Sea Control - Sea Control 245 - Chinese Command & Control with Andrew Scobell

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Links1. "Command and Control in U.S. Naval Competition with China," by Kimberly Jackson, Andrew Scobell, Stephen Webber, and Logan Ma, RAND, 2020.

Hey folks, Jared here. I have talked about our feed. I'm going to keep talking about it. There are two existing Sea Control feeds out there. The one that you want to be listening to is labeled simply Sea Control and it includes the phrase Simsex Flagship Podcast. So switch over yourself, tell your friends, Sea Control, Simsex Flagship Podcast, that's where you want to be. Please rate, review the new feed as well. In this episode, we're talking with Andrew Scobel, one of the co-authors on a RAND report on Chinese Naval Command and Control. Important to note, this report came out in late 2020, and this conversation was recorded a few months ago. So when Andrew's talking about Chinese carrier operations, we are obviously not referencing the ongoing deployment.

Just keep that in mind, and if this leaves you salivating for the next iteration of this report, know that you're not alone. This episode was edited and produced by David Cihita. Please check out everything going on over at the main website, simsec.org. We've just released our next call for submissions for Project Trident. If you're interested in contributing to the discussion on the law of naval warfare, submissions are due May 17th. For more information, check out our website, simsec.org. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, the Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts.

On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Hello, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today, we are discussing RAND's report, Command and Control in the U.S. Naval Competition with China, with one of the report's authors, Andrew Scobell. Andrew, welcome. Thank you. Good to be here. So before we begin, I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself to our listeners. Would you mind sharing a little bit about your background, please?

sure i've been a lifelong student of china literally from the day i was born my passport lists my place of birth as china but it was actually a special part of china specifically the special administrative region of hong kong sadly the city where i was born raised to become less special by the day i earned a master's in china studies from the henry m jackson school of International Studies at University of Washington, and a PhD in political science from Columbia University, where I also focused on China, specifically civil-military relations. My career is focused on analyzing political and military trends in the Indo-Pacific with, surprise, surprise, a concentration on China. I spent the last three decades working in academia,

PMEs and think tanks. The RAND report we're going to speak about was commissioned by the way by the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. Office of Net Assessment is something that we haven't really covered on this program at all and it's an interesting office for what they do and for the history of that office. So please if you have some more background on that go ahead. The RAND report we're going to talk about was commissioned by the Pentagon's Office of Net assessments, they often pose kind of interesting and unusual questions that other events and DOD are not asking. So more about that in a minute. But the research, this research project was spearheaded by my esteemed co-principal investigator, Kimberly Jackson, who unfortunately

wasn't able to be here today. Kimberly's a leading expert on military readiness and organizational culture, and culture will loom large in our discussion today. In fact, Kimberly is such an expert that she recently departed Brand to become the DASD, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness. So Kimberly and I were joined on this report by two extremely talented and knowledgeable co-authors, Steve Weber and Logan Ma. Steve Weber was the guy who wrote the chapter on the U.S. Navy, and I'm the one who bears responsibility for the chapter on the People's Liberation Army Navy. Thank you very much. I'd like to actually begin at the end because you closed with four questions that you think required further analysis. We're starting

here because I think those questions are going to inform the rest of this discussion. So what were those questions, and why did you choose those? Bear with me. I'm probably going to be the longest answer I'll give to any of your questions. Yeah, no problem. As we note in the report, the research team, we were conducting exploratory research. So our findings are then conclusive. As a result, our research and analysis has generated more questions than it has answers. We framed our research around the shifting dynamic in U.S.-China maritime competition and the challenges we see this posing for the navies of these two powers. China's rise as a regional and global power is gradually, as we see it,

orienting its navy towards countering the power projection missions of the U.S. Navy. Of course, this is something that what China is trying to do in Pentagon parlance is anti-access and area denial, or A2AD. shifting to countering the power projection missions of the U.S. Navy, moving towards power projection missions of its own. At the same time, the U.S. Navy's working from a primary focus on power projection to enhancing its capabilities to conduct counter power projection missions. What are the challenges confronting these two navies as they make their respective shifts? shifts, in our report, we've chosen to focus on naval culture, military organizational cultures

