Asia (Page 2,413)

China may have landed on a way to better detect stealth nuclear submarines, a development that could jeopardize US operations in the contested South China Sea and more significantly undermine the survivability of its underwater nuclear deterrent.

This month, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter discovered an ultra-sensitive submarine detector based on existing technologies that can detect traces of the most advanced submarine from great distances.

The science team, led by Zou Shengnan, published their findings in the peer-reviewed Chinese Journal of Ship Research, run by the China Ship Scientific Research Center and noted for its history of being at the forefront of ship and ocean engineering developments.

SCMP notes that the Chinese science team used computer modeling to determine the possibility of detecting the near-imperceptible bubbles a nuclear submarine produces. It says that the extremely low frequency (ELF) signal generated by these bubbles could be many times stronger than the sensitivities of advanced magnetic anomaly detectors.

The bubbles form when a submarine cruises due to increased kinetic energy and a corresponding decrease in potential energy expressed as pressure. This happens because the system’s total energy remains constant but the balance between kinetic and potential energy shifts.

The SCMP report notes that this creates turbulence and can lead to an electromagnetic signature through the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect, with computer models showing that electric field signals could be detected around different parts of the hull.

The researchers found that electromagnetic emissions produced by the cavitation bubbles fluctuate over time, generating a distinct signal in the ELF range from 49.94 Hz to 34.19 Hz.

Lead researcher Zou said that the findings could be used to provide a reference for selecting electromagnetic communication frequencies for high-speed submarines, as ELF signals can travel great distances, penetrate water and reach the ionosphere, which reflects them to the Earth’s surface.

Some suggest the discovery could be a game-changer for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations. In an August 2020 article for The Strategist, Sebastian Brixey-Williams notes that modern ASW uses active and passive sonar with magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) to extract submarine signals from ocean noise, noting the methods are expected to remain crucial for the foreseeable future.

Submarines are significant metallic anomalies moving in the upper portion of the water column, producing sound and changing the water’s physical, chemical, and biological properties, disturbing Earth’s magnetic field and unavoidably emitting radiation in the case of nuclear submarines.

Brixey-Williams notes that as sensor resolution, processing power and machine autonomy improve, the range of detectable signals will expand, making it possible to distinguish other previously indistinguishable signals.

He also notes that non-acoustic detection techniques have been known for decades but only recently became exploitable due to faster computer processors, noting that oceanographic models can run in real-time.

Moreover, according to a March 2021 paper by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the utilization of both commercial and open-source technologies such as commercial satellite imagery, synthetic aperture radar and social media disseminated tracking can enhance the identification of submarine fleets, track the development of submarines and submarine bases, and potentially gain insights into their patrol patterns and actions.

Given that, Roger Bradbury and other writers note in a March 2023 article that it’s very likely (90%) that oceans will become transparent by the 2050s, with at least a 75% chance in most modeled cases, with the software used in their analysis evaluating the estimates with a high certainty of above 70%.

They stress that despite advancements in stealth technologies, submarines, including nuclear-powered ones, can still be detected in the world’s oceans due to parallel progress in science and technology.

Such developments may complicate US plans to hunt down and detect Chinese nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) patrolling the South China Sea. US nuclear attack submarines (SSN) are known to be operating in the South China Sea, with USNI reporting on November 2021 about the collision of the USS Connecticut against an uncharted seamount in the hotly-disputed semi-enclosed body of water.

USNI notes that the USS Connecticut is one of the US Navy’s three Seawolf-class SSNs, initially designed to take on Soviet submarines in the open ocean during the Cold War and since upgraded and modified to carry out some of the US Navy’s most sensitive missions, including shadowing China’s SSBNs.

Asia Times reported in April 2023 that China now can mount round-the-clock SSBN patrols, keeping one of its six Type 094 SSBNs on patrol at all times.

Those SSBNs are potentially armed with the new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which has a 10,000-kilometer range and allows China to hit the continental US from newly-developed and highly-protected bastions in the South China Sea.

Although US SSBNs are considered highly survivable, the growing transparency of oceans and the possibility of China and Russia coming up with a breakthrough in submarine detection technology pose a rising threat to US dominance of the seas.

Despite those concerns, Matt Korda argues in a December 2020 article for Defense One that the US lead in submarine detection and stealth technology, favorable geographic position with no territorial chokepoints and the threat of US nuclear retaliation against an attack on its SSBNs ensures the continued relevance and survivability of US SSBNs as the country’s ultimate nuclear deterrent.

