Return to Winter. Douglas E. Schoen
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leaders and Communist Party officials to surpass the U.S. as the world’s preeminent military superpower by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist revolution. Xi calls it simply “the dream of a strong nation,” but the dream is inseparable from military prowess.
“To achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation, we must ensure there is unison between a prosperous country and strong military,” Xi has said.33 He has spared no resource to focus the military on “combat readiness” and “fighting and winning wars.” No one need spell out whom the war would be fought against. There is only one candidate: the United States, China’s only Pacific and East Asian rival.
“In my opinion,” writes General Liu Yazhou, “the competition between China and the U.S. in the 21st century should be a race, that is, a contest to see whose development results are better, whose comprehensive national power can rise faster, and to finally decide who can become the champion country to lead world progress.”34
Meanwhile, Russia is using its petro-wealth to rebuild its conventional military while also modernizing—and greatly expanding—its nuclear arsenal. Already, Russia’s nuclear weapons outnumber America’s. The 2008 Georgian war made clear, or should have made clear, that the Russians intend to reclaim the entirety of their old Soviet sphere of influence. The West’s failure to lift a hand to help a democratic ally in that struggle emboldened Russian confidence.
“TELL VLADIMIR”: THE U.S. ABDICATION ON MISSILE DEFENSE
On the surface, it was a customary scene: a pool of journalists waiting for the start of a news conference with President Obama and Russia’s then-president, Dmitri Medvedev, in March 2012. But sitting close together beforehand, the two leaders shared an impromptu exchange inadvertently caught by a “hot” microphone.
“It’s important for him to give me space,” Obama told Medvedev, referring to Vladimir Putin, who had just won election to succeed Medvedev as Russia’s next president. “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”
“I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” Medvedev said.
Then, as the two men sat back in their chairs, barely audible over the videotape, Obama could be heard saying, sotto voce: “Tell Vladimir.”
Obama and Medvedev were trying to iron out a long-running dispute between the two countries on American plans to deploy a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe—a system that the U.S. conceived mainly as protection against Iranian nuclear ambitions. The United States insisted that the missile-defense shield was intended to counter Iranian nuclear ambitions; Russia claimed that the real target of American missile-defense plans was Moscow. What mostly spooked the Russians about the American plan was the missile shield’s final phase, then in development, which would allow the U.S. to use interceptors to shoot down long-range ICBMs, a core part of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Those U.S. plans angered Putin, who saw them as an encroachment on his sphere of influence and a betrayal of his cooperation with the West after 9/11—much as he had seen a betrayal in the American plans to expand NATO. He made clear that he would resist the American missile-defense effort at any cost.
“When we talk about the missile-defense system, our American partners keep telling us, ‘This is not directed against you,’” Putin said. “But what happens if Mr. Romney, who believes us to be America’s No. 1 foe, is elected as president of the United States? In that case, the missile-defense system will definitely be directed against Russia as it is technologically configured exactly for this purpose.”35 General Nikolai Makarov, who was then Russia’s chief of the general staff, said of the missile-defense standoff: “A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens.”36
Happily for the Russians, the situation didn’t worsen: In March 2013, just before the Xi-Putin summit meeting, President Obama blindsided them, and American allies, with a unilateral retreat on missile defense. The U.S. announced that it would deploy 14 new missile interceptors on the West Coast or in Alaska, in response to the increasingly bellicose words and deeds of North Korea—but that the U.S. would pay for this redeployment by canceling the last phase of the planned missile shield in Poland and Romania. That last phase, which involved interceptors, had concerned Putin most. Thus the United States, in the absence of any concessions from Russia, had scuttled the most vital aspects of its missile-defense plan for Eastern Europe. (Some GOP senators are urging the administration to reconsider the policy and restart the Bush-era plan for the missile shield, especially in light of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine.37)
The announcement illustrated how strategically off-balance the U.S. remains under President Obama. The missile-defense shield had been geared to protect the region against prospective Iranian nukes, which Iran pursues with Russian assistance. There is no sign that the Iranian danger has lessened; on the contrary, it has grown. Thus, the shield is more needed than ever, but with North Korea acting up, the U.S. merely pulled resources from one dangerous area and shifted them to another. This is not leadership; this is lurching from crisis to crisis.
It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of Obama’s capitulation—one, it’s important to note, that came as a surprise to the Russians, who had no inkling that the U.S. was about to back down. The move telegraphed, yet again, that America lacks a clear strategy and sense of what it is trying to accomplish in the world. Meanwhile, Russia and China show every sign of having clear plans.
Xi and Putin have moved closer together on missile defense, as they have in so many other areas; their expression of unity on the issue may have been the single most important document they signed at their March 2013 summit. The two leaders pledged to work together while voicing common concerns about the deployment of missile-defense systems around the world. They were talking about the U.S., although they didn’t say so.
On the surface, the Russian-Chinese statement of concern about missile defense could have sounded like a note of weakness, a futile complaint against American power. It may have been, too, but for Obama’s big announcement a week earlier, making clear just how “flexible” he intended to be. This American and Western “flexibility”—really, an abdication of responsibility—will only make America’s eventual task harder, should we ever wake from our neo-isolationist slumber.
ECONOMIC COOPERATION
Among the agreements signed during Xi’s March 2013 visit was a deal to proceed with the Power of Siberia natural-gas pipeline, which would provide energy-hungry China with Russian natural gas beginning in 2017. As part of the agreement, the Chinese gave up to $30 billion in loans to Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil company, in exchange for a massive boost to their supplies of Russian oil. Both sides benefit: Russia obtains the capital needed to finish an acquisition of the British-Russian oil firm TNK-BP, while China secures the fuel source to power its workhouse economy.
More broadly, both Russia and China play leading roles in the efforts of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) to create an independent international financial structure—efforts that include starting a development bank and pooling their foreign reserves to protect against currency crises.38 Independently, China has expanded its economic reach across not just Asia, where it projects its economic might through investment and trade, but also deep into Africa and Latin America. Russia uses its growing oil and energy industry to increase its state power and international political leverage, especially in Central Asia and Europe. Russia’s economic ties with nations operating against U.S. interests—especially Syria, but also Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea—are broadening.
NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND “NON-INTERFERENCE”
The Moscow meeting also included several expressions of agreement on a less specific, but hugely significant principle: what both nations speak of as non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. Xi urged China and Russia to “resolutely support each other in efforts to protect national sovereignty, security, and development interests.” At the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, he said, “We must respect the right of each country in the world to independently choose its path of development and oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries.”39