Diplomacy & Crisis News

Sebastien Roblin

F-15EX,

Very Long-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (VLRAAM) have two or three times the range of more typical beyond-visual range missiles like the AIM-120, Russian R-77, and Chinese PL-12. VLRAAMs are aimed less at shooting down fighters, and more at severing the vulnerable tendons they depend upon: tanker, surveillance, and command-and-control planes.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The budget document strongly suggests the Air Force is looking to field a broader range of air-warfare capabilities than before, particularly with an eye to matching foreign technology as well as finding ways to keep its non-stealth jets in the fight without exposing them to undue risk.

For a while now China and Russia have developed and deployed very-long-range radar-guided air-to-air missiles (or VLRAAMs) designed to threaten aircraft up to 250 miles away.

By contrast, the U.S. Air Force has focused on refining its short-range heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder and medium-to-long range AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAM). The service didn’t see a need for ultra-long-range missiles when it had F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters that could maneuver into position with low odds of detection.

However, that thinking has changed more recently. First in 2017, the Air Force and Navy began developing a successor to the roughly 100-mile-range AIM-120D called the AIM-260 Joint Air Tactical Missile. This Lockheed-built missile reportedly retains the single-pulse rocket propulsion and form factor of the AIM-120 (meaning it can fit inside existing stealth fighters) while achieving greater range—presumably exceeding 124 miles. Flight tests for the AIM-260 are set to begin in 2021, and it will replace the AIM-120 in production by 2026.

But more radically, budget documents seen by John Tirpak of Air Force Magazine in April 2021 reveal the service plans to mount “oversized air-to-air [weapons]” on its forthcoming fleet of F-15EX Eagle II fighters.

This may refer to a Raytheon-led concept program begun in 2016 called the Long Range Engagement Weapon (LREW), though admittedly concept art for LREW depicted the weapon being fired from an F-22 Raptor.

The new missile referred to in the budget document seems by definition too large to fit inside existing stealth fighters. Indeed, it may hint at an evolving air warfare doctrine designed to allow non-stealth F-15EX jets to contribute long-range missile shots to an air battle while mitigating their vulnerability to return fire, which may be of growing concern to the Air Force.

The Very Long Range Air-to-Air Missile

Very Long-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (VLRAAM) have two or three times the range of more typical beyond-visual range missiles like the AIM-120, Russian R-77, and Chinese PL-12. VLRAAMs are aimed less at shooting down fighters, and more at severing the vulnerable tendons they depend upon: tanker, surveillance, and command-and-control planes.

Tankers are indispensable for long-range operations in theaters such as the Pacific Ocean, while airborne early warning aircraft and similar command-and control planes give a huge edge to fighter pilots by dramatically improving situational awareness and coordination.

These airliner-based support planes hang well back from enemy air defenses—but VLRAAMs give potential adversary fighters a “sniper shot” of sorts at these vulnerable aircraft without having to fight their way through the intervening U.S. fighter screen.

Russian notably is deploying an improved Vympel R-37M (NATO codename AA-13B Axehead), on MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors, complementing the R-33 missile deployed to shoot down U.S. strategic bombers and spy planes. The improved R-37M can achieve hypersonic speeds (up to Mach 6) and has a maximum range of around 250 miles, while the R-33 meanwhile has had its ranged extended to around 190 miles. Both can be fitted with nuclear anti-aircraft warheads.

Meanwhile, China’s PL-15 BVR missile uses a dual pulse solid fuel rocket motor to achieve an alleged maximum range of 186 miles, significantly outranging the U.S. AIM-120D. At least four PL-15s can fit in the internal bay of Beijing’s J-20 stealth fighter.

China also is developing a PL-21 missile with an estimated 250-mile range similar to the R-37M. The PL-21 is believed to use the throttleable ramjet propulsion featured in the European Meteor BVR missile. That means instead of attaining peak velocity shortly after launch, it can efficiently cruise towards a target before accelerating to hypersonic speeds in the terminal phase to increase the odds of a kill.

Enabling the F-15EX?

It’s possible the Air Force would use an oversized air-to-air missile in a similar manner to China and Russia. However China and Russia operate fewer support planes while ground-based radars and facilities are often more central to their operations.

The Navy might alternately see a role for such missiles on its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter as a successor to the retired AIM-54 Phoenix missile and F-14 Tomcat interceptor. The Phoenix’s long range and high speed was premised on the need to engage Soviet bombers as rapidly as possible to prevent them from releasing deadly anti-ship missile salvos. This threat has reemerged to a degree in the twenty-first century in the form of China’s diverse maritime strike capabilities and Russia’s still active anti-ship capable strategic bombers.

