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1. A Global Survey of US-China Competition in the Coronavirus Era

Author:
Eric B. Brown, Patrick M. Cronin, H.R. McMaster, Husain Haqqani, Aparna Pande, Satoru Nagao, John Lee, Seth Cropsey, Peter Rough, Liselotte Odgaard, Blaise Misztal, Douglas J. Feith, and Michael Doran
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has introduced a series of new stresses and factors in the US-China relationship. While the world has struggled to contain the pandemic and its tragic repercussions, the People’s Republic of China has used the outbreak to launch a global campaign of misinformation, further its economic coercion through the Belt and Road Initiative, and continue military expansion efforts in the South China Sea. China’s attempt to exploit the pandemic for political, strategic, and economic gain is problematic in the current environment, yet it is consistent with, and a continuation of, China’s long-term strategy. This report offers a global survey and assessment of attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand its influence, including by exploiting the pandemic. As the United States and its allies focus on combatting the virus and salvaging their economies, there is an opportunity to better understand China’s strategy and develop a unified response.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Economics, Strategic Competition, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, Asia, North America, and United States of America

2. Sustaining the Undersea Advantage: Transforming Anti-Submarine Warfare Using Autonomous Systems

Author:
Bryan Clark, Seth Cropsey, and Timothy A. Walton
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Submarines have posed a challenge to naval forces for more than a century, enabling weaker maritime powers to launch surprise attacks ashore or cut an opponent off from the sea. But submarine threats, and the difficulty of countering them, increased substantially for the United States and its allies during the past decade. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is modernizing its fleet with conventional air-independent propulsion submarines (SSPs) that support its broader sensor and weapon networks. It is also fielding nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSN) and ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) capable of longer or more distant deployments. New generations of Russian Federation Navy (RFN) SSNs are difficult to track and could be employed for conventional or nuclear strikes during a conflict. Both countries are augmenting their submarine fleets with large autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) incorporating submarine like capabilities. Modern submarine technology has also proliferated, with the North Korean and Iranian navies using submarines and AUVs to level the playing field with their larger regional competitors and the United States. Unfortunately, the current US and allied approach to antisubmarine warfare (ASW) is unlikely to cope with the probable scale of undersea threats in a crisis or conflict. US Navy ASW concepts rely on fixed seabed sensors such as the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) or Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) ships to detect and initially track submarines. Multiple maritime patrol aircraft and guided missile destroyers (DDGs) then track each adversary submarine before potentially passing it to an SSN for longerterm surveillance. This approach works when opposing submarines deploy infrequently but is likely to break down during a large-scale submarine deployment or as submarines become quieter and harder to track. When manned platforms and expendables such as sonobuoys or torpedoes run out or are needed elsewhere, ASW operations will necessarily collapse to a defensive strategy protecting high-value targets, instead of suppressing enemy submarine operations closer to the adversary’s waters. This may result in unlocated adversary submarines operating in the open ocean, where they could threaten US and allied shipping and maritime operations.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, Maritime, Automation, and Submarines
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

3. The Eastern Mediterranean in the New Era of Major-Power Competition: Prospects for U.S.-Israeli Cooperation

Author:
Douglas J. Feith and Seth Cropsey
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
This is a study of Eastern Mediterranean security and how the United States and Israel can improve cooperation to protect their common interests. The study’s particular focus is the maritime domain. Few things in world affairs survive for millennia. It’s also true that few are ever really new. In the Eastern Mediterranean, what has endured for thousands of years is the strategic attention of great powers. The region retains it today, commanding interest not only from local and regional actors, but also from global players. As Iran works to extend its reach to the Mediterranean, Russia, as it has for centuries, strives to exert its influence across the Middle East. The United States, on the other hand, has been signaling a desire to reduce its involvement in the region. Remarkably, China too has become a player. Its increasing presence in the Middle East reflects commercial and strategic motives and signifies its rise as a force competing for global economic and military predominance. China is at once a security challenge and a close economic partner. It is the world’s major rising and disruptive power and plays a huge role in global trade and investment.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, International Trade and Finance, National Security, Science and Technology, Military Spending, Maritime, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eurasia, Israel, United States of America, and Mediterranean

4. If You Can’t See ’em, You Can’t Shoot ’em: Improving US Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Targeting

Author:
Seth Cropsey
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
This report tracks the development of naval and maritime intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (ISR/T) from the Cold War to the present day. It reveals the fluctuating relationship between ISR/T and weapons ranges that have adversely impacted the US Navy’s combat capabilities. While the United States developed longer-range weapons throughout the Cold War and revised tactics and fleet composition to better employ those weapons offensively, the gap that remained between weapons range and targeting information had a negative effect on US Navy combat power. Following the Cold War, while weapons and delivery-system range decreased, ISR/T capacity and capability rose, allowing for precision strikes against ground targets at short and medium range. Finally, the contemporary fleet, facing renewed great power competition, is increasingly receiving long-range strike weapons. However, it lacks the ISR/T complex to identify and hit targets at those ranges in most over-the-horizon combat situations. Second, this report reviews the current ISR/T capabilities to which the US Navy has access, primarily in the Pacific theater, and performs first-order sufficiency analysis to gain an understanding of the impact the current program of record has on operational requirements. Finally, the report concludes with several key recommendations to naval policymakers, civilian and military.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, National Security, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
Asia, North America, and United States of America

