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2015-01-02 Lest one is delusional about the leadership of the PRC, one can look at its latest move to bolster Putin against pressures from the West, pressures which originated from the Russian seizure of Ukraine.
China and Russia have a long and complicated relationship of allies, competitors, rivals and friends.
What they have in common is a long-standing relationship with the West which is highly interactive and competitive.
The Chinese and Russian civilizations are significantly nationalistic and approach globalization from that standpoint.
. China and Russia have a long and complicated relationship of allies, competitors, rivals and friends.
In a piece which appeared at the end of the year (December 22, 2014) by Andrew Rettman in the EU Observer, the author looks at the Chinese approach to Russia and its position towards the European Union on Russian matters.
China has joined India in helping the Russian economy, but closer to home Belarus and Kazakhstan are hedging their bets on future relations.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said in China Daily, a state mouthpiece, on Monday (22 December): “Russia has the capability and the wisdom to overcome the existing hardship in the economic situation.
If the Russian side needs, we will provide necessary assistance within our capacity”.
China Daily noted that Russia has “hundreds of billions of [US] dollars” in its foreign reserve fund and is far from collapse.
It added that China is ready to offer loans and investments in infrastructure projects, with a new Russia-China gas pipeline, a deep-water port in Crimea, and railway schemes in Russia’s Far East under discussion.
The Chinese statement comes after India, earlier this month, bought 12 nuclear reactors from Russian firm Rosatom and launched joint production of military helicopters.
Going further back, China and India, as well as Brazil and South Africa, showed solidarity by abstaining in a UN vote on the non-recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The actions of the non-aligned powers are a diplomatic defeat for the EU and US, which imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine.
“There’s always diplomatic outreach to third countries … explaining what we’re doing, the logic. Part of the outreach is to push for a sustainable political solution to the crisis and, in this respect, to adopt measures that would support such a solution”, the EU foreign service’s spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, told EUobserver on Monday.
Rettman also provides insight with regard to one of the most important “forgotten players” in the Ukrainian crisis, namely Kazakhstan.
The financial crisis is having a strategic impact in Europe.
The ruble crash prompted Russia to cancel the South Stream gas pipeline project.
It also poses questions on the viability of the Eurasian Union: Russia’s plan to launch, on 1 January, an EU-type bloc with future joint institutions including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had already unnerved Belarus and Kazakhstan.
“The Ukraine conflict has broader implications in the region. Countries like Kazakhstan fear, that when the time is right, Russia might also undermine their territorial integrity. So, to be on the safe side, they are trying to build better relations with the West rather than letting themselves be swallowed [in the Eurasian project]”, an EU diplomat said…..
Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarabyev, on the eve of a Eurasian Union summit in Moscow on Tuesday, also went to Kiev on Monday and signed an agreement on military-industrial co-operation. He spoke of an “organized civil war” in east Ukraine, alluding to Russian intervention, and of “violations of international law.”
And this piece in Forbes by Mark Adomanis published on December 23, 2014 adds the following to the story:
I’m amazed that a bunch of self-described realists like the Russian government would take Chinese proclamations about partnership at face value.
The Chinese government, of course, is completely and totally unsentimental in its approach to foreign trade negotiations, particularly when it comes to natural resources.
China cares little about any notions of anti-Western brotherhood.
It cares a lot more about securing access to oil, gas, and agricultural products at the lowest possible price.
The real question, then, isn’t “will China give Russia money” it is “what are the conditions that the Chinese government will attach to a potential bailout?”
Based on the way they negotiated over natural gas, one should expect an extremely tough approach.
The Chinese understand that the supply of international lenders is a limited one, and that with the IMF out of the running the Russians are essentially out of other options.
Any deal between the two sides would reflect this simple reality.
Do the costs of cutting a deal with the Chinese outweigh the benefits? It’s not clear, and it’s ultimately up to the Russians to decide.
1914 was a year, which marked the end of an era; although the inevitability of this change was evident after the events set in motion that year had their full effect.
History has an inevitability about it, which is not experienced by those living through that history.
The outcomes are explained; and the alternatives, which might have happen, are explained away.
Such is the case with the impact of the guns of August 1914. The mobilization of the European armies and the engagement of the war from Europe to the Middle East set in motion the most destructive war in history to date.
European culture, economies, and political systems would never be the same in the wake of the events set in motion in 1914.
2014 is hardly as dramatic a year as 1914, but it may well be looked back on as the unfolding of a new historical epoch.
When histories are written from the hindsight of 2030, what would 2014 look like in the rear view mirror of history?
Several events in 2014 might well congeal into what will look like in the future is the harbinger of significant historical change.
This article will look at some of these events, without being exhaustive simply suggestive of what might be our future history.
The Seizure of Crimea
Europe ever is the trigger of global conflict.
Even in the wake of the Franco-German rapprochement after World War II, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “end” of the Cold War, the formation and then expansion of the European Union and the formation of a single European currency, conflict has not been eliminated as a source of tension.
A key element facing European governments in their inability to provide leadership in dealing with 2014 has simply been that historical conflict in Europe should have disappeared and with it the threat to defend Europe directly against the Russians.
Russian tanks and soldiers storm a Ukrainian air force base in Belbek near the Crimean city of Sevastopol on March 22, 2014. (Viktor Drachev / AFP/Getty Images).
Yet in 2014, Putin put in motion historical change.
The seizure of Crimea, and the intervention into Ukraine is part of a strategy to restore the Slavic empire for Putin.
It is not the Soviet Union, which he has in mind; it is the integration of those parts of Russia, which are “naturally” part of the Russian state broadly understood.
He also sees himself as the ring master of a Russia which becomes a dominant player in shaping the future of energy and other resources crucial for global development, and as such has positioned Russia for a breakout capability for Arctic development.
The sanctions put in place by Europe and the United States to deal with these developments are hardly a geopolitical response, nor part of addressing how to defend Europe against Russian “hard” power coupled with intervention agendas which use cultural and other tools to reshape the map, but they have had their economic impact. Coupled with the downward trend in energy prices, Russia is suffering significant economic pressure.
From the standpoint of 2030, which trend will appear “inevitable”: the economic collapse of Russia and the revolt of the Russians against Putin, or Putin consolidating the Russian Slavic state while Europe fails to shape an effective response?
One clear outcome from 2014 has been to undercut any real belief in Article V in NATO, that is to say that a threat against one state will see a comprehensive NATO response. Putin, the Chinese and the Jihadists can look clearly at 2014 and see that it was not quite every man for himself, but close.
The national interpretations of events have clearly overshadow any real collective response to Putin’s strategy in Europe.
Each Western state has come up with its own version of why the Russian direct defense challenge is not a clear and present danger.
For the US Administration, leading from behind is enough, and working with the Russians, reset or not, is a central strategic objective.
The Russians seizing Crimea and putting the Budapest agreement of 1994 to guarantee Ukrainian territorial integrity in exchange for giving away their access to nuclear weapons into the dustbin of history has not been missed by global observers, although Inside the Beltway it has barely been noticed.
ISIS and the Middle East
A second key development has been in the Middle East where the Islamic Jihadists are the quest for seizure of territory from which to operate. The war with Western civilization continues, beheadings, killings, martyrdom are all contributors to the advance of radical Islam.
The ISIS engagement in Iraq continues into 2015, and if the West fails to vanquish its leadership and recapture territory and place under Iraqi civil control, a turning point in Middle East history could well be reached.
Unfortunately, the public debate in the United States has been about the Bush Administration Iraqi policy, not the real issue facing Americans which is the future of the Middle East. It does not matter how much “smarter” the current Administration thinks it is compared to its predecessor, it is about protecting Western interests in the region and Western civilization against the onslaught of radical Islam.
