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Mostrando postagens com marcador US grand strategy. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador US grand strategy. Mostrar todas as postagens

sexta-feira, 14 de agosto de 2020

Armas Nucleares na Grande Estratégia dos EUA - Francis Gavin book, round table discussion

H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable XI-21
Francis J. Gavin.  Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2020.  ISBN:  9780815737919 (paperback, $31.99).
3 August 2020 | https://issforum.org/to/ir11-21
Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor and Chair: Joshua Rovner | Production Editor: George Fujii
Contents

Introduction by Joshua Rovner, American University
Nuclear weapons are fundamentally different from other military tools.  The technology is familiar and yet still exotic; the ability to split nuclei and fuse them together remains one of the most extraordinary technical milestones of the last century.  And the yields of nuclear explosions are orders of magnitude greater than those of conventional weapons, making the effects of a hypothetical nuclear war hard to comprehend.  In a clash between nuclear-armed states, the devastation might overwhelm the value of any imaginable political goals.  Such a conflict may not be unthinkable, but it is hard to think about.
During the Cold War, the characteristics of nuclear weapons—their fascinating physics and grotesque effects—sometimes led to a kind intellectual splintering.  Scientists and engineers obsessed over the minutiae of warheads and delivery vehicles in order to maximize the performance of weapons that they would never use. Strategists, meanwhile, puzzled over highly abstract models pitting nameless states in stylized crises.  At the height of the Cold War, they developed increasingly sophisticated models to imagine the dynamics of deterrence, escalation, and war.  The efforts of this “nuclear priesthood” were hard to comprehend for anyone without a background in economics and formal logic, including traditional strategists steeped in military history and the writing of Carl von Clausewitz.[1]
Francis J. Gavin’s most recent book pushes in the other direction.  Rather than treating nuclear weapons as removed from politics, his collection of essays stresses their connection.  Statesmen during and after the Cold War did not treat the nuclear balance as a math problem they could leave to the mathematicians.  Instead, political goals animated their views on everything from crisis bargaining and arms racing to detente and arms control.  Technology mattered, but the underlying politics mattered more.  As a result, we cannot understand the relationship between nuclear weapons and grand strategy unless we view the problem through the eyes of policymakers with competing interests and values. 
Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy is an eclectic mix of essays on theory, history, and scholarship.  The reviewers in this forum share a diverse set of professional backgrounds in the policy world and academia.  James N. Miller, currently a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physical Laboratory, served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Obama Administration.  Heather Williams, a lecturer at Kings College London, previously occupied advisory roles for the U.S. Department of Defense and the British House of Lords.  Despite the variety of essays in Gavin’s book, and the diversity of their own experiences, the reviewers call attention to a set of overarching themes. 
Miller and Williams both note that Gavin asks more questions than he answers.  This is not accidental.  Grand strategy is inexorably tied to the messy business of diplomacy and international politics, even where nuclear weapons are concerned.  No school solutions exist for nuclear dilemmas, because the diplomatic context is always changing and contingency looms large.  Making matters worse is the difficulty in measuring success and failure.  The value trade-offs that inhere in international diplomacy are subjective and hard to quantify, despite the best efforts of quantitatively minded political scientists.  Readers may be frustrated by a litany of questions with few answers, but Gavin insists that policymakers and scholars confront them.  If nothing else, the process will make them less vulnerable to hubris. 
Gavin believes that the academy has largely failed in this regard.  Professional incentives in higher education lead younger scholars toward quantitative work, and discourage them from asking foundational questions about history, politics, and strategy.  For Gavin, research on nuclear weapons and grand strategy in an intellectual agility test, requiring the ability to see the problem from multiple directions and levels of analysis.  It also demands a historical deep dive - an unappealing prospect for junior scholars staring at the tenure clock.  Both reviewers agree with this critique, though Williams suggests that the situation is somewhat different outside the United States. 
Finally, the reviewers point to the difficulty of translating scholarship for policymakers.  Williams applauds Gavin’s call to remove jargon wherever possible, and to write in ways that are easy to digest without resorting to misleading simplifications.  Miller similarly notes that that the theoretical issues stirring academic debates may seem meaningless to policymakers.  There is some tension lying just under the surface of this issue, however.  Policymakers might have the intuitive sense of contingency and context that Gavin appreciates; yet they do not always have the luxury of patience and indecision.  They just need the best possible answers to hard questions.  It is not enough for practitioners to acknowledge uncertainty.  At some point they need to decide that some answers are better than others, even if none of them are perfect.  History may be an anecdote for overconfidence, but it should not lead to policy sclerosis.  In an important sense, the tension built into the scholar-policy relationship reflects the difficulty of striking this balance.   
Participants:
Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the inaugural director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University.  He is also the chair of the editorial board of the Texas National Security Review.  His writings include Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958–1971 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Cornell University Press, 2012).  His latest book is Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy.
Joshua Rovner is Associate Professor at the School of International Service at American University and Managing Editor of ISSF.
James N. Miller is President of Adaptive Strategies LLC, which consults to private and non-profit sector clients on technology and strategy.  He is a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and serves on the Defense Science Board, as well as on the Board of Advisors for the Center for a New American Security.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  He served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2012 to 2014, and as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2011.  Dr. Miller received a B.A. degree with honors in economics from Stanford University, and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The views expressed in this review are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.
Heather Williams is a Lecturer in the Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS) at King’s College London where she teaches on arms control and deterrence.  She is also an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a Senior Associate Fellow with the European Leadership Network.  From 2018 to 2019 Dr. Williams served as a Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords International Relations Committee inquiry into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Disarmament.  She is also an adjunct Research Staff Member in the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia, where she has worked since 2008 on U.S. nuclear policy for the U.S. Department of Defense.  She currently leads projects on emerging technology and the future of arms control, risks of social media to conflict escalation, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Her research is supported by the MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, U.S. Department of Defense, and U.S. Department of Energy.  Until January 2015, Heather was a Research Fellow on Nuclear Weapons Policy at Chatham House and led research on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Initiative.  Dr. Williams completed her PhD, “Negotiated Trust: U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Control, 1968-2010”, in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London in December 2014.  She has a BA in International Relations and Russian Studies from Boston University, and an MA in Security Policy Studies from The George Washington University.  Her most recent publication is, “Asymmetric Arms Control: Scenarios for Hypersonic Glide Vehicles” in Journal of Strategic Studies (Autumn 2019).