However, the Air Force budget document seemingly portrays VLRAAMs as a way to integrate its fleet of non-stealth F-15EX fighters into offensive air superiority missions alongside its F-22 and F-35 stealth aircraft. The service is procuring at least seventy-eight, and potentially up to 200 multi-role Boeing F-15EX jets to replace F-15C air-superiority fighters. However, a recent wargame suggests the Air Force believes its F-15EX aircraft could suffer substantial losses if pitted in a head-on fight against contemporary adversaries.

However, the stealthy F-22 and F-35 fighters can only carry four to six beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles in their internal bays. By contrast, the F-15EX has long been extolled as a “missile truck” theoretically able to carry as many as twenty medium-sized missiles, or a few very large weapons like the hypersonic AGM-183A Arrow air-to-ground missile.

Theoretically, F-15EXs armed with VLRAAMs could maintain a safe distance from enemy fighters while receiving targeting data from F-22 and F-35 stealth jets operating at closer distances. Admittedly, F-15s might still be visible on radar at that range and be subject to long-range shots in return, but unlike a lumbering support plane, they possess the speed and maneuverability to evade at that distance.

An alternate tactic might be for F-15EXs to release VLRAAMs towards an anticipated battlespace without being locked onto targets. If equipped with a throttleable ramjet, the missiles could cruise stealthily and fuel-efficiently towards the engagement area until they receive targeting data from friendly forces via two-way datalink. At that point they could throttle up in speed, reducing the time needed to complete the sensor-to-shooter kill chain.

Thomas Newdick points out in an article for The Drive that VLRAAMs might also be an attractive weapon for large non-fighter aircraft such as the Air Force’s forthcoming B-21 Raider stealth bomber that might need to deal with opposing aircraft without getting dangerously close.

Challenges to VLRAAM Use

That said, there are practical problems to leveraging the extreme range of VLRAAMs.

For one, their reach may meet or exceed the launch platform’s radar detection range. That means VLRAAMs may depend on target cuing by ground-based or airborne early warning radars, or by a friendly fighter closer to the target.

It could also prove difficult to verify whether the target is a genuine adversary rather than a friendly or civilian aircraft. Historically, rules of engagement requiring positive identification have significantly limited use of beyond-visual-range missiles. However, the kinds of high-intensity wars VLRAAMs would be used in likely would feature less stringent rules of engagement.

A final problem is that if a targeted aircraft’s missile approach warning systems (MAWS) works as intended, its pilot might have ample time to evade the missile. That means very-long-range missiles are unlikely to be effective against maneuverable fighters and primarily pose a threat to tankers, airborne radar planes, and subsonic bombers. That said, forcing an aircraft to stop whatever mission it's performing and take evasive maneuvers could itself have tactical benefits.

Regardless, the budget document strongly suggests the Air Force is looking to field a broader range of air-warfare capabilities than before, particularly with an eye to matching foreign technology as well as finding ways to keep its non-stealth jets in the fight without exposing them to undue risk.

Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Sebastien Roblin

Marines, Asia

The scars from World War II explain why post-war Japan—a nation consisting of 6,852 islands—has not had a dedicated amphibious force until 2018.

Here's What You Need to Know: Inevitably, some—particularly in China—will perceive Japan’s resurrected amphibious force as a harbinger of aggression. But realistically, Tokyo is simply developing a modest capability to respond to incursions on its many vulnerable islands.

Seventy-five years ago, the sight of 300 Japanese marines storming rolling onto a Queensland beach in hulking tracked amphibious vehicles would have heralded a catastrophic setback to Australia’s national security.

But obviously, the world has changed quite a bit since World War II. The soldiers from Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARB) were not invaders, but participants in the international 2019 Talisman Sabre exercise held biennially on Australian soil.

The scars from World War II, however, explain why post-war Japan—a nation consisting of 6,852 islands—has not had a dedicated amphibious force until 2018.

In the 1930s, the Imperial Japanese Navy began training Special Naval Landing Forces principally at naval bases in Kure, Maizuru, Sasebo and Yokosuka. Initially non-standard in organization, by 1941 there were sixteen battalion-sized SNLF regiments that would spearhead Japanese amphibious assaults in the Philippines, the Netherland East Indies, the American Aleutian Islands of Kiska and Attu, and New Guinea. 

Though the SNLF included some paratrooper and tank units, it was primarily a light infantry force, lacking the mechanized landing craft integral to U.S. Marine Corps. The force’s fearsome reputation was furthered in the massacres of surrendered enemies and by its tendency to fight to the last man in defensive actions such as the bloody battle of Tarawa in 1943.

After the war, Japanese leaders perceived amphibious warfare as fundamentally aggressive, and thus inappropriate for Japan’s self-defense forces and pacifistic constitution. When it came to conflicts over distant islands, the JSDF developed the concept of “Maritime Operational Transport”—rushing troops to those islands before the enemy forces arrived.

