Among the several platforms he
compromised, was the passive phased array radar used by the MiG-31 Foxhound
fighter (pictured)
China should be wary of a
Tolkachev-esque figure eroding its strategic position vis-a-vis the United
States.
Will we ever have a Chinese Tolkachev?
As
detailed in David Hoffman’s Billion Dollar Spy,
between 1979 and 1985, Soviet radar engineer Adolf Tolkachev turned his hatred
of the Soviet regime into some of the most devastating industrial espionage
ever conducted. Tolkachev took advantage of his position at the radar design
firm Phazotron to make copies and photographs of volumes of material associated
with Soviet radar and electronics systems. This gave the United States an
inside look at the sensor capabilities of the USSR’s most advanced fighters and
interceptors.
The
impact of Tolkachev’s espionage was virtually incalculable. The material
acquired helped to shift decisions and priorities within the U.S.
defense-industrial complex, especially with regard to aerospace technology. It
may have given the U.S. a massive, enduring advantage in aircraft effectiveness
since the 1980s; understanding the limitations on how Soviet aircraft see the
battlespace has made them much more vulnerable to U.S. attack than would
otherwise have been the case.
The
espionage was even, in broad terms, within the lines that the United States now
declares should delineate “legitimate” espionage. The U.S. did not use the
information it gained from Tolkachev to attempt to reverse engineer or copy any
Soviet systems. It did not, in other words “violate” the intellectual property
rights of major Soviet enterprises. Rather, the stolen data provided
information on the capabilities and priorities of Soviet technology, thereby
giving the United States a strategic advantage in developing its own tech. A
fine distinction, perhaps, but one which the United States holds to today.
And so
does China need to worry about its own Tolkachev? The idea that someone might
play Snowden with a trove of Chinese military and electronic data, secreting
away the details of the components of the J-20, or J-31, or Df-21, on a few
thumbdrives is alternatively appealing or terrifying, depending on whether you
work for Chinese intelligence.
But while
the potential for a Tolkachev is real, the impact would likely be far less
consequential. The Chinese national innovation system (NIS) shares some
similarities with the old Soviet system, but has become far less centralized.
The most sophisticated electronics come from a host of different firms, often
carrying dual-use applications that make them accessible to the United States
without the need for espionage.
Moreover,
we know more about the Chinese NIS today than we ever knew about the Soviet.
This is true not only of its output (we know more about the J-20 than we did
about Soviet MiGs at similar stages of development), but also its internal
processes; the Chinese system is more transparent and accessible than the
Soviet one.
One of
the things we do know is that Chinese military technology is not (yet) as
competitive as that of the USSR during the height of the Cold War. The Chinese
NIS has become adept at what amount to “architectural” innovations,
reconfiguring existing systems in order to produce something new and effective,
but has not generally achieved the kind of disruptive innovation that the USSR
occasionally pushed for. This means that a Chinese Tolkachev has somewhat less
to offer the United States. Of course, this will likely change over the next
few years.
Finally,
for all the warnings about Chinese theft of U.S. defense technology, the U.S.
has its own formidable cyber-capabilities, and undoubtedly closely monitors the
development of Chinese military technology. Indeed, the one area where a
Chinese Tolkachev might have the most impact would be in the cyber-domain: a
clear glimpse into the operations of the PLA’s corps of cyber-soldiers might
prove very helpful, indeed.
And so the answer is “Yes, but.”
Tolkachev
could have the impact he did because he worked at the dawn of the era of
digital knowledge. U.S. spies could miniaturize equipment to acquire technical
data, but could not access that data themselves without direct human
intervention. We can certainly still imagine the possibility that a disgruntled
Chinese PLA employee could download reams of data on a thumb drive and pass it
to the CIA, but we would likely find the information less surprising, and less
strategically useful, than we did in the 1980s. By Robert Farley
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