But thanks for all the reading, comments, links and support. I will continue to tweet and mock pleats periodically at AutoBallpoint. And if you’re in the Washington area, perhaps I’ll run into you soon…

Strategy/Diplomacy/War/History

• Airminded
• Andrew Erickson
• Laurenist
• Rajiv Srinivasan
• Rethinking Security
• Spike Japan
• The Orwell Diaries

Politics/Economics/Society

• Glenn Greenwald
• Nils Gilman
• Paul Krugman
• potlach
• Sovereign Man

Culture

• Inn at the Crossroads
• Rough Type
• Shady Characters

Urban

• Greater Greater Washington

Photography

• In Focus

Sports

• The Daily Fix
• David Roth
• Grantland
• Scott Raab

The four constituent nations of the "Visergrád Four."

Apparently, this alliance exists, and as of May, now includes a military component. I like it. As a bloc in the EU and NATO of otherwise somewhat ignored countries, it allows for a little more interdependence without relying on the “big boys.” The history behind the group, which dates back to 1335(!) is just awesome, and I believe was designed for the sole purpose of fascinating me.

Originally a meeting between the King of Bohemia, the King of Poland, and the King of Hungary and Croatia, the “Visegrád Three” (so-named for the Hungarian castle town in which the meeting was held) was intended to create new routes of commerce, bypassing what was then the center of European commerce, Vienna. Replace “Vienna” with “Berlin and Paris” – and possible even “Moscow” – and one gets a decent idea of what the Visegrád revival is all about. Of course, as post-Communist countries, the Visegrád Four (with the split of Slovakia and the Czech Republic) were concerned with maintaining their own sphere of influence without Russian interference.

As for the Visegrád Battlegroup, it is expected to become fully operational by 2016. It is intended to be a separate force from NATO, though elements will begin exercising with the NATO Ready Response Force. Poland is taking the lead militarily, as befits its size and spending relative to the other members.

Aside from the practical nature of the undertaking, the symbolism of this alliance is not to be underestimated. The four countries involved are all European Union members, but not in the Euro-zone (they are the westernmost non-former Yugoslav countries to not adopt the Euro). They represent a strange hybrid between EU membership and existing outside it, and with the Euro looking shakier every day, actual entrance into the common currency may be an increasingly remote possibility. This would solidify the status of the Visegrád Four as, if not second-class member-states, then at least as junior members in an IGO whose legitimacy is derived from the equal status of its constituent nations.

On its own, the Visegrad Group is not particularly powerful or a threat to European unity, but when seen as part of the larger pattern of sub-regionalization it becomes indicative of a larger trend. Even where formal ties do not exist, developments like the emerging German leadership of the EU or the newly-signed Anglo-French defense treaty point to a Europe losing coherence. And in Eastern Europe these new subregions are gaining prominence and a sort of global autonomy. The customs union between Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia that came into being in 2010 harkens back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, when a similar union (with the addition of Ukraine) was seen as a means to preserve much of the structure of the USSR while maintaining the multinational state. That customs union has abolished border controls as of this month, creating another subnational and even subregional entity.

There seems to be growing disenchantment not just with the universal United Nations, but even with the regional variants: the European Union, UNASUR, African Union, SCO, ASEAN, etc. In a world where nations themselves are tending towards autonomy and fragmentation, it should not come as a surprise that some countries would turn to a more specific alternative than the grand regional frameworks that attempt to address an incredible array of problems and cooperative issues.

Also, the conflation of military and economic drivers of an alliance like Visegrád should not be overlooked as a key development. While the two are often treated as completely separate realms – NAFTA certainly does not include a military component, NATO’s economic requirement is that members adhere to capitalism, more or less, and the EU’s EDC unified European military force has been discussed for sixty years without ever coming to fruition. Military power and the economy, however, are inextricable, and it is perhaps for this reason that these microalliances are coming into being. For a group of four, maybe it’s just more manageable that way.

In general, though, keep an eye out for these subregional and some day soon even subnational alliances. The New England Six? The League of Extraordinary PIGS? Flanders? Coming soon to a world map near you.

