I would put somewhere in there as well, the political issue of understandig that China is a threat. Sometimes Americans tend to bury their heads in the sand-China is one we should never become complacent with, and while we schmooze China we should always keep in mind that they have the ability to plunge a knife into our backs.

Great post Bill...

I've been coming to the opinion lately that a large-scale war with China in the near future is inevitable.

Given that, here is what I think we should be doing now in addition to or in elaboration of what you mentioned.

1. Build a broad Pacific alliance with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and maybe Malaysia...bring the UK in as well of course.

2. Make sure Japan, South Korea, and Australia all have active deployable nuclear weapons within three years. I think Australia already does…

3. Make the alliance with Taiwan and South Korea conditional on them spending a reasonable percentage of their GDP on defense. We do not want another EU in the Pacific parasiting its defense off of the US.

4. Increase our defense funding in order to build new aircraft carriers, attack submarines, and to build a fleet of F-22's to ensure complete air supremacy for at least the next 30 years. We should also be speeding up the F-35 project greatly.

5. Expand and modernize our military holdings in the Pacific.

6. Build a ballistic missile defense shield to protect the continental US. Do we really want to depend on the rationality of folks running the Chinese military for our survival?

Once the shit hits the fan we must fight the war the American way. That is the complete annihilation of the enemy’s will to resist and the demand for unconditional surrender. After that has been achieved, break the country up into pieces —liberate Tibet, make Hong-Kong independent or return to British suzerainty, tear off Manchuria perhaps— and then repeat the project of post-WWII Japan. Not sure on the details but something along the lines of the original American position at Versailles —to break Germany up into 2-3 pieces— combined with the Marshall plan.

Oh and while were over there we might as well have at North Korea.

Jason -

1. Such an alliance pretty much already exists.

2. Unnecessary and impractical. Though the removal of much of our ballistic missile threat has subdued our ability to "reach out and touch" China, nuclear proliferation in the area would be a less a practical deterrent than a powerful conventional Japanese and Taiwanese military, for example. This would also severely undermine our ability to stop other regimes from nuclear obtention.

3. Their defense expenditures are increasing, and we sell them the "good stuff." That being said, Japan could pick up a larger share:

"Overall, the non-U.S. NATO members spent an average of 1.9 percent of GDP on defense in 2001 as compared to 2.0 percent in 2000. Japan spent one percent of GDP on defense in 2001, however its defense budget was second only to the U.S. in absolute terms. Japan provided substantially less than its fair share of active-duty military personnel, military forces, and peace operations personnel. However, this must be viewed in the light of constitutional and historical factors that have limited the size of Japan’s defense forces, and discouraged their deployment abroad. Japan provided more funding for foreign assistance than any other nation in this Report. It ranked second in cost sharing, offsetting 79 percent of U.S. stationing costs in 2000. "

4. Increases in our defense funding are hampered by two live shooting wars at the moment, making success in Iraq a vital near term goal.

5. "Modernize," perhaps.

6. I agree with the necessity of a ballistic missile shield, but some speedbumps - China is developing missiles that can alter course in flight to deter our deterrence.

Other than that, post-war designs on China are the least of concerns. Also, good luck controlling a billion nationalists.

We're getting to the point where large scale conflict could be a civilization ender, and I don't just mean nukes. The key is to maintain a military edge while maintaining and primarily exerting economic leverage, a balancing act to avoid conflict.

Maintenance/Development of a political, legal, ethical, economic and spending environment that puts the United States at the forefront of the new-new-economy of leading edge technological development that will replace restructured loss of low-skill industry and services and maintain economic superiority or parity (exemplified by what Joel Garreau's new book describes as the GRIN technologies: Genetics, Robotics, Information technology and Nanotechnology):

The problem with these new technologies/industries is they have to be incorporated with the old technologies/industries, or all we have are research centers.

My analogy is the misrepresentation of the Industrial Revolution replacing the agricultural Revolution. Take a look at the bills for most families. Food is right up there with the other big hitters. We probably produce more food overall and per capita than ever. If anything the Industrial Revolution Absorbed and enhanced the Agricultrial Revolution.

If those new technologies don't absorb good old fashion heavy industry (cars, steel, toasters, etc.) we don't have anything but know-how to sell China to help them do those things better.

