Nuclear weapons and the strategic environment in the Indo Asia-Pacific super-region

Nuclear explosion

Nuclear weapons do not make war between states impossible. They only make wars between Great Powers ‘cold’ rather than ‘hot’ shooting wars. Even if ‘cold’, a cold war is a war just the same. The Cold War of the 20th century between the USA and the USSR was fought through an extremely expensive and dangerous strategic arms race and conventional proxy wars. The Soviet Union could not match the US move to deploy strategic weapons in outer space. It lost the Cold War and had to disappear into the pages of history in the 1990s. The Soviet bloc also collapsed and a few of former Soviet allies are now members of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev returns to Moscow after a coup against him fizzles out a few months before the Soviet Union gets dissolved as an independent state

 

Vestiges of the 20th century Cold War remain in the region and the focal point is the Korean peninsula.  The situation in Korea and the broader Northeast Asian strategic environment can change if the current US-North Korean rapprochment will eventually lead to a peace treaty between the two states and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

North Korean leader Kim Jung Un meets US President Donald Trump in Singapore

 

Northeast Asia

 

South Asia is also a potential trouble spot as nuclear weapons states India and Pakistan continue to face each other in hostile emnity.

South Asia

 

Since three-four years ago, two new Cold Wars commenced.  

The first is between frenemies US and China in the Indo Asia-Pacific theater.

The second is between the US and Russia (both are clearly enemies to each other notwithstanding President Donald Trump’s cozying up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin) in the European and Middle East- North Africa (MENA) theaters.

Eurasia and the Middle East

 

 

This means that the US is waging a two-front ‘cold’ war.

 

In the Indo Asia-Pacific theater, the US superiority in strategic and conventional weaponry does not guarantee regional hegemony.  For one, it does not have enough carrots to win and consolidate friendships and alliances.

 

In contrast, China has a lot of carrots (including the various connectivity schemes like the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank, and the readiness to bribe state leaders in exchange for contracts and friendly relations).

Through a classic carrots-and-sticks strategy, China has been balkanizing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with some degree of success.  The soft targets of China’s carrots are the poorer members of ASEAN like Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar as well as the next member of ASEAN–Timor Leste.

Southeast Asia

 

China is also actively pushing its lines of defense outward away from its coastlines through aggressive force projection platform building in the South China Sea/West Philippines and territorial claims in both Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia.  In response to Chinese activism ang aggressiveness, a broad anti-China alliance has formed in the region.  The US move to rename its former Asia Pacific (military) theater to the Indo Asia-Pacific theater is a recognition of the importance of the Indian Ocean and India in its bid to contain and engage China. The US effort to get India in its anti-China effort is stifled by US support for India’s enemy, Pakistan.

 

The US cannot successfully complete its rebalancing to Asia (clearly an anti-China strategy) as it is still embroiled in serious disputes in too many other places (Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, etc) in the rest of the world.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump

 

 

For this reason, its Asian allies are rethinking their relations with the US and adopting independent strategies. Of course, the US had been exhorting its allies to spend more for their own defense, a call reiterated in so many ways by incumbent US President Donald Trump. The new South Korean leader is now keen to normalize relations with North Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been tyrying to change Japanese strategic doctrine so it becomes a normal power and its military forces shed its limited ‘self-defense’ role and assume full military capabilities and responsibilities. I believe that if the US under President Trump shirks on its responsibility to its Northeast Asian allies, given the rapproachment with North Korea, Japan will develop its own nuclear weaponry ala Charles de Gaulle’s force de frappe.

French nuclear submarine aptly named Le Terrible

 

We do indeed live in very interesting times specially since eccentric leaders like Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un can really change the game!

Dealing with ‘fre-enemies’

 

 

 

 

Two great powers with authoritarian or semi-authoritarian political systems should really attend seminars of Dale Carnegie on how to win friends and influence people. Or on how not to help your ‘frenemies’.

I am referring to China and Russia. Due to their heavy-handedness and hard-ball approaches, they manage to augment the ranks of their adversary’s (the US) allies and friends.