But tension between Tokyo and Beijing have intensified in the twenty-first century—most prominently over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands (the first name is Japanese, the latter Chinese), tiny specks of land over 200 miles away from both mainland China and major Japanese islands.

More ominously, some Chinese scholars have argued that the more populated Nansei/Ryukyu island belt in southwestern Japan—which includes the Okinawa prefecture and is the site of a major U.S. military base—also rightfully belongs to China.

Concerns that Beijing might seize outlying islands finally led in 2018 to the formation of the 2,100-man Amphibious Rapid Response Brigade (ARDB), based at Sasebo on Kyushu—formed under the ground force’s first unified command.

Though Sasebo once based naval SNLF units, the new brigade is formed from the Ground Self Defense Force’s Western Army Infantry Regiment, an elite 680-man light infantry battalion formed in 2002.

The ARDB now consist of two 800-man Amphibious Rapid Deployment Regiments, with a third currently being formed to boost the unit to 3,000 personnel. Support battalions include units specialized in artillery (with 120-millimeter RT mortars), reconnaissance (operating small inflatable boats), engineering and logistical support.

But the brigade’s key support unit is a Combat Landing Battalion comprising 58 hulking AAV-P7A1 amphibious armored vehicles that can swim marines from ship to shore at eight miles per hour. Resembling the Jawa Sand Crawler in Star Wars, the 32-ton “amtracs” can carry twenty-one troops each—two or three times more than most modern personnel carriers—and bristle with .50 caliber machine guns and grenade launchers. However, amtracs are thinly armored—U.S. Marines lost many in Iraq—and may struggle to negotiate the coral reefs surrounding most of Japan’s southwestern islands.

Japan is also procuring seventeen MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft for air insertion on remote islands. The Osprey is expensive and its high accident rates have led to large scale protests by Japanese citizens. However, the type’s ability to combine the vertical takeoff and landing ability of a helicopter with the higher potential range and speed of an airplane are vital attributes given the over 600 miles separating the southwestern-most Japanese islands from Kyushu.

The MSDF chips in the third vital logistical element: three Osumi-class Landing Ship, tanks (LSTs) commissioned between 1998–2003. These 14,000-ton vessels be crammed full with up to a thousand troops, or ten large armored vehicles such as Type 16 Maneuver Combat Vehicles. An internal “well deck” allows each LST to launch two of Japan’s six Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCACs) to ferry troops ashore. Japan is working on modifying the Osumis to embark AAV-P7s and MV-22s.

The Japanese Navy also has around a dozen smaller LCMs (Landing Craft Mechanized), and two 540-ton utility landing craft (LCUs). The Ground Self Defense Force has proposed procuring its own landing ships tanks independent of the Maritime Self Defense Force, and has been window shopping for LST designs, though lacks funding.

The newly-minted brigade rapidly became visible in overseas exercise. On October 2018, fifty ARDB soldiers mounted in four amtracs participated in a counter-terrorism exercise in Luzon, in the Philippines. These were the first Japanese armored vehicles to have landed on foreign soil since World War II—at a place where Japanese tanks had first battled U.S. and Filipino forces.

Then 550 ARDB soldiers with AAVs participated in the 2019 Iron Fist exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, followed in June by the amphibious landing in Australia.

But realistically, what’s the operational concept behind the ARDB?

Certainly, Japan shares with Australia, the Philippines and the United States a concern that China may seize key Pacific islands it could use to interdict maritime traffic. But Japan’s constitution forbids its forces from coming to the aid of allies.

Thus, the ARDB’s purpose remains specific: to rapidly recapture Japan’s southwestern islands should they be occupied by Chinese forces. This remains in the United States and Australia’s interests, as the Japanese island belt effectively constrains PLA Navy operations.

Now, a lone 3,000-man brigade, no matter how capable, is not going to tip the balance in a high-intensity conflict. Thus Mina Pollmann argues in The Diplomat that “By the time the islands are taken over by China, Japan has already lost.” She opines Tokyo should instead shift funding to the Maritime and Air Self Defense forces to prevent Chinese forces from reaching any islands in the first place.

However, this overlooks that the amphibious brigade may deter smaller-scale “grey zone” actions possibly mounted by China’s paramilitary naval militias and coast guard. The ability to rapidly and credibly respond to island seizures could fundamentally alter the risk-reward calculus for such actions.

Furthermore, the brigade’s amphibious capabilities should improve the JSDF’s ability to provide disaster relief to isolated coastal and island communities.

Inevitably, some—particularly in China—will perceive Japan’s resurrected amphibious force as a harbinger of aggression. But realistically, Tokyo is simply developing a modest capability to respond to incursions on its many vulnerable islands.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.

