Building a Better Thucydides Trap Mixed States & Multi-level Games in 21st Century Sino-American Relations: Showdown or Showmanship

Trapdoors of Perception

Throughout the centuries of geopolitical travails, the constant clashing of civilizations, and all the tragic great power conflicts that have ensued, to the ordering of the world into austere institutions to maintain the peace and enhance prosperity, human conflict has remained constant. The UN, WTO and Bretton Woods systems have allowed people to manage their frictions and fault lines in a muddled, myriad of ways. Cold wars, hot wars, trade wars, civil wars, proxy conflicts, imperial conquests and rebellion; have all played a part in shaping the maps and warping the diplomatic relations between nations and their people.?

If the ancient idea, inter arma silent leges: in time of war the law is silent, is to be taken at face value then moral judgements can necessarily be set aside at certain moments in history. Justice would therefore have no place in the conversation and might versus right should rule the day. Destiny manifested or injustice perpetrated, depends on the perspective, but those wiped from history will have little to say for themselves in the end.

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone.”? ~ Aldous Huxley

Same Same but Different

Long before the likes of Kissinger, Nixon or Mao, all the way back to America’s founding years of the 1780s, China has held a special place in our imagination. We each played a largely unknown, but crucial role in the other's development, expansion and ultimate success. The great power competition we are supposedly in today would not have been possible without great power cooperation over the last two and a half centuries.??

Robert Morris, the famed financier of the American Revolution, ran with? what was then an outrageous business proposition; that America’s future prosperity was most likely to be found in trade with China. His early forays across the seas proved quite lucrative, sending ships laden with Mexican silver dollars, ginseng, and otter pelts, to Guangzhou to trade for tea and home goods as early as 1784. China was a manufacturing behemoth even then, and the US was soon swimming in useful Chinese imports of all sorts. An amusing early IP dispute revolved around faked paintings of Gilbert Stuart’s famed portrait of George Washington, that were flooding into Philadelphia from China until local courts banned their sale.?

The floundering young nation of 13 infant States, quickly grew to be China’s second largest trading partner after the UK and its imperial domains. By the early 1800s trade imbalances led industrious Americans to encroach on England's lucrative opium trade with China. Warren Delano, grandfather of FDR, made his vast fortune leveraging this dubious market. It worked so well at reversing the trade imbalance that the severe inflation experienced by the US in the 1830s can be traced directly to the lucrative nature of the opium trade with China. To the lament of China and dismay of its Emperor of the day, this racket eventually led to a pair of so-called Opium Wars, which allowed foreign nations to grab lucrative concessions and territory, kickstarting China’s century of humiliation. Some parallels with the current fentanyl crisis that is hollowing out the US can be drawn, as howls of protest echo out from Washington to leaders in Beijing, just with less gunboat diplomacy for now.?

The richest private businessman in this world of the early 1800s was a Chinese man named Wu Bingjian from Guangzhou, also known as Howqua. Worth what would be 10s of billions today, the bulk of his fortune was earned through dealings with his capitalist American and Western compatriots. In his role as leader of the 13 Hongs he made substantial investments overseas, in real estate and infrastructure and his riches drove global growth, especially in the United States.(1)

The latest era of this trading relationship, opened up by Henry Kissinger and President Nixon, is therefore nothing new under the sun, the roles and rules are just different now. Ping-pong diplomacy has proved quite fruitful for the leaps and bounds taken by both China and the United States in the last 50 years. The first time around it was the United States building itself up from scratch, in the role of the developing nation. This time it has been China rebuilding its national identity and capability back to its former stature, after the perceived ‘Century of Humiliation’.? As the world enters an age where both the US and China have risen to a point where each is more or less on equal footing, the questions turn to what the next step in our relationship will look like. We helped belay each other up to this lofty perch of counterbalanced, yet supposedly competing global hegemons. Can we both maintain sure-footed comfort on this shared ledge without the urge to shove the other off? And if so, for how long can this balance of power be maintained?

état Mixtes

Francis Fukuyama called it the end of history some 30 years ago, and though this has come to be seen as a dubious call, in one way he was right. What was left unspoken I guess was, the end of history marks the beginning of the future. Three decades into this post-history future is when new hindsight finally becomes apparent; the cultural, technological, political, and economic shifts have obviously been profound. Not just because of the lightspeed pace of change, but also for the exponentially evolving, ever more interconnected nature of the development, across all systems.?

