By John Gershman *
June 13, 2001
WASHINGTON -- It is now virtually conventional wisdom that Asia in general, and China in particular, will occupy center stage in the not-yet-released "Defense Strategy Review," led by the head of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, Andrew Marshall.
It is widely believed that this review will provide the benchmarks against which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will judge the conflicting recommendations from the roughly 20 different panels engaged in various reviews of the Pentagon's doctrine, force structure, and operations..
Rumsfeld has denied that there will be a major shift towards Asia and the Pacific. This is more likely an attempt to assuage concerns among European allies than a policy statement.
The Strategy Review's analysis and recommendations are foreshadowed in a previous report, entitled Asia 2025, in which Marshall also played a key role. That report was the product of a scenario-building exercise by a team of working and retired military officers and academics. In that report, China is projected to be a threat whether it is strong or weak, stable or unstable: "A stable and powerful China will be constantly challenging the status quo in Asia. An unstable and relatively weak China could be dangerous because its leaders might try to bolster their power with foreign military adventures."
In some sense, the current strategic review will merely ratify current Bush administration policy towards China. This includes the largest arms sales package to Taiwan in a decade, enthusiastic support for theater and national missile-defense system and space weaponry, and downgrading official contacts with China. Despite denials from high level officials in the Pentagon, two new developments likely to appear in the strategy review are the declining utility of overseas military bases in the region and the need to strengthen military ties with India as a counterbalance to China's growing power.
One key assumption driving this approach is the belief that forward deployed troops in bases in Korea, Japan, and Okinawa, as well as large, slow-moving aircraft carriers, may be vulnerable to missile attacks. Theater missile defense is one response, but it must be complemented with the development of long-range weapons and transportation systems that can enable force projection into the Western Pacific and Central Asia from thousands of miles away.
The approach emphasizes strengthening the capacity for unilateral U.S. action while deputizing Japan, Australia and the other Cold War-era bilateral alliances in the region to serve as U.S. proxies. While this has the potential benefit of reducing controversial U.S. troop deployments in the region, the overall security environment will not be improved if a reduced U.S. military presence in the region is simply replaced by a remilitarized Japan.
Is China a threat? Let's review the current situation:
-- U.S. defense spending is 3 to 7 times that of China's, depending
on what estimates of China's military spending one uses. The United
States is currently able to project military force throughout
the Pacific and deep into China's heartland;
-- China is in the midst of a massive economic transformation.
Managing that transformation remains the priority of China's leadership,
not military modernization.
-- The likelihood that China will be able to sustain the pace
of economic growth of the last two decades seems highly unlikely.
Even if China's economy rivals the size of the United States by
2025, its per capita GDP will be lower, and it's defense budget
(at the most hysterical estimates) is only likely to rival Japan's.
In short, the China threat is the creation of nostalgic Cold warriors, pining for a time when a simplified and militarized view of national security made the Pentagon the dominant force in U.S. foreign policy..
Implementing the recommendations of the review will be difficult, as the Commander-in-Chief of U.S .forces in the Pacific, Admiral Dennis Blair, has already articulated opposition to the approach. His comments were foreshadowed in an article, co-authored by Blair and his chief strategic advisor John Hanley, that appeared in the Winter 2001 issue of The Washington Quarterly. They outlined an approach that aims at sustained U.S. hegemony in the region, but argues for transforming bilateral alliances into building blocks for a multilateral security arrangement and places greater reliance on diplomacy and multilateralism to address the many non-traditional security threats in the region.
The emerging Bush strategy runs two major risks: First, through a self-fulfilling prophecy, the U.S. strategy creates the very enemy for which it was designed, as Chinese hard-liners (correctly) point to need to counter the U.S. drive to strengthen unilateral U.S. dominance in the region. Second, the emphasis on the combating military threats rather than preventing them threatens to undermine the gains that have been made in terms of China's support for arms control as well as support for tension-reducing measures on the Korean peninsula and in South Asia.
It is high time that the United States placed Asia high on its security agenda. But the likely outcome of the strategy review is a unilateralist, militarized, and belligerent posture in Asia, one entirely inappropriate to the actual security challenges facing the U.S. in the region. In short, the most immediate threat to peace and security in the Pacific is rogue officials in the Pentagon and their unilateralist and belligerent military posture.
John Gershman is a Senior Analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Asia/Pacific editor with Foreign Policy in Focus.