 Thank you, everybody, for coming out here right before Labor Day weekend. I'm Jeff Nankoff with the Russia and Eurasia program here at CSIS, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our discussion of Paul Schwartz's new report, which hopefully you got a copy of on the way in, Russia's Contribution to China's Surface Warfare Capabilities. We are at a moment right now where, as you all know, relations with both Russia and China are in a difficult spot, and I think a lot of us have been watching what that means in terms of developing bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. And that cooperation, of course, has accelerated in recent months, thanks to the crises in the South China Sea and in Ukraine, but there are some structural features of this, too, and it goes back in a lot of ways to before the start of these outbursts. And one of the ways that this cooperation has manifested itself has been an increased military and military-technical cooperation between the two countries. It's an area where there was a lot happening a decade or so ago and then dropped off for a while, and it's only in the last couple of years that we've really seen it resuming. And so it's been wonderful for us here in the Russia and Eurasia program to have Paul Schwartz on board as a non-resident associate to work on specifically the nuts and bolts of Sino-Russian military cooperation, and the first fruit of Paul's affiliation with us, the first concrete fruit of that, is this report here. And so I hope you'll have a chance to read it, and I look forward to the discussion that we're going to have here today. I think what we're going to do is we'll have Paul discuss the report for about 15 to 20 minutes, go through some of the data, some of the conclusions, and then we're going to have a little discussion up here. And in addition to Paul, we have my CSIS colleagues, Thomas Caraco, who's a senior fellow with the International Security Program and director of the Missile Defense Project here, and then Zach Cooper, who is a fellow with the Japan Chair and an expert on Asian security issues. Tom is going to talk about some of the political aspects, particularly as it affects the United States and U.S. responses, and then Zach is going to give a little bit more of a regional perspective how Asia as a whole views Sino-Russian military cooperation. And then when they're done, we're going to open it up to discussion, and hopefully we'll have a good back and forth with those of you here in the room. So with that, please turn off your ringing devices, and I'm going to turn the floor over to Paul Schwartz. Thanks a lot, Jeff. In 1996, Taiwan's then-current President Li Teng-Wi was up for re-election. He had previously made statements indicating that he favored greater independence for Taiwan. Statements that had greatly disturbed China's leaders. Saying that Taiwan might declare outright independence if you were re-elected, China's leaders decided that they needed to send a strong signal that Li was taking Taiwan down a very dangerous path. So in March of 1996, they began conducting a series of live-fire missile exercises in the Taiwan Strait that disrupted maritime traffic. In response, the U.S. decided to act, so it dispatched two carrier task forces to the region. This was such an overwhelming display of force and lacking the means to effectively counter it, China's leaders were forced to back down to accept a humiliating defeat. It was no accident that just a few short months later, they entered into their first contract for advanced Sovereignty Destroyers from Russia, the Sovereignty being designed specifically to attack and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers. Nor would this prove to be a one-time event. In fact, would you be surprised to learn that since the Cold War, Russian defense assistance has been crucial to the development of China's surface and anti-surface warfare capabilities. Nor has this been solely an historical phenomenon that even recently, in fact, over the last several years, in a few cases, Russian defense assistance has continued to play an important role in the development of China's maritime forces. Today I am going to lay out the case for this claim by addressing three related questions. First, what kind of defense assistance have the Russians provided for China's maritime forces? Second, how have those forces benefited from such assistance? And third, what has been the impact on China's anti-access strategy? In doing so, we are going to focus on the specific ships, sensors and weapon systems that have either been transferred outright from Russia to China or developed by China using Russian technology. But first, let's start with a little background on China's anti-access strategy. Many of you may already be familiar with that, some quite familiar, but a brief recap of its essentials will help to set the context and explain the fleet's role in that strategy. Over the past 200 years, China has faced the persistent threat of attack from the sea. First from the colonial powers, then the Japanese and most recently from the U.S. Navy. But for most of that period, China lacked the effect of means to counter those threats. Its navy remained underdeveloped, its fleet was wholly incapable of matching up against an advanced naval adversary or maritime force such as the U.S. Navy. Nor did its fleet possess the capabilities to defend China's sovereign interests in its nearby seas. Why? Well, until recently, China's fleet has suffered from three major deficiencies. First, it lacked the maritime naval air defense systems needed to adequately protect the fleet against air and missile strikes from a superior adversary such as the U.S. Navy. This forced the fleet to operate close to shore where it could be protected by land-based air defense platforms. Second, the fleet also lacked the modern anti-ship missiles needed to defend itself against well-armed U.S. warships. Without them, its fleet could have no hope of really standing up against the U.S. fleet in a force-on-force engagement. Finally, the fleet lacked a robust anti-submarine warfare capability. This left its ships vulnerable to attack by U.S. submarines even when operating close to shore. To address the threat of U.S. intervention, China developed its now-famous anti-access strategy. As its name suggests, the strategy is designed to keep U.S. forces out of contested maritime regions in time of war. And it calls for dividing the western Pacific into two distinct defensive tiers, as you can see on the chart. The inner tier runs from China's coast out to the first island chain, a distance of approximately 200 nautical miles. The outer tier extends that perimeter further out for total distance of 1200 nautical miles from China's coast out to what is called the second island chain. China's fleet is assigned different missions depending on the defensive tier involved. In the inner tier, the mission is to prevent U.S. forces from intervening in a future maritime conflict, such as one involving Taiwan. But also in that inner tier, its fleet is tasked to seize and maintain local sea control to allow for the conduct of military operations over those waters, such as would be needed to conduct an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. In the outer tier, by contrast, the fleet's mission is primarily to be one of sea denial, at least for the moment, although that is starting to change as we see China starting to develop its blue water naval capability. But its mission to keep the U.S. forces from using that area as a base from which it can launch long-range precision strikes against U.S. forces or against the mainland itself. But getting the fleet to the point where it could carry out such missions has been a long and arduous process, which required a near-total overhaul of the fleet and remains very much a work in progress. In fact, when the new strategy was first adopted, China's defense industry remained technologically backward, underdeveloped and capable of providing the kind of advanced military weapons needed to properly upgrade the fleet. China was forced, therefore, to turn to external suppliers, and Russia soon emerged as China's principal supplier. Why? Well, due to the Tiananmen Square crisis back in 1989, China had been placed under a comprehensive arms embargo from the West. So it needed to find new sources. Fortunately for it, at the very same time, Russia's defense companies, finding themselves cut off from State defense orders in the economic chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, had become desperate for revenues from arms sales to sustain their very existence. The net result, a long and sustained arms trading relationship between Russia and China that continues to this date. And you can see this on the chart. According to SIPRI, between 1992 and 2014, Russia's transferred over $30 billion in military equipment to China. And that probably significantly understates the true amounts since SIPRI tends to track primarily the larger transactions. So