*** Who Will Win the Great China-India Naval War of 2020?

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BY JAMES HOLMES

As the two giants stare each other down in the Himalayas, the real conflict may erupt at sea. 

Right now China and India are glaring at each other across Doklam, the contested ground along the Sino-Indian frontier high in the Himalayas. It was the Himalayan border that prompted their last serious fight, when China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) dealt the Indians a short, sharp defeat in 1962. But any future war might not be fought on the high mountains, but the high seas.

A Sino-Indian naval war seems improbable, for sure — but so do most wars, before they happen. It’s certainly not unthinkable, and so it behooves Asia-watchers to lay out the odds now rather than be guilty of a failure of imagination should the worst transpire.

Bottom line: Don’t be taken in by numbers indicating that China would steamroll India in a sea fight. Martial enterprises are seldom that neat.

China has settled its border disputes with most in the region — but it prefers to leave the contest with some of its neighbors simmering, especially India. A spokesman for China’s defense ministry, Col. Wu Qian, warned Indians not to “push your luck” in the Doklam dispute. For good measure Wu added that the Indian Army would find it “easier to shake a mountain than to shake the PLA.” Beyond the present conflict, Chinese and Indian media have a long history of competing to see who can shout “By jingo!” in the other’s direction the loudest.

A Nuclear Command and Control System for India

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The recent missile tests have brought to the fore, once again the talks on south Asian nuclear arms race and scenarios. It is imperative to understand that mere capability in terms of Agni V or any other nuclear delivery capability does not signify step-change in nuclear postures. The overall nuclear capability requires integration of delivery systems, technology, doctrine, and command and control (C2) system, that a nation has in place. The C2 system becomes the glue that converts disparate elements of potential into usable strategic capability to deter others. In this regard, we explore the key elements of a command and control system (C2) and propose a high-level structure of a national nuclear C2 system.

Command and Control (C2) is defined as the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned forces in the accomplishment of a mission. The C2 functions are performed through an arrangement of personnel, equipment, communications, facilities and procedures which are employed by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating and controlling forces and operation in the accomplishment of the mission. The command system include sensors, communication links and command centers that form the physical network as well as the plans, procedures, organizations and widely shared assumptions that allow the parts to work together coherently. In essence C2 affects the human interface with mechanical/electronic, in fact the physical structures, that allows weapons to be deployed and utilized in real operations.

Why It’s A Bit Premature To Presume That Modi Will Win Hands Down In 2019

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R Jagannathan

It is advisable for the BJP to curb its triumphalism, and focus on delivering jobs. It would help if the party softened its political rhetoric and made genuine efforts to engage with the opposition parties on big issues.

Barring war or other unexpected national crises, the only thing that will prove helpful to Modi in 2019 is jobs, jobs, and more jobs.

Sometimes, strength is weakness, and weakness is strength.

With almost everything going its way for the last six months – from the stunning win in Uttar Pradesh to the election of the President and the Vice-President, and the Nitish Kumar coup in Bihar – what Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah should be asking himself is whether the party’s power is peaking too soon.

Contrary to what some have been forecasting (read here, here, and here), 2019 is not a slam-dunk for Narendra Modi. For one, issues that are important to the electorate start crystallising only towards the last six months ahead of an election. Atal Behari Vajpayee lost 2004 in the last three months.

Economic growth trends will play a larger role this time. Governments facing an election when the economy is not doing too well may face a whiplash. It is far from certain that jobs will suddenly start booming by 2018-19, and even then not many people may think it helped them.

Standoff on the border

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Sushma Ramachandran

SELF-INTEREST: Economic ties have less to do with public image or slogans and much more with the hard-headed self-interest of both countries.

Sushma Ramachandran

Tensions between the two Asian giants have sent ripples all over the world. The standoff between India and China at Bhutan’s border has been accompanied by a frenzied global diplomatic campaign by both countries to project their point of view. India’s hard line on the issue of protecting its smaller neighbour has apparently taken the Chinese by surprise, hence the aggressive public posturing. 

The question is: will this long-drawn border spat affect the diverse economic relations between the two countries which have become deep and longstanding over the past two decades? 

Before answering this question, one must recognise that the scenario is vastly different from the time of the last major India-China border conflict in 1962. At that time, India-China relations were more at a political level with Hindi Chini bhai bhai slogans being exchanged in the backdrop of the Panchsheel Agreement. Economic ties are immeasurably vaster in 2017. And they have less to do with public image or slogans and much more with the hard-headed self-interest of both countries. 

