RSS No. 56 -- Realism, Thucydides, and Morgenthau

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 56
3 April 2013


James Wood Forsyth, Jr., “The Past as Prologue: Realist Thought and the Future of American Security Policy,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 5, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 102-120.

W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz, “How International Relations Theorists Can Benefit by Reading Thucydides,” Monist 89, no. 2 (April 2006): 232-244.

Robert Jervis, “Hans Morgenthau, Realism, and the Scientific Study of International Politics,” Social Research 61, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 853-876.


Realism in America appeared during the interwar years in response to the perceived failures of President Wilson’s internationalism but realism has not been especially prevalent in the actual formulation of U.S. policy since. Wilson, large segments of the American public, and many political leaders and scholars “equated” good intentions with good foreign policy, assumed democracy could suppress some of human nature’s baser tendencies, and that democracies could ensure international peace. James Forsyth argues that many American policy makers today are likewise promoting democracy---framing policy decisions around the concept of democracy---based on the belief that democracies can help enforce peace between competing powers. He asserts that after the perceived failures of democracy projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, policy makers will soon be drawn back to a more conservative realist outlook. Realism highlights the limits of power and warns that no state---not even an extravagant power---can do “all it wants all the time.” Realism teaches that balancing any potential hegemon is the key to stability and that a balance of power based on prudent security preparations can help obviate the need for war between competing states.

Forsyth reviews many core realist ideas and concepts like the “security dilemma” and the anarchic nature of international relations. Realism is built around a pessimistic view of human nature. People are not led by reason; they are led by reason and passion, and it is passion that produces conflict and war. Reason can temper passion but political leaders can never be sure adversaries will be swayed by reason all the time. Because competing statesmen are always capable of becoming “dishonorable and belligerent,” states must constantly see to their own security. Thucydides reflected this pessimistic view of human nature in the argument that the growth of Athenian power made Spartans fear for their security and thus compelled them to war. Realism, not generally concerned with compassion or morals, presumes an egotistical human nature and a widespread desire in humans to dominate others. Realism views state relations through a competitive lens based on an anarchic international structure. Interestingly, classical realism is founded on a fundamental contradiction. National politics is governed by laws and authority, whereas international politics---unrestrained by higher moral laws, in the realist view---is devoid of justice and order. Realists recognize that states enforce law and order within borders (authority) but not on the international stage, where states recognize power but not morals.

Since Thucydides is often considered a father of political realism it is important to ask whether he was in fact a realist. Would Thucydides have agreed with the view of Athenian realism he presented in his own The History of the Peloponnesian War? Korab-Karpowicz argues that Thucydides’ realism cannot be extrapolated from isolated fragments but only by considering the wider context of his writing.

Realism is usually elaborated by contrasting it with idealism (or liberalism) which stresses international norms, interdependence between states, and international cooperation. The competing perspectives of realism and idealism can appear stark: an international system based on a moral order derived from the principles of peace and justice or a “playground” of power grabs and suspicious power blocs. The Melians were idealists and based their arguments on an appeal to justice, which for them was a universal and undeniable moral principle. They trusted their security to promises for military assistance from their ally, Sparta. The Melian speech outlines the idealistic (liberal) world view that states have a right to exercise political independence, states have mutual obligations that they should honor, and wars of aggression are unjust. Thucydides’ writing drew out the continuing tension between the world as it is and the world as it should be. The Athenians advised the Melians not to be distracted by a false notion of honor, which in the absence of strength will bring disaster and dishonorable defeat, or to depend on mere hopes (of assistance from an ally which will also prove self-interested when the time for action arrives).

Realism has accumulated various critics. Institutionalists emphasize the interdependence of states and stress the mediating role played by institutions which lower transaction costs among states and increase the prospects for international cooperation. Other writers argue that the key to achieving a peaceful international system lies in radically altering state identity or transforming how states think about themselves and their relationships with others. This argument emphasizes that by not thinking of themselves as solitary actors responsible for their own security (turning the realist view on its head), states will develop a communitarian ethos and a broader sense of responsibility to the international community. For Forsyth, issues of state security are paramount though he also recognizes that there may be times when other issues are also critical (times when interests and moral concerns coincide). The violent breakup of Bosnia or genocide in Rwanda might fall into this category. Ultimately, though, some may question which is paramount: violations of justice in the international arena or the demands of state security. Forsyth concludes: “When the demands of statecraft and the demands of justice cannot be reconciled, realists argue that political leaders must choose injustice, even if it means war.”

In the classical realist tradition of Thucydides, there is no world government to protect a state from the hostile designs of other states and survival is the only game that matters in international relations. Given this, the essence of any security policy is the protection and preservation of the state itself. In the absence of a rule-making and enforcing universal authority, realism assumes that each state is responsible for its own security and is free to define its own interests (to the extent that its power allows). If there is no international government to enforce order among states, survival can only be guaranteed through the accumulation of power. The realist perspective that envisions a world of states constantly competing for power, and cooperating and enjoying peace only when the pursuit of power is balanced between major competitors, also sees the pursuit of state security as inviolable. Forsyth argues that power is fungible and relative. In the area of national security, military power is the most fungible of all national instruments of power. Realists see relative gains as more important than absolute gains since states can never be sure how a competitor will use gains from any particular transaction.

Globalization is a phenomenon that cannot be denied but its significance to national security is not always clear. While the structure of international economics may be changing, the realist perspective argues that the nature of international politics is not. Despite some wishful forecasts by some writers, it isn’t clear at all that the increasing interdependence of globalization is reducing the possibility of war (though some other force may of course drive down the possibility of war in the future). It is important for strategists to understand that interdependence creates vulnerabilities as well as opportunities. Given the primacy of state survival, this helps explain why international cooperation is so difficult to achieve in practice. Without a higher authority to appeal to, states will always hedge when it comes to interdependence, thus globalization alone is not enough to ensure international peace (or not to the degree argued by some advocates of the idea that a more interdependent world must be a safer world).

Forsyth also looks at what realism suggests about America’s future geopolitical standing. Though its power and influence extend to the hemisphere and are felt around the world, the U.S. is still but a regional power and hegemon. Forsyth warns that America will have to cool its “love affair with dominance, especially in light of pressing fiscal constraints.” There has never been a true global hegemon. When faced with global power transitions such as might happen with the rise of China in Asia in this century, states have essentially three choices: dominate, accommodate, or retrench. Domination strategies have tended to be most popular for Americans especially since the early Cold War period. Domination strategies can be relatively straightforward to implement and high-payoff for powers able to pursue them. Accommodation strategies have been effective for many powers in many different geopolitical circumstances but they also can be unpopular since seem to accept no way to “win.” Accommodation strategies are usually focused on maintaining some sort of continuous relative advantage. Retrenchment strategies may be appropriate and effective in certain circumstances but predictably are usually least popular. Forsyth concludes that the U.S. will be thrust back into a realist orientation whether policy makers like it or not.

Thucydides was an original political thinker---The History of the Peloponnesian War has been called a textbook on power politics---and a historian who was trying to do much more than merely relate events. Korab-Karpowicz emphasizes that nowhere does Thucydides lay out a complete or explicit international relations theory but enough is present to extrapolate a “theoretical position.” Thucydides is widely regarded as a political realist who believed the pursuit of moral principles does not belong to international relations. Korab-Karpowicz’s thesis is that Thucydides eschewed both an extreme realism which denies the validity of international morality, as well as a Utopian idealism that ignores power in international relations. In the earliest recorded debate between idealism and realism, in Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War, realism wins by the blunt force of the Athenian army. For the student of strategy it is important to understand that the Melians have noble aspirations but are politically naive---their strategy is based on ‘hopes’ but not a complete and prudent assessment of resources, which leads to an unrealistic assessment of likely conflict outcomes---they disregard the realistic behavior of states and so fail to prepare for their security. Thucydides contrasts the Melians’ impracticality with the Athenians’ rational approach based on expediency, intelligence, and foresight. But it is not as simple as saying Thucydides shared Athenians’ views on state security. Athenian reason contained a serious flaw and the defeat of Melos does not change the course of the Peloponnesian War, which Athens loses a few years later. The Athenians deny the existence of an overruling justice in international relations but go further to attribute to states an overruling appetite for domination. According to Korab-Karpowicz, “Their radical realism is not merely descriptive and defensive, but normative and offensive, and can be better termed as realpolitik.” By adopting a universal law of domination in international relations, the Athenians wind up glorifying war and conquest which contributes to their final undoing.

The Athenians replaced international morality with a stripped down raison d’etat, or state expediency. However, according to Korab-Karpowicz, Athenian leaders failed to recognize that state interest and the rule of might in international relations cannot sustain a useful theory of international politics for the long-term. For Thucydides, power that is unrestrained by moderation and justice sows the desire for more power. The Athenians’ short-term strategy to conquer the Melians leads to an unconstrained desire for power and security. Thucydides illustrates the idea that the naked pursuit of power breeds insecurity by the Athenians carrying the war to Sicily and losing. But Thucydides would reject both naive idealism and cynical realpolitik. In his conception of realism, selfishness is recognized but not translated into a value. Moderation and justice can keep states from becoming too opportunistic in defining and pursuing their interests. So Thucydides’ realism is apparent but profoundly circumscribed by moderating principles. Importantly, political leaders will recognize power and national interests but will also be judged by and influenced by moral judgments reflected in various ways including in the will of the populations they represent.

A virtuous Pericles was replaced by shallow public leaders who managed the state for their private ambition and gain. Thucydides described them as following public opinion, interested in their own popularity, and prone to forming policies to suit the whims of the people, regardless of whether the policies were actually good for the state. This precipitates the downfall of Athenian democracy, replaced by an oligarchic revolution, and defeat of the Athenians in Sicily. Korab-Karpowicz’s argument is that, for Thucydides, politics is fundamentally linked to ethics and they cannot be separated. In The History of the Peloponnesian War, unlike the writings of many realists, one can find deep reflections on ethics in its relation to politics.

