Analyzing War Magazine | Nov/Dec 2021

November/December 2021

ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMED UNDERSTANDING OF INDO-PACIFIC SECURITY

C ON T E N T S

7 13

TREASURY BONDS AND RENEWING AN ECONOMIC PACT

COMPETITION OVER COOPERATION

19 COMPREHENSIVE VERSUS PARTIAL POWER 31

THE RUSSIAN NAVY IN THE INDO-PACIFIC

39 WAR TERMINATION AMONG NUCLEAR-ARMED POWERS IN A MARITIME CONTEXT

57 63

FEATURED SECURITY SCHOLAR:

AMIRA JADOON, PHD ORDER OF BATTLE

EDITORIAL BOARD AND STAFF PUBLISHER SWi Analytics, LLC EDITOR Mark Payumo DEPUTY EDITOR Alyssamae Nuñez MANAGING EDITORS Diana Alarde-Jordan Jacob Morrell Bryner Las Rio Pacit LAYOUT EDITOR Jayrald Vasquez WEB EDITOR Philip Carpentero CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Alvin Camba Joshua Bernard B. Espeña Ekaterina Koldunova, PhD Stephen Nagy, PhD Louis Pascarella Steven Wills, PhD ANALYZING WAR MAGAZINE www.analyzingwar.org SUBSCRIBE Inside the magazine or issuu LETTERS TO THE EDITOR editor@analyzingwar.org

Photos on these pages via Wikimedia Commons in the public domain in the U.S.: 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54. All others via Shutterstock.

4 November/December 2021

ALVIN CAMBA

is an assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He is also a faculty affiliate at the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University, the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security & Diplomacy, and the Center for China-US Cooperation. Dr. Camba has conducted in-depth research on Chinese capital in Southeast Asia, published numerous peer-reviewed articles in top development journals, and been awarded multiple best research paper awards by sections of the American Sociological Association. His work has contributed to widely-circulated policy reports, and been presented at the World Bank, AidData, and the US State Department.

LOUIS PASCARELLA

is a PhD student and adjunct faculty member in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. His research focuses on conflict, with an emphasis on policing, protest, and state-society relations.

EKATERINA KOLDUNOVA, PHD

is an Associate Professor at the Department of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. She holds a PhD in International Relations and is a member of the International Studies Association, UK Higher Education Academy, Russian National Committee for BRICS Studies, European Association of Southeast Asian Studies, International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Russian National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.

STEPHEN NAGY, PHD

is a senior associate professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, a Senior Fellow for the MacDonald Laurier Institute, and a visiting fellow with the Japan Institute for International Affairs. He is currently the director of policy studies for the Yokosuka Council of Asia-Pacific Studies and a governor for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan. He was a distinguished fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation from 2017-2020.

JOSHUA BERNARD B. ESPEÑA

is a resident fellow at International Development and Security Cooperation (IDSC), a policy think tank based in Manila. He is also a lecturer of Political Science and International Relations at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and University of the East.

Concurrently, Joshua serves as a global security analyst for Analyzing War. He researches on issues regarding naval warfare, grand and military strategy, great power politics of the Indo-Pacific, ASEAN and Russian Studies, and Philippine strategic culture.

LCDR STEVEN WILLS USN (RET), PHD

is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy, and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms. His research interests include the history of U.S. Navy strategy development over the Cold War and immediate, post-Cold War era, and the history of the post-World War II U.S. Navy surface fleet. Prior to joining CNA, Steven completed a PhD in military history from Ohio University, and had a 20-year career as an active-duty U.S. Navy officer.

He served on a variety of small and medium surface combatants including an assignment as the executive officer (XO) of a Mine Countermeasures ship (MCM), and held shorebased billets at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), and at NATO Joint Forces Command, Naples, Italy (JFCNP).

Steven holds a PhD and MA in History from Ohio University, an MA in National Security Studies from the United States Naval War College, and a BA in History from Miami University, Oxford, OH.

5 November/December 2021

EDITOR’S NOTE If the end of history was not impossible to imagine for Francis Fukuyama after revisiting the ideas of Max Weber, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hegel, and Alexandre Kojéve in 1989, ending great power competition may well be a worthwhile thought experiment and contribution to international security discourse as we look forward to 2022.

Although Fukuyama’s observation three decades earlier may have finally been proven incorrect given the rise of illiberal democracy alongside China’s autocratic capitalism, it is not wrong to keep imagining a “boring” world that’s devoid of bloodshed—one that’s purely dedicated to economic competition and meeting the environmental challenges of this century and the next.

Fukuyama’s 1989 seminal essay “The End of History?” ended with a question mark precisely because it sought to adhere to the spirit of responsible scholarship. But more than the open recognition of uncertainties and ideas that were formulated by those who came before him, it came at a time when the world was anxious about what laid ahead as the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Arguably, Fukuyama did not leave a trace of his humanity in his essay 30 years ago; only his analytic mind. We can only contextualize relative to world events and his place in it as to why he wrote it. Political scientists, however, are purposeful individuals and one can only speculate whether Fukuyama was just as eager as everyone was in easing geopolitical tensions and channeling military innovation toward civilian applications (this might serve as a legitimate reason to pay him a visit at Stanford).

It is in this light that this edition concludes this year with expert commentaries on how great power competition ends in the military, economic, and geopolitical realms. To be sure, there are a lot to cover but more than anything, exploring this side of the strategic competition among the U.S., China, and Russia is driven by the humanity inside of us, the editorial board and staff, to

surface the nuances that require understanding toward cooperation instead of purely prevailing in a conflict. We are, after all, warriors first who, more than anyone, yearn for lasting peace instead of an endless cycle of worldwide violence regardless of the decades of lull in between. As prior servicemen who had stared death in the face at some point in our military service, it is understandable to be concerned that a loss of balance between hawkish and dovish perspectives might favor stirring the pot too much until a point of no return is reached. Being properly informed by leveraging war studies scholars is key. Having leaders who are good people while armed with this knowledge and information is better.

Hence, we are also grateful to those who have been in this journey with us, and supported each and every issue that we published throughout the course of the year, including the archived content that served as the foundation for what Analyzing War had become today. We made them part of our Order of Battle, a special list of individuals acting as a force for good whose scholarship, advocacy, hard work, and principles stabilize our world even if they’re geographically detached from one another across the globe. We recognize them here as we expect that more work needs to be done in the year ahead.

Analyzing War will continue to evolve to contribute to the scholarly needs of our time. I would encourage our readers to keep checking us out as we develop our platforms and systems that will deliver real value and demonstrate what sets us apart. Many of these evolutions will roll out at the turn of 2022 during the holiday season. As for this issue, it is our last act of gratitude for the year especially to our readers. It is always a great joy to be able to do something that you love, and doing it right is really part of being thankful. Happy holidays! Over and out.

Mark Payumo Mountain View, CA 6 November/December 2021

TREASURY BONDS AND RENEWING AN ECONOMIC PACT Alvin Camba & Louis Pascarella

7 November/December 2021

G

reat power competition between the U.S. and China captivates politicians, policymakers, and civil society alike. 1 In the United States, bipartisan consensus frames China as the main 21st century competitor, particularly in global influence, trade, security, and technology. Though views on how to approach China vary per sector, region, and issue, China rose to be the “big bad wolf” amongst Western powers. If U.S. and China conflict seems inevitable, how might great power competition end? The

answer lies in the enduring economic and political structures that bind the U.S. and China together.

We argue that great power competition ends if the Chinese state and U.S. firms renew an economic pact that moves the global economy forward. The cooperation between U.S. firms and the Chinese state was the building block of the global economy from the 1990s until the mid-2000s. 2 If this pact resumes, both the U.S. and China could work together on global public goods.

8 November/December 2021

First, the U.S. economy relies on selling treasury bonds to emerging economies, and China has been the biggest customer of these bonds since the 1990s. 3 Treasury bonds, which are issued on 20- to 30-year terms, are sold by the U.S. to emerging economies. Because treasury bonds are among the safest in the world as securities during economic crises, emerging economies since the 1980s have sought to purchase these bonds.

9 November/December 2021

In the 1980s, Japan was the largest customer of U.S. treasury bonds. In the early 2000s, all 28 emerging economies have started to aggressively purchase treasury bonds to stave off financial crises. 4 The power of treasury bonds stems from the U.S. dollar as the currency of last reserve. Emerging economies holding treasury bonds can survive crisis amidst currency collapse or devaluation, and are seen as “stronger” by global markets.

Treasury bonds allow the Chinese government to devalue their currency safely, making their exports more competitive overall. 5 This is important, as exports are one of the main drivers of the Chinese economy.

In the 1980s, Western and East Asian investments expanded Chinese manufacturing, leading to the employment of millions and massive rural-to-urban migration. Affordable Chinese labor and cheap resources allowed multinational corporations and the Chinese government to profit immensely from its newly marketized population. The U.S., which was the largest export market for Chinese manufacturing goods, provided the trade surplus that the Chinese government and multi-

national corporations (MNCs) reaped after transactions.

For the American government, the Chinese treasury bonds and exports were crucial to maintain domestic spending. Treasury bonds were a major source of income for a U.S. government that cut back on its spending after the 1980s stagflation crisis. Cheap imports, which primarily came from the Chinese economy, allowed the U.S. population access to cheap goods, to some degree staving off the actual cost of inflation. 6 Analysts and academics alike predicted the decline of the U.S. in the 1980s. However, the U.S. has been able to forestall its decline through the Chinese economy.

International Tourism and Central Business District, Haikou, Hainan, China.

10 November/December 2021

Second, a major disagreement between the U.S. and China lies in how American MNCs have been treated. Some argue that the major conflict between the U.S. and China lies in either a clash of values or competition for global supremacy.

Those who argue in the former speak about U.S. democracy and Chinese communism with little regard for the racist and autocratic tendencies of the U.S. Furthermore, there is an inability to properly account for the nuances of autocracy in China.

Those who examine great power competition between the U.S. and China tend to fixate on a static definition of national interests and power, with little attention to other actors and interests. 7 Some analysts point out that the U.S.China conflict began around 2010 when the Chinese government started pressuring U.S. firms for patents and 11 November/December 2021

technology transfers. 8 In the 1980s, a fledgling Chinese government wanted to be part of the international community, and thus Chinese party leadership did not pursue these later demands. China’s integration in the world economy reached its peak when the U.S. supported China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization, a political move pushed by members of a coalition of U.S. firms and Chinese Communist Party leadership. By around 2010, the coalition between the CCP and U.S. firms began to rupture. The rift between U.S. MNCs and the CCP stems from disagreements over intellectual property and the Chinese government’s drive to support their own firms. The current fracturing of relations between U.S. and China owes itself to the roots of state conflict in international political economy: competition over market share and resources.

How does great power competition settle down? Long-term cooperation between the U.S. and China depends upon U.S. firms and the Chinese state agreeing over intellectual property rights and profit sharing. Both the U.S. and the Chinese economies need each other, which would limit the possibility of all-out war from occurring. However, both countries must resolve a fundamental conflict: U.S. corporate capitalism colliding with Chinese government state capitalism. Once these are at the very least ameliorated through profit sharing agreements and the renegotiation over the U.S.-led liberal international order, both countries could work together on global public goods.

Should a renewed pact occur, the U.S. and China could work together on pressing global issues. For instance, the global

initiative to reduce carbon emissions and decarbonize the economy, which are both crucial to climate change adaptation, can only happen successfully if the U.S. and China cooperate. 9 China recently announced it would inhibit Chinese firms from investing in coal-fired powerplants. The U.S. and the West more broadly could follow suit by disincentivizing the private sector from investing in coal-fired powerplants. Working bilaterally on climate change would benefit both countries, but could also pave the way for solutions on other global issues. In security, China could moderate the Taliban’s behavior using their economic clout over Pakistan, reducing the possibility of devastating conflict in South Asia and the Middle East. Once the U.S. and China overcome economic squabbles, global public goods provision can flourish, resulting in a safer, more prosperous international community.

