ON KILLING AND BREAKING THINGS

MATTHEW HIPPLE

OCTOBER 1, 2015

http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/on-killing-and-breaking-things/

In 1994, 10 Belgian peacekeepers were sacrificed on the altar of a new-age idea, that the military — originally designed to break things and kill people — was something else altogether. The soldiers of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) were ordered to keep a tenuous peace without the mandate, weapons condition, or rules of engagement that provided the credibility to a military. In attempting to protect the moderate Rwandan Prime Minister, Madam Agathe Uwilingiyimana, 10 Belgians from the most elite forces of UNAMIR were kidnapped, tortured, and executed by the Rwandan presidential guard. They had been castrated and had their Achilles tendons cut so they couldn’t run before they were killed. Years later Gen. Romeo Dallaire, their Canadian officer-in-charge, would attempt suicide to escape the horror he witnessed for the world’s fiction of policy.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote an article some weeks ago in which he argued that the military’s purpose is not to kill people and break things. This piece, which created quite a stir in the military community, is a well-meaning, but ultimately incorrect, re-hashing of this flawed idea. He states, “I have killed people and broken things in war, but, as a military officer, that was never the end. There was a purpose, a reason, a goal.” Semantically, Cavanaugh’s point may sound true, but it is a non-sequitur to the core issue.

The military is often called a “hammer” in the world of foreign policy for a reason. Cavanaugh would note that a hammer has many missions, from building houses up to breaking them down. However, every use is built on the hammer’s ability to apply force to an object: its ability to hit things. The military is not the only arm of the U.S. government that secures the nation and its interests abroad. However, the military is uniquely charged with the violence potentially necessary for that defense. Such a purpose exists at the core of a military; it serves as a force that engages in — or has the potential to engage in — the professional breaking of things and killing of people when necessary.

Cavanaugh quite accidently makes the case for this purpose in his citation of missions he sees as wholly separate from “break things and kill people.” There’s a reason we don’t send the Peace Corps or contract UPS for these missions:

Training the Ukrainian military: Aiding Ukraine in developing the execution and support of breaking and killing necessary to defend against the Russian invasion.

Baltic assurance: Demonstrating the ability and resolve to break and kill if forced to.

Security force development: Training friendly forces to break and kill if necessary in defense of their country or in defense of NATO and NATO aligned nations.

Space operations: Supporting operations on the ground oriented towards the potential breaking of things while also increasing our engagement in an underexploited domain where breaking of our assets and threats to forces below may become an increasing challenge.

Dr.Seuss’s war propaganda: Supporting the political will for the grim but necessary task of breaking and killing.

The off-axis missions cited by Cavanaugh such as the Berlin Airlift, exploration, and the byproducts of defense efforts such as commercial internet are just and virtuous uses of the capabilities this vast enterprise provides in times of peace and in pursuit of new capabilities.

The gut challenge Cavanaugh makes is when he asks the very human question: “Should I get down on bended knee and tell my girls, ‘Daddy is a killer and a breaker?’ Would this make them smile? Proud?

Honestly? If explained properly, in context, and at the right time — I hope it would. Cavanaugh accuses others of reduction — of wrongly boiling down the military’s purpose to “breaking things and killing people.” The reality is that Cavanaugh commits the cardinal sin of using semantics to impugn the dignity, moral gravity, and reality of military’s existential purpose. It is necessary and one of the ugly truths about the world that, in time, I will explain to my son when he’s ready. I hope I’ll have raised him to understand these things when that time comes — and part of me quietly hopes I’ll do a good enough job that he will follow me into the service. But I can’t give in to the easy path of changing the truth to make my job easier.

Militaries are capable of many wonderful acts of mercy and peace, and we are right to prefer these to the ugliness of war. However, when those missions supplant the core purpose of the military to break things and kill people, we must remember the broken souls and killed bodies that returned from the UNAMIR mission. UNAMIR experienced the horror that occurs when militaries are sent into combat zones and ordered to forget their violent truth. Our home, family, and allies are only able to find peace because our military has demonstrated that it will be there to break and kill when that tenuous reality is threatened. We forget that at our peril.

Matthew Hipple is a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer. A graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, he is president the Center for International Maritime Security — where he hosts the Sea Control Podcast. The venn diagram sections of “his opinions” and “official representation of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, or Government,” do not intersect. Follow him on twitter: @AmericaHipple

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Lockheed-Sikorsky Deal Stokes Fears About Industry Consolidation

BY MARCUS WEISGERBER

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

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As the world’s largest defense company gets even larger, Pentagon leaders worry that competition is evaporating. 

The Pentagon’s top arms buyer worries that Lockheed Martin’s upcoming $9 billion acquisition of Blackhawk helicopter maker Sikorsky is part of a bad trend in which large defense firms get bigger and competition wanes.

