Friday, January 22, 2016

S-400

HOW CHINA’S NEW RUSSIAN AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM COULD CHANGE ASIA

JANUARY 21, 2016

S-400_Triumf_SAM_-_rehearsal_for_2009_VD_parade_in_Moscow_-07

The Russian S-400 TRIUMF (NATO designation SA-21) surface to air missile (SAM) entered the global media spotlight late in 2015 when Moscow deployed the system after Turkey’s shoot-down of a Russian Su-24 FENCER airplane near the Syria border on Thanksgiving Day. The Russian deployment compelled Turkey to pause its air operations and reportedly impacted the execution of U.S. and coalition air operations in the region, demonstrating the considerable reach and influence of this advanced air defense system.

This episode demonstrated the S-400’s potential as a weapon with strategic effects, a role that China, the first export recipient of the system, may seek to exploit in future crises. In April 2015, Russia announced the sale of four to six S-400 battalions to China. It remains unclear where China will deploy the assets. However, deployment of the system could influence the regional security order and dramatically impact the ability of the United States and its allies to respond to crises related to Taiwan, the Koreas, and the East and South China Seas.

What is the S-400?

The S-400 is the most dangerous operationally deployed modern long-range SAM in the world. Its maximumeffective range is up to 400km (215 nautical miles). The system reportedly can track 100 airborne targets and engage six of them simultaneously. The S-400 reportedly has the capability to counter low-observable aircraft and precision-guided munitions, and is also reportedly extremely mobile.

The SAM is an excellent example of an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) system. The idea of A2/AD is to prevent an opposing force from entering an area and limit an opposing force’s freedom of action in an operational area. As Robert Haddick recently emphasized at War on the Rocks, A2/AD systems pose a unique problem to U.S. power projection and the ability of the U.S. military to maintain its technological edge over adversaries.

Yet Russia’s deployment of the S-400 reveals that such systems can have even broader strategic effects. Though not the first SAM to threaten aircraft at hundreds of miles in range — SA-5, deployed since 1966, has a range of 150 nautical miles — the S-400’s capabilities render it far more dangerous than a traditional defense-oriented SAM system. It can engage a wide range of targets, including stealth aircraft and cruise missiles. Its range against aircraft operating at medium or high altitudes is so great that it can threaten aircraft in neighboring countries within their own air space. This capability alone raises the risk of operating such expensive aircraft anywhere near a deployed S-400 system.

A single S-400 missile that costs a few million dollars could bring down an asset worth hundreds of millions of dollars, such as the RQ-4 unmanned intelligence aircraft, F-22 or F-35 fighters, or worse, a B-2 bomber worth over $2 billion per plane . And it could do so from farther away than any adversary SAM has yet been capable of. The S-400 thus offers a favorable cost ratio that could influence decision-making at strategic levels.

Potential Applications for China

Fielded in sufficient numbers and in combination with other advanced air defense systems, the S-400 can strengthen and extend China’s already robust network of A2/AD capabilities. These include the S-300PMU and HQ-9 (range 200km) SAM systems and the DF-21D (range 1,500km) anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM). The exponential system-of-systems effect of these weapons continues to pose a serious threat to the credibility of U.S. security assurances to allies and partners that have disputes with China.

The S-400 system could enable Chinese forces to deter or influence the behavior of aircraft and the application of airpower in peacetime. Russia’s deployment in Syria has already illustrated this possibility. While Russia has shown no intention of using the S-400 to engage U.S. or coalition aircraft (except perhaps those belonging to Turkey), air operations planners in the theater have likely developed new procedures to guide manned and unmanned aircraft flying within range of the S-400. If Russia chose to do so, it could have effectively neutralized the effectiveness of U.S., French, or NATO aviation based in the Mediterranean. A subsequent coalition turn to standoff munitions would significantly increase the per-shot cost, possibly dissuading more vulnerable allies from participating in the U.S.-led high-end conflict.