This article first appeared in July 2019.

Image: Reuters.

James Holmes

Australia,

A permanent American military installation in the land down under would bring a number of advantages. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: Australia occupies a central position midway along the arc between Japan and Bahrain, at the seam between the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean where the U.S. presence is thinnest. Forces based there could swing from side to side as circumstances warrant. Australia lies just outside the embattled South China Sea, a major prospective battleground.

Some ideas are worth broaching even when it’s plain no one will act on them instantly, in whole, or even in part. They make sense even when vagaries of politics or strategy may rule out implementing them. They force people to think—and on occasion, the times catch up with the idea. Case in point: back in 2011 my wingman Toshi Yoshihara and I bruited about the idea of basing U.S. naval forces in Australia. We went big. Under our proposal, an aircraft-carrier expeditionary strike group or another heavy-hitting fleet contingent would call some Australian seaport home.

That would make Oz a U.S. naval hub on par with Japan, where Yokosuka and Sasebo play host to the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

The idea occasioned some buzz in policy circles, and it was more than whimsy. There is a historical precedent. After all, Australia acted as an unsinkable aircraft carrier during the Second World War. It was a staging point floating just outside imperial Japan’s “Southern Resource Area” in the South China Sea. Fremantle, in Western Australia, offered safe haven to U.S. Navy submarines sent forth to raid Japanese mercantile and naval shipping. The ledger of Australian contributions to Allied victory unrolls virtually without bound.

Yet folk in Canberra cast gimlet eyes on our proposal. Australians are redoubtable allies. They also understand that they will have to live with China forever—and that a Communist China that saw Australia take league with the United States against China would be a wrathful China indeed. That prospect gives them pause. Nor was it obvious back then that China would pose a threat of Japanese magnitude. Hence officialdom in Canberra was reluctant to take sides in an incipient rivalry until forced to it. This made prudent strategy for the days when Beijing could wage a charm offensive without provoking snickers.

That was then.

Since 2011 Beijing has taken to glowering at Pacific neighbors as opposed to carrying on smile diplomacy meant to convince them of Chinese beneficence. It claims waters apportioned to neighboring coastal states as its own, flouts international tribunals that overrule its claims, and deploys a maritime militia embedded within the fishing fleet alongside a muscular coast guard and navy to cow outmatched coastal states into submission. Might, it seems, now makes right for China’s leadership. “Sharp” diplomacy, to use the latest gimmicky phrase, has ousted smile diplomacy from China’s Beijing’s strategic toolkit.

China has come to look like an aggressor on par with Imperial Japan in terms of physical capability if not—yet—malign intent.

At last Beijing may have supplied sufficient incentive for Canberra to set aside its misgivings toward permitting a standing foreign presence on its soil. In fact, it has been doing so by increments for years now. U.S. Marine contingents now regularly rotate through the northerly harbor of Darwin, if on a token scale amounting to some 2,500 troops. Stars & Stripes reports that Australian and American air forces are working together with newfound intimacy. Aviators are integrating stealth aircraft into collaborative endeavors, cooperating on aircraft maintenance, and practicing medical evacuations.

These are workmanlike yet portentous developments. Such efforts pay dividends in peacetime while preparing the allies to fight cohesively in wartime. They bolster “interoperability” not just between allied hardware but between allied tactics, techniques, and procedures. Interoperability, then, is a material and human thing. And from a political standpoint, investing in pricey deployments proves that Washington has skin in the game of great-power strategic competition. Being a trustworthy ally means convincing others you will keep your commitments. That means convincing them you will—and must—share the risks, hazards, and costs inherent in martial enterprises.

Words are fine. Putting your own people, national treasure, military hardware, and reputation in harm’s way lends credence to promises in a way the most dulcet-toned diplomacy never could.

By contrast, those who refuse to share danger are apt to skedaddle when the going gets tough. Or as Nassim Taleb puts it: “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit.” Let’s not be fools or crooks. Doubt will linger in allied minds unless they regard American commitments as irrevocable, but U.S. deployments to Oz are skin in the game. Stationing military forces overseas inspires trust. In turn, an unbreakable bond between America and Australia could give China pause the next time it contemplates making mischief.

Capability and cohesion buttress deterrence. So, interoperability is good because it translates into capability, and because capability joined with common purpose transmits a message—disheartening potential foes, giving heart to allies, and helping win over doubters we would like to recruit as allies or coalition partners. Interoperability—a tactical function—has direct political import.

But concentrating on tactics and politics obscures the strategic worth of stationing forces in Australia. As President Franklin Roosevelt enjoined radio listeners on Washington’s Birthday 1942, during the darkest days of World War II: look at your map. Looking at your map reveals that Australia constitutes prime strategic real estate. Few locations rival it for any power that aspires to primacy in the Pacific and Indian oceans. In other words, the geostrategic imperative for Washington to pool its fortunes with Canberra is real and compelling.