LT CDR Matt Tucker, who was relieved of command as CO of USS Devastator (MCM 6) in March of 2009, has had his Detach for Cause vacated by the Navy.

Really? The United States Navy has a ship named Devastator? Not only that, but Devastator is of the Avenger-class. We really need to start consulting with George Lucas.

Sigh.

American Stuart and Lee tanks advance on a German position.

I gave the real-time strategy game R.U.S.E. a quick whirl last night. Expect a formal review at some point, but here are some initial impressions:

- From what I’ve played, it already seems somewhat more historically accurate than others in the this genre, at least with regards to the campaign. So far I’ve been operating in a support role in the Battle of Kasserine Pass (the North Africa campaign itself is woefully underused in games), and it seems to have a fairly accurate order of battle, down to the Italian bersaglieri regiments and Free French units you’re operating with.

- The actual “RUSE” system has so far been limited to “spies” and “decryption,” the former of which reveals the identities of units in a given sector, and the latter which reveals movements only. Used in tandem, it is a neat trick to predict enemy attacks and move to ambush. Presumably as the game progresses, more elaborate ruses will become available.

- Selecting and issuing orders to units is less easy than one would expect, and the imprecision with which you move a given unit compares pretty unfavorably with something like Company of Heroes. It’s hard to get, say, an infantry squad exactly where you want it, and the AI does not at all compensate for that.

- The zoom-in/out system is pretty neat. Zoom all the way in and you’re practically at the level of a first-person shooter, with individual units all moving separately. As you zoom out from there, your units gradually change to a stacked-counter view, and at the farthest zoom levels, you see you’re actually moving counters on a map table in some sort of command post. The micro/macro views do help.

It has been much too long in coming, but I finally finished P.W. Singer’s Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. It is, quite simply, excellent.

Singer is one of the most intriguing defense/security writers out there, as his “thing” is basically finding heavily underrreported – yet crucial – developments occurring in the U.S. military. He seems to always be one of the first to really study in a comprehensive and coherent manner certain evolutionary changes in the way war is fought, and Corporate Warriors is no exception. His other works deal with heady subjects like robotics in war and child soldiers, and here he is at the forefront of yet another startling trend.

Corporate Warriors is an attempt to trace the lineage of the Private Military Firm (PMF) from early mercenaries to today’s corporate arrangements, and in doing so, to fit them into a theoretical framework for better understanding and predicting industry developments. Published on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003, the book mostly deals with the 1990s, though to fully explain the rise of the PMF it jumps back to earlier examples in the 1970s and 80s.

Much of Corporate Warriors is couched in the language of IR theory, but Singer never slavishly tries to fit all of his findings into a rigid framework. Chapter 2 is an excellent historical survey of privatized military history, ranging from mercenaries in the service of King Shulgi of Ur to Syracusan hoplites to the first “companies” of the Hundred Years War. Singer fully explains the ‘state as monopoly on violence’ and the prominence that mercenaries enjoyed from the dawn of history until the nineteenth century, explaining that the odd little gap between roughly 1860 and 1950 in which the state’s monopoly was the only game in town. But he is never overly concerned with the theoretical framework. Chapter 11, “Market Dynamism and Global Security Disruptions,” opens with an epigraph from Professor R.B.J. Walker:

The disjunction between the seriousness of international politics and the triviality of international relations theory is quite startling.

Nevertheless, there is a basic terminology to sort out the different functions that these PMFs perform. Broadly, they can be slotted into the categories of “provider firm” (actual, boots-on-the-ground fighting forces, like Airscan, DynCorp, and Executive Outcomes), “consulting firm” (providing everything but combat troops, including training, intelligence, and logistical planning; see MPRI, Ronco, and CACI), and the “support firm” (logistics such as transportation, maintenance, and catering; see KBR, Serco, and General Dynamics). While the categories are relatively firm, their companies are not – most have sub-units, spinoffs, and subcontractors that define themselves fluidly and often shift between functions.

Singer performs an admirable job of pointing out obvious absurdities in the way contracts are awarded and over the very functions that are now being outsourced and privatized. When the ostensible point of outsourcing to private companies is to save money, it makes little sense to award no-bid contracts, or to ask for bidding when less than a handful of companies exist that are even capable of performing the job. As Singer notes, “such arrangements forget that the efficiency of privatization comes from greater competition, rather than simply that it is private.”