Raja Mandala: Doklam’s unintended consequence

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C. Raja Mohan

Whatever the eventual outcome in Doklam, the current stand-off is bound to significantly alter Indian perceptions of China. For one, the political goodwill in India towards China that was constructed over the last three decades will be increasingly difficult to sustain in the coming years. For another, India, which long resisted the idea of balancing China, is likely to move inevitably in that direction.

It took a lot of bold moves, including those by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the foreign minister in the late 1970s and Rajiv Gandhi as the prime minister in the late 1980s, for the Indian elite to overcome the sense of Chinese betrayal in 1962. While leaders like Vajpayee and Rajiv Gandhi understood the imperatives of normalising relations with China, there was entrenched resistance in the political class and in the bureaucracy, armed forces and the security agencies that would take many years to overcome. Indian business too has been deeply fearful of engaging China.

The slow but definitive normalisation of relations was aided immensely by the pragmatism in Beijing, especially that of Deng Xiaoping, whose emphasis was on creating a peaceful external environment for the economic modernisation of China. But as China’s power grew rapidly, Deng’s successors have abandoned that pragmatism in favour of assertiveness. The current generation of leaders in Beijing believes China can now shape its external environment rather than merely adapt to it. As the newly predominant power in Asia, China may now see no reason to defer to Indian sensitivities.

Full-scale India-China war likely soon, Washington will back New Delhi: Meghnad Desai

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by Dev Goswami

Speaking to news agency IANS, India-born UK economist and politician Meghnad Desai predicted that the India-China Doklam standoff could soon spiral into a full-scale war.

India-born UK economist and politician Meghnad Desai predicted this week that India and China, currently engaged a high-stakes military standoff on the Doklam plateau near the Sikkim border, could soon come to a full-scale war.

Desai, a member of the British House of Lords (UK's equivalent of the Rajya Sabha) and a known commentator on south Asian affairs, linked the Doklam standoff to events in the South China Sea and predicted that the war would be fought in multiple theatres and would involve the United States, which, Desai said, would be on India's side.

Desai's comments came in an interview that he gave to news agency IANS's Saket Sharma. "Even today, nobody is contemplating that the whole Doklam thing could break anytime. We could be in a full scale war with China within a month. At that stage it will not be controllable. It may come as a surprise, but that is when the defence co-operation of India (with various countries) will bear fruit," Desai says in the interview.

Saying that he cannot exactly predict when and where a full-scale military conflict may break out, Desai pictured a war that would be fought on multiple fronts - from the mountains of the Himalayas to the waters of South China Sea.

Rescue Sino-Indian ties from the Pak morass

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By M.D. Nalapat

Were the brass in Beijing not so enmeshed with Rawalpindi, the Doklam road may never have been built, as it is of value only in case of an attack on India.

Since the 1950s, when Field Marshal Ayub Khan ensured that the military in Pakistan won primacy over the civilian authority, the men in khaki have evolved into a parasitic force that drains away the finances and the energy of Pakistan. It must be admitted that the army in Pakistan has shown considerable skill in finding support across the spectrum of nations. To religious absolutists in the Gulf Cooperation Council, GHQ Rawalpindi is the nuclearised spear tip of resurgent Wahhabism. To the US, it was the most effective partner in ensuring that Af-Pak gets cleansed of elements planning to attack either side of the Atlantic Ocean. To China, it has been an effective diversion, sapping the energy and attention of India, the only country in Asia with a realistic chance of matching Beijing’s success in accumulating Comprehensive National Power. To smaller members of SAARC, Pakistan is a lever that keeps those in Delhi who are prone to Big Brother attitudes, in check. Again in the case of the US, during the period when India was a “friendship treaty” ally of the USSR, the calculation in Washington was that a Pakistan military on US-provided steroids would be sufficient to weaken Delhi and finally get it to give up its nuclear and missile self-sufficiency on the premise of Islamabad doing likewise. During the Bill Clinton years in particular, US officials were unrelenting in their efforts at ensuring such a “cap, reduce and eliminate” outcome for India’s nuclear and missile systems, apart from working to ensure that Kashmir became a safe zone for Wahhabism and its practices. The Wahhabi International grew substantially in potency when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, although later, the serial follies of the George W. Bush administration only added to the problem, which finally morphed into the ISIS mutation when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. This was in an administration dominated by Clinton confidants working nominally under President Barack Obama, but actually reporting to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both have been consistent “in deed” supporters of the Pakistan military, although “in word” their stance has often been different. 

