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China and the Thucydides Trap
Graham Allison is probably best known to you as the author of Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’ve always held him in high regard: He’s the old-fashioned, careful kind of political scientist (this as opposed to the new-fangled, addled-by-idiot-theory kind).
I just finished reading his very thoughtful and provocative article in The Atlantic, The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?
It’s very worth reading in full, but this is the gravamen:
The Greek historian’s metaphor reminds us of the attendant dangers when a rising power rivals a ruling power—as Athens challenged Sparta in ancient Greece, or as Germany did Britain a century ago. Most such contests have ended badly, often for both nations, a team of mine at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has concluded after analyzing the historical record. In 12 of 16 cases over the past 500 years, the result was war. When the parties avoided war, it required huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part not just of the challenger but also the challenged.
Based on the current trajectory, he argues, “war between the United States and China in the decades ahead is not just possible, but much more likely than recognized at the moment. Indeed … war is more likely than not.”
The methodology his team uses is about as rigorous as you can get in such analyses, which is to say not rigorous at all, but you can’t reasonably expect historical analysis to be rigorous in the manner of the hard sciences. (This is a point he’s careful fully to concede, to his credit.)
They’ve taken 16 case studies from the past 500 years, and they’ve used the words “rise” and “rule” according to their “conventional definitions,” which is to say, “generally emphasizing rapid shifts in relative GDP and military strength.” In 12 of these 16 cases, he notes, the result was war. (I would quibble with the word “result” — it suggests causation where in fact what we’ve established is correlation — but that’s a quibble.)
Here’s the graph:
So I’m trying to figure out why he’s wrong, because clearly, I don’t relish the idea of war with China. First thing I noticed — this jumped out at me at first glance — is that the analysis is predicated on the idea that the nuclear era is relevantly similar to the pre-nuclear era. As you can see, it’s only before the mid-20th century that the inevitable outcome of such a power shift — with one notable exception — was “war.” (I might even make the argument that the UK and the United States were, for all intents and purposes, the same power, so we could almost go with “without exception,” but maybe that’s stretching it.) Following the development of the atomic bomb, however, 100 percent of these power shifts end in “no war.”
Of course, when your data set comprises a mere three examples, “100 percent” isn’t as reassuring as you’d like, but still, that’s reassuring — isn’t it? Sort of?
The more complex question I’d ask about this data set is whether it makes sense to choose these case studies. For example, you could credibly argue that by the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire was already on the decline and the Hapsburgs were the rising power, if we’re going by the “conventional definitions” of relative economic and military strength. What’s more, the “conventional definition” is retrospectively imposed. The definition at the time was proven — by the outcome — to be wrong. (After all, the Hapsburgs won. By this point, we’re well into Ottoman corruption and decline; or at the very least, we’re well into lousy drill, inferior order, inefficient supply lines, lower-quality weapons, and comparatively undeveloped finance, bureaucracy, and scientific patronage — not to mention constant hassle from the Safavids and the Mamluks — so frankly, they never stood a chance; but the only way to know that is in retrospect. They certainly seemed terrifying at the time.)
That said, though I can see a few methodological problems with his analysis, he’s making too many good points for me to write it off. So I’m not inclined to shrug. And as he points out, neither are many other people who’ve exhibited a certain amount of geopolitical common sense over the years:
The preeminent geostrategic challenge of this era is not violent Islamic extremists or a resurgent Russia. It is the impact that China’s ascendance will have on the U.S.-led international order, which has provided unprecedented great-power peace and prosperity for the past 70 years. As Singapore’s late leader, Lee Kuan Yew, observed, “the size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world.” Everyone knows about the rise of China. Few of us realize its magnitude. Never before in history has a nation risen so far, so fast, on so many dimensions of power. To paraphrase former Czech President Vaclav Havel, all this has happened so rapidly that we have not yet had time to be astonished.