Think about it. In recent years strategists of a geographic bent have embraced the notion that the two oceans comprise a unified “Indo-Pacific” theater. The Trump administration wrote its support for this conceit into policy, most prominently by rechristening the U.S. Pacific Command the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. But the Indo-Pacific force structure is stretched between the theater’s eastern and western extremes—between the Seventh Fleet homeported in Japan and the Fifth Fleet homeported in Bahrain.

Australia occupies a central position midway along the arc between Japan and Bahrain, at the seam between the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean where the U.S. presence is thinnest. Forces based there could swing from side to side as circumstances warrant. Australia lies just outside the embattled South China Sea, a major prospective battleground. And it lies mainly out of reach of shore-based Chinese anti-ship weaponry, granting shipping based there relative freedom of movement around the South China Sea rim as well as multiple routes of entry into Southeast Asian waters.

In short, the advantages of basing forces Down Under are legion, the case for doing so increasingly captivating—for both allies. These advantages remained mostly hypothetical in 2011. Today the time has come to expand and deepen the transpacific relationship beyond periodic U.S. Marine deployments and air-force exercises.

So, let it be written, so let it be done.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and the author of A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy, due out next month. The views voiced here are his alone.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

Russia, Eurasia

To understand where Russia is headed under Vladimir Putin, one must understand where the country has been. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: Warlike one-upmanship helps Russia burnish its image as a virile political and military force after the traumatic 1990s. It holds fear at bay while earning new respect.

Winston Churchill’s truism that Russia is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” remains as acute as it was when he articulated it during an October 1939 BBC radio address. It verges on impossible to forecast what Moscow will do tactically. What it will do strategically, however, is more intelligible and thus more predictable.

Perhaps, added the future prime minister, “there is a key” to the riddle—namely “Russian national interest.” Seeing Nazi Germany overrun southeastern Europe or the Black Sea basin “would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia.” He delicately avoided mentioning that the Soviet Union and Germany were fresh off conquering and partitioning Poland under a secret pact, doing so the month before Churchill took to the airwaves. Had he included the invasion in his catalog of Russian interests, he would have seen that it made perfect sense to Soviet leaders to seek a strategic buffer in Poland. It advanced the national interest as the Soviets reckoned it.

Anyway, it’s worth asking how Moscow interprets Russia’s historic life interests eighty years hence. What do Russians want today?

It’s a question that’s ripped from the headlines yet feels like a throwback. In recent years, Russian warplanes have resumed their Cold War practice of buzzing American ships or aircraft that venture into any sea or airspace that Moscow considers a Russian preserve. The Black Sea has been a favorite arena for mock combat, as Churchill might have prophesied judging from his BBC address. U.S. Navy destroyers cruising there have repeatedly filmed Russian planes making close, unsafe passes. The crew of USS Donald Cook must have felt singled out: the ship endured harassment in both the Black Sea and Baltic Sea.

But Russian aviators seem to have taken routine probing of the United States and allied air defenses uptempo since the coronavirus swept the globe. Twice in recent weeks, for example, Russian aircraft have passed within twenty-five feet of U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance planes over the Mediterranean Sea. Twenty-five feet is a hair’s breadth in aviation terms, as a Chinese fighter jock found out in 2001 after colliding with a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane over the South China Sea and plunging to his doom. A longstanding agreement between Washington and Moscow proscribes such hotdogging for fear it will provoke an armed clash.

Nor do close-quarters encounters exhaust the spicy news out of the Russian military. For example, the New York Times carried an intriguing story about the ultra-deep-diving submarine Losharik, which suffered a fire sixty miles off the Norwegian coast last year. Fourteen Russian sailors perished in the blaze, which seems to have ignited in the nuclear-powered boat’s battery compartment. There’s far more to the story than human drama, though. The New York Times notes that Losharik is far from your ordinary submarine. Naval historian extraordinaire Norman Polmar estimates that the boat can dive to a maximum depth somewhere in the neighborhood from eighty-two hundred to twenty thousand feet.

No manned sub in the U.S. Navy inventory approaches even Polmar’s lower figure. Americans deploy unmanned underwater vehicles when they want to plumb the oceans’ deepest recesses. Losharik’s hull is evidently built around a series of titanium spheres housing the control room, living spaces, and machinery spaces. Spheres are strong when made of stout materials. Hence the boat can voyage to the bottom of the sea without being crushed by extreme pressure. Why bother building such a craft? Well, the official account out of Moscow depicted its mission as scientific in nature. That Losharik was undertaking research when it caught fire is plausible, true or not. Humanity has much to learn about the underwater realm.

