Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission Panel 2 20240714

Next, look at the current relations between the United States and china with security and defense experts. U. S. China economic and Security Review Commission hosted this event. Thank you. We will catch up sometime here. We are not too far behind. I would like to introduce our second panel, which will explore major developments in the u. S. China security relations in 2019. We will start with doctor orianas carl mastro who is assistant professor of Security Studies at the admin a Wilson School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. And a resident scholar at the american enterprises. Shes the author of the cost of conversation, obstacles to peace talks and more time. And currently working on a book about chinas challenge to u. S. Privacy. Next we hear from doctor andrew kirby voinovich senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and adjunct senior fellow at the center for new American Security and president and ceo of solarium llc, defense consulting firm. His previously served as president of the center for strategic and budgetary assessments and the Department Defense of office in the assessment and on the personal staff of three secretaries of defense. He is the author of several books and monographs most recently publishing the decline of deterrence. Earlier this year. Our third panelist is doctor Michael Green Senior Vice President for asia and japan chair at the center for strategic and International Studies asis. As well as director of Asian Studies at admin a school of Foreign Service and Georgetown University. We are overrepresented by Georgetown University today. Doctor green has authored numerous books and articles on east asia security including most recently by more than providence, grand strategy and American Power in the asia pacific since 1783. I ask all of our witnesses to keep your remarks to seven minutes. Doctor menstrual we will start with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you chairman bartholomew and vice chairman cleveland and the commissioners for having me today. Im going to highlight a few aspects of my testimony in the last year and focus specifically on the sino russian relationship as well as the new defense what it means for competition moving forward. In terms of regional activity two big things i want to highlight the first is that taiwan is still the driving scenario for the pla and this means that training procurement reforms and reorganization all have implications for taiwan. In the testimony i list a number of platforms coming online in the next year, for example, china has begun two years ago the destruction of Nuclear Attacks marine they also have a new type of destroyer that are expected to come online soon. These platforms along with the platforms they already have such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, bigots, corvettes, the emphasis ab these can be used in scenarios to coerce blockade invade taiwan. The Chinese Air Force is also made Significant Developments i would have implications for taiwan. Currently developing a new strategic self bomber and they have a whole series of bombers fighters, airlifts and helicopters for the Ground Forces that are all scheduled to be online and ready to go by 2020. The Chinese Military developments in an area particularly concerning because of she john paying increasingly strident rhetoric on taiwan. In his new years day speech he outlined unifications the ultimate goal of any talks in the future and in my analysis it seems that she johnabwhat specifically this means i think is there is great uncertainty but at the very least china probably wants to restart bilateral talks and to do this they hope that the Political Party thats most amenable to this awinning the presidency in 2020. In the meantime china is conducting very sophisticated exercises in order to intimidate taiwan and most recent happened in july after United States and arms and arm crackers. Taiwan has been the focus of the pla, the South China Sea has been significant concern largely because of the relative improvements in Chinese Military posture. In the past year we havent seen as much militarization happening because a lot of that land regulation militarization had occurred before. We do consistently see the rotation of certain platforms on the islands, the j 10 fighters coming in and out of woody island and extending radar capabilities. China is also increasingly operational tempo in these waters which suggests they are practicing to have a more persistent presence there. Of note in july 2019 china conducted a series of antiship Ballistic Missile tests in the South China Sea. This is the first time they conducted a test over waterways versus overland. Beyond east asia China Military activities have increased significantly during xis tenure. The chinese 2019 white paper china participated in 11 International Humanitarian aid Disaster Relief operations 100 International Joint exercises with 17 Different Countries. And active in five peacekeeping operations overseas. In 2019 alone theyve already conducted there are 13 joint exercises and humanitarian aid Disaster Relief oppositions which suggest the pace is increasing. Of six significant concern is chinas military increase presence in africa. They also sell a lot of military equipment drones and other surveillance equipment africa. I think this is an area to be watched Chinese Military experts abroad. Future developments in china and the Pacific Island in the arctic deserve to be watched but right now especially in the arctic the focus seems mainly on energy and chinese increasing their military cooperation with the european nations. But most of this is more for the image of improved relationships. The area i think most concerning two people when you look at security developments is the china russian relationship. Theres been a number of notable trends in the space which have been greatly covered in my testimony and other venues. Its true that china has increased exercises arms sales and diplomatic platitudes when it comes to their relationship with russia. I think this is not sufficient to just just there moving away from relationship of convenience and there are a number of obstacles to closer ties. Specifically china sees russia as liability. Its interested in being seen as a legitimate great power. Russia has relationships with countries that china has poor relationships with us, such as india or vietnam. While i think we are being too alarmist about the relationship becoming closer i think we are not concerned enough about what even the smallest degree of improvement of this relationship would mean for the United States military. I think the first thing is that it seems that russia has accepted junior partnership and this will change how we think about the cooperation moving forward. Id always assumed it would have to be symmetric because china is not really willing to put its neck out for russia, for russian goals in europe and assumed russia would be willing to help china achieve its goals in asia. It seems especially with the joint patrol that the two did over the takashi in the islands that may be russia is willing to help china even if china is not willing to reciprocate. This sparked a new trend of the relationship that might greater Russian Military involvement in asia which will achina they like to posit themselves as being the fourth of peace in the world some of the Chinese Defense white paper is not a National Security strategy and the way the United States has National Security strategy. Its written by foreign audiences and it had a few main themes they wanted donors to know the first is the Chinese Military has become a much more comfortable as a global role and china is becoming more comfortable with the pla becoming more involved in implementing this role. China also promotes itself as a force for peace while the United States is an instigator of strategic competition. And regional conflicts arms racing, power politics etc. Also the white paper is interesting because while it tries to persuade concerns about military modernization it has very harsh rhetoric for the first time about taiwan in the maritime disputes. The last point i will make is about the peer near peer competitor. I was asked whether china has reached a level of United States. I will just say that china does not need to be as sophisticated or as big as the United States prevailed against the United States. We are fighting different wars even if its the same where we have different challenges. Im happy to go into that in the question and answers. Because deterrence required both capabilities and resolve if we have a balance of abilities, that means we dont have a deterrent. China is much more resolved. They are willing to accept higher costs in the United States and most contingencies and therefore maintain deterrence the United States actually has to have better capabilities so we would suffer less than china would. There is a difference in how to assess trends in the future. China has surpassed the United States, given certain trends in the region china will soon be able to out match the United States. As we know on the global stage china is nowhere near being a peer competitor to the United States. I have a number of recommendations in my testimony, most focus on the South China Sea issue which is i think the key area of strategic competition on the military side between the two sides. The United States needs to prioritize diplomatic solution with or without china. Get all the claimants to agree on the sovereignty of the islands and