Earlier in the week, I was asked by a business executive what I thought was our nation’s next “unknown” challenge. Great question. It really wasn’t a “black swan” question, but it was close. I felt lost, intellectually ambushed, failing to anticipate the question. What was I “not” thinking about?
America is in the midst of a period of unrelenting chaos and international challenges but we seem fixated on our political drama at home. War in Syria, Iraqi forces clearing Mosul of ISIS fighters after years of planning and execution, nukes in North Korea, a US college student returned to the US from a North Korean prison only to die a day later, terrorist attacks in Great Britain, the USS Fitzgerald colliding with a Philippine flagged tanker off of Japan’s coast killing seven sailors, etc. Of course, I was ready for the question.
No, I wasn’t. After a moment’s hesitation, I offered that there are two scenarios that I think are equally likely and equally unpredictable in terms of their longitudinal outcomes: cooperation with China to solve the North Korean conundrum and war with Russia over our conflicted interests in Syria.
Cooperation with China. The United States and China are polar opposites. We’ve been at war with China. Our political objectives are competitive regionally in Asia as well as globally. China is building islands in the South China Sea for purposes that remain unclear but seem to indicate military use. We should not be surprised when China denies everything except peaceful purposes for these “made in China” outposts. China is stretching its regional muscles. They are increasing trade and presence at Indonesian ports. Not surprisingly, in recent polling, China polls favorably (52%) with Indonesians. Also, the current president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, sees China as the best alternative to his deteriorating relationship with the United States and is pursuing policies that better align the Philippines with China. The US should be alarmed.
Obviously, both history and current events suggest that competition (not cooperation) defines relations between the United States and China. However, America must embrace its history of competition and find a way to alter the arc of history and cooperate with China to solve the existential threat of a nuclear North Korea.
So what does cooperation with China look like? The short answer is that it must be far more draconian than anything the regime in Pyongyang has ever suffered through before. Economic trade sanctions have never altered NK behavior…never. Additionally, the US-South Korean military alliance headquartered in Seoul and our shared values with the Republic of Korea are models of international cooperation.
Although China banned all imports of North Korean coal, turning away a ship on 11 April, the full economic life-line of the regime must be severed.
Not unlike the recent quarantine of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, the United States and China, must put a virtual dome around North Korea and “starve” the regime. This has never been attempted. Previous efforts at enhancing the isolation of the North Korean regime have been a patchwork of individual, punishing sanctions but not synchronized into a campaign creating the conditions for Pyongyang’s behavioral change.
The US and China should cooperate and fashion a brutal campaign that breaks the back of the regime without causing its collapse. All flights must be banned. Ports should be blockaded and shuttered. China and Russia must cease all land shipments across their respective borders with North Korea. The combined effect of synergizing our collective elements of power with our persuasive diplomacy, visible and crushing militaries, and far reaching financial levers to isolate the nation can be near fatal to North Korea.
Certainly, bad actors that are on North Korea’s list of favorites will slip through the inevitable cracks of this embargo. However, with China’s concurrence and commitment, Pyongyang could be made to feel desperately lost.
Our goal should not be to encourage or coerce regime change. China has no interest, nor does the US, in forcing regime change. Our message to NK’s leadership must be unequivocal and powerful: without nukes, you can stick around.
This of course would enrage North Korea’s leader Kim Jung Un and risk his support by the regime elites. However, it is this very target, Kim’s supporters, who have the most to lose. They must suffer greatly on a personal level and skirt along the edge of their pathetic universe that could disappear in a heartbeat. A campaign that accomplishes those objectives is attainable but would require a coordinated effort unleashing the incredible talents of the American and Chinese national security teams. That’s never happened before. It can and must now.
Time is no longer our friend vis-à-vis the North’s nuclear ambitions. By 2020, North Korea will possess an arsenal of nuclear tipped missiles that can reach Seattle. By then, it’s fair to assume that North Korea will be able to launch a nuclear missile and explode it over South Korea creating an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy South Korea’s electric grid and thousands of its citizens.
A nuclear North Korea is a certainty unless we act immediately. China and the United States are not alone in agreeing that something must be done now. However, both China and the United States are the only nations who can galvanize the community of nations to act forcefully and unequivocally. But Washington and Beijing must act first. Our cooperation is non negotiable.
War with Russia. The United States has never fired a shot in anger against the Soviet Union before it collapsed in 1991or Russia over the past 25 years. Our nations have struggled through proxies for the primacy of our respective political ideologies and tangible objectives since the middle of the last century. The blessing in all of this is that the US and Russia shared a similar view of normalcy…no direct military confrontation. We were in a Cold War; it never heated up…directly.
The prospect now of a direct shooting conflict, however, has never been closer. Just in the past few weeks, the US shot down a Syrian fighter and two Iranian drones. All three attacked US forces on the ground. Of course, US forces eliminated the threat.
Russia warned the US that they would engage US fighters in the airspace above Syria if these actions were repeated. Just this week, a Russian SU-22 fighter flew dangerously close to a US RC-135 signal intelligence aircraft conducting operations in international airspace over the Baltic. Russian aircraft always shadow our intelligence flights but never threaten them by flying within a few feet at a dangerous speed and attitude.
We’ve come a long way from an overt pledge late last year to “deconflict” our respective air operations over Syria to threats of shooting down US aircraft. Unless the United States and Russia can agree to shared outcomes in Syria, a mistake is inevitable.
American and Russian militaries have no experience conducting coalition or cooperative military operations. It has never happened. The potential for conflict is real. It is not inconceivable that a mistake will occur at the tactical level where junior officers and non commissioned officers make engage-don’t engage, rapid fire decisions based on incomplete intelligence that are always clouded by the fog of war and the mandate to protect your forces.
There are no plans for the US and Russian military to train together. That will not happen unless we have a shared picture of what we’re trying to achieve in Syria, together. Right now, that’s highly unlikely.
However, the United States should admit that the Assad regime in Damascus is not going anywhere. Assad has the material support of Russia and is not threatened by the neutered and inept regime resistance. Our fight in Syria is against ISIS, not Assad. Washington and Moscow must agree that we may not share the same desired outcome in Syria, but we can operate separately and safely to achieve our respective and de-conflicted objectives.
Years ago, the US Army changed the terminology of an unintended discharge of a weapon from an accident to negligence. The change was intended to ensure full accountability for the proper functioning of a weapon. Today in Syria, an accident and negligence are a distinction without a difference. Accountability for an “unintended discharge” is instantly strategic and immediately catastrophic. The US and Russia must agree that we should keep the streak alive…no hot war between us.
So, here we are, labeling China and Russia as our two thorniest challenges. The United States must embrace the chaos and uncertainty that relations with both of the nations present. We’ve been here before but every storm is different. When ships are in a storm, every sailor finds some form of religion. But the prayers are not for the storm to end; they ask for strength simply to get through.
This international storm of volatility and ambiguity that currently defines our circumstance will not go away. Let’s trust our leaders to get us through.