Finding a Realistic Middle Way for the U.S. in Afghanistan

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Steven Metz

While not as dangerous as Iran and North Korea, Afghanistan remains one of America’s thorniest and most frustrating security challenges. Since the George W. Bush administration intervened in that country after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has tried to create an Afghan government and train security forces that could stabilize the country and eradicate extremist organizations like al-Qaida that had been given sanctuary there under Taliban rule. The idea was that after some period of international help, the government and security forces of Afghanistan would be able to stand on their own. 

Unfortunately this has not worked. While many Afghans have fought extremism with extraordinary bravery and some of the country’s leaders have pursued visionary policies, the political class—riven by factionalism, corruption and ineffectiveness—has failed to create a politically and economically viable nation or defeat the Pakistan-based Taliban.

The American public began losing patience with Afghanistan several years ago. Despite this, when former President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he opted for a temporary surge in U.S. military forces—to a peak of roughly 100,000—and continued support for the Afghan government in the hopes this would convince the Taliban to negotiate an end to the conflict. This was probably worth a try, but given the Afghan government’s corruption and ineffectiveness, the Taliban’s deep roots and persistence, and Pakistan’s continued support for the extremists, the policy failed. Obama subsequently drew down U.S. forces in Afghanistan to their current levels of roughly 8,400, but success is no closer today than it was when he first set out to shape the conflict’s outcome.

To Win Afghanistan, Get Tough on Pakistan

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By HUSAIN HAQQAN

President Trump’s review of American policy in Afghanistan should involve adopting a tougher approach to Pakistan. Although the Taliban are said to control or contest 40 percent of Afghanistan’s territory, Taliban leadersoperate from the safety of Pakistan. United States incentives since the Sept. 11 attacks have failed to dissuade Pakistan from supporting the Taliban, and Mr. Trump must now consider alternatives.

Reading Pakistan correctly has not always been easy for American officials. Pakistan was a key American ally during the Cold War, the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and the post-Sept. 11 operations against Al Qaeda. But for Pakistan the alliance has been more about securing weapons, economic aid and diplomatic support in its confrontation with India. The United States and Pakistan have both disappointed each other because of divergence in their interests in South Asia.

The George W. Bush administration erred in ignoring the regrouping of the Taliban in Pakistan after their defeat in Afghanistan in the aftermath of Sept. 11, considering Pakistan’s cooperation in capturing some Qaeda figures as sufficient evidence of its alliance with the United States.

President Barack Obama’s administration tried to deal with a resurgent Taliban with a surge in troop numbers for a specific period. Mr. Obama deployed armed drones to strike at Taliban targets inside Pakistan, but that proved insufficient in dealing with the leadership living in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Peshawar.

Remembering How We Won The Last War And Why It Is A Good Thing To Do So

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BY THOMAS E. RICKS

The U.S. military has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001. That fact, our 16 year trial, is not what this piece is about, really — about how we struggled, earnestly, to keep villages and towns and neighborhoods free from violent religious extremists. The thugs and crooks with whom we allied ourselves in order to clean the Taliban out, the cynical politicians and the mystified U.S. public back home, nobody really believing any of it might make some kind of difference. The black nights and hot days spent huddled in a concrete water main or the Tactical Operations Center, sweating through salt stained helmet and body armor covers in case this rocket attack was part of something bigger. It’s not about what it felt like to watch an AC-130 pound some insurgent compound, or how our bodies adapted to the knock-knocking of nearby 155s, and learned to roll over at night if the booms weren’t “incoming.” The piece is not about America’s fight in Afghanistan, because although that fight still ticks on every day, relatively unchanged, the U.S. military’s mission has changed.

The new military — which looks a lot like what I was told was the old military when I was doing counter-insurgency in Afghanistan — includes Armored Brigade Combat Teams that are capable of wiping out an enemy mechanized division on the attack. A serious amount of training goes into this task, on the soldier, platoon, company, battalion and brigade levels. On the divisional level.

Contractors in Afghanistan: What Erik Prince Gets Right

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By MARK CANCIAN

Contractor training Afghan troops

Eric Prince, the former CEO of Blackwater, argues for expanded use of contractors in Afghanistan. Some of his proposals deserve attention.

The idea apparently resonated with the White House (though not with Secretary of Defense Mattis) and has continued to get attention. Prince is widely regarded as the spawn of Satan because of the many controversies surrounding Blackwater’s conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, so commentators have lined up to criticize his proposals. Many of his proposals are, indeed, highly debatable, such as creating an army of contractors and establishing a viceroy.

