As I promised earlier, a short teaser from my new manuscript dealing with balance of (military) power. This one is not edited and is a small part of a chapter on the so called Thucydides Trap, or rather doctrine-mongering and multiplication of essences by political "science" field, and it may not even see the light in this present form. But still, here is some food for thought for those who are interested. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In March 2018 an influential American magazine, The Diplomat, published a short piece by
Francis P. Sempa on Thucydides Trap.
In this piece Sempa, citing a collection of articles and essays by US senior
military officers titled Avoiding the Trap:
U.S. Strategy and Policy for Competing in the Asia-pacific Beyond the Rebalance,
noted in amusement that:
The most
remarkable aspect of this study is the lack of “hawkishness” among the
contributors, most of whom are high-level military officers. Only one article
asserts that China intends to become the Asia-Pacific’s regional hegemon and is
following a step-by-step expansionist strategy to displace the United States in
the region. Two of the contributors emphasize the need to strengthen and
improve U.S. defense ties to Japan and India in order to counterbalance China’s
military growth.[i]
It is, sadly, not
surprising that Sempa, an attorney by education and a political
"scientist" by occupation[ii], is surprised by the fact
of military professionals being reluctant to take political science white board
theories to heart. But military professionals are absolutely correct in their
reluctance and they have ample reasons to be suspicious of international relations
concepts cooked up in the deep recesses of Western in general, and American in
particular, political science kitchen populated by people who, for the most
part, have zero military backgrounds and experiences.
But what is this Thucydides Trap? The term was coined by
the American political scientist Graham Allison and is a so called geopolitical
model based on ancient Greek historian Thucydides conclusion that:
The growth of the power of Athens, and
the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war
inevitable.[iii]
Here, the
obsession of contemporary American political science class with Peloponnesian
War, an ancient history event in the foundation of the neoconservatives'
inspired American foreign policy and military disasters of the 21st century,
manifests itself yet again. In Allison's view the dynamics of evolution of
power balance between the United States and China can easily be viewed in
parallel to relations between Athens and Sparta which led to the Peloponnesian
War more than 2400 years ago. It is difficult to completely rationalize
American elites' obsession with that war but comparing China to Athens and the
United States to Sparta is not only a-historical, it is simply false. There is
very little doubt that American political and military elites are concerned
with the growth of China's economic, political and military power. This is
understandable. But the so called Trap
which makes war between China and the United States almost inevitable is for
the most part a figment of imagination of people who have, at best, a very
vague understanding of real warfare of the 21st century--this ignorance is a
defining feature of the American political class.
China's Xi was
explicit when stating, correctly, that Thucydides
Trap simply doesn't exist.[iv] Moreover, the whole
concept of this trap didn't sit well even with some of Russia's most radical pro-Western
liberals known for blind uncritical following of most American geopolitical and
ideological concepts. As one of them stated, Thucydides Trap is Political
Scientist's Trap.[v] Of course, war between
China and the United States may still happen, but as even the summary to the
Study which so surprised Francis Sempa with its "lack of hawkishness"
states:
Long-range
success in the Asia-Pacific region will only come from effective international
cooperation. This cooperation must
include China. In keeping with the 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy, we
confirm the U.S. position to “welcome the rise of a stable, peaceful, and
prosperous China.” To that end, the overarching strategic task for the United
States is how to accommodate China’s rise. America must not constrain the
responsible rise of China in the region and globally, but at the same time
should provide a check on Chinese power by protecting U.S. and partner national
interests. This check will come through the effective use of a rules-based
international order, but ultimately it will be empowered by a position of U.S.
strength across the elements of national power.[vi]
The elements of
national power is what really matters in this statement and it requires a
serious review of such elements in order to understand that war with China,
whose power undeniably continues to grow, can only happen within conventional
paradigm, otherwise, with the war going nuclear, none of the objectives by
either side will be attained and it will threaten global thermonuclear
conflict. A nuclear argument is what really makes all talks about Thucydides Trap a foolhardy business,
because MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is the factor which makes any
parallels to ancient warfare history irrelevant. It is not the only factor, but
it is surely the most important one.
A possible nuclear
scenario between the United States and China does not require any serious
elaborations since even laymen have enough understanding of catastrophic global
consequences of two (or more) nuclear superpowers engaging in nuclear exchange.