that influence how navies operate. Specifically, we try and examine the impact of culture on command and control in the U.S. Navy and the People's Liberation Army Navy, or hereafter PLA Navy. Too often, defense analysts tend to focus on what I call the hard dimension of U.S.-China military competition, bean counting and technological advancements. The expanding number of ships and the improving capability of weapon systems in China's Navy are, of course, important. But what we don't focus on enough is what I call the soft dimension of U.S.-China military competition, the training of personnel and the organizational environment in which they function. This soft dimension includes civil-military relations, relations between the

military and the styles of command and control. To fully appreciate the operational effectiveness of a military, one must assess both the hard and the soft dimensions and how well the two combine or blend. Command and control in naval competition is one lens in which to view these shifts and challenges. To many who are listening, the concept of mission command is familiar. Mission command is an enduring pillar of U.S. Navy culture, central to the execution of America's maritime power projection missions. By contrast, the PLA Navy has utilized a command and control system that reflects the Communist Party's authoritarian system and culture, one that is fundamentally different from that of the U.S. Navy. The PLA Navy operates under a tightly managed

command and control system that allows for little delegation of authority or independent action. So both navies are likely, in our view, to face challenges as they shift from their respective maritime missions, unless they adapt their existing command and control concepts. As you noted, we conclude the report by identifying four key questions about China's shift towards power projection. We believe merits further research. The first question is, what is more valuable to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, globally, or to retain its rigid control and command system over the military? Second question we raise is, how will the PLA Navy's increased experience and professional development affect relations between PLA commanders and PLA Navy personnel? The third question we raise, as meriting further research, is can the Communist Party tolerate PLA Navy that becomes more empowered to make independent or autonomous decisions? And the third question we raise is, would a PLA Navy shift to a mission command culture pose a threat to the United States?

To me, the first of these questions seems to get at the crux of the matter, while the fourth and final question is the so what, or what does this mean for the United States question? Thanks, Andrew. Can you explain the methodology that you use to do your comparison? Basically, we examine and compare the cultures prevalent in the U.S. Navy and the PLA Navy. We focused on what I would call the command cultures of the two navies. And we addressed the following three questions, looking at both navies. The first question, how is command and control exercised in the U.S. Navy and the PLA Navy? The second question guided our research was, how are these command and control concepts reflective? And the third question guiding our research was, how do these command and control structures support or challenge each Navy shift to new maritime missions?

Now, to answer these questions, we proceeded to assess how each Navy is holding up in its current operational environment. Since I wrote the China chapter, I'll speak more directly to the PLA and Navy. Logan Munn and I drilled down into what I would call, what I would describe as mini cases. Our chapter, we look at four PLA Navy mini cases, and they are as follows. First, look at near-sea operations, that is examining naval activities within the so-called first island chain. The second mini case study, I looked at what we dubbed near-sea plus. What we mean by that is we're examining recent PLA naval operations within the first island chain and just beyond it.

And, of course, the first island chain referring to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippine archipelago, and Borneo. So what's in the Near Seas, anything beyond the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea, and the Yellow Sea. Our third mini case study, we looked at the Far Seas, meaning recent PLA Navy power projection efforts well beyond the first island chain. And in particular, we focused on the Indian Ocean, looking at operations that the PLA Navy has conducted in support of counter-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden. And the fourth MIDI case study we looked at, we dubbed Far Sea Port, and in this meant looking at the challenges involved in the PLA Navy operating its first formal overseas base in Djibouti. Thanks. So you hinted at the answer to this question in one of your earlier responses. Where does the PLA Navy derive its culture from? So the PLA's command culture, and I say specifically PLA as opposed to PLA Navy for an important purposefully, and I'll explain more in a moment. But the PLA's command culture is rooted in China's distinctive tradition of political culture, civil military culture, military culture, and service culture.

to get at this it's necessary to delve into a little bit of history political culture in contemporary china is is uh so influenced by this it's and as a result it's it's hierarchical it's high and highly centralized organizationally it reflects the impact of enduring traditional chinese culture uh blended with uh more recently imported leninist uh political culture and organization. What we're talking about within the PLA is also quite pervasive outside of the military in China, in the Chinese Communist Party and beyond. China's civil military culture emphasizes complete obedience to and symbiosis with the Communist Party. The PLA is first and foremost, the party's army or the party's military, and it owes its loyalty to the party.