An influential Cold War-era international relations writer, Hans Morgenthau stressed the centrality of national interest and closely linked power to interest but his conception of realism did not lead readily to specific policy prescriptions. Important to understanding Morgenthau’s concept of power is the notion that it is highly relational and context-bound (he believed power was not readily fungible). An actor could have power over another on a particular issue without being able to sway others on that same question or influence the same actor on other issues. This helps to explain the limits and character of U.S. influence and potential power in Asia and the frustrations associated with attempts by U.S. policy makers to shape Chinese behavior. Realism has tended to produce contradictory policy guidance from different realist thinkers and hence has not always been welcome by American policy makers. For Morgenthau, it made no sense to try to rigorously deduce propositions from fundamental axioms. He believed this would oversimplify politics to the point of caricature. It would also imply the existence of one dominant value and would vastly underestimate the role of contingency in politics. But both Morgenthau’s approach and neo-realism are troublesome because they try to be descriptive and prescriptive at the same. They simultaneously seek to explain how states do behave and how they should behave. Both Morgenthau and Waltz demonstrate that it is difficult to develop an argument that both explains and prescribes.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.

RSS No. 55 -- Palmerston, Naval Power and the Crimean War

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 55
13 March 2013


Brian James, “Allies in Disarray: The Messy End of the Crimean War,” History Today 58, no. 3 (March 2008): 24-31.

Michael Carroll Dooling, “The Thin Iron Line,” Naval History 18, no. 3 (June 2004): 36-41.

Klari Kingston, “Gunboat Liberalism? Palmerston, Europe and 1848,” History Today 47, no. 2 (February 1997): 37-43.


Alliance warfare can be especially frustrating for all allies involved because national governments will almost certainly not arrive at the same strategic assessments as to the value of the ends sought and the necessity of the losses incurred. While the Crimean War, 1853-1856, is remembered for dramatic battlefield blunders---remembered most graphically in the charge (or “deranged epic”) of the Light Brigade at Balaklava in October 1854---operational failures and strategic frustrations, it also presents an excellent case study in the peculiar issues and dynamics of alliance warfare. The British-French alliance was based on an insecure foundation of historic suspicions and British fears of a French invasion returned even before Russia had been forced to accept defeat. French interests were constrained by the republican government’s need to consolidate power at home and oversees adventures could be capitalized on by counterrevolutionary opponents. The 1856 armistice did not fulfill the majority of British ends but French war leaders were satisfied with the performance of French troops at Sevastopol and were ready to conclude the war at almost any cost. James argues that Britain’s acceptance of an armistice that did not serve its interests can only be understood in terms of British fears of French invasion from a newer, steam-powered French fleet.

Very poor military coordination between British and French military leaders resulted in tactical setbacks on both the Baltic and Balkan fronts and helped usher in a new British government---of Prime Minister Russell---including Lord Palmerston. Only months after start of the war, in November 1853, a Russian fleet armed with 68 pounder shell guns sank part of the Turkish navy at Sinope (Sinop) on the northern shore of Turkey while allied warships lay anchored nearby in the same area. Those allied warships had been sent to the Bosphorus to forestall exactly such a Russian naval attack. The Turkish disaster at Sinope taught the French the value of ironclad vessels---it demonstrated the vulnerability of wooden-hull ships to exploding shells---while the Russian victory gave the Tsar ascendancy over the Black Sea for a time. An allied attempt to advance swiftly on the fortress at Sevastopol to capture the Russian port and warships there grew into a protracted siege made worse because poor organization left allied troops vulnerable to weather and disease. An operation expected to last twelve weeks was drawn out to twelve months, finally ending in September 1855.

Palmerston assumed office in February 1855 after departure of the Aberdeen government. Lord Palmerston had a long and varied political career and his strategic views are hard to summarize, but it is fair to say he dominated British foreign policy in the mid-nineteenth century. Palmerston set British war aims that were both ambitious and almost exclusively territorial: Russia would have to evacuate the Crimea, retreat from Circassia, leave Finland, abandon the Aland Islands and perhaps Poland, back off from the estuarial provinces of the Danube, and surrender fortified harbors on the Black Sea. It is important to understand that these aims were presented following key battlefield successes. In May 1855 the Royal Navy had forced the Straits of Kerch protecting the Sea of Azov which allowed British and French warships to penetrate the sea and destroy 250 Russian coastal vessels and rations for 100,000 troops. This operation also resulted in blocking Russia’s supply routes to the Crimea. A second success came with the capture of the fort at Kinburn on the Black Sea coast which protected the Russian shipyard and arsenal at Nicolaev.

Mid-nineteenth century changes in naval warfare---especially the introduction of steam powered warships which reduced the defensive value of the English Channel to Britain---increased the relative naval power of France. (As an opposition MP in the 1840s Palmerston had declared that steam-powered warships were turning the English Channel into a bridge for French invasion.) The Crimean War saw the first wide spread use of steam propulsion, iron armor, and shell guns. Significantly, by 1853, Russia relied more heavily on exploding shells than any other major power. French naval advancements included heavily armored warships with 4-and-a-half-inch thick iron plates bolted onto 17 inches of wood. This added armor made these powerful warships resistant to solid shot and allowed them to fire from within a thousand yards of shore. The Devastation proved in battle that it could withstand 67 hits to her hull while suffering nothing more than shallow dents in the iron plating. The Devastation, Lave, and Tonnante were powered by steam and propelled by screw propellers. Michael Dooling explains that smaller, faster steam-powered ships, heavily-armored, and armed with powerful shell guns had eclipsed the triple-deck ships-of-the-line by 1853.

The allied attack against the fort at Kinburn in October 1855 signaled the transition from traditional to modern naval warfare methods. The dilapidated fort at Kinburn was poorly defended by 81 guns and 3 mortars. The final fight on 17 October was brief and lopsided. The allied fleet included 831 British guns carried on side-wheelers and screw-propeller-driven ships, and four French ships-of-the-line and several steamers and mortar boats in addition to three floating gun batteries. The fort was reduced from a range of one mile. The action at Kinburn did not have any immediate tactical significance (the shipyard at Nicolaev was never taken by the allies), but coupled with the decimation of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, it undeniably proved the value of steam-driven, ironclad vessels in warfare. These two naval events forever changed the design of fighting ships. As early as September 1855, Admiral Lyons had written Sir Charles Wood about a new ironclad vessel being built by the French. The leading naval architect, Dupuy de Lome, produced designs for wooden warships reinforced with 4-inch iron plates, carrying eighteen guns firing through narrow ports. But it was the destruction of the fort at Kinburn that finally captured the attention of the British Admiralty. Convinced of their strategic value, both Great Britain and France immediately began planning similar iron-plated vessels---resulting in the French Gloire (1859) and the British Warrior (1861).

British fears of a French invasion provide a lot of the strategic background to the Crimean War. Very soon after the departure of British troops to the Crimea, Queen Victoria revealed her nervousness about the national defense. She wondered whether Britain would not be vulnerable to invasion from a state which was at that time an ally (France). Palmerston believed Britain had lost its historic naval dominance which had allowed it to defend its coasts from invasion for centuries. There was a wide-spread belief that a vengeful France would use her new steam-powered fleet to invade Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight to erase the national humiliations of Trafalgar and Waterloo. Permanent possession of the Isle of Wight would give Paris its own French Gibraltar. While these fears may have been overblown, and may have underestimated the real power of the Royal Navy, they did directly shape strategic thinking and decisions. For example, on 25 January 1856, Queen Victoria and Lord Cowley, British ambassador to Paris, communicated that if Britain launched its proposed naval assault on St. Petersburg, for which preparations were already underway, while ignoring French determination to end the war, some form of hostilities with France would result. Palmerston was apparently prepared to use the Royal Navy to prevent the return of the French army which had completed the siege of Sevastopol. The ghosts of the Napoleonic wars hung over the strategic thinking of the Crimean War leaders, with respect to the British-French alliance, as the admirals and generals of the 1850s had been junior officers in the earlier conflagrations.

Russia’s poor strategic situation at the end of 1855 was made plain to the new Tsar, Alexander II, and an audience of Russian aristocracy at a Crown Council. The nation was exhausted and beset with strategic challenges on almost every border not just in the Crimea and Baltic. Russia’s poorly trained army of two million conscripts was also posted to defend against an attack from Austria, quell a rebellious population in Poland, deter aggression from Sweden, counter Turkish forces in Asia, and police tribal revolts in Circassia. Russian interior strategic capacity was crippled because of incomplete transportation networks---it had no railroad lines south of Moscow---a ruined economy, and shortages in guns and materiel for explosives. It seemed Russia would have to sue for peace.

Palmerston---sometimes portrayed as a “disobedient liberal”---expressed strategic ideas shaped by mid-nineteenth century realism. Palmerston pursued British interests with verve. He argued that the real policy of Britain must be to act as champion of truth and justice, to pursue that course with moderation and prudence, not by becoming the Quixote of the world, but by addressing injustice where and when possible. But real-world contingencies would dictate that these aspirations would come into conflict with the vital interests of states. Palmerston negotiated these competing principles by overt diplomacy, quiet diplomacy (appealing to leaders on a personal basis), and back-door diplomacy---called “secret diplomacy” by some contemporaries. (His readiness to resort to unofficial diplomacy caused Prime Minister Russell great anxiety.) Palmerstonian realism can be viewed as the opposite of Cobdian liberalism which advocated the disinterested mediation (or “intervention by arbitration”) of European issues and problems to maintain peace and stability. A master of foreign affairs and a highly visible proponent of the balance of power---designed to guarantee that no power or revolutionary movement would dominate the Continent---Palmerston maintained that Britain was sufficiently strong to steer an independent course and not tie herself to the policy of any other government. He rejected the idea of eternal alliances as “mere phantoms”---he was even prepared to restore the entente cordiale to balance Austria and Russia---and professed to base all foreign policy on the eternal and perpetual (or vital) interests of Britain. Palmerston believed that Britain would remain a great power by exerting, not forgoing, British influence.

