Gray Matter for Gray Hulls: The Intellectual Software Powering the U.S. Navy’s Asia-Pacific Rebalance

East Asia

The following guest post is by Gabe Collins. Gabe Collins is the co-founder of China SignPost and a former commodity investment analyst and research fellow in the US Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institute.

The Naval War College is poised to play a pivotal role in America’s Asia-Pacific refocusing. Here are the programs and professionals that the Navy will draw on.

U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert recently penned “Sea Change,” a landmark article for Foreign Policy that explains America’s rebalancing toward Asia. Building the Admiral’s Sailing Directions (PDF), Posture Statement (PDF), Navigation Plan (PDF), and Position Report (PDF), it represents his definitive public statement on what the U.S. Navy is doing to support the Asia-Pacific Rebalance.

Admiral Greenert’s assessment highlights the centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to American interests, but even more importantly, notes the need for the U.S. Navy to “establish greater intellectual focus on Asia-Pacific security challenges” and to help create the intellectual software that will enable Washington to employ its military hardware to maximum effect in the region. Having Navy institutions play a leading role in formulating Asia-Pacific strategy makes sense given the region’s maritime geography and manifold commercial and military maritime security challenges.

As a part of rebalancing, the Admiral notes  that “[the U.S. is] refocusing attention on the Asia-Pacific in developing and deploying our intellectual talent.” He cites The Naval War College as “the nation’s premier academic center on the region,” with strong and growing programs on Asian security. Illustrating the comprehensiveness of the Navy’s commitment to Asia-focused strategic thought, Greenert adds that the Naval Postgraduate School has also “expanded its programs devoted to developing political and technical expertise relevant to the Asia-Pacific.” The Admiral highlights a core strength of the Navy’s thought centers—their focus on continually developing human capital and actionable operational concepts that can be sent right back out to the fleet, pointing out that “we [the Navy] continue to carefully screen and send our most talented people to operate and command ships and squadrons in the Asia-Pacific.” 

This top-level recognition of the need to focus on intellectual software is refreshing given that the subject typically receives far less attention than the hardware end of naval activities (i.e. ships, planes, missiles). It is also important because as the U.S. and China move forward with their “frenemies” relationship that mixes cooperative and competitive aspects, it will be vital for Washington to base its actions in the Asia-Pacific area on a firm, comprehensive, and forward-looking intellectual foundation.

Among bastions of naval strategic thought in the U.S, the Naval War College is singularly well-positioned to play a leading role in formulating the foundations of American naval power in the Asia-Pacific. Having furnished critical inputs (PDF) to support the formulation of the latest U.S. maritime strategy (PDF) —the first endorsed by the chiefs of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard—the College is already making substantial contributions to U.S. strategy regarding how to grapple with China’s rising maritime power, as well as the evolving roles of India and U.S. allies such as Japan in a dynamic and strategically-vital part of the world. To understand and how Newport will continue shaping policy in coming years, it is necessary to consider its three major Asia-Pacific programs and the individuals that lead them.

First is the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). Founded in 2006 by Dr. Lyle Goldstein and led by current director Prof. Peter Dutton, a retired naval flight officer and judge advocate who enjoys considerable policy influence (PDF) through his research on Chinese maritime strategic and legal perspectives, CMSI aims to enhance the U.S. Navy’s understanding of the maritime implications of China’s rise. CMSI draws on the work of both dedicated researcher professors and affiliated teaching faculty who are able to read and analyze Chinese-language original source materials from the Institute’s library, which offers the most specialized collection of China-related military maritime publications outside of Greater China. In 2008, CMSI was praised by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as a model for conducting open source research on China’s military.

CMSI draws on these unique resources to offer multidimensional research capabilities covering a range of issues including China’s naval policy and development, civil-military relations, civil maritime organizations, territorial and maritime claims disputes and associated legal positions, defense science, technology, and industry, aerospace dimensions of naval operations, seaborne energy security, and maritime relations with the U.S. and other nations. In addition to developing and curating its library, CMSI holds an annual conference, publishes the China Maritime Studies monograph series, and hosts regular guest speakers.

