Mastro, an assistant professor of Security Studies at the edmund a. Wilson school at Georgetown University and american scholar at American Enterprise institute. Shes the author of the cost of conversation, obstacles to peace talks in wartime. And she is currently working on a book about chans challenges to u. S. Primacy. Next we hear from a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and adjunct senior fellow at the center for new American Security and president and ceo of solarium llc, a defense consulting firm. Hes previously served as president of the center for strategic and budgetary assessments in a department of Defenses Office of net assessment and on the personal staff of three secretaries of defense. Hes the author of several books, most recently publishing the declines of deterrents earlier this year. Our third panelist is dr. Michael green who is a Senior Vice President for asia and japan chair at the center for strategic and International Studies csis as well as director of Asian Studies at the edmund a. Wilson school at Georgetown University. Were overrepresented by Georgetown University. Dr. Green has authored numerous books including by more than providence, grand strategy and American Power in the asiapacific since 1783. I ask all of our witnesses to keep your remarks to seven minutes. Dr. Mastro, well start with you. Thank you for having me here today. Ill highlight a few aspects of my written testimony and the major developments in the last year in Chinese Military modernization and focus on the sinorussian relationship and what it means for competition moving forward. In terms of regional activities, the one two big things i want to highlight here. The first that taiwan is still the driving scenario for the pla, and what this means is that training, procure president , reforms and reorganization all have implications for taiwan, so in the testimony i list a number of platforms that are coming online in the next year. For example, china has begun two years ago the construction of a new Nuclear Attack submarine and also have a new type of destroy their are expected to come online soon. These platforms along with the with the platforms they already have such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, Amphibious Assault ships, all can be used in scenarios to coerce, blockade, invade taiwan. The Chinese Air Force has also made a Significant Development that would have implications for taiwan. They are currently developing a new strategic stealth bomber, and they have a whole series of bombers, fighters, airlift and helicopters for the Ground Forces that are all scheduled to be online and ready to go by 2020. The Chinese Military development in this area is particularly certain by xi jinpings strident rhetoric on taiwan. In his new years speech he said unification is the ultimate goal of any talks in the future and based on this speech and subsequent speeches it seems to me that xi jinping no longer just demands that taiwan does not declare independence. Hes now demanding that theres concrete steps towards reunification. What this specifically means theres 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, that being the winner of the presidency in 2020. Theres exercises and greater scope in order to intimidate taiwan. The most recent happened in july after the United States announced an arms package. While taiwan has been the focus of the pla, the South China Sea has been a focus. In the past year we havent seen as much militarization happening and thats because a lot of the Land Reclamation militarization had happened before and we do consistently see the rotation of certain platforms on the islands, the j10 fighters coming in and out of the woody island and they are extending radar capabilities. They are increasing radar tempo in these waters which suggests they are practicing to have a more persistent presence in there. In july of 2019 china conducted a series of antiblimp tests in the islands this is the first time they conducted such a test over waterways versus over land. Beyond east asia, China Military activities have increased significantly during xis paper. The chinese 2019 white paper, china participated in 11 International Humanitarian aid and Disaster Relief operations, 100 International Joint exercises with 17 Different Countries and organizations and has been active in five peacekeeping operations overseas. In 2019 alone they have already conducted 13 of these joint exercises and humanitarian aid Disaster Relief operations which suggests this pace is increasing. Of significant concern i think is chinas increased military presence in africa which is primarily expanded through their first and only military base in djibouti. They also sell a lot of military equipment, drones and other surveillance equipment to africa. I think this is an area to be watched Chinese Military exports abroad. Also, future developments in china and the Pacific Islands and the arctic deserve to be watched, but right now, especially in the arctic, the focus to be mainly on energy, and china is increasing their corporation, military cooperation with the european nations, but, again, most of this is more for the image of improved relationships. The area think that is most concerning to people when you look at security developments is the chinarussia relationship and theres been a number of notable trends in this space that have been greatly covered in my testimony and other venures. Its true that china increased exercises, arm sales and diplomatic platitudes when it comes it their relationship with russia. I think this is not sufficient to suggest they are moving away from a relationship of convenience, and there are a number of obstacles to closer ties. Specifically china seize russia as a liability and is interested in being seen as more of a legitimate great power. Also, china russia still has relationships that china has poor relationship such as india and vietnam and while i think were being too alarmist about the relationship becoming cloergs, were not concerned enough about what even the smallest degree of improvement in this relationship would mean for the United States military, so i think the first thing is that it seems russia has accepted a junior partnership and this will change how we think about the cooperation moving forward. I always assumed it would have to be symmetric and while china is not willing to put its neck out for russia, russia wouldnt be willing to help china achieve its goal and with the joint patrol that the two did over the ilabs that maybe russia is willing to help china even if china is not willing to reciprocate this. Sparks a new trend in the relationship that might mean greater Russian Military involvement in asia which will complicate further u. S. Operations there. For china they like to posit themselves as being a force of peace in the world. Chinese defense white paper is not a National Security strategy in the way that the United States has a National Security strategy. Its written by for audiences