let's take a closer look at Russian contribution. We'll start with surface warships, then we'll talk about anti-ship missile systems, and then we'll close with air defense platforms. Among the first steps taken on China's long road to modernization, the purchase of four advanced sovereignty destroyers from Russia. At the time of their purchase, the sovereignty was far and away the best warship in China's fleet, and immediately provided several important benefits. First, the Sovereignies came equipped with Russian sunburn anti-ship cruise missiles. These were the first truly modern ASCMs in China's fleet. They could fly at supersonic speeds of up to Mach 3.0, strike targets at long range up to 240 kilometers, and had great penetrating power. In fact, their proposed transfer created something of an uproar in Congress where members urged the administration to try to block the transfer, which they tried, but they were unsuccessful in doing so. To guide the sunburns to their targets, the Sovereignies came equipped with Russian bandstand radar systems. These advanced systems provide over-the-horizon targeting capability for the sunburn and can surveil targets out to a range of 450 kilometers. According to Naval expert Norm Friedman, they accomplished this by bouncing signals off of the troposphere. The Sovereignies also came equipped with advanced Russian gadfly air defense systems, which was China's first true area air defense platform. Although its range was limited, it could provide protection for Chinese surface action groups and convoys out to a distance of up to 25 kilometers. Aside from the Sovereignies, the Chinese now built all of their own warships domestically, which is testament to increased self-sufficiency in the shipbuilding industry. But that does not mean that China's fleet has become totally self-sufficient or independent of Russian support, far from it. For example, according to Naval analyst Keith Jacobs, Russia's Junk A2 frigate reportedly benefited significantly from Russian design and development assistance provided by its Severnoy Design Bureau. China's maritime forces also rely extensively on Russian technology for both long-range precision strike and maritime air defense as well. Let's examine these contributions a little closer starting with precision strike. We already talked about the bandstand radar system, which was delivered with the Sovereignies. The Chinese have now purchased a dozen of these systems, and they're widely distributed across China's fleet, including on all of its latest and most advanced destroyers and frigates. In addition to the sunburn, Russia's also transferred several other advanced ASCMs to China anti-ship cruise missiles. These include the widely feared, excuse me, Club Sizzler, hosted on Russian kilo-class submarines that were previously transferred to China. Like the sunburn, the Club Sizzler is a long-range sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missile and has a unique flight trajectory. For most of its flight path, it travels at subsonic speed to conserve fuel, but as it approaches the target, it accelerates to high supersonic speed of up to Mach 3.0, making it very difficult to intercept. In fact, reputable DOD sources have lamented and doubted whether the U.S. has the effective means to intercept this missile in flight. The Russians have also transferred sophisticated air-launched cruise missiles such as the KH-31 shown here. This is a long-range supersonic missile perfect for launching mass salvo attacks from the air against mass U.S. warships. According to SIPRA, the Chinese have now purchased over 900 of these and continue to produce them under license from Russia. More recently, Beijing has begun to develop a whole new generation of supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles of its own. According to experts such as Richard Fisher, who follows the PLA very closely, they all appear to be based on formerly transferred Russian cruise missiles. The first is the YJ-18, but this is clearly a copy of the Russian club Sizzler, which I just talked about. It employs the same two-stage subsonic supersonic flight profile, which is a strong indicator of its Russian heritage. According to the Office of Naval Intelligence, this has now just been deployed in 2014 on China's Lu Yang III destroyer, which is latest and most advanced destroyer, continuing testament to Russia's ongoing influence in the development of China's fleet. The second is the YJ-12. This appears to be an extended version of Russia's KH-31, the other missile I just spoke about. Like the YJ-12 is an air-launched cruise missile, high supersonic speed, and other similar flight characteristics. It will be deployed on China's H-6 bomber, which is a long-range strategic bomber, giving the PLA Naval Air Force extended reach well out into the Far East or the Second Island chain. They rate the emergence of a new generation of Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles all based on Russian technology is an ominous new development for the Western Pacific. Because as China starts to substitute these new missiles for some of its existing inferior missiles, it'll result in significantly increased striking power for the fleet. What about Russia's contribution to the fleet's air defense capability? That has been equally impressive. In addition to the GADFLY, Moscow has also transferred two other air defense platforms. The first, the STIL, is an upgraded version of the Sovremedi's GADFLY. It's a variant of the Buk missile system, which is the same system that had been used to down Malaysian airliners Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014. It's installed on China's Lu Yang-1 destroyer. But more importantly, Russia also transferred the SAM-20 Gargoyle, which is installed on China's Lu Zhiyu-class destroyer. This is China's first true long-range naval air defense platform, able to strike targets at up to 150 kilometers. It's by far the longest range air defense platform in China's fleet and is quite deadly against a variety of aerial targets. More recently, China has begun producing its own naval air defense systems. But again, the most important of these are all based on Russian technology. The HQ-9, for example, is China's first indigenously developed long-range air defense system. It has a range of 100 kilometers, 120 for the upgraded HQ-9B, which was just released, a little short of the range of the Gargoyle. But it reportedly draws heavily on Russian S-300 air defense technology. These powerful new air defense systems are installed on both China's Lu Yang-2 and Lu Yang-3. Recently, China has also developed the HQ-16, which is a medium-range naval air defense system. But not only does it rely on Russian technology, the Shtil, which I showed you earlier, but it's also the product of a joint development project between Russia and China. The HQ-16 is installed on the Jiang-2, which again is China's latest frigate. Incidentally, some of you may have been thinking, well, isn't some of this the product of Chinese reverse engineering? Probably. Still, I consider this to be the direct result of Russian defense assistance for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's not always possible to tell when a system has been produced under license or produced illicitly, as the two don't always talk about that situation in public. But more importantly, Russia's continued willingness to sell China advanced military equipment, despite its past record of reverse engineering, is a strong indicator of Russian's tacit acceptance of such activities. It's considered part of their working relation and expected part of doing business. So now having examined and surveyed the field of technology that's actually been transferred, let's take a look at how this technology has impacted on China's anti-access capability, starting with precision strike. According to the Office of Naval Intelligence prior to Russian defense assistance, the best anti-ship cruise missile in China's fleet was the YJ-8, a subsonic missile with a limited range of just 65 nautical miles. Today, the fleet's striking power has been radically improved and Russian defense assistance has been crucial. Russian technology has given China a major boost in its ability to strike U.S. warships at sea, and that ability lies at the very heart of China's anti-access strategy. According to naval expert Wayne Hughes, analysis of past naval engagements going all the way back to the Battle of Midway demonstrates that the side that strikes effectively first usually prevails. Why? Because the initial salvo will significantly reduce the size of the enemy fleet. Then all the attacker has to do is sustain its now superior firepower against the diminished fleet of the enemy until it either withdraws or is destroyed. Of course, the best way to strike first is to have weapons that outrange those of the enemy. That way, the attacker can launch standoff strikes from outside of the defensive umbrella with impunity. It's like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Well, this