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Geopolitics of Securing the Maritime Environment

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

(The article has been published in the December 2023 issue of the DSA and is available at the following link https://www.dsalert.org/DSA-Editions/2023/December-2023_Vice_Admiral_%28retd%29_Vijay_Shankar%2C.pdf )

Understanding Geopolitics: A New Slant

The term ‘geopolitics’ has historically been employed in reference to a nation’s interests and stratagems adopted to secure them. This understanding is subjective; for  it does not account for the full significance of the term and even bears negative connotations. In the run-up to the Second World War, both Germany and Japan’s expansionist policies were justified using the ‘geopolitical’ argument garbed in bizarre concepts of Lebensraum and the Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere . More recently In the post-war era, America saw in its strategic doctrine of ‘Containment’ an instrument that assured its geopolitical dominance in world affairs.

In the 21st century, geopolitics aims at explaining how geography can impact politics and how states try to mitigate these effects.  Geography, in other words, contributes to defining the boundaries of what is possible to achieve in international relations along with economic and security advantages that may be leveraged. China In its South China Sea policy has shown just how ‘creatively’ this can be achieved.  

Integration of Maritime Power with Geopolitics: Survey of the Domain  

Thucydides, in the 4th century Bce, chronicled events of the Peloponnesian War (431-404Bce).  Aggressive moves by Athens to establish empire and control the geopolitics of the Mediterranean caused fear in Sparta and provoked war. The conflict bears so many similarities to wars waged through the ages across both the maritime and continental dimensions that it offers lessons to this day. Athens forged a maritime alliances, while Sparta led a coalition of continental powers. The years of fighting depleted manpower and financial resources on both sides. Eventually, the Spartans destroyed the Athenian fleet, leading to capitulation of an exhausted Athens. Three significant lessons emerge:

  • Wars of attrition between balanced alliances do not yield spectacular victories, rather, exhaustion and a blurring of lines between victor and vanquished.
  • Maritime superiority by itself does not win a war that is fought for influence over land.
  • Wars stimulated by overconfidence leave much to chance.

Towards the end of the 19th century it was thinkers like Mahan and Julian Corbett who set ablaze the maritime spirit of the new century. They saw the maritime domain as a medium through which a nation could not just project power, but also control the strategic direction of any conflict. In The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Mahan analysed the use of British naval forces to demonstrate that nations that exercised control of important parts of the maritime domain, dominate history. More specifically, it was the effect of sea power upon wealth and prosperity of nations that moulded the course of history and gave to Britain the heft to achieve global pre-eminence. Mahan’s significance was twofold: first, in the realm of grand strategy he asserted that power came from integration of maritime activities with geopolitics and colonial-economics. Second, command and decision making in war from a position of naval superiority gives to the advocate both a logistical highway and a flexible ‘avenue of approach and exit’. He emphasized that sea power was about commercial use of the domain in peace and its control in war; about profits and power projection. Mahan’s theory remains persuasive, in part, to this day.

Corbett, on the other hand, believed naval influence on the maritime domain to be a part of national policy which had sway over the non-military elements of state power. He saw the fleet not merely an instrument of control but as an accompaniment to assuring the “act of passage on the sea.” It was from this critical tenet that concepts of Sea Denial, Sea Control and Power Projection evolved. Perhaps his abiding legacy to contemporary maritime thought was the idea that “freedom of the seas was an irreducible factor” for the sea was not territory for conquest; nor the oceans defensible. What it constituted was a substantial determinant in the growth of a nation and prosecution of war (Corbett Julian, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Longmans, 1911).

Language of War

Within an international system that hovers between order and anarchy, differentiated pace of growth among states engenders rivalry over resources, technology, commerce and markets. Realists of the early 20th century, such as Halford Mackinder and Friedrich Ratzel suggested how power may transcend geographic realities making the threat of armed conflict a general reality. At the same time, abstractions of national honour, prestige and other national interests that often separate the state from its citizenry are at odds with the violence of, as Clausewitz phrased it, the “Language” of War. In this fray experience of wars of the second half of the twentieth century suggests that people faced with the “language” of war, prevail. Add to this the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with their intrinsic menace of ending political purpose and we have the coming of indirect, relatively scaled down version of conventional wars albeit with high destructive potential fought in the penumbric shadows of a nuclear holocaust.

Rise and Fall of Powers: A Familiar Cadence

There is empirical evidence to suggest that the global economic crisis of the 1930s that in part set off the Second World War was responsible for thrusting the US into astonishingly favourable strategic circumstances. This situation not only triggered the Cold War but ultimately in the late 1980s, forced the melt-down of the Soviet Union and set into motion another ‘fall and rise’ in the global power structure. The characteristics of the economic crisis of the thirties rings a cadence now familiar to contemporary conditions – discontent as the basis that govern international economic systems, protectionism, unfair trade practices, one-sided competition, restricted access to resources, creation of proprietary mercantile routes and nationalistic policies; all in contradiction to the demands of an increasingly globalised world. Ironically they also characterize ‘Strategic Competitiveness’. And as long as it transpires within an international order that is influenced by uneven growth and shrinking natural resources; the quest for power will invariably be linked to the generation of military capabilities that can secure domination.