and had a few main themes that they wanted foreigners to novem the first is that the Chinese Military is becoming much more comfortable with the global role and china and the party is becoming more comfortable with the pla becoming more involved in promoting and implementing this role. China also promotes itself as a force for peace while United States is an instigator of strategic competition and regional conflicts, arms racing, power politics, et cetera. And also the the white paper is interesting because while it tries to assuage concerns about its military modernization it had very harsh rhetoric for the first time about taiwan and the maritime disputes. The last point ill make is about the peer hand near peer compete for. I was asked whether china has reached the level of the United States, and i will just say that china does not need to be as sophisticated to challenge the United States. Were fighting a different war and have different challenges and im happy to go into that in the questions and answers. Also because deterrence resolves capabilities and resolve. If we have a balance of capabilities, that means we dont have a deterrent because china is much more resolved. They are willing to accept higher costs than the United States is in most contingencies and to maintain deterrence the United States actually has to have better capabilities so wed suffer less than china would. Also theres a difference in how to assess trends of today and the future. The issue isnt that china has overcome or surpassed the United States, the issue is given certain trends in the region china will soon be able to outmatch the United States and as we know on the global stage china is nowhere near being a peer competitor to the United States. So i have a number of recommendations in my testimony. Most of them focus on the South China Sea issue and the competition on the military sides between the two sides, i think the United States needs to prioritize a diplomatic solution with or without china, get all to agree on the sovereignty of the islands and what rights those islands give them and then have International Enforcement of them. I think the United States should consider protecting exclusive Economic Zone rights in their Alliance Commitments more clearly and improve or posture in Southeast Asia. Right now weve optimized for conflicts in northeast asia, not Southeast Asia and it will take a great deal of political will to have access in Southeast Asia, and 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 a european competitor but in my way the only way to prevent a war is deter chinese aggression. If chinas doubt our ability to fight they are more likely to rely on coercion and aggression and this is what will drag our two countries into a war. Because of this the United States needs to put all of its military resources behind maintaining a regional order even if it means taking a few risks to ensure its success. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on u. S. China relations. I give my background and expertise and ill focus my remarks on the military aspects of the relationship, and in particular look at three issues. First the military balance in the indopacific. Second the openended and longterm military competition between the United States and china and, third, aspects of deterrence. Its my opinion at present that the indopacific 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, for example, you saw during the latter stages of cold war between the United States and the soviet union. I think for us to really get a handle on what 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, its trends that are going to shape the balance over time and how can we improve our position, and using sir Michael Howards four dimensions of central artery. The logistical social operational and technical, its my preliminary assessment that the trends right now do not favor the United States, so while the current balance may be favorable, the trends are generally unfavorable. If you look the social dimension, the ability to mobilize and orient your population in dr. Watersels 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 in terms of the u. S. Public in general. Logistical or this beats to the scale of the challenge. If you look at lets just look at gdp. I know its just one element of national power, and we can get into others, but if you look at gdp alone, chinas gdp according to Current Exchange rates and the world bank is roughly twothirds that of the United States, and 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 soviet russia in the cold war never really exceeded roughly 40 of u. S. Gdp so if youre looking at the scale of the challenge, its roughly double in gdp terms in relative sense to what we saw in the great power challenges that we confronted during the course of the 20th century. And then when you add to that, looking at the cold war, for example, our advantage in allies, our advantage in manpower relative to soviet russia and also our advantage in technology, those advantages have either we areled considerably relative to china or perhaps have gone away entirely. What also interests me is given the scale of the challenge, if you look at some of the recent reports on u. S. Fiscal standing youll find that according to the Congressional Budget Office interest on the u. S. Debt which was 236 billion in fy17, will unless things change rise to about 915 billion or roughly 650 billion more over the course of the next decade. Thats tax money coming in thats got to go out to service the debt. The Social Security and Medicare Trust funds late 2020s, early 2030s will be exhausted, and state and local governments have roughly 5 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. Cbo in my estimation estimate is about 2. 5 of usgdp will be available for defense in a cold war against a 40 soviet russia, we averaged over 6 , so were going to average less than half of that against a set of rivals that is roughly 880 of our gdp. So in terms of scale, it seems as though the trends are negative. In terms. Technical and operational dimensions, one of the things that Senior Leaders in the pentagon worry about is circumstances in which there could be a disruptive shift in the military about. All of a sudden things look very different, and we find that with the difficuefusion there are potentially two disruptive shifts in the balance that the u. S. Military has to worry about. One is what the pentagon calls the maturing precision strike regime. We had a near monopoly and precision strike warfare since the first golf war. The chinese are clearly catching up. We havent seen them put it into practice and certain a number of capabilities and what they have accomplished are impressive and so with our military, looking for the precision strike reseem were losing a Major Military advantage. So is this the new normal . Are we going to be shut out of certain parts of the indopacific as the chinese capabilities mature, or is there a different way to project power