Negative Case
Because US deterrence has been the lynchpin of global peace since the cold
war, we negate.
Contention One is Japanese Proliferation
Following World War 2, Japan agreed to not acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for
United States security commitment and protection under the nuclear umbrella. The
Japan Times explains on August 29th that Japan is committed to upholding the security
relationship with the United States despite the resignation of prime minister Shinzo Abe,
and that this relationship is likely to continue irrespective of who wins the US election.
Consequently, Japan’s commitment to non-proliferation relies entirely on the credibility
of US defense commitments in the sense that they need to be assured that if an adversary
such as China or North Korea attacks them that the United States would retaliate. Payne
& Miller explains in 2016 that a US adoption of NFU would mean that we could no
longer assure our allies with our nuclear umbrella, meaning allies like Japan will take
matters into their own hands and seek nukes
Unfortunately, Cimbala explains in 2008 that the acquisition of nukes by Japan would
drastically increase the probability of war in East Asia as it causes a regional security
dilemma which is heightened due to close proximity and the short flight time of ballistic
missiles, which could result in existential catastrophes.
Contention Two is Russia
NATO’s article 5 declares that an attack on one is an attack on all, which is why
Friedman 2016 finds that unconditional support of collective defense is at the bedrock of
NATO. Despite Trump’s past rocky rhetoric, NATO has remained resilient, as Olsen
reports just months ago that NATO has seen its strongest reinforcement and Troop
commitments since the Cold war. To no surprise, adoption of No First Use would rupture
thor trend as Payne 16 finds that it would signal to adversaries that they can strike our
allies without fearing the U.S. nuclear deterrent, greenlighting escalation.
There are two impacts. First, Russian aggression. Gray notes in 2017 that Putin in
particular will test red lines and miscalculate with signs of NATO fracturing, and that his
current military strategy is heavily dependent on the coercive use of nukes. In fact,
Natsios 18 finds that Putin is revisionist in nature and seeks to expand Russia’s sphere of
influence an endeavour which could result in nuclear use against its military targets.
Second, European proliferation. Lanoszka 18 explains that unilateral doctrinal
announcements spark abandonment fears in allies which guarantees nuclear proliferation.
Axe 18 continues that with the loss of United States deterrence capabilities under Article
V, France and the United Kingdom would expand their nuclear capabilities and nonnuclear countries such as Germany would seek development of their own nuclear
programs. This results in security dilemmas that drastically increase the probability of
war.
Contention Three is Chinese Containment
China is pursuing a revisionist foreign policy. Davidson explains in 2016 that China’s
foreign policy has shifted in 2008 where they are pursuing both an aggressive and
expansionist foreign policy that heightens the risk of war with the United States. Chinese
expansionism means engagement is over, and deterrence is necessary. Mearsheimer
explains in 2016 China is growing to the point where a transition has to occur from
engagement to containment is necessary which explains the United States pivot to Asia
strategy which was committed to containing China and deterring expansionism.
Unfortunately, the adoption of the No First Use policy would deck the United States
commitment to deter Chinese expansionism. Kulaki explains in 2016 that the reason
Obama rejected a NFU policy, is because it would signal acquiescence and appeasement
in the face of Chinese expansion, increasing the probability of Chinese aggression.
Traynor furthers in 2008 that the threat of a nuclear first strike is key to the west’s
projection of power abroad.. Historically, Yukio of MIT explains in 2015 that policies
that appease China cause Chinese aggression. In Vietnam, U.S. withdrawal of military
presence led to Chinese seizing the Paracel islands and withdrawal from the Philippines
caused Chinese annexation of Mischief Reef.
The impact is a great power war. Cimbala furthers in 2020 that Chinese expansionism
and nuclear modernization drastically heightens the odds of nuclear war in East Asia.
Multiple scenarios for nuclear war such as miscalculation at regional hot spots Taiwan or
the Senkaku islands or conventional war that could potentially escalate to full-scale
nuclear war.
Cumulatively, Starr finds in 2014 that any nuclear war would cause extinction because of
radiation which poisons biosphere killing plants and animals, fallout which accelerates
Climate Change and blocks the sun rays, and meltdowns of nuclear reactors which cause
radioactive isotope leakage.
Because no first use undermines global peace, Conrad and I have never been more proud to
negate.
Cards
Contention One
US-Japan relations strong now – Abe’s resignation doesn’t affect ties
The Japan Times, 8-29-2020, "Trump pays 'highest respect' to outgoing Abe as leaders plan
transition talks," Japan Times, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/29/national/politicsdiplomacy/japan-us-shinzo-abe-alliance-donald-trump/
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he pays his "highest respect" to outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
expressing sympathy that "a great friend" had to decide to step down due to health problems. "We've had a great relationship and I just
feel very badly about it, because it must be very severe for him to leave," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding, "He
loves his country so much and for him to leave, you know, I just can't imagine what it is." Abe plans to talk by phone with
Trump on Monday and call for bilateral cooperation to continue under his successor's upcoming
team, Japanese and U.S. government sources said Saturday. The U.S. government on Friday expressed gratitude
to the outgoing Abe for his "outstanding" leadership as the country's longest continuously serving leader, while hailing him for
bringing the bilateral alliance to its strongest point ever. Together with Trump, Abe has "made the U.S.-Japan alliance,
and our overall relationship, the strongest it has ever been," a senior Trump administration official said in a
statement. The official also said the two countries have been able to "significantly" advance their
shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, an idea promoted amid China's rising clout and
assertiveness in the region. "We look forward to working with Prime Minister Abe's successor in further strengthening our
nations' ties and advancing our shared goals," the official said. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running in the November
election as the Democratic presidential nominee against Trump, said on Twitter that he is "sad" to see Abe step
down but "the strong alliance between our countries and peoples will continue for generations to
come." "Wishing you good health in the years ahead, my friend," said Biden, who served under former President Barack Obama for
eight years from 2009. In Tokyo, Abe said Friday he is resigning because of a chronic health issue that has resurfaced, ending his
nearly eight-year tenure as prime minister. Abe, who started his second stint as prime minister in December 2012, has been known for
successfully building personal ties with Trump, a real estate developer-turned-reality TV star who won the U.S. presidential election
in 2016. Trump has called the Japanese leader "a very good friend of mine." Abe contributed to strengthening the
alliance as he pushed ahead to expand Japan's role in regional security and international peacebuilding efforts, such as through the enactment of legislation that loosened the constraints
imposed by the country's postwar pacifist Constitution, according to experts on Japan-U.S.
relations. The legislation, which took effect in 2016, has led U.S. and Japanese troops to work
more closely than ever in peacetime efforts as well as in the event of contingencies, including
situations where Japan judges the need to exercise the right to collective self-defense, or defend
allies under armed attack even when Japan itself is not attacked. The two countries have also reached a
bilateral trade deal, which took effect this year, after Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership regional
trade agreement that involved Japan upon his inauguration in 2017. Former national security adviser John Bolton recalled in his White
House memoir published in June that Trump's "best personal relationship among world leaders was with Abe" both as "golf buddies as
well as colleagues," although he noted that Trump later reached the same level of friendship with Boris Johnson, who became the
British prime minister last year. Bolton tweeted Friday that Abe's resignation is "a great loss to Japan and the United States." "He is a
first-class world leader and one of America's staunchest allies. All best wishes!" he said.
United States military presence deters Chinese territorial ambitions
Fearon, James D. "Selection Effects and Deterrence." Department of Political Science
Stanford University (2001): n. pag. Taylor and Francis, 2002. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
<https://web.stanford.edu/group/fearon-research/cgi-bin/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2013/10/Selection-Effects-and-Deterrence.pdf>.
China has been rapidly expanding her economy over the last thirty years and increasing naval power in recent years. As a result, the argument on the Chinese threat is increasing in
Japan. The major reason why Prime Minister Hatoyama gave in to the bureaucrats in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense as well as the United States is an idea of
deterrence against China. In order to counter the growing naval and economic power of China, Japan must maintain the Security Treaty with the United States, they concluded.
