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The Old World of Arms Control is Dying

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By Bryce Farabaugh

Military.com, 2021

The future of nuclear arms control is uncertain. On February 3, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the 5-year extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the agreement between the United States and Russia that limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads and launchers each state may possess. The extension was a welcome relief for those concerned about the fate of the last remaining pillar of the global arms control regime, a system intended to reduce nuclear risks by improving insight, verification, and trust between the two states with the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. As the treaty’s survival was anything but certain under the previous administration, proponents of its extension are celebrating this victory, but such celebrations are bound to be short-lived as looming arms control challenges come into focus. U.S. policymakers are increasingly wary of China’s military capabilities, including its modernizing nuclear arsenal, and both supporters and skeptics of the New START extension concede future arms control agreements will likely need to include China in some capacity. Indeed, if meaningful arms control agreements are going to continue to serve the national security interests of the United States by reducing global nuclear risks in an evolving security environment, it’s helpful to interrogate arguments that were made against the New START extension to explore whether such arguments are likely to be obstacles in future arms control dialogues.

New START is largely a product of the post-Cold War thaw in relations between the United States and Russia. In the 1990’s, as the dust settled from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States came to terms with “the unipolar moment,” global nuclear stockpiles were reduced while cooperation on nuclear issues generally increased between the two states. Cooperative arms control measures between the United States, the former Soviet Union, and others were achieved during this period: the Open Skies Treaty improved confidence and security in Europe, Soviet nuclear weapons were successfully removed from Ukraine, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) created an international network capable of monitoring nuclear detonations (among other successes) While there have undoubtedly been setbacks including the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2001 and the failure of the US Senate to ratify the CTBT, for a while it appeared increasingly likely that intense nuclear competition between the US and its rivals was a thing of the past.

Indeed, the crown jewel of the post-Cold War arms control agreements, New START, entered into force in 2011 and was viewed by many as a major achievement in US-Russian relations. Set to expire in February 2021, the United States and Russia appeared unable to come to an agreement on its extension. This fact was somewhat surprising, as New START was widely popular among US nuclear experts. Arms controllers praise its limits on deployed strategic warheads, while counterforce advocates value the verification and monitoring protocols that provide visibility into Russian military capabilities. Likewise, leaders at the highest levels of the Russian Government publicly stated their desire to extend the agreement without preconditions. The reticence by the US to extend New START had been attributed to a host of explanations, but one complaint from US negotiators surfaced repeatedly: the absence of China from the treaty.

The US’s insistence on including China in New START and related strategic dialogues is puzzling for several reasons. First, China is believed to have a much smaller arsenal than either the US or Russia, meaning its number of strategic warheads is already far below the limits of the agreement. Second, China was not party to the original negotiation and had few (if any) incentives to join. And third, Chinese security concerns are very different than the decades-long nuclear rivalry between the US and Russia, etc. This begs the question then that if the US possesses nuclear superiority over China, both quantitative and qualitative, why does it continue to behave as if China is a significant and growing nuclear threat that must be controlled at all costs?

One answer may lie in how humans process information. US policymakers are often students of history and thus rely on historical analogies for interpreting new events. Additionally, behavioral scientists have shown that humans, in general, often rely on information that they believe is relevant for a situation even when the circumstances, parties involved, stakes, and other conditions are quite different, resulting in cognitive biases that can impact decision-making. In the context of US-China cooperation/competition over nuclear weapons issues, these two facts suggest policymakers may be heavily inclined to view the current situation as a replay of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. This could lead policymakers to mistakenly pursue policies that previously worked for the US despite the drastically different circumstances of the current situation.

