Monday, May 30, 2005

Oh Non!

Well, France has officially rejected the EU Constitution in a referendum held yesterday. Even though France was one of the leading forces in the creation of the EU, and in recent years has optimistically viewed the EU as a counterweight to US power, in the end the French decided that they were too good to possibly share a system of government with a Muslim nation (as is my suspicion). Maybe this will only be a temporary protest, as was de Gaulle's departure from NATO in the late 60's, or maybe this will permanently derail any further EU consolidation; only time will tell.

Thoughts/ comments welcome.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

A response to "How we would fight China"

First, go read Robert Kaplan's article "How We Would Fight China" in the June 2005 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Only then read this: (adapted from an e-mail exchange I had on the subject)

Good stuff. 2 immediate priorities I see are: 1) countering China's soft power propaganda & convince Asian governments that a rearmed Japan (firmly allied with the US) is not a threat but an asset, and 2) moving away from a program of new missile development & instead shoring up our conventional forces.

First, China has a viable second strike capability and will increase its arsenal if they see us doing the same, so a missile war can put us in a MAD (or near-MAD) showdown. Not to mention the fact that as horrific as a Chinese strike on a US population center would be, a US strike on a Chinese population center could be at least twice as deadly. Example: Chicago city proper, with a population of ± 3 million, is the 3rd largest city in the US. Chongqing city proper, with a population of ± 3.5 million, is only the *10th* largest city in China. We didn't hear much about Iraqi casualties during the "major combat" phase of OIF, but China's media machine is much, much more sophisticated and will doubtlessly play up the numbers. Any war with China has to stay conventional.

Second, no thanks to past Japanese aggression, China has been able to play victim and sell to Asian powers the line that its own military expansion is benign while anything Tokyo (or even Washington) does is aggressive. This remains our biggest soft power sticking point. Just as France has outgrown its fear of Germany, so too must the Pacific Rim outgrow its fear of Japan. Unfortunately, the only way I see this happening is for Japan to radically outspend the Chinese at their own game. In addition to business and humanitarian investment, Japan needs to prove that its military will be used for good - interdiction of pirates, joint counter-terrorism training, etc. (An adept Japanese PM will be able to sell this domestically by stressing the need to safeguard Japan's oil supply line.)

Tokyo has 1 more ace up its sleeve - its elite universities. Offer the best & brightest college bound Muslim student in, say, Indonesia the choice between no aid (& no mosque) at Xinhua or Peking U. vs. a full ride (& constitutional religious freedom) to Tokyo U. & see which one the kid picks. Australia, NZ, & Singapore can do the same to further dilute the appeal of China. Plus, there is high blowback risk but we could keep repeating the name "East Turkistan" in the Indonesian and Malaysian media.

On the subject of US power projection, specifically with PACCOM, I agree with Kaplan that the Navy needs to expand beyond Hawaii, Guam, & Japan. We should not overlook the fact that Australia & NZ have Oceanic territories as well. While there is the risk of a Turkey-style denial of use if the Navy relies on a Kiwi base in, say, Niue, I think there are also political advantages by confusing China as to the nature & identity of a Niuean target.

I do have a caveat about going down the Bismarckian approach, which is that the very system Bismarck set up, either because of inherent weak points in the system or later incompetent management, or both, directly led to World War I. Agreed, a Bismarckian approach is more feasible with long-term strategic planning by career military officers instead of civilians who may change with every administration. But ultimately control rests with the civilians - SecDef, the President, and Congress. Here, a consistent foreign/national security policy that withstands changes in administrations is critical.

I think Kaplan paints a rosier picture of US/European cooperation in Asia than I would. The arms embargo issue is still unresolved, and is part of a larger issue. So far the Bush administration has not been too enthusiastic about the EU's rapid-reaction force. But this is precisely the kind of major military expenditure that would boost declining defense/technology industries in Europe (in turn lowering unemployment, perhaps Europe's 2nd biggest threat to stability, next to terrorism) - providing them an alternative to selling to China. Though the US role in physically creating such a force is minimal, politically the US can lay the groundwork to hand over to the EU force our current commitments in the Balkans (as well as augment the UN/AU forces in Cote d'Ivoire, Darfur, & Congo). The work of modernizing (& democratizing) the forces of the former Soviet bloc is & should continue to be the work of the OSCE. Meanwhile, I think NATO should reconceptualize itself as a forum for joint US/European missions on a global scale - Afghanistan, Iraq, the tsunami, etc. This arrangement, I believe, would give everyone a role that does not overlap and would prevent the kind of strategic competition between the US and an EU military force that Kaplan fears.

As for China itself, I don't know if I'm an optimist or pessimist. Best case scenario that I can see, within the next 10 years, is the bursting of China's economic bubble. Beijing has so far been very good at reacting to potential economic crisis, but what it's doing is like the carnival game of hitting pop-up bunnies with a rubber mallet. Jiang Zemin struggled to define a market-friendly socialist ideology for the next century, and all he could come up with was the nearly incomprehensible "3 Represents". I don't think it can be done. There's just so much unsustainability due to the lack of transparent business & governmental auditing, open civil society lobbying, and judicial independence (not to mention still-endemic levels of rural poverty). An all out economic crisis will be messy (which is what the CCP doesn't want), but so is chemo - and some economic chemo is what China needs.

Most, if not all, of the US' (and Taiwan's) geo-strategic pickles in east Asia would be solved by some kind regime change in China that breaks the CCP's chokehold on power. We can start by buying back that (growing) portion of the national debt held by Chinese banks. We can start by passing legislation (in the spirit of SOX) requiring US companies investing in China to demand more transparent auditing from their Chinese partners (or better yet, use the WTO to do this). By switching domestically to alternative fuels, any rise in oil prices due to Chinese demand will serve to cool them off instead of dampening us. But I'm afraid these are 3 things that the Bush administration lacks the vision and the courage to do.

Call me a constructivist, but I've never believed in discrete spheres of domestic & foreign policy. What we need is a unified strategy toward China, instead of the schizophrenic mess we've got now. We want them to pull their own weight on UN peacekeeping, but we're worried about their expanding blue water navy. We want them to bully North Korea into disarming but we sit back and let Koizumi & Singh dream big about Security Council seats. We rap their knuckles in State Department human rights reports but we give them permanent MFN status. We talk of limiting outsourcing but Wal-Mart still buys billions in imports. None of this can end well, it can only end less badly.

Comments/corrections welcome.