Asymmetric Competition in the Arctic: Implications for North American Defense and Security

Published Dec. 13, 2021
By Dr. Lillian “Doc” Alessa; CDR James Valentine, USCG, Ret.; CDR Sean Moon, USCG, Ret.; & Dr. Andrew Kliskey

Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Air University Press --

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SENIOR LEADER PERSPECTIVE

Asymmetric Competition in the Arctic

Implications for North American Defense and Security

Dr. LiLLian “Doc” aLessa

cDr James VaLentine, UscG, ret.

cDr sean moon, UscG, ret.

Dr. anDrew KLisKey

Abstract

e current Arctic security environment is poorly characterized. In the past few

years, it has been termed “a return to great- power competition” and now is oscil-

lating around discussions of hybrid threats or gray- zone warfare. Whatever the

term, these are methods and means designed to avoid notice, obscure intent and

origin, and exploit the seams in the targets’ awareness and response capabilities.

In this article we use the term asymmetric competition (AC) to describe such ac-

tivities, which exist as a continuum of conict below open warfare, rather than

tting neatly into the binary notion of war and peace. While many national se-

curity scholars and practitioners are aware of and concerned about the use of AC

by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the ability of the United States and its

allies to detect and protect against such behavior is limited. At the same time, the

PRC has demonstrated a growing interest in the Arctic due to the region’s geo-

strategic importance and has taken an unusually aggressive posture toward as-

serting and securing Beijing’s interests there. We conducted an initial assessment

to detect the extent, types, and tempo of AC using the Strategic Intelligence

Framework (SIF)—a systems science methodology—to identify PRC asymmet-

ric competition activities in the North American Arctic. Our results suggest an

ongoing and pervasive AC campaign. We oer that integrative frameworks like

the SIF can assist the United States, its allies, and its partners in detecting and

characterizing AC with the accuracy and precision required for the development

of strategy, policies, and response.

Great- Power Competition, Gray- Zone Warfare, and Hybrid

Threats: Everything Old Is New Again

e PRC and the Russian Federation (Russia) are challenging the economic,

military, and cultural dominance of the United States in the post–Cold War era.

A range of literature exists in the political science and international policy realms

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Alessa, Valentine, Moon, & Kliskey

rich with references to great- power competition (GPC), gray- zone warfare, and

hybrid threats, which can be summarized as follows:

1. e United States remains the most powerful conventional warfare force on

the planet, with the greatest global reach;

2. Opposing the United States using direct military force in a geostrategic

context is a dangerous and costly approach, with little chance of success,

until hard- power parity is achieved; and

3. ose seeking increased national and global power at the expense of the

United States will pursue indirect strategies (e.g., gray- zone warfare) and low-

signature tactics (hybrid threats) designed to avoid detection, provide plausible

deniability, and fall below thresholds that would trigger security/defense and

protective responses.

However, this GPC is only new in the sense that it represents a change from

the immediate past. e unquestioned dominance of the United States from the

fall of the Soviet Union until today, or even the bi- polarity of the Cold War, and

the clear emphasis on both the use and avoidance of conventional military en-

gagement are the historical anomalies. Most human conict has been something

much less than all- out war, instead waged using many other methods.1 is is

something US policy makers previously recognized. One architect of post–World

War II security, George Kennan, described it as political warfare, which he dened

as “the employment of all the means at a nation’s command short of [hot] war, to

achieve its national objectives.”2 In this article, to avoid the morass of terms and

their previous or competing denitions, we refer to all these linked concepts col-

lectively as asymmetric competition (AC), since the underlying principle is to avoid

head- to- head competition using matching hard- power elements. We further de-

ne threat as some activity or action that gives the actor advantage, preferably at

the expense of the target.

