Strategic Vision, Special Issue 2

STRATEGIC VISION for Taiwan Security

Special Issue w December, 2013 w ISSN 2227-3646

New Technology, New VulnerabilitiesHwang Ji-Jen

The Wars of the FutureHsu Jen-chih

Lessons From SyriaEdward Hsieh

Undersea Domain AwarenessDavid Finch

China’s SIGINT Capabilities Aaron Jensen

Threats to CybersecuritySerafettin Yilmaz

& Valerio Puggioni

The Advantages of AsymmetryTobias Burgers

& David Robinson

China’s New Coast GuardKirsten Asdal

Electronic Surveillanceand Cybersecurity

Submissions: Essays submitted for publication are not to exceed 2,000 words in length, and should conform to the following basic format for each 1200-1600 word essay: 1. Synopsis, 100-200 words; 2. Background description, 100-200 words; 3. Analysis, 800-1,000 words; 4. Policy Recommendations, 200-300 words. Book reviews should not exceed 1,200 words in length. Notes should be formatted as endnotes and should be kept to a minimum. Authors are encouraged to submit essays and reviews as attachments to emails; Microsoft Word documents are preferred. For questions of style and usage, writers should consult the Chicago Manual of Style. Authors of unsolicited manuscripts are encouraged to consult with the executive editor at [email protected] before formal submission via email. Manuscripts are subject to copyediting, both mechanical and substantive, as required and according to editorial guidelines. No major alterations may be made by an author once the type has been set. Arrangements for reprints should be made with the editor.

STRATEGIC VISION for Taiwan Security

Special Issue w December, 2013

ContentsThe ubiquity of the Internet creates new vulnerabilities ...............4

Threats to cybersecurity demand new operations ........................11

Conceptual model for undersea domain awareness .................... 16

China grows its signals intelligence capabilities .........................22

Cyberwarfare offensive yields asymmetrical advantage .............27

Wars of the future will be cyberwars ...........................................32

Syria failure highlights America’s waning influence ...................38

Integrated Chinese Coast Guard adds muscle to disputes ......... 46

Hwang Ji-Jen

Serafettin Yilmaz & Valerio Puggioni

David Finch

Aaron Jensen

Tobias Burgers & David Robinson

Hsu Jen-chih

Edward Hsieh

Kirsten Asdal

Dr. Fu-Kuo LiuEditor

Strategic Vision

From The EditorAs we round out the year 2013, we are glad to be able to offer our

readers another special issue, this one focusing almost entirely on the related topics of cybersecurity and electronic surveillance—two emerging issues that impact all other aspects of regional security.

Dr. Hwang Ji-Jen, a colonel in the ROC armed forces, is a scholar who focuses his research on China’s cyberwarfare, and he offers a backgrounder on the issues facing nations today in a world with deep Internet penetration rates and increasingly networked—and therefore vulnerable—systems.

Serafettin Yilmaz and Valerio Hyok-I Puggioni, both with NCCU’s International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies, collaborate on an analysis of cybersecurity options for the networked age in which we live and work.

We are honored to have an article by Commander David Finch of the Royal Canadian Navy, who presents his conceptual model of a new systematic approach to undersea domain awareness. Regular contributor Aaron Jensen provides an excellent examination of China’s increasing use of signals intelligence and what this means for the countries in the region.

Tobias Burgers and David Robinson look at incorporating an of-fensive component into cyberwarfare strategic thought, and how Taiwan can learn from China’s own shift to an asymmetrical foot-ing in dealing with a larger and more powerful potential adver-sary. Lieutenant Commander Hsu Jen-chih of National Defense University looks at cyber espionage and how the events of today regarding electronic surveillance prefigure the tactics of the wars of tomorrow, which will certainly be fought on the cyber battlefield.

Deviating from the cybersecurity theme, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hsieh of the ROC military, who is currently conducting research at a British think tank, offers a thought-provoking analy-sis of the United States’ recent handling of events surrounding the ongoing Syrian conflict, and how this will likely impact other coun-tries’ perception of American power.

Finally, Kirsten Asdal, who is a Fulbright fellow affiliated with the Center for Security Studies, gives us a look into the newly amal-gamated Chinese Coast Guard and offers her thoughts on what the implications are for the future of regional security.

We hope you enjoy reading this supplemental issue of Strategic Vision as much as we enjoyed putting it together, and that you join us in saying goodbye to 2013 and looking forward to another great year.

STRATEGIC VISION For Taiwan Se-curity (ISSN 2227-3646) Special Edition Number 2, December, 2013, published under the auspices of the Center for Security Studies and Na-tional Defense University.

All editorial correspondence should be mailed to the editor at STRATEGIC VISION, Center for Security Studies in Taiwan. No. 64, Wan Shou Road, Taipei City 11666, Taiwan, ROC.

The editors are responsible for the selection and acceptance of articles; responsibility for opinions expressed and accuracy of facts in articles published rests solely with individual authors. The editors are not respon-sible for unsolicited manuscripts; unaccepted manuscripts will be re-turned if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed return envelope.

Photographs used in this publication are used courtesy of the photograph-ers, or through a creative commons licence. All are attributed appropri-ately.

Any inquiries please contact the Executive Editor directly via email at:[email protected] issues and archives can be viewed at our website: www.mcsstw.org.

© Copyright 2013 by the Center for Security Studies.

EditorFu-Kuo Liu

Executive EditorDean Karalekas

Editorial BoardTiehlin YenRaviprasad NarayananRichard HuFelix WangLipin TienLaurence Lin

Articles in this periodical do not necessarily represent the views of either the MCSS, NDU, or the editors.

4 Strategic Vision Cybersecurity

Internet Explosion

photo: The Opte Project

Partial map of the Internet. Each line is drawn between two nodes, representing two IP addresses.

Internet ExplosionIn recent years, the dramatic rise in Internet

penetration rates has triggered an increasing interest on the part of governments in all things

related to cyberspace. From 2000 to 2010, global Internet usage increased from 360 million to more than 2 billion people. According to a 2011 report by the China Internet Network Information Center, in 2010, Chinese netizens numbered 457.3 million, an increase of 73.3 million from the year before.

Aside from there being more users, the scale of cy-berspace itself has also expanded exponentially: the number of distributed TCP/IP addresses in China, for example, reached 278 million in 2010, an increase of 19.4 percent over the year before. This steep rise in Internet usage and scale means people are quickly becoming accustomed to conducting their affairs in a virtual cyberspace rather than the physical environ-ment. This now covers banking, marketing, shop-ping, and communication, with the range of func-tions being handled in cyberspace multiplying with each passing day.

Furthermore, fundamental sectors of state bureau-cracy, including electricity and water supply, defense, information and telecommunications, finance, and mail systems, all operate either wholly or substantially via cyberspace already.

Apart from that, cyberspace has the potential to bind together the civil, government, and even mili-tary sectors as they are all constructed on this same intangible, indispensable information-network plat-form. The continuing growth of networked systems, devices, and platforms means that cyberspace is em-bedded into an increasing number of activities. While this makes many aspects of daily life easier and more convenient for an ever-larger number of government and corporate operations, it does have downsides.

In computerizing so many operations and relying so heavily on cyberspace, governments have become more vulnerable to the many potential attacks, crimes and terrorist acts conducted through this poorly un-derstood medium. As the old Chinese idiom states: while water can carry a boat, it may also capsize it.

The task of securing cyberspace rates as one of the most serious challenges for national security, public safety, and the economy in modern times. Coping with the impact of a rapidly expanding cyberspace is an issue that states must address in the digital era.

Borderless interactions

Traditionally, a state is protected inside its geograph-ic territory by physical borders, often consisting of natural barriers such as rivers, oceans, mountains, and other special terrain. However, the geographi-cal protection of a state is far removed from cyber-space. Cargo, for example, crossing a physical border into another country will have to undergo inspec-

Winter 2013 Special Issue 5

Creates New Vulnerabilities

by Hwang Ji-Jen

tion, whereas malicious software can be transmitted across 20 borders with the click of just one button. Traditional physical border-protection paradigms are ill-suited to protecting a state against attacks via cyberspace. Rather, each state must formulate new strategic approaches to meet such threats.

Historically speaking, a state’s power has largely been in direct relation to its territory, which, though land is a fixed resource, could be expanded through competition and occupation of other countries. Once a state had established its territory, its power could be presented to the world. However, the digital age is transforming this pattern, manifested not only in civil society but also on the field of battle. Recent evidence suggests that the growth of the Internet has transformed cyberspace from a societal platform into a potential battlefield in which states contest power. This will influence state security as government bod-ies no longer dominate communication systems and techniques in cyberspace.

Since public, private, and military sectors share the same national information infrastructure, this feature offers strategic value for developing cyberwarfare through construction of the civilian, as well a nation-al, information infrastructure. Moreover, the asym-

metry and anonymity of cyberspace operations also make this value even more attractive for conducting attacks or counter-attacks against adversaries.

The cyberspace presence of each state shares the same electronic information infrastructure be-tween three sectors: civil, government, and military. Meanwhile, states’ civilian information infrastruc-tures are connected to one another through interna-tional cable networks, namely the World Wide Web, in global cyberspace as a whole.


Operation Payback targeted victims which Anonymous claimed opposed its philosophy of making all information free for all.

“In the potential battleground of cyber-space, the threat against a nation-state may change the direction, arising from civil society toward the government or military sectors.”

photo: Harald Groven

The development of cyberwarfare could reinforce the protection of cyberspace. However, in geographic battlegrounds, the direction of threat against a na-tion-state is often from the military sector toward civil society; but in the potential battleground of cyberspace, the threat against a nation-state may change the direction, arising from civil society to-ward the government or military sectors, since the civilian sector, which is relatively vulnerable, shares the same electronic information infrastructure with those other two sectors.