Marcus Weisgerber is the global business reporter for Defense One, where he writes about the intersection of business and national security. He has been covering defense and national security issues for nearly a decade, previously as Pentagon correspondent for Defense News and chief editor of ...Full Bio

The Defense Department will not block the purchase, but “we believe that these types of acquisitions still give rise to significant policy concerns,” Frank Kendall, undersecretary for acquisition, told reporters Wednesday. “The Department of Defense is concerned about the continuing march toward greater consolidation in the defense industry at the prime contractor level.”

Pentagon leaders have been expecting an uptick in industry mergers for several years. In 2011, Ash Carter — then the acquisition chief, now defense secretary — warned that the Pentagon would not support mergers among the biggest companies.

“What I said then, and still believe, is that it was important to avoid excessive consolidation in the defense industry, to the point where we did not have multiple vendors who could compete with one another on many programs,” Carter told reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon.

Mergers of top-tier firms would not be good “for the taxpayer and warfighter in the long run,” Carter said. “We do need a competitive marketplace, to the extent that’s possible within the defense industry.”

“Lockheed is not a helicopter manufacturer; that was at the heart of the Department of Justice determination.”

UNDERSECRETARY FOR ACQUISITION FRANK KENDALL

Kendall called the Lockheed-Sikorsky deal the most significant change to the defense industry since the general consolidation that followed the Cold War. It is, at least, the largest of 2015. Earlier this year, radio-maker Harris acquired Exelis for $4.5 billion and rocket-makers Orbital and ATK merged to form a $4.5 billion company.

Despite their concerns, the Defense Department leaders did not ask the Justice Department, which reviews such deals for antitrust concerns, to block the acquisition. The world’s largest defense company by revenue, Lockheed is the lead contractor on the $400-billion-plus F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. But it does not build helicopters, which are Sikorsky’s specialty, and so the Justice Department approved the deal last week.

“Lockheed is not a helicopter manufacturer; that was at the heart of the Department of Justice determination,” Kendall said.

Kendall said the Pentagon would continue to work with the Justice Department to make sure company mergers do not limit direct competition. Already, much of the competition for major projects, such as planes and vehicles, is limited to a handful of companies, at most.

“If the trend to smaller and smaller numbers of weapon system prime contractors continues, one can foresee a future in which the Department has at most two or three very large suppliers for all the major weapons systems that we acquire,” Kendall said. “The Department would not consider this to be a positive development and the American public should not either.”

“With size comes power, and the department’s experience with large defense contractors is that they are not hesitant to use this power for corporate advantage,” Kendall said.

“The trend toward fewer and larger prime contractors has the potential to affect innovation, limit the supply base, pose entry barriers to small, medium and large businesses, and ultimately reduce competition — resulting in higher prices to be paid by the American taxpayer in order to support our warfighters,” he said.

Lockheed Martin pushed back against Kendall’s comments.

“We understand and respect the department’s concern about maintaining a proper balance between an efficient and competitive industrial base,” Lockheed said in a written statement provided by a company spokeswoman. “However, we believe that defense contractors should continue to be assessed based on the performance and effectiveness of the products and solutions offered, not on the size of their company.”

Kendall is pushing for policy and legal changes to “preserve the diversity and spirit of innovation that have been central to the health and strength of our unique, strategic defense industrial base, particularly at the prime contractor level.”

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The Philippines and the US Military May Be Getting Back Together, Thanks to China

By Shannon Hayden

September 30, 2015

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After a 25-year absence, the United States is poised to operate in the Philippines once again — but it will first need clearance from the Supreme Court in Manila.

Since 1898, the Subic Bay Naval Base provided the US military with an important staging ground for security operations in the Western Pacific. President Corazon Aquino ordered the US military to depart in 1992, however, following failed negotiations to extend base leases over multiple issues, including the presence of nuclear weapons, which is still a sticking point with the Philippine government.

Times — and the security dynamic in Asia, particularly in the South China Sea — have changed.

Currently, US forces can reach the South China Sea from bases in Japan or Guam, but a presence, even rotational, at Subic Bay would allow for a faster response to contingencies.

Subic Bay is strategically located on the western side of the main Philippine island of Luzon, facing the South China Sea. The enormous base — roughly three and half times the size of Washington, DC — sits only 145 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal, the site of an ongoing squabble between the Philippines and China that reached new heights of tension during a three-month standoff in 2012, after the Philippine Navy discovered Chinese fishing vessels there carrying illegally-collected coral and marine life on board.

Two years and eight rounds of discussions later, in April 2014 the US and the Philippinessigned a 10-year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), providing the US with greater access to Philippine military installations. The EDCA is part of President Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia," which has also included visible military force upgrades in Australia and Singapore.

Several factors paved the way for the return of US forces to the Philippines. One was a positive view of the US military among Philippine citizens following its quick response in 2013 to Typhoon Haiyan; their own government's response to response to the deadliest typhoon recorded in modern Philippine history was notably slow and disorganized. China's effort to expand its authority in the South China Sea was another factor.

