This week a Chinese warship and a couple of maritime agency vessels conducted a patrol in the areas of the Spratly Islands that the Philippines claims, prompting an official rebuke from Manila.

According to Philippines officials, at least three Chinese ships and 10 fishing boats were spotted near the Ayungin Shoal, which is part of the Spratly Islands and about 200 kms off the coast of the Philippine island of Palawan.

Briefing reporters this week, Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said, “We saw a frigate. We saw CMS (Chinese maritime surveillance) maritime ships. We have pictures and we have sent them to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Based on [the photos] that I saw yesterday, there were two CMS and one frigate.”

Gazmin added that the presence of a Chinese military ship was “unusual.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs struck an even more defiant tone with a spokesperson from the department declaring, “They should not be there. They do not have the right to be there… no-one should doubt the resolve of the Filipino people to defend what is ours in that area.”

“Our Navy and our Coast Guard are mandated to enforce the laws of the (Philippine) republic,” Raul Hernandez, the spokesperson, added.

The Philippines stations a host of Marines on the Ayungin Shoal which is also called the Second Thomas Shoal. They operate from a WWII-era U.S. tank-landing vessel. Manila has said that its military was not deploying more ships to the area but that an unarmed, resupply ship is in route to replenish the deployed Marines.

The Philippines filed an official protest with the Chinese embassy in Manila, calling the ships deployment “provocative and illegal.” Beijing largely brushed aside the charges, restating its claims to sovereignty of the area.

Referring to the Spratlys by their Chinese name, a spokesperson from the China’s Foreign Ministry said: “China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters…. Patrols by Chinese official ships in the waters are justified.”

The Foreign Ministry also called on the parties of the South China Sea dispute to, “fully and earnestly” implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and seize taking actions that could “amplify or complicate the issue,” according to a report in the state-affiliated Global Times.

Although China and the Philippines have long contested sovereignty of the reefs and shoals in the Spratlys, the timing of the patrols suggest they may have been motivated by the recent spat between the Philippines and Taiwan, which China considers an integral part of China.

Last week a Philippine Coast Guard vessel fired on a Taiwanese fishing vessel, killing one of the crew members. The incident led to a full-blown diplomatic crisis between the Philippines and Taiwan in which China has enthusiastically joined Taiwan in condemning the Philippines. 

China and Taiwan have analogous claims of sovereignty over waters in the East and South China Seas and Beijing has often used this fact to try and strengthen its ties with Taipei. In the East China Sea this strategy dates back to the 1970s, according to the global private intelligence firm Stratfor.

However, Beijing recently suffered a setback in this strategy when Taiwan reasserted its autonomy in handling sovereignty disputes by signing a fishing agreement with Japan. When the spat between Taiwan and the Philippines first developed last week, some observers speculated that Beijing would seek to use it to revive its strategy of tacitly cooperating with Taiwan in sovereignty disputes.

It’s unclear if the two events are related at all, however. The shooting of the Taiwanese fisherman took place near the Philippines’ northern island of Batanes, while the Chinese patrols occurred much further to the south. In this sense, the Chinese ships were patrolling areas much closer to the Scarborough Shoal that Beijing seized following a prolonged standoff with Manila in the waters in early 2012.

Moreover, the dispute between Taiwan and the Philippines appeared to be winding down about the time that Manila went public with the Chinese patrols, when Taipei announced it was allowing Manila to send an investigation team to review the evidence of the shooting incident.

In any case, the recent flare-ups with Taiwan and China have clearly rattled the Philippines, which announced on Tuesday that it will spend US$1.8 billion to beef up its defenses in order to “resist bullies” as President Benigno Aquino put it. 

Over the past two weeks, George Washington University’s National Security Archive group has begun to release some remarkably interesting archival documents on the war scare generated by the 1983 Able Archer exercises.  The Western exercises, which simulated a NATO-Warsaw Pact war, apparently convinced some in the Soviet Union that the Reagan administration was about to launch an actual conflict.

Like in the United States, the political and military elite of the Soviet Union disagreed on the likelihood of war, and on the predisposition of the new administration in Washington. Soviet hawks took the exercises as evidence of American aggression, focusing on the parallels between the German attack in 1941 and NATO preparations in 1983.  It didn’t help that US-Soviet relations were already at a low in the wake of the September 1983 shoot down of KAL 007.