Collective threat

As a result, the threat caused by cyber attacks could be regarded as a collective threat to all three sectors, which can be identified to define any counterattack as collective defense. In that case, it is vital to securely construct the civilian information infrastructure and establish fortifications within this potential battle-ground in order to achieve military purposes.

Today there is a transcendence of territory caused

by the growth of cyberspace. Historically, territorial states were self-protective of their territory through fortifications or fortresses. Due to the invention of new destructive weapons, however, the impermeabil-ity of such territorial states decreased as the concen-


A cartoon Chinese Internet policeman from the Public Security Bureau warns computer users to protect themselves from online scams.

Sailors at the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command monitor, analyze, detect and defensively respond to unauthorized activity within US Navy information systems and computer networks.

photo: Corey Lewis

photo: Nate Grigg

trated offensive power of the atomic bomb was bigger than any other offensive military power.

Some states with special terrain in their geographic location could protect their territory from attack by destructive weapons through natural barriers. Such states would survive even if they are small, since the factor of territory size is no longer of crucial impor-tance. An example provided by the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius reflects the condition of ter-ritorial security.

Mencius provided guidance for the governor of a small state about a thousand years ago, advising him to, “dig deeper your moats; build higher your walls; guard them along with your people.” In mod-ern times, however, immensely destructive weapons have perhaps changed such territorial thinking be-cause nuclear power shattered all previous concep-tualizations.

This argument is not only applicable to nuclear war-fare in the atomic age, but also to cyberwarfare in the

digital age. Moreover, the destruction caused by cyber attacks may be on an even larger scale, as the opera-tion of nuclear plants and combat systems are mostly

controlled by systems based on networked comput-ers. As a result, the changes required of strategic plan-ners due to cyberspace causing the transcendence of state territory can be anticipated in several ways.

For one thing, there is today an increasing indis-cernibility of offense and defense. According to Carl von Clausewitz, one might think of a strategic attack as an entity with well-defined limits. But practice—seeing things in the light of actual events—does not bear this out.

“The boundary between offensive and defensive strategies in warfare may thus be indiscernible, and this is likely to prove the same in cyberspace.”


A team participating in a capture the flag hacking competition at DEFCON 17.

In practice, the stages of an offensive often turn into defensive action, just as defensive plans often grow to incorporate an offensive. The boundary between offensive and defensive strategies in warfare may thus be indiscernible, and this is likely to prove the same in cyberspace. In other words, as cyberspace has become a potential battleground, an important military issue is the increase in dominant capabili-ties on this battleground whilst reinforcing the abil-ity to secure the civilian information infrastructure contained therein.

Inherent vulnerability

Second is the inherent permeability and vulnerability of cyberspace: The nature of cyberspace creates the features of cyberspace, offering conditions for trans-forming cyberspace into a potential battleground.

Technically, shared information network infrastruc-tures link together society, the government, and the military, meaning that the government and military sectors may be permeated via access points originat-ing in the civilian sector. This condition of cyberspace makes it a vulnerability and thus an attractive target for adversaries.

Third is the characteristics of asymmetry and ano-nymity inherent in cyberspace. Asymmetric features, such as the speed of attacks and the scale of damage that can be caused, provide opponents with a stra-tegic value to carry out operations for certain pur-poses. In other words, in the potential battleground of cyberspace, an inferior military may defeat a su-perior military.

In addition, cyberspace conceptually represents an “information society” for humans, forming a unique

photo: MC3 Paul Kelly


Telecomix is a sociocyphernetic telecommunist cluster of bots and people dedicated to defending the free flow of data.

culture in this realm. However, due to the anonymity of cyberspace, it is possible for everyone and anyone to become a “cyberwarrior” on this battlefield.

While the United States is only now paying increas-ing attention to the development of its cyberwarfare capabilities, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has attached great importance to it for at least the past decade, particularly since 1999, when mili-tary elements within the PRC first de-veloped the concept of “unrestrict-ed warfare.” C y b e r -warfare’s po-t e n t i a l i t i e s make it a crucial element thereof.

Cooperation needed

Therefore, state and non-state actors need to co-operate in order to develop a useful defensive strategy against threats occurring in the intangible territory of cyberspace.

In addition, it is necessary to certify the efficacy of relevant military doctrines by conducting exercises and implementing necessary modifications in order to create practical comprehensive sets of guidelines for involved actors, as well as encouraging interac-tion between close allies to expand international defenses. A significant recent example shows that this approach has already been adopted by some countries.

The US Department of Homeland Security runs

a biennial series of exercises called Cyber Storm, which includes participation from a dozen inter-national state actors and scores of private com-panies and other non-state actors. The exercise is aimed at raising governmental and private-sector

understanding and implementation of relevant concepts and pro-

cesses. These concepts in-clude preparation and

response to cyberat-tacks; interagency

coordination; validating in-f or m at i on -sharing rela-tionships and communica-tions paths; and methods

of cross-bor-der (and cross-

sector) informa-tion sharing without

compromising propri-etary or national-securi-

ty interests. The concept of cybersecurity is still one

that is not fully understood by leaders accustomed to a 20th-century worldview. It is technologically complex, and the network environment in which it operates changes at lightning-fast speed. Therefore, in order to seek a possible general solution for state actors to cope with future cyber conflicts and to make a contribution to the security of the international system, further research is necessary into this fast-growing field. b


About the authorDr. Hwang Ji-Jen is a colonel in the ROC armed forces and obtained his PhD from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, for which his dissertation focused on China’s cyberwarfare. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].

EFF

image: U.S. Army RDECOM CERDEC


Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity involves multiple levels: the indi-vidual, societal, organizational, and national. Certain issues may have overlapping implications for more than one level, with responses differing depending on the parties involved. Cyber-espionage, in this re-gard, is an area that has implications for individuals, organizations, and governments.

Information for gain

Defined as “the stealing of secrets stored in digital formats or on computers and IT networks,” cyber-espionage is aimed at obtaining sensitive informa-tion for economic or political gain, and assessing the capabilities of (potential) adversaries. A far less expensive option for both state and non-state ac-tors, cybercrime (including spying) is increasingly preferred as complementary to more conventional methods of intelligence gathering.

From a national-security perspective, ensuring the safety of critical structures that rely on computer net-works is of primary importance. Because infrastruc-ture such as nuclear plants, water and electricity fa-

New operations needed for a networked ageSerafettin Yilmaz

& Valerio Puggioni

With the rapid development of tech-nology and increasing reliance on on-line security systems, the number of cy-

berattacks and other cases of cybersecurity-related issues that governments in the region have had to deal with are on the rise. However, because cybersecurity is a relatively new concept, the literature in this do-main is still scant, and much of the activity is neces-sarily covert, making any examination of the current state of cyber-espionage in Asia a difficult prospect.

The International Telecommunication Union de-fines cybersecurity as a “collection of tools, policies, security concepts, security safeguards, guidelines, risk-management approaches, actions, training, best practices, assurance and technologies that can be used to protect the cyber-environment and organiza-tion and user’s assets.” Over the past 50 years, along with the evolution of computer networks and the web, the conceptualization of cybersecurity has evolved as well. Doctrines of prevention, risk management, and deterrence through accountability have emerged as primary methodologies for ensuring security in the cyber domain.

cilities, railroads, financial institutions, and hospitals utilize the digital domain for the storage, processing, and transmission of data, any breach of security or compromise of safety will have significant national-security implications. The Stuxnet worm targeted at Iran’s nuclear research facilities, as well as the mass collection of metadata, both at home and abroad, by the US National Security Agency (NSA), are two examples that illustrate the need for governments to build indigenous cyberdefense systems to continue protecting their national infrastructure and indi-vidual privacy.

What makes cyber-intelligence and surveillance an increasingly preferred method is that even small nations with a poor military infrastructure can as-semble a team of hackers for a fraction of the cost of a military unit of like size. Furthermore, the relative cost-effectiveness of cyber-technology enables pri-vate individuals and groups to engage more easily

in criminal activities. Regardless of the risks, how-ever, the increasing dependence on online modes of communication, cloud data storage, and information sharing continue to expose countries and individu-als to more frequent potential threats, rendering the safety of the cybersphere even more crucial for na-tional security.

Recent Developments

For some time now, the United States had been sus-pected of cyber-espionage around the world. That no one had dared to openly accuse the superpower is not surprising: many countries rely on US intelligence sharing and military assistance to safeguard their own security, and those that do not are likewise conduct-ing their own cyber-espionage (or ought to be). The United States, however, has openly, and repeatedly, accused China of spying not just for national-security reasons, but to give Chinese companies a leg up in the global marketplace. A prominent recent instance took place at the June 1, 2013 Shangri-La Dialogue when US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel urged Beijing to “adhere to international norms of respon-sible behavior in cyberspace.”

However, with the trove of mounting leaks show-ing that the United States has been engaged in cyber-spying not only on its enemies but also its allies has resulted in numerous condemnations of the super-power’s pious behavior. The most important of these recent revelations are the Snowden leaks (named af-ter US whistleblower Edward Snowden), which have jeopardized relations between various countries, and are reshaping diplomatic ties worldwide. But what are the greater implications? Do such leaks have the ability to modify the behavior of states, or to render it more transparent?

The most recent of these leaks revealed that the Australian government had been spying on key po-litical figures in Indonesia, including its president


Elaborate graffiti in Columbus, Ohio, depicts nation-state surveillance.

photo: Jeff Schuler

and vice president. Indonesia has recalled its am-bassador to Australia, further straining an already difficult relationship.

After Snowden’s revelations, China shot back at the United States, stating that it has substantial evidence that the Western power has been spying on its Asian counterpart. Perhaps, however, this also has given the two countries an opportunity to address these matters bilaterally and directly, as shown by their holding the highest-level military talks in two years, with a special focus on engaging in a cybersecurity relationship.

