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In the United States, the Korean War is sometimes referred to as “The Forgotten War,” sandwiched as it was between World War II and the Vietnam War.
In South Korea, however, that conflict remains top-of-mind, as evidenced by the City of Osan’s announcement on Wednesday that it is acquiring the site of the first battle of that war in which U.S. Troops fought and died to build a Memorial Park on that site in their honor.
On June 25, 1950 North Korea invaded its neighbor, with ten divisions rolling south and meeting little resistance. The United States, with few assets in the region as the military downsizing post-WW II was well underway, turned to the 21st Infantry Regiment, then serving in occupied Japan. The regiment sent a small advance force to Korea by air.
An American soldier (Robert L. Witzig) with a 2.36-inch bazooka prepares to take aim at a North Korean tank during the Battle of Osan. On his right is Kenneth R. Shadrick, who would later be reported as the first American killed in the Korean War. Credit: US Army
Major General William F. Dean ordered Lt. Col. Charles Bradford Smith to “block the road as far north as possible” with a hastily thrown together unit including Company B and C of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry. They were joined with A Battery of the 52nd Field Artillery Battalion for a combined force of 406 infantrymen and 134 artillerymen, now known as Task Force Smith.
Smith established a defensive position in the low hills surrounding the main road headed south from Seoul to Osan. On July 5, 1950 they met the invading force spearheaded by 33 Soviet-made T34 tanks, considered the best in the world at that time. The WW II era anti-tank weapons used by U.S. troops failed to stop the advancing armor. Next, 5,000 North Korean soldiers joined the assault. The outcome was predictable – heavy U.S. casualties and a forced withdrawal.
The story doesn’t end there.
Their bravery slowed the North Korean advance by eight hours, buying valuable time for organizing an effective defensive stand that included the balance of the 21st Infantry Regiment, which arrived in Korea by ship.
And today, the memory of that battle is very much alive in South Korea.
Last summer, the City of Osan opened the UN Forces First Battle Memorial Museum to honor the men of Task Force Smith.
The museum’s website, www.tfsmemorial.com , is itself a great tribute to Task Force Smith.
In addition to a history of the battle, it includes the names of the 540 U.S. soldiers who fought there and the pictures of many of these men prior to the battle. The just announced Memorial Park will have a grove of 540 pine trees in their honor.
The greatest memorial to Task Force Smith, and to the U.S. and international soldiers who followed in their footsteps, is South Korea itself.
Today that nation is home to the world’s 12th largest economy. Its Gross Domestic Product per Capita is $33,000. Compare this to North Korea, where the Gross Domestic Product per Capita is just $1,800.
South Korea is not just an economic success; it is a geopolitical success – a stable democracy in a strategic part of the world and a loyal U.S. ally.
More than 300,000 South Korean troops fought alongside U.S. forces in Vietnam. Its military backed the U.S. in Operation Desert Storm. During the Second Gulf War, 18,000 South Korean soldiers volunteered to serve in Iraq and more than 3,000 did serve. And in Afghanistan, 5,000 South Korean troops were part of the international coalition to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
It’s notable that Mayor Kwak Sang-Wook of Osan said recently that one of the primary reasons for building the memorial park is so that generations of Korean school children can have the opportunity to learn about the war, and especially about the incredible sacrifice made on their behalf by soldiers from a distant land.
The Battle of Osan lasted just eight hours, but its impact continues to be felt today, more than 60 years after the last shot was fired.
Editor’s Note: The combat history narrated above is combined from several contemporary accounts of true courage in the Korean War.
The author recommends reading what he considers one of the best books every written about the American way of war which is based on the Korean War experience: T.R Fehrenbach’s, This Kind of War.
Because of the sinking on Wednesday morning of a South Koren ferry carrying 470 passengers, the City postponed the official announcement until next Wednesday.
The new F-35 pilot-training program at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale is developing aviators for an era of warfare the world has yet to experience.
Future fights will be contested on the digital frontier, according to military analysts who have studied the supersonic stealth fighter jets.
Unlike conventional warfare, next-generation battles will rely on cutting-edge technology linking networks of allied weapons systems that together can locate and destroy targets many miles away. Planes, ships, missiles and troops from various countries will be able to talk to each other and plot tactics literally on the fly.
“The F-35 will achieve its greatness as a coalition leader where information dominance is key,” said Michael W. Wynne, who previously served as secretary of the Air Force and as a former executive for the aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
If the stealth F-35 Lightning II jets perform as envisioned, the next generation of pilots might never see targets with their own eyes and might never fly close enough to adversaries to become involved in one-on-one dogfights.
The planes are designed to engage in electronic warfare using sophisticated airborne computer systems that tie in to their sensors and communications systems. They require more than 8 million lines of software code to integrate their systems. The stealth F-22 Raptor fighters that became fully operational in 2005 require 2.2 million lines of code.
As a result, F-35 pilots will be able to fly undetected past enemy radar and defense systems to identify targets on the ground, sea or air, according to analysts.
Pilots from the U.S. and allied countries flying F-35s 25 to 30 miles apart will be able to stitch together real-time maps that all of them will be able to use. They also will be able to direct their own missiles — or weapons from other planes, ships, submarines or ground stations — to targets they’ve selected while airborne.
The idea is that pilots will become battle managers — and that kids who grew up using iPhones will fill those jobs…..
2014-04-15 The ship BBC HOUSTON (IMO: 9331593, MMSI: 368395000) is a General cargo vessel registered in United States. It can carry a gross tonnage of 7000 with a dead weight of 7700. It is 119.7 m x 20.2m. And it was built in 2005 and carries general cargo.
Recently, mission-essential gear was carried aboard the BBC HOUSTON cargo ship designated for Marine Rotational Force – Darwin are off-loaded.
The Marines with MRF-D are conducting unilateral training and bilateral training with the Australian Defence Force in the Northern Territory and at existing ADF facilities during the six-month rotation.
The Russians are sorting out their way forward into the 21st century.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, and the inclusion of much of the former Warsaw Pact into the European Union and NATO defined the end of the 20th century.
Re-setting the role of Russia in the next decade of the 21st century is a work in progress.
Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and president Vladimir Putin at the Tsugol military testing site. Credit: Novosti.
This re-set is clearly based on leveraging the core role which Russian energy plays globally, and an effort to expand Arctic presence and exploitation to enhance that role even more. To date, the ability to leverage the commodity capabilities of Russia into a modern economy have been marked by less than success.
But leveraging those capabilities to expand global presence clearly is part of the plan going forward.
And the rebuilding of the Russian military is part of the effort as well.
The reform of the military has been designed to ensure local military superiority, which has been demonstrated in the Crimea. And ensuring a viable tactical and strategic nuclear arsenal underwriting the protection of the homeland is also part of the effort. And shaping a way ahead to enhance relevant power projection is crucial as well.There are three key trajectories to shaping future power projection capabilities.
The Defense of the Russian Far East
The first is the defense of the Russian Far East against Chinese encroachments.
To do so, the Russians have exercised their ability to move forces from West to East, but this is a huge challenge, given the immensity of the Russian land mass.
In July 2013, major exercises were held in the Russian Far East. According to an AP story published on July 16, 2013:
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday watched Russia’s biggest military maneuvers since Soviet times, involving 160,000 troops and about 5,000 tanks across Siberia and the far eastern region in a massive show of the nation’s resurgent military might.
Despite close economic ties and military cooperation, many in Russia have felt increasingly uneasy about the growing might of its giant eastern neighbor.
Some fear that Russia’s continuing population decline and a relative weakness of its conventional forces compared to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army could one day tempt China to grab some territory.
Russia and China had territorial disputes for centuries. Relations between Communist China and the Soviet Union ruptured in the 1960s, and the two giants fought a brief border conflict in 1969.
Moscow and Beijing signed a new border treaty in 2004, which saw Russia yielding control over several islands in the Amur River. Some in Russia’s sparsely populated far east feared that the concessions could tease China’s appetite.
Alexander Khramchikhin, an independent Moscow-based military analyst, said that the massive exercise held in the areas along the border with China was aimed at Beijing.
The maneuvers are part of recent efforts to boost the military’s mobility and combat readiness after years of post-Soviet decline, but they have far exceeded previous drills in both numbers and territorial scope.
As part of the war games held across several time zones, some army units deployed to areas thousands of kilometers away from their bases.
Recently, President Obama characterized the Russians as a regional power.
But which region did he have in mind?
Shaping A Naval Infrastructure in the Mediterranean
The second is building naval support capabilities in both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean.
It is often noted that the current state of the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean is not first rate, and is populated with many aging assets.
This is largely true, but misses the point that the Russians have set in motion a major naval and air modernization effort, and by laying down a solid geographical infrastructure, when capabilities are added, then they have tools to go with the infrastructure to shape regular influence in the region.