The United States has long been a nation of migration and China long one of immigrants. Before the Exclusion Act of 1882 the West Coast saw an influx of immigrants and after the downfall of restrictive immigration quotas in the mid 1960s Chinese communities rapidly grew and business ties with the Mainland became ever stronger, especially after the Nixon administration’s rapprochement of the early 1970s.? Trade today is at all time highs between the US and China, with 2022 representing a new peak in imports. Despite this there’s another side to the coin: the trade war that began in 2017, along with the recently amped up attempts to curtail Chinese access to chip technology and the increasingly hostile rhetoric coming from both Washington and Beijing. The US has also recently placed new emphasis on efforts to de-risk and diversify supply chains to elude Chinese control and potential manipulation or perhaps just to strengthen resilience in face of Covid shutdowns and the ensuing disruptions to trade. To make matters all the more complicated, the nexus of many of these risky supply chains, trade disputes, and tough talk just happens to be Taiwan, the geopolitical elephant in the room forever looming over Sino-American relations and the beating heart of the technological revolution we are currently enraptured by.

Janet Yellen in recent remarks to the IMF and World Bank tried to deflate the unfounded trepidation surrounding US attitudes, “China’s economic growth need not be incompatible with U.S. economic leadership.” While dismissing the idea of inevitable conflict, she at the same time made clear that national security concerns would remain a US priority and that those concerns transcend our national boundaries. Untangling industrial policy, trade policy, and national security priorities is a dubious endeavor. The overlap between them is obvious but it’s also unclear if lines can even be distinctly drawn anymore, the dual-use, civil-military fusion of so much modern technology is a confounding conundrum.??

Bipartisanship in Washington is an arcane and antiquated notion, tossed into the dustbin of 24 hour news cycles, hyperbolic politicking, a splintering of civility society-wide and a gleeful shredding of long established norms. There’s a French term from psychology, “état mixtes” or mixed states, that refers to the bifurcated, bipolar mind and how it exists in multiple states simultaneously. It feels like no accident that a DSM term of psychological diagnosis is so apt a metaphor for geopolitics as whole in the present moment. A flow state of mental distress shifting along a spectrum of responses and reactions to various stimuli sums up the schizophrenic morass of the 21st Century history so far. When there is such clarity of vision, yet mostly muddled thinking amongst an addled body politic on a single issue, one must pause and take notice. The ?coalescing of hawkish thought, from both sides of the aisle in Washington, hovering above the Taiwan Strait can only be a cause for concern. Along with Chinese ‘Wolf Warriors’, the rhetoric has leaned toward the outlandish and misinformed more than it has addressed true concerns or attempted to offer solutions or compromises. Some are so seemingly breathless on the matter you’d think a crisis was imminent at any moment and perhaps it very well is, 2027 has been bandied about as a pivotal crux point by some. In a frightening memo that leaked earlier this year, our very own lupine-like interlocutor, General Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command wrote, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” he added. “Xi secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022. Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. The United States’ presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.” But what exactly does a “war” look like and what does the day after entail?

Zhǐ Lù Wéi Hu

The importance of Taiwan stretches far beyond the bounds of the former Formosa’s shores and the imaginations of the leadership in Beijing. Its manufacturing and management prowess allow its 23 million people to punch far above their weight in worldly matters. Between the efficiency of Foxconn’s factories and the sheer wonder of TSMC’s fabs, even if Taiwan weren't freighted with the baggage of the whole “One China” conundrum, or located in such a crowded and crucial neighborhood as the South China Sea, it would still be high on the list of geoeconomic players.?

A war in this region over the sovereignty of Taiwan is unimaginable in one sense, yet scarily fathomable. The only plausible scenario I see involves something like swarms of aerial drones and unmanned armored submarines that can affect a beach landing by emerging from the sea and becoming tanks. Thus allowing China to wage a casualty free war from its side, at least in the initial stages, but it’s unlikely the PLA has that level of technical sophistication, yet.?