5. The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Significance and Role

Author:
Seth Cropsey and Jun Isomura
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The alliance between the United States and Japan, born at the end of the Second World War, continues to play a vital role in the defense of the Japanese Islands and in U.S. regional Indo-Pacific strategy. The People’s Republic of China is challenging the U.S.-Japan alliance in the Indo-Pacific Region. China has greatly increased its defense budget, expanded and modernized its navy, and increased operations that challenge the region’s status quo—including in the East China Sea, where the PRC regularly violates Japan’s territorial waters, in the vicinity of the contested Senkaku Islands. China’s belligerent behavior poses a strategic threat to Japan’s domestic security and will continue to encroach on Japanese and U.S. interests in the region. The PRC’s threatening behavior and an aggressive nuclear-armed North Korea are testing the U.S.-Japan bilateral alliance as it has not been tested since the Cold War. The United States continues to serve as a guarantor of Japan’s national security. The U.S. military has stationed naval, air force, army, and amphibious forces in Japan as a strategic deterrent against would be aggressors. With U.S. forces in Japan as a deterrent, Japan has developed a pacifist strategy based on non-aggression and security limited to self-defense. The Japanese constitution’s Article 9 enshrined this principle into law. Japan’s regional strategy has paid dividends through political, diplomatic, and economic engagement with Indo-Pacific countries. This includes Japan’s increasing defensive security cooperation in the region. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces have participated alongside the United States and such neighboring states as South Korea in bilateral and multilateral exercises that build both capabilities and security relationships. Beyond diplomatic and soft power engagement, Japan has in recent years increased its defensive capabilities. To counter Chinese and North Korean missile threats, Japan has worked with the United States to build an advanced ballistic missile defense. In addition, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have acquired medium-range cruise missiles for its air forces to deter potential adversaries from launching attacks. Tokyo has expanded its defense to counter challenges below the threshold of war against Japan’s outlying islands. Improved intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and the establishment of amphibious forces contribute to this defense.
Topic:
International Relations, Defense Policy, National Security, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

6. U.S.-Japan Cooperation on Strategic Island Defense

Author:
Seth Cropsey and Jun Isomura
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Japan’s southwest island chain, an archipelago of 1,200 kilometers (750 miles), is known as the Ryukyu Islands. Along with Taiwan and the Philippines, it comprises what the People’s Republic of China (PRC) perceives as the first of three strategic island chains. To China, these island chains represent geostrategic impediments to Pacific Ocean expansion and power projection, which its adversaries—including the United States and Japan—might use to counter Chinese aggression in a conflict. In particular, the first island chain represents the first geostrategic hurdle for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as it seeks access to sea lanes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Two of China’s three PLAN fleet bases are located on the East China Sea. To reach the South China Sea and the Pacific, ships or aircraft from these bases must transit through the choke points of the Taiwan or Miyako Straits, the latter passage through the Ryukyus. Japan’s southwest islands pose a significant strategic and operational challenge for China, and thus their defense is equally strategically and operationally important for Japan. China, to achieve its goal of global superpower status by the mid-twenty-first century, has sought to contest and change the status quo across the Indo-Pacific region by constructing and arming islands from the South China Sea to the East China Sea and beyond. As part of this effort, the PRC has expanded and modernized its armed forces. The immediate objective is to neutralize what Chinese rulers regard as the threat of the first island chain. This has included building a larger and more advanced surface fleet and air force, including the country’s first aircraft carrier, as well as advanced destroyers and more advanced aircraft. It also involves developing and expanding China’s amphibious assault capabilities by means of a larger and more capable PLAN Marine Corps, along with more amphibious warships, amphibious aircraft, and amphibious assault vehicles. In the PRC’s crosshairs is not only Taiwan, the keystone of the first island chain and a vigorous democracy, but also the Senkaku Islands of Japan, whose sovereignty the PRC contests, and the Ryukyu Islands. Any Chinese invasion of Taiwan or military attempt to assert sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands runs the risk of drawing the United States and Japan into a conflict with the PRC. The U.S.-Japan alliance obliges the United States to defend Japan and its sovereign islands. Both countries maintain a security presence in the Ryukyus, principally on the island of Okinawa, where the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) maintains a nineteen-thousand-strong force, alongside U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy units. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and Coast Guard also maintain ground, maritime, and aviation elements on Okinawa and conduct regular air and sea patrols throughout Japan’s southwest islands. In keeping with constitutional restrictions that limit Japan’s security forces to self-defense, Japan’s Ministry of Defense has also recently sought to bolster the country’s amphibious capabilities to counter potential Chinese aggression. In the face of a rising PRC challenge, the United States and Japan have in recent years streamlined and strengthened their security cooperation. This has included participation in bilateral and multilateral exercises to improve interoperability at tactical and operational levels. In addition, the 2015 creation of an alliance coordination mechanism (ACM) provides guidelines for the U.S. and Japanese governments to coordinate defense cooperation, including the defense of Japan’s outlying islands, at a policy level. However, the two countries still lack an integrated means—at the bilateral or multilateral level—to coordinate operations in response to regional contingencies.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

7. Carrier Air Wing and the Future of Naval Aviation

Author:
Seth Cropsey
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces
Topic:
International Security
Political Geography:
America