in the second disruptive shift could occur with an emerging military revolution. Everything from Artificial Intelligence and manufacturing and advances in the biosciences and directed energy, hypersonics, Nano Technology an kwaundium computing and advanced robotics suggests that theres quite a high likelihood that the kind of warfare waged in the mid2030s will be very different, even from what we anticipate today, and so 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 we have how 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 hasnt stated clear operational challenges, let alone develop operational concepts to meet those challenges, and, of course, this is critical because there are challenges and if you have a Defense Program, the Defense Program and the capabilities should they should be able to look at those capabilities and say this is how they are going to be deployed to accomplish the security objectives and i dont think we each reached that state yet. Finally on deterrence, its becoming much more difficult. Its becoming much more difficult in part because of a lot of new kinds of military equipment coming into play which people dont understand particularly well. New domains, if you look at the relatively new domains that warfare has moved into over the past 20, 30 years, space, spooiber space, the seabeds, in terms of the competition the competition favors the offense which means the offense has the advantage and attribution is relatively difficult, and so the deterrence through punishment or deterrence through denial becomes a more challenging proposition. With modern weaponry and emerging weaponry it becomes easier to miscalculate the military balance, and if both we and the chance are very conservative, that cook a very good thing, but if we both start to calculate the balance as being our advantage, that might lead us to be overly aggressive on both sides and then theres a lot of advances in the could go type sciences with respect to limits of rational human behavior, prospect theory, optimism bias, risk tolerance and cultural variance. Happy to talk about those during the discussion period, if you like. That concludes my summary of my testimony. Ill be happy to respond to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Green. Thank you very much for inviting me to appear before the commission. I want to begin by commending your staff who did an outstanding job giving us guidance and preparing us for this hearing so we could be useful to you. Im going to focus on what might be called the phase zero dimension of war planning which is the part before war fighting and before deterrence, the area were in, competition for influence without fighting a war. China would, of course, like to supplant the United States in asia without fighting a warnings and were flower that strategic competition and its intense. In particular i would like to focus on the roles of allies and partners who get a vote in this competition. Our worst mistakes strategically with china have come when we either tried to form a bilateral or bipolar condominium with beijing, ignoring our allies interest or charging full kilter at beijing to make sure were effective so as we gear up for not only challenges and deterrence youve heard about but also the very real competition for influence and leadership, and right now we have to think carefully through where our allies and partners are and are they with us or not . I would make three broad overarching points in that respect at the outset. The first that china is clearly targeting u. S. Alliances. In the only in the indopacific but more broadly. They recognize when the doctor said this our al lines is the center of gravity in the region. Chinese declaratory policy and the use of chinese coercive tools, military and commercial, have sharply increased against our allies and partners in the last six, seven years. A strong signal came in 2014 in april when xi jinping gave a speech in shanghai arguing that asians should decide their own security without foreign blocs, meaning without u. S. Alliances, a line gorbachev used in 1986 to try to ultimately without any success breaking up american alliances knowing how important that was to our containment strategy. Theres been more specific cases of coercion against our allies and efforts to entice the u. S. Into a bipolar condominium where we set aside. Xi jinping with the Obama Administration was clearly designed to demote the interests of japan, of course, australia, south korea and others. Theres a debate in this town that will not be resolved about whether china is a revisionist power. I think its more ambiguous on a global scale. Historically rising powers, including the United States, imperial germany and japan were free riders on the prevailing hegemon global in various regions. Ask mexico. To me theres no question about chinas deliberate and delivered revisionism in asia and its targeted largely at u. S. Alliances. The second point i would make, overarching point, for the most part chinas strategy for now it is failing, it is backfiring. If you look at the Foreign Policy or defense white papers of australia, japan and new zealand, if you look at the eus new policy on china, these likemind democracies are clearly stating that chinese coercion is against their interests, even as many of them pursue more Economic Opportunities with china. 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 towards more jointness and interoperability, not hedging, not delinement, not band wagoning with china. The british and french decision to do freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea is an example and there are others that i can give. The third point i would make though is that while governments, major democracies are trending towards alignment with the u. S. To counter the chinese challenge, if you peel open the cover and look more closely, there are disturbing trends, for example, in most of our Major Alliance countries, Public Opinion show increasing support for alliance with the United States and for our security treaties, but but in japan polls show that while the number of people supporting the alliance with the u. S. Is up, when japanese are asked and there are similar questions in korea and australia, when they are asked do you trust the United States to do the right thing, those numbers are very bad for us and are trending badly. It didnt begin with the trump administration, although that has added some spin to the ball. It began earlier with kemess about the commitments on the senkakus or taiwan or syria, even outer area commitments are watched very closely. We have to recognize that alliance are a force multiplier for us, and especially in this phase zero competition, but we can blow it, and were at some risk of making mistakes. Very briefly to touch on some of the major allies, and i think its its worth noting that smaller friends, allies, parters in in the front lines, the philippines, mongolia where i spent the summer, they are the most vulnerable and under