He notes that his students are consistently flabbergasted when he asks them this question: “In what year could China overtake the United States to become, say, the largest economy in the world, or primary engine of global growth, or biggest market for luxury goods?” He then gives them this quiz:
- Manufacturer:
- Exporter:
- Trading nation:
- Saver:
- Holder of U.S. debt:
- Foreign-direct-investment destination:
- Energy consumer:
- Oil importer:
- Carbon emitter:
- Steel producer:
- Auto market:
- Smartphone market:
- E-commerce market:
- Luxury-goods market:
- Internet user:
- Fastest supercomputer:
- Holder of foreign reserves:
- Source of initial public offerings:
- Primary engine of global growth:
- Economy:
(Pause for a moment and take it yourself, to see how you do. Then keep scrolling.)
Answer: China’s already surpassed the US on all of them. (By the way, how did you do? I got 16 out of 20. I thought I was right and he was wrong about the four I missed, but I looked them up, and nope — he’s right. Bonus: Who’s number two on FDI? Did anyone here get that right without looking?)
Take twenty minutes and read the whole article. He makes some very sobering points, and I can’t really find a way to argue with most of them, except to say, “Yes, but that was before the nuclear era.”
He concludes:
What strategists need most at the moment is not a new strategy, but a long pause for reflection. If the tectonic shift caused by China’s rise poses a challenge of genuinely Thucydidean proportions, declarations about “rebalancing,” or revitalizing “engage and hedge,” or presidential hopefuls’ calls for more “muscular” or “robust” variants of the same, amount to little more than aspirin treating cancer. Future historians will compare such assertions to the reveries of British, German, and Russian leaders as they sleepwalked into 1914.
The rise of a 5,000-year-old civilization with 1.3 billion people is not a problem to be fixed. It is a condition—a chronic condition that will have to be managed over a generation. Success will require not just a new slogan, more frequent summits of presidents, and additional meetings of departmental working groups. Managing this relationship without war will demand sustained attention, week by week, at the highest level in both countries. It will entail a depth of mutual understanding not seen since the Henry Kissinger-Zhou Enlai conversations in the 1970s. Most significantly, it will mean more radical changes in attitudes and actions, by leaders and publics alike, than anyone has yet imagined.
He doesn’t specify what kind of radical change or action, unfortunately. So here are the questions I’m left with:
1) Do you think he’s wrong? If so, why?
2) Are the case studies he’s choosing really relevantly similar?
3) If he’s right, what on earth should we do?
Published in General
On the main point of the Atlantic article, I certainly agree that major relative shifts in economic and military power between rival countries generally leads to war, whether between regional powers or global powers. There have been relatively few true global conflicts.
The UK and France competed for global dominance in the 18th Century, with the UK emerging victorious and becoming the first truly global power.
The US eclipsed the UK, probably in the late 19th Century (a little earlier than indicated in the Atlantic chart). Due to both wise policies, cultural similarities, and threats from other potential challengers, the US and UK resolved the power shift without warring with each other.
Germany, Japan, and Russia all challenged American/British hegemony, and lost.
I don’t think it’s helpful to include conflicts #14 (USSR-Japan in the 1970s-1980s) and #16 (UK/France-Germany in the 1990s-2010s) in the analysis. These potential conflicts were contained due to overall US global hegemony.
Recognizing the temptation of patting ourselves on the back, the existence of nuclear weapons is not the common feature in the potential conflicts resolved without major war. The common feature is the US. I conclude that it is American exceptionalism that has provided the blessings of peace both to the US and to much of the world. American exceptionalism is, in my view, an expression of Christian conservatism, so the credit ultimately belongs to the Almighty.
Our Founders discovered the winning formula in human affairs. They conquered and settled a continent pursuing a system of representative government with a system of checks and balances, respect for both individual rights and the rule of law, and an economic system of free trade and a stable currency. This system rested on a virtuous population that was overwhelmingly Protestant.
This winning formula led to unprecedented American prosperity and power. But it was the virtue of the American people, and our commitment to the universality of this world view, that led the US to different behavior than any other dominant power. Rather than using our power to conquer and rule other nations, we sought to project our system and values in the international arena.