advantage is precisely Russia has given the Chinese. As you can see from the chart, Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles, like the Sunburn, which is a little pale, but you can see the outer circle on the left have much greater range than comparable U.S. systems like the Harpoon on the right, which is the longest range U.S. anti-ship cruise missile today. Thus, Russian defense assistance has been crucial to helping the Chinese overcome the first of the three major deficiencies I spoke about earlier. It's disparity in anti-ship striking power. Russian defense assistance has had a similar large impact on China's naval air defense capabilities. As late as 2000, according to the Department of Defense, China's fleet was ill-equipped for air defense, possessed only a handful of surface-to-air missiles, and all of those having very limited range. Today, the story is quite different. According to a 2009 Office of Naval Intelligence report, for example, Russian air defense radar platforms such as Toppoy and Toonstone have been key to improving the plan's naval air defense capability. At the same time, Russian air defense platforms and the new Chinese derivatives have greatly increased the capability and range of China's naval air defense platforms. Having capable long-range air defense systems is crucial because it complicates the task of U.S. pilots seeking to strike Chinese warships at sea. They force those pilots to make the kind of decision they haven't had to face in Vietnam, either enter their engagement zone and risk destruction or fire from greater range which greatly impedes the attack's effectiveness. From the chart, you can see that China has been catching up rapidly to the U.S. in terms of naval air defense capability. While the U.S. maintains the advantage, to be sure, China has narrowed the gap considerably. You have to keep in mind, prior to the longest range legacy Chinese naval air defense platform would barely have shown up on the chart. Thus, Russian defense assistance has also been crucial to help China to overcome the second of the three major deficiencies. It's weakness, it's inability to defend itself adequately against long-range air and missile strikes. So having surveyed the situations, let's now reexamine my original claims. If I've done my job correctly, it should be quite evident now that Russian defense assistance has been crucial to development of China's surface and anti-surface warfare capabilities. The transfer of advanced sovereignty destroyers and ASCMs like the Sunburn have led to a major upgrade in China's precision strike capability. At the same time, provision of advanced Russian air defense platforms such as the Gargoyle gave China its first true long-range naval air defense capability. Collectively, they represented a great leap forward for China's maritime forces. More recently, the development of new Chinese supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, all based on Russian technology represent further large gains for the fleet's precision strike capability. Similarly, deployment of new Chinese air defense platforms incorporating Russian technology show that China is still in the process of absorbing the vast amounts of Russian technology previously transferred to it. These systems are now making a real difference in the competition for naval supremacy in the Western Pacific. Look, I don't mean to imply that the Chinese remain totally dependent on Russia or far from it. No one would disagree that the Chinese have made up considerable ground in increasing their self-sufficiency, especially in certain areas. But I would contend that the Chinese still have a ways to go, and their fleet could still benefit in substantial ways from additional Russian defense assistance. For example, Chinese anti-submarine warfare capabilities still remain deficient. Russia, with its long history of developing anti-submarine warfare systems dating back through the Cold War, could help China to overcome this third and final remaining deficiency as well. Another example, China recently agreed to purchase the S-400 from Russia. The S-400 is Russia's latest and longest range air defense platform. If the Chinese purchase the naval variant, which they tend to do when they buy Russian air defense platforms, that could result in a near further doubling of the range of China's fleet air defense system. Finally, Russia is not standing still. It continues to upgrade its existing platforms and developing new systems all the time. For example, Russia is reportedly developing a high supersonic anti-ship cruise missile called the Yakon, a third missile which wasn't reportedly transferred to the Chinese, capable of achieving speeds of up to Mach 4.0. The Chinese would be very greatly interested in obtaining such a system if they could. So Yogi Berra once famously said, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. But if the past is any indicator, I would predict that much of this new Russian technology will find its way into China's maritime forces. Thank you. Okay, thanks a lot, Paul. Now, let's move over to discussion of some of the wider strategic context here. So I'm gonna turn the floor over to Tom Carrico. A very thoughtful and detailed analysis, really of an important problem, including, by the way, attention to these hardware matters. I think it's very easy to just elide over these things and glide over the details. And this is the kind of analysis that I think there needs to be a lot more of. As I was listening to Paul and making the historical references, for example, to the 1990s, I was thinking in a way, an even larger scale. These are the kind of systems, the lower end, sub-MTCR type ranges that just don't get a lot of attention. And I think that's one of the things that makes this report relatively unique is that they're not quite as exotic as talking about the DF-41 or the latest DF-5 or something like that, but they matter. And I think one sense in which they matter is just the technological, commercial, and geopolitical trends that have conspired, and I think this report points in that direction, conspired for increased global supply and demand of high precision, high velocity, missile-based strike delivery systems and the counters thereunto, right? In 1959, Bernard Brody wrote the book, Strategy and the Missile Age. And I think it's the proliferation of these things. And by the way, the proliferation as a matter of policy, in this case, the proliferation of these systems that's in a way contributing to a new missile age. So let me polyad a number of these systems in particular, and really if you follow the footnotes, you recognize that there just aren't that many folks out there talking about these things, which is in part part of the problem. So let me give some context and some of comments about systems at the edges, which in a way go beyond the self-conscious scope of the report. First, the context. Zach is gonna get a little bit more into the regional, but I think obviously the questions of what exactly Russia's intentions are, is there a stopping point? Is there a tipping point before Russia goes too far? Or is it in fact the case, and again, I think the scope of this report to surface warfare for the Navy, for Chinese Navy, does that already point in a way to Russia's self-conscious limitations? So it's not merely Katy Bar the door, that these are precisely the sort of capabilities that they don't mind China having to help counter the US Navy. So in a way, Russia's selling China the rope to help hang the US Navy. Some of the systems of course that Russia's also working on that make the news are the, whether it's the RS-26 or the Glickam for land-based concerns, we think about those in terms of NATO, but of course, if you're Russia looking to your East, you're thinking about those in terms of China. I think the question, does Russia just need the money that bad? Paul, do you see this as irresponsible and short-sided sales, or is it a strategic partnership? Admittedly, a limited one for these kinds of systems. I think one, another takeaway from this report is that we talk so much about A2AD. We talk so much about anti-access aerodinial, but going back to my larger trends, this is going to be a missile-rich environment. So much of what goes into A2AD is gonna be and is of course missile-based. China is pursuing a lot of these things and using mass to challenge us. And it appears that they're doing so for three reasons. One, targeting the US fleet. One, I think being able to target our US allies and three US bases. And this again, admittedly is getting a little bit beyond the scope of this report. And so I think it's worth raising the questions, okay, now what? What do we do about this? Well, the kind of systems that Paul is detailing for air defenses, S300, and perhaps more, means of course the US is gonna have to invest in more standoff and penetration weapons. Both sophisticated to penetrate and presumably enough of them to saturate. This means, for example, the conversation about LRSO and