This overreliance on the flawed Cold War analogy between the US and China can be seen in statements by senior US officials responsible for overseeing nuclear weapons policy. For example, in May 2020, US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control, Marshall Billingslea, stated that the US is prepared to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in order to win a new nuclear arms race. Billingslea had also reportedly called Chinese efforts to modernize its nuclear forces “a ‘highly alarming effort’ to gain parity with the far larger arsenals that Russia and the United States have kept for decades.” These concerns evoke memories of the infamous “missile gap” argument that plagued American political discourse beginning in the 1950’s , a myth that still echoes in comments like those of Billingslea and other former officials

In addition to these tired Cold War analogies, theoretical arguments about the structure of the international system may alternatively explain increasing nuclear competition between the United States and China. Under this framework, states are constantly competing with one another in order to achieve national goals, whether supremacy in the international system or narrower goals like regional security or relative gains vis-à-vis competitor states. Nuclear competition in this scenario is largely inevitable as states constantly strive to improve military capabilities. Recent scholars have argued why maintaining a robust nuclear arsenal is important to deter nuclear conflict with a rising power like China or, in the event of a crisis, possess the ability to terminate the conflict on terms favorable to the US. Matthew Kroenig argues maintaining “nuclear superiority” can provide significant utility for the US should such a crisis or conflict occur. Keir Lieber and Daryl Press similarly argue that states may be able to escape nuclear “stalemate,” which suggests that while the US currently maintains a significant nuclear advantage over China, technological advances may erode this advantage and thus some form of nuclear competition is inevitable. Additionally, some US Government intelligence agencies have contributed to this perceived “inevitability” by promulgating largely-unrealistic projections of the growth of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, which further reinforces the US-China nuclear competition framing.

Policymakers’ overreliance on Cold War logic and deterministic structural forces may make the future of arms control look bleak, but students of history would be wise to remember that even during the darkest days of the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union were able to find common ground to reduce risks and avoid catastrophe. The unfolding competitive relationship between Washington and Beijing shouldn’t be viewed through a strictly zero-sum lens, and cooperation between the United States and China on security issues with global implications must be pursued when possible. With New START officially expiring on February 5, 2026, the clock is ticking; now is the time to get creative and imagine how a new world of arms control can deal with emerging nuclear risks that threaten to erase the progress previous generations worked so hard to achieve.

 

Bryce Farabaugh is a master’s student at the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations and an external representative for Strife. You can follow him on Twitter @brycefarabaugh

Galwan Gaffes: Turbulent Times for the Sino-Indian Relationship?

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By Prachi Aryal

India and China have been involved in regular skirmishes alongside their disputed border (Al Jazeera)

On June 15, 2020, Indian and Chinese troops were involved in an unexpected hand to hand combat in Galwan valley, resulting in at least 20 casualties. This confrontation doubtless has its roots in the 3,500km unmarked and disputed border shared by the two nations, that since the birth of both countries has been the site of successive minor clashes The Galwan valley incident marks a break with these more reserved skirmishes as it’s the first since 1975 that has resulted in loss of life. It has subsequently led to the deployment of thousands of soldiers by both sides, raising concerns of an unintentional war.

Galwan valley, in India’s Ladakh region, lies along the western sector of the Line of Actual Control (a line separating Indian and Chinese territory) and close to Aksai Chin, a disputed area claimed by India but controlled by China. Shivshankar Menon, former Security Adviser of India has warned that the militarization by either side of the border is troubling for the Asian region as it opens the possibility of a fully-fledged war between the two nuclear armed nations.

Speculation surrounding the clash suggests several micro-causes but underlying each are the powers’ competing strategic goals. Strategists assert that India’s growing economic development and global diplomatic influence have become impediments for their Chinese counterpart, thus the move to intrude into Indian territory was China’s attempt to disrupt the status quo in the region.

Experts assert that China’s strategy of modern conquest is that of fait accompli, a calculated risk to establish dominance by seizing small territories. This strategy often leaves the victim with few viable options to restore the previous status quo. Fait accomplis, allow unilateral gains of power and changes to the existing state of affairs; reminiscent, therefore, of China’s actions in the Aksai Chin, Spartly Islands in South China Sea, Doklam and the skirmishes with India.

The 15 June clash accentuates not just the strategic tensions but the more fundamental problems in the Sino-India relationship. China’s continued military assistance to Pakistan and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative, on disputed territory claimed by India, has created an environment of mistrust between the two nations. Similarly, India’s opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), coupled with historically sour relations stemming from India granting sanctuary to the Dalai Lama, has intensified bilateral tensions.