The strategic influence of the S-400 becomes even clearer when the system is viewed through the lens of potential military crises or contingencies along China’s periphery. Although open-source information about the deployment of this system in China remains unclear, there are several plausible candidate locations. U.S. and allied leaders should not be surprised if China deploys the S-400 to support operations against Taiwan, near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, along the North Korean border for peninsula contingency operations, and in the South China Sea to support operations to defend sovereignty claims.

Deployed along the Taiwan Strait, the S-400 operating envelope against non-stealthy aircraft at medium or high altitudes would cover the entire territory of Taiwan and reinforce the coverage provided by the S-300PMU and HQ-9 SAMs. In the event of conflict, any aviation forces that took to the air from Taiwan would thus immediately risk being shot down. For the most part, participating U.S. air forces and U.S. naval aviation would similarly need to operate well east of Taiwan to avoid the SAM threat. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) airplanes operating at such distances would have little ability to accurately monitor developments west of Taiwan, thus constraining their utility as a means of providing third-party intelligence to Taiwan or to demonstrate U.S. resolve early in a crisis through a show of force. Without detailed, accurate and timely tactical intelligence from ISR platforms to guide their attack, allied fighter and strike aircraft (assuming that they survived within the SAM envelope) would become highly vulnerable in any effort to fight air and surface threats. U.S. and Taiwan planners must therefore plan to yield air superiority to the Chinese, accept high levels of risk to U.S. aviation assets, or contemplate what could be highly escalatory mainland strikes against the mobile SAM systems to neutralize the threat.

Deployments of the S-400 by China along the Korean border and on the Shandong peninsula would allow coverage over most of North Korea. In the event of a war between the two Koreas, China could deploy the system to coerce Pyongyang or deter U.S. and South Korean forces from carrying out air operations that Beijing regarded as destabilizing. China could also use the S-400 in conjunction with S-300PMU and HQ-9 SAM systems to put at risk air operations from U.S. carrier assets operating in the Yellow Sea, thus forcing the ships to operate east of Korea. By carefully positioning S-400 systems, China could also try to exert influence by compelling the United States and South Korea to coordinate air activity with Chinese military authorities under the pretense of air activity de-confliction. This might enable Beijing to throttle the tempo of U.S. and allied operations.

The Senkaku Islands lie just beyond the range of an S-400 system deployed on China’s coast. Nevertheless, the deployment of the system in a crisis involving the Senkakus could again help China exert influence over the situation. The S-400 could provide air cover for maritime platforms that sortied from China’s coast towards the Senkakus. If paired with joint ship-borne SAM systems such as the HHQ-9 and a combat air patrol (CAP) provided by land-based fighter aircraft, the combined effect could help extend SAM-enabled air cover over the Senkaku Islands, a capability Japan would find difficult to match. Japanese and U.S. planners must thus plan carefully to contest a Chinese CAP and strike the Chinese SAM-equipped combatants while operating outside the range of the land-based S-400 or accept a possible loss of air superiority over the islands in a crisis or conflict.

The stationing of strategic nuclear submarines and potentially an aircraft carrier at Hainan Island provides China with significant reason to station the S-400 system and other missiles systems on that island, where the combined effect could exert influence over the northern part of the South China Sea. China has also built up artificial islandsthat could support the deployment of this system in the middle of the Spratly Islands, allowing them to control the airspace over the entire range of islands. In a crisis, China could use the SAM system to control the presence of foreign reconnaissance aircraft, degrading the ability of the United States and other countries to gain an accurate picture of tactical developments. In a militarized crisis with rival disputants, controlling the airspace over the entire Spratly Islands would grant a tremendous operational advantage over rival claimants. In the event China decided to impose an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea, an S-400 deployment in the Spratlys as well as on Hainan Island and/or the Paracel Islands would lend serious credibility to Chinese enforcement efforts. Still, doctrine, weather, and the isolated position of the islands may bound the utility of the S-400 on South China Sea islands. Because the S-400 relies on its mobility to ensure survivability, placement on an artificial island on the Spratly Islands would render the systems highly vulnerable to attack. The corrosive effects of high humidity and salt water would also make maintenance of the unmarinized S-400 system especially difficult, particularly at so remote a location.