But there are three policy points that Prince gets right, and these deserve more discussion: 

creating long-term country expertise; 

deep embedding with local security forces; 

and reducing the conflict’s visibility to allow the US to play a long game. Shifting the balance of military personnel and contractors might help. 

First, as Prince points out, the US needs, and has always lacked, people who stay on the ground for years and really know the turf. The Vietnam War had John Paul Vann, who spent seven years in theater and knew everyone. The Afghan War had Carter Malkasian. In two years working with Afghan leaders, he had enough time to understand their problems and win their trust. (Learning to speak the language also helped.) But these individuals were unique. The military has nothing comparable. Service members rotate quickly because long deployments stress the force and reduce retention, and few speak the language outside of a few foreign area officers. They stay in theater seven months to a year. Thus it is said that the US does not have 16 years of experience in Afghanistan; it has one year of experience 16 times.

China - Anti-Satellite Missile Test Launched In July

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Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon infosite has posted an article that reports China recently carried out a flight test of a new anti-satellite missile, highlighting the growing threat of Beijing's space warfare capabilities.

He notes that the flight test of the Dong Neng-3 direct ascent missile was tracked by U.S. intelligence agencies on July 23 from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia, in northwestern China, according to U.S. defense officials familiar with reports of the launch. The officials said the launch was not successful and the DN-3 appeared to malfunction in the upper atmosphere after the night launch.

The launch occurred after Chinese authorities posted a notice to airlines to avoid flying near the flight path of the missile. The missile's flight was captured in photographs and video by several Chinese Internet users near the Jiuquan facility. Despite the failure, China's space warfare program is said to be advancing rapidly as an asymmetric warfare weapon that will allow a less capable Chinese military to defeat the U.S. military in a future conflict continues on the path to development. The Pentagon's annual report on the Chinese military states that in December the Chinese created a new Strategic Support Force that will unify space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities, with the report adding that the PLA continues to strengthen its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the militarization of space.

Is The Arctic The Next South China Sea? Not Likely

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By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR

WASHINGTON: Oil, gas, and minerals on the seabed. Disputed territorial claims. An increasingly aggressive China. Are we talking about the South China Sea or the Arctic Ocean?

“As I look at what is playing out in the Arctic, it looks eerily familiar to what we’re seeing in the East and South China Sea,” Adm. Paul Zukunft said Tuesday. Not only is Russia ramping up its longstanding, well-armed presence, the Coast Guard Commandant continued, but China is sending its new Arctic survey ship, the Snow Dragon. If the US doesn’t fund the Coast Guard’s new icebreakers, he said, “what you really have is nothing more than a paper dragon to counter a Snow Dragon.”

But wait a minute. Even if climate change melts new trade routes through the Arctic ice, as scientists predict, will it become as important and contested as the South China Sea, where China has built and fortified artificial islands to enforce centuries-old claims? Probably not, agreed every expert we consulted for this article.

The Arctic will remain inhospitable, hard to exploit, and far removed from the world’s great hubs of economic activity – which are increasingly shifting to Asia, where the South China Sea happens to be. What conflicts arise up north can probably be settled by peaceful means, because the poles are literally the only places on Earth with no history of warfare over territorial claims. In fact, while the Russians and Chinese are increasingly asserting themselves, so far they’ve been strikingly well-behaved.

As global reach grows, China builds military to match

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Michael Holtz

AUGUST 4, 2017 BEIJING—The military parade China held on Sunday to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army was an impressive show of force. More than 12,000 troops marched at the remote Zhurihe training base in Inner Mongolia, about 250 miles north of Beijing, as President Xi Jinping looked on from an open-top jeep.

On display were 600 pieces of military hardware and more than 100 aircraft, nearly half of which were making their public debut, according to the Defense Ministry. They included new and improved intercontinental ballistic missiles, surface-to-air missiles, stealth fighters, and drones specifically designed to target radar systems.

Two days later, China formally opened its first overseas military base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti.

The message sent by these two high-profile events was clear: as China seeks to expand its global clout and position itself as an international leader, it wants to have the military to match. Years of double-digit percentage increases in the defense budget have led China to become the world's second-largest military spender after the United States. 

China’s digital economy: A leading global force

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Discussion Paper (PDF–588KB)

China is already more digitized than many observers appreciate and has the potential to set the world’s digital frontier in coming decades. 