A buildup of actual troops to cross the Taiwan Strait would not only be quickly noticed by satellites but also probably be a bloody fiasco akin to D-Day, but with a much lower probability for success, especially should the US and its regional allies decide to aid in Taiwan’s defense. D-Day was also a liberation, an invasion of pure conquest is a far different beast to sail in on. Long range missiles that can take out ships make any crossing by troop transports perilous, one pillar of deterrence should be a massive buildup of these sort of armaments in the region. Aerial drones controlling the skies, combined with a naval blockade, a series of cyberattacks and a flood of misinformation/disinformation, will make the fog of war immediately thick and the conflict instantly intractable. But that is presupposing a planned invasion with choreographed execution. The unknown unknowns of how the escalation spiral from an accidental instigation of a conflagration will play out are impossible to predict.?

What a conflict over Taiwan would mean on the military side is certainly hard to stomach but the absolute rupture of global trade is tough to digest as well. Massive amounts of goods, from crucial technology to critical minerals to basic building materials and home goods, all flow through the region. Between the East Coast of China and the West Coast of Taiwan so many crucial ports exist, with so much of the global value chain moving through them. Even a conflict short of a shooting war, one that involves only sanctions and/or blockades, has the potential to be a precursor to a wider conflict simply due to the economic stakes involved. The groupthink that has seemingly set in regarding the inevitability of a conflict (on both sides) could become its own unintended self-fulfilling prophecy if not kept in check. When existential threats collide with moral imperatives, confrontation is the near inevitable result. As Clausewitz pointed out in On War, “War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means.”?

Beijing has tipped its hand to some degree, with the recent outrage over last year's visits with the Speaker of the House Pelosi, and the recent visit of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen to the US. The ensuing military maneuvers? by the PLA/PLN showed to some degree what a response to a more heated Taiwan Straits Crisis might look like. Crippling the economy of Taiwan with targeted attacks on its major infrastructure and utilities, cyberattacks on the banking sector and a blockade to prevent goods from getting out or supplies/reinforcements from getting in is a potently asymmetric brew. How the US, its allies in Asia, and Taiwan itself should and would respond to that level of disruption is still a matter up for debate. One at least hopes Taiwan can increase its own defense capabilities; it currently spends around 2% of its GDP on defense, whereas a country like Israel spends 5%. Hoping to jump start its deterrent posture the US recently announced a $500 million dollar arms deal with Taiwan.??

Just War & Just in Time Shipping

Recent tabletop war games held by Congressional Republicans show the seriousness with which these threats are now being considered at the highest echelons of power. Performative provocation, in the manner of aggressive rhetoric, has quickly become the currency of communication between supposed diplomats. Walzer in his opus, Just and Unjust Wars states, “Aggression is morally as well as physically coercive, and that is one of the most important things about it.” He then goes on to quote Clausewitz who framed it this way, “A conqueror is always a lover of peace he would like to make his entry into our state unopposed; in order to prevent this, we must choose war.” It’s this sort of imperative mindset that can rapidly escalate tensions, especially within the rhetorical realm. Rhetoric at this level has already opened the curtain on a new Cold War, with the incumbent chill in diplomacy. This makes the untempered heat of proxy conflicts all the more palatable to decision makers.?

The Legalist Paradigm makes a domestic analogy with the agency of states vs man, and the War Convention lays the groundwork for justifiable responses to an aggression by placing the onus of guilt upon the aggressor, thus granting the rights of resistance to the aggrieved state. The red line of what constitutes an acceptable level of pure aggression to justify a defensive (or even preemptively offensive) response is left uncertain and ill defined. Sun Tzu assesses strategy in this way, “Military action is important to the nation - it is the ground of life and death, the path of survival and destruction, so it is imperative to examine it.”?

Legalism as a tradition in China dates back to the Warring States Period (453-221 BCE), these Fa thinkers pushed to the forefront ideas of fazhi 法治 or rule of law. Fa principles governed most aspects of society, from trade to warfare to individual behavior, and were deeply woven into the fabric of Chinese society. While their influence waxed and waned through the millennia, many of these notions have recently come back into vogue. Colliding with Mahan and Marxist-Leninist thinking and the dialectics of the likes of Engels where chapter one was, “the law of the unity and conflict of opposites”. Xu Zhangrun, a Chinese judicial scholar based in Beijing, has coined the term 'Legalist-Fascist-Stalinism' or Fǎ-Rì-Sī ( 法日斯 ) to describe the modern Chinese State party. He sums up the Reform Era as one of Máo tǐ Dèng yòng (毛體鄧用) or “Maoist essence employing Dengist exigencies,” which itself is an outgrowth of the 1860s Tongzhi Restoration rhetoric of, ‘Chinese essence combined with Western knowhow’ or Zhōng tǐ, Xī yòng (中體西用).?