Many reports claim that the clash was triggered by India’s construction of the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DSDBO) road in the Ladakh region, which would give India the upper hand in accessing the Daulat Beg Oldi airstrip, thereby paving the way for easy transportation of troops and material during conflicts. Indeed, the occurrence of skirmishes and clashes have usually mirrored the construction of infrastructure around the disputed region. Both the countries view such projects as being imbued with strategic and tactical motives, leading to exacerbated skirmishes.

The growing public discontent surrounding India’s response to the situation in Ladakh poses a strategic difficulty for the government in New Delhi. Chinese retreat is unlikely as it has adopted a fait accompli strategy of land grabs with the purpose of intimidating and coercing nearby rivals in order to establish itself as a regional hegemon. India’s traditional approach of quiet diplomacy, whilst working to soothe domestic public sentiments, will provide China the space to continue with such land grabs. With limited military options, and an increased need to address public discontent surrounding the government’s inaction, India finds itself in a strategic quagmire. Its move to ban Chinese mobile phone applications, citing national security interests, is unlikely to have any effect on China’s position on the border.

Regular border skirmishes are fundamentally products of slapdash colonial cartography which imposed arbitrary and contested borders between the two nations. The Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has made repeated public statements reiterating that the only viable way of restoring Sino-India ties is by disengaging and de-escalating the military situation in the LAC (Line of Actual Control)LAC (Line of Actual Control) The regular cross-border clashes are contrary to the Wuhan spirit championed by the two nations, who had agreed to significant economic cooperation for development in the South Asian region.

China’s resort to military trespassing in the Galwan, as on 15 June, has created an atmosphere of mistrust and antagonism with its Indian neighbour. The frozen diplomatic talks compounded with China’s unchanged position and its fait accompli strategies of land grabbing are likely to create a geopolitical and strategic crisis in the Asian region. Sino-India relations in the future are likely to see mixed elements of conflict and cooperation as each side is driven, by their strategic objectives, to ever more aggressive actions. It is possible that, without a clear demarcation of the border, skirmishes like these can create destabilizing consequences for the Asian region.

Editor’s Note: There have been a number of recent events since the time this article was finalized for publication that impact this topic and region. The information contained in this article was current as of January 2021.

Prachi Aryal is a MA student in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research interest is inclined towards Gender, Human Rights, and Cross border conflicts in transitioning nations and how visuals from conflict zones play a role in communicating the realities of conflict to the broader world. She completed her BA in Journalism from the University of Delhi, India.

The problems with calculating influence: the story of the Belt and Road Initiative

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By Katherine Nichols

 

Image Credit: Illustration by Andrew Rae in ‘What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says
About China’s Influence’, New York Times, 13 September 2017.

 

‘Unfavorable views of China reach historic highs in many countries’ reported Pew Research Center in October. On top of pandemic backlash, many people are realizing that China’s rise and subsequent diplomatic initiatives are not as benign as they once appeared. But if the overwhelming majority of people view China in a negative light, why are governments so worried about Chinese influence?

China’s foreign policy strategy is a clear example of sharp power influence — ‘efforts that pierce, penetrate, or perforate the political and information environments in target countries’. President Xi Jinping’s outreach framework, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), hinges on a collection of investment and development projects stretching from East Asia to Europe. Through Wolf-Warrior aggressive diplomacy, however, China exerts more influence than just economic power. The intensive investment projects of BRI bought China leverage at the international scale, creating risks for the West in both national security as well as protection of democratic values.

The malign influence captured by sharp power is increasingly the modus operandi of 21st century geopolitics, but researchers have yet to decide how to make sense of it. East Asia experts and policy-makers in the West are scrambling to understand the intentions and methods of China’s global influence. The BRI is a prime example to demonstrate the various types of influence and explain why many questions remain.

The Brand: Measurement of Effect

When President Xi coined BRI in 2013, he essentially launched the branding for China’s foreign policy, drawing on inspiration from the concept of the ancient Silk Road. If we think of the BRI as a marketing tactic, much like the UK’s new Global Britain, we can use the same techniques that are applied to calculate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns to measure the influence of this foreign policy brand. Namely, we can quantify how many people were exposed and are now aware of, or better yet, understand the BRI. We can take polls to see how public perception of China and its foreign policy has changed, or look at whether countries have changed their actions in relation to China by increasing business deals through the BRI, for instance.