A good amount of space is devoted to some of the less obvious problems that arise from private militarization. Instead of a traditional arms race, the Ethiopian-Eritrean War saw an actual bidding race, as both sides rushed to secure the most in-demand services before their opponent could do the same. In this sense, more than any military build-up might be, a PMF race between adversarial nations represents a truly zero-sum situation. Whereas a country can attempt to increase spending, conscription, and overall arms procurement to match another country (such as the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War), every PMF that is hired by one party leaves one less to be hired by the other. This, Singer warns, can have serious unforeseen and destabilizing effects on future conflicts.

Other surprising issues are at stake. One such example of PMFs and the civil-military balance is particularly fascinating, and deserves to be quoted in full:

Given the checkered history of the soldiers who had served in the elite units of the apartheid-era South African military [and who now worked for PMF Executive Outcomes (EO)], the new African National Congress (ANC) government in South Africa led by Nelson Mandela had a particular incentive to see that these soldiers stayed out of domestic trouble, especially during the first multiracial elections in 1994. This may in part explain the lack of sanctions when EO first fought in the Angolan civil war. In public, the Mandela government was decidedly against the firm’s activities, as EO was acting in contravention of the “new” South Africa’s attempt to become a responsible regional power. However, in private, it quietly tolerated and even facilitated early EO recruitment of these forces. The rationale was the government’s belief that “it would remove from South Africa a number of personnel who might have had a destabilising effect on the forthcoming multiracial elections.” The ultimate outcome was the the South African elections went off without a hitch, while hundreds of potential agitators, with high levels of military skills, were kept busy making money abroad.

Another hitherto unforeseen situation is the potential for “good” NGOs and humanitarian groups to hire a PMF. Singer writes that during the early days of Rwanda, the United Nations at one point considered hiring mercenary groups to avoid a prolonged negotiation between its own member countries as to the composition of a peacekeeping force, and because a PMF could deploy much sooner. Groups like Worldvision in Sierra Leone and other agencies of the UN (including the High Commission for Refugees) have hired firms for protection and security advice. The world of private military capabilities is a complex one, and there are both objectively “good” and positive contingent outcomes that are hard to predict in advance.

While a book on the private military industry written on the eve of the invasion of Iraq might seem like it would be woefully outdated, it’s held up surprisingly well. This is helped, of course, by Singer’s new 2007 postscript – “The Lessons of Iraq” – which makes a compelling case for his own arguments. Sadly, the moderation and careful consideration he proscribed in his earlier conclusion was nowhere in sight during the following decade, and in fact the his most dire assessments of the real dilemmas with private military contracting were somehow outdone by reality. Vast quantities of money were funneled to contractors with little-to-no oversight, much of which simply vanished. Contractors were unaccountable, belonging neither to the military chain of command (and thus subject to the UCMJ) nor to civilian courts – always walking away free.

Singer’s final proscription is that perhaps we had best take a step back and ask ourselves whether some of the functions we are now privatizing would be best left to our own military. Are we losing core functions and capabilities to the private sector? And are we paying the cost of training soldiers, only to see them leave and sell those same services back to us at twice the cost? Until such questions are answered publicly and definitely, the hazy, murky world of military contracting will continue to flourish. And while that in itself may not be a bad thing for now, if left to grow rampant and unchecked the blowback will become more than we can possibly imagine.

Corporate Warriors sought to analyze a new and growing trend, and since its writing that trend has increased exponentially. Like Singer’s other work, it found a military development on the edge of mass awareness and firmly planted itself in the public mind. He foresaw the problems with PMFs and anticipated their logical extreme, to which they went in the five years after initial publication. Let us hope that in the future, if his next books contain such dire predictions, that they are wrong on those counts.

Buy Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry at Amazon.com.

A top Chinese military official has confirmed that Beijing is building an aircraft carrier, marking the first acknowledgement of the ship’s existence from China’s secretive armed forces.

[...]

Qi Jianguo, assistant to the chief of the PLA’s general staff, told the newspaper that the carrier would not enter other nations’ territories, in accordance with Beijing’s defensive military strategy.