Cybersecurity in East Asia

A report released in March 2013 by the US Government Accountability Office states that “na-tions use cyber tools as part of their information-gathering and espionage activities … Such capabili-ties enable a single entity to have a significant and serious impact by disrupting the supply, communi-cations, and economic infrastructures that support military power.” Indeed, the recent revelations of

high-scale cyber-espionage by various US intelligence agencies show that the protection of individual and national data is of greater importance in the face of the increased efficiency and comprehensiveness of state-run cyber activities.

These facts indicate the need for an effective cy-bersecurity structure in East Asia. However, such a framework has yet to be fully established. Among the reasons for the lack of a regionwide cybersecurity framework are uneven development patterns, the low

sociopolitical capacity of certain states, and overall economic disparities. Domestically, differing politi-cal systems, the quality of IT infrastructures and ser-vices, and resource allocation disparities determine the success of countries responding to cyber threats.

In Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) appears to be the leading institution that


Protestors in Germany demand protection for Edward Snowden.

photo: Uwe Steinert

“East Asia is a hot spot for cyber-espionage because of its emergence in recent decades as a center of eco-nomic growth and innovation.”

image:Mike Herbst

has taken concrete steps toward building a regional framework. In this respect, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting have been holding regular meetings to enable co-ordination and cooperation on non-traditional se-curity issues, including cross-border cybersecurity. Multilateral dialogues such as these are now even more crucial because countries across Asia have been developing cyber capabilities and doctrines to coun-ter emerging threats. Although essentially defensive, absent a viable institutional platform, such growing capabilities could lead to mistrust and trigger a digi-tal arms race, hence the necessity for a permanent mechanism to coordinate and streamline cyber-re-lated issues.

Illegal incentives

East Asia is a hot spot for cyber-espionage because of its emergence in recent decades as a center of eco-nomic growth and innovation. In addition, the re-gion’s increasing geopolitical importance gives fur-ther incentive for illegal cyber activity. According to the Snowden leaks, the NSA runs data collection

facilities operating out of embassies in numerous East and Southeast Asian capitals. In China, for ex-ample, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu have been targets of NSA surveillance. Taipei has also been revealed to have been targeted.

Whether the new Sino-American cyber relationship should alarm the government in Taiwan is another matter. Taipei already enjoys a cybersecurity rela-tionship with the United States, and must be watch-ing closely to ensure that China does not jeopardize Taiwan-US ties. Taiwan frequently sends cybersecu-rity officials to inspect its ally’s cybersecurity infra-structure. In fact, Taipei seems to have agreed to the alliance as a way to broaden its relations. The empha-sis seems to be more on heightening its relationship with the superpower, and less on addressing actual cybersecurity concerns.

This is not to say that cybersecurity is not an issue in Taiwan: government bodies such as the National Information and Communication Security Taskforce, the Information and Communication Security Technology Center, and the Office of Information and


Activists wear masks of whistleblower Edward Snowden at a protest against the US government’s PRISM surveillance program.

Communication Security attest to its importance. Furthermore, Taiwan has been the frequent tar-get of attacks from external sourc-es, which is another reason Taiwan must be carefully observing the US engagement with China on cyber-security talks in order to take part in this bilateral setting. The ques-tion, therefore, is whether this new relationship will alleviate cyberse-curity issues for Taiwan, or wheth-er Taiwan will grow increasingly irrelevant within this triangular relationship.

In a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine, Dan Blumenthal indicated that Taiwan itself could be-come a valuable center for cybersecurity worldwide. Because Taiwan has been a potential target not only for cyber-espionage but also for cyber-attacks (which are not limited to government websites, but also target corporate entities, seemingly attempting to disrupt Taiwan’s financial infrastructure), Taiwan has been forced to adapt and keep abreast of such occurrences, resulting in advanced defense capabili-ties. The most productive manner in which Taiwan could utilize its position is, instead of watching as the United States engages in bilateral relations with China, to push its ally to promote a trilateral rela-tionship.

Given China’s current yearning to be perceived as a benevolent superpower on the rise, a refusal to even consider this option would be unlikely, espe-cially if Taiwan and the United States were to use the diplomatic card of hinting at the possibility of establishing such a center in Taiwan; one that would exclude China.

Thus far, the high-profile leaks regarding widespread spying, although embarrassing to governments such as the United States (as they rightly should be) seem

to be having an opposite effect in certain authoritar-ian countries, where they are instead used as an op-portunity to attack the United States, as if they were not engaged in spying themselves.

Because of its non-territoriality, cybersecurity is a global issue from which no country with a connec-tion to the web is able to isolate itself. East Asia is no exception. A regionwide mechanism would be es-sential to (a) conceptualizing a regional framework, (b) building institutions around these arrangements, and (c) providing coordination among the regional nations.

Rather than leveling non-conclusive accusations, Asian governments, Taiwan included, must work to create such a regional exclusive cyber-manage-ment framework. That the dominant custodian of the global Internet architecture, the United States, has been acting insincerely toward its friends, as well as its enemies, renders such a strategic move increas-ingly urgent. b


About the authorsSerafettin Yilmaz is a doctoral candidate at NCCU and researcher in Academia Sinica. His research interests include comparative regionalism and critical theory. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].

Valerio Hyok-I Puggioni is a PhD student at National Chengchi University. His research interests include North Korean security. He can be reached at [email protected].

Slide showing companies participating in the PRISM program and the types of data they provide.

A modern UDA concept seeks to align the UDA efforts of multiple entities through the integration of quantifiable sensor or system-level capabilities per-formance analysis within the modern application of a system of systems operations of all UDA entities.

The ultimate goal is the comprehensive visualiza-tion of the undersea domain. It is the development of a multi-institutional program, one which integrates information derived from semi-autonomous net-work of bottom-mounted and mobile nodes. These nodes will need to implement environmentally and tactically adaptive processing to enhance detection, classification, localization and tracking of quiet ad-versarial systems operating in defended areas or re-gions. A notional defensive grid would consist of multilayer, multitier cells distributed over the desired battlespace, operating collaboratively to provide stra-tegic UDA and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) sur-veillance capability, thereby enabling control of the maritime approaches by tactical responders.

The first rule of 21st Century UDA and mission area of ASW is “Sense, Evaluate and Respond,” a


all images courtesy of the author

Integrated UDA system of systems

Conceptual model seeks to integrate multiple systemsby David Finch

The undersea domain remains a mystery. A domain that remains largely unexplored. A domain that contains recently discov-

ered life forms, which prior to their discovery were thought implausible. A domain which has largely gone ignored until motivated by maritime threats to sea lines of communications, resource exploitation, and geophysics.

The systems to determine what takes place under the ocean’s surface are multifaceted, multitiered and multi-jurisdictional. They involve multiple actors including marine science institutes, defense and se-curity organizations, as well as corporate entities. There is a tacit conceptual acknowledgement of the need for cooperation that has not been codified to the degree that it has been in the maritime com-mons of the surface and above. Undersea Domain Awareness (UDA) requires new strategic thinking that would coordinate the capabilities that are pro-viding piecemeal visibility to what is taking place under the surface of our waters and thereby provide a more comprehensive picture.

Undersea Domain Awareness

rule which has not changed since ASW operations commenced in the late 1940s. What has changed is a much greater ability to sense what is hidden within an exceptionally variable environment. The current effort is to cease employment of individual systems and to build a fully integrated system of systems.

The UDA data streams employed today have been confined within individual stovepipes and not inte-grated into a single cohesive model. It is this UDA aspect that the concept outlined in this paper seeks to challenge and ultimately change.

Selective monitoring

In their effort to detect and track submarines, naval acousticians would detect and classify acoustic sig-nals, via active sonar, passive sonar or a combination of the two, to identify and classify target identity, and, in that process discard everything which was non-submarine or non-mine. All signals not of interest were considered clutter, hindering the ability to focus

on only the contacts of interest. Industry has done much the same thing, restricting its classification algorithms to highly targeted data sets representing the relevant resources located on the ocean floor or in the seabed. And, organizations interested in bio-logical density identification tend to exclude data which is not directly related to efforts to assess the health and population of a particular species. The only common attribution to all was that they operate

within the same oceanographic environmental con-straints—but this caused mutual interference when non-coordinated systems were operating coinciden-tally in the same place.


“Undersea research has yet to develop the artificial intelligence algorithms that could replace the cognitive skills resident within the brain of a trained, skilled human acoustician.”

NATO NETWORK centric value chain

The concept, structures and processes used to inte-grate the UDA stovepipes could potentially be em-ployed as a model to link the other maritime sensing regimes into a single unified UDA product. The data hub for this structure in Canada could be the Marine Security Operations Centres (MSOCs) or the op-erations centre of deployed task force commanders.

The human factor

Regardless of the sensor system employed—long-range persistent sensing, airborne wide-area search sensors, or tactical localization sensors—the criti-cal functional element is the analytical skill of the operators. Undersea research has yet to develop the artificial intelligence algorithms that could replace the cognitive skills resident within the brain of a trained, skilled human acoustician. The acoustician’s skill and capability is increasingly in demand as more and more economic, scientific, environmental and security/defense organizations try to find out what’s under the surface of the oceans.

The physics of the maritime environment dictates the operational perfor-mance of sens-ing method-ologies based on the variables of water depth, salinity, and temperature.

The combination of these variables determines the profile of the sound speed which will further govern the transmission capability of sound. Sensors must be configured to deal with a wide variety of signals, and they must be able to operate in both active and passive modes. They must also be able to operate in a variety of marine environments. Thus, military systems are required to function in both deep ocean basins and shallow water environments, where sub-marines and other targets could hide in a cluttered

acoustic environment. Just as sonar tech-nology has improved, so has the ability to reduce the detectable sound out-put—for example, submarines are much quieter and more difficult to detect now than in the past. This has shifted the emphasis to-ward low-frequency sonar and bi-static active sonar.