The Fragility of Power-Balances in the International System

The ultimate reality of the international system is the place that power enjoys in the scheme of assuring stability in relations between nations. Uncertainty in relations queers the pitch, in view of the expanded space for forces that can disrupt the status quo. For example, China has unambiguously articulated three canons that make for its strategic objective of ‘Rejuvenation’; revision of the existing order, sustained growth at any cost and by any means and regional pre-eminence. In the absence of a security oriented cooperative impulse, the problem with such sweeping strategies is its blindness to recognize that, we are in fact dealing with diverse regions, fast depleting resources and sea spaces that are the busiest of all the “vast commons”. The reluctance for collaboration on mutually acceptable terms makes the potential for friction high and the only consideration that could bring about change is the ability to attain a strategic posture that serves to deter and stabilize. Availability of full-spectrum military forces becomes central to any power equation and in consequence provides the foundation for order.

So, in our assessment of current geopolitics we note, the extinction of the “Cold War” was a temporary hiatus that after three decades has morphed the communist bloc to an autocratic and nationalistic faction comprising China and Russia that seek revision of world order on its terms. This refrain brings them in direct conflict with believers of unrestricted economic activity. At the same time the vision of unrestricted global economic activity has proven so fragile and subject to the many nuances of politics that, power deficient nations are left out.

The Challenge of China

Since inception in 1949, China’s strategic focus has shifted from ‘revolution-survival-recovery’ to an emphasis on ‘rejuvenation’. Both internal and external factors have shaped this vision. Internally the “century of humiliation” has given primacy to regime survival as the leading strategic goal, while rejuvenation expresses a quest for pre-eminence in world affairs on China’s terms. And thus, externally it has led to tensions over its revisionist and expansionist policies that have characterized its rise.

Militarily securing China’s overseas interests has increasingly become a part of its strategy, as articulated in their 2019 Chinese defence white paper . In the South China Sea Beijing is threatening control all within what it calls its “9 Dash Line”, which in 2016, the International Court of Arbitration at the Hague had unequivocally rejected.

The enigma of ‘the China-approach’ is that, having greatly benefitted from international systems, it has deliberately undermined the very same system by not fully supporting its governing elements; whether WTO, UN, IMF or the World Bank. Past complacency about Beijing’s predatory economic, military and ideological intentions have today crystallised to a danger that is real and may trigger an avoidable conflict. Even without war, tensions in the Indo-Pacific, along India’s northern borders and the slow weaning away from dependency on supply chains emanating from China have caused huge economic costs and deepened the chasm between the two blocs. An assessment of not just China’s strengths, but also of its vulnerabilities is, therefore of direct strategic consequence.

China, after four decades of military modernisation, has transformed to a formidable offensive force. With 2 million personnel and an annual budget of $225bn, it has the world’s biggest army, air force, navy and a vast missile force. By 2030 it could have 1,000 nuclear warheads. China believes it will have the capacity to invade Taiwan by 2027, at a time when their power projection ability extends to the Second Island Chain. Within the Tokyo-Guam-Philippines-Western New Guinea chain, China believes its strategic Anti-Access Area Denial (A2/AD) forces will be in a position to impede the movement of enemy forces while compelling them to operate further away from this protective Chain. It is strategies such as A2/AD that continue to intimidate global order by threats of control of the South China Sea.

China’s military has evolved from its roots in Soviet doctrines to a modern war machine capable (by its own assessment) of combined operations under conditions of intense cyber and information warfare. In philosophy, there has also been a shift from “Mass to Precision”. Recruitment is, however, hard ever since the one-child policy was enforced (1980-2016) and dazzling growth made the military a not so attractive career proposition. The PLA struggles to hire skilled technical manpower to man their modern platforms, maintain high-tech equipment and fight a technological war. And to top it all they are woefully lacking in combat experience. Although China has made scientific leaps, from hypersonic missiles to stealth fighters, its military-industrial complex trails behind in areas such as metallurgy, engines, design abilities and still relies on foreign fundamental research. Embargoes on semiconductors and components have made it harder to catch up with global scientific frontiers. Despite Mr Xi’s endless purges, corruption appears to be pervasive. It may explain why General Li Shang Fu was sacked as China’s defence minister this year after only a few months in the job.

