Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an Eagle one from Eagles
Speak at Sea or Shore your home for a discussion of national security issues in
all things maritime. And good day everybody, and thank you very much for
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we'll be ready for you at a time that better meets with your schedule,
and let's go ahead and roll into the topic of the day today. We're
going to dive in. We're going to go back to the People's Republic of
China, and we're going to look at it from if not a different point
of view, but a broader pixel point of view. Then some of the
real focus shows that go up we've been having as of recently, and we
definitely have one guest. We might have two before the show is done,
once we get our it working. But the baseline of our show today was
co authored by two of our guests, Jeffrey Meiser from the University of Portland
and Oregon and Renny Babars If I mispronouncing that my apologies from the John Hopkins
University Geospatial Intelligence Program over on the winter edition of the Naval War College Review.
They co authored along with a third individual strategy Uncertainty in the China Challenge
and in the abstract. I just want to go ahead and state this here
because I think it gives a good outline of what we were talking about for
the next hour. Quote. Despite China's increasing aggressiveness, if intentions are indeterminate,
even aligning with you as interests in some areas. Furthermore, China simple,
we may fail in achieving even as foremost national and foreign policy goals.
Given this uncertainty, the United States should not base its foreign policy and strategy
on any specific prediction about Chinese attentions our abilities. And with that note,
Jeff being we got you on board. You might be going solo today,
but I appreciate your flexibility and welcome to mid rats. Hey, thanks for
having me to be here. Jeff say, the kickoff is a kind of
a seam setter. I thought, I'll give you all the room to run
into, to run around that you want to. But for the listeners,
they can get the link over at the show page. They haven't read it
already, they can read it as we talk and go through it. But
talk a bit about your article. What's your what's the premise of the article
and what brought you to wanting to go ahead and get together with your co
authors and put it out there. Yeah, thank you. So, I
think the being of the idea of the article was what seemed to be,
I'll put this out there that this is they were will cause reviews the quarterly
publication, so that the publication cycle is it's a long term thing. So
we started writing this probably two years ago, and then over that time revised
it and so on as we got put the publication. But so the Ibua,
it seemed like there were growing consensus that um, China was intent on
or is intent on dominating the world, that they will use military power to
do so, that there's even an imminent military threat from China, you know,
any day kind of thing. UM, it's not. There was a
growing insense that this was just the way it was and there was no other
real possibilities out there. So UM, taking that point of view, we
thought that that seemed a bit overconfident. And then one one big theme of
the article is not that we're saying China is going to do this, are
going to do that. It's that we're saying don't know. And yeah,
because of that uncertainty that should shape you as foreign policy of strategy towards China.
And so just the idea of let's let's take a step back and think
about what the uncertainty is bailing in two big categories. One is that what
does China really intend to do? And then you have to of course,
on that big into you know, we're talking about really the Chinese leadership and
what they intend to do, what they're able to do given the domestic constraints
that are happening in China, and what they're able to do in terms of
international constraints. What are their capabilities really to go out and do some of
the things that it seems likely some people think that they kind of want to
do. So, even if China is dead set on dominating the world,
what are the chances that that could actually happen on the And so try to
think in those terms and think about, well, if there is considerable uncertainty
here, how should we then handle that. That's sort of the impetus for
and sort of like the broad outline of will coming from. One of the
things I liked about the approach you took in mentioning the over confidence of the
current view towards China was that you did touch upon the over confidence in the
past where we were the US and other countries were pretty well sure that if
if we allowed China to develop and prosper, that they would they would magically
join the the free nations and the international world order that existed and that allows
for freedom of the seas, and commerce and all that somewhere along the line,
and I think you addressed this. Uh, the Chinese leadership changed and
their view of openness may have shifted a little bit. That over confidence that
we had for all those years seems to have affected how the US approaches things.
Uh, was that it is your article in some ways in response to
that over confidence and making sure we'd all been too far the other direction and
men for training China as a as a a sure opponent and all things right.
Yeah, that I think was an interesting moment. We kind of thought
were trying to think about the past of our policies towards China, and then
there's it was interesting to go back and find some of those quotes from far
backs, you know, the seventies and eighties about how China's definitely it was
really funny it was in the early eighties, even the late seventies, is
that oh, yeah, China is liberalizing, it's really going this route.
And yeah, that that really did affect us too, about how people do
it kind of locked in on a set of ideas and they just they become
entrenched and you go with it, and um, it's really important to keep
rethinking that and you know at the time, especially if you go all the
way back to like Nixon going to China, there will certainly value in doing
engagement with China, and every decades since there was always some value in having
that engagement with China, but it became seemingly an unbalanced policy that people weren't
really questioning anymore, and it became entrenched. And so we yes, definitely,
we're kind of worried that we're going to shift from being way too far
on the engagement side to way too far on the like the hostile threat kind
of side. So yeah, I think that's an important point. And one
thing that I thought really not really unique but we don't see enough of is
over the aterviews. On the podcast, we've had various guests on to talk
about Russia and China, and one thing that Mark and I will bring up
on a regular basis is be careful of projection because the Chinese and the Russians,
it's not that they don't think differently than we do, but they have
different cultural contexts in addition to having a different history than we are. The
people that were usually used to working with the French, the British, the
Italians, the Germans are trying to be opponents against the Russians, who are
their own little thing. That China has not only their own distinct and very
long history, but also they have some philosophical underpinnings on how they see themselves
in their world and how to react to it. That isn't a significant part
of the intellectuals to here, for instance, Confucianism and Taoism. Talk for
a little bit about about how why y'all wanted to bring in these deeper philosophical
and ethical underpinnings of how China views themselves in their relationship to other nations around
them. Yeah, this would be a great part for any to jump in,
but I can. I can handle it this degree with the knowledge that
this is He's the real deep China expert and studied China for a long time.