The Crimean War was due in part to Russian expansionism in the south. Russia was poised to extend influence over all of the Balkans, to isolate Turkey from Europe, and gain control over the Straits. Britain valued Turkey as a pillar in the balance of power system and, just as important, Britain required Turkey as an ally to protect British interests in the east, and in India in particular.

Klari Kingston looks at British foreign policy in the lead up to the outbreak of war in 1853 and presents a very interesting portrait of Palmerston in the process. The balance of power system established by the 1815 peace (Treaty of Vienna), meant to hold Europe together by suppressing the temptations for war, was starting to unravel with the popular revolutions of 1848 and 1849. By that time, the Treaty of Vienna was seen by many as primarily serving the interests of the absolutist powers, especially Tsarist Russia, Prussia and Habsburg Austria. The 1848-49 revolutions weakened various European powers including Austria but did not upset power arrangements in Britain and Russia. A very traditional British Foreign Office promoted a policy of non-intervention throughout the European turmoil of this period.

Palmerston reacted to the popular unrest of 1848 by reevaluating the Cobdonite idea of substituting arbitration for the treaty system but in realist fashion, he rejected the idea for Britain based on the belief that no European state could impartially assess British interests. Britain held global interests tied to colonies which together covered more land than all of Europe. The growth of her manufacturing industry was not dependent on European states except Portugal and Turkey. Palmerston did not want to see central Europe Balkanized and believed the breakup of Austria into many smaller entities would only serve Russian interests.

Britain was in a position to negotiate with Russia for an end to the war while also preparing for more gains from further fighting, as events turned out. While planning fresh campaigns for early 1856, and organizing a council of war with the French in Paris, Britain agreed to attend almost simultaneous peace talks also scheduled to take place in Paris. Palmerston had to accept peace talks because of anti-war pressure from European neutrals, British radicals and members of Palmerston’s own cabinet, though he had and advanced his own agenda. According to James, “[B]y tabling an undefined Fifth Point for negotiation with Russia (in addition to an agreed Four Points of dispute between Russia and the allies) he left the door open for claims of further great territorial concessions from the Tsar. These, if refused, would permit him to pursue a war which could then be won by the Navy.”

At the same time that French leaders were determined to end the war (in 1856), British leaders seriously considered continuing the war against Russia without France. Lord Cowley warned that to do so might critically inflame French feelings. Cowley argued to Palmerston during the “war-or-peace talks” in Paris that continuing the war would make Britain appear responsible for the loss of every extra French life lost in (from the French viewpoint) needless battles. Following the end of the Sevastopol siege, British and French war aims and associated strategies began to diverge according to how each ally assessed its own interests, aims, and acceptability of losses. This key alliance dynamic played out until the armistice. Both British and French war leaders had to contend with “hawkish” blocs and hostile public opinion on the home front.

These articles focus on the Crimean War from a distinctly British perspective and illuminate important challenges involved in alliance warfare, and some lessons are suggested. The student of strategy should be aware that more scholarship is becoming available that picks up the Turkish and Russian perspectives.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.


ADDENDUM:

For more on non-Western European perspectives on the Crimean War see Mara Kozelsky, “The Crimean War, 1853-56,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 13, no. 4 (Fall 2012): 903-917.

RSS No. 54 -- Chinese Military Policy

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 54
24 February 2013


M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s Search for Military Power,” Washington Quarterly 31, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 125-141.

John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, “Making China’s Nuclear War Plan,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 68, no. 5 (September 2012): 45-65.

Daniel Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, “The ‘Chinese Threat’ is Overblown,” American Enterprise 9, no. 4 (July/August 1998): 44-48.

Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2011,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67, no. 6 (November 2011): 81-87.


China is a growing superpower which is on track to dominate geopolitical currents for the course of the twenty-first century by wielding both economic and political power. The Chinese economy continues to emulate the kind of growth seen by Japan and Germany during their “miracle years” and has much more room for expansion. It can be expected that Chinese economic might will be matched by increasing political assertiveness both regionally and globally (and this process has already begun). Its military muscle is undeniable; China is a member of the nuclear club and has the world’s largest standing army (though it still lacks important power projection capabilities including aerial refueling). Because of China’s large population, sizable economic output, and unresolved territorial disputes, U.S. policy analysts will surely remain interested in trying to divine how much military power the Asian giant truly desires. Although Burstein’s and de Keijzer’s article is dated (1998), the authors conclude that China will be a challenge for U.S. policy objectives, but it needn’t necessarily become an overt threat.

While military spending across Asia was rising through the 1990s, China’s expenditures were actually declining precipitously from 54 percent of the Asian total in 1980 to 34 percent in 1994. This general trajectory does not appear to have changed dramatically. China’s patterns of arms spending are something to watch---it is embarked on a program of military modernization---but it seems reasonable to assume that before 2025, there will be no meaningful comparison between Chinese and American military capability. Still, policy opinion is divided in the U.S. Although there are opposing arguments---that China will almost inevitably develop into a challenger and rival to the U.S. and that exactly that bellicose outcome is in fact highly unlikely---U.S. strategists will need to understand Chinese decision making, be sympathetic to Chinese strategic culture, and consider the various dimensions of the U.S.-China relationship (including economic ties), to avoid miscalculation and to maintain U.S. interests as Asia continues to accommodate a more assertive Beijing.

China faces no serious threat of invasion and its military deployments reflect this. M. Taylor Fravel observes that many of the PLA’s main force combat units, including what are otherwise considered offensive forces such as mobile infantry and armor, are deployed in or near China’s major cities to defend key population centers and to serve as reserve forces in case of sustained or severe social unrest that threatens regime security. Presumably Chinese leaders are still influenced by the 1989 events of Tiananmen Square. Fravel also argues that China is attempting to create a buffer around its continental and maritime periphery---through the acquisition of anti-access, area denial (A2AD) assets and capabilities---that will increase the cost for other states to conduct military operations against targets on the mainland. According to John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, in the latter half of the 1980s, the Chinese Central Military Commission (CMC) expanded the country’s strategic deterrent by adding conventionally armed missiles to its strike forces. While nuclear weapons are predominantly a deterrent to general war, Chinese leaders have apparently concluded that conventional missiles are the “premier weapons” for preemptive strikes in a high-technology local war---the kind of war China seems most interested in preparing for. Japanese naval power completely eclipses China’s though the latter is also pursuing naval modernization.

Chinese nuclear intentions are difficult to ascertain with any certainty. On the one hand, China has not substantially changed its declared nuclear policy since its first nuclear test in 1964. The 1969 Sino-Soviet nuclear confrontation convinced Mao that “minimum retaliation means” had deterred Moscow from a limited attack against China. On the other hand, China is the only one of the original five nuclear weapon states that is increasing and attempting to improve its nuclear arsenal though by how much and how quickly is uncertain. Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris estimate that China possesses at least 72 operational missiles that can strike U.S. territory, including 12 DF-4s, 20 DF-5As, up to 20 DF-31s, and up to 20 DF-31As.

In 1987 a series of symposia were held in Beijing including experts from the Academy of Military Science, the National Defense University, the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, the Ministry of State Security, and the Second Artillery, with the purpose of drafting a national nuclear strategy. Chinese nuclear strategy, currently being tested in military exercises, has adjusted to the introduction of conventional missiles into the Second Artillery, the emergence and management of the ongoing threat of Taiwan separatism as the primary military objective, and the development of an overall war plan that integrates nuclear and conventional weapons and Second Artillery command structures into theater military commands. Chinese military experts compare their nuclear concepts to the old U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). It was not until 2006 that China unveiled its “self defensive nuclear strategy”---its fundamental goal to “deter other countries from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against China.”

Reasonable analysis up to this point indicates that China’s military development is active but consistent with its strategic goals and priorities. China does not spend on its military, at least in terms of total expenditures, as if it were an expansionist power. China continues to make its neighbors nervous as it seeks to ensure the security of a continental state, governed by an authoritarian political system, with growing maritime interests and several unresolved territorial disputes, especially involving Taiwan. However, as Fravel argues, these goals are not obviously offensive or destabilizing. As expected, Chinese military modernization can be interpreted as ways to secure the homeland. Its desire to reunify with Taiwan is revisionist from a regional viewpoint but not from the perspective of Chinese leaders. It should come as no surprise that internal security and defense of the CCP remains top priority and extreme measures will be taken to quell political unrest which could threaten continued economic growth---the foundation of the party’s legitimacy. China will remain focused on maintaining its version of regional security and stability, required for its economic growth, and on resisting U.S. pressure on Beijing to modify its behavior. Kristensen and Norris argue that China’s overriding concern is the survivability of its minimum nuclear deterrent and that the regime spends “considerable resources” on dispersing and hiding its land-based missiles.

China has no overarching national strategic document but makes its ideas known through various white papers, articles, and other publications. While these sources detail some priorities they are also purposely vague on key aspects of Chinese defense thinking. Chinese writers have stated in at least one white paper that China adheres to an open, transparent and responsible nuclear policy, but no governmental sources give basic information about the size of China’s nuclear arsenal or its future plans for nuclear development. Similarly, the mission of the Chinese SSBN fleet is kept secret (or at least closely guarded). For the time being, it appears unlikely that the CMC, which controls the country’s nuclear arsenal, would transfer custody of nuclear warheads to the navy during peacetime, which means that China does not have a fully functional sea-based deterrent like that of the United Kingdom or the U.S. In a crisis, the SSBNs would have to be outfitted with warheads and then deployed.