Esteemed China Watcher Geremie R. Barmé summed it up this way in a recent essay : “Xi Jinping’s China is a gift to the New Sinologist, for the world of the Chairman of Everything requires the serious student of contemporary China to be familiar with basic classical Chinese thought, history and literature, appreciate the abiding influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas and the dialectic prestidigitations of Mao Zedong Thought. Similarly, it requires an understanding of neo-liberal thinking and agendas in the guise of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics 具有中国特色的社会主义.”

An ancient concept was introduced by the pre-Socratic thinker Heraclitus,? what he defined as the 'unity of opposites' recognizes co-existence by co-dependence, where a stasis is possible, if a balance can be struck. His divine law of nature known as 'Logos' was defined as a world ever changing but always the same. Imbalance or its perception can create concern for one or the other systems prevailing, thus provoking a response. Kant describes the inevitability of contradiction when confronted with the infinite and Hegel further refined this by stating: “(the) true and positive meaning of the antinomies is this: that every actual thing involves a coexistence of opposed elements.” After all there is some stability in a bi-polar world, the tension between poles lending a lucidity to diplomacy.?

One need only look at China’s attempts to usurp the UN with its carrot and stick inducements to smaller nations and the wiggle room within the WTO it has managed to maintain, with its self declared developing nation status, to see how China is simultaneously working from within the system and against it. What sort of framework this all gives to current discourse should not be discounted.? Sun Tzu pointed to five key factors in any assessment of potential conflict; the way, the weather, the terrain, the leadership and discipline. “The Way means inducing people to have the same aim as the leadership, so that they will share death and share life, without fear of danger.” The I Ching adds this as a rejoinder, “Joyful in difficulty, the people forget about their death.”?

Mao put forth seven steps to achieve a so-called “United Front”, parsing these ideas with “Xi Thought” in mind and keeping current operationalization in perspective can be eye opening:?

1. Arousing & organizing the people (Xi’s nationalism or 'Xivilization'? is conceived of to work in this regard)

2. Achieve internal unification politically (Anti-corruption campaigns have consolidated power among loyal cadres at the top of the CCP, its prior strength was with a robust committee led decision making, now it appears susceptible to the same group think and biased information flows as the Beltway)

3. Establishing bases (The South China Sea, Djibouti, Myanmar, Pakistan)

4. Equipping forces (Military expenditures and technological capability have grown by leaps and bounds lately)

5. Recovering national strength (BRI, GDI, Xinjiang Genocide)

6. Destroying the enemy’s strength (IP theft, fentanyl exports, incentives to potential allies, its innate comparative advantages)

7. Regaining lost territories (Tibet, Xinjiang, South China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan??)

Mao perceived conflict with the West as dialectically inevitable and as Kevin Rudd recently put it in a December 2022 Foreign Affairs piece, “In a similar fashion, Xi now sees threats on every front and has embarked on the securitization of virtually every aspect of Chinese public policy and private life. And once such threat perceptions become formal analytical conclusions and are translated into the CCP bureaucracies, the Chinese system might begin to function as if armed conflict were inevitable.” Interpreting the messaging that came out of the 20th Party Congress seems to indicate that essentially this has already been internalized by the CCP. Liu Jieyi, the former director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, released a report on reunification where use of force was not ruled out and an emphasis was placed on countering “foreign interference schemes” in Taiwan. This sort of ideology of inevitable conflict adds a dimension of historical determinism to the mix and gives the appeal of displacing the US as an imperial/regional hegemon a uniquely peculiar shine.?

Zhǐ Lù Wéi Mǎ

Drawing on a tad less than 2000 years of philosophical discourse, the current dialectic in Washington towards Beijing appears to be built upon something akin to a type of Neo-McCarthyism. Bipartisanship is a rare bird on Capitol Hill anytime, but especially so in the freshly fractured, post-pandemic, post January 6th America.? Recent polling of Americans shows opinions that place China as a bigger threat than Russia even, but how overblown are these fears or is the threat truly being appropriately billed and appreciated? With no CCP members anywhere near US levers of power (unlike the Soviet’s during McCarthy’s era who did have some actual moles in key positions), the China Initiative hysteria seemed to be focused more on catching Chinese academics with minor discrepancies on grant applications and was not very effective in any case. Racism, as much as anything, seems to be the rhetorical lens with which many in power are filtering all perceptions of the CCP through. Unlike the USSR which offered a competing system to that of the West’s, the PRC is deeply intertwined with the global value chain, and global governance institutions; with mutual dependence the prevailing dynamic, much more so than mutually assured destruction. Unlike the Soviets though there are in fact millions of Chinese members of the diaspora dwelling in the US and abroad, their fealty to Beijing is obviously not a guarantee though.??