the most pressure but ultimately our ability to prevent chinese coercion in the smaller and weaker states depends on how well we are aligned with japan, australia, britain, france and germany. Let mow 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 nominally coequal. The wraeb government has built its entire National Security strategy entirely around competing with china. Japan has a declining demographic picture and abe has largely countered that with more of what scholars would call the external qua draw. The quad, u. S. , australia, indian was an abe idea. The indopacific strategy was a abe idea. Abe is aligning more closely with other asian powers which is useful for us. Wes doing away with six decades of japanese alibi defense policy saying that the peace clause in the japanese constitution means that they can not do joint operations with us. He has changed that. In 2015 new legislation said, you know, japan can do joint operations with the u. S. He is moving with us. The weak point in japans strategy we can talk about and a problem for us in this larger chessboard is the deteriorating japan and korea situation. Korea is also wary of china. Polls in korea with china are not good for beijing. The chinese view korea as a much more likely candidate for dealignment from the United States. When xi jinping gave a speech in shanghai in 2014 calling for essentially an end to u. S. Alliances, this was a conference of eurasian leaders, continental leaders. The koreans were there. The chinese put enormous pressure on the koreans to joint this joint statement and the koreans held firm, but its worrisome that beijing thought korea would bend. The boycott of korean goods which cost billions of dollars after korea happened thad Missile Defense systems and cree as has not signed on to the infopacific strategy and i think beijing sees a problem particularly given the japan and korea situation. Australia has come under extreme pressure from australia and the australians are pushing back, and generally aligning more closely. Europe, when i was in the bush administration, we had huge problems with europe. The eu was going toist will an arms embargo. Were way beyond that with the bhajor european power. The european statement on china policy was very tough and talked about systemic competition over economic and political models. France and germany as i mentioned are doing fun ops. The eu is a consensusbased organization and beijing has learned how to break consensus by buying off those who block action, hungary, cambodia and laos, when the eu has tried to take a position on the South China Sea or taiwan, china has found ways to reach inside and block it so we have to think how to work with europeans in a different way with britain and france and germany while helping them shore up the eu as a whole. Im happy to go into more of the opportunities and challenges we have, but i will just end by emphasizing that to get china policy right, we have to get asia right and have to get our allies right. China is targeting them. We need to be conscious of that, and not only think to ourselves, yes, allies are important, but really reinvigorate our alliances, make them joint and reach across the bilateral alliances and its going to take a very active straights policy but we have very willing partners in the region and in europe which is i guess a good news story to end on. Thank you. Thank you. Ing. Thank you very much. This is a wonderful panel. I apologize that ill have to leave early. So thank you to our hearing cochairs for allowing me to ask my questions first. Our commission has been engaging on thehaving to leave early. The commission has been engaging on the topic of china juxtaposed as a competitor and the assertion that they would be a worldclass military power. From what you have said today, we ought to focus more naturally and intentionally strum back, and the degree to which they are competing. Because you are focused on the allies, is this a formulation, a question of the pla . Was that a formulation that is useful or medical is a construct for how allies meet challenges . The answer is yes. Behind the National Security strategy and recent defense plan was intense planning discussions with him eligible about this very question. And how china approaches the region, it is deeply problematic problematic. We need to get over strike issues and in every crisis there is opportunity, but particularly we see a challenge. We also see contesting. And the perspective that china is taking the fight well beyond. They and we, and others like india must mind the flank and give more advantage. The problem is spreading out beyond them. My second question relates to the final regulations in which you say the restriction should avoid democracy protests in a trade negotiation. And a question for the rest of the panel, i have been surprised to the degree to which you are arguing for a certain linkage. The chinese side themselves have not been preemptive. Military pressure to enhance the negotiation position was not being a highpriority. We will decouple from china on five g and most allies will join us. They my they may try to create champions in areas that they are weak, but they are behind. Beyond some of the main advances in putting things to market, look at some of the main markets. The competition, i think it is leading to some decoupling. Is contested and australia made a public decision to ban china from that market. Japan made an administrative decision. India, britain, and others are debating. And if we were to announce suddenly as allies take enormous heat, when australia banned the wall a Company Making exports, our allies started taking huge heat for this. If we suddenly say we change our position to get a good trade deal, we would lose that. Large commercial pressure has been coming in. Statements on this are really critical. I have a couple points to link this more broadly and i agree with the assessment of why it may not be beneficial. My primary concern is the prioritization of Economic Issues in china over security issues. President trump has never the lesson he tweeted about it was before he was president. Linkage could be done to make an upper hand, but i would like to keep the issues separate. There have been shifting viewpoints on capital. It seems to me that allies and partners were awakened by interference and chinese behavior reached them and at home, because of Economic Issues. There still seems to be a very low appetite for security competition with china. There has been a push back, but i think there is a lot of progress that can be made getting them on the same page with the United States. We can reduce and reverse some of the Security Trends that weve discussed. Appropriate to what doctor green said, it seems to me that given the chinese focus on comprehensive national power, they will look to use all instruments of power, unlike us on occasion, they will not say economics is about bottom line and profit, they will introduce that when they think it is appropriate