Review by James N. Miller, Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Frank Gavin’s Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy provides a diverse and insightful collection of nine essays.  Nearly all of the essays are revised versions of previously published work, which Gavin acknowledges up-front. All are well-written and (as testified by 66 pages of endnotes) well-researched.  They address issues of great and long-standing importance to the United States, and indeed to the world, ranging from non-proliferation, to arms control, nuclear deterrence, and nuclear modernization.  And as the title implies, these essays – particularly the first and last – address the intersection between these weighty topics and American grand strategy.
As Gavin notes in the preface, the essays raise more questions than they answer.  As if to drive home the point, the final essay of the book ends with an unanswered question, one of a couple dozen in that chapter alone.  This relentless questioning has the effect of highlighting moments in the book where Gavin provides answers.  Indeed, some of the most compelling parts of the book occur when Gavin offers his perspective clearly.  Consider his unsparing conclusion about Kenneth Waltz’s famous argument that nuclear proliferation may lead to peace by encouraging caution among states.  For Gavin, this argument is “is deeply problematic and contradictory, and it is not taken seriously by people who matter” (27).
Gavin is trained as both a political scientist and a historian, and his skills in both disciplines shine through in the book.  Gavin is realistic about the limitations of political science and brings a historical perspective to the limitations of historical analysis, without drowning the reader in epistemological quandaries.  The chapter on “NATO’s Radical Response to the Nuclear Revolution” is particularly interesting, not just because of the history of the case, but because of Gavin’s evident discomfort in rendering an unbiased judgment.  His conclusion says it all: “NATO’s strategy was expensive, both economically and politically, and risky,” but “the strategy appeared to work” (126). 
While understanding that an archival historian such as Gavin tends to focus on past cases, where declassified records provide fuller accounts of key decisions, this reader would have enjoyed seeing more analysis of recent history.  The book touches only lightly on the last three decades: the policies of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy each receive more coverage than the policies of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump combined.  Given the current attention to great power competition and the implications for nuclear weapons and grand strategy, more analysis of the post-Cold War world is especially important today.
For example, readers would benefit from a discussion of President Trump’s ‘sole authority’ to direct the employment of nuclear weapons, which was debated in a remarkable Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in November 2017.  Although this particular essay was not included in this volume, Gavin wrote about this topic in 2018, giving readers another glimpse of his strong views: “Literally nothing matters more than how a president thinks about and acts on this sacred responsibility, and literally nothing should worry us more in our current circumstances.”[2]
In a fascinating chapter, on “The History of What Did Not Happen,” Gavin wrestles with the question of what contributions a historian can make.  His conclusion appears well-reasoned, though it is more than a bit unsettling.  An understanding of “deeper history is as likely to cloud as to sharpen our views,” he writes, but at least historians “can provide needed skepticism and humility about broader claims” made by political scientists, policy analysts, and political leaders (167).
As if to see if the reader is attentive, Gavin himself then immediately offers a broad claim, while acknowledging that it is his just “best guess” after sifting through the historical record: “Fewer nuclear weapons in the world is probably a good thing, but using force or coercion to achieve that goal is probably not” (168). To give an obvious counter-example, if the United States reduced its nuclear arsenal from several thousand weapons to ten vulnerable silo-based missiles, each with 10 warheads, few would see this as a “good thing.” And few would see the failure of a future U.S. President to use force to stop a terrorist with a nuclear weapon headed for New York City as a “good thing.” This reader actually wonders whether in making such a broad claim, Gavin was cleverly trying to induce the reader to accept a view apparent in most of his writing: context matters, and details matter. And, one might add, broad generalizations about nuclear policy are not helpful.
In the same chapter, Gavin argues convincingly that the rational choice model of deterrence and coercion famously articulated by Thomas Schelling in the 1960s is inadequate and indeed misses the mark in explaining a succession of U.S.-Soviet crises over Berlin starting in 1948. To some political scientists, this is an audacious claim.  To practitioners, it is mundane.  Although rational choice theory remains popular in political science and economics, it has been recognized as insufficient among most practitioners and policy analysts for fifty years.  Indeed, Schelling’s long-time Kennedy School colleague Graham Allison showed convincingly in his 1971 book The Essence of Decision that while rational choice theory (“Model I”) can have analytical value, it leaves out potentially decisive dynamics of bureaucratic processes (“Model II”), and of political bargaining (“Model III”).[3] Around the same time as Allison’s book appeared, in 1974, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published their seminal work on the systematic biases inherent in human judgment under uncertainty, undermining “rational choice” theory from a different angle, and spawning extensive and useful work in national security, including prospect theory.[4]
For the interested reader, it is worth noting that Gavin has given serious thought to this problem of methodology.  In a 2015 essay, after characteristically asking a multitude of thoughtful questions, he invites others to join in a reconsideration of the analytical frameworks used in the field of international relations:
As scholars and practitioners who spend our lives rigorously assessing and challenging the assumptions about the world we live in, however, we should not be afraid to turn the lens in on ourselves.  As teachers, mentors, and citizens, we owe it to our students to ask the same kinds of difficult questions we are training them to ask and answer.[5]
Despite tilting toward the more theoretical side of Gavin’s work, this volume provides an enjoyable and meaty read for political scientists and policy wonks alike.  For political scientists working on international security, it is a must-read. For those in the policy community, it is a good read, and well worth the time.  But as with all writings in this complex and diverse field (including this essay!), it must be viewed with a critical eye.

