Libya is not Iraq. Liberal interventionism is not neoconservatism.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One of our former contributors, Jim Arkedis, has an excellent piece up at Foreign Policy responding to the assertion, notably by Stephen Walt, that neoconservatism and liberal interventionism are essentially the same, and that the intervention in Libya is essentially the same as the invasion of Iraq.

If you've read this blog recently, you'll know that I side with Jim on this -- and that I'm a liberal interventionist who supports the intervention in Libya (albeit with reservations). Indeed, I argued yesterday that the "war" in Libya is decidedly not a neocon war.

I encourage you to read Jim's piece. (Instead of calling them (or us) liberal interventionists or liberal hawks, he uses "progressive internationalists." My sense is that "internationalism" is too broad, but it suggests that war is an option but not the preferred option, as it would seem to be for the neocons, so it's not a bad term to use.) Here's a taste:

Progressive internationalists recognize that U.S. foreign policy is now aholistic enterprise that must first summon all sources of national power todeal with what goes on within states as well as between them -- direct andmultilateral diplomacy, development aid to build infrastructure and civilsociety, trade to promote growth, intelligence collection, and law enforcement,to name a few -- and only then turn to force as the final guarantor of peaceand stability.

Neocons, however, disdain multilateral diplomacy and overestimate theefficacy of military force. Their lopsided preoccupation with "hard power"creates an imposing facade of strength, but in fact saps the economic,political, and moral sources of American influence. By overspending on themilitary and allowing the other levers of American power to atrophy, neoconsmisallocate precious U.S.national resources in two ways -- leaving the UnitedStates with too little of the "smart power" capacitiesdesperately needed in war zones like Afghanistan and an overabundanceof "hard power" capacities it will never use. The trick is to carefullycultivate both, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State HillaryClinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen havechampioned since Obama took power.

I think that's right, and I said much the same thing, if less elaborately, yesterday:

Libya isn't a neocon war. It isn't about American hegemony, American unilateral aggression, or American national self-interest (say, in terms of oil). It's a "war," or whatever you want to call it, sanctioned by the U.N. and the Arab League, that is, a war not waged by a U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" alienating even close allies but a war effectively waged by the international community. And it is largely a humanitarian war, a war to protect innocent civilians from being slaughtered and to provide cover to rebels seeking to bring down one of the must ruthless dictators in the world.

[Bill] Kristol may be cheering it on, but it isn't his war, and in fact it is a war that is decidedly the antithesis of what he generally purports to support. It's up to him to support it or not, of course, but the success of this war, and he does think "we will" win, would only mean a further defeat for neocon ideology, the refutation of all that he stands for.

It is essential, I think, that we not let all military intervention be understood in neocon terms and that those of us who support intervention, usually as a last resort in extreme cases, defend the principles that guide us from the attacks of those who would lump all intervention, and all war, together. 

Instead of being driven by the reckless pursuit of global American hegemony, after all, nor even by a purely realist sense of national self-interest, we are motivated by internationalism and humanitarianism. And, to me, there's something fundamentally noble about that.

American acceptionalism

By Carl 

(Pun intended.) 

So here's President Obama, talking about America's role in the world last night:

For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and advocate for human freedom. To allow a slaughter in Benghazi would have been to "brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and... would have been a betrayal of who we are.

For ten years, we've been endlessly reminded of America's "special" place in world affairs. America is the world's biggest economy, has the world's biggest armed forces, is the policeman to the world... yet can't hunt down one skinny sick Saudi in a small region that straddles the border of two of the most desolate regions in the world.

Even the strongest have limitations.

Now, none of this is to say that America shouldn't throw its weight around when necessary, and Obama alluded to this last night in the negative:

We must always measure our interests against the need for action.

Again, fair enough. When our interests are at stake, we ought to be prepared to take measures to protect ourselves.

But what threat does Qaddafi pose to us? After all, he voluntarily shut down his nuclear program (although given the level of interest the Bush administration had in him, and their effectiveness in addressing terrorism, one has to wonder if indeed this ever happened) and cozied up to the previous administration. No one has claimed that he has had aspirations against us, and if anything, he's presented a face of reconciliation for Africa, offering his aid to the situations in Somalia, Darfur, and Zimbabwe.

Again, there's no judging his sincerity on these, either.

The slaughter in Benghazi is certainly a legitimate concern of Obama's, and the world's, and it was nice that Obama put on the veneer of legitimacy by asking for the U.N.'s blessings on this mission, and did so without sending his secretary of state in to do a snake-oil presentation complete with vials of white powder. Too, Qaddafi suffers from his own world image, one that seemingly did not endear him to any of the Security Council who could have vetoed the action (China and Russia abstained).

