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Assessing the Value of the Lariat Advance Exercise Relative to the Louisiana Maneuvers for Preparing the U.S. Army for Large-Scale Combat Operations

James Greer is retired U.S. Army Officer and an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies.  You can follow him on Twitter @jameskgreer77.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing the Value of the Lariat Advance Exercise Relative to the Louisiana Maneuvers for Preparing the U.S. Army for Large-Scale Combat Operations

Date Originally Written:  March 20, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  April 19, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is a retired military officer who served in the Cold War and now instructs officers who will likely lead the U.S. Army and Joint Force in future competition and conflicts.

Summary:  The U.S. Army’s organization and doctrine for Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) are correct.  The Army lacks exercising multi-echelon command and control (C2), which was key to victories in Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.  If the U.S. Army resurrects a training event, the Cold War C2-focused Lariat Advance[1], is of more value than a new version of the Louisiana Maneuvers[2], to ensure future victory in LCSO.

Text:  The Louisiana Maneuvers were one of the great achievements in Army history. With little recent combat experience, rapidly expanding toward Corps and Armies in size but only having a small cadre of professionals, and confronted by large scale, mechanized warfare, the Army entering World War II, was largely unprepared. The Louisiana Maneuvers enabled the Army to understand that huge gulf between their capabilities in 1941 and the capabilities needed to compete with Axis forces in World War II. The maneuvers were eminently successful, enabling rapid development of doctrine, organizational training, systems, and logistics needed to fight high tempo, mechanized, integrated air-ground campaigns.

For today’s Army many of the challenges facing the Army of 1941 are not a problem. Today’s Army is a professional one, whose squads, platoons and companies are well trained, manned by volunteers, led by seasoned Non-Commissioned and Officers with professional military education and combat experience. Current Army doctrine is about right for LSCO, whether the Army fights tomorrow or in five years. Army organizations are balanced combined arms teams, coupled with a task organization process that enables force tailoring at every echelon to situation and mission requirements.

The present challenge is not that of the Army of 1941 that engaged in the Louisiana Maneuvers. Instead, the challenge is that this is an Army that has all the necessary pieces and parts, but has had little opportunity to put them together, routinely and consistently, in a way that will develop the excellence in multi-echelon operations necessary for victory in LSCO.

On November 8, 1990, VII Corps, stationed in Germany, was alerted and ordered to deploy to Saudi Arabia[3]. In Saudi Arabia, VII Corps would immediately move north, assemble into a coherent corps of multiple divisions, cavalry regiments, and separate brigades and conduct operations to defeat the Iraqi Republican Guard Corps and eject the Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Consider the challenge. VII Corps had spent the last 40 years preparing to defend in the hills, valleys, forests, and towns of Germany against an attacking Warsaw Pact foe. What they were being asked to do upon their arrival to Saudi Arabia was the exact opposite. Instead of defending, they were going to attack. Instead of rolling wooded and built-up terrain, they were going to maneuver across the flat open desert. And, they were going to do so over a distance of hundreds of kilometers when they had planned on defending Germany with a depth of a few dozen kilometers. Ultimately, there were many reasons for the U.S. overwhelming victory in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, most of which have been detailed elsewhere. But, one factor that is rarely written about is command and control, and, more specifically, multi-echelon C2.

Today’s Army has long had strong home station training programs that are effective in building competent and capable squads, platoons, and companies. And, for almost 4 decades now the U.S. Army has had Combat Training Centers[4] that enable effective training of battalions and brigades as combined arms teams. Finally, since 1987 the U.S. Army has had a Mission Command Training Program that trains the headquarters of Division and Corps[5].

What the Army has not had for more than three decades, since the end of the Cold War, is the means to put those three components together. Since Desert Storm, the only time the Army has fought a corps that consisted of multiple divisions and brigades was during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 when V Corps attacked north into Iraq. And, since the last REFORGER in 1993[6], the Army has conducted no training with entire Corps or Divisions, exercising C2 and operations. This year’s Defender Exercise will be an initial proof of principle of large-scale formation training similar to REFORGER, but expensive and not Army-wide[7].

Ultimately, headquarters at all echelons (Corps, Division, Brigade, Battalion, and Company) exist for one reason and one reason only. These headquarters translate the vision and decisions of the senior commander into reality on the ground through execution by platoons, sections, squads, crews and teams. The reason that VII Corps was as successful as it was under unbelievably challenging conditions during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm was because its various headquarters were able to do exactly that. And the only reason that they were able to take vision and decision and translate it into actions in orders was because they had practiced it over and over and over again.

For decades every month at a random and / or unknown time every unit in Germany would be alerted for deployment within two hours to be able to fight the Warsaw Pact and defend NATO as part of Lariat Advance. Every division, regiment, brigade, whether maneuver, fires, intelligence, protection, communications or support and every Soldier from Private to General would drop whatever they were doing and prepare to fight. And, the first thing they would do is establish communications from Corps down to the squad and every echelon in between. Then, they would execute some set of orders, whether a simple readiness inspection, or a deployment to a local dispersal area, or a 3-day field exercise. That meant every month the Corps exercised C2, commanders and staffs coordinated together, orders were given and executed, and the three components of small units, larger units, and formations were integrated together into a cohesive team. And, the lessons learned from Lariat Advance produced terrain walks, tactical exercises without troops, and command field exercises, led by commanders at all echelons, enabling the synchronization and integration necessary for victory in LSCO. While the Army’s doctrine and organization for LCSO is correct, it is out of practice in multi-echelon C2, which is why a return to Lariat Advance is more valuable than Louisiana Maneuvers for defeating a peer competitor in LSCO.

Endnotes:

[1] Wilson, W.B. (2015, June). The Fulda Gap. The Blackhorse Association. https://www.blackhorse.org/history-of-the-fulda-gap

[2] Gabel, C. (1992). The U.S. Army GHQ maneuvers of 1941. Center of Military History.

[3] Bourque, S. (2002). Jayhawk! The VII Corps in the Persian Gulf War. Center of Military History.

[4] Kitfield, J. (1995). Prodigal soldiers: How the generation of officers born of Vietnam revolutionized the american style of war. Simon and Schuster.

[5] Kahan, J., Worley, D., Holroyd, S., Pleger, L., and Stasz, C. (1989). Implementing the Battle Command Training Program. RAND.

[6] Citino, R. (2004). Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The evolution of operational warfare. University of Kansas.

[7] U.S. Army Europe and Africa Public Affairs (2021). Defender – Europe 21activities begin this month. U.S. Army. https://www.army.mil/article/244260/defender_europe_21_activities_begin_this_month_include_two_dozen_nations

Cold War James Greer Major Regional Contingency Option Papers Training U.S. Army United States
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Assessing the Application of a Cold War Strategic Framework to Establish Norms in the Cyber Threat Environment

Jason Atwell is an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and a Senior Manager with FireEye, Inc. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing the Application of a Cold War Strategic Framework to Establish Norms in the Cyber Threat Environment

Date Originally Written:  December 28, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  March 29, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The article is written from the point of view of the United States and its Western allies as they seek to impose order on the increasingly fluid and frequently volatile cyber threat environment.

Summary:  The continued growth and maturity of cyber operations as a means of state sponsored espionage and, more recently, as a potential weapon of war, has generated a need for an “accepted” strategic framework governing its usage. To date, this framework remains unestablished. Cold War strategic frameworks could help govern the future conduct of cyber operations between nation states and bring some semblance of order to this chaotic battlespace.