Review by Heather Williams, King’s College London
To misquote Margaret Atwood, “No one hates experts more than experts.”[6]  Francis Gavin’s book, Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy, is hardly so harsh as that, but it does turn a heavily critical eye to the state of nuclear scholarship.  The book is refreshingly full of more questions than answers, something Gavin acknowledges might be “frustrating” to readers (4).  Indeed, from the opening, it is an invitation to scholars and students to engage with “unanswered questions of the nuclear age,” such as the enduring debate over whether “more may be better” (1-22).  But it is also an invitation to engage with existential questions for nuclear scholars: what has been the intellectual contribution of the nuclear studies community?  And how do we ‘talk’ about nuclear weapons?
A collection of essays and some previously published works, Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy ultimately makes two key arguments.  First, America has consistently pursued strategies of inhibition, including missile defense and various coercive measures to prevent nuclear proliferation.  These strategies of inhibition created tension between the goals of disarmament and deterrence, especially because U.S. nuclear forces are not solely for the defense of the American homeland.  Rather, the United States is also responsible for extending deterrence to its allies in Europe and Asia with the primary goal of preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons.  Disarmament would, somewhat paradoxically, make this more challenging.
Some states believe nuclear weapons play a fundamental role in shaping international politics, and those in possession of them are reluctant about disarmament.  The real value of their arsenals, however, is not always clear.  Nick Ritchie, for example, argues that the value of nuclear weapons is “conferred upon them within a particular socio-historical context,” and the pathway to disarmament entails stripping nuclear weapons of their perceived deterrent value.[7]  So when and how will nuclear disarmament happen?  Gavin’s prediction is that this will occur when “a combination of shifting norms, empowered international institutions, the resolution of underlying geopolitical conflicts, and new technologies, along with the growing reawakening of awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons, may create the circumstances to move toward some of the goals of disarmament without undermining the benefits of deterrence" (187). Such an answer is typical of Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy and might frustrate those in favor of parsimony, but probably best captures the complexity of nuclear politics both historically and in the present day.
Strategies of inhibition can also inform contemporary questions about the future of arms control.  Drawing on the historical example of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) Agreement, Gavin challenges the conventional wisdom that the agreement strengthened strategic stability.  Rather, SALT prompted mistrust among allies and competition among adversaries, and may have prompted the controversial Soviet decision to deploy SS-20 intermediate range missiles in 1979.  The balance of disarmament and deterrence, allies and adversaries, is pervasive in nuclear policy and is more complex than single methodological approaches can capture.
In the most recent issue of Daedalus, James Cameron similarly demonstrates that lenses such as “strategic stability” are insufficient in explaining the complexity of drivers behind arms control agreements.[8]  The lessons for the future of arms control, therefore, are that agreements must be perceived as fair and equal by both sides, including by domestic stakeholders such as the military; that cooperation with adversaries should not come at the cost of trust with allies; and that rhetoric about “parity” and “stability” cannot belie the fact that countries will continue to compete and seek superiority. Present day efforts at multilateral arms control or arms control to incorporate emerging technologies are understandably challenging when seen through such a historical lens.
The book’s second theme is an existential one for nuclear scholars: why do we write?  Perhaps a more important question is: for whom do we write?  In American academia, it would seem nuclear scholars write predominantly for other nuclear scholars using quantitative methods in the pursuit of parsimonious, definitive, and ‘scientific’ answers.  The academic culture prioritizes quantitative approaches and regressions over qualitative ones.  “From what I gather,” Gavin writes, “brave—and from a career perspective, sadly, unwise—is the Ph.D. student in international relations who undertakes a dissertation that does not include formal models, data sets, and multiple regressions” (70).
While nuclear scholarship may prove useful and important for policymakers, this typically requires translating academic pieces into digestible policy papers.  Such a process entails stripping away the majority of equations and any hint of quantitative methodologies, transubstantiating theory into policy recommendations, and pitching to altogether different publication outlets.  To be sure, many nuclear scholars have exceled at straddling both worlds, such as Jacquelyn Schneider, Michael Horowitz, Caitlin Talmadge, and Vipin Narang,[9] who contribute as much to War on the Rocks as to traditional peer-reviewed journals.  These scholars, and others, demonstrate that the situation is not quite as dire as Gavin suggests; however, these efforts at bridging the gap is to the credit of individual experts rather than to academia, which rewards quantitative studies and publications with limited readership rather than policy recommendations.
Exploring gaps between policy and academia is not simply nuclear naval-gazing.  Engaging with policy questions is unavoidable, given the stakes of nuclear policy, but some policy questions cannot be answered through coding.  One of the most challenging questions for how we study and write about nuclear weapons is the moral one, or, contemplating nuclear use.  Many of these questions get lost in the quantitative methods and terminology of nuclear scholarship and open up the field to the criticism that nuclear experts have forgotten the humanitarian consequences associated with nuclear weapons.  Such a criticism is unfair, but understandable.
In highlighting these questions, Gavin is also issuing a call to action: “unless a greater effort is made to demonstrate that the field understands and empathizes with the concerns of those who make these terrible, stressful policies under extraordinary pressures, this work may be dismissed as not serious” (48). The solution, he suggests, is a historical approach that balances empirics with concepts, and a concerted effort by academics to engage with contemporary policy questions and pressures.  Although this may be true for some nuclear questions, historical approaches alone are not necessarily the answer; methods should be tailored to questions.  Additionally, some of these questions are so massive that they deserve multi-method scrutiny, and history should indeed be part of these explorations, along with regional studies, case studies, and, yes, perhaps also quantitative methods and the occasional regression.
Ultimately, Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy is about bridging gaps, in the tradition of Alexander George.[10] This includes gaps between policy and academia, deterrence and disarmament, and quantitative and qualitative methods.  And yet, in the process of identifying stove-pipes and suggesting strategies to overcome these, Gavin himself falls victim to a common, yet underappreciated gap: that between American nuclear policy and the “rest of the world.” Admittedly, the book’s title clearly premises the subsequent analysis.  Yet without explicitly acknowledging that these approaches are U.S.-specific, the book runs the risk of exacerbating this division in scholarship.  For example, British academia does not suffer from the same pressures to use quantitative methods as American universities; however, it does run the risk of preferring constructivism and turning a skeptical eye to structural approaches, as was evident in a 2013 debate between Ritchie and Susan Martin in Contemporary Security Policy.[11] Looking even further afield, how do nuclear scholars engage with policymakers in Russia? What is the impact of resource constraints on African countries’ engagement with international initiatives and forums, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?  Of course these questions are too big for a single volume, but the challenges of American nuclear weapons and grand strategy cannot be assumed to be universal.
Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy teaches us something new about how strategies of inhibition are pervasive in U.S. nuclear policies across administrations.  It can be seen in arms control agreements and in crisis management.  But Gavin’s more important contribution is in continuing the conversation about the role of nuclear scholarship in nuclear policy.  As mentioned, at the outset the book admits some readers may find it frustrating.  It is, but not for the reasons Gavin suspects.  Rather, it is frustrating, as scholars, to be faced with such significant and massive questions and not have readily available answers.