and can gain advantage. Suddenly there are economic consequences for korea, the japanese seizing the fishing boats, the rare earth metals going to japan. We used to do that. Those of us who are old enough to remember, president eisenhower change things and the chinese take a more competitive view. North vietnam could be continued to be considered are creditor. You can only go so far with those terms. Thank you all for being here. I have a few questions. We can get to the second round. Page five of your testimony is very interesting. The five ag ors going out into the south pacific. The last time they did that, i remember it was 1981. They concentrated positioning, the things that you would use for Ballistic Missile submarines. Tell me what you think you are doing out there. Doctor green mentioned phase i, phase ii and phase three. Decisions about going to work, and mobilization. Looking at Marine Corps Expeditionary base operations and task forces, or japan Southwest Island events, it seems to me if you reach phase four in combat, its a little late. To me, the issue is not the sovereignty of the islands. Basically, it is about the control of the waterways. They manipulate it, interpret the waters, the rules that they want to interpret, they need us to take a position. This should be as important if not more important than the middle east peace process. We need to spearhead shuttle diplomacy. If they come to an agreement, at the very least, china is on the outside, but disagrees with that. It could be more problematic. The legal and double medic initiatives and military posturing issues are important. Following the cold war, we shifted much more from a forward based posture to expeditionary. Shifting the military balance, creating incentive before the balance shifts further against them. The capabilities make it harder to reinforce, which is one of the issues. Japan is rethinking it. The defense posture, the mobile land forces. We have to move to a more forward deploy posture. People say that is really hard. For a lot of reasons. It will involve diplomacy and it wont happen overnight. I have talked myself off the ledge on this issue. Another great power arrived in 1947. The soviet union. The American People were not thinking about europe anymore. We had no allies in europe, no alliances. Hardly any troops in europe. And we took a long view and said this is where we need to go. Making course adjustments over time. We saw it was necessary. We saw the competition with another power that we wanted to avoid war with, we realized that it was going to be hard and a long term effort. What really strikes me, if you look at this, look at where we ended up. The pentagon started something a few years ago which ended up in a deadend. In europe, by the end of the cold war it was air and land battle. The army and air force created that. There were waves of forces coming out of the soviet union. We could stop the first but needed to stop the second. We began to see those possibilities. We need to keep greenland, iceland, the uk, reinforce, and maybe develop the outer air battle. The marine corps said we can help out in norway and protect the northern flank. Allies understood what was going on. We had nothing like this in the western pacific. How do you set your defensive program when you dont have a clue where you want to go . That was one of the critiques. We need innovative operational causes. Again without that, i wrote a dissenting opinion in the commission. It was sufficiently exercised without issue. How we should position them, very quietly, get your head in the game. I went up to the naval war college. He has white stones and black stones. He said lets play. Part of the conversation is what is going on in the shop and the South China Sea . Its about position advantage. Its about playing, not chest, not kinetics, but positioning. See if you look at it, my concept my concept is a loss of strategic depth as we ran the study a couple of years ago, i was told very pointedly come tell us not what you would like to become a but where you would need to be in this competition in your i would like to pick up on an excellent point from doctor krepinevich. The chinese strategy for taiwan, right now, is to create a bastion to outflank us and threaten guam and hawaii. That is the chessboard problem that we face. You are hearing more from japan and korea about surface to surface missiles. Determine without attempting a conflict by deploying if they have the right range. It would be increasingly important, i think we should be supportive and encouraging. Its one more reason we have to work hard and join with our allies. We do not want independent chains. I would emphasize that we are more threatened jointly by this, but not in this region. Its not enough. Look at the defense doctrine and emerging capabilities and concepts. In canada, korea, japan, australia and new zealand. They all wanted amphibious capabilities. We have a bilateral alliance and china is integrating them more bilaterally. If Everyone Wants expeditionary capability, building flattop and amphibious, we are talking joint operations, more equipment, Great Power Competition results in war usually because of deterioration around appropriate great powers. If we have a combined capability to deal with natural disasters and civil wars, we lock that in. My view is that national law matters. It is a strong card to the United States and it would be a mistake to us to suddenly change decades and decades of Legal Counsel decision and suddenly say that this is our territory. The main negative impact, it would underline rule of law tools in diplomacy. It would open pandoras box. It would suddenly be a test of credibility for america around the world. I would not change our position on the question. Including sanctions on entities involved in Artificial Island building. I would not punish china. I have to stop this discussion and move on. It is twice as long as we should have permitted. Weve had issues with coming up with a taxonomy or metric. We tend to get bogged down in very broad categories such as weapons systems. Doctor krepinevich. I was very interested in your testimony and characterizing the importance of leadership decisionmaking precision strike was james, the new demands and the capacity to exercise disruption. If you were to define it, what would you think it would be . You mentioned contingency and the nature of conflict if you are looking at a matrix or taxonomy, would you be interested in this being included . I think taxonomy may contribute to the discussion. Based on my testimony, i would look at several metrics. Our ability to preserve our vital interests, and the contingencies of the chinese interests, another metric, i think they certainly merit near here competitor status. And conducting precision Reconnaissance Strike operations. Battle networks and precision strike capability, the combination that we first demonstrated and primitive form in the first gulf war. And the big question is disrupting the military