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Chinese cyber coercion in the Asia-Pacific? Recent cyber operations in South Korea, Hong Kong, and India.

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Writings on Chinese cyber operations tend to focus on cyber espionage and the stealing of state secrets for China’s military modernisation. Comparatively in discussions of cyber operations, cyber coercion and Chinese cyber coercion are infrequently mentioned. This has to do with the ambiguity surrounding the definition of cyber coercion and the challenges of attribution.

Chinese cyber coercion is understood as a subset of what is known as weishe. Weishe is, in direct English translation, understood as “deterrence”, but is conceptually understood as a combination of compellence and deterrence. In theory, cyber coercion thus operates by compelling actors through cyber operations to produce an effect called deterrence wherein actors are deterred from decisions that are harmful to China’s interest. This role of compellence in cyber deterrence is made clearer when contrasted to the cyber deterrence strategies discussed so far in the United States and the United Kingdom. The use of cyber deterrence in the respective countries appears mostly in reference to a retaliation to a cyber-attack or in building domestic resilience to make an attack costly. In contrast, in the Chinese context, compellence and deterrence are one, the role of compellence is encouraged, and a cyber-attack does not seem to be a prerequisite to the use of cyber deterrence.

The theoretical understanding of weishe, however, is imperfect in practice. Whether deterrence is truly a component of weishe is subject to disagreement and is debated amongst Chinese analysts. If this is the case, then what lens should be used to analyse potential Chinese cyber coercion?

Observed practice of cyber coercion may be a more helpful lens than its theoretical counterpart. Observed practice can include the combination of vague threats, an implied actor, and an implicit desired behaviour. In a greater layer of complexity, consistency across the elements’ contents is not necessary. For instance, cyber coercion may include explicit threats, an implied actor, and an explicit desired behaviour. Therefore, observed practice captures a more detailed variation of what is understood as cyber coercion—something which is illustrated in the following three cases.

The cyberattacks against South Korea in 2017 illustrate one of the clearer cases of Chinese cyber-coercion, specifically cyber-enabled economic coercion. It also demonstrates the use of cyber deterrence to deter a country from choosing a political decision that is judged as harmful to China’s security. On February 7, 2016, officials from the United States and South Korea announced discussions on deploying Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missile defence system (THAAD). Beijing, however, disapproved of the X-band AN/TYP-2 band radar system which would allow for approximately a 3,000 miles detection range. This would mean potential US military monitoring of activity in China and the undermining of China’s nuclear deterrence.

In correspondence to the announcement of THAAD, there were reported increases in cyber intrusions. In the first half of 2017, there were over 6,000 cyber intrusions from China against the South Korean Foreign Ministry’s servers which was an increase from the 4,600 in 2016. Furthermore, Lotte Group, a South Korean-Japanese conglomerate was also attacked. Chinese internet protocol addresses took parts of Lotte Group’s storefront offline for several days, and Chinese e-commerce sites stopped co-operation with Lotte. This has been connected to Lotte Group permitting the South Korean government to use its golf course to deploy THAAD. South Korea did end up agreeing to limitations on THAAD, but it is difficult to say whether this was uniquely due to the cyber impacts because of the presence of other coercive levers. For instance, the Chinese government shut nearly all of Lotte’s physical stores in China. Cyber coercion, however, does signal great displeasure, and the intentions can be perceived as the use of compellence to deter further plans regarding THAAD.

Whilst the THAAD case outlines more clearly what happened and who the suspect is, other potential cases do not. Cyber operations in Hong Kong and India demonstrate cases of an explicit threat, an implied desire, and an implied actor.

Over the course of Xi Jinping’s rule, a tighter grip has been imposed on Hong Kong and protests have become more dangerous to participate in. Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, who were the faces of Hong Kong’s protests against the Chinese Communist Party’s grip, are now imprisoned. The 2019-2020 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, which was a series of movements against the Extradition Bill, coincided with the emergence of HKLeaks—a doxing website which appeared in late August 2019. The website doxes anti-government protestors, revealing people’s personal identifiable information (PII) such as headshot, social media handles, phone numbers and their misdeeds. The threat is explicit in that it threatens an individual’s privacy and makes the struggle for a freer Hong Kong even more costly. There have even been instances of malicious targeting. In one case, a doxed female reporter from Apple Daily, a Hong Kong tabloid known to criticise the Chinese Communist Party, started receiving threatening calls.