According to Nate Jones, the editor of the series, the documents indicate that Able Archer included several non-routine elements that could have alarmed the Soviets (or at least given ammunition to the most hawkish elements in the Kremlin). These included a massive, silent air-lift of U.S. soldiers to Europe, the shuffling of headquarters command assignments, the practice of "new nuclear weapons release procedures," and various references to B-52 sorties as nuclear "strikes." It wasn’t entirely clear to the U.S. policymakers how the Soviets were interpreting the exercises; Robert Gates, among others, argued that the Russians were taking them very seriously indeed, while Reagan wondered whether " Soviet leaders really fear us, or is all the huffing and puffing just part of their propaganda?"

The problem, of course, is that with aggressive, offensive doctrines that favor pre-emption, exercises can look a lot like preparation to attack. The lessons of Able Archer are obvious, but worth reiterating; other countries do not understand our behavior in the same way that we understand our behavior, and can draw alarming conclusions. While most of North Korea’s response to recent U.S.-ROK exercises is simply posturing, it is likely that some of the same dynamics operate; hawks in Pyongyang can point to elements of the exercise that look a lot like a pre-emptive attack, and tensions consequently rise. What seems absurd in Washington sounds less crazy in Moscow or Pyongyang.

Whatever AirSea Battle is, it appears to place great value on offensive action and on the disruption of enemy organizational cycles and procedures.  As many have argued, doctrines of this sort can lead to unstable political situations in which pre-emption and first action are highly valued. Even if accidental war does not result (after all, accidental wars remain rare), the political consequences of such doctrines can increase tensions and strengthen the most hawkish elements within all parties. The U.S. is unlikely to carry out anything quite approaching an Able Archer in the Pacific, but it’s still worth taking into account the implications of our own military preparations. 

On April 16, the Chinese Ministry of Defense released the eighth edition of China’s bi-annual white paper on defense since 1998. However, unlike the previous editions, this one does not reiterate China’s long-standing doctrine of no-first-use nuclear weapons. The obvious omission has sparked a debate over whether China is changing its nuclear doctrine. If China abandons its no-first-use nuclear pledge, which has guided China’s nuclear strategy since  its first nuclear test in 1964, it would severely undermine the global disarmament process, potentially preventing the U.S. and Russian from further reducing their nuclear arsenals and even encouraging the U.S. to expand its nuclear forces. Is China really changing its nuclear policy?

Colonel Yang Yujun, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Defense, answered this question unambiguously during a briefing on April 25 when he stated:  “China repeatedly reaffirms that China has always pursued no-first-use nuclear weapons policy, upholds its nuclear strategy of self-defense, and never takes part in any form of nuclear arms race with any country. The policy has never been changed. The concern about changes of China’s nuclear policy is unnecessary.”

Colonel Yang also explained that all former White Papers (with the same general title “China’s National Defense”) were comprehensive (zonghe xing), and elaborated on China’s nuclear policy in detail in sections on “national defense policy” and “arms control.” But this latest edition for the first time adopts a “thematic” model (zhuanti xing) and focuses specifically on the employment of China’s armed forces; it does not address nuclear policy in detail.  

While the new white paper does not explore generally its no-first-use policy, it emphasizes that the PLA Second Artillery Force (PLASAF) is “primarily responsible for deterring other countries from using nuclear weapons against China, and carrying out nuclear counterattack.” It also explains clearly how the PLASAF employs its nuclear force during peace and war time:

“[China] keeps an appropriate level of readiness in peacetime… If China comes under a nuclear attack, the nuclear missile force of the PLASAF will use nuclear missiles to launch a resolute counterattack either independently or together with the nuclear forces of other services.” 

It should be noted that the term “nuclear counterattack” in the context of China’s nuclear strategy generally means “nuclear retaliation to a first nuclear strike” or “second nuclear strike.”

Many experts and scholars are suspicious of China’s no-first-use pledge, with the Pentagon’s 2013 annual report on the Chinese military calling it ambiguous.  But China’s nuclear force posture has all the features of a meaningful no-first-use policy. It has a much smaller and simpler arsenal with a much lower alert status than required for a first-use option.  