This matters because China is growing because we've shown them how. I work for a company that basically Xeroxed plans for factories and products here to be built in China. We've taught them and helped them grow in return for an opportunity for cheap labor (and access to a market which I question). Now that we've upgraded their industrial capability and as a consequence, their economic capability, they're building a military to match. Big Surprise.

I just shake my head. We isolated the Soviets from trade and technology for a reason. We brought them down by doing so. I keep asking myself why would we even consider doing it differently with China? Was it because they weren't as expansionist as the Soviets? Maybe it wasn't for lack of wanting to be expansionist, but the lack of capability. We have helped them remedy that problem.

The next Cold War has already started. Hope people realize we're in it before its too late.

"We're getting to the point where large scale conflict could be a civilization ender, and I don't just mean nukes."

Don't be ridiculous. More Roman soldiers died in one day at the battle of Cannae than did American GI's during the entirety of the Vietnam War.

My biggest concern is that Russia continues its backward slide and becomes a de facto ally of China. In that case an outright war would be disastrous and could only be avoided by giving nuclear weapons to all those involved. That would assure that any conflict would ineluctably go nuclear and perhaps sober up all those involved.

Many people, such as Victor Davis Hanson, have written that we should pursue an entente with India that would potentially open a second front in any conflict with China. I think this is a horrible idea for a number of reasons. First, it would undoubtedly create a similar fear of "encirclement" in China that drove Germany into WWI. Secondly, the effectiveness of India in any such war would probably be similar to Italy's involvement in WWI. The Chinese border with India is about the most tenable in the world so I doubt India could pose a serious threat. Lastly, India would most certainly follow Italy's example and complicate any peace process.

Don't be ridiculous. More Roman soldiers died in one day at the battle of Cannae than did American GI's during the entirety of the Vietnam War.

I'm not being ridiculous at all, and I'm not speaking in terms of relative historical losses due to conventional weapons.

Read up on the "GRIN technolgies" mentioned in my post. In the next 25 years, China could engineer a virus specifically targeted to wipe out caucasians, as a minute example. Or develop nanobots that could eradicate US energy supply. Computer hackers to decimate our infrastructure. EMP weapons. And all of it vice versa. If we're talking about generational strategy, the change that could grip the planet will be startlingly powerful, and that applies to warfare as well. This is expanded by the inherent fragility of globalized economic relationships; another great depression could be a surefire bonus.

As it is, no offense, but your suggestion to proliferate nuclear weapons is short-sighted; you don't proliferate nukes when you are selectively attempting to stop their spread, a process which, like it or not, requires some international consensus.

I am completely unconvinced by anything you just wrote. Some of it is realistic, some of it absurd —"a virus specifically targeted to wipe out Caucasians", what would it do, target my nice juicy round eyes but ignore oval shaped ones? — but it’s all part of the same technology of violence that has been developing for the past 20,000 years. Why did more Americans die in the Civil War from muzzle loaded rifle and cannon fire than from breech loaded machine gun and artillery fire in WWII? Because as technology evolved methods of combat evolved with it...as well as even more technology.

Weapons that cannot be situated within a reasonable sphere of acceptable losses are proscribed by decree and mutual interest —from the crossbow to the atomic bomb—until adequate defenses against them are developed. In that sense the distinction between nuclear weapons and the "Caucasian attacking viruses" and "nanobots" you mention is quite otiose.

Jason -

some of it absurd —"a virus specifically targeted to wipe out Caucasians", what would it do, target my nice juicy round eyes but ignore oval shaped ones?

Sorry buddy, but you may be uninformed on this matter. There are genetic differences among races, though the overlap of similarity is such that it makes races more alike (in a general, behavioral, physical capacity, human way) than they are different. Vague clue: look up prevalence of sickle cell anemia in African-American populations or Marfan syndrome in Scottish populations and tell me if you don't conceptualize the slightest possibility that certain subpopulations might be more susceptible to genetic triggers than others. "Round eyes" is just a silly comment, though it's a clue.

Designer biological warfare, whether it's targeted by race, setting or geographical point of origin with a very short lifespan (given global travel) is a not beyond science non-fiction. Neither is the use of immensely destructive nanotech. Neither are mutually devastating computer viruses.

All of your points about traditional defense and casualties are applying human paradigms present for centuries, when humanity is probably on the cusp of technology that will alter humanity itself. This means that your calculations are partially correct, but you haven't accounted for the possibility of the next century. Check out this book.