Persistent sensed situation-al awareness supported by means to respond to the de-tected threat is the lynchpin to achieving the desired out-comes of preventing ASW events from occurring and obtaining tactical victory if they do. The informa-tion awareness of the

s u b -surface undersea domain seeks to render the unobserved water column from seabed to the surface transparent and observable, illuminating the activities of potential threats and eliminating the stealth threat of submarines.

Systems approach

The strength of a systems approach to operations is that it squarely addresses complexities by concen-


trating on their most nonlinear aspects: humans, their institutions, and their actions. The systems ap-proach is ultimately about shaping human percep-tion and behavior. As pointed out by Edward Smith in “Complexity, Networking, and Effects-Based Approaches to Operations,” the central tenet of a system of systems approach to operations is that one can somehow purposefully shape the interactions of the actors in the complex security environment.

Re-evaluating risk

At the strategic level, a systems approach to ASW seeks to convince nations that the conduct of subma-rine operations is not risk-free. This is achieved if sub-marine movements are observed enabling irrefutable attribu-

tion of action. Remove the stealth from submarine operations and the cost-risk-reward equation is dramatically altered, affecting the national will to develop, train, and maintain submarine ca-pability. The best UDA/ASW system is one that can detect, target and neutralize an adversary well outside

of the adversary’s sphere of influence on our forces or our national will.

Interoperable UDA information streams would permit the development of a comprehensive pic-ture to enable the understanding of everything that is occurring in the ocean from the surface through the seabed at all times. The achievement of this objective is governed by the laws of physics,

which define the environ-ment of the undersea domain sensing regime, and the technology that exists to overcome the dif-ficult characteristics of an underwater marine envi-ronment.

The development of a National Undersea Security Strategy would provide an exceptional opportunity to test the concept of a UDA fusion center integrat-ing multitier, multifaceted and multi-jurisdictional partners responsible for various aspects of undersea domain information. Increased interest in the Taiwan Strait, Eastern approaches for fisheries, surround-ing maritime approaches a potential source of vast resource exploitation and finally a requirement to monitor maritime impact associated with climate change means that there will be a growing need to know what is under the surface of the maritime ap-proaches to Taiwan. The establishment and integra-


Long-range maritime patrol aircraft fitted with multistatic capability

tion of an ocean observatory, corporate exploration and government agencies ranging from national se-curity to environment and economic development would provide a powerful tool to Taiwan’s ability to substantiate its maritime territorial claims.

It would simultaneously develop quantifiable envi-ronmental assessments to support scientific aware-ness and indigenous knowledge of the ecosystem. Additionally, a Maritime UDA Strategy would pro-vide a robust means to monitor the maritime envi-ronment holistically from the seafloor, through the water column to the surface, monitoring, measur-ing and assessing geophysics, industrial activity, and biological health while achieving security awareness required by national defense to deny adversaries the means to exploit the undersea environment to their advantage.

The strategy would provide a critical enabler to fur-

ther system development and platform requirement identification in relation to an overall objective rather than piecemeal sensor procurement as a means to resolve individual isolated issues. New sensor pro-curement or development would be identified as to

a predetermined role within the articulated policy statement to achieve control, dominance or own-ership—essentially the ability to enforce a national will—over maritime commons where each UDA sen-sor is able to stimulate multiple sensors function-ing in the commons multistatically and not just as a standalone monostatic sensor.


Use of ROV/UUV/AUV by the oil and gas industry.

“The sum of this aggregation of data is a snapshot of what is taking place in the water at any given time.”

The university-developed Ocean Observatory con-cept would provide a critical backbone for the re-quired systems architecture, providing necessary power and undersea communications infrastruc-ture for current and future technologies. Critically, the development of this concept would allow the participants to leverage limited dollars to achieve data streams that would otherwise be unachievable.

Neutralizing threats

By developing an overarching integrated system ca-pability using a diversity of individual sensors and corresponding platforms, the system described in this paper would be tasked to search for, detect, classify, localize and neutralize potential threats well outside of an adversary’s sphere of influence upon our forces afloat or ashore. Stipulating the overarching desired effects-based tenet, aligned with quantified system performance metrics would enable a better visual-ization of attempts to achieve the balance amongst ASW system components.

The sum of this aggregation of data is a snapshot of what is taking place in the water at any given time.

Anti-submarine warfare and anti-mine capabilities were once the only reason defense actors were inter-ested in what went on beneath the water’s surface. Now, governments seeking to assert sovereignty and protect the state from attack; corporations seeking to exploit marine resources; groups seeking to pro-tect those same resources and the ecosystem from exploitation; and scientists seeking new frontiers of knowledge all want to know the unknown.

The corporatization of environmental assessment and marine-species monitoring and the develop-ment of UDA infrastructures by research institutes has brought new sensors and technologies into the domain with capabilities often exceeding defense UDA sensor systems and processes. Canada possesses the individual components of a comprehensive UDA pic-ture, but has not yet formulated the strategy to produce the sum. Development of a UDA/ASW strategy would for the first time guide a unity of effort and achieve a principle of war concerning concentration of force. b


About the authorCommander David Finch is an expert in anti-submarine warfare with the Royal Canadian Navy currently assigned to NORAD in Colorado Springs, USA. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].

Ends-ways-means systems performance model.

While the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been making headlines for recent successes in cyber espionage, it

has also continued to quietly expand its ability to collect signals intelligence. Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT, is a branch of intelligence collection which seeks to intercept and collect communications from foreign military, government and economic targets. SIGINT plays a key role in support of modern war-fare, as well as in political and economic affairs. China is actively expanding its SIGINT collection ability in order to support its increasingly bold military, politi-cal and economic ambitions.

The term SIGINT encompasses several catego-ries. COMMINT, or communications intelligence, includes information collected from communica-tion sources such as military or civilian radio traffic. ELINT, or electronic intelligence, encompasses the collection of signals from radars and other electronic sources. SIGINT can be collected from ground sta-tions, ships, aircraft and satellites. Its targets can in-clude military, diplomatic and economic related com-munications. Information and intelligence gained from SIGINT is utilized in a wide variety of military, diplomatic, economic and security-related endeavors.

China has a long history of successfully exploit-ing SIGINT for military purposes. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began collecting SIGINT as early as the 1930s when it successfully intercepted Kuomintang (KMT) military transmissions during the Chinese Civil War. Today, the PLA General Staff ’s


photo: AAAndrey A

By Aaron Jensen

Third Department is China’s equivalent of America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and it is respon-sible for the collection and analysis of signals intel-ligence. According to Mark Stokes, Jenny Lin and Russell Hsiao of the Project 2049 Institute, the Third Department may have as many as 130,000 person-nel spread out over its headquarters, 12 operational bureaus and three research institutes.

Ground-based networks

China has maintained the largest ground-based SIGINT networks in Asia for some time. As of 1999, Jane’s Defense Research identified 12 major PRC SIGINT stations, seven of which are located outside of China’s borders. With these foreign-based sta-tions, China maintains an impressive ability to collect SIGINT over a large area that includes portions of the Indian Ocean, and extends to the US-administered Marshal Island in the central Pacific. Of the seven major SIGINT collection stations which China op-erates abroad, four are located in the Indian Ocean, one in the South China Sea and another on Kiribati. China also maintains a large ground station in Laos which was upgraded in 1995.

PRC embassies and consulates are also utilized for SIGINT collection, and China appears to have re-cently added collection capability in some strategic areas. In 2007, China established a consulate in the

small Philippine city of Laoag, located in the northern part of Luzon Island. This move confused analysts, as the small city of Laoag has few Chinese expatri-ates, and no significant economic relationship with China. A US State Department diplomatic cable re-leased on Wikileaks revealed that the governments of the Philippines and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan both concluded that China’s real intention in opening the new consulate was to increase SIGINT collection against US and ROC military operations in the area.

The PRC also opened a new consulate on the South Korean island of Jeju in 2012. Given that the island is in close proximity to Japan, as well as US forces in Okinawa, it is almost certain that this new consulate will also have a major role in SIGINT collection, in addition to its stated purpose of boosting Chinese tourism to the popular resort island.

In the Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence, I.C. Smith and Nigel West point out that China has already extended its ground-based SIGINT collection ability beyond Asia with the opening of a collection station in Bejucal, Cuba in 1999. Although details are scarce, this site probably has a similar function to the former Soviet SIGINT site at Lourdes, which was used to eavesdrop on US satellite communica-tions. Given its close proximity to the United States,


China Seeks Dividendsin Signals IntelligencePRC military growth accompanied by an expanding web of surveillance

the Bejucal station provides the PRC with an ideal foothold to monitor US satellite traffic. Additionally, the PRC’s SIGINT station in Cuba likely benefits from extensive Russian and Cuban technical ability and SIGINT experience. The Bejucal site was report-edly built with Russian equipment, according to the website globalsecurity.org.

Air- and sea-based collection

The air- and sea-based SIGINT collection capabilities of the PRC have also expanded, for example with the PLA Air Force having recently converted at least four Y-8 airframes for SIGINT collection, it was reported in Asia Military Review.

Four Tu-154 aircraft have also been modified for ELINT collection, with the larger Tu-154 airframe be-ing able to accommodate more equipment and offer greater range than the Y-8 platform. Additionally, it has been reported that China has converted an un-known number of older PS-5 and HZ-5 airframes to collect SIGINT.

These aircraft have recently been at the forefront of PRC sur-veillance efforts against Japan. In November, Japan scrambled fight-er planes to intercept a Tu-154 surveillance aircraft operating west of Okinawa near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands. It was the first time that Japan’s Defense Ministry confirmed a Tu-154 flight.