But before heading back to Subic Bay, the Philippine government needs to settle a few legal questions. Lawmakers will determine whether the new accord must be ratified by the Philippine Senate as a treaty or if the new accord is merely an extension of older agreements and thus does not need ratification. Because the 1987 Philippine constitution prohibited foreign bases on Philippine soil (although existing bases were grandfathered in), the country's Supreme Court has also been considering the constitutionality of the pact.

"Given the ongoing Philippine Supreme Court review of the EDCA's constitutionality, the DoD and DND [Philippines Department of National Defense] have agreed to delay implementation of the agreement," said Commander William Urban, a Pentagon spokesperson. "There have been informal, working-level discussions of potential locations and next steps, but no final decisions have been made nor are there any plans to begin implementing the EDCA until the Supreme Court completes its review."

Proponents of the deal point out that the EDCA will permit only rotational deployments, and that the US will hold no bases on Philippine soil.

Jose Cuisia Jr., the Philippine ambassador to the US, told VICE News that his country is enthusiastic about welcoming US forces back on its soil. He added that an agreement might be reached concerning two or three locations, but noted that all parties were still deliberating and would not move forward until questions of constitutionality and ratification were settled. The key, Cuisia emphasized, was that "there will be no bases; US forces would come on a rotational basis only, in accordance with our constitution."

Watch the VICE News documentary The Sunflower Revolt: Protests in Taiwan:

A US territory beginning in 1898, the Philippines were taken over from Spain following the Spanish-American War and finally gained independence in 1946. The country signed a Mutual Defense Treaty with the US in 1951, and the Philippines remains one of five such US treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific (along with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand). The US maintained several major military bases as part of the defense treaty, notably Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base, which continued to see heavy use in the decades following the 1951 treaty's ratification.

In 1991, nearby Mount Pinatubo erupted, burying both Subic and Clark in volcanic ash. Clark was declared a total loss and Subic, though salvageable, lay beneath a foot of ash. Later that year, negotiations to extend the US military presence in the Philippines broke down and the Philippine Senate terminated the US basing agreement. President Aquino ordered the US military to depart by the end of 1992.

Following the American departure, the government renamed the area the Subic Bay Freeport. Now a special economic zone that is roughly the size of Singapore, it has become a popular tourist destination bolstered by low taxes and duty-free import privileges.

Beginning in 2000 after the completion of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), US ships started making visits to the Philippines again in support of military exercises and for resupply and repair. The annual Balikatan ("shoulder-to-shoulder") bilateral military exercise also resulted from the VFA.

Negotiations for the current EDCA took place over two years and eight rounds of discussion, according to the Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The presence of nuclear weapons remains a red line for the Philippines. The country is a signatory to the 1995 Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Treaty, and the EDCA states that US military material "shall not include nuclear weapons."

While the agreement has stalled somewhat, the Philippine government is moving forward with preparations for an enhanced US military presence. In April, Philippine General Gregorio Catapang told the Sydney Morning Herald that eight possible locations had been identified for US troop rotations, training, and exercises. Four are on the main island of Luzon, two are on central Cebu, and two are on the western island of Palawan.

In May, according to Philippine Defense Undersecretary Pio Lorenzo Batino, the country's military signed a 15-year renewable lease with the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, allowing the military to use certain areas of the Subic Bay installation. The Philippine military has never used the Subic Bay Naval Base, but now looks to station its fighters and frigates there and take advantage of its proximity to the South China Sea.

Final rulings on the questions of constitutionality and the role of the Philippine Senate could come by the end of the year, delaying implementation until the are resolved. "If we formalize (now) and they start putting up structures and it's not constitutional, they will have to destroy those structures," Catapang said.

Manila will host the annual Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November this year, which Obama plans to attend. The US has provided $300 million in military assistance to the Philippines since 2001 and plans to provide an additional $40 million in 2015.

Follow Shannon Hayden on Twitter: @ShannonKHayden

Photo of aerial view of Subic Bay in 1990 via Wikimedia Commons

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NATO reaches fork in road

By ANDREW A. MICHTA

9/30/15

http://www.politico.eu/article/the-road-to-warsaw/

After 14 years of fighting against Al Qaida, the Taliban and now ISIL, while increasingly focusing on Asia Pacific, the United States is waking up to the reality that Europe, once considered an island of peace and stability, is in trouble.

Europe is buffeted by three powerful gales: the deteriorating security situation along NATO’s southern and northeastern flanks; the continued economic fallout from the euro crisis and the institutional failure to deal with the waves of migrantsarriving on Europe’s shores from the Middle East and Northern Africa.

At the same time, traditional assumptions about NATO’s ability to bridge internal differences are being put to the test, with Turkey’s policies toward the Kurds and Europe’s East-West divisions on how to handle Russia now cleaving the alliance. Far from being a stately “zone of peace,” as received wisdom in Washington once had it, Europe is spiraling into a crisis that is likely to deepen in the coming years.

Meanwhile, paltry defense budgets across most of Europe and planned further defense cuts by the United States — when coupled with Russia’s 10-year $700 billion defense modernization program — have altered the balance of power in Europe. At no point since the end of the Cold War has there been a comparable need for Washington to refocus on Europe, to articulate a strategy to strengthen NATO, and to build consensus on how to rebalance America’s military presence on the continent.