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Carla Freeman and Andrew Scobell, “What's next for U.S.-China Relations amid Rising Tensions over Taiwan,” United States Institute of Peace, October 9, 2021.

Ho-fung Hung, “The US-China Rivalry Is about Capitalist Competition,” Jacobin, November 7, 2020.

Chin, Gregory, and Eric Helleiner. "China as a creditor: A rising financial power?." Journal of International affairs (2008): 87-102.

Beltran, Daniel O., Maxwell Kretchmer, Jaime Marquez, and Charles P. Thomas. "Foreign holdings of US Treasuries and US Treasury yields." Journal of International Money and Finance 32 (2013): 1120-1143.

Hung, Ho‐fung. "China: Saviour or challenger of the dollar hegemony?." Development and Change 44, no. 6 (2013): 1341-1361.

Miaojie Yu and Rui Zhang, "Understanding the recent Sino-US trade conflict," China Economic Journal 12, no. 2 (2019): 160-174.

Naná De Graaff and Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn, "US–China relations and the liberal world order: contending elites, colliding visions?" International affairs 94, no. 1 (2018): 113-131.

Rosemary Foot and Amy King, "Assessing the deterioration in China–US relations: US governmental perspectives on the economicsecurity nexus," China International Strategy Review 1, no. 1 (2019): 39-50.

Hao Tan et al., “The US and China Must Find a Way to Cooperate at COP26 and beyond. Otherwise, Global Climate Action Is Impossible,” The Conversation, November 1, 2021.

12 November/December 2021

COMPETITION OVER COOPERATION A STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE FROM THE EAST Ekaterina Koldunova, PhD 13 November/December 2021

C

ompetition seems to stay as a pervasive feature of the past, present, and future international relations. It was a driving factor of 19thcentury interactions between great powers at that time, and framed the superpower relations in the Cold War period. Students of international relations became preoccupied with defining and calculating the cycles of great power competition1 along with the genuine belief by neorealist thinkers that great power rivalry must inevitably lead to war.2 In today’s world of complex interdependency and advanced nuclear technologies, the price of war among great powers goes far beyond humanity’s ability to survive. However, following a short period of a “unipolar moment”

that saw the U.S. as the dominant superpower,3 aspirations for mitigating the effects of various multilateral, global governance instruments seems to emerge along with a return to radical forms of competition. Emerging in the sphere of global business is the term “hypercompetition” that may well prove to be a correct characterization of contemporary international relations.

Yet, back in 1994, Richard A. D’aveni attributed it to the realities of business management, meaning that no strong company could sustain its onceachieved advantages forever.4 Today, the economic, military, technological, and even vaccine hypercompetition engulf not only the world of business but also relations between great and emerging powers.

Business District, New York, USA.

14 November/December 2021

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross meets with Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei in Beijing, September 25, 2017.

Apart from becoming more intense, the international competition is also acquiring a more sophisticated nature.

It is no longer confined to the relations between just two superpowers, the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and their proxies during the Cold War, or the U.S. and China as many try to portray it nowadays, sometimes in a rather reductionist way. Equally, as it was mentioned above, the international competition now establishes itself more profoundly in such relatively new domains as information technology, space exploration, social media, medicine, and many others.

15 November/December 2021

The strong focus on U.S.-China relations is understandable. Beneath our eyes a new pattern of great power competition is emerging—, which is radically different from U.S.-Soviet relations. Unlike the parallel economic and technological universes centered on the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. respectively, China’s relations with the U.S. has been developing along a totally different trajectory. China’s economic rise became possible primarily due to close Sino-American economic interdependence, which was forged throughout the whole period of Chinese economic reforms and opening up.

Washington soon became comfortable

with technology transfers in order to access manufacturing, assembly, and industrial production in China, while carrying out the policy of engagement with Beijing up until the moment the balance of power between them began to shift toward one that is perceived unfavorable to the U.S. With China’s advancement to the position of world’s second largest economy in 2010, stronger U.S. concerns emerged about the nature of China’s state capitalism, its noncompetitive advantages in the economic and technological domains and, finally, about what was perceived in the U.S. as the promotion of the

authoritarian model in the world.5 On July 23, 2020, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his speech at the Richard Nixon Library that is, named after the U.S. President who started the policy of engaging with China, declared that this policy has failed.6 Sino-American economic interdependence is now turning into “competitive interdependence.”7 American author, Joseph S. Nye called it “cooperative rivalry” with this very phrase still leaving some room for cooperation between the two geopolitical and geo-economic

16 November/December 2021

Quad Meeting in Tokyo, Japan on October 6, 2020.

giants.8 Others, on the contrary, tend to emphasize the necessity to proceed with the “rivalry” as part of the formula of decoupling the U.S. economy from China, and containing it globally and regionally even through military means.

The regional domain, specifically the area of Indian and Pacific oceans, has also become a projection of the Sino-American competition. China’s advancement in the South China Sea, home of overlapping territorial claims between the People’s Republic of China and that of Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as China’s Belt and Road Initiative provoked ambivalent reactions to China’s rise from Japan, Australia, 17 November/December 2021

India, and some ASEAN member states.

This ambivalence became a medium for implementation of Washington’s containment strategy against China that’s centered around the Indo-Pacific idea.

While a decade ago, the Indo-Pacific framework seemed relevant mainly to such regional actors as India, Japan or Indonesia, its appropriation by the U.S. for its geopolitical purposes, first during Donald Trump’s presidency and later by Joseph Biden’s, propelled it to a qualitatively different level. A stronger emphasis on the military strategic means of China’s containment, which now include the Quadrilateral security dialogue between the U.S., Japan, India,

and Australia (also known as the Quad), and such new military alliance as AUKUS (Australia, U.K., and U.S.) put not only China, but also Russia on alert.

While the U.S.-China competition will most likely be the determining factor for many dimensions of international relations, it should not overshadow one more important process — a changing hierarchy of state actors in the international system. With all due respect to U.S. and China’s preponderance in international relations, a number of states — though in many cases not having the ability to project their power — have been emerging beyond the Western world. Their international strategies, sometime developing in concert, like in the case of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) or MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia), or

sometimes seriously diverging, create a very different domain of international competition. Even regional powers or countries with the ability to stretch beyond their natural geographic regions tend to see the multipolar world as a more preferable development, their aspirations may well prevent it from having a cooperative nature. Alongside the Asia-Pacific, competition among regional powers has now engulfed such areas as the Middle East, Africa, and even Eastern Europe.

To conclude, great power competition is undoubtedly here to stay for some time ahead. The above-mentioned trends make the world, if not yet completely divided, conform along the lines of a “new bipolarity”, rather than becoming more segmented, harder to govern, and unlikely to favor the cooperative instruments over conflicting ones.

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8

See Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987) and George Modelski, Long Cycles in World Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987).

See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).

Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs.

See Richard A. D’avenie, Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering (New York: The Free Press, 1990-91).

See Stefan Halper, The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism in our Times (New York: Basic Books, 2010), and Scott Kennedy and Jude Blanchette, Chinese State Capitalism: Diagnosis and Prognosis (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2021).

See Michael Pompeo, “Communist China and the Free World’s Future,” speech at the Richard Nixon Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California, July 23, 2020.

See Ryan Haas, Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2021).

Joseph S. Nye, “The Logic of U.S.-China Competition,” The Strategist, last published May 7, 2021.

18 November/December 2021

COMPREHENSIVE PARTIAL POWER VERSUS

NOT-SO GREAT POWER COMPETITION AND ITS END DESTINATION Stephen Nagy, PhD

19 November/December 2021

L

ooking at great power competition in 2021, the chessboard is primarily occupied by the People's Republic of China and the United States. Comparing these two powers, what is clear is the U.S. remains the comprehensive superpower globally whereas China’s power remains regionally focused.

When comparing to the U.S., David Shambaugh has made a strong case for China being a partial power.1 The Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index buttresses Shambaugh’s argument that China lacks soft power, global military power, and a broadly attractive model for development and for international relations with its neighbors near and abroad.2 With this power differential in mind, how does this great power competition

between a partial superpower and comprehensive superpower unfold in the Indo-Pacific?

WASHINGTON’S MULTILAYER APPROACH First, China has invested in A2AD and its decades-long program to modernize and expand its naval presence throughout the region. Considering competition within China's near periphery including the East China Sea (ECS), Taiwan Strait, South China Sea (SCS), and in the Indian Ocean as well as the Himalayan plateau, China has grown increasingly strong.3 This advantage is because of the quantity of resources that can be directed at a particular conflict within China's near periphery and a growing technological approach to warfare.

The People’s Liberation Army (Navy) ship, Haikou (DD 171).

20 November/December 2021

The U.S. Navy’s newest and most advanced nuclear-powered attack submarine and the lead ship of its class, PCU Virginia (SSN 774).

On the U.S. side, they've kept strong partnerships with Taiwan through the Taiwanese Protection Act (TPA), the Japan-U.S. Alliance, the ROK-U.S. Alliance, security agreements with the Philippines, and significantly, the recent AUKUS agreement,4 which will pave the way for deep and broad cooperation in the maritime domain of the Indo Pacific.

This cooperation will not be limited to the geographic space between the first island chain and the second island chain. It will include operations within the SCS, the ECS, and in and around Taiwan.

In drawing conclusions regarding great power competition and how it ends, one needs to consider China’s advantage in terms of its periphery versus its 21 November/December 2021

shortcomings at the regional and global level. Notwithstanding this peripheral advantage, it is precarious at best. The U.S. is working with its like- minded partners to build a layered approach to competition and shaping the Indo-Pacific region.

This layered approach begins with AUKUS, a security pact between the UK, the U.S., and Australia to deliver the most sophisticated nuclear submarine technologies into the Indo-Pacific to deter assertive behaviour by China.

AUKUS provides a significant deterrence capability for an assertive Chinese bluewater navy that is bent on dominating the first and second island chains in a three-step process since the early 80s.5

Government representatives from the Quad countries.

The next layer is the alliance system that has been built by the U.S. This alliance system is networked and allows the U.S. to project power into the region through its alliances and security commitments that are comprehensive partnerships. These include economic engagement; technological exchanges; people-to-people relationships; training and capacity building with prominent scholars, diplomats, and defense officials studying at elite U.S. universities; and building shared norms and shared views about the region. This is the strength of the U.S. alliance system and why it's such an important layer in how the U.S. is crafting a layered approach to great power competition with China.

Beneath the alliance system is the Quad.

Its transformation from a maritime focused security framework to one that

is concentrating on public good provision is welcomed by Southeast and South Asian states. We saw the most explicit example of this public good provision at the virtual leader summit of Quad leaders in March, where they pledged to cooperate on vaccine development and distribution within emerging countries.

Quad members pledged to cooperate in areas of technology, infrastructure, connectivity, and development, while also standing unified on the idea of a rulesbased environment and preventing force being the tool to reshape the region.

This viewpoint was re-emphasized at the Quad summit in September 2021 in Washington in which Prime Ministers Modi, Suga, Morrison, and President Biden met to further their commitment to the provision of public goods to the Indo-Pacific.

22 November/December 2021

This is critical for a layered approach to great power competition because public good provision by the Quad accrues buyin from critical players, including ASEAN and those littoral states in the Indo-Pacific that are very concerned about making the choice between the U.S. and China.