The argument that China is behind this is difficult to build, although there are very subtle implications behind HKLeaks that tie it to state-sponsored actors and potentially to the Chinese state. Aside from China’s interest in Hong Kong, looking at who or what HKLeaks is connected to is informative. HKLeaks has been linked to social media accounts similar to those taken down for being fake accounts linked to state-backed actors, which were also used as a tactic in disinformation campaigns against Taiwan. Some information of who the state could be is found in anecdotal evidence. According to an alleged victim of HKLeaks, they gave a “fake address I’ve never given to anyone” to Chinese police at the Hong-Kong and China border when returning from a business trip from mainland China. His address afterwards appeared on HKLeaks. Whilst the link between cause and effect is unclear, these disparate points of evidence could arguably form a weakly implied Chinese state as actor.

HKLeaks is also positively viewed and engaged by the Chinese state. For instance, the official Weibo account of China’s state-owned TV network, “published a video showcasing the HKLeaks website, and urged followers to ‘act together’ and ‘tear off the masks of the rioters’”. This post was then shared by “the Weibo accounts of local Chinese police, local media outlets, branches of Chinese Communist Youth League, and others.” Again, the actor cannot be established, but there is certainly a perception of an implied actor, an implied (or explicit, depending on one’s perception) desire to stop the protests and the threat of the violation of privacy and potential harm to the individual. This arguably forms a cyber coercion, rendered perhaps more threatening by the ambiguity on how members are being doxed and by not knowing the exact actor.

The case of the Mumbai power outage in October 2020 is a similar case where there is implied Chinese involvement. However, connections to the Chinese state around this topic is slightly clearer and less speculative. Speculation of China’s involvement is found across Foreign Affairs, NY Times, and The Diplomat, and domestically amongst Indian officials. The main source of information, however, is from a report by Recorded Future, a private cybersecurity company. On February 28 2021, Recorded Future published a report which demonstrated a connection between Red Echo, a Chinese state-sponsored group, and the installation of malware into civilian infrastructure such as “electric power organisations, seaports, and railways.” This cyber intrusion is thought to connect with the border conflict occurring at the time and has led to speculation about the connection to the Mumbai power outage. According to retired cyber expert Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, the power outage has acted as a signal from China to indicate “that we can and we have the capability to do this in times of a crisis.” Such a signal draws parallel to the cyber intrusions concerning South Korea and THAAD.

All three cases demonstrate the inherent limitations in analysing cyber coercion (as deterrence through compellence.) Even if China is implied from political context and from malware, building a case to clearly identify the Chinese State’s direct involvement is difficult to build without clear attribution. Nevertheless, if China is definitively involved, the utility of being an implied actor may be helpful with information operations elsewhere wherein appearing benign is used to gather support of the country. The case of Mumbai and South Korea also bring up interesting questions for compellence and deterrence, with China potentially being seen to blur the two. Cyber coercion overall remains somewhat enigmatic. The ambiguity is likely advantageous for the actor(s) behind the acts of cyber coercion. Ambiguity helps reduce chances of liability, which permits for a more peaceful (less conflict inducing) approach to manipulating and shaping another state to one’s desires.

Korean unification: what can Seoul learn from Berlin?

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By Carlotta Rinaudo

Image Credit: Flickr

“If we let Korea down, the Soviets will keep right on going and swallow up one place after another”, President Harry S. Truman, 1950.

As Truman spoke, North Korean forces were crossing the 38th parallel thereby invading the South, American troops were poised to intervene, and the Korean Peninsula was on the brink of becoming a first battleground of the nascent Cold War. Thus, in 1950 the Korean War began, and it has yet to conclude. While an armistice was agreed in 1953, no official peace treaty was ever signed, and the two Koreas have been divided by a demilitarized zone (DMZ) for almost 70 years. In this time their peoples have known very different lives and their societies have concurrently diverged, so that now, the peninsula is both governmentally and societally bifurcated.