China’s military infirmities exist alongside its deepening economic woes. A property crunch and the Communist Party’s growing hostility towards the private sector and foreign capital are impeding growth. China’s GDP will drop to 3.5% by 2028, projects the IMF. Investment by multinational firms into China has currently turned negative for the first time since records began in 1998, suggesting foreign companies are not reinvesting their profits in China, and rather they are moving money out of the country. China’s $18trn economy has slowed, perhaps irreversibly.

Behind China’s military and economic stutter lies a third, and deeper problem – an autocratic dominance of a system that no longer allows serious internal policy debate. Economists and technocrats have been side lined in favour of party loyalists. Given Premier Xi’s style of functioning there is real danger of strategic miscalculations; for, China is challenging not just today’s economic orthodoxy, but the world’s political and security framework as well without bringing about a change within her own political morphology.

Defining Strategic Space and Intent  

With uncertainty driving geopolitical dynamics, the first imperative for India is to bring about policy coherence between strategic space and security interests. It begins by defining the geographical contours within which a strategy can be developed to contend with challenges identified. The broad parameters of this definition must factor in the regions from where trade originates, logistic supply chains traverse, energy lines run, sea lines of communication span, narrows therein and potential allies with who mutuality exists. In this context the sea space encompassing the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific provides the canvas within which our strategic interests will play out. This Oceanic body is dominated by ten important choke points and narrows. In essence the theatre gives to global trade efficient maritime routes that power the region’s growth. It accounts for over 70% of global trade, 60% of energy flow and is home to more than 50% of the world’s population; it also provides the context within which Indian maritime strategy must operate with the intent of assuring order, deterring upheavals and promoting mutuality. While our logistic chains traverse areas outside the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific these will need to be secured through partnerships, diplomacy and cooperative security measures.

Strategic Competitiveness   

The phrase “Strategic Competitiveness” mentioned earlier, first made its appearance in the 2018 National Defence Strategy of the USA . The document identified the revisionist states of China and Russia as strategic competitors. China for using “predatory economics” to intimidate lesser endowed nations while militarizing and persisting with its illegal claims in the South China Sea; and Russia as an “autocratic nationalistic state that eschewed the economic, diplomatic, and security aspirations of its erstwhile bloc”.

Strategic competitiveness has become one of the central preoccupations of governments. National wealth and economic prosperity are to some extent inherited but, in the main, created by the innovativeness of people. In this milieu the role played by the individual nation and partnerships in international relations have become more rather than less critical. Yet for all the writing on the topic, there is no theory nor is there an accepted definition of the term. It is amply clear that competitiveness amongst states develop when the existing status-quo is challenged, or indeed when a state or an alliance contests an emerging challenge. The tools of the contest are the combined “comprehensive national power” of one or more states pitted against the other.

Contestant Groupings

Ironically, Beijing’s recent White Paper titled “National Defence in a New Era” outlined its territorial ambitions in the South and East China Seas, Yellow Sea, Taiwan and Ladakh. It has warned regional powers of its willingness to use force and use it first if its ambitions are threatened. On cue, in response to China’s aggressive manoeuvres; the formation of a trilateral alliance between Australia, UK and the US (AUKUS) and the continuing Strategic Security Dialogue between Japan, Australia, India and the US (Quad) have made it amply clear that “countering China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific” is number one priority. AUKUS’s mission is complemented by the Quad; the latter presenting a new security architecture that combines both military and economic prowess amongst nations that share a common vision of a free and rule-based order. The resolve to strategic confrontation against revisionism is thus emphasised. Such a visible demonstration of collective resolve is, perhaps, the only way to dampen Beijing’s aggressive expansionism, for through the waters of the Indo-Pacific over 70% of China’s energy flow and 60% of trade ply. It is China’s “growth-jugular” and it is here that like-minded states must develop strategies that potentially signal the ability to stymie Xi’s dream of “rejuvenation.” 

That these initiatives have made China “edgy” is clear from their declarations that “China will certainly punish Australia with no mercy”. Fearing forced unification, Taiwan is tightening its ties to the U.S.; Japan, is engaged in its largest military build-up since the Cold War; India is readying forces along its borders, developing strategies to occlude vital sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and has engaged partnerships that threaten China’s vulnerabilities; Australia is opening up its northern coast to U.S. forces. France, Germany, and the UK are sending warships into the Indo-Pacific to assert their rights. Clearly,  nations have become less enthused by China’s market and more worried about its disturbing intent.  

 Challenges in the Maritime Domain

China’s rising comprehensive power has generated an internal impulse to military growth and an external push for unilateral expansionism in the South and East China Seas and its extended regions of economic interests. It has developed strategies that target the maritime domain to assure a favourable outcome to what it perceives to be a ‘strategic competition’ for resources and control of the seaways.

