In the 80 years since Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, nuclear, and, later, precision weapons changed the dimensions of national security and defense. During the Cold War and since, deterrence of thermonuclear war remained existential. The ironic shorthand for this condition was MAD, for mutual assured destruction, meaning if the United States and Soviet Union maintained secure second-strike capabilities, war would be avoided by the catastrophic effects that would destroy both sides.
Precision weapons, for the first time in history, meant targets could be struck and destroyed on the first or second shot. That capability reinforced U.S. defense preferences for firepower-intensive offensive tactics, highly dependent on elaborate command, control, and surveillance systems (C4ISR) and the considerable technological advantages over real and potential enemies that would enable the United States to win in a conventional war as well as adding to deterrence.
The end of the Soviet Union; September 11th; Russian occupation of Crimea; and the emergence of a more aggressive China have dramatically changed the national security and defense equations. Concurrently and invisibly, however, another overarching threat emerged. This threat is one of “massive attacks of disruption,” whether by man or nature. And the shorthand also is MAD.
The COVID-19 pandemic; persistent and frequent violent storms and weather created by climate change; cyberattacks that cut off fuel and food supplies; and social media that was filled with disinformation and misinformation that influenced elections were precursors of the new MAD. And Chinese and Russian strategies based on “active measures” fully recognize the power of disruption and are exploiting it through both kinetic and non-kinetic means.
Yet, U.S. strategy and strategic thinking remains rooted in 20th-century concepts of deterrence and defense that may not fully fit the 21st century and largely are oblivious of MAD. The aims of the Obama, Trump, and, so far, Biden administration defense strategies are to “compete, deter and if war arose defeat” China (now the “pacing” threat), Russia, and the lesser dangers of North Korea, Iran and violent extremism.
That thinking has at least three possibly fatal flaws. The first was that none of the aims of these strategies had been defined in specific enough terms to drive or to change policy, force structure, and budget priorities as there is no agreement on what “compete, deter, and defeat” really mean. As a result, post-2014 force structure remained remarkably immune to change.
The second flaw was that tactics and process too often drove strategy, reversing ends determining means. And the last and most critical flaw has been the repeated failure to recognize the power of this new MAD as a dangerous national security threat.
What MAD means for China and Russia regarding the military challenge posed by the United States is clear. In 1999, two Chinese Air Force colonels wrote Unrestricted Warfare, a book that spelled out with great specificity the strategy that would be adopted. Russia likewise has told the United States what it intends to do. Both draw heavily on Sun Tzu.
The great Chinese general and philosopher of war argued that the best strategy was to win without fighting. The next best was to attack the enemy’s strategy. China and Russia have chosen this second course of action with “active defense.” And disruption is a principal weapon in blunting and defeating U.S. strategy with active defense.
Drawing heavily on the so-called military-technical revolution and U.S. precision strike capability, the colonels wrote how to disrupt and defeat that strategy by turning its strengths and dependencies on information into vulnerabilities and weaknesses. So have the Russians. The interconnected U.S. command, control, intelligence, surveillance. and reconnaissance networks were key targets for disruption.
Further, China and Russia are exploiting interior lines of communication and geography. In the event of conflict, U.S. dependence on vulnerable bases and the need to deploy forces thousands of miles are readily subject to kinetic and, more importantly, non-kinetic MAD, i.e., cyber kills. Likewise, logistics and resupply at sea in which vertical launchers could not be reloaded were potential vulnerabilities to be exploited. While the Navy moved to distributed maritime operations in which dispersion became a necessary tactic to confound the PLA’s and Russian substantial missile force, both were winning the cost-exchange battle.
For example, a U.S. Navy carrier strike group with its air wing and escorts costs about $30 billion. But China’s DF-21 and Russia’s cruise and ballistic systems outrange F-35s and Tomahawks and are less expensive, as are space systems and cyber to disrupt U.S. networks and C4ISR. The same imbalances apply to Air Force strike and the Army and Marine Corps pivot to Asia with greater dependency on bases such as Okinawa and Guam that are readily targetable.
A 2018 study of Chinese cyber capabilities for the Secretary of the Navy offered this extraordinary conclusion: this constituted “an existential threat to maritime forces,” yes existential! That same secretary privately worried that in the event of conflict, China, and by extension Russia, could keep our ships from getting underway through cyberattacks.
While China so far has used cyber mainly for stealing U.S. data, information, and intellectual property, Russia has been more offensive in influence operations to disrupt U.S. elections, energy flows, and in spreading misinformation and disinformation.
What can be done in the 21st century when MAD, accelerated by cyber, social media, disinformation, misinformation, and other non-kinetic sectors, have dramatically expanded the boundaries for both national security and national defense? Sun Tzu still has the answer.
Overall U.S. strategy must be largely based on countering and out-disrupting Chinese and Russian strategies through affecting, influencing, and even controlling Chinese and Russian will and perception. That means convincing, cajoling, or coercing China and Russia to act in ways that are in our interest and desist in disruptive actions that run counter to our interests and those of our friends and allies in peace, grey zones short of conflict and war.
The needed defense strategy to achieve these aims must employ MAD in close conjunction with traditional kinetic capabilities configured to impose unacceptable costs on any initial enemy attack thereby reinforcing deterrence. In The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Threat to a Divided Nation and the World at Large, the argument for a porcupine defense in Europe and its equivalent Mobile Maritime Defense in Asia was made. In Europe and the Pacific, the aim, in concert with allies, is to confine Russia to its borders and the PLA and PLA(Navy) to the first island chain.
Greater reliance on thousands of long-range missiles and armed drones; sea mines; massive explosive devices planted on likely invasion routes; new defensive tactics with allies; and inexpensive low earth orbiting satellites that can be launched at short notice are inherent to both the porcupine and mobile maritime defenses. Perhaps most importantly, misinformation, disinformation and deception systems must dominate the MAD battlefield. And as NATO contained the USSR, through the U.S. network of allies and partners in Asia—including Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and even Vietnam—a natural defensive line can be formed.
If that can be done, and this is a big if, the United States and its allies will be safer and more secure. This strategy also will be more affordable, about $600–650 billion a year, as opposed to the current $750 billion.
After the USSR collapsed, U.S. defense strategy failed more than it succeeded. To reverse this condition and ensure U.S. strategic thinking is in line with the 21st century, the nation must take Sun Tzu’s advice to attack and disrupt its adversaries’ defense strategies. Exploiting and countering MAD must be put to U.S. advantage. But will the United States act on this reality?
