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Walker D. Mills

Strife Series: Arctic Maritime Security – Introduction

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The USS Connecticut breaks though the ice March 9, 2018 in support of Ice Exercise 2018. Source: United States Navy, in the public domain.

The Arctic is a region of enduring geopolitical importance that is receiving more and more attention. Climate change is literally changing the map in the Arctic as seasonal sea ice continues to recede. This has the potential to significantly change the region by opening up new sea routes through Northern Canada or along Russia’s Northern coast. It will also open up new areas to resource extraction from near virgin Arctic fisheries to some of the world’s largest untapped oil and natural reserves. Melting sea ice also emphasizes the region’s unique maritime character, the Arctic is an ocean – not a continental landmass, and decreasing ice will only increase it’s maritime character. The changing climate will also cause problems in the Arctic littoral as the changes in seasonal weather patterns stress wildlife populations and threaten local and indigenous communities through rapid erosion and permafrost melt.

Against the backdrop of climate change, geopolitical tensions in the Arctic are also rising. In their essay, Lauren Chin and Andro Mathewson detail the increasing tension and “securitization” of interests in the Arctic. Over the last decade Russia has been the chief driver or militarization in the Arctic. Russia’s years-long military modernization has reopened “50 previously closed, Soviet-era military posts,” established an Arctic Strategic Command, and conducted repeated exercises with modernized military equipment. In her essay, Alice Staikowski explains how resource competition in the Arctic may continue to drive competition, especially between Russia and the West.

At the same time, China has also expressed a strong desire to protect its perceived interests in the Arctic and declared itself as a “near Arctic state,” despite its geographic distance and nearly non-existent historical ties to the region. How China and Russia negotiate their relationship in the Arctic will play a key part in defining the future of the region. In her essay Henny Lie-Skarpholt talks about Chinese influence in the Arctic. One particular facet of competition in the Arctic is icebreaking fleets, which are critical enablers for trade, resource extraction and even military operations in the High North. In his essay Dylan Phillips-Levine argues that the US Navy needs to invest in its own fleet of ice breakers which will be even more important if sea routes through Russian and Canadian waters gain importance.

It’s also important to recognize that while tensions in the Arctic are rising, they are not new. The were important naval actions fought in the Arctic during the Second World War and it was a key front during the Cold War, partly because the shortest route between the US and the USSR for missiles and bombers was over the North Pole. In his essay, Timothy Choi discusses the history of the Royal Danish Navy in Arctic security, an overlooked but critical contribution.

The ongoing war in Ukraine, which started after these essays were written, will have important but still unknown impacts on the Arctic as well. Russia’s only border with the United States falls just South of the Arctic Circle in the Pacific, and one of NATO’s borders with Russia, between Norway and Russia, falls within the Arctic Circle so increased military tensions between Russia and the alliance are likely to play out in the Arctic. But it’s also possible that the war in Ukraine will draw in Russian forces from across the country and could actually diminish Russian military posture in the Arctic. Ships from Russia’s Northern Fleet were reportedly part of the buildup to war in Ukraine.

Taken together, this series of short essays provides a variety of perspectives on the maritime security in the High North. The authors, all from different backgrounds, provide valuable commentary and analysis that can be a jumping off point or introduction to a deeper investigation of maritime security in the Arctic.

Arm the Coast Guard with More Drones in the Caribbean

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A crewmember from the US Coast Guard Cutter Stratton launches a Scan Eagle UAS during testing. Source: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service

This article is a part of our 2021 Series on Caribbean Maritime Security.  Read the Series Introduction at this link.

In February, a P-3 ‘Orion’ maritime surveillance aircraft identified and tracked a suspicious vessel suspected of trafficking cocaine and vectored in a US Coast Guard cutter to make the interdiction. The Coast Guard seized the vessel and found more than 3,300 pounds of cocaine aboard. US Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, operates P-3s and other aircraft from Naval Air Stations in Corpus Christi, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida. From these bases they help provide domain awareness over the maritime approaches to the United States in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. Operations, like the one in February, are often lauded as interagency triumphs – with multiple agencies working together to secure America’s borders. However, they also highlight the lack of maritime surveillance assets within the US Coast Guard itself, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Caribbean where the Coast Guard is forced to rely on interagency cooperation for aerial maritime surveillance. The Coast Guard urgently needs to invest in its own family of unmanned systems that can provide it with the maritime domain awareness that it relies on other agencies for.

