The South China Sea (39 page)

The scenarios vary. In 2012, Arcadia had attacked Kuhistan and the multinational force was intent on driving them back. It was, in the words of the acting Chief of Staff of the CPX, US Army Colonel Dave Parker,
‘a high-end war-fighting scenario – peace-enforcement’. Parker's talk was as straight as his crew cut. I put to him questions Chinese journalists had raised about whether the exercise was aimed at their country. ‘Of course they have to be concerned when they come into a Joint Operations Centre and they see Malaysians sitting next to Singaporeans, sitting next to Thais, Indonesians, Koreans and Americans – obviously they're going to have some concern that we have a relationship together and that we are all able to come together as one multinational force – and maybe they should be concerned about that. But I think that speaks volumes that we get that many nations to be able to form a multinational force.’

The Cobra Gold command post exercise is not always about war. That of 2011 had been about humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and 2013 would be too. But as Parker explained, the scenario is almost unimportant. What matters is the way the different national contingents work together. ‘We're operating off one Standard Operating Procedure – the Multinational Force SOP – that was developed here in the Pacific. The organisation that maintains it – the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team – resides at US Pacific Command and they facilitate all the 34 nations that have a part of this SOP. It is a huge task and an ongoing process.’ The MNF SOP governs the way information is shared between the different cells within the command team and how it is delivered to on-the-ground commanders – from the design of the computer system to the order in which meetings take place. In his regular job Colonel Parker was head of the Planning Directorate of Pacific Command (PACOM), so he knew this process well.

The importance of Cobra Gold is the way it allows the different militaries of the region to practise working as a single unit towards a common goal – using the MNF SOP under PACOM's umbrella. The lessons learnt have been used several times in the real world: notably after the tsunamis in 2004 around the Indian Ocean, and in 2011 in Japan, and after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013. According to Parker, ‘the most important thing about this is the relationships that we build with the militaries of the other nations. Let's just say that we have to respond to another natural disaster in Indonesia. Well, there are several key individuals that were part of this exercise here that are going to help us start the process a lot quicker because of the relationship that we have.’ But as Parker says, the
scenario is unimportant – those contacts would be just as useful in a future conflict situation as in a natural disaster.

PACOM has a strange existence. In contrast to all the other American regional commands around the world, it has done almost no war-fighting in its operational area since the fall of Saigon. In fact Parker struggled to remember the last time it had been involved in a real military operation: the modest intervention in East Timor in 1999. Instead PACOM spends considerable time and effort on humanitarian relief: ‘You see how many earthquakes, tsunamis there are in this region. It's not a matter of “if”, it's a matter of “when”,’ says Parker. But PACOM isn't just a well-endowed relief agency. It spends most of its time preparing for potentially cataclysmic confrontations with North Korea or, increasingly, China. These two aspects of its work – aid and assault – are not separate functions; they are integral to PACOM's mission: to deter a confrontation by preparing for one. The strategy is built on three declared pillars: ‘building strong relationships’, ‘maintaining an assured presence in the region’ and ‘effectively communicating intent and resolve’. Cobra Gold ticks all three boxes. That's why the Chinese were invited to observe. In 2014 they were even allowed to take part – but only in the humanitarian operations, not in the war-fighting.

This approach was put front and centre in the US ‘Joint Operational Access Concept’, released in January 2012, as we saw earlier. It defines ‘Operational Access’ as ‘the ability to project military force into an operational area with sufficient freedom of action to accomplish the mission’. As the first page of the concept makes clear, the battle to defeat A2/AD (China's tactical assassin's mace) begins many years beforehand:

In other words, everything that PACOM does – from exercises and port visits to relief operations, academic seminars and golf tournaments – is a part of the strategy to counter any attempt to close the seas to American forces. It's called ‘shaping the battlefield’ in advance and it's all about relationships.

PACOM takes the same approach at sea too. In 1995 it launched CARAT – the Cooperation Afloat Readiness And Training programme, which now conducts annual naval exercises with seven of the ten members of ASEAN. Only land-locked Laos, previously isolated Myanmar and cautious Vietnam have yet to take part. But Vietnam now hosts frequent port visits by American ships and has begun taking part in what are described by analysts as ‘CARAT-type’ activities. Slowly it is deepening its engagement with PACOM. In June 2012, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta flew to Vietnam to make a speech aboard an American logistics ship, the USS
Robert Byrd
, which was making use of the ship repair facilities at the immense natural harbour at Cam Ranh Bay. Many of the facilities in the harbour were originally built by US engineers during the Vietnam War when the bay was a huge American logistical hub. Panetta spoke warmly of his hopes for deeper cooperation in the future.
²⁴

PACOM doesn't need big bases to begin to shape the battlefield; it just needs access. American commanders have learnt the hard way that having large numbers of military personnel based in Asian societies can be problematic. Local resistance to the aircraft noise generated by the Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma on Okinawa is a permanent thorn in their sides, the killing of two schoolgirls by an American armoured vehicle in Korea in 2002 led to widespread protests, and anger at the treatment of local women by American servicemen based in the Philippines was a key argument behind the closure of Subic Bay Naval Base. Memories run deep. In October 2013, a proposal to build a new base at Oyster Bay on Palawan in the Philippines – to which the US Navy would have access – was made public. The immediate reaction from four out of the five local village chiefs was opposition because they expected it to lead to a rise in prostitution. Local anti-Americanism seems to rise when there are more uniformed Americans around. A smaller military ‘footprint’ helps keep these incidents to a minimum while also saving billions of dollars.

