Why Are Chinese and Russian Ships Prowling

the Mediterranean?
There are good, simple reasons for the joint naval exercises in
the waters off Europe. But Moscow and Beijing also ain't
above a little swagger.

BY JIM HOLMES- MAY 15, 2015

On May 11, nine ships from the Russian Navy and Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) kicked off 10
days of combined exercises in the Mediterranean Sea, for their first joint naval war games in European waters.
What does this nautical confab, dubbed Joint Sea 2015, entail? Maritime defense, maritime replenishment,
escort actions, joint operations to safeguard navigation security as well as real weapon firing drill, according to Sr.
Col. Geng Yansheng, a spokesman for Chinas Defense Ministry. The aim of the exercises is to further deepen
friendly and practical interaction between the two countries, maintained the Russian Defense Ministry. Moscow
added that the drills are not aimed against any third country.
Despite the soothing words, some Western commentators opined that Europes middle sea constitutes an unlikely
and provocative venue for this venture. Yes, Moscow and Beijing chose the venue precisely to be provocative
the exercise is a throwback to Soviet maneuvers in the Mediterranean 40 years ago. It was predictable that an
allied fleet would eventually put in an appearance off NATOs southern, nautical flank.

Does a Sino-Russian naval presence off NATO seaboards sound frightening to you? It shouldnt theres nothing
new nor especially worrisome here. It represents normalcy in a world of geostrategic competition the kind of
world thats making a comeback following a quarter-century of seaborne U.S. hegemony. The United States wants
to preserve its primacy, along with the liberal maritime order over which it has presided since the end of World War
II. Challengers such as China and Russia want to amend that system while carving out their own places in the
sun of great naval power. Irreconcilable differences over purposes and power beget open-ended strategic
competition.
Hence deployments like Joint Sea 2015. Yes, exercises have functional uses like those outlined by Geng. But
navies can also shape global and national opinion by constructing impressive warships, aircraft, and armaments.
Showmanship plays a part when commanders display gee-whiz hardware to important audiences. Mariners
impress by showing up in far-flung regions in sizable numbers, and by handling their ships and planes with skill and
panache. And a seafaring state creates an even bigger sensation if its fleet deploys in concert with allies, backing
their common cause with steel. Competitors, like China and the United States, can one-up one another through
peacetime maneuvers bucking up morale among allies and friends, helping court would-be partners, and
disheartening rival alliances.
Thats the essence of great-power naval diplomacy, and it can pay off handsomely. The three-ship PLAN contingent
guided-missile frigatesLinyi and Weifang, accompanied by fleet oiler Weishanhu are taking a break from
counterpiracy duty in the Gulf of Aden for Joint Sea 2015. The PLAN flotilla wended its way from the western Indian
Ocean into the Red Sea, through the Eastern Mediterranean, and into the Black Sea. It tarried at the Russian
seaport of Novorossiysk for Victory Day commemorations before exiting back into the Mediterranean in company
with Russian Black Sea Fleet ships.
The interoperability challenge
Why go to the time, expense, and bother of assembling a fleet in European waters so far from East Asia, the
natural theater for Sino-Russian escapades? Lets start with the obvious motive, and the official one. Russia and
China are doubtless sincere about harvesting the dividends that come from steaming around together and
practicing routine operations. Both navies need to learn, and they can learn from each other. China is constructing
its first world-class navy since the 15th century. Russia is recovering from the dreary post-Cold War years when
ships rusted at their moorings and sailors went unpaid. Both countries sea services are now trying to put things
right following protracted intervals of decay a lapse of centuries in Chinas case, decades in Russias. So where
does this newfound strength come from? Materiel reliable, technologically sophisticated hardware and weaponry
and the proficiency of its users. Maneuvers like Joint Sea 2015 help the navies improve along both the material
and human axes.
In material terms, the Russian and Chinese navies need to bolster their equipment interoperability their
capacity to back up the Sino-Russian partnerships policies efficiently and effectively. Call it a form of multinational
gunboat diplomacy. Armed services order their kit from defense manufacturers. Such firms may or, more likely,
may not build their products to a common standard. Their wares are far from interchangeable. Dissimilar
hardware makes it hard to work together, even for armed forces flying the same national flag. To take a workaday
example: think about trying to use tools designed for English and metric measurements together.
Such widgets just dont fit or at least not without workarounds. Its just not easy to fight together when two air
forces use different airframes, communicate or exchange data on different frequencies, or sport different weaponry
with unlike characteristics. Procuring hardware from multiple suppliers in multiple countries exacerbates the
interoperability challenge.
Take India, for example. Asias other rising military power imports ships, aircraft, and weapons from firms in Russia,