The Quad will therefore continue to focus on infrastructure and connectivity, health infrastructure, vaccine provision as a tool to ingratiate itself into the region by providing public goods to stakeholders to enhance strategic autonomy, deepen comprehensive integration, strengthen institutional development, and to build shared norms and understandings of rule of law throughout the Indo-Pacific The provision of public goods through the Quad is complemented by the next layer of engagement that has been primarily led by Japan, but supported by other partners of the U.S. within the region, including Australia, which are the multilateral trade agreements that have Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo participates in a Quad Meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Japan, and India.

23 November/December 2021

emerged throughout the region. These trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive Progressive Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP) have a focus on bringing economies together in further integrating economies and diversifying trading partners.

In the case of the CPTPP, it forges a new set of trading rules that focus on environmental law, labor law, limiting the role of state-owned enterprises within the economy and, finally, protecting intellectual property rights. This highgrade trade agreement is critical to crafting a transparent rules-based institutional approach to trade within the region. The U.S. is not part of either of these foreign trade agreements (FTA ), which is the biggest challenge in thinking about great power competition and a layered approach to competition within the region.

Simply put, the U.S. is not using its most powerful asset to anchor itself within the region to be a credible alternative, or at least a balancing partner to the Chinese economy. The absence of the U.S. from the various FTAs will continue to challenge the U.S. great power approach to the Indo-Pacific through a layered approach.

Fortunately, Japan and Australia are part of both groups. In the future, it is possible that trading agreements such as the CPTPP could be expanded to include other members of Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Another example of multilateral cooperation, which enhances Washington’s position within the region is the U.S. working peripherally with Japan and Australia in terms of provision of infrastructure connectivity loans. As with trade, where we see real leadership is by the Japanese that complements America’s multilayer approach to the region. Japan signed the Japan-EU-EPA and the JapanEU Asian Infrastructure and Connectivity Initiative in 2019—both initiatives anchor the EU into the Indo-Pacific region.

This layered approach to great power competition will be critical moving forward to effectively compete with the Chinese economy, the emerging digital economy, and the non-binding approaches to diplomacy that China espouses in its foreign policy within the region through the BRI.

ASYMMETRY AROUND THE MIDDLE KINGDOM Assessing this layered approach to great power competition within the region and making an estimation of how effective it will be to deal with the challenge of China's reemergence as the central economy within the region is difficult to ascertain. We have seen the Chinese government continue to expand its economic role within the region primarily through two mechanisms: one is the RCEP, and through the BRI and its related vaccine diplomacy that is often promoted under the so-called Health Silk Road.

China-made COVID-19 vaccine, Coronavac.

24 November/December 2021

Chinese business tycoon Jack Ma with U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad.

Examining the first example of trade to the RCEP, we see China understands that great power competition and the potential end destination to this competition will be largely because of how effective Chinese peripheral economic policy is. This includes economic policy that expands trade, and creates new markets and a new regional integration process that focuses on and uses Chinese standards for continued economic growth. Examples include a non-binding approach to bilateral cooperation that focuses on sovereignty and non-interference.

We also see the adoption and promotion of Chinese standards and Chinese law in terms of how the digital economy is going to work, as well as Chinese interpretations of what is the appropriate level of access by governments. With 25 November/December 2021

the adoption of the 2015 and 2016 Chinese National Security Law and Cyber Security Law6 that require on demand that businesses provide their data to the government, this could create challenges in terms of IPR protection and fostering market-based competition between domestic businesses and international businesses throughout the region.

Another challenge is the growing ambiguity in relation to the role of the Chinese government in the economy. We've seen this with the CCP interfering in the tech sector of the Chinese economy, removing prominent businessmen such as Jack Ma and others from their positions of influence, and a growing sense that China needs to focus on what they call is a Community of Common Prosperity to continue stable, sustainable economic growth.

From China's perspective, creating and promoting standards that the Chinese government is comfortable with means integration of the region to foster further economic asymmetry and interdependence between China and its neighbors. This aims to ensure that neighbors are politically deferential to Beijing on issues sensitive to China. It is in this light that the economy likely remains China's most critical tool to how it understands great power competition and what is the end destination, i.e., regional integration with Chinese characteristics.

Turning to the security side of China's power within the region, it is dominant primarily because of geography, and not necessarily due to hard power. China

shares a land border with North Korea and has the capacity to promote North Korea's position and brinksmanship within the region or to strangle it. This acts as a pressure point in the broader security network of the U.S. within the region.

China continues to press its sovereignty claims over the Senkaku islands in the ECS through the adoption of a new Coast Guard (CCG) law in January 2021.

This law allows the CCG to use force and is significant because it expands to constabulary capabilities of the CCG into waters that are managed under the Japanese government. This enhances the possibility of conflict through China's active defense strategy approach to security within the region.

26 November/December 2021

Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait remains a critical part of the security challenges within the region as well. The sea lines of communication (SLOCs), for one, are potentially threatened by any friction that occurs in the ECS, Taiwan Strait, or the SCS. Additionally, Taiwan represents a critical node in the technology supply chain for critical technologies such as semiconductors, which go into many of our most sophisticated and important technologies such as fighter jets, vehicles, Apple phones, and other technologies.

27 November/December 2021

Great power competition will focus on this technological side and the ability or potential for China to disrupt SLOCs in the region that will affect critical technology supply chains.

Similar challenges are in the SCS as China continues to press expansionist claims on sovereignty over the entire region. This represents the challenges to international law, challenges to the stable and sustainable transport of imports and exports of goods in and out of the region's most dynamic economies, and has the potential to fundamentally disrupt global trade.

Belt and Road Initiative.

Moreover, China's security challenges within the region are not solely maritime in nature. For example, there are growing concerns about Chinese expansive behavior on the Himalayan plateau that appears to track growing anxieties over the increasing presence of Chinese naval forces in the Indian Ocean, which is made possible by BRI-sponsored sea ports in Gwadar, Pakistan and in Sri Lanka, and other Chinese investments in the South Asian region through the BRI. For China, great power competition and its end destination is to push out the U.S. from the region, to create an economic relationship that’s hierarchal, asymmetric, and interdependent with

each of its neighbors such that they will defer to Chinese wishes on critical issues to China.

OVER THE HORIZON After painting a picture of both of these security footprints or comprehensive power footprints within the region, it is clear that both nations are attempting to shape the Indo-Pacific region through schemes that aim to either maintain a rules-based order to how the region engages in trade, security, and the digital economy, or a regionalism that is characterized by integration with Chinese characteristics.

28 November/December 2021

Assessing the current trajectory of the development of great power competition seems to indicate that the U.S. and China are moving into parallel regional systems or parallel coexistence. Domestically, China has already created its own internet that is guarded by the Great Firewall, a digital economy that's emerging as a critical economic engine for China and its partners based on Chinese standards, and Chinese rules and Chinese laws.

Since the trade war that began between the U.S. and China, the latter has accelerated its quest for economic autonomy through initiatives such as the dual circulation strategy, which attempts to diversify China's economic footprint away from the U.S. and towards Eurasia, and in particular, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and South-Central Asia.

29 November/December 2021

At the same time, China continues to develop its own technology so that it can leapfrog its technological dependencies by way of the Made in China 2025 Program. COVID-19 has provided an opportunity for China to look inward and to try to develop its domestic economy and its domestic standards for export.

The success of this strategy is not a foregone conclusion. China is still heavily dependent on the global economy for its exports and imports. It remains heavily dependent on the access to technology from foreign companies for its own development, and much of this recalibration on the economy based on dual circulation will be challenged by demographic challenges within China.

In addition, China faces a severe 4-2-1 problem, which refers to four grandparents for two parents and one child. There is likewise the increasing cost of labor, inflation, deeply stagnant domestic consumption, and continued efforts by countries with strong trading relationships with China to find ways to diversify their trading portfolio. These countries apparently seek to recalibrate their economic engagement with China so they are less subject to economic coercion coming from Beijing.

These downward pressures suggest that in the short term—the next five to 10 years—great power competition will continue to intensify as China tries to attempt to lock in strategic gains on the economic front and the security front within the region before demographic pressures become significant in slowing down the economy, thereby making it difficult to project power as domestic

economic sustainability becomes the priority for the CCP. These domestic contradictions suggest that great power competition will continue to intensify in the next five- to 10-year period, and that the U.S. and China need to prepare for intense competition. These systemic domestic contradictions within the Chinese economy are beginning to compound, however, and it will be increasingly difficult for China to compete with America’s positive demographics and alliance system, suggesting the scenario that great power competition will not end with the collapse or domination of the U.S. by China.

Great power competition with China will likely evolve into regional spheres of influence within the Indo-Pacific region.

However, globally, the U.S. will continue to remain the most influential and comprehensive power.

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6

Mary E. Gallagher, Book Reviews, China and Inner Asia: “China Goes Global: The Partial Power | By David Shambaugh,” Pacific Affairs (UBC Journal), University of British Columbia, Vancouver Campus, last revised June 20, 2018.

“Countries – Lowy Institute Asia Power Index,” Lowy Institute Asia Power Index 2020 Edition, Lowy Institute, accessed November 3, 2021.

See Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2020 Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, 2020).

See Briefing Room, “Remarks by President Biden, Prime Minister Morrison of Australia, and Prime Minister Johnson of the United Kingdom Announcing the Creation of AUKUS,” The White House, The Biden-Harris Administration, September 15, 2021.

Howard J. Dooley, “The Great Leap Outward: China's Maritime Renaissance,” The Journal of East Asian Affairs 26, no. 1 (Spring– Summer 2012): 71.

See “National Security Law of the People's Republic of China (2015),” Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China, March 3, 2017 and “Cyber Security Law of the People’s Republic of China,” The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, November 7, 2106.

30 November/December 2021

THE RUSSIAN NAVY IN THE INDO-PACIFIC Joshua Bernard B. Espeña

31 November/December 2021

Russian Navy ship in Vladivostok.

O

n July 25, 2021, Moscow paraded its mixture of Soviet legacy and future generation naval platforms at St. Petersburg for the 325th anniversary of the Russian Navy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his speech that the Russian Navy has acquired long- and short-range naval aviation, coastal defense systems, and hypersonic missiles built-in within the vessels, and thus “capable of detecting any submarine, surface or airborne adversary and dealing them an imminent strike if necessary.”1 Just a month earlier, the Pacific Fleet conducted an operational exercise for its 20-platform fleet group to run in distant maritime zones.2 Moscow started giving more attention to its eastern flank beginning in the 2010s given the geopolitical and economic developments in the region. In terms

of platform size, the Pacific Fleet would have 15 future generation vessels by 2027 to either augment or replace the Soviet-era ships in the region that needed repair or decommissioning.3 It is, by far, the largest fleet to date of the Russian Navy along with the Northern Fleet.

Though Moscow dismisses the IndoPacific concept as Washington-centric, it cannot deny the reconfigurations occurring in this vibrant region.

Semantics and propaganda aside, Russia looks to a more flexible version of the concept as Japan and ASEAN did.4 If anything, this article assesses the force development for a smaller, high-tech Russian Navy, which indicates Moscow’s attempt to compete for the lion's share of power configuration in the IndoPacific. Questions remain, however, whether these investments would favor a strategic effect for Russia.

32 November/December 2021

RUSSIAN SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC Navies are a vital tool for statecraft especially by the great powers for at least two strategic reasons. One would be the unfettered access and control of sea lanes for commercial purposes, requiring a state to achieve decisive control of the seas, as espoused by Alfred Thayer Mahan. The other would be one that was put forth by Sir Julian Corbett where a navy’s primary purpose is to project power at sea to influence events on land, which is accomplished through joint operations by delivering fire support on the ground and augmenting air forces with naval aviation.

In the 18th Century, the Russian Empire sought to establish a Mahanian navy in Russian cruiser of the first rank "Vladimir Monomakh". Circa 1890s.