what rights islands give them and then have International Enforcement of them. I think the United States should consider protecting exclusive even harvick aband improve the posture in Southeast Asia. Right now we are optimized for conflicts in northeast asia and Southeast Asia and will take a great deal of political will to be able to have assets in Southeast Asia. I think thats whats really needed at this time. Understandably states dont really leaders are worried about doing this because they want to avoid a war with european competitor but in my view the only way to prevent a war is to deter chinese aggression if china doubts the United States for ability to prevail then they are more likely to rely on coercion and aggression and this is what will drag our two countries into work. Because of this i think United States think needs to put all military resources behind maintaining regional order even if this means taking a few risks to ensure success. Given my background and expertise i will focus my remarks on the military aspects of the relationship. In particular, look at three issues, first the military balance of the indo pacific. The openended longterm military competition between the United States and china. And third, aspects of deterrence. Its my opinion in present the indo pacific military balance appears favorable to the United States. That said, i havent seen anything in the Public Domain or in terms of military literature that comes close to the kind of analysis and assessment of the military balance that you saw during the latter stages of the cold war between the United States and the soviet union. I think for us to really get a handle on the true military balance is there needs to be a rigorous set of regional and functional net assessments done looking at various key aspects of the competition between the United States and china. As the competition with china is openended, we also need to take a long view its not just a snapshot of the balance is trends that will shape the balance over time and how can we improve our position. Using sir Michael Howards four dimensions of strategy the logistical operational technical its my preliminary assessment that the trends dont favor the United States. The trends are generally unfavorable. If you look at the social dimension the ability to mobilize and orient your population in doctor wurtzels term to eat bitterness if necessary, it seems as though the chinese have a distinct advantage over the United States both in terms of our elites and u. S. Public in general. Logistical or the leaks to the scale of the challenge if you look at lets just look at gdp i know its just one element of National Power we can get into others but if you look at the gdp alone, chinas gdp according to Current Exchange rates and the world bank is roughly 2 3 that of the United States. If you add russia its about 80 . If you look at some of the historical data, which i admit is imperfect, you see that imperial germany in world war i the axis powers in world war ii and the soviet russia in the cold war never really exceeded roughly 40 of the us gdp. Be looking at the scale of the challenge its roughly doubled, gdp terms and relative sense to what we saw in the great power challenges that we confronted during the course of the 20th century. When you add to that looking at the cold war for example, our advantage and analyze our advantage in manpower relative to soviet russia is also our advantage to technology those advantages have either weathered considerably well relative to china or perhaps have gone away entirely. What also interests me is in the scale of the challenge if you look at some of the recent reports on u. S. Fiscal standing you will find according to the Congressional Budget Office interest on the u. S. Debt which was 263 billion in fy 17 unless things change will rise to about 915 billion or roughly 650 billion more over the course of the next decade. Thats tax money coming in that has to go out to service the debt. The Social Security and Medicare Trust funds late 2020s or early 2030s will be exhausted. State and local governments have roughly 5 trillion in ab cbo is in my estimation rosie estimate is about 2. 5 percent of us gdp will be available for defense during the cold war against the 40 soviet russia we average over six percent so we will average less than half that against the set of rivals that is roughly 80 of our gdp. In terms of scale, it seems as though the trends are negative. In terms of technical and operational dimensions one of the things Senior Leaders in the pentagon worry about his circumstances to which there could be a disruptive shift in the military balance, all of a sudden things look very different. We find that with the diffusion of technology to china, also advances in technology where theyve set themselves some ambitious priorities, there are potentially two destructive shifts in the balance of the u. S. Military has to worry about. One is what the pentagon calls the maturing precision strike regime. We had a near monopoly of precision strike warfare since the persian gulf war. The chinese are clearly catching up. We havent seen them putting into practice but certainly a number of their capabilities and what theyve accomplished are impressive. So far military looking at Group Precision strike regime we are losing a major source of military advantage. A couple of important questions are, is this the new normal . Are we going to be shut out of certain parts of the endo pacific is the chinese capabilities mature . Or is there a different way to project power . The second disruptive shift could occur with in the emerging military revolution. Everything from Artificial Intelligence to manufacturing advances from the bio scientist directed energy, hypersonic nanotechnology quantum computing and advanced robotics suggest that there is quite a high likelihood that the kind of warfare thats waged in the mid2030s will be very different even from what we anticipate today. That is a source of Great Potential advantage for us but also a potential source of great weakness if the chinese get it right before we do. Operationally, how you fight, the Peoples Liberation army seems to figure out better than it plans to fight in the western pacific in particular. We really have not, and i was served on the National Defense Strategy Commission that was appointed by congress, the u. S. Military really has it stated clear operational challenges let alone develop operational concepts to meet the challenges. This is critical because if you have challenges and Defense Program the Defense Program and capabilities should be able to look at the capabilities and say this is how they will be employed to accomplish our security objectives. I dont think weve reached that stage yet. A few words on deterrence, its a major problem. Deterrence is becoming much more difficult. A lot of new clients of military equipment coming into play which people dont understand particularly well new domains if you look at the relatively new domains the warfare is moved into over the past 20 to 30 years, cyberspace and the undersea or the seabed in terms of deterrence from what competition favors the offense, which means the offense has the advantage. Attribution is relatively difficult. Deterrence to punishment or deterrence to denial become more challenging proposition. With modern weaponry and merging weaponry becomes easier to miscalculate the military balance. And if both we and the chinese are very conservative that could be a very good thing. If we both start to calculate the balance as being in our advantage then might lead us to the overly aggressive on both sides. And theres a lot of advances in the Cognitive Sciences with respect to limits of rational Human Behavior just mentioned a few prospect theory optimism biased risk tolerance and the cultural variant, happy to talk about those during the discussion period if you like. That concludes my summary of my testimony id be happy to respond to questions. Thank you. Thank you doctor green. Thank you for inviting me to appear before the commission. I want to begin by committing your staff who did outstanding job giving guidance in preparing us for this hearing so we could be useful. And going to focus on what might be called the phase 0 dimension of war planning which was the park before what doctor aand most are focused on before war fine. The area we are now income a competition for influence without fighting a war. China would of course like to supplant asia without fighting a war. In particular id like to focus on the roles of allies and partners who get a vote in this competition. Our worst mistake strategically with china have come when we either try to form a bilateral or bipolar condominium in beijing ignoring allies interest or conversely when charging full kilter at beijing without aligning with allies to make sure we are effective so as we gear up for not only the challenges and deterrence weve heard about but also the very real competition for influence and leadership in asia right now we have to think carefully through where allies and partners are and are they with this or not . I make three broad overarching points in that respect at the outset. The first is that china is clearly targeting u. S. Alliances not only in the endo pacific more broadly they recognize what doctor crippen nonfiction says that alliances are in many ways center of gravity in the region. Chinese declaratory policy and the use of chinese coercive tools military and commercial, have sharply increased against allies and partners in the last six or seven years. A strong signal came in 2014 