Thus, instead of ruling and oppressing conquered nations like Germany and Japan, we set up representative governments for them, and invited them into a mutually beneficial international system.
There is no guaranty that China will join this system without fighting a war (which China would lose). But there is hope.
Unsurprisingly, you and I both looked at that example first and thought … “Dunno about that.” But
At all? Lepanto was a bit of a hint, no?
Yes, and had the Habsburgs not been tied down by the French, it would have been over even sooner. And none of this is nitpicking, either — you can’t disambiguate these events. The Habsburgs were tied down by the French and the Protestants, and were also by this point declining, not rising.
I think the causality there is backward. The EU is the consequence of those wars. (And while I’m quite sure there will never be a third war between France and Germany, it’s not the existence of the EU that makes me feel secure in this prediction. It’s that France has the third-largest stockpile of operational nuclear warheads in the world. And it doesn’t have a no-first-use policy, either.)
Just a quick note on this before I have to get back to work on a real submarine…
Diesels are great in your own waters, but they are of no use off any shore but your own with the technology extant today to locate, track and destroy them. With a diesel you can’t submerge in the Straights of Juan de Fuca and start launching hell half way around the world without ever having surfaced. They lose their stealth advantage rather quickly every time they surface (or even snorkel) to charge their batteries and would be easy pickings.
Well, curious what you think of the new air-independent propulsion systems:
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/is-this-jumbo-diesel-electric-submarine-a-true-nuclear-1652659060
“The SMX-Ocean design, which is based loosely on the French Navy’s Barracudda Class SSN, is said to offer an incredible 18,000 mile range at an average of 10 knots submerged, and the ability to patrol for 90 days without tendering or coming into port for refueling and resupply.”
and,
“DCNS’s latest fuel cell and lithium-ion battery based AIP technology will allow these big boats to stay submerged and near entirely silent for up to 21 days at a time. ”
So you go in quiet to Chinese waters, do your business, lurk for days at a time, then leave quiet. No nuclear power plant price tag. Did I miss anything? Use local bases (Philippines, SK, Japan, Guam, and especially those Philippine islands I want a base in.)
Fourth war. Yeah, the nuclear arsenal might matter, but I’m not sure. I’d sooner bet that France withers as a polity than that its might might deter some kind of German takeover… At any rate, Germany does not have a real army, does it?
But you are right about the causality. I think there is a lot to be said for peace being battleborn.
There is something that annoys me about the way this guy is thinking about what’s going on–I mean, in the article. It’s a kind of realism, but does it not matter whether any of the regimes at war is civilized? I will put forward the minority opinion: Whether it’s a good idea politically to enter an empire-making or empire-breaking war depends somewhat on whether you are civilized or not…
I don’t think this is such a minority opinion here. The question is: How civilized are China’s leaders?
It looks that way now….but I wouldn’t count on it being that way in the future. I think the French pressed the idea of the EU because they thought they’d run the thing and the Germans would just be the functionaries. I don’t think the Germans are cooperating. I think the Germans think that the EU is a great way to make everyone in Europe German. (Bonus is it doesn’t require panzer divisions rolling across borders.) The Greeks are not the last who will feel they are being oppressed by the Germans.
Don’t kid yourself, they’re as savage as the Soviets were up into the 70’s. The entire regime is savagery, actually. Much like the Soviets, they face a a serious question of how much savagery–call it autonomy–to allow in the territories, so that Beijing can deal with bigger-looking problems. In 1989, everybody who was not savage enough fell apart. The Chinese had the army & the will to use it.
Perhaps mankind has just caught up to the simple, philosophical genius of Edwin Starr.
Exactly.
Indeed. (I always find myself puzzled when people express concern about the onset of World War Three — number three happened. And it was a real war. As anyone who lived in one of the many countries in which it was fought will attest.)
Although not as permanently or as significantly as I’d like.
Nor is it true, by the way. Maybe a bit more than 4,000 years. No evidence for 5,000.
I’m willing to be optimistic about that if you are, but surely we can agree that it would be … highly undesirable. If even one of them gets through, it will tie up traffic for hours.
