How is the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the dynamics of great-power competition? As major powers are seemingly seeking to establish new levels of ‘pandemic deterrence’, Nick Childs contends that the current crisis might lead to lasting changes in how major-power militaries operate and interact with each other.
Naval commands are generally very shy about discussing submarine whereabouts, so it was an unusual step on 8 May when the United States Pacific Fleet publicly stated that all its forward-deployed submarines were, amid the current global pandemic, at sea conducting operations. This was a riposte to the suggestion that COVID-19 has weakened the US Navy in the western Pacific, most particularly by sidelining a forward-deployed aircraft carrier. It is also an example of how COVID-19 fallout is affecting the dynamics of great-power competition.
Major power manoeuvres
Many militaries have curtailed normal operations to focus on responding to the pandemic or attending to their own virus-related vulnerabilities. At the same time, the war of words between Washington and Beijing over the virus may have an enduring impact on that relationship and is only adding to other countries’ sense of strategic uncertainty.
These developments have helped fuel a concern that the pandemic is creating more political, diplomatic and even operational space for some to assert themselves, like China and Russia, while the US suddenly looks even more overstretched and distracted.
In this light, even patterns of behaviour previously seen as normal are attracting increased attention and being assessed anew, while their impact is amplified. So, are the recent sorties by long-range Russian reconnaissance aircraft skirting NATO airspace around Northern Europe and off Alaska part of that normal pattern, or a deliberate probing of NATO’s readiness in a time of crisis?
In this fluid atmosphere, some recent activity looks like deliberate ‘muscle flexing’ as the major powers may be seeking to establish new levels between themselves of what might be called ‘pandemic deterrence’. For example, in March, the Royal Navy mobilised a significant flotilla of vessels to shadow an unusually high concentration of Russian warships close to United Kingdom waters – again, possibly a probing exercise.
On the other side, early May saw a group of three US Navy destroyers and a supply ship – accompanied by a Royal Navy frigate – deployed into the Arctic Circle and then, for the first time for US surface ships since the 1980s, right into Russia’s strategic backyard in the Barents Sea. The mission may have been planned for some time. However, the fact that the commander of the US 6th Fleet issued a statement declaring that, in the current circumstances, it was ‘more important than ever’ for the US to conduct such an operation suggested a particular message was being sent.
In a similar vein, NATO dramatically curtailed its major reinforcement exercise Defender-Europe 20. But it has gone out of its way to stress that other, related, lower-level exercises were going ahead.
On another front, Western officials have sought to highlight what they have characterised as heightened Russian and Chinese disinformation efforts. However, the challenges that the pandemic has thrown up for some governments’ own official messaging, not least that of the US, suggest that the rules and the balance of advantage are in play here too.
Other players have possibly been getting in on the act of testing whether the boundaries of great-power competition may be shifting against the backdrop of the pandemic. What the US described as the ‘harassing’ of its warships in the Persian Gulf in April by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might fall into that category. It also reinforced the concern of many that any kind of brinkmanship at a time of major crisis adds to the risk of miscalculation.
Focus on the South China Sea
Nowhere has all this played out more obviously than in and around the South China Sea. Washington has explicitly accused Beijing of seeking to exploit the pandemic, while China has fired back that it is the US that is creating instability.
China’s deployment of an aircraft carrier in early April close to Japan and Taiwan certainly seemed opportunistic, and almost calculated to contrast with the plight of another carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, pulled off operations (and its captain relieved of his post) after hundreds of the crew had contracted COVID-19. In reality, the US Navy also had a powerful amphibious task group at sea in the region at the time, reinforced by an Australian frigate, and was maintaining a drumbeat of other presence and freedom-of-navigation operations.
However, Washington has been struggling to counter the perception that it has been disadvantaged – hence the Pacific Fleet submarine announcement. After the Theodore Roosevelt finally set sail again on 21 May, the US Navy ostentatiously announced that it then had no less than seven carriers at sea, an unusually high number by recent standards. Even so, not all of them are fully operational and there is no doubt that the strains have also been showing. Barely had the US announced its intention to maintain two carriers deployed in the Middle East than one was withdrawn to be ready to fill potential gaps elsewhere.
In this context, the response or non-response of the major powers to unfolding developments is likely to be watched particularly closely. Revived concerns about violence and instability in Afghanistan, for example, seem unlikely to alter US withdrawal plans but could see others like Russia and Iran seeking advantage. The latest flare-up of tensions between China and India across their disputed frontier could present another test of the current state of great-power relationships.
For all the current friction and uncertainty, the pervading challenge for all the major powers – the pandemic itself – is likely to moderate the risk that a more serious confrontation could develop in the short term. However, this crisis could still produce lasting changes in how the militaries of the major powers operate and interact with each other in the future.
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