Looking back from 2030, will the ISIS attack seen to have been the beginning of the end of the late 20th Century Middle East order, with the rise of a nuclear Iran, the growth in the ability of Iran to power project through social movements, the collapse of Iraq and Syria with the augmentation of Russian and Chinese influence in the region, with the erosion of power in the Conservative Arab states and their “inevitable” overthrow?
Or will we see effective Western policy working with the conservative Arab states and Israel in turning back radical Islam and working through ways to enhance regional stability and to short circuit a nuclear arms race in the Middle East?
North Korea Comes to the Movies
A third key development has been the cyberwar of North Korea against a completely private sector in the West, namely the film industry.
If a dictator does not like a Western movie he cannot go to a Western court simply to block it; a better way to do this is simply to cyber attack your adversary and get the various stakeholders involved in the issue to fight with one another and to remove the problem or be aware of your power in shaping INTERNAL developments in that adversaries territory.
Sony Pictures planed to release The Interview on Christmas Day
And as Ed Timperlake has suggested, the US government can shape its investigation around the Economic Espionage Act, rather simply focusing on freedom of speech.
However against this hack attack, all involved have every right to actually demand real action from our Commander-in-Chief. It is not a First Amendment issue, it is actually Economic Espionage against American interests, and in violation of the 1996 Economic Espionage Act:
(a) In General.— Whoever, intending or knowing that the offense will benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent, knowingly—
(1) steals, or without authorization appropriates, takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud, artifice, or deception obtains a trade secret;
(2) without authorization copies, duplicates, sketches, draws, photographs, downloads, uploads, alters, destroys, photocopies, replicates, transmits, delivers, sends, mails, communicates, or conveys a trade secret;
(3) receives, buys, or possesses a trade secret, knowing the same to have been stolen or appropriated, obtained, or converted without authorization;
(4) attempts to commit any offense described in any of paragraphs (1) through (3); or
(5) conspires with one or more other persons to commit any offense described in any of paragraphs (1) through (3), and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, shall, except as provided in subsection (b), be fined not more than $5,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.
(b) Organizations.— Any organization that commits any offense described in subsection (a) shall be fined not more than the greater of $10,000,000 or 3 times the value of the stolen trade secret to the organization, including expenses for research and design and other costs of reproducing the trade secret that the organization has thereby avoided.
Rather than flail against the First Amendment get President Obama, the AG and US Government Counterintelligence agents actively engaged in determining if the Dear Leader is in a criminal conspiracy in violation of the Economic Espionage Act.
North Korea brings together two of the crucial trends which from 2030 might well seem inevitable. The reach of cyberwar, the inability of the West to work effectively in its own defense, in part because of its legal system and cultural values, and the return of nuclear weapons as key players in shaping the global system.
The inability to deal with internal subversion via North Korea cyber intrusions, can only be read by an isolated leader like that of North Korea as demonstrating lack of will by the United States in dealing with the threats which he can deliver.
Does the US government’s response to the North Korean cyber intrusion provide insight to the North Korean leader into what HE believes the US would or would not do if he uses a nuclear weapon against US forces involved in the defense of South Korea?
Conclusions
These are only three of the many trends, which could be discussed.
Among the others are the continuing Euro crisis and the virtually certainty of one or more states exiting the Euro; the Chinese government’s willingness to assert its power and to challenge its Asian neighbors while in the midst of its own economic difficulties; the challenge of dealing with a new global disease and shaping a global response which might be effective; the downward pressures on the US economy and defense and security budgets; the challenge of winding down the Afghanistan engagement and the coming impacts of post-withdrawal developments on the global conflict with radical Islam; etc.
In short, when writing the history of 2030 looking back on the first third of the 21st century, there will be at least a chapter on 2014, perhaps a section.
The trends will be clear and the leadership and analytical failures to deal with these trends highlighted and identified.
Shaping how best to deal with these trends and to shape as positive an outcome as possible ought to be of significance in the debates of 2015 and the run up to the Presidential election in 2016.
There is probably not a single American with a pulse who has not heard of Pearl Harbor.
A day that brought the United States into World War II, and led to the Asian war with the United States as a major participant.
When current strategists talk of the Pivot to the Pacific they often forget that the U.S. became a Pacific power in 1898 and that the war in the Pacific cemented for our lifetime a key role of the United States in the geopolitics, economics and conflicts of Asia.
One of the central changes, which happened during the war, was the forging of a very close U.S. alliance with Australia, which replaced its historical one with the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom entered World War II as a global power, but the realities of World War II would change forever Britain’s role in the world.
he explosion of an oil storage tank and clouds of smoke from other oil tanks, hit during the first Japanese air raid on Australia’s mainland, at Darwin on 19 February 1942. In the foreground is HMAS Deloraine, which escaped damage.
Australia learned rapidly at the beginning of World War II, that isolation from conflict depends on how far way the aggressor actually is.
The expectation was that the British fortress known as Singapore would provide the buffer against Japanese expansion to the South.
As Peter Grose put it in his analysis of the Darwin bombing attack:
On 15 February 1942 the unimaginable happened: Singapore fell.
It remains the worst military disaster in Australian history.
The Australians lost 1789 dead and 1306 wounded in a vain defence of the ‘impregnable’ British base.
Worse, the Japanese captured 15,395 Australian troops, the Australian Imperial Forces’ entire 8th Division.
The catastrophe numbed the Australian population at home.
What more terrible news would the future hold?
Would Australia itself be next, put to the sword by the all-conquering Japanese?[ref]Grose, Peter (2009-02-01). An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942 . Independent Publishers Group. Kindle Edition.[/ref]
With the expansion of Japan, Australia faced the Empire of Japan directly. Credit Graphic: Mark E. Stille, The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War (Osprey Publishing, Kindle Edition).
But the rapid movement outward in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor by the Japanese surprised everyone, including the Japanese.
With the fall of Singapore and the worst losses Australia has experienced to date in armed conflict, and the movement of the Japanese into the oil fields of Indonesia, suddenly Australia faced the Japanese directly.
As with all of the democracies, including the United States, no one was really ready for war.
This meant that those who had been planning for conflict for a decade Japan and Germany would have clear advantages, and exploiting these advantages established very large empires very rapidly.
For Japan, the sweep south was viewed as necessary to gain control over the energy resources necessary to fuel its empire.
Australia was then viewed as a threat because it was the only territory not under Japanese control from which allied powers could strike back at the Japanese forces.
Although Pearl Harbor is well known, the bombing on Darwin is not in the United States.
In February 1942, virtually the same air and naval leadership, which led the attack on Pearl Harbor, led the attack on Darwin.
Only this time, with Pearl Harbor experience under their belt, and the possibility of using land-based bombers as part of the follow on attack, the Japanese were more effective than at Pearl Harbor.
In a book by Peter Grose published in 2009 and entitled An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942, the author provides a powerful look at the period leading up to the raid, the raid and its aftermath. The parallels to Pearl Harbor and to the Japanese strategy are striking.
As Peter Grose provided the initial entry into his subject, he summarized the parallels and differences.
Few people are aware that the carrier-borne force that attacked Darwin was precisely the same carrier-borne force that had attacked Pearl Harbor ten weeks earlier.
The same pilot, Mitsuo Fuchida, led both attacks, flying from the same aircraft carriers and supported by the same air crews.
There was a difference.The Japanese pilots had now tested their revolutionary tactic of naval bombardment by plane and not ship’s gun. They made mistakes in Pearl Harbor.
They did not repeat them in Darwin.
More aircraft attacked Darwin in the first wave than attacked Pearl Harbor in its first wave.
More bombs fell on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor.
More ships were sunk in Darwin than in Pearl Harbor. The second wave of Japanese bombers attacking Darwin did not fly from aircraft carriers.
They were land-based, heavier aircraft carrying heavier bombs.
The town of Darwin and its civilian population suffered badly in the first attack, unlike the nearby city of Honolulu during the Pearl Harbor attack.
The fact that fewer people were killed in Darwin is simply explained: there were fewer people in Darwin to kill.