Given current strategic appraisals, the U.S. cannot realistically expect to counter China’s rise without provoking the possibility of war. Analysts who warn of China’s imminent threat to American interests point to Beijing’s desire to become the geopolitical center of Asia around which neighboring countries orbit, in a pattern very similar to America’s global economic power and influence. Writing from a 1998 vantage point, Burstein and de Keijzer warned that this prospective Chinese bloc was exactly what was coming in another two to five decades. The flexing of Chinese military might in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea may spell trouble. But they also conclude that there is very little evidence that China plans to dominate Asia in any way like the Soviet Union planned to acquire conquests and satellites. Kristensen and Norris do not see China altering its no-first-strike, defensive-only policies on nuclear weapons any time soon.

There are issues that remain potential flashpoints in U.S.-Chinese relations. Chinese writings identify the goal of reuniting Taiwan as distinct from maintaining territorial integrity. This complicates issues since, in the minds of Chinese officials, threats against Taiwan are not meant to be regionally destabilizing even if in fact they would almost certainly be seen as such by most of China’s neighbors. Generations of peaceful initiatives have altered the China-Taiwan relationship even if peace is still elusive. The relationship today is marked by dialogue, trade, and some tourism. China has not always been willing to cooperate with the U.S. on the issue of arms sales and nuclear technology transfers to Pakistan. China has “abetted” Pakistan’s pursuit of nuclear power. China continues to view Pakistan as a first-rate strategic partner, a counterweight to India, an ally against Russian influence in central Asia, and as a critical link to the Middle East and the Islamic world.

As the U.S. recovers from a long campaign in Iraq and begins to wind down in Afghanistan, it isn’t clear what short-term strategic steps should be taken with respect to China. Of note, Kristensen and Norris caution that a U.S. attempt to improve the ballistic missile defense system could potentially trigger China to deploy MIRV-equipped missiles (although this would significantly reduce their range).

U.S. conflict with China is not likely but cannot be discounted. The end of the Cold War significantly improved China’s external security situation as the collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated the largest land-based threat to China since the 1949 revolution. Leaders in Beijing have traditionally viewed nuclear weapons as political weapons with deterrent value and that role has only increased in importance since the end of the Cold War.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.


ADDENDA:

1. Recent years have seen some positive trends in cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) Party have improved economic ties through the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and some progress has been made in establishing more permanent cross-strait military and confidence building measures.

2. Over the past twenty years (since 1990) the U.S. has sold approximately $24.5 billion in arms sales to Taiwan. China’s military-related spending for 2009 was estimated at over $150 billion. In March 2010, the PRC announced a 2010 military budget of $76.3 billion, an 8.8% increase in real terms, or double the 2005 budget. The PRC defense budget has maintained yearly consecutive real increases since 1997. See Shirley A. Kan, Taiwan: Major US Arms Sales since 1990 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service [CRS], CRS Report for Congress, RL30957, 24 February 2011).

3. The U.S. has increased the number of SSBNs deployed to the Pacific Ocean and increased the number of nuclear targets in China. See Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2007,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 63, no. 1 (January 2007): 79-82.

4. China officially states its foreign policy objectives in the following priority: domestic political stability (which includes survival of the Communist Party and socialist system); sovereign security, territorial integrity and national unification; and sustainable economic and social development. Importantly, Chinese leaders acknowledge that a stable external order supports the achievement of these three objectives. See Linda Jakobson, China's Foreign Policy Dilemma (Sydney, Australia: Lowy Institute for International Policy, Lowy Institute Analysis, February 2013).

5. Adherence to communism was giving way to nationalism as far back as the mid-1990s. Nationalism more than communist ideology is the primary force holding the nation-state together and sustaining the CCP’s power. See Thomas J. Christensen, “Chinese Realpolitik,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 5 (September/October 1996): 37-52.

6. The Pentagon has assessed as recently as 2011 that less than 30 percent of the PLA's surface naval forces, air forces, and air defense forces and about 55 percent of its submarine forces can be called "modern." See Robert S. Ross, "The Problem With the Pivot," Foreign Affairs 91, no. 6 (November/December 2012): 70-82.

RSS No. 53 -- Navies and World War, 1914-1918

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 53
4 February 2013


James Goldrick, “The Impact of War: Matching Expectation with Reality in the Royal Navy in the First Months of the Great War at Sea,” War in History 14, no. 1 (January 2007): 22-35.

John Harbron, “Franz Josef’s Forgotten U-boat Captains,” History Today 46, no. 6 (June 1996): 51-56.

John H. Maurer, “Arms Control and the Anglo-German Naval Race Before World War I: Lessons for Today?” Political Science Quarterly 112, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 285-306.

Percy Sykes, “The British Flag on the Caspian: A Side-Show of the Great War,” Foreign Affairs 2, no. 2 (December 1923): 282-294.


John Maurer, of the Naval War College, recounts how navy laws passed by the Reichstag in 1898 and 1900 began a shipbuilding arms race between Germany and Britain, while subsequent amendments enacted in 1906, 1908, and 1912 intensified the rivalry. This legislation committed the German government to a long-term buildup of Germany’s naval power by setting ambitious goals for the construction of new warships, providing sailors to man new vessels, equipping the fleet with supplies of stores and weapons, developing naval bases, and expanding the shipbuilding capacity of German industry. All of this could not but be seen as a serious threat to Britain’s security. Maurer examines in detail the failure of Britain and Germany to control their naval rivalry by an arms control agreement. What does this analysis tell us about modern-day attempts by great powers to limit their own arsenals in the pursuit of other national interests?

Since naval rivalry played such a major role in deepening antagonism between Britain and Germany before 1914, Maurer suggests that an arms control agreement designed to rein in shipbuilding might have eased tensions in the run-up to the Great War, and in fact there was considerable support in both countries for such an agreement. Both countries at different times desired or attempted to regulate the capital-ship strengths of the opposing battle fleets. At various times between 1908 and 1914, each side proposed a ratio of three-to-two in the annual rate of new capital-ship construction as the basis for an agreement. Does close evaluation of the Anglo-German naval arms race leading up to World War I suggest that the U.S. should be ready today to outspend China to protect American warmaking capacity?

British defense policy debates heated up as a result of the naval race with Germany. British “hawks” argued that Britain should maintain a clear superiority over Germany in modern capital ships codified in the so-called two-keels-to-one standard, whereby Britain would build two capital ships for every German one. Liberals countered that Britain’s security might be undermined by an increase in battleship construction. Liberals actually tried to reduce the shipbuilding competition when they first came into office by taking unilateral steps in the spring of 1906 to cut British shipbuilding. They curtailed the building program inherited from the preceding Unionist government by immediately cutting battleships projected for the coming two years. Maurer explains that Liberal party leaders were caught between competing political interests: opposition Unionists and big-navy Liberals advocated increased spending to directly counter the German naval challenge; while some from within the party and among Labour party supporters called for reducing naval spending and an end to the arms race. High spending on naval programs threatened to sabotage the progressive political agenda of the Liberal government that entered office in late 1905. Both British and German policy makers faced difficult political and strategic choices and to conclude an arms control agreement required that proponents in both countries win their bureaucratic battles.

Britain’s leaders insisted that arms control codify a substantial British naval superiority by severely curtailing the threat posed by the German battle fleet. Britain’s annual naval expenditures increased by almost 70 percent between 1907 and 1914 as a direct response to the competition with Germany. It was a foreign policy objective of the Liberal government to find a compromise between retaining Britain’s naval superiority while simultaneously holding down the related cost. Arms control negotiations played a critical role in Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith’s attempts to build political consensus within the Liberal party for outbuilding Germany. For Asquith, one purpose of arms control was to protect British shipbuilding programs by deflecting blame for the naval competition onto Germany. Both the Foreign Office and the Admiralty had serious reservations about any agreement. Still, there were numerous attempts to reduce the naval competition including discussions at the 1907 Hague Conference, British attempts to initiate talks in the summer of 1908, protracted negotiations between 1909 and 1911, the 1912 Haldane mission, Churchill’s 1912 and 1913 proposals, and final attempts by both sides in the spring of 1914 to restart discussions.

By 1898, German navy secretary Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz envisioned Germany as a world power and equal to Britain through the construction of a large battle fleet. Even without resort to general war, Tirpitz meant to bring about a major political power transition by shifting the relative balance of naval forces in Germany’s favor. Tirpitz believed a substantial German naval arsenal would coerce Britain’s leaders into accepting Berlin’s continental security demands and ambitions for colonial expansion. Tirpitz meant to advance German diplomatic and economic aims even without war through the threat inherent in a powerful navy. In 1911-1912, when Tirpitz encountered considerable domestic political opposition to his proposed building program, he accepted the basis of a three-to-two shipbuilding ratio with Britain. After 1912, Tirpitz realized that arms control could be a means to slow British shipbuilding. German leaders understood that expansion of their fleet would antagonize Britain and they feared a Conservative government might increase British defense spending and convert the ententes with France and Russia into full-fledged alliances against Germany.

As it turned out, German leaders were slow to grasp the potential strategic benefits of an arms control agreement with Britain. Wilhelm von Stumm, political director of the German Foreign Office, argued that British policy makers might see a wide-ranging political settlement as a solution to the strategic problem posed by the German battle fleet. But there was fear that discussions would only result in Germany being locked into a significantly inferior position, and there was resentment against British attempts to impose any shipbuilding limits. Germany’s early refusals to negotiate only bolstered the positions of those in Britain calling for larger building programs and for closer security arrangements with France and Russia. German leaders were too slow to realize that arms control could regularize and legitimize Germany’s rise as the second largest naval power. Negotiations might have helped to defuse tensions in Anglo-German relations and could have worked indirectly to secure other German strategic interests.

