China: Weighing the Costs

When the former Soviet Union, seen as the greatest rival to U.S. security, disintegrated at the end of the Cold War, the United States suddenly possessed a great surplus of military power and potential. The rational U.S. reaction to this change was to reap the dividend of peace by furthering arms control efforts–taking the opportunity to solve security problems more cheaply while simultaneously freezing the military capacities of other countries at relatively inferior levels. Over three successive U.S. administrations, that of the senior Bush and the first and second Clinton terms–arms control was promoted.

A series of agreements were concluded during that 12-year period: the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START), the Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Some existing treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), whose duration was extended indefinitely, were strengthened. Some unilateral arms control initiatives, echoed and encouraged by others, were also launched–for example, tactical nuclear weapon reductions were taken by both the United States and Russia.

Other countries were also excited by opportunities to make cooperative global security arrangements that allowed them to focus more on economic and social development.

In China, significant positive changes in arms control policy took place during the period: A substantial part of Chinese defense facilities and industry were converted to civilian uses; Chinese military personnel were reduced by 1.5 million; and China actively joined the CWC and CTBT negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. It concluded a number of confidence-building measures with its neighbors and began to join international nonproliferation regimes or passed laws in keeping with those regimes. More importantly, a number of arms control cadres favoring cooperative security approaches were created.

China's active involvement in arms control had significant benefits. Its security was enhanced in a cost-efficient way. China put more resources into economic and social development, which helped raise living standards. And a friendly international environment encouraged more progress in democracy development and human rights protection in China.

Similar benefits accrued in many other countries and regions when arms control progressed quickly during the late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s.

The whole world expected that arms control efforts would move forward quickly so we could reap an even greater peace dividend and build a safer world. More recently, though, global arms control has encountered serious frustrations. This is partially because of complicated and unstable security factors in some regions, but also because of the emergence of a school of thought that is sometimes called “offensive realism,” which developed in the United States after the end of the Cold War.

Offensive realists believe that U.S. military superiority allows it to take a more aggressive strategic posture, relieving it of the need to rely on international cooperation to address security problems. Offensive realists desire to preemptively destroy emerging security threats rather than reduce such threats through arms control. They believe U.S. military power is sufficiently strong that international cooperation and institutions are unnecessary. They also believe that arms control efforts have a negative effect on U.S. security: first, because they constrain U.S. flexibility of response in unpredictable situations; and second, because arms control agreements may shield cheating by other countries.

Offensive realists do not worry that U.S. military buildups may initiate new arms races. Instead, they believe that other countries' attempts to compete will be deterred by U.S. technical and economic advantages or defeated by continuous U.S. improvements in arms development. Although the offensive realists do not feel that military buildup is always necessary, they do not like institutionalized weapons limits or reductions. They prefer to replace enduring arms control agreements with flexible unilateral understandings that allow the United States to reverse the process at any time. Anti-arms control is a main feature of offensive realism, and by the late 1990s its practitioners' influence had expanded so significantly that U.S. policy had become hostile toward arms control.

The first remarkable success of this school was the abolition of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, a branch of the executive government in charge of arms control. Next, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was rejected by the U.S. Senate. Offensive realists also pushed for quick deployment of a nationwide missile defense, requiring the abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). These negative moves in arms control disappointed both American arms controllers and the international community, but efforts to curb the trend have not worked effectively.

Once President George W. Bush entered the White House, offensive realism became ascendant in U.S. foreign policy-making. The U.S. government began undoing global arms control regimes at an unbelievably high speed. It denied the verification protocol of the Biological Weapon Convention, cut funding for CTBT inspection research, shortened the preparatory time to resume nuclear testing, withdrew from the ABM Treaty, raised the U.S. military budget to a historic high, showed an interest in nuclear war-fighting in the Nuclear Posture Review, and invested in research on a penetrating nuclear warhead and a tactical nuclear weapon suitable for nuclear war-fighting.

The only symbolic achievement in arms control during this period was the signing of the Moscow Treaty. The initial idea of the Bush administration was not to have a formal agreement, but for both the United States and Russia to issue voluntary statements on nuclear reductions. Although the Bush administration finally accepted a treaty because of Russia's insistence, it intentionally extracted the main substance of the treaty.

