{"id":13999,"date":"2017-09-29T15:19:43","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T10:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/jwt2015\/?p=13999"},"modified":"2017-09-29T15:35:37","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T10:35:37","slug":"rival-superpower-strategies-world-war-iii-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/studykit\/currentaffairs\/daily-articles\/rival-superpower-strategies-world-war-iii-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Rival Superpower Strategies: World War III with China"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rival<\/a><\/h3>\n

How It Might Actually Be Fought<\/span><\/h3>\n

[This piece has been adapted and expanded from Alfred W. McCoy\u2019s new book,\u00a0In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.]<\/em><\/p>\n

For the past 50 years, American leaders have been supremely confident that they could suffer military setbacks in places like Cuba or Vietnam without having their system of global hegemony, backed by the world\u2019s wealthiest economy and finest military, affected. The country was, after all, the planet\u2019s \u201cindispensible nation,\u201d as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright\u00a0<\/strong>proclaimed\u00a0in 1998 (and other presidents and politicians have insisted ever since). The U.S. enjoyed a greater \u201cdisparity of power\u201d over its would-be rivals than any empire ever, Yale historian Paul Kennedy<\/strong>\u00a0announced\u00a0in 2002. Certainly, it would remain \u201cthe sole superpower for decades to come,\u201d\u00a0Foreign Affairs magazine\u00a0assured\u00a0us just last year. <\/em><\/p>\n

During the 2016 campaign, candidate Donald Trump<\/strong>\u00a0promised\u00a0his supporters that \u201cwe\u2019re gonna win with military\u2026 we are gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning.\u201d In August, while announcing his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Trump\u00a0reassured\u00a0the nation: \u201cIn every generation, we have faced down evil, and we have always prevailed.\u201d In this fast-changing world, only one thing was certain: when it really counted, the United States could never lose.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Trump White House may still be basking in the glow of America\u2019s global supremacy but, just across the Potomac, the Pentagon has formed a more realistic view of its fading military superiority. In June, the Defense Department issued a\u00a0major report\u00a0titled on\u00a0Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World<\/em>, finding that the U.S. military \u201cno longer enjoys an unassailable position versus state competitors,\u201d and \u201cit no longer can\u2026 automatically generate consistent and sustained local military superiority at range.\u201d This sober assessment led the Pentagon\u2019s top strategists to \u201cthe jarring realization that \u2018we can lose.\u2019\u201d Increasingly, Pentagon planners find, the \u201cself-image of a matchless global leader\u201d provides a \u201cflawed foun\u00addation for forward-looking defense strategy\u2026 under post-primacy conditions.\u201d This Pentagon report also warned that, like Russia, China is \u201cengaged in a deliberate program to demonstrate the limits of U.S. authority\u201d; hence, Beijing\u2019s bid for \u201cPacific primacy\u201d and its \u201ccampaign to expand its control over the South China Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Challenge<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Indeed, military tensions between the two countries have been rising in the western Pacific since the summer of 2010. Just as Washington once used its wartime alliance with Great Britain to appropriate much of that fading empire\u2019s global power after World War II, so Beijing began using profits from its export trade with the U.S. to fund a military challenge to its dominion over the waterways of Asia and the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Some telltale numbers suggest the nature of the future great power competition between Washington and Beijing that could determine the course of the twenty-first century. In April 2015, for instance, the Department of Agriculture\u00a0reported\u00a0that the U.S. economy would grow by nearly 50% over the next 15 years, while China\u2019s would expand by 300%, equaling or surpassing America\u2019s around 2030.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in the critical race for worldwide patents, American leadership in technological innovation is clearly on the wane. In 2008, the United States still held the number two spot behind Japan in patent applications with 232,000. China was, however,\u00a0closing\u00a0in fast at 195,000, thanks to a blistering 400% increase since 2000. By 2014, China actually took the\u00a0lead\u00a0in this critical category with 801,000 patents, nearly half the world\u2019s total, compared to just 285,000 for the Americans.<\/p>\n