and april when xi jinping gave a speech in shanghai arguing that asians should decide their own security without form block. It was a line very similar to one gorbachev used in 1986. To try to break up american alliances knowing how important it was to our containment strategy. There been much more specific cases of coercion against allies and efforts to entice the u. S. Into bipolar condominium where we set aside our allies. Xi jinpings offer of a new model was clearly designed to demote the interest of japan by one of course are truly a south korean and others. There is a debate on these town that will not be resolved about whether chinas revision of power think its more ambiguous on a global scale. Rising power including the United States but actively revisionists. In their own regions. After mexico. To me theres no question about chinas deliberate and obvious undeclared revision targeting largely at u. S. Alliances. The second point id make overarching point is that for the most part china strategy for now is failing its backfiring. If you look at Foreign Policy were defense workpapers of Australia Japan new zealand if you look at the eu new policy on china these likeminded democracies are clearly stating that chinese coercion against interest. Opinion polls across the major democracies are trending very negatively for china. And the trend in japan, korea, australia with our nato allies the major ones is toward joyousness and interoperability not hedging not deal one minute, not band awakening with china. The third point id make that while governments major democracies are trending toward alignment with the u. S. To counter the chinese challenge if you peel open there are disturbing trends. In most of our Major Alliance countries Public Opinion shows increasing support for alliance with the United States. And for security treaties. In japan polls show that while the number of people supporting the alliance of the u. S. Is up when japanese are asked in their similar questions in korea and australia when they are asked, do you trust United States to do the right thing . Those numbers are very bad for us. He didnt begin with each Trump Administration although thats and its been to the ball. It began earlier with questions about taiwan or syria. Even out of area commitments are watched very closely. We have to recognize alliances are a force multiplier for us and i would break in deterrence and were fine but especially in the phase 0 competition. We can blow it and at some risk of making mistakes. To touch on some of the major allies, i think its worth noting that smaller friends, allies, partners in the front lines the philippines, mongolia where he spent the summer those are the most vulnerable and under the most pressure. Ultimately our ability to prevent chinese coercion and the smaller weakest weaker states depends on how long we are with japan britain france and germany we briefly touch on them. Japan has been competing with china since the japanese emperor was given the title emperor in the seventh century to signal to the chinese that they were at least anomaly coequal. The abe government has built its entire National Security strategy around competing with china. In deptford japan has a declining demographic picture and abe has largely counted that with more of what scholars would call external alignment. The quad youve heard about this u. S. Japan australia india arrangement was not a idea. The free open endo Pacific Pacific was a night ababe is not only aligning closely with other asian powers which is useful for us hes doing away with six decades of japanese alibi defense policy saying that the peace clause in the japanese constitution means they cannot do joint operations with us. He has changed that in 2015 new legislation said japan can do joint operations with the u. S. He is moving with us. The weak point in japan strategy we can talk about a problem for the larger transport is deteriorating japan korea situation. Korea is also weary of china. Polls in korea are not good for j abthe chinese you korea is a much more likely candidate for the alignment from the United States. When xi jinping gave a speech in shanghai and 2014 going for essentially two u. S. Alliances this is a conference of eurasian leaders, the koreans were there, the chinese put enormous pressure on the ajust sign the speech agreeing there should not be alliances. The koreans held firm but its worrisome that beijing thought korea would bed. The boycott of korean goods, which cost billions of dollars after korea accepted missiledefense systems is another indicator. Korea has not supposedly signed onto the free and endo pacific strategy like almost every other ally partner. I think beijing sees opportunity that is a problem particularly given in the japan korea situation. Australia has come under huge pressure from china including International Interference and politics. Industrial and are pushing back. Generally aligning more closely. When i was in the Bush Administration we had huge problems with europe. The eu was going to lift arms embargo on china set after awe are way beyond that. With the major european powers. The european statement on china policy was very tough and talk about systemic competition over economic and political models. The problem we have with europe is the eu was a consensusbased organization in beijing has learned how to break consensus by buying off weak powers that block action, hungry, greece, Southeast Asia, cambodia and laos when the eu tried to take positions on things like the south china taiwan, china has found ways to reach inside and block it so we have to think about how to work with europeans in a different way with britain and france with germany, while helping them to shore up the eu as a whole. Im happy to go into more of the opportunities and challenges we have but i and by emphasizing that to get china policy right we have to get asia right we have to get all is right. China is targeting them need to be conscious of that and not only saying to ourselves, yes they are important but reinvigorate our alliances and make it more joint, reach across our bilateral i lance a a its going to take a very active Administration Policy but we have very willing partners in the region and europe, which is good news story to end on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Its a wonderful panel. I apologize i have to leave early and thank you to the cochairs for a long me to ask my questions first. Our commission has been engaging on the topic of the juxtaposition of chinas peer competitor potentially and xi jinping assertion that the pla should become a worldclass military power by 2050. We been wrestling with this topic. My question is not about that, its really from what you said today it seems that as we consider the question of near peer competitor we ought to focus more naturally and more intentionally on the degree to which china is competing with us in a military sense within the region. Thank you for your insights. I guess my first question, doctor green, because you focused on the allies, is this a formulation the question of whether the pla is near peer competitor to the United States within the region . Is that even a formulation thats a useful or meaningful construct for how our allies think about the challenge cannot. The answer is yes. Behind the australian white paper and japan National Security strategy and most recent midterm defense plan was intense gaming planning discussions within those allied capitals about this very question. The conclusion i think is evident between the lines in the white papers. China is approaching near peer competitor status with the u. S. Military in the region. That is deeply problematic. For allies. Who have to respond by being more joint and inoperable with the u. S. And get over some of the historic allergy theyve had to that. Particularly japan and australia see a challenge and they also see not only a contested self chinas sea but they see operations, influence campaigns, dual use military port building in places like the Pacific Island, chuck pollan, gone mark, which from their perspective means that china is taking the fight well beyond the first in china. At least early phase of a crisis so that they and we or others like india have to mind our flanks and give the chinese more of an advantage than weve even heard. I think from their perspective its a game on problem and the near peer problem is not just the south china see it spreading beyond them in ways that affect their interests. Thank you. My second question relates to your doctor green final recommendation in which you say the administration should avoid using the yahweh band democracy protest. As card specifically in the trade negotiation but your argument is based on the second sense which is that bats in view of our allies would see that. I wanted to give you a chance to comment on that and ask followup questions to the rest of the panel, i have been surprised to degree you are arguing for the linkage so we get this negotiation. But ive been surprised to the greed to which the chinese side has not themselves preemptive dlink. When the commission was in beijing in may it was clear that military pressure as a tool for enhancing the chinese negotiating position was not being given a high priority. I would welcome your thoughts on how they might consider doing that. That we should be alert to. First let me describe a little bit of what you are thinking. My own personal view is that we will decouple from china on 5g and most of our allies will join us if we play this right. Yes china will indigenous eyes and try to create champions