Yukio Okamoto, a former diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a former
advisor to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, argues that if the United States
Marine Corps withdrew from Okinawa, China would move into the Senkaku
Islands. In the past, China occupied the Paracel Spratly Islands when the United States troops withdrew from Vietnam, the Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands when
Russia withdrew her troops from Danan in Vietnam, and the Mischief Reef when the United States did from the Philippines, Okamoto says. According to him, Japan
would lose the Senkaku Islands to China because China would first send fishing
boats, then observatory ships, and finally naval vessels. In such a case, Japan would
lose her interests in fishing and marine resources, and a boundary line with China
would come closer to Okinawa. He further contends that the Marine Corps in Okinawa is
not there to directly defend Okinawa. The overall presence of the United States armed
forces in Japan including the Marine Corps and strong will of the United States to defend
Japan constitute a strong deterrence against the Chinese territorial ambition. Okamoto concludes that if
China moved into the Senkaku Islands under the present strong Security Treaty, the Sino-United States relations would certainly
deteriorate and China must avoid this kind of situation for now. In Okamoto’s view, the
constant presence of the United States forces in Japan brings about a strong deterrence,
and that is the essence of the Security Treaty. However, others bring forward a counterargument. Dustin Wright contends that it is
ridiculous to imagine a military clash between the United States and China since there are close economic relations between the two countries. Cheap Chinese
imports support American consumers’ life and Chinese money invested in the United
States sustains the American economy. In fact, the United States depends on China. Such
a United States will think twice whether it is a wise policy to use military means when a
territorial issue arises between Japan and China to defend Japan’s interests. Therefore, Japan cannot rely
on the United States to deal with this issue. Then, why does Japan keep the United States forces in Japan to deter China if she cannot depend on the United States? There is a way
that Japan can resolve the territorial issue without relying on the deterrence of the Marine Corps in Okinawa.
NFU key to U.S. nuclear deterrence and assuring allies in times of war
Payne & Miller 16 [Miller, Franklin; Payne, Keith. 08-22-2016. “The dangers of no-first-use.”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. https://thebulletin.org/2016/08/the-dangers-of-no-first-use/]
Obama administration
considering adoption of a no-first-use nuclear policy. Such a
declaratory policy would tell the world that the United States would never use nuclear weapons
other than in response to an opponent’s nuclear attack
The
reportedly is seriously
. To some, such a policy may seem attractive because it suggests a type of symmetry and proportionality with regard to
nuclear weapons. In fact, however, US adoption of a no-first-use policy would create serious risks without offering any plausible benefit. Why so? There is no doubt that the US nuclear deterrent has prevented war and the escalation of war in the past. For example, there
considerable evidence from the 1991 First Gulf War that the US nuclear deterrent helped
to prevent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from escalating to the use of Iraqi chemical or
biological weapons of mass destruction
saving tens of thousands of US and allied US
pledge of no-first-use now would encourage current and future opponents to believe that they
need not fear the US nuclear deterrent in response to their potential massive use of military force
against us or our allies—including the use of advanced conventional weapons, and chemical and
biological weapons.
Russia and China
are rapidly expanding their military capabilities, pursuing aggressive policies in Europe and Asia
respectively,
same applies to North Korea, which repeatedly issues extreme
threats against us and our Asian allies while maintaining the world’s fourth largest army and
reportedly advanced chemical and biological capabilities.
is
—possibly
lives. A
Consequently, declaring a no-first-use policy would degrade the prospective credibility of the US nuclear deterrent—a particularly imprudent step at a time when
and issuing explicit threats to US allies in the process. The
Given these contemporary realities and the stakes involved, degrading the credibility of the US nuclear
deterrent by adopting a policy of no-first-use is no small matter. Our goal instead should be to maintain the most effective deterrent possible to such lethal threats. US adoption of no-first-use would also severely shake allied confidence in our security guarantees to them.
In fact,
US allies Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, and France reportedly have recently informed the
Obama administration that a no-first-use policy would be detrimental to their security.
majority of our treaty allies depend, at least in part, on a credible US nuclear deterrence
“umbrella” for their security.
popular support today for the development of
nuclear weapons in South Korea; US adoption of no-first-use would only increase that
motivation
no-first-use now would likely increase the prospect for new nuclear powers
in Asia and Europe, which would severely undercut the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
and be extremely destabilizing
The vast
US adoption of a no-first-use policy would compel some to take steps to mitigate the degradation of the US nuclear deterrent which has heretofore protected them. One such avenue
would be the possible acquisition or creation of their own independent nuclear weapons. There already appears to be considera ble
. A policy of
, given the likely severe Chinese and Russian responses. In short, based on evidence from the past seven decades, the US nuclear deterrent helps deter war and preserve global
stability by compelling potential aggressors to consider the possibility of a US nuclear response in any of their prospective plans to attack us or our allies. It also provides enormous support for nuclear non-proliferation by helping to assure over 30 US allies of their
security. US adoption of a no-first-use policy would threaten to degrade this critical deterrence of enemies and assurance of allies.
Asian arms races escalate to nuclear conflict
Cimbala ‘8 (Stephen J.-, March, Comparative Strategy, “Anticipatory Attacks: Nuclear Crisis
Stability in Future Asia”, Vol. 27 #2, Informaworld)
The spread of nuclear weapons in Asia presents a complicated mosaic of possibilities in this regard. States with nuclear forces of variable
will be thrown into a matrix of complex political, social, and
cultural crosscurrents contributory to the possibility of war. In addition to the existing nuclear
force structure, operational experience, and command-control systems
powers in Asia, others may seek nuclear weapons if they feel threatened by regional rivals or hostile alliances.
Containment of nuclear proliferation in Asia is a desirable political objective for all of the obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the present century is unlikely
to see the nuclear hesitancy or risk aversion that marked the Cold War, in part, because the
military and political discipline imposed by the Cold War superpowers no longer exists, but also because states in
Asia have new aspirations for regional or global respect.12 The spread of ballistic missiles and other
nuclear-capable delivery systems in Asia, or in the Middle East with reach into Asia, is
especially dangerous because plausible adversaries live close together and are already
engaged in ongoing disputes about territory or other issues.13 The Cold War Americans and Soviets required missiles and airborne delivery systems of
intercontinental range to strike at one another’s vitals. But short-range ballistic missiles or fighter-bombers suffice for India and Pakistan to launch attacks at one another with
potentially “strategic” effects. China shares borders with Russia, North Korea, India, and Pakistan; Russia, with China and NorthKorea; India, with Pakistan and China; Pakistan,
The short flight times of ballistic missiles between the cities or military forces of contiguous states
means that very little time will be available for warning and attack assessment by the
defender. Conventionally armed missiles could easily be mistaken for a tactical nuclear
first use. Fighter-bombers appearing over the horizon could just as easily be carrying
nuclear weapons as conventional ordnance. In addition to the challenges posed by shorter flight times and uncertain weapons loads,
potential victims of nuclear attack in Asia may also have first strike–vulnerable forces and
command-control systems that increase decision pressures for rapid, and possibly mistaken, retaliation.
This potpourri of possibilities challenges conventional wisdom about nuclear deterrence and
proliferation on the part of policymakers and academic theorists. For policymakers in the United States and NATO, spreading nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction in Asia could profoundly shift the geopolitics of mass
destruction from a European center of gravity (in the twentieth century) to an Asian and/or Middle Eastern center of gravity (in the present century).14 This
would profoundly shake up prognostications to the effect that wars of mass destruction are
now passe, on account of the emergence of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” and its encouragement of information-based warfare.15 Together with this, there has
with India and China; and so on.
emerged the argument that large-scale war between states or coalitions of states, as opposed to varieties of unconventional warfare and failed states, are exceptional and potentially
The spread of WMD and ballistic missiles in Asia could overturn these expectations
for the obsolescence or marginalization of major interstate warfare.
obsolete.16
Contention Two
Unconditional support for the defense pact specifically is the bedrock of
NATO deterrence – any reduction in commitment unravels the whole
arrangement
Uri Friedman 16, Global Editor @ The Atlantic, Deputy Managing Editor @ Foreign Policy
Magazine, Senior Analyst @ Atlantic Media Company, “What If Russia Invaded the Baltics—
and Donald Trump Was President?”,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/russia-nato-trump-shirreff/492938/
But are NATO members really obligated to help each other unconditionally? I pointed out that Article
5 of the NATO treaty
stipulates that if an “armed attack” occurs against a NATO nation, each member will assist the
assaulted party by taking “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to
restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” The Times asked Trump whether he would immediately
offer military aid, and he declined to specify exactly what he would do if the country in question hadn’t paid its bills. Doesn’t the NATO treaty grant him
some latitude on how to respond? Shirreff
urged me to focus on the clause about restoring North Atlantic
security, not the line about taking whatever action is needed. If Russia were to occupy the territory of a NATO
member, “then, clearly, armed intervention [by NATO] may become necessary,” he said. He added that
unconditional support is the bedrock of NATO: It’s “the blank check that says, ‘If you get
attacked, whatever happens, we’re going to come to your aid.’ ... As soon as you get into a sort
of transactional approach, that completely undermines the strength of collective defense.”