With supercomputing now critical for everything from code breaking to consumer products, China\u2019s Defense Ministry\u00a0outpaced\u00a0the Pentagon for the first time in 2010, launching the world\u2019s fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A. For the next six years, Beijing produced the fastest machine and last year finally\u00a0won\u00a0in a way that couldn\u2019t be more crucial: with a supercomputer that had microprocessor chips made in China. By then, it also had the most supercomputers with 167 compared to 165 for the United States and only 29 for Japan.<\/p>\n

Over the longer term, the American education system, that critical source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. In 2012, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tested half a million 15-year-olds worldwide. Those in Shanghai\u00a0came in first\u00a0in math and science, while those in Massachusetts, \u201ca strong-performing U.S. state,\u201d placed 20th in science and 27th in math. By 2015, America\u2019s standing had\u00a0declined\u00a0to 25th in science and 39th in math.<\/p>\n

But why, you might ask, should anybody care about a bunch of 15-year-olds with backpacks, braces, and attitude? Because by 2030, they will be the mid-career scientists and engineers determining whose computers survive a cyber attack, whose satellites evade a missile strike, and whose economy has the next best thing.<\/p>\n

Rival Superpower Strategies<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

With its growing resources, Beijing has been laying claim to an arc of islands and waters from Korea to Indonesia long dominated by the U.S. Navy. In August 2010, after Washington expressed a \u201cnational interest\u201d in the South China Sea and conducted naval exercises there to reinforce the claim, Beijing\u2019s\u00a0Global Times\u00a0<\/em>responded\u00a0angrily that \u201cthe U.S.-China wrestling match over the South China Sea issue has raised the stakes in deciding who the real future ruler of the planet will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years later, Beijing escalated its territorial claims to these waters,\u00a0building\u00a0a nuclear submarine facility on Hainan Island and\u00a0accelerating\u00a0its dredging of seven artificial atolls for military bases in the Spratly Islands. When the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague\u00a0ruled, in 2016, that these atolls gave China no territorial claim to the surrounding seas, Beijing\u2019s Foreign Ministry\u00a0dismissed\u00a0the decision out of hand.<\/p>\n

To meet China\u2019s challenge on the high seas, the Pentagon began\u00a0sending\u00a0a succession of carrier groups on \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d cruises into the South China Sea. It also started shifting spare air and sea assets to a string of bases from Japan to Australia in a bid to strengthen its strategic position along the Asian littoral. Since the end of World War II, Washington has attempted to control the strategic Eurasian landmass from a network of NATO military bases in Europe and a chain of island bastions in the Pacific. Between the \u201caxial ends\u201d of this vast continent, Washington has, over the past 70 years, built successive layers of military power \u2014 air and naval bases during the Cold War and more recently a string of 60 drone bases stretching from Sicily to Guam.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, however, China has conducted what the Pentagon in 2010\u00a0called\u00a0\u201ca comprehensive transformation of its military\u201d meant to prepare the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) \u201cfor extended-range power projection.\u201d With the world\u2019s \u201cmost active land-based ballistic and cruise missile program,\u201d Beijing can target \u201cits nuclear forces throughout\u2026 most of the world, including the continental United States.\u201d Meanwhile, accurate missiles now provide the PLA with the ability \u201cto attack ships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific Ocean.\u201d In emerging military domains, China has begun to contest U.S. dominion over cyberspace and space, with plans to dominate \u201cthe information spectrum in all dimensions of the modern battlespace.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s army has by now developed a sophisticated cyberwarfare\u00a0capacity\u00a0through its Unit 61398 and allied contractors that \u201cincreasingly focus\u2026 on companies involved in the critical infrastructure of the United States \u2014 its electrical power grid, gas lines, and waterworks.\u201d After identifying that unit as responsible for a series of intellectual property thefts, Washington took the unprecedented step, in 2013, of filing criminal charges against five active-duty Chinese cyber officers.<\/p>\n

China has already made major technological advances that could prove decisive in any future war with Washington. Instead of competing across the board, Beijing, like many late adopters of technology, has strategically chosen key areas to pursue, particularly orbital satellites, which are a fulcrum for the effective weaponization of space. As early as 2012, China had already launched 14 satellites into \u201cthree kinds of orbits\u201d with \u201cmore satellites in high orbits and\u2026 better anti-shielding capabilities than other systems.\u201d Four years later, Beijing\u00a0announced\u00a0that it was on track to \u201ccover the whole globe with a constellation of 35 satellites by 2020,\u201d becoming second only to the United States when it comes to operational satellite systems.<\/p>\n