What researchers can’t tell you with certainty yet is whether those changes in action are a direct result of BRI. This is a deciding factor in assessing the effectiveness of an influence campaign.

Researchers such as Gary Buck recognize the importance of this question. Buck designed four-stages of Measurement of Effect, and is working on a fifth – Measurement of Context — to help us accurately discern whether influence campaigns actually have an effect. But as it stands now, any numerical descriptions for how much an influence campaign has changed the population’s behaviour is likely a ‘best guess’.

The Tools: Learning What Influences

BRI demonstrates that any word, image, action or non-action, speech, diplomatic agreement, or economic investment can be used to influence global audiences. Public and cultural diplomacy (literature, film, religion, sport, music, etc.) is usually what people think of in terms of building up a country’s brand internationally. BRI does indeed have a large cultural aspect — such as this drama series following a father-son duo promoting BRI through dance or this pop music video described as ‘Tswift meets state propaganda’— but the real nuts and bolts of BRI lie in its economic strategy.

With BRI, President Xi wasn’t just selling a brand, he was buying it. China began investing in international businesses and organisations. China’s annual foreign direct investment in the EU surged from $840 million in 2008 to $42 billion in 2017 and investment in Africa skyrocketed from $75 million in 2003 to $5.4 billion in 2018. The investments took the form of business acquisitions, infrastructure construction, and aid development projects.

Researchers can tell you for certain that China is attempting to gain global influence via economic investment. What they can’t tell you is how much influence a trade deal buys. How do you quantify the effects of a diplomatic negotiation on the attitudes and behaviours of the general public? Moreover, some of these more tangible tools of influence, like building telecoms infrastructure, have long-term, iterative effects. Researchers still lack a method to calculate influence over time.

The Intent: Language of Influence

It wasn’t long after the investment surge that the West started to realise that BRI may not be benign. China was ‘laying a debt trap’ for governments seeking to borrow investments. Developing countries more dependent on the investments from China began openly supporting China’s way of governance. In one instance, the leader of Kenya’s ruling party spoke in support of modeling his party off of China’s Communist Party. In another, thirty-seven countries signed a letter defending China’s massive detention of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in response to a letter from twenty-two countries condemning China’s actions. In effect, China was buying support for their value-based initiatives, most of which are problematic for the West.

When countries not as dependent on Chinese investments condemned China’s human rights record, China publicly threatened their government leaders and baited ending the economic relationship — the tactics of so-called Wolf-Warrior diplomacy. China repeatedly claimed that they were not exporting a ‘China model’ of governance, despite all appearances of just that. Most recently, however, President Xi confirmed the suspicions of international relations analysts: China’s goal was not only to grow more independent, but also to increase other countries’ dependence on China.

The other major hurdle in assessing BRI is one that blocks the track to analysing influence more generally. There is not yet a universal vocabulary with which to discuss the strategies deployed. What do we call the BRI — influence operation? Malign influence? Propaganda? There is no lingua franca of influence. Even the terms we do have definitions for, such as propaganda and influence operation, are often avoided by governments and scholars because of their negative connotations and subjectivity. There are diplomatic repercussions for accusing a country of meddling in domestic affairs, influence operations are neither inherently good nor bad, and can’t one country’s public diplomacy be another’s propaganda?

Calculating Influence

From my observations, there are three steps that researchers and policy-makers can take to more accurately identify, label, and calculate influence.

1) Agree on the terms. We can lean on existing glossaries and books that tackle the nuanced vocabulary of influence side by side. Consistency is key for public understanding, international cooperation and expert analysis of this new, complex security threat.

2) Continue committing resources to Measurement of Effect (MoE). Gary Buck, the expert previously mentioned, once likened the MoE phenomenon to that of driving the speed limit — publicly most people think it’s a good thing to do, but nobody really does it. Buck offers a system of MoE that tests early and often, taking measurements at the four key objectives of influence campaigns: message exposure, knowledge transfer, attitudinal shift, and behavioural change. It’s a strong start toward accurately analysing sharp power with considerable room for growth.