When it happened, the raid on Darwin stood with that on Coventry, England, as one of the biggest and deadliest air attacks yet seen in the Second World War [ref]Grose, Peter (2009-02-01). An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942 . Independent Publishers Group. Kindle Edition.[/ref]
And with this attack, the Japanese would forge the modern U.S. and Australian strategic alliance.
Americans as well as Australians died that day in the harbor of Darwin, and the common desire to defeat the “Japs” was clearly evident.
Having both suffered from their own Pearl Harbors, the Japanese provided in swift attacks, the importance of being prepared and not being deluded about the intentions and capabilities of one’s adversary.
But both the Australian and US forces were not well prepared to deal with the Japanese attacks, and both suffered from proper preparation for the “asymmetric” enemy.
Deterrence is based on readiness, and on preparing to defeat the adversary one will face, not the one would wish to face.
Shifting forward to 2014, Darwin has returned to the forefront again of Pacific defense.
It was in 2014, that the new phase of cooperation between Australia and the USMC has begun.
It is part of the Australian government’s effort to shape an effective defense for the Northern territories.
Indeed, the current government is looking to shape forces, which can provide extended defense for Australia, and to participate in an effective deterrence in depth strategy.
2014 was important in another way as well which is almost the obverse of Darwin 1942.
Instead of an attack on Darwin driving Australia and the United States together against militarist Japan, 2014 saw Japan and Australia drawing closer together along with the United States in shaping a Pacific defense strategy to protect himself or herself against the latest regional player seeking dominance, namely the PRC.
The Japanese government under Prime Minister Abe has been in the throes of reshaping Japanese defense policy in order to provide for perimeter defense of Japan against various threats, notably against the PRC.
And Abe’s visit to Australia marked an important moment in working towards new cooperation in defense, including in arms industry.
The recent visit of the Japanese Prime Minister to Australia has clearly underscored that both countries see their efforts as not parallel but joint.
One key piece of the effort is to share defense technologies, and the two countries have signed an agreement to explore ways to share submarine technologies and in the Australian case, to help shape a way ahead for 21st century submarine technologies.
And in an announcement at the end of 2014, the F-35 program office announced that Japan and Australia would be key players in shaping the Asian sustainment effort for the plane.
And the event passed with little notice in the United States but in reality it is a key element of laying a new foundation for Australian, Japanese and American Pacific defense capabilities and strategy.
It is part of an overall process of change and strengthening effective 21st century working relationships; it is not just about putting wheels on an airplane.
1942 marked Darwin being on the front lines whether it wanted to or not; 2014 saw its emergence as part of the evolving deterrence in depth strategy which supports the key democratic powers in the Pacific.
It is only directed against the PRC if the leadership of China wishes to act in ways to make this inevitable.
But make no mistake; 2014 is an important year of transition in Pacific defense.
On Darwin and the USMC in 2014, see the following:
The 6 month rotation in Australia is an important part of the distributed laydown and building convergent capabilities among core allies and partners in the region.
Notably, a key element in shaping a 21st century Pacific defense structure is working convergent or cross-cutting modernization between the United States and key allies like Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia.
And those allies are working their own cross cutting convergence often in multinational exercises sponsored by the United States in the Pacific or US training ranges. For example, the Australian Wedgetail commanded and controlled allied aircraft in a recent Red Flag exercise with South Korean and Japanese F-15s as part of the force. And this was after the South Korean F-15 crossed through Japanese airspace to get to the exercise.
At the end of my visit to Australia, I discussed the upcoming MRF-D rotaton with Lt. General Robling, the Commanding Officer of the Marine Forces in the Pacific or MARFORPAC. According to Robling:
It’s not about just building relationships in the region. It is about collective security in the region. Building collective security requires, in part, a process of building partner capacity, and working convergent capacities to shape effective and mutually beneficial relationships which underlie the evolution of collective security.
Our working relationship with Australia is a case in point. Even though they see themselves… rightly… as an island continent, they’ve really got to be part of the entire region’s ability to respond to crisis, both natural and manmade. To do this, they can’t stay continent bound, and must engage forward in the greater Asia Pacific region.
By becoming part of a collective Pacific security apparatus, they get the added benefit of defending their nation away from their borders. The Australian military is small in comparison to the US, but it is a lethal and technologically sophisticated force. In the face of a large-scale threat, they, like the US and others in the region, wouldn’t be able to defend by themselves. They would have to be a part of a larger collective security effort and ally with the US or other likeminded nations in the region in order to get more effective and less costly defense capabilities pushed farther forward.
The MRF-D rotation comes at an important point in the Australian modernization effort itself.
The Marines are viewed as important contributors to working with the Australians to enhance their own joint force operational approach as new capabilities are added, notably the F-35.
And Australian modernization benefits the USN-USMC team in the region as well as the Aussies add important new capabilities to their forces which can contribute directly to enhanced coalition operational performance.
Note: The videos above highlight two aspects of the history of Darwin.
The first shows Brigadier Gen. John Frewen, commanding officer, 1st Brigade, Australian Army, welcomse the Marine Rotational Force Darwin or MRF-D to the Northern Territories. T
The second shows the Darwin Military Museum being visited by US Marines.
12/14/2011:U.S. Marines with 2nd Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team out of Norfolk, Va., visit Darwin Military Museum in Darwin, Australia, Nov. 26, 2011. FAST Marines are attending Exercise Semper Fast 2011, a combined training event hosted by 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment focusing on small arms ranges, direct fire ranges, military operations on urban terrain, and light infantry operations.
The Darwin Military Museum was founded in the mid 1960s by Lieutenant Colonel Jack Haydon and members of the Northern Territory branch of the Royal Australian Artillery Association.The Association, through its numerous contacts, soon started accumulating war memorabilia from all over the Territory. Since then, several notable local collectors have also contributed greatly to the museum’s exhibits.The museum was Darwin’s very first and is housed in the original concrete command post bunker, used by the army to command the two massive 9.2″ guns nearby.
The bunker is now fully air-conditioned and displays a fascinating array of weapons, photographs and equipment used by the fighting men and women of the day. A theatrette continuously runs a 15-minute film that contains dramatic live footage of the Japanese bombing of Darwin Harbour and the township.Set in four acres of tropical gardens by the sea, Darwin Military Museum is not just for the military enthusiast, but for every member of the family. It is a unique combination of Australian military heritage and modern tropical garden and surrounds. While out our way, don’t forget to see some of the 2,000 wallabies that graze nearby and perhaps catch one of Darwin’s spectacular sunsets.
A turn in attitudes about nuclear weapons is taking place.
There is a growing realization that we are entering a multipolar nuclear world. Despite pious U.S. appeals to other countries to give up nuclear arms, this isn’t happening. And there’s little sign that it will anytime soon.
New missile and other weapons in Russia and China, continued nuclear programs in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Israel, and India’s nuclear triad are hard to square with the conviction that the world is marching toward some kind of global disarmament regime.
What’s taking place isn’t disarmament; rather it’s nuclear modernization.
These countries are building nuclear postures, which in their view will be suited to 21st century conditions. They may be wrong about this, certainly.
But the larger point is that the United States effort to design a world order that was free of nuclear weapons hasn’t worked out.
Even as the United States fought a war in Iraq to forestall it’s nuclear program, and even as it has declared that a nuclear weapon free global order was beginning, the powerful fact is that sovereign nations make their own choices. Trying to discourage or overturn these choices is exceedingly difficult.
Put another way, nuclear weapons have returned as a source of influence and power in the international system.
There are some fundamental questions we need to ask about this second nuclear age. One of the most basic is whether or not it is possible to even live in such a world. Crises and shocks could develop that major powers would find intolerable. We are talking about nuclear weapons here. This isn’t like some terrorist attack that kills three-thousand people.
It’s a capacity to annihilate an entire country in a day. Major powers might find that certain possibilities are simply too dangerous to tolerate — and act accordingly with their powerful forces, conventional and nuclear.