But Losharik’s ability to prowl the seafloor gives the Kremlin less benign options as well. Options like cutting transoceanic cables that provide internet connectivity, connect up the world’s financial institutions, and on and on. Severing an antagonist’s communications is a time-honored opening move in the war. Great Britain cut the telegraph cables connecting imperial Germany to the world at the outset of the Great War a century ago. Information and disinformation warfare is a field of combat Moscow likes to bestride. Losharik supplies a weapon for waging it.

Losharik’s crew could also attack Western anti-submarine sensors strewn across the seabed in the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap and other narrow passages. Puncturing Western navies’ monitoring capability would clear a transit corridor for Russian Navy boats into the North Atlantic high seas or other operating grounds, where detecting, tracking, and assailing them is far harder than in confined quarters. In short, the Losharik disaster shines a spotlight on yet another Russian implement for making mischief at Western expense.

All is not rosy for Moscow, though. The Russian armed forces—like all armed forces—have to live within their means. Russia depends heavily on exporting oil and natural gas, so low energy prices constrict its national income and thus its ability to afford pricey armaments. Prices have been low for some time and have run off a cliff amid coronavirus lockdowns. Just this week, for instance, the news broke that the Severnoye Design Bureau, a division of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, has halted the development of a nuclear-powered destroyer and a bulked-up variant of the Russian Navy’s Admiral Gorshkov-class frigate. Summarily canceling two marquee projects can’t be good tidings for Russian sea power.

In fact, Russian weapons acquisitions invert the pattern from the Cold War, when the Soviet military was vast in numbers but backward in technology. Quantity, believed Soviet chieftains, boasted a quality all its own. Modern-day Russia prefers to invest in small numbers of high-quality armaments at the expense of quantity. Whether Russian mariners, aviators, and soldiers can compensate for the resulting shortfall in mass remains in doubt. Quantity isn’t everything. But if the lynchpin of strategy is to deliver more combat power than the foe at the scene of combat at the decisive time, a few impressive platforms may not suffice. Quantity still matters.

So much for the roundup of Russian defense news. How to make sense of Russian motives underlying the news? Well, two millennia ago Thucydides posited that fear, honor, and interest represent three prime movers impelling human actions. Start with the Russian national interest, as Churchill did in 1939. Peacetime military strategy is an armed conversation with opponents, allies and friends, and prospective allies and friends. The conversation is about relative power and weakness. Not just pugilists but spectators decide the outcomes of peacetime confrontations between armed forces. Whoever most observers believe would have won in wartime tends to come out ahead in peacetime. Shaping perceptions, then, is armed conversationalists’ goal.

General George S. Patton explained the logic in his famous address to the Third Army: people flock to a winner and scorn a loser. Buzzing ships or warplanes might cow U.S. crews over time, rendering them risk-averse. That’s one audience for Russian antics. But the Kremlin’s true aim is to project an image of power and resolve, molding perceptions in capitals that matter. Shaking confidence in U.S. military might dishearten political leaders and ordinary citizens in countries where Moscow covets influence—NATO members, former Soviet republics, and former Eastern Bloc states in particular. If U.S. allies and friends come to disbelieve in their superpower protector, they will prove increasingly pliant when Russia demands something. Patton would instantly grasp the reasoning behind Russia’s playground hijinks. They could help the Kremlin get its way.

Fear blends with the Russian thirst for honor. During the 1990s Moscow watched as the West intruded into the former Soviet space and, in some cases, made allies out of former Soviet republics or Warsaw Pact clients. NATO waged war in the Balkans, a region Russians have long regarded as a sphere of interest, etc. Events fanned Russia’s ingrained paranoia about Western martial endeavors around its periphery, and there was little Moscow could do about them during that chaotic phase in Russian history. It only seems natural for Moscow to reassert itself in its near abroad now that it sports the wherewithal to do so.

So warlike one-upmanship helps Russia burnish its image as a virile political and military force after the traumatic 1990s. It holds fear at bay while earning new respect. Or as Thucydides might put it, provoking small-scale armed encounters in which U.S. forces remain passive slakes Moscow’s thirst for honor. Fear, honor, interest; primal motives drive moderns the way they drove the ancients. But don’t rule out other motives, either. Thucydides doesn’t claim that fear, honor, and interest are the only motives that animate human beings, just three of the strongest. There are others.

Such as merriment. It’s hard for even a casual observer of Russian president Vladimir Putin to escape the impression that he’s having a blast. He takes delight in causing trouble for the West, even apart from sober concerns such as fulfilling national interests, warding off threats, or repairing wounded national honor. Politicians who find the game of statecraft fun enjoy an edge over those who feel burdened by it. Putin plays a weak hand well—and gleefully.