The consequences of China activating artifices such as the Anti-Access and Area Denial strategy, unilateral Air Defence Identification Zones and geo-political manoeuvres to collar sources of raw materials, ports of dispatch and control of routes euphemistically called the maritime silk route and the establishing the String of Pearls in the Indian Ocean Region are clear to see. Debt traps that have been set by China to inveigle some of the hapless littorals of the Indian Ocean of their maritime facilities are symptomatic of a new form of colonial adventure. The paradoxical effects of China’s contrivances are to undermine its own strategic standing, hasten counter balancing alignments and urge a global logic of cooperative politics over imperial strategies.

The Maritime Environment: Considerations

In today’s context there emerges an all-encompassing concept of what is implied by “securing the maritime environment” and how it brings to play the comprehensive national power of a State particularly to forge partnerships and be willing to back consensual policies with military power. The safety and economic security of the nation depends upon the secure use of the near and far oceans in times of peace, tensions and during conflict. In order to develop a Strategy to secure the domain the need is to persistently integrate and synchronize existing means. Challenges in the maritime environment are centred on the following three considerations:

• Domain awareness through maritime Intelligence Integration.

• Operational Threat Response founded on wide area coordination strategies.

• Maritime Commerce Security Plan.

The quest for strategic leverage in domain is founded on an oceanic vision backed by the development of a posture that characterizes our resolve to fulfil the quest. Inspiration may take the form of a policy declaration in relation to a geographic region such as the ‘Act East Policy’, the ‘India Africa Forum Summit’, alliances and partnerships; or indeed the emergence of a power that threatens to revise the status-quo. Policy provides a frame of reference that not only has wide-ranging application but will remain central for purposes of force planning to develop posture.

Current membership of the original ten ASEAN grouping plus 6 is symptomatic of the shifting centre of gravity of geopolitics to the East. From a security angle, the inclusion of India, USA, Russia, Japan and South Korea in addition to China provides the rationale for strategic equilibrium. India and China along with ASEAN are set to become the world’s largest economic bloc. The grouping is expected to account for about 27 per cent of Global GDP. The buoyancy of the Indo-ASEAN relationship is backed by surging trade figures which is slated to hit USD 100 billion in the current year. With such burgeoning stakes strategic rebalancing in the region comes as a natural consequence. The expansion of the ASEAN and the creation of the ASEAN Regional Forum are suggestive of the littoral’s aspirations to counter balance the looming presence of China. Having thus brought about a modicum of coherence between security dynamics, strategic space and growth, we have the makings of a template to contend with the challenges that are present particularly the emerging unrelenting thrust by China for an exceptionable proprietary mercantile empire stretching across the region.

Force Planning to Secure the Maritime Environment

A fourfold classification of maritime forces has dominated contemporary naval thought. The grouping is largely functional and task oriented. It comprises of aircraft carriers, denial forces (including surface, air and sub-surface strike units), escorts and surveillance elements. Auxiliaries including logistic and other support ships and tenders provide distant and indirect support. While the ready availability of out-of-area bases, intelligence and strike elements become an imperative when devising cooperative operations.  In addition current thought has given strategic nuclear forces a restraining role to define and demarcate the limits within which conventional forces operate.

The make-up of the fleet must logically be a material and technological articulation of strategic concepts that prevail. India has for long aspired to attain a strategic maritime posture that would permit control and make safe oceanic spaces that serve to promote its national interests. And in times of hostility, influence the course of conflict. Partnerships such as the QUAD and the AUKUS provide the much needed basis for domain awareness, wide area strategic response and control mechanisms.

In this perspective, the fundamental obligation in times of tensions is therefore to activate means to first deter and if deterrence fails, to seize and exercise control over the ‘strategic space’ (it must come as no surprise that China develops forces necessary to realize its A2/AD policy). Pursuing this line of argument, it is the Aircraft Carrier Group and its intrinsic air power assisted by strike, surveillance and denial forces that sea control and security of control can be achieved. It is here that the true impact of the Aircraft Carrier is felt. Control and security of control is the relationship that operationally links all maritime forces with the Aircraft Carrier. In the absence of the latter, naval operations are reduced to a series of denial actions limited in time, space and restricted to littoral waters with little impact on the progress of operations on land. It is also for this reason that the Indian aircraft carrier programme today envisages a minimum force level of three Fleet Carriers at all times in order to meet the diverse tasks that the Navy may be charged with across geographically separated areas of interest under circumstances of change and uncertainty.

To Navigate the Crisis Ridden Stream

Bismarck suggested that great powers travel on the “Stream of Time” which they can neither create nor direct but upon which they can “steer with more or less skill”. How they emerge from that voyage depends to a large degree upon the wisdom of leadership. Bismarck’s sombre thoughts lead us back to our fundamental inquiry – whether the quest to secure the maritime environment lies in the turbulence of the ‘Stream of Time’  is a moot question, but how India navigates the crisis ridden stream is what leadership will have to contend with.