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The dramatic and rapid Taliban offensive in the spring of 2021 culminated in its takeover of Kabul on August 15. The chaos of the western withdrawal that surrounded the return of the Taliban represented a sad endpoint of two decades of failed US-led attempts to impose a liberal democratic system on a country that had hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and facilitated his masterminding of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

For Afghanistan, the return of the Taliban marked the beginning of a deeply illiberal regime that is particularly hostile to women and minorities.

The swiftness of the Taliban takeover confounded more optimistic US and UK predictions about the survival of the Afghan government. But most of its consequences were entirely predictable, and indeed predicted – from the worsening human rights situation to an economic crisis.

Five million Afghans fled the country and over three million were internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency’s update in July 2023. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is now at an unprecedented critical level: more than 18 million people – just under half the Afghan population – face acute food insecurity.

Least peaceful country

After an initial upsurge, violence has significantly declined in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Yet, Afghanistan remains “the least peaceful country in the world in 2023,” according to the Global Peace Index.

This reflects, in part, the ongoing rivalry between the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group. That branch of the Islamic State remains the most potent domestic challenger to the Taliban. It comprises somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 fighters, including former regime officials and members of ethnic minorities opposed to the Taliban regime.

IS-K has been responsible for the majority of civilian casualties in terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan and has established itself firmly in the northern and northeastern provinces of Afghanistan.

From a regional perspective, IS-K poses an equally important security threat to Afghanistan’s northern neighbours in central Asia. At the end of July 2023 it claimed a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan that killed more than 50 people.

IS-K, however, is not the most significant security threat to Pakistan. Rather, the Taliban’s longstanding ally has been afflicted by an upsurge in violent attacks committed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist group allegedly enjoying safe havens in Afghanistan. According to a recent UN report, the TTP has reabsorbed several splinter groups and seeks to regain a measure of territorial control along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Since the Taliban takeover, other, more regionally oriented terrorist groups, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Turkestan Islamic Party (formerly known as the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement), have also benefited from a more permissive environment in which to operate. These and numerous other groups are smaller in size – numbering in their tens and hundreds, rather than thousands. But they tend to coordinate and cooperate with each other and increasingly also with IS-K.

This is of particular concern to China. Beijing is worried that the Uyghur extremist Turkestan Islamic Party will eventually use Afghanistan as a base for attacks against China and Chinese interests in the wider region.

Water wars

Beyond terrorism, competition over scarce water resources is the other major source of conflict. The Taliban’s plan to build the Qosh Tepa Irrigation Canal will decrease water available to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan from the transboundary Amu Darya River by as much as 15%. This will have major social, economic and public health consequences for both countries.

A similar crisis is brewing between Tehran and Kabul. The Taliban is reportedly preparing troops, including suicide bombers for what looks certain to be a conflict with Iran over water shortages caused by the Taliban allegedly reneging on a 1973 water treaty.

Fear and intimidation at home and abroad

After two years of Taliban rule, Afghanistan, is a different – but not a lesser – problem. The deal signed between the Taliban and the US on February 29 2020, after two years of talks pushed by the then US president, Donald Trump, precipitated the withdrawal of Western troops but did not bring about intra-Afghan reconciliation.

On the contrary, since the takeover in August 2021 the Taliban has ruled with fear and intimidation. And it has failed in its commitment to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

This has not, however, stopped international efforts to engage with the Taliban regime. Central Asian states have been at the forefront of efforts to integrate Afghanistan into regional trade and security structures and pushed the idea of a trans-Afghan railway line.

In early August, 2023, Kazakhstan hosted a Taliban delegation for a business forum. The two countries signed US$200 million (£157 million) worth of deals, primarily to supply grain and flour to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has vast mineral deposits, including critical rare earth minerals. These have attracted Chinese investment in Afghanistan’s lithium sector. Beijing and Kabul also agreed on a deal in January 2023, enabling a Chinese company to drill for oil in the Amu Darya basin.

While these efforts do not imply recognition of the Taliban regime – even by its closest neighbors – they suggest a slow but inevitable trend in that direction. That all the more likely now that even Washington has begun to re-engage with the Taliban. This has included signaling, at recent high-level talks in Doha, Qatar, an “openness to a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilization issues”.

Washington is still ruling out recognition “right now, for a number of reasons, including the treatment of their own people, including their many flagrant human rights violations.” But this represents a significant shift in US policy.

Two years of Taliban rule have seen the regime in Kabul double down on its repressive domestic policies and do little to assuage its near and far neighbors’ concerns over new and old security risks. So this apparent willingness to re-engage with the Taliban will send all the wrong signals and is unlikely to bring about more security and stability for Afghans and their neighbors.

Stefan Wolff is a professor of international security at the University of Birmingham.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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