The 3Ds Blog

The Lost Alliance: NATO in Chicago

A ship is adrift in a foggy sea. The crew are in their bunks, the officers argue about their mortgages, and the captain has left.

The captain has left because the United States no longer believes NATO can contribute significantly against any serious global strategic challenges. An occasional bit player, yes: a partner with the will and capability to contribute significantly, no.

The officers don’t care because this generation of European leaders no longer thinks strategically. They are lulled by a cloudy security environment, divided by national priorities, and buried under the stream of short term concerns. (Of which the pending meltdown of the eurozone admittedly is an existential challenge.)

And the crew are in their bunks because European NATO cannot deploy more than 5 percent of the 1.7 million European troops costing over $260 billion annually. Even Europe’s limited Libyan operation only happened because the United States provided the electronic jamming, air defense suppression, 80 percent of the fuel, and most of the crucial surveillance, airborne refuelling and precision bombs [more here].

NATO–or more specifically European NATO–has been overwhelmed by globalization. The problem is not external challenges but the inability of the European allies to adapt coherently to a globalizing security environment. The result is a lost alliance: unable to orient itself, unable to look forward, unable to specify vital strategic interests beyond basic platitudes, unable to agree which future threats to focus on, and unable to generate military forces capable of addressing them. Instead, NATO has gone into denial and fiddles with details.

…[There] are countries that could be strategic partners but are too important for NATO. Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand can make noticeable global contributions [New Zealand?], but as long as NATO has no clear global strategy their potential in NATO is hobbled. Nor does the US — which has a global vision — need NATO to partner with them, as the bilateral basing and cooperation agreements with Australia illustrate. Nor is it clear why the US would want to burden its global arrangements by involving bickering NATO…

Tomas Ries is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Advisors Group, and is a senior lecturer at the National Defence College Sweden. This piece is part of a series of New Atlanticist pieces on NATO’s 2012 Chicago Summit.

No mention of NATO’s needing more Canada. Related:

Whither (Whether) Nato, Part…

J.L. Granatstein - Does Canada Still Need NATO?

Shipwreck or Lifeboat? NATO in a Stormy Century

NATO: Cooperation to Cut Costs, Keep or Increase Capabilities

China’s government has failed to curb manufacturing of counterfeit military electronic parts by Chinese companies that are the “dominant source” of fakes in the U.S. defense supply chain, a Senate investigation found.

The U.S. Air Force suspended in January a Shenzhen, China- based company from supplying parts to U.S. contractors after it sold about 84,000 suspect components, many of them installed on U.S. aircraft, according to an example cited in the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee report released yesterday [see 2.].

The panel’s report outlines the results of a 14-month investigation disclosing dozens of examples of suspected counterfeit electronic parts. Saying U.S. companies and the military services didn’t crack down on abuses, the committee said the defense industry “routinely failed to report cases of suspect counterfeit parts, putting the integrity of the supply chain at risk.”

The report didn’t cite any examples of counterfeit parts causing damage such as lives lost or planes that crashed.

The committee said it found “overwhelming and undeniable evidence to support” the conclusion that China hasn’t taken steps to stop operations “that are carried out openly in that country.”

Denying Visas

“Rather than acknowledging the problem and moving aggressively to shut down counterfeiters, the Chinese government has tried to avoid scrutiny, including denying visas to committee staff to travel to mainland China as part of the investigation,” according to the report…

The Senate committee’s investigative staff amassed a database with 1,800 cases of counterfeiting involving about 1 million parts. It scrutinized 100 cases and found that 70 percent of the suspect parts were traced to Chinese companies. The U.K. and Canada followed China, based on the resale by companies in those countries of parts from China, according to the report [emphasis added, read on for equipment details]…

2) Fake Parts are Everywhere

Well, after months of research, Senate Armed Services Committee investigators have discovered “a flood” counterfet parts in everything from critical navigation software for newly modernized C-5 Galaxy cargo planes to “assemblies” destined for RQ-4 Global Hawk spy planes, submarines and even Stryker Mobile Gun Systems [made in Canada–what about our LAV IIIs?].

Now, we’ve known that fake parts — usually made in China — have been making their way into Defense Department maintenance depots for years. However, a brand new report by the SASC details how fake parts are making their way into some of the military’s newest and most advanced weapons systems. How many fake parts in DoD supply chains were discovered by the committee’s investigation? 84,000 from just one Chinese supplier…

In addition to the billions of dollars worth of economic damage the Chinese counterfeiting industry does to legit businesses, fake parts in high-end weapons systems pose a massive safety threat for obvious reasons. Oh, and don’t forget that counterfeit microchips put into a U.S. weapon could easily serve as a conduit for Chinese cyber attacks.