and particularly in areas where they are weak but they are way behind. If you look at beyond some of the elements where theyve made advances in putting things to market if you look at some of the emerging technologies they reside in the u. S. Japan korea taiwan primarily. The 5g competition is leading to some decoupling but its very much contested. Australia made a decision very publicly to ban huawei and other Chinese Companies from the 5g market. Japan has made the made decision. India, britain, and others are debating this. The reason i mention the recommendation is if we were to announce suddenly as allies are taking enormous heat when australia bands huawei whole exports to china suddenly stopped. Our allies are taking huge heat for this. If we were to suddenly say, we decided to change our position on huawei to get a good trade deal, we robison undercut them but lose the fight in governments that have a National Security impulse to work with us like britain but enormous commercial pressure to work with huawei. Steadiness on this one is really critical. If i could just add two points, the first on linking comes security and economics more broadly. I agree with doctor greens assessment of why that might not be beneficial at this stage but i think it largely in my view depends on whos in the white house. My primary concern about linking economics to security is my assessment that President Trump prioritizes the Economic Issues of china over the security issues. He is never brought up the South China Sea with xi jinping. The last time i can see he even tweeted about it was before he was president. My concern is that the linkage would be done in order to gain the upper hand and economics and in the end sacrifice some of our security goals. For that reason i would like to keep the two issues separate. The allies, just to add, and i agree there have been a shift in the viewpoints and a lot of capitals but i might have a slightly different assessment about why that happens i think its important for u. S. Strategy moving forward. Seems to me that allies and partners are primarily awakened by political interference. The fact that the china and chinese behavior finally reached out and touch them and their countries and what was happening at home and because of domestic Economic Issues. It seems that the freedom of navigation operations in the french seems to be a very low appetite for security competition. Let a couple of points, the proposal duck green says that it seems to me that given the chinese focus on comprehensive National Power that they will look to use all of the instruments of power. Unlike us on occasions, they will say well economics is just about the bottom line and profit. Theyll introduce that when they think its appropriate they can gain advantage. The point about the bad battery to south korea and all of a sudden economic consequences to the republic of korea the japanese seizing the fishing boat and all of a sudden you dont have metals going to japan and we used to do that. Those of us who are old enough to remember the suez in 1906, president eisenhower stopped the british and french calls basically through economic means. Not military means. Again, i think the chinese take it for opera because of you do. The other thing i will say, is just i think it is very circumstantial depending upon how you look at it, we could consider North Vietnam a competitor back in the 60s and 70s. Mckenna depends on the contingency in the circumstance the nature of the conflict. You can only go so far. We put those kinds of terms. I want to thank all three of you for being here. I have a few questions. If we dont get through, maybe ill get to some of them in a second round. Duck, on page five of your testimony, its a very interesting thing about the five adrs going out into the south pacific. The last time the prc did that, if i remember right it was 1981 for the very first bfi css for this shot. They concentrated their on positioning serenity, things you just would use for Ballistic Missile summaries. Tell me what you think they were doing out there. Her dr. , the specific one, youve written on defense. Duck green mentioned phase one, on take you into phase two and three. Decisions about going to war and mobilization. If you know going to recommend when to diploid Marine Corps Expeditionary advanced operation or army or japan and Southwest Island defense, it seems to me that if you reach phase for your comment, its a little late. And if you do it in phase one, they become big targets. So what would you call the sweet. And then for doctor green and this goes back to something that the dr. Raised, have we locked ourselves into an untenable position by our own legalistic policies and refusing to take physicians on the disputed islands in the South China Sea. Were pretty clear on second thomas because of the grounded, better for going to use legal means halfway hand ourselves in. Thank you for your questions. Are you asking about if the research. Right okay. This is obviously just speculation but i think chinas main concern is especially when they are talking about the South China Sea, you talk to the military there, what are the number one reasons they have to have control of the South China Sea. Its because i need to get out. Theyre concerned about the United States keeping them in. In order to maintain, their summer rain forest need to be able to get out of there. And be able to roam a bit farther. Not talk to some people, im not an expert on warfare but some other individuals, it seems that you have to get data on the density cell and the temperature that you mentioned. That is also a constant routine process. We put climate change, those statistics actually change much more frequently and rapidly over time. It is no longer the case in the country can gather data and go home and still be able to conduct that dive boat warfare. I think is probably a combination of wanting to get information to be able to better track the us submarines combined we put conducting their own training to be able to have routine farther from their shores. I think those are the main issues here. Strategic deterrence unless a new Nuclear Deterrence. If i can add just one thing on this self china island. Its not the sovereignty of the island. Its the chinas interpretation of what gets you. Basically control of all of the waterways. The misinterpreted the territorial waters. They can dictate the rules. My personal input is d guys need to take those position, not that we decide what is white but as i mentioned in my testimony that this should be as important or more important than the middle piece these products. We need to spearhead diplomacy. Get all of the country together. Get to an agreement about what these features and grants in terms of rights in china is the only one on the outside. That is great we put that. I think the Legal Initiative are very important and the Diplomatic Initiative to between military posturing. Following the cold war, we shifted much more from a forward base and forward posture to an expeditionary posture. That wont work in the western pacific. In the if it of a crisis, we start flowing expert Injury Forces it will be provocative. Is shifting the military balance, you create an incentive for the chinese to vote now before the balance shifts further again. After a war starts, given chinese capabilities, makes it harder still to reinforce. Its one of the issues in the rethinking of the defense posturing. The land forces. We have to move to a more forward posture. Typically when i mentioned that, people say thats really hard. For a lot of reasons. Its going to involve a lot of diplomacy if we get it right. It wont happen overnight. The way i talk myself off the ledge on this issue is you look back at the last time we called out another great power as rival, was 1947, we call it the soviet union. The American People who werent even thinking about europe anymore. We had no allies you wrote no alliances. We had hardly any troops you wrote. But we took a long view. We had to say this is where we need to go and we had to make worse adjustments over time. But we saw what was necessary and we understood that we were in competition we put another hostile power that we wanted to avoid work. We realized it was going to be hard. And we realized it was going to be a longterm effort. What really strikes me is if you look at where we ended up, the pentagon started something called keirsey battle a few years ago. It ended up but when he didnt. If you look at where we were by the end of the cold war. There was something called aaron and battle. Our army and air force created that. The idea was there were ways of forces coming out of the soviet union and we felt we could stop the first wave and we need capabilities to break up the second way. Began to feel those capabilities. Then the navy got involved. I need to keep these guys more in iceland and uk so they can reinforce and we had navy developed a battle. The marine corps we put their maneuver warfare documents and we can help out in norway and protect the northern flank, our allies bought into it. Then they understood what was going on. We have nothing like this in the western pacific. How do you make decisions and set priorities in your Defense Program we do dont have a clue even if where you want to go. That was one of the critiques of secretary mattis, and the National Defense strategy, when he said we need to figure out how we are going to do our job here. That went out that, it is very hard in our allies ive had senior japanese officers come to me. Until you tell us how to do this, its very difficult for us