Response by Francis J. Gavin, SAIS-Johns Hopkins University
I am grateful to the wonderful H-Diplo team, and to Jim Miller and Heather Williams for their generous and thoughtful reviews of my book, Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy.  These essays are especially welcome as Miller and Williams come from such impressive but different backgrounds.  Dr. Miller is a distinguished national security policymaker, most recently serving as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Obama administration, while Dr. Williams is a rising star academic working at Kings College London.  That such deep thinkers from divergent backgrounds could find merit in the book is especially gratifying.
Indeed, I completely agree with their critiques.  Williams suggests that our research should go beyond an American centric focus, because the “challenges of American nuclear weapons and grand strategy cannot be assumed to be universal.” Miller quite reasonably points out that “more analysis of the post-Cold War world is especially important today.” Finally, while both appreciate that the book is full of questions, the world of policy is about making decisions, even—or rather, especially—in the face of uncertainty.
While the focus of the book is on how nuclear weapons affect the grand strategy of the United States, the basic framework laid out in the book should apply to any state.  There is little doubt that nuclear weapons profoundly alter incentives within the international system.  That said, the bomb is still a tool of national statecraft and strategy, something nuclear scholars often forget when they concentrate too much on generalizable maxims.  To understand nuclear behavior, an analyst must first understand the particular context and circumstances a state finds itself in, and make sense of how that state and its leaders think about the way in which nuclear weapons affect its interests. As Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy makes clear, the United States implemented aggressive nuclear strategies as much to inhibit the nuclear ambitions of its allies as to deter its adversary, the Soviet Union.  Great Britain and France, on the other hand, developed strategies that largely reflected their worldviews and interests as declining imperial powers who, after two devastating world wars, understandably distrusted the U.S. commitment to the postwar order and the defense of Europe.  The People’s Republic of China, to the surprise of many, has developed different nuclear strategies than those of the United States or the Soviet Union/Russia, based on its own assessment of China’s interests, circumstances, and beliefs about the utility of nuclear weapons. States involved in decades-long territorial conflicts or disputed sovereignty claims—on the Korean peninsula, Israel, India and Pakistan—may possess a different view of purpose of nuclear weapons than states in more secure geopolitical positions.
Indeed, much of the intellectual architecture for how the nuclear studies community thinks about strategy, arms control, proliferation, and non-proliferation –as reflected in concepts like strategic stability, inadvertent escalation, compellence, resolve and the credibility of commitment, etc.—emerged from a unique historical milieu: American think tanks and universities from the late 1950s onward, dealing with Cold War issues that, as time has gone on, seem increasingly sui generis. Thomas Schelling and his colleagues, for example, were deeply influenced by a historical situation that, in retrospect, looks quite strange and unsettling: trying to formulate a credible nuclear strategy for a divided NATO alliance to deter Soviet coercion of a city 100 miles away from any friendly military force. Preventing a Warsaw Pact move on the isolated enclave of West Berlin while keeping the Federal Republic of Germany in the Western Alliance without it seeking its own nuclear weapons, all without causing World War III, was daunting.  These strategies were developed with the recent memory of both surprise attacks and murderous, fully mobilized wars of conquest fought by totalitarian states.  It is fair to question whether the insights developed by Schelling and the other so-called Wizards of Armageddon, developed at an especially harrowing and unusual time, have as much purchase in the world we find ourselves in today.[12]
What is the role for nuclear weapons today, both in American grand strategy and in world politics?  This is another area where the historical approach generates more questions than answers.  The very nature of contemporary state power and purpose seem different than at the start of the nuclear age.  In 1950, Europe and Germany were divided, and recent global politics had been shaped by world wars, imperialism, and ideological extremism.  Nuclear weapons helped solve the major problem plaguing international relations: invasion and conquest.  In 2020, needless to say, we live in a much different world. On the one hand, it is not clear what role nuclear weapons play in an international system that is increasingly challenged less by conquest than by transnational threats such as the devastating COVID-19 crisis, climate change, economic volatility, or disinformation. On the other, there are those who believe that with the return of great power competition and rapid technological change, nuclear weapons have a renewed salience.
Which view about the future is correct?  At the cost of over 1 trillion dollars, the United States is planning to modernize its nuclear forces in the next few decades.  This effort will focus less on raw numbers than on characteristics—speed, stealth, accuracy, mobility, miniaturization, and command, control, communications, and intelligence capabilities—that arguably make the use of the bomb more credible.  On the other side of the ledger are shifting global norms against not only nuclear use, but nuclear possession.  One does not have to be a wide eyed idealist to wonder what this massive investment in nuclear weapons provides to the United States and to question whether these resources might be dedicated to tools that better advance American interests in the world. This gets to Williams’s excellent question of for whom and why do we write.  Excellent scholarship is needed to interrogate and explore these complex questions, in order to help those in charge choose wisely.
Making foreign policy and national security decisions is very difficult, since the future is uncertain and the consequences of our actions unknowable.  This is especially true of nuclear weapons, where we intuit, correctly, that they have transformed questions of war and peace.  We simply can’t prove how exactly, and whether or not they will continue to function in the same way. Understanding nuclear behavior is a methodological nightmare because few nations possess nuclear weapons and only one has used them.  All of us who study nuclear weapons are, at heart, historians of something that, thank God, has never happened—thermonuclear war.  Given the consequences, asking more questions and demonstrating more humility are arguably not bad traits.

Notes
[1] Marc Trachtenberg, History & Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 3-46.
[2] Francis J. Gavin, “Must We Mean What We Say?  Making Sense of the Nuclear Posture Review,” War on the Rocks, 15 February 2018; https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/must-mean-say-making-sense-nuclear-posture-review/.
[3] Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little Brown, 1971)
[4] Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,” Science 185:4157 (September 1974), 1124-1131.
[5] Francis J. Gavin, “Breaking Discipline and Closing Gaps?  The State of International Relations Education,” War on the Rocks, 5 February 2015; https://warontherocks.com/2015/02/breaking-discipline-and-closing-gaps-the-state-of-international-relations-education/.
[6] The original quotation reads: “No one hates writers more than writers.” Margaret Atwood, On Writers and Writing (London: Virago Press, 2003), 87.
[7] Nick Ritchie, “Waiting for Kant: Devaluing and Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons,” International Affairs 90:3 (2014): 601-623.
[8] James Cameron, “What History Can Teach,” Daedalus 149:2 (2020):116-132.
[9] Jacquelyn Schneider, “Blue Hair in the Gray Zone,” War on the Rocks, 10 January 2018; Michael Horowitz and Lauren Kahn, “The AI Literacy Gap Hobbling American Officialdom,” War on the Rocks, 14 January 2020; Caitlin Talmadge, “Would China Go Nuclear? Assessing the Risk of Chinese Nuclear Escalation in a Conventional War with the United States,” International Security 41:4 (Spring 2017): 50-92; Vipin Narang, “India’s Counterforce Temptations: Strategic Dilemmas, Doctrines, and Capabilities,” International Security 43:3 (Winter 2018/19): 7-52.
[10] Alexander George, Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: US Institute of Peace Press, 1993).
[11] Susan B. Martin, “The Continuing Value of Nuclear Weapons: A Structural Realist Approach”, Contemporary Security Policy 34:1 (2013):174-194; and Nick Ritchie, “Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons”, Contemporary Security Policy 34:1 (2013): 146-173.
[12] Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983).