Policy Implications

For China, the S-400 supplements and reinforces other important A2/AD capabilities such as the S-300PMU and HQ-9 SAM, the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), electronic warfare sets, and air-launched cruise missiles. The combined effect of these mutually reinforcing weapons systems will boost Beijing’s confidence that it can challenge the viability of U.S. military interventions in contingencies along China’s borders.

Without major investments in stealth and counter-SAM technologies, or major changes to training and strategic guidance in the face of such systems, the United States faces considerable challenges to countering this threat. The United States relies on a combination of stealth, electronic attack, decoys, and radar-homing missiles to counter air defense systems. The arrival of the S-400 will not likely change that approach, but it will impose greater challenges to its execution. If the United States chooses to operate outside the envelope of the weapons system, air missions will not likely be worth conducting because so few airborne capabilities can operate effectively at so distant a range. Suppression through missile attack on the S-400 offers one possibility, but the mobility of the systems makes for an elusive target. Moreover, the escalatory implications of strikes on Chinese territory to destroy the equipment make this a risky option at best.

U.S. and allied planners and policymakers will need to think through more viable and less escalatory ways to address the threat of the S-400 and related advanced SAM systems in a contingency involving China and a U.S. ally or partner. Alternatively, they may simply need to accept a higher level of risk. New operational concepts may be required to deal with the threat, such as a greater reliance on fifth-generation — and in the future, sixth-generation — stealth aircraft, or advanced tactics that limit the exposure of aircraft to the SAM threat.

Planners may need to either accept the possibility of higher losses to high-end military platforms or consider re-investing in low-cost expendable platforms such as UAVs. For the longer term, U.S. decision-makers should plan on developing countermeasures to the S-400. This may require investments in electronic jamming and other electronic measures to confuse or deny the ability of the S-400 radar to track aircraft. In all cases, the S-400 will provide China a powerful weapons system certain to exacerbate an already formidable A2/AD challenge for U.S. military forces in peacetime, in crisis, and in conflict.

Timothy Heath is a senior international defense research analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

Photo credit: Vitaly V. Kuzmin

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3 THOUGHTS ON “HOW CHINA’S NEW RUSSIAN AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM COULD CHANGE ASIA”

Cliff B says:

January 21, 2016 at 10:23 pm

An excellent analysis of a potentially game changing weapons system — from a country we have assumed rather incorrectly is technology wise in the darker ages.

Russian actions are guided by the political (strategic) goal they plan on achieving. U.S. aircraft operating in Syria aim their efforts solely at ISIS, not against Assad. We are functioning as Assad’s Air Force in that aspect of his struggle, at our cost. The Russians are not going to interfere with that effort.

However, should the Turks fly shorties in support of their Turkmen cousins, they may provide fodder for the first live fire test of that system. If the U.S. is electronically monitoring that situation, should it ever occur, it could provide a gold or silver mine of information. It would be the only valuable contribution the Turks have made to NATO.

Christopher Bowen says:

January 21, 2016 at 11:18 pm

Unlikely that this is a complete surprise to DARPA. Is anything in development in their toolkit a suitable counter measure? Laser weapons? Electronic intervention? If this is an impregnable unstoppable superweapon, will we have to concede world domination to Russia and China by default? Are we incapable or unwilling to develop a similar weapon system with greater range and lethality? Syria is the testing ground for new Russian weaponry and we are closely monitoring performance and capability, no doubt.

Warlock says:

January 22, 2016 at 11:36 am

Yes, but….

This is the problem with judging weapons based on the manufacturer’s spec sheets — you don’t get the whole story. That’s true in spades with air defense systems. The S-400 (SA-21) — an evolution of the S-300 PMU (SA-10/SA-20) — is certainly an impressive system. It’s also very complex, and the complete system has a large number of lightly and unarmored components – radar vehicles, command posts, reloaders, local security, and support vehicles. It requires a fair amount of space to deploy, and as the author pointed out, relies heavily on the ability to relocate for long-term protection.