LRSB for the next budget cycles. The second point would be that Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles means, and I don't see really anywhere around this, that we're gonna have to continue to invest and perhaps do a lot more for fleet and point missile defenses. Missile defense versus Chinese threats. This is not necessarily the most exotic, long range strategic systems, of course, and I think it's notable by the way, that I think throughout the report, Paul, you didn't mention the word nuclear. What we're talking about is really conventional threats. But I think being willing to have the conversation to pursue as a matter of effort, as a line of effort, to have the defenses against Chinese missile threats, I think that's something we should hear more about. You see, for example, the Navy already deploying and continued tests for the standard missile six, having both cruise missile defense and terminal ballistic missile defense capabilities. That's a piece of it. You hear a lot of interest in directed energy, especially for the fleet, for example. When you're looking at the mass that you're talking about, Paul, you need a lot of shots and quick shots. One thing faster than those supersonic sea-skimming cruise missiles is a laser. But those are probably not the whole solution. And again, although the, I would say, favorite thing to talk about is this bright shiny object of directed energy. Even in his presentation a couple weeks ago in Alabama, the head of North Com Admiral Gorton, he said, for the foreseeable future, we're probably still gonna need rockets to kill rockets. So I think probably thinking about directed energy or rail guns as the replacement for those probably isn't the right way to think about it, but rather a mix. Another thing that's at the edges of this, of course, is the Chinese investment in missile-based, missile-boosted hypersonics. The U.S. is testing these things about once every three years or so. We've had mixed success. The Chinese are testing about every three months. That's pretty remarkable. And that's gonna require some kind of counter, right? And probably different kinds of counters, a layered counter for those kind of threats. And beyond active defense that I'm talking about, also passive measures, whether it's hardening, but also deception and dispersion. Of course, the Navy's concept of distributed lethality comes to mind here. A piece of that I think is gonna be distributed defense. The idea that you're going to be able to hit these things or that you would want to plan on striking these things left of launch involves a lot of risk. And third, I think we're gonna need to do this for our allies and for our partners in the region. We need to proliferate counters to these things. Anti-ship cruise missiles, much less sophisticated ones, than the club family, which by the way, has great commercials on YouTube, the club missiles. Proliferating counters to those, we've seen these in real life use against Israel in 2006, as well as on other occasions. Doing so is not merely to build their own partner capacity for their own sake, but of course to alleviate strain on our forces. I think the degree to which the US Navy and the US Army is stretched in terms of missile defense capability in particular, in the area, is only going to get worse. The Navy's requirements are here and what we have right now are down here. Likewise, the number of THAAD batteries is up here, nine and we're at four right now. And they don't have any plans to get beyond seven. That kind of tension is not gonna get any better unless we encourage our allies to do more of this on their own as well. I think I'll leave it off there to turn it over to Zach. Well, first, Paul, let me join in congratulating you on what's, I think, a very important report on a subject that doesn't get as much attention as it should. So I think that's wonderful work and I'll look forward to seeing the air version and the land version within the next couple of months, I hope. That's right. I wanna talk a little bit about the political aspects. Tom talked about some of the military ones and I think we all like to delve into those shiny objects, as Tom said, but on the political side, there's some real difficult questions to be asked here and I don't think we quite know the answers to many of them. So I want to pose the questions and hopefully we can answer them during panel discussion and there are many of you I see on the audience who have deep expertise in these issues. So hopefully we can have a discussion with you about them. The first is that we've seen growing evidence of Chinese and Russian ties for quite some time and it's in the arms sales, which Paul talked about, it's the military exercises in the Pacific and even the Mediterranean between the two militaries recently and it's reports just this morning that Russia and China might be attempting to create some sort of joint database of U.S. intelligence operatives. So there's clear evidence that there are growing ties between Russia and China and that this has been evident throughout the region and it's a great concern to many Asian militaries. The question that many of them are asking is is this a sign of a larger strategic choice by the two countries to come together over the long term or is this a short term marriage of convenience? And I think that's a really core question for how we deal on a policy side with both countries. So the strategic logic, the long term logic is fairly clear. Both states appear dissatisfied with the existing status quo. So Europe has seen witness to this with Russian efforts to alter Eastern Europe's borders and certainly we're seeing this with island construction in the South China Sea on the Chinese side. So both states appear dissatisfied with at least elements of the status quo and historically dissatisfied states often work together, they clump together in fact to oppose the existing hegemons. So this is nothing new and it shouldn't be an entire surprise that two autocratic states are finding differences with a large democratic United States that has many democratic allies in their core regions both in Europe and in Asia. And both Russian and Chinese leaders have openly called for an end to US alliances in those regions in recent years. So on the strategic side, the alignment makes a great deal of sense. But on the other hand, we also see great long-term differences in the outlooks for Russia and China. China is a growing country and despite the economic troubles that we've seen recently, I think most people would expect the growth rates to continue whereas Russia is struggling with its economic problems and the future demographically and on the energy side is even more troubling. So that's going to be a big challenge but so too are more focused regional issues. How will Russia and China work together in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? This is an issue that Jeff has done quite a large amount of research on. How will they work together in the Russian Far East where Moscow is increasingly worried about Beijing's influence? And in addition, as Paul has shown, is there going to be growing tension as China tries to steal Russian military technology? Will that eventually create a bit of a break or will that just continue at pace? So I think in talking to policy makers not just in Washington but in Asia more broadly, there's this conundrum. Russia and China are using similar techniques of hybrid warfare. They're trying to avoid US treaty commitments by escalating just below those levels and so there's an effort, there's a desire to respond similarly to both Russia and China in Eastern Europe and in the South China and East China seas. But at the same time, efforts to lump our responses together to both states, risk pushing them closer together. For example, there have been reports recently of the potential that Washington might use economic sanctions as a response to economic espionage in the cyber domain, not just against China but also against Russia. Would that push the two states closer together? Would it force them to work together to develop countermeasures? That's a tough question and it's not a question that is only applicable to the United States. Many of my Japanese friends have been struggling with this. How does Japan manage Russia which it still looks to engage in many ways without trying to allow the Europeans to believe that it's sort of walking away from its commitment to upholding the status quo? So if Japan doesn't stand up firmly enough to what Russia is doing in Eastern Europe, would that have any effect on the European commitment to opposing Chinese efforts to change the status quo in the South China Sea or the East China Sea? I think these are big questions and I don't think we know the answers but we are reaching an important inflection point here which is that as Paul was mentioning, at some point here the Chinese technological proficiency will start to outpace the Russian proficiency in some areas. And if these ties continue and continue to