sexta-feira, 17 de janeiro de 2020

China challenge to the US: Belfer Center prized papers

Como referido nesta postagem, 
EUA continuam a ver a China como adversária - Council on Foreign Relations
o Belfer organizou uma espécie de concurso para selecionar as melhores "grandes estratégias", para confrontar o "desafio da China".
Eis as respostas premiadas.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Winners Announced: Meeting the China Challenge

Since sending his book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, to the publisher three years ago, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Graham Allison has been searching for ways to escape the dangerous dynamic that could lead Washington and Beijing to stumble into a catastrophic conflict neither side wants. Convinced that there is no monopoly of strategic wisdom on either side of the Pacific, Professor Allison decided to take a classroom assignment on crafting a grand strategy to meet the China challenge and open it to the public as a case competition. His office received dozens of valuable submissions from across the world.
The winner of the competition was Robin Nataf.
Allison also recognized three additional entrants for honorable mention: Kazumi Hoshino-MacDonaldPatrick Kolesiak, and Jessica Robyn Jordan.
“Each of their strategic options memos offer clues policymakers in Washington may find useful,” said Allison. 
Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all who took the time to craft and deliver a thoughtful entry.
Read all four distinguished submissions below:

Winner | Robin Nataf

To: Secretary Pompeo
From: Robin Nataf
Date: 23 November 2019
Re: US grand strategy for meeting the China challenge  
Issue: US grand strategy for meeting the China challenge
Strategic Analysis: China’s rise threatens a century of U.S. hegemony. In 30 years, China lifted a billion people out of poverty, and its GDP overtook the U.S.’s. Xi Jinping – a leader more ambitious and with a tighter grip over state and party than any other since Mao, views this with a long-term lens as a return to greatness after a ‘century of humiliation’. His ambition to assert Chinese power has a conceptual and ideological basis, and will aim to reshape the international system across political, military and economic dimensions. This challenges to core U.S. beliefs and views creates a high risk of violent confrontation in line with Thucydides’ Trap. Given China’s military capacity, MAD would make a war catastrophic – likely destructive for the U.S. as we know it. Unlike in the Cold War, China already has a larger GDP than the U.S. and is deeply integrated in the global economy, making the ‘Cold War II’ analogy of limited relevance. Its success blending of market capitalism with political authoritarianism (despite assumptions behind the West’s strategy of engagement) calls for a fundamental shift in U.S. approach to avoid war. China’s rise will not be ‘solved’, but its implications on world affairs and U.S. interests can be ‘managed’ over the next generation.
Relevant National Interests: Vital: (1) prevent war with China; (2) maintain the viability of global markets. Extremely important: (3) ensure continued cooperation of Asian allies; (4) maintain lead in key military-related technologies. Important: (5) discourage human rights violations and promote U.S. values in Asia and beyond.
Options: 1 – Cold War II: Isolate China and stifle its growth and influence as much as possible without violence. Aim at best for regime collapse, and at least for reduced ability to shape global affairs, leaving China either with new leadership or isolated in 10 years. Create an Asian ‘NATO’, further restrict U.S. (and allies’) economic cooperation with China (reduce trade, foreign investment, private sector work), fund a BRI alternative, limit Chinese appointments in IGOs. Pros: Could preserve U.S. hegemony. Cons: Unlikely to succeed due to regime resilience and other countries’ incentives; high risk of war (success could leave China few alternatives); highly costly. 2 – Rivalry partners: Simultaneously compete and cooperate with China. Aim to gradually anchor it towards U.S. preferences while mitigating its ability to re-shape the international system, leaving China’s worldview aligned with the U.S.’s in 10 years. Create an Asian OSCE, launch joint initiatives (on terrorism, development, climate change), work towards new WTO norms, boost investment and restrict cooperation on strategic sectors (AI, cyber), re-launch TPP, invest domestically on education, infrastructure, etc. Pros: Promotes shared interests (reducing chances of war); preserves U.S. interests. Cons: difficult to balance (especially with allies); may fail to prevent shifts in international order. 3 – A new bipolar order: Recognize the inevitability of China’s ascendency. Aim for a new global order based on compromise which preserves U.S. soft power), leading to a bipolar but stable world in 10 years. Remove U.S. assets in East Asia, negotiate bilateral treaty (spheres of influence, norms for conflict resolution, IGO reforms), stress socio-economic over political rights, invest in domestic competitiveness. Pros: low risk of war (China gets what it wants); U.S. ‘model’ can prevail long-term with soft power. Cons: East Asian allies are dropped; human rights/liberalism recede; U.S. hegemony abandoned.
Recommendation: Option 2, with a gradual expansion of areas of cooperation.
Implementation: Immediately end bullish rhetoric, seek rapid opportunities for joint initiatives (rejoin Paris climate agreement), gradually build support to reduce hawkish views in Congress.
Talking points:
  • Thanks to previous Administrations’ failed policies, China has benefited from the global economy and been able to strengthen its authoritarian capitalist model. We now need to accept the reality of China’s economic growth – the world is no longer unipolar, and the American century has ended.
  • This does not mean that we will accept China’s ideology and worldview. America remains committed to democratic, liberal values, and to defending its interests vigorously in the global economic arena. We stand by our allies in East Asia, we stand by the need for trade reforms.
  • That said, we need to find a way to peacefully coexist with China. History shows us that if we compete too aggressively, the risks of a violent confrontation are real. And a war with China would be dramatic – it would amount to the destruction of both of our nations as we know them, and hundreds of millions of deaths. We need to find ways to work with China to better understand each other, and avoid such a catastrophic scenario. We need to work with China to confront global challenges like climate change or terrorism.
  • At the end of the day, we are confident in the attractiveness and the value of America’s liberal democracy. We have learnt that the best way to spread these values is to shine by example, and so we will invest domestically to ensure our education systems, our infrastructure and our technological capacities remain the best in the world. That way, we will show the world – and China – what America can achieve when it sets its heart to it, and other countries will be able to decide what model they want to adopt.