Europe is spiraling into a crisis that is likely to deepen in the coming years.

That means rethinking how the U.S. approaches NATO in the coming years, with an eye to redefining its mission. Europe’s relatively peaceful 1990s — notwithstanding the war in former Yugoslavia — allowed the United States to go “out-of-area,” dramatically reducing its military footprint on the continent. At the peak of the Cold War the United States had approximately 450,000 troops in Europe, but it will have only about 30,000 troops on the continent when it completes its cuts.

Reductions in Europe are only part of a larger restructuring, however: In July, the Army confirmed that it would cut 40,000 troops over the next two years at bases in the United States, shrinking the Army from 490,000 to 450,000. The Army had, by comparison, 570,000 active duty personnel in 2012. Today, with the rise of Russia’s great power ambition to create a sphere of privileged interest along its periphery and to return to global politics, collective defense and deterrence are driving internal NATO debates.

Likewise, the southern flank is confronted with an area of instability running from the eastern Atlantic through the Middle East to the Caucasus, where NATO faces escalating state fragmentation and war. There is a growing realization among NATO allies along the southern flank that the heating up of wars in the Middle East will only accelerate the arrival of refugees and migrants by sea and may eventually require a NATO military commitment to stem the tide.

NATO allies are divided by differing perceptions of the most pressing threats, as well as their proposed responses. The Nordic and Baltic members, together with Poland and Romania, see Russia as the principal threat and seek direct U.S. reinforcement with tripwires — i.e. bases — on their territory.

The heating up of wars in the Middle East will only accelerate the arrival of refugees … and may eventually require a NATO military commitment to stem the tide.

But even in Central Europe views on the nature of the threat vary, as shown by security policy in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, countries that have maintained better relations with Russia. France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey are looking to the south, with France equally concerned with the rise of Russia in the east.

Germany, in its position of “leadership from the middle,” is grappling with the task of reconfiguring its relations with Russia as it seeks to mediate the Ukrainian crisis, work the euro crisis and manage the migrants pouring into Europe.

A US air force plane arrives at a base near Siauliai Zuokniai, Lithuania| PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images

Amid the competing agendas and expectations of the European allies, the United States, as the biggest member and de facto bill payer, needs to lead the agenda, if for no other reason than because it provides 70 percent of NATO’s combined defense spending and over 70 percent of all the alliance’s military capabilities. If it doesn’t lead, then the prospects of reaching a consensus at the 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw are dim indeed.

In the run-up to Warsaw, the U.S. is confronted with two seemingly straightforward yet difficult objectives: preserving NATO’s unity and finding a mutually acceptable formula to reinforce the northeastern and southern flanks given shrinking defense budgets and limited military capabilities. The two goals are interconnected, as the members along the northeastern flank, especially the Baltic States, Poland, and also Romania, want to bring in U.S. and NATO forces as tripwires to deter Russia.

But this goal isn’t shared in Western Europe — especially Germany — which has gone on the record saying it opposes permanent bases and sees them as unduly provocative to Russia. Since decisions on permanent new NATO installations along the northeastern flank of the alliance would require consensus, which is currently lacking, the debate could deepen divisions and further weaken allied solidarity.

As stress on NATO’s southern flank also increases, the alliance is at a risk of bifurcation, with a real danger that the Warsaw summit in 2016 may fail to produce a consensus on how to proceed. Here Russia’s strategy of freezing the conflict in Ukraine in the short term — while it retains the ability to escalate the conflict at will — is reinforcing the divisions on permanent bases along the northeastern flank, potentially further splitting the alliance.

The Obama administration should focus on building consensus in the alliance.

Since the United States is unlikely to return to Cold War era levels of military deployment in Europe, U.S. forces should be placed where they will have the greatest deterrent value, irrespective of their size. Given this, the Obama administration should focus on building consensus in the alliance, communicating what solutions it is considering as well as the resources it’s willing to allocate.

It also needs to make clear what the allies should contribute so as to address the calls for reinforcement, territorial defense and collective expeditionary action. Now is the time for the United States to lead the internal NATO conversation on what is feasible vis-à-vis the expectations of the different European countries.

In the process, NATO needs to reach consensus on several issues: an increase in defense spending in order to guarantee sufficient numbers of soldiers available for deployment; an increase in the size of military exercises, especially along the northeastern flank; a decrease in NATO’s response time; and, most of all, the need to revisit the format in which an “assurance presence” — built around persistent rotational exercises — could be transformed into NATO’s deterrent posture and include a permanent U.S. presence.

Here, the most contentious issue will be which format the U.S. and NATO chose in order to rebalance their forces in the region.

It’s clear why the northeastern flank needs to be reinforced, but the question of bases — whether rotational or permanent — in the Baltic States, Poland or Romania needs to be addressed with strategic foresight in Washington. It will require U.S. engagement and careful negotiation with the allies to ensure NATO doesn’t arrive at the Warsaw summit more divided on the issue than it is today.