33 November/December 2021

its Pacific flank via a small naval outpost in Vladivostok. However, it focused its energies more on the immediate concern: land-based threats from Sweden, the Ottoman Empire, and Western European states like Prussia and France, not to mention the geographic difficulties posed on logistics by the Siberian Tundra.

Things would only change at the advent of the Trans-Siberian railways in the 19th Century, making transportation and communication easier for Russian economic and shipbuilding agenda. Yet, Russia’s naval capabilities, in aggregate terms, would not match against the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Tsushima, leading to their decisive defeat during the Russo-Japanese War. The loss would prevent Moscow from effectively pursuing a Mahanian navy in the region.

Soviet aircraft carrier Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov.

During the early Cold War years, Moscow designed the Soviet Navy to be Corbettian in its operations. By placing nuclear and conventional missiles to its naval platforms, especially submarines, the Soviet Union would strengthen its strategic deterrence needed to prevent an amphibious threat or missile strike against its homeland. There is a plethora of reasons for this decision: the ground forces’ central role in strategic thinking, the largely unsuccessful role of the Soviet Navy during World War II, the lack of naval and maritime traditions among Soviet and client states, and awareness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) naval strength and geopolitical advantage.5

It was not until the arrival of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov as the Soviet Naval Chief of Staff that the fleet aspired to become Mahanian once again.6 This led to vast shipbuilding efforts such as the commissioning of the Admiral Kuznetsov, Moscow’s very own first aircraft carrier, to compete against American carrier strike groups.7 It also conducted largescale naval diplomatic missions to the Third World.8 Indeed, the Soviet Navy would replace the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy as the second-largest navy next to the U.S. in the latter course of the Cold War.9 Some limitations, however, were also present in becoming a true Mahanian navy. The Sea of Japan, for instance, is too shallow for Mahaniandesigned platforms to navigate.10 34 November/December 2021

Before all these Mahanian enterprises would have a favorable strategic effect for Moscow, the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. As a result, Moscow’s loss of shipyards in Ukraine and former Baltic states faced difficulties finding berthing space for its fleet. During its domestic politicoeconomic crises in the 1990s, Russia also confronted challenges maintaining an expensive fleet designed for geopolitical competition. Consequently, large, heavy Soviet naval platforms turned into a nearobsolescence state with its fleet falling from 272 to 149 surface combatants and from 264 to 96 submarines, both nuclear and diesel-powered.11 The Russian navy anti-submarine ship Severomorsk (BPK 619) sails with the U.S. 6th Fleet flagship USS Mount Whitney (LCC/JCC 20).

35 November/December 2021

SMALL, BUT HOW TERRIBLE? The Russian Federation sought to maintain its most capable ships while investing for the future rather than try saving most of its heavier, larger Sovietera fleet; it lost all of them eventually.12 In the early post-Cold War period, the Russian Navy went through great lengths recovering from such a staggering loss on capability. As Russia’s military combat effectiveness dropped,13 it also bought time to recover through learning from other navies around the world by participating in international naval cooperation.14

Defense modernization reforms would commence in 2008 under the leadership of Putin and former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov with a commitment for the Russian armed forces to become a smaller, more maneuverable, hightech, volunteer-dominant professional military.15 For the navy, this would mean large-scale investments in multi-role surface, subsurface, and aviation platforms, alongside the need to include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), robotics, advanced sensors, and communications to operate for antisubmarine warfare and surface warfare in coastal shores, offshore economic zones, and marginal seas.16 Such development is far from new as a Corbettian navy, but Putin’s Russia is committed developing naval technology for its future platforms to reassert its lost great power status; plus, aspiring to be a Mahanian navy by 2050.17 Various policy documents guide Moscow for a more proactive navy. The 2016 Foreign Policy Concept indicates Russia’s desire to “consolidate [its] position as a center of influence” in a multipolar world against the West’s interventionist liberal institutions.18 In the 2014 Military Doctrine, Russia recognizes the military as a tool for statecraft amid military threats and risks to its environment, thus requiring a strong economic backbone and industrial development through civil-military fusion (CMF) of critical

President Vladimir Putin

technologies.19 Russia’s 2015 Maritime Doctrine denotes Moscow’s commitment to maintaining to its sovereign waters along its coastlines, which serves as enablers for its navy to accomplish its defense missions against threats.20 Interestingly, the maritime doctrine also designates the Pacific Ocean as an increasingly important regional priority area due to worsening conditions brought about by “rapid developments of states in the Asia-Pacific region” with multifaceted impacts on its interests.21 Russia seeks to reduce the level of threats for strategic stability by investing more, economically and militarily, in the region.22 Shipbuilding efforts are also part of the equation to boost the economic production in the Russian Far East as well as boost CMF to advance naval tonnage and offshore class equipment.23 36 November/December 2021

Though the 2017 Naval Doctrine has no English translation, various analysts suggest that Russia intends to use the navy for the basics: protecting the Russian homeland and its nearby postSoviet maritime spaces using strategic deterrence and information warfare.24 What is noteworthy, however, is Russia’s commitment to striking a balanced force between a usual Corbettian navy and aspired Mahanian navy in the multipolar world. Such a reason is why Moscow has been developing long-range highprecision strikes, such as arming its platforms with Kalibr cruise missiles for its Kilo, Akuda, Lada, and Yasen-class submarines, as well as the Gepard-class Frigates and Buyan-class Corvettes.25 President Putin also signed the Fundamentals of the State Policy of

A starboard view of the Russian Kilo-class patrol submarine.

37 November/December 2021

the Russian Federation in the Field of Naval Operations for the period until 2030, which spells out the Russian Navy’s importance of developing a balanced force for strategic deterrence through the multirole surface and subsurface combatants for near and far sea zones and ocean areas by 2030.26 Challenges, however, are rampant within the Russian military to make such a plan work, including the slow shipbuilding production and rampant corruption within the defense ministry.27 Furthermore, China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy exceeded the Russian Navy as the second-largest navy in terms of the platform next to the U.S. in late 2020—another reason to be skeptic about Russia’s naval modernization and strategy.

The Steregushchiy class, lead ship of the latest class of corvettes of the Russian Navy.

Problems aside, it is critical to understand why Russia continuously commits to a smaller navy. As Stephen Biddle points out, it is not material capability, but rather force employment, or “the doctrine and tactics by which forces are actually used in combat” that matters.28 Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov described in 2019 that Russia’s military strategy is geared towards “active defense.” According to the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), Russia’s active defense strategy denotes “maneuver defense” in wartime, which anticipates a fragmented frontline in the future to preserve its smaller force and “noncontact warfare” that uses forward operating sensors, fires, and precision strike systems in peacetime.29 In the naval perspective, the active defense strategy would mean Russia’s Corbettian commitment to using its navy

defensively against larger and heavier U.S. carrier strike groups, employing lethal, high-tech offensive capabilities via smaller, maneuverable platforms in the shortest amount of time. For example, Russia commissioned the Gromky, a Steregushchiy-class corvette, in late 2019 to the Pacific Fleet. The Gromky corvette completed sea trials in the Sea of Japan for seaworthiness and combat effectiveness on anti-ship and anti-air warfare armed with Uran cruise missiles, although electronic countermeasures (ECM) were deemed unsuccessful.30 SEEING THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL Russia’s threat calculus in its Pacific flank is starkly different compared to its Western flank. It has no existential threats like NATO but only shares a land border with China and the sea 38 November/December 2021

with Japan. This probably indicates why the Pacific Fleet is the only remaining Fleet that does not operate Kalibr cruise missiles,31 until the anticipated commissioning of Kalibr-armed and improved Kilo-class Magadan submarine in November 2021.32 For strategic deterrence, the Pacific Fleet only houses two Borei-class nuclear-powered submarines, the Vladimir Monomakh and Aleksandr Nevskiy,33 which are said to be the first class of submarines developed since the post-Soviet era.34 Although the Pacific Fleet still houses several Sovietlegacy submarines, this may not yield fruitful should shipbuilding production remains low in the coming years. This is a concerning trend for Moscow if it is indeed vying for strategic stability in its Pacific flank.

The Indo-Pacific region is a predominantly Washington-conceived geostrategy amid Beijing’s assertive rise, if not the only interpretation out there.

Russia is, indeed, watching all these developments unfold either to their own spoil or demise. That is the reason why Russia has two-pronged actions.

First, it protests American commitment to consolidate its regional allies and partners. Second, it reaches out to other regional states through naval diplomatic operations, and arms trade and energy concessions. These are all about signaling 39 November/December 2021

that Russia would not allow itself to sit out in this increasingly significant region.

“States compete all the time,” says Matej Kandrík in his The Strategy Bridge article. “Competition is something states naturally do in a quest for security, prosperity, and prestige.”35 Yet, he also argued that states should clarify “what they should seek through competition with others” and how to act on it.36 Indeed, Putin’s Russia is on the march to reassert its “lost” great power status since the end of the Cold War. However, from a critical take in the Indo-Pacific, Russia’s ends have yet to bridge with its means, particularly its small but yet-tobe-terrible navy, not to mention that the U.S. and China are also watching Russia’s meager actions in its Pacific flank. The end of the tunnel is not much far, but its feet keep on dragging from its wounded past.

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28

29

31 32 33 34 35 36

Government of the Russian Federation, “Main Naval Parade,” Official Internet Resources of the President of Russia, July 25, 2021, accessed August 26, 2021.

TASS, “Russian navy kicks off large-scale drills in Pacific,” TASS Russian News Agency, June 10, 2021, accessed August 26, 2021.

Xavier Vavasseur, “Russia’s Pacific Fleet to Get 15 New Vessels in 2020,” Naval News, May 29, 2021, accessed September 13, 2021.

In Igor Denisov, Oleg Paramonov, Ekaterina Arapova, and Ivan Safranchuk, “Russia, China, and the Concept of Indo-Pacific,” Journal of Eurasian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2021), 72-85.

Jeremy Black, Naval Warfare: A Global History since 1860 (London: Rowman and Littlefield, Publishing Group, Inc., 2017), 167.

Black, Naval Warfare: A Global History since 1860, 186.

Black, Naval Warfare: A Global History since 1860, 283.

Ian Speller, Understanding Naval Warfare (Routledge: New York, 2019), 82.

Black, Naval Warfare: A Global History since 1860, 185.

Black, Naval Warfare: A Global History since 1860, 185.

Jonathan Evitts, “Russian Naval Modernization and Strategy,” (Master Thesis, California: Naval Postgraduate School, 2019), 33.

Office of Naval Intelligence, The Russian Navy: A Historic Transition (Maryland: Office of Naval Intelligence), xix.

Dmitry Gorenburg, “The military,” in Routledge Handbook of Russian Politics and Society, eds. Graeme Gill and James Young (New York: Routledge, 2011), 222.

Klaus A.R. Mommsen, “The Russian Navy: Russia’s pride, strength, and asset,” in Routledge Handbook of Naval Strategy and Security (New York: Routledge, 2017), 308.

Gorenburg, “The military,” 224.

Mommsen, “The Russian Navy: Russia’s pride, strength, and asset,”310.

Maren Garberg Bredesen and Karsten Friis, “Missiles, Vessels, and Active Defence: What Potential Threat Do the Russian Armed Forces Represent?” RUSI Journal, Vol. 165, No. 5/6 (September 2020), 76.

Government of the Russian Federation, “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, December 01, 2016, accessed September 21, 2021.

Government of the Russian Federation, “The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,” The Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, June 29, 2015, accessed September 21, 2021.

Government of the Russian Federation, Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, translated by Anna Davis (Newport: Russia Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College, 2015), 7-8, 17-18.

Russian Federation, Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, 25.

Russian Federation, Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, 26-27.

Russian Federation, Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, 30-31.

See Dmitry Gorenburg, “Russia’s New and Unrealistic Naval Doctrine,” War on the Rocks, June 26, 2017, accessed September 21, 2021; and Rajorshi Roy, “Decoding Russia’s 2017 Naval Doctrine,” Manohar Parikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, August 24, 2017, accessed September 21, 2021.