With regard to the Eastern Mediterranean, two key areas are involved.
The first is Syria.
The port of Tartus provides a key port for the Russian navy in the area. It is a relatively small facility for repairs and support for operations, but is an important foothold in the region, notably when combined with other facilities in the region over time.
According to one report the port at Tartus is of significance to Russia and its role in the region.
Even a semi permanent base at Tartus allows the Russian Navy to expand its presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s largest and most important military base in a foreign country is the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol, Ukraine.
To deploy beyond the Black Sea, Russian warships based at Sevastopol must pass through the Bosporus Strait, which has been militarized by NATO-member Turkey.
Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, the Bosporus was deemed an international shipping lane with military restrictions. Under a 1982 amendment, Turkey now retains the right to close the Strait at its discretion in peacetime as well as during wartime.
As Russia’s only Mediterranean base, that makes Tartus a vital strategic asset beyond the Bosporus. As a deep water port, it can dock nuclear submarines. Moscow is reportedly planning to expand the facilities so it can accommodate the Russian Navy’s flagship — the “Admiral Kuznetsov” aircraft carrier — after 2012.
The second key area in the Eastern Mediterranean is Egypt.
The Arab Spring has seen the Russians as the main beneficiary. Although Western leaders have talked up the Arab Spring, the reality is less a thousand flowers blooming than a bumpy ride to the next phase of Arab history in the region.
With regard to Egypt, the military has returned to power and with it has brought concern from Washington with regard to this development. Arms aide has been truncated, and, not surprisingly, the Russians filled the gap.
The arms deal side of events seems clearly in motion.
Egypt’s defense minister and likely new president Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi negotiated the agreement, aimed at replacing decreased assistance from Washington, during talks in Moscow on Thursday between Russian and Egyptian foreign and defense ministers. The military leader was warmly received by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his first trip abroad following his seizure of power in a coup last year.
Vedomosti cited Russian defense sources as saying that at the meeting the sides initialed or signed contracts for the delivery of MiG-29M/M2 Fulcrum fighter jets, air defense missile complexes, Mi-35 helicopters, coastal anti-ship complexes, light weapons and ammunition.
The arms deal was originally proposed during a November visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Cairo. Various media reports have indicated the value of the deal could be several billion dollars.
The deal is reportedly to be funded mainly by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The naval side of the relationship is a work in progress.
The Russians would clearly like regular access to Alexandria, but this is more aspirational than real for the moment. A Russian warship did dock at Alexandria in November 2013 as part of preparation for the visit of a Russian official to negotiate with the Egyptian government. This was the first port visit to Egypt by a Russian warship since 1992.
With regard to the Western Mediterranean, Cyprus is the key target of the Russian effort.
Cyprus hosted multiple visits by Russians warships in 2013. For example, last May, three Russian navy warships, which were part of a flotilla sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, docked at the new port of Limassol. The ships included the destroyer “Admiral Panteleyev,” the salvage/rescue tug Fotiy Krylov and the tanker Pechenga.
And more broadly, the Russians have been working Cyprus as part of their response to the Euro Crisis and new openings to expand their influence as European integration not only falters but goes backwards.
As for the angry Russian response to the Troika-Cyprus accord, it should be kept in mind that many influential Russians, possibly including some officials in the present government, have had significant interests in Cyprus. Moreover, Russia is at risk of losing its influence in Syria, and potentially with it the use of a Russian naval base in that country.
Most likely Russian leadership would have preferred a Cyprus exit from the Euro, in which case Russia would have likely stood ready to assist Cyprus and its own Russian interests, including its interests in gas exploration in neighboring waters, and the potential for an alternative naval base in Cyprus which is so close to Syria.
If Cyprus continues to falter and the deposit base weakens, economic and financial implosion may ultimately result in exit from the Euro.
In that event, Russia would likely step in to “acquire” Cyprus.
The concurrency of the Euro and Syrian crisis has provided the Russians with the opportunity to expand influence in Cyprus.
A web posting outlined what the analyst to be the case at the end of August 2013:
Yesterday afternoon, Russia agreed to restructure Cyprus’ EUR 2.5 billion loan terms to a much more affordable 2.5% semi-annual coupon through 2016 and a principal re-payment over the following four years.
While probably still out of reach for the desparate economy, it was a positive step. Of course, this ‘offer’ by Russia has its quid pro quo.
This morning, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides has stated that Cyprus territory will not be used to launch military strikes against Syria, as “Cyprus wants to live up to its responsibility as a shelter if needed for nationals of friendly countries who evacuate from Middle East”. It would appear Obama’s influence is fading everywhere…
Cyprus is located ~183 nautical miles west of Syria and is the EU member nearest to Syria.
The Russian government has endorsed restructuring of the terms of the Russian loan to Cyprus, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told reporters Friday.
“The restructuring was endorsed at the last meeting of the Cabinet,” he said
Cyprus is to repay a EUR 2.5bn loan to Russia in eight semiannual installments starting in 2016, Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak told reporters today, citing a revision of repayment terms approved at the latest cabinet meeting. The interest rate was lowered to 2.5% from 4.5%.
Russia makes a deal with Egypt for arms. Credit Photo: Novosti
Russia extended the loan in 2011 for 4.5 years. Cyprus UK Bases (via Bloomberg)
The U.K. has 2 sovereign bases on Cyprus; and despite its vote against a strike, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said today 6 RAF Typhoon interceptor fast jets deploying to British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus as precautionary measure “to protect British bases on island” Cyprus Refugee Camp (via Bloomberg).
Cyprus Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides says his country is prepared for any influx of foreign nationals in the event of military action against Syria, in comments to reporters in Nicosia today. Cyprus can accept up to 10,000 people daily on basis they remain for 48 hours before repatriation (Cyprus received more than 40,000 evacuees from Lebanon after 2 weeks fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in 2006).
Cyprus Refuses To Allow Strikes From Its Territory against Syria (via Bloomberg).
Cyprus assured its territory won’t be used to launch military strikes against Syria, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said, according to a transcript of his comments posted on govt’s press-office website
Kasoulides commented that “Cyprus wants to live up to its responsibility as a shelter if needed for nationals of friendly countries who evacuate from Middle East”
An official statement by the government of Cyprus makes it clear that there is a territorial use opt out in place:
The Government of Cyprus has repeatedly expressed its grave concern about the use of chemical weapons against the friendly people of Syria, including innocent civilians and even against women and children. Our reaction becomes even stronger when this happens in such proximity to our country. The loss of 1429 lives, including 426 children in the last attack in Damascus, constitutes a crime against humanity. It is unreservedly condemned. Such a heinous act, cannot be without consequences.
Undoubtedly, use of chemical weapons has occurred. The designation of the responsible side does not fall under the mandate of the UN fact-finding mission. Nonetheless, the Syrian regime is accountable for the fact that it is producing, stockpiling, and it is in a position to mixture chemical weapons, in violation of customary international and humanitarian law, including the Chemical Weapons Convention. If the Syrian regime had proceeded to destroy such weapons, in the presence of observers of the relevant international organizations, it would not have to prove that is not responsible of their recent massive use.
Whatever happens, the Geneva II Process must be safeguarded, in order to seek a political solution to the wider problem.
Cyprus, as a country of stability, peace and security in the region, stands ready to live up to its responsibility as a shelter, in case needed, in order to evacuate nationals of friendly countries from the Middle East. Cyprus would like to safeguard this capacity; to that end, we have received assurances that the territory of Cyprus will not be used for military strikes.
And Russia clearly has used their political and financial clout in Cyprus to expand their ability to use naval and air facilities.
According to a report in January 10, 2014 published in the Cyprus Mail:
The Council of Ministers has approved a draft proposal by the Defence Ministry to offer certain facilities to the Russian air force at the Andreas Papandreou military airbase in Paphos.
Ministry sources yesterday confirmed that the cabinet gave the green light for the defence ministry to enter into negotiations with Russia on signing an agreement setting out the terms of use of the airbase.
According to a report in Politis, a request for use of the airbase was raised last year during the separate visits of Defence Minister Fotis Fotiou and Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides to Moscow.
Russian military vessels sit at anchor at a navy base in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. The Crimea can serve as a hub of military power projection into the region for the Russians. Reuters
The newspaper reported that during its latest meeting, the cabinet approved a proposal by the defence ministry, reached in agreement with the foreign ministry, to offer certain services to the Russian air force at the Paphos military air base.
These include allowing the landing and stationing of military aircraft for humanitarian reasons and in emergency situations.
A defense ministry source refused to enter into details but told the Cyprus Mail that the proposed agreement is not something substantial or different to what is already being offered to Russia in terms of facilities at the airbase from time to time.
The agreement, if and when it is signed between the two countries, will simply put the situation on a more ‘official’ footing.