Winston Churchill was right about Russia during World War II when national survival was at stake. Back then fending off military menaces came before all else. And the Russian national interest remains a good way to decipher Russian actions. Applied to Putin’s Russia, though, Churchill’s diagnosis is incomplete. Russia is less an enigma than a product of its unique history combined with basic human passions that endure from age to age. These forces shape politics and strategy in Moscow.

Let’s interpret the daily news that way.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific. The views voiced here are his alone.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

The UN Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that calls for the Taliban to facilitate safe passage for people wanting to leave Afghanistan, allow humanitarians to access the country, and uphold human rights, including for women and children.

The global phase-out of leaded fuel represents a “milestone for multilateralism”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, marking the end of a 20-year campaign to eliminate a major threat to the health of people and the planet.

Andriy Boytsun,  August 30, 2021

Western Support and Leverage

For decades, Ukraine has been engaged in a strategic partnership with the West aimed at promoting deep structural reforms. At times Ukraine’s leaders have been honest partners in this effort, sometimes they have been dragged reluctantly, and at other times they have offered determined resistance.

As a democratic country currently facing external military aggression, partial Russian occupation, economic difficulties, and a large debt burden, Ukraine cannot do without significant US and Western support. As a result, Ukraine’s economic dependence on aid and diplomatic support has created great leverage on the part of the Euro-Atlantic community, which the West has exploited to prompt reforms.

President Biden himself has a long, even impassioned, record of support and nudging of Ukraine down the bumpy road of reform. Similarly, following the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, the European Union has been a staunch supporter of Ukrainian civil society, anti-corruption measures, and the rule of law.

While this dynamic has often driven important progress, at other times, Ukraine has had to acquiesce to poorly conceived or poorly executed reforms designed in Washington or Brussels. Such programs are often implemented in coordination with Ukrainian NGOs, which themselves have limited room for independent action as they, too, rely on Western aid and donor support.

Ultimately, this means that the success or failure of reform is often dependent on Western reform strategies with a mixed record. When real and measurable advancements are made, all is well and good. Yet, when setbacks occur, who then is to blame? The public and Western governments too often are quick to blame Ukrainian leadership, citing a stubborn corporate culture plagued by corruption, influential oligarchs, and murky business dealings.

For the sake of fairness, created by the poor track record of successive Ukrainian leaderships, this expectation is certainly not groundless. However, it should not be automatic. With the Ukrainian corporate governance reform once again in the headlines, and a part of the forthcoming summit between Presidents Biden and Zelensky, Western leaders also ought to recognize the shortcomings of their own involvement in the reform as a key variable in the equation.

SOE Reform

Following the Maidan Revolution of 2014, the West and Ukraine’s leaders agreed to tackle the problem of Ukraine’s large array of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which for many years were a den of massive corruption and mismanagement, resulting in billions of dollars in losses to the state.

The corporate governance of Ukrainian SOEs started with Naftogaz, the state oil and gas champion and Ukraine’s largest SOE, initiating and pioneering the change in 2014. I am proud to have been part of this initiative from the onset. The international community joined in the effort in early 2015, and an independent supervisory board – the first-ever in a Ukrainian SOE – was established at Naftogaz in early 2016.

In parallel, Ukraine agreed that state-owned companies would be governed by supervisory boards in which the majority of seats would be held by independent members, sourced through transparent, competitive, and merit-based procedures.

Long sustained with massive state subsidies, Naftogaz became the leader in deep reforms. Its executives, appointed in 2014, and the new independent supervisory board, established in 2016, delivered impactful changes which turned the company around, improved its performance, and brought billions of dollars of profits to the state, assisting in filling the state budget and eliminating massive corrupt revenue flows to oligarchs.

The 2016 board was adamant in demanding proper and sustainable corporate governance reform. However, it was not able to come to terms with the government at the time, which itself was extremely reluctant to relinquish its nearly manual control over SOEs. In protest, the board’s independent members resigned in 2017.

Over time, Naftogaz’s role as a leader in best practices began to erode. It began to change after a new supervisory board was appointed in late 2017. The selections were made in haste and did not follow a competitive or transparent process. Instead, candidates were appointed via closed-door consultations between the government and a handful of foreign embassies and international partners.

Importantly, the process was not overseen by the SOE Nomination Committee or supported by a reputable executive search company. In that respect, it did not follow the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of SOEs, a standard which the international community continues to uphold as a requirement.

Corporate Governance Failings at Naftogaz

Initially, the new board functioned as intended. Over time, however, the well-remunerated board (its chair receives around $285,000, while independent members are compensated at about $237,000 annually for their part-time supervisory role) became enmeshed with the executive leadership, providing generous bonuses to management and overlooking worrying signals that the corporate targets and projected profits were not being met.