China has one of the most active digital-investment and start-up ecosystems in the world, according to a new discussion paper from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), China’s digital economy: A leading global force. China is in the top three in the world for venture-capital investment in key types of digital technology, including virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, robotics, drones, and artificial intelligence (AI). China is the world’s largest e-commerce market, accounting for more than 40 percent of the value of worldwide e-commerce transactions, up from less than 1 percent about a decade ago (Exhibit 1). China has also become a major global force in mobile payments with 11 times the transaction value of the United States. One in three of the world’s 262 unicorns (start-ups valued at over $1 billion) is Chinese, commanding 43 percent of the global value of these companies. 

Exhibit 1 

If The U.S. Starts A War With North Korea, China Won’t Be On Our Side

By Joseph J. Collins

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Lindsey GrahamGraham opposes measure to cut legal immigration The Hill’s 12:30 Report Trump, GOP senators unveil measure to cut legal immigration MORE (R-S.C.) and some officials in the White House have begun to talk about waging preventive war against North Korea. A preventive war is a war in cold blood, a war of choice, a war where we make the first strike, as opposed to preemptive or defensive wars where you fight an opponent who is about to attack or has actually attacked the homeland. It is almost never the best course of action. The downsides of a preventive war with North Korea would be enormous.Graham told the Atlantic, “Trump has to choose between homeland security and regional security.” If there is a war, better it be in Northeast Asia than on the West Coast of the United States, and better the casualties be in the region, and not in California.

To prevent North Korea from achieving intercontinental nuclear capabilities, the recommended course of action is preventive strikes, which, make no mistake about it, would be the first blow in a destructive war with North Korea. It would entail thousands of casualties in South Korea and Japan. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, a megalopolis of nearly 20 million people, is within artillery range of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the divided nation.

A Grim Future For Russia’s Nuclear Sub Fleet

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In March 2017, Russia’s new Yasen-class nuclear attack submarine Kazanlaunched at the northern port city of Severodvinsk. Perhaps the quietest Russian submarine ever, the event was further evidence the Kremlin can still build capable and lethal subs capable of a variety of missions, including cruise-missile attack.

But it won’t be enough. The Russian navy — already badly depleted since the collapse of the Soviet Union — can’t quickly replace most of its existing nuclear submarine fleet, which is approaching the end of its collective lifespan. The outcome will likely mean a shrinking of the Russian nuclear submarine force in the years ahead.

By 2030, the bulk of Russia’s nuclear-powered attack and cruise-missile submarines will be in their mid-thirties at least — with some pushing into their forties. For perspective, the three oldest active American attack submarines, the Los Angeles-class USS Dallas, Bremerton and Jacksonville, are all 36 years old and waiting to be decommissioned during the next three years.

Submarines wear out in old age, particularly due to hull corrosion. Another serious concern is corrosion affecting components inside the nuclear reactor compartments, but data surrounding this subject are tightly guarded secrets among the world’s navies.

America's Endless Search for a Strategy

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Harvey M. Sapolsky

Mad Dog Mattis is at it again. The truth-teller to Marines, now secretary of defense, was asked: where is the long-promised revised strategy for Afghanistan? In response, he said it was slow in appearing because “strategy is hard.” Congress, too, is searching for strategic clarity as it just empaneled yet another bipartisan group to propose a framework for a new grand strategy. And nearly every pundit vying for your time agrees. We need a clear strategy and good measures for its achievement, so that we know what weapons to buy and where to pick fights, they often say.

Despite the promises, the panels and the pronouncements, a grand strategy for the United States, on par with the Cold War’s containment and Germany’s unconditional surrender during World War II, remains elusive. It is elusive because such a strategy requires a clear enemy—a nation or an alliance that threatens our survival. And there is no agreement on who is our enemy or if we really have one. Is radical Islam an existential threat to the United States? Do we really need to worry that much about a resurgent Russia? Is a China that grows richer a danger? Do we care that much about North Korea?

Absent a rival on the scale and power of the now dead Soviet Union, the United States is a very secure country. We are the richest country in the world, protected by two big oceans and a military that is second to none. Our population is big (we are the third most populous nation) and resourceful, claiming the leadership in nearly every line of science and technology. And we spend a fortune on our defense, and have done so for decades.