It is scenario which must be avoided by all means and it seems those who in the
United States understand that best of all are American military professionals. Same
goes to Chinese military. But while there are few more-or-less competent and
influential people who speak about fallacy of Allison's Trap, one has to point out a simple fact that the Thucydides Trap of sorts is known to
mankind since the very dawn of human civilization, way before Ancient Greece,
and it was observed in animal world, in which aging leaders of a herd are
challenged by younger and more ambitious competitors. It was and is also observed
in human world all the time, enough to consider sports whose very premise is built
on challenging the status quo, be that boxing, track and field or soccer. In
general, Allison's Thucydides Trap is
known to humanity as competition and not all competitions end up in wars. This
is not to mention the fact that Athens, Sparta and Thucydides himself did not operate with the knowledge of nuclear
weapons, net-centric warfare, stand-off high-precision weapons and combined
arms operation, which even in purely conventional form can paralyze and defeat
modern nation-state, or can cause human losses on unimaginable scale. These
factors are the ones which must change any kind of generalizations related to
military and war. This brings us to more important issue—historical parallels.
Drawing historical
parallels is an extremely dangerous business wrought with huge risks of
miscalculation and learning wrong lessons. History, certainly, does provide
some valuable lessons but at this stage the whole term history, as it was understood even fairly recently, does not
reflect an immense complexity of human development and activity for the last roughly
hundred years and those developments cannot be described anymore within
traditional framework because more and more causalities are being affected not
just by human nature but by technology attached to it. Technology becomes
increasingly complex and thus remains beyond the grasp of many humanities
educated historians who lack cognitive apparatus for understanding and
describing it and technology's effect on the events. Modern war is highly
technological. What used to be few tactical and operational factors to be
considered by a military leader such as Napoleon, Kutuzov or Grant, today becomes
a vast and complex set of variables needed to be considered by leaders while
making a decision. There is a reason why contemporary military leaders have
very strong backgrounds in fundamental sciences and many of them have serious engineering
backgrounds.
While general
principles of warfare and what is called strategy since the times of Clausewitz
remained largely static and generally similar for many modern armies, the
approach to application of those principles grew in complexity exponentially.[vii] In times of muskets and
linear tactics, an officer commanding a company or battalion would have had
little trouble understanding a general plan on the battle or even campaign.
Today, such understanding requires long years of highly specialized education
and very serious background in military technology. Without this background
there is no serious understanding of the modern warfare—it is simply a hard
fact of life. This is where drawing historical parallels becomes a very
dangerous business. Many even non-military people understand this danger and,
in fact, some even reflected this danger in the modern art.
A 1980 sci-fi
Hollywood flick The Final Countdown,
with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen starring in it, is an excellent example of
such an awareness. While movie deals with the possible time paradox when
nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is transported, due to a freaky storm,
from 1980 to December 7, 1941, few hours before Japanese aviation attack on
Pearl-Harbor, historic ramifications of such an event become clear immediately.
Even the most unsophisticated observer could easily arrive to the idea, without
understanding even basic technological principles, that a single US Navy's
nuclear aircraft carrier and its air wing which included F-14 Tomcat fighters
would have very little difficulty with destroying 360 Japanese piston aircraft
due to modern American carrier advanced electronic sensors and overwhelming
advantage modern jet aircraft had over 1930s-designed combat planes in speed,
maneuverability and weapons. It came down to a complete tactical, operational
and technological mismatch, even if portrayed in a fictional settings. I will
stop here with disclosing the plot of that movie for those who are yet to watch
it.
Thus the
irresistible question arises—what lessons could have been drawn from Japanese
actions on December 7, 1941 in tactical and operational senses to be applied to
modern times? Of course, the lesson of a strategic and operational surprise is
valid, but this lesson is as old as the Trojan Horse concept. The truth is, few
of those lessons, other than ever present necessity to develop better weapons
and sensors, could have been drawn. And here is the point—technology became a
main, albeit not only, driver behind tactical and operational requirements. Of
course issues of morale, culture, and social dimension of war and, in the end,
leadership never lost their significance but it goes without saying that in the
fight between even the squadron of Mitsubishi
A6M Zero and a pair of Grumman F-14
Tomcat jet aircraft, chances of WW II piston airplanes surviving approach
zero. Only answering question why
things work one way and not the other can one begin to see why falling back on
history, granted it is based on facts, not fantasies, is never a good idea
especially when trying to develop rather broad and shaky concepts such as Thucydides Trap.......
[i] How to Avoid the Thucydides Trap: The
Missing Piece. Francis P. Sempa. The Diplomat. March 07,
2018. https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/how-to-avoid-the-thucydides-trap-the-missing-piece/
[ii] Sempa, Francis.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/sempa-francis-p-1959
[iii] The
History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides. The First
Book. Chapter One. http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.1.first.html
[iv]Ловушка для политолога (The Trap for
Political Scientist). Alexey Tsvetkov. In Liberty. November 12, 2015. http://old.inliberty.ru/blog/2089-Lovushka-dlya-politologa
[vi] Avoiding
the Trap: U.S.
Strategy and Policy for Competing in the Asia-pacific Beyond the Rebalance. Strategic Studies Institute and U.S.
Army War College Press. February, 2018, pp. xiv-xv.
[vii] Principles of War.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/principles-war
