of different schemes, running from a CoG to CoG link (Brown calls Sarkozy from the ruins of London and asks him to shoot back at aggressor country X) to high level military contacts to the direct presence of French and British naval officers on each others submarines. Working out firing bureaucracy would be extremely complex, especially given that both countries seem to have somewhat idiosyncratic nuclear command procedures. Future procurement would also be a bit twitchy, as the RN SSBNs are scheduled for replacement prior to the French. However, the procurement issue might also be the firmest ground for collaboration; 4-5 boats to one design makes much more financial sense than 6-8 boats of two designs.

Cross-posted at LGM.