The Long Telegram: Ukraine, the Last Nail

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byVice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (Published in the IIRF Strategic Year Book 2024)

An Expiatory Offering

Stian Jenssen, director at NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s private office, stated that one solution to the on-going war could be “Land for Nato membership and peace”. Has the strategy of ‘Containment’, a lodestone dogma from the cold-war run its course and has the very ideology of a cordon sanitaire, to contain an expansionist Russia been put to rest?

 Jenssen is a senior figure who has worked at NATO for over a decade and rarely speaks in public. Jenssen, however, the next day appeared to backtrack on his comments. He said his statement was part of a broader discussion and, not very convincingly added, “it was a mistake.” It will be recalled that Stoltenberg at the NATO Summit on July 2023 said that Ukraine would be invited to join the alliance; remaining vague on how or when. President Biden, however, had been far more categorical when he earlier declared that Ukraine was not ready for NATO membership.  But was there a sense of remorse in the changed strategic direction that the proxy war in Ukraine was taking? Had Jenssen touched a true chord in the larger plans of the West?

Keenan’s ‘Long Telegram’

            In 1946 Mr George Keenan, the then American Charge d’Affaires in Moscow, responding to a query from Washington who were perplexed by the USSR’s obdurate approach to proposals that were to be the foundation of the post-war world order, had enquired “why the Soviet Union was opposed to the newly formed World Bank and International Monetary Fund.” Keenan, in a cable famously called the “Long Telegram” outlined, from a questionable perspective (it must be said), strategic motivations of the Soviet Union. His 5000 word narrative over-simplified a picture of an insecure State obsessed with the idea of expansionism and impervious to reason. He urged leadership to adopt a foreign policy the main element of which sought to belligerently “contain” Soviet imperialistic tendencies; almost as if it were pandering to a need to invent a new enemy to replace the Nazis. As we attempt to verify whether the Telegram lay at the core of the West’s policy and try and excavate some sane logic to its centrality one is up “against it” for the innermost chambers that are expected to hold secrets of that time are… bare. (John le Carre).

Containment provided an aggressive ideological framework to a strategic policy strapped administration that saw military power and mass destruction as the only arbiter to a war drained world. History today tells us, it led to a series of conflicts, near nuclear catastrophes, deliberate twisting of political narratives, disastrous WMD stockpiling and bizarre ‘witch hunts’ targeting left leaning polity.

This dogma conceived in 1947, continues in essence, into this millennium. The policy has been varyingly called a master stroke that sealed factional diplomacy; a strategic monstrosity blind to the complexity of geopolitics; a perverted belief that was to climax with the spread of capitalism, slanted democracy and free markets (Fukuyama). Much of its appeal was driven by creating manipulable elites in states of interest, fear, enticement and the inability to discern reality. Rather, ‘Containment’ gave the world, a self-extolling prophecy of morality and leadership; a curious sense that frustrating the spread of communism was an interest above all else; nurturing and militarily arming an array of pliant puppet states irrespective of their dictatorial and often tyrannical outlook; sponsoring of surrogate conflicts that split the world into persistent warring camps; subversion of legitimate governments and lastly regime changes in unyielding states. Its long-term fallout was the distortion of democracy on the altar of anti-communism.

Is the looming lack of success in the Ukraine proxy-war the last nail in the moribund policy of Containment?

The Last Nail

By oversimplifying the world into categories defined largely by ideology (and in later years) by culture and religion and declaring them inevitably hostile to one another (Huntington) Containment established an intellectual template for what began as an ideological siege which in recent years has transmuted to a civilizational one.

Clearly the development of social and political history of man cannot be so easily pigeon holed. Nations follow their own path of socio-economic development and pursue different forms of wealth generation, equitability, concepts of security and sovereignty; some of these are indeed at odds with the norm, yet it does not make a case for intervention unless such anomalies spill over borders in armed clashes. As the concept of Jus Ad Bellum (Just War)  suggests the war must have: just cause, being a last resort, being declared by a proper authority, possessing right intention, having a reasonable chance of success, and the end being proportional to the means used. When seen against this backdrop, it beggars belief to assume that powers of the day will readily embrace all aspects of a western-led international order. It seems more likely that rising powers will want to shape a global order that is inclusive of their own values and find place for their political agendas. It is this transformation that has provided the hammer to drive the last nail into Keenan’s telegram.

The Jenssen Testimonial in Retrospect; the Nuclear Factor  

There are several underlying issues that may have actuated Mr Jenssen’s testimonial; after all the statement was made and it was in the air extant and plausible before it was rescinded. So what triggered this account? While  there are several reasons, which include the all-round economic burden that the conflict has imposed and the consequent fatigue that has set in, the growing disaffection amongst a populace unwilling to cover the cost and perhaps most importantly the real dangers of the proxy war escalating and the EU being hauled into a catastrophic war. But chief amongst these is the inexorable push towards a nuclear calamity.