Text:  The cyber threat environment continues to evolve and expand. Threat vectors like ransomware, a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid, are now daily subjects for discussion among leaders in the public and private sectors alike. It is against this backdrop that high-level initiatives like the Cyberspace Solarium Commission have sought to formulate comprehensive, whole-of-government strategies for dealing with cyber threats and developing capabilities. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute for Standards in Technology issues a steady stream of best practices for cyber risk management and hygiene. Yet, no comprehensive framework to govern cyber operations at the macro, nation-to-nation level, has emerged and been able to achieve buy-in from all the affected parties. In fact, there are not even useful norms limiting the risk in many of these cyber interactions[1]. Industry leaders as well have lamented the lack of a coherent doctrine that governs relations in cyberspace and discourages the violating of doctrinal norms[2]. In some ways the Cold War norms governing armed conflict, espionage, and economic competition can be used to provide much needed stability to cyber and cyber-enabled operations. In other ways, the framing of current problems in Cold War vocabulary and rhetoric has proved unworkable at best and counterproductive at worst. 

Applying the accepted framework of great power interactions that was established during the Cold War presents both opportunities and challenges when it comes to the cyber threat environment. The rules which governed espionage especially, however informal in nature, helped to ensure both sides knew the red lines for conduct and could expect a standard response to common activities. On the individual level, frameworks like the informal “Moscow Rules” governed conduct and helped avoid physical confrontations[3]. When those rules were violated, and espionage came into the open, clear consequences were proscribed via precedent. These consequences made the use of persona-non-grata expulsions, facility closures, the use of neutral territories, exchanges and arrests were predictable and useful controls on behavior and means to avoid escalation. The application of these consequences to cyber, such as the closure of Russian facilities and expulsion of their diplomats has been used[4], however to little or no apparent effect as administrations have changed their approach over time. This uneven application of norms as cyber capabilities have advanced may in fact be leading the Russians in particular to abandon the old rules altogether[5]. In other areas, Cold War methods have been specifically avoided, such as the manner in which Chinese cyber operators have been indicted for the theft of intellectual property. Lowering this confrontation from high-level diplomatic brinkmanship to the criminal courts both prevents a serious confrontation while effectively rendering any consequences moot due to issues with extradition and prosecution. The dynamics between the U.S. and China have attracted a lot of discussion framed in Cold War terminology[6]. Indeed, the competition with China has many of the same hallmarks as the previous U.S.-Soviet Union dynamic[7]. What is missing is a knowledge of where the limits to each side’s patience lie when it comes to cyber activity. 

Another important component of Cold War planning and strategy was an emphasis on continuity of operations and government authority and survivability in a crisis. This continuity was pursued as part of a deterrence model where both sides sought to either convince the other that they would endure a confrontation and / or decisively destroy their opposition. Current cyber planning tends to place an emphasis on the ability to achieve overmatch without placing a similar emphasis on resilience on the friendly side. Additionally, deterrence through denial of access or geophysical control cannot ever work in cyberspace due to its inherently accessible and evolving nature[8]. Adopting a mindset and strategic framework based on ensuring the ability of command and control networks to survive and retaliate in this environment will help to impose stability in the face of potentially devastating attacks involving critical infrastructure[9]. It is difficult to have mutually assured destruction in cyberspace at this phase, because “destruction” is still nebulous and potentially impossible in cyberspace, meaning that any eventual conflict that begins in that domain may still have to turn kinetic before Cold War models begin to function.

As cyber capabilities have expanded and matured over time, there has been an apparent failure to achieve consensus on what the red lines of cyber confrontation are. Some actors appear to abide by general rules, while others make it a point of exploring new ways to raise or lower the bar on acceptable actions in cyberspace. Meanwhile, criminals and non-aligned groups are just as aggressive with their operations as many terrorist groups were during the height of the Cold War, and they are similarly frequently used or discarded by nation states depending on the situation and the need. However, nation states on the two sides were useful bulwarks against overzealous actions, as they could exert influence over the actions of groups operating from their territory or abusing their patronage. Espionage in cyberspace will not stop, nor can a framework anticipate every possible scenario that my unfold. Despite these imperfections, in the future an issue like the SolarWinds breach could lead to a series of escalatory actions a la the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the cyber threat environment could be governed by a Strategic Arms Limitation Talk-like treaty which bans cyber intrusions into global supply chains[10]. Applying aspects of the Cold War strategic framework can begin to bring order to the chaos of the cyber threat environment, while also helping highlight areas where this framework falls short and new ways of thinking are needed.

Endnotes:

[1] Bremmer, I., & Kupchan, C. (2021, January 4). Risk 6: Cyber Tipping Point. Retrieved February 12, 2021, from https://www.eurasiagroup.net/live-post/top-risks-2021-risk-6-cyber-tipping-point 

[2] Brennan, M., & Mandia, K. (2020, December 20). Transcript: Kevin MANDIA on “Face the Nation,” December 20, 2020. Retrieved February 12, 2021, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-kevin-mandia-on-face-the-nation-december-20-2020/ 

[3] Sanger, D. (2016, December 29). Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/us/politics/russia-election-hacking-sanctions.html 

[4] Zegart, A. (2021, January 04). Everybody Spies in Cyberspace. The US Must Plan Accordingly. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/01/everybody-spies-cyberspace-us-must-plan-accordingly/171112/

[5] Devine, J., & Masters, J. (2018, March 15). Has Russia Abandoned the Rules of Spy-Craft? Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://www.cfr.org/interview/are-cold-war-spy-craft-norms-fading 

[6] Buchanan, B., & Cunningham, F. (2020, December 18). Preparing the Cyber Battlefield: Assessing a Novel Escalation risk in A Sino-American Crisis. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://tnsr.org/2020/10/preparing-the-cyber-battlefield-assessing-a-novel-escalation-risk-in-a-sino-american-crisis/ 

[7] Sayers, E. (2021, February 9). Thoughts on the Unfolding U.S.-Chinese Competition: Washington’s Policy Towards Beijing Enters its Next Phase. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://warontherocks.com/2021/02/thoughts-on-the-unfolding-u-s-chinese-competition-washingtons-policy-towards-beijing-enters-its-next-phase/ 

[8] Borghard, E., Jensen, B., & Montgomery, M. (2021, February 05). Elevating ‘Deterrence By Denial’ in U.S. Defense Strategy. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/02/05/elevating_deterrence_by_denial_in_us_defense_strategy_659300.html 

[9] Borghard, E. (2021, January 04). A Grand Strategy Based on Resilience. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/a-grand-strategy-based-on-resilience/ 

[10] Lubin, A. (2020, December 23). SolarWinds as a Constitutive Moment: A New Agenda for International Law of Intelligence. Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://www.justsecurity.org/73989/solarwinds-as-a-constitutive-moment-a-new-agenda-for-the-international-law-of-intelligence/

Arms Control Assessment Papers Below Established Threshold Activities (BETA) Cold War Cyberspace Governing Documents and Ideas Jason Atwell Soviet Union Treaties and Agreements United States
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Assessing the Fungibility of U.S.-Soviet Competitive Strategies

James P. Micciche is a U.S. Army Strategist and Civil Affairs Officer with deployment and service experience in the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan, Europe, and Indo-Pacific. He is currently the G5 at the Security Forces Assistance Command and can be found on Twitter @james_micciche. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing the Fungibility of U.S.-Soviet Competitive Strategies 

Date Originally Written:  February 13, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  March 22, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes that replicating Soviet Cold War strategy will not guarantee the United States success vis-à-vis China in 2021.  Rather than simply replicating Cold War strategy, the United States’ time would be better spent developing a deeper understanding of itself, its rival, and the operating environment. 