Donald Trump, however, thinks transactionally—more so than any U.S. presidential aspirant in recent memory. And when you think that way, it’s hard to
justify many features of the international system that the U.S. helped design after World War II. Those features are easier to justify when you consider
America’s long-term economic and security interests. “We want allies to keep the peace, fight alongside us in times of war and defend our common
values,” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, recently explained in The Washington Post. “[ F]ueling uncertainty
about our security commitment to NATO in order to get the Latvians or Slovenians to increase
their military budgets by a percentage point is not strategic.” I asked Shirreff if he had ever doubted the U.S.
president’s commitment to NATO during his years with the alliance. “No,” he answered. I asked if he thought Trump’s approach to NATO
could increase the likelihood of Russian aggression in the Baltics, given Trump’s skepticism about the alliance
and apparent fondness for President Vladimir Putin and Putin’s worldview. Potentially, he said. “In terms of the risk equation
for whoever’s sitting in the Kremlin, if he or she decides to have a go at the Baltic states, he may
just decide, ‘Yeah I think the chances are I’ll get away with it,’” Shirreff told me. “And that, of course,
makes the world more dangerous.”
Putin will pocket concessions to test redlines and expand in Europe – each
causes nuke war and turns every adv
Gray 17 [Dr. Colin S. Gray, Senior Reviewer, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Strategic Studies,
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Reading; European Director,
National Institute for Public Policy. "Russian strategy Expansion, crisis and conflict."
Comparative Strategy. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01495933.2017.1277121]
There is little, if any, mystery about the broad political purpose fueling Vladimir Putin’s conduct
of international relations. Subtlety is not a characteristic of Russian statecraft; cunning and
intended trickery, though, are another matter. Stated directly, Putin is striving to recover and
restore that of which he is able from the late USSR. There is no ideological theme in his
governance. Instead, there is an historically unremarkable striving after more power and
influence. The challenge for the Western World, as demonstrated in this National Institute study
in meticulous and troubling detail, is to decide where and when this latest episode in Russian
expansionism will be stopped. What we do know, for certain, is that it must and will be halted. It
is more likely than not that Putin himself does not have entirely fixed political-strategic
objectives. His behavior of recent years has given a credible impression of opportunistic
adaptability. In other words, he will take what he is able, where he can, and when he can.
However, there is ample evidence to support this study’s proposition that Russian state policy
today is driven by a clear vision of Russia as a recovering and somewhat restored superpower,
very much on the high road back to a renewed hegemony over Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Putin’s international political objectives appear largely open today: he will have Russia take
whatever turns out to be available to take, preferably if the taking allows for some humiliation of
the principal enemy, the United States. A practical political and strategic problem for Putin is to
guess just how far he dares to push NATO in general and the United States in particular, before
he finds himself, almost certainly unexpectedly, in a situation analogous to 1939. Just how
dangerous would it be for Russia to press forcefully the Baltic members of NATO? Vladimir
Putin would not be the first statesman to trust his luck once too often, based upon unrealistic
confidence in his own political genius and power. There is danger not only that Putin could
miscalculate the military worth of Russia’s hand, but that he also will misunderstand the
practical political and strategic strength of NATO ‘red lines.’ In particular, Putin may well
discover, despite some current appearances, that not all of NATO’s political leaders are
expediently impressionable and very readily deterrable. Putin’s military instrument is heavily
dependent, indeed probably over-dependent, upon the bolstering value of a whole inventory of
nuclear weapons. It is unlikely to have evaded Putin’s strategic grasp to recognize that these are
not simply weapons like any others. A single political or strategic guess in error could well
place us, Russians included, in a world horrifically new to all.
Russia is a revisionist actor. Only deterrence can check aggression
Natsios 18 ― Andrew Natsios, executive professor at the Bush School, director of the
Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy
at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, 2018. (“Putin’s New Russia:
Fragile State or Revisionist Power?”, Johns Hopkins University Press, May 15 , 2018, Available
Online at: https://www.press.jhu.edu/news/blog/putin%E2%80%99s-new-russia-fragile-state-orrevisionist-power Accessed 11-13-2018)
John Mearsheimer, the international relations scholar, argues Russia’s aggressiveness towards its
neighbors stems from western efforts to extend NATO membership to former members of the
Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. According to this view, traditional national
interest drives Russia’s behavior, and NATO extension has been seen by Putin as a threat to
Russia’s vital national security interests. From this perspective, the western democracies helped
create Vladimir Putin’s Russia by impinging on its “sphere of influence” along its borders; thus,
Russia is not what international relations scholars call a “revisionist power”—one which seeks to
overthrow the existing international order—but a traditional state protecting what it sees as its
equities and vital national interests. Other analysts, such as Anne Applebaum, argue Putin’s
policies are not part of a grand strategy, but are evidence of an improvised foreign policy. Thus,
Russia’s aggression in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and its threats to the Baltic States, may be seen
not as a carefully designed and executed strategy of conquest, but as symptomatic of Putin’s ad
hoc, opportunistic foreign policy. He probes for Western weakness, irresolution, and
indecision, and then, if there is no resistance, he intervenes to extend Russia’s reach by
absorbing more territory.
th
Putin has sought to return Russia to great power status by weakening other competing powers
or annexing neighboring states rather than risking reforms that could be destabilizing in the short
term, but would strengthen Russia as a nation state over the long term. The immediate objectives
of Russian foreign policy are not mysterious if one examines Putin’s government’s public
rhetoric, its published documents, and its actions. One of Putin’s greatest strengths has been
the aggressive and systematic pursuit of these strategic objectives which include:
·
efforts to regain military parity with the United States (they are nowhere near
achieving this)
·
the neutralization of the NATO alliance
·
the end of the European Union as one of the most powerful economic blocs in the
world
·
the creation of an alternative anti-liberal, authoritarian, reactionary governance
model of statehood for which Russia is trying to gain adherents among far right and far
left parties wing in Europe
the reconstruction of the historic Russian sphere of influence through annexation of parts of
neighboring states and the projection of Russian power to other regions of the world such as the
Middle
The process of unilateral revision is destabilizing, even if allies support the
content---only a carefully calibrated approach that includes dedicated
consultation can prevent a wave of allied prolif
Dr. Alexander Lanoszka 18, PhD, Assistant Professor Department of Political Science
Balsillie School of International Affairs University of Waterloo, 11/15/18, "Atomic Assurance:
The Alliance Politics of Nuclear Proliferation", Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, p. 149-157
How do alliances curb potential or actual cases of nuclear proliferation, if at all? Many scholars argue that alliances are effective tools
for bridling the nuclear ambitions of states. When allies do try to acquire nuclear weapons, their alliance relationships serve as
conduits for the guarantor to coerce a nonproliferation outcome. In this book, I show that such optimism about the role military
alliances play is overstated. Alliances can deter nuclear proliferation if they marry written pledges of
support with compatible foreign policy and defense doctrines as well as in-theater conventional
deployments. Yet alliances are prone to severe adjustments that can unsettle the ally. When
guarantors make major unilateral changes to the security relationship, through undesirable
doctrinal announcements or troop withdrawals, abandonment fears intensify. The affected ally
becomes so doubtful of its received guarantees that it becomes more likely to engage in nuclear
proliferation–related behavior. Unfortunately for the guarantor, curbing such behavior once it has started is very difficult.
It requires fixing the broken security guarantee that prompted the nuclear interest in the first place. Nonmilitary tools like economic
sanctions may be the best coercive instruments available, but their viability depends on the extent to which the ally relies on the
guarantor. Simply put, alliances are better for deterring potential than for preventing actual nuclear proliferation.
The empirical
cases support this argument. Table 2 summarizes the main findings. Fears of abandonment in
West Germany intensified after July 1956 amid rumors that the Eisenhower administration would reduce
the size of the US Army by a third. Shortly thereafter, West Germany joined France and Italy in a short-lived and unsuccessful effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Throughout the subsequent decade, Bonn deflected calls for it to make clear nonproliferation pledges while obtaining enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. Its alliance with the United States certainly constrained
its decision-making, but arguments that distinct coercion episodes prompted West German leaders to renounce nuclear proliferation are overstated. Domestic politics and prestige considerations were important
factors as well.
Japan followed a somewhat similar trajectory. It began evaluating the strength of its received security guarantees more fastidiously following China’s nuclear device detonation in late 1964. Yet Japan did not begin
making serious moves in investing in nuclear technology until the prospect of American withdrawal from Vietnam and even East Asia became highly likely at the end of the decade. Similarly to West Germany,
Japan did not have an actual program dedicated to the production of an indigenous nuclear weapons capability. But like that of West Germany, Japan’s stance toward nuclear nonproliferation remained dubious.