In other words, there appears to be an agreement in place which not only allows specified uses of its main air base but also sanctions use of the main port at Limassol according to discussions with Cypriot government officials as well.
And from the perspective of Russian naval officials, Cyprus will not provide a permanent base but a rotational one as part of a permanent fleet of five or six combat ships to the Mediterranean Sea, with frigates and cruisers making up the core of the fleet. Although, a growing number of diesel submarines will be part of the fleet as well.
Russia has been docking on and off at Limassol for a while and not only at Limassol. Russian warships have docked in Malta, Greece and for the first time ever (in May), in Israel.
However, regarding Cyprus, the current system means that Russia has to ask permission in advance.
With an official agreement this would no longer be necessary.
Still, this deal would set a precedent as currently no EU member state allows Russia to use its military bases or ports for logistical or other reasons.
The key here is to understand that the Russian fleet is part of an expanded engagement effort in the region to advance Russian interests. The atrophied presence is to be replaced by an expanded infrastructure of support and a modernized fleet.
The Seizure of Crimea
With activity on both flanks of the Mediterranean, the moves in Crimea come into focus.
Whatever the cause of the seizure of Crimea and its inclusion in Russia, the impact on the Russian navy is clear. By ending the treaty and taking full control of Sevastopol, the Russians can now focus on the expansion of facilities in the area and preparing for a significant modernization effort.
Russians sources throughout 2013 made it clear that they viewed the Ukrainians as putting obstacles in front of the desired modernization of the Black Sea fleet. Obviously, this obstacle is removed.
In a piece published on March 12, 2014, prior to annexation, one analyst underscored the situation as follows with regard to Sevastapol:
Construction of a new base for the Fleet has been underway in Novorossiysk in the meantime, as there is no guarantee that Viktor Yanukovych’s successor would reiterate the agreements signed by him. The unrest in Ukraine in the winter of 2013-14 and the coming to power of the “Maidan government” have only bolstered those concerns.
At the same time, looking at the developments in Crimea proper, the Black Sea Fleet’s positions there can be expected to become stronger. That would be an extremely fortunate solution because, for a number of reasons, from weather to geography, Novorossiysk cannot serve as the Navy’s main base.
As the main base, Sevastopol is today the best port on the Black Sea coast, if not in the entire Black and Mediterranean Sea basin, not only because of the advantages it offers as such but also thanks to its location virtually “above” the Black Sea’s geographical center. This convenient location enables a Sevastopol-based fleet to carry out missions of practically any kind.
Without a doubt, not only Moscow is aware of this, so the disputes over Crimea and the Fleet’s base are going to continue.”
The Russian navy has underscored over the past few years, they wish to see significant modernization of the fleet with frigates and diesel subs as the main assets.
But the addition of new amphibious ships – of the Mistral class – can be used in the region as well as the navy perhaps re-shapes its course to provide for an insertion and influence force in the broader region able to operate from rotational deployments in the region.
The second Mistral class ship is to be called ironically Sevastopol. The Mistral-class Vladivostok helicopter carrier ordered by Russia leaves its French shipyard for its first trial on March 5. (AFP/Getty Images)
As one analyst put it with regard to the military consequences of ending Ukrainian ownership of Sevastopol:
Crimea’s acquisition significantly increases the operational capabilities and potential of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Russia will have full freedom in terms of its size and distribution (including new bases), modernization and expansion throughout the peninsula. So far, it had been limited by the Russian-Ukrainian agreement of 1997, which regulated the stationing of units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine.
The Black Sea Fleet could only carry out repairs on ships without Ukrainian consent, and its land component could not exceed 2000 (at present there are 22,000 soldiers in Crimea). In the near future, the takeover of the remaining Ukrainian military infrastructure and equipment in Crimea (mainly ships) will make the Black Sea Fleet the undisputed principal military power in the Black Sea.
The Russian Ministry of Defense will save on leasing fees. So far, Moscow had been paying Ukraine $97 million a year for stationing the Black Sea Fleet on the peninsula (from 2017 this amount was to have risen to $100 million). The newly released funds will allow Russia to maintain an increased military presence. and will most likely be used for this purpose.
Clearly, Russian naval and air power is returning but not in the guise of a Soviet-American confrontation.
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).
The Crimea also includes air bases, which put the Russians in closer proximity for Mediterranean operations as well.
One can conceive of Crimea and the Black Sea ports and adjacent air facilities as the hub of a hub and spoke operation to cover the Mediterranean as the Russians modernize their air and sea assets and capabilities over the decade ahead.
It is part of an effort to expand Russian influence and to be able to support “friends” and “partners” and to not only show the flag but affect outcomes. The Russians are putting in play their own approach to coalition building for 21st century operations and reality.
It is not the Warsaw Pact way; but indirect strategy in support of Russia’s interests, and above all energy interests.
Bluefin 21, Artemis autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is shown on the deck aboard the Royal Australian Navy Australian Defense Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield. Joint Task Force 658 is supporting Operation Southern Indian Ocean, searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.
Navy Media Content Services, 4/11/14
According to the manufacturer:The Bluefin-21 is a highly modular autonomous underwater vehicle able to carry multiple sensors and payloads at once. It boasts a high energy capacity that enables extended operations even at the greatest depths. The Bluefin-21 has immense capability but is also flexible enough to operate from various ships of opportunity worldwide
The Bluefin 21, Artemis autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is hoisted back on board the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield after successful buoyancy testing in the Indian Ocean, as search efforts continue for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. (Photo: AP)
FREE-FLOODED MODULARITY – The vehicle design includes swappable payload sections and battery modules for in-field mission reconfiguration. Subsystems can be quickly accessed for rapid turnaround between missions and also allow for in-field maintenance, accelerating operational tempo.
EFFICIENT WORKHORSE – The Bluefin-21 is an efficient, deep-rated AUV able to execute surveys with demanding requirements typically addressed by larger, more cumbersome platforms. Its small size and ability to be launched and recovered from a simple A-frame or docking head allow it to take advantage of ships of opportunity.
ACCURATE NAVIGATION – The Bluefin-21 uses an INS to provide the best possible navigation accuracy. Dead reckoning drift is typically less than 0.1% of distance traveled, yielding higher quality data. USBL aiding further improves navigation accuracy.
AIR-SHIPPABLE – The vehicle, batteries and support equipment can be broken down and packaged into easily transportable sections, making the system ideal for time-critical and remote operations.
2014-04-12 More than 20 US Navy and Republic of Korea vessels, tens of air assets and more than 14,000 participating troops kicked of Exercise Ssang Yong on 27 March 2014.
It is one of the largest amphibian operational exercises in Asia, with the US Navy 7th Fleet and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (3rd MEB) involved, as well as the ROK Navy from Flotilla 5 and a small detachment of the Australian Army.
The deployed US Navy fleet units included the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the Boxer ARG, which means Ospreys, Cobras, Sea Stallions, Hueys and some Seahawks swarmed over sea and ground forces during the landings.
Approximately 7,500 U.S. Marine Corps and 2,000 U.S. Navy personnel participated in the exercise with approximately 3,500 ROK Marine Corps, 1,000 ROK navy and 130 Australian army forces.
The flight deck of LHD 6 USS Bonhomme Richard is loaded with aircraft during when the vessel moved through the East China Sea (Image credited to Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael Achterling)
Exercise Ssang Yong demonstrated the ability of a Marines Expeditionary Brigade headquarters to coordinate multiple forces arriving in theatre via amphibious shipping, along with a ROK Regimental Landing Team, into one amphibious fighting force.
The wrap up of the exercise was summarized by the USN report below:
By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Carla Burdt, Amphibious Squadron 11 Public Affairs
USS BONHOMME RICHARD – At Sea (NNS) 4/6/14
Sailors and Marines from Expeditionary Strike Group Seven (ESG 7) and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (3d MEB), along with their counterparts from the Republic of Korea (ROK), wrapped up exercise Ssang Yong 2014, April 5.
Ssang Yong, Korean for “twin dragons,” is an annual, bilateral amphibious assault exercise conducted in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operation by Navy and Marine forces with the ROK in to strengthen interoperability and working relationships across the range of military operations from disaster relief to complex, expeditionary operations.
“What Ssang Yong 2014 is all about is demonstrating the capabilities of the Navy and Marine Corps amphibious team,” said Rear Adm. Hugh Wetherald, Commander ESG 7. “There is more than just amphibious warfare, and that is working with our partners, working with our allies. This is one of those unique opportunities that we have to really integrate ourselves and work as an equal team as we project power.”
The exercise was the first to include a joint, combined command and control headquarters which was led by Wetherald; ROK Rear Adm. Chun Jung-soo, commander, Flotilla Five; Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy, commanding general, 3d MEB; and ROK Brig. Gen. Cho Kang-jae, deputy commander Landing Force.