Neither side ever came very close to negotiating arms controls which served their domestic and international interests. British leaders tried arms control negotiations as a prudent approach to the problem of uncontrolled naval competition, while at the same time remaining faithful to the Liberal party’s beliefs about the nature of international rivalries. Cabinet disputes at the time demonstrate that the arms competition with Germany exacerbated existing rifts between the left and right wings of the Liberal party. Maurer suggests that like many American opponents of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) during the late 1970s and early 1980s, critics of an Anglo-German agreement on naval shipbuilding argued that the proposed agreement did not go far enough in diminishing the burden and risk of the competition. U.S. strategists need to continue developing understanding of the dynamics involved in arms control negotiations given the possibility that the U.S. and China could find themselves in positions analogous to Britain and Germany before the Great War.

By 1914, the Kaiserliche und Konigliche Kriegsmarine (Imperial and Royal Navy) of the Dual Monarchy had the world’s sixth largest fleet of dreadnought battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines. John Harbron looks at the U-boat captains of this essentially land-focused power. Their skill at sea made them among the most successful U-boat skippers of the First World War---all the more impressive given that U-boat officers and sailors came from the many nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Almost half of the U-boat captains were of Austro-German or Slavic origin---the latter comprising Czech, Croat, Polish and Bosnian---while the remainder were Magyar and Italian. Austro-Hungarian submarines actively participated in the German campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare beginning in February, 1917, and proportionately, sank as much shipping as any one of the much larger wartime submarine fleets of Germany, Britain, and France. This small force remained loyal until end of the war despite only one wartime naval mutiny at Cattaro in February, 1918. Reasons for the absence of ethnic strife in the Imperial and Royal Navy are complicated and not easily translated into twenty-first century terms. Partly there was the natural camaraderie and personal loyalties shared by naval personnel everywhere who have volunteered to serve at sea, especially in the small and dangerous submarines of the early twentieth century. Harbron adds that fleet loyalty of both officers and crews was synonymous with loyalty to the venerable Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef I, who ruled for sixty-eight years.

James Goldrick argues that the British Royal Navy as a whole was not only materially unprepared for war in 1914 but it was also, in some ways, psychologically unready. Although efforts to prepare the service for the forthcoming conflict were both more sophisticated and more comprehensive than was once believed, lack of an effective culture of strategic thinking within the Royal Navy and the accompanying dearth of understanding of the principles of maritime warfare proved debilitating. Even senior officers who regarded themselves as historically attuned were lulled into a belief the war would be short and remained preoccupied with taking immediate action to precipitate fleet battles. Pre-war conceptions of a short war quickly clashed with reality and contributed to many “surprises” for the British Royal Navy. Perhaps the greatest was the ‘negative surprise’ of the absence of fleet-on-fleet encounters and the consequent surprise of the stresses of continuing operations, week after week, month after month, without the experience of major battle. Lack of psychological preparedness is hard to explain given that there was, for most of the previous decade, an increasing emphasis on readiness and training and, from at least 1910, an expectation of war with Germany at all levels. Lack of sufficient realistic exercises made it very difficult for Royal Navy personnel to accurately assess the risk of submarines, particularly at a time when both platforms and weapons were rapidly evolving. Operational experience of the most recent conflict at sea, the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), did not address these concerns. The Royal Navy’s painful introduction to major operations in 1914 and 1915 reinforces the idea that military organizations must develop means to train under realistic and challenging circumstances during peacetime, including protracted operations, operations under adverse conditions, and against an adaptable opposing force.

Sir Percy Sykes was a soldier, diplomat, and scholar who traveled extensively throughout Persia and gained a reputation as an expert on the region, partly due to his involvement in various intelligence gathering expeditions and diplomatic missions. Sykes wrote “The British Flag on the Caspian” and published it in the early 1920s to explain German aims in Asia during the Great War and the impact these had on Allied interests and strategy, particularly for the British in India. He emphasizes that the collapse of Russia and the effective withdrawal of that nation from the Great War left the Indian Empire vulnerable to German attack. This article explains the various actions by the British to keep first Baku---a key location on the way to Tashkent and India---then Krasnovodsk, on the eastern Caspian, from falling into German-Turkish hands.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.

RSS No. 52 -- Iran, Nuclear Weapons, and Deterrence

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 52
10 December 2012


David Williams, “US Nuclear Policy, 1945-68,” Air & Space Power Journal 24, no. 4 (Winter 2010): 31-38.

Richard W. Bulliet, “Iran Between East and West,” Journal of International Affairs 60, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 1-14.

Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani, and Larry Diamond, “A Win-Win U.S. Strategy for Dealing with Iran,” Washington Quarterly 30, no. 1 (Winter 2006/2007): 121-138.

Karim Sadjadpour and Diane de Gramont, “Reading Kennan in Tehran,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 2 (March/April 2011): 160-163.

Ron Tira, “Can Iran be Deterred?” Policy Review 169 (October/November 2011): 39-48.


The U.S. views the world and assesses its interests through a great power prism and this heavily influences discussions of any U.S. policy involving Iran. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and supporters seized power in 1979, four objectives have made up U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran---and these have remained essentially unchanged for the last decades: limit Iran’s assertiveness in the region; eliminate Tehran’s support for terrorism; promote Iranian democracy and human rights; and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But in many ways---especially considering the relatively secure security situations to Iran’s immediate east and west---the Iranian regime is in a better geo-strategic position today than it has been at any time since 1979 (which is not to say that its population is entirely content with those in power). Despite the conventional portrayal of Iran as an implacable enemy of the west, by any reasonable estimation, Iran hasn’t lived up to the role. Richard Bulliet argues that Iran’s strategic gaze has always pointed east, not west, toward the economic promises and perils of Central Asia, Afghanistan and lands beyond. Bulliet points out that no recent Iranian leader has threatened Israel with nuclear weapons, angled to monopolize OPEC, or sought the religious triumph of Shiism against Sunnis.

Many writers have argued that the U.S. needs a new strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program but there is sharp disagreement over what that strategy would look like and what central mechanism is most likely to succeed. McFaul, Milani, and Diamond argue that it is time for the U.S. to “get smart” in dealing with Iran and frame its own win-win proposition---their proposal centers on a two-track policy that challenges the regime on all issues involved in the bilateral relationship. Their idea is to expand the agenda to include not only control of nuclear technologies (enrichment) but also Tehran’s support for terrorism, the easing or lifting of sanctions, democracy and human rights, and normalizing diplomatic relations. It is clear the current, very limited scope of negotiations is framed to produce stalemate. On the other hand, air strikes will not easily destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities---experts have estimated that there are more than the 18 nuclear sites currently claimed by the regime and that many may be buried deep underground. Widespread air attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and related military sites---they would have to be massive and widespread to have any chance of success---would rally Iranians around the mullahs, strengthen the regime, and undermine the considerable “admiration and goodwill” the Iranian people still have for the U.S. For McFaul, Milani, and Diamond, the fail-safe solution to the Iranian nuclear threat in the long term is the emergence of a democratic Iran, but for now the U.S. should aim to alter Tehran’s motivations for acquiring the weapons in the first place.

There has been intense debate between analysts and policymakers over what U.S. policy should be toward Iran and its nuclear program, but whatever one believes about Iran it can be fairly said that U.S. policy has been dramatically ineffective in influencing regime behavior at least for the last nine years---Iran has been demonstrably more assertive in the region since 2003. Consider this from Karim Sadjadpour and Diane de Gramont: Tehran recently faced over 180,000 U.S. combat troops on its borders, two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, and a drum-beat of military threats from senior Bush administration officials, and it was over this same period that Iran was at its most defiant and made its greatest nuclear strides. McFaul, Milani, and Diamond recommend full engagement with the regime (and the Iranian people by extension) to facilitate democratization, over military strikes or even sanctions. Sadjadpour and de Gramont conclude that the U.S. strategic goal should not be to contain Iran “ad infinitum” but to limit its destructive influence while facilitating its positive transition as a nation. David Williams describes and analyzes U.S. nuclear policy from 1945 to 1968 using the rational actor model, and draws nuclear policy lessons that may be applied to Iran today.

Iran can be seen as a rational actor and in fact is viewed by many analysts and policymakers (even in Israel) as a rational actor. As Williams points out, if Iranian foreign policy was fundamentally religious and irrational, Iranian leaders would not have made agreements---referring here to the complicated Iran-Contra affair---with the “Great Satan.” Pragmatic interests of power have driven Iran since the revolution, and domestic and foreign policy often trump religious ideology. Western media publicizes Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory comments regarding Israel---that “Israel must be wiped off the map”---and the regime’s support for Shiite revolutionary groups like Hezbollah, but Williams questions whether these differ substantially from Khrushchev’s outbursts decrying capitalism and Western society. As a rational actor, given Iran’s depressed economy and large pockets of disillusionment in the population, the regime’s security will be based on deterrence (cost-effective), and that deterrence will of necessity (in Iranian eyes) be home-grown---hence the interest in nuclear power. America’s strategic readiness and commitment to the defense of its allies proved sufficient to manage the Soviet threat over decades and the same holds true today in the case of Iran.