to make decisions on what kind of shifts to buy when we position them in very politely get your head in the game. I think this gets back to what doctor green said. And secondarily, i went up to the Naval War College and theres a former japanese cnl, admiral up there. I went to visit him and went into his office and when he is the table like this and a map of the indo specific and white stones and voxels. And when he said lets play witchy. [laughter] part of the conversation as what is going on in the South China Sea. Nunnally billing runways and this and that is about positional damage and playing way shape, not just. Will be lost in the South China Sea if you look at archaeological defenses youve lost strategic depth. We have very little strategic depth so long the first island chain. I positioning those stones in the South China Sea, weve lost the strategic depth we had in the philippines. Or we could have in the philippines. When i ran Defense Department in somerset in a couple of years ago looking at the source of issues, i was told very pointedly come back and tell us not what youd like to be, not who our allies are, tell us where you need to be in this competition in the indo specific. Effective pickup on this excellent. Another way to think about this defense is when i first went to the pentagon 20 years ago now, shame right after the crisis, i saw us groups carry out log va through the South China Sea. In effect threatening chinas southern. Any fight now is to use that as a option to out fight us. And threat mom in hawaii. Thus the chessboard problem we face. You raise a very interesting question. Doctor, very ably limitation, when ran to the higher end warfare fighting in island chain, that is why you know hearing more from japan and korea about surface to surface missiles which can detour that went out primping the conflict by deploying within range. I think theres going to be an increasingly important issue, we put china i think we should be supportive and encouraging. If one more reason why we have to work harder at joint this we put our allies, we do not want independent sort of surface missile doctrines across the first island change. One of the things i would emphasize over numerous we are more joint combined we put japan and australia but not enough. If you look at the defense doctrine in emerging capabilities in the context of go down the line, can a dead korea and japan and new zealand, they all want expeditionary capabilities. We have bilateral alliances. Integrating these biologic regions. If everybody wants us, its all building flat tops and, we had to be doing more jointly we put him. More operations and more training and more equipment. In great power, competition is also more beats because of usually because of the deterioration of the great powers. What happens in south and Southeast Asia is incredibly important. If we have a combined Expeditionary Capability to do the deal we put National Natural disasters. We lock that in. On your question about territory. My view is International Law matters. It is the strong card to the United States. It would be a mistake for us to suddenly change decades of state Department Legal counsel his vision and suddenly say we have now decided that this its not chinese territory. The main negative impact would be it would undermine the credibility of our rule of law. Tool and diplomacy. But it would also open pandoras box. All of a sudden it would be an caste of americans credibility. Ever been in the world, so i would not. I would not impose costs on china recognizing or changing our position legally on the question of territorial. We do have to think more creatively about cost and position. To include possibly sanctions on entities involved in Artificial Island building. To include things like more robust exercise schedules and so forth. Punishment for horse or tools. I would not suddenly change our well considered. Im going to have to stop this discussion and move on it was twice as long as we shouldve permitted. Going to follow up on this. And i do want to talk about the near peer looks like. We had a conversation on the staff and we put commissioners trying to cough we put technomic. Metrics to define their peers. I think we tend to get bogged down in very broad categories like weapon systems. Doctor, i was very interested in your testimony in terms of characterizing the importance of leadership decisionmaking, precision strike regimes, new domains and the capacity to exercise destructive shifts. If you were to define what the elements of near peer would be, how would you think about that. You mentioned contingency in the nature of conflict but if you were looking at some kind of matrix or taxonomy, we put the things that you mentioned in your testimony be included. Im interested in each of your views on the whole conflict of near peer. I think problem of the problem in making the case to afford based and to be more engaged we put our allies is certainly the public its not thinking in terms of what is the threat. I think it taxonomy may attribute to that discussion. I havent thought much about it. But thats never stopped me before. [laughter] in terms of a near peer competitor based on my testimony. I would look at several metrics. When would be we put respect to china, our ability to preserve our vital interest in the indo pacific and various contingencies against the Chinese Military threat to those interests. Another metric might be, i certainly think they do near peer and status is there the only other military i can see that can plausibly conduct advanced precision strike we put the russians call, collison strike observations. Combination of Battle Networks and precision that we first demonstrated in the first ward cold war. Another metric for peer competitor is one of they stand in terms of being able to affect destructive shifts and ability military balance. So we have esteemed them and invest a lot in areas like ai and hypersonic his and small and so on. Even the five g his. They have the potential to really been mostly in a combination effect significant shift in the balance. It would be another. My own senses that if there development of anti access area denial capabilities creates kind of a new normal in the western pacific where our freedom of offensive maneuver is very limited, then i think one possible attractive approach for us to gain advantage will be to move the competition either into those domains that favor the offense which is space cyberspace and seabed. Or horizontal exhalation. We talked about positional advantage to be able to be able to pick off a lot of their assets beyond the western pacific. Those that source of the metrics that i be looking forward to to see how well the chinese can compete in these areas. If they can compete in the loophole we put us, and there appeared if not maybe there in near peer or maybe not quite there yet. Thank you. I can add a few points, the first is run on the loophole playing field. This is the issue that i had we put appear near near and near peer. To only near peer we can even get to that. This is an example that was given, if we have plan based missiles in week could therefore more effectively attack chinese bases that are blocking the field of our bases, its much easier for china to resupply and reconstitute those bases because they are just moving stuff around mainland china. We have one of two vectors approach from waterways to try and get supplies into our bases. Constitute them. In a lot of the scenarios, who is going to prevail in this conflict but its also much harder for the United States than it is for china so even if we do take the competition to cyber, china doesnt rely on space and cyber in military operations like we do. They have fiberoptic cables accusing the ground so one of the issues we often think about is proportional, in terms of a set but not an outcome. The idea should be not that china should shift china should hit a ship and then we get a ship. So to have the same effect on them. When it comes to their global interest, one of my concerns is looking more broadly into a computer competitor. China moving more global because resolving or dealing we put the competition in the region is is it too hard. In my personal experience it seems that a lot of the discussions about this, may be in defense we cant deal we put the aid in the china sea. But maybe we have an advantage we put the ocean. Maybe well hold to at risk in the if it on the other. My understanding of china, thats not how its going to work. Theyre not going to be distracted from the core interest because we are posing costs on the elsewhere. The competition in this way, really does have to say global. For me the near peer competitor, two more things ill say that are important. Confidence and not only capabilities but will it resolved globally one thing they have to think about is both of the United States is the Security Partner of choice. As china is building relationships we put countries like africa and central asia and beyond our alliances, theyre becoming a more popular Security Partner of choice. The us strategy has always been to get the most strategic countries to be on our side. As the chinese has complained weve got first dibs on allies and we have the best one. But in this world, especially in international institutions, numbers better. Even if we have four or five countries on our side and at a certain issue, if a hundred and 50 of them in the unr and china site, then we lose. We also have to think about the weakest links. The hungry his of the world in the chinas of the world will also have to build up our numbers to be the Security