Second is the Asia-Pacific Studies Group (APSG). Established by Dr. Jonathan Pollack, now a senior fellow in Foreign Policy and acting director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and led by current chairman Dr. Terence Roehrig—like Pollack, a recognized expert on Korean peninsula affairs —the APSG focuses on policy and strategy issues concerning the entire Asia-Pacific region, including Australia and Russia. APSG’s research serves the needs of the Navy, U.S. Pacific Command, and other elements of the U.S. Government responsible for formulating policy, strategy, and planning related to Asia and the Pacific. In addition, at the Naval War College, APSG performs vital outreach and academic functions by hosting guest speakers and seminars and offering course for students.

Third is the John A. van Buren Chair for Asia-Pacific Studies, endowed in 2010 with a generous grant through the Naval War College Foundation. Dr. Toshi Yoshihara, the inaugural recipient of the chairmanship, is a leading analyst of Chinese maritime power and has authored multiple books and numerous scholarly articles on the subject.

Supported by the Naval War College leadership and the chairs of their respective departments, the heads of these programs work closely with a wide range of faculty members whose teaching, research, and scenario evaluation covers a full range of regional issues, as well as relevant strategic and cross-cutting functional specialties. A critical mass of faculty, for instance, conduct research using original Chinese-language sources; at no other institution outside of Greater China is such a substantial group of Chinese language-capable professors devoted to military maritime matters. Students participate directly in these activities, contributing important operational and technical insights and applying their knowledge in the fleet and its various support organizations following their time in Newport.

The U.S. Navy has a long and storied history of constructive engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. The rapid settlement and growth of the Western U.S. in the post-Civil War period, coupled with the subsequent statehood of Alaska and Hawaii as well as the affiliation of Guam and other U.S. Pacific territories—which together confer on the U.S. the largest territorial waters and claimable Exclusive Economic Zone of any nation, has bound the U.S. national interest inextricably to economic and security events in the Asia-Pacific.

This bond continues to animate Washington’s foreign policy to this day. Indeed, as Admiral Greenert points out, “The importance of the Asia-Pacific, and the Navy’s attention to it, is not new. Five of our seven treaty allies are in the region, as well as six of the world’s top 20 economies. We have maintained an active and robust presence in the Asia-Pacific for more than 70 years and built deep and enduring relationships with allies and partners there.”

Continuing to build on that powerful legacy will require new approaches as the world becomes increasingly Asia-centric and the need for naval presence and engagement becomes more acute. Research and analysis from the Navy’s bases of Asian studies excellence in Newport, as well as Monterrey and Annapolis, will help lay the intellectual foundation of these approaches and the strategies and policies that result. As the U.S. prepares to continue its indispensable role in the world’s most dynamic region, watch for contributions from its critical centers of naval thought.

DC Maritime Meet-up - 26 June

I'll be joining the young Jedis from CIMSEC this Tuesday evening at the Iron Horse Tap in Washington, DC.  The gathering should make for some lively discussions on naval topicality.  Hope to see you there.

A House Panel Talks Strategy

While Ash Carter was getting all of the attention on Capitol Hill yesterday with his testimony in the Senate, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing titled The Future of National Defense and the U.S. Military Ten Years After 9/11: Perspectives from Outside Experts. The panel included:

Mr. Jim Thomas
Vice President and Director of Studies
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Dr. Michael E. O’Hanlon
Director of Research and Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution

Mr. Thomas Donnelly
Resident Fellow and Director, Center for Defense Studies
American Enterprise Institute

Mr. Max Boot
Council on Foreign Relations
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies

Below is the video for those who missed it.

This was an interesting discussion, and once Dr. Michael E. O’Hanlon arrives it got very interesting in my opinion, but the HASC Republicans got thoroughly embarrassed before the hearing ended. Max Boot, who I readily admit I don't always read even though I am aware he writes a lot, pretty much made a fool of himself towards the end of this video.

During a late exchange with Representative Jim Cooper (D-TENN), the Congressman asks Max Boot a number of times if there is anything in the entire Defense Budget he would cut. Given numerous opportunities to answer the question, Max Boot gave several strange and ultimately ridiculous reasons why he wouldn't cut anything in the defense budget.

Not One Program, Nothing.

