What we support and defend

[Bob's World]

Bob,



What are we containing China from exactly? How exactly has that effort supposedly increased?

Better yet, you tell me how we haven't. I don't have time to lay out the post WWII history of US policy in the Pacific, nor to explain the latest defense strategic guidance to you line by line. But I am happy to discuss any aspect of it you have questions about.

But just a single tangible, why do you suppose we are shifting our fleet distribution from 50/50 to 60/40 weighted toward the Pacific? How is India a better security partner in the Pacific than China? Why not both?

Again, call it what you want, it is what it is, and perceptions are what they are. As to the many senior leaders coming on record to say we are NOT containing China in response to many reasonable queries, I "think they doth protest too much" in their defense.

[Entropy]

I don't have time to lay out the post WWII history of US policy in the Pacific, nor to explain the latest defense strategic guidance to you line by line.

It's a simple question, I'm not asking for regional history nor a monograph. Here's the DSG:

Over the long term, China’’s emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the U.S. economy and our security in a variety of ways. Our two countries have a strong stake in peace and stability in East Asia and an interest in building a cooperative bilateral relationship. However, the growth of China’’s military power must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region. The United States will continue to make the necessary investments to ensure that we maintain regional access and the ability to operate freely in keeping with our treaty obligations and with international law. Working closely with our network of allies and partners, we will continue to promote a rules-based international order that ensures underlying stability and encourages the peaceful rise of new powers, economic dynamism, and constructive defense cooperation.

The containment strategy for the USSR was designed to limit the spread of communism. The underpinning assumption behind Soviet containment was the belief that the USSR was an expansionist power. As Kennan said about the Soviets:

Its political action is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is permitted to move, toward a given goal. Its main concern is to make sure that it has filled every nook and cranny available to it in the basin of world power."

Containment was:

...designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.

And here's how you've described containment of China:

The recent shift to the Pacific may not be a physical containment in name, but it is certainly being approached as a defacto physical containment by the US and China alike.

and

Any US strategy in the Pacific that is designed to work against China rather than with China is a form of containment, in fact if not in name.

I think the question of containment hinges on whether or not China is an expansionist power. I don't think it is, not like the Soviets were.

Additionally, our East Asia strategy contains two main themes:

1. Maintain our alliances in the Pacific.
2. Ensure freedom of the seas.

With an expansionist China these policy options will be a de facto policy of containment, but as I said, I don't subscribe to that view. I subscribe to the alternative of peaceful coexistence with a non-expansionist China. In that case there is no containment.

[Bob's World]

Ok, so you remember in about 1950 when we extended containment to include the entire Sino-Soviet alliance once Nationalist China fell? Also Communist, the domino theory in SEA, etc.

All those mechanisms put in place, our support to S. Korea and that ensuing alliance, with Taiwan, S. Vietnam, all to contain China. Any of this ringing a bell? Much of that is still in place, even though our relationship with China should be evolving.

No we waged containment every bit as hard in Asia and perceived China's communist influence to be every bit as expansive as that of the Soviets. Now we fear their economic expansive influence every bit as much, if not more and seek to contain still. But yes, our message does not match our actions. We have a bad habit of that and it costs us influence. We act in one way and say we are acting in other ways. Seems we only fool ourselves when we do that, as we buy into our self-image as a benign force for good and rule of law. Others see us differently.

[Dayuhan]

Ok, so you remember in about 1950 when we extended containment to include the entire Sino-Soviet alliance once Nationalist China fell? Also Communist, the domino theory in SEA, etc.

Of course by 1960 the Sino-Soviet alliance was history and they were at each other's throats, though many Americans clung to the fiction that Communism was a united force.

Containment was as much about the perceived need to contain an ideology perceived as expansionist as it was about a perceived need to contain any given power. In practice of course that meant the Soviets, as the Chinese were not nearly so aggressive about supporting Communism in faraway places.

I don't see current moves as containment per se, more an announcement that expansionism can be met with containment if that's deemed necessary. The Chinese are doing something very similar on their side, it's not at all a one-sided picture. All the dogs, big and small, are out growling and pissing on trees, none seem very interested in a serious confrontation. Hopefully the US will not feel obligated to disrupt that status quo. That's not to say the Chinese (or someone else) might not disrupt it; no status quo lasts forever, but the US has little to gain by rocking the boat.