Nor is the system all-seeing — the radars are still limited to what’s above the horizon — and all-knowing. However many tracks the battle management computer can store, the system’s effectiveness still relies on the operator’s ability to cue targets and manage engagements so the battery doesn’t find itself static and out of missiles just at the moment a HARM or cruise missile comes screaming over the horizon (under 20nm away, even with the fire control radar on a mast). In short, human factors still matter, very much.

Not all the missiles are the big, 200+ nm-capable rounds (primarily designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles)…and those are less maneuverable than the smaller, shorter-ranged ones (which is why they carry a mix). SAM effective ranges are heavily governed by target aspect, speed, and altitude, the max-range threat rings we all learned to brief in school are often much smaller in real life.

Although the S-400 has been in service since the mid-2000s, and the S-300 since the ’90s, neither has been used in combat. So real potential is still unknown.

So…should we be paying attention? Certainly. Both the S-300 and the S-400 are ideal systems to protect the coast (where their mobility is an advantage) and high-value targets. Are one or two S-400 batteries deployed on land-fill islands a “game changer”? Hardly — it’s just an another step in the IADS/SEAD contest that’s been going on for decades.

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Friday, January 15, 2016

War with China?

REPORT

How FP Stumbled Into a War With China — and Lost

ur intrepid reporters tried to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in the East China Sea. They ended up igniting a war in Asia.

s dawn breaks over the sea that separates Japan and China, a group of renegade Japanese ultranationalists wade ashore on a barren islet they call Uotsuri-shima. It’s the largest of a cluster of uninhabited and uninhabitable rocks known as the Senkakus, or the Diaoyu in Chinese, the unlikely locus of a long-running territorial dispute between Tokyo and Beijing. The activists plant the Japanese flag, declaring that the islands are inalienable Japanese territory; their YouTube video threatens the Chinese navy with destruction if it dares to seize the islands.

Caught off guard, Tokyo is slow to respond, but eventually disowns the ultranationalists and their stunt. By then, though, China has condemned the move as a hostile act and has dispatched armed coast guard and naval vessels to the relatively shallow waters around the Senkakus. Chinese marines arrest the 14 activists and vow to bring them back to China for prosecution.

The next day, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is dispatched to the area, accompanied by a squadron of Japanese F-15 fighters. China maintains its naval ships around the islands and insists that it will not withdraw from the area. As the two militaries appear headed on a collision course, Tokyo informs Washington that it is finally invoking the mutual defense treaty the two nations have had since 1951. Now the White House has a decision to make.

Luckily, this scenario is not playing out in the Situation Room but in the offices of the Rand Corp. think tank in Arlington, Virginia. Foreign Policy asked a war-game expert at Rand, David Shlapak, to lead FP reporters Dan De Luce and Keith Johnson through a simulated conflict in the East China Sea. Shlapak, who has a professorial, trimmed gray beard and a mischievous twinkle in his eye, has spent more than three decades organizing elaborate war games with maps and data-filled dossiers for U.S. military officers and diplomats in Washington. This is a much shorter version of those more formal affairs, with no government officials in the room and no maps on the tables. Instead, it’s just the three of us sitting around a conference table in an office only a few blocks from the Pentagon, talking through a hypothetical crisis.

Keep this in mind: We aren’t warmongers. We entered into the scenario looking for offramps. We went out of our way to choose the least aggressive options and to try to exercise restraint — even when we played the part of China as well as the United States at different stages of the game. But just as Shlapak warned us, events quickly got out of hand, and we found ourselves in a nightmarish escalatory cycle of war fueled by nationalist sentiment in both Japan and China. And the scenario depicted here is not far-fetched fiction. Just this week there was more brinkmanship, as Tokyo warned Beijing that if its naval ships sailed near the islands and lingered, Japan would send in patrol vessels to see them off. China responded with a stern warning of its own, saying that if Japan takes provocative actions, it “will have to accept responsibility for everything that happens.”