Washington should also revisit NATO enlargement, especially with reference to the ongoing debates in Sweden and Finland about possible NATO membership. Last but not least, it’s worth remembering the vital role NATO has played in maintaining Europe’s security, and how essential it was in bringing about the Franco-German reconciliation after World War II, as well as the Polish-German reconciliation after the Cold War. The fundamental political utility of the alliance remains.

Today, as in decades past, NATO remains the indispensable security umbrella for Europe.

The realignment of U.S. strategy towards Europe has been slow and somewhat reluctant — security dilemmas confronting Europe were supposed to have been laid to rest with the implosion of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago. Change has been driven not only by the Russian takeover of Crimea and the subsequent undeclared Russian war with Ukraine, but also by the growing realization of a deepening crisis in Europe itself, of which eurozone gyrations and mass migration are but symptoms.

Today, as in decades past, NATO remains the indispensable security umbrella for Europe and a vital alliance for the United States, especially now that the threat of escalation and the risk of state-on-state conflict have returned to center stage. NATO needs to respond. Most of all, as in the past, the crisis in Europe requires that the United States increase its engagement on the continent in order to foster consensus on what NATO can achieve in terms of strategy, planning, spending targets, deployments — but most importantly also bring about the compromises we all can live with.

Andrew A. Michta is professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

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HOW THE U.S. ARMY REMAINS THE MASTER OF LANDPOWER

PAUL NORWOOD AND BENJAMIN JENSEN

OCTOBER 1, 2015

http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/how-the-u-s-army-remains-the-master-of-landpower/

There is a famous story attributed to Albert Wohlstetter and Andrew Marshall about a medieval knight. The knight finds a modern assault rifle with a bayonet on the battlefield. Clearly, the weapon offers greater range and lethality than anything the knight has. Yet, what does the knight do with it? Does he use it to bludgeon his adversaries as he would a sword or does he experiment, firing the rifle at targets over a hundred years away, and realize the potential for new forms of warfare? Without experimentation and a vibrant intellectual discourse on the future of land warfare, the United States risks becoming the bludgeoning knight. This experimentation should include, but must not be limited to the pursuit of new technologies.

In a September 10, 2015 London speech, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, a former Marine artillery officer and alumnus of the Office of Net Assessment, warned that the United States faced a new era of strategic competition resulting from a decline in its “margin of technological superiority.” Deputy Secretary Work and a growing chorus of leading defense thinkers in Washington worry that near-peer competitors are making large investments in precision capabilities and advanced weapons while the United States is still working to reorient itself from costly campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan while facing budget cuts and government shutdowns. As the U.S. Army fielded Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles to protect soldiers against improvised explosive devices, Russia and China developed longer-range precision ground attack, sea, and air attack capabilities that create a multi-domain anti-access/area-denial threat.

To address this gap, in November 2014 the Pentagon launched the Defense Innovation Initiative (DII), commonly referred to as the Third Offset Strategy. As other War on the Rocks contributors have noted, the strategy calls for the United States to pursue “breakthroughs in the most cutting-edge technologies and systems – especially from the fields of robotics, autonomous systems, miniaturization, big data, and advanced manufacturing, including 3D printing.” Much of the focus has been on Air-Sea battle. With respect to land warfare, Deputy Secretary of Workcalled for a “doctrinal revival like that of the early 1980s,” namely “an Air-Land Battle 2.0.”

How we frame the offset concept with respect to the future of landpower is an important question for the U.S. Army, a service whose budget and programs are often organized more around personnel than platforms. In this first of two articles, we begin by defining offsets and linking the concept to foundational ideas in economics and long-term competitive strategy. We then use this framework and illustrative historical examples to explore how landpower offsets can emerge from operational problems and new ideas about war. We find that technology can drive offsets in some cases, but it is not the only source of change. Through reflecting on ongoing operations, experimentation, studies, and war games, the Army can take a more evolutionary approach to capability development.

What are Offsets?

Offsets refer to investments in disruptive technology that maintain relative force superiority. In the “third offset strategy,” the United States is investing in technological quality to counter adversary force quantity. Like the 1950’s ‘New Look’ strategy leveraging nuclear weapons and the Offset Strategy of the 1970s that relied on emerging precision strike capabilities, the Defense Department is committed to finding a new series of game-changing systems that maintain a generational lead in weapons development.

In its current manifestation, the DII program focuses on specific investments in new capabilities that have a significant potential to sustain the United States’ military advantage. According to Secretary Carter, candidates for investments include “high-speed strike weapons, advanced aeronautics, rail guns, and high energy lasers” as well as new “innovative operational concepts that would help us use our current capabilities in new and creative ways.”

This logic of offsets has an intellectual foundation in the economic concepts of comparative advantage and long-term competitive strategies. Applied to defense, each military actor has a comparative advantage over another in a particular domain. Some states have cheaper labor costs and pools of potential recruits that might allow them to field mass conscript armies. Other states can build tanks or recruit a network of hackers at lower relative marginal costs thanks to endowments ranging from preexisting industrial investments to an educated labor force. With respect to the second offset, former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown noted that, “If the United States looks for comparative advantages against a potential Soviet adversary with superior numbers of forces, one of the most obvious is the relatively lower cost of incorporating high technology into U.S. military equipment.”