North of the parallel we find a country pursuing its own variant of “Juche” Socialism, an ideology that promotes state control and economic self-reliance. However, Juche Socialism, in practice, has produced a very different reality. State control has transformed North Korea into a family-run kleptocracy, and the idea of economic self-reliance has instead made North Korea largely dependent on foreign aid. North Korean people have resorted to informal economics in order to survive, with women manufacturing goods in their homes and selling them in black markets. Furthermore, North Korea embraced the doctrine of “asymmetric escalation”, which sees the Kim family amassing stockpiles of nuclear weapons in order to protect their rule from exogenous pressure, including invasion and regime change. In contrast, South of the parallel, there is a highly-productive capitalist and democratic society, which has boomed into the 11th largest economy of the world, and is widely-known for its Samsung products, K-pop music, and pop-art lights.

Despite these drastic differences, the political elites of both countries advocate for the integration of the two Koreas. In 1972, President Kim Il Sung formulated the Three Charters of National Reunification, and The Arch of Reunification was erected in Pyongyang in 2001. In South Korea, a Ministry of Unification was established in 1969, with President Moon Jae-in pledging to achieve a reunification of the Korean Peninsula by 2045. Therefore, if unification is a possibility, what would be the implications?

The article aims to evaluate costs and benefits of a hypothetical reunification of the Korean Peninsula, assessing the case from a South Korean perspective. In a follow-up article, the same question will be tackled from a North Korean perspective.

The current situation on the Korean Peninsula can be compared to that of Germany during the Cold War: today’s North Korea and yesterday’s East Germany share a communist regime and an inefficient planned economy, while their counterparts adopted a democratic government and a market-based economy. Therefore, the German unification can provide valuable insights into the issues that the two countries would face should the Koreas become one again. It is exactly for this purpose that the German-Korean consultative body on unification issues was formed in 2010. What are, then, the implications at an economic, military, political and social level, if we draw from this German experience?

Many South Koreans fear that the process would simply be too expensive, with Seoul having to carry the burden.
In 2017, South Korea’s per capita GDP was $29,743, while North Korea’s was $1,214, the former being twenty-five times bigger than the latter. It would doubtless be a long process for the two to converge. Similarly, today the Eastern part of Germany still lags behind its Western counterpart, with salaries being only 84% of those in the West, and Germans often migrating from East to West as most of the major companies are headquartered there. Today German citizens still pay the so-called “Soli”, a controversial solidarity tax that is invested by the German government to fill the gap between West and East.

Despite these concerns, experts suggest that long-term economic benefits of a Korean unification will outweigh its costs, just as it has in Germany, first of all by creating a single market of 75 million people. North Korean citizens would be liberated from starvation and malnutrition, while South Korea would benefit from a significant injection of cheap labor in the economic system, but also from a huge amount of natural resources like coal, iron ore, and rare earth materials, which abounds in the Northern half of the Peninsula.

At a geo-economic level, North Korea’s geographical position has always isolated South Korea from import and exports via land. With a united Korean Peninsula, this would no longer be the case: Seoul could finally connect with the rest of the world via rail, with goods being shipped from Busan to Europe, whilst also integrating Pyongyang in global supply chains. Meanwhile, it could enable the construction of pipelines that transport natural gas from Russia to Seoul.

Nonetheless, the denuclearisation and demilitarisation of North Korea still pose a challenge.
East Germany was a base for Soviet nuclear weapons, but it did not have arsenals of its own. Similarly, at the point of unification, the 175,000 soldiers of the East German Soviet National People’s Army either left the army, or simply joined the military force of West Germany by swapping their uniforms.

In terms of military capabilities, North Korea is a different case. It has an army of 1,2 million, a stockpile of various missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and more than 60 nuclear warheads. It is one of the world’s largest conventional military forces, and the question of how to deal with it still remains largely unanswered.