balance. Even the five g networks that have potential to really and mostly in combination to affect a significant shift in balance. And creating a new normal in the western pacific, where freedom of offensive maneuvering is very limited. The advantage would be to look at space, cyberspace, the seabed, and horizontal exploration. Picking of assets beyond the western pacific. Maybe they are not quite in the game yet. If i can add a few points. First we are not on a level Playing Field. Pure and near pure, we cannot even get to that point. If we have landbased missiles, we can more effectively attack chinese bases. It is much easier for china to resupply and reconstitute. They just move things around mainland china. We have a couple vectors of approach from waterways to try to get supplies in to the basis to constitute them. And a lot of these scenarios, its about travailing in this conflict. It is much harder for the United States than it is for china even if we take the competition to space bar cyber, china does not rely on space and cyber the way we do. They can use it in space, they can use it on the ground. Its about the effect, the outcome, not if they hit a ship and we hit a ship, but what about having the same effect on them . One of my concerns about more broadly looking at the competitor status, i fear we are working on the worldclass military language. We have the advantage in the indian ocean, but in my understanding thats not how its going to work. They are going to be distracted from what they consider core interests, because of opposing costs. The competition really has to stay local. A couple more things i will say that are important, this is my main concern, it has to do with the confidence and capabilities, and globally one thing that we have to think about, whether or not the United States is the Security Partner of choice. China is building relationships with countries in africa and central asia thought beyond alliances. Becoming more a part of getting strategic countries on our side get we had first dibs on allies and we have the best ones. But numbers matter. Even if we have countries that are on our side about a certain issue, in the un, if 150 are on the chinese side, we lose. We have to think about the weakest link that china exploits. Cambodia and china. Building up our numbers to be the security choice. This has been fascinating. Thank you to the three of you. Doctor krepinevich, 25 years ago you wrote a long article about the revolution of military affairs. It really opened my eyes and im grateful for that and your service over the years. I do have a question. You evaluate the balance of power in chinas near issues, currently favoring the United States. I am the opposite. I think that we are in trouble now. But i am encouraged by the transgenic a lot of this missing is that youre all concerned about with american policy is what happens in our system. Weve got to do something out. Everybody running into things. The chinese have a tremendous advantage, in that region, and the platforms, they currently are better suited to the kind of conflict that can occur. And we are well behind operational conflict. Tell me why balance favors us to it is not rhetorical. Is it a failure . Are they concerned about joint operational effectiveness . Maybe you share that and get together in the south china state, and negotiate an outcome and leave the chinese on the outside. I think it would be a really good outcome from a lot of different perspectives. But they are not going to sit there while we are doing that havent they developed enough clout . They could block any consensus approach. Soon i may have misspoke. I have talked about the balance in the region, and the reasons for that in terms of our ability to escalate, i think we have advantages that give pause. And economic vulnerability to certain things that we might do. I dont think we look at that enough Global Supply chains and corrupting the mobile Financial System and so on. They have pause when they look at equipment, people, experience in working. It is very impressive capability. For those region reasons, i think the balance is generally favorable. I would really like to have jim baker do some serious assessments. With access to all of the classified information and the best people they have. Again it is interesting. Look at the longterm competition. I would rather be in our position. We are in a much better position to fix things. I like our asset nonsense better. But we are not doing a good job. Thank you for that question. The same policies, a different outcome. There is a lot of desire to not be productive and provocative. I am all for being provocative. Let me go into more detail. Some scholarship focus on this, what can the military no longer accomplish . China can coerce the whole region. If we want to do the diplomacy, we just got there over the last couple of years while they did code of conduct. We dont want to do it through consensus based systems. If weve got a separate initiative, we can spearhead diplomacy, and we ask what they need. Vietnam may never agree with that. What will we have to give to get it . If you told vietnam that we recognize that, we would get our base. I agree with 99 of what all of you are saying. Having spent the last 30 years thinking about these issues. I have a couple of questions and observations that i want you to respond to. First i certainly agree with the doctor that taiwan remains the center of the security universe with the unit states and china. What is being lost is the growth of Chinese Expeditionary capabilities. I want your reactions. Maybe it is because i am a sailor, you read Chinese Defense white papers and other documents and they have a severe case of anxiety i would call it. They are really worried that we are going to go out. And they should be, i should say. But that we would start in the case of conflict and crisis and start interdicting. They are building a capability to deal with that. They are very vulnerable. They are thinking longer term. Im curious if any of you have looked at the longer implication of expeditionary oriented or capable pla, and what that might mean for the United States and the world. The second question that i want to ask, ive often heard people say it, and i have said it, that the possession of Nuclear Weapons by the unit states and china will keep the peace between the United States and china you all believe that you i might have a less popular view. Im looking at what they have to develop, as far as isr and lived hold on. I think the ambitions are quite limited in terms of military. They still think they can largely rely on political and economic tools to protect their economic interests of on a broad. One situation, with the Chinese Military themselves, they have the capabilities to blockade us allies and partners. A mutual vulnerability could protect them in conflict and they could protect maritime interests. Japan can no longer give anything if china controls those waters. The strategy for them is more