3) Accept that we cannot quantify everything. Grand strategic communications campaigns, such as BRI, are a different beast than short-term influence efforts (e.g. election campaigns). With tools ranging from press statements to business acquisitions, it may not be possible to quantify how much influence each has on global populations. When the amount of influence is incalculable, we should devote more effort to studying the manner of influence. We can use tools such as the Taxonomy of Influence Strategies to provide a language for influence manner and generate influence profiles (e.g. level of risk, cooperation, and agitation). By understanding how a country influences, we can better understand how to respond.

There are multiple hurdles facing influence measurement, but we cannot manage what we cannot measure. It’s time we face the elephant in the room and start driving the speed limit.

 

Katherine recently completed her MA in Strategic Communications from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Her research focuses on the arts of influence and diplomacy. You can find her on Twitter @kat_nichols_

Realigning the Five Eyes (FVEY) Intelligence Alliance against China’s Threat

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By: Owen Saunders

The Five Eyes Alliance, also known as FVEY: Protectors of Terror or Invaders of Privacy?

Originally created as a bilateral US-UK agreement in 1946, the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance (FVEY) allows for mutual access to classified signals intelligence (SIGINT). Canada entered into the agreement in 1948, followed by Australia and New Zealand in 1956. The initial intention of the alliance was to gather information on foreign states that presented threats to its members through various intelligence collection and sharing methods. The formal expansion of the FVEY alliance last occurred in 1956 but there are other, less formal, extensions of the FVEY alliance, such as the Nine Eyes and Fourteen Eyes.

In recent years, due to China’s significant expansion of their telecommunications sector, driven by the “Made in China 2025” initiative, the FVEY alliance has placed greater attention on understanding and addressing the rising state’s ambitions and international strategy. The two focal issues for the alliance currently are China’s implementation of the controversial National Security law in Hong Kong, and their drive towards global superiority within the information and telecommunications technology (ICT) sector as exemplified by, though not limited to, Huawei, a global ICT company based in China. Allegations of close connections and cooperation between the company and the ruling Chinese Communist Party have been made, though these are denied by both parties.

The alliance’s perception of China as a threat is rooted in its pursuit of dominance over international telecommunications. Tensions have heightened recently over the measures undertaken by its members to prevent Huawei technology from being part of important new domestic 5G networks, and this past year over the FVEY alliance’s overt criticism of China’s authoritarian interventions in Hong Kong. The alliance’s actions can been seen as efforts not only to thwart Chinese global cyber ambitions but also to counter any spread of illiberalism. Although the National Security law itself does not affect the global telecommunications market directly, concern around it reflects fears of the potential dissemination of antidemocratic values through Chinese technological dominance.

The primary concern of the FVEY Alliance is Huawei’s potential to relay information and data that the company collects, through its global operations, to the Chinese government. Some members within the alliance have taken firm stances to prevent this by either banning Huawei technology altogether and, most recently, adopting more stringent security laws aiming to protect networks on a broader level. Such protections have expanded to include government, industry and civil society, as opposed to the original strategies of blocking the technology from only core government networks which transfer sensitive information. To date, Canada is the only member that has not made an affirmative decision to ban or restrict the Huawei technology, despite significant pressure from the United States.

China’s new National Security Law targets the autonomy of Hong Kong by giving the Chinese government greater control over the region’s internal affairs. The law aims to exert greater influence by establishing criminal sanctions for any activities dealing with “secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign or external forces.” Many have claimed that this new law demonstrates a complete disregard for the “one country, two systems” arrangement established in 1997 when the UK returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. Since the implementation of the new law, the FVEY alliance has taken a strong stance in condemning the law, with the five foreign ministers releasing a joint statement “[urging] the Chinese central authorities to re-consider their actions against Hong Kong’s elected legislature and immediately reinstate the Legislative Council members.” The statement was heavily criticized by the Chinese government which argued that the alliance has no right to interfere in its internal affairs.