The reality of Iran’s conventional military inferiority must be acknowledged in any discussion of U.S. policy and strategy. Iran’s military budget is less than two percent of the U.S. budget and less than a quarter that of Saudi Arabia, its main regional rival. The Iranian regime has threatened that, in the case of attack, it would mobilize militia and terrorist proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, and the rest of the Middle East to attack U.S. forces and interests around the world, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iranian threat is not a conventional military threat. Iran’s leaders seek nuclear weapons---or a nuclear weapons capability---primarily to deter U.S. attack.

Iran’s real power is tied to regional influence. Its popular appeal in the Middle East appears greatest in times of turmoil and seems to be fueled by political disaffection and economic marginalization, which Iranian leaders quickly attribute to U.S. and Israeli policies in the region. The unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent Iraq war, and the 2006 Israeli bombing of Lebanon have created receptive audiences for Iran’s brand of revolutionary ideology. These events, according to Sadjadpour and de Gramont, which have often accompanied increased oil prices, have allowed Tehran to win political influence by providing petroleum-dollar largess and reconstruction assistance to economically disenfranchised communities. Williams argues that Iran’s foreign policy decisions will be designed to increase national influence and status rather than undermine stability and increase divisions between Iran and the regional and international community (Iran still relies on Russian and Chinese support). Given the limited effectiveness of military approaches (air strikes or ground invasion) and Iran’s ability to capitalize on Middle East unrest, U.S. policy should be aimed at stabilizing the region and not promoting unrest (or disaffection). Like Kennan’s assertion that the developing Cold War was more political struggle than military competition, the U.S.-Iran conflict is also primarily political and not based on simple military threats.

Although it is hard to identify Iran’s intentions, it is prudent to assume the regime is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability because that capability is an affordable bargaining chip in negotiations with the U.S. and other western powers over lifting sanctions and reestablishing normal diplomatic relations. The Cold War equilibrium was based on a shared paradigm between the superpower antagonists: both had to believe in mutually assured destruction (MAD) for MAD to exist. Equilibrium was possible because both saw nuclear weapons as “the doomsday weapon”---unable to be used in less-than-doomsday circumstances made the weapons not very useful. Ron Tira does not believe Iran would be a “paradigm-sharing player” in a Cold War style system. If it possessed nuclear weapons it could make demands or preparations to strike at critical times to “unhinge” rivals, to achieve its aims through nuclear brinkmanship. But Tira argues that Iran’s nuclear brinkmanship might have two opposite results: leading to uncontrollable escalation, or in the other case, because of the higher risks involved in a crisis involving nuclear weapons, responsible players like Israel and the U.S. would be maneuvered out of challenging Iranian demands. Similar arguments have been made before but there is no conclusive historical evidence to support these fears. Are the United States and its allies overestimating the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose?

If Iran acquired nuclear weapons would the U.S. face a prolonged period of repeated crises, small and not so small, constantly made more serious by the Iranian threat of nuclear use (a highly unstable security balance)? Tira concludes that if Iran “goes nuclear” and other regional players follow suit, a new kind of dangerously unstable game will ensue---a multilateral game of “chicken.” There is no use, writes Tira, in comparing the two Cold War superpowers---paradigm-sharing partners---with a multilateral system combining several, smaller-sized regional players possessing rudimentary nuclear capability. There is no point in comparing the American-Soviet paradigmatic partnership with an Iran that habitually raises unexpected challenges for the western powers. Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon would probably trigger efforts on the part of Sunni Arab regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to at least acquire the technology---the weapons capability. But Williams counters that it is unlikely Iran will ever become the kind of threat represented by the Soviet Union during the Cold War even if Iran continues to pursue nuclear technologies (and fields an operational nuclear weapon in the future). The U.S. could consider a radical departure from present nuclear policy by acting on a proposal by Kenneth Waltz that actually allows Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Legitimacy of the regime is already weakening. Public opinion polls show diminishing support for those currently in power and wide support for anti-revolutionary ideas. Blatant and increasing corruption of revolutionary leaders has further undermined the legitimacy of the regime’s ideology, especially veterans of the Iran-Iraq War who returned home to discover many political leaders enriching themselves through corruption, graft, and kickbacks. The expanding middle class and especially the swelling ranks of Iranian youth, many unemployed, with no hope for the future, no ideological attachment to the regime, and much sympathy for the U.S. and democratic principles, constitute a real latent challenge to the regime. But compared to the transitions “from semi-autocracy” in Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2004, Iran still lacks several key ingredients for political change: Iran’s regime has aggressively deterred reformers from seeking office and been ruthless in shutting down independent media outlets and civil society organizations; Iranian democrats must alter the constitution significantly to democratize Iran (it is not a case of pressuring the regime to stand by a democratic constitution); and Iran’s democratic movement is demoralized and in disarray. The U.S. cannot expect to prompt political change by supporting ethnic minorities or “national liberation” movements---these groups are weak and have no capacity to topple the regime. Genuine democratic activists and human rights groups are extremely reluctant to accept financial support from the U.S. government or even U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for fear of being labeled American pawns.

U.S. policy toward Iran regarding the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability should be framed from a sober assessment of what motivates Tehran to want this capability (what fundamental interests are in play). Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technologies (civil or military) can be understood in terms of “normal state behavior”---assuming a rational Iran and assuming the emergence of a multi-polar world order which leads to balancing of American power. Acquiring a nuclear deterrent (even if only in the form of a capability and not an actual weapon) would allow Iran to balance its Sunni rivals and Israel. Iran has rational motivations for acquiring nuclear technology due to very favorable cost-benefit ratios. The U.S. can likely exert control over Iranian behavior using deterrent strategies similar to those employed against the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, however, these deterrent policies must be tempered with an objective understanding of Iran’s underlying motivations in order to avoid overestimating the threat (this requires open government-to-government communication, of course, and the best possible intelligence capabilities and estimates). Development of an effective “nuclear forensics apparatus” to identify sponsors of nuclear-armed terrorists (something of value beyond just in our dealings with Iran) and use of credible and unambiguous threats of retaliatory strikes against them, should allow the U.S. to protect itself from both direct and indirect Iranian nuclear attacks.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.


ADDENDUM:

1. As of 2010, according to this monograph, the EU has yet to develop a coherent and long-term strategy for managing the Iran nuclear issue while maintaining long-standing ties with Tehran. See Shirin Pakfar, Dealing with Iran: How Can the EU Achieve its Strategic Objectives? (Copenhagen, Denmark: Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS Reports 2010, no. 11, 2010).

RSS No. 51 -- Air Power Theory, Long-Range Strike, and 2025

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 51
2 December 2012


Howard D. Belote, "Warden and the Air Corps Tactical School: What Goes Around Comes Around," Airpower Journal 13, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 39-47.

Wade S. Karren, "Long-Range Strike: The Bedrock of Deterrence and America’s Strategic Advantage," Air & Space Power Journal 26, no. 3 (May/June 2012): 70-81.

Robert J. Elder, Jr., "Air-Mindedness: Confessions of an Airpower Advocate," Air & Space Power Journal 23, no. 3 (Fall 2009): 11-18.

Arlene Lazarowitz, "Promoting Air Power," Independent Review 9, no. 4 (Spring 2005): 477-499.

Denis Mercier, "Thinking About Air and Space Power in 2025: Five Guiding Principles," Air & Space Power Journal 26, no. 3 (May/June 2012): 16-30.


Between 1926 and the outbreak of the World War II, American officers at the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS)---including Haywood Hansell and Muir Fairchild---considered fundamental questions of air power theory and developed the doctrine underlying the air power strategies that won that global war. Decades later, in the late 1980s, John Warden wrote about why and how to achieve air superiority, arriving at his model of "five rings"---interconnected layers of an overall system. Howard Belote argues, in "Warden and the Air Corps Tactical School: What Goes Around Comes Around," that there is a surprising amount of continuity between these two uniquely American wartime air power theories beginning with the historical contexts out of which each grew. Both discounted friction and other morale-based elements of war.

The ACTS writers were attempting to fill a doctrinal void left by rapid demobilization following 1918 and Army "traditionalists" who saw only a limited future role for airplanes. Warden also wrote to fill a doctrinal void left by air leaders who seemed content to let the Army develop AirLand Battle which included only a supporting role for the Air Force. Warden rejected the limited air power assumptions of 1950s and 1960s strategic nuclear theory and the supporting role of air power in AirLand Battle, and set out to propose a comprehensive theory that properly planned and focused air power could effectively coerce the opposing leadership and bring about strategic decision---strongly suggesting that air power could ‘win wars’ by itself (or nearly by itself).

According to Wade Karren, in "Long-Range Strike: The Bedrock of Deterrence and America’s Strategic Advantage," ACTS students studied the writings of Edgar Gorrell and Lord Tiverton to formulate what became known as the industrial web theory, which held that one could disrupt or destroy certain bottlenecks of production and thereby incapacitate an enemy’s ability to make war. Loss of economic ability would undermine will to resist. It was an overly ambitious theory which outpaced bomber technology, overestimated the destructive ability of bombing, and underestimated advances in ground-based defenses.

Both the ACTS writers and Warden viewed the enemy as a closed system that could be manipulated through centers of gravity---targeting and destroying key centers, or "critical points"---and both focused on countering enemy will to resist. The ACTS theorists based their work on the proposition that economic destruction could collapse the enemy population’s will to continue fighting; Warden based his appreciation of the enemy system on the metaphor of the human body with a brain, muscular-skeletal structure, and basic cellular mass (the population). To Warden the subordinate systems of the enemy were dependent on each other in a hierarchical manner, which led him to his now-familiar five rings model with each ring dependent on the interior rings.