And military autonomy has tended to be, in the Chinese context, extremely weak or non-existent. And the PLA is dependent upon and intertwined with the Communist Party. the communist party looks for a seeks a military with a culture that is both red and expert and by red they mean politically loyal and ideologically pure and by expert they mean professionally competent and combat capable but the emphasis has really been on the the former So competence has suffered at times at the expense of loyalty to the party. Despite the perennial Communist Party apprehension over the political reliability of the armed forces, this seems misplaced. In other words, military leaders in the People's Liberation Army writ large and also within the PLA Navy are very loyal to the party in large part because they're all Communist Party members themselves.

And yet this concern, indeed paranoia over the loyalty and reliability of the armed forces as a whole and individual military leaders is pervasive and makes China's political leaders very focused on attempting to control, emphasize control over their armed forces. Thanks. So you mentioned that you opted to refer to the PLA's approach as control and command rather than command and control. Why did you choose that nomenclature? We use that because the attention, the emphasis of the Communist Party is more about control, is very much centered on control above command. So we believe it's appropriate to reverse the traditional order of command and control when examining the Chinese concept of command and control. so superiors tend to keep their subordinates on tight leashes and individual initiative is not encouraged or even rewarded and chinese officers whether in the navy or other other services are not used to operating with a high degree of autonomy making decisions independent or outside their chain of command. And the PLA as a whole and the PLA Navy also possesses a risk-averse

culture characterized by low levels of trust in subordinates. I wanted to go also make a point about the service cultures in China, in the Chinese military. PLAs tend to have relatively weak service cultures with a notable exception of the ground forces because the defense establishment in China has a dominant muddy boots military tradition. So the services have tended to have a culture that's more less distinct and more closer to that of this muddy boots military tradition. Of course, the PLA steeped in land power culture, its origins as a guerrilla force in the rural interior of China in the late 1920s. China's, the PLA's air and maritime forces were only formally established after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The Navy was not formally established until five months after the founding of the People's Republic. China's Air Force and both Air Force and Navy have tended to operate almost as adjuncts to the PLA ground forces and have weak service identities but this has changed in recent decades both the Navy and the Air Force in China have received more funding and resources especially since the 1990s and the PLA Navy has assumed a far more prominent role in recent decades as China has become much more of a maritime trading nation. I think a key step in China, all the PLA Navy has become more and more a separate, a full service increasingly with its own identity.

in 2004, when the Navy and the Air Force got a seat on the Central Military Commission. And the China Central Military Commission is roughly equivalent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US system. So, you know, for American uniformed personnel, this would be shocking to imagine a JCS without a U.S. Navy representative on it. Thanks. Now, you mentioned that Chinese command and control has been increasingly stressed by its expanding operations. What types of stress are you seeing? As I mentioned, this research is exploratory. And also, as I mentioned earlier, focusing on looking at the soft dimensions has received less attention than looking at the hard dimensions. But it's also much more, it's also harder to look at these

softer dimensions. They're more difficult to study and quantify. You know, you can count how many platforms the PLA Navy has. You know, you can monitor their weapon systems from tests and so on. But it's much harder to look at, you know, command and control, how that actually functions, how it's stressed. So what we've done in this report is, I wouldn't say read the tea leaves, but I've had to look between the lines and read between the lines and engage in a little bit of informed speculation. Hence, I emphasize this is exploratory research that requires much more research to confirm. That said, we think we're seeing stress in the PLA Navy because of its expanding operations, strategic command and control structures because of the demands of more complex operations being conducted at greater distances

from shore-based headquarters. These new developments make real-time communication and frequent consultation difficult, if not impossible. In near-sea operations within the first island chain, And this has posed challenges to the PLN Navy's traditional stovepipe bureaucratic insularity. It's required greater efforts to coordinate with the Coast Guard and the maritime militia. And in the Far Seas, this is strained communication with back to headquarters in mainland China. In Near Sea Plus operations, that is just beyond the first island chain, by aircraft carrier groups have also pushed the limits of legacy command and control systems.