Partner of the choice. Thank you. This is been fascinating. Thanks to the three of you. Doctor, you 25 years ago when we were both young whippersnappers, you wrote a long article about the military affairs. It really opened my eyes. Im grateful to that. Your service over the years. I do have a question for you. You evaluate that the balance of power in chinas near seas currently favors the United States although you have great concerns in the intermediate longer terms. I am sort of the opposite, i kind of think we are in trouble now but am encouraged about trends because a lot of this missing is that you know all concerned about we put american policies is what happens in our system when everybodys eyes open and they go well we put god to do something now because now everybody is running to do things. I think we will figure that out. When chinese have a tremendous advantage. They have more force in the region. Their platforms currently constitute are better suited to the kind of conflict that would likely occur. And you are right, we are way behind in terms of operational concepts. Cicely why you are staying that the balance now at least favors us. Its not a rhetorical question. Isr, do you think is their failure, their very concerned about the operational effectiveness particular injury operations of the file so may be sure that. And then, documents or, you suggest an idea that intrigued me a lot. Hey lets get together we put all of the claimants in the South China Sea and negotiate an outcome. And leave the chinese and the outside. I think that would be a really good outcome from a lot of different perspectives but not just beijing is going to sit there why we are doing that. Havent they developed enough clout we put enough of those claimants just as they do now. To basically block any kind of consensus. Those are my two questions. Thank you. I may have misspoke, i met the military balance in the indo pacific region. Not within the first island chain. But the reasons for that right now in terms of our ability to escalate vertically, horizontally, i think we have advantages there they give the chinese because. I think they also give themselves as being far more economically vulnerable. To certain things we might do. Although i must say i dont think that issue is been moved back carefully enough especially we do start to look at Global Markets and Global Supply chains and what happens we do start to corrupt the mobile Financial System insulin. I think they also have cause they look at our equipment are people nra experience and war fighting. Very impressive capability. For those reasons, i think the balance is generally favorable. My caveat was that i really like to have jim make her do some serious assessments over there and. We put access to all of the classified information and some of the best thinkers that they have. And again it is interesting, i think if you look at the longterm competition, i would rather be in our position than theirs. But if you look at the trends right now, we are in a much better trend right now to fix things they are. I liked our stuff in our assets better than theirs but we are not doing a very good job of exploiting our advantage. Were just starting to draw in our strengths. I agree totally. My biggest frustration is the issue is that it seems like that we want to have the exact same policy we put the different outcome. I understand there is a lot of desire not to be provocative. But i think we first need to do is brainstorm all of the Different Solutions and then rule out which one is kind of might be crazy in which r. So let me go through a look at more detail what im thinking here. My premise is this, maintaining a military manage in the first island chain. It does not seem not only does the American People but even some scholars some of these issues understand the threat in terms of what can the United States military no longer accomplished if we cannot operator and in the first island change. They were basically blind. China could can horse the whole region that went out us interference. If you want to do the diplomacy that china will just sit there. Weve just sat there just by the past couple of years. I agree, we dont want to do it through consensus based systems. Maybe we have a separate initiative in which we try to spearhead diplomacy between the claimants and then be asking what do they need. I get certain points. Vietnam. They will never agree to this. I think we had to do some more brainstorming about what do they need to agree to these issues. Then we can say for example this is the separate issue but we need access to the Southeast Asia. We want a base in vietnam. What would we have to give to get it. I think if you told vietnam that we would recognize, we would get our base. Then we can have a disagreement about both of that is worthwhile. I think it is. I understand when he think its not. We start needing to do brain storming. Normalizing relations we put china. Stop just staying that we want to do the same exact stuff but have completely different outcomes. Thank you. First, i certainly agree that taiwan remains the center of the security universe between the United States and china and what have you and east asia and the first island chain and those things are important but the other thing to know is being lost in the discussion about this is the growth of the Chinese Expeditionary capabilities and i think Chinese Expeditionary id like to have your reactions to the fact that that maybe i may sailor you read Chinese Defense white papers and other documents and what have you they have [inaudible] anxiety is what i would call it. Theyre really worried [inaudible] and start in case of prices of conflicts start interdicting so they are building a capability to deal with that and today of course if the navy seals out from under the portion air force and Missile System there vulnerable but they are thinking longer term and i suspect or wonder if any of you have given thought to the longerterm implications perhaps in the framework of the worldclass navy of an expeditionary oriented capable pla and what that might mean for the United States around the world. The second question i want to ask often ive heard people say it and i said it, as a matter of fact, possession of Nuclear Weapons by the United States and china will keep the peace between the United States and china do you all believe that . Dont all jump. I guess i will go first and on both of these questions i have maybe a less popular than the conventional wisdom so the First Expeditionary capabilities ive written extensively about the types of things they are trying to get out but simply in terms of isr, a whole bunch of stuff to be able to do it and i think their ambitions are quite limited in this area in terms of military side and i think they rely on economic tools to protect their economic abroad. [inaudible] at least from what i hear of the Chinese Military themselves if they do have that control of the island chain than they do have the capability for example of the blockade with u. S. Allies and partners such that you have a mutual vulnerability potentially could protect them in conflicts. If they try to cut off their maritime access then japan no longer can get anything chinas controlling those waters. Thats their strategy and much more limited but i will say my personal view is if china was more ambitious and how i think they are that of the United States wins its competition. We are at a disadvantage to project power, process and have interests all over the world and china can basically use the Defense Budget for small areas close to home. If this were more like the cold war in which we were both not to the home team i think thats how the United States perseveres. Im not as concerned about their desire to be able to basically push out beyond the indo pacific and i do think they want to expand more into the indian ocean but if they did have the mentality that they need to be present everywhere i think thats how we went. Nuclear weapons and think they play a role with a limited convention, we dont have a mutually assured destruction relationship with china and its not the same as the cold war but questionable whether or not they have a your second strike but china thanks that only about Nuclear Weapons not only based on their writings but how they train and they do train to launch on attack, not on warning so i firmly believe in their no profuse policy and i believe i have a hard time believing the nitrates would use weapons first so they create the situation that allows for much more conventional conflict. I would say its not like the cold war so theres a higher likelihood of a hot war and this might be generational for the Nuclear Weapons do not play a big role. You think we could conduct limited work with china in east asia without escalation in Nuclear Weapons can. Yes. Thats what the chinese think but i dont believe it. Go ahead. Interesting questions. Looking at the indo pacific i agree with you the chinese have anxiety and interesting to me is last time we had a war between big navies was about three quarters of a century ago and there was about the same amount of time between pearl harbor and today as there is between pearl harbor in the beginning of our civil war. Think about time frame and how things change i tell myself we cant think about things in world war ii terms but if i were to look at things in world war ii terms one of the things we see and i will use the phrase oceans are shrinking the military in size. The ability to scout distances from the land and strike a great distance from the land and you see what happens before the