Surviving a Nuclear Attack

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By Arik Eisenkraft

Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) results from exposure to high levels of ionizing radiation. This may be the result of an accident, such as exposure of individuals to x-ray diagnostic and therapeutic devices, or a possible large scale exposure following a nuclear facility accident (for example the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents). It may also be the result of an intentional act of terrorism, involving the use of a radiological dispersal device (i.e., dirty bomb), an improvised nuclear device, or may involve an attack on a nuclear power plant, or any number of potential nuclear scenarios. Following the 9/11 attacks, and more recently the use of non-conventional weapons and toxic industrial compounds in the Syrian civil war and in Iraq by both state and non-state actors, the possibility of intentional exposure to radiation seems to be rising. Since the primary objective of these perpetrators is to create fear and panic to the general public, and since most of the public, as well as first responders, healthcare providers, and the mass media, may have misunderstandings regarding such an event, radiation is attractive. On top of that, the shortage of available medical countermeasures (MCMs) against ARS could make it even worse. The major goals of a response plan to a radio-nuclear emergency are to protect the public, as well as the emergency personnel while performing their duties. To achieve these goals, local, regional and national resources should be brought together to address such an incident of national impact. In a radio-nuclear exposure scenario, the numbers of casualties, some with life-threatening injuries and resulting complications, may be very high. This means major challenges of assessing the precise levels of individual exposure, and possible delayed medical support and care to those who need it. In any case, these are regarded as complex and resource-intensive efforts, driving research towards approving novel MCMs against ARS. This syndrome involves life-threatening injuries especially to the hematopoietic, gastrointestinal, and the neurovascular systems. Victims exposed to high levels of ionized radiation show a prodromal phase in the first few hours following exposure, followed by a latent phase, which shortens as the radiation dose increases, and finally, develop a manifest phase. The bone marrow involvement is considered as the major contributor to mortality.

An Interview with Stanley McChrystal

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By Michael Miklaucic

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What did we get right and what did we get wrong in Afghanistan and Iraq?

McChrystal: In both cases we didn’t understand either the problem or our objectives going in. In Afghanistan in 2001 we went in on obviously very short notice in response to the attacks on September 11th. There was a rich history in Afghanistan—in which the United States had been deeply involved—and yet we didn’t really go to school on that. Not only did we not understand the culture of Afghanistan, but we did not really understand the players in Afghanistan—the former warlords, the leaders that had fought against the Soviets—who had become such important players once the Taliban regime was defeated. Although we understood in very broad strokes the Pakistani and Iranian positions, we didn’t understand the nuances; we didn’t understand the long-existing issues and concerns that they have. So as we started to execute a policy that on a superficial level seemed very logical, we ran into pressures, forces, interests, and equities of people that are, I won’t say immovable, but very difficult to move. The entire western world was very surprised by that or at least unprepared to deal with it. Afghanistan in particular was a case of finding a problem of much greater complexity, much deeper roots, and much more difficult issues than we appreciated.

Turnabout Is Fair Play: A Marine Officer Interviews Tom About Military Leadership

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BY THOMAS E. RICKS

Best Defense is on summer hiatus. During this restful spell we offer re-runs from the past 12 months. This item originally ran on Mar. 13.

Here is an exchange I had with Lieutenant Colonel Jeannette Haynie, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, who is working on her doctoral dissertation. I am running it here with her permission. Some of this is familiar stuff to longtime readers, but I am offering it because it is a pretty good summary of what I see as the core problems of the U.S. military. Newcomers to the blog may find it helpful.

1) Are there Services, or elements within the Services, that still exercise in some ways or at some points the kind of leadership that Marshall and Eisenhower exhibited during WWII? Or more generally, is the military as a whole as far from that template as it seems to be, with no outliers, after reading the book? 

Yes, I have occasionally seen elements within the services that remind me of the U.S. military leaders of World War II. Indeed, the current defense secretary, James Mattis, seems to come from that mold. He is, as you know, a retired Marine. I think the Corps has more of these sorts of leaders than the other service, but even there, they strike me as a small minority. Anthony Zinni was another one. They are not necessarily easy to work for, but they tend to be seen as fair and rigorous, and attract subordinates who like that approach.

What is the Army doing to secure and defend its cyber terrain?

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By: Mark Pomerleau 

This is part six of a series exploring the differences between military cyber forces, capabilities, mission sets and needs. For previous installments, see part one, part two, part three, part fourand part five.

In addition to being the direct service link for U.S. Cyber Command, Army Cyber Command, or ARCYBER, has a mission set in cyberspace for the Army that is much more expansive than just the man, train and equip cyber mission force USCYBERCOM contribution.

