INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the launch of the 2010 The Military Balance.
Joining me to answer your questions today are: James Hackett, Editor of The Military Balance, Alex Nicoll, Director of Editorial, Nigel Inkster, Director for Transnational Threats and Political Risk; Mark Fitzpatrick, Senior Fellow for Non-Proliferation, Oksana Antonenko, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia; Christopher Langton, Senior Fellow for Armed Conflict and Defence Diplomacy; Dana Allin, Editor of Survival and Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs; Rahul Roy Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South Asia; Toby Dodge, Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East and Bastian Giegerich, Research Fellow for European Security.
We publish this year as the United States releases its Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR), the United Kingdom begins to consider its own Strategic Defence Review with a Green Paper, NATO prepares to intensify work on a new Strategic Concept to be approved at a summit later this year, Russia presses its case for a new European security order and Australia continues to advance its ideas for an Asia-Pacific Community. There is much debate on the question of the global balance of power moving eastward and on how the nature of violent conflict is changing. This year we again have produced a chart of conflict that draws attention to factors that may lead to twenty-first century conflict: population growth, urbanisation, migration, extremism, climate and food security and disease among them.
We also examine carefully the military modernisation plans of several countries and notably the way in which the Chinese armed forces are preparing for ‘diversified missions.’ This term is used by the PLA to refer to expanded non-traditional security responsibilities such as helping to safeguard the country’s increasingly global economic and energy interests, adopting more pro-active anti-terrorist and anti-separatist strategies and participating in long-range multilateral anti-piracy escort duties. Special emphasis has been placed by China on disaster relief since 2008 when the PLA was evidently caught unprepared to deal effectively with the result of the Sichuan earthquake. Meanwhile the Chinese navy’s aim to develop an effective anti-access capacity towards the US led to a tense confrontation between a US naval survey ship and Chinese government and fishing vessels operating near Hainan Island. Defining ways in which the two navies might acceptably operate in areas near to China would be a good subject for the military to military talks between the US and China that unfortunately can easily be placed in jeopardy when the countries find themselves in a political dispute, especially over Taiwan.
Western countries are for their part assessing how recent conflict should affect the way they shape their armed forces. The US QDR emphasises the stabilisation and reconstruction roles that have been such prominent features of recent military activity while arguing that assured access to sea, air, space and cyberspace is a continuing vital mission for US forces. The QDR acknowledges the asymmetric techniques likely to be used by US enemies and thinking in the UK in anticipation of the defence and security review also emphasises that future styles of conflict may be different.
The IISS agrees with the growing consensus that future state on state conflict may be characterised by the use of so-called asymmetric techniques. Chief among these may be the use of cyber-warfare to disable a country’s infrastructure, meddle with the integrity of another country’s internal military data, try to confuse its financial transactions or to accomplish any number of other possibly crippling aims. Despite evidence of cyber attacks in recent political conflicts, there is little appreciation internationally of how properly to assess cyber-conflict. We are now, in relation to the problem of cyber-warfare, at the same stage of intellectual development as we were in the 1950s in relation to possible nuclear war. The IISS is determined through its own research programme to create the intellectual architecture needed to understand better the problem of cyber-warfare. When is an attack to be recognised? What is legitimate defence? Is there a doctrine of pre-emption applicable to the risk of cyber attacks? Can cyber-attacks be deterred? Is there a method of arms control that could be applied to cyber-capabilities? What international law can be brought to bear to regulate the risks? These questions have no ready answer. The IISS will, during this year, convene a number of workshops and publish an Adelphi book addressing these issues to lay the foundation for a better understanding of cyber-warfare. In time, future editions of The Military Balance may even have to assess capabilities in this area.
Afghanistan
For the moment, most minds are concentrated on whether the efforts of the London conference on Afghanistan can lead to a negotiated peace in the country. While the military surge is taking place, it is now more overtly recognised that reconciliation with ‘reconcilable’ Taliban is an important element of the overarching strategy and that integration of Taliban who accept the current political dispensation is a necessary goal.
That said, the Afghan insurgency is complex. There are far more insurgents than ISAF or Afghan security forces can ever kill. The relationships that some groups have with al-Qaeda or AQ affiliates are highly differentiated. This suggests that judging what level of residual Taliban presence or influence is tolerable even from a narrow counter-terrorist perspective is very difficult. Moreover, effectively sealing the border with Pakistan across which Taliban fighters have been able to pass relatively unhindered, requires a form of collaboration with Pakistan not yet achieved. Even were a policy of reconciliation to gain traction, ensuring the necessary follow-up so that reconciled Taliban kept to their new convictions requires a highly organised policy and efficient institutions. India’s scepticism about the wisdom of seeking to distinguish ‘bad’ from potentially ‘reconcilable’ Taliban additionally complicates the picture. It reinforces the view also endorsed at the London conference that embedding internal reconciliation in renewed regional cooperation is necessary.
However great the priority in Afghanistan, political engagement with Iraq also remains vital so that the gains achieved in the last two years are sustained and Iraq can develop as a force for regional stability rather than as a theatre for regional competition.