Sebastien Roblin, “Kalibr: Russia has its very own ‘Tomahawk Missile’,” The National Interest, April 7, 2017, accessed September 21, 2021.

Vladimir Putin, “Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Naval Operations for the Period Until 2030,” translated by Anna Davis (Newport: Russia Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College, 2015), 14.

Gorenburg, “Russia’s New and Unrealistic Naval Doctrine”; and Evitts, “Russian Naval Modernization and Strategy,” v.

Although Biddle excluded “war-at-sea” to explain force employment as a strong determinant of victories and defeats in battle, I argue that force employment also asks “where” to put forces against “whom,” aside from “how.” In the case of Russia, its navy is largely used for Corbettian purposes that are projecting maritime power on land—the far eastern flank of the Russian homeland. See Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006), ix. See also Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Twenty-First Century Strategy: An Introduction to National Security Processes and Problems, (Colorado: Air University Press, 2006), 103-106.

Michael Koffman, Anya Fink, Dmitry Gorenburg, Mary Chesnut, Jeffrey Edmunds, and Julian Waller, Russian Military Strategy: Core Tenets and Operational Concepts, (Center for Naval Analyses, 2021), 14-16. 30 Mark Episkopos, “Meet the Gromky Corvette: Russia’s Newest Warship,” The National Interest, December 03, 2019, accessed September 21, 2021.

Evitts, “Russian Naval Modernization and Strategy,” 42.

“Russian Project 636.3 submarine Magadan completes trials,” Naval Recognition, September 01, 2021, accessed September 21, 2021.

Evitts, “Russian Naval Modernization and Strategy,” 42.

“SSBN Borei-Class Nuclear-Powered Submarines,” Naval Technology, accessed September 21, 2021.

Matej Kandrík, “The Case Against the Concept of Great Power Competition,” The Strategy Bridge, June 30, 2021, accessed September 21, 2021.

Matej Kandrík, “The Case Against the Concept of Great Power Competition.”

40 November/December 2021

War Termination Among Nuclear-Armed Great Powers in a Maritime Context LCDR Steven Wills USN (Ret), PhD 41 November/December 2021

M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

T

he concept of war termination among great powers has become something of a lost art since the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1990. The rise of China and the return of Russia as a nuclear armed, great power rival again demand an understanding of how wars with such opponents end. Unlike the wars in Southwest Asia since 1991 against opponents like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Taliban and Al Qaida in Iraq, and ISIS in Iraq and Syria, complete victory is not possible with a nuclear armed opponent. Those conflicts and the recent and abrupt end of the U.S.supported Afghan government that fell in September 2021 further illustrate

challenges for the United States in ending wars with non-peer opponents.

In addition to problems with non-peer war termination, the U.S. faces a major change in great power competition environments. In the case of China, there is no land front, with the implication that war termination could result based on naval and air conflict rather than a focus on land operations, where the conquest of opponent territory or the collapse of an opponent’s armed forces leadership has historically been a harbinger of defeat. Noted war termination expert Fred Ikle has said, “It is crucial therefore that the United States and its friends relearn the rules for ending a war with 42 November/December 2021

strategic foresight and skill so that the hard-won victory will purchase a lasting political success.”1 In support of this goal, the United States must re-engage with the concepts of war termination in general, its application to nuclear-armed peer opponents, and (now) its maritime context given the lack of a land combat front with China. It must assess those post-Cold War attempts at war termination with regional powers and non-state actors to determine if those examples merit further consideration in planning for war termination with nuclear-armed peer opponents.

WAR TERMINATION CONCEPTS BEFORE 1991 War termination was once a dark art of the Cold War as theorists attempted to determine how wars involving US Naval Reserve Force.

43 November/December 2021

the potential for nuclear weapon use could be ended before weapons of mass destruction were utilized. Thomas Schelling’s Arms and Influence was one of the original works on the use of force and war termination in the midCold War era. Schelling introduced concepts fundamental to coercing an adversary to the negotiating table for an end to conflict. Schelling stated that, “Most conflict situations are essentially bargaining situations.”2 One of his primary tools in that process was brinksmanship, which involved actions that risked disaster, but potentially deter or compel an opponent to act as desired. Schelling described the process of brinksmanship as “rocking the boat.”3 Essential in brinksmanship however was the need to preserve important enemy targets undestroyed and U.S. weapons unused as bargaining assets later in the process.4

The nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS VIRGINIA (CGN 38) and USS SOUTH CAROLINA (CGN 37) during the Cold War.

Much of the war termination literature of the Cold War focused on land warfare. That was not surprising as naval strategist Sir Julian Corbett stated in 1911, “Since men live upon the land and not upon the sea, great issues between nations at war have always been decided—except in the rarest cases— either by what your army can do against your enemy's territory and national life or else by the fear of what the fleet makes it possible for your army to do.”5 Navy strategy in the Cold War reflected this maxim, but also spoke of the value of naval forces in enabling war termination.

The classified Maritime Strategy (1984 edition) referred to war termination several times in its text. It listed war termination on favorable terms as one of

the four primary goals of the Maritime Strategy.6 Specific Navy and Marine Corps actions designed to support war termination included the securing of strategic chokepoints and securing territory previously lost to Soviet military action.7 Finally, the 1984 Maritime Strategy described the Navy’s role in war termination as one of, “putting sufficientconventional pressure on the Soviets to convince them that they would have no gain in continuing aggression and in fact should retreat, while giving them no incentives to escalate to nuclear war.

For the Navy, this means neutralization or destruction of the Soviet Navy and of ground and air forces on the Eurasian flanks; sea–control; and intervention in the land battle.”

44 November/December 2021

Given the assumption that the Soviet’s own expected naval strategy was likely to involve nuclear war in U.S. estimates, the focus of the Maritime Strategy’s own war termination component was on actions prior to that point, reflecting that there was no path to victory with a nucleararmed power but rather only favorable war termination.8 The graphic below from the 1984 Maritime Strategy document shows its focus on war termination as part of the overall allied effort.

Some naval strategists, however, began to speak on the potential for war termination based perhaps alone

on events at sea. Navy Captain Linton Brooks, a submariner and later a nuclear weapons negotiator stated in 1986 that, “Destruction of the Soviet fleet and establishment of maritime superiority are necessary to prevent defeat in Europe and provide leverage for war termination.”10 In particular, Brooks noted that the threat posed to Soviet ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) and, with it, the Soviet second strike (nuclear) capability had the potential to support war termination if the Soviets believed the loss of that capability was a culminating point in a military conflict with the West.11

Figure 1: Maritime Strategy War termination graphic.9 45 November/December 2021

Other Cold War nuclear war theorists thought differently, notably John Mearsheimer and Barry Posen who both believed that a threat to the Soviet SSBN force would provoke further escalation rather than limit it.12 As with so many other aspects of Cold War theory, whether or not an attack on Soviet SSBNs would be escalatory remains confined to the realm of theory and war games. Brooks for his part, was careful to note in his writings that while naval action could provide leverage for the process of war termination, it must not extend to attacks on the Soviet homeland that would give the impression that U.S. war aims included “the destruction of the Soviet state or the replacement of Communist party control.”13 The end of the Cold War dampened enthusiasm for further research into great

power war termination concepts, but the three decades that have followed have offered numerous examples of the war termination process at work with regional powers and non-state actors.

While often thought of as a successful conflict from the U.S. perspective, the 1991 Gulf War termination process was troubled and perhaps set the stage for U.S. war termination challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan in later decades.

Those conflicts represent war termination conditions where the U.S. sought to determine and control the war’s end without much input from the opponent. Success was not forthcoming, and even as early as the 1991 Gulf War it became apparent that senior U.S. military and civilian leaders were not experienced in the bargaining method recommended by Schelling despite decades of its practice in the Cold War.

U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf War.

46 November/December 2021

The end of the 1991 Gulf War was negotiated with the U.S.-led coalition in a clear position of overwhelming military superiority and significant operational level of war advantage. Coalition troops having liberated Kuwait were poised to enter Iraq if needed. All the components for a successful war termination process appeared in place. U.S. Central Command and Coalition commander General Norman Schwarzkopf described his chain of command as one where, “the President had been presidential; the Secretary of Defense had concentrated on setting military policy; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had served as the facilitator between civilian and military leadership; and as theater commander I’d been given full authority to carry out my mission.”14 National Security Directive 54 was the effective U.S. statement of war aims by President Bush, and stated that, “the destruction of the Republican Guards as an effective fighting force,” the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and driving Iraqi forces from Kuwait constituted U.S. and coalition war aims.15 President Bush further stated that, “Military operations will come to an end only when I have determined that objectives set forth (in paragraph 2) have been met.”16 President Bush ultimately declared a unilateral ceasefire 100 hours into military operations; in part due to the perceived heavy casualties that the 47 November/December 2021

President George H. W. Bush

Iraqis appeared to be sustaining as broadcast on international television.

General Schwarzkopf agreed with this decision, but his subordinates argued that victory conditions had not been met. As one author later said, “The closer one got to the battlefield, the more questionable the decision to end the war seemed.”17 An observer attached to the Joint Staff later said that their consensus was that the war continue at least another 48 hours in order to better achieve President Bush’s war aims.18 The outcome of this was in the words of one author, “The Republican Guard were not routed, they were not to be made combat ineffective, they were not destroyed. After six months of planning, the coalition’s ground offensive never reached its logical culmination.”19

While President Bush may have called a stop to combat operations, the process of negotiation did take place. The Iraqis persuaded Schwarzkopf to allow them to fly helicopters in areas that were not under the control of coalition troops. This allowed the Iraqis to suppress an uprising against Saddam Hussein in the weeks after Gulf War hostilities concluded. An unnamed Bush administration source said that Schwarzkopf had gone into war termination negotiations “uninstructed,” and as a result, the Iraqis were able to gain the ability to protect the Hussein regime and thwart one of President Bush’s key war aims for its end.20 The U.S. Central Command Chief Foreign Policy advisor stated, “We never did have a plan to terminate the war,” and this statement perhaps best summed up the lack of planning for the conflict’s end.21 It could equally be argued that the post9/11 operations in Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq did not include provisions for war termination that included Thomas Schelling’s concept of negotiation. Both operations were conducted within the five-phase process of Joint Publication 5, the U.S. Joint Staff Planning document for the conduct of combat operations. The phases of this construct assume outright that U.S. and coalition forces will achieve dominance in combat operations and set the stage for stabilization, return to civil authority, and redeployment of troops.22 Such

assumptions that are “baked in” to the operational planning process tend to distance the uniformed military from the process of a negotiated war termination.

Former U.S. Army officer and military historian Antulio Echevarria has argued that, “the current American way of war focuses principally on defeating the enemy in battle. Its underlying concepts are a polyglot of information-centric theories such as network-centric warfare, rapid decisive operations, and shock and awe that center on “taking down” an opponent quickly, rather than finding ways to apply military force in the pursuit of broader political aims. Moreover, the characteristics of the U.S. style of warfare—speed, jointness, knowledge, and precision—are better suited for strike operations than for translating such operations into strategic successes.”23 U.S. Marines with Afghan Soldiers.

