China's view of US 'lily pad' strategy By Ehsan Ahrari Asia Times Aug 24, 2004
US President George W Bush's August 16 troop-realignment speech - officially described as Global Posture Review - is read with great interest in the People's Republic of China. Unofficially billed as a "lily pad" bases strategy, it is aimed at creating a network of smaller bases closer to potential hot spots of the globe. Those bases will be used to perform offensive military operations worldwide, taking the fight to the enemy. Even though it is not focused on China, however, given that it describes a long overdue post-September 11, 2001, strategy of the United States' global force alignment, Beijing knows that it will affect its own strategic interests, not only as a rising power, but also as a wanna-be superpower.
In the contemporary strategic environment, no country in its right mind is willing to take on US troops on the basis of a force-on-force war-fighting strategy. At the same time, the greatest challenge to the lone superpower comes from terrorist groups that are constantly probing the world, seeking to destabilize the regional balance of power, and knowing full well that the global sheriff would be there to respond. By overextending its global presence, the transnational terrorists hope to make the United States vulnerable to their attacks. From Washington's vantage point, the agility and flexibility of those terrorist groups must be matched by developing similar characteristics in America's fighting forces to meet that challenge. Thus the Bush administration, after systematically examining the altered international strategic realities during the past three years, has formally released its Global Posture Review.
The US intends to realign its forces in order to make them "more agile and more flexible". About 60,000-70,000 uniformed personnel, and 100,000 civilian family members and civilian employees will move from overseas bases to the United States over the next decade. Two army divisions will leave Germany and return home. In addition, 37,000 troops currently deployed in South Korea, will also depart from their bases. Further negotiations with Turkey and Japan about potential troop redeployment are continuing. In all probability, the US force presence in Turkey might be somewhat reduced because of that country's refusal to station the US forces or allow them passage to northern Iraq during the invasion of Iraq. The greatest lesson for the Pentagon for such future contingencies is to have highly tenable backup plans. However, as a major Muslim ally, Turkey still figures prominently in America's global "war on terrorism". Thus it is politically not feasible to exclude Turkey from the future global posture. Regarding the US force presence in Japan, some troops might move, but with a clear understanding that Japan would increase its military activities with the US forces, primarily in the realm of regional naval activities, such as those in the Malacca Strait and in other joint naval exercises in the coming years.
Since Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East are regions where transnational terrorist groups are exceedingly active now, and are expected to have even a stronger presence in the coming years, the Bush administration intends to make its enhanced force presence last at least 10 years.
China's interpretation of America's lily-pad global force presence strategy is variegated, and is based on a high degree of realism. In a recent article in the People's Daily, it calculates that the Bush administration attaches less significance to "old Europe" - for its refusal to unquestionably toe the US line before its invasion of Iraq - than the "new Europe". The latter region became important in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "eastward march", even though the United States is purposely being tacit about that aspect of its global strategy, which is still aimed at containing Russia. In the Chinese calculation, containment remains as a major aspect of America's Global Posture Review involving their homeland. Thus this strategy is being studied with great care in Beijing with a view to developing timely countermeasures.
In Central Asia, Beijing's countermeasures will be highly intricate, nuanced and dynamic for a variety of reasons:
First, leaders in Beijing have no doubt that radical Islamists of Central Asia - a region that they regard as comprising Pakistan in the western extreme, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China's own Xinjiang autonomous region - continue to be the most potent enemies of China and the United States.
Second, Beijing's leaders know that they cannot envisage America's presence in Central Asia in a purely black-and-white fashion, ie, regard it as purely good or bad. From Beijing's point of view, it might best be described as containing elements of both good and bad. It is good in the sense that the US is definitely deterring the Islamist proactivism by prolonging its force presence in a number of Central Asian countries, viz, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. However, that force presence also has a potential of turning "bad" if the United States uses it in the long run to establish its hegemony in the area, a potential development that threatens China's own aspirations.
