The Weaponization of Everything
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/201...seone_today_nl
This short article is the most concise, yet comprehensive description of the gray zone or competition short of armed conflict that I have seen.
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augmenting their substantial political, economic, military, and commercial capabilities, Beijing and Moscow are mastering the “weaponization of everything” to achieve exploitable hypercompetitive advantages vis-ŕ-vis the United States. Their “hammers” range from political coercion, predatory economics and strategic extortion, to information warfare and subversion, covert action, and overt disregard for international norms.
We need to expand our view of multi-domain warfare to address other domains beyond the doctrinal ones and compete in those domains short of armed conflict. These strategies are hardly new in the historical sense, but the U.S. has become an astrategic nation. As the article states, we have failed to adapt to a post U.S. primacy world. I would add we subconsciously cling to the "End of History" myth and over emphasize the value of soft power as a means and way to an end.
Our adversaries decisively and deliberately maneuver and compete in domains beyond maritime, land, space, air, and cyber to achieve their policy aims over time (extended battles that require strategic patience). In contrast, the U.S. military national defense strategy narrowly focuses on improving lethality in the doctrinal domains, while our adversaries execute sophisticated whole of society campaigns to achieve their ends that largely neutralize our conventional military power.
The article accurately points out we are not even on the defense, much less the offense. However, once we wake up to the growing threat presented by these competitors to our way of life and internal stability, I believe we have the ability to prevail in this competition, yet time is not on our side.
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As warlike behavior migrates into new competitive spaces – strategic influence, commerce, culture, domestic politics, cyberspace, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum — the U.S. government and private sector must recognize the far-reaching and growing hazards of hypercompetition and rival gray-zone strategies. The boundaries between war and peace, battlefield and market, and adversary and competitor are dissolving. If the United States is to effectively compete for position and influence in this turbulent and dangerous environment, it requires an urgent meeting of the minds to bring a more collaborative stance to hypercompetitive great-power rivalry.
Can we please learn from history?
This is an article by Professor Anatol Lieven, Kings War Studies, which appeared in my electronic reading list today, but was published pre-Xmas in The National Interest, so some may have read this before.
The sub-title says:
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In their enthusiasm for a new cold war against China and Russia, the western establishments of today are making a mistake comparable to that of their forbears of 1914.
He opens with:
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This year saw the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, in which some 16 million Europeans died, two great European countries were destroyed, and others crippled. This year may also be seen by future historians as the last year of the period between the cold wars, when after 29 years of relative quiet, the world's major powers once again moved into positions of deep and structural mutual hostility.
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/anatol-lieven/can-we-please-learn-from-history? or The National Interest:https://nationalinterest.org/feature...522?page=0%2C1
The national defense strategy a year later
From the SWJ Journal: THE NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY A YEAR LATER: A SWJ DISCUSSION WITH ELBRIDGE COLBY
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/ar...elbridge-colby
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Principled realism focuses through a realist lens on building a free, open, and dignified political order within the international system. The logic is that America needs to play power politics so that we don’t live in a power politics world. Principled realism accepts that power and especially the agglomeration of power determines international outcomes. But it seeks to adapt that reality in service of positive ends.
Throughout the interview, he limits his view of power to brute military force, both conventional and nuclear. While these elements will remain relevant for a nation-state vying for power on the world stage, other actors, including non-state actors that Colby largely dismisses, have demonstrated they have considerable power to influence states and their populations.
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What’s wrong with the “international rules-based order” language is that rules per se do not define international order. “Rules based order” sounds like conceiving of or attempting to turn the international environment into a domestic environment. But a domestic environment requires the preponderance of power by a sovereign, which is incompatible with the preservation of meaningful state sovereignty. The other problem with the “rules-based order” phrase is that it tends to focus people on violations of the “rules” rather than the real issue, which is power. My favorite example is the South China Sea. If the Chinese could create artificial features, militarize them, and achieve military dominance in the South China Sea – and do this all legally – we would still have a problem with it.
I don't see how you can have a free and open international system that isn't based on rule and norms. Those that adhere to the rules and norms develop a shared trust in these rules and processes, that equates to a higher degree of stability in the international system. Those who violate the rules and norms destabilize the system, and it is the violation of these rules that give us some degree of legitimacy to act.
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Generally, the NDS emphasizes that we need to have a theory of victory that is able to beat their theory of victory. Their theory of victory is the rapid seizure of allied territory that presents the perception through nuclear or conventional coercion that the costs and risks of ejecting the them from their seizure would be too great and too daunting to be contemplated because such action could split the alliance or at the minimum tame our response sufficiently to negate its effectiveness.
