The Pacific Threat – USA Gov Policy

Countering China in the Pacific may be the greatest test of military strength and political willpower by democratic nations since World War II. The new three-way agreement among the governments of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States [AUKUS], which initially formed a strategic defense alliance to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, has expanded into a coalition working across the Indo-Pacific region to push back against the rising threat of an aggressive China. Former Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon addressed that threat this week at a US Naval Institute conference where he said the most remarkable thing about the agreement is the sharing of advanced technologies, including nuclear propulsion for submarines, and Canberra’s commitment “to an adversarial role with China,”, according to John Grady writing in USNI News.

AUKUS adds to other US Indo-Pacific defense agreements that include five formal treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia-New Zealand. During a CNN interview this week Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen acknowledged for the first time publicly that the United States has 32 troops on the ground in Taiwan training its military forces. While a mostly symbolic move it indicates the official return of US military to the island for the first time since the American Taiwan Defense Commanded ended in 1979. President Biden last week told a televised forum that the United States was ready to defend Taiwan against an invasion from China. But all is not as positive as it appears.

While it seemed to be good news for Taiwan and the other democratic states of the Indo-Pacific region, senior officials in the Biden Administration quickly exhibited a lack of political willpower when they immediately backed off the President’s statement of support for Taiwan.

Chinese officials in Beijing viewed the retraction as indicative of a lack of strong leadership by the United States and confirmation of the Biden Administration’s unwillingness to physically confront China should, or when, it decides to take back Taiwan. The White House retreat conflicted with statements by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that “Taiwan has become a democratic success story” and that the US is among many UN members who “view Taiwan as a valued partner and trusted friend.” Blinken added that “Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN system is not a political issue, but a pragmatic one.”

Mixed messages by senior Biden Administration officials have emboldened Chinese President Xi Jinping to move aggressively in the South China Sea. Over China’s National Day week at the beginning of October, Beijing sent a record number of 149 military aircraft southwest of Taiwan in strike group formations. As a warning to Taiwan and the West it also conducted beach landing exercises on its side of the Taiwan Strait. Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, defiantly told reporters that “Taiwan has no right to join the United Nations.” Chinese President Xi Jinping and the CCP have a long history of continuing to push their policy agenda hard until they hit a wall. So far, the Biden Administration is not building a wall. From China’s perspective there is no wall in sight.

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If Washington and the AUKUS alliance states fail to send a consistent and strong message to China, defense analysts in Washington say that China will continue with its belligerent behavior and it can be expected to increase in intensity in the coming months. This comes as Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed to Bloomberg News for the first time that the Chinese test of a nuclear-capable missile would be very difficult to defend against. He added that “What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning.” The Defense Department previously declined to confirm the October 16 test although military analysts knew about advances in China’s hypersonic weapons program for many months.

If Chinese military preparations for action against Taiwan continue to intensify the AUKUS alliance may be forced into a position that risks a major war in the Pacific. It could emerge from unintended consequences of interactions during exercises or a deliberate act of aggression by China. What is certain is that mixed messages coming from the White House increase the risk among a number of nuclear-armed states in the region. Washington needs to recognize China is no longer a weak, backward nation with barefoot doctors tending its sick. Just this week Chinese researchers announced their new supercomputer is one million times more powerful than its nearest competitor, Google’s Sycamore and that a second light-based machine takes one millisecond to perform a task that would take a conventional computer 30 trillion years. This is the reality of China in 2021. The Biden Administration and AUKUS must address the threat while the opportunity still exists.

Daria Novak provides updates on China each Friday

Photo: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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