February 17, 2001	atimes.com

Editorials ANALYSIS Bush's lone military superpower vision Part 2: The enemy is China By Uwe Parpart Editor, Asia Times Online Part 1: Bush's lone military superpower vision Part 3: The nature of future wars and US strategy US President George W Bush has tasked the obscure Office of Net Assessment of the Department of Defense (Pentagon) and its publicity-shy director, veteran - very veteran, he's 79 years old - Andrew W Marshall, with conducting a fast-track, six-week review of American military strategy in light of revolutionary military-technological developments and changed, post-Cold War international strategic alignments and potential adversaries. Judging by published views of Marshall and the Office of Net Assessment, the likely principal new challenger of US dominance is China, and India bears close watching. In the summer of 1999, Marshall assembled a group of academics, former government officials and current uniformed and civilian Pentagon officials for his annual summer study of military-strategic topics. But this time around, the subject was not Marshall's long-time favorite, military-technological revolutions, it was Asia - specifically China. The Office of Net Assessment director had long complained that the Pentagon and the US military were bereft of China experts, but this gap was going to be redressed. The challenge put before the study group was to imagine what Asia and China would be like in the year 2025 and what threats this might pose to American interests in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Some interesting worst-case scenarios emerged. Today, China has about 1.2 billion people and a GDP of US$1 trillion growing at an annual rate of 7-8 percent. By 2025, its population will be 1.5 billion, its GDP in the $6 trillion-$7 trillion range (comparable to that of the US or the EU in the mid-1990s), and it will be able to avail itself of the most advanced technologies. Now imagine that this economic giant has intimidated Taiwan into effective submission, persuaded Korea and Japan to close the US bases on their territories, and made a deal with India to divide Asia into spheres of Chinese and Indian influence at America's expense. What sort of China would that be? A China, says the "Asia 2025" study group report, that "will be a persistent competitor of the United States" and "will be constantly challenging the status quo in East Asia". And on the other hand, "an unstable and relatively weak China could be dangerous because its leaders might try to bolster their power with foreign military adventurism". The type of military threat China would pose in 2025 or the type of military action it and other Asian nations could engage in in the interim years are developed with numerous details in the "Asia 2025" report. Even prior to 2025, off-the-shelf cruise missiles will be available to China and other Asian nations on the global arms market. Satellite-based navigation systems will make those weapons highly accurate. And, of course, such missiles can be nuclear-armed. "As a result, states in the region may have powerful methods of ... influencing the behavior of their neighbors that do not involve the threat or use of major forces for invasion, conquest or occupation of territory. Instead, force will be used and objectives will be obtained increasingly through strategies that seek to coerce, intimidate or deny access," the report states. And the following scenario for future Taiwan crises is seen as possible, even likely: China decides to try to force Taiwan to accept reunification on Beijing's terms. Its first military step is a naval blockade of Taiwan. The United States sends ships to challenge the blockade. In response, the Chinese threaten missile attacks or hit American vessels, persuading Washington that it has to choose between going to war and pulling back. Hesitation in Washington or a decision to retreat prompts the collapse of the Taiwanese stock market, currency and economy. The Taiwanese establishment quickly accepts whatever deal Beijing is offering - and that isn't all. US failure to support its ally persuades other Asian powers that they, too, must accommodate the rising China. Japan makes a deal with Beijing for security and autonomy, in return agreeing to close all US bases. A reunified Korea, swept up by nationalist sentiment, also expels the Americans. China effectively dominates the entire region. "An Asia it dominates but does not conquer or occupy is China's goal," the study says. But it also imagines another China whose economy has crumbled and whose communist regime is ended by a military coup. In more general terms, write the study's authors, "We are concerned that many people in the defense planning community believe that the future will be largely a projection of the present ... [But] we are likely to be surprised by the 'non-linear' nature of the events and forces that shape Asia's new strategic environment." All this might be written off as paranoid or, for that matter, self-fulfilling worst-case scenario mongering in which study conclusions lead to implementation of US policies that inevitably bring about what the scenarios outline. But Marshall and his teams do not simply pull scenarios out of thin air. In 1996, the Office of Net Assessment commissioned a laborious translation of hundreds of books and journal articles by mid-level Chinese military officers showing that Beijing's future military leadership sees US military power as waning and plans to exploit weaknesses in US weaponry and supply lines should conflict occur. The Pentagon analysis of Chinese military writings was disclosed in September 1997 to the US Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing on intelligence challenges posed by China. Pentagon analyst Michael Pillsbury told the committee that the Chinese studies acknowledged that China's forces remained decades behind those of the United States. But they argued that China could catch up with power-leveraging weapons such as highly accurate cruise missiles and torpedoes. US Navy task forces, strung-out supply convoys, logistics bases, military computers and even stealth aircraft could become vulnerable if China exploited the proper technologies. One book published in 1996 by Maj Gen Li Zeyun contained articles, said Pillsbury, written by 64 People's Liberation Army authors listing in detail weaknesses in US Army, Navy and Air Force capability. The articles, Pillsbury said, were not only "very unfriendly'' toward the United States, they also were highly accurate in their analysis of weak points in US weaponry. The Chinese strategy, according to Pillsbury, involves "asymmetric warfare", leveraging inexpensive technology to defeat expensive US technology. Chang Mengxiong, former senior engineer of the Beijing Institute of Systems Engineering, wrote that by developing superior information technology the Chinese military could adopt methods that were "like a Chinese boxer with a knowledge of vital body points who can bring an opponent to his knees with a minimum of movement". An article by Major-General Sun Bailin of the Academy of Military Science argued that the US dependence on information superhighways made it vulnerable to attack by "electrical incapacitation systems". Captain Shen Zhongchang and co-authors from the Chinese Navy Research Institute wrote about techniques for defeating a larger, more powerful navy, including highly accurate, land-based, anti-ship missiles. Shen's article paid particular attention to attacks aimed at logistics bases and supply lines, noting for example US supply operations during the Persian Gulf War. So, Marshall and his colleagues are not merely talking through their hats. As the Bush administration's "top-to-bottom" review of US military capabilities proceeds, it will take into account the Chinese capabilities, strategies and tactics the US expects to encounter in coming years. ((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.) Part 1: Bush's lone military superpower vision Part 3: The nature of future wars and US strategy

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