[Entropy]

All those mechanisms put in place, our support to S. Korea and that ensuing alliance, with Taiwan, S. Vietnam, all to contain China. Any of this ringing a bell? Much of that is still in place, even though our relationship with China should be evolving.

So as long as have alliances with all those nations we are containing China? Does that correctly describe your view? Well, then what would a policy of non-containment look like?

Look, as I've said before here many times I think we really need to reexamine our alliances and try to reduce our overseas commitments. But, like Dayuhan, I don't think the status quo in East Asia is at all equivalent to the Cold War containment policy where we went to war to try to stem the spread of communism in Asia. Nor is it anything close to what we did to Russia with NATO expansion. My reading of the NSG indicates concern over China's long-term goals, nothing more, along with a desire to ensure we have access to our allies. I do not see it as a strategy to roll-back China's influence, nor stem the non-existent expansion of Chinese communism. Again, a strategy of containment is predicated on preventing an adversary from accomplishing some goal - what is it WRT China?

[Bob's World]

Dayuhan,

I agree that neither side is aggressively pushing the other right now, but these things tend to happen in degrees, and both sides have increased the degree of chest bumping against each other, without increasing the degree of interaction with each other.

In no way should we "abandon" our allies in the region. Equally, in now way should we continue to define those relationships by perspectives overly shaped by a world that no longer exists. Is this pivot or shift the right flavor of change for the emerging world, or is it simply a move to put more energy into old concepts based on old perspectives?

Entropy asks what would an alternative to containment look like. A good friend of mine co-wrote a paper as "Mr. Y" that suggests a grand strategy of "sustainment," and it has some good ideas in it. I published a paper that took a slightly different tact and branded it "empowerment."

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...6jEINkzKIoQfuw

(If that link does not work, google "A Grand Strategy of Empowerment") Not intended to be the definitive answer, but merely to note that we need to make a major course change in terms of our strategic approach and to offer one new (old) concept to help shape that dialog.

[Dayuhan]

I agree that neither side is aggressively pushing the other right now, but these things tend to happen in degrees, and both sides have increased the degree of chest bumping against each other, without increasing the degree of interaction with each other.

I'd say interaction with China has increased quite a bit in the last few decades, particularly economic interaction.

Entropy asks what would an alternative to containment look like. A good friend of mine co-wrote a paper as "Mr. Y" that suggests a grand strategy of "sustainment," and it has some good ideas in it. I published a paper that took a slightly different tact and branded it "empowerment."

How would a grand strategy of empowerment be applied to today's Asia-Pacific region? Whom do you propose to empower? Certainly an empowered populace is less liable to embark on a Communist led revolution (I'd question the degree to which the US is actually capable of empowering anyone else's populace, but that's for another thread), but the Chinese aren't promoting revolution or subversion. Empowering the Chinese populace would be wonderful but it's not the most practical of objectives.

What exactly do you propose that we do in Asia?

I find the whole Asian pivot concept less than convincing, just because I don't see what assigning more ships to the Pacific is actually meant to accomplish, other than posing an assertive and Presidential-looking alternative to the withdrawal (some will say retreat) from Afghanistan. I don't necessarily see that as containment, but if you're going to propose an alternative, I'd be curious about what the alternative would look like in actual application.

[Ken White]

I find the whole Asian pivot concept less than convincing, just because I don't see what assigning more ships to the Pacific is actually meant to accomplish, other than posing an assertive and Presidential-looking alternative to the withdrawal (some will say retreat) from Afghanistan. I don't necessarily see that as containment, but if you're going to propose an alternative, I'd be curious about what the alternative would look like in actual application. (emphasis added / kw)

We've had up to 70% of the Fleet in the Pacific several times over the last 100 years. The preponderence of the ships go where they can best be used. This Admin wants to edge Europe into doing more for itself than most of the last few. Nothing wrong with that.

Nothing earth shaking, either...

Not to mention an upcoming election and a need to look busy with some justification -- but with little to no probability of major malfunctions.