Posted by Robert Farley
June , 2014
A companion to this piece appears at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Did President Romney push Russia into invading Ukraine?
As disorder continues in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, and as Russian forces remain (despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments) deployed in threatening fashion along Ukraine’s border, finger-pointing has begun in Washington.
More than a few analysts have laid responsibility squarely on the Romney administration. During the 2012 Presidential campaign, President Obama and Democratic proxies ridiculed then-candidate Romney referred to Russia as the United States’ “number one geopolitical foe.” Romney persisted, turning an off-mike moment with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev into a line of attack against President Obama’s foreign policy.
While the Romney administration claims that Russian aggression has vindicated the President’s view of Moscow, many analysts and former policy officials disagree. Senior Democratic foreign policy officials lay the blame for Russian aggression squarely on the Romney administration’s decision to undo the “reset” and adopt a harsher attitude towards Russia. “We struggled to develop a rapport with the Putin-Medvedev government that could have avoided this mess. And then the Romney people came in and threw all of that away,” said one senior Obama administration official.
Relations between the United States and Russia were hardly smooth during the Obama administration, but most observers agree that they represented a high point between the Bush and Romney presidencies. “Romney turned campaign rhetoric into reality. He clearly understood nothing about Russia, and nothing about how Putin would respond to such overheated statements,” said one senior analyst associated with a Democratic leaning think-tank. “Romney’s comments were amateurish, and he’s matched words with actions. Romney has displayed no understanding of how geopolitics work, beyond juvenile posturing.”
A former Democratic Congressman placed blame more broadly. “We’ve seen exactly what happens when the United States doesn’t make an effort to include Russia in the future of its own region. In 2008 Bush sat and did nothing when Russia invaded Georgia. Now, we sit and do nothing while Putin takes half of Ukraine. Tough words and no action makes us look weak on the world stage, and Iran and China are watching.”
Several foreign policy analysts also voiced concern over the future of Russia’s relationship with China, suggesting that the Romney administration’s hostility may irrevocably have pushed Moscow into Beijing’s arms. “The geopolitical implications of this are gruesome. While losing Ukraine, we’ve cemented the Russia-China axis we’ve always feared.”
Indeed, some analysts suggested that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could prove fatal to Romney’s “Asian Pivot.” This policy, one of the major carry-overs from the Obama administration, sought to redistribute American military and diplomatic efforts towards Asia. “The lesson that Beijing learns from this is that the US can be easily distracted by the Middle East, and doesn’t have its heart in maintaining an anti-Beijing alliance system in East Asia. It doesn’t help that China now has Moscow in its corner,” said one scholar of Sino-American relations.
What could Romney have done to stop Russia from invading Ukraine? Critics affiliated with Democratic leaning-organizations argue that a better effort at communication could have alleviated Russian concerns over the deposition of the Yanukovych regime.
There is little doubt that the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helped end President Romney’s foreign policy “honeymoon.” However, few of the analysts interviewed for this article suggested any easy answers for the crisis in Ukraine. At this point, military and political reality seems to leave the United States deeply constrained with respect to recovering Crimea, or to preventing further incursions into other border provinces.
Sunday,
With the recent signing of the major gas deal between China and Russia amidst the entire situation in Ukraine, there has been a big push by the media and Putin himself to frame all of this as somewhat of an alliance between the countries. While I generally think this is overplayed, I think the military cooperation part of things can be explored. Russia is coming to China from a position of weakness and is probably willing to sell technology they were not willing to before. The question is what China actually wants from Russia at this point.
Last year, I talked about the possible Su-35/Lada deals here. At this point, I would bet that neither deal goes forward. Even if some kind of conventional submarine deal gets signed, it will be more for a design based on Lada that will use mostly Chinese combat systems, engine and weaponry. The Su-35 talks have floated since 2008 and still have not ended up anywhere. The closer we get to J-20, the less it makes sense for China to purchase Su-35. In the recent visit by Putin, the 2 countries signed deals for cooperating on a new upgraded version of Mi-26 and large airliner. In the aviation fields, China’s biggest import from Russia remains to be high performing turbofan engines.