In addition, how to ensure that the political elites that violated the rights of the North Korean people will be held accountable? What will happen to the Kim family? How to build a future where the North Korean people are equally represented in the government and other spheres? Germany still has a long way to go in this sense: while some “Eastern Germans” have become top political leaders, such as Chancellor Angela Merkel and former President Joachim Gauck, very few of the business leaders of big German companies were born on the Eastern side of the Berlin wall.

Finally, integration will come with social consequences.

Although the injection of cheap labor might be advantageous to big companies, it could also reduce the salaries of South Korean workers, or even replace them, generating further discontent among a society that, like the Japanese one, already suffers from a high level of old-age poverty.

In addition, North Koreans might struggle to fit in the capitalist world of South Korea.

Thae Yong-ho, one of the most famous North Korean defectors, once declared that for North Koreans in the South “the first difficulty (…) is that they don’t know how to choose”, because “in North Korea there is no opportunity to choose.”

After a period of timid and cordial relations, tensions between North and South Korea recently escalated again, with North Korea blowing up the inter-Korean liaison office and executing a South Korean official last September.

Although a Korean unification often appears like an impossibility, the issue should nonetheless remain open to discussion and the search for new solutions, especially regarding economic balance, North Korea’s huge military capabilities, the Kim family, and the integration of North Korean citizens.

Unification is a process, not an end-state: in Germany it has not concluded yet – in the Korean Peninsula, it might take even longer.

 

Carlotta is a MA candidate in International Affairs at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London. After completing her BA in Interpreting and Translation, she moved to the Middle East and developed a strong interest in the MENA region, North Korea, Cybersecurity, and the implications of the rise of China. Carlotta has written on a number of Italian publications on the Hong Kong protests and other forms of political unrest.

Is Balakot a Point of No Return? Revisiting Asymmetric Escalation in South Asia

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By Kamaldeep Singh Sandhu

28 February 2019

On 26 February 2019, Indian Mirage 2000s carried out an air raid in Pakistan, which escalated the conflict between the two states.

 

The current situation

In the early hours of 26 February 2019, twelve Indian Mirage-2000 aircrafts carried out an air raid in Balakot, Pakistan, in retaliation of a suicide attack on India’s Central Reserve Police Force (paramilitary force used for internal security) convoy in Pulwama near Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir which killed 44 soldiers on 14 Feb 2019. Jaish-e-Mohammad, a terrorist outfit known to have its bases in Pakistan, claimed the responsibility for the suicide attack. India contests that the raid was carried out on a JeM training camp and no civilian or military infrastructure was targeted; thus the raid is categorised it as a ‘non-military, pre-emptive strike’ and hence is not an act of war.

Pakistan’s military spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor, while acknowledging the strike, counter-claimed that the strike aircrafts were forced to a hasty withdrawal due to Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) quick response and dropped the bombs in a hurry which fell in an open area with no casualties. Both sides claim credibility through impending details.

The current situation has showcased a new security paradigm in the asymmetric escalation of conflict or the escalation pyramid (normally called the escalation ladder). I chose to call it a ‘pyramid’ for a simple reason - as the rungs go higher, besides being alarming and dangerous, the retaliatory options become more and more limited to both the adversaries.

Background

Not having any conventional capability and under desperation to capture Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan started this vicious cycle at a sub-conventional level by sending the irregulars, the Afridis and Hazaraas from its North West Frontier Province, to capture the state of Jammu & Kashmir in 1947. After the success of Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in 1980s, which forced a Soviet withdrawal, the same model of insurgency has been used in Jammu & Kashmir since 1990. Slowly these non-state actors grew powerful and challenged the writ of the state itself. For instance, the terrorist outfit JeM carried out three attacks on Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf during his time in office. For the past few decades, any peace initiative by India or Pakistan has been followed by a terrorist attack in India which sets this escalatory cycle in motion. Lately, since the declaration of opening of the Kartarpur corridor by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, a terrorist attack such as Pulwama was predicted, given the pattern of such attacks .