When Japan finally ratified the NPT, it did so largely because of domestic politics. Ideational arguments about the inherent value of the bomb were also influential. The United States provided assurances when asked
to do so but had largely refrained from efforts to compel Japan into making nonproliferation commitments. Nevertheless, some controversy ensued not long after NPT ratification regarding activities at a Japanese
reprocessing plant.
South Korea had a clear intent to acquire nuclear weapons. Despite South Korea’s weathering various provocations by North Korea, what triggered South Korea to seek nuclear weapons was Nixon’s unexpected
announcement that the United States would withdraw one US Army division from the peninsula. Thankfully for Washington, South Korea depended on the United States for economic and technological goods, thus
rendering South Korea vulnerable to American efforts in suppressing the program in 1976. Still, South Korea’s interest in nuclear weapons was not entirely snuffed out. Some speculate that the program went further
underground. Whatever the truth, safeguard violations did occur in the 1980s.
Although I have not studied them at the same level of detail, the five smaller cases further corroborate the argument. Great Britain and France both sought nuclear weapons in part because of having to fight alone and
without American support. What distinguishes Great Britain from France is that Great Britain came to depend on American technology for its nuclear deterrent. Great Britain still retains operational independence,
but the French nuclear arsenal is fully autonomous from the United States. For its part, Norway remained satisfied with the security provided by the United States, so much so that it rejected having much of an
American conventional military presence until the 1980s when it accepted pre-positioned gear from the US Marine Corps. Only very briefly at the beginning of the Cold War did Norwegian military leaders consider
nuclear weapons. By contrast, Australia wanted more alliance goods but had no guarantor—whether the United States or Great Britain—that would supply them. On the basis of its security fears, Australia had a
nuclear weapons program that it eventually renounced following a change in government. Alliance coercion arguably played no part. Finally, Taiwan began its attempt to produce nuclear weapons once it sensed that
the geopolitical tide was turning against it. The United States gradually seemed more open to accommodating China, which had by that point come to possess nuclear weapons. What ensued was a cat-and- mouse
game that spanned about two decades. The United States used different levers to ensure that Taiwan would not go nuclear, but its success in restraining Taiwan’s ambitions appears to have had more to do with
intelligence than with sanctions per se.
The takeaway of this book is that alliances are better for deterring states from engaging in nuclear proliferation–related behavior than for compelling states to give up their nuclear weapons programs. In this chapter, I
address the implications for theory and policy. In so doing, I outline possible avenues for future research as well as how my analysis sheds light on contemporary policy problems.
Theoretical Implications
My argument has several theoretical implications for how we should think about key questions in international relations theor y. First, I show that my analysis bears on a contemporary debate in international relations
regarding how beliefs about credibility are formed. Second, I argue that scholars are wrong to divide the study of nuclear weapons from that of conventional military power. Third, I add to the growing scholarship on
the effectiveness of coercion in international relations by considering the alliance politics of nuclear proliferation.
THE BASIS OF CREDIBILITY
One major debate among international relations scholars concerns the basis of credibility: what makes threats—and, for that matter, promises—believable? A dominant school of thought holds that assessments of
credibility turn on situational considerations like the war-fighting capabilities and geopolitical stakes involved behind the threats or promises that states make to one another.1 Policy makers are thus foolish to believe
that they can develop reputations on the basis of their historical record for keeping or breaking commitments. This perspective has received criticism. For one, past actions communicate—intentionally or not—the
interests that states have, whereas situational assessments depend partly on the historical record. 2 For another, this school of thought has mischaracterized the work of Thomas Schelling, which it has held responsible
for the belief that commitments are so interdependent that reputations for keeping commitments are necessary for deterrence. Schelling instead argued that past actions matter in cases where states are continuously
negotiating with each other, not in all coercive bargaining encounters.3
My findings further challenge the perspective that current, ahistorical calculations of power and interest determine credibility. I find that in attending to the foreign policy doctrines and conventional military
some actions undertaken by the guarantor
can provide information as to its interests and foreign policy interests, especially if those actions
include major and unfavorable military redeployments. my findings blur the distinction
between reputation
and current calculations like power and interest
deployments of their guarantors, allies accord importance to the local military effectiveness of their guarantors. Still,
In brief,
, on the one hand,
, on the other hand. To be sure, I do not offer a systematic test as to
the sources of alliance credibility. I examined narrowly how abandonment fears intensify so as to make states more likely to engage in nuclear proliferation–related behavior. Scholars should thus focus more on alliance credibility as a dependent variable.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CONVENTIONAL MILITARY POWER
States form judgments about the security guarantees that they receive with reference to the conventional military capabilities that their guarantor could muster on their behalf for defense and deterrence purposes. The reason why allies look to the conventional capabilities
of their guarantor is that they value deterrence-by- denial as much as they do deterrence-by- punishment, if not more. Indeed, from the perspective of allies like West Germany and especially South Korea, nuclear weapons are partly a means for offsetting the
conventional superiority of adversaries, especially when those same adversaries possess nuclear weapons as well.
Unfortunately, scholars separate the study of nuclear weapons from that of conventional military power. Many studies of nuclear proliferation simply assume that nuclear weapons represent a special category, even though the factors that predict which states have
nuclear weapons can also predict which states would have access to fifth-generation fighter jets, third-generation advanced tanks, ballistic missile capabilities, and so forth.4 In social scientific parlance, these studies neglect an important endogeneity problem, whereby
conventional and nuclear weapons systems are related to each other. States that experience unfavorable alterations in their received security guarantees might opt for nuclear weapons, because they cannot develop sufficient conventional military capabilities for deterring
an adversary in time. Some states, like Great Britain and France, acquire nuclear weapons because they already have most leading military technologies. Interestingly, the best works on conventional deterrence and military power neglect the nuclear dimension
altogether.5 To take one example, excluding the role nuclear weapons have played in the Arab-Israeli conflict—as John Mearsheimer has done—could lead to mistaken understandings of how deterrence in general succeeds.6
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COERCION
The core message of this book is that military alliances are better at preventing nuclear proliferation than stopping it once it has started. I have presented evidence that apparent success stories of alliance coercion are less than what they appear. What does this finding
mean more generally for international relations scholarship?
Schelling famously wrote that compellence is harder than deterrence because the former seeks to change the status quo, whereas the latter seeks to maintain it. Much of the recent literature seems to support this maxim, notwithstanding the difficulties in empirically
distinguishing deterrence from compellence.7 Drawing on data regarding compellent threats, Todd Sechser observes that strong states have trouble compelling weaker states because those weaker states worry that capitulation would lead to new demands. Their very
strength leads strong states to underappreciate these reputational concerns.8 Using similar data, Todd Sechser and Matthew Fuhrmann show that nuclear weapons rarely confer any bargaining leverage on its possessors, since they are useless for territorial conquest and
involve high costs as tools for punishment.9 Dianne Chamberlain finds that because using military force has become less costly for the United States, weak adversaries discount its threats.10 Dan Altman argues that states do not even bother with coercion at all in
making territorial gains—they grab what they want rather than dispute a proposed territorial division in a crisis.11 Some disagreement exists among scholars. Kyle Beardsley and Victor Asal write that “the possession of nuclear weapons helps states to succeed in their
confrontations with other states even when they do not ‘use’ these weapons,” whereas Matthew Kroenig argues that nuclear superiority confers an advantage in crisis bargaining.12
All these studies, however, focus on coercive bargaining between adversaries rather than between allies. When scholars examine military or nonmilitary threats that states make to their allies, the issue-area under dispute usually revolves around nuclear proliferation.13
My case studies show that alliance coercion in this domain is often difficult for the United States to do effectively. That is not to say that alliance coercion is never effective. Such a view would be sorely mistaken. Rather, my argument is that its effect is more subtle and
indirect than commonly presumed. Still, a more general or comparative study of intra-alliance coercion would benefit international relations scholarship—one that encompasses other issues such as wartime coalition participation and peacetime burden-sharing. 14 Many
empirical questions still need an answer. For example, is alliance coercion more effective in some issue areas than in others? Why or why not?
