Let's be realistic for a moment here
Beijing increases defense spending - International Herald Tribune
I know there are a lot of pundits within the US who enjoy pointing to China as a new mega-villain - another black-hatted rogue that allows us to don our own white hat that has been gathering dust in the corner since the early 90s...but, frankly, trying to force China into that role worries me more than increased Chinese defense spending. Why?
- China is a giant, nuclear power. We aren't going to be waging conventional war with them any time in the near future. That's just the bottom line. The benefits will very likely never outweigh the risks.
- Our military-industrial establishment LOVES pointing out "threats" that justify maintaining our preferred force structure, doctrine, and procurement processes. We don't, as a military, like fighting the wars we get asked to fight. We WANT to prepare for the Big One. So painting China as the next big military opponent only pushes us further down the wrong road.
- It drives us into a more confrontational stance with China simply because we choose to view them as a military opponent. We can't stop China from growing more powerful. We can try to avoid making Chinese leaders assume they can only rise if they weaken us.
Okay...enough pontificating on a subject I probably don't know enough about anyway...
4 comments:
As long as they dont have a blue-water navy, its not even a conventional issue, right? Otherwise, they dont have anything less than nukes to use....
Strategically, they simply are not able to protect their global sea trading or project power.
The USN probably wishes they would try, eh?
Because the "expected" engagement area is in and around Taiwan, it's less of an issue for them to have a blue water navy...plus weapons (and platforms) with increased ranges leave room for folks to claim they are still a threat. I think the real threat comes from nations and entities that acquire higher-tech weapons from countries like China or Russia - and then use them in unconventional/nontraditional ways. But there's only so much we can do about that if we build our military solely to face Chinese regular forces.
I'd love a blog entry from you on why China is even sustainable at all!
Have u seen this?
http://tinyurl.com/8ku2n
I read an interesting book by a Japanese business guru that actually spoke quite highly of China...but his opinion is that it is sustainable because it isn't. In other words, it is a compilation of economic zones or regions whose leaders and managers have a great deal of freedom to advance business objectives. He posits that these regions are the keys to China's economic success. If he is correct in his assumptions, then many of the worst case scenarios presented in the blog article you highlighted become somewhat moot...and his second "consequence" of a meltdown actually already represents the status quo within China. I read the book a while ago...I'd have to dig it out and skim through to accurately portray why he thinks this to be the case. Might be a good start for point/counterpoint on this topic, though.
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