More than 20 ships and 14,000 Sailors and Marines participated in the exercise.
“I’ve always said that our navies, any of our partners’ navies, are stronger when we work together than when we work apart,” said Wetherald. “As we brought the two flagships together, 500 yards apart from each other, that was really emblematic of the capability we have out here and how strong we are when we work together.”
During Ssang Yong 2014, 13 landing craft, including Landing Craft Air Cushion and Landing Craft Utility transported 263 pieces of equipment weighing a total of 3,328,494 pounds. The equipment transported included, six M1A1 tanks; High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles; Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements; Internally Transportable Vehicles; and, other equipment between Marine Prepositioning Forces (MPF) and Navy assets.
“We moved more than three million pounds of equipment over five days via landing craft,” said Capt. Michael Allen, Commander Amphibious Squadron 11 (PHIBRON 11) combat cargo officer. “During the rehearsal and ‘D-Day,’ the dynamic schedule came together and we executed perfectly. For two nations to come together and achieve what we did was phenomenal. We learned how to best communicate in order to identify priorities and get people and equipment to the beach.”
ESG 7 and 3d MEB also flew more than 800 aerial missions in support of the exercise and 74 U.S. and Korean amphibious assault vehicles were used during the amphibious landing. For Ssang Yong 2014, ESG 7 included the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and Boxer ARG and 3d MEB included the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and the 13th MEU.
“This was a tremendously complex exercise with thousands of Marines and thousands of Navy Sailors, over 20 ships coming together and, then, immediately executing,” said Wetherald. “It was a true and tried example of a mature relationship.”
The video above is of U.S. Marines and Sailors with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (31st MEU) conducting flight operations on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) at sea in preparation for Exercise Ssang Yong 2014.
Credit: III Marine Expeditionary Force Combat Camera, 3/26/14
In the video above , Brigadier Gen. John Frewen, commanding officer, 1st Brigade, Australian Army, welcomse the Marine Rotational Force Darwin or MRF-D to the Northern Territories. The Marines with MRF-D will conduct unilateral training and bilateral training with the Australian Defence Force in the Northern Territory and at existing ADF facilities during the six-month rotation.
What might not be as obvious as the forthcoming images of the cross-training is the cross modernization of the two forces.
It is not about the Marines simply coming ashore to train with the Aussies; it is about the Aussies accelerating their modernization within the region as well.
The Aussies are re-shaping their forces under the influence of a number of key new systems. The Aussies are undergoing a significant air combat modernization process. It began with the C-17, proceeded with the acquisition of 5 new Airbus tankers (being joined by 6 being bought by Singapore), 5 new Wedgetail airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) aircraft, and then the F-35.
During my time to the KC-30A squadron, RAAF officers took me through the simulators and let me try my hand at lowering the virtual boom to tank an F-16. Two of the five planes were at RAAF Base Amberley during the visit. Three of the five Aussie tanker aircraft are currently involved in maintenance, upgrade, testing, and residual acquisition activities in Madrid and Australia. The squadron fleet should be at full strength in 2015.
Last year, in combination with Australian C-17s, the KC-30A squadron supported several F/A-18 deployments to Guam as well as Darwin and Tindal in Australia’s Northern Territory. This activity demonstrated the ability of the RAAF to move an air wing and support it at extended range with a tanker, while also providing airlift support. This year the squadron has supported movement of Aussie F/A-18s from the United States across the Pacific and back to Australia.
Both operations underscore capabilities, which are part of shaping a 21st century Air Force. From discussions at RAAF Base Amberley and in Canberra, it is clear that the squadron is a work in progress that represents a significant boost in capability for the RAAF. The tanker’s potential is a clear advantage as seen by senior RAAF officers.
Standing up the squadron, finishing the procurement and getting initial use of the tanker underway is a prelude for what comes next – working through the best ways to use the tanker with the RAAF, and to work out its interoperable role in the region and beyond.
There have been problems with the boom on the tanker, but according to the head of the MRTT program in the Australian Department of Defence, the boom problem is well on the way to being resolved.
According to AVM Deeble, “We expect the boom to complete testing and undergo acceptance around third quarter of 2014. We are conducting the final Developmental and Qualification Test and Evaluation, which should be complete by mid 2014. We are focused on providing the RAAF with a firm basis for growing the boom capability by the end of 2014. Working collaboratively with Airbus Defence and Space through these final phases of the program will be key to delivering a world class tanker capability to the RAAF.”
He indicated that the MRTT boom is a very advanced system, which provides significantly more capability than existing boom systems. He has been working on the program for some time and commented that challenges with the boom have been both software and hardware. “There are elements of the hardware which have posed problems aerodynamically; and the integration of the software and hardware to ensure the required operating envelope have taken some time to develop.”
Clearly, the recent decision by Singapore to select the MRTT to replace its own fleet of KC-135Rs validates the position taken by the Australian Department of Defence. Indeed, AVM Deeble indicated that supporting Singapore during their acquisition program will remain a priority for RAAF and will ensure an interoperable regional MRTT capability.
The Wedgetail is another advanced system in the RAAF 21st century force and is operated by No. 2 squadron, one of the most famous air squadrons in the RAAF, formed in 1916. According to the Squadron Commander, the system is “on the books” and ready to go to serve Australian needs and to contribute to coalition defense.
The Squadron Commander highlighted that the message going forward with the squadron was three fold: grow, integrate and prepare. Growth meant simply to fill out the squadron and enhance its operational capabilities. Integrate meant to build the squadron’s ability to work within the battlespace, to work effectively with the other Aussie forces and with coalition partners. Prepare for the system will always be evolving.
The always evolving part of it is not widely appreciated. This is a software upgradeable aircraft with a defined launch point (IOC) but no fixed end point (FOC). The system will always be evolving and growing as the software code gets rewritten to reflect events and demands from the squadron.
The squadron works through its experience and shapes change orders which get sent to the procurement authorities to sort out priorities for the next round of upgrading the aircraft.
The difference between older and such a new system was outlined by one participant in the roundtable held with the squadron at the airbase as follows:
“We have in the same time frame bought a CRC system full up which will look pretty much like it is in 20 years; with Wedgetail it will look nothing like it does now in 20 years.”
The Aussies have named their tanker squadron the Dragons, so here we see at No. 2 squadron the technology “Maoists” focusing on “continuous revolution” provided for a software upgradeable aircraft. With the coming of the F-35, which is also a software upgradeable aircraft, the Aussies are getting real operational experience with software upgradeability with the Wedgetail squadron.
The Aussie navy has added new cutting edge radar systems deployed on their frigates and is adding new amphibious ships as well as Aegis ships. And they are looking to integrate the Wedgetail and their F-35s with the fleet to meet the various challenges and threats in the region.
The final major piece to be added is the F-35. The F-35 is viewed by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as disruptive technology, and is embraced as such by the RAAF leadership. It is not just about doing things you can do now with a replacement aircraft; it is about doing things you can not do now with a transformational system.
The Aussie approach was discussed before, during and after a workshop held by The Williams Foundation on behalf of the Australian COS of the RAAF in mid-March at Canberra. The focus of the seminar was on Air Combat Operations: 2025 and Beyond.
The Australian F-35 will enter into an environment of change and the central question addressed by the seminar was how to accelerate the kind of change necessary to deal with the threats and challenges in the neighborhood and beyond in the years ahead.
Brigadier Gen. John Frewen, commanding officer, 1st Brigade, Australian Army, discusses objectives for the deployment and the importance of training with Marine Rotational Force – Darwin. The Marines with MRF-D will conduct unilateral training and bilateral training with the Australian Defence Force in the Northern Territory and at existing ADF facilities during the six-month rotation.Marine Rotational Force Darwin, 4/11/14
At the heart of the program were three speakers: RAAF Fighter Pilot Matthew Harper, Royal Australian Air Force, Lt. Col. Chip Berke and the VMX-22 Commander Mike Orr.
The presence of the Marine aviators was a concrete manifestation of the cross-modernization opportunities.
These three operators addressed the question of what the fifth generation experience was all about and how that experience would affect the evolution of the force in the decade ahead. Having operators address the issue of transformation and transition really focused the audience, which included significant attendance by the next generation RAAF officers.
The Aussie modernization cross-cuts with the 10 year effort the USMC is undergoing to shape what the Marines refer to as a distributed laydown in the Pacific.
In broad terms, prior to the distributed laydown (ca. 2011), the Marines were located in Japan (25,000 in Mainland Japan and Okinawa), Hawaii (approximately 6,000) and on the West Coast (approximately 45,000 in California and Arizona). With the distributed laydown (ca. 2025), there will be a projected force distribution as follows: Mainland Japan and Okinawa (15,000), Guam (approximately 4700), Hawaii (approximately 8800), West Coast (approximately 43,000) and a rotational force in Northwest Australia of approximately 2500).