Some security analysts challenge whether China can maintain its no-first-use pledge for some extreme scenarios, such as if an enemy uses conventional weapons to attack China’s nuclear arsenal. These analysts suggest China might consider a conventional attack the equivalent of a first nuclear strike and consequently initiate a retaliatory nuclear strike. However, in practice, since 1980, when it initiated China's nuclear modernization, the PLASAF has focused on increasing the  survivability of its nuclear force by deploying mobile missiles and moving missiles underground, to ensure that the country's limited number of land-based strategic missiles can survive a first strike— nuclear or not.

Since 1985 China has built the tunnels of the underground great wall to protect its smaller nuclear arsenal and assure a reliable second-strike capability. The tunnels are reportedly hundreds of meters underground, deep in mountain areas, and difficult to detect from space. They are designed to withstand nuclear and conventional attacks. If Beijing believes its nuclear arsenal can survive a first nuclear strike, why not a conventional strike?

In fact, the PLASAF has also developed and deployed advanced conventional missiles including DF-21s that can attack aircraft carriers and penetrate regional missile defense systems. These new conventional forces should make Chinese leaders more confident and less reliant on nuclear weapons to deal with conventional attacks. 

In fact, there is no evidence that China will change its long-standing no-first-use nuclear doctrine. Since its first nuclear explosion in 1964, China has consistently adhered to a nuclear policy that features a minimum deterrent and a no-first-use pledge, both aimed at avoiding a costly nuclear arms race. This policy has been based on Chinese leaders’ perception of the nature and role of nuclear weapons and has been continuously embraced by top Chinese leaders, from Mao Zedong until today. As Mao stated a few months after China’s first nuclear test: “We don’t wish to have too many atomic bombs ourselves. What would we do with so many? To have a few is just fine.”

China's nuclear policy has proven to be effective and smart, providing savings that can be used on economic development. As its conventional capabilities grow, Beijing should have more confidence to pursue firmly and unshakably its nuclear policy rather than follow the road of U.S. and Russia’s nuclear development. It is unthinkable that China would change its policy to pursue extremely expensive weapons parity with the superpowers.

In fact, to make substantial progress towards President Obama’s goal of a nuclear-free world,  each nuclear weapon state must change its strategic doctrine from one based on preemption to a purely defensive one based on a no-first-use policy. This will provide a solid base to promote further reductions of nuclear weapons. A no-first-use policy could also be an important measure to strengthen the nonproliferation regime, as no-first-use pledges would discourage other states from seeking nuclear weapons by removing a basic proliferation incentive while deemphasizing the role of such weapons. If the nuclear weapons states truly intend to take steps toward a nuclear-free world, it is time for them to adopt a global agreement on no-first-use of nuclear weapons.

Hui Zhang, a physicist, is leading a research initiative on China's nuclear policies for the Managing the Atom Project in Harvard Kennedy School' s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 

Despite their reputation for irrationality, North Korean leaders have always been masterful strategists.

The country’s founding leader and eternal president, Kim Il-Sung, masterfully exploited the Sino-Soviet split throughout the Cold War to extract aid from both without having to offer much in return. When the foundation of that strategy collapsed with the end of the Cold War, Kim Jong-Il turned to stoking China and America’s deep-seated fears of instability and nuclear weapons proliferation respectively, as well as South Korea’s longing for reunification, to continue receiving the aid that North Korea’s economy had become dependent on.

Indeed, for a state in as precarious of a situation as North Korea finds itself in, having a prudent grand strategy becomes something of a necessity. And yet it seems increasingly apparent that Kim Jong-Un lacks the skills as a strategist that his grandfather and father relied on to sustain the regime.

It’s too early to make a definitive judgment on whether North Korea has a game plan for ending the current crisis on terms favorable to itself. Time and again the country has shown itself quite capable at guiding seemingly random events towards a desired endgame. That being said, although the belligerent rhetoric succeeded in getting the world’s attention, it never resulted in any kind of tangible benefit for the North.

In fact, given the intense diplomacy that has continued to take place between South Korea, the U.S., China, and, to some extent, Japan, North Korea appears to have only succeeded in further uniting its adversaries and allies against it, while also losing some of its best sources of hard currencies by closing the Kaesong complex and coming under Chinese sanctions. Even Russia has largely remained on the same page as the other parties of the six-party talks as evident by its desire to hold a summit with South Korea on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg in September.