48 November/December 2021

Sgt. Michael Cucinotta prepares to hand out AK-47 rifles during a marksmanship class in Garmsir District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

As a result of this focus on warfighting and not on the political and diplomatic elements essential to negotiating war termination, U.S. uniformed military planners are often incapable of adding war termination elements or thinking to their plans due to these structural barriers. The outcome of this has been that “American confidence in the technical aspects of war has led to less emphasis on the political foundations of war, in planning for a viable political end state, and in matching national means to this end state. The implications of this foreign perception will be adversaries that are more willing and able to fight in the cultural and political domains.”24 These political domain fights played out in both the Afghanistan and Iraq operations of the last 20 years. The 49 November/December 2021

2001 invasion of Afghanistan began with a simple objective of destroying or capturing the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The failure to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, the lead terrorist in the 9/11 attacks, for nearly 10 years after the initial attacks no doubt complicated the war termination process in Afghanistan and was perhaps one of the reasons the U.S. effort there expanded beyond the scope of the initial mission. The failure to achieve the security goals in Iraq because of the postinvasion insurgency certainly delayed the ability for the U.S. to end its Iraqi involvement. Both conflicts became much longer, and less military as opposed to political in scope because of the failure to achieve perfect military success and withdraw U.S. combat forces.

Schelling’s negotiation process did take place eventually in both conflicts, but on terms unfavorable to the United States in both cases, with the situation in Afghanistan arguably a defeat. Perhaps the lesson on war termination from these conflicts with non-peer opponents is that the negotiation process ought to be included in the military operational planning doctrine such as Joint Publication 5. If military leaders President Joe Biden

understand a negotiation process must take place, the choices they made in operations might be different and better linked to a successful war outcome as opposed to just winning battles.

RETURNING TO A WORLD WITH NUCLEAR-ARMED GREAT POWER OPPONENTS How have the past twenty years of war prepared the U.S. for a return to the concept of war termination with nuclear-armed peer opponents such as China and Russia? Also, given the lack of potential land fronts between the U.S. and potential adversaries, do present U.S. strategy and operational level of war documents address war termination in a maritime context as well?

The top-level national security documents currently in effect, the 2017 National Security and 2018 National Defense Strategy, speak of winning wars but not the process involved in achieving that goal beyond the tools needed for combat: lethality, allies and partners, and innovation among these.

The Biden administration has issued an interim National Security Guidance, but it speaks little of war termination beyond a desire to end “forever” wars in Southwest Asia.25 A new National Defense Strategy remains in progress.

50 November/December 2021

Joint Warfare Publication 5 deals with the end of military action through the lens of post-Cold War U.S. conflicts in Southwest Asia including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the wider Middle East. Mirroring the planning for those conflicts, Joint Publication 5 assumes an end to conflict followed by occupation, reconstruction, troop withdrawal, and a return to national control by a government friendly to U.S. interests.

Joint Publication 5 defines the mission’s “End state,” as, “the set of conditions to meet conflict termination criteria,” but links that to the achievement of defined military objectives.26 This rather generic treatment of war termination makes application by an operational level of war commander a challenge as General Norman Schwarzkopf found in 1991 when he was tasked with negotiating the end of the Gulf War. USS Mustin (DDG-89).

51 November/December 2021

Most recent U.S. Navy and national-level strategies and operational level of war documents also do not have specific war termination language, and speak instead of the cessation of hostilities or the defeat of opponent aims. The 2020 Cooperative Maritime Strategy, Advantage at Sea, is the first such document to return to the use of war termination concepts since the 1980s, although in a limited way without much context as opposed to the Maritime Strategy.27 It also returns to the use of the term “war termination” in the text of an unclassified document. Specifically, in terms of the mission of the joint force the 2020 Cooperative Maritime Strategy states that one of the objectives of the naval service in the event of conflict is to, “deny adversaries their objectives and defeat adversary forces while managing escalation; provide leverage

and influence to set the conditions for favorable conflict termination.”28 In terms of the operational level of war and especially the concept of sea control, the Advantage at Sea states, “Controlling the seas enables the Naval Service to project power to compel war termination and protect joint and allied forces surging to conflict theaters.”29 Most importantly, Advantage at Sea defines war termination as a key factor in the concept of strategic depth stating that, “Strategic depth provides the time and decision space needed to create conditions favorable to war termination.”30 ADVERSARY RESPONSE? The revanchist Russian and rising China regimes approach war termination under different terms, especially as applied to nuclear weapons. A recent CNA study described the Russian War Termination process as one that “continues to evolve, pricing in new capabilities, integrating added flexibility to the deterrence force structure, and responding to developments in the United States.”31 CNA analysts noted that Russia is perhaps more focused on aspects of de-escalation of conflict while simultaneously achieving national goals rather than specific war termination criteria. The Russian method for war termination is one of strategic communication where an opponent is told, “The Russian military

can inflict progressively higher costs while lowering their expected gains in a conflict. These actions signal to the opponent’s leadership and populations the need to forgo aggression, deescalate hostilities, and/or terminate the conflict.”32 Chinese war termination strategies remain less well understood, perhaps in the absence of a long Cold War period in which to build assumptions of how China ends conflict. China has also not actively employed its military on a wide scale since its 1979 punitive expedition into Vietnam, and that conflict was initiated, conducted, and concluded almost entirely on Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s terms.33 Many Western observers considered this conflict a failure in that China suffered heavy

Deng Xiaoping

52 November/December 2021

U.S. Marines launch a 4.5 rocket barrage against the Chinese Communists in the Korean war.

losses. China itself regarded the war as a success despite battlefield failures as the conflict enabled Deng to consolidate his leadership at home. The conflict also suggested that the Soviet Union would not support close allies like Vietnam in conflict against other communist states, a decision that further isolated Vietnam in the region and caused it to question its Soviet ties.

Overall, the Chinese viewed their 1979 punitive expedition against Vietnam as validation of a war termination strategy they had pursued since the Korean War. 53 November/December 2021

China has been reluctant to engage in any wartime diplomacy with more powerful opponents and, historically, has done so only when it achieved some significant military advantage over an opponent as was the case with Vietnam in 1979 and earlier with India in 1962.

Georgetown University scholar Oriana Skyler Mastro suggests that China’s historical preferred strategy of massive, early escalation to weaken an opponent’s resolve and force war termination might even be magnified by its current belief that the U.S. lacks the resolve to continue a protracted conflict.34

The war termination strategies of U.S. great power opponents should be considered in both the formulation of U.S. war termination strategies as well as the alignment of national and service war termination documents. As the Navy considers war termination in the maritime environment, the strategies of both Russia and China should be strongly considered as each represents a different challenge in terms of geography, alliances, and overall capability.

CONCLUSION It remains to be seen what war termination content will be present in the Biden administration’s National Security and National Defense strategies. The inclusion of specific war termination references in the current U.S. Navy

strategy document, however, suggests the return to strategic competition with other nuclear-armed peer opponents has returned the concept of war termination to a more prominent position. The U.S. Department of Defense should give significant consideration as to how to effectively terminate great power conflicts before they escalate beyond control. The somewhat dismal U.S. record of war termination with regional powers and non-state actors over the last three decades should serve as a warning that such efforts are not to be taken lightly or left to the uniformed military to carry through to completion. In the event of actual war with a nuclear-armed peer opponent like China or Russia, war termination may be the most important task ever undertaken by the U.S. government.

The U.S. Department of Defense building, the Pentagon.

54 November/December 2021

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6

Fred Charles Ikle, Every War Must End, New York; Columbia University Press, 2005, xv.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, MA.; The Harvard University Press, 1960, 5.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 5.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 6.

Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, 16.

James D. Watkins, The Maritime Strategy, Washington D.C.; The Department of the Navy, The Chief of Naval Operations, 04 March 1984, 27, 41.

7 James D. Watkins, The Maritime Strategy, 61.

8 James D. Watkins, The Maritime Strategy, 24.

9 James D. Watkins, The Maritime Strategy, 69.

10 Linton Brooks, in Stephen J. Cimbala and Keith A Dunn, editors, Conflict Termination and Military Strategy, Coercion, Persuasion and War, Boulder and London, Westview Press, 1987, P. 11.

11 Linton Brooks, in Stephen J. Cimbala and Keith A Dunn, editors, Conflict Termination and Military Strategy, Coercion, Persuasion and War, 11.

12 John J. Mearsheimer, ‘A Strategic Misstep: The Maritime Strategy and Deterrence in Europe’, International Security (Fall 1986) pp.

3–57, and B. A. Posen, ‘Inadvertent Nuclear War?: Escalation and NATO’s Northern Fleet’, International Security (Fall 1982) pp. 28–54.

13 Brooks, in Cimbala and Dunn, p. 169.

14 Schwarzkopf and Petre, 1992, p. 368.

15 George H. W. Bush, “National Security Directive 54,” Washington D.C.; The White House, 15 January 1991.

16 George H. W. Bush, “National Security Directive 54.”

17 Michael R. Gordon and Bernard Trainor, The General’s War, The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf, New York, Little Brown, and Company, 1995, 425.

18 Email to author from Dr. David Rosenberg, Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA,) 12 August 2020. (Dr Rosenberg was a naval reservist intelligence officer supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Persian Gulf Section at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.) 19 Gordon and Trainor, The General’s War, 429.

20 Gordon and Trainor, The General’s War, 444-448.

21 Gordon and Trainor, The General’s War, 461.

22 Joint Publication 5, III-43, and III-44.

23 Justin Kelley and Mike Brennan, Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy, Carlisle, PA, The U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, September 2009, p. 112.

24 Justin Kelley and Mike Brennan, Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy, 79.

25 The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, Washington D.C.; The White House, March 2021, 15.

26 Joint Publication 5, IV-27.

27 Author’s note: This contention is supported by the review of not only the documents contained in this text, but also documents from the 1990’s including the 1992 “From the Sea” and the 1993 “Forward…From the Sea” Navy strategy documents.

28 Authors, Advantage at Sea, 6.

29 Authors, Advantage at Sea, 11.

30 Authors, Advantage at Sea, 27.

31 Michael Kofman, Anya Fink, Jeffrey Edmonds, With contributions by Kasey Stricklin, Dmitry Gorenburg, Katherine Baughman, and Mary Chesnut, Russian Strategy for Escalation Management: Evolution of Key Concepts, Arlington, VA., The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA,) 13 April 2020, p. i.

32 Michael Kofman, Anya Fink, Jeffrey Edmonds, With contributions by Kasey Stricklin, Dmitry Gorenburg, Katherine Baughman, and Mary Chesnut, Russian Strategy for Escalation Management: Evolution of Key Concepts, i.

33 Oriana Skylar Mastro, “How China Ends Wars: Implications for East Asian and U.S. Security,” The Washington Quarterly, 26 March, 2018, 55.

34 Oriana Skylar Mastro, “How China Ends Wars: Implications for East Asian and U.S. Security,” 56.

55 November/December 2021

56 November/December 2021

FEATURED SECURITY SCHOLAR

Amira Jadoon, PhD

D

Mark Payumo

oing interesting things don’t just let you meet interesting people. It changes you in a way that it restores your faith in the basic goodness of mankind to rally around a good cause. Finding Amira for this edition, therefore, was less of a pre-planned approach than a fortunate chain of events that occasionally lead hardworking international security professionals into each other. Because life as an academic can be a solitary endeavor that sometimes lasts for months, social interaction is important especially at a time when isolation is imposed upon us by a pandemic that is as divisive as it is lethal. This is how ideas are shared, iterated on, fidelity to ideals renewed, and a sense of community nurtured.

It certainly helped that as someone who specialized in counterterrorism operations in Southeast Asia, it was not difficult to lend a hand to Amira’s research team from the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy, and help them

57 November/December 2021

gather on-the-ground qualitative data on two major battles that occurred in the Southern Philippines: the siege of Zamboanga by the Moro National Liberation Front; and the Battle of Marawi, which was provoked by ISISinspired members of the Abu Sayyaf Group.