limited. But my personal view is china was more ambitious than they are i think thats how the United States wins this. We are trying to project interests all over the world china can use a Defense Budget for a small area that is close to home. If this were more like the cold war, i think the United States perseveres. Im not as concerned about the desire to push out the on the pacific. I think they want to expand more into the indian ocean. If they have the mentality of the United States to be present everywhere, i think of so we went. We dont have a mutually assured destruction relationship with china. China thinks differently about Nuclear Weapons. They do train to launch attacks, i have a hard time believing the United States would use Nuclear Weapons first. It creates a situation that allows for much more conventional conflict. I would say this is not like the cold war because of the higher likelihood of a hot war. You think we would conduct a limited war on china and east asia without escalations of Nuclear Weapons . Yes. I think they do have some anxiety. The same amount of time between pearl harbor today and pearl harbor in the beginning of the civil war. Think about the timeframe of how things change. I think about things in world war ii terms and the look at and look at how the fight was to stop the germans in crete. And they know where you have to be. I think it is an interesting question for the navy navy as far as how you operate. The navy talks about being a maneuvering force. As far as the Nuclear Issues go, i agree, i think it is possible to have this kind of war. In normas incentives if the world broke out with the chinese. Do we even know what an escalation looks like . Some hypersonic strange things, or going into space, blockades. If you had an effective blockade, how effective would you want it to be . The british and the french kind of negotiate, to keep competing, you get the caribbean, i get canada, we get reeses resources like these things. Occupied china, the United States, its like being in cumberland in the 1820s when you think about the Strategic Issues that have to be addressed in the relationship between us and the chinese. On the question of expeditionary maritime ambitions, arguing that the biggest mistake was trying to expand, other maritime powers would counterbalance. He has argued that china has made a mistake of being a continental power, trying to expand in the maritime domain. They convinced him not to initiate it initially because he was worried about causing a counterbalance along maritime powers to do what we are now seeing. Following politics quite closely in various countries, in order to reform the corruption of the pla, the payback was to commend this doctrine without diving on the scene, to wisely say you are going to create counterbalancing that will cost us it is an operational challenge to be sure. Nuclear deterrence, im quite certain the pla would like to fight war without risk of nuclear deescalation. I am doubtful. Any scenario that involves hitting us bases could potentially trigger nuclear retaliation. I think Nuclear Deterrence is quite important to play here but i do believe in what doctor krepinevich is saying. We particularly dont understand the limits. This seemingly elegant strategy to avoid a clear fight. And rapidly increasing clear solution problems. We have to worry about whether or not it works and how we manage it. I do think it is a very, very powerful deterrent on the use of force by the chinese. On deterrence, there is a whole can of worms that needs to be open here. There are some writings about prospect theory. I will go over those really fast. People are more likely to fight to hold onto something that they have rather than an act of aggression against something they dont have. The people who won the nobel prize, a lot of it depends on whether or not you feel like you are in a domain of loss or gain. This is a clash of two sites that think that they are in a domain of loss. The chinese, over time, one could argue these would be the new normal. Weve got them for ten or 15 years. Both of us are working from loss and crisis. Peeling back and legitimize something that we dont think the chinese have a legitimate right to and then they assume now that they do, the fear of pulling back on their side and it is suggested that this notion of governance and people acting rationally, they dont necessarily play out. I have a couple baskets of things. Weve been having a discussion and most of the discussions seem to be through the bigger, strategic pressure, the bigger picture, the weapons and Tactical Systems there. And we talked about operational effectiveness, i wonder if you can talk about how to factor that in your are they going to be able to make systemic improvements . That they believe can be made an issue . That is one set of issues. The question of economic and National Security. Weve talked about economic security, from the domestic perspective. If you want to have a strong security, you need to have strong economy. We have differences about how to link those things together. The fact that china has demonstrated willingness to use economic tools for National Security purposes has shifted things. You focused on weaknesses, talking about country, and countries that we did not know that we could depend on. Because they moved into chinese orbit. We have influence and businesses that are enormously important. Continued Economic Growth in australia has been because of trade with china. How do we factor that in . There will be public opposition to some of these positions because there are money sharing interests at stake. A second question, if i may. The increase of growth in the japanese, korean and australian economies is linked to china, that is clear. I think sometimes, people mistake flow and stock, and mistake fdi and trade. Most of our allies trade more than they do with us. First of all, that is intermediary trade it is global, not regional. Overwhelmingly us and australia, japan, not china. There are many, many, other deeper economic interests, including the hegemony of the dollar and other things. I dont think our alliances are as vulnerable as one might think your i think the goal of punishing the Chinese Company huawei does not work. Taking a firm stand with china. 