THE NUCLEAR SOURCES OF AMERICAN PRIMACY
The case studies also suggest that to understand the preponderant role of the United States in international politics, we should not overlook the nuclear dimension. Unfortunately, many existing theories of hierarchy and hegemony often view the world in largely
conventional military terms, as the books of David Lake and John Ikenberry do.15 This oversight is problematic for the very reason that whatever one thinks of the global military presence of the United States, it is at lea st partly the product of a consistent desire to
forestall nuclear proliferation. Daniel Deudney adds that “unipolarity, to the extent it still exists, is made much easier and more durable by nuclear weapons” because the deterrent effects they generate help stabilize interstate relations and inhibit encroachment and
counterbalancing.16 Nuclear proliferation undercuts hegemony because it negates American power projection capabilities.
Claiming that nonproliferation has been as much a goal of American grand strategy as openness and containment might be a slight overstatement, however. 17 Sometimes other foreign policy goals get in the way—the Kennedy administration discovered this tension
when it came to value nuclear nonproliferation while voicing its frustrations with the defense and monetary policies of West Germany. On occasion foreign policy goals are complementary so as to reinforce each other: quashing Taiwan’s nuclear ambitions was
important for Sino-American relations. Moreover, the United States has good reason not to enshrine nuclear nonproliferation as an overriding priority that trumps all other foreign policy objectives: states would have an incentive to manipulate American interest in
nonproliferation. Accordingly, despite what realists say about the lack of a central enforcer of rules in the international system, states would be able to “dial 911” for help by signaling some intent to acquire nuclear weapons.18 But partly because the United States has
conflicting foreign policy interests, this option remains problematic for allies to use.
The nuclear dimension of American global leadership might, then, be more complicated than what seems to be the case at first glance. If the United States views nonproliferation as a goal unto itself, then it might be an offensive realist: that is, it uses whatever means to
secure regional—if not global—hegemony at the expense of other states.19 In contrast, if nonproliferation is a goal that is either subordinate or complementary to other interests, then the United States might be a defensive realist. In other words, it might not see nuclear
proliferation as problematic per se and can in fact be open to it, but it sometimes works hard to forestall it lest the spread of nuclear weapons would complicate other foreign policy objectives.20
GREAT POWER MANAGEMENT OF WEAKER STATES
This book addresses how American security guarantees can forestall nuclear proliferation. It does not investigate how the security guarantees of other major powers—namely, the Soviet Union and China—can affect the nuclear interest of their own security partners.
My argument has implications for understanding nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation within non-American alliance systems. Consider first the Soviet Union and its alliances.21 Romania was the only Warsaw Pact member out of seven to covet nuclear weapons,
whereas both East Asian allies—China and North Korea— made efforts to acquire nuclear weapons in the Cold War with varying degrees of success. Despite the contiguity of the Soviet Union with all those countries, its security guarantees to them varied in quality. For
better or for worse, none of these countries held the Soviet geopolitical interest and hosted Soviet armed forces to the same extent, if at all, as the industrialized Northern Tier of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia). 22 Romania might have
been a member of the Warsaw Pact, but it perceived a growing disconnect between its security interests and those of the Kremlin between the late 1950s and early 1960s. In particular, it did not wish to be consigned to being the soft agricultural underbelly of the Soviet
bloc.23 Moreover, the Soviet Union accorded so much significance to its holdings in Central and Eastern Europe that it cared less about developments in East Asia. Chinese and North Korean leaders might have reached this conclusion in the 1950s when the Soviet
Union appeared disinterested in the fate of its communist partners during the Korean War.24 Those countries thus discounted Soviet support early and decided to develop nuclear weapons. And so the dynamics outlined in this book could very well be applicable to the
Soviet context.25
My argument bears insights for how China has managed the North Korean proliferation problem. Interestingly, North Korea began considering whether to acquire nuclear technologies shortly after China withdrew its forces from North Korea in 1958.26 North Korea
had good reason to discount Chinese security guarantees, formalized as they were with a 1961 mutual defense treaty. After all, China came to North Korea’s aid in the Korean War only when American-led forces approached the Yalu River. As Jonathan Pollack writes,
Pyongyang “faced four decades of continuous nuclear threat . . . without a countervailing nuclear retaliatory threat of its own or allied nuclear deployments on its own territory.”27
But what has China done about North Korea? A common refrain is that China can and should do more to curb its ally’s destabilizing ambitions, especially since China is the main source of North Korea’s trade, food, arms, and energy.28 Despite how scholars sometimes
argue that guarantors seek to prevent nuclear proliferation in order to preserve their standing and power projection capabilities, China appears exceptional in having shielded its ally from multilateral sanctions for the most part. One can argue that it has even free-ridden
on American efforts to restrain Taiwan and South Korea without doing much of the same toward North Korea. However, my analysis yields two notes of caution. The first is that China might have perceived that reversing North Korea’s nuclear program was not in
China’s interest, especially if China’s worries about regime stability, refugee flows, and a reunified Korea are legitimate. The second is that experts might be overestimating China’s ability to restrain its ally, especially when North Korea has by now developed certain
missile capabilities and thermonuclear weapons. To be sure, Beijing could have at least forbidden North Korean citizens from receiving training in China—scientists who probably went on to participate in advanced weapons development in their native country.29 Still,
in the improbable event that North Korea renounces its nuclear weapons, it would likely do so for non-alliance reasons.
Policy Implications
The policy implications of this study seem grim. Not only does the denuclearization of North Korea seem fantastical, but also any move toward acquiring nuclear weapons on the part of an ally would be extraordinarily difficult for the United States to reverse. The
policy community should take small comfort in how American decision makers have restrained the ambitions of South Korea, Taiwan, and West Germany. The successes of those decision makers were at best overstated.
Given how vital strong security guarantees are toward this end,
American decision makers thankfully have a say. More specifically, they can recalibrate
doctrines and deployments so as to shape perceptions of credibility. Ally leaders appear to refer to these
metrics in their own nuclear decision-making. We should thus remember that it is of the utmost importance that
American defense planners take the time to think about the effects of their moves from more than just a
budgetary or rational perspective. Having Marines in Okinawa might make little tactical or operational
sense, but shifting them thousands of miles away could still be destabilizing. Symbols matter,
Yet there are upsides. One is that the United States can deter nuclear weapons interest among its allies.
and they may matter more from the perspective of allies than from the perspective of
Washington.30 Nevertheless, the symbolic nature of such deployments should not be overstated. Allies value them because they believe such forces can put up a fight
against an adversary should deterrence fail. In a world of anti-access and area denial (A2/ AD) military technology, a United States that practices offshore balancing might
experience overwhelming difficulties in entering a theater of operations so as to aid an ally under siege. An onshore presence makes the United States look more capable and
resolved to allies and adversaries alike.31 That said, withdrawing forces unilaterally might be counterproductive when it comes to having an ally bear a greater share of the
collective defense burden. If the ally feels threatened by a nuclear-armed aggressor, then it might arm itself in ways that are to the detriment of the guarantor’s own interests.
Another upside is that decoupling does not make nuclear proliferation inevitable. 32 Because North Korea is developing capabilities so that it could strike the continental United
States with nuclear weapons, some observers fear that Washington would become less likely to defend South Korea and Japan in order to avoid being attacked. Accordingly, those
two allies sense that their interests are becoming decoupled from that of the United States and so would strive to secure themselves nuclear weapons of their own. Yet this fear is
overstated. For one, they have already endured decoupling throughout the Cold War and after the Soviet Union and China had acquired survivable second-strike capabilities. For
another, my analysis suggests that decoupling need not translate to nuclear proliferation as long as those allies believe that the United States would fight on their behalf and deny
adversaries battlefield success. Providing hostages for the sake of extended deterrence is insufficient. Having aligned doctrines and in-theater deployments capable of inflicting
harm on the adversary can influence such beliefs in a positive direction.