It is not uncommon that professional engagements such as this become an incubator of ideas over the longterm. Hence, it is not difficult for someone with a military mind to reflect from the perspective of the warfighter that in counterterrorism, it is understandably easy to get in the thick of a military campaign and get carried away by the spirit of victory, particularly when the operating environment holds state security forces as the dominant fighting force by default. There are no opposing anti-air batteries, for instance, that will prevent or threaten incoming air support from reaching beleaguered soldiers on the ground who are under heavy enemy fire. Meanwhile, combat trains supporting an offensive

are relatively secure and the main battle area cordoned off without the threat of being breached by enemy mechanized infantry and armored assets.

This is not to say that counterterrorism (CT) or counterinsurgency (COIN) is easy. Far from it. The fact that the U.S. lost in Vietnam and left Afghanistan with questionable gains in the eyes of the American people are proof that it is not a walk in the park. The collapse of the Soviet Union after its foray into the “graveyard of empires” that is Afghanistan further highlights this point, as well as over half a century of strategic stalemate between the Philippine military and the New People’s Army.

But still, the consensus remains within defense circles that having significantly more freedom of maneuver—whether vertical or horizontal—in CT and COIN operations erodes the conventional warfighting capabilities of a military organization because even training missions were largely reshaped by the Global War on Terror. In Asia, this involves shifts in asking the right questions especially if the terror threat had existed within a nation’s borders long before the 9/11 attacks. In some cases, it can be surmised that the exploitation of academic material and provision of threat analyses are constrained by a host of factors such as lack of resources, institutional biases, groupthink, and the prestige that 58 November/December 2021

emanates from a high success rate in surgical strikes or special operations.

The worst that could have happened is when commanders begin asking, “Why study?” because “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” as an excuse for or while driven by these constraints.

taking a sober, data-driven look at the challenges we face in the 21st century has long-term payoffs.

Purposeful investment in war studies scholarship is worth-it because there is just so much to cover other than the return of the Marcoses or China.

We brought in Amira because like us here at Analyzing War, she is on a mission both to inform and to keep our world safe. Similar to the work that she does in tracking ISIS in Southeast Asia by uncovering patterns and trends so that regional state security forces can optimize their counterterrorist response, we are keen to demonstrate that

More than that, however, Amira is also here to encourage the next generation of researchers to pursue their passion and to show that fulfilling, meaningful work can be achieved as a security scholar. Read on and learn more from her.

AW: How did your academic journey begin? What drew you to West Point?

Amira: I took a non-traditional route to academia, but one that has been full of learning and self-growth.

As an undergraduate student in the United States from Pakistan, I brought with me my passion for writing, and appreciation of Economics (yes, I was a nerd indeed).

Combining the two, I double majored in Journalism and Economics. But life had other plans for me – after my Masters degree from the London School of Economics, I ended up working in management consulting in London (UK) for five years. While

59 November/December 2021

my experience working as a young professional in a tremendously cosmopolitan city was invaluable, I realized that I wanted to dedicate my work-life to something I felt passionate about. I firmly believed (and still do) that I would only truly excel in a career which was meaningful to me, and had a bigger purpose. During this time, I would spend hours reading up on world events, and specifically political violence in Asia—which eventually made me realize that that's what I

wanted to study and research. So I quit my job, moved back across the Atlantic, and pursued a PhD in Political Science, with a focus on security and political violence.

I was blessed with fantastic mentors in my PhD program and beyond, who were doing outstanding work in security studies and political violence, and they truly inspired me. When the opportunity at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point emerged just around 60 November/December 2021

my graduation, it was perfect for me; I could teach and mentor future leaders, conduct research on political violence and terrorism, and engage regularly with U.S. and global policymakers. I've been at West Point for over four years, and I've been grateful every day for working here!

AW: The work that you do is not easy for many people. What inspires you to do your job on a daily basis?

Amira: Whether something is easy or difficult is so subjective, but yes, there are challenges to doing this kind of work. For one, I am guilty of working too many hours (like most academics). But it can be a little bit overwhelming to be constantly studying and analyzing people and organizations, which engage in violence and target civilians. Also, when you publish widely on conflict and terrorist groups, sometimes you can also feel a bit exposed.

Yet, I know my work is meaningful and it has a broad audience, which includes academics, policymakers, practitioners and students; if I can contribute even a little bit to humanity's collective understanding of the determinants of political violence, and how to contribute to long-term strategies of peace, then I 61 November/December 2021

am highly content and satisfied with my work. It's what keeps me going.

AW: What is your favorite book and why?

Amira: My favorite book changes all the time, but for now I'm going to go with Adam Grant's "Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know." It's a fantastic book about human psychology, and reveals the many benefits of keeping an open mind, taking joy in being wrong and constantly updating and revising our beliefs and convictions.

AW: What is your latest project that we should be on the lookout for?

Amira: I am super excited about one of the books that I am currently working on (expected to be released next year) which is about the emergence and survival of Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan: IS Khorasan. As you know, the group is currently a major concern, not just in Afghanistan but for the region, and as a potential threat to the West it will influence the trajectory of violence in Afghanistan and beyond.

I have closely studied the group for many years, and the book is a culmination of my work, drawing on

original data and primary sources.

In addition to that, I am leading a new and very exciting project, which seeks to identify potential points of convergence in the United States' domestic and international counterterrorism policies—so lots to come!

AW: What would you advise to those who are looking to take the same path as yours?

Amira: My quick advice is that pursue a career in a realm that you are truly passionate about, because honestly, that is what makes life worth living. But take your time to figure out what that is—keep an

open mind, take different roles, and don't be afraid to take a non-linear path to where you want to end up.

Even though I took a circuitous route to academia and my current position, I learned a wide variety of skills through all of my experiences, which today help me do well in various aspects of my job. I think it's also important to remember that failures are inevitable. But by embracing failures and losses, we all learn, grow and develop resilience, and they are an indicator that we are truly pushing ourselves outside our comfort zones.

Besides that, keep traveling and experiencing the world as and when you can, and keep exercising to keep the stress at bay!

62 November/December 2021

ORDER of BATTLE Mark Payumo

There is no other place in the world that an order of battle (OB)—the military’s technical term when considering both friendly and enemy array of forces postured to go to war—is more misunderstood than in the Philippines.

It is a country that has been at war for more than half a century, but not against a foreign invader similar to what it experienced during World War II. The former chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Victor Corpuz, had a name for it, which became the title for his book and became a widely read Filipino military treatise on unconventional warfare among warrior scholars: Silent War. 63 November/December 2021

The unfortunate reality in this type of warfare is that it involves engaging everything that an entire country can bring to bear to end the conflict within its own borders. Because military victory is only part of the solution as the decisive right hook following a series of metaphorical left jabs, nonmilitary means entail involvement of civilian resources from various sectors of the society. It also entails winning their hearts and minds, and securing information advantage and dominance as a way to seal the fate of the opposing forces who are usually engaged in terrorism and sabotage operations. The fact that it is “silent,” unconventional, or irregular doesn’t exempt it from the obstinate persistence of the fog of war, and in a democracy (or even one that is sham or simply struggling to transition away from tyranny) journalists are at the tip of the non-military spear.

The Fourth Estate has the power to advocate for and frame political issues, but it is also perceived by the intelligence community to be susceptible to subversive co-optation along with intellectual activist groups. In other words, some not all, are working to muddy or blur the truth in order to gain idealistic, dedicated followers—whether guerrilla fighters or parliamentary subversives—to further the interests of a “higher power.” In the Philippines, state security forces usually claim this

power to be the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that is incentivizing the OB list of dissident individuals in Manila’s eyes. When framed in a geopolitical context in the Indo-Pacific, the CPP’s approach is actually no different from the Chinese Communist Party’s disinformation campaigns against Taiwan and the United States.

Admittedly, however, even the order of battle itself as an informative tool to successfully prosecute a counterinsurgency campaign is not perfect, further exacerbating the fog of war that is simultaneously imposed by insurgent spies and volunteer auxiliaries inside the Fourth Estate and other sectors of the society.

But here at Analyzing War, we are on a mission to mainstream empirical and scientific truth, and the order of battle is as technical as it takes on a different meaning towards a positive direction.

Therefore, looking back as we approach the end of 2021, our own order of battle reflects dedicated scholars who support our advocacy. You will find them featured here in the succeeding pages not only in grateful recognition of their contributions, but to demonstrate that when people come together in pursuit of the common good the possibilities are endless. So long as you approach the work with a genuine heart, there are always good people in this world who will support you and work with you.

64 November/December 2021

AVA PATRICIA AVILA, PHD Ava Avila is Strategic Fellow at Verve Research, an independent research collective focused on the relationship between militaries and societies in Southeast Asia. She holds a PhD in Defense and Security from Cranfield University, UK.

65 November/December 2021

JAY BENSON Jay Benson is the IndoPacific Project Manager for Stable Seas, a nonprofit research organization focused on organized political violence and nontraditional security issues in the maritime domain.

66 November/December 2021

DAVID BRUCE David is a career federal law enforcement officer with assignments in counterterrorism investigations and tactical instructor positions. As a task force officer for the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), he has spent over five years investigating domestic and international terrorism cases and responding in the aftermath of terrorism attacks. Prior to his assignment on the JTTF, he served as the lead instructor for the Boston Office of the Federal Air Marshal Service, teaching antihijacking tactics, firearms, law enforcement response to active shooter, and tactical surveillance.

In 2019, David graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a degree in journalism. During his studies, he concentrated on news writing, public relations, and writing for social media. Since graduating he has published several magazine articles with a focus on terrorism and adventure travel. Before embarking on a 25-year career in law enforcement, he served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper/combat medic in the 82nd Airborne Division.

67 November/December 2021

CHESTER CABALZA, PHD Chester holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of the Philippines, Diliman and serves as president of the International Development and Security Cooperation in UP.

68 November/December 2021

ALVIN CAMBA Alvin is an assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He is also a faculty affiliate at the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University, the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security & Diplomacy, and the Center for China-US Cooperation. Dr. Camba has conducted in-depth research on Chinese capital in Southeast Asia, published numerous peer-reviewed articles in top development journals, and been awarded multiple best research paper awards by sections of the American Sociological Association. His work has contributed to widelycirculated policy reports, and been presented at the World Bank, AidData, and the US State Department.

69 November/December 2021

CLARISSE DACANAY Clarisse Dacanay is a young and aspiring security expert with a key interest in the political-security affairs of the Indo-Pacific region.

She has more than four years of demonstrated experience in the public, private and civil society sectors within the fields of public policy, foreign affairs, and military affairs and national security.

She is currently doing research on cybersecurity and emerging technologies policies, and strategic foresight and anticipatory governance. She is also an Associate Research Analyst for Deltek with a special focus on government contracting in the defense sector. She previously served as a Program and Research Associate for the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute where she led, expanded and developed its Defense and Security program to cater to current and future risks and opportunities.

Clarisse received her dual degree in BS Legal Management and AB Diplomacy and International Relations with a Specialization in East and Southeast Asia from the Ateneo de Manila University.

70 November/December 2021

ZAK DYCHTWALD Zak’s mission is to drive a deep, people-first understanding between China and the Western world.

He combines in-depth research, theory and on-the-ground experience to provide insights into how a new generation of 417 million millennials will impact our countries, our businesses, and our lives. After publishing his book and listening to friends and colleagues discouraged by careers in journalism and academia, Zak wanted to undo some of the commonly held stereotypes and limiting preconceptions the world has of China. He wanted to be directing research questions to be more thoughtful, provocative, and empathetic. He founded Young China Group to focus on developing impactful research that helps us see China more clearly through a people-first perspective.

71 November/December 2021

JOSHUA BERNARD B. ESPEÑA Joshua Bernard B. Espeña is a resident fellow at International Development and Security Cooperation (IDSC), a policy think tank based in Manila. He is also a lecturer of Political Science and International Relations at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and University of the East. Concurrently, Joshua serves as a global security analyst for Analyzing War. He researches on issues regarding naval warfare, grand and military strategy, great power politics of the Indo-Pacific, ASEAN and Russian Studies, and Philippine strategic culture.

