Coexistence or Carnage

Abstract

Coexistence or Carnage Ted Fertik (bio) The concept of a “cold war” can only have meaning when the term’s implied polarity—a “hot war” between superpowers—exists as a real possibility. Until recently, no such thing was imaginable. That began to change in the years after 2008, when a critical mass of official and popular opinion began to weigh the likelihood of a hot war between the United States and China, and to consider what combination of deterrence, engagement, and concession on the part of the United States would be most likely to prevent such a war. The new outlook was driven first of all by economic developments. Contrary to widely held expectations, China managed to sustain average growth rates of nearly 10 percent of GDP per year for forty straight years, with no meaningful change in its political system, a record unparalleled in the history of the world. By the mid-2010s China had successfully weathered the global financial crisis to become the essential manufacturing hub of the world economy. Its economy was on track to overtake the U.S. economy in size. And it had begun turning its economic heft into diplomatic and military might. On the left there is a strong impulse to argue that there is no intrinsic reason why a powerful China and a powerful United States need be in conflict with each other. I am not so confident. For well over a century, U.S. foreign policy toward East Asia has been dedicated to preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon, be it Japan, the Soviet Union, or China. The Chinese government would like to weaken U.S. power in the region, for the sake of its own security and its ability to project power more broadly. While many serious analysts have argued that the United States did not have fundamental national interests at stake in Afghanistan, I am not aware of any who would say the same about Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan. With respect to Taiwan, advocates of a policy of restraint argue that the United States should maintain its historic posture of “strategic ambiguity”—not announcing that the United States will defend Taiwan militarily if China tries to resolve its cross-strait disputes by force, but not ruling it out either. Whether U.S. interest in Taiwan is framed in realist, economic terms (the importance of Taiwan as a producer of semiconductors, for example) or in [End Page 77] values-based terms (the need to defend Taiwan’s democratic system from China’s authoritarianism), few argue that the United States has no stake in the future course of relations between Taiwan and China. If the conflicts of interest are real, and the stakes are felt to be high enough, then war is a real possibility, and our foreign policy must be oriented toward avoiding it. Nuclear war is every bit as much of a threat to human civilization today as it was in 1962. And the closer we are to war, the more difficult it will be for the United States and China to constructively engage with each other to address other existential challenges, like climate change, that require leadership and cooperation from both countries. Under intense security competition, a form of institutionalized paranoia becomes basically rational. When two powers are closely matched, small shifts in economic, military, diplomatic, or technological strength can tip the overall balance of power, perhaps irrevocably. A surprise move that shifts the balance in one country’s favor, or a belief that the continuation of present trends will lock in its ascendancy, makes it rational for the other power to take measures to head off such a change. This is part of how great-power wars start. For the United States, one possible approach to the threat of a rising China would be to make itself so powerful that challenging it would be too risky. Some people within Biden’s inner circle have proposed such a strategy. But if containing China was ever possible, the economic and political costs of doing so have grown and gone beyond what the United States would ever choose to bear. There will be coexistence, or there will be carnage...