If preemption becomes popular, military conflicts will become more frequent–and by the time the United States realizes it has opened Pandora's box, it may be too late.

The idea of eliminating security threats through military preemption instead of arms control is fully embodied in the guiding document of the Bush administration, the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS). This document formally announces that the United States will use military preemption to defend U.S. security interests and those of its allies and friends.

The word “preemption” in the document has a much stronger meaning than in usual uses. Usually a preemptive action refers to an action taken when a military confrontation has occurred. The NSS provides for preemptive action to be taken when potential rivals' advanced military capabilities are only emerging. Since it is difficult to judge the seriousness of intent or threat at this stage, a preemptive strike may later be proved to have been unnecessary or irrelevant. For example, no evidence has been found to support the Bush administration's claims about Iraqi programs of weapons of mass destruction. This shows, on the one hand, that the use of a preemptive strategy can lead to an abuse of U.S. military power; on the other hand, it also causes many around the world to question the real intentions of the United States.

Some believe that the U.S. intention in Gulf War II was irrelevant to Iraqi weapons capabilities and instead was more about Middle Eastern oil and the attainment of other selfish goals. For example, before the United States launched the war, there were intensive public debates in China about whether China should support the U.S. position. However, sympathy faded quickly as the public tired of the war and American searchers failed to find evidence of the weapons the Bush team had claimed Iraq had before the war. This first test of the strategy of preemption does not seem to have been beneficial, even according to the views of the offensive realists. The war did not, in fact, destroy any existing programs or bases for weapons of mass destruction. But it drove the rest of the world to doubt U.S. intentions and has weakened U.S. leadership around the world.

The strategy of military preemption and its practice in Iraq severely hurt the United Nations and many other international security institutions. These institutions, based on international cooperation, have been playing important roles in encouraging multilateral dialogue, making security arrangements, verifying arms control and nonproliferation agreements, peacekeeping, and confidence building. In the past, the United States made major efforts to build, support, and strengthen these institutions; in turn, they served U.S. interests at a cost much lower than fighting wars. Nevertheless, the preemptive strategy and the contempt the United States demonstrated for the United Nations over the issue of Iraq suggests that the United States no longer considers the United Nations and other international institutions important.

As a result, other countries are losing confidence in international institutions, including arms control regimes, and instead are pursuing self-help in addressing their own security problems. India and Israel have borrowed the concept of preemption, and other countries seem likely to follow. U.S. preemptive actions may be used by others to justify unilateral approaches in dealing with their own security threats as well.

Although the National Security Strategy does not promote the use of preemption as a pretext for aggression, it may overlook the complexity of regional security; for example, in areas with unstable or undefined boundaries, defining what is or is not aggression could be difficult. Sometimes, ethnic and religious conflicts coupled with disputes between countries add to the complexity of regional security. If preemption becomes the popular choice, military conflicts will become more frequent–and by the time the United States realizes that the National Security Strategy has opened Pandora's Box, it may be too late to go back.

The strategy of military preemption is also strengthening threat perceptions in other countries–in China, for example. The NSS emphasizes the U.S. commitment to Taiwan's defense and advocates of the NSS always assert that threats from mainland China are growing. According to the NSS, the United States could conceivably launch a preemptive strike against China for the sake of Taiwan.

Other documents issued by the Bush government seem to support this possibility: The leaked Nuclear Posture Review defines seven target countries, including China, and three scenarios involving potential nuclear weapon use, including a response to the Taiwan problem. These documents, as well as the incautious initiation of the Iraq War, represent a vague but disquieting nuclear threat to China. In addition, the revival of U.S. interest in low-yield tactical nuclear weapons has sharpened threat perceptions.

These signals could disturb economic, social, and political development in China by drawing greater attention to military affairs and reducing China's willingness to cooperate with the United States in curbing proliferation in some regions–for example, on the Korean Peninsula. It is in neither Chinese nor American interests for a chain of negative security interactions between the two countries to be initiated.

A wise solution to these and other security dilemmas is greater cooperation. The preemptive strategy advocated by offensive realists has proved to be invalid in the case of Iraq. Arms control is a much more effective and enduring solution to security problems. It would be worthwhile for the United States to review the strategy of preemption and come back to arms control. That would help bring true and enduring security to the United States and to the world.