Honorable Mention: Kazumi Hoshino-Macdonald

Issue: The impact of China’s rise challenges US interests across all aspects of its post-WWII international order—risking militarized conflict.
Analysis: Since China’s Cold War pivot and entry to the WTO, the US policy of engagement has ostensibly failed to turn China into a “responsible stakeholder.” China’s growth (which surpassed the US in 2014, in GDP PPP) is increasingly being translated into military modernization and expansion under President Xi’s plan for the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese nation—aimed to develop China into a techno-economic and military pier by 2049.
Relevant National Interests 
Primary Interests: 
  • Prevent any conflict between US and China resulting in a non-limited conventional or non-conventional altercation.
  • Maintain US primacy through global reserve currency, tech leadership, and international military presence.
  • Ensure the security of our regional treaty allies.
Secondary Interests: 
  • Prevent third-party states inducing a conflict (e.g. Korean peninsula, South/East China Sea, and Taiwan Strait.)
  • Freedom of navigation within the Indo-Pacific.
Tertiary Interests: 
  • Promote the rule of law, free markets, and democracy in Asia.
  • Prevent a strategic Russia-China axis.
Strategic Options 
I. Cold War 2.0 
A neo-containment strategy of détente through economic bifurcation could feasibly blunt China’s rise. A multi-pronged pressure campaign including FIRRMA (CFIUS reform) and ECRA could stem IPO theft, and tariffs could apply pressure to CCP. This would be most effective if done in concert with our European, Japanese, and other Asian allies.
Pros:
  • Short-term fait accompli in economic destabilization.
  • Longer-term development capacity hindrance.
  • A multi-country bipolarity balance may be achieved, though at a low probability.
Cons:
  • Cold War diagnosis inaccurate: no nuclear brinksmanship, USSR never reached 60% of US GDP, was not economically interdependent, and was ideologically rigid.
  • Détente could mean sacrificing a regional sphere of influence.
  • Losing cooperation on climate change, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, pandemics, and benefits from interdependent trade.
  • Increased probability of miscommunication and misperception in crisis scenarios.
  • Losing Chinese immigrant talent pool with a new “Red Scare.”
II. Rivalry Partners 
A steady state of competition and cooperation strategy through rivalry partnership could engage China on an issue to issue basis, while playing to US strengths. This should be executed under the auspices of a unique Strategic Sino-US NSC body. Two policy examples could include:
  • Renegotiate and rejoin CPTPP, making trade benefits commensurate with higher enforceable standards that meets the administration’s needs.
  • Counter A2AD, by providing regional allies and partners with long range autonomous vehicles, weaponry, and advanced anti-missile systems.
Pros:
  • Maintains diplomatic channels, but increases credible deterrence in a crisis scenario.
  • Offers economic diversification options (e.g. ASEAN).
  • Fewer of the Cold War 2.0 cons.
Cons:
  • Slower to blunt China’s economic gains.
  • Higher chances of coordination failure.
  • Does not offer an final end-state for US-China relations beyond steady state competition.
III. Democratic League Strategy 
Revamp US leadership to counter China by forming a rule-of-law based bloc with advanced-democracies that offers quid pro quo tiered benefits to third party countries in trade, investment, R&D, and security; for commensurate, verifiable, and enforceable reforms in those same spheres. For example, India as a third party could offer:
  • Strategic position in the Indo-Pacific.
  • Low cost of labor and a growing middle class.
  • Expanded Quadrilateal Security Dialogue.
Pros:
  • Not mutually exclusive to Option II.
  • Offers an alternative that amplifies US clout and alliances.
  • Plays to US strengths such as the rule of law, that have a proven track record in spurring development (e.g. Asian Tiger economies).
Cons:
  • Requires high degree of buy-in from partners.
  • Slow on immediate economic and security concerns.
  • Requires domestic US appetite for international multilateralism.
Recommendation: As Option III requires a larger domestic appetite for US interventionism, I would advise the implementation of option II.
Implementation: Execution of this strategy could include—but is not limited to—the two policy options already detailed supra; but with a longer term aim towards implementing option III if domestic sentiment changes.
Press Bullets 
  • Our strategy is one of countering China’s regional aggressions, by consolidating our deterrence capacity with regional allies across all domains.
  • “Ending the forever wars” and refocusing our efforts on the most economic dynamic region of the 21st century, where middle classes are growing and America can benefit from a deeper economic and strategic presence.

Honorable Mention: Patrick Kolesiak

Issue: Provide grand strategy options regarding China’s expanding global influence.
Analysis: China has used all its instruments of power to undermine US dominance in the current world order, with efforts accelerating since the 2009 economic crisis. China’s growth into the world’s largest economy has led to significant financial influence with countries through the Pacific, Asia and Africa. China seeks to further its economic growth while combatting international criticism for humanitarian rights abuses. China has rapidly militarized behind its economic expansion, especially within the 9-Dash Line in the South and East China Seas.
Relevant National Interests: Vital: (1) Prevent war with China which could escalate into nuclear war; (2) thwart hostile action by China against key US allies; (3) maintain stability/rule-of-law in vital global systems (trade, &c.); and (4) ensure safe freedom of navigation for global commerce. Extremely Important: (1) maintain an advantage in military and other strategic technologies; and (2) counter China’s hegemonic influence in the Pacific and Asia.
Options: Option 1: (Cold War 2.0): Four pillars: (1) Speed decoupling of US economic/business interests in China. (2) Increase coalition military programs/strategies to counter Chinese anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) abilities and modernize the nuclear force. (3) Increase public diplomacy to degrade internal/external support of China’s governing elite. (4) Ally and build economic/military partnerships with ASEAN nations and regional/IGOs. Pros: Does not require Chinese consent to implement; draws clear lines for cabinet-level strategy development. Cons: Complicates mutual engagement on areas of shared interest; increases risk military/cyber escalation; significantly/negatively impacts foreign trade; requires major US financial/military investment in allies/partners. In 10 years: Increased military tension in the Pacific; minimal cooperation on shared interest, bifurcated global spheres of influence.
Option 2: (Accommodate to Deter): US concedes Western Pacific/East Asia to China’s sphere of influence while maintaining regional military bases. US recognizes limited Chinese territorial claims in the South and East China seas to minimize the potential for military conflict. US uses soft power to shape IGOs and criticize China’s humanitarian abuses to combat further Chinese influence outside their sphere of influence. Pros: Reduces risk of military conflict; redirects spending to domestic priorities. Cons: Allows China to establish a Monroe Doctrine in the Pacific; betrays allies (ROK, Taiwan, Japan). In 10 years: US economic/military power in the Pacific is significantly diminished; China increasingly ignores UN agency/WTO rulings.
Option 3 (Coexist and Compete): US leverages IGOs, allies/aligned nations to push reciprocity in trade and economic arrangements. US strategically decouples industries where China can hold the US hostage. US/China develop military protocols to deescalate military flashpoints while the US still builds the ability to defeat China’s A2/AD capabilities as a deterrent to Chinese military actions. US works with allies to direct investment and projects in developing nations (i.e., World Bank 2.0) Pros: minimizes potential for military escalation; preserves US business access to China; protects US relationships with regional allies. Cons: requires significant cabinet-level effort to craft strategy/policy; requires significant US investment to synchronize allies to combat China’s efforts to undermine US/allied interests. In 10 years: Allies use IGOs like the WTO to normalize China’s growth; potential for cooperation on key international issues.
Recommendation/ImplementationExecute Option 3. POTUS creates a standing interdepartmental committee with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, &c. to (1) recommend policies that can be enacted under existing authorities; (2) provide draft legislation to combat unfair trade practices, authorize additional support to allies, and enable creation of a World Bank 2.0, &c.; and (3) create long-term interagency strategies. Direct DoD to work with China on military protocols and expand counter-A2/AD efforts. Work with allies on efforts to reform WTO rules to enforce reciprocity on Chinese economic/trade policies.
Talking Points for Secretary Pompeo
  • While we look to keep America’s interests first, we still find numerous areas where we can work with China over the years ahead to combat global issues like global warming, transnational terrorism, and bringing developing countries into the twenty-first century.
  • The US will work with our allies and international organizations to ensure that China does play by international norms in the realm of global trade, finance and economics. For every country to have fair and equal access to international markets and financing, every country needs to play by a fair and standard set of rules.
  • We in the US—and we urge our allies to join us—will enforce reciprocal trade and finance arrangements on China. When China implements policies that undermine our interests in preserving intellectual property, devalue our currency, or seek to economically punish our allies, we will act in response.
  • The US will work with China and all of our regional partners in the Pacific to develop protocols to follow when we have our militaries operating in close proximity. These protocols will prevent accidents from turning into escalating military crises.
  • We will work to invest in the developing world so that countries can bring their own people out of poverty and engage with the world. Our actions in this regard are not to force countries into a quid-pro-quo or use debt to hold a country hostage to US interests, but rather to ensure that every country can develop an economy that benefits its own citizens.