Offsets as Matching Strengths to Weaknesses

Because they adjust relative marginal costs, offsets are a critical aspect of long-term competitive strategies. In U.S. defense circles, long-term competitive strategies are heavily informed by net assessment, which is historically associated with Andrew Marshall.

Considered through the lens of net assessment, the ideal offset allows you to map ways of matching your strengths, areas where you have a comparative advantage and/or lower marginal costs, against your adversary’s weaknesses.

Bradford Lee offers several offset logics. First, an approach could be cost imposing. The United States could find a way of increasing the marginal costs of its primary competitors during peacetime. This characterization matches the earlier offsets and much of the current Defense Innovation Initiative, in which analysts call for the United States to maintain its advantages in areas like undersea warfare and robotics. The logic is that potential competitors like Russia and China will face higher relative costs to match the United States in these areas and hence avoid future confrontations. In theory, offsets have the potential to deter.

Second, the U.S. military could offset by denial. Denial implies attacking an adversary plan (ways) in a manner that limits the probability that the adversary reaches its objective (ends). This idea has a long history. Sun Tzu called for attacking your enemies’ plan. Robert Pape used historical cases of coercive airpower campaigns to show the benefits of denial strategies. In modern defense discussions, examples include developing a capability to deny adversary A2/AD capabilities.

Third, an offset can bait an adversary to take on excessive burdens or engage in self-defeating behavior. Here again, there is a long history. In Derrick Yuen’s new interpretation of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, initiative can also be striking second. It is sometimes better to get an adversary to make an unfavorable move and capitalize on its misstep than to strike first. During the 1980s, through the Strategic Defense Initiative and military modernization, the United States forced the Soviet Union, already struggling with declining oil prices, to invest additional funds in its aging military at the expense of social programs.

Where the Defense Innovation Initiative relies on cost imposing by technology (i.e., hardware), the Army could explore low-cost, low-risk offsets by denial and baiting based on new doctrine (i.e., software). Such an approach would build on the Army Operating Concept. This concept calls for presenting enemies with “multiple dilemmas” and compelling them by putting something they value at risk. This concept parallels Sir Julian Corbett’s idea of a fleet-in-being that denies enemies the ability to concentrate their forces.

There are historical precedents to such an approach. Take the infantry revolution that characterized the Hundred Years War. To counter the heavy armor of the day – French knights – the English developed an integrated force mixing yeoman archers and dismounted men-at-arms that presented multiple dilemmas to the adversary. They could form a “cavalry-missile” combination against opposing infantry in the offense or a “pike and shot” combination in the defense that wore down opposing cavalry as arrows disrupted cavalry charges before they smashed into pike formations. In other words, the English presented their enemy with multiple dilemmas. Instead of leap-ahead cost imposing technologies, the English employed new warfighting concepts and organizational combinations.

Many of Napoleon’s greatest battlefield successes rested similarly on new organizational forms and concepts of employment. After the Seven Years’ Wars, leading French military thinkers like Marshal Maurice de Saxe initiated a wave of military reform. The reforms led to a new organizational form, the independent corps that enabled an early form of mission command. To manage this increased span of control, Napoleon organized a system of reports and staff at his general headquarters. By being decentralized and capable of fighting engagements independently, these corps could be maneuvered to threaten the enemy faster than the enemy’s concentrated forces could respond. These formations allowed Napoleon to use feints, create traps, and divide his adversaries to defeat them in detail. Thus, organizational forms and new staff processes increased operational flexibility. The role of technology was limited at best.

Insights for Future Army Offsets

Looking at these modes of offsetting, some potential parameters for developing landpower offsets start to emerge. First, offsets do not need to be technological. Certainly, new technologies can help, but many of the game-changing capabilities in land warfare were the result of incremental, as opposed to suddenn change. There were few ‘silver bullets.’ Rather, consistent with many of the important innovations in the interwar period like carrier aviation, strategic bombing, and armored warfare, new operating concepts and organizational experiments tend to illuminate offset candidates.

This observation leads to a second important design parameter for future landpower offsets: experimentation and realistic training organized around an operational problem should drive adaptation. Multiple defense analysts and scholars tend to associate Air-Land Battle, the doctrine the Army displayed in part in Desert Storm, with the second offset. Yet, a closer reading of the historical record shows that Air-Land Battle grew as much out of the training and doctrine reform started after the Vietnam War and linked to the 1973 Yom Kippur War as it did new technology. Although technology played a role, it was in support of solving the operational problem of countering massed Soviet formations. Generals Depuy, Gorman, Otis, Richardson, and Starry used doctrinal innovation linked to experimentation and exercises to change the way the Army fought. Operational problems drove the search for new theories of victory, as ways, and technological solutions, as means.