Unfortunately naiveté and misunderstandings run rampant with regards to China, Chinese people and the CCP, in current US policy circles. The CCP is not nearly the omnipotent, omnipresent, colossus of competence and centrally planned strategic foresight so many believe it to be. Nor is it necessarily a perpetually malevolent actor bent on reshaping the world in its authoritarian image as it is so often portrayed. Ambivalence, autonomy, individual agency and overiding market dynamics drive much of its political and economic decision making, the same as within Western policy and business circles. China is not a completely benign actor on the world stage either, but the recent Select Committee hearings were a shambles of half baked hawkishness; lacking in knowledge, nuance, clarity or context. There’s plenty of legitimate concerns to be addressed but banning Tik-Tok and picking on academic exchanges is such low hanging fruit as to be a mostly pointless fight to pick.? Crafting reasonable responses in the light of so many unrealistic assumptions is therefore a tough task. Countering China’s economic coercion and inducements effectively in an increasingly multi-polar, unaligned world is key. Fragmentation of economies with the decoupling/de-risking of supply chains is an ineffective and likely impossible way to go about countering impunity and authoritarian impulses. It may actually embolden more forceful rhetoric and fracture the ties that do still bind global economies. Decoupling encourages a ‘my way or the highway’ approach which ends up flowing in all directions with collateral damage doled out to all. Trade in the WTO era has created an intertwined world of commerce, with so many overlapping linkages, that unwinding them is neither economically efficient or logistically possible. The gambit from the US side seems to be one of erecting a high fence around a small yard as an attempt at preventing the most advanced chip technology from being obtained by China. Can this work, will it only provoke an eventual workaround, and will our allies go along to get along, are all open questions.?

The recent war in Ukraine brought many of these issues to the surface as so many nations in the Global South decided, when the choice was foisted upon them, to choose themselves over the West or China or Russia. Larry Summers summed it up this way not long ago, “There is an urgent need for the U.S. and its allies to regain the trust of the developing world. There is no better means of regaining trust than through the collective provision of large-scale support for countries’ highest priorities.”?

It’s also been pointed out repeatedly by leaders and experts in the Global South, that when China comes to town they get a bridge or a highway or a hospital, but when the US or the West comes to town all they get is a lecture. Let’s not even get into what happens When Mckinsey Comes to Town. The point is the West can and must do better in its articulation and execution, it must look further ahead, and anticipate needs of smaller nations beyond how they reflect and refract off the interests of the West. Failure to do so will only result in a widening of the wedge between the West and the rest.?????

Gamesmanship & Showmanship

Robert Putnam posits the idea of multi-level games playing out in any negotiation or confrontation. There are the stakes being considered directly at the table between parties, then there are the inherent influences upon which all assumptions and attitudes are built acting as a marionette to all negotiations. Prior experiences, accumulated wisdom, personal biases, all account for how any situation may play out. Domestic political concerns and the current cultural climate always influences outcomes, even if in unacknowledged ways. Recognizing the higher order effects swirling above the day to day geopolitical milieu is essential. Understanding information flows at the leadership level is important as well. Defining what ‘win-sets' look like in a Taiwan Straits Crisis, from all sides, is a complicated question.? Peace and stability is the ultimate goal, for one side that means reunification and the other independence. Reconciling the irreconcilable is a delicate balance to strike, no doubt, posture counts and words matter.? Orwell in his famous essay “'You and the Atom Bomb', coined the term Cold War and described it as a “peace with no peace”. Making peace without peace is a heady proposition, somewhat like walking a tightrope while building bridges, but it is not an impossible task and is likely the best path forward.?