The working relationship of the USMC-USN team in the Pacific is operating in a dynamic decade in which various partners are evolving their own amphibious or expeditionary capabilities as well. The Australians and South Koreans are adding amphibious ships; the Japanese are extending the reach of their forces in the defense of Japan; and Singapore is adding F-35s and new tankers to extend its ability to defend the city-state.
The Marine Corps-USN team is obviously in the sweet spot to work these amphibious and expeditionary evolutions of core partners. And with regard to the new capabilities either in the region or coming the list is short but significant: the Osprey, the F-35B, the CH-53K, and the USS America. The Osprey is rapidly becoming a lynchpin for connecting the forces moving in the distributed laydown. It is also an intriguing platform for some players in the region who are thinking about its acquisition as well for it fits the geography and needs in the region so well.
The F-35B is coming first to Japan and will operate throughout the region. The Singhs are buying F-35Bs, the Aussies and Japanese for sure F-35As, with the Japanese interested in Bs as well. The point is simple: The Marines are coming first to the region with the airplane and are the launch point for shaping perceptions and crafting working relationships with key allies.
At the heart of shaping cross-cutting modernization is joint training. By using training ranges operating from Australia to the Mariana Islands to Guam, the Marines and the Aussies will shape common approaches built around the new systems. In an interview conducted in Hawaii in mid-March 2014 with the MARFORPAC Commanding General, Lt. General Robling, the key role which the training and cooperation with Australia was highlighted.
“The President and the Australian Prime Minister in 2011 made an agreement to bolster this partnership. It was about two allies that can benefit further from a stronger more cohesive relationship.
I believe expanding what we do together in the northern training ranges is the next step in furthering this relationship. The training ranges offer us a venue for training together in very high end and sometimes complex scenarios. Due to their remote location, this training is away from encroaching civilian populations, thereby allowing us to train without negatively impacting or encroaching on their daily lives. We all win.
Training over distance is difficult in very many places around the world, and especially in the Asia Pacific region. In fact, the northern ranges in Australia are ideal for that type of combined training. Complementary to these ranges will be the Joint Training Ranges we are looking to develop on some of the Marianas Islands in and around Guam, Saipan and Tinian. In these ranges, we hope to have the ability to train across a broad spectrum of military operations from small unit maneuver to higher end air-to-air, combined arms, electronic warfare, and missile defense. This training will enable us to shape new joint and coalition approaches to defense while strengthening the collective security in the region.”
In other words, the opportunity is not just for training but shaping relevant capabilities for 21st century operations. One of the organizers of the Williams Foundation seminar on 21st century air combat operations, Vice Air Marshal (Retired) John Blackburn summed up what he saw as the intersection of the USMC and Aussie modernizations.
“Having the Marines come onboard in Australia is important as well. It’s really good to see how a truly a joint force is doing its job. One of the challenges we’ll face in Australia is making sure that the Army, Air Force, and Navy work together in an even more integrated way to produce a better combat outcome.
And it’s one of the key challenges for the Air Force is going to be to communicate that the JSF it’s not just a shiny expensive airplane. This is a transformation point, a trigger. It can change the way not on the Air Force works but all the three services work together. The Marines are a great example of working the different elements of a joint force.”
In 1999 two Chinese officers published a study called “Unrestricted Warfare,” arguing that war itself had changed and that it had “morphed” into a phenomenon where the principles of war were no longer Clausewitzian, i.e. the use of armed force to compel the enemy to submit to one’s will.
Instead those principles now were “using all means, including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interests.”[i]
Although Clausewitz may well have successfully weathered this one of many attempts to debunk him, for it is hardly clear that they debunked his definition of war as an attempt to compel the enemy to do our will, today there can be little doubt that the forms of war we see on a global basis also correspond in many particulars to these concepts or, pace Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian war.[ii]
Today we see a global series of “unrestricted” wars, orchestrated by at least three governments, (Russia, Iran, and North Korea) all of which are clearly aimed at the US, its partners, and allies on a global level.
These wars are global and bring together states, terrorists, insurgents, bankers, high and low-ranking government, judiciary, customs, police, and security officials in many countries in loose overlapping networks that target US interests, allies, partners, or the US itself on multiple simultaneous and dynamic fronts not all of which actually involve the direct use of violence.
These forms of subversion and of unrestricted war could involve drug running, money laundering, bribery and corruption of high-placed officials, shady business deals, use of banks to evade US sanctions, e.g. on Iran, various forms of gun running, also but not necessarily in conjunction with the evasion of sanctions, e.g. North Korea, and outright support for revolution, insurgency, terrorism, civil war, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction using any and all of these means.
Beyond these aspects, these networks are always interpenetrated by states which in many cases are the moving spirits, i.e. the principals, behind them. In all these conflicts terrorists, organized crime, intelligence activity, criminalized business, revolutionaries, and governments all wear many hats simultaneously, making it extremely difficult to trace who is doing what, where, when, how, and why, to whom.
Furthermore the waging of unrestricted warfare comprises a Janus-faced operation in which supposedly or even actually illlicit relationships and publicly listed activities between states like arms sales and business relationships possess a second, shadow side that facilitate programs of action like weapons and drug smuggling, support for insurgencies etc.
Practicing the Art of Unrestricted Warfare
On any given day transnational threats involving two or more states or would-be states collaborating against a third party force themselves to our attention. Many, though by no means all, of these cases of transnational threats clearly represent threats against either U.S. interests or those of our allies and partners.
For example, in mid-July, 2013, Panamanian authorities discovered a North Korean ship carrying a Cuban missile and airplanes to North Korea for as yet undisclosed reasons. This cooperation, whatever its purpose, exemplifies what obviously is a well-established pattern of bilateral illicit cooperation in pursuit of strategic goals against American and allied interests, as well as a flagrant breach of a UN Security Council resolution.[iii]
But it is hardly an isolated case either for North Korea, Cuba, or for other actors in world affairs.
North Korea’s illicit activities have been well chronicled in the last few years and center on drug running, acquiring capital and technology for nuclear and conventional weapons and selling missile technology abroad for cash.[iv]
At the same time as this story broke Israeli sources reported that a report from West Point provided ample evidence for extensive government and military linkages at the highest level of Pakistan’s elite, including a director of Pakistan’s Atomic energy commission, connected to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization.[v] And activities that are clearly traceable to Iran continue to appear.
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on July 25, 2012, shows forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad fighting in the al-Qadam district of Damascus. The Syrian army and rebels on July 25, sent reinforcements to Aleppo to join the intensifying battle for the country’s second city, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the world “to stop the slaughter.” AFP
In 2013, Nigeria, a US ally, the authorities discovered a Hezbollah armory in Kano that was intended for use against Israel and Western interests. Nigerian authorities also clearly connected this armory to its indigenous terrorist groups, among them Boko Haram.
And given Hezbollah’s dependence on Iran for arms, it is quite possible that Tehran was involved in this instance.[vi] And, in the last year Iran’s cooperation with insurgents, terrorists, and criminals, a common nexus in Latin America and Africa, is now also finally receiving the attention it deserves.[vii]
As these and other examples show today’s global threat environment involves not just governments supporting insurgents which, after all, is a centuries-old phenomenon but the actual use by governments of international criminal syndicates, insurgents, and terrorists for purposes of carrying on an unrelenting campaign of military-political subversion of targeted states.
In this type of war, which is already upon us, our adversaries often wear multiple hats, serving simultaneously as businessmen, spies, criminals, terrorists, drug runners, or government officials. Moreover they form a loose transnational network comprising members of all of these and possibly other professions.
Neither is this form of warfare limited to the DPRK or Pakistan or to Third World areas. Much of it takes place across or at least through Europe as well.
But a common denominator is that such warfare is orchestrated by one or more state for purposes of obtaining strategic advantages, often against US interests or allies.
Thus this is not simply a problem of organized crime even though crime has plagued humanity since history began and remains a threat to societies everywhere.
Rather we are dealing with activities and organizations that include the use of organized crime syndicates and organizations for the systematic corruption, disruption, and potential takeover of state power in targeted countries, including numerous forms of association with insurgents and/or terrorists.
Therefore the criminal threat transcends crime and the linkages among actual criminals or criminalized governments and their “proxies” from country to country. The threat is much greater and much more diffuse than that.
In these wars, we encounter a network of states, criminals, — drug traffickers, traffickers in people and raw materials that are in one way or another contraband — including possibly nuclear or nuclear-related materials, conventional weapons and technologies for them, money laundering and classical espionage involving the acquisition of intelligence and the compromising of prominent people or those with access to key assets and information – insurgents, terrorists, spies, corrupt officials, and “businessmen” who moonlight as both spies and criminals.