China’s sea-based SIGINT assets are also impressive, apparently op-erating a large number of ships capable of conduct-ing SIGINT collection. The most capable platform is said to be the 2,000-ton Shiyan 1, ostensibly a sci-entific research vessel, which was launched in 1998. It reportedly operates extensively in the East China

Sea area. China may also operate at least one modi-fied Han-Class nuclear attack submarine for naval SIGINT collection, which may partly explain why PRC subs routinely operate very close to, or inside of, ROC territorial waters.

The PRC also uses smaller vessels, often disguised as fishing boats, to conduct SIGINT operations. In 1997, not long after Taiwan began operating its new Mirage 2000-5 fighters, there were sightings of Chinese fish-ing boats with an unusually large number of antennas


“As a rising power with global inter-ests, it is natural to expect the PRC to expand its intelligence collection capability.”

operating just outside of Taiwan’s territorial waters near Hsinchu.

Chinese surveillance ships have also expanded their field of operations to include more distant waters. In 2011, it was reported that Chinese surveillance ships had been monitoring Indian missile tests near the coast of India. In October of 2013, China sent a surveillance ship into the United States’ exclusive economic zone near Hawaii, the first such reported case. Although it was spec-ulated that this action was in retaliation for similar patrols of US ships near China, this is just the first incident of what will undoubt-edly become routine ac-tion by the PRC.

China also appears to have strengthened its space-based SIGINT capability in recent years. According to a detailed study by the 2049 Institute, China now likely operates two different ELINT gath-ering satellite constella-tions which give it broad coverage of the Western Pacific. The PRC first began experiementing with ELINT satellites as early as the 1970s and

has been developing its space-based ELINT collec-tion capability more rapidly over the past decade.

In 2004, China began launching satellites known as the SJ-6 (Shirjian-6) series. These satellites, which operate in pairs, are believed to have an ELINT col-


photo: gov.cn

A Long March 4B carrier rocket blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi province carrying the remote-sensing Yaogan XII satellite into orbit.

photo: Fyodor Borisov

undoubtedly increase its global operations. This in turn will help the PRC gain an intelligence advantage in political, economic, and military affairs.

The impact of China’s increased SIGINT collec-tion capability, especially when combined with its advances in other intelligence disciplines, will be felt most acutely in the military domain. With the PLA’s rapidly advancing intelligence collection ca-pability, it will be able to locate, track, and target op-posing military forces at much greater distances. As the PLA develops longer-range weapons, its SIGINT collection platforms will serve as the eyes and ears to guide these new weapons to their intended targets. As one of those intended targets, Taiwan should fol-low these developments closely and institute efforts to develop countermeasures should the need for de-ployment arise. b


About the authorAaron Jensen is a graduate student at National Chengchi University who served as an officer in the United States Air Force for seven years. He can be reached at: [email protected].

lection mission. Beginning in 2006, China also began launching another family of suspected reconnaisance satellites, known as the Yaogan-9 series. These satel-lites operate in groups of three and are arranged in a triangular formation. It is suspected that their pri-mary payload consists of electro-optical and synthetic aperature radar sensors, while ELINT collection is a likely secondary function. In total, 13 Yaogan-series satellites have been launched since 2006.

The implications of China’s space-based ELINT collection ability are profound. As Chinese military writings have suggested, these satellites are intended to have a major role in providing targeting support to the PLA’s ballistic missiles. In particular, space-based ELINT collection would provide crucial support in the detection and targeting of US carrier battle groups by China’s new anti-ship ballistic missile, the DF-21.

As a rising power with global interests, it is natural to expect the PRC to expand its intelligence collec-tion capability. China already possesses an impres-sive SIGINT collection capability in Asia and it will

A Tupolev Tu-154 is under construction at the Aviakor aviation plant in Samara.

asymmetrical

photo: Liji6085

The ROC armed forces would do well to follow the example of the Chinese military and develop an asymmetrical strategy, especially with an offensive cyberwarfare capacity

by Tobias Burgers & David Robinson

A statue in Taiwan stands as a memorial to the Wushe Incident, in which a group of aboriginal fighters launched an uprising against the much larger and better organized Imperial Japanese Army then in power in Taiwan.

offensive



As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been expanding its military capabili-ties and increasing its military budget over

the last two decades, the Republic of China (ROC) has found it increasingly difficult to keep up. Gone is the military status quo ante of two decades ago, when the ROC had the advantage vis-à-vis the PRC. With the further growth of the PRC’s defense bud-get in the coming years and the subsequent growth of the military capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the ROC should consider alternative approaches to the changing dynamics in the Taiwan Strait.

The ROC should seek to embrace a more asym-metrical approach to the current security situation, as this would, given current conditions and future expectations, be a prudent response to the changing cross-strait dynamics. In particular, the advancement of offensive cyberwarfare capabilities should be con-sidered by the ROC. The utility of cyberwarfare as an asymmetrical approach has been demonstrated over

the last decade—ironically, this proof has been most effectively supplied by the PRC: the PLA’s offensive cyberwarfare strategy, which it developed to coun-ter the military superiority of the United States, has given the PRC extra tactical and strategic leverage in any possible conflict, and has significantly altered the current security situation between the two nations.

Historically, the PRC has lacked a credible force projection capability against US armed forces in the Pacific, and even though the United States still holds military dominance, it is clear that, due to the devel-opment of highly advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, the PRC has been successful in altering the security situation to its advantage.

David and Goliath

Thus, ROC military strategists should seek to emu-late PLA strategy of adopting a David and Goliath approach, and apply it to their own security situa-tion against the PRC itself. As the ROC is already

expanding its defensive cybersecurity program, it would not be so dif-ficult for the Ministry of National Defense (MND) to develop and advance its offensive cyberwarfare program. This would provide the ROC armed forces with a worthy alternative force projection ap-proach in any potential cross-strait conflict.

Beyond this main stra-tegic raison d’être there are a number of addi-tional economic, politi-cal, and military factors

graphic: US Army

which add to the case for the development of offen-sive cyberwarfare capabilities. First, the research, development, testing, and evaluation period for cy-berwarfare capabilities are relatively brief compared to the development of conventional military systems. The history of conventional weapon systems devel-opment is full of projects that lasted decades, only to become operational long after their original planned date, and having vastly overrun their proposed bud-get. Cyberwarfare requires significantly less in terms of financial investment. Moreover, this investment could be even more economically attractive if the MND would be able to use the expertise, experi-ence, and resources of the nation’s highly developed technological and informatics sectors.

On the political level, further arguments exist that add to the utility of cyberwarfare as an alternative to force projection consisting solely of conventional assets. First, financial investments would be largely local, and would reduce the dependency on weapons procurement from the United States. This would not

only decrease the dependency on Washington, but it would also benefit cross-strait relations as well, due to Beijing’s aversion to such weapons sales.

Furthermore, the development of cyberwarfare sys-tems through new research and development chan-nels can be conducted more clandestinely, and out of the sight of the Chinese espionage networks in Taiwan, compared to the development of conven-tional weapon systems.

Beyond the economic and political arguments, there are a number of military advantages as well. The ROC currently lacks any serious long-range force pro-jection capabilities, and even though its indigenous missile systems are developing impressively, it will be

“The technological vulnerabilities of the PRC will only rise as the PLA becomes an increasingly networked force.”

A Taiwanese Tien Kung III missile, capable of countering medium-range ballistic missiles and stealth aircraft, is on display at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in August 2013.

photo: Dean Karalekas


a long time before it will have significant strike ca-pability against much of China. The development of offensive cyberwarfare capabilities could change this, as cyberwarfare itself has few geographic obstacles, thus making any networked electronic system in the PRC a potential target.

Moreover, the technological vulnerabilities of the PRC will only rise as the PLA becomes an increas-ingly networked force, subsequently becoming more susceptible to attacks on its network and informa-tion systems.

It is important that any conceptualization of cyber operations focus on denying or degrading not just traditional military targets, but the highly necessary technological and civil services which support the current Chinese economic boom as well. Again, this is another aspect of the strategy that is already being employed by Beijing.

The threat upon infrastructure is often raised in popular media, as it directly affects the lives of ev-eryday citizens. Consider the common examples of attacks upon power grids, water supplies, and trans-portation networks. Consider even the less common

examples of attacks upon military supply chains, in-telligence sharing, and communications networks. Outright destruction of any of these networks is not in the interest of an attacker for two reasons: First, because a total denial of service increases the ease of detecting, auditing, and hardening against later attacks. The example of the Stuxnet worm is illus-trative here.

Unintended consequences

The worm targeted industrial systems and alleg-edly intended to covertly sabotage Iran’s uranium enrichment infrastructure. However, by sabotaging and destroying the centrifuges at the uranium en-richment facility at Natanz, the worm revealed itself and negated any potential long-term advantages that could have come from backdoor access to the facility. Moreover, a report by the journal of the Royal United Services Institute describes how the virus uncovered vulnerabilities in Iran’s enrichment efforts that were subsequently addressed, to the point that production increased after the event.


photo: ROC MND

Members of the ROC Air Force conduct search-and-rescue operations.

photo: Don Hankins

Information theft is exponentially easier, thanks to the Internet.

About the authorsTobias J. Burgers is a doctoral candidate at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Free University Berlin and currently a research intern at the NCCU’s Center for Security Studies. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].

David R.S. Robinson is an IT consultant currently working with ThoughtWorks. Over his 15 year career, he has worked for both private business and government, as well as spoken at numerous conferences on topics in information technology. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].