Perceptions of credibility are malleable, but we must be careful not to overstate idiosyncratic factors. Many analysts
and experts worry that President Donald Trump’s unique style of communication can undercut deterrence and destabilize alliance
relations. For example, in an excellent overview of his attitudes toward nuclear weapons, Jeffrey Michaels and Heather Williams
caution that his use of social media could lead to misperceptions and miscalculations by friends and foes alike.33 According to this
argument, an errant tweet would undermine American credibility. My analysis suggests that such concerns may be slightly
exaggerated. A tweet is but one signal among many. Allies
to the military basis of th
like South Korea and Poland will pay more attention
Contention Three
China is pursuing a revisionist foreign policy risking war
Davidson, senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, 16
(John Daniel, http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/12/china-expansionist-foreign-policy/ 4-12)
For months, Americans
have been riveted by headlines about Islamic State terrorist attacks across the
a far greater threat to global stability is
brewing in the South China Sea, where China has been building military bases on man-made islands and asserting maritime rights to
some of the busiest global trade routes. Meanwhile, here in the United States, Chinese intelligence services have
deployed an ever-widening network of spies. Although not directly connected, both of these developments
are manifestations of China’s new, expansionist foreign policy in the Pacific. If China and the
United States don’t alter their trajectory, we could be slow-walking into another cold war—or
setting the stage for a hot one.Naval Officer Charged With Espionage News broke over the weekend that a Taiwan-born
globe. From Brussels to Lahore, it seems ISIS is the biggest thing going on overseas. Yet
Navy officer, Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, has been charged with passing military secrets to China. On its own, the discovery of a Chinese
human intelligence operation in the United States is perhaps not all that remarkable, since by some estimates there are scores of
Chinese spies in America, most of them engaged in corporate espionage. If China and the U.S. don’t alter their trajectory, we could
be slow-walking into another cold war. But Lin’s case is different because he had access to sensitive military intelligence. Lin, who
became a naturalized citizen in 2008 and speaks fluent Mandarin, served as a signals intelligence specialist for naval spy planes.
“Signals intelligence” is how the U.S. military identifies the whereabouts of foreign military units, like submarines, and the
methodology behind this work ranks among the U.S. armed forces’ most closely guarded secrets. Although corporate spying by the
Chinese might be common, the last time an active-duty member of the Navy was caught spying was in 1985, when John Walker, a
Navy officer and submariner, was caught passing secrets to the Soviet Union as part of an elaborate spy ring that operated for 18
years. That was during the Cold War, when spying between America and the Soviet Union was an open secret. The incident with Lin
is the latest sign that a cold war with China could be on the horizon, especially as evidence mounts that China might be willing to risk
a military conflict with America’s allies in Asia, and perhaps with America itself. Chinese Spies Are Everywhere News of Lin’s alleged
espionage comes on the heels of recent remarks by the former head of the House Intelligence Committee that there are more
foreign spies operating the United States than at any point in our history. In a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, former Rep.
Mike Rogers said foreign agents in the United States outnumber those of any previous period, including the Cold War. “They’re
stealing everything. If it’s not bolted down, it’s gone,” Rogers said. “And if it’s bolted down, give them about an hour—they’ll figure
out how to get that, too.” There are more foreign spies operating the U.S. than at any point in our history. In his remarks, Rogers
noted the difference between Russian and Chinese operatives. The former tend to be trained professionals, he said, while the latter
are often recruits with “a very specific goal of stealing a very specific piece of intellectual property,” making them harder to detect—
and also more numerous. Rogers isn’t the first to raise concerns about espionage in the United States. In 2012, former top CIA
covert officer Hank Crumpton told CBS News there are more spies in America than during the peak of the Cold War. Crumpton, who
ran counterintelligence inside the U.S. as chief of the CIA’s National Resources Division and served as deputy director of the CIA’s
Counter-Terrorism Center, claimed major world powers, particularly China, have “very sophisticated intelligence operations, very
aggressive operations against the U.S.” China’s Military Outposts in the South China Sea But espionage is just one aspect of China’s
broader strategy to establish hegemony in the Pacific. A more visible sign of this strategy is the construction of artificial islands in the
South China Sea on a string of disputed reefs and islets called the Spratley Islands. The man-made islands, which are more than 500
hundred miles from mainland China and now feature military-length runways and radar stations, are the main source of growing
tension between China and its neighbors. China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea now feature military-length runways and
radar stations. Over the past year, ongoing construction of the islands has prompted U.S. freedom-of-navigation patrols, designed to
challenge China’s claim to them. Last month, the United States sent a carrier strike group, and the Navy has said it’s planning a third
patrol near the artificial islands this month. In an effort to mollify anxious Pacific allies, we’ve also increased military aide to the
Philippines and struck an agreement that would allow the Pentagon to use some military bases there to deploy U.S. troops for the
first time in decades. This issue isn’t going away. At a recent meeting of the G7, foreign ministers expressed concerns about
“territorial disputes” in the East and South China Seas. Although not named outright, China’s artificial islands were clearly what the
foreign ministers were referring to in a joint statement at the end of a meeting held in Hiroshima, Japan. The statement expressed
“strong opposition to any intimidating, coercive or provocative unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase
tensions,” and urged states to refrain from “land reclamations, including large scale ones,” and “building out outposts.” Why such a
strong statement? More than half of the world’s merchant fleet tonnage passes through the choke points surrounding the South
China Sea. Robert Kaplan calls it “the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans—the mass of connective economic tissue
where global sea routes coalesce.”I spoke with Dr. Arthur Waldron, a professor of international relations at the University of
Pennsylvania and a member of the highly classified Tilelli Commission, which evaluated the China
operations of the CIA from 2000 to 2001. He told me China’s foreign policy shifted sharply in
2008. “It is now aggressive and expansionist,” he said, and if it doesn’t change, “it’s going to lead to
war.” Waldron believes our inability to respond to China’s new posture has been a long time in the making. Under President
Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, it was thought that the United States would partner with
China as a strategic ally against the Soviet Union. For decades, we treated China as our most important Asian partner. But in
recent years, the U.S. intelligence community has been astonished at the kind of aggressive
intelligence operations China has launched at the United States, the vast number of people
involved, and the sensitive targets they have chosen. “We haven’t figured out how to react,” Waldron said. “One
reason is that the administration is completely divided between people who are still holding the torch
for a partnership and people who have had the scales fall from their eyes, and have realized
that what we have now is something else. We can’t change their policy, but we can change ours.”
Engagement is over- Pivot represents shift to containment strategy
Mearsheimer, PhD, 16
(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director,
Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-onstrangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)
Now, in
the 1990s, the Clinton administration did pursue engagement. There was little evidence of
containment: and you could do that in the 1990s because China was then weak enough that it didn’t matter.
So I believe in the 1990s that the Clinton administration really did believe in engagement and thought that containment was a bad
idea and pursued this policy of engagement. But
we’re now reaching the point where China is growing
economically to the point where its going to have a lot of military capability, and people are
getting increasingly nervous. So what you see is we’re beginning to transition from engagement
to containment; and this, of course, is what the pivot to Asia is all about. Hilary Clinton, who is married
to Bill Clinton and pursued engagement in the 1990s, is now the principle proponent of the pivot to Asia; and she
fully understands that it is all about containment. Of course, what’s going to happen here given
that we live in the United States is that we’re going to use liberal rhetoric to disguise our realist
behavior. So we will go to great lengths not to talk in terms of containment even though we’re
engaged in containment and even though the Chinese know full well that we’re trying to
contain them. But for our own sake and for our public we will talk in much more liberal terms.
So it’s liberal ideology disguising realist behavior.
Engagement is appeasement- encourages Chinese aggression, HR violations,
wrecks hegemony and ruins alliances
Newsham, JD, 14
(Grant, Senior Research Fellow @ Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, Exec. Director Corporate
Security @ Morgan Stanley Japan, Retired Marine Colonel, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/thebuzz/china-america-the-appeasement-question-11226, 9-8)
In February 2014, Philippine
President Benigno Aquino warned that failure to challenge the People’s Republic
of China’s (PRC) territorial seizures in the South China Sea would be repeating the 1930’s era
appeasement of Hitler’s Germany. The Chinese were predictably outraged while the rest of the world mostly ignored
President Aquino. “Appeasement” is still a dirty word. But in the 1930’s, until the Nazi’s invaded Poland in
September, 1939, European and American elites considered appeasement to be a sophisticated,
nuanced approach to dealing with increasingly powerful authoritarian regimes. To these elites, appeasement was more than
simply disarming and letting unpleasant people have their way. Appeasement actually had a coherent logic. The elites believed
that aggressive, authoritarian regimes act the way they do out of fear, insecurity, and at least partly legitimate
grievances – such as German resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles. Understand and address these issue,
remove their fears, and the regimes will become less aggressive and transform into responsible
members of the international community and operate under international norms. Or so the elites argued.