But the larger point is that the idea of an actual global conflagration will be devastating to the progress of civilization, particularly given the intertwining economic dependencies wrought by globalization. Would humanity survive in the next couple of generations? Likely. Could civilization as we know it be crippled? Possibly. Is humanity developing technology that, aggressively employed, could have consequences beyond mere political objectives? Yes.

Therefore, it is in our best interest, as well as a potentially hostile superpower like China's interest, to wage warfare in economic and political terms, with rough miltary parity making such a relationship possible via the concept of detente and mutually assured destruction. Practical military expansionism is dead or dying, IMO.

This whole thread sounds a little hysterical to me. Calm down. China is not going to unleash a virus to destroy Caucasions. We're spending too much money on their stuff. China is not North Korea; it is not a country led by a single wacko dictator. There is no evidence that they are bent on world domination.

Their economy is rapidly modernizing, and their politics are sure to follow, especially in the age of the internet. No big surprise that they want to keep their military capabilities current -- we do that every day, and would be even more inclined to do so if we had neighbors like theirs.

And what's wrong with "economic and political warfare." Put another way, they aim to compete peacefully and successfully, just like us. Good for them. The Chinese have been extremely entrepreneurial and avid traders for centuries. I'm a big fan of "economic warfare." The more the better. It's not a zero sum game. Economically, the essence of international trade is that collectively we all win by exploiting our comparative advantages. Politically, the essence of international trade is that everyone has a stake in preserving the peace and enforcing the rules upon which these mutually beneficial exchanges depend.

When I was a kid, Red China was a huge red blotch on my globe -- mysterious, impenetrable, implacably hostile, and evil. Anyone remember how sensational Ping Pong Diplomacy was? Now Yao Ming is the starting center for the Houston Rockets, American tourists are crawling all over the Great Wall, WalMart is selling me flip flops made with Chinese labor, and corporations are thinking about China as the next logical place to offshore tech jobs when India gets too expensive. Who would have thunk it was possible?

This whole thread sounds a little hysterical to me. Calm down. China is not going to unleash a virus to destroy Caucasions.

Well, I wasn't panting when I wrote it, just trying to illustate the possibility of technology in the near future. A larger threat stems from individuals and individual actions within nation states, rather than the traditional political goals of nation states themselves. My larger point was that war should not be looked forward to or stoically tolerated as an inevitability, and in 20th century terms, because it could be so destructive.

I agree about Chinese interests intersecting with peace. But there is an "x-factor" with their prideful culture and repressive society that could prove unpredictable. Also, unfettered, largely unregulated biotech development could prove very destructive.

And what's wrong with "economic and political warfare." Put another way, they aim to compete peacefully and successfully, just like us.

Absolutely nothing , WHEN they play by the SAME rules (which they are not, currently). Just because I'm speaking in terms of ecomonic warfare doesn't mean I think it's a bad concept - I just want us to win.

I think your larger point, and Zakaria's (who I always enjoy, BTW), is very well taken -- the competition with China is not likely to be military. And your point about the nature of future military warfare is equally on point -- the Battle of Armageddon will be fought with weapons we can scarcely imagine.

You said: "I agree about Chinese interests. But there is an "x-factor" with their prideful culture society that could prove unpredictable."

Well, read the comments on any right-wing blog. It's hard to come up with a more prideful culture than ours. And however prideful the Chinese are, why do we think, for example, that their looming dependancy of foreign energy will lead to military aggression? It's cheaper and easier to BUY it. America is dependant of foreign energy too. That doesn't mean we're going to invade an oil rich nation in the Mideast.

Oh, wait. We did. Oops.

Anyway, in my half century on this planet, Chinese troops briefly crossed the border into Vietnam for a few weeks. That's it. Compare that to our record during the same period. Now put youselves in the shoes of your average World Citizen. Who ya gonna worry about?

MichaelM -

1. While we invaded an oil-rich nation, it certainly wasn't for your rather unfair, ridiculous implication. Iraq would have never been on the table if it didn't threaten and previously invade the world's energy reserves (as well as its Eastern neighbor, for kicks). Its internal genocide was icing on the cake.

