Our enemies don't learn what we think we are teaching them about us. We should not pretend we can manipulate their image of us from letting them see us up close. We should be a black box of potential pain.
I was listening to a Council on Foreign Relations video on Russia's struggles in Ukraine. It wasn't that interesting. Except for one anecdote. The host related how NATO used to have Russian representatives at its meetings. I'm sure it was for purposes of transparency--See? We aren't plotting to invade you. And for the purpose of impressing the Russians with the vibrant power of united democracies.
But at one point the Russian representative reacted to some spirited disagreements on some policy or another. The Russian said that as a young officer he thought NATO was this impressive organization that Russia should worry about. But now after watching the alliance up close? He mocked and dismissed NATO.
This is why I have long been firmly opposed to American "confidence building" military-to-military contacts with Chinese officers:
We are officially in favor of these missions because we believe that if the Chinese see how powerful we are, they won't try to fight us.
This is a crock. The Chinese know we are technically more advanced. What they think is that we are too pampered to fight them. And seeing our nice barracks and PXs with Chanel No. 5 won't convince them that we are hard warriors able to absorb high casualties. Seeing our military up close will simply give them insights into fighting us or at least cause them to believe that they have insights into fighting us[.] ...
I think seeing [USS Arizona] on the bottom of [Pearl Harbor] taught the PLA officers that if they can achieve surprise, they too can put key elements of our fleet on the bottom.
As for what they learned from the Missouri [where the surrender of Japan was signed in 1945]? Well, if those stupid Japanese had possessed nuclear weapons capable of reaching Los Angeles, we'd never have dared approach Japan let alone conquer them.
We are the ones who have miscalculated. The Chinese won't learn what we are teaching. And if it comes to war, we will find out what they learned.
The Russians "learned" from sitting in on NATO meetings that bickering Westerners had little unity. Certainly not "unity" as Russia would understand from their top-down system of orders and obedience.
Did that kind of "insight" influence Putin's thinking that an attack on Ukraine would shatter NATO resolve and expose it as impotent to stopping Putin's drive to restore the glories of the Russian empire in the west?
Russia was wrong, if so. NATO did stand up to resist Russia's invasion. But that will be little comfort if this war spirals out of control.
How much better would it have been for Russia to have few approved avenues to develop those insights about NATO deliberations? Wouldn't it have been better for Russia to have a view of NATO as an opaque body that Russia has to assume is strong and resolute?
This policy of mil-to-mil programs and related "confidence building" exchanges are one more example of mirror-imaging our enemies. We don't frighten them or reassure them. We keep validating their contempt for us.
Let our potential enemies see nothing up close so they will fear the worst about our capabilities.
NOTE: War updates continue at this post.