grow, I think we'll see you can only believe that that will mean that they think there's a strong strategic rationale for the relationship. If we see the ties start to ebb and tensions start to grow, I think that probably means that this is more of a short-term marriage of convenience which frankly for many of us in Washington would be what our preference would be. So I don't know the answers to these questions but I think they're important questions to ask and I look forward to having a robust discussion about them and Paul, thanks again for starting that debate. All right, that was terrific. We've gone from a very deep dive on some of the technical aspects of sign of Russian military cooperation to a very wide-angle focus on what some of the bigger strategic questions that this cooperation entails for the region and for the United States. At that, I think probably the best thing to do is open the floor up to discussion. If you have a question, please raise your hand. I'll acknowledge you and I have two requests. Please identify yourself and secondly, please do ask a question. We have microphones, sorry. Peter Humphrey, I'm a former diplomat and a current intel analyst. In addition to PRC reverse engineering, certainly China is hacking the hell out of Russian design bureaus, no doubt about it. And you mentioned the two motives for Russia, one being just simple capitalist greed and the other perhaps some larger geopolitical strategy. I wonder perhaps if there's a third motivation in that China may itself already have created technologies of interest to Russia. So things like these coastal ballistic to cruise missiles may actually show up in the Russian arsenal. So are there quid pro quos going from China to Russia in addition to the intel exchange that you mentioned? Perhaps I can take that one. Well, the short answer is yes. You're starting to see signs of a shift where for the first time, Chinese military equipment and technology may be flowing towards Russia. Recently, for example, the Chinese have attempted to sell Russia their latest frigate, the one I spoke about in the presentation, the Junk A2, which is quite a capable system with advanced missile and air defense systems on board as well. Part of the problem is that Russia has been struggling to build new ships because of the deficiency of its shipbuilding industry. Also the cutoff of new ship engines from Ukraine as a result of the Ukraine crisis where Russia was highly dependent on Ukrainian ships for the build of its Navy. So recently the Chinese apparently took one of those ships over to the Black Sea to demonstrate for the Russians. We don't know yet if they're going to buy. Partly if the decision to buy could be political as well as military to fulfill a real need, but also to give some quid pro quo to strengthen the bilateral arms trading relationship between the two. But you see potential cooperation in other areas as well. The Chinese are actually ahead of the Russians in some areas. Drone technology, for example, is a big area. IT, information technology, the Chinese embrace principles of net-centric warfare more than the Russians have and have a number of quite capable command and control systems, combat management systems for Navy vessels. So you could see the Russians ultimately transferring some of those as well. The final thing which has recently emerged, it's not the first time, but seems to have gained a new impetus, is for joint research development and production between Russia and China. The two recently reportedly initiated a project to co-develop air independent propulsion systems. These are submarine-based systems which allow a non-nuclear submarine to stay submerged for extended periods of time by regenerating its battery, recharging its batteries through chemical processes. They've already been introduced into Western navies. The Germans are very advanced in this particular area. The Chinese also reportedly already use AIP for one of their new diesel subs, but they're not satisfied with that. The Russians haven't yet been able to crack the code after trying for some period of time, so we could very well see joint development projects to develop new systems in this regard, too. Yeah. Wait for the microphone, please. Yes, as a matter of fact, they have studied the Russian doctrine approaches that were developed throughout the Cold War to a very substantial level, looking at especially how the Soviets were, when faced with the same problem, which is why they're emulating the Soviets to some extent, when faced with the same problem, they wanted to study how others have tried to overcome that problem. So they've looked at the Soviet method of using long-range land-based maritime strike aircraft armed with highly powerful supersonic cruise missiles coupled with submarines and surface warships to a lesser degree, but submarines definitely, to try to launch mass salvo with strikes against U.S. carrier task forces from significant range away from China's, from Russia's coastline, to prevent the U.S. from that point from launching nuclear weapon strikes against the Soviet mainland. So you see the Chinese emulating this to a significant extent, but they've also deviated from that to some extent as well. So they have developed air-launched cruise missiles, submarine-launched cruise missiles, but they've also developed to a much greater extent land-based missile systems to be able to supplement and compliment the air and submarine launch systems that the Soviets relied upon. So you see medium range and intermediate range ballistic missile systems in China that can hit naval bases, replenishment sites to try to impact the Navy's ability to sustain operations. Then you see new weapons like this Dengfong-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, which extends the reach of a ground-based missile all the way out to 1,214 nautical miles, as I understand it. That is a very novel approach, wrinkles that the Chinese have added to this capability. Then you also see them using a variety of systems in combination with one another to be able to stress U.S. missile defense systems, to stress U.S. command and control systems. The Hubei catamaran, which is a small missile boat that the Chinese have developed, they've produced about 80 of them. I think they're gonna produce a lot more of them. Many people think that this will be used primarily for operations very close to the coast, but they actually have the ability to move further out into the, at least in the Near-Seas region, where you could have masses, mass numbers of these launching multi-axis, multi-vector attacks against U.S. or other allied warships by firing missiles from all kinds of different directions, different altitudes, different speeds, complimenting with the air and submarine launch missiles to overwhelm U.S. missile defense systems. So they're taking it a step further than the Soviets ever did. I'm Doug Samuelson. I run a small consulting company in Northern Virginia. Feeding on this last question and response, maybe they're not playing the same game we're used to. Westerners, when asked what game resembles war, talk about chess. Asians, when asked what game resembles war, talk about go, where the objective is not kinetic, it's the tenuous spread of influence over a broad area. That might be the game that the Indians are playing as well as the Chinese who are getting technology from the Russians, but also sharing technology with the North Koreans. Just about the only objective they can, I can see that they would want in North Korea is give us something else to worry about. Can you talk a little bit more about the non-kinetic aspects of strategy that might be involved here? I think that's a wonderful point. The actual coercion that we're seeing both with Russia and China, it's not from these anti-access area denial kinds of capabilities. It's from much lower level, limited power projection types of capabilities. So in the China context, the construction on disputed features in the South China Sea, it doesn't require an anti-access area denial capability at all. In fact, that capability hasn't been used. Now maybe it's been threatened and maybe it's increased the risk to US forces and made it somewhat less likely that the United States or its allies and partners would operate in the region. But I think the real challenge here for the Chinese is at some point, if they want to change the status quo, they have to change the kind of military posture they have towards a power projection sort of posture, at least within the first island chain. And Paul mentioned this in the report and I think it's one of the more interesting elements of the report that as the Chinese try and shift, it turns out that a lot of the Russian capabilities, some of them are suited for this, but a lot of them are not. The kind of reconnaissance strike complex that the Russians, that the Soviets created in the 80s, it just isn't applicable in this long distance power projection that the Chinese are going to increasingly try and do. And so I think that's