Lyle Goldstein

Hoping for the Best, preparing for the worst: China's response to US hegemony

Abstract In the post-Cold War strategic environment, Beijing could plausibly have opted for Soviet-style geostrategic competition with Washington, but it has not. Chinese leaders have not thus far, and almost certainly will never, amass thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert or deploy significant forces to a network of bases spanning the globe. Nevertheless, the below assessment of Chinas increasing hard and soft power yields the conclusion that a Chinese challenge to US hegemony cannot be ruled out. The United States must prudently maintain military forces appropriate to facing a potential peer competitor. At the same time, however, Washington must engage in a process of creative diplomacy that simultaneously matches Chinas soft power and engages seriously with Beijing to create areas of consensus and cooperation.

Damn the Torpedoes: Debating Possible U.S. Navy Losses in a Taiwan Scenario

Even though my earlier work on China-Taiwan-U.S. military scenarios is the target of much of their criticism, it is good to see scholars of the stature and ability of Lyle Goldstein and William Murray engage International Security’s debate about what we all clearly agree is a hugely important yet understudied topic.1 (Michael Glosny’s article in the same issue is also welcome.2) In fact, Goldstein and Murray and I agree on several other points that merit mention before discussing those matters where we differ. Notably, we all think that China’s prospects for seizing Taiwan through amphibious assault are poor—a perspective the Pentagon has not shared in most of its recent reports on the subject. We also share the view that the Chinese submarine threat to Taiwan is among the most serious, if not the most serious, military concern that U.S. planners must face when evaluating possible conoicts between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan as well as any U.S. role in them. And we concur that Taiwan could be hard pressed to defeat a Chinese blockade on its own. Nevertheless, we do disagree on several key points. Goldstein and Murray are particularly worried about a scenario by decade’s end in which the PRC could attempt a blockade of Taiwan featuring a dozen advanced submarines (most notably Russian-made Kilo vessels with air independent propulsion) and roughly as many somewhat less capable Song submarines of Chinese manufacture. Goldstein and Murray do not directly challenge my estimates of the amount of U.S. military capability that would be required to break any such blockade. In my work several years ago, I estimated the requirement at four U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups, two dozen additional surface combatants, a half dozen mine warfare ships, ten to afteen submarines, ten to twenty land-based P-3 aircraft, and T-AGOS ships. But the authors do challenge my earlier estimate that one to two U.S. warships could be lost in breaking any such blockade, saying it is “off by an order of magnitude” (p. 183). While recognizing that the Goldstein-Murray estimate is not entirely implausible, and as such represents a useful upper bound on possible U.S. attrition in a future engagement against the PRC, I would offer four points of substantive disagreement and critique.

Lessons of the early Cold War for understanding WMD proliferation today

Consideration of employing military options against rogue proliferators is, in many respects, a throwback to the period of the early Cold War. Preventive and preemptive war options have once again become a regular part of strategic discourse. This article explores similarities between the early Cold War and the present era, focusing on how the process of proliferation creates acute fears about shifting balances of power and the risks of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) conflict. Drawing on recently published US and Russian sources, which have enabled a vastly improved empirical understanding of this period over the last decade, the article illustrates how the instability of the ‘age of crises’ derived in large part from three rational pathways to global war. It is argued that these three pathways are also present in the contemporary strategic environment. Also, various stabilizing elements that existed during the early Cold War are not likely to function in present circumstances. The article concludes that instability may be an inherent feature of radically asymmetric WMD rivalry.

A Rapidly Changing Military Balance: A National Security Perspective on Richard Bush's Untying the Knot

Untying the Knot represents a brave effort to untangle one of the most complex national security challenges confronting the United States in the current security environment. The paramount status of the Taiwan issue, which constitutes the most dangerous flashpoint in the world today, has been somewhat obscured by the global war on terrorism and the nuclear overtones of crises involving Iran, North Korea, and South Asia. Nevertheless, the Taiwan issue is unique among these security challenges in that a crisis involving the island represents a wholly plausible scenario for major war between two nuclear-armed great powers. The truly devastating consequences of such a conflict, not only for the belligerents but for global security as a whole, underline the fundamental importance of this book. As one of the nation’s foremost experts on the Taiwan quandary, Bush demonstrates encyclopedic knowledge concerning both the origins of the dispute and, in particular, the fast moving pace of developments during the past decade. Scholars and national security practitioners will find that this new tome serves as an invaluable reference on narrow but important aspects of the Taiwan problem, ranging from security dimensions of Taipei’s evolving trade policy with the mainland (“avoiding haste” to “active opening”) to the sensitive issue of passports. Bush’s analyses regarding broader issues that are vital to any understanding of the Taiwan issue, such as Chinese nationalism and the nature of Taiwan’s exceedingly complex political landscape, represent superb surveys of available scholarship and are quite insightful. These insights sometimes reflect Bush’s extensive personal involvement in the issues under discussion. Bush describes, for example, the surprise of Taiwan Foreign Minister Eugene Chien mere hours after the announcement of the major constitution referendum initiative by Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian (p. 223). Bush also analyzes a variety of interesting PRC discussions. For instance, the intricate treatment of PRC scholar Su Ge’s important Chinese-

The Cold War at Sea: An International Appraisal Introduction

The legacies of the Cold War at sea are both glorious and tragic. Whether pioneering advances in nuclear energy or in arctic research, the decades of struggle at sea harnessed the world’s most advanced technologies. Together with the bravest men that each of the two military blocs could supply, the rival navies created triumphs that pushed the boundaries of human endeavor. The tragedies lie not only in the enormous national resources expended by each power to supplant their rivals, but also, most acutely, in those brave sailors and officers on both sides who never returned and remain on ‘eternal patrol’. The ocean depths became an arena of constant struggle and nearly became the spark for hot war on several alarming occasions. Sovereign territory could not restrain their competition. Moreover, as each side steadily placed more and more nuclear armament in its vessels, the opportunities multiplied for a naval skirmish or even an accident that could lead to global conflict. Fortunately, that anxious era has passed. The world is now confronted with novel and dangerous challenges. The new national

Beyond the Steppe: Projecting Power into the New Central Asia

The US and the West generally should not retreat from the strategic windfall that accompanied Operation Enduring Freedom. The prestige of American power remains liked to the survival of the Karzai regime in Kabul. In addition, there are vital geopolitical reasons, including, especially, energy concerns, that reinforce Western stakes in Central Asia. Indications at this time are that locals are quite receptive to the new Western military presence and also to the import of more concrete security structures. The threat from Islamic extremism seems to be in retreat. This trend is likely to continue if Western governments actively engage, rather than alienate. NIS governments on issues of human rights. Some specific recommendations include the following: employ regional structures where possible, upgrade Partnership for Peace (PfP) relationships, favor the northern tier states to leverage progress on human rights among the southern tier states, send NIS peacekeepers into Afghanistan, and combat drug cultivation with market incentives. It is also important to focus narrowly on developing the Fergana Valley as the strategic center of all of Central Asia, to avoid antagonizing Moscow, and to maintain a visible, but strictly limited military presence in the NIS.