Of particular interest to me, however, was the curious lack of invitation to powers-to-be to assist in patrolling the world now. Nations like China, Brazil, and India, with their steaming-hot economies and massive expansion of trade and influence, are living off our military dime. It's about time they started ponying up. China has a strongly vested interest in North and Central Africa. Brazil certainly by dint of its location will look to Africa as a trade partner, and India with its billions of people must have some eye on Africa and its enormous resources and access to Europe and the Americas.

So the question I want to ask Mr. Obama is, Why not China? Why not India? Why not Brazil? I accept that it had to be us in the past, but why now? Have we gotten so locked into the old Cold War thinking that, if America doesn't do it, this will not hold? That it will turn socialist/Islamist/terrorist without American intervention?

It's a new century. You're a new-age man. Surely it's time to think outside of the box.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Hope's last chance?

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar 

Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France.

(Ed. note: This is Ali's fourth guest post at The Reaction. Last month, he wrote on dictatorship in Tunisia and Egypt and on the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East. In January 2010, he co-wrote a post on Iran with Bryan Tollin. On the situation in Egypt, he was recently quoted by Robert Fisk at The Independent. -- MJWS)

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Comparisons to Ceausescu, while initially pessimistic, could turn out to be understated. Qaddafi is digging in and Libya is moving closer to what may be a prolonged and bloody struggle for the country's future. The international community and the United States in particular continue to wonder what role they should play in helping the good guys win.

Surely, it would have been difficult for any U.S. president in 2011 to seriously consider intervention in Libya. But on the eve of his election, one would have thought that Barack Obama was the exception. Promising a break from the past with the Muslim world, the usual suspicion and presumption of ill-intent that followed a U.S. president to the Middle East was tabled in Obama's case. But a combination of unfulfilled promises has relegated him to a class of leaders who must tread with extreme caution in Libya; still, he continues to have a rare opportunity that he should exploit.

He came to power partially on the perception that his unique persona and experience, and the policies and goodwill that would emanate therefrom, could reverse the Bush-era suspicion harnessed towards America almost everywhere in the world. Obama's domestic and international behavior on most everything Middle East, though, has been a disappointment.

Whatever the reality may be, his policy thus far in Iraq and Afghanistan is mostly seen as a continuation of an unpopular status quo. Everyone, including Israel, is complaining about his lack of coherence. On certain domestic issues that are especially important to increasingly well-connected followers abroad, he has again failed to live up to expectations. He signed an extension to the Patriot Act without reforming its most controversial portions. Just this week, he also ordered trials at Guantanamo Bay to resume, casting his promise to immediately close the prison even further into oblivion.

Miraculously, though, with the wave of unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, Obama's foreign policy credentials in the region have been partially revived. In January, American intervention directly lead to Ben-Ali fleeing Tunisia. The story is similarly positive in Egypt, as President Obama's personal conversations with Mubarak in the days leading up to his departure were historically unprecedented in the scope of their rebuke and insistence; the State Department is even rumored to have been very critical (if not threatening) in Bahrain, where the U.S. has a military base, during "consultations" on the paths forward for the king.

From what can be gauged of the region's opinion of how things have been handled thus far, the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. No burning American flags or effigies of Obama; rather, the U.S. is appearing to come out on the right side of events, without having dictated the results of a crucial, strategic Arab nation's political future.

Among disappointment and positive surprise, Libya, then, is a sort of tie-breaker. Obama needs to be the galvanizing force that ensures the world, and not just the U.S., stands on the side of Libya's people. This should include support for a U.N.- or NATO-led no-fly zone to prevent the strafing of civilians, more humanitarian aid to Libyan refugees, and strong diplomatic support for the Libyan people. But further intervention, such as tactical support for Libyan rebels, should also be considered. At this juncture in history, such intervention is unlikely to engender a negative perception, even if the rebels lose. Consider, furthermore, what all of the parties have to gain.

Through the popular, secular uprisings that are spreading through the region, al Qaeda and terrorism are being dealt a crucial blow that billions of dollars and thousands of American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to accomplish. But Obama must note that the clock is ticking and the jury is still out. Compared to the potential cost of inaction, decisiveness in Libya is simply crucial. Over the course of the next year, a partial reversal of decades of negative U.S. perception could instigate the new era of mutual respect and interest that Obama spoke about in his June 2009 speech in Cairo. That event would mean, among other things, a fundamental blow to extremists everywhere in the region and a huge boon America for decades to come.

