Defense XXI (eBook)

Chapter One:
Crisis Capabilities and Escalation Management

Our focus over the past few years has been on the shift from the Middle Eastern land wars to the strategic competition with peer competitors. The preparation for the high-end fight is a key part of this refocus, but not the sole focus; rather the key challenge is to have the capabilities and skill to shape effective crisis management and to be able to deliver escalation control.

The peers we are talking about are nuclear powers. Any high-end fight will be shaped by the presence of nuclear weapons in such an engagement. Clearly, there is need for the United States to protect its interests short of nuclear engagement, but the United States is not the only player in such calculations.

This means that building out conventional war-fighting capabilities entails thinking through from the outset how packages of conventional forces can be clustered for crisis management events in ways that provide for effective escalation control. This requires civilians to prepare for escalation management, rather than when facing an event which can spin out of control, either ignoring or capitulating to the peer competitor. It is about doing more than verbal admonishment or zoom meetings, or being reduced to invoking economic sanctions, or otherwise limited use tasks, which often have little real effect on deterring an authoritarian peer competitor.

The mindset of the peer competitor is a key part of preparing for crisis management as well.

This means understanding what might allow for successful crisis management when dealing with such different cultural manifestations of global authoritarians such as Russia or China. This has a clear effect on the forces which might be tasked with performing crisis management tasks. How to avoid the seams that the Russians exploit in normal times, and that they will accentuate through various means of coercion in a crisis?

In our discussions with both Commander Second Fleet (C2F), and with Allied Joint Force Command Norfolk, it is clear Vice Admiral Lewis and his team focused from the outset of the 2018 standup of the new C2F on how to shape a fleet which is optimized for crisis management and on how to operate in such a way that the Russians can exploit the operational seams in the North Atlantic.

The emphasis of the Nordics on a significant strengthening of their collaborative capabilities and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reset in the region have provided a key context within which the U.S. and allied fleets are working new ways to distribute the force to the point of effect but to do so in a way that the force is integrable across the region. What this means is the key role of the “relevant nations” in North Atlantic defense needs to be to understand events in their region from the standpoint of crisis management. And to be able to correlate that understanding with clear and decisive military and civilian leadership actions to convey to the Russian leadership what deterrence means in a specific case.

Deterrence is not a universal state; it is delivered in times of key events shaping pre-crisis or crisis challenges. As Dr. Paul Bracken, the noted strategist who recently retired from Yale University, put it in a 2018 piece: “The key point for today is that there are many levels of intensity above counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, yet well short of total war. In terms of escalation intensity, this is about one-third up the escalation ladder. Here, there are issues of war termination, disengagement, maneuvering for advantage, signaling—and yes, further escalation—in a war that is quite limited compared to World War II, but far above the intensity of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan….

“A particular area of focus should be exemplary attacks. Examples include select attack of U.S. ships, Chinese or Russian bases, and command and control. These are above crisis management as it is usually conceived in the West. But they are well below total war. Each side had better think through the dynamics of scenarios in this space.

“Deep strike for exemplary attacks, precise targeting, option packages for limited war, and command and control in a degraded environment need to be thought through beforehand. The Russians have done this, with their escalate to deescalate strategy. I recently played a war game where Russian exemplary attacks were a turning point, and they were used quite effectively to terminate a conflict on favorable terms. In East Asia, exemplary attacks are also important as the ability to track U.S. ships increases.

“Great power rivalry has returned. A wider range of possibilities has opened up. But binary thinking—that strategy is either low intensity or all-out war—has not.”2

Warning Time, Events, and Crisis Management

In an important paper by Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith, both Professors currently at the Strategic and defence studies centre of the Australian national University, the authors address the question of the impact of reduced warning time upon Australian defense and security.3 This comes from both the nature of the Chinese challenge, and the changing nature of threats, such as cyber-attacks. How best to defend Australia in an environment with reduced warning time?

Although obviously about Australia, the discussion in the report raises a broader set of questions on how to know when an event is setting in motion a chain of events which provide a direct threat to a liberal democratic nation and how to respond. It also raises the question of shaping capabilities which can be inserted into a crisis early enough to provide confidence in an ability to have effective escalation management tools available as well.

The question of an ability to move force rapidly to a crisis becomes increasingly significant as escalation control returns as a key element of constraining, managing, and protecting one’s interests in a crisis. This is why I have preferred to focus on full spectrum crisis management as the challenge facing the liberal democracies in meeting the challenges of 21st century authoritarian powers, rather than simply preparing for the high-end fight. And there is another reason: it is very likely that a high-end fight between the major powers will end up entailing nuclear use. The reality is that we are engaged in ongoing limited war with the authoritarian powers, if one considers gray zone conflict and hybrid operations as subsumed under a concept of 21st century limited war.

But for Australia, what the authors underscore is the importance of deterrence through denial with regard to the Chinese threat. And to deal with this threat, the government’s emphasis on long-range strike is a key part of what the authors see as a way ahead.

As the authors of the report argue: “Having a deterrent force based on the concept of denial—as distinct from deterrence through the much more demanding concept of deterrence through punishment—should be more affordable. Deterrence through punishment involves attacking the adversary’s territory, whereas deterrence through denial is limited to attacking the adversary’s forces and associated infrastructure directly threatening us. In any case, the idea of Australia being able to inflict unacceptable punishment on a big power such as China would be ridiculous. The bottom-line for defense policy is that as confidence in deterrence by denial goes up, our dependence on early response to warnings should go down.”

Paul Dibb Outside the Hedley Bull Centre, Australian National University, November 2013. Credit: SDSC Photograph Collection.

A key part of expanding the buffer to manage crises entails Australia enhancing self-sufficiency and self-reliance through expanded stockpiling of fuel and key war stocks. And over time, some new systems will be added through domestic production as well, notably as the autonomous weapons revolution evolves and accelerates.

As the authors warn:

“Australia now needs to implement serious changes to how warning time is considered in defense planning. The need to plan for reduced warning time has implications for the Australian intelligence community, defense strategic policy, force structure priorities, readiness, and sustainability. Important changes will also be needed with respect to personnel, stockpiles of missiles and munitions, and fuel supplies.

“We can no longer assume that Australia will have time gradually to adjust military capability and preparedness in response to emerging threats. In other words, there must be a new approach in defense to managing warning, capability, and preparedness, and detailed planning for rapid expansion and sustainment.”

The United States remains the indispensable ally for many reasons, but the U.S. will be preoccupied in crises impacting its own interests as well. This means that an expanded focus on building out Australian buffer capabilities will be significant to shaping an effective response to reduced warning times.

New digital technologies have altered the question of what warning time is all about. Notably, with regard to the cyber threats, when is there an attack, and what does it mean? As the authors note:

“A campaign of cyberattack and intensified cyber-exploitation against Australia could...