{"id":1712,"date":"2018-06-25T17:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T17:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackopspartners.com\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2018-06-25T17:00:58","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T17:00:58","slug":"russia-china-are-outmaneuvering-us-generals-recommend-new-authorities-doctrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/russia-china-are-outmaneuvering-us-generals-recommend-new-authorities-doctrine\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine"},"content":{"rendered":"

China and Russia<\/a> are outmaneuvering the US, using aggressive actions that fall short of war, a group of generals and admirals have concluded. To counter them, the US needs new ways to use its military without shooting, concludes a newly released report on the Quantico<\/a> conclave<\/a>. The US military will need new legal authorities and new concepts of operation for all domains \u2014 land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Little Green Men in Crimea to fortified artificial islands<\/a> in the South China Sea, from online meddling with US elections to global information operations and<\/a>to industrial-scale cyber espionage<\/a>, America\u2019s adversaries have found ways to achieve their objectives and undermine the West without triggering a US military response, operating in what\u2019s come to be called \u201cthe grey zone.\u201d No less a figure than Defense Secretary Jim Mattis took<\/a> on the topic in his National Defense Strategy<\/a> and in this morning\u2019s graduation address to the Naval Academy.<\/p>\n

\"DoD<\/a><\/p>\n

Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis testify before Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cPutin seeks to shatter NATO. He aims to diminish the appeal of the Western democratic model and attempts to undermine America\u2019s moral authority,\u201d ran Mattis\u2019s prepared text. \u201cHis actions are designed not to challenge our arms<\/em>(emphasis added), but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Dunford<\/a>, has publicly warned that our adversaries don\u2019t abide by our doctrine, with its clear distinction between war and peace and its tidy phases of escalation. The American military operates in phases, with Phase 0 being peace (officially, \u201cshaping\u201d the environment) and so on. Traditionally, actions other than war are just that to the US and do not merit a military response, let alone a kinetic one. What adversaries are doing is \u201ccompetition with a military dimension short of a Phase 3 or traditional conflict,\u201d he said as far back as 2016<\/a>. \u201c(Their) employment of cyber, unconventional capability, space capabilities (and) information operations (go beyond) what we would call Phase 0 shaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom SecDef and chairman, down to the units in the field\u2026 there\u2019s great recognition\u201d of the grey zone problem, said Nate Freier, a researcher at the Army War College. (Freier wasn\u2019t involved with the Quantico conference or writing the report, but I consulted him as a leading expert on the concept). Awareness has grown dramatically since just two years ago, Freier said, when he and his colleagues published a study on the grey zone called Outplayed<\/em><\/a> and Dunford was making his comments on competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that the US military recognizes that dilemma, but I\u2019m not sure they know how to respond to it yet,\u201d Freier told me. \u201cThis idea that states like China and Russia are engaged in a persistent campaign to undermine US and allied interests over time, employing methods that fall well short of conventional military conflict\u2026at the national level, we\u2019re still coming to grips with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Navy<\/a><\/p>\n

A Russian Su-24 buzzes the USS Cook in the Baltic Sea, April 12, 2016.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

War & Peace & None Of The Above<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe force is not adequately competing in the \u2018gray zone\u2019 below the threshold of armed conflict,\u201d the generals and admirals concluded at the Quantico conference in May, according to the Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) report released yesterday. \u201cPeer adversaries\/competitors don\u2019t want competitive activities to progress to war because they know the capability of U.S. forces in open conflict. Why would they go there when they are achieving strategic objectives by remaining in competition short of armed conflict?\u201d<\/p>\n

I covered<\/a> the Quantico conference<\/a>, but, like most attendees, I wasn\u2019t allowed in the special seminar reserved for generals and admirals. The event focused on the effort to coordinate forces across the land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace in a single seamless campaign known as\u00a0Multi-Domain Operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the senior officers concluded that \u201cbattle\u201d was too narrow a term, \u201ctoo focused on the tactical-level of war during conflict alone,\u201d in the words of the report. The concept should be renamed Multi-Domain Operations <\/em>to better capture \u201cthroughout the competition continuum\u2026. from deterring adversaries during competition, quickly defeating adversaries in a short and decisive action to return to competition, or defeating adversaries in the event of a protracted conflict<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

(\u201cShort and decisive\u201d won\u2019t apply in conflict against a great power, one briefer emphasized during the conference.)<\/p>\n

\"Army<\/a>The cycle described here \u2014 competition either deters or escalates to conflict, conflict resolves and deescalates to competition \u2014 derives from Mattis\u2019s National Defense Strategy<\/a>, which emphasizes \u201cthe reemergence of long-term strategic competition.\u201d Arguably, the word \u201ccompetition\u201d better captures what\u2019s happening between the US and China, or the US and Russia, than the terms like \u201cpeace\u201d or \u201cstrategic shaping\u201d (aka \u201cPhase 0\u201d).<\/p>\n