3 million people, divorce theyve seen what happened in sri lanka. People on the street can tell you. They will not sell sovereignty or democracy for money we have a better Playing Field than one might think for us, transparency, we need to get the story out about chinese economic coercion, all sorts of means, in particular, just think tanks, media, congressional delegation. We will not hes the chinese but we are much more attractive alternatives. We need a trade strategy. We need something. To demonstrate that we are in the rulemaking game and engagement allies and partners. And continuing this the United States. We have a much stronger hands to play. More than one years, surface. Suggest an observation in singapore. The concern was the manifestation of chinese economic relationships with Different Countries. I mean they dont necessarily see the investment. They see a trade in goods and services. They dont necessarily see the value and the strength of the economic relationships. I think they are still part of the strategic community. I think being a Security Partner is enough. We have to have security . We cannot compete, we are not going to be able to compete with the chinese economic machine, i think. I dont think they will benefit much more than the close economic relationship. We also bring all these other things to the table. To the point of messaging, china has this message i hear a lot from other countries in the region they are just like us. I think the chinese are trying to create more equivalencies. , pozo premises, Police Brutality issues, we have done and they have that you have figures, we have big news, it does not matter what the issue is, china tries to create more equivalencies. And the alec partner. China has policies, we have policies. The us infrastructure, usually when you want to compete with another company, they will do what they do best. And you think about my comparative advantages. Operational effectiveness, the bottom line, i dont know. For most of us who focus on the issue, the thing that makes us sleep well at night is that we think we are better, we have training overall. The best part about the us military is not is a concern and i believe that, in my heart of hearts, i believe that, which makes me think i have a bias, underestimated that is my american centric view that makes me think they are not going to get the personnel part right . I think we have to plan one question for all of you that stuff will have to consider. You said that we are having to fight a couple different words. Can you expand on that . Given the modernization of Chinese Military, what is the a building ability and willingness to use force to take taiwan . What is your assessment . You try to compare militaries, fighter divider or ship to ship, that is not how a war is fought. The biggest threat to a fighter is the Defense System on the ground. We are looking at access and the vastness access and partnerships and allies in the region. China for the most part is to project the distance from here to richmond, it is easier for them to do. I like to equate it to a boxing match. The United States has completed a triathlon before getting to the ring. We are fighting different words. What is required for china to prevail in a conflict over taiwan is different from what is required of the United States to stop them from prevailing and in many cases, the issues are more difficult. They need to conduct or join operations, china is looking at that capability. It could be risky for them to make a move. What happens when they think theyre done. When he extended the term limits, that put everything you said about taiwan into a different light in the military deposits and if they believe they have the capability and they think future trend is not in their favor, historically they may look to reverse trends. They may think things are getting worse over time where they need to quickly switch it, they would be willing to use force. China could coerce taiwan in some sort of agreement. Using force, compel an agreement, all of those could come. We have indicators and warnings before that could have been. In the end i think the Chinese Military is ultimately preparing to take taiwan by force. And if this is the time to do it, if they dont do it now, they catacombs it later, we are in a very risky situation. A quick answer before we go to lunch. We are already running late. A lot of times we look at how this work starts. Is it more of a slow thing . Is it a despicable attack on a sunday morning . Is it a blockade that basically says taiwan is ours . We will decide what can go into taiwan. And they agree to the six things and then we start to deposit taiwan into china . And the final point, the chinese dont want to fighting, they want to shift the balance aggressively. We could go to the next stage of warfare, the question that would be no less important, can we survive the isolation and blowback that follows . The chinese have not use force since they were integrated into the National Economy and they are a brittle and vulnerable party. And you could say they are not going to ask us, we can survive the geopolitical blowback. They are more likely to do it. If we cant really say for sure, because theres a real chance, they will boycott or punish us. That enhances deterrence. If your the alignment that we show, the willpower, the management of our partnerships, it is important, it is a factor. And the military commission could decide the subsequent geopolitical and economic isolation. Thank you very much. We will see you all again at 1 45. Thank you, panelists, very much. The me too movement has been underway for a while. I think there was a backlash and it was going too far. The notion was oversimplified and overlooking the investigation part that i was talking about earlier. You have a president advocating tough stance it was important to put ourselves in his shoes and imagine ourselves as being someone falsely accused and go there and explore the of the brooklyn festival will include a conversation with Annette Gordon reed and brenda wynette there is a recurring theme that they really believe on the vatican side, they throw out these labels like fascist and negative terms on donald trump dear but i see them doing exactly what they claim the president was doing. To protect our freedom, they need to take it away. It is just a recurring theme. At 9 00, michelle offers her thoughts. Its her book open borders inc. Where she is interviewed by chip roy. Cook and jeff business have jeff bezos have profited from nonprofit organizations that are creating for human and alien rights and instant representation to sue over every Trump Initiative to enforce the law. Through the things that are motivating august wilson, his desire to move black people from the margins to the center and say what is true about us, what matters to us, what is happening in our lives. And the trek from washington dc to san francisco. And at 8 00, Herbert Hoover and his world war i belief work. A team of volunteers built it into a remarkable organization that had its own flag, fleet, and negotiated treaties with european powers. Hoover was the leader, who enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Explore our nations past, every weekend on cspan three. Nd Voting Rights Organization Leaders testify before a house judiciary subcommittee regarding voting discrimination. Witnesses discuss state voting laws since the 2013 Shelby County v holder decision in which the court ruled 6 54 that section four of the Voting Rights act is unconstitutional. Bonita gupta, naacp president Derek Johnson and Public Interest Legal Foundation president Jay Christian adams. This is just under two hours
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.