Iraq
Any assessment of the current strategic and political situation in Iraq has to compare events in Baghdad today with the peak of the instability in January 2007, before the start of the surge, when 3,500 civilians were killed in one month. Against this background clear and sustained progress has been made in creating an efficient security service and functioning political system. However, Iraq still faces profound challenges that could hinder further progress. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia retains the ability to launch regular very destructive mass-casualty attacks against high-profile government targets and the civilian population in and around Baghdad. These attacks not only highlight ongoing sectarian tensions but serious shortcomings in the ability of Iraq’s security services. Politically, Iraq did carry out a successful provincial election in January 2009 followed by a comparatively smooth transition in local councils across the country. However, the repeated postponement of the national elections, now scheduled for March 7th, indicates continuing disagreement amongst the country’s ruling elite about the system under which they will compete for power. The exclusion in January of over 500 candidates for the national elections by the Accountability and Justice Commission responsible for de-Ba’athification indicates both the fluidity of the rules governing the electoral process and the desire of influential actors within the government to exploit them for political advantage. The final test of the sustainability of the political and security architecture built in Iraq since regime change in 2003 will come with the drawdown of US troops. In August this year the number of US troops in the country will be reduced from the current 115,000 to 50,000, with plans for their complete removal by December. An Iraq free of a US military presence will need to find ordered ways to manage its lingering political disputes hopefully free also from too many external if regional influences. How, in particular, local actors can contain the likely rise of Iran’s influence in domestic politics will be the key issue for 2011.
Middle East Arms Sales and Iran
Concerns not just about Iran’s nuclear programme but also its missile development prompted efforts during 2009 to shore up regional missile-defence capabilities among the states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). Most GCC states remain very concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions and have quietly sought forms of strategic reassurance from the United States and are acquiring the most modern military equipment available. In 2008 the UAE and Saudi Arabia committed $9.7 billion and $8.7 billion respectively on arms purchases. Public statements from senior US defence and diplomatic personalities emphasise the determination to support GCC states. While diplomatic efforts continue to slow Iran’s presumed nuclear programme, the elements of a deterrence policy are being put in place with the broadly willing cooperation of regional states. This deterrence policy consists largely in strengthening GCC defences and in reassuring these countries that the US sees their security as strategically important, especially if threatened by Iran. Furthermore, Obama’s revised European missile-defence shield will more quickly put in place southern-based interceptors to provide defence against Iran’s growing capabilities.
Unfortunately, Iran has not responded well to Obama’s engagement strategy. It has rejected the key principles of the deal that had been tentatively agreed in Geneva on 1 October to swap 70% of Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpile for an equivalent amount of research-reactor fuel. Permutations of the nuclear deal continue to be discussed in various capitals, but Iran insists that it must retain at every turn at least one weapon’s worth of enriched uranium, thus obviating the whole point of the proposed arrangements.
Technical difficulties in any case are perhaps frustrating the regime’s ambitions. Although Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium continues to grow and soon will be enough for two weapons’ worth when further enriched, the gas centrifuges are showing signs of deterioration; more are installed but 1,000 fewer are producing enriched uranium than was the case last May.
While Obama’s outreach strategy has failed in its stated objective, it has succeeded in two other ways. First, by offering a further compromise as he did last year, the president is better able to persuade allies and partners on the need for additional sanctions. China has not yet pronounced itself ready for sanctions, and Russian support is not certain yet either, but both agreed on the need for a concerted approach to Iran by the P5 plus Germany. There will, therefore, likely be a further round of UN sanctions. Second, US outreach strategy has been conducted in such a way as to permit the Green Movement to continue to flourish in Iran. While regime change remains a distant prospect, the survivability of the opposition is impressive and something outsiders will not want their policies to kill.
NATO/Russia
For the remainder of 2010, in Europe, much attention will be focused on the shape ultimately taken by the UK defence and security review, how it fits with the French White Paper released last year and more broadly on how NATO’s Strategic Concept identifies the mix of defence and defence-diplomatic missions that NATO should adopt. Already it is clear that NATO enlargement is much further down the agenda of priorities and that achieving a practical working relationship with Russia is a more immediate goal. It is important for example that Russia has become more helpful to ISAF in facilitating the so-called Northern Distribution Network, supplying ISAF forces in Afghanistan by rail from Latvian ports via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan crossing into Afghanistan at the Uzbek–Afghan border. It is clear that Russia does not wish the ISAF mission to fail and recognises the risks for instability in neighbouring Central Asia if it does. In that context, it makes sense not just to revive but greatly to reform the NATO–Russia Council and if possible replace it with a relationship or body that better meets NATO and Russian needs.
NATO’s strategic concept will have to address the relationship with Russia more profoundly than ever before. This is so especially in light of the efforts by President Medvedev to inspire a debate on a European Security Treaty, a debate between Russia and key NATO members that the IISS has in London been also able to facilitate. While a new treaty is unlikely to be agreed, finding more forms of practical cooperation with Russia is a priority.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The Military Balance 2010, describes a world in which many countries still perceive external threats from both states and non-state actors and are modernising their militaries accordingly.
Western militaries have to judge against the recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan whether they need to prepare more for ‘war among the people’, or whether they can safely abstain from such conflicts in the future. Early indications are that the priority will be to focus on capabilities that are ‘adaptable’ to different types of conflict. In light of severe funding constraints, the emphasis on partnerships, divisions of labour and alliances will certainly become important in theory but, as always, difficult in practice.
The gruelling experience of recent Western military interventionism suggests that as the operations in Iraq and eventually Afghanistan wind down, definitions of so-called ‘wars of choice’ will become wider, and definitions of ‘wars of necessity’ even narrower. For military planners, the hope must be that the outside world and politicians permit the time for armed forces to reconstitute themselves, and develop doctrines to fight the kinds of conflicts that are thought both strategically necessary and benefit from public support. In the meantime, updating the concepts of deterrence and containment to make them applicable to current and prospective conflicts and styles of warfare will be an important duty for strategists, including those at the IISS
