walking and chewing gum

dual screen realities

Annapolis is beautiful on one of the dwindling autumnal weekends. The clouds were elsewhere this morning but gradually made their way back around midday. Lots of boats are on the Creek, the water taxistas are operating at a high ops tempo, and life is good. No, Annapolis is great today.

The summer heat is ever-so gradually releasing its grip on the remainder of the country. I saw a picture the other day of a snow-laden fir in Alaska, reminding me that far enough north one has merely a moment’s transition between seasons. We still don’t have absolute clarity on who the next Speaker will be or how interested he (no women candidates that I am aware of at present) will govern in a period of preferred chaos. The jobs report, while apparently ignored by too many people who can’t understand that only three years separate Biden and Trump by age, shows robust growth and many economic indicators are strong yet the nation is dissatisfied with Biden’s efforts. Life clearly is not perfect in the United States now but things strike me as considerably better than they were 24 months ago, much less 3 years back when we were seeing virtually open conflict over masking requirements.

African militaries are overthrowing the governments they serve. Canada and India are still increasing bilateral tensions. Latin Americans continue their dangerous treks north for a better life for their children, regardless of pleas they stay home. Distrust between Mexico City and Washington regarding the lawless nacrotraficantes remains substantial. Literally thousands of flights criss-cross most of Eurasia weekly as commerce expands, trade continues, and life goes on. Global demands for someone to do something seriously and immediately about climate change rises weekly. Life is definitely different outside our borders.

We are, however, operating in a ‘dual screen’ environment. Abroad, 200 players with a wide range of possible problems interact all of the time while America’s strategy too often appears to consider only one other actor.

General C.Q. Brown, USAF, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, walks into a job where the security establishment is single-minded in its determination to be ready for a China contingency. Preparing for a modernising China is not new nor is it every going to be satisfactory for all. Critics charge White Houses, especially Biden’s, with inadequate effort but we have had virtually a single-mindedness on China for close to a decade.

I can testify that the Joint Staff has directed military education to do China China China China which is part of preparing the Joint Force. Several years ago a three star said his directive to Joint Professional Military Education was to train every single person to fight a war with China.

A colleague and I were discussing the shocking news that Israel declared war against Hamas after the Islamic group launched hundreds of rockets Friday evening. He was almost apoplectic that we are almost exclusively aware of China these days. And he is right.

We run a dire risk of yet again squandering personal and institutional experience from other conflicts that we might need for something other than ‘great power conflict’. I suspect non-military personnel have little appreciation of how frequently their careers move them from one duty station and task to another. A pertinent example: I departed the National War College in late July 2021 but well over half of the current faculty and staff have absolutely no idea who I was because they did not serve with me. We need fresh experience in our seminars resulting in a third of our military officers and agency personnel turning annually. That is about the same tour folks have in other military assignments. In short, keeping currency on experience is harder than it sounds but it means that so much is lost with that turn over. There is not the continuity of focus on topics or varied approaches that counter or balance the focus d’jour.

People who know nothing about Vietnam’s history or experience won’t understand why Vietnam is highly unlikely to choose policies which Washington advocates. Not studying India’s problems with Pakistan will make any conversations with Modi about anything else irrelevant as those two nuclear-armed states remain one of the most delicate problems in the world. And on and on.

Our nation is so concerned about China that we run another risk of ignoring trends independent of Beijing and trends which might assist us in addressing Beijing’s role around outside its border. Few choices other governments make are driven by Beijing’s involvement, but we immediately and automatically assume China is forcing the state of affairs.

Focusing on China exclusively means we often ignore that our actions create consequences or squander opportunities that we don’t see. This was a cause of the 9/11 attacks: we did not appreciate that stationing U.S. ‘infidels’ in the land of the Two Holy Sites was blasphemous to Islam’s most devout. Had administrations after 1991 recognised this danger, we might have found a manner to mitigate the perceived heathen activity rather than see the attacks and subsequent expensive disasters in Afghanistan and perhaps Iraq.

With our belief that everything results from China’s actions and motivations, we are shutting our eyes to other possible explanations. Yes, yes, China is much more involved in the world than it was twenty years ago but that doesn’t mean they are always successful in their actions or be the sole actor beyond our shores. China is not a regime we should emulate or desire to please. Their actions are dispicable towards their own. Sadly, so are those of other states we see as our allies and partners because they are on our side. Egypt is a perfect example.

Additionally, driving everything to a lowest common denominator too often equates China’s aspirations with completely successful accomplishments. China, by the way, does precisely the same thing with our aspirations, frequently accusing us of misinforming them of our capabilities. (Sound familiar?)

China aspires at a minimum to a context where ‘it wants nothing to occur, especially in Asia, of which it disapproves’. That is neither surprising, if we are honest, nor at all likely to change because China and the United States have competing interests to be unchallenged powers. Of course there are Chinese nationalists who seek to drive us from the region. But other Chinese deeply fear their country’s choices can undermine all the nation has accomplished over the past forty-five years of ‘modernisation’. With 1.3 billion citizens, there are many views in China while we are reducing them to an ideologically-tinged singularity of what we fear the CCP is doing. Same way they ignore us having 345 million different views.

Focusing exclusively on this worst case scenario of a uniformly successful and supremely militant Middle Kingdom seeking global domination a la Josef Stalin in 1948, we surrender the power we have: we discard out interactions with the other 200+ nations with whom both Beijing and Washington compete or interact all of the time. We ignore our power in so many ways.

We need focus on the interests and goals of the non-Chinese world to work with them and to incentivise them to support our position and values. If we don’t know these basics so we too often harangue other states about their relations with China, often financial in nature, because we can’t see they have few, if any, options available from anyone else.

If we educate our leaders to consider the range of tools we have available for accomplishing our mission, we have an infinitely better probability of using the appropriate instruments to engage with outer. Instead, we focus only on the China threat rather than the American advantages.

Knowing other states’ motivations also provides us better knowledge of which of Beijing’s actions truly menace versus annoy us. Not differentiating between the two levels of threat means dissipating efforts—and resources. Our national security community is chasing every single action China takes as if each of crucial (they are not) and the rest of the world actually gets a vote in relationships. Beijing might seek omnipotence but regularly overplays its hand by pushing potential interlocutors as if they were tributary states rather than sovereign equals under the United Nations Charter. The United States could gain so much by treating others with the respect they so feel is lacking. Pride, even for nations, actually matters.

The tragedy of the conflict in Israel is real, deadly, and yet ought never been views as impossible. The Palestinian condition is not one any country in the world would want nor is Israel’s vulnerability anything other than overwhelming, regardless of Netanyahu’s proclamations to the contrary. These two contexts clash regularly with not end in sight to the dangers they create.

Conflicts do happen elsewhere and may threaten our interests. We need prepare for the range of national security concerns. I get that China is bad but so are so many other things that we are less able to analyse when we don’t take them seriously through understanding them. Of course China is a significant one but it cannot be the sole item on any administration’s agenda nor will it ever be. We ought be able to chew gum and walk at the same time, to use that old phrase. Yet we are shying away from one of those actions as if that will help us long term. I think not.

What do you think? I welcome your thoughts as readers of Actions Create Consequences. I say I want to increase civil dialogue so weigh in, please.

Thank you for reading the column today and any day. i also encourage you sharing it with anyone you think might find it useful. I write for your thoughts as much as my own.

Be well and be safe. FIN