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Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance?
Senior Fellow Douglas Farah's analysis of the debate over the level of threat posed by Iran's expanding diplomatic, trade and military presence in Latin America, and its stated ambition to continue to broaden these ties.
Chinese Naval Modernization: Altering the Balance of Power
Richard Fisher details China's naval modernization program and the potential impacts on U.S. interests in the Western Pacific.
China and Japan: Asia’s Dangers Shift to the North
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During the first half of the last century, bloody conflict between China and Japan lay at the center of Asian international politics. That such conflict could come again may seem unlikely, given Japan’s deep and sincere pacifism since the end of World War II. But some recent events, most notably the cruise of a Chinese nuclear submarine through Japanese waters (preceded by a circumnavigation of the key US territory of Guam), has given new substance to what has long been every strategist’s nightmare.
These developments have also given the lie to the widespread opinion that the only foreign policy issue China cares about or might fight over is Taiwan. If that is the case, why go out of your way to make an enemy of Asia’s real super power: namely, Japan? The focus of tension is migrating north, from the Taiwan Strait to the territorial waters of Japan—which extend, let us recall, as far south as Shimoji-shima, some 250 miles northeast of Taiwan--to Korea, and perhaps to Russia.
The basic problem is one of action and reaction, as Clausewitz pointed out long ago, drawing an analogy to Newtonian physics. A military move will be met by a countermove. The difficulty is that while in physics one can do some calculations and determine what the reaction will be, in strategy and war that reaction will be freely and unpredictably chosen by the party responding. Now it is becoming clear that even the Japanese have limits, but we cannot know exactly how they will react as these limits are breached, except that they will do so effectively, as a politically united state.
For half a century Japan’s has been a sterling record of purely defensive military policies, eagerness to negotiate and join international organizations, and a willingness to dig deep financially to support relief, peacekeeping, development, and other worthy projects. But now, as happened in the 1920s when the Washington treaty security system broke down, Tokyo finds herself facing unexpected and real threats, for which no obvious answers are at hand.
The root problem is that the US nuclear umbrella—the threat that any nuclear attack on Japan would be answered by the United States—is no longer credible, because potential attackers would have the ability to hit and incinerate large portions of the United States. This is the reason that our oldest and most intimate European allies, France and Britain, not to mention Israel, insist on maintaining their own nuclear weapons—as do India, Pakistan, and potentially many others.
So what is Tokyo to do, faced by a China that regularly and quite flagrantly violates Japanese sovereignty while denouncing Tokyo in her state controlled media, and supports a North Korea that evidently possesses nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, as it demonstrated by the firing over Japan of a Taepodong I missile in 1998.?
The answer is now clear: Tokyo has decided fundamentally to change its military posture and develop the sorts of weapons necessary to counter what is now openly named as a threat from China. Oddly, this response seems to have taken China by surprise, and shocked Beijing. For Japan is incomparably more sophisticated than China in military technology and in practice—she has perhaps the finest antisubmarine warfare (ASW) capability. We may be certain that when the Japanese put their minds on it, the military they create, despite what will be its clearly defined and limited missions, will unquestionably prove vastly superior to anything China can build or buy.
This is a massive and completely unnecessary setback for Beijing. Indeed, the gratuitous alienation of Japan must be ranked as one of China’s three greatest strategic mistakes since 1949 (the first was not sending an envoy to see US Ambassador Leighton Stuart in Nanjing, and thus sacrificing the possibility of good relations with Washington; the second was so threatening India that she decided to become a full-fledged nuclear power, which meant that in any future eventuality China would potentially face a two front war).
Japan is a democracy and a free country: it makes its decisions deliberately, through extensive consultation, and having made them, tends to stand by them—unlike autocratic China, where the leader has traditionally enjoyed the proverbial whim of iron. What this means is that in the years ahead, Japan will move steadily to upgrade its cooperation with its allies, its intelligence gathering capabilities, and its ability to detect, preempt, or destroy any attacking force—from land, sea, air, or space. I suspect that deterrence, based on an ability to strike back, will also be part of this mix.
The time has almost certainly passed when China could have stopped these developments that are so patently against her interests. The cruise of the submarine (noisy—one suspects so that no one would miss it) has done too much damage. Japan remains willing to talk, but in the future, we may expect her, as TR put it, to “speak softly but carry a big stick.”
Nor does China help her case by constant harping on Prime Minister Koizumi’s perfectly legitimate visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, to memorialize Japan’s war dead (including some deemed criminals) and as he makes explicit, pray for peace, or by calling for “accuracy” in the Japanese textbooks that are, admittedly, vague about World War II and the atrocities Japan committed. But does China have the standing to make such comments? Her own textbooks are profoundly misleading and confusing, and millions continue to honor the shrine of Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square—Mao, who was personally responsible for the deaths of far more Chinese than were the Japanese, themselves no mean killers.
Add to this the problem of Korea, and we have the makings of an entirely new power configuration in northeast Asia. North Korea is evidently in some sort of political turmoil, while the South is becoming disenchanted with Beijing, owing to the territorial implications of her claim that the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryo was in fact “Chinese.” The wisest strategy for both Koreas would be to draw much closer together and share their weapons, while moving in the direction of Tokyo and Washington, who have no designs on their territory. Doing so would secure Korea, which would become a nuclear power the size of the former West Germany, able to perform a balancing role.
One may ask too what the Russians will make of all this? They are one of China’s most important arms suppliers, yet anyone with the slightest knowledge of history realizes that each country is also one of the others’ potential worst enemies. Russia’s maritime territories render Chinese Manchuria landlocked; her base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski outflanks the entire Pacific coast of Asia, while Vladivostok, a key to her security, is also easily vulnerable to threats from China or Korea. We know historically that the Russians are deep and insightful strategic thinkers. What are they thinking now?
At one time strategists would have dismissed such questions as far-fetched. But no longer. And why? Ironically because China’s evident desire to demonstrate her military muscle is eliciting responses among her neighbors that will effectively hem her in. Already Chinese strategists are writing about the pattern of “nuclear encirclement” that has been produced almost entirely by their own actions.
The final question is how the United States will react. We have traditionally treated our Asian allies, Korea and Japan, as little brothers, in deeply unequal relationships that reflect the long-vanished power realities of the early 1950s. These will have to be changed, no mean feat. At the same time, we will certainly face intense pressure from China and her American advocates, mostly business, not to work with Japan, Korea (and Taiwan) in creating the increasingly evident military entente of Asian democracies.
In the case of India’s nuclear weapons, Beijing would seem to have calculated that Washington would do her work for her by somehow forcing New Delhi to give up the armaments to which she has every right. That proved incorrect and the result was a long term strategic headache for China, should she abandon trade for war. Now we are almost certain to hear calls from Beijing that we “restrain” Japan. But Japan has learned her lesson: she is interested in the defense of herself and her neighborhood, not aggression or empire building.
China has succeeded in shifting the focus of tension on her coast from an island of 22 million people to one having perhaps 130 million, as well as the world’s second largest economy and superb levels of education and technological competence. This has been a very unwise move for China. But I think we may expect, and hope (for that it where American interests lie) that the now inevitable chorus of Chinese pleas and threats designed to split Washington and Tokyo will fall on deaf ears.