Third, the US presence in Central Asia is still promising because it also complements China's own proactivism and presence in that area within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Fourth, the US presence in Central Asia is dynamic in the sense that China, Russia, and the United States may still negotiate avenues of cooperation in the coming years and reduce the destabilizing aspects of Islamist groups.
Fifth, finally and most important of all, America's force presence in Central Asia, as China envisages it, should be constantly watched with a view to altering its own strategy in that area.
America's presence in Central Asia is a source of some comfort, but at the same time a reason for anxiety, for China. The comforting aspect involves containing, or even curtailing, the influence of Islamist forces, especially in Afghanistan and the Afghan-Pakistan border area, where the top al-Qaeda leadership is hiding but still hopes to widen the scope of its destabilizing activities in the contiguous areas in the future. But China is worried by the continued inability of the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to extend its authority in his country, and especially in areas contiguous to Tajikistan.
At the same time, the growing US-Pakistan nexus is being watched in Beijing with a considerable amount of suspicion. As a junior partner of the Sino-Pakistan nexus, Pakistan looms large in the calculations of China's mandarins who are in charge of their country's maneuvering vis-a-vis India, another rising power in its immediate neighborhood. So China does not want to see Pakistan becoming too significant an actor in America's regional strategy, for it may not remain as useful to China's own power game with India.
Even though the US-India strategic partnership is not related to America's lily-pad global strategy, Beijing has viewed with great suspicion its sustained evolution. The US-India strategic partnership has not only outlived the transition from the Democratic administration of former president Bill Clinton to the Republican Bush administration, but also it has been expanding its scope, even in the post-September 11environment. China has no doubt that this partnership has swung the pendulum of advantage in favor of India. However, the transition in India from the former Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to a government led by the Congress party might turn out to be somewhat deleterious for the continuing evolution of that strategic partnership, or so China's leaders probably hope. With the return of Congress to power, India is manifesting some old foreign policy predilections of the Jawaharlal Nehru era, outdated nostalgia for the moribund Nonalignment Movement, or the return of the Cold War-era insistence on India's independent foreign policy. There is no suggestion that the US-India strategic partnership would undergo any amount of unraveling or lose its insignificance. However, any amount of setback would be a matter of great satisfaction to China. Now Beijing would be carefully studying any future linkages between the new lily-pad bases strategy and the US-India strategic partnership.
The Middle East, on the contrary, figures heavily in the Bush administration's Global Posture Review. It has not been an area where China had a major strategic presence. However, that is about to change in the coming years. China's growing energy dependence compels it to ensure access to Middle Eastern oil (and oil from the Caspian Sea) by concluding a number of bilateral and multilateral agreements. The Middle Eastern arms markets were lucrative sources of hard currency for China during the Iran-Iraq War. As long as the Western arms remain hostage to the frequently unpredictable political climate in Washington, Berlin and London, China (along with Russia) will be a beneficiary, largely because of its willingness - or even eagerness - to sell arms to Middle Eastern countries.
After the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and in the prevalence of escalating anti-Americanism in the Middle East, China is hoping to emerge as a major seller of arms, and, consequently, a significant strategic actor in the area. In this sense, regardless of whatever significance Washington attaches to the Middle East from the perspectives of its new Global Posture Review, China enviages it as a promising area for its own aspirations to minimize America's presence and influence, albeit by taking a circuitous route.
In the final analysis, Global Posture Review is not envisaged by China as really giving the lone superpower an inordinate advantage over China's own global and regional ambitions. Beijing knows that it carries no political baggage in the Middle East compared to the hostilities that the United States is currently facing. It can cash in on that comparative advantage and it still hopes to move ahead in South Asia and East Asia, where the United States has a noticeable advantage for now.
Ancient civilizations have a powerful sense of history and an attendant uncanny sagacity to study their competitor's advantage, and then arrive at a conclusion that their own disadvantages are only transitory. That dialectical process enables them to assiduously strive to transform the strategic environment to their benefit, no matter the odds. Thus, China will continue its regional and global maneuvers to take a few steps backward and readjust in order to make further advances, America's new and dynamic Global Posture Review notwithstanding.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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