Below the level of nuclear war, i.e. where someone fires nuclear weapons, crises much more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis are easily imaginable.
Indeed they are quite readily imaginable. And this is the point. It’s time to start doing just that, to begin to think about the shocks and crises of a nuclear world.
I can suggest three ways to approach this problem. They share a common theme.
The United States needs to build intellectual capital about a multipolar nuclear world. This is a tall order. There’s going to be serious resistance to even beginning to think about such things. It will look to some as if the United States has given up on the promise of a nuclear weapon free world. The argument will be made that it contradicts the dream of disarmament.
This is where the turn in attitudes is important. Both U.S. elite and mass opinion has changed.
As people look at Russia and China, and all of the others they know that the time has come to again do some serious thinking about this subject, no matter how distasteful it is.
Here are three suggestions to advance our understanding of how to manage the risks in this second nuclear age:
First, is to recognize that since the end of the cold war the United States has grown careless when it comes to nuclear weapons.
The Air Force, for example, has had a number of embarrassing mishaps with nuclear arms and personnel problems in this area. Yet something far deeper has been happening than merely a breakdown in procedure. The procedures are being fixed, but this isn’t the hard part of the problem.
The United States has left its nuclear forces to rot, both technologically and intellectually. Every study that has examined the Air Force mishaps of recent years has reached this conclusion.
The problem isn’t in the force, at least, it’s not only there.
At the top of the DoD there’s been little thinking about the nuclear forces.
More, there’s been a hope in some political quarters that allowing the force to disintegrate is a viable path toward a nuclear free future. At some point, the argument goes, nuclear weapons will simply disappear.
But thinking about nuclear weapons hasn’t atrophied — not in North Korea, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran, or Israel.
I would add Britain and France to this list, as I’m continually impressed by discussions with experts in London and Paris who have actually thought through what they expect of their nuclear deterrents in the 21st century. (There’s actually quite a lot the United States can learn from them.)
The good news is that the carelessness problem is easy to fix once political sentiments recognize that we are not rushing into some new non-nuclear global order.
That time is now.
There is bipartisan support in the Congress for recognizing that sloppy thinking in this area is dangerous, and that even more dangerous is to operate in a world where enemies and rivals are modernizing their nuclear arms for the 21st century — while we are not.
University and think tank centers are changing their attitudes as well.
My prediction is that we are going to have a vigorous debate in this country about the future shape of the nuclear posture and about how precision strike, cyber warfare, drones, and other weapons fit in to the challenge of dealing with other nation’s nuclear forces.
Second, we need to broaden the range of the scenarios considered.
People often argue against using what they declare are unlikely, fanciful scenarios.
But I would make the opposite point.
The larger danger for the United States is a narrow framing of the nuclear problem.
As an example of this, the belief that all that is needed is a second strike capacity against Russia or China is an extremely narrow framing of the strategic problem.
It overlooks crisis management, provocations, escalation and counter escalation, communication and bargaining, and political perceptions of nuclear equality.
For the United States dealing with other country’s nuclear forces may best be done with our non-nuclear forces.
But the specific ways of doing this need to be worked out and linked to our nuclear strategy.
The band of possibilities here is much wider than in the cold war, and that’s why better scenarios are needed.
There are so many countries with nuclear weapons now, and technologies that can be used to attack them.
The approach used in the cold war was to separate conventional and nuclear options, and to strategically link them using a framework of escalation. The old escalation ladder flagged the major thresholds, and this allowed political and military leaders to strategize in the same framework. That wasn’t a bad solution.
But things are a lot more complicated now.
That’s why more scenarios are needed, to get these complications and differences out on the table for open discussion.
Finally, there is a significant role in this nuclear rethink for the professional military colleges and institutes.
The services are going to be asked about these issues, what weapons to buy and what strategies to use. The military has the ultimate responsibility for U.S. national security. The service leaders are certain to be asked about these matters by Congress.
In short, the military has to restore the thought leadership it once had on where nuclear weapons fit in.
This includes how other countries see nuclear arms in their own strategy.
The logical place for this kind of thinking is the professional military education system, at places such as the Air, Naval, and Army War Colleges and institutes.
The military should not cede the debate about nuclear strategy to universities or think tanks. It’s too important for that.
Nuclear strategy is fundamental to U.S. strategy for the simple reason major powers have these weapons.
If the United States doesn’t have a flexible, reliable nuclear posture it can’t deal effectively with other countries who do. It is the ultimate vulnerability that shapes other security choices. It’s also an issue that if we get wrong can change the world to our disadvantage.
What’s needed is a diversity of opinion and judgment.
A mistake can have catastrophic consequences because there isn’t any do over when it comes to nuclear weapons and international order.
Deliberative arguments and thinking are needed, and we can’t make up for this in a crisis.
The time to take on this challenge is now.
Editor’s Note: We have been addressing various aspects of the Second Nuclear Age and the dynamics of change.
The process is fundamental and largely ignored.
We have hosted a forum to discuss the challenges and will conclude the forum at the end of 2014.
In its newly published book, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (East View Press, October 2014; by Vasiliy Kashin, Sergey Denisentsev, et al; edited by Colby Howard and Ruslan Pukhov), the experts at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), Moscow’s premier nongovernmental defense organization, provide us with great insights regarding the state of the Russian military reform effort.
In his two chapters on Russian military reform before and after the 2008 Georgian War, Mikhail Barabanov nicely summarizes and augments CAST’s earlier analysis of the topic.
Barabanov describes the Russian military as continually struggling to adopt to the post-Soviet conditions of decreased budgets, fewer administrative controls (facilitating draft dodging), and unending local engagements while refusing to abandon the Soviet mass mobilization model–a deadly combination that made it difficult to optimize the Russian military to win its local wars.
Russia lacks the money or manpower to create another army of high readiness combat forces that would coexist with the large mass army of skeleton cadre units based on a mobilization of millions of reservists in wartime.
The attempt to build two armies has created severe command, control, logistical, and other challenges.
For example, orders still followed a convoluted transmission process from the General Staff, to the military districts, to the headquarters of the various armies, to the divisions and below.
In addition, despite military plans for at least partial mobilization for the wars in Chechnya, the Russian government never could call out the reservists for the kinds of local counterinsurgencies and police actions that Moscow was fighting due to popular opposition against such callouts and the inferior quality of the poorly trained reservists.
February 22, 2012. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, during a visit to the Taman Kalinin Motorized Rifle Brigade of the October Revolution Banner and the Red Banner. Putin was shown military equipment, special weapons, small arms and knives, communication equipment and equipment for special forces soldiers. (RIA Novosti/Aleksey Nikolskyi)
Although Russia had a large number of active duty soldiers, their limited training and equipment made them unsuited for even low-level operations.
Whenever it had to organize a combat force for sustained operations, the Ministry had to create an ad hoc task force by stripping the armed forces of their best units and sending them to the hotspot, leaving the rest of the force even more undermanned and underequipped.
The collapse of the Russian military industrial complex, moreover, resulted in the Russian army’s struggling to maintain Soviet-era systems while newly produced systems often went first to foreign buyers who could pay hard currency.
Although the defense budget began to increase in the mid-2000s with the growth in government oil and gas revenue,
Russia’s improving economic conditions also made it difficult for the Ministry of Defense to hire and retain long-term professional soldiers on contract who, if they were any good, could earn more money and enjoy a higher quality of life in the civilian world.
The government kept on having to delay plans to eliminate conscription, raise combat readiness throughout the force, or adopt a restructured arrangement based on regional commands. The increased funding, when it was not diverted by corruption or wasted by mismanagement, also was dispersed too widely among different units to have much of an impact.
It was only under Anatoly Serdyukov, who became defense minister in February 2007, that the Russian armed forces fully escaped their counterproductive fixation with being able to deploy a multi-million man army to win another world war, a force construct that resulted in the military’s having a large number of undermanned and poorly equipped conscripts.