But the way so approach. The article was influenced a lot by a
book I published in twenty fifteen, I Think, and it was about the
rise of the United States and the United States is a rise in power,
looking basically from the eighteen nineties up to World War Two, and so getting
into some depth about how the US did it and all the cultural and institutional
factors that were going on in shaping and driving US grant strategy during that time
period really shaped how I view other countries. And so when I try and
think about, yeah, like Russia or China or any of these other countries,
what they're what they might do or not, I always think in terms
of, well, what are the what's the domestic cultural and institutional context in
which they're working, and that's going to shape listkin Lee, what what options
are available, what policy options are even available for them to pursue. So,
you know, going back looking at the US during that time period,
there was you had people like m McKinley, Taff Roosevelt who are on the
expansionist side of the equation, and then you had a whole large set of
a very powerful anti imperialist at that time. And so the way in the
US it works out is that there's the Senate, and the Senate can block
treatise, especially back then when presidents actually submitted treaties that were treaties to the
Senate as they should. So there's very interesting cultural institutional characteristics of the United
States. So then I'm not saying that that the China is like the United
States. But I think every country does have some kind of cultural institutional context
to really fundamentally shapes years can do or not. Go back to the US
real quickly, there is that it seems that you know, you are Roosevelt
and his especially early in his administration, like he really thought that imperialism was
the way to go. He's been advocating that for a while before being president,
but he found There's even quotes him saying like gosh, I wish the
United States was a country that could be imperialist, because I think it could
be great imperialist. But where a structure, a system is structure, we
just can't do it. This is him in response to trying to strengthen the
US position the Philippines and so on. So I think looking at the China,
part of the China context is that they certainly don't have a system of
checks and balance like the United States. It's a vastly different system. But
they certainly do have important cultural characteristics there that can combine in various different ways.
So you have contutionism, Taoism, you have more recent concepts from now
and even now. I think she jing Ping, I mean one way it
looked this is why Jing really trying to push this id ideological line hijin king
thought and so on, is that he's plausibly trying to create new space for
him to be able to act within in terms of this cultural ideological malou in
China and to kind of push China in a certain direction ideologically and culturally,
you know, So I think that it's important. I don't think, you
know, we use the term strategic culture in the paper Elsie's in my book,
and some people seem to use that as being like, oh, therategic
culture always points in one direction and countries are a certain way in terms of
their identity and culture and they're definitely gonna behave in this way. I think
that's that's tortually inaccurate, because every country has, you know, different subcultures
within it that then push sometimes in different directions. So like in US history,
there's definitely been a very strong expansionist line. The US expanded across the
whole continent. So expansionism is definitely part of the US culture in history.
But then when the US shifted to the or are we going to actually be
a colonial power and governed people who don't want to be governed? Bias that
really came into conflict with anti imperialism rooted in the American culture of classical liberalism
and republicanism, and so there's always going to be sort of attention within the
culture. So this is something that she's been paying in the CCP has to
deal with. Is that is China a harmonious country, a harmonious and peaceful
country that really just wants harmonies to the world. That's sort of one element
of Chinese culture or in terms of even about like the Chinese the Chinese dream
is trying need to go out and struggle and achieve and things like that.
So there are always these elements that are you know, pushing against each other,
and so that to us is one element of the uncertainty. And you'll
take someone like you know, John Merscheimer will be like, oh, no,
China is the this hardcore culture of offensive realists essentially, and they're going
to go for it. That's just simply not true if you look at the
history of Chinese cultural good and ideology and so on. So really you just
wanted to bring to light. You know, we're not saying China is a
is a pacifist. You know, confusion is sort of country. We're saying
there's that element there, and we're saying as the other elements too that are
more aggressive, but you have to kind of balance those, you know,
when you think about what China may or may not do. Yeah. I
again, one of the things that you know, if you've studied the history
of China, they seem to be for several thousand years. They've got a
culture that far out out much older than the US history which was created.
So you know, they've got the weight of all that history. And one
of the things they seem to always go back to is seeking stability, some
kind of some kind of um as you say, harmony. And you know,
I think one of the things you said in here was that they didn't
really like the chaotic excesses of Western right rights based liberal democracy. And I
thought, well, that's that's you know, that makes some sense. Chaos
is bad if you're Chinese. They worry about that, um And one of
the one of the issues is in seeking harmony and they and this goes back
kind of the Middle Kingdom when everybody was was going to pay a tribute to
the Chinese emperor and and fall along the Chinese way. Um is it?