Challenging these regimes could dangerously isolate them and even needlessly provoke them into
“miscalculations.” The elites thought “engagement” and “transparency” were beneficial in their
own right, as only good things could come from familiarity with one another. In the 1930’s, the major Western powers all
attended each other’s war games. The US Marine Corps even took the German World War I fighter ace, Ernst Udet on a ride in a
USMC dive bomber. This “engagement” and “transparency” did not make the Nazis nicer, but perhaps gave them
some ideas about dive bombing and “Blitzkreig.” Even the Soviets and Germans had close ties with joint training, military technology
development, and raw material shipments to Germany. There
was also extensive political and diplomatic
interaction. Close economic ties were believed to be a further hedge against conflict breaking out,
and companies such as Ford, IBM, and many others did profitable business in Germany. The elites believed anything was better than
war. Preserving
peace, even if sacrificing principles – and certain small nations – was considered wise and
statesmanlike. People who criticized appeasement policy in the 1930’s, most notably Winston Churchill, were
ridiculed as dolts and war mongers. We know how this turned out. Curiously, appeasement (by another
name) reappeared even before the end of the war in calls to address Stalin’s ‘fears’ and allow him to dominate Eastern Europe. And
throughout the Cold War, in Western academic and government circles it was argued that Soviet behavior was simply a reaction to
fears of Western containment. The appeasers protested the peacetime draft as threatening the Russians. They also pushed for
unilateral nuclear disarmament, and opposed the Pershing missile deployment and the neutron bomb well into the 1980’s. Even
President Jimmy Carter, once he overcame his “inordinate fear of communism,” tried something akin to appeasement as national
policy. It was not until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan that Carter learned his lesson. It perhaps will take another case of an
authoritarian regime rearranging its neighborhood to understand the cost of modern appeasement. US
policy towards
China over the last 30 years, and particularly in recent times, seems familiar. The United States does its best to
understand the PRC’s concerns and its resentments going back to the Opium Wars and the
‘century of humiliation’, to accommodate these resentments, and to ensure China does not feel
threatened. Defense and State Department officials enthusiastically seek greater transparency
and openness – especially in the military realm – as such openness is perceived as inherently good. In return, the PRC is
expected to change, to show more respect for human rights and international law and to
become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community. We now have several
decades of empirical evidence to assess this concessionary approach. It has not resulted in
improved, less aggressive PRC behavior in the South China Sea or the East China Sea, or even
in outer space. Indeed, it seems to have encouraged Chinese assertiveness as manifest in
threatening language and behavior towards its neighbors. Nor has the PRC regime shown more
respect for human rights, rule of law, consensual government or freedom of expression for its
citizens. Serial intellectual property theft continues unabated, as does support for unsavory dictators. Nonetheless, we
invite the PRC to military exercises [4] and repeat the “engagement” mantra – expecting that one day
things will magically improve. Some argue that letting the PRC see US military power will dissuade it from challenging
us. Perhaps, but we are just as likely to be seen as naïve or weak. From the Chinese perspective, there
is no reason to change since they have done very well without transforming and the PRC has
never been stronger. Indeed, the PRC frequently claims that human rights, democracy, and the like
are outmoded Western values having nothing to do with China. This is also demoralizing our
allies, who at some point may wonder if they should cut their own deals with the PRC. Some
revisionist historians argue that Neville Chamberlain’s 1930’s era appeasement was in fact a wise stratagem to buy time to rearm.
This overlooks that even as late as 1939 when Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies still had the military
advantage. One can appease oneself into a corner. And the beneficiary of the appeasement usually strengthens to the point it is too
hard to restrain without great sacrifice. One worries that the Chinese
seizure of Philippine territory at Scarborough
to be this
generation’s “Rhineland”. Had the West resisted Hitler in 1936 when he made this first major
demand, there would have been no World War II, no Holocaust, and no Cold War. Our choice about
Shoal in 2012 [5] – and the US Government’s unwillingness to even verbally challenge the PRC - might turn out
how to deal with the PRC is not simply between either appeasement or treating China as an enemy. Our policy must accommodate
options ranging from engagement to forceful confrontation. Who would not be delighted with a China that stopped threatening its
neighbors and followed the civilized world’s rules? While ensuring we and our allies have a resolute defense – both in terms of
military capability and the willingness to employ it – it is important to maintain ties and dialogue with the PRC and to provide
encouragement and support when it shows clear signs of transforming to a freer, less repressive society. We should constantly
stress that China is welcome as a key player in the international order – but only under certain conditions. The US and other
democratic nations have not done enough to require China to adhere to established standards of behavior in exchange for the
benefits of joining the global system that has allowed the PRC to prosper. Human
nature and history are a useful
guide to where appeasement (by whatever name) leads. And they also show that a strong defense
and resolutely standing up for one’s principles is more likely to preserve peace.
Threat of Pre-emptive strike key to West’s deterrence capabilities
Traynor, Ian. 01-22-2018 “Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told” The
Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/22/nato.nuclear
west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent"
spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's
The
most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand
first
strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no
realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world". The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers,
strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "
many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,
The risk of further [nuclear]
proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in
scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The
first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument
to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction." The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint
over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April. Advertisement "
chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk
van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the
defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.
Historically, China capitalizes on power vacuum and expands in the South
China Sea
Okamoto Yukio, Foreign policy commentator and president of Okamoto Associates Inc.
Born in 1945. Graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Hitotsubashi University.
Served as a career diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from MIT, 8-4-2015, "The
Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security," nippon, http://www.nippon.com/en/indepth/a04502/#auth_profile_0
Japan’s current deterrent is not based on the ability of the US Marines stationed in Okinawa to
respond immediately to an attack from North Korea or China. It is based on the Japan-US
security arrangements as a whole.
A key element of the bilateral security setup is the US Seventh Fleet. The ships of this major fleet, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington,
along with the aircraft they carry, cost several trillion yen to build. The fact that this fleet is based in Yokosuka, a port near Tokyo, sends a clear message to neighboring countries that the United States is truly committed to Japan’s defense. It is this clear commitment
deterrent is ultimately a matter of perceptions: It depends on the belief of
neighboring countries that the Japan-US security arrangements are certain to operate.
Absent this belief, the Japan-US Security Treaty becomes no more than a piece of paper.
core of Japan’s deterrent power consists of the ongoing maintenance of a close alliance with
the United States that leaves no room for doubt in the minds of other countries in the
region.
, a large-scale reduction of the US forces
create a big hole in the fabric of the deterrent. Neighboring countries would sense a
power vacuum. Consider what has happened in the South China Sea: After the United States
pulled out of Vietnam, China grabbed the Paracels, and after the Russians left, it pushed the
Vietnamese off Johnson South Reef. And after the US forces left the Philippines, China took over
Mischief Reef from that country. If the Chinese judged that the US military had been driven out
of Okinawa, it would greatly increase the likelihood of their grabbing the Senkaku Islands in the
East China Sea from Japan by force
that is the essence of the deterrent. The
So the
If, however
in Okinawa were to be conducted in the face of local turmoil without a sound basis in military thinking, it
would
. And once they landed on these islands, it would become very difficult to dislodge them. Doing so would mean undertaking a combat operation that could well result in
the first deaths in action for Japanese armed forces since World War II. Would Japan actually fight to get the Senkakus back? It is possible that the Japanese government would instead declare its intention to “negotiate persistently,” a line it has often used, and that the
Senkakus would remain under China’s effective control indefinitely, just as Takeshima has since South Korea took it over in the 1950s.
Chinese strategic missile modernization causes US-China war and
destabilizes Asian nuclear dyads.
Stephen J. Cimbala, Political Science @ Penn State, ’20, The United States, Russia and
Nuclear Peace, Springer, ISBN 978-3-030-38088-5
China’s military related aspirations have to do with enhancing its IndoPacific regional and wider
strategic profile and economic influence. Accordingly, Chinese nuclear modernization will
support deterrence of nuclear attack or blackmail against China proper, but also provide for
coercive military backing of China’s growing regional assertiveness in Asia. With regard to the
United States, for example, this implies that China will want to deter any conventional military
intervention in the region against China’s vital interests, through a combination of improving
conventional and nuclear missile and air forces. According to the 2018 US Department of
Defense annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security developments, The Chinese
armed forces (People’s Liberation Army or PLA) are undergoing transformation to support
complex war fighting capabilities:
The PLA is undergoing the most comprehensive restructure in its history to become a
force capable of conducting complex joint operations. The PLA strives to be capable of
fighting and winning “informatized local wars” – regional conflicts defined by real-time,
data-networked command and control, and precision strike.7
China’s nuclear forces also serve as a measure of escalation control on favorable terms should
conventional war in its early stages not go according to Beijing’s expectations. With respect to
strategic nuclear forces, modernization should provide a canopy, atop a range of Chinese military
capabilities, that will have integrity from the lowest to the highest rungs of the escalation ladder.