Russian special forces stacking for a breach. Credit: Army Photos.Net
Although no military expert, Serdyukov was a good manager and clever enough to empower a team of reformers, including General Nikolai Makarov, the new chief of the general staff, who, as CAST had earlier recommended, adopted a “New Look” (Novy Oblik) program that largely abandoned plans for mass mobilization and instead concentrated on developing a smaller, more professionally manned and managed force of mobile brigades that could rapidly respond to immediate contingencies, such as occurred in the Crimea.
The military’s poor performance in the 2008 war with Georgia prompted the Kremlin to support Serdyukov as he sought to achieve a radical and rapid transformation of almost every element of the Russian armed forces from the fall of 2008 to early 2012:
Reducing the Russian Armed Forces to 1 million active duty personnel by 2012 while increasing the proportion of long-term professionals through large pay raises other benefits
Eliminating undermanned army cadre units and consolidating the active duty units as well as their facilities and reservists into a small number of high-readiness army brigades with better equipment and more exercises and training
Sharply cutting the officer corps by eliminating more than 100,000 officer billets while restructuring the officer corps by decreasing the number of generals and other senior officers while increasing the number of lower-level officer billets, thereby creating a more pyriamid-like structure
Consolidating military training and education by combining some 65 military schools into 10 “systemic” training centers
Reorganizing and reducing other central military command bodies, including the Defense Ministry, the General Staff, and the individual commands of the various military branches
Amalgamating the former six military districts into four regionally based ones that control almost all forces in their territories and function as Joint Strategic Commands during wartime
Reducing the number of noncombat personnel by outsourcing logistical and other non-combat support functions to civilian commercial enterprises overseen
Reorganize the Air Force and Air Defense Service (their new organizational units became respectively airbases and aerospace brigades), while creating new commands for Cyber, Aerospace Defense, and the new Special Operations Forces
According to Barabanov, the bold, rapid, and comprehensive scope of these changes prevented opponents from organizing a successful campaign to undermine them, as they had done with some earlier reform initiatives.
Barabanov offers a contradictory picture of the extent to which this reform campaign has persisted under Sergei Shoigu, former head of the paramilitary Ministry of Emergency Situations, who replaced Serdyukov as defense minister in 2013.
At times, he depicts Shoigu as continuing the main thrust of reforms while making cosmetic changes to downplay their most unpopular elements and support the general line of President Putin’s third term, which emphasizes stability above all: “Minister Shoigu’s time in office has been a period of ‘normalization’ and ‘stabilization’ in the Russian Armed Forces after tumultuous changes under Serdyukov.” For example, Shoigu has gone ahead with plans to hold many large-scale surprise (“”snap”) exercises and alerts, in which the military rapidly mobilizes units into a combat ready posture.
Elsewhere, however, Barabanov describes how the Ministry has reversed some key changes, such as rolling back the planned closing almost all the military’s training and education facilities, restoring the rank of warrant officer to compensate for the continued shortage of professional soldiers, scaling back reductions in headquarters, staff, returning to the old organizational names and sometimes the old organizational structures to the army and air forces, allowing unit manning levels to fall, and reversing some of the comprehensive outsourcing of almost all military supply and logistic functions that had occurred under Serdyukov, which fueled corruption.
Barabanov offers an equally mixed and contradictory assessment of the overall achievements of the reforms.
For instance, he writes that the fundamental decision to abandon the “old mobilization-centric setup of the Armed Forces has enabled Russia to turn its army into a highly capable and combat-ready force that is well suited to the challenges facing the country in the former Soviet territories.” In particular, “the Russian Army acquitted itself very well so far in the Ukrainian crisis. It proved to be a highly mobile and rapidly deployable force, with a high level of training and skill at every level, particularly in such elite units as spetsnaz, the paratroopers, and marines.”
Despite the improvements in Russia’s nuclear and conventional forces in recent years, the chapters by Aleksey Nikolsky and by Anton Lavrov on the Crimea operation show how it was primarily Russia’s elite Special Operations Forces (SOF) who spearheaded the Crimea operation.
They included the 16th Special Purpose Brigade, the 76th Airborne Assault Division, and the Black Sea Fleet’s 810th Marines Brigade.
Russian Special Forces preparing for security at Winter Olympics. Credit. Army Photos.Net
Termed by Russians the “polite people” and the West as “little green men,” these SOF soldiers without insignia collaborated with local paramilitary forces to paralyze the Ukrainian military’s 22,000 troops on the peninsula, whose combat capabilities arguably exceeded those of the lightly armed and outnumbered Russian SOF units for at least the first two weeks of the occupation, into surrendering the Crimea without a fight.
Although they are descendants of the Soviet Union’s special purpose forces (spetsnaz), the new Russian SOF service was only established in 2011, and not revealed by the Russian Ministry of Defense to foreign audiences until two years later.
Nikolsky provides helpful summaries of little-know Russian military documents that describe the key components and activities of the Russian SOF Command. He makes clear that it is not comparable to the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) since the SOF Command, which currently has the equivalent of two brigades, with the intention fo expanding this total over time, still excludes many of Russia’s special purpose forces. Nikolsky more comfortably compares it with the Army’s Delta Force and other direct action units.
Lavrov notes that, while the Russian military has made great strides in rehearing its ability to move and support large units thousands of kilometers away from their permanent bases, enabling Russia to defend its vast borders, Russia’s continued reliance on large numbers of conscripts means that at any time a large percentage of the force will still lack comprehensive training in strategic maneuvering and other combat capabilities and will therefore likely be excluded from the initial phase of any operation—as in the Ukraine war.
Barabanov correctly notes that the Russian armed forces, despite the apparent success of their elite forces in the Crimea, still need to strengthen their inter-service jointness; regularize the use of professionals and conscripts, such as by developing a stronger NCO corps; reform the military education system; complete the transition to a system of heavy, medium, and light brigades; further modernize command, control, and intelligence capabilities; reduce undermanning (the current forces is several hundred thousand troops short of its million-man goal); and create a viable reserve mobilization system for replenishing losses in limited conflicts.
2014-12-19 The first RAAF F-35A has arrived at Luke AFB, and opens up the international training side of Luke AFB.
Luke AFB is to be the center of excellence for the US and the allies in training to use the F-35A and to shaping integration of the aircraft as well.
The F-35 is not just about interoperability; it is about the capability of operating as an integrated force.
The first photo shows the first Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II jet arrived at Luke Air Force Base Dec. 18, 2014.
The jet’s arrival marks the first international partner F-35 to arrive for training at Luke.
The second photo shows the 17th USAF Luke Air Force Base F-35A Lightning II jet arriving at Luke Air Force Base Dec. 18, 2014. The jet accompanied the first Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II to arrive here.
In a story by 2nd Lt. Tanya Wren, 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs, published on December 18, 2014:
2/18/2014 – LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Arizona — The first Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II jet arrived at Luke Air Force Base December 18. The jet’s arrival marks the first international partner F-35 to arrive for training at Luke.
“Today, we take another tremendous step forward in our transition to the F-35 here at Luke,” said Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, 56th Fighter Wing commander. “Australia is the first of 10 nations that will not only become part of the Luke community, but will share in calling the West Valley a home away from home.”
Nine other nations will be training alongside the United States on the new airframe. Other partner-nations that will be joining the U.S. and Australia in the F-35A training program here will be Turkey, Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands, in addition to Foreign Military Sales countries Japan, Korea and Israel.
“Welcoming our first Australian F-35 is a special day for Luke and the community that has been so supportive of us,” Pleus said.
“The Royal Australian Air Force is delighted to be the first foreign partner nation with F-35A aircraft arriving at Luke Air Force Base,” Air Commodore Gary Martin, air attaché said. “This is an important milestone for Australia and we are looking forward to the commencement of our fifth-generation pilot training here at Luke in 2015.”