I mean, this is one of the many questions I guess that you have
to address. Is it. One of the ways they seek to do this
is by imposing either either by probably not by force, but just being so
big, so vast, and so demanding the way they've taken over like the
South China Sea, imposing this harmony on their on their neighbors, and seeking
to impose that same rule which is of contrary, directly contrary to the to
the current international order that the US and the MR Allies tend to support.
Yeah, certainly, I think that. And that's one of the interesting and
intriguing and really difficult things about kind of understanding this, this this background of
ideas and culture is so well, what does it mean to be harmonious?
Which I think is exactly the point you know you're getting at, And it
can be defined in different ways, and I think some dead China seems to
be saying through some of the diplomacy and actions as that, well, it's
harmonious as long as you do what we say, and that's not what a
lot of other countries would view as being harmonious, or in terms of thinking
that harmonious are going to have some justice element there like we wouldn't we wouldn't
want to follow that, right, So so I think that that's probably where
China would like to be in terms of this position of saying, yes,
it's going to be harmonious as long as you you submit, you pay fealty
to China, and then we're going to be cool with you. You're going
to be cool with us, and everything will be fine. We're not going
to impose our will unnecessarily, though, we want you to accept that we
are. You're the big player here and you have to be subservient to us
the same degree, which there's there's a history of that too in terms of
Chinese system, right. So I think that's probably one of the areas where
you know, China in the US and other countries sort of talk past each
other a bit in terms of China saying well, we want harmony and everybody
saying oh yeah, okay, harmony, but China meaning something probably different by
it than other countries perhaps. And I think one maybe intriguing example here is
the Philippines under Duterte, and it seemed like Duterte wanted to engage and have
a friendship with China. Friendly relationship, but that was kind of hard to
do in China kept you know, infringing upon you know, Philippine sovereignty over
and over again. It didn't really work out. And so I think that
the chimes of perspective is like, yeah, we'll be friends, you have
to follow our line. It can't be friends in terms of being equals.
You know, you have to be you have to know your place essentially,
which, of course, and then to a certain extent, if China is
able to effectively pursue that line, that's probably the most dangerous sort of line
in terms of US interests is that is that China, through it's sort of
force of grabua most just sort of pulls everybody in East Asia in as part
of the Chinese sphere, and then and US loses allies and this is where
we go down and there probably a pretty negative route. In your article you
also outline by their leaders basically three periods. You had the Mao era,
the Dang Xiang and who era and now the President Shi era and in the
president President shi era where we're talking about, uh, you know, cooperation
and harmony and this seems to have mitigated a little bit, but not as
much. People on who you look at but there seems to be a different
strain going on in the background. I don't know whether it's a competing strain
or this is getting a little bit of a visual of the iron fifth underneath
the velvet glove. But you had the I guess it became really popular to
say, about three or four years ago, the Wolf Warrior diplomacy, after
that silly movie they had. But it almost seems as if after this manifestation
and perhaps overreach on their part, especially with the reaction Australia had to it
in other nations, that's kind of gone back into the background. Is that
part of a manifestation of what your response was to the previous question, or
is this one of these competing schools inside the People's Republic of China as they
try to position themselves in a larger role on the global stage. Yeah,
that's interesting. I think that it's probably some of both, in that there's
there's there needs to be some some degree of disagreement within China about you know,
as China continue to grow and rise, like how does China get the
status and prestige and other sort of more material goods that it deserves as as
a great power, as a supral power, how do you want to call
it? So I think that there's still and we try to sort of at
least hint it. This a bit in the article that there are the peaceful
rise is part of the Chinese thinking is still be there and it's it does
seem to have a bit of a harder edge, and that's definitely developed over
the past few years. And the question is, yeah, is there sort
of really clear competing ideas within the Chinese leadership about this or is it more
like you know the other' phrasing, it's for me like you know, hide
and bide your time kind of thing, or is it just like, oh
so, how long do we sort of keep it soft until we get much
harder? You know? So is it that there's agreement and that we're just
hiding our you know, biding our time until the right moment, and like
when is the right moment? There maybe disagreement there, but they also maybe
a real disagreement about hey, what is what's actually the best approach? Is
it kind of a softer line where that we're trying to prove that it's it
can provide good more leadership for the world, and therefore the essentially soft power,
they will attract other countries to it and to its point of view,
into its position, and so so I think there's there's both plausible options there
and it's it's not really obvious to me. I think that there's what's going
on within the CCP within like the Poor Beer and so on and Standing Committee
and all that. It's she's told be a bit opaque. And I'm definitely
not a China expert at number one, but as an observer in someone who
consumes a lot of analysis about China, it seems could be quite opaque about
how that's really, how that's really run and what the different sort of trends
are within China. I think what one thing that interested in the law was
the end of the zero COVID policy. And there's a moment where it was
that there was a growing protests. He didn't know it's going to be like
a replay of Kinnemen where there's a massive, like harsh crackdown, or was
the leadership going to kind of ease off and they did ease off. And
even though it seemed like she Jinking had really one percent put his name behind
the zero COVID policy, is that this is about you know, they were
going to win and Jan King is going to win against COVID, There'll be
no COVID cases, you know, and then almost with a snap of the
finger, it's like, oh no, never mind. You know, policies
totally changed. Even now as authoritarian countries like to do, they're sort of