All of that is in the real world. In the artificial one constructed by Shlapak, those rhetorical volleys were replaced by open combat. This is the story of what happened next: a war we didn’t seek, didn’t want to fight — and that ended very badly.

Senkakus Incident — Day 2

For us, playing as the “blue team,” the United States, upholding our treaty commitments is paramount. It’s not just about Japan or even Asia. Russia, Iran, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and others are watching how America responds when one of its closest and oldest allies calls for help. But the last thing in the world we want is to start a shooting war with the world’s only other superpower over a bunch of worthless rocks.

With that in mind, we offer to protect Japan’s home islands with U.S. naval and air forces, but refuse to take any offensive action against Chinese forces. We order the aircraft carrier George Washington out of its home port in Yokosuka, Japan, and set it cruising in the Western Pacific. That’s to ensure that it is still available if needed — and that it isn’t a sitting duck at port for a possible attack by a Chinesemilitary that has spent years developing a so-called “carrier-killer” missile capable of destroying the massive ship. Meanwhile, elements of the 3rd Fleet in California steam toward the north central Pacific to be ready for any contingencies. We also let the Chinese know that U.S. attack submarines are deployed near the disputed islands and will support our ally if needed.

Then we’re confronted with another huge decision: Japan wants to move its destroyers toward the Senkakus to cover its task force. Tokyo asks us to fill in the gap for the Japanese home islands by sending a pair of our own destroyers to the Sea of Japan. Knowing the ships will be extremely vulnerable if things go pear-shaped, we agree to Japan’s request, concluding that it’s our duty to help protect the home islands from attack.

Senkakus Incident — Day 3

The crisis takes an ugly turn after a military-grade Chinese coast guard cutter rams and sinks one of the Japanese fishing boats encircling the islands. Japanese surface forces respond, employing water cannons and electronic jamming devices against the Chinese, while fighter jets buzz low over Chinese ships. One Chinese frigate unloads at the planes with its 30 mm close-defense guns; Japanese forces, in response, open fire on the Chinese ship. That prompts a devastating and unexpected counterattack from Chinese aircraft and anti-ship missiles. Two Japanese ships are sunk in a matter of minutes, killing about 500 sailors.

Diplomatic communication between Tokyo and Beijing, including a new “hotline” mechanism between the two countries’ armed forces, break down as passions soar. Outnumbered, and fearful of losing more ships, Tokyo calls on Washington to provide more help. Pleading crowds surround the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo; irate crowds chant outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. U.S. cable news channels froth at the mouth and ask when America will come to Japan’s aid; lawmakers bray for blood on the Senate floor.

WAR GAME TIMELINE

Day 1: Japanese ultranationalists plant a flag on an islet in the East China Sea. Beijing sends in naval ships. Chinese marines “arrest” the activists.

Day 2: Japan deploys ships and fighter jets to the islands. Tokyo invokes its mutual defense treaty with the United States. The United States offers to help Japan defend its homeland and deploys submarines near the Japanese coast.

Day 3: After a confrontation, Chinese naval forces sink two Japanese ships. A U.S. submarine then strikes and sinks two Chinese destroyers. Both sides suffer hundreds of casualties.

Day 4: China launches cyber attacks on power grids in California and on the NASDAQ. Chinese missiles inflict serious damage on Japanese forces.

Day 5: Chinese attacks wipe out 20 percent of Japanese maritime forces and target economic hubs in Japan. The U.S. rejects Toyko’s request to strike more Chinese ships. Instead, it covers the retreat of Japanese forces. China declares victory.

Back at the White House, pressure to take action is overwhelming. Our war-game master lays out a range of options. We could hold our fire, do nothing, and avoid a war — but sacrifice U.S. credibility and watch the Japanese navy disintegrate. We could send a signal to China by carrying out a cyberattack, but still avoid a direct military assault. A third response would be a tit-for-tat move, using U.S. submarines to take out a Chinese surface ship at no risk to the American crew on the sub. An extreme response would be massive escalation, including strikes on the Chinese homeland or its key military facilities, in order to send an unequivocal message that Beijing is messing with history’s greatest power. As former Yankees manager Billy Martin used to say: “I never threw the first punch; I threw the second four.”