North Korea’s actions from the past week appear to be desperate attempts to salvage some gains from the crisis. This was clearly the aim of inviting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to send an envoy to Pyongyang to discuss the issue of North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. Once again, Pyongyang is falling back on its long-time successful tactic of exploiting slight differences in its adversaries’ priorities.

Beyond that, however, North Korea’s actions appear to be doomed to fail. One example of this was its launching of six short range missiles over the weekend. Coming on the heels of its increasingly belligerent threats and actions this spring, these missile tests failed to elicit much in the way of a reaction from any of the parties involved. The South Korean government, for instance, calmly told the public to simply expect more tests.

It’s possible these tests are only the beginning of a new campaign of provocations. Then again, they may very well not be. South Korea is simply unwilling to tolerate the kind of provocations that it did in 2010 without launching a devastating response in return. This point was made unambiguous by President Park Geun-Hye and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the height of the latest crisis. North Korean leaders quite possibly understand that attitudes on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone have changed and have tailored their actions accordingly. In doing so, they lack the option of taking actions that might break the status-quo North Korea currently faces.

China is unlikely to be of much help to the North. Although Chinese leaders will not place the kind of economic pressure on Pyongyang that might force its hand, they are also increasingly uninterested in protecting the regime from facing retribution for its actions. Last month JoongAng Ilbo reported that China refused to send a high-level envoy to North Korea as Pyongyang requested, which seems plausible given that the request Beijing’s last envoy brought to North Korea — namely, don’t test a ballistic missile — was defied in less than two weeks.

North Korea’s seizure of a Chinese fishing boat was likely an attempt to force Beijing to deal with Kim Jong-Un. It could work as it has in the past. But North Korea today has to contend with a new variable it hasn’t had to in the past, Chinese social media. The fierce criticism of North Korea on China’s social media websites following the boat’s seizure is just as likely to force Beijing to take a hardline stance with North Korea, rather than a conciliatory one as Pyongyang likely hoped. Indeed, the added variable of Chinese public opinion could complicate Kim Jong-Un’s ability to coerce China into giving into his demands for years to come. 

Vietnam flight tested six indigenously made Unmanned Aerials Vehicles (UAVs) over the weekend, Xinhua News Agency reported.

“After three days of tests, from May 17-19, in Da Lat city and Lac Duong district of Lam Dong province, six vehicles made by the Vietnam Space Technology Institute, under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), successfully made 37 flights,” Xinhua News reported, citing local media outlets.

The tests reflect an effort by Vietnam to penetrate the UAV market, with many of its neighbors, including China and Japan, beefing up their own UAV forces in recent years.

Earlier this month the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) had announced that it had built five indigenous UAVs, the first of their kind for Vietnam. The first of the drones—AV.UAV.MS1, AV.UAV.S1, AV.UAV.S2, AV.UAV.S3 and AV.UAV.S4— was initially tested in early May. The Vietnamese scientists who built the drones began researching them back in 2008, and the project was picked up by the state in 2011.

According to Vietnamese news media, the drones have a weight of 4 kg to 170 kg and wingspans ranging from 1.2 to 5 meters. The smallest of these “can fly at 70 kph [kilometers per hour] within a radius of 2 km and at a maximum altitude of 200 m,” while the biggest one “can fly at 180 kph, within a radius of 100 km and at an elevation of 3,000 meters. It can continuously fly for 6 hours in both daytime and nighttime.”

The unmanned aircraft are equipped with  cameras, spectrometers and other devices and will be “used for [the] supervision of environmental natural resources in difficult direct approach territories; observation, communication and seashore rescue; exploration of natural resources, control of forest fire[s], and to follow the situation of national electricity system and transport,” VAST’s website has said.

It was not the only scientific breakthrough Hanoi achieved this month, with the country also launching its first remote sensing satellite, the VNRED Sat-1. The satellite was built largely with French funds, Xinhua reported at the time of the launch. Vietnam had previously launched two telecommunication satellites, the first in 2008 and another one last year.

The flight range of some of the drones tested this month can be extended using guiding satellites, according to local media reports.

Although the UAVs are ostensibly only for civilian purposes, their tests were monitored by leaders from the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of National Defense.

Alongside the domestic effort to build UAVs, Vietnam is looking to purchase them abroad. Last week it was announced that Vietnam would purchase UAVs from Belarus during Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to that country. Few details were provided about the type of drones involved in the deal.