Ultimately the ACTS theorists and Warden fell victim to what have been called the "three pathologies" of air power---use of metaphor in place of reason, misinterpretation of quantification and prediction in war, and belief in universally applicable formulas in war---which suggests important lessons for future strategists, including that war remains the chaotic and unpredictable duel outlined by Clausewitz. Although the air battles of Operation Desert Storm undeniably worked---and worked quite well---future strategists cannot assume future opponents will mirror 1990s Iraqi leadership. Both the ACTS "industrial web" theory of air power and Warden’s five rings model were flawed to the extent that they presupposed a rational actor in the enemy leadership---both theories discounted the unpredictability of dynamic systems.

Robert Elder writes, in "Air-Mindedness: Confessions of an Airpower Advocate," that while offering support to ground and maritime operations, the United States Air Force has the unique ability to deliver global and theater effects from garrison. The USAF projects power from garrison locations to long-distance targets, employing "effects" platforms (strike, airdrop, surveillance/reconnaissance, and air superiority aircraft) enabled by "strategic" tankers. This theater-wide reach was demonstrated in World War II and was extended worldwide during the first two decades of the Cold War.

Wade Karren discusses the delicate balance of platforms and capabilities that lead to successful war making capability in the air power dimension. The connection between deterrence and strategic advantage is clear (but not always its implications) and the deterrent effect of the potential force captured in LRS assets can be greater than the actual destructive effects of those assets. The more credible the U.S. capability to impose unacceptable damage to an enemy’s critical interests, the greater our power to control his actions, even if military power is never independently sufficient to guarantee the desired results. Karren’s thesis is that while the massive destructive capabilities of nuclear arsenals to destroy entire societies has kept nuclear states from entering general wars, nuclear arms have not guaranteed that those same nuclear states can achieve all national security interests satisfactorily---more limited wars and military conflict still persist---hence the U.S. should still maintain a credible LRS capability.

According to Elder, Strategic Air Command evolved from a primarily conventional bombardment command to an organization almost exclusively focused on nuclear deterrence. SAC capabilities---mobility and nuclear delivery---focused solely on delivering nuclear weapons against Soviet targets. The U.S. experience in Vietnam dramatically altered the American conception of airpower from a means to avoid attrition warfare (like Korea and World War II before it) to a critical enabler for force-on-force conflict. U.S. airmen took two key lessons from Vietnam, an essentially ground-based, complex war involving regular and irregular operations. Air Force leaders recognized a critical need to better integrate SAC’s capabilities with those of Tactical Air Command, and they came to recognize the need for an optimized air superiority fighter.

The early years of the Cold War were marked by almost permanent political crisis, heightened military preparedness, growing competition with the Soviet Union, and the foundation of a national security state---sustained by a wide-spread belief that the age of atomic weapons and long-range bombers meant that no longer could a global power like the U.S. prepare for war after the outbreak of hostilities.

The thesis of Lazarowitz’s "Promoting Air Power" is that demands for military demobilization and President Truman’s determination to control federal spending clashed with the nation’s growing global responsibilities and the military’s persistent demands for increased funding. Post-1945 U.S. foreign policy was based on leadership of the ‘free world’ and responsibility for world-wide containment of Soviet communism. Limited funds for the military during this period meant that each military service sought to enhance its prominence in the postwar defense establishment and in ongoing public national security debates, influence the pattern of defense budgets, and determine how best to provide defense and deterrence to the nation. All services believed the "next war" would be total war but disagreed on how best to prepare for it. The U.S. Air Force mostly succeeded in swaying public opinion to make air power the cornerstone of national security, at the expense of ground and maritime forces.

Inter-service rivalry, budgetary competition, and quarrels over functions were an extension of the unification debates which attended the National Defense Act of 1947 and the establishment of the U.S. Air Force as an independent service alongside the Army and the Navy. The new unified organization under the Secretary of Defense---the Department of Defense---was expected to present a unified budget to replace earlier individual service budgets. The ensuing sometimes intense budget debates were inseparable from the Cold War world-view in which it was accepted that any gain in the world for the Soviets would be a loss for the U.S.

Truman believed that a strong military defense, which would serve as a powerful deterrent to war, depended on a sound economic system with low inflation, and holding the line on expenditures. For the military, that meant a new emphasis on preparedness and prevention of rather than engagement in wars, and determining how to implement this new approach, with each service exercising substantial autonomy, led to intense competition.

Though Truman accepted the necessity of a national security state, he did not want to institutionalize military preparedness at wartime levels. He reasoned that undue emphasis on a garrison state might eventually allow military needs to dictate budgets and even to empower military leaders to challenge civilian authority. Truman accepted dubious Cold War assumptions of the worsening military position of the U.S., but argued for a balance between the nation’s air strength, expenditures, and the ability to thwart threats other than those that air power might effectively mitigate (in fact, at least early on, he considered the claims of air power’s capability to be overstated and careless). Confident in the power accorded by unilateral possession of the atomic bomb, he was not yet prepared to extend the military dimension of containment.

Charming, likeable, and an energetic proponent of air power, the first Secretary of the Air Force, William Stuart Symington was not above undermining his superiors and lobbying Congress directly to advance the interests of his service. Determined to preserve the gains in recognition the Air Force had achieved as an independent service, Symington used his keen political sense and skill in publicity to battle proposed reductions in air power strength. Air power advocates capitalized on the public’s interest in aviation---especially in light of the popular cultural images of World War II ‘flier boys’ and fleets of war-winning bombers---to portray air power as fundamentally linked to national survival. Symington and other advocates of a very strong national establishment of air power believed air power alone (or nearly alone) could check Soviet expansionism and achieve national security aims. This inflated promise was based on the premise that a capital-intensive military of strategic bombers would be more effective than land or sea forces against the Soviets---a capital-intensive, bomber-based air force would also allow for smaller armies and less need for a military draft.

As with other aspects of American culture and society in the post-war, "Red scare" period, air power advocates used patently exaggerated estimates of air power’s efficiency and effectiveness, and exaggerated the potential enemy threat. Air Force officials did not correct the disclosure of flawed intelligence reports about Soviet aircraft advances that implied the Soviets had already overtaken the Americans in such areas as jet fighters. In the minds of air power advocates and many in the public, through popular magazines such as Life and Saturday Evening Post, strategic bombing could deliver victory without heavy losses and also function as an effective restraint to Soviet aggression. With its promise of effective security at a lower cost, strategic air power achieved the dominant role in the nation’s defense plans. Despite the experience of the Korean War, which signaled the continuing need of a large and capable land force, there were numerous national defense leaders, including Symington and Thomas Finletter, who succeeded Symington as Air Force Secretary, who publicly argued that national security meant deterrence against the Soviet Union and nuclear supremacy was the definition of successful deterrence. In many cases during this period, the overriding issue of national survival was used to silence more deliberate and wide-ranging analysis.

The air power advocates and their ideas and rhetoric heavily shaped and so successfully framed public opinion that by 1949, a full 84 percent polled thought that if the U.S. should become involved in another world war, the air force "would play the most important part in winning the war." Absent at this time was national debate or analysis regarding how much money and sacrifice might be necessary to contain Soviet expansion policies over time, whether an armed confrontation with the Soviets was likely, the real extent of Soviet expansion, or even what the aims of Soviet expansion were. Few asked about American national objectives in all of this. Strategists will understand the appeal of arguments for cheap promises of strategic advantage, but should also pay attention to the ways in which advocates of such approaches may be able to shape the analysis and debates of national security.

Institutional, professional, and bureaucratic perspectives can greatly influence the assessment and analysis of strategic issues. What is the proper role of air power (and an Air Force) in national security? What does air power provide the joint force commander during joint operations? Elder asserts that answers to these and other air power questions are heavily shaped by functional capabilities---air mobility, air combat, and space---and not by a unified air power perspective (or theory).

The end of the Cold War and victory in Operation Desert Storm meant specific changes for the USAF. In late 1991, Gen Merrill McPeak, Air Force chief of staff, began reorganizing a significantly smaller Air Force. Having no requirement to maintain an aircraft alert force, SAC was disbanded and its bombers transferred to a new command, Air Combat Command, and its tankers to another new command, Air Mobility Command. Thereafter airmen began to associate "global reach" with AMC and "global power" with Air Combat Command.

Present-ism makes it difficult to imagine future operating environments dramatically different than those that have fueled news headlines, professional articles, and research over the last decade of contingency operations. There is some danger in going so far as to equate modern operations with the kinds of counterinsurgency operations executed by the U.S. military since 2001. In "Thinking about Air and Space Power in 2025: Five Guiding Principles," Denis Mercier assumes that the air and space defense environment will experience dramatic advancements and unexpected developments over the coming decades and offers five principles for thinking about future developments without becoming too disconnected from reality or remaining too constrained by current projects and ideas. Mercier, a French Air Force lieutenant general and chief military adviser to the minister of defense, also warns of the limitations that result from reducing the air arm to the tactical level.

Mercier’s five broad guiding principles are: 1) overcoming current thinking, which can "bind" future ideas; 2) distinguishing among effectors, systems, and platforms; 3) discriminating personnel for future systems; 4) acknowledging joint integration’s dependence upon air power; and 5) air power will "move higher" and drive future industrial challenges.

Denis Mercier argues that airpower plays a significant role in Afghanistan but remains insufficiently promoted. The infantryman on the ground in Afghanistan does not see the airman who is in effect "present everywhere"---flying drones remotely, embedding with special operations units, controlling close air support missions, flying combat or transport aircraft, or operating in command and control structures, merging information and providing updated data to in-theater commanders. And U.S. air power is still capable of very long-range strikes around the world on relatively short notice. The interdiction, reconnaissance, and ground attack operations conducted in Libya’s airspace recently also show the diversity of missions in which air forces can participate, including those in an environment less permissive than a theater such as Afghanistan due to the existence, admittedly limited, of surface-to-air threats.