rewriting the past and saying, oh no, we didn't really ever have a
zero COVID policy. So so there's something very interesting going on within within the
Chinese leadership where it's not it doesn't seem to be exactly that Hijin Pink says,
yes, this is what happens, is what we're going to do,
and the story there seems to be some degree of you know, pushback probably
isn't exactly the right word, but some debates that go on and there is
some changing of policies that do happen. And so I think that's interesting to
watch in terms of how things do work domestically within China and give us about
about again a premisicant uncertainty about well, like has China even decided what it
wants to do? You know, there's there's some authors will say, well,
China has one hundred degrees one hundred year plan to conquer the world,
and I just we're not observed about how governments work. They just don't work
that way China or anyone else. It is not possible. So I think
that there's consider I'm talking about what you know, whether it's China even knows
what it's what it's really shooting for in all these areas. So I think
that there's there's a lot going on there and a lot that we can't really
observe very easily. Yeah, I used to play around with decision free analysis
and one of the you know, when you're talking about uncertainties of outcome and
what the probabilities are of certain things. The only things that seemed to stand
out with China is that they've been consistent about since nineteen forty nine of trying
to bring Taiwan back as a state in the Chinese in the Chinese name,
I mean make it. They don't recognize it as an independent nation, and
um that they want to get over now, I mean last the hud years
of humiliation from that date back to the the Opium Wars, so you know,
and and if you base that, then I think you all talk about
the the BRI the UH program for the Belt Belt Road initiative, and and
they're they're an increasing number of nuclear weapons. Kind of talk about how those
things kind of play together, if if if if what I've asked to make
any sense at all? Yeah, Um, so yes, I think that
what we're trying to do is those are kind of our two caseities there about
looking at here two you know, big picture national initiative, national international initiatives.
The China's pushing them and pushing for a while now, and they're they're
investing a lot of resources, like a lot of resources, right, and
so um, a lot of people look at let's take the Belt Road induitiative,
and it's sometimes portrayed as wild. This is, you know, China
going out economically sort of like economic to politics. They're projecting power through economic
might and so on, and they're gonna be pulling all these countries into its
orbit in Central Asia and then the least even sort of flirting mission stuff in
Europe um, South Southeast Asia obviously, and so with all this, they're
just going to really you know being capture, capture all these these areas you
know to some degree, right, and so part of what we're trying to
stay there. And this is actually since we first wrote there, you know,
this is one of the things they're Renny walks on a lot. And
and since this is written, is that I've even gotten more awkward. I
guess we're trying. I would saying that there was there was stories coming out.
I think these last week where all these countries are gonna have to they're
gonna have to be full closed upon. All these projects don't make money,
they're not effective, they're breaking down, and they're supposed to these big infrastructure
projects that would tie these countries to China, but it's simply not working very
well. And people who are you know, on this sort of um or
like libertarian side of things, would be like, of course, you know,
a huge, massive government projects, they are often big flaws with them,
right, And so when you also look at countries like China and the
you know these countries they're dealing with here that are highly corrupt, you know,
money that should go to making these projects be super effective and wonderful for
everybody, they're being siphoned off by all all sides. Right, So so
it's it's it's simply not working out. They don't have the capabilities to make
these huge initiatives work out very well. And and people are of course noticing
this now in other countries are seeing that, well, China is not the
savior, you know, that it's not going to help our countries develop.
You know, it's just not working right. So I'm China making big efforts
to kind of you know, so it's weight around and get get more influencings
to be not working out exactly how China wanted it too. On the on
the area of nucular weapons, which the Renty's through his geospatial and intelligence work,
he's you know, he's seen a lot of satellite pictures of the stuff
that China's been doing the particular weapons program, and they're doing a lot.
They are, they are doing a lot to modernize their program. And but
the question in is for a long time they're the guiding policy was minimal deterrence.
Essentially, the idea that well, if we have you know, a
couple hundred nukes and that's good enough because we can probably get one through.
If you can get one through to get a major city, that's enough de
terrence for us. We're not going to worry that much about it. Beyond
that um but that's not generally the projet superpower would take. So we had
the US and a Silvil union in their long term competition during the Cold War,
while that was express through competition over creating better and more and biggers for
their weapons. So China unsurprisingly probably is following a similar line there where they
want to maybe get closer to parody with the US. But then again,
is that a threat whereby China wants to use a stronger nucular shield to be
able to then do more stuff conventionally, and then maybe it feels like if
it has a stronger nuclear deterrent than they can do something more against Taiwan or
other places and shield itself in that way, These nuclear threats sort of coercive
power, you know. Or is it simply that China is tired of being
so weak compared to the US and it's this nucular weapons program. So even
if you see a significant modernization increase the nucular weapons of China, you still
don't really have much to say about their goals. We don't know what their
goals are, what their intent is with that, and that a lot of
times I always looked like like to think about, well, what if you
know, the US was in China's position vice versa. You know, would
we want to sit here and have a nuclear nuclear weapons program, you know
whatever, Cora the size of China, you'd be happy with that. We
probably wouldn't. So China probably isn't even happy with that either. Now what
exactly they intend to do with it? More powerful me to go weapon program
that that we don't know. I had to kind of grin when you were
talking about how things with the Belton Road and initiative or quote not working out.