The art of diplomacy involves not only the ability to maximize the returns for one’s country but also a keen awareness of the most propitious time to cease escalation. The dispute between Taipei and Manila over the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman by a Filipino coast guard vessel is a case study in how initially skilful diplomacy can quickly be undermined by missed opportunities.

During the first days of the crisis, Taiwan indisputably had the moral high ground. Hung Shih-cheng, a 65-year-old Taiwanese fisherman, had been killed when a Philippine coast guard sprayed the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28 with machine gun in disputed waters between the two countries. As a joint investigation had yet to materialize, it still wasn’t clear whether the ship had ventured into the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Regardless, the 45 bullet holes discovered on the hull of the Kuang Ta Hsing pointed to a disproportionate response by the Philippine authorities.

Facing domestic pressure over what the Taiwanese public rightly saw as a grave injustice, the Ma Ying-jeou administration requested a full apology from the Philippine government, financial compensation for Hung’s family, as well as a joint investigation. President Ma issued a 72-hour ultimatum on May 11 and threatened various sanctions against the Philippines — including freezing work applications for Philippine workers — if the demands were not met by midnight on May 14.

After much to-ing and fro-ing, Manila seemed willing to respond to the demands, but added that it would do so under its “one China” policy (the Philippines and Taiwan do not have official diplomatic relations). This meant that the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO), Manila’s de-facto embassy in Taiwan, would handle the matter instead of Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s cabinet.

It was evident that Manila’s adherence to the “one China” policy would be an impediment to resolving the crisis, and as expected, Taipei rejected the offer, saying that the apology had to occur at the government level. In order to appease various domestic constituencies — including some outspoken members of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party — that were calling for a more muscular response to the incident, Ma ordered naval exercises near the waters where the Kuang Ta Hsing had come under fire. The high-profile exercise, which involved frigates, destroyers and combat aircraft, along with coast guard ships, took place on May 16.

Up until then, the Ma administration had handled the crisis relatively well. It had successfully balanced appeals from hardline elements with the need to remain firm with a somewhat standoffish Manila. But then it lost its footing. Its diplomats missed a golden opportunity to de-escalate when Aquino dispatched MECO Chairman Amadeo Perez to Taipei to convey his “deep regret and apology over the unfortunate and unintended loss of life.” Authorized by Aquino, the apology was extended “to the people of Taiwan.”

Afraid of angering Beijing by breaking its commitment to a “one China” policy, this was as far as Manila could probably go — something that Taipei knew full well. By accepting this apology, however “unofficial” it may have been, the Ma administration would have shown magnanimity while making it possible for both sides to bow out gracefully.

But it didn’t do that. Instead, top Taiwanese officials refused to meet Perez, while Premier Jiang Yi-huah said that Manila had not shown “sufficient sincerity.” Soon afterwards, Perez and Antonio Basilio, the Philippines’ representative to Taiwan, were sent packing, and Taipei implemented sanctions that, in the end, will only hurt innocent Philippine workers in Taiwan. In the process, Taipei lost the moral high ground and much of the goodwill it had accumulated from the international community. Taiwan was no longer the victim; the weaker player in the dispute, the Philippines, was now the injured party.

What happened? How did Ma’s diplomats lose control of the situation? The principal reason is that Taipei allowed itself to be carried away by the domestic indignation over the slaying of an unarmed Taiwanese (we should furthermore note that a similar incident in 2006 remains unresolved). Given Ma’s low popularity ratings, he would understandably seek to ride the wave of nationalism that, almost spontaneously, had taken over the whole of Taiwan.

However, we shouldn’t read too much into Taipei’s mishandling of the crisis in its later stages. Its intransigence is unlikely the product, as some commentators have suggested, of “Han chauvinism.” It is instead the result of something much more granular, such as local legislators’ political ambitions in fishermen’s constituencies, as well as by opposition parties’ efforts to criticize Ma no matter what he does, especially at a time when he is vulnerable.

It also isn’t the result of a conspiracy to cooperate with China, even though both claim the South China Sea in its entirety (Taiwan is bound by the Republic of China constitution, in which such claims are enshrined). There is practically no tangible support in Taiwan for joint efforts with China on sovereignty disputes, or for an aggressive regional policy such as that adopted by Beijing. After all, some of the most hardline comments regarding the dispute with Manila came from within the pro-independence green camp, not within Ma’s “China-friendly” Kuomintang (KMT) administration.