Air power suffers from a major constraint when it comes to imagining possible futures: more than any other force, it is subject to and largely defined by technological developments. Among the author’s various predictions of advances in technology, he believes that by 2025 it may be possible to conduct continuous area surveillance with greater accuracy and faster refresh rate from satellites, and if more accurate intelligence from satellites can be distributed better, transmitting from space in real time over a given area would represent a genuine breakthrough in surveillance capabilities.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.

RSS No. 50 -- Containing Iran, Jutland, Space Power, Pakistan Army

Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS)
No. 50
28 October 2012

50-1 Dalia Dassa Kaye and Frederic Wehrey, “Containing Iran?: Avoiding a Two-Dimensional Strategy in a Four-Dimensional Region,” Washington Quarterly 32, no. 3 (Summer 2009): 37-53.
Iran persists as a thorny foreign policy challenge to the U.S. in the Middle East and these authors propose that the U.S. engage directly with Tehran on a host of issues of mutual concern: stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; spread of Salafi extremism; narcotics trafficking; and maritime security cooperation. But U.S. strategy toward Iran cannot ignore the complications posed by the GCC states (let alone a final settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict). Arab leaders are used to playing a delicate game of four-dimensional chess, balancing the frequently competing demands of domestic constituents, their peers on the Arab stage, external patrons such as the U.S., and non-Arab states such as Iran. The four-dimensional reference refers to the tendency of Arab leaders to take action in one venue to produce effects in another. In the case of Iran, Arab regimes may be crafting responses toward Tehran intended to entrench legitimacy at home, deflect domestic criticism toward an external threat, and to outmaneuver rivals in the Arab arena. The authors’ central argument is that the GCC will reject an either-or approach toward Iran. Instead, the GCC, but especially Saudi Arabia, will negotiate a course between confrontation and coexistence, maintaining relations below the level of war, to enrich regimes through U.S. patronage and to deflect pressure to address domestic reform. It is highly unlikely that the GCC will wholeheartedly back containment of Iran (if that policy course regains steam) or wholeheartedly back “U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.” The GCC has little interest in helping the U.S. completely “fix” its Iran problem, having benefited enormously from the decades-old U.S. estrangement with Iran. The authors argue, accurately but obviously, that the Obama administration needs a new Iran policy that acknowledges local complexities and balances the challenge of Iran with other U.S. objectives. Tehran has various motives and the means to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. (To be clear, evidence still suggests Tehran is actively seeking an indigenous uranium enrichment capability at levels that will, at the very least, allow for the capacity to develop nuclear weapons in the future.) Iranian soft power—including reconstruction aid, infrastructure development, media, and financial investment, particularly in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria—cannot be discounted. Although Arab states in the Middle East may at times overplay the threat of Iran, there are real regional problems which will continue to work against U.S. interest—even if only indirectly and subtly: perceived legitimacy deficit of hereditary rulers, stagnant economies, illiberal political cultures, and draconian judicial systems.

50-2 Sharon Tosi Moore, “Long Night of the Dreadnoughts,” Military History 24, no. 2 (April 2007): 60-65.
This brief article captures some of the tense drama and immense destruction witnessed at the battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, between Denmark and Norway, involving the British Grand Fleet and German High Seas Fleet. The author recounts a string of fortuitous intelligence mistakes, miscommunications, and plotting errors which meant that fleet divisions and battle lines were not where each admiral believed or intended. It is mentioned that the battle is a “textbook example” of how “overconfidence can have fateful consequences,” but this idea is not properly developed. Both Scheer and Jellicoe believed a major battle was imminent but the “fog of war” meant that the main lines engaged haphazardly and collided more than once. To be sure, all battles entail such “friction” but in the case of the battle of Jutland, it was a clash of two major fleets comprising the largest battleships of the era and the resulting losses—14 British ships and 5,672 sailors lost to 11 German ships and 2,115 sailors—completely deflated Scheer’s willingness to risk large-scale surface battle for the remainder of the war. Although German accuracy in main gunnery could be devastating, within a day of the battle being over, the British could put 24 dreadnoughts to sea—and thus block the North Sea exits—to Germany’s ten. What is not addressed is the question of whether Jutland was or was not a decisive battle.

50-3 Judson J. Jusell, Space Power Theory: A Rising Star (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Command and Staff College, April 1998).
Jusell begins by asserting that the U.S. has failed to establish the foundational, theoretical ideas regarding the significance and use of space power—or in other words, a functioning space power theory. He proceeds to build a framework for assessing the current state (as of the 1998 publication date of this Air Command and Staff College monograph) of space power theory. He finds that a theory may be emerging but that a single comprehensive theory of space power—to help shape the future organization and development of U.S. space forces—does not exist. His discussions of the definition and nature of military theory—concluding that military theory captures the language that best articulates what the military professional affirms and advances as true about military power—are useful. His considerations of the central question—What is space power?—leads to a series of interesting observations and assertions, such as space as the ultimate high ground, and dependence on satellites in future war will be akin to dependence on oil for industrial, mechanized warfare. Though space power may seem hazy at times it does appear to include some specific aspect of use while denying that same use to opponents. Somewhere in the notion of space power is the ability to use/exploit space for national objectives, to further national interests in the space domain. It is unsettling to consider the possible effects of a catastrophic space-based attack against the U.S. Though definitions of space power vary certain fundamental aspects can be delineated: the ability to exploit the space environment; the ability to control the space environment; space is a separate environment; the pursuit of an actor’s goals (security, economic and political); an actor’s entire astronautical capability; categories of space capability include national, military, civilian, and commercial (each can be subdivided into space-based, ground-based and launch systems); and the actor can be a state or non-state actor. Underlying the entire discussion is an expectation that space power will prove to be as significant and decisive as land, sea, and air power. Three groundbreaking theories help to illuminate the nature and significance of space power: gravity well theory placed space power on equal footing with other types of military power; Lupton’s theory helped to define space power and the military uses of space; and finally, Mantz’s theory focused on the importance of space-based firepower and first advanced the idea that space combat power may necessitate an independent space service to organize, train, and equip armed space forces.

50-4 P. K. Upadhyay, “Radicalisation of the Pakistan Army,” Journal of Defence Studies 5, no. 4 (October 2011): 28-36.
Today’s Pakistan Army is not as secular or as professional as it used to be even a decade ago. Following partition of British India, the founding political and military leaders of Pakistan wanted to preserve the army’s “Sandhurst traditions” and keep religions fundamentalism to a bare minimum. There was a conscious effort to keep recruits from being overly influenced by outside “religious sentiments and movements” during this early period. Despite early western influences, better educated army officers concluded that repeated military defeats against India resulted from blindly following western military models and moving away from religious roots. Younger army officers began to question established practices and policies of the military establishment at the same time that fundamentalist Islamic practices began to make inroads into military life. General Zia ul-Haq seized power in a 1977 coup and built a constituency around Islamization, at least partly, to counterbalance Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s popularity. Zia aligned with rightist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and enhanced control over the Army by allowing the spread of Islamic practices within the ranks. The Army was transformed into a purifier for the Islamic nation, battling ‘internal and external’ (so-called) enemies of Islam. The aim was to merge western military operating procedures with Islamic religious devotion. Parallel with these changes, the notion of terror as a legitimate concept of war merged with the ideas of total war and modern military practices. These strains found new life (and some international recognition) as pan-Islamic groups funded jihad fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, under the overall direction of ISI and GHQ in Pakistan. Seeking to exhaust the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the U.S. acquiesced to the Pakistan mingling of military and terrorist practices and imparted some legitimacy to the involvement of non-state actors in “total war.” Following ISI involvement in the war in Afghanistan (in the 1980s), Islamization in the armed forces began to taper off so that by the time General Musharraf rose to Chief of Army Staff a process was already underway to screen soldiers recruited during the “Islamization years” before assigning them to sensitive positions. Despite attempts to weed out or segregate religious extremists in the armed forces, many remain who are ready to collude with Islamic fundamentalists. Upadhyay concludes that the Pakistan Army is at a crossroads and that sectarianism runs so deep in modern Pakistan society that it is a question whether Pakistan will survive in its current political and constitutional state. The future stability and reliability of military forces in Pakistan should directly concern U.S. strategists and military analysts.

50-5 Michael Evans, “The Closing of the Australian Military Mind: The ADF and Operational Art,” Security Challenges 4, no. 2 (Winter 2008): 105-131.
In 1987 Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow published The Closing of the American Mind (a self-declared meditation on the intellectual well-being of American young people and the role of higher education in that well-being) which went on to become a national best-seller and sparked many rounds of public intellectual debate. Bloom, a philosopher and classicist, argued that the social-political turmoil in twentieth-century America was really an intellectual crisis. Where Bloom argued that U.S. universities were failing American students by devaluing the classic books of western society, Michael Evans is arguing in this Security Challenges article that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is failing its professionals by not keeping up with the latest in operational art theory and practice. One underlying question is what is relevance of operational art---which grew in part out of the mass, industrialized warfare of the early- to mid- twentieth-century---to countries with strong tactical traditions and relatively small defense establishments? During the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia all adopted the operational level of warfare and operational art into doctrine, and recognition of the connecting role of operational art between strategy and tactics was widely seen as revolutionary. Out of this period of intense intellectual activity came the general consensus that operational art refers to the ability to orchestrate tactical actions and battles in such a way that military force is able to decisively promote national policy and strategy. Evans argues that between 1999 and 2007, development of an operational framework of war was affected by an emerging globalized security environment, a quick succession of Australian offshore global and regional deployments, and by the ADF’s decision to adopt a technology-centric approach to war fighting. As a result, in 2008, twenty years after formally adopting operational art, the ADF continues to lack a firm conceptual foundation for the development of higher command beyond the traditional Australian strategy-tactics model.

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Readings in Strategic Studies (RSS) is produced for educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.