Luke will be the central training hub for international F-35A training. In the near future, international and U.S. students will be teamed together learning how to effectively employ the fifth-generation strike fighter.
“Luke’s mission has been to train the world’s greatest fighter pilots,” Pleus said. “We will continue on that legacy as we train the world’s best F-35A pilots.”
The teamwork on the F-35 isn’t the first time Luke has worked with international partners on an airframe. Luke’s Airmen currently train on base alongside pilots and maintainers from Singapore and Taiwan on the F-16.
Teaming up on the F-35 is another opportunity for Luke Airmen and pilots and maintainers from other nations to learn from one another.
“The collaborative training we’ll be doing here on aircraft designed with stealth, maneuverability and integrated avionics will better prepare our combined forces to assume multi-role missions for the future of strike aviation,” Pleus said. “From the bed-down of the F-35 and its infrastructure to the execution of training, our partner-nations have been an important piece of Luke’s F-35 team. The relationships we’re building now will be invaluable when we deploy together around the world protecting our respective countries.”
Australia’s training will be conducted in conjunction with the 61st Fighter Squadron. The 62nd Fighter Squadron is expected to stand-up in June, to be joined by partner-nations Italy and Norway. Flight operations for the 62nd are scheduled to begin in September of 2015.
Luke AFB will be the center of excellence for USAF and allied training with regard to the F-35A.
As Art Cameron, the Lockheed Martin site Director for the F-35 at Luke AFB, and as a young USAF maintainer was part of the team which stood up the first F-16s at Hill AFB, commented:
Question: With regard to training, how will the partners and the USAF work together?
Cameron: The partners which includes the US Air Force will train on the same ramp flying out of six different squadrons.
Each Air Force squadron will have 24 airplanes, which will mean that 144 F-35s will be operating here when the aircraft build up is completed.
Question: This will enable significant cross learning between the USAF and international pilots? (not maintainers)
Cameron: It will. The squadrons will be joint squadrons with multiple partners flying in each squadron.
And each country can fly the other country’s jets.
Pilots will be able to brief and step up to any airplane inside that squadron.
In other words, Italian, Australian or Norwegian pilots will fly USAF planes and vice versa.
Question: That’s a significant step forward in changing the mental furniture of what these folks are prepared to do. How important then is the pooling of training?
Cameron: So, this is the second role for Luke AFB.
Luke, because of the multiple countries present, will serve as the battle lab for interoperability.
It will be central to reworking coalition operations in the future.
The F-35 is a key element of shaping the future interoperability piece and we are doing proof of concept here at Luke AFB.
And it is clearly not going to be a one way street.
The US will learn a great deal from its coalition partners.
The RAAF is already working some cutting edge thinking about how to transform its force with the inclusion of the F-35 as a driving force.
John Blackburn (Air Marshal Blackburn retired as Deputy Chief of Air Force) who is now the Deputy Chairman of the influential Australian think tank, the Kokoda Foundation (as of January 2015 it will be called the Institute for Regional Security) and Deputy Chair at the Williams Foundation commented on the way ahead:
When Australia buys a system, it generally looks at the parent service, which has developed and deployed them.
This means the RAAF has a close relationship with the USN, with the Super Hornets, the Growlers and the P-8s to come.
With the coming of the F-35A the RAAF will work with the USAF and train at Luke AFB.
I expect that the RAAF will initially use the Growlers in a similar way to the USN does; however, as they gain experience I expect that new ways of integrating the Growlers, Super Hornets and JSFs will be developed.
These changes may in turn influence how the US Forces use their range of capabilities.
In perhaps a unique fashion we’re at the intersection of a set of relationships with U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the Marines.
This relationship is especially strong at the operator level where the innovations are clearly going to occur.
We will clearly tap into the US and allied F-35 community to drive change on how to integrate that change with overall force transformation.
For an overview on RAAF modernization and where the F-35 fits it see the following:
The Government has approved the acquisition of an additional 58 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.
The fifth generation F-35 is the most advanced fighter in production anywhere in the world and will make a vital contribution to our national security.
Together with the Super Hornet and Growler electronic warfare aircraft, the F-35 aircraft will ensure Australia maintains a regional air combat edge.
The F-35 will also provide a major boost to the ADF’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
The first F-35 aircraft will arrive in Australia in 2018 and enter service with the Royal Australian Air Force in 2020. Australia has been working with the United States as a partner in the Joint Strike Fighter programme since the Coalition joined in 2002.
Acquiring F-35 aircraft will reinforce the ADF’s ability to operate seamlessly with US forces and Australia’s capacity to continue supporting our shared strategic interests under the US alliance.
The acquisition of F-35 aircraft will bring significant economic benefits to Australia, including in regional areas and for the local defence industry with more jobs and production for many locally-based skilled and technical manufacturers. The total capital cost of $12.4 billion for this acquisition includes the cost of associated facilities, weapons and training.
Around $1.6 billion in new facilities and infrastructure will be constructed, including at RAAF Base Williamtown in New South Wales and RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory.
New Delhi. The Indian Navy is working towards a new fleet of aircraft and helicopters for maritime surveillance, electronic warfare and anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare.
Indian Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Robin Dhowan. Credit: India Strategic
Naval Chief Admiral RK Dhowan told India Strategic in an interview that it was imperative to expand the Indian Navy’s “maritime surveillance footprint to meet operational requirements” with 12 Boeing P-8I Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance (LRMR), nine MRMR (Medium Range Maritime Reconnaissance) and 12 Dornier 228 Short Range Maritime Reconnaissance (SRMR) aircraft.
“The induction of these aircraft will provide the Indian Navy with the required surveillance capability in support of our operational roles.”
At present, Boeing has a contract to supply eight P-8Is, six of which have been delivered on schedule beginning May 2013 and the last two should be in India by mid-2015.
There is an option clause for another four aircraft in the existing contract, and the Navy Chief’s remarks indicate that this is going to be exercised.
Sources said that this could be done in the first half of 2015.
Aircraft Specifications
Admiral Dhowan said that the Naval Air Arm, which marked its 61st anniversary in 2014, is poise for significant growth as part of the Navy’s capability development plan.
“The naval aviation acquisition is aimed at supporting fighter and integral helicopter operations from the two Carrier Task Forces…This includes 12 P-8I Maritime Patrol Aircraft. We have also initiated the process to acquire 12 Dornier SRMR and nine MRMR aircraft.”
Qualitative Requirements (QRs) for the MRMR aircraft are being finalized but they would have capabilities similar to the LRMRs except that their range would be shorter.
The Dorniers would be used for Electronic Warfare (EW) to secure one’s own communications and disrupt those of an enemy.
UAVs and UCAVs
Pointing out that there is due emphasis on UAVs also, the Admiral said: “The aviation arm of the Navy is an integral, active component of the naval force. It provides the Navy with essential air power at sea, in the entire range of operational activities.”
The Indian P-8 during the search for the missing Malaysian airliner. Credit: India Strategic
About the UAVs, he said that the vast expanse of our primary areas of interest posed a challenge in terms of surveillance and reconnaissance, and UAVs are important to maintain vigil. The Navy has been utilizing Heron and Searcher UAVs (Israel-origin) and their squadrons have been commissioned at three places in Kochi, Porbandar and Ramnad.
With an aim of achieving enhanced surveillance ranges, augmentation of existing UAV control stations onboard ships is in progress. Additionally their footprint is being expanded through satellite control.
“Additional UAVs are planned to be inducted” including the indigenous Rustom being developed by Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO)’s Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) “on successful completion of its development trials.”
As for carrier-borne UCAVs, they are still in conceptual stages. The Navy, he said, would continue to engage DRDO and its Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) “for progressing the naval UCAV variant.”
Notably, the Indian Navy lacks a modern submarine fleet while the number of possibly hostile submarines in the Indian Ocean has multiplied manifold in the recent years. There is an urgency accordingly to strengthen at least the aviation arm by aircraft and helicopters.