For example: China’s nuclear modernization includes unprecedented modernization of its
ICBMs, SLBMs and bombers, but also the development of next generation nuclear warheads with
smaller yields and high accuracy.8
Along with this, China’s fleet of nuclear attack submarines supports an ambitious anti-access,
area denial (A2/AD) strategy to deter US military intervention to support allied interests in Asia
against Chinese wishes.9 In addition, experts warn that, as China’s military capabilities for
power projection expand, so may its strategic aspirations:
Since anti-access strategies are adopted by nations who perceive their potential opponents
as strategically inferior, China is likely to shift defense resources away from A2/AD
systems and toward power projection and expansion capabilities once this perception of
inferiority dissipates. Indeed, China is preparing to make this shift.10
Under President Xi Jinping, China has also been more assertive on other military-strategic issues,
including the construction of Chinese military airfields on disputed islands in the South China
Sea; claiming extended “air defense identification zones” whose transit would require permission
from China; and developing a larger inventory of cyberweapons to support its diplomatic and
military strategy.11
China’s diplomacy also creates additional space for maneuver on arms control and other issues.
As nuclear arms control expert Alexei Arbatov has noted, Beijing’s “cautious and multivectored”
policies “have allowed it to assume the role to which Russia has traditionally aspired – that of a
balancer between East and West. In fact, it is Russia, with its new policy of “Eurasianism,” that
has become the East”.12 On the other hand, China’s political and military objectives in Asia and
worldwide differ from those of the United States and Russia, reflecting China’s perception of its
own interests and of its anticipated role in the emerging world order.13 China’s military
modernization is intended to support its rising global profile and expanded portfolio of
international interests: focused on “investments and infrastructure to support a range of missions
beyond China’s periphery” including “power projection, sea lane security, counterpiracy,
peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), and noncombatant evacuation
operations”.14
Entering China into the US-Russian nuclear deterrence equation creates considerable analytical
challenges, for a number of reasons. First, China’s military modernization is going to change the
distribution of power in Asia, including the distribution of nuclear and missile forces. China’s
military modernization draws not only on its indigenous military culture but also on careful
analysis of Western and other experiences. As David Lai has noted:
The Chinese way of war places a strong emphasis on the use of strategy, strategems and
deception. However, the Chinese understand that their approach will not be effective
without the backing of hard military power. China’s grand strategy is to take the next 30
years to complete China’s modernization mission, which is expected to turn China into a
true great power by that time.15
China’s ballistic missile force—the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF)—is
among the beneficiaries of its military modernization. The PLARF, established in 2016, is
responsible for maintaining conventional and nuclear weapons and for the “ability to deter and
strike across the entire defense area”. It is also tasked to “enhance nuclear deterrence and counterstrike capacity” with the ability for long and medium-range precision strike.16
Chinese military publications have identified a number of missions that might be undertaken by
nuclear or conventional missile-rocket forces in peacetime or under conditions of crisis or war,
including war prevention, escalation control, using nuclear deterrence to “backstop” conventional
operations, and strategic compellence of enemies by means of deterrent actions.17 Chinese
military modernization and defense guidance for the use of nuclear and other missile forces hold
some important implications for US policy. First, Chinese thinking is apparently quite nuanced
about the deterrent and defense uses for nuclear weapons. Despite the accomplishments of
modernization thus far, Chinese leaders are aware that they are far from nuclear-strategic parity
with the United States or Russia. On the other hand, China may not aspire to this model of
nuclear-strategic parity, as between major nuclear powers, as the key to war avoidance by
deterrence or other means. China may prefer to see nuclear weapons as one option among a
spectrum of choices available in deterring or fighting wars under exigent conditions, as well as
means of supporting assertive diplomacy and conventional operations when necessary. Nuclearstrategic parity as measured by quantitative indicators of relative strength may be less important
to China than the qualitative use of nuclear and other means as part of broader diplomaticmilitary strategies.18 As the United States Defense Intelligence Agency has noted:
In 2015, Beijing directed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be able to win
“informatized local wars” with an emphasis on “maritime military struggle.” Chinese
military strategy documents also emphasize the growing importance of offensive air,
long-distance mobility, and space and cyberspace operations. The PLA views space
superiority, the ability to control the information sphere, and denying adversaries the
same as key components of conducting modern “informatized” wars.
Second, China is expanding its portfolio of military preparedness not only in platforms and
weapons, but also in the realm of C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers,
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and information technology, including for cyber
war and space deterrence.20 Having observed the US success in Operation Desert Storm against
Iraq in 1991, Chinese military strategists concluded that the informatization of warfare under all
conditions would be a predicate to future deterrence and defense operations.21 China’s growing
portfolio of smart capabilities and modernized platforms includes, in addition to items previously
noted, stealth aircraft, antisatellite warfare, quiet submarines, “brilliant” torpedo mines, improved
cruise missiles, and the potential for disrupting financial markets. As Paul Bracken has noted, the
composite effect of China’s developments is to make its military more agile:
By agility I mean the ability to identify and seize opportunities and to move more quickly
than rivals. This nimbleness is reflected in China’s mobile missiles, a reactive air and sea
response against the U.S. Navy, and information warfare. What all of these have in
common is quick action.22
The emphasis on agility instead of brute force reinforces the traditional emphasis in Chinese
military thinking since Sun Tzu on the acme of skill as winning without fighting, but, if war is
unavoidable, getting in the first and decisive blows. It also follows that one should attack the
enemy’s strategy and his alliances making maximum use of deception, based on superior
intelligence and estimation. The combination of improved platforms, command-control and
information warfare should provide options for the selective use of precision fire strikes and
cyberattacks against priority targets, avoiding mass killing and fruitless attacks on enemy
strongholds.23 As former defense official Robert O. Work has explained, an important
component of China’s military strategy is the concept of “system destructive warfare” that
focuses on “disabling the sensor, command and control, and effects grids common to all battle
networks”.24 More broadly, China is determined to dominate future AI and cyberspace research
and development and its application for military purposes. According to US Naval War College
cyber expert Chris C. Demchak:
With the real revolution in AI found in the emerging applications of so-called deep neural
learning that require massive computational resources, Chinese command of AI and
eventually quantum computing will massively increase the speed at which its actors can
compute likely outcomes across societal-scale problems and threats. They’ll then be able
to coordinate rapid actions to enhance, dampen, disrupt, or destroy the essential elements
of targeted processes in any opposing nation.25
A third aspect of the Chinese military modernization that is important for nuclear deterrence and
arms control in Asia is the problem of escalation control. Two examples or aspects of this
problem might be cited here. First, improving Chinese capabilities for nuclear deterrence, and for
conventional warfighting, increase Chinese leaders’ confidence in their ability to carry out an
A2/AD strategy against the United States, or against another power seeking to block Chinese
expansion in Asia. This confidence might be misplaced in the case of the United States. The
United States is engaged in a “pivot” in its military-strategic planning and deployment to Asia,
and toward that end, is developing its doctrine and supporting force structure for “AirSea Battle”
countermeasures against Chinese anti-access strategy.26
A second aspect of the problem of escalation control is the question of nuclear crisis management
as between a more muscular China and its Asian neighbors or others. Asia in the Cold War was a
comparative nuclear weapons backwater, since the attention of US and allied NATO policy
makers and military strategists was focused on the US-Soviet arms race. The world of the twentyfirst century is very different. Europe, notwithstanding recent contretemps in Ukraine, is a
relatively pacified security zone compared to the Middle East or to South and East Asia, and
postCold War Asia is marked by five nuclear weapons states: Russia, China, India, Pakistan and
North Korea. The possibility of nuclear first use, growing out of a conventional war between,
say, India and Pakistan, or China and India, is nontrivial, and North Korea poses a continuing
uncertainty of two sorts. It might start a conventional war on the Korean peninsula, or the Kim
III regime might implode, leaving uncertain the command and control over its armed forces,
including nuclear weapons and infrastructure.27 Further to this issue, the uncertain implications
for China of United States’ withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty have
yet to be worked out, including the possible US deployment of conventional land-based ballistic
and cruise missiles with INF-range capabilities in the West Pacific.28
The problem of keeping nuclear armed states below the threshold of first use, or containing
escalation afterward, was difficult enough to explain within the more simplified Cold War
context. Uncertainties are even more abundant with respect to escalation control in the aftermath
of a regional Asian war. Then, too, there is the possibility of a US-Chinese nuclear incident at sea
or a clash over Taiwan escalating into conventional conflict, accompanied by political
misunderstanding and the readying of nuclear forces as a measure of deterrence. The point is that
US and Chinese forces would not actually have to fire nuclear weapons to use them. Nuclear
weapons would be involved in the conflict from the outset, as offstage reminders that the two
states could stumble into a process of escalation that neither had intended.