Playing catch-up, China has recently achieved a bold breakthrough in secure communications. In August 2016, three years after the Pentagon abandoned its own attempt at full-scale satellite security, Beijing\u00a0launched\u00a0the world\u2019s first quantum satellite that transmits photons, believed to be \u201cinvulnerable to hacking,\u201d rather than relying on more easily compromised radio waves. According to one scientific\u00a0report, this new technology will \u201ccreate a super-secure communications network, potentially linking people anywhere.\u201d China was reportedly planning to launch 20 of the satellites should the technology prove fully successful.<\/p>\n

To check China, Washington has been building a new digital defense network of advanced cyberwarfare capabilities and air-space robotics. Between 2010 and 2012, the Pentagon extended drone operations into the exosphere, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before. As early as 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will loft a\u00a0triple-tier shield\u00a0of unmanned drones reaching from the stratosphere to the exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by an expanded satellite system, and operated through robotic controls.<\/p>\n

Weighing this balance of forces, the RAND Corporation recently released a study,\u00a0War with China,\u00a0<\/em>predicting\u00a0that by 2025<\/p>\n

\u201cChina will likely have more, better, and longer-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles; advanced air defenses; latest generation aircraft; quieter submarines; more and better sensors; and the digital communications, processing power, and C2 [cyber security] necessary to operate an integrated kill chain.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the event of all-out war, RAND suggested, the United States might suffer heavy losses to its carriers, submarines, missiles, and aircraft from Chinese strategic forces, while its computer systems and satellites would be degraded thanks to \u201cimproved Chinese cyberwar and ASAT [anti-satellite] capabilities.\u201d Even though American forces would counterattack, their \u201cgrowing vulnerability\u201d means Washington\u2019s victory would not be assured. In such a conflict, the think tank concluded, there might well be no \u201cclear winner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Make no mistake about the weight of those words. For the first time, a top strategic think-tank, closely aligned with the U.S. military and long famous for its influential strategic analyses, was seriously contemplating a major war with China that the United States would not win.<\/p>\n

World War III: Scenario 2030<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

The technology of space and cyberwarfare is so new, so untested, that even the most outlandish scenarios currently concocted by strategic planners may soon be superseded by a reality still hard to conceive. In a 2015 nuclear war\u00a0exercise, the Air Force Wargaming Institute used sophisticated computer modeling to\u00a0imagine\u00a0\u201ca 2030 scenario where the Air Force\u2019s fleet of B-52s\u2026 upgraded with\u2026 improved standoff weapons\u201d patrol the skies ready to strike. Simultaneously, \u201cshiny new intercontinental ballistic missiles\u201d stand by for launch. Then, in a bold tactical gambit, B-1 bombers with \u201cfull Integrated Battle Station (IBS) upgrade\u201d slip through enemy defenses for a devastating nuclear strike.<\/p>\n

That scenario was no doubt useful for Air Force planners, but said little about the actual future of U.S. global power. Similarly, the RAND\u00a0War with China\u00a0<\/em>study only compared military capacities, without assessing the particular strategies either side might use to its advantage.<\/p>\n

I might not have access to the Wargaming Institute\u2019s computer modeling or RAND\u2019s renowned analytical resources, but I can at least carry their work one step further by imagining a future conflict with an unfavorable outcome for the United States. As the globe\u2019s still-dominant power, Washington must spread its defenses across all military domains, making its strength, paradoxically, a source of potential weakness. As the challenger, China has the asymmetric advantage of identifying and exploiting a few strategic flaws in Washington\u2019s otherwise overwhelming military superiority.<\/p>\n