These two examples highlight what appears to be the changing nature of the FVEY alliance and its willingness to expand its reach and functions beyond its original purpose of intelligence sharing. There is also the possibility of expanding the current membership to seven by including Germany and Japan, both of whom have expressed a desire to join. Geographical and historical significance is important in assessing a FVEY expansion given the current Sino-Japanese relationship focused on bilateral trade. The formal inclusion of Japan would likely sow greater distrust and escalate tensions with China. Expanding the FVEY alliance would also, however, help counter the support of seventy nations in the 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council for China’s National Security Law. Importantly, in line with its original mission, a formal expansion to include more states would strengthen the alliance by bringing new and vital information to the table from different governments on new security and intelligence matters, both generally and specifically regarding Chinese activities and Huawei.

In light of these collective moves directed at China, coupled with the possible expansion of the alliance, the question is raised whether the alliance is at risk of diverting from and even subverting its original, practice-focused mandate of information collection and sharing? Specifically, in attempting to use its communal influence to pressure China through collective diplomatic and policy measures, does it risk diverging from the initial technical intentions of the organization?

By making collective statements such as those condemning China’s national security law, the alliance appears to be moving toward a more proactive and overtly political mode of operating on the global stage in contrast to its initial intentions and decades-old practices. Furthermore, adding another two (or more) formal members to the coalition could be seen as establishing a new, more powerful and politicized threat, potentially resulting in escalating tensions with an ever more economically and politically powerful China. After years of operating in the shadows, this new role for the alliance could threaten the old by its very visibility and assertiveness, increasing the likelihood of retaliatory responses. While it is not possible to accurately predict whether the data sharing ambitions of the alliance will be detrimentally impacted by the changes, the imperatives behind such changes can be understood.

The dynamics of the world have changed with the increasing and more varied use of digital technology, both in intelligence gathering and in the importance of technology in economic growth. It can be argued that this new role on the part of the alliance, whether it be through expansion, coordinated domestic policies, or greater diplomatic pressure, is a recognition of the growing importance of digital intelligence and power. The FVEY alliance has, in this author’s view, shifted accordingly to address the novel challenges of today.

Owen is currently pursuing his MA in International Peace and Security at King’s College London, Department of War Studies. He found interest in this topic in writing his undergraduate thesis and through the completion of an Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowship (USSRF) at Queen’s University, supervised by Dr. Christian Leuprecht.

Owen is a Staff Writer at Strife.

How China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy fuels China’s ambitious military aims

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by Orlanda Gill

Flag of China. Source: Pixabay

Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) is a Chinese state-directed strategy which seeks to modernise the Chinese military by creating a distinct Chinese military-industrial complex. The MCF strategy effectively seeks to eliminate the barriers between the civilian and military sectors, which consist of legal, political, communicative, and bureaucratic divisions. Once eradicated, the result is a fused civil-military sector which allows for simultaneous military and economic growth. Whilst similarities can be found in the Civil-Military Integration (CMI) of the United States in that it shares the same goals of the civilian and military industry working closely together, CMI demands co-operation either within the military industry, or with a civilian company, rather than a complete removal of barriers between the civilian and military industry. The goal of the MCF is to have a ‘world-class military’ by 2050. Whilst the exact meaning is unclear, it can be interpreted to mean China desires to be amongst the world’s greatest military powers. How this would be realised can be understood by analysing China’s strategic guidelines which can be most closely translated to operational doctrine in the West. Realisation of this aim can also be examined through China’s attitude towards the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which for China has placed and will place technological and scientific innovation at the center of war. The MCF therefore must be understood with regards to China’s strategic guidelines and the RMA. Overall, it can be demonstrated that the MCF is about having a modernised military which can fight and dominate in wars that demand technological and scientific superiority.

The MCF is not a new concept. The idea that economic growth cannot be without military is found in Deng Xiaoping, in the early 1980s, who focused on economic development before military equipment modernisation. It was, however, not until the ascension of President Jiang Zemin in 1993 when focus started to shift back more towards defence than solely economic growth. Jiang emphasised dual-use technologies, combining military facilities and civilian infrastructure to streamline military and econoomic spending. These core components, which are at the heart of the MCF, have endured from Jiang until the present, under Xi Jinping. The MCF, however, shares the most similarities to the policies of Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao whose Civil-Military Integration (CMI) in 2009 sought to integrate the civilian and military sectors.