a real challenge for the Chinese at the high end. But I do think at the low end, the reality is that I think most folks in Washington have been surprised by the risk taking on the part of Beijing and that the administration has been challenged to take that same level of risk to respond and deter those kinds of actions, both in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Where the United States has pushed back, especially with allies and partners, like in April when President Obama said that the Senkakus fell under Oracle 9, actually the Chinese have tended to pull back. But where the US has stood back and allowed the Chinese to push allies and partners, the Chinese have seen a lot of success. And one could say the same about the Russians. Okay, Richard. Thank you, Richard Weitz, Hudson Institute. Related to the previous questions, have you seen any evidence of increased actual concrete interoperability between the two forces due to these transfers as opposed to the addition of the tactics just even physical interoperability either in their bilateral exercises naval ground or in the SEL multilateral exercises? To a certain limited degree, you're starting to see a little more interoperability between Russia and Chinese forces. You see this primarily in two areas. Both are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SEO, which is a quasi-military security alliance. I wouldn't quite call it an alliance, but it's an organization responsible for providing some level of security in Central Asia. And every two years, since about 2005, they've conducted what's called the peace mission exercises, which has allowed generally been fairly small-scale exercises, battalion level typically geared to counterterrorism or stability operations to shore up a favored regime, where there has been some naval exercise as well. And you'll see that the two do get together to plan these out to some degree to coordinate their activity, but it's nothing like the U.S. does with their NATO allies to have joint command and control and true interoperable systems of the level that we've come to be grown accustomed to. Recently, you've also seen in the Far East, the Chinese and the Russians have conducted a series of military exercises every year. And because of the large influx of Russian technology into the Chinese Navy, especially around systems like the Bandstand radar system, many of the Chinese warships use the same data links, data networks and combat management systems that the Russians do. And so during one exercise, Russian and Chinese naval ships paired off, there was an action group of a few Russian ships along with the Chinese ship and then a few Chinese ships along with the Russian ship. And they paired off to conduct anti-surface and anti-air warfare exercises, but they were able to reconnect their networks up together fairly quickly to be able to interoperate. But we haven't really seen that level of effort yet to try to come up with true jointness. Hello, good afternoon, everybody. If nothing else, I'll probably just provide you with comic relief because it's my first time for these defense missile systems. I just retired from a 24-plus year stint with the U.S. Navy focused on housing. My question is this. This is apparently all defense missile systems. My simple question is, I represent those whose interests is socioeconomic, sustainable development, energy and stuff like that. And I am the student so that I could go back home and report to a general who understands this thing. My question is, it broke my heart for having one classmate die during the first quarter storm. Another one, son of a colonel. I survive a mid-day massacre. Okay, is there gonna be a question here? That's a question. Now, how do we now match around the streets of the Philippines that the ordinary Filipino told me from wherever I go, at least they provide, the Chinese provide food on the table. And in the countryside, you have the Maoist, Leninist ideology that are very like every day of our life. How do we match that? Because the ordinary Filipino. Okay, okay. We need to. That's a good part of this, as I said. It's like more of a comic relief to everyone. Thank you. All right, and then any other questions? Yeah. Gil Rosman, the Aasan forum. My question is, do we see signs of Sino-Russian cooperation on any strategic fronts? There was an article I just saw by an Indian author who says they're beginning to see the signs of this in Pakistan with some shift in Russia's policy towards the Indian Ocean cooperation with China. Do we see it, for instance, towards Japan in any way, or towards North Korea? In other words, is beyond the arms arrangements, are there signs that there are plans to work together to deal with various challenges? Well, professor, this is a great question. And I would like to turn the response back over to you because you're probably one of the real experts on this issue. I'll just note, I think people are looking for those types of connections. For example, the Japanese have released data that shows the number of air scrambles in response to Russian aircraft has risen dramatically over recent years. And at the same time, the scrambles against Chinese aircraft have risen. And it's a real operational challenge for the Japanese to meet all of these requirements, to scramble aircraft rapidly, to meet threats both to the North with the Russians and to the Southeast along the Ryukyu Island chain. So I think one question is whether there's actually any coincidences in timing about when the Russians and the Chinese happen to do these types of operations. I know folks that are looking at this, but I don't think we have answers yet on those types of issues. I don't know if anyone else wants to. Yeah, maybe I can add just a little bit there. You see some level of cooperation in certain areas like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Russia and China, although they have many conflicting interests in Central Asia, they both came together in recent years to try to use their influence to get some of the Central Asian countries to call for the ending of basing rights for U.S. military forces located in the region. In other words, they did join together to try to limit the U.S. footprint in that area. So to that extent, you see the cooperative arrangement having some real impact on the strategic situation. More generally, the two share a number of views on world politics or geopolitical issues. They both tend to want to see U.S. power limited, constrained, which is why they tend to support the role of the UN in enforcing the UN to put its imprimatur on potential U.S. military activity. They tend to also oppose activities, actions of the U.S. which tend to promote U.S. power, for example, the development of ballistic missile defense systems. Russia and China share opposition to those systems because they both tend to see those as working contrary to their interests and also working to benefit the military capacity of the U.S. itself. For that reason, also, China has tended to oppose NATO expansion, not necessarily for any alignment of interests, just any desire to see Russia reassert as a gemini in the near abroad, but primarily because they do not want to see the U.S. military alliance get stronger. So you see those sorts of exercises of strategic influence. Actually, I'll jump in really. Since we're talking about coercion and political warfare at the U.S. alliance system in the region, you know, Zach mentioned earlier that the U.S. taking a strong stand on the Senkakus is a good thing. And since we're talking about anti-ship missiles and we're talking about other missile-based ways in which China is bullying its neighbors, I'll suggest, perhaps in the hope of a softer outcome, success through a softer outcome, you know, I think one of those things that China continues to say to its neighbors, you know, you're not gonna get involved in the U.S. franchise on missile defense, are you? And I think the question is, why not? And the information sharing agreement, the trilateral information sharing agreement from I think it was last December for the U.S. ROK and Japan and by the way, that also reflects to other nations in the Asia Pacific, that kind of stuff ought to be expanded further. And it serves both the basic military underlie, but it also serves the political one, which is, and I said this before, we have to be willing first to articulate to ourselves that we ought to be taking steps to defend against Chinese threats of this brand and we ought to be continuing to talk to our allies and partners that they need to do that. That's the first step. Yeah, if I could just take the moderator's privilege here to dive in for a second, Gil, on your question. You know, I think a useful way to characterize it and this touches on the point that Paul was making before, is that you've seen a fairly high level of Sino-Russian cooperation on issues at maybe a global level in terms of their vision of what international order should look like, the role of the UN, the role of the U.S. and