Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Free World Allies Rising to Authoritarian Challenge

Monday, April 3, 2023

Written by Alan W. Dowd, ASCF Senior Fellow

Categories: ASCF Articles The Dowd Report

Comments: 0

Allied Superpowers

Part one of this series offered a snapshot of today’s axis of authoritarian regimes and the here-and-now threats they pose to the Free World. This essay details the allied response to these threats.

Euro-Atlantic
Again, we start in Europe, where NATO serves as the beating heart of the global system of alliances America built in the wake of World War II.

Thanks to major investments announced in 2020, Britain is riding its largest wave of defense spending since the Cold War’s end. Germany is doubling defense spending to 2 percent of GDP—something Washington and NATO have been begging Berlin to do since 2006. Poland—thrust to the frontlines of Cold War 2.0 by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—is increasing defense spending to 4 percent of GDP this year. Romania is increasing defense spending by 23.7 percent for FY2023. Belgium’s defense budget is 10.9 percent larger than a year ago; Croatia’s is up 62.5 percent; the Greek defense budget is 49.6 percent larger; Italy’s is up 6 percent; Spain’s 7.7 percent; France’s 5 percent. European governments are increasing defense spending by 53 percent between 2021 and 2026. And the U.S. and its Euro-Atlantic allies form the core of a 50-nation coalition that’s sustaining Ukraine with vast amounts of military and economic aid.

Beyond—though no doubt related to Putin’s war on Ukraine—Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. NATO’s military capability and infrastructure are deployed further east than even the most hawkish NATO-phile could have imagined 13 months ago. NATO had four “rotational” battle groups in Eastern Europe before February 2022. Today, it has eight battle groups in Eastern Europe that look awfully permanent. NATO’s members are closer internally than at any time since 9/11. And NATO’s value is recognized across Europe, North America, and even the Indo-Pacific more than at any time since the Berlin Wall’s collapse.

For the first time ever, NATO, in 2022, invited the leaders of Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand to participate in an alliance summit. In another first, NATO identified the PRC as a challenge, vowed to defend freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, and committed to work with “partners in the Indo-Pacific to tackle cross-regional challenges and shared security interests.” This Atlantic-Pacific grouping is already bearing fruit: Japan and South Korea are participating in NATO’s Cyber Defense Center. Japan is partnering with Britain and Italy on a sixth-generation fighter bomber. France has deployed the carrier Charles de Gaulle throughout the region, joined the U.S. in enforcing freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and sailed warships through the Taiwan Strait.

As Gen. James Mattis observed long before last year’s invasion of Ukraine, “If we did not have NATO today, we would need to create it.”

Indo-Pacific
Spurred by Beijing’s aggressive actions, America’s Indo-Pacific allies were a step ahead of Europe in recognizing the re-emergence of an authoritarian axis.

Japan is almost-doubling defense spending, has increased defense spending annually for more than a decade, and is on track to become the world’s third-highest defense-spending power. With those resources, Japan is upconverting its helicopter carriers into full-fledged aircraft carriers armed with F-35Bs, working closely with the U.S. on missile defense, and purchasing some 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles to enhance regional deterrence.

Australia is increasing defense spending 40 percent this decade; expanding its combat force by a third; and fielding new submarines, anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine systems, cyber-defenses and F-35s. Australia is hosting U.S. Marines, F-22s and B-52s; training with Japan, India and the U.S.; and working closely with Britain and the U.S. as part of the new AUKUS alliance to develop hypersonic missiles, electronic-warfare systems, artificial intelligence and additional nuclear-powered submarines to protect Indo-Pacific waters.

India has increased defense spending by 49 percent the past decade, has boosted its defense budget 10 percent for the coming year and just commissioned its second aircraft carrier. The U.S. and India are finalizing plans to utilize Indian ports to service U.S. warships. And in a signal to Beijing, U.S. Army units joined Indian troops in late 2022 for exercises just 62 miles from the India-PRC border.

South Korea is increasing defense spending by 7.1 percent annually, boosting its F-35 fleet, building an aircraft carrier and fortifying its missile defenses.

The U.S., Australia, Japan and India are turning the Quad Dialogue into a security bulwark against China. The Quad democracies are sharing satellite imagery, conducting large-scale naval maneuvers, deepening cooperation on supply-chain resilience, building secure 5G networks, partnering on cybersecurity and expanding intelligence sharing.

In the Middle East, Iran’s malign actions have triggered a head-turning deepening of security, commercial and economic ties between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. These nations, along with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are working more closely with the U.S. on freedom of navigation, missile defense, counter-terrorism and joint training. Indeed, dozens of regional partners recently contributed 7,000 personnel and 35 warships to a large-scale maritime exercise spanning the Arabian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and Indian Ocean. In addition, Israel and the U.S. carried out their largest-ever joint exercise earlier this year, which featured 12 warships, more than 140 warplanes and 7,500 personnel.

Kuwait hosts 13,500 U.S. troops. U.S. air assets operate out of al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Bahrain serves as headquarters for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. are collaborating on a military training mission. The Pentagon relies on what it calls the “CENTCOM Coalition”—enfolding Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, UAE, and 40 other partners—to maintain some semblance of security in the volatile Middle East. Although these assets, partnerships, and efforts continue to support the campaign against ISIS, they are increasingly focused on containing and deterring Iran’s terrorist tyranny.

Reminder
“Part of our ability to deter,” Gen. Kyle Ellison, vice-chief at the Office of Naval Research, explains, “is making it not about one versus one, but one versus two, or one versus three, or one versus four”—or one versus 10, 12, 32 or more.

“We put ourselves, by our own will and by necessity, into defensive alliances with countries all around the globe,” President Kennedy reminded the American people. What was true in 1963, at the height of Cold War I, remains just as true 60 years later, in these early moments of Cold War 2.0.

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