Their revolution, our game-changer

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar 

Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France.

(Ed. note: This is Ali's third guest post at The Reaction. Earlier this month, he wrote a post on dictatorship in Tunisia and Egypt. In January 2010, he co-wrote a post on Iran with Bryan Tollin. -- MJWS)

Started with the match of a Tunisian who aspired for more, a revolutionary wildfire burns near and far from his resting place. We have already witnessed one of most incredible and unlikely geopolitical shuffles in modern history; still, as this post goes out, Libya's people stand potentially days away from deposing yet another of the world's dictators against all odds. In addition to these being revolutionary times, these are also perception-changing times. Perceptions of peoples and their aptitude for modernity, surely. But most importantly for America, perceptions of the role the rest of the world is going to play in facilitating that modernity.

With the benefit of hindsight, U.S. foreign policy has sometimes been good and sometimes bad. With respect to the Middle East and North Africa, it is probably not controversial to say it has been almost certainly bad. Leaving aside the reality that the majority of the world sees the U.S. as being totally self-interested, we have also managed to sacrifice the stability of those same interests we are thought to be hoarding so maliciously. In every country, we get a D either in terms of the humanity of our policies or the protection of our interests; in many cases, we get a D in both.

I know a bit about Iran, so let's take that example: We went from organizing a coup d'état that ousted a democratically-elected leader in the '50s to supporting Iraq in an invasion against its new popularly-chosen (but in-flux) government in the '80s. This served to bring in and harden the influence of the most extreme elements in Tehran, who still rule that country today, with the price tag of 1.5 million lives. Less than two decades later, we went in and got rid of the two largest threats to Iran's border while it watched and picked off young American soldiers like fish in a barrel, establishing its influence. In the end, we secured neither its respect nor its oil, nor that of its neighbor, while the whole region watched. Henry Kissinger's famous quote on the Iran-Iraq war was that its too bad "they both can't lose". The reality is, they did both lose -- but so did we, in terms of interests and reputation, perhaps the only two factors that matter in international affairs.

In an era of mass transformation, where the world and the region are once again watching, the U.S. has an unprecedented platform to show that it will, at the very least, stand by its ideals. Undoubtedly, perceptions are being formed today about America's propensity to be a constructive player that will follow the U.S. for decades. America may never have this opportunity again.

Now, President Obama's change moniker is without doubt composed partially of hot air. Whether by chance or design, though, the last month has been very kind to the view that some of what he said in his June 2009 Cairo speech was genuine. During the course of revolutionary, albeit unfinished, change in Egypt and Tunisia, the U.S. has walked the tightrope of Middle East policy exceptionally well. That tightrope requires the U.S. to consider its reputation in the region on a case-by-case basis and decide the extent of its action based on any inevitable perception of its involvement, while at the same time being unwilling to sacrifice the ideals of democratic change for peoples who are taking destiny into their own hands.

Whether or not President Obama agrees that the stakes are as outlined above, his policies and his reaction to events suggest he does. Our influence and rhetoric have so far placed the U.S. in a unique position of having encouraged positive change in a region where it is desperate for legitimacy and good-standing (bearing in mind that we not decide how uprisings began or how they will end, but still have a special role to play, for our sake and our reputation). The president explained his choices, confirming that America would place itself on the right side of history while never imitating that it could dictate the outcome of popular will.

So while perceptions are important and good, and affect our interests, what about the interests themselves? The peaceful toppling of these entrenched despots also gives America the opportunity to align those interests with the values it cherishes for its own people. In addition to begetting a positive circle of goodwill that is more likely to serve our physical interests than the shortsighted policy of yesteryears, it also sets the alternative of extremism on its head. No burning U.S. flags in Cairo or Tunis, only cautious thanks for America among a valiant population happy to have friends in high places.

The U.S. has never been a strong ally of Libya, and that among other factors makes its treatment of Libya necessarily different. With the handwriting on the wall in Tripoli, and the work almost done, the U.S. needs to exercise all of its influence to ensure Qaddafi's departure. This means proposing sanctions (largely symbolic) and publicly considering the idea of no-fly zones to prevent the incursion of foreign mercenaries. President Obama needs to speak up and act with intent -- not least because Libya, the region, and the world are watching.