The inability to make a strategic argument in the context of the budget constraints facing the nation made Max Boot look like a clown. If you need evidence to support my accusation, just watch the video. His 'scary world' approach to the hearing did not contribute new ideas, or even strategic ideas to the discussion.

The politics of the defense debate has to improve if this nation is ever going to hold a legitimate strategy debate in this country, and HASC Republicans are shooting themselves in the crotch with a double barreled shotgun when they put their political faith for strategic analysis in the wisdom of folks like Max Boot. I'm sorry, but Max Boot was impossible to take serious on a panel that included folks like Dr. Jim Thomas and Dr. Michael E. O’Hanlon. Furthermore, while I respect and admire Tom Donnelly, Republicans badly need new faces and new ideas in their strategic dialog after 10 years of war.

Because there appears to be a lack of truly new strategic ideas being voiced on Capitol Hill for the Republican party, let me make a few recommendations that I believe the HASC Republicans should consider as future experts primarily because these new voices can make arguments that the Tea Party in particular could potentially find more appealing on defense and strategic issues.

Seth Cropsey
Hudson Institute
Senior Fellow

Anthony H. Cordesman
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy

Mackenzie Eaglen
Heritage Foundation
Research Fellow for National Security Studies, Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies

There are others, many others, but the real point is that when HASC Republicans are trying to find a political argument in support of defense at a time the primary issue facing defense is making good strategic choices towards shaping our defense posture with less money, picking someone like Max Boot who advocates against making any choices at all is a wasted opportunity to find a much needed political narrative for the right.

The conservative side of defense politics is remarkably weak right now - for the first time in decades - primarily because the old guard voices Republicans promote the most have no new ideas, and do more harm than good when chanting ideology instead of addressing strategic choices. Dr. James Carafano of Heritage Foundation, for example, has an enormous platform in the form of the Heritage Foundations broad reach and access to media, but because the Heritage Foundation under Dr. Carafano appears completely unable to make any strategic choices regarding budget and funding, nor a strategic argument based on vision instead of fear - Heritage Foundation has become almost completely irrelevant over the last several years to serious strategic discussions in the US despite their enormous reach on the political right.

It should be obvious to the Heritage Foundation - even the Tea Party is not listening to you on defense policy. Can you say Red Flag?

The only thing conservatives have going for them on defense policy is that no hard liberal think tanks take national security strategy seriously. Center for American Progress has long been completely void of serious national security strategy discussions on defense. Until their national strategy narratives are driven by substance instead of math, CAP will remain a loud political voice with no strategic policy influence in Washington. Note the HASC Democrats picked defense experts with non-partisan track records, Jim Thomas of CSBA and Dr. Michael E. O’Hanlon of Brookings, and there is no question they had the ideas that had the most impact in the hearing.

Finally, I do wonder when CNAS will shift from being a defense studies think tank focused on topical issues related to defense policy and build up a US policy and strategy shop. CNAS does great research and their experts write books worth buying on virtually all the major topics related to national security today, but the lack of a maritime studies and research arm at CNAS seems to prevent CNAS from taking positions relevant to the strategic level of policy - and keeps CNAS limited to a shop focused on regional topics.

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BTW, At 1 hour and eight minutes in the video above, Rep. Forbes starts a discussion with the panel that results in Jim Thomas giving one of the best public descriptions of AirSea Battle I've heard stated publicly to date. He doesn't go into great detail, but the conceptional explanation might be new to many who have heard of AirSea Battle but still have questions.

Daunting Question

Well, the compressed first course at National War College has come to a close. In just a few short weeks, we have heard from the EUCOM Commander, the Secretaries of State and Defense, several former ambassadors, and a variety of faculty and guest lecturers. It has been something of a whirlwind, but has given me much to think about.

Unfortunately, the busyness also allowed me to avoid addressing a common challenge to new authors: What to write about? Taking the third item of Admiral Stavridis' advice, "Read, Think, Write", here I go: I plan to start a broader discussion of the Coast Guard role beyond American shores with two rhetorical questions at the bottom of the post. Before I get to those, I will explain my concern.