Army Cyber Command is in charge of operating, maintaining and defending the Army’s portion of the DoD Information Networks, managing all endpoints for the service. In this role, ARCYBER conducts DoDIN operations, which ARCYBER’s commander, Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, described in congressional testimony as the most complex and important operations they perform, which includes defensive and offensive operations.

This includes “building, operating, defending, and maintaining the Army’s portion of the DoDIN. Our five Regional Cyber Centers conduct DoDIN operations around-the-clock, serving as the Army’s Cybersecurity Service Providers (CSSP),” he wrote.

Army To Update 400+ Units’ Software In 28 Months

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By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

Army command post

Hate updating the software on your smart phone? Then have compassion for the Army, which is trying to standardize its computer systems across more than 400 units in the next 28 months. The objective is a “single software baseline,” where every unit has the same set of information technologies. Such standardization should simplify everything from training, maintenance, operations and future upgrades.

The baseline effort is part of a much larger overhaul of the Army’s networks. The ultimate goal is to keep troops communicating and coordinated despite cyber attack, jamming, harsh conditions, and the constant movement of a modern Multi-Domain Battle against advanced adversaries such as Russia. While software is less sexy than, say, tanks that shoot lasers or railguns, it’s critical to modernize the Army’s electronic nervous system. But there are legions of devils in the details, as an Army release yesterday outlines.

One particularly devilish detail not in the official release: the cost. I pressed the Army’s spokesman for Command, Control, & Communications – Tactical (PEO-C3T) about this, and he replied frankly that the service doesn’t have a firm figure yet.

The digital future of work: What skills will be needed?

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Robots have long carried out routine physical activities, but increasingly machines can also take on more sophisticated tasks. Experts provide advice on the skills people will need going forward.

For an 18-year-old today, figuring out what kind of education and skills to acquire is an increasingly difficult undertaking. Machines are already conducting data mining for lawyers and writing basic press releases and news stories. In coming years and decades, the technology is sure to develop and encompass ever more human work activities.

Yet machines cannot do everything. To be as productive as it could be, this new automation age will also require a range of human skills in the workplace, from technological expertise to essential social and emotional capabilities.

In this video, one in a four-part series, experts from academia and industry join McKinsey partners to discuss the skills likely to be in demand and how young people today can prepare for a world in which people will interact ever more closely with machines. The interviews were filmed in April at the Digital Future of Work Summit in New York, which was hosted by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) and New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Digitization, analytics go hand in hand

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Anup Purohit

Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are being integrated with digital channels to provide instant recommendations on products that will best suit the customer

While banks are still trying to achieve this effectively, many organizations have already taken the lead—a case in point being recommendations provided by Netflix and Amazon based on the customer’s viewing and purchase/browsing history. Photo: AP

Digital is disrupting value chains and compelling organizations to redesign their business models, processes and systems, especially in the banking sector. Technology is now the bedrock of everything from customer sourcing to enhancing customer service at reduced costs. As customers need to evolve, they want to define the terms of engagement with service providers.

In the new paradigm, customer relationship management (CRM) has transformed into customer managed relationship (CMR)—with the focus on convenience and flexibility of availing services through an omni-channel experience. Digitization helps organizations to achieve this at a fraction of the costs, thereby offering higher profitability.

Speed, Volume, and Ubiquity: Forget Information Operations & Focus on the Information Environment

Michael Williams

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What is Information Operations (IO)? This short response to the question posed by The Strategy Bridge should be as short and simple as lifting a sentence from U.S. military doctrine. Alas, it isn’t, and this paper could easily extend for hundreds of pages and be just a description of the debate itself.[1] Part of the reason for this tendency toward the lengthy is an urge to deconstruct information operations into some list of capabilities and to explain how a particular capability is vital in a rapidly changing environment. Instead, we should encourage those not familiar with information operations to see it as a vital component of planning in an information environment that is much more important to military planning and operations with each passing day. This focus on capabilities does more to confuse than enlighten, and simple alternatives are available.

U.S. military doctrine began well enough in the 1990s to answer the question of what the mission and functions of information operations are and should be.[2] As the impact of the information environment has grown, however, doctrine writers continues to narrow the focus in subsequent iterations of information operations doctrine by attempting to narrow the field to specific capabilities or to suggest the role of information operations was to integrate specific capabilities in support of operational and tactical objectives. This has obscured the original concept of information operations. Perhaps a better alternative for future doctrine would be to return to the original intent, and define it as the use of any tool to create an effect in the information environment which results in one or more persons making a decision supporting friendly force’s missions or undercutting the decision-making of the enemy. Does this make all planners information operations planners? No, but it does require that all planners include an understanding of the information environment—which may require the assistance of such an expert.