The purposes of such operations not only entail the strengthening of these insurgent and/or criminal, terrorist groups, but also the subversion of governments, often the subversion of governments friendly to the U.S. In other words this is a form of what has been called asymmetric and/or political warfare carried on by networks.
The Russian Case
Russian, Iranian, and North Korean activities are simultaneously not only criminal in nature but also are strategic operations undertaken in pursuit of a national interest aiming at weakening the position of the US and its allies across the globe.
Arms transfers, up to and including technologies and parts needed for weapons of mass destruction, are a particularly dangerous example of this kind of war. For example, Russia’s controls over the missiles and other weapons that it has sold to Syria and Iran also proved to be remarkably porous as many of them went to Hezbollah in 2000-2006 and probably since then as well.[viii]
And Syria’s chemical warfare arsenal to a large degree originated in Russia or the Soviet Union.[ix] And there is good reason to believe that there is much hardware going to dangerous states from Russia through third parties or other unaccountable middlemen.
Already in July, 2000 Kommersant reported that:
The world community has long treated Belarus as a sickly child, of whom few demands are made, that had previously been exploited by Russia, which under U.S. pressure had to abandon direct cooperation in the military sphere with Iran.
Russian military-industrial complex output started reaching the Iranians via our Belarusian brothers, who had few commitments to Washington [and this was during the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement’s operation-author] Cooperation between Minsk and Baghdad has been developing rapidly of late.
Official statistics confirm that Belarusian-Iraqi trade turnover in 1999 came to $6million.
According to Kommersant’s information, that indicator was understated at least 10-fold.[x]
Obviously this form of gunrunning occurs in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa as well. Iran’s ties with Russia offer an even more dangerous example of what happens when the arms sales business becomes enmeshed with high-level corruption leading the criminalization of state policy.
The 2009 incident of the Arctic Sea, a ship that reportedly left Russia and was supposedly hijacked by pirates in the Baltic Sea and disappeared until the Russian Navy tracked it down in the Cape Verde Islands illustrates how the cancer of corruption in the arms trade infected Russian arms sales to Iran.
Russian military cadets of the Russian Emergency Situations ministry march during the annual Victory Day parade at Red Square in Moscow, Saturday, May 9, 2009. Victory Day, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Russia’s most important secular holiday, and the parade reflected the Kremlin’s efforts to revive the nation’s armed forces and global clout.
More and more it looks like this ship was chartered to run Russian missile parts to Iran, indicating an extensive network of corruption throughout the arms sales and military industrial complex establishments.
Allegedly the Mossad discovered this sale and tipped off Russian intelligence so as not to embarrass Russia.[xi] But this situation embodies the dangerous link between the Russian arms mafia and the government, including corrupt officials and middlemen.
As an Israeli columnist wrote at the time:
In modern-day Russia, there really does exist a symbiosis between the state and the weapons mafia.
In this situation, the mafia does not always have to act in circumvention of the state machine to supply weapons to pariah states.
The mafia — and this might be the most important conclusion to be drawn from the story of the disappearnce of the notorious freighter (Arctic Sea-author) – – can be used as a weapon for state policy.
Clearly, the Rusisan government will not dare use official channels today to supply missile systems to Iran.
However, when it is the mafia at work, illegally selling these systems, well, what can the government do when it is certain that merely lumber is being exported from the country?[xii]
Even more serious charges surfaced later in a report by the leftist forum.msk.ru newspaper. It alleged that the Russian government, operating through the GRU led by General Valentin Korabel’nikov, put together a decade-long program of clandestine weapons sales to Iran after 1998 to keep Israel and Washington guessing as to Iran’s true capabilities.
This gray and black market program also enlisted the cooperation of the governments of Algeria and Syria, the arms brokers Viktor Bout and Munzer al-Kassar (who was arrested in Spain in 2007 and since extradited to the United States), and Russian organized crime figures in Spain, along with members of the PKK who have bases in Iran and engage regularly in arms trafficking.
In other words, Moscow orchestrated a long-running program of illicit and clandestine arms sales to Iran, involving terrorists, insurgents, criminals, and complicit governments until the network began to break down with the arrests of the Kurdish contact Zakhar Kalashov, thanks to the efforts, among others, of Anatoly Litvinenko who was murdered in 2006, probably by Russian intelligence.
That initial arrest led to other arrests, the breakup of the program, Algeria’s return of Russian weapons, allegedly because they were defective, the sacking of General Korabel’nikov, the break up of the network with the arrests of the two arms brokers, and an abortive last attempt, using the Arctic Sea to run weapons to Iran in 2009.[xiii]
If these reports are true they would represent the depths of corruption to which the arms trade has brought the Russian government in its linkages with organized crime, linkages that are also a fact of life in the government’s energy business, and illustrate the dangers this trade poses to Moscow and to international security more generally.
But they would also perfectly exemplify the networked scope and significant transnational reach of such operations involving governments, bankers, criminal syndicates, insurgents if not terrorists, arms sellers and suppliers, shipping organizations, customs officials, etc. in a host of countries.
Since Iran then re-exports these weapons, including possibly Shahab-3 missiles, to other rogue states like Syria or terrorist groups this amounts to playing with fire.[xiv] This urge to play with fire and also to be on both sides of the action in the Middle East is not new.
We have seen it earlier in Iraq. Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 Russia simultaneously sought partnership with Washington, a free hand at home and in the CIS against terrorists, and friendship with Iraq. It was prepared to look the other way if Washington took account of Russian interests in Iraq, more broadly the Gulf, and the CIS because those interests were both economic and political and because they served to enrich key political elites in Moscow and validate Russia’s stance as a legitimate actor regarding Iraq’s destiny beyond Russia’s membership in the Security Council.
Those interests included large debts of $7-8 Billion, large-scale energy contracts to develop Iraqi oil fields, large-scale trade in Russian goods under the notoriously corrupt oil for food program that, as we now know, enriched many members of Russia’s top elite.
Beyond that the Gulf states in general were and are regarded by two of Russia’s most prominent lobbies after energy, defense industry and the Ministry of Atomic Affairs (Minatom), as fertile hunting grounds for large profitable sales.[xv]
At the same time Russian intelligence was furnishing Saddam Hussein with the results of Western conversations about Iraq and running weapons to Iraq, again indicating Moscow’s desire to keep a foot in both camps.[xvi]
Meanwhile for over a decade probably until 2010, Moscow had been the main provider of external support for Iran’s missile, air defense, space, and navy programs.[xvii] This cooperation went back a long way. In 1998 Yevgenia Albats outlined Russo-Iranian collaboration in helping Iran build nuclear missiles for use as a future IRBM to target Israel and Turkey.
Iran also hopes to build an ICBM to target the United States and Europe. Albats detailed the conscious participation and coordination of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the State Commissions on Non-Proliferation, and on Science and Technology, Yevgeny Primakov’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and probably the Ministry of Defense in projects to send Russian scientists to Iran to transfer nuclear know-how as Iran aims at IRBM’s and then ICBMs.[xviii]
The large number of Russian scientific-technological institutions helping Iran develop its programs strongly suggests governmental involvement in coordinating this interaction, especially as many of them either have close connections with the government, or are under its authority, or claim to have informed the government of what they were selling to Iran.[xix]
The known technology transfers of WMD to Iran involve production technology and testing of the rocket engine for the SS-4 missile in violation of the MTCR, the reactor at Bushehr, as well as the continuing exchange of scientific know-how with Iranian scientists and/or training in Russia for them.[xx]
The Key Elements of Unrestricted Warfare
Unrestricted warfare, according to its Chinese authors has eight pillars.[xxi]
The first pillar is that this form of warfare takes place globally or on a 360-degree observation and design and utilizes all forms of kinetic and non-kinetic defense capabilities and factors. The financing and support of crime, addiction, corruption, arms transfers, illegal smuggling, and the corruption of public and governmental institutions across the globe certainly matches with this requirement.
This “omni-directionality,” to use the authors’ term, eliminates distinctions between what is and is not the battlefield in pursuit of strategic advantages.
Using IT and the other tools of the trade, purveyors of this warfare essentially have taken the Leninist solution of using Socialist movements and ramified Communist party political and military organizations as surrogates for the lack of an organized or capable army to a new level.[xxii]
Every conceivable avenue of approach is therefore sanctioned, as this war knows no restrictions. And thus wars of these kinds encompass the entire network of a society’s relationships.
The second pillar is synchrony, actions taking place at the same time across the depth of the entire “theater”. All the activities described here are ongoing and occurring globally. But they can ideally be orchestrated or turned on and off like a rheostat as circumstances in any particular theater warrant.
For instance, principals could decide at any given time to elevate the crisis in Latin America while downgrading support for insurgencies in Africa or vice versa.