Asymmetric Competition as Geostrategic Environment Shaping

Since the end of World War II global norms have been rooted in what are usu-

ally termed liberal, internationalist ideas. is includes the concepts of universal

human rights, freedom of the press, equality before the law, a representative form

of government, and various civic freedoms. ese ideas are liberal in the sense that

they emphasize that individuals have certain intrinsic rights that cannot be morally

or ethically violated by others—including the state. ese ideas are internationalist

because these asserted rights attach to the person, rather than ruled territory, and

nations are expected to uphold them. For example, the United Nations’ Universal

Declaration of Human Rights states that all people, everywhere, are “entitled to a

Asymmetric Competition in the Arctic

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social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this

Declaration can be fully realized.”3 Similarly the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-

tion (NATO) embraces these standards in its opening articles, and the Interna-

tional Criminal Court was explicitly founded to try cases where a country fails to

act on its own, or is “in reality . . . unwilling or unable” to do so.4 While the actual

exercise of such ideals is never perfect, these basic principles form the foundation

of existing global norms and standards for state behaviors.

Challenging these norms can—and often does—create internal and international

backlash and consequences, even if they are applied unevenly. ese range from in-

ternal protests (e.g., Hong Kong 2019–2020), to coercion through sanctions or

military force up to and including full- scale invasions. In many ways this runs coun-

ter to a strict Westphalian construction, which emphasizes the absolute right of

each state to be the “sole author of laws within its jurisdiction . . . hold a monopoly

on the organized use of force,” and regards inuence or interference in the domestic

aairs of a state as a violation of sovereignty so severe it may prompt open war.5

e PRC and Russia are primarily authoritarian in their rule, and thus poten-

tially subject to various negative consequences should their actions violate these

standards. Both countries would naturally prefer a more permissive environment,

where, for example, the PRC’s Uighur genocide, or its handling of Hong Kong,

were not grounds for repercussions.6 As neither Russia nor the PRC can yet rea-

sonably challenge the hard power of the United States, Moscow and Beijing seek

to revise the existing rules in ways that favor their national and global objectives

while simultaneously undermining current norms, institutions, and those that

support them using “all the means at a nation’s command.”7 Some authors have

attempted to reframe the PRC’s actions as more complex than revisionism, but

none of the presented arguments adequately explain things like the prohibition

on researching “Western constitutional democracy, universal values of human

rights, Western- inspired notions of media and civil society independence . . . neo-

liberalism, and ‘nihilistic’ critiques of the state,”8 the PRC’s pursuit of dissidents

abroad, or its use of “sharp” power to erode trust in government and societies

through censorship, dis- and misinformation, and interference in sociopolitical

relationships and institutions that involve academia, culture, media, and econo-

mies (ACME). e latter has grown so strong so that even non- Chinese academ-

ics report self- censorship to avoid PRC entanglements.

Asymmetric Competition as National Strategy

e examples above demonstrate the PRC’s strategy for reshaping the political

and security environment. In 1999 two senior PRC military ocers wrote Unre-

stricted Warfare, explaining how the PRC could defeat the militarily superior

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Alessa, Valentine, Moon, & Kliskey

United States by using other elements of national power and avoiding direct en-

gagements.9 e “ree Warfares” outlined in the book—psychological warfare,

public opinion warfare, and legal warfare—have since been elevated to ocial

PRC doctrine. Salient examples include: the use of “business, technology and

science, education, culture and tourism,” as ocial state tools to achieve national

objectives; laws that assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over PRC critics, including

noncitizens; cyberattacks; coercive “debt diplomacy”; exportation of surveillance

and social credit technology to other nations; use of China’s shing eet as a naval

militia; and sharp power aimed at CAMP targets. Despite their security implica-

tions, few of these events trigger security responses under most national or inter-

national rule sets. ese events exist in a “gray zone” of conict—neither open war

nor innocent coincidence—where the right response is unclear and the line be-

tween “regular” and threatening acts is blurred. us, AC is designed to take ad-

vantage of the seams in institutional awareness and response thresholds. e

practical eect is that disaggregation of the “threat signal,” from the surrounding

“normal” is a herculean task using existing methods—if they work at all.