mediterranean fleet trying to stop the germans at crete lost a lot of ships trying to do that. Despite our enormous manages okinawa was a tough go for us and the brits and falklands they know where you have to be and the scouting area is reduced so i think its a interesting question for our navy in terms of how you operate in this new environment. I think today talks about it being a maneuver force but i think its not just sailing and plowing through the water but maneuvering buyers. One of our navys greatest manages is it hasnt sought opportunities to increase the range of its scouting and strike capabilities. I will put that out there. As far as the nuke issues go, i agree with doctor mastro. I think its possible to have this kind of war and there are enormous incentives if war broke out between us and the chinese not to go to armageddon and the question is do we know what an escalation letter looks like now . Music to worry about that during the cold war but hypersonic in there that can do strange things and put cyber in there that can do strange things and war going into space, blockades that if you had a effective blockade how effective would he wanted to be . You want to drive the chinese leadership into escalating because they really feel the heat . How do you get out of that war once you get into it and it will be not on the battleship missouri but like the seven years war in 1763 when the brits and the french negotiate and working goes back to do this and miking goes back to doing my thing and we compete and you get islands in the caribbean and i get canada in these sorts of things but its not going to be we get to occupy china or they get too occupied the United States but its like being at the Cumberland Gap in 1820s when you think about the Strategic Issues that have to be addressed in this relationship between us and the chinese. So on the question of the maritime ambitions [inaudible] argued that japans biggest strategic mistake was trying to expand on the continent of maritime power because among other things it caused other maritime powers to counterbalance u. S. And britain and hes arguing that china is making the mistake of being a continental power like terminated with 100 plus years ago trying to expand in a maritime domain which is not its advantage and chinese strategic thinkers know this. Pla promulgated the near sea doctrine in 2008 and it was [inaudible] who was a counselor for Foreign Affairs convinced him not to initially did initially because he was worried that because after bouncing among the maritime powers. To do what we are now seeing. Ism im told by people to follow domestic chinese policies closely that essentially what happened was in order to reform the pla to go after corruption in pla the payback was pla cannot implement particularly the pl navy this doctrine of other war fighting dreams without others going on the scene saying you will create counterbalancing geopolitical that will cost us so i agree that it is an operational challenge for us to be sure but the net effect politically and historically was a stupid move because its missing large maritime powers together to deal with the threats. On Nuclear Deterrence im quite certain that pla would like to fight a limited work without risk of Nuclear Escalation but im doubtful that in our heart of hearts they believe that or it can go to the Central Military commission and the crisis from there will be exclamation but any scenario in the East China Sea one of the South China Seas involves hitting your spaces or could potentially trigger nuclear retaliation. I personally think Nuclear Deterrence is quite important at play here but i do echo what the doctor said there are dangerous sides and you dont understand escalation particularly we dont understand the limit connection between escalation in cyberspace and nuclear and they are not linked. Seemingly elegant strategy by china to avoid in clear fight i blinding us in space and cyber can ironically have rapidly increasing the Nuclear Escalation problem. I think we do have to worry about whether or not it works whether the weight we traditionally thought of what and how we manage it. I do think its a very powerful deterrent by force by the chinese. Thank you. Did you have something . On deterrence i think theres a whole can of worms that needs to be opened here. There have been writings for the last 30 years about contact theory. Basically people are more likely to fight to hold on to something they have been to act aggressively to get something they dont have. The props of those who won the normal price say a lot spend whether you feel like youre in a domain of loss or domain of gain or trying to gain something you dont have or lose something you have. Password to the South China Sea. This is a classic case of two sides that may think they are both in a domain of loss which makes them both risk tolerance. The chinese overtime one could argue will come to see these is the new normal and weve had them for ten, 15 years and they are ours where the united the countries say what youve done is legitimate so both are operating from a domain of loss in a crisis and our side feeling the pull back and legitimize something that we dont think the chinese have a legitimate right to and the chinese have assumed that they do and the fear of pulling back and advances in the cognitive science in a number of areas suggest that governments and people act rationally according to costbenefit analysis and risk and so on dont necessarily play out and if we see a test case for this sacred come in the South China Sea. Thank you. Carolyn. Thank you very much. Thank you to our panelists always interesting to listen and learn. I have two baskets of things. One is we been having a discussion and most of the government seems to be the bigger strategic picture and the Weapons Systems and senator made brief reference to the concerns in beijing about the operational effect of their and i wonder if you could talk about how to factor that in. Will they be able to make improvements, systemic improvements that they believe need to be made and is this an issue or not an issue and thats one set of issues but the other one is on the question of Economic Security and National Security and the balance of that i think we have in the past talked about Economic Security from the u. S. Domestic perspective is that if you want to have a Strong Security and a Strong Economy and we have had both differences hear about how you link those two things together but i think the fact that china has demonstrated its willingness to use economic tools for Economic Security purposes has really shifted this and doctor mastro you talk when you mentioned weaknesses you were talking about countries. Countries that we did not know that we could depend on because they moved into the chinese orbit and i like to broaden that with the economic interest in another countries that are our allies so we spot influence operations but the business communities and these countries are enormously important. Australia continues Economic Growth has been because of its trade with china so how do we factor those in . There will be public opposition being taken because peoples monetary interest is at stake. Let me start off on the second question. The increase of growth in the japanese, korean, economy is linked to china. That is clear but i think people and im not suggesting the same but in the commentary people mistake flow in stock and mistake fdi and trade and yes, most of our key allies ™trademarksign and the lady with us but first of all that is intermediary trade and its the supply chains and not purely bilateral trade and secondly International Financial flow is overwhelmingly global outreach and Economic Investment flows are overwhelmingly u. S. Australia, yes japan, yes korea so theres many other much, much deeper economic interests that fund these countries to the u. S. Including the [inaudible] dollar among other things. I dont think that our alliances are as vulnerable as to chinese pressure as one might think in the chinese effort to cut off australian to punish them for turning it did not work. It had the opposite effect. In the most recent election labor party generally aligned with coalition on taking a firm stand with china because these are countries that are proud of their sovereignty and democracy and i spent much list of artists in mongolia. Remind people next to 1. 