The End of the Unipolar Myth

The world was never as unipolar in the post-Cold War era as people think.

Being the "hyperpower" as the French called us did not mean America could dominate the entire world. It just meant we could uniquely apply decisive power to large portions of the planet.

And it is even less unipolar now when Russia (bouncing from its post-Soviet collapse) and China (from its 19th century collapse in influence) are rising in power (and in a more positive way, India, Japan, and South Korea). So that's something we have to get accustomed to again.

But this comment by a Defense Department official is nonsense: “When we fight Russia and China, ‘blue’ [the United States] gets its ass handed to it.”

I'm sure that this is an accurate statement of the simulations run. But I am also sure that it only counts the initial battles between forward deployed American forces and the fully deployed Russian and Chinese forces already in the region who strike when they are ready.

Extend the timeline to allow America to mobilize and reinforce and I bet the simulation results get better.

Our forward forces are not and can never be sufficient to defeat great powers in their own regions choosing their own time and place for the war.

The job of our military is to deter war and support allies in peacetime; and if deterrence fails, survive the enemy initial offensive and prepare to counter-attack, whether this is in the Baltic NATO states or in regard to Taiwan.

One nit to pick in particular. While Chinese dominance of the South China Sea is no more a shock than American dominance of the Caribbean Sea given the geography, the key difference is that America does not claim the Caribbean Sea as national territory the way China claims the South China Sea.