America's defense of the global system that has provided unprecedented freedom and prosperity is the problem?
I've never doubted that China's military power didn't live up to the hype of its new car smell. But this minimization of Chinese military power is contradictory and ultimately an excuse to accept Chinese power.
[There] is ample evidence to suggest that China hawks in the Pentagon and Congress are overstating China’s military capabilities while underplaying the value of dialogue and diplomacy in addressing the challenges that Beijing poses to the United States and its allies.
What of the overstatements?
1) He says Chinese military power is not roughly equivalent to America's but perhaps no more than 59% even with purchasing power parity considered. That's a reasonable criticism, I admit.
2) Of the military assets, he picks large aircraft carriers (11-3 American advantage); nuclear weapons (10:1 American advantage); advanced combat aircraft (nearly 3:1 American advantage); and America's nearly double ship tonnage, reflecting larger and more capable ships).
Yet he admits that trends are working against America's fleet.
And he admits that force levels in the western Pacific must be considered, a region "where China holds a geographical advantage and has increased its capabilities considerably compared to a few decades ago."
So what of his basic arguments?
I think his first point has some validity. Those worried about China will assume worst-case assumptions about their hidden defense spending figures. But I think the author goes the other way of best-case assumptions to justify supplanting military power with robust diplomacy. Which I find silly. Adding an adjective to essentially assert that diplomacy can be more effective without the military power that traditionally makes talking more effective is folly. Friends won't exploit lesser American power. Enemies will.
Yet his second set of arguments undermines his minimization of Chinese threats by accurately noting that China's smaller defense budget has an advantage over our forces near China. We deploy globally and so our forces are spread out. China is right there able to concentrate its forces. And given that China would almost certainly be the side to initiate war, they can ready their forces to maximize their home field advantage. And if they catch American forces in a theater-wide Pearl Harbor, our best forward deployed forces could take quite the hammering. And that author admits the trends favor China.
And of all the areas of military assets he picks just four. Does America have a carrier advantage? Yes. But I don't think they are as valuable for sea control missions as we think. If those trends the author mentions that put our fleet at risk so close to China continue, those carriers may not last long in the fight.
They may be burning and/or sinking--or pulled out of the fight to avoid that fate. Then that American ship tonnage advantage disappears very quickly. China, of course, is a vast air base that can be used instead of carriers for air power in the first island chain. Our air bases are much more scarce. Recall that the author limits his comparison to advanced aircraft, presumably stealth. China may catch up with that, and as the Winter War of 2022 shows, quantity has a quality all it own. Especially if we struggle to sustain our forces across the vast Pacific and defend the few bases we can use. We may not have the logistics or air base capacity to exploit our 5th generation plane advantage--except in the area of replacing losses.
And given China's vast shipbuilding advantage, in a long war China can more easily replace losses and even expand their fleet.
As for the nuclear advantage? Unless the author is suggesting America will use nukes, it's irrelevant. All that may mean is that the war is kept conventional. Which may very well favor China on its home turf. Further, China appears to want to dramatically expand its nuclear arsenal. So the trends on that favor China, too.
Mind you, it gets complicated when you consider America has many capable allies. But herding those cats is difficult. And gives China opportunities to split the alliance.
The author's bottom line about how we allegedly underplay dialogue and diplomacy in favor of military power?
[A] report by the Quincy Institute that proposed a new U.S. defense strategy for Asia points out that the answer is not to simply race to reestablish U.S. military superiority in the region: “Efforts by the United States to restore military dominance in the region through offensive strategies of control . . . would . . . prove financially unsustainable; they could also backfire by exacerbating the risk of crises, conflict, and rapid escalation in a war.”
In the place where the risk of a U.S.-China conflict is most likely—Taiwan—a robust diplomatic strategy needs to be developed to accompany and supplant the emphasis on how to win a war with China.
So Taiwan is the most likely scenario for a U.S.-China war. You have to consider how China could win before America can gather its own forces and rally scattered allies. Taiwan, for example, is a scenario that China could absolutely win--if you check the Definitions Section for what a victory actually is.
Taiwan is China's most core of core interests that China claims it must achieve to restore China's glory and erase the Century of Humiliation. How does even robust diplomacy solve that problem and supplant the ability to defeat China in a war? Can we really figure out a way to sort of hand over Taiwan to China? Really?
If
China agrees to any compromise, assume China will press its advantage
over time to take total control. We watched Russia in Ukraine go from
"little green men" in Crimea in 2014, to subliminal war in the Donbas in
2015, to "frozen conflict" pressure through 2021, and then back to war--bigger and more destructive--in
2022. And now there is talk of compromise with Russia that would
convince Russia to only sort of take over Ukraine. Despite Russia's persistent claim that Ukraine must be restored to the Russian empire.
And when you click on one link in his article supporting his desire to see robust diplomacy supplant military power you see what the author thinks about American defense policy:
Sticking to the current strategy is not only economically wasteful, but will also make America and the world less safe.
The idea that American defense spending makes us and the world less safe is repulsive. It relies on the assumption that a Chinese victory without war is superior to a war that stops Chinese aggression.
It's essentially another "let the Wookie win" proposal.
Chinese defense spending makes the world near them less safe. Russian defense spending makes the countries near them less safe. North Korean and Iranian defense spending makes the world less safe. American defense spending helps keep the threats to safety down to a dull roar. And protects America. Lord, this guy isn't even up to the level of Fortress America thinking on defense policy.
Ultimately, I'm not happy with the need to defeat China. And I'm not confident we can calculate a lesser level of defense effort to deter China. I would prefer to distract China inland so it is too busy to focus its aggression out to sea. If robust diplomacy can do that, I'd be all in.
The author is from Responsible Statecraft. Which I've mentioned I find worthless as a source of national security policy thinking. As I read the article, I honestly started to get RS vibes and then saw that the author is with the outfit. So there you go.
I'm done with wasting my time on anything associated with RS.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