Multi Role Helicopters
On this Navy Day December 4th, the Navy selected Sikorsky’s Multi Role Helicopter (MRH), a weaponized platform, for shipboard operations. Twenty four of these helicopters are to be acquired, inclusive of an option for eight.
There are plans for a larger number of similar multi role helicopters as well as Naval Utility Helicopters (NUH), and their total numbers could eventually touch or exceed 200.
The Formidable Boeing P-8I
Based on Boeing’s workhorse civil 737 aircraft, the P8-I is a variant of US Navy’s latest P-8A Poseidon. It was described by Adm Dhowan as a very potent platform with long range capability to neutralize hostile ships and submarines with its Harpoon Block II missiles, depth bombs and torpedoes. The aircraft has formidable onboard electronic warfare (EW) systems and a highly sophisticated radar from US war technology giant Raytheon.
There are also Magnetic Anomaly Detectors (MAD) systems onboard to locate submarines. A MAD system works out variations in the earth’s magnetic fields by underwater movement of submarines.
The P-8I has radar coverage 360 degrees, thanks to a second radar installed in the rear as per Indian Navy’s requirements.
The LRMR and MRMR are being sourced from foreign vendors while the SRMR – Dornier 228 – would be acquired from HAL which has been producing them under licence for more than a couple of decades. Sanction for these aircraft has already been accorded by the new Government.
As for the old fleet of existing Sea King and Kamov helicopters, the Naval Chief said that they were being upgraded with “a sophisticated sensor suite” to “enhance (their) surveillance and attack capabilities of ships at sea.”
Three Aircraft Carriers
He observed that the Indian Navy was looking at two operational aircraft carriers 24 x 7, one each on the eastern and western seaboards of the country. A third would be needed because of the periodic maintenance by any one of them.
INS Vikramaditya. Credit: Indian Navy
For the Russian-origin INS Vikramaditya, which is already operational, and for INS Vikrant, which is under construction indigenously at Kochi, the Navy is buying 45 Mig 29K aircraft from Russia, about half of whom have already been delivered and are operational.
They are a generation ahead in capability than the old Mig 29s that are with the Indian Air Force (IAF) acquired from the late 1980s onwards.
INS Vikrant, earlier called Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-1), would be available in 2018.
For the IAC-2’s aircraft, a fresh tender would be floated in due course and the best possible technologies relevant for induction around 10 to 15 years from now would be considered. IAC-2, he expressed the hope, would be available 10 years after its specifications are frozen and the work begins.
The Navy also has plans to induct naval variant of the HAL-made indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), development work on which is going on.
EMALS and Aircraft Recovery
Admiral Dhowan said that the Navy is also working on specifications for a third aircraft carrier – IAC 2 – which would be much larger – say 60,000 tons-plus – and every possibility, including nuclear propulsion and the latest Electromagnetic Launch System (EMALS) which the US Navy has selected for its future aircraft carriers is under consideration.
“We are monitoring the latest developments and will factor the same into the force development plan…We would look for infusion of newer technologies with regard to propulsion and launch/ recovery arrangements for the aircraft.”
USN Emals Systems. Credit:NAVAIR
The current aircraft launch technology from carriers is based on steam catapults.
Asked about collateral benefits emanating from newer technologies, he observed that technological spinoff from defense technologies has been a recurrent theme over the ages, and that always happens. Nonetheless, “we would look for infusion of newer technologies with regard to propulsion and launch/ recovery arrangements for the aircraft.”
Significantly, the EMALS, developed by US General Atomics, is based on the massive power of Direct Current (DC) electricity, and the technology is stated to be useful even in launching satellites or firing projectiles into space.
Concluded Admiral Dhowan:
“The Naval Air Arm is poised for significant growth as part of the Navy’s capability development plan… In the coming years, I envisage a deployable force-level of two Carrier Task Forces, one each on our Western and Eastern seaboards. The naval aviation acquisition program is aimed at supporting fighter and integral helicopter operations from the two Carrier Task Forces and associated support ships.”
INS Vikramaditya (R 33) (Sanskrit, Vikramāditya (Hindi : भा नौ पो विक्रमादित्य) meaning “Brave as the is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier which entered into service with the Indian Navy in 2013. She has been renamed in honor of Vikramaditya, a legendary 1st century BC emperor of Ujjain, India. Credit: Wikipedia.
This is the third and final part of the series on looking at the role of Kazakhstan with regard to nuclear security.
Renewing Nuclear Energy
During the past decade, Kazakhstan has dramatically increased its production and export of uranium.
From 2001 to 2009, the country’s uranium output grew from 2,000 to 13,900 tons. Geologists have identified about 50 uranium deposits, located mostly in south-central Kazakhstan.[1] In recent years, in-situ leach (ISL) mining has overtaken hard rock deposits as the main source of production.[2]
With a record output in 2009, Kazakhstan produced more uranium than any other country that year by increasing its national output by a remarkable 63% over 2008, which was 8,500 tons.
The increased production for 2009 resulted from new uranium mines beginning operations or expanding their capacities that year.[3]
Kazakh Uranium Mines as seen in World’s Nuclear Association Coutnry Profiles.
Second only to Australia, Kazakhstan has more than 12 percent of global uranium reserves, or over 1.5 million tons.[4]
The country extracted approximately 22,500 tons (58.5 million pounds) of uranium (tU) in 2013, approximately 38% of global production for that year.[5] The previous year, Kazakhstan produced 20,900 tU, or 37% of global production, estimated at 55,700 tons in 2012.[6]
Kazakhstan’s share was somewhat less in 2011, when Kazakhstan accounted for 35% of global production, with 19,400 tons.[7]
Almost all of Kazakhstan’s uranium production is exported.
The main destinations are China, Japan, and Russia. The country’s own consumption of uranium will increase if the Kazakhstani government realizes its goals of expanding the domestic use of nuclear power and of becoming a producer of uranium fuel for other countries.
Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov has called for a “global effort aimed at maintaining calm on uranium markets internationally so that all countries can get access to sources of nuclear energy.”[8]
Kazakhstan’s national nuclear energy company, KazAtomProm, aims to become the world’s largest miner and exporter of natural uranium.
KazAtomProm is a wholly state owned company, established in 1997, that manages indigenous uranium exploration and mining as well as the Kazakhstan government’s other commercial nuclear activities. The corporation employs about 25,000 people and had a net profit of 36 billion tenge ($200 million) in 2012. It owns about half the shares of all the uranium mining companies operating in Kazakhstan (all domestic equity); its operations produced 12,500 tons in 2012.[9]
In line with its expanding operations, KazAtomProm’s revenue has grown rapidly since 2008, reaching more than $2 billion in 2012.[10]In 2013, KazAtomProm’s production rose to 12,600 tons, with 10,200 tons covered by sales contracts.[11]
With current world uranium prices still depressed, KazAtomProm has scaled back earlier plans to raise uranium production or move up the fuel cycle rapidly.
In late 2013, its then Chairman Vladimir Shkolnik said that, “We’ve put the brakes on implementing uranium output expansions. The same goes for other elements of the fuel cycle.”[12]
The corporation will instead maintain its global market share and focus for a while on producing more rare earth elements, which are used in a variety of industrial applications, and other products.[13]
Meanwhile, KazAtomProm expects to increase Kazakhstan’s annual uranium production to increase by more than 180,000 tons to over 1.7 million tons by 2020.[14]
KazAtomProm also participates in the government’s Program for Development of Renewable Energy and supports research on solar energy, energy conservation, water desalination, medical research, and related projects.
Through joint ventures with Russia’s Intermix Met and several Japanese companies, KazAtomProm and Uranium One Holding are seeking to develop a cost-effective technology to extract scandium during the uranium production process.
The plan is to start producing scandium, a high-strength material used in aircraft, rockets, satellites, robotics and laser equipment—by 2016.[15]
Uranium One Inc. is a Canadian-based company and one of the world’s largest uranium producers with assets in Kazakhstan and other countries.