Summary:  Nations build successful competitive strategies around a comprehensive understanding of themselves, their rivals, and the environment in which they compete. As the United States and China enter a geopolitical rivalry there is merit in studying the strategy the United States implemented against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Albeit earlier success, the geopolitical environment of 2021 limits core tenets of U.S. Soviet strategy, requiring a more precise knowledge of the modern milieu to succeed.

Text:  Over the past decade U.S. foreign policy has increasingly focused on a rising geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In 2011, the Obama administration implemented a “pivot to the pacific[1],” establishing a cooperative policy to counter rising Chinese influence throughout the region. The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy, which mentions China 36 times, directly outlined both the global and regional challenges China represents to “American security and prosperity[2].” In his first foreign policy speech President Biden declared his administration will, “take on directly the challenges posed to our prosperity, security, and democratic values by our most serious competitor, China[3].”  

Sino-focused policy and rhetoric from three consecutive U.S. Presidential administrations has led policymakers, academics, and even the media to declare the United States and China are entering, or already in, a new Cold War. Codifying the relationship between the two powers as Cold War 2.0 creates a dangerous perception that implementing the same strategies used throughout the U.S.-Soviet Cold War will lead to a successful outcome for the United States over China.  While there is much utility in studying the competitive strategy utilized by the United States that contained Soviet expansion and facilitated the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) one cannot simply re-operationalize previous USSR-focused tenets against China and expect similar results.  J.C. Wylie warns of crafting strategy based solely on past success, “such a theory does not necessarily account for what could have happened but did not, and the theory cannot be applied to future events with consistent rigor[4].”  

The lack of fungibility of Soviet-era U.S. Policy to modern Sino-U.S. competition is predicated on the vast differences in the strategic operating environment between the two time periods. Due to the information age, hyper globalization, geographical differences, and the decreasing utility of military force many of the domain-specific advantages that the United States enjoyed in its 40-year struggle with the Soviet Union no longer exist or are in fact now beneficial to the PRC. This lack of domain-specific advantages nullifies portions of the successful U.S. competitive strategy utilized against the USSR which according to Gordon S. Barrass “was based on exploiting America’s sustainable comparative advantage[5].” 

To craft a comprehensive competitive strategy against China U.S. policy makers must understand the USSR and the PRC are different agents, as is the modern United States compared to the United States during the Cold War. Most importantly though, any successful strategy must first define and then operationalize the constraints, challenges, and opportunities that the strategic operating environment presents. 

The Cold War began in the aftermath of the Second World War in which most of Europe and large parts of Asia had suffered immense damage to infrastructure and staggering loss of life. Out of this geopolitical situation emerged a bipolar balance of power between the two nations best positioned at the end of the war: the USSR and the United States. Inversely, the rise of the Sino-U.S. rivalry has occurred in one of the most stable and peaceful time periods in modern history in terms of the number of interstate conflicts. Japan and Germany highlight how dissimilar the starting points between these two rivalries are as those two nations barely had functioning economies in 1947 and now represent the 3rd and 4th largest in terms of Gross Domestic Product[6].  In fact, scholars debate the very balance of power of the modern paradigm with scholastic descriptions ranging from unipolarity[7] to nonpolarity[8],a drastic difference from the bipolarity of 1947-1991. 

The development and expansion of the liberal rules base international order following World War 2 created an underlying hegemonic structure the Soviets were not part of. Instead, the USSR championed an ideological alternative system. Due to hyper globalization and its inclusion in multiple organizations and instruments of the liberal world order, China has become an integral and interdependent part of the global economic and diplomatic network. A revisionist actor who benefits from the same system as its primary competitor will attempt “rules-based revision[9]” by changing the system internally for its benefits, something the USSR could not attempt in the Cold War due to its isolation from and competition against the American led system. For example, in 2019 China accounted for the largest amount of U.S. imports and was the third largest destination for U.S. exports[10], a level of economic interdependence that was unheard of between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and a limiting factor to the types of strategies the U.S. can use against China, particularly in an environment in which military force is not as fungible as it once was[11].

Another marked difference is the ideological exportation of the USSR and the PRC. Throughout the Cold War the USSR and its allies attempted to export communism and while China is a “communist” nation it has not taken up the charge of fomenting a global socialist revolution since the USSR’s fall and in fact been a major part of global capitalism.  Rather, China exports a form of autocratic ideology through loans, projects, and technology enabling authoritarian regimes and leaders to stay in power and establishing corrupt and beneficial relationships for China across the globe especially in developing nations.

The final variance between the two periods is the diffusion of national barriers in the information age. Propaganda and information operations were significant facets of U.S. and Soviet strategies, but their effects were mitigated and diffused by national barriers.  In 2021 states bypass borders directly targeting select populations of rival states. This capability is not uniform and creates a glaring asymmetry between democracies and autocracies as the latter uses the former’s inherent liberties to “cut, razor-like, into the fabric of a society, stoking and amplifying existing divisions[12].” 

The successful competitive strategy the United States operationalized against the USSR in the latter half of the Cold War was predicated on detailed understanding of not just the adversary but more importantly the strategic environment. As the United States reenters a period that some are labeling a new Cold War, it will not succeed as it did against the USSR without redeveloping a comprehensive understanding of itself, its adversary, and the paradigm before it applies any previously successful framework.

Endnotes:

[1] Manyin, M. E., Daggett, S., Dolven, B., Lawrence, S. V., Martin, M. F., O’Rourke, R., & Vaughn, B. (2012, March). Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s” Rebalancing” Toward Asia. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DC CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE.

[2] Trump, D. J. (2017). National security strategy of the United States of America. Executive Office of The President Washington DC Washington United States.

[3] Biden, Joseph, (2021, February 4). Remarks by President Biden on America’s Place in the World (transcript). The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/

[4] Wylie Jr, J. C. (2014). Military strategy: a general theory of power control. Naval Institute Press. Pg. 58

[5] Barrass, Gordon. (2012) U.S. Competitive Strategy During the Cold War. Mahnken, T. G. (Ed.). (2012). Competitive strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, history, and practice. Stanford University Press. 86-87

[6] World Bank, World Development Indicators, (2019), GDP (current US$){Data file}. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true&year_high_desc=true

[7] Sears, Nathan A. (2016). China, Russia, and the Long ‘Unipolar Moment.’ The Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2016/04/china-russia-and-the-unipolar-moment/

[8] Haass, R. N. (2008). The age of nonpolarity: what will follow US dominance. Foreign affairs, 44-56.

[9] Goddard, S. E. (2018). Embedded revisionism: Networks, institutions, and challenges to world order. International Organization, 72(4), 763-797.

[10] Office of the United States Trade Representatives. (2019). The People’s Republic of China. Country and Regions. https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china#:~:text=China%20is%20currently%20the%20United,was%20%24345.2%20billion%20in%202019.

[11] Baldwin, D. A. (1999). Force, fungibility, and influence.

[12] Walker, C., & Ludwig, J. (2017). From ‘soft power’to ‘sharp power’: Rising authoritarian influence in the democratic world. Sharp power: Rising authoritarian influence, 8-25

 

Assessment Papers China (People's Republic of China) Cold War Competition Economic Factors Governing Documents and Ideas James P. Micciche Soviet Union United States
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Cold War Transferability, or Not: Assessing Industrial Constraints and Naval Power After Long Land Wars

Michael D. Purzycki is a researcher, analyst, writer and editor based in Arlington, Virginia. He is a former communications and media analyst for the United States Marine Corps. He writes regularly for Charged Affairs (the journal of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy) and Braver Angels, and has also been published in Merion West, Washington Monthly, the Truman National Security Project, France 24, and Arc Digital. He can be found on Twitter at @MDPurzycki and on Medium at https://medium.com/@mdpurzycki. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Cold War Transferability or Not: Assessing Industrial Constraints and Naval Power After Long Land Wars

Date Originally Written:  February 10, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  March 21, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes the role of naval power to the United States in confronting China in the 2020s is similar to its role in confronting the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He also sees economic and geopolitical similarities between the two eras.

Summary:  U.S. policymakers can learn from the last decade of the Cold War as they consider how to respond to China’s military, geopolitical, and economic ambitions. There are significant similarities between America’s situation forty years ago and its situation today, especially regarding manufacturing, trade, the defense industrial base (DIB), the exhaustion of U.S. land forces, and the importance of naval strength.

Text:  The United States in the 2020s finds itself in a position in relation to China similar to its position in relation to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have soured most Americans on extended land conflicts, much as the Vietnam War had by its conclusion in 1975. Likewise, U.S. worries about an aggressive and revisionist Chinese foreign policy (territorial claims in the South China Sea, harassment of Japanese vessels, attacks on Indian troops) parallel worries about Soviet foreign policy four decades ago (invasion of Afghanistan, continued grip on Eastern Europe, support for militant leftist forces like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Libération Front or FMLN in El Salvador). In both cases, there are reasons to worry armed conflict will break out between the U.S. and its rival power.

However, there are also differences. While China’s military threat to U.S. interests parallels the Soviet Union’s, China’s economic position differs greatly. The Soviet economy in the 1980s was stagnant[1]. China, on the other hand, while it faces long-term economic challenges, has enjoyed decades of rapid growth[2]. China’s wealth has allowed it not only to greatly expand its military, but also to engage in economic statecraft on a massive scale, most notably through the Belt and Road Initiative.

In some regards, the U.S. faces economic difficulties today similar to those of forty years ago, including ways that affect national security. The loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the 21st century[3] has, among other effects, weakened the DIB[4][5]. Similarly, defense experts in the early 1980s expressed concern that America’s manufacturing sector would be unable to meet the military’s needs[6].

The reasons for America’s manufacturing struggles, however, are different now, as is the relationship between those struggles and America’s geopolitical concerns. Four decades ago, America’s main economic rivals were military allies, Japan and West Germany. While there were several reasons for the relative decline of U.S. manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s, one was the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to friendly countries (partly as a result of U.S. trade policy)[7]. While the U.S.-Chinese economic rivalry now is somewhat similar to U.S.-Japanese rivalry then, it is one thing for American jobs to go to an ally, and another for them to go to a potential foe.

China’s gains relative to the U.S., unlike Japan’s, have been both military and economic. And while Japan’s economic boom after World War II was possible because it enjoyed U.S. military protection[8], factors in China’s rise have included U.S. policy (the granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations in 2000, paving the way for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization)[9], and hostile actions (forcing U.S. companies to share intellectual property with the Chinese government, or else simply stealing it)[10][11], as well as Beijing’s policies of national development.

The perceived shortfalls of the DIB forty years ago led some observers to emphasize U.S. naval power as the most efficient, effective way to check a possible Soviet attack[12]. With the U.S. Army dispirited after the Vietnam War, and the Red Army strengthening its presence and power in Eastern Europe[13], a greater reliance on naval power made sense. While this emphasis on U.S. naval power was coupled with a Western misperception of Soviet naval intentions – the U.S. expected the Soviet Navy to venture far from home during a war, which it did not plan to do[14] – America’s historic position as a maritime nation positioned it well for a reliance on maritime might.

Similarly, the stresses places on U.S. land forces by nearly two decades of war in the greater Middle East lend weight to the idea of emphasizing naval strength when confronting China. Also, the difference in the nature of America’s treaty allies (i.e., North Atlantic Treaty Organization members directly bordering the Warsaw Pact compared to Japan and the Philippines near China but offshore) makes naval preeminence sensible. The fact that the Pacific is wider and takes longer to cross from the continental United States than the Atlantic is also a driving force.

Then as now, there are different schools of thought as to what precise shape the U.S. Navy should take. Proposals for a 355-ship navy, and then a 500-ship navy, put forward in the past few years parallel U.S. President Reagan’s goal of a 600-ship navy. However, an attempt at a rapid buildup has downsides. The huge increases in the costs of the F-35 and the Littoral Combat Ship illustrate the perils of trying to buy too much, too quickly[15][16].

Convinced that the DIB’s weakness in the early 1980s would not allow the U.S. to overwhelm the Soviets with conventional forces in a war, some defense observers, such as U.S. Senator Gary Hart, sought to emphasize Maneuver Warfare, with the goal of outthinking the Soviets[17]. The Maneuver Warfare camp worried about a U.S. overreliance on large aircraft carriers, and suggested complementing them with smaller carriers[18]. This is strikingly similar to former Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer’s talk of using America-class amphibious assault ships as “lightning carriers[19].” A 2017 report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments also recommended construction of small carriers (CVLs) and continued building of larger ones[20]. The Navy’s decision to decommission the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard after its damage by a fire, combined with Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger’s expressed interest in deemphasizing the Marines’ reliance on large ships for amphibious operations, provide an opportunity to put the lightning carrier concept to the test[21].

As the Biden administration considers how to approach the challenge of China, it can learn from a past period of superpower rivalry, but must also bear differences between the two eras in mind. 

Endnotes:

[1] Trachtenberg, Marc. “Assessing Soviet Economic Performance During the Cold War: A Failure of Intelligence?” Texas National Security Review, February 2018. https://tnsr.org/2018/02/assessing-soviet-economic-performance-cold-war/

[2] Purdy, Mark. “China’s Economy, in Six Charts.” Harvard Business Review, November 29, 2013. https://hbr.org/2013/11/chinas-economy-in-six-charts#:~:text=China’s%20economy%20has%20entered%20a,China’s%20GDP%E2%80%9D%20chart%20below)

[3] Long, Heather. “U.S. has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000.” CNN Business, March 29, 2016. https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/29/news/economy/us-manufacturing-jobs/

[4] Herman, Arthur. “Bringing the Factories Home.” Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2020. https://www.hudson.org/research/16236-bringing-the-factories-home

[5] Tadjdeh, Yasmin. “Report Finds U.S. Defense Industrial Base in Decline.” National Defense, February 5, 2020. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/2/5/defense-industrial-base-earns-c-grade-in-new-report

[6] Rothenberg, Randall. The Neoliberals: Creating the New American Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984, pp. 114-120. https://www.amazon.com/neoliberals-Creating-new-American-politics/dp/0671458817

[7] Atkinson, Robert D. and Michael Lind. “National Developmentalism: From Forgotten Tradition to New Consensus.” American Affairs, Summer 2019. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/national-developmentalism-from-forgotten-tradition-to-new-consensus/

[8] Ibid

[9] Salam, Reihan. “Normalizing Trade Relations With China Was a Mistake.” Atlantic, June 8, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/06/normalizing-trade-relations-with-china-was-a-mistake/562403/

[10] Shane, Daniel. “How China gets what it wants from American companies.” CNN Business, April 5, 2018. https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/05/news/economy/china-foreign-companies-restrictions/index.html

[11] Rosenbaum, Eric. “1 in 5 corporations say China has stolen their IP within the last year: CNBC CFO survey.” CNBC, March 1, 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-stole-their-ip-within-the-last-year-cnbc.html

[12] Rothenberg, pp. 114-120

[13] Federation of American Scientists. “Soviet Military Power: Chapter III – Theater Forces.” 1984. https://fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_84_ch3.htm

[14] Alman, David. “Convoy Escort: The Navy’s Forgotten (Purpose) Mission.” War on the Rocks, December 30, 2020. https://warontherocks.com/2020/12/convoy-escort-the-navys-forgotten-purpose-mission

[15] Insinna, Valerie. “Inside America’s Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar Fighter-Jet Program.” New York Times, August 21, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint-strike-fighter-program.html

[16] Roblin, Sébastien. “The Navy spent $30B and 16 years to fight Iran with a littoral combat ship that doesn’t work.” NBC News, July 19, 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/navy-spent-30b-16-years-fight-iran-littoral-combat-ship-ncna1031806

[17] Rothenberg, pp. 114-120

[18] Ibid

[19] Eckstein, Megan. “Marines Test ‘Lightning Carrier’ Concept, Control 13 F-35Bs from Multiple Amphibs.” USNI News, October 23, 2019. https://news.usni.org/2019/10/23/marines-test-lightning-carrier-concept-control-13-f-35bs-from-multiple-amphibs

[20] Clark, Bryan, Peter Haynes, Jesse Sloman, Timothy A. Walton. “Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the United States Navy.” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, February 9, 2017. https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/restoring-american-seapower-a-new-fleet-architecture-for-the-united-states-

[21] “Commandant’s Planning Guidance: 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps.” https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/%2038th%20Commandant%27s%20Planning%20Guidance_2019.pdf?ver=2019-07-16-200152-700

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Options to Apply Cold War-Like Security Institutions to the Indo-Pacific

Michael Gardiner is a graduate student in International Relations at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He can be found on Twitter @Mikey_Gardiner_. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation:  As China continues to extend its influence in the Indo-Pacific region, this influence could be addressed by the development of security institutions.

Date Originally Written:  February 2, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  March 15, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  This article is written from the point of view of New Zealand’s security calculus and whether it should join the “QUAD Plus” if given the opportunity. The author believes a shift in New Zealand’s view of the Indo-Pacific can take advantage of regional changes in a “New Cold War.” 

Background:  The emergence of a New Cold War between the United States and China has catalysed significant changes to the Indo-Pacific’s security outlook. While not completely analogous to the original Cold War, there are discernible similarities between the past and the present. New security institutions have been created by both sides for the purposes of strategic competition. China has established alternative geo-economic institutions in the region such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and is interested in establishing alternative regional security institutions similar to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation[1]. A reinvigorated Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), which features the United States, Australia, India, and Japan, has been touted as a forthcoming “Asian North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)” by U.S. officials, and appears to be purpose-built to contain China’s regional ambitions[2]. 

China is naturally displeased with the QUAD’s revival, criticising the institution as representing a “Cold War mentality” and labelling it a “big underlying security risk[3].”  While its institutional arrangements are still relatively shallow, high-level meetings between QUAD officials has become more frequent since 2017. The QUAD harbours greater ambitions as a nascent NATO-esque institution in the Indo-Pacific. Expansion of QUAD membership in the long-term is possible, with the QUAD Plus incorporating New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam during a meeting in early 2020 at the vice-ministerial level[4]. 

Significance:  The formation of a QUAD Plus is underestimated in terms of its significance to the region’s geopolitics.  While the QUAD currently lacks the institutional requirements to fulfil its role as an Asian NATO, the idea of formalising QUAD into a collective security arrangement is gaining momentum. Other states will need to decide on how they will secure themselves in a new era of “Great Power Competition,” especially if they are pressured into choosing between the United States and China. The QUAD Plus membership requirements will be scrutinised by small states such as New Zealand, who rely heavily on trade with China for economic prosperity but lean on traditional partners for security. If the QUAD Plus becomes a viable security institution modelled off NATO in the future, New Zealand will need to assess its strategic options and interrogate the price of admission.  

Option #1:  New Zealand continues with the status quo – a hedging strategy which balances its economic relationship with China and security relationship with the United States. Under this option, New Zealand does not join the QUAD Plus. 

Risk:  New Zealand’s credibility among its traditional security partners takes another hit. New Zealand has already been singled out for being the “soft underbelly” of Five Eye[5]. After New Zealand’s Trade Minister Damien O’Connor suggested Australia should show more respect to China in January 2021, an Australian newspaper referred to the country as “New Xi-Land[6].” Not joining the QUAD Plus could negatively impact New Zealand’s reputation and endanger its traditional security partnerships.

Gain:  A more flexible strategy allows New Zealand to better navigate uncertainty. New Zealand affords itself time and greater manoeuvrability if the United States retrenches to focus on domestic issues. New Zealand can continue to reap the benefits of its free trade deal with China. This option can build on the Washington Declaration by improving New Zealand’s bilateral security relationship with the United States. New Zealand also remains a member of Five Eyes, thus securing the best of both worlds.  

Option #2:  New Zealand officially recognises China as a threat to the rules-based international order by joining the QUAD Plus. 

Risk:  Risks in this option include the high likelihood of jeopardising New Zealand’s economic relationship with China. New Zealand will have paid close attention to Beijing’s coercive diplomacy towards Australia, after China imposed punitive trade sanctions on Australian goods, restricted imports, and accused Australia of dumping wine[7]. As New Zealand recovers from the economic costs of the Covid-19 pandemic, angering China by joining the QUAD Plus could hinder New Zealand’s economic recovery, should Beijing set an example of New Zealand through measures comparable to those used in the Australian case. Depending on its level of institutionalisation, the QUAD Plus could significantly restrict New Zealand’s strategic options and tie the country down to unattractive commitments.

Gain:  New Zealand improves upon its moral standing as a defender of the rules-based international order. New Zealand’s reputation abroad as a fair-minded, peaceful nation improves the legitimacy and viability of the QUAD Plus as a bona-fide alliance network, attracting other countries in the region to join the institution. Membership within the QUAD Plus offers greater opportunities to diversify supply chains and develop stronger relationships with players like India. This option signals a renewed commitment to traditional security partners, avoiding the risks of Option #1. 

Other Comments:  None.

Recommendations:  None.

Endnotes:

[1] Parameswaran, Prashanth. October 19th 2016. The Diplomat. Can China Reshape Asia’s Security Architecture? Retrieved from: https://thediplomat.com/2016/10/can-china-shape-asias-security-architecture/

[2] Biegun, Stephen. August 31st 2020. U.S. Department of State. Deputy Secretary Biegun Remarks at the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum. Retrieved from: https://2017-2021.state.gov/deputy-secretary-biegun-remarks-at-the-u-s-india-strategic-partnership-forum/index.html

[3] Jaipragas, Bhavan & Tashny Sukumaran. 13th October 2020. South China Morning Post. ‘Indo-Pacific Nato’: China’s Wang Yi slams US-led ‘Quad’ as underlying security risk at Malaysia meeting. Retrieved from: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3105299/indo-pacific-nato-chinas-wang-yi-slams-us-led-quad-underlying

[4] Grossman, Derek. April 9th 2020. The RAND Blog. Don’t Get Too Excited, ‘Quad Plus’ Meetings Won’t Cover China. Retrieved from: https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/04/dont-get-too-excited-quad-plus-meetings-wont-cover.html

[5] Satherley, Dan. 31st May 2018. Newshub. NZ labelled ‘soft underbelly’ of Five Eyes spy network in Canadian report. Retrieved from: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/05/nz-labelled-soft-underbelly-of-five-eyes-spy-network-in-canadian-report.html

[6] Small, Zane. 29th January 2021. Newshub. Daily Telegraph newspaper’s ‘New Xi-land’ jab as China declares New Zealand ‘an example for Australia’. Retrieved from: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/01/daily-telegraph-newspaper-s-new-xi-land-jab-as-china-declares-new-zealand-an-example-for-australia.html

[7] Stitt, Ross. 2nd December 2020. Newsroom. Beware the dragon: What the Australia-China trade war means for NZ. Retrieved from: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/beware-the-dragon 

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Assessing Early Cold War Overestimations of Soviet Capabilities and Intent and its Applicability to Current U.S.- China Relations

Major John Bolton is a U.S. Army officer and doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. He previously commanded Bravo Company, 209th Aviation Support Battalion, served as the Executive Officer for 2-25 Assault Helicopter Battalion, and the Brigade Aviation Officer for 4/25 IBCT (Airborne). He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College’s Art of War Scholars Program and holds degrees in military history and mechanical engineering. An AH-64D/E Aviator, he has deployed multiple times with Engineer, Aviation, and Infantry units. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing Early Cold War Overestimations of Soviet Capabilities and Intent and its Applicability to Current U.S.- China Relations

Date Originally Written:  January 5, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  February 22, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is an Active Duty U.S. Army Officer attending a PhD program focused on American Foreign Policy. The author believes America tends to overestimate threat capabilities and too quickly resorts to military analysis or responses without considering better Whole of Government approaches. 

Summary:  Though it can illuminate adversaries’ worldview, when predicting actions, analyzing ideology is less effective than traditional balance of power frameworks. During the Cold War, American assumptions about a monolithic Communist block controlled by Moscow blinded American policymakers to opportunities (and challenges) from China to Vietnam. Even in ideological conflicts, states tend to act rationally in the international sphere.

Text:

“When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right[1].

– Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense

A paramount transferable Cold War lesson is the need to disconnect ideology from assessment of state behavior. During the initial stages of the Cold War (1947-1953), American administrations habitually overestimated Soviet military capability and viewed Soviet and Chinese actions through an East vs. West ideological lens that was often inaccurate. Moreover, American policymakers assumed ideological agreement easily translated into operational coordination, even when America and its allies could hardly manage to do so. As a result of this ideological focus, the United States expended resources and energy building far more nuclear weapons than balance required and unnecessarily shunned Communist China for over 20 years. Today this pattern is repeating as scholars and defense planners increasingly ascribe China’s actions to ideological, rather than geopolitical factors[2]. Or, failing to see the obvious, policymakers have coined new monikers such as “revisionist” toward normal, if aggressive, behavior. 

Ideology does far better in explaining a state’s domestic rather than international actions. Viewed using Waltz’s 3rd image (interstate interactions), states consider their interests and the balance of power, rather than what their domestic ideology demands[3]. As a result, interstate behavior is remarkably consistent with the balance of power. To be sure, some states are more aggressive than others due to ideology, governmental structure, or individual leaders. However, according to defense analysis geopolitical factors remain predominant as they have since the Peloponnesian War[4].

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s capitulation to Adolph Hitler’s demand at Munich in 1938 is widely considered to have contributed to the German invasion of Poland the following year. However, Chamberlain’s acquiesce to Hitler’s demands came as much from balance of power analysis based on British and French weakness as a desire for peace or pacifist leanings at home[5]. Had the Allies been better prepared for war; a more stable balance of power could have preempted, or at least stalled, Nazi aggression. 

American policy during the Cold War drew heavily from George Kennan’s 1946 “Long Telegram” and 1947 “X” article. Kennan, based on extensive personal experience, depicted the insular, paranoid nature of Soviet Stalinism. Such a state could not be changed but would eventually collapse as a result of a defunct government and sclerotic body politic[6]. As a result, Kennan recommended that the United States “contain” the Soviets within their current sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Though he stood by his description of Soviet society and his prognosis for the eventual demise of the Soviet System, Kennan would later distance himself from the aggressive form of containment adopted in his name[7].

Two brief examples illustrate the perils of assuming too much regarding an opponent’s ideology: the U.S.-Soviet “Missile Gap” and the American failure to foresee the Sino-Soviet Spilt. The “Missile Gap” was the alleged insufficiency of American nuclear forces relative to Soviet missiles that became a major talking point after the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik. Despite officials under U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower repeatedly providing intelligence demonstrating U.S.-Soviet parity, and a general qualitative and quantitative American superiority, then-senator John F. Kennedy and defense hawks lambasted the Eisenhower Administration as “weak” for the supposed failure to match Soviet arms[8]. The “gap,” however, never existed. Robert McNamara, President Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense later called the missile gap a “myth…[created] by emotionally guided but nonetheless patriotic individuals in the Pentagon[9].”

Likewise, American policy toward Communist China took a hard turn toward the ideological, isolating Communist China even more so than the Soviet Russia. Though a dedicated Marxist-Leninist, Chinese leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung was foremost a patriot, focused on restoring a strong, independent China. Soviet influence, much less command and control, was limited, especially when compared to communist movements in Europe. From the Chinese Communist (CCP) takeover in 1949 until the Korean War, many State Department officials believed that after 2-3 years the U.S. and China could renew relations – that Mao could function as an Asian counterpart to Tito’s relatively moderate communism in Yugoslavia[10]. After the Korean War, however, with Cold War frameworks hardened, American policymakers failed to see clear indications of the forthcoming Sino-Soviet split, despite ample evidence from as early as the end of WWII[11]. The net result was delaying for nearly forestalling for 20 years what became a highlight of American diplomacy, the U.S.-China rapprochement under Nixon.

For a nation so heavily committed to freedom, Americans have shown a strange persistent tendency to simplify other states to ideological stereotypes we discount for ourselves. This has terribly clouded the contemporary China debate. China as a competitor is a function of geopolitics, namely structural and geographic factors, more so than ideology[12]. This conclusion does not discount the importance of CCP ideology, but provides context. While Chinese President Xi Jinping and the CCP have espoused the “China Dream” and embraced a particularly aggressive form of Chinese Nationalism, this has not necessarily translated into China’s international actions, which are much better explained by balance of power analysis. As a growing state in a competitive environment, China’s actions make sense as it seeks to flex its power and establish regional supremacy. China’s history of foreign intrusion and suffering during the “Century of Humiliation” of course color its contemporary maneuvers, but they are not substantially different from what we would expect any emerging power to do. It is also worth considering that Xi’s use of nationalism is largely focused on domestic audiences as a means to consolidate CCP power[13].

Nothing in the previous paragraph discounts the very real challenge China presents to the United States and smaller states of Southeast Asia, two of which are American allies. However, Xi’s development of a Chinese sphere of influence, largely built on bilateral trade agreements is not necessarily about “freezing out” the United States. In short, China is not a Communist state focused on world domination; in fact, its xenophobic nationalism of late is detrimental to that end. China is focused on its own exceptionalism, not ending America’s[14]. 

A clear lesson of the Cold War is the danger of oversimplification. Doing so makes caricatures of real conflicts and leads to poor policy. In the examples above the United States lost 20 years of exploiting the Sino-Soviet Split and spent billions on arguably useless extra nuclear weapons. Moreover, a presumption that ideological coherence between disparate adversaries leads operational coordination is foolhardy without evidence. Even in the midst of an ideological conflict, it is best the United States detaches an overly simplistic ideological lens to properly respond with the most effective means at our disposal[15]. Analysis requires rationality. 

Endnotes:

[1] Zenko, Micah (October 12, 2012). 110% Right 0% of the Time, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/16/100-right-0-of-the-time.

[2] Huang, Yanzhong. (September 8, 2020). America’s Political Immune System Is Overreacting to China. From https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/08/america-overreacting-to-china-political-immune-system; Colby, Elbridge, discussion regarding State Department’s May 2020 China Policy Paper, from https://youtu.be/KyBVmSaua5I.

[3] Waltz, K. N. (2018). Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.159-170.

[4] Kaplan, R. D. (2013). The Revenge Of Geography: What The Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts And The Battle Against Fate.