Click through the jump to read the report summary.

SASC Counterfeit Electronics Report 05–21-1

Earlier:

Dragon-Proofing Visitors

The Dragon’s Bytes, Plus the US and India

The Dragon’s Bytes, Canada Section

Afghanistan (1) The PM, at last, is being clear on the future of the mission: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper today confirmed that Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan will come to a firm and final end once the current training mission concludes on March 31, 2014. The Prime Minister made the announcement at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Chicago. “For more than a decade, the brave men and women of our Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP, and many dedicated public servants and civilians have made enormous sacrifices to assist the Afghan people,” said the Prime Minister. “Canada will honour its commitment and complete its current training mission but our country will not have any military mission in Afghanistan after March 2014.” To ensure the future stability of a secure and democratic Afghanistan the Prime Minister announced that Canada will provide financial support to the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) ….” – more on what the government says was accomplished here, the text of the PM’s speech here, and from media here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here…

Afghanistan (3) A bit of advice from an analyst “…. Canada’s combat experience in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011 reveals that when an operation includes a large U.S. combat element we can much more effectively carry out our mission. NATO as an organization does not own many assets and many of the member nations impose restrictive caveats on participation in combat by their forces; most of the critical combat enablers belong to America. The requirement in future is core support and direction of the U.S. government and military. Canada should only take part in non-Article V NATO operations if they are preponderantly led or supported by America.”..

The prime minister has flipped on Afghanistan before–with a big assist from Bob Rae and the Liberals–but I pretty sure he’s now completely fed up with the country and will not be for turning. And almost certainly no opposition party will support any further extension of our military presence.

The wider view from Foreign Policy’s “AfPak Daily Brief“, note French, no Canada:

NATO leaders agree on “irreversible” plan to end Afghan war

No surprises: NATO leaders agreed on Monday to an “irreversible” plan to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly, pulling almost all troops out of the country by the end of 2014, but President Barack Obama warned that the danger of Afghanistan sliding into civil war or Taliban control still exists (Reuters, Tel, CNN, AP, BBC, WSJ). Newly elected French President Francois Hollande stuck to his campaign promise to pull all 3,400 French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year [emphasis added], and said that the French people have done “more than our duty” in Afghanistan (Tel). New Zealand announced Tuesday that its 140-person Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamyan Province would end its mission this year and return home in 2013 (Reuters).

President Obama left Pakistan off the list of nations he publicly thanked on Monday for helping to get supplies into Afghanistan, a clear indication of the United States’ continued annoyance over Pakistan’s hesitation to reopen NATO ground supply routes (AP). However, Obama did meet with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari briefly on the sidelines of the NATO summit, and said later that the two nations were making “diligent progress” on an agreement to lift the blockade on NATO supplies (Dawn)…

And some pessimistic thoughts from a piece yesterday:

Emphasis on “as we understand it.” Afghan forces will start to take the lead on security next summer, confirming the rumors back in February that some sort of accelerated shift in responsibility was in the offing, but the target date for substantial withdrawal remains the end of 2014 — and beyond that, diplomatically and financially, who knows. Over at WaPo, David Ignatius is already spitballing on how long it’ll be after we’re gone that the Taliban is back in control of the country. The thinking in diplomatic circles appears to be two years, so bear that in mind when you hear O and NATO apparatchiks promising “long-term” western support for Afghanistan. We’ll be there for them for the next decade if the current government remains more or less intact for that period and doesn’t give way to some jihadist barbarian junta. What are the odds of that, though? 20 to one? 50? 100?..

I take it this means the ephemeral peace talks with the Taliban are also over. The timetable is more enticing for them now than it’s ever been: Most troops gone by December 2014 and the rickety ANA in the lead as early as 13 months from now. They’d be insane to make a deal while the U.S. and NATO are sprinting for the exits, when even western foreign-policy wonks are treating the inevitability of a Talib takeover as a fait accompli. As for the boldfaced point about Pakistan, I’m as baffled as Jonathan Tobin is. If Pakistan’s the bigger threat to U.S. interests — and it is — what exactly is O’s strategy to neutralize that threat beyond the occasional drone strike in Waziristan? Zardari was at the NATO summit this weekend and Obama wouldn’t even meet with him, so angry is the White House that Pakistan hasn’t reopened U.S. supply routes after that NATO airstrike that killed a group of Pakistani troops back in November. Is the new thinking that Pakistan will behave more responsibly once Afghanistan is back under their thumb and safe from Indian domination? If so, we could have saved a lot of American lives by gift-wrapping the country and handing it back to them years ago…

U.K. Sets £160 Billion, 10-Year Defense Equipment Plan
…
As part of the £160 billion ($253 billion) the U.K. plans to spend on defense equipment and services in the next decade, it is earmarking several billion pounds to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Of the total, slightly less than £152 billion has been allocated to specific budget lines, including more than £4 billion for the reserve. Another £8 billion is not allocated against specific accounts. The reserve is designed to give some flexibility to manage cost increases without affecting other projects.

