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Fortress America and Mischief Reef
A few more thoughts on the Fortress America approach to foreign policy and what might happen if we bring the troops home tomorrow. Today we’ve got a great case study, because the much-anticipated looming showdown in the South China Sea began this morning. (Spoiler alert: Nothing happened.)
You’ll recall that of late China has been building artificial islands in the South China Sea, positioning artillery, talking about expanding its air-defense zone to cover it, and warning US military planes to leave the area. It’s been building up its navy and reconfiguring missiles to hold multiple nuclear warheads. Their approach to asserting their territorial claims has been called a salami-slicing strategy — they take incremental actions, none of which, by themselves, would be a casus belli, but which are designed in total gradually to change the status quo in their favor. Were they to succeed, they’d set a precedent for overturning the principle of freedom of the seas: Significant portions of the seas would in time be appropriated as national territory, overthrowing hundreds of years of international legal tradition and significantly changing the international regime on sovereignty over the oceans’ surface.
Chinese domination over this sea region would upend the security structure of the Asia-Pacific region and greatly complicate the ability of the United States to intervene militarily in a crisis or conflict between China and Taiwan, for example, or to fulfill its obligations under its defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. This would in turn prompt those countries to reexamine their own defense programs. Before you say, Great, about time they start paying for their own defense, well, first, they do pay for it; but second, it’s really worth reflecting upon that old conservative principle: Don’t tear down a fence until you know why someone built it.
So this morning, the USS Lassen spent a few hours hanging out in the Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands and the waters around Mischief Reef. The patrol, according to a US defense official, took place “without incident.”
Good.
Now remember, Xinhua — the state-run mouthpiece of the CCCP — spent the past few weeks likening US plans to patrol these waters to the Cuban missile crisis, and warning that it would never tolerate this kind of “provocation” and “sabotage.” As of this morning, they seem annoyed, but resigned. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged the US “not to act in imprudent way and not to make trouble out of nothing.” He warned “the U.S. side to think twice before its action.” I’m sure we did and do, and are nothing if not prudent.
So for now, all’s well that ends well
My view — in obvious contradistinction to those among us who think it’s Fortress America time, Pax Americana’s over, bring home the boys and batten the hatches — is that of course we should have done this. Eight of the world’s ten busiest container ports are in the Asia-Pacific. About 30 percent of the world’s maritime trade transits the South China Sea every year, including more than a trillion dollars’ worth of trade bound for the United States. Two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments transit through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Half the world’s merchant tonnage passes through the Strait of Malacca. Sixty percent of Japan and Taiwan’s energy supplies go through the South China Sea.
My only complaint is that we didn’t do it sooner: Had we not waited so long, it wouldn’t have resulted in so much risk and tension. There was no reason to humiliate China by allowing it to ratchet up the drama and rhetoric like this; we should have simply patrolled the area, in a calm, routine way, from the first moment we got wind of their island-building shenanigans.
But let me try to represent the other side of the argument as best I can. Suppose the US were to say, “Not our department. You want freedom of navigation in the South China Sea? Sort it out privately.” So imagine that a group of multinationals with an interest in freedom of navigation in the SCS — say, Petronas, Formosa Petrochemical, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Conoco — pooled funds to build themselves a few Burke-class guided missile destroyers and sail them through Subi Reef. Call them the Multinational Way-West of India Company, or MWWIC for short. It’s hard to imagine any private insurer backing this hairbrained scheme, of course, because if I’m the PLA Navy, the first thing I do — obviously — is “accidentally” sink the first ship that tries this stunt. China’s got the largest white-hulled fleet in Asia waiting right there and itching to do it, after all. No insurer would be fool enough to go anywhere near that kind of plan twice. So that’s the fully rational thing for China to do: What’s MWWIC going to do, take it to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea?
Here I may be misrepresenting GGG’s argument, for which I apologize in advance, but as I understand it, his response would be something like this: “Shouldn’t that be our clue that we shouldn’t do it?”