[5] Munich Agreement, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement.

[6] See https://www.trumanlibraryinstitute.org/this-day-in-history-2/; Kennan, (July 1947). The Sources of Soviet Conduct, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct.

[7] Hogan, M. J. (1998). A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511664984

[8] Preble, Christopher (December 2003). “Who Ever Believed in the ‘Missile Gap’?”: John F. Kennedy and the Politics of National Security. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4. 

[9] McNamara quoted in Ibid. 

[10] See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The Far East: China, Volume VII, Documents 6, 270, 708, 617; Finkelstein, D. M. (1993). Washington’s Taiwan Dilemma, 1949-1950: From Abandonment to Salvation. George Mason University Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=8RW7AAAAIAAJ

[11] Butterworth, Walton. (May 1950). China in Mid-Revolution, Speech at Lawrenteville, NJ, May 1950, Butterworth Papers, George Marshall Library, Lexington, VA. Box 3, Folder 13.

[12] Lester, Simon. (January 6, 2019). Talking Ourselves into a Cold War with China. From https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/talking-ourselves-cold-war-china; Wang, Z. (2012). Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. Columbia University Press.

[13] Colby, Elbridge, discussion regarding State Department’s May 2020 China Policy Paper, from https://youtu.be/KyBVmSaua5I.

[14] Bacevich, Andrew. (January 4, 2021). America’s Defining Problem In 2021 Isn’t China: It’s America, from https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-defining-problem-in-2021-isnt-china-its-america.

[15] Herring, George. (2002). America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975. McGraw-Hill, 225-235.

Assessment Papers China (People's Republic of China) Cold War Governing Documents and Ideas John Bolton Policy and Strategy Russia Soviet Union
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The Merits and Perils of Containment: Assessing the American View of the Chinese Challenge

Brandon Patterson is a graduate student of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  The Merits and Perils of Containment: Assessing the American View of the Chinese Challenge

Date Originally Written:  December 28, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  February 15, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Brandon Patterson is a graduate student of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego. Brandon believes the Cold War concept of containment, at this point in history, is not fully applicable to the Chinese challenge to international order. 

Summary:  Containment retains a strong hold on American historical memory for both its hard-headed realism and its utopian vision which came to fruition. Attempting to graft Containment onto Sino-American relations absent historical context risks running heedlessly into the abyss, turning a peacetime competitor into a clear enemy. 

Text:  By 1946, the United States finally realized the threat posed by Soviet armies bestriding central Europe. America had cast itself into upholding the global balance of power — rebuilding Europe, establishing America’s first military alliance, and parrying early Soviet expansion toward Greece. Containing the Soviet threat was the order of the day. The Containment policy which saw America through the Cold War, was tailored to the unique challenge represented by the Soviet Union. It has become conventional wisdom to treat the challenge posed by China in a Containment-like fashion, as Cold War terminology returns to the American vernacular[1]. Trying to repeat Containment’s Cold War performance today may create new dangers rather than alleviate them.

Containment was the prescription for the challenge posed by the amalgam of communist ideology and tsarist expansionism. As George Kennan warned, the objective of Soviet foreign policy was to avail itself “every nook and cranny available to it in the basin of world power…. But if it finds unassailable barriers in its path, it philosophically accepts and accommodates itself to them[2],” for Marxist theory did not submit a deadline for the end of history. The remedy, according to Kennan, was “a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world[3].”  

Kennan concluded that if the U.S. could only man the ramparts, one day the Soviet Union would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Containment was thus created precisely to meet the challenge of a Marxist-Leninist superpower. For if the correlation of forces was favorable, the Soviets had an historical duty to advance; if they were unfavorable, remaining within their borders was merely a tactical decision, and the struggle would continue by other means. It was a mechanical approach to foreign policy with no category of thought for restraint. Containment was the only means of constraining so ideological a menace. 

Today, Containment is not directly applicable to the challenge posed by a rising — that is to say, re-emerging — China. Contemporary China, in spite of its proclaimed communist rulers and heritage, is not a revolutionary power like the Soviet Union, but an ancient civilization which conceives of world order as a hierarchical structure based on approximation to Chinese cultural characteristics. China more often expanded by osmosis rather than conquest[4]. 

The challenge of the present is how to construct a world order based on principles agreed upon by the major components operating the international system; how to translate transformation into acceptance; to create a pattern of obligations which becomes spontaneous in its operation. When a power sees the world order or its legitimizing principle as fundamentally oppressive or in conflict with its self-image, a revolutionary situation will ensue[5].  

When Containment was theorized, a revolutionary situation was already in existence. The destruction of one revolutionary power, Germany, merely clarified the danger posed by another, the Soviet Union. The new international order being built could only be upheld by force, necessitating containment. Even “Detente”, a late-1960s beginning complement to Containment, was a means of moderating Soviet conduct by forcing a choice between national interests and ideological fervor, backed by the threat of American military power[6]. 

Given the manner in which the burgeoning Sino-American rivalry is cast in ideological terms, it is easy to forget that China does not yet represent an ideological threat in the manner of the Soviets. This nuance is critical. A consensus has emerged among American intellectuals that an alliance of democracies is needed to “confront” China[7]. Such an approach poses grave dangers. Though it is appropriate for democracies to cooperate to combat common dangers, an alliance directed at a particular country — namely China — creates the conditions for a rupture. Stability does not require an absence of unsatisfied claims, but the absence of a perceived injustice so great that the aggrieved power will seek to overturn the existing order. Talk of punishing China for subverting international norms ignores the nature of legitimacy, for China played no role in writing the rules of the current system and so does not feel justly bound by them. The question that those who seek to uphold the “rules-based” order face is whether a symmetry can be found between China’s self-image and the most cherished principles of the system, or whether China’s objectives are so incompatible with the prevailing order that the only recourse is a form of containment. Attempting to berate Beijing from one side of the dividing line into accepting the West’s worldview is a prescription for turning China into a revolutionary power while such an outcome may still be avoidable. 

This is not to say China’s present aggression is the fault of the United States, and China may yet evolve into a revolutionary challenge requiring firm containment. But it would be a tragedy to turn fears of Chinese aggression into a self-fulfilling Containment prophecy. America and its allies are correct to defend the basic principles of international order; but it is important to determine what principles are inviolable and where adjustment to contemporary realities is necessary before engaging in confrontation on every front.  If there is one point of Containment that is easily transferable to today, it is that the world will be selective about where it chooses to challenge China, just like it was when containing the Soviet Union.  

Containment, moreover, though indeed tailored to the Soviet challenge, in another sense represented nothing new in diplomacy. Sophisticated students of history like George Kennan and Dean Acheson, saw in containment a means of conveying to the American public and Congress the principles of the balance of power in terms which they would both comprehend and accept. World order requires equilibrium, and so a “containment” of a potential aggressor will always be necessary, though it may manifest in more subtle forms than in previous periods. 

The South China Sea is illustrative. In geopolitical terms, China’s objective is domination of its “marginal seas” so as to gain access to the wider Indo-Pacific, and forestall its historic fear of encirclement[8]. The United States and its allies will not permit hegemony or disruption of international waterways, as America has gone to war on several occasions to vindicate these principles. This is the space the two countries are obliged to navigate. For in a legitimate order two types of equilibrium exist: the physical, which makes domination by a single power or grouping impossible; and the moral, which defines the relations of powers to each other in terms of their particular histories[9]. This is the essence of diplomacy. 

The great Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich was correct when he asserted that those with no past can have no future, but Austria doomed its future in seeking to petrify its past. America can avoid this trap; the means of doing so is historical context. 