Honorable Mention: Jessica Robyn Jordan 

Issue: How ought the U.S. to leverage its hard and soft power(s) to address problems precipitated by China’s rise that threaten U.S. vital interests, and, critically, while so doing, avoid the Thucydides’s Trap?
Problem: China’s rise presents challenges (loss of U.S. influence) and opportunities (collaboratively addressing problems of transglobal importance). The U.S. must prioritize better engagement with its own internal systems [i.e. the intelligence community (IC)] to best navigate the China challenge [i] —amid yet a larger transglobal threat landscape.
The endgame is to leverage China’s power in a way that is beneficial to the U.S.
Relevant National Interests: [ii] 
  • Shaping an international system in which the U.S. continues to thrive. [iii] 
  • Preventing the emergence of a hostile major power, [iv] and, to that end,
  • Pursuing harmonious, non-adversarial relationships with nations that pose a threat. [v] 
Analysis: 
  • The People’s Republic of China (PRC), under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), will likely assertively respond to a U.S. “Cold War II” posture by continuing to violate international norms and threaten rules-based order in launching cyber theft campaigns of global scale, in further militarizing the South China Sea and developing anti-access area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, and exhibiting economically and militarily coercive behavior toward other countries. [vi] 
  • Russia and China will likely continue to strengthen ties, as witnessed by recent bilateral military exercises. [vii] 
  • China faces numerous security challenges and governance troubles: a slowing economy; shrinking aging force; on-going territorial disputes, and pressure to capitalize on a “window of strategic opportunity.” [viii] 
Strategic Options: 
“Maintain The Status Quo” 
Continue to Balance China’s Power by Strengthening Regional Military and Diplomatic Relationships 
Pros: 
  • A robust Indo-Pacific partnership enables sharing of intelligence/resource/access to better understand China’s interests, intents, and capabilities.
  • U.S. force posture affords capability and credibility to U.S. allies in region.
  • f China is driven by desires for territorial, military, and economic dominance, it is prudent to build U.S. defense capabilities—but:
Cons: 
  • ...does this force posture and partnership strength drive China to more deeply entrench its military presence?
  • Risks accidental war; China misreading U.S. “protection” and securitization intentions.
  • Resource heavy; costly; strains bandwidth if another conflict demands U.S. attention.
“Pursue a Grand Bargain”
Glaser’s Policy of Territorial Accommodation [ix] 
Pros:
  • U.S. ending defense commitment to Taiwan reduces possibility of war with China; [x] U.S. not caught in crossfire if independent decision-making in Taipei escalates tensions.
  • Taiwan is not a U.S. vital interest.
Cons: 
  • Might signal to China U.S. not unwilling but unable to provide for defense of Taiwan; risks China becoming militarily assertive in response.
  • Implementation requires repeal of Taiwan Relations Act by U.S. Congress.
  • Bargain might erode perception of credibility among allies.
“Pivot to Asia America”
Re-engage critical internal systems to revitalize U.S. capabilities
Recommendation: The most effective and efficiently realized U.S. policies regarding China will be born from a carefully managed relationship with the U.S. IC: information regarding China’s posture, interests, and who or what affects senior leadership’s decision-making better prepares U.S. strategists in multiple domains (e.g. arriving at the negotiations table armed to achieve a satisfactory trade deal; whether a “grand bargain” is probable; how to develop force and partnership posture); moreover, such information prevents strategic missteps that might otherwise ensnare the U.S. and China in the Thucydides’s Trap; it is the strategy that undergirds all other strategic options. Of the three options assessed in this strategic memo, it registers as moderate resource input and of lowest risk.
Pros: 
  • Informs whether to continue status quo (option 1), or moderate, heighten, lessen; whether a “grand bargain” might appeal to China.
Cons:
  • Guard against politicization; requires time input by policymaker.
Implementation:
  • Consult doctrine (the IPSR, NDS, NSS), request NIEs (National Intelligence Estimates); review prior NIEs to understand U.S-China relationships over time/key trends; ask strategic questions of the IC (see Appendix II).
  • Meet with IC regularly to exchange views and explore ideas; guide collection and research efforts not only at the outset of request, but provide iterative feedback to the IC.
  • Ask analysts to defend their work. An analytically rigorous debate enables both parties to engage in a productive discussion without risking inappropriate fraternization, as the focus is on testing the integrity of the product.
  • If intelligence chafes against a policymaker’s intuition or desired course of action regarding China in a way that is impossible for him to overcome, instead of abandoning the intelligence entirely, request a hearing of the differing analytic perspectives on that topic. Although IC products are corporate/collaborative, there may be occasions in which the policymaker can probe for understanding of alternative readings in an effort to unearth the most solid estimate, not to sow seeds of division.
  • Both parties should be sensitive to overt (and covert) policy goals that may distort China analysis; the burden remains on both parties to be aware of, and actively guard against, politicization.
  • As Gates advises, policymakers ought not to “dictate the line of march” they anticipate analysts to take. [xi] 
Appendix I
Talking Points
  • A thoughtful diagnosis of China’s threats will enable U.S. policy to be crafted in a way that meets Beijing’s interests, to avoid escalation and war. Here the IC is key. Share best practices for combatting mutual problems: when there is more value to be had in collaboration than competition, the pendulum shifts in favor of coordination and cooperation. U.S. should work to demonstrate those areas of perceived mutual value. Result in a de-escalation of tensions.