For years, prominent Chinese defense intellectuals like\u00a0Shen Dingli\u00a0<\/strong>of Fudan University have rejected the idea of countering the U.S. with a big naval build-up and\u00a0argued\u00a0instead for \u201ccyberattacks, space weapons, lasers, pulses, and other directed-energy beams.\u201d Instead of rushing to launch aircraft carriers that \u201cwill be burned\u201d by lasers fired from space, China should, Shen argued, develop advanced weapons \u201cto make other command systems fail to work.\u201d Although decades away from matching the full might of Washington\u2019s global military, China could, through a combination of cyberwar, space warfare, and supercomputing, find ways to cripple U.S. military communications and thus blind its strategic forces. With that in mind, here\u2019s one possible scenario for World War III:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 11:59 p.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday in 2030. For months, tensions have been mounting between Chinese and U.S. Navy patrols in the South China Sea. Washington\u2019s attempts to use diplomacy to restrain China have proven an embarrassing failure among long-time allies \u2014 with NATO crippled by years of diffident American support, Britain now a third-tier power, Japan functionally neutral, and other international leaders cool to Washington\u2019s concerns after suffering its cyber-surveillance for so long. With the American economy diminished, Washington plays the last card in an increasingly weak hand, deploying six of its remaining eight carrier groups to the Western Pacific.<\/p>\n

Instead of intimidating China\u2019s leaders, the move makes them more bellicose. Flying from air bases in the Spratly Islands, their jet fighters soon begin buzzing U.S. Navy ships in the South China Sea, while Chinese frigates play chicken with two of the aircraft carriers on patrol, crossing ever closer to their bows.<\/p>\n

Then tragedy strikes. At 4:00 a.m. on a foggy October night, the massive carrier USS\u00a0Gerald Ford<\/em>\u00a0slices through aging Frigate-536\u00a0Xuchang<\/em>, sinking the Chinese ship with its entire crew of 165. \u00a0Beijing demands an apology and reparations. When Washington refuses, China\u2019s fury comes fast.<\/p>\n

At the stroke of midnight on Black Friday, as cyber-shoppers storm the portals of Best Buy for deep discounts on the latest consumer electronics from Bangladesh, Navy personnel staffing the\u00a0Space Surveillance Telescope\u00a0at Exmouth, Western Australia, choke on their coffees as their panoramic screens of the southern sky suddenly blip to black. Thousands of miles away at the U.S. CyberCommand\u2019s operations center in Texas, Air Force technicians detect malicious binaries that, though hacked anonymously into American weapons systems worldwide, show the distinctive\u00a0digital fingerprints\u00a0of China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army.<\/p>\n

In what historians will later call the \u201cBattle of Binaries,\u201d CyberCom\u2019s supercomputers launch their killer counter-codes. While a few of China\u2019s provincial servers do lose routine administrative data, Beijing\u2019s quantum satellite system, equipped with super-secure photon transmission, proves impervious to hacking. Meanwhile, an armada of bigger, faster supercomputers slaved to Shanghai\u2019s cyberwarfare Unit 61398 blasts back with impenetrable logarithms of unprecedented subtlety and sophistication, slipping into the U.S. satellite system through its antiquated microwave signals.<\/p>\n

The first overt strike is one nobody at the Pentagon predicted. Flying at 60,000 feet above the South China Sea, several U.S. carrier-based MQ-25 Stingray\u00a0drones, infected by Chinese \u201cmalware,\u201d suddenly fire all the pods beneath their enormous delta wingspans, sending dozens of lethal missiles plunging harmlessly into the ocean, effectively disarming those formidable weapons.<\/p>\n

Determined to fight fire with fire, the White House authorizes a retaliatory strike. Confident their satellite system is impenetrable, Air Force commanders in California transmit robotic codes to a flotilla of X-37B\u00a0space drones, orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, to launch their Triple Terminator missiles at several of China\u2019s communication satellites. There is zero response.<\/p>\n

In near panic, the Navy orders its Zumwalt-class destroyers to fire their RIM-174\u00a0<\/strong>killer missiles\u00a0at seven Chinese satellites in nearby geostationary orbits. The launch codes suddenly prove inoperative.<\/p>\n

As Beijing\u2019s viruses spread uncontrollably through the U.S. satellite architecture, the country\u2019s second-rate supercomputers fail to crack the Chinese malware\u2019s devilishly complex code. With stunning speed, GPS signals crucial to the navigation of American ships and aircraft worldwide are compromised.<\/p>\n

Across the Pacific, Navy deck officers scramble for their sextants, struggling to recall long-ago navigation classes at Annapolis. Steering by sun and stars, carrier squadrons abandon their stations off the China coast and steam for the safety of Hawaii.<\/p>\n