To the extent that saying \u201ccompetition\u201d helps people understand Russia and China are \u201crivals\u201d engaged in \u201c\u201ddeliberate malign activities,\u201d Freier told me, the term is helpful. But, it\u2019s not helpful, he went on, if \u201cconflict\u201d and \u201ccompetition\u201d just become a new pair of rigid categories to replace \u201cwar\u201d and \u201cpeace,\u201d obscuring the messiness of the real world.<\/p>\n

The report from Quantico keeps falling into this intellectual trap. Consider this passage: \u201cJust as the binary war\/peace paradigm is insufficient to describe the global operating environment, authorities that are only available during conflict are insufficient. The Joint Force needs certain authorities prior to conflict in order to set the conditions to dominate if hostilities commence.\u201d Yes, the first words of this passage acknowledge that war and peace are not a clear-cut either\/or \u2014 but the rest of it talks about \u201cduring conflict\u201d and \u201cprior to conflict\u201d as if these are clearly distinct phases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re stuck,\u201d Freier told me. \u201cWe are still institutionally and culturally stuck in this five-phase model of operations. Our adversaries certainly aren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DoD<\/a><\/p>\n

Official phase model of military operations (SOURCE: Joint Publication JP-30, \u201cJoint Operations\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Freier\u2019s Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe US military should recognize that we can\u2019t operate in this peace-war dichotomy effectively anymore,\u201d Freier said. \u201cWe are actually in a persistent competition\u2026.That competition sometimes becomes more heated, it sometimes becomes closer to cooperation.\u201d Rather than distinct phases, he said, \u201cit\u2019s a sine wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

As tensions go up and down, you always have two goals in mind. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to impose costs on the opponent and, at the same time<\/em>, offer off-ramps to the opponent for de -scalation,\u201d Freier said. \u201cThat\u2019s actually a pretty sophisticated approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every ship that sails<\/a>, every advisor<\/a> that goes abroad to train allies, every unit that participates in exercises<\/a>, needs to be part of a larger plan to demonstrate US resolve and capability, Freier said. The ultimate goal isn\u2019t just to respond to what the Chinese and Russians are doing in the grey zone, he told me. It\u2019s to force them to respond to what we\u2019re <\/em>doing in the grey.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nate Freier<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For example, the US Navy already conducts Freedom Of Navigation Operations<\/a> (FONOPS) to defy unwarranted maritime claims around the world. But we do them with an even-handedness that\u2019s almost comically scrupulous, challenging everything<\/a> from China\u2019s island-building<\/a> in the South China Sea to Malta\u2019s \u201cexcessive straight baselines\u201d in the Mediterranean. Instead, Freier says, \u201cfreedom of navigation operations should occur in a way that demonstrates military capability.\u201d It\u2019s not just a case of sailing some place to prove you can, he argues: It\u2019s demonstrating you could conduct a military operation there if you needed to.<\/p>\n

On land, Freier said, special operations forces originated during World War II as a way to assist or create resistance movements in Axis-occupied territory. During the Cold War, NATO special ops laid the groundwork for partisan activity in West Germany in case of a Soviet invasion. If we rebuilt these \u201cunconventional warfare\u201d capabilities, we could make aggressors think twice about invading territory primed for resistance. We could even demonstrate to Russia and China we could assist resistance movements inside\u00a0their<\/em> territory, a threat both countries would take seriously given their long struggles with ethnic separatists.<\/p>\n

Actually conducting <\/em>unconventional warfare on Russian or Chinese territory would escalate right out of the grey zone and into an act of war, Freier notes; he\u2019s just saying we should prove to them we could<\/em>. Likewise, he doesn\u2019t think the US should conduct Russian-style assassinations on foreign soil or engage in \u201cfake news\u201d propaganda. \u201cThere are some places we\u2019re probably not willing to go,\u201d he told me, and that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

Within those moral limits, however, there\u2019s still a lot of innovative things we can think of, especially in cyberspace<\/a>, Freier said, as long as we let ourselves. \u201cWe have to spend some intellectual capital right now in defining what \u2018presence, \u2018maneuver,\u2019 and \u2018action\u2019 look like in those spaces, short of open military conflict,\u201d he told me. \u201cThe United States has to become less rigid in its view of military operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read the full article at Breaking Defense<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China and Russia are outmaneuvering the US, using aggressive actions that fall short of war, a group of generals and admirals have concluded. To counter them, the US needs new ways to use its military without shooting, concludes a newly released report on the Quantico conclave. The US military will need new legal authorities and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}