India’s response has mostly been using its conventional infrastructure, demonstrated by ex-Brasstracks in 1986-87, the Operation Parakaram (Twin Peak crisis) in 2001-02, the Cold Start doctrine from 2004 onward and the surgical strikes in 2016. Yet, Pakistani mainland has not been attacked since the 1971 war. Even during the Kargil War, India refrained from crossing the Line of Control.

The Line of Control is the de facto border between the Indian and Pakistan-controlled parts of Jammu and Kashmir. (Image edited from Google Maps)

The Rubicon of Escalation?

Calling it the need of the hour, India crossed the Rubicon by hitting inside Pakistan territory. India had long argued that ‘restraint’ is not its weakness but a strategic necessity due to the risk of rapid escalation along the pyramid. With the September 2016 surgical strikes and now the Balakot air strikes, that policy is clearly out of the window. The problem with the escalation pyramid above is that while it is easy to climb up, it is difficult to climb down from one level to another, as elaborated below.

In response to India’s air raids, which was done using conventional assets, Indian security specialists speculate that as usual a retaliatory attack by Pakistan will most probably be using the non-state actors (in the sub-conventional spectrum). However, a sub-conventional response by Pakistan has to be plausibly denied and cannot be given any official recognition and hence will not satisfy the domestic population to which the narrative of ‘India as an enemy’ has been fed since 1947. In other words, there will be no face saving in front of the domestic audience constantly fed by the narrative of a “1000 years’ war with India” if the attack is not claimed and acknowledged by the state. On the other hand, if acknowledged, this will only feed India’s narrative of Pakistan being a terrorist sponsor state and will exacerbate Pakistan’s isolation in the international forums. It was only due to such dilemmas, Pakistani Military leadership managed to get away with 2016 surgical strikes by denying it altogether.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Modi’s government in India drew some political mileage by celebrating the surgical strikes as an annual event. Riding on the same success wave, India crossed the Rubicon by striking the Pakistani mainland. In addition, unlike before, the strikes have been immediately acknowledged by the Pakistan military.

This time nevertheless, Pakistan promised a retaliation. But, as experts claim that a conventional response from Pakistan is a non-starter because there are no viable targets in India that Pakistan can hit without carrying out an ‘act of war’. India claims that its air strikes were not an act of war since no military or civilian target was targeted or harmed. Hence, in retaliation, Pakistan can only increase firing along the Line of Control, which has already started. Pakistan’s military also called for a meeting of its National Command Authority, the apex body in charge of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals which signals the usual ‘nuclear rattling’. As the escalation pyramid suggests, this is a next logical escalatory step which will draw lots of international attention and mediation that will call for de-escalation of the situation. Anything else will only cause more harm, as shown by downing of two fighter aircrafts, one from each side and capture of an Indian pilot by Pakistan on the morning of 27 Feb 2019. The conflict might continue in such duels and skirmishes but further escalation is least likely as explained in the accompanying piece.

The urgency of escalation

What is the urgency of escalation? This can be explained by the rapid spread of news on social media to a hysterical population, fed by frenzy media asking for revenge which puts pressure on those in power to act fast - a government for which time is running out due to an upcoming election and a powerful military running the affairs on the other side, which needs an immediate face saving to retain its legitimacy to remain in charge. Hence the retaliations are necessary, urgent and must be escalatory in order to dominate the deterrence.

Beyond all this…

While addressing an election rally immediately after the air strikes, Prime Minister Modi assured the audience that the ‘country is in safe hands’. Historical evidence suggests that this escalatory cycle of revenge and retaliation has not brought safety in the sub-continent. The violence has only killed soldiers and civilians on both sides. Further escalation will take it to the brink of devastation.

So what purpose does it serve? Pacifists claim that it certainly helps keep the belligerents on both sides of the border stay in power by giving a sense of honour and pride to the populations fed with the misconstrued sense of nationalism. It boosts the morale of the armed forces of the side which strikes last and dominates. It also distracts the electorate from other social and developmental issues, such as poverty, sanitation, lack of jobs and keeps it ‘rallied round the flag’.