And my response would be: “Shouldn’t the fact that it can’t happen unless we do it be our clue that we should?”
Let’s continue with the thought experiment. Suppose this group goes further: It raises a navy sufficiently large and powerful to challenge the exclusion zone credibly (a superpower-large navy, in other words.) And it raises enough money to insure it. Who would pay for this? Why you, the consumer, would. The costs would be passed directly on to you. These costs will be substantial, so it’s inevitable prices will rise.
But it’s better that way, right? After all, you can choose to buy the product. Taxation is theft, but buying products on a free market — at a price you’re not forced to pay — is a choice, right?
Absolutely. Point conceded in full. (What this kind of price shock would do to the economy and employment overall is another subject; but we can explore that another time.)
But historically, what happens when powerful commercial interests raise a navy to defend their investments? Well, GGG said it himself: There is a historic precedent in the security and defense approaches taken by the British East India Company. Historically, very large business ventures with their own private army and navy became their shareholders’ imperial arm: They wind up administering foreign possessions in a way that’s — to put it mildly — hard to reconcile with any form of libertarian orthodoxy. I reckon that’s exactly what would happen again; or even more likely, given that this sort of scheme left unpleasant memories behind, bloody wars would break out to forestall it.
So I conclude there’s an excellent reason to separate the military from those who stand to make money from the security guarantees it offers. It’s an important separation of powers. Government is not just another word for things we do together; but it is a word for things that can only be done together.
Raising and sailing a powerful blue-water navy is one of them — and an essential one, at that.
Agree? Disagree?
Congratulations on the brilliant attack on libertarianism. Inasmuch as there is no privacy or only privacy in foreign affairs, everyone becomes a tyrant or his slave.
Yarrrr!
For a chilling overview:
http://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/surround/pdf/ch_d-act_20150728e.pdf
I am sure this can be resolved by Dear Leader.
Obama: “Stop acting so 19th century. This isn’t how it works in the 21st century.”
China: “Oh Jeepers! We hadn’t thought of it that way. Thanks for setting us on the Right Side of History. Group hug!”
I’m not trying to attack libertarianism brilliantly — I’m really not. I’m just interested in figuring out whether there’s a good idea I’m missing or a point I’ve overlooked. I’m not married to the idea of being the world’s policeman; clearly, that policy does have a huge down side.
That would be a marriage bound to fail. You cannot police the world. The world is the opposite of that which can be policed without being its complement. The relation between policing & world is similar to that between fearlessness & terror.
You’re not thinking of self-defense as world peace–only as defense in the run-up to the coming war. It is that fear that tells you how you think about the world & that there are no obvious solutions except war. Unless you happen to want war, you have to live with the fear-
Meanwhile, the US Navy is wasting away. I read somewhere on the internet that two large logistic support ships (T-AOE) are going to be decommissioned to save 32$ million dollars.
I expect sooner or later China and the US will simply come to an agreement- not announced- that what remains of the US navy will stay away from areas China wants it to stay from, and in return China will praise fulsomely the wonderfulness of freedom of the seas.
Meaning, of course, that the US will make no objection when the Chinese Navy parks off the coast of California for as long as it wants to park.
Shrug. In my view US allies in Asia are on their own, and if the actions of Japan are any guide they already know it.
Why does Japan have so much Plutonium?
Hmmm….
Godzilla repellent.
And when the Chinese destroy the private navy? Who does what? Being forward deployed, steaming around, having good relations with all the neighbors who want us there and offer us ports, seems essential. We become part of the landscape and other nations become comfortable. If not us it will be the Chinese, there will be disputes, but once they’ve turned the South China Sea into their Caribbean, disputes will all be resolved on Chinese terms. Trying to stop it without a presence is far more hostile and dangerous and so we’ll do nothing. The Japanese will accommodate or arm and join others to resist Chinese hegemony, or not. The problems of forward deployment occur when we use our presence to interfere in domestic matters or throw our weight around. We must show restraint and a mature understanding of our inability to affect internal affairs and fix the world on our terms, or anybody’s for that matter.