Mindful of the need to keep Japan’s small but able navy in the fight, and feeling pressure from all sides, we opt to help level the playing field for our ally — and send Beijing a message of our resolve — by torpedoing a pair of Chinese guided-missile destroyers, killing several hundred people.

“You have now drawn Chinese blood. You have now started a U.S.-China war by your actions,” Shlapak says.

Senkakus Incident — Day 4

The leadership in Beijing is stunned. It had made clear that this was a fight between China and Japan and that the fight didn’t concern the United States. But times have changed. Just as the Chinese military is much stronger than in decades past, Chinese society is different. This isn’t 1979, when Chinese forces suffered huge losses in Vietnam, yet could withdraw with no domestic political backlash. Now, hundreds of millions of Chinese netizens are livid, clamoring for revenge for the sunken ships.

Shlapak invites us to play now as the “red team,” China. The options are: ignore the sunken ships — and Chinese nationalists — to steer clear of a fight; seek a proportional response by sinking U.S. Navy vessels, like the vulnerable destroyers near Japan; or respond very sharply, such as with a missile assault on U.S. air bases on Okinawa.

We opt for something different. Braving nationalist backlash, we choose a very restrained approach, seeking to inflict pain on the United States but stopping short of drawing blood. While keeping up military attacks on Japanese forces, we unleash China’s asymmetric capabilities against the Americans, especially in cyber- and financial warfare. We activate malware already embedded in the U.S. electricity grid and plunge Los Angeles and San Francisco into darkness. We manipulate data for automatic trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange and erase tens of billions of dollars of wealth, a panic that quickly spreads to other financial markets. We also hint at unloading a portion of our holdings of U.S. government debt, sending the U.S. dollar plummeting.

Senkakus Incident — Day 5

Meanwhile, Chinese forces continue to hammer Japanese surface vessels near the Senkakus. In less than 24 hours, one-fifth of the Japanese navy is knocked out of action and hundreds are dead. To drive home its point, China also initiates attacks on the Japanese economy, knocking out the vulnerable power grid and blasting a crucial jet-fuel refinery.

Facing massive disruption at home and the destruction of its navy, Japan again pleads for help. Tokyo makes three concrete requests: It wants the American aircraft-carrier group that it has hosted for so many years sent into the fight to help protect Japanese ships; it wants more attacks on Chinese ships; and it seeks targeted strikes on the sites used for anti-ship missiles on the Chinese mainland.

For Washington, there are only bad options on the table. “Those treaty obligations looked more important a few days ago,” Keith says.

Our gut reaction is to stop the spiral before the carnage — and the risks — expand. The first option is to tell the Japanese that the United States is not ready to stage attacks on the Chinese homeland or join Tokyo in offensive operations. Sending in the aircraft carrier, which could be hit or sunk by Chinese missiles, is also ruled out. We offer Tokyo to send U.S. submarines and aircraft into the battle zone to cover the withdrawal of its naval forces. That way, the United States can avoid an all-out war with China and stop the fighting before Japan’s naval forces are utterly decimated or its economy strangled.

That decision is “operationally sensible,” Shlapak says, but China emerges as the tactical victor. Beijing took on both the United States and Japan and won. China is now in possession of the Senkakus. Longer term, though, China may have won itself a Pyrrhic victory: Japan and other nations in Asia will likely redouble spending on defense and bandwagon against China both militarily and economically.

In any scenario, Shlapak says, “nobody comes out of it better off.”

What would have happened if we had acceded to Japanese requests? Here’s how that played out:

The United States sends humanitarian aid and disaster-response teams to Japan to bolster its homeland defense and dispatches the carrier at a safe distance in flight range of the Senkakus. It also launches targeted, precision strikes on a handful of Chinese missile sites on the coast, clearly explaining to Chinese leadership the limited nature of the measures.