Not everything the Taiwanese government does involves ulterior motives or conspiracies. Sometimes the reasons for its actions are much more mundane. A lack of worldliness, of understanding Taiwan’s position within the international community, and of how its actions will be interpreted abroad, better explain what happened. Depicting Taiwan’s actions as a plan by a secret cabal of “Han Chinese” chauvinists to take over the region simply doesn’t help us understand what ultimately went wrong with Taiwan’s handling of the situation.

Is Australia’s new submarine program being driven by careful assessments of the country’s future defense strategy or more by short-term electoral considerations? This is a key question leading up to Australia’s national elections on September 14.

The Labor Party government revealed back in May 2012 that it had ruled out the option of a nuclear-powered submarine and commissioned detailed assessments of four conventionally-powered options:

-       An existing off-the-shelf foreign design.

-       A modified off-the-shelf foreign  design

-       An evolved Collins-class design

-       Development of a completely new submarine design in Australia.

Then, when Prime Minister Gillard released the 2013 Australian Defense White Paper on May 3, she announced she’d narrowed the options to the last two. The prime minister also confirmed her commitment to purchase 12 new submarines, which she said would be assembled in South Australia.  In addition, she revealed that the government had commissioned the development of a land-based facility to enable the full-scale testing of submarine propulsion, system integration and support services.

In order to provide sufficient time for this process of design, testing, construction and commissioning, the Minister for Defense, Stephen Smith revealed that the six existing Collins-Class submarines would be extended until at least 2038. No plans were released for the maintenance and upgrading of the Collins Class boats, nor estimates of the costs of operating these boats for 45 and possibly even 50 years.

In light of these developments, what are the main issues now confronting Australia’s new submarine program?

First, it should be noted that there is a strong prospect that the Australian government will change following the national elections in September and that the decisions announced in this month’s White Paper may not be sustained. The opposition parties have announced that if they return to government they will review all defense policies and publish a new White Paper within 18 months.

Second, whoever is in government during the next three years will be choosing the nature of the new submarine program at a time when the regional strategic environment is changing markedly. The most important shift is the substantial growth in China’s military capability and its assertiveness in a number of regional disputes. The Chinese defense budget has risen an average 14 percent annually during the last fifteen years, the PLA-Navy has launched some 50 new submarines since 1995 and Chinese cyber, intelligence and maritime operations have been widespread and deeply intrusive. Most of Australia’s allies and friends in Asia are worried and working to strengthen their defenses. United States and allied dominance of the Western Pacific can no longer be assured in the medium term. Moreover, in contrast to the Cold War, the focus of superpower competition is not on the other side of the world, but in Australia’s backyard.

These developments have fundamental implications for Australian defense strategy and for what prudence dictates the Australian Defense Forces should operate in the 2030-2060 timeframe. All Australian governments will prefer to focus on encouraging positive political and security partnerships with China, North Korea, India, Indonesia and other regional powers. However, given the continuing shift in the strategic balance, defense planners cannot overlook the possibility that in some future contingencies Australia might be subjected to serious coercion and even attack.

In these circumstances, Australian defense planners need to think deeply about the strategy they would employ if the country were directly challenged. Some commentators argue that Australia should focus on small, relatively inexpensive submarines that in a crisis could attempt to mount a barrier defense in Australia’s immediate approaches. The main problems with this strategy are that such a barrier defense would always be porous and it would not force a coercive major power to halt its attacks.

If the Australian Government wishes to have a strong capacity to deter and dissuade a major power, it needs to invest in more than barrier defenses. It needs the capacity to reach out at great distance and threaten targets that the opposing side’s decision-makers value most. Australia, as a non-nuclear weapon state, has only a few options for applying strong strategic leverage (and deterrence) over a long range. Powerful submarines, strong cyber capabilities, advanced air and special force strike capabilities and combined operations with the United States are the primary options.

This logic confers a special strategic importance to Australia’s submarine choice. The new submarines are not just another military capability. While transport aircraft, armored vehicles and supply ships all have important roles to play in the Australian Defense Force, they cannot generate the strategic leverage and the deterrence power of advanced long-range submarines. The types of submarines and associated underwater systems the next Australian cabinet selects will give the country a strong deterrent and leverage in future serious crises, or they will preclude it from having the necessary capacity to use underwater forces to defend Australia with anything but a porous barrier defense.