Claire, yet again you have authored a great piece. I agree with the essence of your piece. The world needs a strong, free power to ensure a stable global market. Before us, it was the UK. Before them, it was Rome. The history of man is one of controlling the seas to ensure the free flow of goods and services. The shying away from this fact is troublesome, and your piece goes a long way to steer us back toward that thinking.
I want to add one thing. Our current situation puts our abilities to carry out this mission in a very precarious spot. With our public debt approaching $20 trillion, we do need to consider the possibility that we need regional allies to be able to hold ground while we get assets in theater. If the Japanese, S. Koreans, and Taiwanese can hold long enough so that we can get a couple of carrier groups into the far Western (or Eastern depending on where you look) Pacific, then I say we encourage it. We need to explore this type of arrangement globally too. Europe needs to be able to hold off Russia on their own until we can field an army to do the heavy lifting. The GCC (perhaps?) in the Middle East needs to be able to do the same visa vi Iran or ISIL/jihadist Islam. This is quite different than the “Fortress America” scenario you described. This is more like rounding up a posse.
To some extent the strategy I described is similar to how Edward Luttwak describes the Byzantine Empire’s grand strategy.
Excellent post, Claire.
I think there’s a third option — strongly implied in Claire’s piece — of the United States pursuing a policy of being the world’s enlightened, but self-interested bully (I desperately need a better phrase). This would largely overlap with a hawkish policy such as Claire described, but avoid the obligations to do something simply because someone is being evil.
This why I’ve never liked the “world’s policeman” analogy. Yes, I know, legally, cops have no obligation to protect any given person, but there’s a (correct) expectation that if you call 9-11 at 3 AM on a holiday weekend, the dispatcher isn’t going to ask what you’ve done for the department lately before putting out the call to service. The world ain’t that civilized. When someone’s hurting, we should be able to ask that question and (sometimes) hang up the phone if not given a satisfactory answer.
Is not the phrase you seek national interest?
Yeah, but it’s not very evocative. I gave the subject a whirl here earlier this year.
This is indeed a great post, although I realized that there’s already an answer to this problem of salami tactics:
Substitute the F-35 for Trident.
I have just discovered a most marvelous proof, but 250 words is too little to contain it.
Yes, I remember that–it is eyebrow raising. I am not sure any rhetoric can fix the problem.
National interest thinking is in abandonment because people do not like its implications, not because they have trouble with them. I am skeptical of the proposition that making arguments is going to change anything.
If the People’s Republic of China were to successfully gain sovereignty over the waters and islands in the South China Sea (SCS) within the 9-dash line (which includes most of the SCS), this would upend the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This is the international agreement which allows every coastal country to, amongst other things: claim the waters out to 12 nautical miles from their coastline as their sovereign territory, and out to 200 nautical miles as their economic exclusion zone (EEZ).
UNCLOS also allows ships to pass freely through another country’s territorial waters (i.e. within 12NM of their coastline), so long as they are just transiting. This provides the legal authority for what USS LASSEN did (as with all freedom of navigation (FON) operations). FON operations primarily build a case against countries when the United States doesn’t agree with their territorial water claims. Even if we adopted a “Fortress America” policy (which I wouldn’t recommend), we would want to have freedom for all U.S. shipping to safely navigate all waters.
In closing, Claire, I agree with your position. We cannot withdraw from the world, since the existing system of international laws and agreements (such as UNCLOS) underpins our ability to fairly cooperate and trade with other countries. Having a fair trading system helps us. Withdraw from the world, and we will lose the high pace of development of new technologies and medicines which we enjoy today.
The amount of shipping menaced here is impressive. I view one aspect of this as an oil weapon against Japan. Sound familiar?