Even where the US does have a base, it will be a different kind of presence. In Singapore, PACOM's Logistics Group, Western Pacific – the hub for the CARAT exercises and a key element of the American rebalancing – is based inside the civilian cargo terminal at Sembawang within a secure zone administered by New Zealand forces under the ‘Five Power Defence Arrangements’. Only around 150 military personnel and 150 civilian contractors are permanently based there.
²⁵
Singapore's naval harbour at Changi is the regional hub for two (ultimately four) of the new generation of Littoral Combat Ships, designed to show the Stars and Stripes in Southeast Asian waters, but the ships’ sailors aren't allowed to live on shore. Even when in port they sleep on their ships (although they are free to leave the base when off duty). There may be no major bases in the Philippines anymore but the ‘Mutual Logistics Support Agreement’ provides for refuelling, resupply, billeting of troops and transport arrangements. In Darwin in northern Australia, the presence of 2,500 US marines is not described as ‘permanent’ because contingents rotate through the base on six-month assignments. As a result the base will not develop the kind of infrastructure for a settled community that used to exist in the Philippines and still exists in Japan, Korea and Guam. But in a time of crisis warships, planes, ammunition, supplies and personnel would flow through these hubs to enable the US to project power directly into the heart of the region. That's why ‘access’ is so critical.

Southeast Asian governments welcome this lighter American ‘footprint’ in the region. It's large enough to demonstrate Washington's continuing political commitment but small enough to reduce the risk of political embarrassment. Logistics hubs draw less attention than military bases and are less likely to provoke criticism from jealous foreign powers or domestic opposition movements. But the lighter presence is also a cause for nervousness. For decades, the countries of Southeast Asia relied upon the United States to maintain maritime security in their neighbourhood. The Philippines did so explicitly and the others implicitly – even Vietnam, after the demise of the Soviet Union. As budget cuts loom in Washington the region's governments have realised that they can't expect the US Navy to do as much as it once did. It certainly won't defend their territorial claims in the South China Sea. They have to make alternative arrangements – and that means boom time for weapon makers.

* * * * * *

When James Hilton published his novel of Himalayan heaven in 1933, we can be sure he had no idea it would give a name to a canapé-packed gathering of Asia's military-industrial complex. But 69 years after Hilton's
Lost Horizon
first introduced us to his verdant mountain paradise, generals and diplomats seeking the path of enlightenment gathered for the first time at the ‘Shangri-La Dialogue’. The name invites a vision of a transcendental meeting of minds, a murmuring of pilgrims in a heady atmosphere of mind-expanding aromatics.

But Shangri-La has travelled a long way since Hilton first conjured it up from his Himalayan wanderings. It began its journey in the late 1960s when the Chinese-Malaysian businessman Robert Kuok made a killing in the global sugar markets. With anti-Chinese sentiment rising at home in Malaysia, Kuok sought a safer haven for some of his fortune, buying real estate in neighbouring Singapore. And in 1971, Shangri-La took on concrete form for the first time, not in the shape of a Tibetan monastery but in the form of a 24-storey deluxe hotel. So many sought his vision of beauty that he rolled out the concept continent-wide. There are now 72 Shangri-La hotels across Asia: nirvana on tap for executives on business.

The next step in Shangri-La's transformation emerged from a discussion between a British security think-tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Singaporean government. Asia, they felt, needed a venue where nation could speak peace (or its opposite) unto nation in comfort – the Shangri-La hotel. The IISS would handle the guest list, the Singapore government would sort out the security, and the sponsors would pay for everything else. Singapore and the IISS would get the kudos; ministers would get a few minutes in the spotlight; and the sponsors plenty of opportunities to press the flesh.

So, each June since 2002, the Shangri-La Dialogue has come to Singapore. It's all very tasteful. There are no blaring sirens or multi-car convoys and almost no road closures. The only other clues that an international gathering is taking place are little rubber seals on the manhole covers and the shrink-wrapped postboxes – both intended to prevent anyone depositing explosives within a block of the hotel. Inside the building, security is just as low-key. Once through the metal detectors, guests are free to
network with ministers in suits and generals in braid. It's easy to miss the steely-eyed Gurkhas blending into the background in their charcoal business suits. Only their over-large attaché cases mark them out, just the right size to conceal their submachine guns: it's security for gentlemen. This is a twenty-first-century Shangri-La, where the men from the Himalayas take care of the close protection.

For those in search of bigger guns, the 2012 Dialogue had plenty, courtesy of its sponsors: Boeing (makers of the Apache helicopter, the F/A-18 fighter, the C-17 transporter and the Harpoon anti-ship missile among other products), EADS (whose own portfolio includes the Cougar helicopter, the Typhoon fighter, the A400M transporter and the Exocet anti-ship missile), Mitsubishi (taking part five months after the Japanese government relaxed its blanket ban on military exports), Singapore-based ST Engineering (makers of the Bronco all-terrain vehicle, the MATADOR anti-tank missile and the
Fearless
patrol ship) and two non-defence-industry contributors: Japan's
Asahi Shimbun
newspaper and the fabulously well-endowed John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Given that the six sponsors had equal billing on the publicity and the MacArthur Foundation declared that its support amounted to $250,000, it seems reasonable to assume that the overall budget for the two-day event was well in excess of $1.5 million. One insider thought it might be closer to $4 million.

Boeing clearly feels that it gets good value from its contribution: 2012 was its eleventh year as a sponsor. It's not hard to see why. With so many key players staying in the same hotel, the networking opportunities are immense. During the 2012 Dialogue, the head of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, Dennis Muilenburg, managed meetings with 13 different defence ministers: all potential customers. They're vital conversations for his company. In interviews with journalists he revealed that overseas sales now make up a quarter of his unit's revenues. With US and European defence spending being cut, Asia is becoming a vital market. In June 2012 Boeing Defense only had one customer in Southeast Asia: Singapore. But with all countries in the region getting richer and more worried about security, this is where threat meets opportunity.