I think probably an area of agreement US and Chinese counterparts and the planning
parts in their state departments is talking about the lessons you learn from trying to
project your cultures onto others. Just like we couldn't quite make Afghans, Iraqis
and Nicaraguans into America, And it looks like they're having a little bit of
trouble getting Cambodians, Tree Lankans and Zimbabweans to align with the Daoism and Confucious
views of the world. But I guess all expanding powers have to learn that
lesson one way or another. In the article, you outline some challenges in
addition to the unknown challenges, you had war fighting challenge, influenced challenge,
and economics challenge. And I was as curious as far as the PRC's ability
that they're growing, how would you rank those against each other? And on
the other side of the coin, where do you think the US and her
friends and allies are best position to counter? Yeah, that's a tough question.
I think that. To me, the I like to put this up
on Twitter pretty frequently is that, um, the China seems to be pretty
bad at solf power and so on the influence side, you know, even
when they're trying to really do a materially based, you know, economic sort
of policy where they're essentially paying off various countries to b R and stuff like
that, they're not very successful of that. And then other areas of influence,
they seem to be just constantly putting their foot in their mouths, shooting
themselves in their foot, whatever the footing metaphor you like, you can use
any of those. It just don't seem to be really good at at influencing
other countries. And and so part of this is sort of like the Wolf
four year diplomacy part sort of taken hold in where they're just acting pretty hostile.
And so I think that's that's an area where to me, the US
has a presignificant advantage and that it's been I think it's pretty sad the US
isn't really doing more in that area. And I think that's a place where
and it it becomes the US in China conflict, you know, it really
becomes an influenced challenge is South power challenge thing. I'm super happy with that
because I think DUS has a hugely vantage there now. If you if you
move over to the military or economic arenas, there are some I think more
skinis game challenges there. On that, I think that the US has to
work harder in constructing trade agreements with countries in East Asia South Asia and work
harder on that. I think I was not that happy when DUS did not
go forward with the TPP that the Transpacific Trade Partnership wherever the right acronym there
is, and that's also becomes something new now, so the US then asked
would have to do a different process to sign onto that. So I think
something along those lines it would be good for the US. But that's as
economic composition. I think the US has to know work in that area of
how do we make sure that even as these countries are trading a lot with
China, that there's still a major US trading partner as well, and that
we're facilitating as much as we can. I think that's that's extremely important.
I think on the military side, in some ways, that's the biggest challenge.
In some ways it's it's sort of not I guess in the way that
it seems to me to be a very significant challenge is if the US is
trying to project military power, you know, within whatever, one hundred miles
fifty miles in the Chinese coastline. Um, that's that's a that's a pretty
big challenge. And so that's probably the hardest, hardest challenge that it seems
to me that what what's going on here? I think in terms of global
projection of power, the China can in no way match with US. Has
not even close the amount of basis the US has worldwide, the amount of
the ability of the logistical ability of US to project power abroad, Like I
no one can match the US. And that so if it becomes also a
competition there we're China is trying to go out in and sort of sort of
actually physically sort of conquer the world in terms of, you know, creating
all these these basing initiatives to match the US and so on. I think
that's a failing um strategy for China. So so I guess the toughest thing
would be if if the US is somehow drawn into a North Try combat,
which China very close to China. That seems to be the toughest problem and
ideally something that we can avoid. Well, I thought, I thought it
was interesting that that if we can't predict well, I think you said,
instead of trying to predict China's intentions, goals, and strategies, then we
should focus on other things like shaping conditions that affect China's intentions, goals and
strategies. I mean, um, when you're doing a commander's intent one of
the things you look at or the capabilities, at least what you believe the
capabilities of I think you talked about SyRI. You know, you assess the
capabilities of the other guy, and you're trying to figure out what they can
do with those. So you know, you again you develop a decision tree
kind of thing that well, you know, but yours. I think part
of what I got out of this was that the suggestion is we don't have
to worry about that. We need to to uh, what's what's the word
from, Oh gosh, kendeed, we have to tend to our own garden.
That garden includes, uh, as you said, making good alliances and
kind of go along with that thought, what should we be doing in life?
The fact that we have a known unknown that we don't really know where
where the Chinese strategies are going. Yeah, So I would say there's there's
two big things, and it's that. One thing is what we call for
self strengthening kind of things, building up our own capabilities, capacities, and
go on. In that there are I think if we sat here for ten
a manage to come with a hundred things that the United States could do to
put itself on stronger footing moving forward. A lot of it could be,
you know, very internally oriented. Some of it could be extreme oriented,
but things that the US can do to put its own house in order to
make it stronger and moving forward, A whole whole long list of things to
do. Some things we would probably disagree on, but there'd be a lot
of things, proposals that we could put out there, right, Um,
And so there's there's that kind of set of things that I think are important
to look at. And then there's also in terms of shaping. I think
that, like I said, so there's been this this wisdom going back for
really for centuries from some Zoodo calls its to even more recently widely. Um,
Jesse Wiley, is that one thing that you'd like to do in terms
of the strategy is sort of you know why, I think why they called
it u shaping the pattern of war. Claus has said, you know,
understanding what kind of conflicts you're in, and even if we take a step
back and broaden that is like, so, so what what and how and
where is the competition going to occur with China? You know, it's I
mean, I think competition is an okay word because it seems like we are
in that right, So but then what what form is it going to take?