The breakdown of existing strategic nuclear checks and control regimes that have evolved over the last more than half-a-century between U.S. and Soviet/Russian leadership is perhaps the first symptom of the disintegration of whatever trust had been built up. The only agreement on Strategic Arms Reduction had been negotiated through a series of near calamitous nuclear incidents, progression of bilateral agreements and other confidence building measures to limit and reduce each other’s substantial nuclear arsenals. Indeed it was a slow but apparent understanding of the futility of a nuclear exchange.  Which would in time (it was hoped) become the norm with all states in possession of nuclear weapons. These optimistic prospects today amount to naught with the suspension of the New START arms control treaty. Since February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has rattled his nuclear sabre in hopes of isolating Ukraine and intimidating it into submission. The US has responded by threatening Putin with terrible reprisals if he uses nuclear weapons, equipping Ukraine with long-range precision guided munitions and bolstering their air-power despite Moscow’s provocations. The deliberate nuclear risk-taking is both a throwback to Cold War-era superpower crises and a preview of what lies ahead.

The Treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT, 1968) is now on thin ice. The big unwritten bargain amongst the signatories of the NPT (191 nations) was that nuclear weapon states will not only provide nuclear security and nuclear technologies to non-nuclear states,  but will also not attack a non-nuclear weapon state with nuclear weapons,  However, given the proceedings of the Ukraine war the nuclear security assurances of the NPT, today hardly sound very convincing.

Changed Outlook: Has the War Run its Course?

The unanimous New Delhi G 20 Leaders Declaration on the Ukraine War underscored “that all states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. In line with the UN Charter, all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” The declaration is symptomatic of a changed outlook to the war. The absence of an outright condemnation of Russia and recourse to the founding principles in the UN Charter are, debatably, a realisation of the disastrous economic burdens of the war, acceptance of the frozen state of the conflict and the nuclear perils of attempting to push the NATO verge up to  Russian borders has dawned on the USA and its allies.

Disarmament Structures in Tatters 

In 2007, Putin, at the Munich security conference accused the United States of creating a unipolar world “in which there is one master, one sovereign.” He added, “… this is pernicious.” This event had to have been seen by serious Russia watchers that Kremlin had reached its red-lines. At this stage for NATO to push for expansion appeared adventurous and contradictory to the spirit of the reassurances made by the then US secretary of state James A. Baker to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting on 09  February, 1990. In a discussion on the status of a reunited Germany, the two men agreed that NATO would not extend past the territory of East Germany, a promise repeated by NATO’s secretary general the same year in Brussels. Also the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) established as a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision making and joint action on a wide spectrum of security issues of common interest never came to an understanding on enlargement other than on membership of the Baltic States. Russia’s case has been built on these two instances of “betrayal” and a lack of trust.

In the meantime, Moscow backed its words with actions by dismantling the structures designed to keep peace in post-Cold War Europe. Moscow formally announced its withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, rejected the principle of host-nation consent for its troop presence, annexed the Crimean peninsula and indeed now occupied the Donbas region of East Ukraine and the Kherson region that provides the continental bridge to the Crimea.

The Global disarmament structures today lie in tatters.

Ebbing Wages of this War

Poland has decided to stop transfer of military equipment to Ukraine. It will be recalled that Poland was Ukraine’s staunchest ally and its contribution to the latter’s war effort is amongst the largest in the EU, it has provided the maximum amount of immediate-use combat capability to the Ukraine. To give an example, all of NATO have reportedly provided about 100 tanks; Poland alone has contributed over 330 ready-to-use tanks. However, grasping realities of the Ukraine condition, the Polish Premier likened the situation to a “drowning person who could pull you down with it”.

There is a gnawing awareness that the West’s proxy war in Ukraine has run its geo-political design and fuelling it further can only result in ‘diminishing strategic returns’, degeneration of the NATO alliance and the return of an existential nuclear threat to Europe that lay dormant for near half-a-century. After all, are not the real challenges in the Indo-Pacific?

Distress in West Asia

A dramatic, overnight shift in the West’s policy towards Ukraine is potentially on the cards, as Israel’s war on Hamas escalates to a conflagration that engulfs all of west Asia. Western resources and stomach for the proxy war in Europe with nuclear dimensions has diminished. It has accelerated a process that could freeze the conflict in Ukraine, never mind that Russia may emerge ahead of the game. The alternative is a long and debilitating war in which the western allies appear to be holding the short-end of the stick without in any substantial way eroding the power of Russia.