…Eurofighter Typhoon upgrades also are being funded, says Hammond, without giving details of which enhancements are planned. However, the money is likely to help support the fielding of additional ground-attack capabilities and an active, electronically scanned array radar, although approval from other Eurofighter partner countries will still be needed [more here].

The budget will cover the already announced purchase of 14 Boeing CH-47 Chinooks and an eighth C-17, as well as three RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft (called AirSeeker [more here]). The purchase of 23 A400M military airlifters [down from 25] and 14 Voyager air-to-air refuelers [more here] also is being backed…

Underpinning the road map is a plan to increase by 1% in real terms equipment spending from 2015 on. Research and technology outlays will not fall any further, according to Hammond…

…

• USN Cmdr. Daniel Dolan explains the operational challenge of keeping the Straits of Hormuz open against Iranian attacks, tying his assessment to both the 1980s Tanker War and recent experiences in Lebanon. It’s sober, observant, professional, and constructive. Highly recommended…

Earlier:

One Reason Why Iran Strongly Backs Syria’s Assad (plus concrete and MOPs)

“Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way:..

How to cut $600B not on the radar at Pentagon
Planners fear showing sequestration is doable

For Pentagon planners, automatic spending cuts slated to begin in January have become the $600 billion contingency they can’t plan for.

Military planners are under strict orders not to devise scenarios for meeting the demands of “sequestration,” as the automatic, across-the-board spending reductions are called. Such paperwork, if leaked, would tell Congress there might be a way to deal with such drastic cuts.

“The department is not currently planning for sequestration,” Air Force Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told The Washington Times. The White House budget office “has not directed agencies, including [the Defense Department], to initiate any plans for sequestration.”

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who has warned of a “hollow” force if the automatic cuts occur, has said there is no alternative long-range budget. The only spending plan being considered is his five-year budget that begins the Budget Control Act’s $487 billion in defense cuts over the next 10 years. Sequestration would slash an additional $600 billion from the Pentagon budget.

Defense sources say the lack of planning goes even further: The armed services have talked of the dire consequences of sequestration, which would require deeper troop cuts and missions left undone. But they are not creating studies that would spell out specific reductions in weapons or programs for fear it sends a signal that such downsizing is doable…

As for the budget’s progress–and the Law of the Sea Convention:

Week ahead: Senate takes its turn on Defense bill

The Senate will get its chance next week to tackle the Defense authorization bill after the House passed its $643 billion version of the bill on Friday [May 18].

The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding its subcommittee and full committee markups of the bill, which will get under way on Tuesday and could stretch until Friday…

When the final Senate committee bill emerges, it’s likely to have a different look in a number of areas that the bill that passed the House Friday.

The biggest difference is the overall size of the bill. The House-passed bill is $8 billion above the spending caps set by last year’s Budget Control Act and $3.7 billion higher than President Obama’s Pentagon budget request. The Senate is expected to mark to the president’s spending level, which will set up a showdown in conference committee over the size of the defense budget.

The Democratic-led Senate committee is also expected to push back against a number of proposals included in the House bill, including $100 million Republicans added for a new East Coast missile defense site, several provisions dealing with same-sex marriage and the military, and restrictions on the Obama administration implementing the New START treaty with Russia.

The Senate panel may agree with some of the changes the House made, including restoring proposed Pentagon cuts to the Global Hawk 30 drone [more here] and the Air National Guard…

Like the House, the Senate’s Defense authorization bill is not expected to tackle in a meaningful way the $500 billion in automatic cuts through sequestration set to hit January 2013. Most lawmakers are resigned to addressing that after the November election in a lame-duck session [emphasis added]…

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will bring in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey on Wednesday to testify at a hearing on the Law of the Sea Treaty [more here].