Thomas Jefferson was originally opposed to a U.S. navy for all the good libertarian reasons, but in defeating the Barbary Pirates with his navy, insurance rates were cut dramatically.
I think about this in connection with some of the arguments we’ve heard for the Ex-Im bank.
Some people might ask (as they do, in the case of overseas oil) if our armed forces aren’t in effect subsidizing the oil industry, and if they do that, why don’t we subsidize wind farms, too? And since it’s all subsidized, why don’t we go for full socialist-totalitarian control of the economy?
And we have people arguing (as two Republican members of Congress did in yesterday’s WSJ) that we need to fund Ex-Im because it’s good for sales of American-made products.
A difference is that naval protection promotes the general welfare while wind farms primarily promote a more specific welfare – that of the builders and operators of wind farms. And the Ex-Im bank promotes a more specific welfare yet. (In an appeal to govt-by-dog-and-pony-show, the WSJ letter gives the tear-jerk example of Weldy-Lamont, an Illinois company that has brought electricity to African villages.)
And your point is a good one, too. Before our banking system was socialized, Weldy-Lamont could have got private loans. Financing is not something that can be done only by govt. Enforcing international loan contracts, on the other hand…
I’m really glad this is playing out, if it must, between China and the United States rather than between Russia and the United States. Relationships between countries are like relationships between people, and there is a certain amount of respect between China and the United States that does not exist between Russia and the United States. China’s national personality is a little different from Russia’s, which is why that is possible.
There has been a tremendous amount of work accomplished in the last fifty years to develop and protect a good relationship between the United States and China.
BDB,
Here is a dramatic presentation of what a military conflict between the Obamite White House and China could be like.
I hope you are satisfied.
Regards,
Jim
I share the sentiment, although I don’t know if it’s rational. It’s interesting that you point it out, though. It’s true that Russians make me crazed with fear, contempt, and anger, and that I just don’t feel as strongly about China. Nor do I believe China feels as strongly about me. I don’t feel the waves of malice and mischief emanating out of the place. I can’t make a rational argument to this effect, though, which makes me wonder how much of my feeling is just owed to growing up during the Cold War — and to knowing more about Russia.
Our role via the Navy is very important in the region and we need to realize that the South China Sea is not an entirely hostile region. The Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam are reluctant to have a large Chinese Navy enforcing sea traffic in their neighborhood. Long term I like the idea of keeping a strong Naval presence in the larger area because I don’t think our bases in South Korea and Japan will be around in 20-30 years.
Why do we have to take care of this? Japan and South Korea are both wealthy countries. And both have long standing historical hatred of the Chinese. Can’t we stoke a little nationalistic fervor in those countries? Why can’t they beef up their navies and, at least, help out?
I agree with all of that.
I have to give Nixon a lot of credit for foresight in his dogged efforts to open some pathways of communication between China and the United States. It was not an easy road to take.
For us, China was a new relationship without as much baggage as there was in our relationship with Russia at that time.
And the 10,000 students China sent to the United States each year over two decades has paid off in a friendship between the middle class in both countries.
That and, although it is certainly fun to think about how Reagan brought down the U.S.S.R. in the late 1980s through 1991, our harping about that all the time has to rankle the Russians. It is not an easy peace.
They also hate each other-
As for stoking nationalism there, that is no way to prepare for war even if anyone in America could effect a sustained change in foreign policy in the desired direction-
Both the Korea and Japan have large and capable navies. The Japanese Navy is larger (by far) than the Royal Navy. Both Navies have Burke class equivalents as well as a number of smaller but very capable units. The Japanese in particular are a well trained and highly effective force. But both together are smaller than the Chinese navy (not so much in capability but in numbers, at least). However, without the US Navy providing command and control, reconn, intel, logistics and leadership, they would most probably fail against the Chinese. Remember the Japanese and Koreans have a long and unhappy relationship that only US leadership can mitigate.
How do you think naval warfare in China’s environs would be affected by aircraft & missiles?