 The War Will End on the Table

The debate over the future of the Russia-Ukraine war while, rhetorically, predicated on Ukraine re-establishing territorial control to the pre-2014 holding, it is clear today that the reality of the situation will neither tolerate nuclear escalation nor is there the will in the EU to endure further economic hardships and the perils of the conflict engulfing them.

Territorial reclamation, undoubtedly important to Ukraine, appears unlikely as their counter-offensive fizzled out. Add to that support for a protracted conflict that has prospects of degenerating to a Russia-NATO war does not appear to find favour in the western alliance. Avoiding such a war is higher priority. Enabling Ukraine’s territorial control is debatably the most thorny proposition confronting NATO for reasons mentioned earlier and besides they are not fighting the war.

President Biden has said that “this war will end at the negotiating table”. But no moves are apparent that push the parties toward talks. Although it is far from certain that a change in U.S. policy can spark such an outcome, adopting a reconciliatory one on the lines of the Jenssen testimony could freeze the conflict and make negotiations more likely. And with it, perhaps, a blood rimmed curtain will come down on ‘Containment’.

The Mantri, the Mercenary and Military Leadership

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By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

(Published in the IPCS web journal in my column the Strategist available at http://www.ipcs.org/comm_select.php?articleNo=5859)

Imbalance in Politico-Military Affairs

The First World War, within four months of its ill-conceived purpose, bungled to a bloody horrific grind on the Western Front. The Allies and their colonial armies had by that time suffered a million casualties. Britain’s 40-year-old First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill, believed he had the solution to the noxious massacre in the trenches. He fancied himself a military strategist, abandoning his earlier capricious plan to invade Germany from the Baltic Sea, he now championed opening a second front against Turkey, seize Istanbul and gain control of the Straits linking the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and Russia, thus, knocking the Ottoman out of the war which in turn would persuade all Balkan states to join the Allies. This fanciful chain of desired events was neither backed by any serious analysis nor did it enjoy the luxury of overwhelming superiority in theatre. Even an understanding of the operational realities of an amphibious assault of the magnitude envisaged, was lacking. As for strategic assumptions made, there were none and therefore review of operations and possible alternative courses of action were non-existent. The ensuing campaign was driven more by hopes and revulsion at the carnage on the Western Front.

The ill-fated Dardanelles-Campaign began on 19 February 1915. In the event not only was a bulk of the British and French fleet lost in the action but over 65,000 troops were slaughtered in the Campaign and the Allies routed in a grisly bloodbath.  Our ‘Strategist’ was guilty of grossly overestimating the capabilities of his own force and underestimating the complexity of amphibious operations. He, fatally, derided the motivation of the Turks defending their homeland. Churchill was sacked for incompetence.  

Grand Theory and the Operational Art

War, as Clausewitz postulated, was the use of military force to achieve political aims. However, modern militaries during the process of developing military plans in support of policy  are loathe to take risks that do not hold high the probability of success. This in turn leads to a skewed situation when unachievable policy aims are set out. And here lies the intrinsic antagonism that exists in politico-military affairs; when a military solution is a product of compromises, the outcome leaves political objectives sorely wanting. Quite obviously, when both polity and military leadership are combined in one authority, the blend makes for disastrous consequences.

Waging war requires institutions that can address problems that lie along the politico-military interface. Politicians need to listen to the military and take heed that the “sweep of an arm in a scything arc across the width of a small scale chart (map) spanning mountains, rivers and seas with little insight of own and enemy capabilities; the elements; force readiness; morale, logistics  or indeed outcomes – does not a strategic offensive make”. This stark statement is a reminder of the disastrous gap between grand theory and the operational art. Instances abound in history when a politician steered-approach led to strategic blunders; conduct of World War II by Hitler, America in Vietnam, the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan are recent examples of wars when politico-military balance  had gone awry. The Sino-Indian war of 1962 is of particular significance for not only were political policies with external-security ramifications made without military involvement, but leadership surrounded itself with pliable and incompetent defence advisors. So-much-so that when the crunch came, the Army was routed; the Navy remained within its havens; while the Air Force contemplated torching its forward deployed fighter aircrafts.

In the run-up to war, civilian leadership must not only have superior authority but also the sagacity to entertain alternate ideas that provide decision-avenues short of armed conflagration. And if the recourse to arms is advanced then it must never be terminal. After all War is a political tool and not an end; its effectiveness must be judged in a politico-diplomatic-strategic context.

Enter the Mercenary

Limited armed interventions, since the Second World War, have often demanded deployment of light forces over short duration with a feature of dubiety in identity of aggressor. In such circumstances mercenaries have been hired and deployed for circumscribed tasks under ‘hard- hold’. They conduct military operations in foreign conflict zones to bring about a desired outcome. If the employer state fails to achieve the desired end, then…the event is denied. These delinquent methods, in this day and age, are not only internationally condemnable but also run the risk of starting an unintended and uncontrolled war.

