Published in Nikkei Asia 12/03/2022
“Pandemics do not put geopolitics on hold… they may even intensify geopolitical competition by distracting states’ leadership.”
Elbridge Colby’s recently published book, The Strategy of Denial, already seems prescient, given recent events in the Ukraine. His intention was to map out a sustainable long-term strategy for containing the only great power that will rival the United States for the foreseeable future, China.
The term “contain” does not appear in the text – Colby prefers “decent equilibrium” and “decent peace” – but his thinking is in the tradition of geopolitical realists such as George Kennan, originator of the containment doctrine that formed the bedrock of America security policy during the Cold War.
Yet the contours of the 21st century are very different from the era of American supremacy in which Kennan and his successors operated. Colby is highly critical of the hubris of the “neo-con” thinkers who refused to acknowledge the limits on American power. In his view, the U.S. “does not need to make the world democratic or liberal in order to flourish as a free republic, nor does it need to dominate the world in order to be secure.”
The goal he proposes is more modest — the negative one of denying China hegemony in Asia. And he is clear that the U.S. would have no chance of succeeding on its own. It needs the help of other powers with congruent interests.
The author is not just an observer. Formerly a deputy assistant director of defence, he led the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
His grandfather, William Colby, was an intelligence officer who operated behind German lines in World War II and eventually headed up the CIA. His great grandfather, also called Elbridge, was an academic-cum-soldier who lived in China for several years. National security appears to be a family business.
Hegemony means much more than influence. It means control, to the extent that subordinate nations lose the capacity to make independent decisions. Colby believes that China is determined to achieve such a hegemonic status and can only succeed by military means.
The test case, though not necessarily the only case, will be Taiwan. If the U.S. and its allies fail to protect Taiwan from being forcibly annexed, their credibility would collapse. Other Asian states would follow the line of least resistance and kowtow to Beijing.
The scale of the economic activity that would then be placed under China’s control would make it the undisputed global superpower, with the capacity not just to boss the rest of Asia, but also to create an exclusive trading bloc that would disfavour the U.S. and other “uncooperative” countries.
Over time, the result would be the steady erosion of American economic power and increasing Chinese political leverage, offering much greater ability to intervene in U.S. internal affairs than is already the case.
It is possible that being “pro-China” or “anti-China” could become the defining domestic political issue, not just in the U.S., but right across the Western world, with media and political parties divided by their sympathies, just as they are divided into “progressives” and “conservatives” today.
In other words, the stakes could hardly be higher.
Putting himself in his opponent’s shoes, Colby sees China’s best strategy as “sequential targeting”, in other words picking off its neighbours one by one. The best tactic is the fait accompli.
Recovering a lost territory, as in the D-day landings or the American advances in the Pacific War, requires overwhelming superiority, which the U.S. and its allies will not have. So their best strategy is effective deterrence – or victory in what Colby calls “imaginary wars,” the ones that are never fought because one side realizes it will lose.
Deterrence worked in the Cold War because America’s overwhelming superiority in nuclear weapons gave it the capability to wreak devastating destruction on the Soviet Union. But, as Colby makes clear, military conflict in East Asia would most likely be a limited affair, with neither side seeing any benefit from “horizontal” (wider geographical) or “vertical” (deadlier in terms of weaponry) escalation.
So how can the U.S., situated far from East Asia and increasingly constrained by financial issues and a sceptical and war-fatigued general public, make deterrence credible? Colby has two answers. The first is reducing American military involvement elsewhere.
“The United States must avoid becoming entangled in peripheral wars that sap American will and power,” he declares. “Americans’ strength and resolve should be husbanded for the primary challenges, above all China in the Western Pacific… Calls to use military force for any but these primary challenges should thus receive a highly sceptical review.”
Apparently, the U.S. has made security pledges to more than 50 countries. Germany alone, he notes, has a far bigger economy than Russia. With its wealthy European allies, it should be doing much more to bolster its own security. Islamic terrorism he sees as an unpleasant irritant, not an existential threat. In Colby’s view, for the U.S. to draw down resources from Europe and the Middle East would raise overall credibility, not undermine it.
The second and more important point is the creation of an “anti-hegemony coalition”, likely to include Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines, with the U.S. acting as the cornerstone member. Put together, these countries would easily outweigh China and its allies (such as North Korea and Cambodia) in terms of economic heft. There would be no need for a formal alliance, just an agreement to act in concert in the case of a Chinese land grab.
Colby is well aware of the problems of collective action in this kind of set-up. “Americans are more likely to turn away from this effort if other coalition members – especially allies… – do not pull their weight… Given Japan’s importance, position and very low levels of defence spending, this issue is especially pointed for Tokyo. Its decisions on this matter are likely to have outsize implications for the entire anti-hegemony coalition.”
As a realist, Colby has no time for the “coalition of democracies” concept promoted by U.S. President Joe Biden. Indeed, he goes as far to say that a democratic China might also pursue hegemony – just as Russia, once considered quasi-democratic, is doing today. In his view, this is simply how great powers have behaved throughout history.
Yet he is sensitive to psychological factors too. He notes that George Washington against the British and Abraham Lincoln against the Confederacy managed or manufactured scenarios in which the other side fired the first shot.
What he calls “thumotic reactions” (reactions to violation of honour) can have a powerful effect at the state level in building resolve. The fierce Ukrainian response to invasion by Russia is a perfect example.
Thus, Colby has a suggestion that would potentially add to American resolve while inducing apoplexy in Beijing: the stationing of a small number of American troops in Taiwan.
Not a fan of strategic ambiguity, he writes that the anti-hegemonic coalition cannot be “half-pregnant” with regard to Taiwan. It either commits explicitly to Taiwan’s security or it leaves it to the tender mercies of the People’s Liberation Army. Interestingly, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, now an ordinary parliamentarian but still extremely influential, commented a few weeks ago that Japan would defend Taiwan in the case of an attack.
The author ranges widely over global affairs and makes use of many historical references, from the Trojan Wars to America’s failed “nation-building” efforts of this century. Whether you agree with his thesis or not, it makes a valuable contribution to the most important geopolitical issue of the coming decades. And it ends on an optimistic note.
“China could proudly live in a world in which this strategy had succeeded; it would be one of the greatest nations of the world and its preferences and views would command respect. It would not be able to dominate, but neither would the United States or anyone else be able to dominate it… For the peoples of the region, it would mean the autonomy and independence for which they have striven so mightily since freedom from colonial rule.”
A golden scenario. Many would hope that Colby is right. In the meantime, there is this timely reminder to ponder: “Although hard power is not the only form of power, it is dominant if effectively employed; hard power always has the capacity to dominate soft power. Left unaddressed, might trumps right.”
The Strategy of Denial – American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, by Elbridge A. Colby (Yale University Press, 2021).