In the context of this strategic logic there are, unfortunately, no simple, easy or low cost options for a new class of submarines. The off-the-shelf European boats may appear to be relatively cheap but they fall far short of Australia’s operational needs. They are too small, their payload is too limited and their range and time on station is too short. They cannot easily be refitted with the advanced US-supplied combat data and other systems that are already fitted to the Collins boats. Hence they would not be easy to integrate into Australian or allied operations.

The evolved Collins option would provide a much larger submarine, with greater range, endurance and weapon loads. The evolved Collins would also provide a substantial boost to Australian industry. This option would come at a much higher cost and carry availability risk as the first of these boats would probably not be available until 2035.

The option of a completely new design submarine would permit the development and production of an even larger submarine – almost certainly the largest conventionally-powered submarine in the world. This option would place the greatest pressure on Australian industry. These boats would be optimized for long-range, long endurance operations but they would entail acceptance of even higher costs and higher levels of risk. New design boats would also take longer to design, develop and build with the first vessel probably not being commissioned until about 2038.

As with the evolved Collins option, these boats would also be “orphan” submarines in the sense that they would not be operated by any other navy and Australia would need to carry the very substantial design authority and other overhead costs for the full life of the class.

Some commentators have assumed that there is no penalty for Australia in proceeding slowly and cautiously with this program. The problem with this relaxed approach is that the Collins boats are wasting assets that are losing their technological advantage and growing much more costly to maintain. The Collins Class already imposes prohibitive costs on the budget to maintain and these are likely to continue growing. This raises the serious possibility that Australia may not be able to operate a credible submarine force through most of the 2020s and 2030s. Attempting to extend the life of the Collins boats is like trying to maintain a 1993 vintage racing car and expecting it to routinely win races until it is phased out of service in 2038 or 2045. This stretches credulity.

What Australia really needs is a class of large submarines that have been fully proven in another navy, are currently in series production and can perform all of the tasks that the Australian Government requires with low risk and high reliability. This submarine force needs to be available at a comparable cost to the evolved Collins and new design options and capable of operating seamlessly with United States forces. The first of Australia’s new submarines should also be available for commissioning within a decade.

Remarkably, there is a class of submarines that meets all of these requirements well; the United States Virginia Class. The only problem is that like the United States, Britain, Russia, France, China, India and Brazil, Australia would need to accommodate itself to operating submarines with nuclear propulsion.

Ross Babbage is Founder of the Kokoda Foundation and Managing Director of Strategy International (ACT) Pty Ltd.

South Korea’s Ministry of Defense has reported that North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles off its east coast on Saturday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a South Korean defense official said that “All missiles launched fell into the sea.”

North Korea has been relatively quiet in recent weeks, after a period of bellicosity, in which it threatened nuclear strikes on the United States. It had also threatened to launch a medium-range missile, the Musudan, which had also been deployed along its coast. In fact, the Musudan have been quietly withdrawn.

Pyongyang regularly launches short-range missiles—the most recent tests were in March—and analysts note that Saturday’s action is far less provocative than feared.  There is speculation that the move was a designed to save face for the leadership, with a demonstrable show of action. "By launching the short-range missile the North wouldn't provoke countries surrounding them, but can tell its people that they have carried out a serious threat against the U.S.," said analyst Cheong Seong-chang.

While North Korea was bellicose even by its own standards in April, until Saturday the only significant action to emerge from the tension was the closure of the Kaesong industrial complex, which had increasingly become a burden for South Korean and Chinese investors. However, analysts at the time had feared that Pyongyang would conduct a major test of missiles capable of reaching its neighbors, or even US troops stationed on Guam.

At one point, Tokyo had deployed a Patriot antimissile battery on the grounds of its Defense Ministry in Central Tokyo. Interestingly, Tokyo had recently sent an envoy to Pyongyang. 

Every Friday, The Diplomat looks out across the net to find the best articles and analysis involving defense, strategic affairs, and foreign policy. From America’s pivot to Asia, China’s growing military power, important defense trends, to the various territorial spats across the region, The Diplomat has you covered with what you need to know going into the weekend.