In the most recent join sea drill between China and Russia, Russia sent a fleet consist of the Slava-Class Cruiser Varyag, a Udaloy class destroyer, a Sov class destroyer and a landing ship. Chinese fleet was consisted of No. 151 Zhengzhou (Type 052C), No. 139 Ningbo (Sov class), No. 112 Harbin (Type 052), 2 Type 054As and landing ships. The drill lasted for 5 days in East China Sea, so it was probably the largest such drill between the 2 countries. If this exercises had taken place in 2005, there would’ve been many articles about how this is a showcase of Russian weaponry for export to China. We certainly don’t hear that kind of talk now. Just by focusing on Type 052C Zhengzhou and Slava-Class Varyag, we can see the different approach China has taken in its naval modernization vs Soviet naval philosophy. In the role of area air defense, Type 052C probably has comparable to superior capabilities to Slava with its 48 cell HHQ-9 VLS and more modern AESA MFRs + combat system vs 64 cell S-300 VLS. It’s pretty much weaker in everything else (close-in air defense, ASuW and ASW). Like its big brother Kirov class, Slava class can operate and pack a lot of punch (with 16 P-500 missiles) by itself, whereas 052C is better served as an air defense escort in a flotilla with other offensive options. When looking at where PLAN has proceeded in its modernization, it makes a lot of sense why China did not purchase the unfinished Slava class Ukraina when it could have done so in the middle of last decade. I have talked about how Sov class had become the white elephants of PLAN, because they could not effective communicate and operate with other ships due to having different combat system, communication equipments and data link. Numerous projects were started in recent years to create subsystem to solve these problems when the Sov destroyers go through their mid-life overhaul. Purchasing the Ukraina or any other Russian warships will have cause similar difficulties in combat and logistics. PLAN seems to have a pretty good direction forward with mass production of Type 052D and Type 055, so it has not been tempted to buy Russian hardware since early 2000s.
Since combat aircraft and submarine purchases also seem unlikely with the slow progress of talks over Lada and Su-35, what else is China still buying from Russia outside of the engines? New purchase of S-400 SAMs is possible, but China seems to be doing pretty well with the success of HQ-9 in the Turkey competition. Transport and utility helicopter is another such area. Russia is just finishing the delivery of 48 Mi-171s to China this year and has signed agreement for developing an improved Mi-26 with China. It looks like both of these helicopters should see more orders in future even as more domestic options like Z-15 and Z-20 become available, since they occupy different roles. Another area is in large transport aircraft and tankers, where China has been purchasing refurbished IL-76s from Russia and IL-78s from Ukraine. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine could possibly give Ukraine more incentive to sell refurbished IL-76/78s and former Soviet designs (possibly improved version) to China. One interesting example is Zubr class LCAC where Russia and Ukraine argued over Ukrainian right to sell license production of Zubr class to China. The second Zubr was shipped early to China due to its shipyard’s location in Crimea. Now that Crimea has become part of Russia, China will probably continue to build more Zubrs as needed without further negotiation with Russia.
The final area where China would want Russian help is nuclear submarines and strategic bombers. I think even with China’s stronger bargaining power, it is still nearly impossible for Russia to sell plans for Tu-160 or Akula-II to China. The most it could get here are design help for these strategic platforms.
As we move forward, I think we will get to a point where Russia will start buying military subsystems from China. That will be quite a shift from where things were 2 decades ago.
Loren Thompson's latest piece for Forbes entitled "Eight Ways In Which the Army is Strategically Unique" is a solid piece of advocacy from one of Washington's most skilled hands. I urge you to read it in full, as its even-handed tone and seemingly straightforward logic will seem unobjectionable to many. A closer reading however, raises some issues. I will start with his introductory paragraphs and then take each of the eight points of strategic uniqueness in turn.
At first blush, I don't think anyone would quibble with Thompson's statement that the Army is strategically unique, and to be fair, he does not state that the other services lack this quality. At the cost of $121B in FY15, the American public has a right to expect that its Army provides capabilities not duplicated elsewhere. His effort is aimed at bringing Army uniqueness into sharper relief--but his method of doing so demands that we dismiss virtually all other uses of military force that do not require large occupying forces as somehow unimportant.
Let's move onto his argument:
"Army efforts to articulate a compelling vision of its future are hampered by two obstacles. First, many politicians and policymakers don’t want to know the truth about what the future may hold for the joint force. Just as Washington avoids talking about the inevitability of nuclear deterrence one day failing, so it doesn’t want to discuss the possibility that tomorrow’s worst nightmares might find sanctuary in the back alleys of Cairo or Karachi — where we will have to go and root them out. Second, the Army has an inferiority complex about talking to policy elites hailing from Harvard, so it tries to dress up military imperatives in pretentious jargon that undercuts their urgency."
While there may be politicians and policymakers who "don't want to know the truth" about the future, I am unwilling to surrender to Thompson's view of it. The thought of THIS ARMY "root"ing out nightmares in teeming megacities like Cairo or Karachi strains credulity. Why would we do this? If we were going to do this, not only is the current Army insufficiently sized to do so, one twice its size would be hard pressed. As a force sizing contributor, I find this assertion without merit. As to the Army's "inferiority complex" about talking to Harvard foreign policy elites, I am not sure what Army he is talking about. Foreign policy elites have been lionizing Army leaders for nearly two decades now, with David Petraeus achieving Bilderberg invitation status and H.R. McMaster appearing in Time's 100 Most Influential People list.
"Thus the Army message is a bit muddled, and as a result it is taking disproportionate cuts in Washington’s budget wars just as it took disproportionate casualties in overseas contingencies."