But these have been less frequent and with a lower operational tempo than we've seen in, say, the South China Seas or in operations in the Indian Ocean and in the Gulf of Aden. Lastly, the opening of the PLA's first official overseas naval base has broken new ground regarding how command and control should function in a far sea. and naval base located outside of the first island chain. PLA Navy vessels have been used to operating mostly offshore in the near seas where they're able to maintain near constant real-time communication with onshore superiors. These missions that I just outlined have put stress based on comments that we've seen in official media. And one thing that people often assume that the PLA – getting at what the PLA is up to or the PLA Navy is up to is a complete mystery because the Chinese authorities are keeping mum on this. They don't discuss these things.

That's really not true. their chinese commentators and military leaders tend to be very honest and frank about the challenges they're confronting and the and the challenges in the process or the difficulties or the slowness in the process they're making and this is certainly we certainly found this in our report when Chinese commentators and military leaders are talking about the challenges they're facing in these new operations, further, more complex operations, and those further away from China itself. Xi Jinping initiated a major reform of the Chinese armed forces in 2016. How would you describe that reform and its impact on the PLA?

Good question. I think it's important to understand a little bit about what LA and the PLA Navy was like or this setup was like before she's reforms. Prior to his organizational reforms, the military chain of command for the Navy ran from the Central Military Commission through to the PLA General Staff Department. which was really sort of a glorified, the PLA General Staff Department was kind of a glorified ground force command center, which did other things too. So it wasn't very helpful, the PLA Navy. And then from the General Staff Department through military region command staffs and multiple additional command and control mechanisms

were utilized to the three Navy fleets and their component vessels. The party's influence was built into this chain of command through political commissars and party committees, as well as the powerful General Political Department. So this is a very bureaucratic and complicated command and control system and environment. But as a result of Xi Jinping's organizational reforms, the PLA chains of command were streamlined.

What was really important, a really important development was the establishment of China's first joint staff entity, the Joint Staff Department. And this was directly under the Central Military Commission. this allowed much more uh direct and clear command and control for the the pla navy and yet there were still challenges uh for the navy as naval vessels ventured more frequently further away from chinese shores this more streamlined system of command and control control still strained. And partly this is because while the system streamlined this culture of control and command or control over command meant that superiors sought to micromanage what their subordinates were doing, really the antithesis of mission command.

Thanks. How do operations with the Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia fit with the Chinese control and command philosophy? Well, it doesn't necessarily conflict with or clash with it, but it complicates it to be one of those complex missions. China's Navy operating inside the first island chain is really about the challenges about what we would call interagency coordination with the Coast Guard and the maritime militia. And in this effort, PLA Navy has been leading from behind or letting the Coast Guard be the frontline force, the white holes and the while the gray holes hold back you know when you have a who are trying to micromanage every activity these complex coordination efforts between the navy the coast guard and the maritime militia makes is much more challenging the focus of their operations

are to advance or defend China's claims in the South China Sea. And so these operations involve, these coordinated interagency operations involve challenging back the vessels from other countries, naval, coast guard, and fishing vessels from other countries in Southeast Asia in a way that, on the one hand, advances China's interest, protects China's claims, but on the other hand, that doesn't escalate tensions with these other countries. So it's a rather intricate dance to try and maintain, engage in these coordination efforts while maintaining, ensuring that any confrontations or clashes remain below the threshold of war. What many call gray zone activities, what the Chinese themselves seem

to refer to as a cabbage strategy. So as I said, the PLA Navy leading from behind, on the front, you have outermost ring or front line of these operations are fishing boats, which many of whom are actually maritime militia. And then behind them, you have the Coast Guard. And then either just in the distance or even over the horizon is the PLA Navy, the Greyhawks. And so these operations can get quite intricate. And as I said, a misstep could lead to unintended escalation. And this is something that Xi Jinping and his Politburo colleagues do not want. So there's significant sensitivity then at the higher echelons of the Communist Party and the PLA and the PLA Navy to avoid these issues and hence try and maintain a considerable, a very tight control over subordinates in the so-called cabbage operations.

