Michael Vlahos, a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences writes: The US Navy wants a long-term adversary. On the face of it this does not seem like such a problem—after all we did this with the Soviets in the Cold War and it was quite a gift. But today we forget that the Soviets were satisfied by the post-1945 strategic arrangement: They were never a “revisionist” power. They sought security more passively than aggressively (for the most part). Hence, US naval officers do not fear the Chinese super-duper carrier-killing ballistic missile—they welcome it. They see every PLAN move as a mission-gift. There is no comparison here to Brit night sweats over the Dahlgren 15” gun, circa 1861. Moreover, we have a plan to defeat China, and it is called Air-Sea Battle. “Naval persons” insist that this is only an “operational concept,” but no one I know in the world of the Navy actually believes that. But neither does anyone really believe that war will come either. Yet war is now embedded in Washington Defense political life. Nowhere in DC elite discussions do I sense overriding concern over a US-China war: Chinese economic implosion following regime collapse; or a US hit by homeland strikes that cripple its critical infrastructure, economy, and its world position. Instead I attend polite “debates” in Navy circles about how best to fight the PLAN—talk so common as to be a kind of inside-the-beltway-norm. But is that how the Chinese see a war? China wants a symbolic event. Like DC Machers, Chinese for their part also seem contemptuous of US military power. Engaging PRC government officials in Beijing just last year, my impression was not one of Chinese posturing, but rather of an authentic, steely resolve tied to a conviction of historical entitlement. Their body language, in every second of our two-week discussions, told me they are going to make it happen. Somewhere. Sometime. Someday—soon. In 1861, Britain and the United States discovered, in the midst of existential crisis, that war was the surest path to mutual destruction. In contrast, today, key elites in the US and China need conflict. This is conflict they may hope to fulfill only ritually and symbolically—but they desire it for very different reasons. Everything each wants is mismatched in both narrative and objective. But over so many centuries, so many of humanity’s wars in the end just needed the eager embrace: To fight. Today there are serious constituencies in both China and the United States devoted to the idea—if not yet the full reality—of a fight.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 19:36:56 +0000
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