The School of War Reader: The True Aims of China’s Nuclear Buildup
The True Aims of China’s Nuclear Buildup
Kyle Balzer and Dan Blumenthal, Foreign Affairs
An excellent contribution to the debate on China strategy from a regular School of War guest. The authors explain the geopolitical significance of China’s nuclear arsenal – exactly the kind of conversation we should be having:
The debate in the United States over the meaning of China’s nuclear buildup has long played out in narrow military terms, divorced from geopolitics. American analysts have fixated primarily on whether Beijing is engaging in an arms race, whether it’s countering what it perceives as an increased U.S. nuclear threat, or whether its stated policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons is genuine. But China’s breakout can only be fully appreciated in the context of its geopolitical ambitions. Focusing on how this expansion represents a means to its broader political ends underscores why China has little interest in the American understanding of “strategic stability,” or the idea that rivals will not try to exploit military developments to their advantage. Put simply, China’s nuclear geopolitics is about destabilizing the maritime barrier now set up against it.
Rubio and the Return of the Monroe Doctrine
Mike Watson, The Washington Free Beacon
How the incoming Trump administration might approach Latin America:
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped Florida senator Marco Rubio (R.) to lead the State Department. ... Rubio's most distinctive foreign policy contribution is likely to be in Latin America, where he can bring the Monroe Doctrine back to the center of U.S. foreign policy. ... Despite the major problems in the region, there are some building blocks for success. No one in the region wants to emulate Cuba or Venezuela, and there are some promising leaders like Argentina's Javier Milei. Curbing Chinese influence will be harder than driving out the Soviets was, but rewarding America's friends and punishing its adversaries could go a long way to making the nation's economy and southern border more secure. Historically, America's neighborhood has been one of its greatest strategic advantages. If Trump and Rubio can restore calm to the region, the country will benefit immensely.
How the US is bankrolling Beijing’s ambitions
Brian J. Cavanaugh and Craig Singleton, The Hill
A sobering discussion of American investments into the Chinese war machine:
American investors, both public and private, have poured billions into the Chinese economy, accelerating its advancement across critical sectors. Today, China is leveraging these financial resources to mount a strategic challenge to U.S. interests worldwide. Even as China openly states its intentions to replace the U.S.-led global order, American investments continue to fund its economic rise, from industrial production to high-tech research and development and military expansion. ... A comprehensive legislative framework is urgently needed, one that restricts outbound U.S. investments across sectors critical to China’s strategic goals, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, aerospace, quantum computing, biotechnology and hypersonics.
Why Trump Really Should ‘Buy’ Greenland
Alexander B. Gray, The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
Interesting proposal to establish a Compact of Free Association with Greenland:
Today, despite the guffaws of foreign-policy mandarins, recent changes to the North Atlantic’s geopolitical reality make a formal relationship between Washington and Nuuk—Greenland’s capital city—necessary. ... The U.S. can offer an option that preserves Greenland’s sovereignty while protecting it from malign actors. The U.S. has used Compacts of Free Association for decades with three small island states in the Pacific. These COFAs allow Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands full independence and the power to conduct their own foreign relations while also giving the U.S. military access and requiring Washington to provide for their defense. The U.S. also gives economic support. As Greenland looks to separate from Denmark, the U.S. should be ready with a hand extended.
We Should Buy Greenland
Tom Cotton, The New York Times, Fall 2019 (paywall)
Or we could just buy it:
The acquisition of Greenland would secure vital strategic interests for the United States, economically benefit both us and Greenlanders, and would be in keeping with American — and Danish — diplomatic traditions. ... In 1946, the Truman administration offered $100 million to Denmark to acquire Greenland, arguing that the island was “indispensable to the safety of the United States” in confronting the growing Soviet threat, just as it had been in World War II when American forces used bases in Greenland to deter Nazi aggression. ... More than one-third of America’s territory was purchased from Spain (Florida), France (the Louisiana Purchase), Mexico (the Gadsden Purchase) and Russia (Alaska). ... Indeed, Washington and Copenhagen have engaged in exactly this kind of transaction. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson — the great champion of self-determination — paid $25 million to purchase the Danish West Indies, which have ever since been known as the U.S. Virgin Islands.
U.S.-India Relations From 15,000 Feet
Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
A report from the Sino-Indian border:
China, our briefers told us as we shivered around the kerosene-burning space heaters in the border post, has invested heavily in new infrastructure on its side of the border. India is doing its best to match the buildup, but the terrain on the Indian side is far less favorable, and keeping the narrow and winding Bumla road open is a major endeavor. ... As seen from Tawang, a strong U.S.-India relationship is both necessary and problematic. Only America can help India keep China on its own side of the border, but America is a difficult friend. In New Delhi and Tawang, Indians mostly cheered Donald Trump’s election. They hope he will give India the support against China it seeks without making a lot of noise about human rights. We shall see.
What They Learned From the Last War
Charlie Laderman, The Washington Free Beacon
Laderman’s must read review of a book that examines what shaped the key leaders of World War II. We’ll have Phillips O'Brien on the show to discuss soon:
The Strategists considers these three dictators alongside the two principal democratic leaders of World War II, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, both of whom were also profoundly impacted by their experience of the century's first global crisis. By embedding the education of these five strategists in their earlier experiences of war, O'Brien helps us better understand not only history's most destructive conflict but also the men who shaped it. ... It was the French First World War leader, Georges Clemenceau, who supposedly coined the famous aphorism that military leaders "always fight the last war over again." With regard to the Second World War strategists, as O'Brien shows us, the last war was never far from their minds.
Catch our latest episode with Thomas Barfield on Imperial Strategy, available to stream now!