The third pillar is limited objectives. The aim is not to destroy the US and its military or government or necessarily those of any other state but rather to weaken them and prevent their ability to restrict the aggressor’s activity. The goal is to keep the level of provocation below that threshold (unless necessary) where the targeted state might lash out and destroy the network in his country or Russian, Chinese or DPRK capabilities altogether.
Nevertheless in targeted Third World areas the cumulative impact of these operations over time is to destabilize or even take over the targeted states if not entire regions around them, e.g. Colombia.
The fourth pillar logically follows that in pursuit of the limited objectives that are within the reach of the active network waging this kind of war and within that framework of limited goals the attacking force should pursue “unlimited measures.” This entails the unrestricted employment of measures that are restricted only to the pursuit of those objectives.
For Chinese writers Sherman’s march to the sea represents a burn and plunder operation that shunned actual combat in order achieve a limited objective of attacking the South’s will and capacity to fight without giving battle. That exemplifies an unlimited measure in support of a limited objective.[xxiii]
The fifth pillar is asymmetry, operations conducted in ways contrary to enemy expectations or understanding of the balance of symmetry. The breadth and scope of the operations described in these papers certainly lend themselves to that kind of asymmetric operations since their initiators now command not only a global reach but also a diverse global portfolio of capabilities with which to conduct their operations anywhere in the world.
The sixth pillar is minimal consumption.
What this means is waging this war with the least necessary expenditure of resources. And as we know from our own bitter experience this translates into a cost-imposing strategy, e.g. the minimal cost of the Al-Qaida 9/11 operation vs. the huge costs of Afghanistan not to mention Iraq.
The orchestrators of these kinds of operations, whether they be in Moscow, Tehran, Caracas, Pyongyang, or elsewhere have within their capability the means to (or they may so believe) to launch similar cost-imposing crises against the US in “peripheral areas” that Washington and its allies must nonetheless spend time, money, and men to defend while they can initiate them at minimal cost.
The seventh pillar, which flows from the foregoing pillars, is that of multi-dimensionality, namely the coordination and allocation of all forces, military and otherwise, that can be mobilized, to accomplishment of the task at hand and realization of the objective in question.
This entails coordination and cooperation among all kinds of forces in different spheres, e.g. the coordination of partisan with regular army warfare on the Eastern Front in World War II.
Lastly the eighth pillar is the continuous adjustment and control of the entire process in dynamic fashion, using all the instruments of warfare as conceived here and of national power towards accomplishment of the objective.[xxiv]
Information Warfare (IW) is a key aspect of unrestricted warfare.
IW in this context does not refer primarily to the disabling of physical infrastructure, e.g. electricity grids, power plants, etc. like the well-known Stuxnet virus used against Iran’s nuclear program but rather, as defined by Russian and Chinese authorities alike to a much broader concept.
For example, in 2009, First Deputy Chief of the Russian General staff, Alexander Burutin stated that IW is not only essential in disabling command control structures (C2) of military establishments but more importantly:
The essence of contemporary information attacks lies in altering the outside principles of societal structure and the life of society with the help of information expansion.
This can be done by imposing onto the citizens moral norms and cultural traditions that are foreign to them.
Unfortunately, so far, our efforts have been directed at the defense of separate vial facilities, at a time when we have to be constructing a correlated information defense system.[xxv]
Similarly Chinese military forces have been trained since 2003 in what China calls Public Opinion Warfare, “a concept that seeks to support combat operations efforts by strengthening public support, demoralizing foes, and building international support through innovative tactics employing mass media.”[xxvi]
In other words, this form of IW, like unrestricted and strategic hybrid warfare, recognizes no limits to the scope of its activity. The entire socio-economic-cultural-political-informational-military space of the targeted country is fair game.
Not only do Russian and Chinese strategists believe that IW or one or another form of this political warfare (also using IW), they believe that this is US strategy and is being used against them.[xxvii]
Worse yet, incautious American analyses claiming that we employed such a strategy to effectuate regime change in Serbia in 2000 will only lend further credence to such views.[xxviii] Thus the “takeaway” point here is that their analysts now believe (if ours do not they will say we still practice this strategy) that regime change in unfriendly states can be accomplished through largely non-violent means, or a combination of these low-level forms of violence, plus subversion, and IW as described here.
Indeed, some Russian analysts maintain that this is how we took down the Soviet Union.[xxix] Accordingly in discussing these eight pillars we must always remember that they are being deployed simultaneously and in tandem with IW as part of an overall strategic approach.
Shaping an Approach to Compete in an Age of Unrestricted Warfare
It should be noted that the capabilities of the US and its allies to deter armed conflict has led as well to adversaries shifting to focus on a broadened concept of war which is suggested by the unrestricted war concept.
The recent military actions by Russia in Ukraine are the operational outreach of an unrestricted war concept, whereby the goal is to use the armed forces to re-shape the strategic environment in your interest through chess moves, rather than directly confront the adversaries military might. The goal is to erode, not confront, and then whittle away with the use of armed force where feasible.
The Russian actions in Georgia and Ukraine are clear examples of building in military intervention tools into a broader strategic mosaic.
Georgia has been the largest per capita contributor to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Georgian troops fought shoulder-to-shoulder with U.S. forces in the dangerous southern provinces and sustaining casualties. Credit Image: Bigstock
For the US Armed forces as a whole and the government there are several lessons that may be drawn from the assertion and practice of unrestricted warfare.
First, we are facing multiple overlapping adversaries and networks.
Cuba’s links to both North Korea and Russia exemplify the kind of loose, overlapping relationships involved. But the multi-national aspects described in the papers here involving arms sellers, bankers, customs and airport officials, etc. in many different countries all of whom play a part in facilitating such activities throughout the world.
While a plan of action may originate in Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, or potentially Beijing; it can be carried out through these intermediaries in a host of locales and ramped up or down as the situation, seen from the principals’ vantage point, warrants.
Second, accordingly we may liken these threats to rheostats that can adjust temperature up or down as needed.
While the framework of operations is always in a state of latent if not manifest readiness, the scale of the threat can be adjusted higher or lower in one or more location as the situation calls for.
This could lead to the simultaneous eruption of multiple challenges to us and our allies and partners in multiple locations.
And these multiple challenges can range from classic military challenges to indirect pressure points as well.
Third, the challenges we face are multifaceted and blend the classic military with a much wider range of tool sets. They can range from the Russian use of energy revenues, tied to criminal activities to subvert European governments from the Baltic to the Black Sea, to gun running in the Balkans and Caucasus to the activities described above to the kinds of transactions made by North Korea and Syria, etc., to actual military operations in selected theaters, or to sustained IW operations as described by Russo-Chinese writers or campaigns like that in Serbia to unseat Milosevic.[xxx] Or then to armed intervention into states that are susceptible to map change, such as Georgia or Ukraine.
Consequently and fourth, the nature of the US response demands an entirely new approach.
Under the long-term conditions of fiscal and manpower restraint that we will be operating under, in each country what is required is first of all a genuine “whole of government approach.” The military will often play, if anything, an input role to be combined with members of organizations like the FBI, DEA, the Treasury Department, intelligence agencies, the Coast Guard, police organizations, and advisory teams of the appropriate military services in the host country.
Stovepipes must be ruthlessly broken, information shared, action coordinated laterally as well as vertically, and genuine country teams must be permanently in action. Moreover, those teams or our own and allied networks must often act proactively since we now live in what analysts call a risk society where we may not be able to specify a direct, linear process between cause and effect.
Risks are often unknowable, submerged, and latent but not visible and adversarial behavior is much less predictable or even deferrable. Therefore we must often act or at least be ready to act in a proactive and precautionary fashion.[xxxi]
Moreover, and fifth, given the constraints upon us due to manpower, fiscal, and political restrictions in host countries, more often than not it is likely that the main role played by the U.S. military will be one of advising and training, as part of the preparation for the support of allies and partners in dealing with a multiplicity of threats.
The US military in all of its services, at least in peacetime, must adopt an operational concept that emphasizes security cooperation as a means to both deter potential adversaries from striking at US partners and to forestall war rather than to deter by means of operations that are not easily conceivable because it cannot mount long-range strikes on its own, except in limited cases.
Indeed, the Navy-USMC team already embraces the idea of enhanced security cooperation to forestall and deter wars even as it is steadily moving to implement its air-sea battle concept.
As CNO Admiral Jonathan Greenert has tated,
The Navy-Marine Corps team provides the nation offshore options to deter, influence and win in an era of uncertainty.
Our naval forces are at their best when they are forward, assuring allies and building partnerships, deterring aggression without escalation, defusing threats without fanfare, and containing conflict without regional disruption.