You know? And so the US if you can, if if we
can sort of shape that competition in certain ways and put it push it towards
a certain direction, it's better for us, right, advantageous for us.
That's a good thing. So I think that, you know, trying to
get trying to compete with US over influence about Hey, maybe we should go
to All fond the regional sort of organization UM in Southeast Asian and say,
hey, we're going to really invest a lot or the romacy here. We're
going to make sure we go to all the meetings, We're going to try
and set the agenda. We're going to really try and push this and kind
of see how it China responds. In China can either we don't care about
All Fiana. Nobody cares about that. There it's a weak organization and nobody
nobody really cares. They can take that and so they see that terrain to
the US, and then the US can use that to its advantage or trying
to get back. Oh wait, we need to get in on this game.
So then the competition starts to play out in terms of that are know
which, like I said, I think the US has an advantage there,
and so I think that's in terms of sort of shaping the type of conflict
that happens. I think it's much better for the US to be having that
kind of competition rather than most other kinds of competition. Right, So there's
that that goes on. I think the alliance piece kind of helps with both
a bit. And so of course, you know, the one of the
main purposes of an alliance is that you aggregate your power. And there are
some great allies in the East Asias for the United States that can add a
lot to our capabilities there across the four range of those areas, you know.
So of course Japan, I think in the anarchos folks a lot on
Japan and South Korea, and we're writing it. It was sort of like
a dream of like, oh, hey, it would be great if this
could be more of a trilateral alliance instead of more of like a hubbands folks
thing. A trilateral where the US and the Republic of Korea and Japan that
they're coming together and they're cooperating on more and more things. That would be
I think much better for the US instead of having a tighter alliance, instead
of being like, oh, the US is going to talk to Japan,
the US is then going to talk to South Korea, go back to talk
to Japan. That seems less effective, right, So moving in more towards
trilateral and then also pulling in other countries as it seems that that's purprise.
So the Philippines probably be the next on the list and be like, hey,
this is another really important country in the situation. You can simply look
at a map and see what are the most important countries there, and you
look at Okay, Japan, South Three, the Philippines, Vietnam, these
are very important countries when you look at US interests in the US since Southeast
Asia, you know so and so. So I think that in my tracking
of the news, the US has been moving in this direction, and there
is some kind of approachment going on between South Korea and Japan. They seem
to be cooperating together more on things. They're been looking more with the US
in terms of a trilateral pan situation. Which that's another thing I like to
highlight on our underlying a lot on Twitter. A lot is is to point
out when these things are happening, and it really emphasizes are important and really
useful for the US. And so I think in terms of you know how
alliance is. Of course, they bring power, so that's a self strengthening
thing. It brings power or to US side and influence, and it also
helps for shape the environment, so that China all of a sudden, if
China, if China looks, you know, off its coastline and says,
oh, you know, these alliances to us have the pretty weak and they're
divided, they're factionalized. These countries are fighting amongst each other. The US
and Japan might have a strong alliance, but the other country is everything else
is kind of weak. We can take advantage of this, we can kind
of divide in content and stuff, or China can look out and say,
oh, wow, there's really tightening alliances here. There's no room for us
to push on that at all. We need to change the way we look
at this and rethink how we're going about this, because you know, this
is a good situation for us, and we can't really divide and conquer.
We have to rethink this, you know. So I think there's regardless of
whether even China does want to would even think about trying to divide and conquer
or not, if it's not feasible, they just aren't going to go that
direction at all. So in this way you can you can try in shape
condition, you know, affect conditions within shape, what Chinese intention will be
in the future. I think that's that's ideally abtection that the US could go.
I really like how you and your co authors brought in the concept of
shaping is a way to tie in a few things together. You know,
we have our bilats with the Japanese and the Australians, but we also have
aucus that's bringing in the Brits more. But of course we also have one
on the ones with the Brits. Of course, the Australians and the Brits
have their own relationships. You also briefly mentioned the quad and it tied into
another concept that you brought in later on. You know, what are the
frustrating things? Well, let me let me reprioritize here. One of the
great things about the US and most of our allies is where we're wonderfully fractious
democratic systems that change governments and have competing centers of power at the end in
theory trying to produce a better quality of life for their citizens. Uh.
The downside of our system of governance compared to the PRCS is we are a
fractious, ever changing of political system that is hard to get some continuity.
So people have been looking for that that unicorn called the bipartisan consistent consensus that
depending upon which party is in power, if you're if you're willing to expect
accept the you know, eighty percent agreement is continuity and the twenty percent is
just creative friction. If you get eighty percent, you have that bipartisan consensus.