The treaty has yet to be ratified, despite a desire by both the State and Defense Departments to do so, and is expected to be taken up by the Senate this summer. The House on Friday approved an amendment to the Defense authorization bill to block government funding to implement the treaty [emphasis added]…

Earlier:

US Defence Budget: Showdown at the Congressional Corral–Plus Senate and LOS

Guess Why the US Should Oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty

Ottawa Event. When China Met Africa

By Fred Litwin
The Free Thinking Film Society Presents:

When China Met Africa (Film)
China in Canada (Panel Discussion)

May 28, 2012, 7 PM
Library & Archives Canada
395 Wellington
Ottawa
Admission: $15 ($10 for students)

Tickets are now available at Compact Music (785 Bank, 190 Bank), Collected Works (1242 Wellington), and Ottawa Festivals (47 William). Tickets will also be available at the door.

“This documentary explores the burgeoning economic relationship between China and Zambia. It’s shot with an acute eye for the discomfort of discordant cultures co-existing. What’s interesting here is that you feel this story is only just beginning.”
The Times of London

“A dark, quiet, damning documentary looking at China’s determined expansion into Africa (here Zambia) through the lives of a Chinese farmer, a road builder, and the Zambian trade minister. When in 1999 China announced its “go global” policy it had Africa very much in mind, and specifically the raw materials that go into the construction of our electrical equipment. A creeping, alarming account of exploitation as well as a study into the psychology of colonialism.”
Financial Times

After the film, we will have a panel discussion in the implications of Chinese investment in Canada with Award-winning journalist Terry Glavin, Human Rights campaigner David Kilgour, Terrorism and Security Specialist David Harris, University of Ottawa Professor Scott Simon, and Jason Loftus, Deputy Publisher of the Epoch Times Canada.

Related:

Mickey I. Upsucking to the deadly Dragon

“Socialism” with Dragon characteristics at work in Africa

What Price China?

Dissing the Dragon

The Beaver and the Dragon

Dragon Central, Canada Section

Embracing the Dragon, or, Problems with State-Owned Chinese Investments

And this post does rather have a message:

Will Canada follow the U.S. into China’s seas? [well, which seas are China’s is hotly disputed]

This summer, the largest international naval exercise in the world will see Canada’s navy take on the second-largest role and Canadian officers share key commands — a remarkable prominence that Ottawa seems uncharacteristically reluctant to boast about.

Why so shy? Well, the exercise is called Rim of the Pacific or RIMPAC 2012 [more here]. It is held every two years and is primarily concerned with a potentially hostile China — and Beijing is hardly pleased.

China’s antipathy toward this exercise may explain why highly informed Canadian reporters, such as David Pugliese of Defence Watch, have complained of an almost total clampdown on information about Canada’s impressive participation [Pugliese here–the RCAF did issue a U.S. Third Fleet Public Affairs article four days later, with this highlight: “…Brigadier-General Michael Hood of the Royal Canadian Air Force will command the air component.”].

The federal government no doubt finds it a bit sensitive to be wooing Chinese business interests one moment, while embracing efforts to contain China’s naval ambitions the next.

Of course the 22 nations, which are sending 47 surface ships and subs as well as possibly 200 aircraft and 25,000 personal, deny that their combined five-week exercises, beginning June 29, has China’s rapidly expanding navy in mind…

China and North Korea are the only countries excluded from the exercise — at Washington’s insistence [it is an American-run affair after all so why not?]. Even Russia is to take part for the first time…

January saw President Barack Obama set out his famous “pivot” in U.S. foreign policy, designed to turn America’s strategic interests away from its traditional preoccupations with Europe and the Middle East and toward the Pacific [more here].

A decade ago, under the Liberals, Canada sent only three small mine-clearing vessels and a few aircraft to this exercise [well, at the last RIMPAC in 2010 the Conservative government sent only two ships and three fixed-wing aircraft; the news is the much greater Canadian participation this year–why?].

This summer it is sending six surface vessels including a fast destroyer and frigate, plus the submarine Victoria, and soldiers for landing exercises. The air component will include CF-18 fighters and a mix of helicopter and patrol aircraft

This represents, by a substantial margin, the second-largest contingent — larger than Australia, Japan or any other Pacific Rim nation — after the giant American force, which will include the aircraft super-carrier USS Nimitz [participants’ contributions are at this USN webpage, remember Hawaii is closer to Canada than Australia].

It is a shift in which Canada may decide it has little choice but to follow suit, and RIMPAC would show the way…

Chances are the Stephen Harper government will seek to keep any new alliances involving some of those RIMPAC nations informal, but we’d be foolish not to notice that Washington is gearing up to insist that we increase our military contributions in the Pacific at the same time…

Caught between Washington’s nagging and Beijing’s displeasure, the federal government understandably wants to say as little as possible at this point about our Pacific commitments…

Related:

US Watching the Dragon

So What States Might the RCN Fight?