The US Coast Guard is responsible for law enforcement and policing in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the United States, this encompasses eleven specific missions. The Coast Guard also routinely deploys forces globally in support of the Department of Defense and other national priorities like ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises, including to the Strait of Taiwan or its long-standing patrol force in the Persian Gulf. But within the Western Hemisphere alone, the Coast Guard is responsible for policing over 4.2 million square miles of water and nearly a hundred-thousand miles of coastline. In this vast expanse, by far the most vulnerable points are the Caribbean and East Pacific approaches to the United States. The US government’s Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that as much as 80% of the cocaine leaving the Andean region in South America travels by maritime means, with approximately 90% of it eventually landing in Central America before crossing over the US-Mexico border on its way to US consumers. Illicit narcotics, however, are not the only issue the Coast Guard needs to address, US partners in the region are increasingly concerned about illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. This has lead the Coast Guard to deploy cutters to support operations across Latin America from Ecuador to Argentina, to deal with the threat. Of all the regions where it operates, the Coast Guard is perhaps most important in the Caribbean where it works with dozens of smaller partners to address trans-national issues like narcotics trafficking, providing the maritime capacity that oftentimes smaller nations lack.

US Law enforcement agencies have long identified the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, often referred to as the “transit zone,”  as ideal for interdicting illegal shipments, whether the cargo is drugs, weapons or trafficked humans. Maritime narcotics shipments are almost always made in bulk, and the further they travel from their point of origin, the more valuable they become, making seizure in the transit zone much more costly to traffickers than seizures in South America. Additionally, ocean interception represents a low-risk area for interdiction – that is to say that once assets are detailed for interdiction traffickers are not likely to resist capture. But before shipments can be interdicted in the transit zone they need to be found – and searching for go-fast boats and semi-submersibles with surface vessels is nearly impossible, primarily because the vessels are difficult to see. Radars mounted on law enforcement vessels  are limited to the horizon by the curvature of the earth. Also critical is loiter time – manned platforms are limited by fuel constraints and eventually by the limits of human endurance. If you want to monitor large areas of the ocean you need to be up in the sky or using a fleet of networked sensors.

Analysts often lament how poorly resourced the US Coast Guard is compared to the other military services. Though considered an ‘armed service’ the Coast Guard is not part of the military, instead, since reforms following 9/11 it has resided in the Department of Homeland Security. It has just over 40,000 active-duty guardsman and a fleet of cutters and aircraft. In part because of this small size the Coast Guard relies on surveillance and detection from other agencies like Customs and Border Protection (CBP) aircraft, a barrage of high-altitude balloons or US military assets including high-end weapon systems like B-1 ‘Lancer’ bombers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. While certainly effective, these platforms were designed to fight the Soviet Union and are far more expensive than what is required to track smugglers, the B-1 costs over $60,000 an hour to operate and the destroyers cost nearly a billion dollars per vessel.  CBP operates a fleet of maritime patrol aircraft and large unmanned platforms that are much more cost effective. However, these assets are all based in the continental United States and the Coast Guard operates globally. The Coast Guard needs in-house assets that are effective at maritime surveillance and detection, and that can operate wherever the Coast Guard is deployed.

Thankfully, putting unmanned aerial assets on every medium and large cutter is a goal of the current Commandant, Admiral Karl Schultz, and investing in unmanned systems is a part of the service’s strategic plan. Such a move will significantly improve the maritime domain awareness of Coast Guard units at sea and help mitigate their dependence on assets and support loaned from the military and other agencies. But the current Coast Guard program for ship-based UAS is contractor owned and operated while the Coast Guard looks for a permanent solution and experimentation is ongoing. Two new types of UAS look particularly promising for the Coast Guard – vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS, and unmanned surface vessels (USVs). Both of these technologies were successfully demonstrated last year, VTOL UAS was operated from a cutter during a deployment as were two different unmanned surface vessels, each with a mission endurance as long as 30 days.

Ultimately, what is needed is a family of systems that can provide the Coast Guard with an organic and layered maritime surveillance network. Realizing this for the Coast Guard will free up CBP and military assets for other missions more in line with their respective institutional priorities and further empower the Coast Guard. These platforms are desperately needed in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific where the Coast Guard is the lead agency in intercepting illicit narcotics traffickers but also in the fighting against IUU fishing and maritime crime. In setting acquisition priorities for the Coast Guard it would be wise to remember Roger Barnett’s assertion in his book Navy Strategic Culture that “…the most difficult problem in naval warfare is finding the adversary.” Investments in unmanned systems will help support Coast Guard missions not just in counter narcotics but across their 11 statutory missions around the globe, it all starts with domain awareness.

Caribbean Maritime Security Series: Introduction

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USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109) conducts maritime security operations. Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery, licensed with CC BY 2.0

Despite its critical position as the crossroads of the Western Hemisphere, the Caribbean is often overlooked in conversations about conflict, defense and security. When it is discussed, the conversation is invariably about illegal narcotics trafficking and counter-narcotics operations. However, the Caribbean basin has a unique array of maritime security issues that merit discussion. This series of seven short essays by maritime security professionals who all have experience working in the Caribbean, intends to open a discussion on some of the most pressing issues in Caribbean maritime security. The tension and dialogue between the pieces highlight the complicated nature of these issues and makes clear that there are no easy answers.