72 November/December 2021

ROBIN MICHAEL U. GARCIA, PHD Robin Garcia is a Shanghaieducated political scientist, academic, and the CEO of WR Numero. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Political Economy Program of the School of Law and Governance of the University of Asia & the Pacific (UA&P). He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Politics and International Relations degree from the School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA) of Fudan University in Shanghai, China where he was distinguished with the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence in 2017.

73 November/December 2021

DON MCLAIN GILL Don is an international affairs researcher based in the Philippines.

He is currently pursuing the Master of Arts degree in International Studies at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He has written extensively on regional geopolitics and Indian foreign policy for various publications and international peerreviewed journals.

74 November/December 2021

MICHAEL VAN GINKEL Michael conducts Indo-Pacific research for the Stable Seas program at One Earth Future (OEF) Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on international conflict and governance. He specializes in conflict resolution and peacekeeping operations.

75 November/December 2021

RENZO GUINTO, MD DRPH Renzo Guinto is a Filipino physician and the Chief Planetary Doctor of PH Lab – a “glo-cal think-anddo tank” for advancing the health of both people and the planet. An Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader and Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, Renzo recently finished his Doctor of Public Health degree at Harvard University and previously worked for the World Bank, World Health Organization, and Philippine Department of Health.

76 November/December 2021

STEPHAN HAGGARD, PHD Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) at the University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983 and taught in the Department of Government at Harvard University from 1983 to 1991 before joining the faculty of GPS where he also serves as Director of the Korea-Pacific Program at GPS. His research interests center on the international and comparative political economy of development, with particular emphasis on East Asia. Since 2005, he has been the editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies.

77 November/December 2021

MURRAY HIEBERT Murray Hiebert is a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He earlier served as senior adviser and deputy director of the CSIS Southeast Asia Program. Prior to joining CSIS, Mr. Hiebert was senior director for Southeast Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is the author of two books on Vietnam, Chasing the Tigers (Kodansha, 1996) and Vietnam Notebook (Review Publishing, 1993). His latest book, Under Beijing’s Shadow: Southeast Asia’s China Challenge (Rowman & Littlefield) was released in early 2020.

78 November/December 2021

GABRIEL HONRADA Gabriel is an international relations graduate student at the People’s Friendship University of Russia under the Russian government scholarship. His research focuses on Indo-Pacific military affairs and Russia in the Indo-Pacific.

79 November/December 2021

AMIRA JADOON, PHD Amira is an assistant professor and a research associate in the Department of Social Sciences and the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

She specializes in international security, economic statecraft, and political violence, with a regional focus on South, Southeast, and Central Asia.

80 November/December 2021

NAKISSA JAHANBANI, PHD Nakissa is a researcher at the Combating Terrorism Center and an assistant professor at the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point. At the Center, her research focuses on the Islamic State’s activities in Southeast Asia and, separately, Iran’s support to proxies in various regions, including the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.

81 November/December 2021

COLLIN KOH Collin is Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies which is a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has research interests on naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific, focusing on Southeast Asia.

Collin has published several opeds, policy and academic journal articles as well as chapters for edited volumes covering his research areas. He has also taught at Singapore Armed Forces professional military education and training courses.

82 November/December 2021

EKATERINA KOLDUNOVA, PHD Ekaterina is an Associate Professor at the Department of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. She holds a PhD in International Relations and is a member of the International Studies Association, UK Higher Education Academy, Russian National Committee for BRICS Studies, European Association of Southeast Asian Studies, International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Russian National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.

83 November/December 2021

HUNTER MARSTON Hunter commenced his PhD at the Australian National University (ANU) in July 2019. His research is focused on great power competition in Southeast Asia. In particular, he explores how small states in Southeast Asia form hedging strategies to manage their relations with the United States and China, with particular focus on Singapore, Vietnam, and Myanmar. His main research interests include statesociety relations and political change in Southeast Asia, U.S. foreign policy, and U.S.-China competition.

84 November/December 2021

ELIZA MASSI, PHD Eliza works on energy and critical minerals at the Trade and Investment Department of the Embassy of Brazil in London. She was awarded a doctorate from SOAS, University of London in 2015. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, industrial policy, energy economics, and the mobilization of finance for development in Latin American and East Asia. She has published on political economy of natural resource development, energy politics, and development banks. She also serves on the Board of Advisors of the European Research Council funded research program on rare earth materials and industrialization – Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals (GRIP-ARM)

85 November/December 2021

AUSTIN MCKINNEY Austin is a U.S. foreign service officer and holds the rank of major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

86 November/December 2021

STEPHEN NAGY, PHD Stephen has been a Senior Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies of the International Christian University in Tokyo since September 2014.

Concurrently, he is a Research Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a Visiting Fellow with the Japan Institute for International Affairs.

He was selected as a Distinguished Fellow for the Asia Pacific Foundation from 2017-2020.

He serves as the Director of Policy Studies for the Yokosuka Council of Asia Pacific Studies, spearheading their Indo-Pacific Policy Dialogue Series, and as a Governor for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

87 November/December 2021

MATTHEW NANES, PHD Matthew is an assistant professor of political science at Saint Louis University.

His research is on domestic security institutions and citizen-state relations, particularly in places plagued by violent intergroup conflict.

Before coming to SLU, he was a postdoc at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He received his PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego in 2017, and proudly holds a BA from Rice University in Houston, Texas.

88 November/December 2021

SATORU NAGAO, PHD Satoru is a non-resident fellow at the Hudson Institute, based in Tokyo Japan. His primary research area is U.S.-Japan-India security cooperation. Dr. Nagao holds numerous other research positions at the Institute for Future Engineering, Research Institute for Oriental Cultures in Gakushuin University, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, Society of Security and Diplomatic Policy Studies, Security and Strategy Research Institute for Japan, Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka, and at the Indian Military Review. He was also a first lieutenant of the Japan Ground Self Defense Forces (Japanese Army).

Dr. Nagao has authored numerous books and articles on security issues, and contributes to the column, “Age of Japan-India ‘Alliance’” at Nikkei Business.

89 November/December 2021

SHERWIN E. ONA, PHD Sherwin is an associate professor and chairperson of the political science and development studies department of De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines.

His current engagements are in the areas of human security, cybersecurity, digital government, and disaster informatics. He is also a fellow of the Philippine Public Safety College-Department of the Interior and Local Government, the La Salle Institute of Governance and the StratbaseAlbert Del Rosario Institute. Dr. Ona is an officer of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary with the rank of Commander and has previously served with the Philippine Air Force as a reservist officer.

90 November/December 2021

DEO ONDA Deo is an Associate Professor at the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is the founding Principal Investigator of the Microbial Oceanography Laboratory. His research expeditions have taken him to the Arctic Region, the Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Philippine Sea. He obtained his inter-university PhD in Oceanography from the Université Laval in Quebec, Canada and accomplished a postdoctoral work at the Alfred Wegener Institute-Hemholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research.

91 November/December 2021

LOUIS PASCARELLA Louis Pascarella is a PhD student and adjunct faculty member in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

His research focuses on conflict, with an emphasis on policing, protest, and state-society relations.

92 November/December 2021

BEATRIZ PEDROSA Beatriz was awarded magna cum laude and inducted as a member of the Jose Rizal Honor Society after earning her bachelor’s degree in European studies from De La Salle University, Manila.

93 November/December 2021

HARRISON PRÉTAT Harrison is a research associate with the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

His research interests include maritime disputes, U.S.-China relations, economic engagement in Asia, and challenges to international institutions in the 21st century.

94 November/December 2021

LUCIO BLANCO PITLO III Lucio is a Research Fellow at the Manila-based AsiaPacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, Inc. He has written for CSIS-AMTI, China-US Focus, Pacific Forum, South China Morning Post, and The Diplomat among others. He is graduating from the Master of Arts degree program in international affairs at the American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C. this spring of 2022. Lucio holds a prior Master of Law (LLM) degree from Peking University and took graduate courses in Asian Studies from the University of the Philippines.

95 November/December 2021

NATALIE SAMBHI, PHD Natalie is the Executive Director of Verve Research and a Nonresident Fellow with the Foreign Policy program of the Brookings Institution. Her writing has appeared on Security Challenges Journal, South China Morning Post, War on the Rocks, The Diplomat, The Interpreter, and The National Interest. Natalie blogs at www.securityscholar.org. Follow her on Twitter @securityscholar.

96 November/December 2021

DIONNE SEARCEY Dionne is the former West Africa bureau chief for The New York Times and winner of the 2020 team Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

97 November/December 2021

JEWELLORD NEM T. SINGH Jewellord “Jojo” T. Nem Singh, PhD is Senior Lecturer in International Development at the International Institute of Social Studies, part of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is an expert on the global political economy of natural resources and the politics of development. Jojo is the Principal Investigator of a €1.5 million research grant funded by the European Research Council entitled Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals: A Transregional Comparison of Growth Strategies in Rare Earths Mining (GRIP-ARM). His recent publications include Developmental States beyond East Asia (Routledge, 2020), Resource Governance and Norm Domestication in the Developing World (Environmental Policy and Governance, 2020), and Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South: Critical International Political Economy Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

98 November/December 2021

DEVIN STEWART Devin Stewart is Senior Fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs where he founded the Asia Program. He also has served as an adjunct assistant professor in international affairs at Columbia University and New York University.

Rest in peace, Devin.

99 November/December 2021

CDR JAY TRISTAN TARRIELA PCG, PHD Jay Tarriela is a commissioned officer of the Philippine Coast Guard with the rank of Commander.

He recently earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree as a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) scholar at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) under the GRIPS Global Governance (G-cube) Program in Tokyo, Japan. He is also a Young Leader with Pacific Forum, Honolulu.

100 November/December 2021

CARL THAYER Carl is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Visiting Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Canberra. He is also the Director of Thayer Consultancy, a small business registered in Australia in 2002 that provides political analysis of current regional security issues and other research support to selected clients.

101 November/December 2021

MARITES DAÑGUILAN VITUG Marites has been a journalist for almost four decades and is one of the Philippines’ most accomplished journalists. A bestselling author, Marites has written eight books on Philippine current affairs. She is the former editor of Newsbreak, a pioneering political magazine.

Currently, she is editor-atlarge of Rappler. Her latest book, Rock Solid: How the Philippines Won Its Maritime Dispute Against China, won the National Book Award for best book in journalism in 2019.

102 November/December 2021

CHARMAINE WILLIS Charmaine is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science, University at Albany, State University of New York, and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine.

Her research interests include social movements and protests, international security, U.S. base politics, and political violence, with a regional focus on East Asia.

103 November/December 2021

STEVEN WILLS Steven is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy, and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms. His research interests include the history of U.S. Navy strategy development over the Cold War and immediate, post-Cold War era, and the history of the postWorld War II U.S. Navy surface fleet. Prior to joining CNA, Steven completed a PhD in military history from Ohio University, and had a 20-year career as an active-duty U.S. Navy officer. He served on a variety of small and medium surface combatants including an assignment as the executive officer (XO) of a Mine Countermeasures ship (MCM), and held shore-based billets at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), and at NATO Joint Forces Command, Naples, Italy (JFCNP).

Steven holds a PhD and MA in History from Ohio University, an MA in National Security Studies from the United States Naval War College, and a BA in History from Miami University, Oxford, OH.

104 November/December 2021

LIUYA ZHANG Liuya Zhang is a PhD student at the Political Science department of Ohio State University.

She received master’s degrees from Seoul National University and the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego.

105 November/December 2021

When evil men plot, Good men must plan.

When evil men burn and bomb, Good men must build and bind.

When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, Good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.

Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, Good men must seek to bring into being A real order of justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

106 November/December 2021