Endnotes:

[1] Gladstone, R. (July 22, 2020). “How the Cold War Between the U.S. and China is Intensifying.” Retrieved December 27, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/world/asia/us-china-cold-war.html

[2] Kennan, G.F. (July 1947). “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Retrieved December 27, from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct

[3] Ibid. 

[4] Kissinger, H. (2012). On China (pp. 18-22) New York: Penguin. 

[5] Kissinger, H. (1957). A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich, and the Problems of Peace (p. 2). Echopoint Books and Media.   

[6] Kissinger, H. (1979). The Whitehouse Years (pp.113-130). Simon and Schuster.  

[7] Cimmino, J. & Kroenig, M. “Global Strategy 2021: An Allied Strategy for China.” Retrieved December 18, from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Global-Strategy-2021-An-Allied-Strategy-for-China.pdf

[8] Auslin, M. (May 1, 2020). Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on reshaping the Indo-Pacific (pp.12-14). Hoover Institution Press.

[9] Kissinger, H. (1957). Ibid (p. 147). 

Brandon Patterson China (People's Republic of China) Cold War Containment Governing Documents and Ideas Option Papers Policy and Strategy United States
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The Challenge of Abstraction: Assessing Cold War Analogies to the Present Period

Brandon Patterson is a graduate student of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  The Challenge of Abstraction: Assessing Cold War Analogies to the Present Period

Date Originally Written:  December 19, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  February 1, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  Brandon Patterson is a graduate student of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego. Brandon believes that though the Cold War may be of great use in specific cases to policymakers and scholars seeking to use the past to engage with the present, it should not be the only historical instance from which they draw. 

Summary:  A study of history is a prerequisite to effective statesmanship and a creative policy. Scholars and statesmen are wise to look to the Cold War for insights which can be applied to our era, but it would be unwise to expect perfect correspondence. Even where the Cold War is applicable, it may not be the only relevant experience, and this is not limited to the context of relations with China. 

Text:  The task of studying history is to abstract from the multiplicity of experience. To derive general rules from the past presupposes accepting the significance of the range of experience[1]. Yet history provides no self-interpreting lessons; the reader is obliged to determine what is — and is not — analogous. The Cold War was a struggle virtually made to order for American preconceptions. Victory achieved without war; an adversary converted rather than defeated, as the architects of containment earnestly sought[2]. It is therefore understandable why American policymakers may seek to draw upon this experience today. Although examining the Cold War is valuable for a number of characteristics that define today’s era of so-called Great Power Competition, this examination does not exhaust the range of relevant experience. 

As the world today is without a single, clear historical precedent, it is useful to abstract from a broader range of historical experiences. Humans do not live in a perfectly bipolar world, and China is not in every manifestation analogous to the Soviet Union (nor, for that matter, is Russia). In its narrowest interpretation, the Eastern Hemisphere could be said to be analogous to Europe after the unification of Germany. 

China, like Germany, is a recently consolidated land power which seeks to construct a great navy. The United States, like Britain, is a maritime power with considerable interests on the continent[3]. Indeed, the American role across Eurasia is, stripped to its essentials, analogous to that of Britain in Europe for several centuries. Further, China’s aggressive diplomacy, unnerving all of its neighbors (and even countries further afield) brings to mind the amateurish and power-obsessed Weltpolitik of the young and impetuous Kaiser William II — all the more unsettling for its vagueness. Russia returns to its historic patterns, torn between the requirements of equilibrium and the temptations of the Russian national spirit. 

Yet this analogy alone fails to fully satisfy, for today, despite technological advances, also resembles a more antiquated era. Europe has lost its substance as a cultural and geopolitical entity and is in danger of simply becoming an appendage of the Eurasian landmass. China too operates according to its historic rhythms. Unlike a young Germany with no concept of its national interest and run by an insecure ruler, China represents an ancient civilization returning to a place of eminence whose perception of history is not fully compatible with the existing order. China’s Belt and Road Initiative represents their attempt to reorganize Eurasia according to Beijing’s perception of its historic role. Thus, China and America may become engaged in a contest over the nature of the international system, and this context is much like the Cold War. 

The performances of Iran and Turkey are best understood through the prism of their imperial legacies, as each attempt to impose order on chaos through familiar modes of operation. A subtle rivalry — leavened by cooperation — persists, informed by the Ottoman-Safavid conflicts of the early-modern period. India remains a world unto itself, even as its posture from the Suez to Singapore stands as a both a vestige British rule and a function of geography. Yet New Delhi’s new-found rivalry with China — a confluence of unique evolutions — has no precedent in human history. As Robert D. Kaplan elucidates, the world of today would not be fully unfamiliar to medieval observers[4].  

Even so, the Cold War carries profound lessons. The burgeoning age of cyber weapons strikes a rough similarity to the opening days of the nuclear era: arms control is nonexistent; doctrine regarding its implementation remains unsettled. Yet arms control in the cyber realm faces unique perils. Arms control emerged during the Cold War as a means of regulating the composition and implementation of each side’s arsenal in order to reduce the incentive for preemption[5]. Transparency was a prerequisite, not evidence of approbation. By contrast, the age of cyberweapons reveals a predilection for opacity; stockpiling is not a factor as the rate of change breeds obsolescence after short intervals. In an age of nuclear proliferation and artificial intelligence, traditional concepts of deterrence via physical violence — products of the Cold War — will likely require fundamental reassessment[6]. 

The civil war in Syria provides a paradoxical case. The old edifice has collapsed and a multiplicity of contestant’s clash over the remains. Several revolutions are occurring simultaneously. On one level is a struggle to determine both the political evolution of the state, and whether the state is to be a secular or religious instrument, and thus, the principles and procedures by which the sovereign’s mandate is legitimized. On another level exists a contest to define which interpretation of Islam may predominate. Finally, a rebellion against the state system itself roils. Amid this blend of political and religious motivations, with external powers seizing their share of the spoils, allusions to the Thirty Years War are apt. 

Yet, Syria bears striking resemblance to central Europe in another period of revolutionary struggle. In this country, the United States aligned with a revolutionary power to combat a common, apparently overriding threat. Military victory opened a vacuum which permitted the acquisitive power — Iran — to extend its reach several hundred miles to the west in each case. A policy to contain the spread of Iranian Influence was implemented thereafter, at least conceptually. Thus, Syria after 2015 may be likened to Germany after 1945. For another layer of complexity, one may note that Iran in its present condition — sterile yet ideological; sclerotic yet expansionist — is somewhat analogous to the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev era[7]. The essence of compatibility is not duplication of circumstances, but the similarity of the problem being confronted. 

The Cold War will likely remain a fount of experience from which American policymakers and scholars draw in this period. But history seldom repeats perfectly. The burden of abstraction falls on the statesman, whose mistakes are irretrievable amid a reality that is not self-interpreting. Applying historical analogies cannot be done with mathematical certainty, for statesmanship is not a science, but an art. 

Endnotes: 

[1] Kissinger, H. (1954). A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich, and the Problems of Peace (p. 332).  

[2] “National Security Council Report, NSC 68, ‘United States Objectives and Programs for National Security’,” April 14, 1950, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, US National Archives. Retrieved December 18, from http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116191

[3] Alison, G. (May 30, 2017). Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Mariner Books (pp. 55-71)

[4] Kaplan, R.D. (March 6, 2018), The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century. (Chapter 1). New York: Random House.

[5] Kissinger, H. (April 4, 1995). Diplomacy. New York: Simon and Schuster (p. 715)

[6] Bracken, P. (May 19, 1999). Fire in The East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age. Harper. 

[7] Kaplan, R.D. Ibid. 

Brandon Patterson Cold War Governing Documents and Ideas