Realists claim that this was the need of the hour since the public opinion of a thriving democracy demanded it. Indian Generals have long believed that there is enough space below the nuclear threshold where a limited conventional war with Pakistan can be fought and have backed calling Pakistan’s nuclear bluff on several occasions. Having just done that, has India finally crossed the Rubicon of escalation and set a wrong precedence? At the moment the answer depends upon lot of things including the treatment and fate of the captured pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan. In the meantime and amidst this debate, a belligerent game of revenge and retaliation is being played for honour and dominance where the skies are devoid of civil flights and the military radars are churning.

Kamaldeep Singh Sandhu is a doctoral student at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London and a Senior Editor for Strife. His research interests include South Asian security, military culture and defence diplomacy. An alumnus of National Defence Academy, Pune and Army War College, Mhow, he has served as an officer with the Indian army’s Parachute Regiment for ten years. You can follow him on Twitter @kamal_sandhu78.

Image source: https://www.mudspike.com/dcs-world-mirage-2000-c-hunter-is-here/

Military Exercises And The Necessity Of Practice

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By Davis Florick

South Korea and US army top brass watch from an observation post as the likelihood of a real war breaking out grows by the day. Reuters.

As the North Korean crisis mounts, the utility of the joint military exercises in the region involving South Korea and the United States (US) has come under increasing scrutiny. Beijing has gone so far as to propose that Pyongyang could suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for a moratorium on Seoul’s training activities with Washington. Regardless of how much value one may attribute to China’s offer and to North Korea’s credibility, understanding the utility of military exercises is prudent. Given Pyongyang’s history of inflammatory rhetoric and weapon tests in response to training activities, North Korea’s objections to South Korea and US exercises is unlikely to abate. For any government conducting multilateral exercises, at least five overarching reasons underlie its decision to do so: providing technical demonstrations, improving integration and transparency, addressing challenging strategic problems, assuring partners, and deterring adversaries. Exploring the benefits of military drills can provide valuable takeaways for different actors globally.

Military exercises provide an ideal opportunity to demonstrate new technological capabilities. Given long development timelines, the culminating step of utilizing a system in an operational setting carries considerable military and political value. Using new capabilities in a simulated environment helps strategists and operators to plan and train with their equipment. On the one hand, partners have tangible evidence of how their military equipment and training needs are being addressed. On the other hand, potential adversaries are presented with new potential forms of deterrent effects to their strategies and tactics. For instance, during Russia’s Vostok-2014 exercise in its Far East, Moscow test-fired the Iskander-M. While Russia had previously claimed the system had been used during the conflict in Georgia in 2008, this was the first public launch, and doing so near China undoubtedly carried political utility. The spotlight placed on multilateral exercises presents a distinctive opportunity to display new technological capabilities.

While showcasing advanced military technology is a strategic move, just as important are the personal relationships, integration, and transparency through joint training. During a crisis, there is little room to overcome language barriers, technical hurdles, or policy discrepancies. Simulating combat situations allows people and machines to harmonize and to develop ways to overcome natural impediments. Furthermore, by integrating capabilities and improving human communication prior to an actual conflict, forces are much more synchronized during a crisis, thereby reducing potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by adversaries. In the process of strengthening synchronization, working partners are likely to find that transparency is a valuable by-product of engagement. When states demonstrate the willingness to work with one another such as through the sharing sensitive information, trust can develop. Similarly, leveraging personal commonalities is a unique way of engendering lasting relationships that can serve to benefit all parties involved. Multilateral military exercises thus serve to improve macro-level and micro-level cooperation.

Beyond improving coordination and transparency, addressing serious conceptual and strategic dilemmas is a critical component of multilateral exercises. As international affairs become increasingly complex, the challenges faced by senior officials are becoming more difficult as well. Given that tomorrow’s conflicts may involve multilateral aspects, different cultures and equities will lead partnering states to see problems in disparate ways which, if not addressed, may themselves lead to discord. To minimize the chances of divergence during a conflict, parties should undertake important discussions which may include uncomfortable and challenging scenarios since dialogue during peacetime – including a wider range of whole-of-government options that may incorporate considerations as diverse as economic impediments and nuclear exchange scenarios – and occur at a more measured pace than dialogue during wartime. Conceptually, the different perspectives we all possess increase the likelihood of innovation and reduce the risk of groupthink. Leveraging these qualities can have a profound impact on the options provided to senior officials during a crisis.