Bush talked freedom, Egypt walked it

By Nicholas Wilbur

Corruption is out, liberty is in, and with the recent uprisings in Egypt and throughout the Arab world the media are hoisting up former President George W. Bush as the retrospective hero of democracy for what is turning out to be an effective "freedom agenda."

In a column published on February 3, 2011 -- titled "Was George Bush right?" -- The Economist gave a balanced overview of the conservative spin being applied to the people's backlash in Africa and throughout the Middle East:

With people-power bursting out all over the Arab world, the experts who scoffed at Mr Bush for thinking that Arabs wanted and were ready for democracy on the Western model are suddenly looking less clever – and Mr Bush's simply and rather wonderful notion that Arabs want, deserve and are capable of democracy is looking rather wise.

This is, simply put, a severely exaggerated, self-aggrandizing example of the political butterfly effect. Though we may believe that America is the beautiful epicenter from which all international reverberations of freedom and culture and wealth and greatness commence, it is also a rather shallow, ethnocentric interpretation of causality.

Can we honestly take even partial responsibility for the Egyptian people's uprising on the basis that our president invaded Afghanistan and dumped trillions of dollars into a 10-year mission of wandering the hillsides and peaking into caves in a fruitless search for the 9/11 mastermind? Are we the bricklayers of this new foundation of liberty because Bush took America to war in Iraq on the pretense of some imminent nuclear threat that eventually proved utterly false?

If that is true, then the opposite could be argued just as easily – that Bush's vacancy of the White House gave Arabs the go-ahead to fight for democracy without having to fear that the U.S. military would flatten their cities, control their borders, manage their natural resources, and play puppet master with their "democratically elected" officials.

Bush never called on the people to overthrow corrupt regimes. He did it for them or he did nothing, as The Economist noted when it contextualized the media's recent attempts to vindicate the former president:

The big thing Mr Bush did in the Arab world was not to argue for an election here or a loosening of controls there. It was to send an army to conquer Iraq. Nothing that has happened in Tunisia or Egypt makes the consequences of that decision any less calamitous... (Bush) wanted Arab democracy on the cheap. That is to say, he wanted Arab leaders to empower their people but at the same time to protect America's strategic interests. That put a limit on how far he dared to push the reliable old autocrats. And, knowing this, the reliable old autocrats thought all they needed to do to stay safely on their perches was to wait Mr Bush out.

Of course, no praise of Bush would be complete without a fair and balanced critique of President Barack Obama. Highlighting the criticism of Obama's failure to double-down on Bush's "freedom agenda" and his "lack of presumption" in foreign meddling, The Economist cited Obama's 2009 Cairo speech as proof of this administration's "diffidence" when it comes to international diplomacy. I provide a significantly larger chunk of Obama's speech than was quoted in The Economist: 

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq.  So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other. That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people.

America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.

Okay, so Obama is a pacifist, perhaps even a neo-isolationist – on top of the usual criticisms spewed daily by the Republican sound machine (socialist, Communist, anti-colonialist, ististist...). But if we're competing for who can best swindle the masses into buying a series of baseless assertions about which president has done more to usher in a new era of international peace, one could brainstorm plenty of logical reasons why Obama, not Bush, is responsible for the recent removal of an Egyptian dictator.

For one, Egypt made no progress through eight years of Bush's "war on terror," and yet only a year and a half after Obama told the Egyptians to stand up for themselves, they did.

Second, while Bush half-assed lobbied the leaders of Arab nations to maybe, if they had some free time, perhaps start thinking about thinking about representing the people, it was Obama who spoke not to the comfortable dictators but to the oppressed people themselves. He threw the ball in their court, essentially saying, "We're not your liberators. You must decide how your government represents you. The United States will not jump into another international quagmire only to be abandoned by allies, rebuked by the world and bankrupted by war, again. America fought for her freedom and independence. So must you, if that is your wish."

The truth, I believe, is somewhere in between. Neither Bush nor Obama is to blame or thank for having any more than a peripheral influence on the uprising in Egypt. America is but an example of how it is possible to establish a government that is of, by, and for the people. The Egyptian people are now fighting, and dying, for that dream. If it is achieved, it will be because the Egyptian people acted.

Credit is due them, not us.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Dictatorships 101, in 2011

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar

Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France.