Long story short, plunging deeper into the fight did not make matters easier for any of the three countries.

U.S. missiles rain down on the Chinese homeland; Japanese commercial freighters explode on the high seas; China’s shiny new navy is quickly shrinking under relentless undersea attacks. In reprisal, Chinese forces obliterate Kadena Air Base on Okinawa and take a potshot with a carrier-killer missile at the George Washington, damaging it and forcing it out of the area. The casualty toll is appalling on all sides, with thousands dead.

“You probably see where this is going,” Shlapak tells us.

The U.S. military could keep punching, hitting key Chinese naval bases, targeting China’s sole aircraft carrier, or even implementing a blockade in the South China Sea to try to strangle the Chinese economy. Nothing, though, preserves Japan’s navy or helps defend its islands. The Chinese can inflict unlimited damage on Japan.

Years of gaming such scenarios have convinced Shlapak of the importance of understanding the inherent risks in wars between great powers, rather than in the one-sided affairs that have dominated U.S. military adventures in recent decades.

“It’s like an avalanche. All you know is that it will end eventually, but you don’t know how, or why, or what the cost will be,” he says, pounding the table for emphasis. Wading into a Sino-Japanese dispute over the Senkakus is particularly fraught for the United States and doesn’t allow for any attractive outcomes.

“To get into this fight is a strategic failure of the first magnitude,” Shlapak says.

Our takeaways:

Chastened at the results, we came away with several conclusions after our quick-and-dirty foray into the East China Sea.

First, alliances can be dangerous things, as the ancient Athenians learned more than 2,000 years ago when their allies in Corcyra sucked them into the Peloponnesian War.

Second, it’s hard to put a lot of defense into the mutual defense treaty with Japan. Its ships, aircraft, and home islands are all vulnerable, even if any attacking force would suffer huge casualties. Missile defense, in particular, is exceptionally difficult — if not impossible — given China’s vast and lethal missile arsenal.

Third, China’s military advances have totally changed the game for all sides. A decade ago, Japan could have fended off any challenge in the Senkakus all by itself. Now, China has a modern navy, a vast array of ballistic and cruise missiles, an effective air force, and increasingly sophisticated drones.

Fourth, America’s super aircraft carriers are a bit of an albatross. They are vulnerable as never before to long-range strikes, especially from Chinese anti-ship missiles. But the steps needed to safely bring carriers into the fight either escalate matters (striking at Chinese missile sites) or reduce the ships’ effectiveness (by having to operate at a safe distance.) Conversely, American stealthy attack submarines are very useful operationally — but perhaps lead to more trouble at the strategic level. Ordering a submarine strike is a tempting option, perhaps too tempting; as we saw, a submarine’s risk-free ability to inflict punishment drew us into a state of war with China.

And finally, for all three countries in our scenario, nationalism is hugely powerful and potentially deadly. It sparked the initial spat, fueled each successive escalatory step, and severely constrained each nation’s available responses as the crisis escalated.

That’s why Shlapak suggested that the best way to manage a crisis in a place like the Senkakus, which can’t support any inhabitants anyway, may be to simply ignore it.

Photo credit: JMSDF

BY TABOOLA

Guantanamo Detainees Resettled in Oman

BY J. DANA STUSTER
JANUARY 15, 2016

en Yemeni detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay are being resettled in Oman, the U.S. Department of Defense announced yesterday. The men were cleared for release after a review of their cases. The transfers bring the number of prisoners held at Guantanamo to 93 — the first time the population has dropped below 100 since 2002. At least 14 of the remaining detainees have also been cleared for release and dozens of others have their cases under review. The State Department’s Guantanamo envoy, Lee Wolosky, said that the cleared detainees will be resettled by this summer, and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said yesterday that he has presented the White House with a plan for transferring detainees that cannot be released to the United States.