Here is our top ones this Friday. Have we missed something you think should be included? Want to share an important article with other readers? Please submit your links in the comment box below! Happy Friday!

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced on Friday that Russia is trying to develop “terrorist-killer robots.”

A South Korean government think tank has confirmed the Pentagon’s estimate that North Korea may now have up to 200 mobile missile launchers. Previously, Seoul had assessed that Pyongyang had at most 94 such units.

Ahead of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s trip to India next week, Afghan’s envoy to Delhi called on India to increase its defense cooperation with the government in Kabul. “We would like to have both lethal and non-lethal assistance to our defense forces” from the Indian government, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to India, Shaida M Abdali, told reporters on Thursday.

The U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations and the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force have a jointly written op-ed on Foreign Policy today on how the U.S. can overcome anti-access challenges.

Breaking Defense (formally AOL Defense) reports that after failing its first test in 2008, America’s Raytheon-built SM-3 Block IB missile completed its third successful test in a row this week when it shot down a missile over the Pacific Ocean. “The SM-3 IB is the latest iteration of the venerable Standard Missile, the main weapon fired by the fleet’s Lockheed Martin-built Aegis defense system, which makes it central to the Navy’s role in missile defense,” the report explained.

A new report by AMI International estimates that China and India’s Navies will each purchase 100 new ships and submarines by 2032.

The U.S. Navy's “newest and most advanced nuclear-powered attack submarine” successfully completed its Alpha and Bravo Sea Trials. Its nuclear missile submarine replacement program is not going as smoothly, however.

Despite growing questions concerning cost overruns and survivability in conflict, the U.S. Navy plans to send 11 littoral combat ships (LCS) to the Pacific region by 2022, the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations, Jonathan Greenert, said this week, Xinhua and Jane’s reported.

Speaking at the International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (IMDEX) in Singapore on Tuesday, Greenert told reporters that the Navy ultimately hopes to deploy four LCS to Singapore by 2022, with the remaining seven heading to Sasebo, Japan, where they will replace the mine countermeasures ships currently stationed there.

The LCS is a fast, maneuverable, and multi-mission surface ship that is designed most immediately to enable the U.S. Navy to operate a shallow vessel in coastal waters to deal with a number of different emerging asymmetric threats, including anti-access challenges.

The Navy first ordered LCS in 2004 and under the most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan will ultimately procure 52 vessels, down from the 82 it planned to purchase in early 2005. They come in the Freedom variant and Independence variant, which are being built by Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, respectively.

The first LCS, the USS Freedom (LCS 1), left its home port in San Diego in March of this year and reached Singapore in the middle of last month to begin an eight-month deployment, its maiden overseas voyage. It was expected to participate in the IMDEX conference this week.

At the conference Greenert said that nations in the region had been impressed with the USS Freedom’s capabilities. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin used IMDEX to pitch a multi-mission ship similar to the LCS to Southeast Asian nations, including Singapore.

Inside the U.S., however, the LCS program has lately come under increasing scrutiny. An internal U.S. Navy report written last year but leaked to the press this month questioned whether it was too lightly armed and manned to fulfill its declared missions. A report by Bloomberg News, which obtained a copy of the report, said:

“This review highlights the gap between ship capabilities and the missions the Navy will need LCS to execute. Failure to adequately address LCS requirements and capabilities will result in a large number of ships that are ill-suited to execute” the warfighting needs of regional commanders.

The report went on to note that the ship’s width may prevent it from utilizing certain ports and judged the decision to procure two LCS variants as creating unnecessary logistical and maintenance burdens.

Compounding the ship’s troubles, many of the planned ships are now running between eight and thirteen months behind schedule. This revelation has prompted criticism from some members of Congress, including Senator John McCain (R-AZ). At a Congressional hearing earlier this month, Sen. McCain noted: “The Navy plans for the Littoral Combat Ship to comprise over one-third of the nation’s total surface combatant fleet by 2028, and yet the LCS has not demonstrated to date any adequate performance of assigned missions…. We need to fix it, or find something else quickly.”

Navy officials have continued to defend the LCS, however. Speaking on board the USS Freedom on Saturday, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said the program had started out as a mess but has since become one of the Navy’s best performing programs.

Calling LCS “an incredibly capable ship,” Mabus said that the ships are “going to be one of the most important crucial platforms in the United States Navy in the future.”