Colby is viewing the world through one soda straw instead of a more holistic kaleidoscope. He fails to adequate address competition short of armed conflict, or gray zone competition when he refers to China and Russia seeking to expand their territory and shift the preponderance of power through small, limited wars. This implies that China and Russia must conduct strategic preparation of the environment to set conditions for quick, decisive wars to achieve limited objectives. A recent example is Russia's aggression against Crimea. After seizing the territory, Russia and China will then attempt to normalize it politically in hopes that others, especially the U.S., will not seek to dislodge their military and paramilitary forces. In many ways, while Russia still controls Crimea, it was a loss for Russia strategically. In the far east, the Chinese using a strategy of incrementalism have achieved a degree of success in the South China Sea. Their activites change the facts on the ground, or blue soil, without triggering a military response. However, it now viewed as naked aggression and coercion by many countries, so this strategy is gradually backfiring.
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This is largely about deterrence, not assurance. The point is to develop combat-credible forces forward (whether American or allied) that can blunt the adversary’s aggression so that they cannot consummate the fait accompli, so that they cannot seize territory or hold on to it. Ideally the alliance will deny the adversary their attempt at localized aggression so the adversary cannot achieve the fait accompli.
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People tend to bifurcate political influence and military force. Of course, the real objective of having a military advantage is to develop political influence without having to use military force or using it in a very efficient way. Influence comes from the understanding that if you challenge the other side you will lose. If the states of the East are under the shadow of Russian power, including their A2/AD capability, and they perceive that the U.S. and the rest of the Alliance don’t have a credible and plausible way of defending them, then they will face strong pressure to defer to or even bandwagon with the Russians.
Deterrence hinges on a favorable balance of power, and for us that requires allies and partners who are assured we will honor our commitments before they commit to theirs. To do otherwise could prove suicidal.
This interview sidesteps the reality of gray zone competition, although it is addressed in the National Defense Strategy. Simply relying on an improved conventional and nuclear force posture will not deter these sophisticated political warfare tactics. It is not a lesser threat either, assuming a national interest is worth fighting for based on our expensive forward posture, then it is a logical assumption if that interest is threatened short of traditional armed conflict and we do not have a strategy to counter it, then we have a significant gap in our strategy. A significant gap that the Chinese have effectively exploited much more effectively than the Russians.
Grand Strategy Alternatives 2019
https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-conten...l-16Mar19R.pdf
Grand Strategy Alternatives 2019
This study focuses on Great Power Competition with China, and less so with Russia. Since it is competition the grand strategy focuses on developing a strategy to build a better future short of traditional armed conflict. The author states grand strategy includes diverse means (DIME), adds building the means, and has expansive ends. He provides readers with what he calls a diversity of strategic options for consideration. Grand strategy focuses on building a better future based on relationships with specific states and non-state actors conceived in terms of an international order,
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John Ikenberry useful defines as: “a political formation in which settled rules and arrangements exist between states to guide their interaction.” Types of international order possible include balancing, a concert of powers, democracy, economic interdependence, and hegemony.
He provides an admittedly simplistic way to frame our view of a grand strategy to help policymakers think about grand strategy in broader terms while avoiding cognitive overload.
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There are three fundamental ways of changing an existing relationship between two or more entities: stopping another doing something, working with another, or trying to change anotherÂ’s mind. Adding international relations theoretical perspectives then leads to a grand strategy typology of denial, engagement, and reform.
He goes on for 16 pages of easy, yet informative reading on the varying aspects of each of the three grand strategy typologies to include their pros and cons, plus feasibility considering the actors involved. If you're interested in grand strategy, then you find this a valuable read.
A couple of personal thoughts. I think he makes a hollow argument when he states national interests are astrategic because they only address one country in a bilateral or multilateral situation. That is only true if the strategist only considers one view; most strategic analysis I have seen include convergent and divergent interests of all known actors involved. Yet at the end of the day, we do have interests that we're pursuing.
Nowhere in his writing did he state we can only use one grand strategy, but he also didn't point it out. In fact, we generally use denial (balance of power, hegemonic stability, etc.), engagement (interdependence, institutionalist, etc.) and reform (build more favorable norms, change minds) grand strategies simultaneously with the same actor to ultimately get to the desired relationship. We can put resources into the approach that gains the greatest traction.
He argues, probably correctly, that both Russia and China fear color revolutions so much that have dedicated considerable resources to prevent them, so it is infeasible we could generate one. Yet it is helpful for them to believe we can because the resources dedicated to internal security diverts resources from conventional military build-ups. For Russia, he argues if Putin shifts more resources to focus on improving the lives of individual citizens he become less aggressive. Yet, this is China's focus, and it has made them more aggressive because global expansion is critical to sustaining their economic growth.
It is the nature of American strategy to myopically focus on major threat while managing others, but I wonder is that approach is sustainable in a post-American world that is increasingly multipolar. We need new models for assessing risk and opportunity that are global in perspective and not narrowly focused on one of our two known adversaries.