Oman also accepted 10 detainees for resettlement last year. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they facilitated the transfer of the detainees based on humanitarian concerns and at the request of the U.S. government.

Turkey Arrests Academics for Signing Petition

Turkish authorities arrested 12 academics at Kocaeli University and issued warrants for nine others today. The government has accused them of spreading “terrorism propaganda” for signing a petition that criticized the government’s conduct fighting Kurdish militants in the country’s southeast. The petition, titled “We Won’t Be a Party to This Crime,” has more than 1,000 signatories from 90 Turkish universities. “Hey, you so-called intellectuals,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a recent speech in which he referred to the signatories of the petition. “You are dark people. You are not intellectuals.”

Headlines

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the “atrocious acts” committed in the Syrian civil war, singling out the Assad regime’s siege of Madaya; “Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime…I would say they are being held hostage, but it is even worse. Hostages get fed,” he said.

Houthi rebels in Yemen released five prisoners, including Technical Education Minister Abdul Razak Ashwal and “political and media activists,” according to the U.N. special envoy to Yemen; the move could be a goodwill gesture to prompt the rescheduling of postponed peace talks.

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets yesterday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the popular revolution that ousted the country’s dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Samar Badawi, a Saudi activist who was arrested on Tuesday, was released on Wednesday after questioning by the authorities, according to Human Rights Watch.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to comments by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom suggesting investigations into whether the recent killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces were “extrajudicial,” calling them “outrageous,” “immoral,” and “stupid.”

Arguments and Analysis

“What the Algerian Civil War Can Teach Us About Combating ISIS” (Kevin Greene, Political Violence @ a Glance)

“Competition between violent political organizations has been found to increase group longevity and lead to more ‘shocking attacks’. A recent post in this blog makes the case that competition between ISIS and al Qaeda has contributed to the escalation in the level of violence used by ISIS. The GIA in Algeria were also locked in heated competition with rival Islamic Salvation Army (AIS). The two sides exchanged threats, direct attacks, and assassinations of each others leadership, while fighting in a civil conflict with thousands of casualties. To distance itself from the more brutal GIA, the AIS focused attacks primarily on government targets. The AIS then engaged in negotiations with the Algerian government, agreed to a ceasefire, and even offered the Algerian Government assistance in fighting the GIA. The Algerian case may provide some hope that groups involved in the conflict in Syria and Iraq that are more ‘moderate’, at least in terms of the tactics they employ, may be able to reconcile their differences and potentially aid in fighting ISIS. However, determining which groups are moderate is also a challenge, as many groups in the conflict have affiliations with al Qaeda, or hold views similar to ISIS.”

“The Graveyard of Caliphates” (Nathaniel Barr and Bridget Moreng, Foreign Affairs)

“In April 2014, ISIS succeeded in securing the defections of nine al Qaeda emirs hailing from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran in what was deemed the “Khorasan pledge.” This pledge initially sparked speculation that ISIS could secure significant support from al Qaeda in the Khorasan region. But since this pledge, ISIS has struggled to secure additional defections from Khorasan-based al Qaeda operatives. Outside of Afghanistan, ISIS’s efforts to peel militants away from al Qaeda have yielded mixed results. Though the group has managed to acquire pledges of allegiance from Boko Haram and the Sinai Peninsula’s Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, two groups that were previously in al Qaeda’s orbit, no official al Qaeda affiliates have defected to ISIS. In fact, groups like al Shabab and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula continue to rebuff ISIS’ expansion efforts, with al Shabab aggressively targeting ISIS sympathizers in Somalia. ISIS’ struggles thus far suggest that it will need more than a snappy propaganda initiative to chip away at the al Qaeda network. ISIS has struggled to navigate Afghanistan’s complex web of tribal, ethnic, and religious relationships. In other words, propaganda and spin can only take ISIS so far in Afghanistan. Until the group’s leaders better understand the complex politics of Afghanistan, they may find themselves stymied in the graveyard of empires.”

-J. Dana Stuster

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