Asymmetric Competition as Action

In direct implementation, AC consists of what are sometimes called hybrid

threats. ese threats combine multiple aspects of state power, and act below de-

tection and response thresholds to achieve objectives. Recognition of such dangers

as serious threats demanding national and mutual security options led to the es-

tablishment of the NATO European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hy-

brid reats (Hybrid CoE) in 2017. e Hybrid CoE provides a clear and concise

denition of hybrid threats:

e term hybrid threat refers to an action conducted by state or non- state actors,

whose goal is to undermine or harm the target by inuencing its decision- making

at the local, regional, state, or institutional level.

Such actions are coordinated and synchronized and deliberately target demo-

cratic states’ and institutions’ vulnerabilities.

Activities can take place, for example, in the political, economic, military, civil or

information domains. ey are conducted using a range of means and designed

to remain below the threshold of detection and attribution.10

As a structural feature of liberalism—and by adversarial intent—this is an un-

comfortable space for liberal states and institutions, which through their adher-

ence to rule of law use legality as a proxy for what is threatening and what is not.

e implication is that legal acts are not harmful, or at least not detrimental

Asymmetric Competition in the Arctic

JOURNAL OF INDOPACIFIC AFFAIRS  WINTER 2021 5

enough to justify state intervention.11 e Hybrid CoE notes that an “intensify-

ing conict of values” between liberal and authoritarian states, “an increasingly

complex information environment,” and vulnerabilities inherent in open societies

create a ripe strategic operating environment for hybrid actors, if left unchecked.12

Detection and Analysis of Asymmetric Competition is Lacking

AC below the nation- state level is dicult to detect, since these events have

low- signature and are aimed at the seams identied above.13 Apart from the myr-

iad information- sharing problems routinely lamented, or the treatment of analysis

problems as though they are information- collection problems, there is the concern

of analytic bias, in this case, what the US Intelligence Community (IC) calls “mir-

ror imaging.” Mirror imaging is when analysts or organizations “project [their]

thought process or value system onto someone else,” leading to mischaracterization

and errors in estimative assessments. While the IC ocially trains analysts to avoid

mirror imaging, the practice remains pervasive throughout the community.14

is is a question of cognitive frameworks: information and data are evaluated

through the lens of what is important, relevant, and sensible to the analyst/United

States, rather than the analysis target. e result is a set of conclusions that are

logical and internally consistent but may have no bearing on reality; “just because

something seems logical to an analyst does not mean that the subject being ana-

lyzed will see it that way—especially when dierences in thought processes and

beliefs are factored into the equation.”15 Given that AC is explicitly employed to

avoid expected confrontation points, it is easy to see how our intelligence enter-

prise has more often missed than detected it.

Methodology: Using the Integrative Frameworks of System Science to

Detect and Characterize the AC Threat

To address these profound shortcomings in our broad intelligence processes,

we used a systems science framework, in collaboration with diverse defense, secu-

rity, and intelligence practitioners. e resultant Strategic Intelligence Framework

(SIF) is an updated method for approaching intelligence problems using rule

managers, diverse data ecosystems, data processing (analytics), and pattern devel-

opment and relationships, here termed pattern conuence (e.g., analysis and con-

clusions), to detect AC. Developed in collaboration with agencies and personnel

across the US and Canadian security and defense enterprises, the SIF is like an

amplier and noise reduction circuit in an electronic device. It boosts the targeted

threat signals, while ltering out information that masks the target. Drawing

from complex systems, mathematics, social science, and geographic information

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Alessa, Valentine, Moon, & Kliskey

science, the target signals are not analyzed in isolation but in relation to both their

geographic context and each other. e result is a qualitatively and quantitatively

accurate representation of the threat estimate. is provides clear, actionable, and

precise strategic intelligence to consumers—something that remains sorely lack-

ing for the Arctic.16

Figure 1. Strategic Intelligence Framework (SIF). FSLTTP refers to federal, state, local,

territorial, tribal, and private partners. This graphic was developed with a large enterprise

of connected organizations in mind. Data collection, algorithmic steps, analytics, and visu-

alizations were executed manually in this research. (Alessa et al. 2021).