And towards the end, y'all brought out something repurposing a word that goes
back to George Washington, that, um, there's this binary and I think
and I believe we're in agreement here. I think it's a false argument that
you have China doubs, you know, to pick your stereotype from the nineteen
nineties through the mid twenty tens, some people use the a word appeasement.
They were really trying to just engage with China engagement versus the other by false
binary, I believe, which are the China hawks, which is everybody needs
to get ready to go to war in physical year twenty twenty seven, because
that's what the introls of the sheep tells is going to take place. That
in between there, it kind of brings in the quad aucus and other arrangements
of the Philippines. You were talking about a moment ago is entanglement, which
in the American instinct has the spines go out and the clause come out defensively
because it's it's a negative connotation. But you try to describe how in your
in your co author's view, that a constructive entanglement is actually a positive outline
the positive type of entanglement that y'all were describing towards the end of the article.
Yes, I wanted the use of the word entanglement, which historically in
the US it is the start with the negative. Since Abelius is sort of
you go back to the nineteenth century, even early twentieth century's out the twenty
cent maybe that viearis should not be entangled with the rest of the world.
We should avoid these entanglements, and that views actually is corrupted by being too
much engaged with the concerns and the rest of the world. As an exceptional
it's different. Its to maintain that space. That's like the guide, one
of the guiding ideas and American diplomacy, early diplomacy now. And so it's
so I kind of wanted to reclaim that a bit and also sort of I
guess sort of place place our flag in the sand and say we're not just
talking about you know, being a little you know, being a little bit
more. I wanted to really signify like, no, no, this means
doing a lot more in terms of again creating that alliance system in these days
of Asia, Western sit whatever you want to call the region. And so
I didn't, yeah, I didn't want to say we just need to do
a little bit more fine tuning alliances. Not I think we need to really
invest a lot in that. And that means you know a lot of time
amongst the principles of being there and really striving for a really strong alliance there
again starting with the Japan and South Korea and then expanding that out and in
tying that in also with these other these other partnerships there there Aucus and the
Quad and so on. And also wanted to draw attention to I think there's
there's almost sort of an American fetish with Australia that so I put this in
two or two harsh aligned but is that somehow that Australia is the strong position
in the Western Pacific and this is the position of strength and then you know,
go against China something like that. It's and again it's we should look
at maps more and you look at a map, and Australia is pretty far
from China. You know, there's a lot of countries, a lot of
country's in between Australia and China. And well, yes, I very much
appreciate Australia, and there's there's strong lines with the US. It's stocks solid,
and it's great. Um. They provide a lot of capacities and capabilities
for the US and the partnership and so on. But to me, the
number one thing, the point of action in this is Japan and South Korea
and the Philippines. That area. That's what I really want to focus on
and say, hey, we need to entangle ourselves in that region with those
allies and really make that work. And that's what we try and say is
that, you know, no matter what happens, no matter what kind of
challenge we see emerging in the next you know, five, ten, twenty
thirty, even more years, that that's merely regret to move right there,
Having that strong alliance is going to help no matter what happens. I mean,
I can't say no matter what, but anything I can imagine having that
really strong alliance there is going to help. Again on the economic side,
if we really stank these relationships. That means they're not going to be continually
pulled into the Chinese economic orbit. That means on the influence side, they're
gonna stick with the US. On the military side, they have huge capabilities
there that they can they can contribute to any kind of conflict that can happen
in in these days. Also, I was gonna're gonna try and look this
up before it got on here, but there's this article in the journal Orbits
written I think it's around twenty eleven twenty twelve, where it paints this describes
as hypothetical situation where the US this is a carrier in Eustasia and it's done
by China, but it's done in a way such that it blurs the situation
so much that it's not really clear what exactly happened. And because US influenced
Inustasia has following so much, even its allies are sort of like, well,
yeah, we don't know it really happens. We're not going to do
anything about this, you know. And so I think that I actually think
about that a lot. It's a good article and it draws to mind bit
Also if you think about Ukraine, is that the the importance of having allies
on your side that are strong, that can contribute and will trust you,
I think is really priceless. So I think going going all in on that,
or not all in, but going strongly in on that, I think
helps no matter what the situation is. And I think, like you said,
whether wherever you follow on that spectrum of wanting to do more engagement or
more more containment, or wherever I mean you need that, you definitely need
that is something that I think generally a lot of people can agree upon.
Is is investing in that. Yeah. What I liked about that approach was
that you suggested that if we did this right, we would not be again.
It is not directed toward we're gonna we need you to help us fight
China. It is more we are your allies. We will do we will
work together with you in any number of ways to meet a lot of different
situations. As I think you said, entangle is quite distinct from engagement.
