U.S.-China conflict
inevitability? error? what do theorists say?
As anyone will tell you, my eyes generally glaze over at the mention of theory. I know that pains 99.99% of my graduate school friends and those cherishing the idea that theory will make us free. I am a policy wonk, through and through, as I have been hearing policy discussions (often as a voiceless listener) for almost sixty years. Too many theoretical pieces seem too ethereal and specialised to apply to policy which is my ultimate concern because policy affects people. I understand how disappointing that is. I really am different, I know.
Having said I don’t enjoy theory, as do my friend Sharon or my most amazing friend Ines who are good at it, my pulse does race a bit to see someone return to fundamentals for the lay person on realism. You have no idea how many times I heard students, 70% military and 30% civilian, at the War College proudly declare they were realists, then proceed to give a fabulous depiction of an idealist in international relations theory. They, of course, were petrified someone might consider them softees rather than wielders of the harshest instrument of statecraft.
For the record, I have said for twenty years the hardest realists I have ever known are Foreign Service Officers who so often know about power in a diminished position within our government (their department is poor, often lambasted, and small); they certainly understand adversaries and power. The single most realist, defined as use of raw power to protect our national interests, was a fellow who had dealt with the North Koreans; his discussion of interests and power chilled a seminar to its bones. What War College students actually meant to say they were realistic. And even that is disputable in more cases than I would like to admit.
For those of you still bearing with me at this point, I will stun you by recommending a new book review on two somewhat theoretical volumes on the Sino-U.S. competition and the inevitability of conflict. You may well have heard of both, certainly of their authors.
The Los Angeles Review of Books recently published a superb critique by Boston College political scientist Jonathan Kirshner on books by two giants in international relations over the past forty years. John Mearsheimer has been a fixture at the University of Chicago for forty years, serving as dissertation advisor to a whole slew of talented scholars, many of whom continue his dedication to studying realism as a key to understanding international relations. Mearsheimer’s argument in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, originally appeared in 2003 as relative optimism still existed about China’s intentions. He hypothesised the optimism was completely misplaced because great powers always choose regional hegemony, however it needs be achieved, to protect themselves. Kirshner reminds us that Mearsheimer ‘insists that ‘China cannot rise peacefully’”, a touchstone for many anti-China hawks over the past twehty years. When a revised edition appeared several years later, arguably the majority of the national security community in the United States, if not globally, was shifting to a position that China could not be trusted and could not rise peacefully. Mearsheimer’s work on great powers and their ‘rational’ behaviour buttressed to anti-communist views, becoming well-entrenched long before the Obama administration left office in 2017.
Professor Graham Allison of Harvard penned a true classic in the 1970s, still used I suspect in many graduate schools, called the Essence of Decision. It dissected the decision-making unfolding in the Kennedy administration as they struggled with Soviet missiles being deployed less than a hundred miles off our coast. Allison has written other works but is not particularly associated with China or even great power politics as strongly as Mearsheimer but is a towering figure, as Dean of the John F. Kennedy School, whose analyses matter.
Release of his 2017 study, Destined for War, introduced the term ‘the Thucydides Trap’ to explain the challenges of a great power (the United States) responding to an emerging power (the PRC) with war a virtual certainty. Along with continuing the concerns about PRC modernisation, Allison’s work revitalised studies of the classical Greek historian Thucydides surrounding the Peloponnesian War.
I am not going to recap Kirshner’s article as I append the citation below. I do recommend it for three primary reasons. First, he illustrates how arcane the differences in subfields of international relations have become. Whew. Words matter a great deal here and only become more relevant as further scholarship considers these topics. He covers that in some detail.
Second, Kirshner illustrates the importance of recognising that theory does not equate to policy outcomes. In fact, Dr. Kirshner teases out the logical outcomes and what he sees as inherent contradictions in logic relative to each author’s arguments.
Finally, he illustrates how academic work operates in a way too often ignored or misunderstood. Academics must hypothesise and support their work with evidence. Much of the current anger in our political system results from allegedly false information in medicine or other fields, such as political science. I am distinguishing here between false information, where something is not ultimately proven correct through further examination (of data or the logic of the proposed hypothesis) versus deliberate misinformation which is maliciously intended to undermine the credibility of institutions and individuals.
I recently saw a bumper sticker point on social media that science isn’t wrong but it is always seeing things through new sets of eyes. Kirshner’s article will attract rebuttals (likely by each of these well known authors and others) as well as reappraisals of work. That is the heart of scholarly inquiry. Our arguments must stand on the data and the strength of the argument, not on anything else. Kirshner shows us that this is an on-going process of reexamining arguments in a civilised (hopefully; academics are not always known for civility) manner.
I had the privilege to work forty decades ago with an exceptional scholar who advised me on humility the year I earned my degree. He had written a book length manuscript, his 26th or so, which an initial young reviewer respectfully rebutted when he asked for her to look at it. He admitted ignoring her review because he did not like the criticism and had well known track record, submitting the book to an academic press for the blind, peer review process. My mentor was humiliated when the academic press came back with quite similar criticisms, rejecting the volume as submitted. He admitted to me, forty years into his career, this was not a moment that should have happened but he let his hubris interfere with his scholarship. Scholarship and theory and arguments need stand on their strength.
If you have some time, you might want to ponder Kirshner, Mearsheimer, or Allison in their fuller contexts.
China continues befuddling us as we seem to keep them anxious as well. Actions Create Consequences so I personally do not accept inevitabilities (except for individual lifespans) because I see evidence that individual actions by states or people matter. i confess the Commanders still seem befuddled about getting into the NFL playoffs but that has been going on for thirty-plus years.
Thank you for reading Actions Create Consequences. I hope you find this worth circulating to others, via the share button below or through email transmission. Thank you especially to those who support this column through a paid subscription.
We hoped for much rain but only had a tad. The clouds, however, were amazing so I share them with you now.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucycides’s Trap?, New York: Mariner Books, 2017.
Jonathan Kirshner, ‘Addressing the China Challenge: Realisms Right and Wrong’, LAreviewofbooks.org, 2 October 2023, retrieved at https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/addressing-the-china-challenge-realisms-right-and-wrong/
John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, updated edition. New York: W.W. Norton Books, 2009.