China single-handedly pushed the Philippines further into the Americans’ embrace due to its aggressive activism in the South China Sea. The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) of 2014 is the latest (most likely not the last) agreement strengthening US-Philippine strategic ties. Furthermore, Chinese territorial aggressiveness in Northeast Asia is further driving South Korea and Japan into the ‘tacit’ US-led anti-Chinese front. Japan in fact offered a strategic alliance with the Philippines (obviously versus China) last year after ‘gifting’ the Philippine navy with some nifty and spankingly-new fast craft (an obvious improvement over the decades-old US hand-me-downs). Vietnam and the Philippines cozied up to each other again due to Chinese heavy-handedness.

 

 

 

Sealing the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA)

 

 

Elsewhere, Ukraine responded to Russia territorial incursions by firmly siding with the West. Admittedly, Russia was simply a reactor to West-sponsored ouster of a pro-Russian government in Kiyev. However, hardball tactics versus a pro-West successor goverment will only alienate the latter. What it feared–an anti-Russia and pro-West Ukraine–actually came to pass.

Should Ukraine aspire for and gain admission into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after clinching EU membership, the Russian nightmare of a hostile ‘near abroad’ will materialize. That Western sanctions over the Ukraine question are helping push the Russian economy to a crisis is ‘salt on an open wound’.

Strategically, China and Russia will most likely get drawn together. Partnerships within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and with the rest of the BRIC (i.e., India and Brazil) and Venezuela, Bolivia and other Latin American governments with a left-leaning social policy and an anti-US foreign policy orientation will be strengthened or cultivated. Chinese carrots will continue to be available for pariah African states (over such issues as Darfur).

In Asia, China appears to have finessed with its tack with its billion-dollar funded Asian infrastructure bank and the proposed new Silk Road. However, these new carrots are on offer while consolidation (hardening and construction of new and improved infrastructure) proceeds apace in its newly-‘acquired’ SCS territories.

Meanwhile, the US is smelling like a bed of roses. Notwithstanding the partisan blindness of the Republicans and die-hard Tea Party zealots, the US economy is slowly recovering and all other economic indicators are doing quite well. Of course,the 1%-99% divide remains a serious socio-political thorn.

 

 

(Photo from cyprus-mail.com)

 

 

 

On the global front the US earned a lot of brownie points with the on-going normalization of ties with Cuba. Kudos to Pope Francis for brokering the bilateral preps. On the other hand, the Americans cannot seem to realize their government’s continued support for isolated Israel’s does not help their war effort against international terror.

I will continue to monitor these global developments and post my observations in this page and elsewhere.

China: Soft power no more

Flag of the People’s Republic of China

China may have strategic and psychological reasons behind its claims for much of the South China Sea. When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was inaugurated in 1949, Chairman Mao proudly announced that China has risen; that it has risen  from the shame of colonial subjugation and defeat in war.  China was carved into separate spheres of influence by the Euopean powers and the US in the 19th century.  Its 1911 Revolution failed to improve the national condition.

Since 1949, it has transformed itself into an industrial and nuclear during Mao’s lifetime. While Mao’s rigid doctrines were rejected after his death, the pragmatic policies of his successors were intended to strengthen the country through the so-called Four Modernizations–including that of the economy and the military. The new Chinese leaders invited foreign investors and opened industrial zones and the country’s economy grew spectacularly through exports. China is now the second largest economy of the world.

Chairman Mao Zedong

Now that its economy has grown, China is now poised to project power commensurate to its prosperity. Its immediate objective is to secure its immediate periphery. Since Japan has invaded and conquered parts of China during the Second World War it seeks to pursue disputes in the East China Sea (ECS).

Together with Taiwan, both countries are in dispute over the Japan-administered Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Lest we forget, China also claims Taiwan as its province. And of course, we are aware of Chinese claims over the Spratly Islands, Paracels and the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea that are disputed by a number of Southeast Asian states and Taiwan. These Chinese claims intrude into or overlap with exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of other states.

Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyu islands

Disputed areas in the South China Sea

Apart from economic reasons, the Chinese claims should be seen as extensions of their defense lines. If they can indeed establish ownership over SCS waters, they can control important sea lanes of communication and interdict passage of warships. The SCS will be domestic waters which the PLA Navy can freely cruise. The United States is the power that will be most affected by this Chinese aggressive confidence. China is the reason behind the US pivot to Asia–the deployment of 60% of American military assets in Asia. If China owned Scarborough Shoal, its warships will be in a better position to take out a radar facility to be built by the US in the Philippines. To summarize, China’s territorial assertiveness is fueled by pride and strategic considerations and is based on a strong economy.