The Army’s Beyond 2025 initiative and current operations like Pacific Pathways and Atlantic Resolve provide the foundation for a new era of experimentation to imagine a third offset as it relates to landpower. Instead of asking what new technology can change the Army, leaders should start with a series of operational problems – such as A2AD in both the Pacific and Europe, hybrid warfare, and the challenge of state weaknesses and extremism in the Middle East and Africa – and then conduct a series of “war games, exercises, experiments, evaluations, and other efforts focused on determining how the army organizes and designs the force.” Based on these experiments, the Army can then identify if there are 1) immediate solutions related to innovations in areas such as training and doctrine that can be explored in lieu of new technologies; 2) technological capabilities that are either commercially available or can be obtained through other military services and can be fielded rapidly and at low cost; and 3) what long-term technological hedges are worth investing in?

Moreover, instead of focusing on offsets only at the strategic level, the Army can proceed by thinking through the entire force, from fire teams to corps. The example of yeoman archers from the Hundred Years’ War shows how new fighting formations and capabilities at lower levels can have a significant, cumulative effect. In other words, offsets need not occur only at the upper echelon. The acknowledgment that manned-unmanned teaming can start at the squad level, for example, raises a host of questions related to technology. What types of cheap, unmanned systems could be used by infantry squads? Replicating success in pairing Apache attack helicopters with unmanned aerial vehicles, should tanks pair with their own unmanned aerial vehicle? How can the Army leverage big data and sensors to better understand the local dynamics of war?

Where other services invest in large, strategic capabilities like aircraft carriers, the Army’s strategic effect can come from a tactical cascade, the cumulative effect of increased situational awareness and fighting power at lower echelons. This observation implies that realistic training and readiness as well as carefully studying ongoing operations play a central role in developing offsets for landpower. Furthermore, it implies protecting funds for readiness and exercises that maintain current combat power and enable experimenting with future force multipliers. While game-changing technologies may be on the horizon, successful offsets for landpower start with doctrine and organization. The Army needs a new theory of victory, and fighting formations that allow it to outmaneuver potential enemies.

Paul Norwood is a Colonel in the U.S. Army currently serving as a Military Fellow in the Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group. Benjamin Jensen, PhD is the Donald L. Bren Chair of Creative Problem Solving at Marine Corps University and a Scholar in Residence at the American University, School of International Service. He is a Major in the U.S. Army Reserve currently serving as a Military Fellow in the Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group. The views expressed in the article are their own.

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Military battles unusual foe called vacancies

Friday , October 2 , 2015 |

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, Oct. 1: Crucial posts in the higher echelons of the military, including that of the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), have fallen vacant with the government unable to announce replacements in time.

The officers are usually named weeks, if not a month, in advance.

The office of the DGMO - that is a 24x7 job - may have fallen vacant for the first time. The DGMO, who is one of the principal staff officers to the Chief of Army Staff and monitors minute-to-minute counter-insurgency operations and developments on the borders with Pakistan and China and reports administratively to the vice Chief.

It is rare for such senior offices to be vacant. Sources in the army, asked for an explanation, said "these are minor issues of cadre-management". Other sources suggested that with the change of government and the change in the army top brass taking place around the same time last year, there was an intensified effort to find "new, fresh faces".

All the posts are recommended by the defence ministry and require the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Appointments headed by the Prime Minister.

The Narendra Modi government took over on May 26 last year. Gen. Dalbir Singh Suhag took over as the army chief two months later on July 31 from Gen. Bikram Singh though his appointment was announced by the outgoing UPA II regime.

Lt Gen. P.R. Kumar, who was the last DGMO, retired on September 30. Lt Gen. Subrata Saha, who headed the Kashmir Valley-based 15 Corps till a month back and was then attached to the Udhampur-headquartered Northern Command, was widely tipped to take over as the DGMO. Before commanding the 15 corps, Saha had served as an additional director general of military operations in the rank of a major general.

The DGMOs of India and Pakistan are tentatively slated to meet for talks on easing tensions along the Line of Control and the border in the third week of this month. The decision was taken at the meeting of Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif in Ufa.

Although there is uncertainty over the DGMO-level talks since the talks between the national security advisers was cancelled, hopes rose after a scheduled meeting of the chiefs of the Pakistan Rangers and the Indian Border Security Force was held last month in New Delhi.

It was known that Lt Gen. Kumar would retire as the DGMO on September 30 this year since he took over the office 18 months back.

Lt Gen. Saha was also informed by the political establishment that he would be DGMO. But a last minute tweak in the postings could now see him taking over as the deputy chief of army staff (planning and systems).

The current ADGMO, Maj. Gen. Ranbir Singh, has been asked to officiate as the DGMO pending a new appointment. This can lead to functional problems because the DGMO has always been a lieutenant general who has finished command of a corps. Maj. Gen. Ranbir Singh is yet to be approved for the rank of lieutenant general and command a corps.