We keep the Fleet forward through a combination of rotational deployments from the United States, Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Japan, Guam and Italy, and forward stationing ships in places such as Bahrain or Diego Garcia.
Our ability to operate forward depends on our U.S. bases and strategic partnerships overseas that provide ―places‖ where the Navy-Marine Corps team can rest, repair, refuel and resupply.[xxxii]
Finally our role should be preventative, i.e. we, operating with our partners and allies must aim to nip threats in the bud and forestall them rather than let them grow into full-fledged insurgencies, civil wars, etc.
We must understand that not only are unrestricted or strategic hybrid warfare globally conceived forms of unending positional warfare directed against us, but also that these wolves have long since been at the door and that such warfare occurs now on a global basis in multiple formats but with the overarching strategic aim of weakening us and our allies and partners.
Shaping an interactive and integrated capacity to deal with a set of cascading means to reshape the map and to undercut our interests is the task for the next decade of the 21st century.
Dr. Stephen Blank has written and analyzed the Russians and other strategic players for many years. Currently, he is a Senior Fellow American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC.
Editor’s Note: The key role of exercises and training is well understood by key parts of the US military and we have written frequently about the centrality of this role in shaping a distributed strategy in the Pacific, or deterrence in depth.
And earlier Douglas Farah provided a multiple part series on the role of various global networks in shaping a challenging strategic environment for the US and its allies:
[iii] Rick Gladstone, Gerry Mullany, and Choe Sang-Hun, “Panama Seizes North Korea-Flagged Ship for Weapons,” New York Times, July 16, 2013, www.nytimes.com
[iv] Sheema Chestnut, “Illicit Activity and Proliferation; North Korean Smuggling Networks,” International Security, XXXII, No. 1, Summer, 2007, pp. 80-111, Raphael Perl, “Drug Trafficking and North Korea: Issues for U.S. Policy,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 2007; Liana Sun Wyler and Dick K. Nanto, “North Korean Crime-for-Profit Activities,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress,, 2008
[v]Open Source Center, OSC Summary, in English, July 1, 2013, www.opensource.gov
[vii] Cynthia J. Arnson, “Testimony by Cynthia J. Arnson, Director, Latin American Program
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs, “Iran’s Influence and Activity in Latin America”, February 16, 2012; Douglas Farah, “Testimony of Douglas Farah, Senior Fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center, , Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs, “Iran’s Influence and Activity in Latin America”, February 16, 2012; Roger Noriega, “Testimony of Ambassador Roger F. Noriega,
Thursday, Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs, “Iran’s Influence and Activity in Latin America”, February 16, 2012; Ilan Berman, “Iran’s Influence and Activity in Latin America, Testimony Before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs, February 16, 2012; Ilan Berman, “Testimony Before the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency,” July 9, 2013; Cynthia Arnson, Haleh Esfandiari, and Adam Stubits, Eds., Iran in Latin America: Threat or ‘Axis of Annoyance,’, Woodrow Wilson Center Reports on the Americas, No. 23, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center , 2012 are just some of these assessments
[viii] Andrew McGregor, “Concerns Mount Over Hezbollah’s Rearmament,” Jamestown Terrorism Focus, III, No. 38, October 3, 2006; Iason Athanasiadis, “How Hi-Tech Hezbollah Called the Shots,” Asia Times Online, September 9, 2006; Mikhail Barabanov, “Russian Anti-Armor Weapons and Israeli Tanks in Lebanon,” Moscow Defense Brief, NO. 4 (10) 2007, “Russia Denies Supplying Hezbollah with Missiles,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Features, August 25, 2006
[ix] Janis Bruehl, “Where Did Syria’s Chemical Weapons Come From,?”Propublicahttp://www.propublica.org/article/where-did-syrias-chemical-weapons-come-from; James Brooke, “Russia Helped Build Syria’s Chemical Weapons,” The Moscow Times, September 11, 2013, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/russia-helped-build-syrias-chemical-weapons/485870.html
[x] Moscow, Kommersant in Russian, July 19, 2000, FBIS SOV, July 19, 2000
[xi] “’Israel Link’ In Arctic Sea Case,” BBC, September 9, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/h/europe/8247273.htm
[xii] Vitaly Portnikov, “The Phantom Ship and a Living Mafia,” Tel Aviv, Vesti-2 Supplement, in Russian, September 10, 2009, FBIS SOV, September 10, 2009
[xiii] “Global Alternative: The Logical conclusion of a major Failure of Russian Intelligence,” Moscow, www.forum.msk.ru, in Russian, November 9, 2009, FBIS SOV, November 9, 2009
[xiv] Jerusalem, DEBKA-Net Weekly Internet Version, in English, July 21, 2006, FBIS SOV, July 21, 2006
[xv]Ariel Cohen, “Russia and the Axis of Evil: Money, Ambition, and U.S. Interests”;Eugene B. Rumer, “Russia’s Policies Toward the Axis of Evil: Money and Geopolitics in Iraq and Iran,” Testimony to the House International Relations Committee, February 26, 2003,wwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/rume0226; Celeste A. Wallander, “Russian Interest in Trading With the “Axis of Evil”, Ibid., www.house.internatonal_Relations/108/wall/0226
[xvi] David Harrison, “Revealed: Russia spied on Blair for Saddam,” The Daily Telegraph, April 13, 2003, www.telegraph.co.uk
[xvii] Alexander Nemets and Steffany Trofino, “Russia: Tipping the Balance in the Middle East,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, XXII, NO. 3, July, 2009, pp. 367-382; Alexander Nemets and Robert W. Kurz, “The Iranian Space Program and Russian Assistance,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, XXII, NO. 1, 2009, pp. 87-96
[xviii] Moscow, Novaya Gazeta Ponedelnik, in Russian, March 16-22, 1998, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Arms Control, (Henceforth FBIS TAC) 98-076, March 17, 1998
[xix] Kenneth Katzman, “Iran’s Long-Range Missile Capabilities,” REPORT of the COMMISSION TO ASSESS THE BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES, July 15, 1998 Pursuant to Public Law 201, 104th Congress, Appendix III, Unclassified Working Papers, pp. 198-199, David Fillipov, “What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Firm Calls Business as Usual,” Boston Globe, August 19, 1998, p. 1
[xx] Moscow, Komsomolskaya Pravda, in Russian, October 22, 1997, FBIS TAC, 97-295, October 23, 1997
[xxi] Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui; LTC. William T. Hagestad, II, USMA, (RET), 21st Century Chinese Cyberwarfare, Rolling Meadows, IL: IT Governance, 2012, pp. 56-61
[xxii] Stephen Blank, “Class War on the Global Scale: The Culture of Leninist Political Conflict”, Stephen J. Blank Lawrence E. Grinter, Karl P. Magyar, Lewis B. Ware, Bynum E. Weathers, Conflict, Culture & History: Regional Dimensions, Maxwell AFB, Al.: Air University Press, 1993Conflict, Culture, and History: Regional Dimensions, Air University Press: Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1993, pp. 1-55
[xxiii] Hagestad, pp. 56-61. We need not agree with this assessment of Sherman’s march to understand what the Chinese authors are driving at. The accuracy of their perceptions is not the issue here. Rather it is the nature of that perspective which is of importance.
[xxv] Moscow, Svobodnaya Pressa, in Russian, March 17, 2009,FBIS SOV, March 17, 2009
[xxvi]Open Source Center, Analysis, “PLA Refines Study, Practice of ‘Public Opinion Warfare,’ FBIS SOV, November 17, 2008
[xxvii] Stephen Blank, “Information Warfare a la Russe,” Paper Presented to the Conference: Cyberspace: Malevolent Actors, Criminal Opportunities, and Strategic Competition, Ridgway Center of the University of Pittsburgh,” November 1-2, 2012; Timothy Thomas, China’s Cyber Incursions: a Theoretical Look At What They See and Why They Do it Based on a Different Strategic Method of Thought,” Paper Presented at GSPIA-SSI Conference on Information Warfare, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA November 1-2, 2012
[xxviii] Gregory L. Schulte, “Regime change Without Military Force: Lessons From Overthrowing Milosevic,” Prism, IV, No. 2, Summer, 2013 pp. 45-56
[xxix] Blank, “Information Warfare a la Russe”; Thomas
[xxxi] Yee-Kuang Heng, “Reflexive Rationality and the Implications for Decision-Making,” Heidi Krkinen, Ed., Strategic Decision-Making in Crisis and War, Helsinki: National Defense University, Department of Strategic and Defense Studies, Series 2 Research Reports No. 42, 2010, pp. 25-29
[xxxii] Admiral Jonathan Greenert. “Statement of Admiral Jonathan Greenert ,Chief of Naval Operations Before the Congress on FY 2013 Department of Navy Posture, March 2012, http://www.navy.mil/cno/120316_PS.pdf, p. 8