I’m completely confident (for good or ill) that France would be entirely capable of it. Not just “deterring,” but actually nuking Berlin. Full on. As Admiral Marc de Joybert put it,
Not that long ago, you may recall, Chirac noted that France didn’t rule out nuclear retaliation in the event of a terrorist attack, either.
How will an Angelino tell the difference?
War generally is highly undesirable. More undesirable, though, is meek acquiescence to our enemies.
Eric Hines
How have these people suggested to you that they should be taken seriously? M. Chirac’s statement or his willingness to make it is not commensurate with any of his deeds, or those of his predecessors or successors. The Fifth Republic is basically built on not fighting wars. Admittedly, it was colonial wars then, but recent changes–like post-colonial terrorist fights, do not persuade me that politics in France has become a serious thing in that most terrible sense-
Let me remind you, LBJ quoted to people the example of Sam Houston in re Vietnam. It said nothing about the people or the politicians in America-
There are intermediary states between all-out thermonuclear war and meek acquiescence — as you point out. The problem is that once you lose that hyper-power cred we used to have, it’s not easy to gain it back. Whole world’s looking at us like we’re a wounded animal — and that’s dead dangerous.
Mulling this discussion over I am left with the thought that perhaps a mistaken basic premise is leading us in the wrong direction. If we are considering China in the context of disputes between established powers and up an coming rivals, why are we looking at it through the lens of China vs. The United States?
The region presently has an established powerful economy with a formidable military situated right smack in the middle of it, Japan. If China will be challenging anyone militarily in the medium term is not Japan a more logical prospect than the US? A regional rival, right next door which is also loathed by the entire nation? While the US would almost certainly become involved, it would still be a China/Japan dispute. Viewing it in that manner I think is a better way of highlighting the risks it seems, how we could stumble into such a war.
How have they not? Building, testing, and maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent of that size isn’t something you do as a hobby. And France had every good reason for doing it — De Gaulle’s evaluation of France’s long-term strategic position was (in retrospect) dead on.
I think everyone knows China would win a war with Japan-
Don’t forget, France nuked the Greenpeace boat too (and that counts for a LOT). And France’s military, while historically small, is considered quite capable. Sure they’ve avoided major wars, but France isn’t exactly non-interventionist where French interests are concerned.
I think if Japan chose to do so (and felt threatened enough), they could re-arm in a hurry. China’s increasing anti-Japan rhetoric and low level confrontations are starting to persuade Japan to do so.
Well, America has a nuclear arsenal. How sure are you your rulers would use it, maintained & all that?
I do not know much about the process by which French presidents are created, but what I have heard from some who claim to know what the ruling class in France is–there is nothing in them that prepares them to unleash hell. Being that you cannot possibly believe that anyone with a weapon is willing to use it, not to say able–you must believe that the institutional make-up is such as to push men to push the button, so to speak. Are you sure you believe that?
The Greenpeace boat incident does go along way to rehabilitating France’s war fighting image. In the news yesterday, France actually flattened an ISIS facility and a socialist government ordered it. The French are on the verge of looking good for more than wine and food.
I agree, but it does not seem to me that Japan will. What’s your bet for the next five-ten years?
Nah, that’s just Obama’s rope-a-dope. Though it’s possible I’m not emphasizing the right part of that phrase.
Eric Hines
I guess I’m not everyone….
Eric Hines
Certainly. If Pillsbury is right, though, we are the PRC’s sole target. Japan is just another, lesser, state, to be set aside (forcefully if needs be) or better, brought into the PRC’s orbit to strengthen it for the coming showdown with us. Which may be straight up shooting, or just a push on the rotted wall to knock it over.
Eric Hines
Please, explain. Do you believe China’s army is inferior to Japan’s? That it’s nuclear arsenal does not exist or would not be used or, used, would not matter? Do you believe the politicians or the people in Japan are more warlike than in China?
Or do you believe America would go to war in China to save Japan?
Guessing that if China continues its current rhetoric, then Japan will rearm quickly.