(Ed. note: This is Ali's second guest post at The Reaction. In January 2010, he co-wrote a post on Iran with Bryan Tollin. -- MJWS)

As Egypt moves ever closer to life without Hosni Mubarak, governments and analysts everywhere ponder the important question of what will come next. The conventional and clichéd wisdom pronounced by pundits and politicians the world over focuses on the risk of a dramatic rise to power for the Muslim Brotherhood and the inevitability of a new Islamist, and implicitly dictatorial, ruling establishment. Disaster for the U.S., for Israel, and for the future of Egypt, right? If the events of recent weeks demonstrate anything, however, it is that dictatorship is increasingly difficult to manufacture in the age of modern communications.

Let's take a step back and acknowledge exactly what these Twitter and Facebook "revolutions" have managed to overcome in just Tunisia and Egypt so far (bearing in mind events in Jordan and Yemen as well). Former president Ben-Ali ruled over Tunisia, with the help of a highly-trained secret police force (among other levers of control), for over 20 years. Just weeks before he fled the country, few a Tunisian would have ever imagined a day where he and his cronies would not dominate the landscape of politics and life in Tunisia for as long as he lived. What had largely been considered one of the most stable and pacified populations in the Arab world, however, took to the streets in large numbers, rendering the president's apparatus of control inoperable against the masses of people from which it was drawn. Increasingly facing the possibility of internal betrayal and what that would mean for his own head, Ben-Ali fled. What happened afterwards, however, was in many ways more remarkable than his being deposed.

The government that immediately replaced the Ben-Ali regime was largely made up of his associates. And while that new government immediately pledged and took concrete steps to dismantle the means of censorship and develop democratic institutions, the Tunisian population, well-informed, continued to protest. Staging demonstrations and continuing to put pressure on a still-infant government, remaining elements from the old guard were purged from the new interim regime. All the evidence suggests that Tunisia is on its way to democratic institution-building and free elections. From communication to coordination, it is hard to imagine how such an historic sequence of events could have happened without the Internet tools that have only become widely used in the region in the last few years.

Events in Egypt are, in the most important ways, following a similar trajectory. While such events are impossible to predict, it is reasonable to hypothesize that, as in Tunisia, no group that fills the potential power vacuum in Egypt will have the clout, influence, or muscle that Mubarak developed over the last 30 years to implement his dictatorial rule. With the tools at the disposal of the world's citizens today, the fear of new dictatorships springing out of such well-established ones -- former dictatorships that had decades to harness accountability from their repressive systems -- seems almost far-fetched. The protesters and the press, emboldened by the information and images they see and transmit in seconds, are already focusing their rhetoric on a post-Mubarak era and the avoidance of a failed transition to democracy.

The world's governments that have been criticized for becoming more dictatorial in the last decade seem to have done so through reform, not revolution. Take Venezuela, for example. The specter of an Iranian-type genuine revolution turned radical Islamic regime also seems unlikely in the Egyptian context. The lack of a unified and charismatic Islamic front (with the Muslim Brotherhood being rather late to the game), coupled with the modern means of communication that are helping to topple Mubarak, will threaten to make the consolidation of power for a new dictatorial regime untenable unless it is extremely popular.

Most importantly, though, let's acknowledge that democracy's growing pains, whatever they may be, deserve the opportunity to play themselves out. It is not the business of entities foreign to Egypt to try and divine the potential makeup of a future government, and then exercise preference over whether or not Egyptians have a right to their own destiny. Foreign influence (short of intervention) should be designed to help strengthen populations and countries that seek to take destiny into their own hands, in the model of Tunisia (with the U.S.' encouragement of Ben-Ali's stepping down), and not in the old model of Iran. Note that the undermining of Iran's popular and democratic movements of yesterday are thought to have contributed to the radicalism and anti-Americanism of its revolution and its government today.

U.S. policy suggests it is frantically trying not to be on the wrong side in Egypt, and in the region generally. We should consider, though, the monumental reputational damage the U.S. will sustain if it stands on the side of autocracy or even ambiguity as it has done in the last two weeks. The specter of loss of interests should yield to the realization that only democratic partners in the region can protect our interests permanently, and that those democratic partners had better be our friends.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.us

From Mubarak to Suleiman, one tyrant to another, with America's blessing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've been praising President Obama's careful handling of the situation in Egypt, making the case that he deserves enormous credit for trying to push Mubarak out while remaining generally non-interventionist.

I stand by that, even if I don't think Obama has shown nearly enough direct support for the pro-democracy movement that has the support of the people, but this -- even as I would like to give Obama, Clinton, et al. the benefit of the doubt -- is rather troubling:

The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday. 

