DR. BARNETT GOES NUCLEAR
Dr. Thomas P. M. Barnett blasts reporter-author Robert D. Kaplan for his controversial cover article in The Atlantic Monthly magazine ” How We Would Fight China”.
I had a feeling this one was going to come hot and heavy just from seeing the sinister ” Yellow Peril” cover on The Atlantic Monthly alone, but Dr. Barnett’s vehemence may have overshadowed his substantive critique of the PACOM strategic worldview being transcribed by Mr. Kaplan. Wow ! I’m glad I’m not going to be handling the resulting email on this one. Critt may need body armor just to open his NRSP inbox.
In terms of the Kaplan piece, I’m reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s answer when Secretary of State Seward proposed that the best way to resolve the crisis over Fort Sumter and reunify the North and South was to start a war with Spain, France, Great Britain and Russia. Lincoln paused a moment and said:
” One war at a time”
It may be that events in China, probably over Taiwan and not North Korea, might someday compel the United States to have to fight China but having a war with a nuclear-armed nation of over a billion people is not a war we ought to go looking for on a lark. Particularly not when when we have more than enough to do fighting a war against radical Islamism. China is one we’d take only by force of circumstance rather than by choice.
As for my thoughts on China as a potential enemy or friend of the United States, I’m re-posting an essay from an earlier date that I think retains some relevance to the current Barnett-Kaplan debate on China:
“ The Globalization Bull in the China Shop: Promise and Peril in PNM Strategy“
Even before Deng Xiaoping defeated his hardline Maoist opponents in the late 1970’s to set Beijing on ” the capitalist road”, China’s potentially bright future has been the topic of investors and statesmen. Richard Nixon foresaw China as the superpower of the 21st century. So did Brooks Adams more than a century ago. So when academics and economists are awed this year by China’s stunning, near 9 % GDP growth rate, it appears the long-predicted arrival of China may be finally coming to pass.
Since we are discussing The Pentagon’s New Map it’s of no surprise that China is a critical country in Dr. Barnett’s strategy ( which I discussed earlier here and here ). Rivaled only by India, China would be the most important part of the ” New Core ” of states that decided to join the ” old Core” by adopting their rules and engaging with the world instead of isolating themselves from it. Barnett however, quickly identifies the crux of the problem with China’s progress ( p. 241)
“ Of that New Core group, China is the most worrisome, while India is the most promising…China is most worrisome because the hardest rule-set still needs to be changed – the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party”
This is an aspect that clearly worries the United States government as well. ( hat tip to Jodi) Dr. Barnett has ample descriptions in his book of Pentagon war planners and defense intellectuals envisioning China in a worst-case scenario war for dominance of East Asia. To focus on military might alone – where the increasingly professional PLA is really still not all that impressive next to say, the IDF much less the U.S. Navy – is a mistake that Dr. Barnett does not make. He’s looking at the global parameters of power that an economic surplus is giving- and demanding of – China for the first time since the fall of the Q’ing dynasty :
“Paul Krugman likes to point out that China’s central bank is one of the main purchasers of Treasury bills in the world, so -in effect- they finance our trade deficit” (p. 311)
and:
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