I believe that the public has little awareness of the work of the Coast Guard beyond our shores, nor that the Coast Guard, analysts, bloggers, pundits, etc (I include myself in this grouping) do a very effective job of changing that. In the looming fiscal tightening, questions of value and return on investment should rightly be asked. Those who see value in various missions of the Coast Guard, as well as the Coast Guard itself, have a responsibility to make that value, tangible and intangible, known; not to overstate or exaggerate the case, but to get the case out there. It strikes me that we all talk to each other, in various forums, but rarely is the point made to the broader public.

Limited public awareness of what Coast Guard ships, aircraft, and people do worldwide undermines the competitiveness of the capital projects that enable those missions. I suspect that, for ID readers, this is an easy case, and that I will even receive some suggestions on how to improve my points. My concern, however, is that in agreeing with each other (at least to some extent), we have neglected to tell anyone else.

So now to my rhetorical question, followed by a challenge to us all:

In the foreign policy context, How is the Coast Guard an instrument of national power?

The challenge question to all of you who believe you have an answer to the first (including me): What can we do to better pass that word to the broader public?

I leave both of these as open questions until my next post, which should be two weeks or so. Please share your thoughts on this point by comments (preferred) or e-mail.

The views expressed herein are those of the blogger and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Commandant or of the U. S. Coast Guard. Nor should they be construed as official or reflecting the views of the National War College, National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.

Think Tanks, the Media, and the Future of Ideas Distribution

The Washington Post Think Tanked Blog is covering a news announcement this week that I have some thoughts on.

Time magazine and the Center for a New American Security have partnered to produce a new video series, Command Post. The series will examine key national security issues over the course of a week. Command Post will be co-hosted by CNAS President John Nagl and Time Pulitzer Prize winning national security correspondent Mark Thompson.

“Command Post will work to inform the American people about principled, pragmatic defense and security policies that will keep the country strong and safe,” said Nagl in a released statement.

The CNAS-Time project marks another collaboration between the think tank and media outlets of the kind that has been criticized in the past. The venture raises the question of whether think tanks, which may be beholden to their funders, make good partners for mainstream media.

Questions usually end with a question mark, so allow me to ask and answer the question. Is it a good idea for media organizations and think tanks to collaborate in the production and distribution of informed content? Of course it is, and this isn't a new phenomenon, rather a natural evolution and adaptation for both media and knowledge organizations like think tanks - indeed think tanks are simply catching up with academia in this regard.

The way information flows today is different than the way it did when fewer options existed. One of the criticisms mentioned in the Think Tanked article is the suggestion that think tank content is inherently biased or a form of propaganda due to the funding model of Think Tanks. Perhaps, but in my experience with think tanks, most think tanks produce legitimate ideas formulated through research and critical analysis - and yes one can often find good ideas even when a bias exists.

I also think this criticism is largely overblown, because it starts with the premise that important leaders and decision makers are incapable of evaluating the legitimacy or credibility of information. Because important leaders and decision makers in the US often shape information towards desired conclusions (particularly in political campaigns), folks sound silly to me when suggesting leaders are being unduly influenced. Seriously, are you suggesting an idea is genuine crap? Since when did the quality of an idea matter in highly partisan politics? Influence with ideas is often much more complex than critics of think tanks allow for in their criticisms.

Partnerships with media organizations isn't new to the Center for New American Security, which currently has two Senior Fellows consistently contributing on the Foreign Policy website; Marc Lynch and Tom Ricks. The extension of a media collaboration model to TIME magazine represents the traditional media outlet TIME expanding their new media models in new ways, not CNAS expanding themselves in new ways. If anything, CNAS can be accused of doing exactly what they are best known for doing - developing a larger influence enterprise through new media social collaboration models towards the purpose of distributing their ideas horizontally to broader audiences. How terrible! Think Tanks traditionally produce high quality content, so why wouldn't content distributors like TIME look to collaborate with organizations like CNAS that produce higher quality content. Indeed, some of the best ideas in the Navy discussion come from Think Tank folks, and too often the distribution models for those ideas are so small - nobody ever reads those ideas.