I honor the Herculean effort of the U.S. Army in overseas contingencies, but I fail to see how the number of casualties suffered in the past is related to budget projections for the future. This is not strategy, this is emotion.
Now the Eight Ways:
1. The ability to seize and secure extensive areas for indefinite periods. Indeed, as long as those areas are on land. And as long as someone else gets the Army there. Unless those areas are in Canada or Mexico, the ability to dominate the seas and skies remains the table stakes for the Army to provide this, its most unique capability, and more importantly, to sustain it. It is utterly dependent on the Navy and the Air Force to perform this role. Doesn't make it unimportant or lacking in uniqueness, just makes it a dependency relationship. That said, there are whole swathes of military operations that do not in any way, shape or form require this ability. As long as we continue to value to capacity to invade and occupy large areas of land with hostile forces arrayed against us, this will continue to be a necessary capability of the U.S. Army and its primary strategic discriminator. The questions of whether to do so, why we should do so, and to what extent should the ability to do so crowd out other investments in the defense budget, remains relevant.
2. The ability to sustain the rest of the joint force through continuous ground presence. Again, as long as the objective of the joint force requires #1. And as long as #1 happens to involve land objectives, primarily. And as long as the Army is able to be SUSTAINED by the rest of the joint force.
3. The ability to conduct protracted counter-insurgency operations. No argument here; I think the Army has rightly increased its proficiency in this arena and it should do everything it can institutionally not to lose it. But there are relevant questions about the degree to which this capability should color force structure arguments, and whether the force necessary to do so (or #1, #2, and #4) needs to reside primarily in the Active Army.
4. The ability to root out adversaries entrenched in large urban centers. Returning to the nightmarish scenario posed in the introduction, Thompson raises the specter of street by street fighting in Karachi (Pakistan), a city of 13 million people. Thompson states: 'The Marine Corps acquitted itself well in the two battles of Fallujah, but that city’s population was barely 200,000 — a city like Karachi, with 13 million inhabitants, is simply beyond the capacity of any service other than the Army to occupy and control." Doing so in Karachi is beyond the Army's capability also, so the matter of scale applies equally. Were we to wish to engage in the combat Thompson describes, both the Army and the Marine Corps would need to be involved, in addition to the troops of many other nations or a dramatically increased size of both U.S. services. This is simply not a useful argument for sizing the Army--and certainly not the Active Duty Army.
5. The ability to train foreign security forces in all facets of land warfare. Another tautology. The Armed Service that we organize, train and equip to perform all facets of land warfare ought to be able to train others to do so. I understand that the purpose of Thompson's piece is to raise these discriminators, but it comes off sounding a lot like "hey, the Army is unique because it does the things we pay it to do".
6. The ability to support civil authorities in coping with disruptions. Indeed, another no argument point. In fact, it is an argument for placing more force structure in the Guard and less in the Active Duty Army.
7. The ability to limit escalation by providing proportional military options. From Fort Hood? From Fort Benning? Cherry-picking the Korea example works to Thompson's advantage here, but the worldwide appetite for provisioning U.S. troops on sovereign soil for decades at a time does not appear to be increasing. Additionally, all of the mobility questions apply equally here as they do in #1, #2 (and #3). This is the weakest of his points, and it is where the Army's contribution is least unique.
8. The ability to deter through forward presence that conveys resolve. Again, Thompson hand-waves at the appetite for other nations to take on the presence of U.S. Army forces. When a cooperative foreign government requests or accommodates our request to forward station landpower, Thompson is correct, significant resolve is shown. But these instances are the exception, not the rule, requiring a level of domestic political support here in the U.S. that the use of naval forces simply does not raise.
What is interesting to me is the degree to which Thompson's piece focuses attention on those things the Army does which are -- relatively speaking -- the easiest to expand and contract. #1-#4 are all a function primarily of how many people are in the Army and the National Guard. Although not exclusively, these are mainly the tasks of infantry and those in support of the infantry. Shaping the Army for its post-war downturn should not disproportionately retain those elements of the Army that are the easiest to reconstitute. Thompson seems to be saying that the cuts to the Army are unwise because we need a massive amount of people to do things that require a massive amount of people. There is no mention here of the capital intensive capabilities that the Army provides that are far more difficult to reconstitute and which would be far more useful in many of the scenarios currently dominating defense planning. By this I mean Air Defense Artillery and Aviation--both of which resemble Seapower and Air Power in the time and expense required to build up--as opposed to infantry which is relatively simpler to build over shorter periods of time.
Thompson's attempt to carve our strategic uniqueness for the Army strikes me as a method of arguing against budget cuts, and that is an honorable position. He has however, selected arguments which strike me as far less a case for the strategic uniqueness of the Army, and far more of an argument for the strategic uniqueness of the National Guard.
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