2. Americans are prideful, yet also self-centered, domestically satisfied, fiercely independent and rooted in judeo-christian principles, all traits expressed in a pretty open democratic republic model. This serves as a natural barrier to literal expansionism.

And PS - you fail to mention that the Chinese also crossed the border in North Korea and killed millions of their own in a cultural revolution. Now who YOU gonna worry about? Sorry, but your comments jumped the tracks.

While we invaded an oil-rich nation, it certainly wasn't for your rather unfair, ridiculous implication.

I was trying to be funny. Guess I failed. That's not unusual; my humor is frequently way too dry. I fully support our efforts in Iraq and the honorable nature of our intentions.

And PS - you fail to mention that the Chinese also crossed the border in North Korea and killed millions of their own in a cultural revolution.

I'm aware of the Korean War. I was specifically referring to events during my lifetime. In my view, the Korean War and the Battle of Veracruz are pretty stale information with which to assess the current geopolitical situation.

I'm also aware of the Cultural Revolution. But we were discussing international, not domestic, agression. So, to reference more recent events, the killings at Tienanmen Square and Kent State are not really relevant.

Just for completeness, I'm also aware that during my life a few shots have been fired by China along the Russian border and in the South China Sea in connection with territorial disputes. These lingering disputes are legitimate cause for concern. I'm more worried about the South China Sea than I am about Taiwan, because these islands represent huge energy reserves and the competing territorial claims are hopelessly muddled.

Sorry, but your comments jumped the tracks.

You're kind of touchy, do you know that?

The PRC uses military force in a different fashion from the US. Its invasion of North Vietnam couyld have crushed Hanoi. The message Beijing was sending was clear and unmistakable. In the same fashion Beijing did not refrain from stomping on an expanssionist India in the 60s. The PRC is actively building an alliance of raw materials suppliers and rogue regimes to counter American power. Unfortunately the CIA (as ever) was wrong about the scope and pace of the PRC's weapons programs and military developments. A war is likely in the next 20 years though I doubt the PRC will lose it. This is because they will pick the time and place of the confrontation careful weighing the ability and will to respond of the American president.

Unfortunately your theories of nuclear weapons use are wrong. While sane people may agree that nuclear weapon use is foolish there are always those who believe they can survive such use. The Russians believed they could fight such a war and never believed in MAD. More to the point the Japanese never believed they could conquer the US in WWII but it did not prevent them from attacking Pearl Harbor.

I was trying to be funny. Guess I failed. That's not unusual; my humor is frequently way too dry. I fully support our efforts in Iraq and the honorable nature of our intentions.

Well, I empathize, as my dryness is regularly missed too. (see two posts down) Understood.

You're kind of touchy, do you know that?

I don't follow. Interpreted literally, your comments jumped that tracks. Cold, bloodless statement of fact, really.

Getting back to ...

It's cheaper and easier to BUY it.

I agree, the force pulling us all from war. Except when an external factor (as proposed in Clancy's book, like limited cash reserves and credit exacerbated by a trade crisis) causes them trouble in keeping pace with their needs, or the worldwide supply is either disrupted or can't keep pace with their staggering growth.

These aren't likely scenarios, but they aren't nearly impossible, either.

These aren't likely scenarios, but they aren't nearly impossible, either.

No kidding, they're not impossible. In fact, I think something like this is inevitable. The types of weaponry you mention that are now being developed remind me of what Isaiah was trying to describe (without an adequate vocabulary in the Hebrew language) when he relates his visions of the end times.

Dang. Guess I just jumped the tracks again.

Interpreted literally, your comments jumped that tracks. Cold, bloodless statement of fact, really.

You're arrogant, too, but I actually find that engaging, and your arrogance compared to mine makes you appear nearly modest.

Heh.

As far as the Biblical armageddon comparison, no, you're potentially on track. You need to read that book "Radical Evolution" by Garreau. Great book. Depressing/inspiring, all at once.

Making bets on what China might do seems like a losing proposition. I'd rather we dispassionately consider what they are capable of and work to counter all potential threats. While we may enlist the aid of foreign partners the prudent thing to do is make sure we can go it alone if we have to.

One thing we can not expect is that every move they make will be rational from our perspective.

One thing we know is that China seems willing to make Russia a trading partner. China needs oil and Russia needs cash. It's seems a no brainer that they will trade rather than China making a grab for eastern Russia. The rest of asia is another story.