?Economic coercion can backfire or ripple outward having unexpected and uncontrolled knock-on effects. That goes for both China and the West, but more so for the CCP lately, as they try to stake an impossible stance between neo-imperialist impulses and anti-imperial intuitions. The US is not immune to ‘noise’ in its decision-making either, and fuzzy logic tends to dominate. Our cycles of? two, four, and six year terms which require constant calibration and proper political posturing for any messaging, put any definitive declaration out of reach most of the time. This war of words can be a prelude or merely a proxy to real conflict. Disparate language, illusory meaning and all that’s lost in translation, make epistemological analysis a fruitless endeavor. One need only look at the slogan gǎnyú dòuzhēng (敢于斗争 ) popular within CCP discourse circles , which has been variously translated as “dare to fight” or “dare to struggle”, as an example. A slim matter of degrees of interpretation, but a stark difference in how the phrase might land, especially to the ears of a possible adversary.?

Recognizing a deficit in ‘discourse power’(话语权)Chinese leaders have set off into uncharted waters lately with the elevation of ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomacy. Likely a reaction to the bombastic provocations and seeming popularity (or sheer impunity) of Trump’s messaging, these clunky efforts by Chinese diplomats have met with mixed results. As much of a steep rise to one’s career trajectory as they offer, that sharp ascent quickly creates a nail to be hammered down, and some Wolf Warriors find themselves shunted off to oblivion within the CCP apparatus soon after their brief, but provocative stardom. As a reactionary response it misses the mark mostly, and the zeitgeist totally, as Biden has brought back the even keeled statesman aesthetic, which probably appeals more to Beijing’s rear guard in any case. Speaking softly but wielding a big stick, the US with its new fangled Bidenomics and fledgling post neo-liberal industrial policy offer a direct reproach to China's market manipulations, and a brick wall to development in certain sectors. This will likely cause pain in the long run and hiccups in the short run. Both leaders seemingly realize the current moment is not the most opportune for a showdown and forestalling the day when the moment is fortuitous to strike for China is looking like the US approach.

A Leap in the Fog

The chorus from the IR media elite is conflicted, on the one hand China is an essential trading partner on which global prosperity depends, but on the other it is an existential threat, hellbent on authoritarian dominion.? Contrasting the two sides and weighing the evidence does not resolve the issue either, both can make poignant cases. As rare a bird as bipartisanship is, when it does make an appearance it is often one of ill omen. The run-up to the Iraq War is one parallel that can be drawn, if one dares. A startling rerun of that fiasco, only this time on a planetary not regional basis with a much more substantial foe, is certainly something to consider.?

Michael Mazarr’s new book Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy is a head long deep dive into the way America led itself into an inevitable showdown with Saddam Hussein for no justifiable reasons and against all common sense. “Judgment,” he says, “ is a fundamentally imaginative enterprise. It emerges as a vision, an illusion, an invented narrative; a conviction, a belief — anything but a formally reasoned calculation.”? He goes on to point out, “When foreign policy becomes sacralized demands become absolute, while enemies become vile and wicked — not merely competing powers to be balanced and contained but evildoers demonized to the point of irreconcilability.” The bipartisan froth being churned up over China is eerily reminiscent of the same mindset that took over in the aftermath of 9/11. America’s exceptionalist savior streak lends a certain zeal to its rhetoric. When faith in your own righteousness meets the moral imperatives of an existential threat, getting painted into a corner that you can only lash your way out of is a distinct possibility.?

Failure to challenge the emerging construct, that China is an existential threat, could ultimately lead the US into a conflict it is ill prepared for and ill suited to consider rationally once the framework is built. The Rubicon Theory of War looks at the psychology that prevails in decision-making circles and how mindsets can shift from “deliberative” to “implemental”. The deliberative mind can still logically consider facts at hand and absorb new information readily, recognizing nuance and context and hedging against overconfidence in any one conviction. The implemental mind has already moved on from careful consideration, as it senses conflict to be in the offing no matter what, nuance is neglected and overconfidence in one’s convictions leads to irrationally risky decision making. Johnson and Tierney put it this way, “When people believe they have crossed a psychological Rubicon and perceive war to be imminent, they switch from what psychologists call a “deliberative” to an “implemental” mind-set, triggering a number of psychological biases, most notably overconfidence. These biases can cause an increase in aggressive or risky military planning. Furthermore, if actors believe that war is imminent when it is not in fact certain to occur, the switch to implemental mind-sets can be a causal factor in the outbreak of war, by raising the perceived probability of military victory and encouraging hawkish and provocative policies.” This really calls into question the types of heuristic approaches that are prevalent and how information flows gather at the top of a regime.?