Second, the capability to immediately and selective-ly deny or degrade services vital for both civilian and military purposes would be a valuable asset in any conflict. The ROC alone is unlikely to prevail in any serious cross-strait military engagement. However, the ability to delay or degrade an aggressor opens the door for continued diplomacy, as well as giving time for allied forces to mobilize, as is in line with the “Hard ROC” defense policy.

In addition, as the ROC armed forces are currently modernizing and extending their cybersecurity pro-grams, it would be relatively easy to expand their reach toward developing offensive cyberwarfare ca-pabilities as well. With the importance of cybersecu-rity and cyberwarfare clear to both the political and military leadership, it should not be that difficult to convince both to invest in the effort. Not only would this be useful, but it might be necessary as well: the current logic of cybersecurity and warfare is that the best defense is building offensive capabilities.

Thus, there are a number of economic, political, and military arguments which lend support to the commitment of additional investment in offensive cyberwarfare capabilities: It would increase the mil-itary leverage vis-à-vis the PRC; give the ROC an asymmetrical tool to keep pace with the increasing

capabilities of the PLA; and in times of decreased defense spending, it seems a more economically vi-able approach. As the MND will soon be preparing the next quadrennial defense review, the time seems ripe for a profound policy discussion on the utility of offensive cyberwarfare for the ROC. b

Taiwanese servicemen conduct an exercise on the beach.

photo: Guo Jialiang


Mapping Companies Involved in Internet Monitoring. On December 1, 2011, WikiLeaks began publishing The Spy Files, thousands of pages and other materials exposing the

global mass surveillance industry.


The Wars of the Future will be Cyberwarsby Hsu Jen-chih

The development of the Internet drives growth, reduces trade barriers, and allows people across the world to communicate

and cooperate easily. It has developed and evolved as a means to provide new growth opportunities for the global community, but it has likewise emerged into the new battlefield in today’s intelligence wars. Former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta once said that, “just as nuclear warfare was the strategic war of the industrial era, cyberwarfare has become the strategic war of the information era.”

Events in cyberspace can transpire at breathtaking speed, a distinguishing feature that can also make us more vulnerable to those—including criminals, hack-ers, and agents of foreign intelligence services—who would do us harm by compromising or damaging our critical data and systems. The only thing that can be obtained from the Internet is information, but this information can easily become vital intelligence through the right analysis, and this intelligence has extremely critical significance for national security.

In the minds of analysts, all information is useful, regardless of whether it comes from an enemy or an ally. In terms of safeguarding national interests, the only question related to intelligence gathering is whether it “can or cannot be obtained;” there is no such conception as “should or should not be ob-tained.” In other words, there is no room for moral restraint.

The Wars of the Future will be Cyberwars

graphic: Ramy Raoof

Without a doubt, intelligence acts as the eyes and ears of God in the name of national security, and the nation that is best positioned to uncover the most se-crets stands to benefit by being able to control world events. Today, the best way to obtain a proliferation of raw intelligence is through the increasingly intercon-nected networks and servers of the World Wide Web.

In terms of non-state actors, cybercrime is not only slowing down, but the tactics employed by top-tier cyber-criminals have had to become extremely so-phisticated. Besides information-technology (IT) environments becoming more complex, information-security protection measures are becoming increas-ingly difficult to circumvent. As a result, a greater proportion of sensitive data is entrusted to computer networks, raising the stakes in terms of the threat to citizens and governments in the event of inadvertent information release.

New threats, opportunities

This growing—and some would say central—role that cyberspace plays in the day-to-day lives of ordinary citizens offers new threats as well as new opportuni-ties, and societies have no choice but to find ways to confront and overcome these threats. The focus must be the safety and resiliency of the networks that sup-port national security, economic prosperity, and the private lives of individuals.

It is already well documented that cyberspace has been used by terrorists to achieve a number of ob-

jectives: spreading propaganda, seeking potential supporters, raising funds, and communicating and planning terrorist attacks. While terrorists can be ex-pected to continue to look for vulnerable brick-and-mortar targets for physical attacks, there exists the growing threat that they might also use cyberspace to facilitate such efforts. No doubt they will continue to explore such avenues, especially in cases where the national infrastructure may be vulnerable.

All these groups—criminals, terrorists, foreign in-telligence services and militaries—are today very active in cyberspace. But with the borderless and anonymous nature of the Internet, precise attribu-tion is often difficult to ascertain, and so the line has been blurred between innocent computer user and potential enemy of the state. As a result, a decision seems to have been made to simply treat all individu-als as suspect.

Much has been made of the release of classified doc-uments by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden which revealed the ex-tent to which the US government was monitoring the activities of its citizens through such techniques as data mining, as well as such constitutionally ques-tionable methods as using warrants issued by se-cret courts to obtain metadata on large swaths of the population from their private-sector telephone and Internet providers—as well as to compel those companies not to disclose that release of information.

According to a recent report in The Washington Post, the NSA can collect the metadata and follow the


photo: gov.cn

locations of hundreds of millions of devices, feeding nearly 5 billion records a day into a vast NSA data-base called the FASCIA repository. This allows the government to track individuals’ movements and map their relationships. To handle all this data, NSA chief General Keith Alexander commissioned the construction of a command-and-control center for an NSA “war room,” for which architects based the design on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise from TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Voice of outrage

While what little media uproar there was over these domestic spying practices quickly died down, there has been a more sustained voice of outrage emanating from abroad, after further documents revealed that the United States intelligence apparatus was actively surveilling the leaders of friendly nations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reported to be upset about revelations that her phone had been tapped by the Americans for the better part of a decade, while

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff expressed outrage that the US government had been intercepting and collecting large amounts of information from tele-communications in Brazil, including those of state-run oil company Petrobras.

Defenders of the practice point out that terrorists and criminals are using computer and telephone networks to communicate frequently with their co-conspirators, and therefore such virtual dragnets can lead to their apprehension prior to their actually com-mitting a deadly attack. Therefore, the United States claims that all the global listening that it conducts is in the service of protecting security by collecting any relevant intelligence of a possible terrorist attack, particularly with regard to weapons of mass destruc-tion, and parsing it for potential clues.


The NSA enjoys a high-tech command center to aid in its operations. photo: NSA

“More worrisome are calls in the wake of the revelations of the NSA’s activi-ties for countries to engage in a form of Internet ‘separatism.’”

Combing through billions of data records in such a way helps the United States meet its protection goals in the development of a strategic plan. It was reported in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel that the United States operates a worldwide network consist-ing of scores of special collection services, including listening posts in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong, and Taipei tasked with moni-toring communications in China. Surely this is tes-tament to the strategic importance that Washington places on East Asia.

Unsecure infrastructures

The United States’ widespread monitoring, while ar-guably a violation of trust in the international com-munity, served to remind the nations of the world that networked communications infrastructures are inherently unsecure. If this leads to a greater security consciousness on the part of foreign governments and

impels them to take effective protective measures, then it has had a positive benefit.

More worrisome are calls in the wake of the revela-tions of the NSA’s activities for countries to engage in a form of Internet “separatism,” such as by creating

protective barriers not unlike the Great Firewall of China employed by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), wherein their country’s Internet accessibility would be tightly controlled to prevent intrusions by the NSA and other unauthor-ized snoops. This could have the unfortunate side effect of making it technically feasible for more gov-ernments to censor Internet content.

The United States must strike a balance between national security and commercial interests. The


Wall art depicting the piercing eyes of whistleblower Edward Snowden

photo: Abode of Chaos

“Gathering intelligence around the world is part and parcel of the duties and responsibilities of the world’s only remaining superpower.”

photo: Agencia Brasil

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is among the foreign leaders recently caught up in the US government’s espionage dragnet.

image: NSA

American private sector believes that if the United States and other Western countries witness the emer-gence of Internet separatism, then Google, Facebook, and other technology companies will have to set up branch offices in those regions, leading to soaring production costs.

European countries know that United States is abso-lutely not going to give up such intelligence-gathering excesses. This would be an unrealistic expectation. But many would like Washington to, at the very least, explain its past behavior, and perhaps to live up to a certain standard of ethical conduct when it comes to future electronic monitoring.

Herculean task

From Washington’s perspective, however, gather-ing intelligence around the world is part and parcel of the duties and responsibilities of the world’s only remaining superpower and the guarantor of peace and security in virtually every corner of the globe. This is a herculean task that the world has come to expect of it, and comprehensive electronic intercep-

tion and collection of any and all data—whether it comes from a cave in Tora Bora or the personal cell-phone of a European public figure—can only help in the pursuit of that effort.

Indeed, as the chair of the US House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told CNN recently, foreign leaders and their constituents should be grateful, since America’s spying keeps them safe.


In addition to espionage duties, the NSA operates awareness campaigns teaching children about the need for good operational security habits.

The wars of the future will be fought, to a great de-gree, via cyberwarfare, an amalgam of various doc-trines and concepts including information warfare and network-centric warfare, and including psycho-logical warfare. The key to winning in such a contest lies in intelligence gathering.

It is entirely conceivable that, with the continuing sharp rise in the PRC military, East Asia will be a key region of concern for the United States, as has already been demonstrated by the US pivot. In such an eventuality, there should be provisions made for sharing intelligence between Washington and Taipei. Taiwan’s military and economy would both benefit by being a partner in this shared purpose, as well as being extremely valuable to US efforts to secure peace in the region.

As revealed by the Snowden leaks, the government of Australia has not only assisted US spying efforts by monitoring the Indonesian president’s cellular tele-phone, but it offered “bulk, unselected, unminimised metadata” to the NSA regarding Australian citizens’ “medical, legal and religious information,” accord-ing to the UK newspaper The Guardian. Concerns

over the breach of privacy rights notwithstanding, this demonstrates a structural level of intelligence-sharing and cooperation between Washington and Canberra that would be of benefit in any coming conflict. Taipei should likewise seek to forge such ties with Washington and establish a legitimate in-telligence-sharing pipeline that will help put Taiwan and the United States in a win-win situation come any future conflict with a cyber-component.