its allies and its alliances, I should say, that kind of thing. I think the real question, and this gets to the point that you were making, is are they gonna be able to overcome what have until at least recently been fairly different approaches to a number of key regional security challenges in Central Asia, in Southeast Asia, in the Indian Ocean? And I think until we have answers to those questions, we're not really gonna be able to answer the bigger question that Zach laid out, which is, is this kind of a temporary alliance of convenience that's based on the fact that both Beijing and Moscow are in a position where they're feeling under pressure from the United States, or is it significant of a broader strategic shift that is leading them to institutionalize and deepen cooperation? I think those are the places where you'd really wanna look in the next several years to see how that question is gonna go. You know, can they overcome disputes and vastly different perspectives on Russia's relationship with Vietnam, for example, where, so, okay, Russia's providing naval capabilities to the Chinese, they're also providing them to the Vietnamese and to the Indians. Well, does Russia pull back from some of those activities in part out of deference to Chinese considerations? That would be a big question, a big issue to watch going forward. Okay, we have time for a few more questions, so, yes. Get the microphone. Thank you. Leandra Bernstein, Sputnik International News. I'm gonna have to take the bait on what Mr. Cooper brought up with the sanctions threat for cyber-related activity against both Russia and China and ask the very question that you put forward. Is this going to move Russia and China closer together and is it creating even more enmity between the US, Russia, and China? You know, it's a tough question and part of what's hard is that the authorities actually already exist to take action against these companies that are engaged in cyber-espionage. So the Obama administration very actively pursued these authorities over the last several years and they just haven't exercised them. What I found interesting in the debate the last few weeks in the press here is that my assumption heading up to President Xi's visit here to Washington would have been a fairly quiet period in US-Chinese relations. A lot of talk about cooperation between the two countries and certainly not a lot of talk about anything that might seem to spoil President Xi's visit here. So I was actually quite surprised the last couple of days to see major newspaper articles which had clearly been leaked to major newspapers about the possibility that the administration would put sanctions on before the visit. It really shows that there are at least some people in the White House who are very frustrated with Chinese actions in cyberspace and feel a need to respond. Do I think that there could be a negative effect on the relationship potentially? But I'll just note that because the US doesn't do economic espionage of that sort in cyberspace at a government level, it's not very vulnerable to symmetric sanctions. And moreover, the US firms that control dollars, they can't easily be sanctioned by a Russian or a Chinese government that doesn't have the ability to influence dollars the way the US does or to influence the international financial system. So the sanctions challenge is one where the US actually has a real asymmetric advantage. And I think that's part of what American policymakers are looking for. When they feel that they're getting pushed by the Russians that are Chinese in these cyber realms and they can't push back, sanctions give them an asymmetric edge. And so I think it's gonna be something that's talked more about in the next couple of weeks and months. Can I just add something for Jill? I think the way I've looked at this also is I don't think that the cyber sanctions is going to be the straw that broke the camel back to drive China and Russia closer together. I think this will be a relatively low level issue, one of the areas of divergence between China and the US that will be managed because we've managed similar kinds of disputes in the past over trade and otherwise. I think in order for the two to really decide if they want to give teeth to their strategic alliance, I think something else has to happen. I think the Russians are very close now, having gone through the Ukraine crisis, having become more estranged from the West. We've really seen an end to the post-Cold War attempts at between Russia and NATO, US and the European front to try to come up with some peaceful way of coexistence, the Ukraine crisis has demonstrated that there are some real divergent interests and has driven Russia to be much closer to China to try to hedge against what it's now deteriorating relations with the West. But China still isn't there yet. They're still very integrated with the West. They're still trade with the US, for example, six times they're trade with China. They're economic integration, manufacturing, all of that is very tightly connected with the West, the financial relations in terms of buying US debt. For those two to come together, there would have to be some kind of a shock in the Western Pacific, in my view. Some kind of comparable event, maybe some kind of fourth Taiwan straight crisis, or maybe something short of that. Some dispute over the Senkakus that actually lent become rises to the level of real hostility or something else that would cause a real break between China and the West. Then you'd have the confluence of events that would cause those two to come together even more. I would add too that for a lot of Russians, China has looked for many years like a kind of alternative to the West. If the West won't have us, then we can just turn to China to replace all of the things that we'd be losing out on from issue and cooperation with the West. I think there's been a more active pursuit of that strategy in Russia over the last year or so, but it also faces a lot of limitations because China doesn't have a lot of the same capabilities, technological, financial, or otherwise. And the Russians are discovering, for example, with some of the energy deals that they're trying to sign with the Chinese. One, that the Chinese are not gonna give them a discount and in fact are going to negotiate very hard, understanding that the Russians are in a difficult situation and that all the leverage resides in Beijing right now. And that China is not an endless fount of either technology or money, especially now with the economy slowing down and the Chinese stock market plummeting. It looks like there's gonna be less Chinese money available than I think the Russians had anticipated for some of these investment projects, and that's not only gonna be an issue in the energy sector, it's gonna be an issue elsewhere too. And the projects that the Chinese are going to invest in, they're going to insist on getting a very good deal, both in financial and non-financial terms. And on the technological side, you know, again in the energy side where US and Western companies have been sanctioned, especially looking at some of the offshore and Arctic projects, the Chinese don't have comparable technology. So it's not as if simply having been cut off from accessing Western technology, the Russians can easily go to China and get the same capabilities. And I assume that that's true, you know, in the military and in other spheres as well. It's not as if the West and China are equivalent in that sense. And Russia does give something up if it cuts itself off from access to Western technology, Western capabilities and Western capital. We're here at NIL's Built, CTSS Japan. For Mr. Cooper primarily, I guess, but for anybody who wants to answer it. One thing that wasn't addressed today at all was the Japanese naval capabilities vis-a-vis the Chinese. And one thing that perhaps could be addressed would be command and control, officer training, leadership skills, et cetera. The Japanese have a Navy with considerable experience. Let's call it that in the past 78 years. And the Chinese don't have a naval tradition of the level that the Japanese or the Americans, for example, would have, nor would I, well, if you can answer, I would state that they don't have the leadership skills in their officers' corps that the Japanese or the Americans would have. Thank you. I think that actually explains part of why we're seeing the Chinese actions in the East China Sea so focused on coast guards rather than navies. So when the Chinese operate in the East China Sea, they'll typically send perhaps three coast guard ships out around the Senkakus. And the Japanese will match them with four or five. But if they escalated to the Navy level and you were using surface action groups or destroyers instead, there's no question that the Japanese would be far more proficient. And especially if you actually got into any kind of crisis or conflict, which I think is part of why you're seeing the Chinese try and ensure that any time the Japanese or the