Eastward Ho! For the CF Too?

Arms and the Eagle and the Dragon (and others)

“Chinese Military Assessment”

Then there’s the US tilt towards China’s biggest Asian rival, India:

The Asian Military Cockpit, Part 2

It’s interesting in that regard that DND/CF issued this news release related to the Indian military on May 18:

The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, and the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Walt Natynczyk, met with Admiral Nirmal Kumar Verma, Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy, during the Admiral’s recent visit to Canada. The visit supported Canada’s Global Engagement Strategy [emphasis added] by building on its existing bilateral defence relationship with India.

“The Asia-Pacific region is becoming increasingly powerful in economic and geopolitical ways and our Government is putting more and more importance on our defence relationships with partners in Asia, most notably with India [emphasis added],” said Minister MacKay…

Sounds like a bit of a Canadian tilt too. And as far as I can see the “Global Engagement Strategy” has heretofore been strictly a CF endeavour; has it now by stealth become policy for the government as a whole? Has Foreign Affairs been involved? Odd.

The Chief of the Defence Staff, for his part, did visit China this March:

Some Background for Smiling Walt’s China Visit

The rise and fall of Air-Sea Battle

Everybody’s talking about Air-Sea Battle this week, and no wonder — when two of the topmost military officers in the land take a few hours out of their day to get together and say something, they draw an audience.

And even though their subject was one of the most maddening and elusive in the defense world, people actually seemed to get it: “Air-Sea Battle” dictates that if there’s a target somewhere, commanders have to be able to dream up new ways to hit it, because the old ones may not work anymore. To do that, the Air Force and the Navy must be able to get into places and stay there for awhile, if necessary, even if the bad guy doesn’t want them there…

Air-Sea Battle, however, is a “focusing lens,” as we learned in last November when the Pentagon stood up its office dedicated to this “concept.” It applies anywhere; you can scale it up from your breakfast table to the Western Pacific. Here’s what one of the DoD briefers said that day:

“Anti-access/area denial [AA/AD] is about systems, it’s about technologies and capabilities. It’s not about a specific actor. It is not about a specific regime. It’s about our ability to confront those systems and overcome them no matter where they are or how they’re presented. To that end, for example, we see state actors with well-funded militaries that possess the most advanced kinds of anti-access/area-denial capabilities and technologies — in some cases, multilayered across all of the war-fighting domains.”

In other words: China. Although Air Force chief Gen. Norton Schwartz on Wednesday slapped down a request to talk about how Air-Sea Battle applies specifically to China (“that’s unhelpful,” he said) we all know that’s the origin of this whole thing…

Air-Sea Battle might be the biggest example of buzzword back-filling since “citizen journalism” or “active learning” — a nifty-sounding castle in the air under which someone was forced to improvise a foundation. When defense officials first started talking about Air-Sea Battle back in 2009, it was in hushed, reverential tones; this was going to be It — the greatest capital-S Strategy since containment…

…something happened. Or, rather, nothing happened. “Air-Sea Battle,” the tome, never materialized. It still hasn’t. According to November’s briefers, there may never be one. Greenert and Schwartz didn’t mention one this week. Instead we got the Air-Sea Battle Office, which is helping with “more than 200 initiatives,” as Greenert said. Hill and Building sources have said Air-Sea Battle was “finished” awhile ago, that it was “on Secretary Panetta’s desk,” yet something apparently happened and it became a non-thing…

Related:

US Watching the Dragon

Pentagon’s “Strategic Guidance”: Eastward Ho! With Less

Can USAF Buy A $550 Million Bomber?

Aerial Strike Futures, Especially UCAVS

Thinking about Military Strategy, Design,Procurement and Cybersecurity–Including the F-35

“Chinese Military Assessment”

Not a “heart” emoticon
The US Department of Defense released its annual report [PDF] to Congress on Chinese military developments. Analysis of spending is pretty bare-bones: “Using 2011 prices and exchange rates, DoD estimates China’s total military-related spending for 2011 ranges between $120 billion and $180 billion.” The report is thankfully more detailed on capabilities. For context, earlier reports in this series from 2010 and 2011 [PDFs] estimated military spending at $150B and $160B respectively. Last month the stated that many observers are drawing false conclusions from fixating their rear view mirror…

Two earlier pieces focusing on the Dragon itself (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):

China’s New Defence Budget: What Does It Tell Us? – Analysis

An Asian Security Standoff