The confounding part is that a failure to face a threat head on could also end with a similar conclusion. An ‘American Suez’ over Taiwan, one that spells the end of our perceived great power status, is in all likelihood the result of any scenario beyond the current shaky status quo. In a war, win or lose you lose, there’s just no way to eke out a win-win for anyone with missiles flying.?

Chinese leaders also face disconcerting existential questions over Taiwan. A severe misstep could call into question the CCP’s own soundness, the apparent mandate of this dynasty is success and prosperity at all costs. Any overconfidence had to have been deflated somewhat by Russia’s spectacular failure in the Ukraine. Xi, if he is considering an invasion, must have moments of doubt where he wonders if his own generals have misled him in regards to readiness in the same way as Putin’s did. The crackdowns on corruption have probably had some effects, but ruling a billion person colossus of a country inevitably leaves blindspots for even the most fervent micromanager. Even without those doubts, a Soviet style “correlation of forces” analysis would be a cause for concern if an accurate assessment is even possible. Chinese fighter jets only recently gained the ability to conduct aerial refueling, a key metric for any modern fighting force. They still lack the ability to launch stealth aircraft from carriers and would currently face a serious deficit in the air on day one of any conflict. Would the US deploy its fighters in an escalating Taiwan Straits crisis though and if so at what point would or should an intervention come?

A Moral Calculus

?Tort law has a standard known as “duty of care”, an obligation placed on individuals to avoid reckless behavior that could foreseeably cause harm to others. Whether those in leadership who have consistently been ramping up the rhetoric vis-a-vis China, the US and Taiwan recognize or hold themselves to such a standard is debatable. Jus ad Bellum philosophically presents the case for when States can resort to force, so-called ‘Just War Theory’ posits a stance for morally necessary confrontation. Clausewitz referred to an “ideal war” but determined it to be merely an abstraction and “logical fantasy”. Appeasement as a word tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth and is often a failed prelude to conflict anyway, but it is also a last act of States under a duty of care to seek peace in any event and is the thrust of Hobbes’ first law of nature. Interventionism is another word often attached to neo-Imperialism that intrudes on these conversations.

The Munich Principle sought to appease Germany and give ostensible autonomy to Sudeten Germans to follow their own fate, though Hitler’s insane designs already stretched to further horizons and the appeasement only delayed inevitable global conflict. Thucydides presented the case of the fate of Melos, who when threatened by Athens, the Melian elite without popular decree, decided to fight and ultimately perish rather than capitulate. The Finns on the cusp of WW2 offer another case, when faced with Stalin’s demands the people stood up en masse to repel the invasion, popular sentiment leading to fervent defense. The Ukranians, the past year, have shown the latest incarnation of this, after all avenues of denial were exhausted and an invasion commenced the people and the international community took the fight to the Russians. The duty of care seemingly exercised, first in the furtherance of peace at all costs, but failing that, in the fight for survival as well.?

Any philosophy of violence has to weigh peace up until the moment that it is impossible, barring a Ghandi like insistence on non-violence at any cost, even that of death and societal annihilation. William Vollman in his devastating book on violence and urgent means Rising Up and Rising Down makes an elaborate case for the times when the use of violence is justified and has it revolving around moments of immediate self defense or the defense of the innocent. Higher order political machinations, while in some senses justifiable, almost always end up with harm inflicted upon the innocent, so should be avoided at all costs. Even at the cost of “peace with no peace” because war once initiated is best conducted in a limitless way, avoiding it is therefore always a preferred alternative.?

There’s another seemingly contrary notion worth examining and that is the idea of escalating to de-escalate. The DOD in its 2022 National Defense Strategy posits the notion of integrated deterrence, a broad stroke defense that is vaguely defined but attempts to cut across all aspects of any potential conflict. As the document puts it the goal is one of, “working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power, and our network of Alliances and partnerships.” If deterrence is to have the desired effect then its execution must necessarily toe the line of provocation.?