The dysfunction of the board became evident in the controversial decisions it made in 2020. That year, instead of delivering on a projected $400 million profit fueled by an increase in gas prices at the end of the year, Naftogaz delivered losses of nearly $700 million. Despite this outcome, executives were paid out multimillion bonuses. Naftogaz chose not to disclose individual executives’ remuneration in 2020, despite doing so in 2019. This apparent lack of transparency has led to accusations that the supervisory board deliberately concealed information from the public.

In response to Naftogaz’s underperformance, the Ukrainian government, acting as a concerned shareholder at its annual meeting, temporarily suspended the board to dismiss the company’s CEO Andriy Kobolyev and replace him with Yuriy Vitrenko.

In return, US and G7 officials, as well as representatives of international financial institutions, declared that the leadership change violated best practices and Ukraine’s obligations under SOE corporate governance reform. Indeed, while the Ukrainian government’s action was within Ukrainian law, it was certainly not in line with the OECD SOE Guidelines.

Due to international criticism, the government kept the current board. The Prime Minister even offered to add a “US representative” to the Naftogaz board and an “EU representative” to the SOE Nomination Committee. This suggests that Ukraine’s authorities may troublingly see the international community as a set of constituencies each promoting their own interests rather than a well-meaning partner advocating a transparent nomination process, the OECD standards, or, more generally, better rules in Ukraine.

Under protection of the international community, the board doubled down in another controversial act in June 2021, approving a further package of multimillion dollar bonuses to top management – in the middle of the year, well before results were announced, and over the objection of the company’s new CEO.

The Role of the International Community

Not surprisingly, the role of the international community in the board’s performance has resulted in a growing mistrust towards foreign influence in Ukrainian institutions. Mistakes on the part of both Ukraine’s previous government and key Western partners were unfairly blamed solely upon Ukrainian leadership. And Naftogaz’s most critical stakeholder – the Ukrainian public – has suffered for it.

The June 7th statement on the phone call held between Presidents Biden and Zelensky noted that the leaders discussed Ukraine’s “plan to tackle corruption and implement a reform agenda, based on our shared democratic values and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, that delivers justice, security, and prosperity to the people of Ukraine.”

It is likely that the forthcoming summit will echo the same sentiment. What should be added to the agenda, however, is the recognition of the shared responsibility for Naftogaz and its board’s performance.

Importantly, the 2017 “deal” on the Naftogaz supervisory board was made between the international community and the country’s previous leadership, who bears even more responsibility. Ukraine’s current leadership may then find itself in the precarious position of engaging with its international partners who not only have their fingerprints on the matter, but continue to focus on it as an inherently Ukrainian impediment to its own progress.

In this instance, the international community’s silence over the (under)performance of Naftogaz is harmful to Ukraine’s interest. This idea is, at best, inconsistent with OECD standards and, at worst, can be dangerously construed as being consistent with the concept of “external management” of an independent country and its vital state enterprises.

What Next?

Given Ukraine’s ongoing dependence on Western support, the country’s leaders quietly listened to the criticism that was not entirely founded. Moving forward, the US and other democratic allies of Ukraine should rightfully acknowledge that something went wrong with the governance of Naftogaz, and, critically, work with the company to make the necessary corrective measures to get back on track.

Specifically, if we all want the Naftogaz board – and the boards of all other Ukrainian SOEs – to be truly independent, one must start to think differently and abandon the idea of foreign board members as country “representatives.” It is a concept that critics dismiss as infringing upon Ukrainian sovereignty.

This starts with acknowledging the right and obligation of the state to “act as an informed and active owner, ensuring that the governance of SOEs is carried out in a transparent and accountable manner” in the interest of the country’s citizens as the ultimate beneficiaries of these SOEs – an important basic principle of the OECD SOE Guidelines. Further, with a new board elected via a transparent process in accordance with the OECD SOE Guidelines, Naftogaz can be restored as the bellwether of Ukraine’s corporate governance reform.

Ultimately, the West has great strategic interest in adopting some new thinking about supporting the country (and Naftogaz) to ensure that it becomes a strong, independent, European partner and ally. Helping to set up a transparent, competitive, and merit-based process to select an independent supervisory board at Naftogaz is an excellent first step.

Andriy Boytsun is the Lead of the Corporate Governance Stream at the Kyiv School of Economics. He designed the corporate governance reform of Naftogaz in 2014-2015, advised large SOEs and governments, and drafted Ukraine’s corporate governance law. Andriy leads the team that publishes the Ukrainian SOE Weekly, a digest on state-owned enterprises in Ukraine. He holds a PhD from the University of Antwerp, with a thesis on corporate governance.

 

* The Foreign Policy Association does not take positions, the views of the author are his own.

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