In the era of cyberwar, there are certain aspects that the government in Taipei should focus on. First of all, it must strengthen the country’s capacity to de-tect and defeat threats. Next, it must help establish an international consensus on standards of behavior in cyberspace. Naturally, there should be great efforts made toward finding and reducing vulnerabilities in the government’s critical IT systems and the national infrastructure. Moreover, computer professionals can be important assets to the government, and so this sort of cybersecurity expertise should be nurtured among Taiwan’s already tech-savvy population. From a legislative perspective, Taipei must strengthen law enforcement and tackle cybercrime, working together with industry and academia to make Taiwan’s corner of cyberspace a safe place to do business online. b

photo: NSA


About the authorLieutenant Commander Hsu Jen-chih is an instructor at the Naval Command and Staff College of the ROC’s National Defense University. He can be reached at [email protected].

The National Security Agency

“This sort of cybersecurity expertise should be nurtured among Taiwan’s already tech-savvy population.”


Sunset for Americaby Edward Hsieh

Recent impotence over Syrian civil war paints US as a waning superpower

photo: yeowatzup

From a purely pragmatic point of view, it would seem highly unlikely that the crisis sur-rounding the Syrian civil war would have any

impact on Taiwan. Yet the way the crisis has unfolded from an international political perspective hints at a shift in the fabric of the global political order, upon which Taiwan is—perhaps more than most countries, given its precarious international status—intricately and delicately entwined. Thus the ripples of Syria will be felt as far afield as Taiwan.

After US President Barack Obama’s failed attempts to rally support (in both Washington and abroad) for a military intervention in the civil war in Syria,

with the stated goal of ridding the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of its chemical weapons, the world began waking up to a new reality: the US power status can be challenged.

Perhaps this is not such a new reality after all, but now it is more than just Russia and China that are daring to challenge the United States: Countries such as North Korea and Iran see that they can, like Syria, use direct or indirect means to mount challenges to the international norms and values that have been established and promoted by Western civilization; primarily the United States. In the past, very few chal-lengers to the US-led global order were successful. In


The sun sets in the Syrian desert.

Iraq, for example, Saddam Hussein overestimated his own capabilities, and seriously misjudged a perceived US acquiescence to his invasion of Kuwait.

Today, however, it appears as though the United States is trying only reluctantly to maintain its leader-ship position in the world, at least as far as the Syrian civil war is concerned. Washington’s reaction to the

crisis demonstrated a marked difference in how it has, during much of the 20th and 21st centuries, deployed military and diplomat-ic assets overseas with much more zeal.

For much of the past century, and especial-ly since the end of the Cold War, the United

States has dominated the world by providing security and other public goods, including the erection and widespread acceptance of international frameworks and norms. For a long time it has used these subjec-tive values to judge other governments.

This situation has contributed to the very clash of civilizations that Samuel Huntington posited, as well has having far-reaching—and some would say ad-


A march to support Bashar al-Assad.

Free Syrian Army rebels take up positions in Maraat al-Numan.

photo: Kzaral

photo: Mustafa Karali

photo: Beshr O

verse—consequences for the global order, going as far back as the wars in Korea and Vietnam to fight the spread of communism, and more recently in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as part of the larger war on terror. These wars did not come cheap, either in terms of money or lives.

Hope and change

During his presidential election campaign, Obama rose to immense popularity by promising hope and change, including change to America’s war footing. He promised to put an end to the overseas military operations and withdraw US troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to shut down the politi-cally unpopular Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

His withdrawal of the troops in Iraq is considered a major achievement.

In this vein, the Obama administration has tried to distance itself from making the same mistakes by getting involved in recent events in the Middle East, including by “leading from behind” on Libya, and more recently in the Syrian civil war. Bashar al-Assad made this a difficult, if not untenable, position when his military brazenly used chemical weapons to attack rebel forces in Damascus, killing a reported 1,429 people.

This incident forced the Obama administration to react, having previously announced its “red line” on the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), in order to maintain US credibility and leadership in the international community.


photo: Rami Alhames

Assad is often accused of fronting for Iran in the conflict with the West.

The US-announced red line was supposed to have been a deterrent: It was meant to have been the base-line of military action, but when Assad’s actions clear-ly crossed that line, the United States failed to obtain a mandate for a response, first when the UK Parliament rejected the British prime minister’s call to action on Syria in support of their US allies, and then again later when the US Congress itself appeared to waffle as the vote on the decision to launch punitive air strikes approached. Many analysts have noted that Obama’s move to delegate the decision to America’s currently feeble Congress was a cynical one on the president’s part, and one perhaps designed to re-lieve him of the respon-sibility of going back on his word regarding the red line.

Whether deferring the decision to Congress (as is constitutionally ap-propriate, if not today’s standard operating pro-

cedure) was meant to provide a reason or an excuse for the ex-pected failure, and whether the red line was, in fact, more of a watered-down, pinkish hue, the questions are moot: When Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived at the 11th hour with a plan to put Syrian chemical weapons under inter-

national control, he not only saved Assad; he saved Obama as well.

Mission criteria

Traditionally, for the United States to deploy its armed forces overseas in the undertaking of a humanitarian cause, the mission must meet at least one of the fol-lowing criteria: 1) It must stop a foreign aggression,

2) it must be in support of a legitimate national lib-eration movement, or 3) it must aim to end a gross human rights violation.

Moreover, in addition to these factors, the deploy-ment relies on the moral authority conferred upon it by Washington first seeking and being grant-ed approval from the UN Security Council.

However, a look at the record of US military operational history since the Clinton era teaches us


that the US president can decide, seemingly arbi-trarily, whether or not to use force before being given authority from the United Nations, much less from Congress. It would seem that the concept of legiti-macy has taken a back seat to expediency, as far as the executive is concerned.

Frankly speaking, it often seems to the outside ob-server that Washington has grown weary of playing the role of world policeman and would just as soon see other nations share the responsibility, as well as the cost. Conversely, while international pundits often caricature the Americans as warlike for their high levels of defense spending and unilateral in-volvement in overseas conflicts, they are as quick to condemn the United States for not dispatching its military quickly enough for their liking when they think action is truly needed, as happened in the case of Libya and, to a degree, in Syria as well.

As a result, Assad’s crossing the red line left the Obama administration with a dilemma, and a chal-lenge to the credibility of US leadership.

Expecting the mere threat of force to act as a deter-

rent to the use of WMDs, the Obama administration did not anticipate such resistance to military action. In addition to a lack of authority from the United Nations and the no-vote in the British Parliament,


photo: US Navy

A Persian rug bears the likeness of Russian President Putin.

photo: Daniel Hinton

John Kerry and General Martin Dempsey seek approval for a limited military strike on Syria at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

public opinion in the United States was running 48 percent against air strikes, as opposed to 29 percent in favor, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. With a little help from Putin, Assad called Obama’s bluff, and seems to have won: he is still in power, and free to continue waging his civil war.

What will the geopolitical fallout be? While it may be too early to jump to conclusions, one thing is sure: Iran and North Korea are taking note.

They might be seeing that the calculus behind US national interest and military action is changing, and that the key point today is public opinion, dwarfing humanitarian concerns in deciding not just how, but when to go to war.

Adding to American’s unease with the prospect may have been the diluted nature of the proposed mission:

not to remove Assad from power, but to conduct limited, punitive airstrikes. In Secretary of State John Kerry’s own words, the strike would be “unbelievably small.” One does not have to be a Washington belt-way insider (in fact, it probably helps if one is not) to know this is code for action based on political ex-

pediency, without any real expectation of victory. As much as there was opposition to the 1991 Gulf War for oil, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the name of anti-terrorism, at least in those engagements there

was some expectation of accomplishing something concrete: the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait and an end to the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein, respectively.

This is not to say that a military engagement in Syria would be preferable to the compromise reached

by Washington and Moscow: quite the opposite. By all accounts, there do not seem to have been any further deployments of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, meaning that Western leaders can rest assured that they have done their moral duty. Nevertheless, the real problem still persists in that the


A Syrian soldier aims an AK-47 assault rifle from his position in a foxhole .

photo: HH Deffner

“After the Syria crisis, the world will be less likely to look to America as the world’s policeman.”

civil war that has caused hundreds of thousands of casualties and creat-ed an estimated 2 mil-lion refugees since 2011 continues unabated, al-beit with conventional rather than chemical weapons.

Surely the Syrian people must be won-dering if, in the eyes of the United States (and by extension, the Western world), the lives of these victims killed by conventional weapons are worth any less than those killed by chemical weapons.

Despite the feel-good nature of the Obama-Putin compromise, the Russian state arms dealer Rosoboronexport is still supplying weapons to Assad, while CIA-funded weapons are flowing to Syrian rebels. What, then, is the rule for the Syria crisis? Perhaps no rule is the real rule.

Geopolitical fallout

After the Syria crisis, the world will be less likely to look to America as the world’s policeman, and per-haps more and more countries will be encouraged to challenge its power status. What, if any, implica-tions does this shift in the international fabric have for Taiwan?

For one thing, the odds of there being a civil war in Taiwan are practically nil, so that is not a par-allel that this article is attempting to draw. While there is a definite schism in Taiwan society, between those who think of themselves—and therefore the island—as being Chinese and those who believe they are Taiwanese, the idea that hostilities could break out over it are ludicrous. For one thing, Taiwan is a democracy, and thus has mechanisms for inclusive

representation in the power structure, and outlets for expressions of dissent.

Rather, it is the relative power and influence of Taiwan’s two giant neighbors, the United States and China, which is in flux, and so Taipei must react by adjusting the tightrope balancing act that it must con-stantly perform. What does this mean in real terms?