Thanks. Now, what sort of challenges has the introduction of aircraft carriers and carrier task groups posed to the PLA Navy's command construct? Another good question. PLA Navy does have a carrier program, but most of these have not been commissioned yet. China has, so far, has two commissioned carriers that we consider fully operational. But even then, from a U.S. Navy perspective, the Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, would not be considered fully operational. It does conduct flight operations, but you really can't think of a Chinese aircraft carrier as being the equivalent of fully comparable to its U.S. naval counterpart. And the Chinese acknowledge, as I said, they're quite open about acknowledging the challenges they face

and the baby steps they're taking. In fact, that's a term one retired admiral used to describe China's aircraft carrier program. And he contrasted that with the U.S. experience that U.S. Navy has been operating carriers for many, many decades, whereas China's just starting out in this. And then they recognize this, and as a result, the Chinese aircraft carriers have had limited operational experience in its training, and most of this experience has been within the near seas, within the first island chain with some –

We've only been able to identify two instances in which the Liaoning has operated, has gone beyond the first island chain. And in both cases, significantly, they circled, circuited, a wide circle, but a circuit of Taiwan. So I think that was both to send a message to the Taiwanese, but also since Taiwan is a key scenario for the PLA. This was also gained experience. Now, these two excursions outside of the first island chain

and east of the island of Taiwan occurred in 2016. The first and the second occurred in 2019. And in each case involved the aircraft carrier carrier along with a flotilla of supporting vessels and at least in one of those expeditions involved at least one vessel one naval vessel escorting the carrier from each of the pla navy's three fleets. This was clearly purposefully done and emphasizing that these were important training missions for the PLA Navy. The Navy recognizes that you can't just send a carrier off alone. It requires supporting vessels. A kind of a task force or a group is important,

And yet, of course, the PLA Navy has almost no experience in these kinds of operations. So these are high priority and involve complicated command and control networks that need to be tested. I think it's noteworthy that there are only two of these, and they've been three years apart. hardly a high up-tempo, certainly from the perspective of the standpoint of the U.S. Navy. But this is, again, emphasizing that the PLA Navy is determined to move in this direction, but moving rather slowly, which indicates that, one, they're very cautious about this, cautious but deliberate, but also suggests that these things are very complicated and challenging for the PLA and AV to execute. And a key part of this is the command and control dimension.

Now, you had mentioned the expeditionary operations in the Gulf of Aden and the establishment of the first overseas base in Djibouti. What difficulties have those caused for the Chinese. These out-of-area operations have also proved challenging for the NATO control system or control and command system. As I mentioned earlier, one of the significant outcomes of Xi Jinping's organizational reforms of the defense establishment has been a more streamlined chain of command.

And when the PLA Navy vessels are operating outside the first island chain, the chain of command bypasses the theater command and goes directly to the Navy staff. This is important. And so on the positive side, that clearly streamlines the reporting structure and communications. And yet, at the same time, it increases the opportunity for the highest levels of the Navy, the Navy staff, to micromanage individual ships operating in the Gulf of Aden. And so you have senior leaders meddling in operational decisions rather than leaving them to the captains of these naval vessels. Thanks. And I'll ask one final question as we're running a little short on time here. Do the Chinese have any sort of joint task force structure? To the best of my knowledge, the PLA has yet to stand up a joint task force beyond the outside of the first island chain.

So in those operations in the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean. But the PLA does appear to be experimenting with a joint task force mechanism for operations inside the near seas. But I'm not clear on the precise details. On the one hand, this is obviously, this would be an important step forward. But on the other hand, it also will complicate command and control issues. It's something to be concerned about, to pay attention to. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the PLA Navy or the PLA at large has solved its command and control problems or challenges. Thank you. Well, unfortunately, that's all the time that we have for today. I'd like to thank

my guest, Andrew Scobell. Andrew, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? I'm working on too much. That's the problem. But looking at China's use of armed force, looking at PLA's use of coercive actions against Taiwan. As you know, the PLA is more and more active, both in its own neighborhood and even beyond. So there's a lot of developments that keep those of us who focus on China's military very busy. Well, thank you again for joining us. To our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021

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