“All of the great nations in the world own aircraft carriers – they are symbols of a great nation,” he was quoted as saying.

Of course, the Chinese carrier will primarily be used for “training and as a model for a future indigenously-built ship.” If the sister ship Admiral Kuznetsov is any indication, the former Varyag will not be a particularly reliable platform for power projection abroad – Kuznetsov has been at sea for approximately 12 months in total since the year 2000. Along a similar tack as the Chinese, Kuznetsov has remained operational primarily “to preserve its school of deck aircraft pilots.”

Still, any kind of operational Chinese naval aviation platform is an interesting development, even if it has been a long time coming. But for real blue-water capabilities, the world will almost certainly have to wait for China to produce its first domestic carrier.

*It has come to my attention that the Defense News article is actually dated June 8, so not exactly today, per se. Blame Google Reader, I suppose.

Chinese Minster of Defense General Chen Bingde delivers remarks at the National Defense University, May 18, 2011.

The most difficult part about watching an official speech – be it on policy or otherwise – is to separate the platitudes from the substance, assuming there is any of the latter. The meat of public remarks can often be found in soundbite form, or on a single slide of a powerpoint presentation. It is also equally possible to sit through an entire thirty minute speech and to hear absolutely nothing that hasn’t been said before.

Fortunately, that was not the case when Chen Bingde spoke at the National Defense University last week. While granted, much of the talk consisted of appeals to American sensibilities and national interests, there were some moments of real substance in it.

General Chen opened by declaring this to be an “official goodwill visit,” and that the Chinese sought mutual respect and benefits for both parties in Sino-American relations. He reminded us that the Chinese name for the United States translated to ‘beautiful country’.

Stressing the bilateral nature of the U.S. and China’s shared responsibilities for peace and development, Chen declared the two nations at a “historic moment of choice.” He also frequently referred to the “new circumstances” in Sino-American relations, that essentially allow for a reset in those relations. This, he said, is a shakeup of the previous mindset. (From here, I’m mostly paraphrasing the general, so if it sounds like I am stating his opinion as fact, please note that it is for ease of tense only).

Going forward, the U.S. and China must respect and accommodate each other’s core interests (without “imposing one’s own will on the other”). A stable government and political system are essential for China, said Chen, as is guaranteeing China’s socio-economic development, sovereignty, and territorial sanctity. (Stability, of course, is a recurring theme in Chinese thought.) Mutual trust can be bolstered through dialogue and communications in broad areas, so as to avoid suspicion. Chen emphasized the importance of military-to-military relations, claiming that it was a lack of these that have led to our equating the rise of China with a suspicion of the Chinese military.

It is crucial to recognize our greater common interests, and to avoid mutual competition. The two nations are more interdependent than ever, and to continue acting unilaterally will result in a downward spiral. Shared interests can lay the foundation for a new era in relations, such as membership on the UN Security Council and our “inseparable” economies. Active cooperation will benefit both; confrontation will leave neither unscathed.

As well, China and the U.S. have growing common security interests, such as terrorism, WMD proliferation, climate change, and energy and food security. While praising President Obama for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Chen stressed that the root causes of terror remain unchanged and cannot be solved alone. Therefore, it is “natural and necessary” that the two militaries work together.

Chen was emphatic in characterizing China’s development as “unswervingly peaceful,” and reminded everyone that the Rise of China remains a hugely popular topic. China is ready for it, he declared, leaving unsaid whether or not the United States is. He also placed China at the forefront of global security: “world peace is closely associated with China’s development.” Their greatest desire is that China and the livelihood of the Chinese continue to improve.

The general vowed that China would “never seek hegemony or expansion,” and that the general sentiment was “internal harmony and development; external peace and collaboration.” This, of course, implies a subordination of military goals and spending to that of overall Chinese quality of life. Whether that balance continues (or exists today) remains to be seen.

As an example of the sincerity of a Chinese desire for military-to-military relations, Chen cited the case of Liu Yiquan, a PLA archivist who has been seeking out the MIA records of World War II-era GIs lost in the People’s Republic. This section of the talk was structured almost as a carrot-and-stick approach, however – Chen went from Liu to warning the audience that “whenever China is ignored,” relations suffer.