Although it may not seem readily apparent, military exercises have an important role in assuring allies and partners of security commitments. By conducting training events abroad, a state can demonstrate its willingness to participate in conflicts, or promote mutual defence elsewhere. Practicing and preparing for various situations signifies that officials are thinking through problems and are taking an active role in preparing for potential scenarios. Beyond the simple act of displaying a regional presence, joint exercises with foreign partners carry a powerful message to those states’ domestic audiences and can display equality in the relationship. Moreover, cooperation signifies that the parties involved are analyzing and preparing for potential conflicts. As a result, should confrontation emerge, a state’s partners can function more securely with the knowledge that they will likely have support. The assurance value of joint exercises comes in the form of day-to-day strategy and acquisition while also serving as a valuable means to reinforce support should conflict occur.

Parallel to its assurance utility, joint military exercises abroad are instrumental in deterring potential aggressors. To a considerable extent, the same qualities that contribute to bolstering ties with partners can also play an important role in shaping adversary perceptions. Practicing how states respond in a conflict scenario demonstrates to potential adversaries that a first strike option may not be in their favor. In conjunction with other opportunities, such as deploying units forward, exercises are an important tool in showing that costs will be imposed and benefits denied if another state(s) chooses an aggressive path. From a political standpoint, exercises serve as an ideal means to demonstrate commitment. Where an adversary to attempt an aggressive act, it would do so with the knowledge that its decision would be forcibly countered. The response may raise the threshold for an aggressive adversary who might otherwise prefer to take decisive action. As an example, the annual US-South Korea Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises reminds North Korea of Washington’s presence on the Peninsula – precisely the opposite of the US position prior to the Korean War. Ultimately, by deterring potential aggression, regional and strategic stability are stronger.

Multilateral military exercises play a significant role in shaping decision makers’ perceptions of benefits and costs of their choices. By practicing how partners may respond in the event of a conflict, those states will be more comfortable in their disposition. As a result, they may be less likely to pursue a first strike option. Conversely, a potential adversary may be less inclined to risk a first strike because the likelihood of a successful campaign might be decreased. Alongside the assurance and deterrence utility of multilateral exercises, there is value in cooperating with the militaries of partner states. For instance, collaborating on military strategies could prove invaluable for synchronizing forces during inherently time-sensitive and complex operations. There are even technological benefits to joint exercises as states are able to experiment with new capabilities and improve multilateral communication while reducing technical barriers. Invariably, perhaps one of the best assessments for the utility of multilateral exercises is the degree to which they are criticized and looked at with suspicion by other parties – whether in the context of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s concerns over Russia’s Zapad, China’s objections to the US-India-Japan Exercise Malabar, or the North Korea’s anger over the US and South Korea’s Foal Eagle.

Davis Florick is a strategic policy analyst for the US Department of Defense, a Senior Fellow with the Human Security Centre, and a 2016 WSD-Handa Non-resident Fellow with the Pacific Forum. He earned a Master’s degree in East-West Studies from Creighton University. He specializes in North Korean strategic and human security issues.

 

Israel vs. Hamas: Undermining deterrence

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By Charles Kirchofer:

Israeli soldiers in Hebron [Photograph taken by the author, 5 June 2014.]

Israel’s military response to the abduction and murder of three teenaged Israeli citizens, which has included a massive deployment of Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian territories, is understandable. But, this response has threatened to undermine what had been a relatively stable deterrence relationship with Hamas, however. The border with Gaza had been reasonably quiet, but recent days have seen increased rocket fire that has now hit homes in southern Israel. Israel’s military is now shifting troops to the Gaza border. Together, these actions threaten to be the start of another round of escalation between the two sides. Was this deterioration of the situation inevitable? If a ceasefire soon comes into effect, what does this say about Israel’s deterrence relationship with Hamas?