We have seen Think Tanks approach new media and the distribution of ideas in multiple ways attempting to capitalize on modern information network models. For example, The Heritage Foundation Foundry Blog is one example of an in-house publishing model for distributing the ideas of the Heritage Foundation outside their traditional backgrounder and report model. Center for American Progress also has a traditional content model of backgrounders and reports, but for their new media model they established Think Progress as an external, collaborative network for social networking their ideas horizontally. Most traditional think tanks, both partisan and non-partisan, have developed internal models for content distribution that now extends to blogging. CATO for example operates multiple blogs (here, here). CSIS uses multiple types of social networks to push ideas, and I would note CSIS and Lowy Institute both do a great job moving their ideas socially through Twitter - which is where I know a lot of researchers get exposed to their content. It isn't a stretch at all to say The Lowy Institute leads the Navy discussion among all think tanks globally because they do a better job than other think tanks promoting their ideas socially. This report, for example, is widely read and perhaps the most frequently publicly discussed think tank content produced in 2011 related to maritime affairs in the Pacific.

How powerful is social networking models for moving ideas produced from Think Tanks? In the global information distribution model of today, The Lowy Institute is leading the public naval affairs narrative by being the leading think tank content and ideas provider... and they are leading from Australia. The Indians read their work, the Japanese read their work, the Koreans read their work, obviously the Americans do, and it is safe bet the Chinese do... and in global social communities like Twitter where a policy discussion has been known to break out in public with many eyes watching, their ideas are prominently featured in the debates. Think about it.

CNAS is evolving into what can be described as a Think Tank 2.1 model where the traditional think tank model distributes their ideas with intent to influence through a social network, and they leverage the new media presence of traditional media brands to do it. It is effective, after all, the article I quoted regarding this new partnership between TIME and CNAS comes from the Think Tanked blog - published under the traditional brand Washington Post.

This is the future of think tanks, because influence can be measured a number of different ways for purposes of fundraising. Which scenario has more influence on you? When you find an interesting article from the AP while conducting a Google News search, or when a colleague you have high esteem for sends you an email and says "Read this!" and it links to an interesting article on some obscure blog brand like Information Dissemination? When colleagues I have respect for share a link with me, whether via email or Twitter or Facebook, it can have much more influence on my impression of the content than it would when I simply find an article reprinted in CLIPs.

That social model for information influence, enhanced by broader distribution through traditional media brands like Foreign Policy or TIME Magazine, is what CNAS is looking to take advantage of as a way of forwarding their ideas. The CNAS information model increases the probability that some staffer on the Hill will be informed by CNAS information and then forward that information to their Congressman or Senator, and through the consistency of good content generation, CNAS then competes for influence in the idea space among the decision makers in government.

This is a topic I've discussed at length with the folks at USNI many times - who do get it btw. Steve Waters and John Morgan didn't want to hear it, they already know everything - just ask them - which is why they need to go, but I honestly believe a similar model of leveraging partnerships within the Navy academia knowledge capital communities (USNA, NWC, NPS, NDU, etc) and think tanks who focus on naval affairs (Brookings, Hudson Institute, CATO, CSBA, CNAS) would allow a traditional media and publishing organization - USNI - find other partners in the Navy community (SNA, Navy League, NWC Foundation) to help build an idea influence enterprise network for broadly distributing relevant, credible Navy information to broader audiences. Because USNI Proceedings is a periodical, and not a news daily, there is no reason partnerships couldn't work with a traditional news organizations in print (WashPo, NYT, LATimes, Virginia Pilot, San Diego Union Tribune), TV (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN), or radio.

Collaborative partnerships are the most productive way information can be moved today, and social distribution is the most effective way to be influential with good information. All CNAS and TIME are doing is proving that both organizations apparently understand how the model works better than everyone else, and in the end both brands will be enhanced by the effort.

Need an example how brand influence is expanded when it is implimented correctly? The Foreign Policy brand today vs before they revamped themselves leveraging their social model is a perfect example. Still an influence periodical (perhaps more influential today with broader name recognition), FP is also an influential contributor to the daily narrative on important foreign policy issues. One would be hard pressed to suggest CNAS hasn't also benefited greatly from brand exposure with the presence of Tom Ricks and Marc Lynch writing on the Foreign Policy website. Bottom line, the social information model works when content is good, and think tanks produce higher quality content than most organizations - after all it is their job to do exactly that.