420 billions with [inaudible] they accept massive infrastructure which mongolia needs. They want to do it because they see and what happened with sri lanka and [inaudible] and people on the street can tell you this. They will not sell their sovereignty for democracy for money. We have a better plainfield than one might think. For us to fancy we need to get the story out about chinese economic coercion through all sorts of means but in particular just think tanks, media, congressional delegations and secondly build act to provide Financing Alternatives we will not outpace the chinese but we are much more attractive tentative. Japan, u. S. Are working on this and third frankly we need trade strategy. We could set aside whether or not it goes back to tpp but we need something. We need to devastate that were in the rulemaking game with our allies and partners. Given all those things on the attractiveness of the definition performed investment we have a much stronger hands to play in this regard and perhaps appears on the surface and you will hear that consistently from Business Leaders more so in japan and korea but i think increasingly in australia as well the National Resource based economies. Just an observation. When we were in singapore the concern that was being expressed is that the manifestation of the chinese economic relationship with Different Countries they dont necessarily see our investment . They see a trade for goods and services and that works against us in the sense that people dont necessarily the strength or value of the economic relationship with the u. S. And thats doctor mastro. Just to add i agree with everything doctor granger said but to start the economic interest i still feel like theres part of the u. S. Strategic communities that thanks being a Security Partner of choice will be enough in the way i view the region at least is we have to be or security . We cant compete. We will not be able to compete with the chinese economic machine in the region a lot of countries will not benefit much more from the closer economic relationship so we have to ask yourself in addition to economics which i think we do have to have a better trade strategy and policy to straighten the area we also bring other things to the table and to the point of messaging my biggest frustration is that china has this message which i hear a lot from other countries in the region which is they are just like us and thats what the chinese are trying to do is create moral equivalencies. You have foreign aid for political purposes and you use economic for political purposes and you have Police Brutality issues and we have Police Brutality issues and you have big news and we have big news and it doesnt matter what the issue is but china is the greatest moral equivalency and with an unnamed ally partner i met with yesterday they were like we have to manage both of you and thats their view. Its frustrating because my view is were not the same. We need to do a better job of saying yes, china has Economic Policy but we are not stealing your software or selling it to our companies that can be frustrating. We have to think how we can best compete. Its not infrastructure but u. S. Advantage is that if a structure building. Im not in business but when you want to compete with another company you dont decide to do what they do best and not as well. You think about what are my comparative advantages and the United States need to do thinking and what are we good at and bring that to the region. On the operational effectiveness the bottom line is i dont know but the thing that concerns me is for most of the focus on this issue on the military competition the things that let us sleep well at night is the belief that our people are better and were trained better and we have better morale and the best part about the u. S. Military is the people and that concerns and i believe that. In my heart of hearts i believe that which means they think i have biases that will lead to underestimating chinas ability to get this right. Theyve gotten Everything Else right when it comes to improvements in military so is it might american centric view that makes me think they are not going to get the personal part right . I think we have to plan on them getting it right and see if they test and train if they will get it right even though i like to believe they wont. Commissioner lewis has a quick question. We have to doctor mastro, i have a question for you and one question for all of you. You said we are finding fighting two different wars but could you expand on that . The question i have for all of you was given the modernization of the Chinese Military what is their ability and willingness to use that force to take taiwan . With your assessment . My point on the two different wars is that a lot of times he tried to compare like fighters to fighters and ship to ship but thats not how wars are fought. The threat to a fighter is the system on the ground for example. What we are trying to project power from those distances and our access is reliant on partners and allies in the region and china for the most part is trying to project power and taiwans distance is from here to richmond, virginia. Thats easier for them to do. I like to equate that if were in a boxing match the United States is considered a triathlon before we get to the ring and thats what i mean by that we are fighting two different wars. What is required for tenant to prevail in the comfort over taiwan is different than whats required for the United States to stop them from prevailing. Our issues are many cases especially in the south tennessee more difficult. It comes to taiwan i think china currently does not have the ability to take taiwan by force. Thats largely because they are not finished their modernization efforts and they need to be able to conduct joint operations to have Amphibious Landing if were safe physically taking taiwan and my concern is china still think they have that capability in the next five, ten years and so while my concern today because i think it would be risky for them to make a move in the middle of this modernization effort what happens when they are done . On some of that residency aims to stake his legitimacy on moving towards unification and originally dismissed everything because he said hes out in 2022 so no one can hold them to it but then extended the term limit that put all those things he said about taiwan in a different light. You think he would be willing to do that when their military is more modern than it is now . If they believe that the capabilities to do it and the future trends are not in their favor historically china tends to use force in order to reverse trends. If they think things are getting worse for them over time and need to quickly switch it so their position is better they be willing to use worse. Of course, china would prefer to course taiwan into some agreement and thats always step number one can use force against them to compel them to come to an agreement and all those stages would come before a fullscale invasion so i think we have indicators and warnings before that would happen but in the end the Chinese Military is ultimately preparing to take taiwan by force and if the party thanks that the trends are worsening and this is the time to do it and if they dont do now on the cant encompass it later than were in a very situation. I have a quick answer from the two of you before we go to lunch and we are already running late. Very quickly. I agree with what the doctor said a lot depends on how does this work start to connect to start with a pearl harbor event that angers the United States and countries in the region or is a more of a slow and a despicable attack on a sunday morning or a blockade that basically says taiwan is ours and the territory it will decide what is good to go in and out of taiwan and they have to agree to these six things and start the process of observing taiwan into china. Again, do we give up after a month if taiwan is taken or to say that will get involved in a protracted conflict. Final point i think again what the doctor mastro said is chinese do not want to buy. I agree. They want to finland eyes taiwan. Doctor green. If you imagine the conversation of the celtic military on whether to use force when question tla would have the answer is can we decisively defeat the u. S. And break its will to go to the next stage four. But the question that is no less important is can we survive the isolation and blowback from the International Community that follows and there are lessons to be learned from use of force but they have not use force since the International Economy and chinese, and his party is little and vulnerable to legitimacy crises and if the Central Military commission is told no were divided europe and the u. S. And japan they will not come together and punish us and isolate us and we can survive the political blowback after a decisive military blow they are more likely to do it but if the answer is we cant say for sure because there is a real chance that europe, japan, u. S. Will come together we will boycott us and punish us and that enhances the trend. Excellent points made by michael panelist on deterrence they matter for this game. If your allies dont thank you can win an award you will be [inaudible] and start breaking apart your influence. Also the alignment we show in the willpower and the management of our partnerships are important for deterrence because a vector inevitably it will be a factor in how they would decide whether or not they can survive under the military conflict and the subsequent geopolitical and economic isolation they would face but we got to get them both right. Thank you. We will see you all again at 1 45 thank you, piano. [inaudible conversations] saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war the 1863 campaign in tennessee spent the night of the 26 bragg orders everyone to come to be honest with you after they leave the highland rent at this point somewhat anti climactic. With Manchester Bragg is ready to fight it out in the trenches. At 8 00 p. M. On lectures in history ever University Professor of her 1996 lawsuit against holocaust denier, david irving. No plan, no 6 million, no not the leadership hitler, no gas chambers and the last point is this is all made up by jews. And sunday at 5 00 p. M. Eastern a discussion about shakespeares influence on u. S. Politics and at 6 00 p. M. On american artifacts the Norman Rockwell Museum Traveling Exhibit on fdr and the four freedoms. Explore our nations past on American History tv, every weekend on cspan3. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and housing and urban Development Secretary ben carson appeared before the Senate Banking committee to discuss possible changes to the Housing Finance system and efforts to pass company has of legislation