It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ), which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian State Corporation for Nuclear Energy (Rosatom).[16]
The corporation is eager to expand into new geographic areas.
For example, KazAtomProm opened an office in North America in 2013.[17] The company is now thinking of entering the African solar energy market.[18]
Uranium mining in Kazhakstan. Credit: Kazatomprom
KazAtomProm intends to become a vertically integrated company involved in all phases of the nuclear fuel cycle.
The corporation aims to expand its activities beyond selling natural uranium and making fuel pellets to encompass uranium conversion (of uranium oxide into uranium hexafluoride), the manufacturing and exporting of uranium fuel rods and assemblies for use in civilian nuclear reactors, and other activities.[19]
At the March 2014 NSS, President Nazarbayev confirmed that Kazakhstan is seeking to develop a full nuclear fuel production.[20]
In 2012, Nazarbayev argued that nuclear energy was essential for countries suffering from “poverty, unemployment and food shortages” and could proceed with effective UN and IAEA monitoring of such projects to confirm their non-military application.[21]
Kazakhstan accordingly plans to resume domestic nuclear power production in the next few years.
Opposition to renewed domestic nuclear energy production persists due to the catastrophic health and environmental consequences inflicted on the local population from activities at the former nuclear test site in Semipalatinsk.[22]
The government intends to highlight its safety and security measures and take other steps to reassure people that any nuclear energy program in Kazakhstan will not contribute to nuclear proliferation or accidents.
It will also continue to collaborate with the international community to prevent nuclear trafficking through its territory.
Next Steps
Kazakhstan is transitioning from a recipient country of nuclear security and nonproliferation assistance to a potential donor state.[23]
In July 2011, after several years of informal proposals, the Kazakhstan government formally offered to host the world’s first international nuclear “fuel bank” under IAEA supervision.
Such a facility would provide low-enriched uranium fuel to countries seeking to pursue peaceful nuclear energy programs without the economic and environmental costs of manufacturing their own nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment.[24]
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in February 2014 that, “We believe that the development of multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel, including the creation of guaranteed nuclear fuel reserves will promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”[25]
The current plan is to establish the bank at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant, though negotiations with the IAEA on the Host Country Agreement continue.[26]
As the national nuclear industry develops, with a corresponding increase in the country’s role in world’s nuclear energy markets, Kazakhstan’s ability to influence global nuclear energy security policies will likely increase.
Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov has said that Kazakhstan wants to collaborate with other Central Asian governments “in ensuring the physical protection of nuclear materials.”[27]
Kazakhstan is seeking election to the IAEA Board of Governors as a member of the Far East regional group, but faces competition with South Korea, which wants that status to gain leverage over North Korea.
Although expressing support for Seoul’s position regarding North Korea and the NPT, Anuar Tanalinov, Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Multilateral Cooperation, argues that Kazakhstan should receive a seat on the Board “given the role Astana has been playing in the global nuclear market and given the country’s contribution to the global nonproliferation cause.”[28]
MEETING OF PRESIDENT OBAMA WITH PRESDENT NAZARBAYEV MARCH 24, 2014.
Kazakhstan has joined the most important international nuclear export control regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a voluntary body whose members pledge to support export guidelines designed to reduce the risks that transferred items could be misused for military purposes.
Kazakhstan is also an adherent to the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, the Proliferation Security (Cracow) Initiative, and the Zangger (Nuclear Exporters) Committee.
The government is seeking to accede to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the Wassenar Arrangement and the Australian Group.[29]
These export control bodies seek to monitor the transfer of conventional military and dual-use technologies that have military as well as civilian applications.
Kazakhstan’s export control lists, includes all the items covered by these organizations.
Nonetheless, Kazakhstan’s growing biological, chemical, and nuclear dual-use capabilities, civilian space launch industry, and conventional arms exports mean that it will become increasingly imprudent to exclude Kazakhstan from participation in these organizations.[30]
In coming years, the United States and other countries can help Kazakhstan strengthen its export controls, insider protection measures, nuclear training and education activities, border and cyber security, physical protection systems, consequence management capabilities, and other elements needed to ensure that Kazakhstan’s developing nuclear industry proceeds in a safe and secure manner.
U.S. diplomats should remain engaged in Astana to support joint nonproliferation measures.
If the IAEA does establish a nuclear fuel bank in Kazakhstan, President Barack Obama should consider attending the opening ceremony, especially since the trip would highlight and the trip would highlight and further encourage the longstanding U.S.-Kazakhstan non-proliferation partnership.
Furthermore, by becoming the first U.S. president to make an official visit to Central Asia, Obama could pursue other important U.S. objectives in the region, including advancing human rights and democracy, promoting U.S. business interests, and reassuring and fortifying the autonomy of nations newly worried about Russia’s regional assertiveness.
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[4]Uranium and Nuclear Power in Kazakhstan,” World Nuclear Association, February 2014, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/Kazakhstan.
[8] “Kazakhstan to seal international nuclear fuel bank,” businessneweurope, February 18, 2014, http://www.bne.eu/story5773/Kazakhstan_to_seal_international_nuclear_fuel_bank
[9]Mariya Gordeyeva, “Kazatomprom sees uranium output flat, looks to rare earths,” Reuters, April 1, 2014,
[15]“A Kazakh-Russian JV to produce scandium in Kazakhstan,” The Times of Central Asia, April 1, 2014, http://www.timesca.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13610:a-kazakh-russian-jv-to-produce-scandium-in-kazakhstan&catid=84:market-a-companies&Itemid=576.
[16]Ibid.
[17]“Kazakhstan at Center of 2013 Uranium Production,” Nuclear Market Review, January 31, 2014, http://www.uranium.info/market_analyses.php#140131.
[19]“Uranium and Nuclear Power in Kazakhstan,” World Nuclear Association, February 2014, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/Kazakhstan/.
[20]“Kazakhstan to work on full nuclear fuel cycle: President Nazarbayev,” Tengrinews, March 24, 2014, http://en.tengrinews.kz/politics_sub/Kazakhstan-to-work-on-full-nuclear-fuel-cycle-President-Nazarbayev-26902/.
[22]Gulnoza Saidazimova, “Kazakhstan: Government Pushing Nuclear Power Despite Public Fears,” Eurasia Insight, February 25, 2006, http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/civilsociety/articles/pp022506.shtml. For a graphic description of these environmental problems see Walton Burns, “Not Another Disaster Tourist,” Financial Times, January 24, 2008.
[23] “Kazakhstan: at the Forefront of Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy,” Ottawa Life, November 27, 2013, http://www.ottawalife.com/2013/11/kazakhstan-at-the-forefront-of-nuclear-non-proliferation-and-peaceful-uses-of-nuclear-energy/
[24] “Assurance of Supply for Nuclear Fuel: IAEA LEU Bank,” IAEA, September 4, 2012, http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/NEFW/Assurance-of-Supply/iaea-leu-bank.html
[25]“Kazakhstan to seal international nuclear fuel bank,” businessneweurope, February 18, 2014, http://www.bne.eu/story5773/Kazakhstan_to_seal_international_nuclear_fuel_bank.
[26]Merey Kabiden, “Talks over IAEA Nuclear Fuel Bank in Kazakhstan Near Completion,” Astana Times, March 6, 2014, http://www.astanatimes.com/2014/03/talks-iaea-nuclear-fuel-bank-kazakhstan-near-completion/.
[27] “Kazakhstan to seal international nuclear fuel bank,” businessneweurope, February 18, 2014, http://www.bne.eu/story5773/Kazakhstan_to_seal_international_nuclear_fuel_bank
Editor’s Note: The Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, H.E. ErlanIdrissov, recently visited Washington and co-chaired the third U.S.-Kazakhstan Strategic Partnership Dialogue.
For an update on that visit and the joint statement issued during the visit see the following:
