by Charles Knight, 31 January 2021.
During the last decade, we entered a new strategic era that will have large and lasting effects on the international and domestic policy and position of the United States.
An emergent sign of this new era was Russia’s decision in 2015 to intervene in the Syrian civil war in support of the Damascus government. This deployment was the first significant “out of area” military intervention by Russia since the demise of the Soviet Union.
While many Western commentators characterize Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria as ‘resurgent aggression,’ a more accurate assessment is that Kremlin leadership seeks to halt that country’s long post-Soviet decline in global influence by addressing perceived national security deficits. In Ukraine, Russia has sought to shore up its flanks against NATO expansion in its near-abroad. Russian forces have also deployed to protect Mediterranean and Middle East interests represented by its long-time Syrian ally and, in particular, the naval base at Tartus and, fifty kilometers to the north, the new tactical air base at Latakia.
Although Russia has been militarily assertive in words and deeds, the most significant and dangerous strategic developments involve China. The reason for this is quite straightforward: Russia is presently a relatively weak state and will likely be a declining power for years to come. On the other hand, China is a rising economic and military power (although its military strength lags its economic advance by a considerable measure.) China has demonstrated renewed national confidence and pride rising in the face of seventy years of dominating presence by the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, effectively reaching right up to China’s coasts.
Image by David Mark from Pixabay
China has been building out its territorial claims in the South China Sea. The U.S. Pacific forces have responded with repeated displays (by air and by sea) of disrespect for China’s sovereign claims. These demonstrations of U.S. power have ratcheted up tensions with China without in any way resolving the issue of the underlying competing sovereign claims.
Five years ago, the talk in American news and opinion media was of “a new Cold War with Russia.” Today, our media offers “a new Cold War with China.”
It would be a mistake to think that cold wars are something that happens to us – like a coronavirus spreading from Wuhan to Europe and from Europe to Seattle and then New York. Rather, a cold war is best understood as an ideological construct with a clear intent: to mobilize American and allied nations for an extended “struggle” with a designated enemy.
The first Cold War (1947-1989) was costly for the world, diverting one or two percent of global economic activity to military capabilities particular to that conflict. For the U.S. the Cold War consumed a much higher percentage of GDP than the global average. U.S. defense spending rose to nearly 15% of GDP during the Korean War and averaged between 5 and 7% of GDP in non-war years. Overall, the Cold War cost American’s about 4% of their GDP.
On a global scale, the first Cold War was nothing like an uneasy peace. During its course, more than 30 million people died in some thirty-five wars. Although these conflicts were peripheral to the presumed central front in Europe, many were encouraged and provisioned by the main protagonists.
The U.S. government rallied a significant portion of several generations’ creative energies to the Cold War cause. Too often, our government and compliant media spun inaccurate and exaggerated stories of enemy prowess and intent, producing widespread fear. During the Cold War’s 40+ years, fears of the enemy took a profound psychic toll on all involved, especially children.
We can do much better than remain passive during the construction of an encore. There is a choice.
Graham Allison, former director of the Belfer Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has written:
“If leaders in the United States and China let structural factors drive these two great nations to war, they will not be able to hide behind a cloak of inevitability. Those who don’t learn from past successes and failures to find a better way forward will have no one to blame but themselves.”
It will not be an easy task to create a structure for peaceful relations with China. We must privilege cooperation, always seeking to identify common security interests. This task will require imagination, persistence, and focused attention.
Alternatively, a cold war framework for our relations with China will result in $300 to 500 billion additional annual U.S. security expenditures. It will divert Americans’ energies and resources away from many important social, economic, and environmental goals. The U.S. will defer many domestic investments.
Nations wise enough to opt-out of a cold war with China will emerge as winners, while those that sign on to the struggle will likely reap decline and perhaps the whirlwind of war.
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[ Adapted from an earlier version of this cautionary tale published in the Huffington Post, February 2016.]