There are two primary questions or tensions that these pieces illuminate. The first is the conflict between the United States and Venezuela, which lies at the northern and southern ends of the Caribbean respectively. The near-total collapse of the Maduro regime has made Venezuela into a font of regional insecurity through mass migration, chronic fuel shortages and support of other illegal activity. In response, the United States surged military and law enforcement assets to the Caribbean, but the situation has only worsened. This conflict is playing out in oil sanctions, counter narcotics and old boundary disputes that threaten pull in other nations and spill escalate tensions.

The second question is over the very character of maritime security in the Caribbean – should regional navies and coast guards be more focused on conventional naval operations or take a constabulary role that focuses on counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and sanctions enforcement? The United States is perhaps the best case study for this tension because it has recently employed both Navy and Coast Guard assets to the Caribbean. But should it? Or would those assets be better used on other global hot spots? Other regional navies from Mexico and Colombia have also evolved in recent decades but still face questions about their future role.

Series Publication Schedule

  • Monday, 10 May 2021:  The Venezuelan Navy: The Kraken of the Caribbean? By Wilder Alejandro Sanchez
  • Tuesday, 11 May 2021:  Diplomatic Pressure in the Caribbean Under the Guise of Counter Narcotics? By Rafael D. Uribe Neira
  • Wednesday, 12 May 2021: Venezuela, Illegal Fuel and Maritime Security in the Caribbean by Dylan Phillips-Levine
  • Thursday, 13 May 2021:  The Elusive Prey: ‘Narco Submarines’ In The Caribbean by HI Sutton
  • Friday, 14 May 2021:   The Caribbean Test Case for the Coast Guard’s Tri-Service Commitment by Joshua Tallis
  • Saturday, 15 May 2021:  Arm the Coast Guard with More Drones in the Caribbean by Walker D. Mills
  • Sunday, 16 May 2021:  The Evolution of the Mexican Navy Since 1980 by Christian J. Ehrlich

What We Read in 2020: A Strife Reading List

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By Walker D. Mills

Photo Credit: Unsplash

The theme that ties this reading list together is the staff at Strife. We are writers, editors and managers who have chosen to highlight a few of the best books we read during 2020. It’s a reading list in the same vein as those from War on the Rocks, CIMSEC and others, that is united by a common group of contributors rather than a thematic focus. 

Each contributor has written a brief description of the selections and why they choose it, and the selections are in no particular order. We hope that you can find something you’ll want to pick up and that you enjoy reading these books as much as we did. 

James Brown, Copy Editor

The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners

 By Seamus Milne (1994)

A brilliant expose of the British establishment’s attempt to destroy the labour movement during the miners’ strike of 1984-85. Which was the last of the great clashes between the trade union movement and the government, and the final time Britain saw a serious challenge to its neoliberal economic re-alignment. 

Milne delivers an at times thrilling account of how the powerful forces of the State Security Service, police, press, and conservative government conspired to wage a secret war against the miners. The title is taken from a quote by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher describing the miners as an internal enemy, and “enemy within” and it remains one of the best accounts of how state power in a democracy can be manipulated to serve undemocratic ends.

Bryan Strawser, Managing Editor, Blog

The Violent Image:  Insurgent Propaganda and the new Revolutionaries

By Neville Bolt (2012)

My research is broadly focused on how groups and intelligence agencies use propaganda, particularly social media, to sow discord and influence election outcomes.  Dr. Bolt’s book from 2012 describes the world of fast-moving, viral ‘violent images’ that have changed how insurgent groups and revolutionaries disseminate their messages through the more dynamic technologies and mediums available today. In many cases, these violent images and other propaganda move far more quickly than governments can counter the messaging with facts.

Alt-America:  The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump

By David Neiwert (2018)

In this book, journalist David Neiwert chronicles the resurgence of extremists on the right in American politics leading to the election of President Donald J. Trump in 2016. He covers the common ground found between right-wing media, the Tea Party, and other Republican activists – and how people like Stephen Bannon and Alex Jones become the new mainstream for far-right activists, the book helped me understand this intersection and how newer communication methods, such as social media (especially Twitter) and streaming video, enabled their rise.

Farley Sweatman, External Representative

Acts of Faith 

By Philip Caputo (2005)

Historical fiction, Acts of Faith is about a group of aid workers and pilots flying aid material (and eventually arms) into Sudan during the height of the Second Sudanese Civil War in what would later become South Sudan. Along with being extremely well-written and entertaining, it provides a pretty apt account of the conflict and the ethno-religious divides within Sudan at the time.

No stranger to writing about violence, Philip Caputo is well-known for A Rumor of War, his “memoir” of his time serving as a US Marine in Vietnam, which is often credited with helping change the US public’s opinion of the Vietnam War. 