While the latter was meant to foster liberalization with China, Entangle takes active steps
to strengthen alliances in rules based order in East and Southeast Asia. Is largely
independent of the internal characteristics of Chinese politics. And society. It can respond
to either a more aggressive or less aggressive Chinese foreign policy. Can you kind
of talk about that at more? Is it? Because I think that's kind
of a key section of what you mean by this entanglement rather than pure alliance
anti China stuff. Yeah, yeah, there is. There's there's ideas out
there they're suggesting that, Well, the way that we should approach this is
just approach every everything of the country out there and say hey, we want
you on board to fight China, we want you on board of this anti
China agenda. Other countries are uncomfortable with that. They don't want to make
that choice when it's when it's puts it them like that, it's like it's
us for them. They don't really want to make that choice, you know,
and so it's it's alienating to try and force that to sitting on all
variety countries from from South Korea through through South Asia to Africa. They don't
want that. They also don't find that authentic. It's you know, we're
not going over to Nigerian saying hey, Nigeria, you're a great country,
you're a strong country, you're growing. We really think that we can do
great things together. If you fade in that way, it's one way of
doing it. In other ways, like hey, Nigeria, you see these
games of China. We don't like that you have to choose us instead.
That's not it's not the same way. It's not the same energy, the
same vibe, you know. And so I think that by approaching these countries
and saying, hey, we want to create these close relationships with you,
and we think that our mutual interest that we can we can work on here,
I think that's a much better way of approaching it. And I think
that the side benefit will be that again, as we didn't see this in
the evolution of how South Korea's is sort of looking at at China and the
US and so on, is that they're noticing that China is not They're not
behaving well from this shuth Sam perspective, you know. And so so as
if we come in and say, hey, no, we don't. We're
not trying to force you in your anti Chinese perspective. We're just trying to
get closer with you. And then China steps on its own feet again,
and there's all that stuff, and then there's other kinds of like yeah,
actually, China is not doing things that we like. We're glad they we're
close to the United States and is actually driving as even closer que And we
liked that You didn't force us to make a choice. You gave us that
option, You reached out your hand of friendship. We took it, and
now we're glad to have you as friends because we're now getting very worried about
China. I think that's sort of what we're seeing in a series of countries
here, and I think that's advantageous to the United States for sure. Of
course we haven't touched on it yet today, but the the eight hundred pound
guerrilla in the national security arena over the last year has been the Russia Ukrainian
War, and from both and economic diplomatic In a military perspective, everybody looking
at that to as you do with all really medium sized wars, trying to
learn some lessons, to see how what theories play out, but confirms your
priors, what challenges your priors uh for for your perspective, you know,
looking for Beijing as much as we can, having looked at their priorities in
their views, what do you think are some of the takeaways the PRC is
looking at closely from the Russia Ukrainian War to this point. M Yeah,
that's a good question. I think that, Yeah, a lot of people
are trying to sort of figure that out, and there's sort of a debate
going on that well. On the one hand, maybe China is saying,
wow, you know, military operations seem pretty hard, and countries that even
have a significant, you know, quantitative advantage, they might have a lot
of trouble in carrying out you know, complex operations, and as I think,
that's possibly one way of thinking about it. And I think, you
know, in addition to that is that I think that the tightening or nature
of the Western alliance, I think is something that's also probably getting some people's
attention. And I think on both those illnesses probably makes trying to a little
more wary about trying to be aggressive in any any sort of military fashion.
Is the troubles that the Russian has had and the ability of the US and
its allies to respond, you know, pretty quickly and strongly to it.
So I think on those ends that probably gives trying to pause in certain ways.
I think on the other side of the equation, though, there's a
number of countries that have not necessarily cited obviously quickly with the United States,
that they might do more strongly, whether it's like Brazil or South Africa or
other countries like that, or even in India to some extent. You know,
they're not really jumping in like maybe THEOS would want them to do,
I mean jumping in metaphorically of supporting the US and supporting Ukraine and so on.
So I think, you know, China probably see some space there and
kind of is maybe interested in that. Um. Otherwise, I think they're
probably you know, very interested in the performance of like certain weapons systems and
things of that nature, and different yes, overarching I don't necessaries the military
strategies, but maybe operational already, maybe the strategies behind it. They're probably
how that's playing out in terms of also with regards to what weapons system are
being involved and are being useful or not. I think those are some of
the issues. But I think probably the net effect is is pretty positive on
the US and US allies kind of side. At least That's how I'm sort
of interpreting at this point. Well, that's a good point to put a
stop to the show. Although I think we could talk for quite a while
more before we let you go, and let me thank you for coming on
with us, Jeffrey, and and let me ask you this, where what
are you working on that our people be our listeners be interested in And where
can people find out more about your writings and other and other thoughts. Yeah,
so I'm pretty active on Twitter and I'm happy to engage with people there
and happy to get messages. Or you can also just Google me and find
me on University of Portland website and you can email me there. Happy to
get emails and course long with people. Right now, my big project for
the Summari is trying to finish up this this manuscript on a book on strategy.
So I've been trying to work a lot on strategy for the past couple
of years instead of trying to finally get that wrapped up and hopefully get that
out in publication in the next year. So it would be great. Well,
Jeffrey has been great having you on here, and I do encourage all
the listeners to make sure and give Jeffrey listen to when you get a chance,
and to track what you're doing um and look forward to the next opportunity
Joe. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's great fun. And thank
you everybody for joining us for another edition. Mid rats and until next time,
hope y'all have a great Navy Day. Cheers. Need to be having
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