What this means is that the U.S. -- and Obama in particular -- is looking to replace one tyrant with another, as Omar Suleiman is just the sort of dictatorial type the U.S. has preferred to deal with not just in the Middle East but around the world -- Pinochet, Noriega, the Saudi royal family, etc., ad nauseam. He's now the new VP, but he was the country's intelligence chief, involved in rather messy business (to say the least), including America's rendition program. In a way, you could call him Egypt's torturer-in-chief.

The key, I suppose, is that Suleiman would only head up a transitional government. But transitional to what? And what assurances do we have that he wouldn't just be another Mubarak?

And what about those brave people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, those who have risen up against oppression and who are demanding meaningful change, those who want to be free and who want their country to be a democracy? Screw them, it would appear.

So much for the Lotus Revolution.

Chinese military modernization: Challenges and opportunities for the United States

Guest post by Michael S. Chase

Michael S. Chase is a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and an Associate Research Professor at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The views expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Naval War College, the U.S. Navy, or the U.S. Department of Defense.

(Ed. note: This is Michael's second guest post for us. His first, back in December 2009, was on President Obama's trip to China. -- MJWS)

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Once dismissed as a “junkyard army,” the Chinese military is now impressing outside observers—and alarming China’s neighbors—with its growing air, naval, missile, space, and information warfare capabilities. In recent years, China has deployed increasingly potent capabilities, including modern surface ships, advanced submarines, fourth-generation fighter aircraft, and conventional cruise and ballistic missiles, including an anti-ship ballistic missile designed to target U.S. aircraft carriers. China is also enhancing its command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems and its space and cyber warfare capabilities.

The internet leak of photos and videos unveiling China’s new J-20 stealth fighter and the test flight of the aircraft during Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ recent visit to China seemed intended to underscore the growing capability of China’s military. China’s eagerness to showcase the faster than expected development of the J-20—and its determination to send a message to the United States—also ensured that concerns about the implications of a more powerful Chinese military would loom large when President Hu Jintao arrived in Washington for a state visit this week.

China’s growing military capabilities, along with incidents such as Beijing’s anti-satellite test in January 2007 and its harassment of a U.S. surveillance ship in March 2009, are raising questions about whether an increasingly powerful China represents a threat to the U.S. and its allies. Fueling China’s accelerating military modernization—and the concerns of analysts who see China as an emerging competitor—is the rapid growth of their defense budget. Beijing’s increases in defense spending have enabled the People’s Liberation Army to develop more credible options for using force against Taiwan and countering U.S. military intervention. 

Beyond Taiwan, PLA modernization is increasingly tied to China’s growing role on the world stage. As China’s economic and security interests become more global, the PLA’s roles and missions are evolving to contend with an increasingly diverse set of challenges. To fulfill these expanded missions, China’s leadership has tasked their military with enhancing its capabilities to participate in military operations other than war, such as the counter-piracy patrols that China’s navy has been conducting in the Gulf of Aden. Such activities are seen as important to protecting China’s growing global interests, but senior officers stress that their military’s core mission remains deterring and winning wars.

China continues to lag behind the United States military in many respects, but its new capabilities already present serious challenges to the security balance in the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing’s advances in cyber-warfare, anti-satellite weapons, submarines, and ballistic missiles could threaten America’s regional bases, the aircraft carriers that have become symbols of U.S. presence and power projection, and the space assets and computer networks that support them.

The U.S. should counter these developments with a strategy to deter China from using force over Taiwan or in another regional dispute. Creating new operational concepts, developing cutting-edge information and electronic warfare capabilities, and strengthening the U.S. military’s existing edge in the undersea environment would ensure the credibility of such a deterrence strategy. The U.S. should also practice operating without the full range of cyber and space assets to show China that attacks against American computer networks and satellites would not cripple the U.S. military.

At the same time, attempts to strengthen deterrence must be calibrated to avoid inadvertently fueling China’s worst fears about U.S. strategic intentions. Because of China’s concern that the United States is determined to prevent its emergence as a great power through encirclement and containment, Washington should carefully weigh taking actions that could further exacerbate Chinese fears. To help prevent misunderstanding or miscalculation, the United States should continue to pursue dialogue with China on issues such as security on the Korean peninsula, space and cyber warfare, and strategic stability in the U.S.-China relationship. The United States should also seek to strengthen military cooperation with China in areas such as anti-piracy and humanitarian assistance operations. This week’s state visit presents an opportunity for Presidents Obama and Hu to lead the United States and China toward a more cooperative relationship, but mutual strategic suspicion and a complex mix of convergent and divergent interests suggest that neither side should expect the path forward to be an easy one.