Natasia Kalajdziovski, Senior Editor

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland  

by Patrick Radden Keefe (2019)

Say Nothing charts the interwoven stories of two women of Northern Ireland during “The Troubles.” Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten who was accused by the Provisional IRA of passing information to the security forces and was subsequently murdered in 1972, and Dolours Price, a notorious Provisional who later claimed to be part of McConville’s murder. McConville and Price are used as the anchor-point through which Keefe – who is, fundamentally, a terrific storyteller – weaves an intricate web of political violence and state action alongside secrets and whispers to form a narrative of the conflict that is incredibly accessible and engaging. 

In a conflict so marred by its sectarian nature, there is no such thing as a perfect, or unbiased account of The Troubles and Say Nothing does not purport to be a full telling of that story. But what it does, unlike so many other works on the topic, is to recount the experiences of two women who chose two very different paths when violence engulfed their community and fit their stories into the broader narrative of the conflict. Taking its title from a Seamus Heaney poem, Say Nothing dares to ask its readers to contemplate how wars are fought first on the battlefield, and then for a second time in memory. 

Anas Ismail, Production Manager, Strife Blog

Conflict and Health

By Natasha Howard, Egbert Sondorp, Annemarie ter Veen (2012)

Conflict and Health examines how health is impacted by different forms of conflict, and it has a range of case studies from different settings around the world. The authors provide knowledge of a variety of topics ranging from the nature of the conflicts to humanitarianism and health interventions in conflict settings with clear and concise prose in an easily digestible format. 

Joe Jarnecki, Coordinating Editor, Strife Blog

From Righteousness to Far Right: An Anthropological Rethinking of Critical Security Studies

By Emma McCluskey (2019)

An original and thought-provoking text, McCluskey’s From Righteousness to Far Right follows nineteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in a small Swedish village where, at the height of the so-called “migration crisis,” one hundred refugees were housed. Guiding the reader through day-to-day life in the village the author raises questions about critical security studies’ ability to examine the texture of everyday life within a society increasingly exposed to far-right and securitised politics. An incredibly enjoyable book rich not only for its content but also for its prose. 

The Blood of Others

By Simone de Beauvoir (1984)

A classic of French existentialism, The Blood of Others remains one of the most compelling engagements with how to reconcile responsibility with the pursuit of personal happiness. Set in early 20th Century France, the story follows Jean Blomart and his journey from privileged bourgeois to resistance activist. While a novel may be rare to find on this list it is, I guarantee, a welcome respite. 

Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer

By Peter Wright (1987)

Published originally in Australia in 1987, Spycatcher offers an insider account of MI5’s operations following the Second World War, recounting, with incredible honesty, the bugging of embassies across London, the MI5 plot to destabilise the government of Harold Wilson, and the counterspy operations against the Cambridge five. It is an intriguing read for any armchair intelligence historian, and for that matter, any that happen to be standing. 

Walker Mills, Series Editor

Missionaries

By Phil Klay (2020) 

Missionaries is Phil Klay’s second book, after his critically acclaimed collection of short stories Redeployment. A work of fiction, the book follows a group of characters in Colombia as they are sucked into Colombia’s long-running conflict just before the 2016 peace agreement.

Klay is a masterful storyteller and he brins his characters to life with intensive research. But Missionaries is also a statement about war and conflict itself. Violence is often the result of complex systems but the effects are real and unsanitized at the human level. Klay shows how individuals are often caught in systems of violence and they can’t escape. 

Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a Limpieza

By Michael Taussig (2003) 

Michael Taussig is an anthropologist in Colombia with years of fieldwork experience who has written several books about the country. In Law in a Lawless Land he recounts his experience of spending two weeks in a small town in Colombia’s Cauca Valley during a limpieza, or “cleaning,” when paramilitaries move into the town and kill teenage gang members and anyone else who they deem a problem. 

The work is truly a diary – part a recounting of events and part reflection. Taussig is able to contextualize the violence while presenting an unvarnished look at paramilitary violence in Colombia. The book is a natural complement to Missionaries, which has several fictional accounts of extreme paramilitary violence. 

Walker is a United States Marine infantry officer currently working as an instructor at the Colombian Naval Academy in Cartagena, Colombia. He is currently a non-resident master’s degree student at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center For Homeland Defense and Security and is a graduate of Brown University and the War Studies Department at King’s College London.

Walker is an Associate Editor at the Center For International Maritime Security and co-host of the Sea Control podcast. He has been published in War on the Rocks, Defense News, USNI Proceedings, the Marine Corps Gazette, West Point’s Modern War Institute, and many other publications. His writing focuses on emerging trends, technology, and tactics on land and at sea. You can follow him on Twitter @WDMills1992.