The other office in army headquarters that is also held by a principal staff officer is that of the military secretary. Lt Gen. Rajiv Bhalla also retired on Wednesday without a successor being named. The military secretary is responsible for all promotions, transfers and postings of officers from the rank of lietenant colonel upwards.

The military secretary's branch reports to the chief. Bhalla's retirement on September 30 was also known since his appointment as military secretary last year.

On Thursday, the Rashtriya Rifles, raised on October 1, 1990, specifically for counter-insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir marked its 25th raising day without a director-general. Lt Gen. Sandeep Singh who headed it also retired on Wednesday.

The office of the director-general, defence intelligence agency, is also vacant with the retirement of Lt Gen. Anil Bhalla.

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Why the ‘New’ US Trilateral Dialogue With Japan and India Matters

By Prashanth Parameswaran

October 01, 2015

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On September 29, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the foreign ministers of Japan and India for the first ever trilateral ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The event was no doubt a significant development. While the United States, Japan, and India have been meeting at the assistant secretary level over the past few years, this meeting between their foreign ministers represents an official elevation of the trilateral dialogue.

For close observers of Asian security affairs, this was a long-anticipated development. Though the idea of elevating the trilateral dialogue has been discussed since 2011, the seventh iteration of the U.S.-Japan-India trilateral dialogue held in Honolulu in June was still at the assistant secretary of state level. But as I reported forThe Diplomat in July, Vice President Joe Biden said in a speech at a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that Washington was “looking to schedule a ministerial level trilateral” this fall (See: “US Will Hold Elevated Trilateral Dialogue with India and Japan”).

That this has finally occurred is testament to the growing role that all three democracies – which represent a quarter of the world’s population and economic production power – have played individually in the Indo-Pacific region as well as the convergence between them. As Kerry alluded to in his remarks to reporters before the meeting, the U.S. rebalance to the Asia-Pacific under the Obama administration, India’s new Act East Policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Japan’s reinvigorated role as a ‘proactive contributor to peace’ under its premier Shinzo Abe, have all been powerful indicators of the importance these players attach to the region (See for instance: “Modi Unveils India’s ‘Act East Policy’ to ASEAN in Myanmar”). All three legs of the triangle have also been strengthened recently, with positive momentum seen in U.S.-India, U.S.-Japan and India-Japan ties over the past year (See for instance: “Modi in Japan: Great Expectations”).

The ministerial meeting itself also provided a venue for all sides to make advances on a range of important security, economic and diplomatic issues. On maritime security, it is worth noting that all three countries have already stepped up efforts to boost the capacity of individual Southeast Asian states to tackle various challenges, including China’s growing assertiveness (See for instance: “Japan Gifts Vietnam Patrol Vessel Amid South China Sea Tensions”).

But the big-ticket agenda item, as I have written previously, is Japan’s already confirmed participation in this year’s iteration of the MALABAR exercise, originally a U.S.-India bilateral exercise, which the meeting noted (See: “Japan to Join US, India in Military Exercises This Year”). The key thing to watch moving forward is whether this multilateralization can somehow be made permanent, as some U.S. officials have been calling for (See: US Official Calls for Permanent Expansion of Malabar Exercises with India”). Aside from this, the three countries also agreed to convene an experts-level group on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to enhance capabilities to respond jointly to complex disasters.

On economic issues, cooperation is a bit more challenging. India is the odd one out among the three economically, with it still not being a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and far from eligible for membership in the still-to-be-concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (See: “Finishing the TPP: It’s Not Just About the US Congress”).

However, the meeting did at least attempt to make progress in spite of this. The three ministers launched an expert-level group to identify collaborative efforts on regional connectivity, a critical issue within regional economic integration in general and for ASEAN in particular. Trilateral cooperation on women’s skill enhancement and economic empowerment will also be explored. And to add to the buzz we have been hearing over the past few months about a stronger push for India’s admission into APEC, both Modi as well as his foreign minister Sushma Swaraj mentioned this in the context of the trilateral.

Diplomatically, all three countries are members of the East Asia Summit (EAS), dialogue partners of ASEAN, and interested parties in the resolution of the South China Sea dispute. Little surprise, then, that public statements noted that all three had once again noted the centrality of ASEAN and underscored the importance of international law, freedom of navigation and overflight, and the peaceful settlement of disputes.

As I have noted before, there has been talk about Japan in particular becoming more involved in the South China Sea (See: “US-Japan Joint Patrols in the South China Sea?”). But as for the shaping of the regional architecture, including the further institutionalization of the EAS — some desire to cement its place as the premier leaders’ forum for strategic dialogue – the specifics of that will be revealed in November when the meeting is held under Malaysia’s chairmanship (See: “What Did the 26th ASEAN Summit Achieve?”).

Of course, with this being the first trilateral ministerial meeting, there will be worries about whether the momentum can be sustained through next year and beyond. But as Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida noted in his remarks, changes within the region are driving the advent of a new era that make the Indo-Pacific “the epicenter of global prosperity.” For now, it is difficult to see the three Asia-Pacific giants shying away from shaping this epicenter both individually and collectively.

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