For one thing, it does not mean that having do-mestic political disputes will give a chance to foreign forces to involve themselves in the development of the cross-strait relationship, or otherwise influence the national interest. Indeed, domestic political disputes are a mainstay of healthy democracies.

Hence, maintaining the stability of the domestic po-litical system is as important as identifying Taiwan’s place in the international community and strength-ening alliances with friendly forces and countries. On the US-China issue, it is important to maintain equidistance politically from both Washington and Beijing, thus avoiding policy extremes that could force the government too deeply into one camp. This is a very important inspiration derived from the Syria crisis. b


About the authorLieutenant Colonel Edward Hsieh is an instructor at the ROC National Defense University currently conducting research at RUSI, a British think tank. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].

A family is displaced to Qaa in Lebanon from Syria.

photo: Hussein Malla

agencies were not operating together effectively un-der a unified maritime strategy. For example, the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command and China Marine Surveillance often competed for funding and clout. It had become increasingly difficult for the higher authorities to control the direction of MLE when the responsibilities and tasks were spread amongst as many as nine different agencies, operating in different regions under different bureaucracies and sets of regulations. Due to the increasingly impor-tant role MLE ships have been playing in territorial


In July of this year, China officially unveiled the new Chinese Coast Guard (CCG), a con-glomeration of four previously separate mari-

time law enforcement agencies now all under the auspices of the State Oceanographic Administration. The decision to consolidate and restructure was made in March, during the so-called two meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress.

It had become more and more evident in the past few years that maritime law enforcement (MLE)

Launching the FleetChina merges maritime law enforcement agencies into new Coast Guard

by Kirsten Asdal

A painting by Edward Duncan (1803–1882) depicts a fleet of Chinese junks meeting the East India Company iron steam ship Nemesis in combat during the First Opium War.

PD-Art

disputes, particularly the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands dispute, which flared up again in September 2012, the Central Committee finally decided to execute the restructure they had been considering for years.

Just months before the “two meetings,” the Philippines submitted an unprecedented interna-tional legal challenge to China’s nine-dashed line, seeking to invalidate China’s claims in the South

China Sea; this likely also served as an impetus to strengthen MLE. Senior People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) official Zhang Junshe has called the new Coast Guard an “iron fist” that will replace in-effective operations scattered across a number of agencies.

Since the announcement of the restructure, ana-lysts have watched closely to determine its effect on regional security and stability. A balanced approach must be taken to analysis of the restructure; it was as practical as it was strategic, and there are both



positive and negative dimensions to it. The previous amalgamation of agencies had become very difficult to manage, and that was unacceptable as those agen-cies began to take the front line in territorial disputes. Furthermore, according to Lyle Goldstein of the US Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, there was an increased need for well-organized law enforcement.

“Of the 10 biggest ports in the world, more than half are in China. They have some of the busiest sea lanes in the world,” Goldstein pointed out. “Even putting the disputes aside, there are still legitimate safety, environmental and management reasons for these enhanced capabilities.”

Regional security

A stronger coast guard does indeed provide more ef-fective regional security, and it allows the PLAN to stay away from the island disputes where they would certainly increase tensions.

The restructure offers the possibility of more fre-

quent and professional cooperation with other coun-tries’ coast guards. The previous Chinese Coast Guard had been performing joint patrols of the Gulf of Tonkin with the Vietnamese Coast Guard to en-

force fishing regulations and to strengthen friendly relations between the neighbors. These patrols have continued since the restructure.

Susan Shirk, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, succinctly explained the positive dimensions of the restructure. At a conference on maritime safety held in Beijing in July of this year, she noted that “Vessels belonging to the fisheries law enforcement agency have been particularly aggressive in the South China Sea over the past few years, and this kind of behavior may be modified under the new structure.

“It’s good for China’s neighbors and the United

“Chinese officials have been very interested in learning how Taiwan successfully integrated its MLE agencies in 2000.”

The new Chinese Coast Guard recently launched two 4000-ton patrol vessels.

photo: gov.cn


States,” she went on to opine, “because we know who is respon-sible and who we can hold responsible. As they develop a sense of professionalism in accordance with inter-national law, it should make for lower risk of accidents.”

On the other hand, the restructure pro-vides the PRC an en-hanced capability to defend territorial sovereignty claims, and a decision to use those capabilities could increase tensions. MLE ships have become China’s best tool for elbowing around in the East and South China seas, and they have just sharpened that tool. Ultimately, though, the intentions of the PRC government will be the biggest factor in the usage of the CCG. The PRC can decide to either use the CCG to improve stability or to continue its aggressive push for sovereignty and regional power.

Practical challenges

No matter what the PRC decides, the new Coast Guard faces certain practical challenges that will likely persist for years before all the kinks of integra-tion are ironed out. Chinese officials have been very interested in learning how Taiwan successfully inte-grated its MLE agencies in 2000, after which it took nearly a decade before all officials were more loyal to the new organization than to their previous com-mands, supporters, and respective ways of operating.

Besides leadership loyalty, there will also be the is-sue of resolving the agencies’ overlapping duties and responsibilities. They had separate budgets, training

pipelines, promotion systems, coastal facilities, and organizational cultures, to name a few. These sys-tems must all be seamlessly integrated, and there will undoubtedly be infighting in determining how that is carried out, especially with budget allocations. Finally, it will take time to achieve effective command and control, even with a new bureaucracy structure already set up to facilitate it.

It is still too early to determine the full impact of the restructure, not least because China’s governmental decisions and policies are long-term in nature, and their full realization is often not seen immediately. However, a clue to where the Coast Guard fits into the PRC’s broader national strategy can be found in the evolution of one particular conflict where the Coast Guard is now by far the most involved PRC agent: the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands.

The events surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyutai dis-pute since the restructure indicate that China’s stra-tegic position in the East China Sea has not changed dramatically with the introduction of the new CCG. Rather, it has been continuing on a path of steadily increasing boldness. The coast guard’s involvement

photo: gov.cn

A Chinese maritime law enforcement ship gets a new paint job.


has been more or less in line with Beijing’s objectives to defend territorial sovereignty and assert its rights over the islands. This suggests that the CCG will be used to strengthen China’s position in island disputes, rather than to improve stability and reduce tensions.

In short, China’s strategy at the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands has been to use the CCG’s presence to erode Japan’s sole administration over the islands and incorporate China’s presence into the status quo. Furthermore, China justifies its presence through a display of what it holds to be “domestic” law en-forcement. Using the coast guard rather than the navy sends a strong message about the nature of the conflict itself; that is, China is simply defending ter-ritory that is already theirs through domestic law en-forcement rather than securing new territory through military force.

Bold moves

The context of MLE agencies’ integration is a year of increasingly bold maritime moves by the PRC follow-ing Japan’s nationalization of three of the five main Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands. The newly designated CCG ships received their official paint job and seam-lessly continued their patrols of the disputed waters that have been conducted since September 2012 to challenge Japan’s claims (there have been more than 70 such patrols). Since the spring, the CCG has con-ducted the longest patrol yet, spending over 28 hours within the islands’ territorial waters.

In December 2012, China conducted its first un-

manned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight near the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands, and since the spring there have been two more. Chinese UAVs flew to within 50 nau-tical miles of the islands in June, and in September another UAV flew within 200 nm.

In October, four Chinese military planes flew over the airspace between Okinawa and Miyako—the third time Chinese military planes have been spot-ted doing that recently. Groups of PLAN ships, one as large as 11 strong, have transited the waters between Okinawa and Miyako several times since the spring.

The recent Chinese declaration of its East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) is another bold step from the PRC, as it fully encompasses the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands and overlaps with the existing ADIZs of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Although the PRC rejects all criticism that its uni-lateral action changes the status quo in China’s favor and increases the potential for clashes, the timing of this move and its situation amongst a handful of other increasingly bold moves make it difficult not to question its innocence.

Furthermore, close cooperation between the CCG and the PLAN indicate they share common goals. The CCG will continue to acquire old PLAN ships, a practice which has increased in recent years. In

“It moves China one step closer to becoming the maritime power it wishes to be.”


About the authorKirsten Asdal is a Fulbright fellow affiliated with the Center for Security Studiesat National Chengchi University. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].

2009 they signed a cooperation agreement and have held a meeting every year since to discuss this co-operation, which aims to increase China’s maritime power and safeguard maritime rights and interests. At this year’s meeting in February, the head of the State Oceanographic Administration (SOA) attrib-uted much of the success of the SOA (which oversees the CCG) to the PLAN’s guidance and support, par-ticularly in offshore oil operations, polar and ocean explorations, personnel training, and academic ex-changes.

Establishing a presence

Maritime actions in the South China Sea reflect the same increasing boldness. In October, the China National Offshore Oil Corp. began production on two new oil fields in a disputed area of the South China Sea. In June, the PRC began pushing for faster and more extensive development of Sansha City, one

of the newest roots China has laid in the disputed Spratly Islands.

The CCG already has plans to expand and continue to modernize its fleet. There is a five-year program underway to build 30 new cutters, and there will also be more than 100 smaller patrol boats added to the fleet by 2015. Additionally, most of these will be larger and more capable than the ones they replace, with some being able to embark helicopters.

The reorganization so far seems to be part of a broader strategy to increase China’s maritime pow-er and to safeguard maritime rights and interests. It moves China one step closer to becoming the mari-time power it wishes to be. Although the unified CCG could facilitate better international cooperation and a reining-in of MLE ships’ aggression in island disputes, the evidence does not support that inter-pretation. In fact, it supports quite the opposite. b

photo: Vmenkov

An MSA cutter on the Grand Canal of China east of Yangzhou.

Visit our website:

www.mcsstw.org/web/Journal_Publication.php

Documents

Strategic Vision, Special Issue 2