Challenge Question: Is the PRC Engaged in Asymmetric

Competition in the North American Arctic?

Arctic Security Requires Integrated Analysis

As the Arctic changes and becomes more accessible, it has gained increased de-

fense and security attention. e US Department of Defense (DOD), for instance,

published its Arctic strategy as a report to Congress in 2019, and academic literature

on Arctic security has exploded over the past 10 years, with the number of annual

articles approximately doubling between 2012 and 2020 (g. 3).17 is is capped by

a nearly 25-percent increase from 2019 to 2020. Examination of article subjects and

publishing journals shows a body of work from the “usual suspects” in security and

defense matters: topics such as geopolitics, international relations and law, sociology,

and political science contained in regional political, policy, and military/defense

journals. Environmental science occasionally appears but usually within the context

Asymmetric Competition in the Arctic

JOURNAL OF INDOPACIFIC AFFAIRS  WINTER 2021 7

of human or social security in a warming Arctic. Broadly, there is great conceptual

depth, topical analysis, and interdisciplinary research, well- supported within the

analysis and theory of the humanities and their careful evidentiary standards. e

Arctic is an “interstitial region” as dened by Dylan Craig, to which the Arctic na-

tions are “institutionally committed” but within which their “conventional tools of

warcraft and statecraft are excluded by both practical and legal considerations.”18

e highly variable climate, low population density, and lack of infrastructure mean

that law enforcement, military forces, regulatory organizations, and emergency ser-

vices are sparse. is is compounded by a complex legal and sociocultral terrain in

which Arctic nations make competing claims, and the rights and historical practices

of indigenous populations overlap and sometimes conict with the desires or even

borders of sovereign states.

Figure 2. Arctic security. Peer-reviewed literature analysis for “Arctic Security” as the

number of results per year.

ese publication types and trends also mean that examinations of Arctic secu-

rity are being made using methods that are qualitative, leading to highly general-

ized conclusions. ree main themes dominate existing Arctic threat narratives:

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Alessa, Valentine, Moon, & Kliskey

• An equipment and infrastructure “arms race” occurring between the United

States and its allies, Russia, and the PRC;

• Concerns about militarization (e.g., Russian build up, etc.) or forms of cash

diplomacy to gain access to the region (e.g., the Arctic Silk Road); and

• Prognostication of geopolitical dynamics and international aairs, based on

any number of theories, and/or schools of thought.

If these are conducted by think tanks or contracted to the private sector, they

often bear a substantial price tag to the US taxpayer. Realistically, none of these

provide the degree of precision necessary to guide policy, workforce develop-

ment, and resource acquisition such as targeted investment in technologies,

education, or training, beyond “the Arctic has arrived as a policy problem and

will require some kind of investment in these categories.” is is not a criticism

of the humanities, think tanks, policy engines, or their adjacent elds. It is,

rather, a recognition that data and information are not being leveraged for

quantitative analyses to create better descriptive, explanatory, and predictive

methods that serve operational needs and often by those far removed from not

only the Arctic but also lacking the necessary expertise and skill sets. With that

in mind, we apply the SIF here as just such an integrative method to analyze

North American Arctic threats in the context of AC.

Rule Management, Scenario Creation

rough a meta- analysis of 12 workshops on Arctic security between 2017

and 2020, we established that many US and Canadian academic and practicing

security experts are worried less about the hard militarization and nancial foot-

holds in the Arctic than apparent attempts by adversaries like Russia and the

PRC to gain information, create local contacts and networks, “buy” inuence and

access, conduct tests of security measures, and other such activities. In practitio-

ners’ views, such attempts are aimed at undermining local and national security.

Often, practitioners expressed that what they were concerned about was perfectly

legal, rendering law enforcement or criminal investigation moot. eir perspec-

tives on this issue were often rooted in practical Arctic experience. For all the

changes rendering the Arctic more accessible, it remains a remote region with

signicant barriers to military and other operations and logistics. So, while mili-

tarization was certainly a concern, they deemed the clearly described AC threats

as being of greater immediate, strategic importance.