United States uses great hold military forces in what was previously a coast guard encounter, that the Chinese will claim that it's militarization. That's the first thing they bring up because it's an effort to keep the game down at the coast guard level, where eventually, given the rapid size of the, so the Chinese coast guard is building 10,000 ton coast guard ships. I mean, these are giant ships and they're building lots of them and they're going to do it faster than the Japanese can do it. So the Chinese know that eventually they will have an edge of that low level paramilitary coast guard level and they're going to push and push and push until the Japanese or the United States Navy has to show up with military vessels. And I think that's where we're heading. The good news is that our Navy and the Japanese Navy are highly proficient. We've got a huge advantage in undersea warfare and that's not going to change anytime soon. But it's not going to solve this coast guard on coast guard challenge in East China Sea and especially not in the South China Sea where the Southeast Asian militaries are just struggling to even find out what the Chinese are doing, let alone match them. Yeah, and you're right. The Japanese do have a quite formidable Navy of their in their own right and it is something very much on the minds of Chinese naval leaders and other Chinese military leaders. I think the Japanese have over 40 highly capable destroyers, more destroyers than the Chinese currently have and in addition, some very capable diesel electric submarines. And so the Chinese do not just focus exclusively on the U.S. threat and building up their anti-access capabilities. They have to focus on threats throughout the region. They have to counter the South Koreans have a pretty formidable force. The Taiwanese Navy is still quite well developed having developed a capability to try to at least survive the early phases of an engagement with China for quite some time. You're seeing what constitutes a military arms I wouldn't quite call an arms race but modernization plus in Southeast Asia where Vietnam and Malaysia and Indonesia are building up their naval capabilities to be able to potentially address future disputes with the Chinese as well. The Vietnamese especially have bought a lot of Russian technology recently. Six kilo class submarines with the club Sizzler the missile I spoke about earlier. The Chinese were not happy about that transaction because they do are still deficient in anti-submarine warfare. But ultimately the Chinese in terms of their ability to match Western war fighting capabilities they have a ways to go and they know it. Command and control they've made significant strides in putting that together but they're not up to the U.S. standard by any stretch. Part of the reason they wanna engage and join military exercises with the Russians to learn from their still their big brother at least in that particular aspect training. The Chinese still rely on conscripts. They're only starting to develop a mid-level NCO type cadre for their force. The kind of experienced veteran lower level military commander who can make decisions so that the officers aren't controlling all of the activity from above too far away from the battle front. They're getting there. They're at least are conscious of it and they're really striving to move that forward. I'm not entirely sure they can benefit that much from the Russians in some of these areas because the Russians suffer from some of the same problems. I think I didn't Russian also saw air defenses to Vietnam. Yes, and coastal batteries and SU-30 aircraft. I just wanna jump in about the Japan and ROK for example. Both of those navies have Aegis ships but the ability to be able to tie them together and talk to each other and talk to us better and also have the capabilities to not merely look but also defend themselves against these kinds of threats is something that can be done more. But I think also in terms of the capabilities against this stuff, it's the strike. And I think it's not merely Taiwanese that are looking in offensive missiles to strike the mainland. The ROK has gone from 150 to 300 to 500 to a thousand kilometer missile arrangement with the United States in what we sort of agree to permit, agree to allow, which really means there's no limit anymore in terms of ROK. They've embraced the kill chain, building up a lot of offensive missiles themselves. So this goes back and I think Paul's point about not merely contending with the United States but all these other folks, that's another wrinkle is offensive missile strike among those several folks. Okay, maybe one more question, Ariel. Ariel Cohen, the Atlantic Council. If you sort of extrapolate the logic of what we're watching here and what is in the back of my mind is a naval race prior to World War I and sort of walk it through five years, 10 years, hence. Do you see inevitability of a naval clash in the Pacific or do you see sober minds prevail, we're working out some kind of collective security frameworks, we're going to security and reassurance measures and regimes and stuff like that and walk away from that at some point, thank you. It's really difficult to see which way it goes. It's a rather close call, I will say. The Chinese, if they continue to build their naval capacity at the rate that they're doing, there's probably about 15 to 20 years of being able to, away from fielding, the kind of really capable force that could match up well against the U.S. Navy because they still have a number of deficiencies in their fleet. In fact, because of those deficiencies, that's why they have tended to rely primarily on asymmetric means up to now to counter U.S. military power, land-based missiles, long range, maritime strike, submarine. It's only recently that they've started to really put the money into building up their fleet, but they're going to be forced to take a few detours along the path, they're starting to deploy for the first time an aircraft carrier. But it's a fairly old aircraft carrier, they acquired from the Russians, they're using a primary to learn from and they plan to develop three more aircraft carriers going forward. But to do that is going to take money away from building up the rest of their surface fleet. In addition, as Zach had indicated, there's competition for resources with the Coast Guard because they see for the near term, they're going to get a lot more mileage out of this white vessel fleet than they have in the gray colored fleet because the Coast Guard's what they deploy to handle all these smaller scale maritime disputes that they have. Ultimately though, if they'll get over the hump on building these three aircraft carriers, they'll develop their over-the-horizon targeting capability and they're going to be able to eventually field a true blue water naval force able to operate at significant distance from their shores, maybe even independently in the open oceans. At that point, there is a possibility of a real naval clash arising between the U.S. and China because our allies are going to be increasingly less clear to them that they can rely on U.S. security commitments because China will have the real visible capability to prevent us from potentially moving forces up to adhere to those commitments, to fulfill those commitments. Yeah, just one quick comment. So this is the topic of my dissertation, so I'm going to try and keep this brief. I think if you look at the pre-World War I naval competition, there are really two countries to look at. It's Germany and the United States. Sure, sure, and the U.K., but in terms of rising navies, those are really the two, and they do almost exactly the same thing the Chinese are doing now. They build a blue water capability, it takes them two to three decades. At the end of the day, they probably couldn't have competed symmetrically with the British, right? The Germans essentially make one major foray out and the First World War fails and they go back home and all the money was wasted. I don't think that lesson tells you how the Chinese are going to act on a political side, but I do think it tells you that on the military side, takes a long time to catch up, really long time. And despite the strength of Wu Shengli and the amount of money that he's been able to amass, there are going to be a lot of bureaucratic competitions within the military for the funding the navy would need, the PLA would need to be a real match for the U.S. Navy, even for the next one or two decades. As somebody else who wrote a dissertation about the First World War, let me just remind you that of course that conflict broke out as a result of something Bismarck predicted as some damn full thing in the Balkans. So yes, there is this larger naval dynamic going on, but if there's going to be some kind of a clash, I think there are a lot of other factors that might go into it and that, again, it's very hard to predict, especially the future. So with that, thank you all for coming and please grab a copy of the report on your way out.