Conflict and Cooperation in the Global Commons: A Comprehensive Approach for International Security

Conclusion: Avoiding Conflict and Facilitating Cooperation

233 Conclusion Avoiding Conflict and Facilitating Cooperation SCOTT JASPER and SCOTT MORELAND The United States will continue to lead global efforts with capable allies and partners to assure access to and use of the global commons, both by strengthening international norms of responsible behavior and by maintaining relevant and interoperable military capabilities. —Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense This volume brings together both security precedents and best practices to guide strategies and partnerships for responsible and sustainable use of the global commons. Despite the imperative to respond to nefarious threats to security and prosperity, considerable debate persists regarding the most effective mechanisms for encouraging cooperative behavior. All the contributors have underscored the need for promoting international norms via voluntary adherence to established standards of conduct and universally recognized ethical behaviors; however, they refrain from prescribing international legal regimes as the preferred normative model. Inclusivity and incentives, rather than legal coercion, form the basis of the suggested codes of conduct. The most generally accepted definitions of the commons are “an area not under the sovereign control of any one nation” or “shared areas, which exist outside exclusive national jurisdictions.”1 The cyber domain epitomizes how the distributed nature of transnational incidents underscores overlapping jurisdictions that pose complex control concerns in the commons. Although individual nations exercise jurisdiction over the servers, switches, and routers as well as intellectual property, Conclusion 234 they lack true control because of the seamless boundaries across which information moves globally. As espoused by Ian Adam in chapter 2, recent incidents and developments reiterate that all four of the domains in the commons, not just cyberspace, are congested, contested, and competitive. However the complexity of malware seen in highly visible attacks in cyberspace outside sovereign authority reflects the pressing need to find innovative ways to facilitate cooperation to avoid persistent conflict in the commons. PERSISTENT CONFLICT IMPLICATIONS The major dispute over maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea, as described by Sam Tangredi in chapter 4, continues to be a potential source of con- flict.2 Tensions rose in May 2011 after Chinese ships tried to damage or cut seismic cables being towed by PetroVietnam survey vessels within the Vietnamese exclusive economic zone.3 Vietnam responded by negotiating with Russia to purchase additional Baston-P mobile coastal defense systems armed with P-800 Yakhont ramjet-powered sea-skimming cruise missiles in addition to six Kilo class diesel-electric submarines to secure marine resources.4 Although China and Vietnam agreed to establish a defense hotline to reduce tensions, China’s insistence on bilateral talks contrasts with Vietnam’s desire to negotiate multilaterally and base any settlement on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).5 Chinese ability to coerce negotiations is expanded in the sea trials of the first PLA Navy aircraft carrier.6 In addition to the PLA Air Force buildup of shortand medium-range ballistic missiles as illustrated by Mark Stokes and Ian Easton in chapter 5, China has added a new road-mobile brigade whose solid-fueled Dong Feng 31A missiles can reach any location in the continental United States.7 This development could evolve into a slow-motion arms race as the need for ballistic missile defense is apparent because air strikes would be dubious against the road-mobile and not silo-based systems. Meanwhile, production and proliferation of fifth-generation aircraft, like the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA, complicate the US and allied air superiority calculus for operating deep inland.8 Rapidly accumulating man-made debris in low-earth orbit presents a daunting and urgent international challenge. The National Academy of Sciences asserts that the “current orbital debris environment has already reached a tipping point,” wherein existing low-orbit detritus could continue to collide with itself and spawn more space debris, even without any future orbital launches.9 Although capabilities exist in both the public and private sectors for removal of space junk, Michael Krepon warns in chapter 12 that extant space treaties do not adequately address the full implications of commercial technologies as ASAT weapons.10 He notes that the United States and China have demonstrated military antisatel- scott jasper and scott moreland 235 lite capabilities while commercial firms are collaborating on an infrastructure servicing satellite to be launched in 2015. The latter system could refuel and repair satellites, although skeptics fear it could serve as an antisatellite...