An angry American president orders a retaliatory strike on a secondary Chinese target, Longpo Naval Base on Hainan Island. Within minutes, the commander of Andersen Air Base on Guam launches a battery of super-secret X-51 \u201cWaverider\u201d\u00a0hypersonic missiles\u00a0that soar to 70,000 feet and then streak across the Pacific at 4,000 miles per hour \u2014 far faster than any Chinese fighter or air-to-air missile. Inside the White House situation room the silence is stifling as everyone counts down the 30 short minutes before the tactical nuclear warheads are to slam into Longpo\u2019s hardened submarine pens, shutting down Chinese naval operations in the South China Sea. Midflight, the missiles suddenly nose-dive into the Pacific.<\/p>\n

In a bunker buried deep beneath Tiananmen Square, President Xi Jinping<\/strong>\u2019s handpicked successor, Li Keqiang<\/strong>, even more nationalistic than his mentor, is outraged that Washington would attempt a tactical nuclear strike on Chinese soil. When China\u2019s State Council wavers at the thought of open war, the president quotes the ancient strategist Sun Tzu<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cVictorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amid applause and laughter, the vote is unanimous. War it is!<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, Beijing escalates from secret cyberattacks to overt acts. Dozens of China\u2019s next-generation SC-19 missiles lift off for strikes on key American communications satellites, scoring a high ratio of kinetic kills on these hulking units. Suddenly, Washington loses secure communications with hundreds of military bases. U.S. fighter squadrons worldwide are grounded. Dozens of F-35 pilots already airborne are blinded as their helmet-mounted avionic displays go black, forcing them down to 10,000 feet for a clear view of the countryside. Without any electronic navigation, they must follow highways and landmarks back to base like bus drivers in the sky.<\/p>\n

Midflight on regular patrols around the Eurasian landmass, two-dozen RQ-180 surveillance drones suddenly become unresponsive to satellite-transmitted commands. They fly aimlessly toward the horizon, crashing when their fuel is exhausted. With surprising speed, the United States loses control of what its Air Force has long\u00a0called\u00a0the \u201cultimate high ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

With intelligence flooding the Kremlin about crippled American capacity, Moscow, still a close Chinese ally, sends a dozen Severodvinsk-class nuclear submarines beyond the Arctic Circle bound for permanent, provocative patrols between New York and Newport News. Simultaneously, a half-dozen Grigorovich-class missile frigates from Russia\u2019s Black Sea fleet, escorted by an undisclosed number of attack submarines, steam for the western Mediterranean to shadow the U.S. Sixth fleet.<\/p>\n

Within a matter of hours, Washington\u2019s strategic grip on the axial ends of Eurasia \u2014 the keystone to its global dominion for the past 85 years \u2014 is broken. In quick succession, the building blocks in the fragile architecture of U.S. global power start to fall.<\/p>\n

Every weapon begets its own nemesis. Just as musketeers upended mounted knights, tanks smashed trench works, and dive bombers sank battleships, so China\u2019s superior cybercapability had blinded America\u2019s communication satellites that were the sinews of its once-formidable military apparatus, giving Beijing a stunning victory in this war of robotic militaries. Without a single combat casualty on either side, the superpower that had dominated the planet for nearly a century is defeated in World War III.<\/p>\n

Alfred W. McCoy<\/strong>,<\/span> a\u00a0TomDispatch\u00a0regular, is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of the now-classic book\u00a0The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, which probed the conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert operations over 50 years, and the just-published\u00a0In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power\u00a0(Dispatch Books) from which this piece is adapted.<\/em><\/p>\n

Featured image is from American Herald Tribune<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
The original source of this article is TomDispatch<\/a><\/div>\n
Copyright \u00a9 Alfred W. McCoy<\/a>, TomDispatch<\/a>, 2017<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How It Might Actually Be Fought [This piece has been adapted and expanded from Alfred W. McCoy\u2019s new book,\u00a0In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.] For the past 50 years, American leaders have been supremely confident that they could suffer military setbacks in places like Cuba or …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5285],"tags":[9069,842,257,8438,1226,9071,9070,8800],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}