  • U.S. needs better clarification about whether China is driven by security concerns, or desire for dominance; understanding this question better informs all policy options in response. Is it that China seeks to challenge the U.S. led order [xii] or, rather, gain influence within it? How can the U.S. shape conditions for China to pursue the latter? Thoughtfully interrogate, and not assume, what China’s key intentions and vital interests are (not necessarily America’s). Engaging the IC here is critical to effectively answering these questions. A fractious relationship between the IC/policymaking community is itself a threat; elevate intelligence as the single most important driver of decision-making regarding China. Policymakers: not competing with IC for influence; rather, invaluable asset/ally in making sense of strategic options.
  • On a broader strategic plane, U.S. security might be best realized through a multipolar system (e.g. bi-hegemony with China) than through the exhaustive and ultimately futile efforts of exerting continued preeminence. [xiii] Given that security is of vital interest of the U.S., a multipolar system must be not just seriously entertained – but embraced by the U.S. – if it is vehicle through which U.S vital interest(s) are most reliably met. To this end, China is best received as a friend to the U.S. than fought as its foe. The NDS charges policymakers to pursue a long-range course of “transparency and non-aggression” [xiv] between U.S. and China; a strategy of restraint in service to avoiding the Thucydides’s Trap.
Appendix II
Key questions policymakers might ask the IC regarding China include:
  • How deeply does President Xi Jinping care about maintaining cordial relations with Washington vis-à-vis a trade deal (or generally?) How inclined is Xi Jinping to approach a U.S. trade deal in a way that avoids an adversarial relationship with Washington?
  • What threats does Mr. Xi Jinping face that could affect his decision-making vis-à-vis securing a satisfactory trade deal?
  • How splintered is Xi Jinping’s economic advisory team, and who most closely influences his decision-making vis-à-vis a potential U.S. trade deal? (Idea being that if we can target/influence the decision makers that affect Xi Jinping’s willingness to broker a deal, we can potentially affect the outcome favorable to U.S. interests.)
  • What are the risks to the U.S. if a “decoupling” from China occurs? Benefits? Which U.S. strategic partners have the closest economic relationships with China, and what is at stake for them as the U.S. brokers a potential trade deal? Which international actors are helped and hurt by an escalation of the U.S. trade war with China?
  • How will the outcome of China’s willingness to play ball with a U.S. trade deal affect, more broadly, U.S./China relations?
  • How does China’s predatory economic practices influence their military modernization program?
  • How do U.S. allies perceive the trustworthiness and reliability of the U.S. (in the event coalition building is required vis-à-vis engaging China with the world economy in a constructive way?)
  • How will the escalating trade-war with China affect the U.S. economy? What is the main concern/interest of China heading into trade deal talks?
  • How will the outcome of a trade deal with China affect U.S. markets?
  • How will China react to a firmer U.S. posture during trade deal talks? A weaker one? What are President Xi Jinping’s most pressing economic concerns for China, heading into trade talks?
  • Who are Mr. Xi Jinping’s closest economic allies, and how are they affecting his decision-making vis-a-vis a U.S. trade deal?
  • How does China’s softening economic climate affect Mr. Xi Jinping’s eagerness to broker a U.S. trade deal?
[i] Questions abound: How can the U.S. secure its vital interests without provoking China or precipitating accidental war? How can the U.S.’s China strategy serve in concert, and not in conflict with, other national interests/policies, as well as those of U.S. allies? This memo presupposes the strategic end goal of pursuing a policy of détente with China; that is, avoiding an unproductive escalation of tensions to war, thereby avoiding the “Thucydides’s Trap” see: Graham Allison, “Destined for War.”
[ii] That is, issues of vital importance to America’s survival and security vis-à-vis the China challenge.
[iii] See the 2019 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Indo-Pacific Strategy Report (IPSR), pg. 4: “The Department of Defense supports choices that promote long-term peace and prosperity for all in the Indo-Pacific. We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order – an order that benefits all nations.”
[iv] See: IPSR, pg. 5: “Achieving peace through strength and employing effective deterrence requires a Joint Force that is prepared to win any conflict from its onset. The Department, alongside our allies and partners, will ensure our combat-credible forces are forward-postured in the region. Furthermore, the Joint Force will prioritize investments that ensure lethality against high-end adversaries.”
[v] See: IPSR, pg. 5: “Partnerships – Our unique network of allies and partners is a force multiplier to achieve peace, deterrence, and interoperable warfighting capability.” See: IPSR, pg. 23. See: IPSR, pg. 24. The IPSR acknowledges the Indo-Pacific as the DoD’s priority theater. The National Security Strategy (NSS) identifies enduring U.S. national interests: protecting the American people, promoting American prosperity, preserving peace through strength, and advancing American influence. Both the NSS and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) acknowledge the Indo-Pacific as critical for America's continued stability, security, and prosperity.”
[vi] See: IPSR, pg. 8. See: IPSR, pg. 4; 19. “We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order – an order that benefits all nations.”
[vii] The Sino-Russian relationship is assessed by U.S. intelligence as “stronger than any point since mid-1950s.” See: Worldwide Threat Assessment.
[viii] According to ODNI’s Global Trends. See: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends-home. See: Reveron et. al., pg. 245. Some subject matter experts assess that China “has a strict policy of noninterference that does not create challenges to the current international order.
[ix] This idea is championed by Charles L. Glaser in his piece, “A U.S.-China Grand Bargain: The Hard Choice between Military Competition and Accommodation”; he thoroughly details the pros/cons of the strategy in his journal article.
[x] Currently, U.S. bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to defend Taiwan from Chinese attack.
[xi] See Robert Gates’ “Guarding Against Politicization” speech: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-c…
[xii] See: Reveron et. al., pg. 246.
[xiii] Subscribes to Layne’s thinking (See: Reveron et. al., 238).
[xiv] See IPSR, pg. 18.