France, and the United States while also manufacturing its own naval armaments. At present, the Indian Navy
operates British- and Soviet-built aircraft carriers, while in the future it will operate a Soviet-built aircraft carrier
alongside indigenously built flattops. Diesel submarines of French, German, Russian, and Indian design; a nuclearpowered attack sub leased from Russia; an Indian-built nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine; and a
Russian-built nuclear-powered cruise-missile sub will constitute the undersea fleet. U.S.-built maritime patrol
aircraft will fly for the same naval air force as MiG fighters imported from Russia. You get the point: this is a
virtual Tower of Babel of armed forces. Getting such disparate platforms to work together has proved
troublesome for India, to say the least.
Interoperability, then, is the process of devising procedures or material fixes to make incompatible machinery
compatible. Yes, the PLAN and Russian Navy have a fair amount of equipment in common: China imported Sovietbuilt weaponry to help kick start its naval renaissance in the 1990s. But at the same time, Chinese industry started
building ships, planes, and armamentswith zest even as Russia fields newfangled hardware of its own.
Consequently, the navies are drifting apart in compatibility terms. Interoperability is on the decline. Exercises help
restore it. (Moscow is reportedly mulling a purchase of Chinese frigates like the Linyi and Weifang; reciprocal arms
sales help narrow the gap as well.)
Eating soup together
Then theres the human factor. Ameliorating equipment interoperability challenges is well and good, but the finest
implement is no better than its user. Napoleon once quipped that soldiers have to eat soup together for a long time
before they can fight as a unit. Same goes for seamen. Armed forces are teams: Their members have to learn
common tactics, techniques, and procedures. And they have to practice tactics and routine operations, over and
over again. Repetition is the soul of combat effectiveness.
Crewmen also need get to know one another, acquainting themselves with their shipmates strengths, weaknesses,
and foibles. Strangers seldom collaborate smoothly in the hothouse environment of combat. Thats doubly true in
alliances, where linguistic barriers, disparate histories and cultures, and countless other impediments work against
military efficiency. Seafarers learn by doing: if you want to work well together, then work together early and often.
Eat soup together and refine seamanship, tactical acumen, and lan in the bargain.
Thats the tactical and strategic logic behind Joint Sea 2015 if we take Moscows and Beijings words at face
value. But are there ulterior motives impelling this Mediterranean adventure?
Of course. For one, its a reply to the U.S. pivot to Asia. As Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu explained in
November when announcing a slate of Sino-Russian undertakings, including Joint Sea 2015, the two partners are
worried about attempts to strengthen [U.S.] military and political clout in the Asia-Pacific.
Thats a worrisome trend from their standpoint. The U.S. Navy has mounted a standing presence in Chinas and
Russias near seas since World War II, manifest in the Japan-based Seventh Fleet. Its augmenting that presence
as it rebalances to the Far East. By staging a show of force in the Mediterranean, to NATOs immediate south,
Moscow and Beijing proclaim, sotto voce, that whats good for the U.S. Navy is good for the Russian Navy and
PLAN.
Learning from the best
But theres more to the Mediterranean expedition than jabbing NATO in the eye. Contesting control of Eurasian
waters is sound strategy backed up by history. During World War II, Yale professor Nicholas Spykman ascribed the
age of British maritime supremacy to the Royal Navys control of the girdle of marginal seas ringing Eurasias
coastlines. He called the South China Sea the site of territorial disputes among China and several other nations
the Asiatic Mediterranean. Seagoing forces could flit around the periphery quickly and economically relative to

land transport radiating power and influence into the Eurasian rimlands from the sea. Mobility and seaborne
firepower let Britannia rule. By cruising the Mediterranean Sea, the Russian and Chinese fleets project power into
European waters much as the Royal Navy projected power into Asian waters via the South China Sea and other
littoral expanses. The logic works both ways.
To Chinese and Russian eyes, surrendering control of offshore waters to the U.S. Navy looks like surrendering
control to the Royal Navy and fellow imperial powers a century ago. Historical memory is especially acute for
China, which lost control of its seaboard and internal waterways to waterborne conquerors. But Russia endured
traumas of its own: It watched the Imperial Japanese Navy demolish the Russian Navy during the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-1905. China and Russia hope to banish such memories while turning Spykmans logic of nautical
supremacy to their advantage. If successful, theyll stiff-arm the United States in Asia while projecting power into
NATO waters.
Vying for control of these seas puts important Eurasian audiences prospective allies, prospective foes, fencesitters on notice that China and Russia are sea powers to be reckoned with. And on a global level, Joint Sea
2015 could be a forerunner to bigger things. In 1970, for example, the Soviet Navy executed a deployment
titled Okean(ocean), which stunned Western navies through its geographical scale and the sheer number of assets
deployed. Indeed, some 200 Soviet warships and hundreds of aircraft took to the Baltic Sea, Norwegian Sea, North
Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and Western Pacific.
It was an armada, mounting a presence across an enormous swathe of the worlds oceans and seas. Soviet ships
werent just plentiful in numbers butyouthful, generally under 20-years-old. Okean made it plain that the Soviet
Navy was outbuilding its Western rivals at a time when the United States was in a funk over the Vietnam War and
the U.S. Navy was under strain. The exercise made the statement that the Soviet Navy was a serious contender for
mastery of the seas. It could defend Warsaw Pact shores while competing against the U.S. Navy on the vasty main.
However gratifying for Moscow, though, such capers set the law of unintended consequences in motion. By the
1980s, the Soviet naval rise jolted the United States into a naval buildup of its own a buildup that empowered the
U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to reassert their supremacy in Eurasian waters while setting the stage for the United
States post-Cold War preeminence. In short, Moscows propaganda coup backfired badly: it goaded Washington
into action, prompting the Carter and Reagan administrations to fashion a new, offensive-minded maritime strategy
prosecuted by a nearly 600-ship navy. Thats what strategists call self-defeating behavior. So be careful what you
wish for, Russia and China.
Posted by Thavam