Whilst this brief historical overview demonstrates the evolution of a concept, the MCF is best understood at the implementation level. The strategy can be seen at work at many different levels: institutional, provincial, and local. At an institutional level, there is a growing number of the former and current senior defence industrial cadre serving in prominent party and state posts, while President Xi Jinping leads the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development to monitor Military-Civil Fusion policies. Outside of government, the MCF also extends to universities for research. Currently, Tsinghua University is pursuing human-machine interaction with funding from the CMC Science and Technology Commission, which will likely contribute to China’s modernised military and concept of intelligentised warfare. At the provincial level, among production facilities, beginning in 2019, ten provincial-level governments are investing money into research and overseas acquisitions through guidance funds. At the local level, looking towards Tianjin, an AI Military-Civil Fusion Innovation Center was set up next to the National Supercomputer Center. This was coordinated with the Academy of Military Science. The MCF, therefore, should be understood as a guiding principle enforced and supervised by the state to guide the civilian sector to military usages, whilst retaining the civilian economic benefits from technologically innovating and supplying dual-use technology.

President Xi Jinping has remarked that the MCF strategy is instrumental, and this view is supported by China’s prioritisation of technology in contemporary warfare. The Gulf War (1990-1991) and Kosovo War (1998-1999) for China indicated a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and therefore a new standard and future trend which puts information superiority and thus the quality of technology as a key factor in military victory and for what constitutes a powerful military. This understanding continues in the PLA’s strategic guideline in ‘winning informatised local wars’ in July 2014. An important (although not the only) aspect of this strategic guideline is the role of information. Informatisation ‘refers to the collection, processing, and utilization of information in all aspects of warfighting in order to seamlessly link individual platforms in real time from across the services to gain leverage and advantage on the battlefield.’ The demand for information superiority therefore places importance on the ‘cyber, space, and electromagnetic domains’. The importance of advanced information technologies is thus heightened and the MCF is made a crucial process for the PLA to advance technological innovation at a rapid pace in comparison to its adversaries to gain information superiority. Additionally, the MCF allows China to capitalise from the tech-dominated global RMA and to become a ‘world-class military’ by 2050.

The MCF is also important in what appears to a new and emerging concept known as intelligentised warfare. This may be understood as a ‘uniquely Chinese concept of applying AI’s machine speed and processing power to military planning, operational command, and decision support’. In President Xi Jinping’s report to the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, intelligentisation was elevated to a guiding principle for China’s military modernisation. This conceptualisation of future warfare marks an evolution from informatised warfare. Differences can be analysed in that intelligentised warfare involves an ‘algorithm confrontation’ rather than ‘systems confrontation’ that characterises informatised war. Winning would therefore come from having an ‘algorithm advantage’. Furthermore, whilst informatised warfare recognises the importance of the space and cyber domain, intelligentised warfare would expand the domain of warfare into the cognitive domain which concerns ‘the field of decision-making through reasoning’. Superiority in this domain would be achieved through enhanced cognitive capacity of human combatants via integrated human-machine intelligence. The expansion of warfare into new domains and the potential Revolution in Military Affairs through AI would certainly help produce a ‘world-class military’. The connection of intelligentised warfare and MCF is made explicit when we observe that the PLA’s Science of Military Strategy, an authoritative book on the PLA compiled by the PLA’s Academy of Military Science (AMS), states the intention to ‘Promote deeper military-civil fusion, and leverage societal resources for the development of military intelligentisation’. The MCF is thus integral to China’s capacity to leverage science and technology to bolster their combat capabilities as well as to lead in what China envisions as future wars.

Overall, the Military-Civil Fusion is an ambitious concept and strategy that seeks to modernise the military to great heights by fusing the civilian and economic sectors. The question of its success perhaps depends on whether the PLA is a world-class military by 2050. Nevertheless, the strategy has further implications; it promises China a technological edge, the strengthening of economic security and domestic and international prestige. Therefore, rather than becoming overly attached to what may be perceived as an end goal, it is important to remain open so as to see where the fusion is leading China.

 

Orlanda Gill is a MA National Security Studies student at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. Her interest is in East Asian security with a key focus on China’s foreign and domestic policy. She is also currently exploring the technology-security nexus especially with regards to China.

Orlanda is a part of Strife’s Women in Writing programme.

You can find her on Twitter at @orlanda_gill.