Cyber Deterrence Cannot Be One Size Fits All

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JAMES N. MILLER

The fallout of major cyber attacks and espionage campaigns increasingly shapes interactions between nations. The vulnerability of the United States to such digital intrusions will only grow as the country becomes more dependent on networked technologies, particularly the Pentagon’s weapon systems. Mere network defense is not sufficient; the United States needs a strategy to deter its adversaries from conducting digital attacks with major national security implications. The Cipher Brief’s Levi Maxey spoke with James Miller, the former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, who recently co-chaired a Defense Science Board report on how the Pentagon should approach cyber deterrence, about what the U.S. military’s strategy should look like.

The Cipher Brief: There has been a lot of focus lately on cyber deterrence, including from Sen. John McCain and the Senate Armed Services Committee. You recently co-chaired a Defense Science Board task force on the topic. Why all of this recent interest?

James Miller: Two big reasons: the world we face today, and the even more challenging world we face tomorrow.

First, the United States has been getting hit hard in cyberspace: Iran’s distributed denial of service attack on Wall Street in 2012-2013; North Korea’s cyber attack on Sony Pictures in 2014; Chinese cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property that occurred over at least the last dozen years; and of course, Russia’s hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Cyber Security in a Volatile World

AUTHOR: GLOBAL COMMISSION ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE

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This fifth volume in the GCIG research collection, introduced by GCIG Director of Research Laura DeNardis, examines the current state of global cyber security and considers what must be done differently in the future to improve security, stability and trust online. Eleven scholars, in eight chapters, provide their research on a range of topics. Chapters in the first half of the collection analyze real trends in hacking, data breaches and other cybercrime; the dark Web’s impact on cyber governance and security; and the services, content and users of The Onion Router (Tor) browser, as well as the dilemmas in policing Tor. In the second half, researchers tackle the subjects of sovereign nation-states’ changing roles and competing interests and stakes in controlling cyberspace; the growing Internet of Things and accompanying security challenges and threats; and the increasing importance of institutions such as computer security incident response teams to battling cyber threats, sharing information and building international cooperation to increase trust and security in cyberspace. The volume concludes with the GCIG’s formal statement, “Toward a Social Compact for Digital Privacy and Security,” calling on stakeholders in the global community to look for solutions together, “with the goal of restoring trust and enhancing confidence in the Internet.”

In a volatile world, cyber security is an issue for all citizens, not only those online, and a precursor to Internet freedom and commerce. The research gathered here identifies a wide swath of contemporary challenges and policy recommendations for providing the stability and security online needed to sustain the digital economy and protect our day-to-day dependencies on cyberspace.

The Department of State needs a cyber coordinator now more than ever

Cameron F. Kerry

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Now should be the time to enhance the position, not get rid of it. One of the good things in the Trump administration’s May 11 executive order on cybersecurity is a directive to federal agencies to develop a strategy for international engagement on cybersecurity. The order directed several agencies to submit reports to the president on their international cybersecurity priorities. By the terms of the order, these were due June 25, and a final international strategy is due from the State Department on September 23.

This is an important task. The Obama administration’s 2011 International Strategy for Cyberspace articulated “a set of principles to support [cyber policy] aims spanning the economy, security, and human rights” to frame the work of U.S. agencies. With the volume of data around the globe doubling every two years and with U.S. trading partners and strategic rivals increasingly focused on digital strategies and growing threats of cyberattacks, that international strategy is thoroughly ripe to be revisited. A new international strategy can chart ways the United States can lead in setting norms and best practices for resiliency and behavior in cyberspace.

This task is made-to-order for the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues. In a Brookings paper last fall, “Digital policymaking lessons from the Obama administration”, I wrote about the “internet-cyber gap” – a divide between those whose policy focus is “the economic and human potential” enabled by information and communications technology and those who focus on “the darker sides of ICT—threats, exploits, bad actors, and applications for warfare.” The central argument of the paper was that, policymaking in the digital arena needs to be integrated because the effects of policies are interconnected. As amply demonstrated by the fallout from the Snowden revelations, national security policies cannot operate in isolation from considerations such as trade, innovation, and technology policy. In turn, the increasing impact of security threats on our financial system, our elections, and everyday business amply demonstrate the converse.