There is no expert consensus on who exactly is a “mercenary.” Those in the industry, their clients, and some outside experts spurn the “M” word owing to the associated stigma, and give these private-sector fighters new labels: private military contractors, military service providers and even operational contractors. Since the re-emergence of this new ‘sham warrior’ class in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and elsewhere in the African continent one is at a loss to explain their purpose and efficacy in war, irrespective of the opposition or the perceived outcome.

The deployment of a mixture of conscription and mercenary services in the Russian military dates back to at least the 18th century (Parit, Makers of Modern Strategy, p 356) with a view to  ‘stiffen-the-spine’ of a poorly  motivated serf army. However, by the 20th century the idea of brutal press-ganged armies backed by a core of mercenaries gave way to professional and career oriented armies from the citizenry. The national military was subject to international accountability.

The Curious Case of the Wagner Group

The “Wagner Group” must be seen as a new phenomenon, primarily because their control or lack of it defies any formal structure, their mass is that of a regular army (reportedly, 50,000 strong) but allegiance questionable. Clearly the Wagner is more on the lines of a “have-army-will-travel”. The Group, a private Russian military company set-up in 2014 on terms that remain unknown, is led by its co-founder Mr Yevgeny Prigozhin a businessman, reportedly with connections and ambitions. Till recently tasked with fighting Kremlin’s land-war in the Donbas theatre of East Ukraine the Group had indefinite yet conditional access to the Russian military infrastructure. Enigmatic in concept and cloaked in a purpose that remains nebulous; it’s Command and Control structure remains utterly confused. What is clear is that relations between the Russian military and the Wagner is a tenuous one with exclusive control emanating from the highest political circle in the Kremlin (this inference comes in the wake of the manner in which their mutiny ended in a fizzle).

Despite its ambiguous existence, the Group has operated around the globe, from Syria to the Central African Republic; Nigeria and in West Asia in furtherance of Russia’s foreign policy and commercial objectives. Its commission includes clandestine armed missions and subversion; toppling ‘irksome’ regimes and security to private business interests. The group maintains close ties to the country’s intelligence services and it is probable that they work in tandem with the SVR (Sluzhba Vneshni Razvedkii) the Russian external spy agency. As for its legal status it obviously was created with the intrinsic capability to operate on the fringes of the constraints of the International Law of War.

The mutinous failure of the Group in eastern Ukraine, in particular in the Bakhmut sector, must have caused a total re-think of the employment of such an ill-disciplined army when pitted against a well-trained and motivated Ukrainian force. Most abidingly ludicrous was the rebellious media image of Mr Prigozhin, fully outfitted in an undersized combat helmet, bulging out of the seams of his bullet proof jacket fulminating over the lack of equipment and logistics that the Russian State had promised him to wage the land war. It spoke volumes of the motivation of a mercenary militia to fight.

Military Judgement and Leadership

Constitutional authority of the Supreme Commander will always be vested in civilian hands (in democracies), it is a matter of how this authority is made too pervasive and often assumed by agents below in the political hierarchy. Such armchair strategists are shielded from the professional simply because the latter is officially prohibited from entering into a public debate; leaving military leadership often saddled with half-baked strategic decisions, driven by “hopes, fears and ambitions” rather than by experience and seasoned judgement.

Prerogatives and duties of a political office in charge of the military must not enter the domain of “military judgement” where knowledge and motivations are at play; both assuredly a product of experience. Political savvy must essentially discern the line between strategic direction and the extent to which military means can aid in achieving that purpose. While, of the military leader, it is objectivity that is demanded; whether in pursuit of a strategic goal, attaining a desired posture, or indeed in weapons and platform selection. Military leadership first studies the nature of the threatening armed conflict and then seeks to rationalise an operational strategy that optimises means with effectiveness across the spectrum of warfare.

Chilling Trend of our Times

Modern strategic thought has no logic or grammar that gives description to private wars. The mercenary fights for any state or nation without regard to political interests, cause or even outcome…as long as the wages are good. The return of the mercenary and his access to the highest bidder; be he a politician, oligarch or a multinational corporation is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable trends of our times. Today, when the Mantri is engulfed by arm-chair strategists and ‘think-tanks’ preaching the need for interventions that invite low intensity “less-than-military” operations, the implications of a market for armed forces in global affairs is most perilous. For in an unregulated situation, the means of waging war being extended to entities that can afford-it, spells  anarchy to global order.

Epilogue :The Russian Mercenary Chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin was reportedly killed in a mid air crash on 23 August 2023. Prigozhin had led a brief armed mutiny against the Russian State earlier this year. The plane, a private “Embraer Legacy 600” crashed north of Moscow killing all 10 people on board.