Despite Hamas’s anti-Israel Charter and its unrelenting stance against recognising Israel or even accepting the idea of a permanent peace with it, Hamas has avoided provoking active conflict with Israel since 2012. There has been a trickle of rockets from the Gaza Strip, but this has long been the case. What’s more, it does not appear that Hamas itself was responsible for any of these attacks until just recently. In fact, Hamas has long arrested militants launching rockets from within Gaza to prevent Israeli retaliation. The fact that the number of rockets launched in 2014 has at times risen above 20 per month may, in truth, be more a sign of Hamas’s weakness than of its strength: Egypt has tightened its control over Gaza’s southern border, closing smuggling tunnels that Hamas relied upon for much of its revenue, and Hamas’s relations with its sponsor Iran have been strained since it declared itself opposed to Iran’s close ally and Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, and moved its headquarters out of Damascus. Even now, Hamas’s leadership has said it does not desire escalation, despite recently launching its first rockets on Israel since 2012.

If Hamas activists are proved responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, this in itself would already indicate a massive escalation, justifying a retaliatory response from Israel. Hamas internal chief Ismail Haniyeh allegedly said as recently as this April that abducting Israeli soldiers was a ‘top priority’ to use as ‘bargaining chips’ to free Palestinian prisoners. When three Israeli teens were reported kidnapped, justified suspicion quickly fell on Hamas. Hamas’s leaders denied all knowledge of the kidnapping even as Israeli security claimed to have found solid evidence of the group’s involvement. Reports have now come to light that suggest that both are ‘correct’. It seems the kidnappers are a ‘rogue Hamas branch’ that was not acting on orders when it abducted the teens. The fact that the teens were quickly murdered rather than held for ransom and that Hamas from the start denied responsibility and was unable to reap any political or strategic gain from the incident lends credibility to this claim. It thus seems that the attack was a criminal act motivated by sectarian hatred rather than a terror tactic used as part of a plan to improve Hamas’s bargaining position with Israel or the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israel’s military response, named ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’, has been calibrated on the assumption of the latter rather than the former. Israel detained over 300 Hamas members and some other Palestinians not associated with the group, also raiding Hamas institutions. A report noted that ‘soldiers entered Palestinian cities and towns in numbers not seen there in years, which led to frequent violent clashes with Palestinian youths. Five Palestinians [were] killed by soldiers’ fire during the clashes. Only a few of those detained are suspected of actually participating in terrorist activity.’ A Palestinian academic commented to this author and asked “Don’t you think Israel is using the disappearance [of the three teens] as a pretext to go after Hamas?” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated openly that attacking Hamas’s infrastructure in the West Bank was a central aim of ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’.

From a deterrence perspective, this could be an appropriate response if Hamas as an organisation were indeed behind the murders of the three Israeli youths. It would help to reinforce clear ‘red lines’ that Hamas may not cross without inflicting significant damage on itself. If Hamas is already deterred and did not commit the murders, however, such a broad attack on it is not necessary to maintain or re-establish deterrence. What’s more, unnecessarily forceful responses are risky. The operation has stirred up anger among the Palestinian population, for example in several clashes with Israeli troops, which resulted in the death of five Palestinian youths. These deaths have naturally intensified anger and threaten to escalate the situation further. Israel’s air force also struck targets in Gaza. In response, Hamas then launched its first rockets since 2012 at Israel on 30 June. Further violence is possible.

The recent escalation was not inevitable. If Hamas as an organisation was not behind the abduction and murder of the three Israeli teens that sparked this latest round of violence, the escalation also does not appear necessary. There have been discussions today of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but at the time of writing, one had not yet taken effect. Both sides appear willing to de-escalate, however, with an Israeli official saying that ‘quiet will be met with quiet’.

If things do quiet down, this will be evidence that Hamas is weak and deterred. If they do not, we will look back on Operation Brother’s Keeper as understandable, but we may also view it as a mistake that led to further unnecessary bloodshed.

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Charles Kirchofer is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is currently researching the use of deterrence against non-state actors using the case of Israel’s conflict with Hamas and has recently conducted field research in Israel and Palestine. You can follow him on Twitter @CPKirchofer