But of course, incremental progress is being made. General Chen and Admiral Mullen already agree on much, said the former, and the latter has accepted an invitation to visit China. More than anything, Chen hoped for an “objective and accurate” picture of China and its military.

Then came the issue of Taiwan.

One of the clear requirements for successful bilateral relations was that the two parties would handle their differences and sensitive issues “appropriately,” and with prudence and discretion. Along those lines, Taiwan remains a Chinese core interest, and an issue of territorial integrity. Chen described the Chinese stance on Taiwan to be akin to that of Abraham Lincoln’s desire to preserve the Union, and the sentiment was echoed by a Powerpoint slide featuring a picture of the Great Emancipator along with the line “the Union is unbroken.”

After the talk, I spoke with the retired captain who had invited me, who informed that the Chinese really were sincere about this belief.

Chen launched from Lincoln into the Flying Tigers of World War II, in support of which homing pigeons were stationed in China. According to Chen, the descendants of those birds remain in the service of the PLA, and as birds of peace, are a reminder of the “glorious friendship” the U.S. and China once enjoyed (disregarding the fact that the Flying Tigers were operating in support of the Republic of China).

That, more or less, concluded the actual talk, and then it was on to the question-and-answer period.

One question asked about Chinese counterpiracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, and whether further deployments might be forthcoming. General Chen explained that Chinese contributions to peacekeeping operations had begun more than two decades earlier, and that they were seen as very meaningful.

However, he admitted Chinese limitations, mainly owing to inexperience in overseas operations and linguistic barriers. He did say that when other countries’ own efforts had failed, China stepped up to fill the breach, and thus still had forces abroad operating under a UN mandate. Chen took great care to stress that China had no troops deployed abroad without the aegis of the UN.

In terms of counterpiracy, he also admitted that it was a difficult task, but asserted China’s resolve to fight pirates both on the seas and on land – an interesting possibility when coupled with China’s growing presence in Africa. Pirates on the sea are of lower ranks, he said – the real masterminds stay on land. Even so, China faces a real development with regards to the PLAN. Compared to the U.S. Navy, Chinese equipment is relatively “poor” (his word), and there remains a “twenty-year gap” between the naval capabilities of China and Western nations. The real dilemma is that new ships will strain the budget and antagonize the United States, plus more ships in the Gulf mean less are available for immediate littoral and green-water defense.

Still, Chen asked everyone to look at Chinese military history. Every time China “won,” they were considered by outside observers to be “underdeveloped.” It is also unfortunate, he added, that the U.S. maintains its high-tech export sanctions.

The final question was relatively simple: where has the People’s Liberation Army made the most and least progress, respectively?

The weaknesses of the Chinese military have evolved over time, and one of the major military lessons for China has been offered by the United States. The most progress has been made in terms of people. Officers and soldiers used to be much more poorly educated, with high rates of attrition, but now they are far better educated and certified, with a new a growing corps of officers with technical and logistics expertise.

Doctrinally, the PLA has been adapted some from around the world to fit its own purposes. The improvements made over the last two decades have gone hand-in-hand with China’s economic growth. At this point, the PLA is not necessarily the “biggest” (presumably on a qualitative scale?), but ‘it is what it is’.

The last point provided a moment of levity. The PLA has made the least progress on informationization. China has not had enough military IT development, leaving their capabilities rudimentary at best, but networks remain in poor shape. Chen expressed his regret at this, saying he wanted to do better, but it’s an expensive undertaking. He then suggested that perhaps the American audience could lend him the money to do so.

The Q & A, in particular, was far more informative than I would have expected. It remains to be seen how seriously both sides engage in the manner suggested by General Chen, but there does exist a template for peaceful relations according to Chinese standards.

Many thanks to the NDU, the captain who invited me, and to Chen himself for delivering the talk.

The United States Capitol Building, May 2011.

Just back from DC, where it’s really, really hot and humid. But rather pretty. I have some notes on Chen Bingde at the NDU, the Secret Service, and a bus ride from Dulles (none of which are related) to share with you all soon. So stay tuned.