War is generally waged based on three main factors: intent, window of opportunity and capability to succeed. The intent of the PRC and CCP is not in doubt, Taiwan is part of their one-China ideal and considering it to be anything beyond a rogue province is an incorrect interpretation in their minds. This of course ignores the Taiwanization that has occurred over the past 70 years of separation. Taiwanese people certainly see themselves as part of a unique independent nation with its own cultural identity. Anyone within the CCP refusing to admit as much is either delusional or being disingenuous. Even if peaceful reunification was desired by Taiwan, it’s not clear why the CCP would even want to attempt to onboard them now. The unique Taiwanese mindset is a detriment to the discipline and deference inherent to the CCP system. The independence of thought is not only at odds with the Chinese system, but it is also a boon to Chinese companies who get the best of both worlds, with SOE support within China while also getting to utilize the dynamism the independent minded Taiwanese managers bring to the table. This marriage of Mandarin speakers from China and Taiwan is a potent force for productivity that has contributed significantly to raising the fortunes of both. Chinese influence over the upcoming elections in Taiwan is one area to keep a close eye on.?

Ursula Von Der Leyen in recent remarks regarding a potential EU trade deal with China exposed the limits of Western discourse. When her inflammatory remarks landed in the Chinese court they were immediately volleyed back with a vengeance. Wang Lutong, director general for European affairs at the Chinese foreign ministry Tweeted out a pithy response, “The #EU side talks a lot about de-risking recently,” Wang wrote. “If there is any risk, it is the risk of linking trade with ideology and national security and creating bloc confrontation.” Whether the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment(CAI), agreed to in 2020, can survive the new post-Covid climate pervading Western capitals is still a matter open for debate.?

The Finish Line

Paul Stares from the Council on Foreign Relations published a paper earlier this year where he stakes out a strategy for what he calls collective coexistence. A way to manage potential miscalculations on all sides and create more of an atmosphere of ‘mutual reassurance’ that leads to a recognition of ‘mutually assured survival’. The thrust of his argument is three main points of contention that need to be acknowledged and managed:?

1. “Reinforce Existential Security” - Allowing a fearful climate to permeate politics and a Cold War to become an entrenched norm will only lead to more intimidation and coercive behavior that threatens sovereign states.

2. “Bolster Crisis Prevention and Resiliency” - Communication is the key to diplomacy and nipping escalation spirals in the bud requires not only trust but trusted mechanisms of engagement. The lack of communication between military leaders in Beijing and Washington is one cause for concern and an easy area for improvement.???

3. “Facilitate Management of Common Threats to Humanity” - Common foes can create unique bonds. As the world as a whole hurdles deeper into the Anthropocene Age, the rapidity of advancement and the near instantaneous connections allowed by digital communication and international air travel knit the world together more tightly than ever before. Climate change cannot be ignored any longer by any rational human, and the spread of Covid showed that borders are meaningless in some fights. If existential threats can indeed be leveraged into moral imperatives, which lead to inevitable action, then maybe this case can be extended to shared threats to humanity and allow for coordinated global responses to global threats. A realization that the enemy is not coming from within the human race but from exogenous shocks to it, ones that do not discriminate by nationality is essential. Separating transnational threats from global ones and threading the needle with reasonable responses and realistic assumptions is important.

Existential threats once recognized and articulated can only end with decisive victory or else catastrophic loss. Tempering escalation and managing expectations is a delicate equilibrium to aim for; coexistence, cooperation, and cohabitation are key. Ryan Hass, Bonnie Glaser, and Richard Bush recently published a book called US - Taiwan Relations Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis? ,with an argument that boils down to careful consideration of the agency of the Taiwanese people, “...the center of gravity for determining the future of Taiwan is the will of Taiwan’s 23 million people. American policy should focus on their hopes and fears if the United States wishes to maintain influence over events in the Taiwan Strait. This calls for American resoluteness and steadiness of purpose in fortifying Taiwan’s economic dynamism, political autonomy, military preparedness, and dignity and respect on the world stage. Maintaining credible military deterrence is the minimum threshold, not the measure of success.” ?????

Deterrence is generally accomplished? by either punishment or denial. Punishment can too often end up in a retaliatory spiral of punch and counterpunch and also an economically devastating cycle of sanctions and tariffs. Denial can work to dissuade certain behaviors but decoupling, derisking, and reshoring are costly and not always effective, overly resilient supply chains can also be redundant ones weakening their ultimate effect.?

The human element is ultimately the one that matters most, no nation is a monolith and all politics are personal at some level. Personally I’m not a hawk or a dove with regards to China, I prefer the idea of being an owl. Wise, pragmatic and vigilant, but also ready to pounce with sharp talons at a moment's notice should the need arise. The race is on a treadmill, winning is therefore not possible but falling off certainly is. The importance will be in maintaining a steady, coherent pace and keeping it up over time and across administrations.