 Good morning and welcome to day two quick just a couple of quick reminders before we get started again Check your electronic devices and make sure they're on silent mode The for the photographer again for the students if you're out and about please remove your Any kind of name tag when they take your question if they take before they take your photo Today's remarks again are on the record, so keep that in mind There's a for today's schedule. There's a there's a there's a slight program change So I just want to make sure you know after the panel speaks We will break at 9 20 and that'll be just a short 10 minute break to get I mean I'm sorry after the keynote speech There'll be a short 10 minute break to get the panel set up and then we'll start so it'll be a shorter break than normal but we'll have that break and then After the panel we'll have a 20 minute break that'll start at 1050 and I just ask you to be in your seats by 1110 for the common on Q&A the same as yesterday make sure you press and hold the microphone the button on the microphone in front of you and Stand up identify yourself And then ask your question And with that introduce you again to the president of the Naval War College. We were Admiral Shoshana Chaffield Good morning all Thanks for coming in an energized and inquiring frame of mind We had a great day yesterday, and I'm really looking forward to our speakers and panel today For this next panel our very own dr. Jessica Blank chain an associate professor in national security affairs will lead a discussion on challenges to American leadership and Please dr. Blank chain, please introduce your panel and the floor is yours Thank you so much Welcome back everyone I am delighted to serve as your moderator for today's panel on challenges to American leadership Featuring some truly brilliant and accomplished panelists I can't possibly do justice to all of their achievements while still leaving time for them to present So I will give some very brief bios before I turn it over to them so Right to my left. We have dr. Sarah Kreps who is joining us from Cornell University Where she is the John L. Wetherill professor of government adjunct professor of law and director of the Tech Policy Institute She is also a non resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a life member of the council on foreign relations She previously served as an active duty officer in the United States Air Force Dr. Kreps research lies at the intersection of technology politics and national security Her writing has been featured in a wide array of journals from foreign affairs to the New England Journal of Medicine And she has been featured in media outlets including CNN the BBC the New York Times and the Washington Post The most recent of her five books is social media and international relations published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press Next we have miss Nadezh Ruland Who comes to us from the National Bureau of Asian? Asian Research a DC and Seattle based think tank where she is distinguished fellow for China studies Prior to joining NBR She served for two decades as an analyst and senior advisor on Asian and Chinese Chinese strategic issues to the French Ministry of Defense Misraland's research focuses on China's foreign and defense policy Grand strategy and the articulation of China's vision of itself as a great power on the world stage She is a prolific author and editor of reports on China's China's global influence and is the author of the 2017 book China's Eurasian Century political and strategic implications of the Belt and Road Initiative Her work has appeared in a variety of international publications And she has been featured in numerous media outlets including the Economist the BBC and the Washington Post Next up we have Dr. Nadia Shadlow a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and co-chair of the Hamilton Commission on securing America's national security Innovation base Previously she was US deputy national security advisor for strategy in that capacity She led the drafting of the 2017 national security strategy Earlier in her career She served at DOD and then at the Smith Richardson Foundation where she helped identify Strategic issues that warranted attention from the US policy commission from the US policy community She also served on the Defense Policy Board and is a full member of the Council on foreign relations Dr. Shadlow's research and analysis focuses on the intersection of strategy national security and technology Her articles have appeared in a range of publications including foreign affairs foreign policy and the Wall Street Journal her 2017 book from Georgetown University Press is titled war and the art of governance consolidating combat success into political victory and Last but not least we have Dr. Toshi Yoshihara who is a senior fellow at the Center for strategic and budgetary assessments He was previously the inaugural John A. Van Buren chair of Asia-Pacific studies and a professor of strategy Right here at the US Naval War College where he was awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Award in recognition of his scholarship in 2016 he has also served as a visiting professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy The School of Global Policy and Strategy at UCSD and the US Air War College He currently teaches a graduate course on seapower in the Indo-Pacific at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University Doctor Dr. Yoshihara has published numerous books articles and reports on strategy and naval power the second edition of his book read star over the Pacific China's rise and the challenge to US maritime strategy which he wrote with the Naval War College's James Holmes was published by Naval Institute Press in 2018 and is listed in a number of the US Joint Chiefs reading lists and His latest book is now his army goes to see the island campaigns and the founding of China's Navy published by Georgetown Use University Press in 2022 and that is enough from me. So I will turn it over to Dr. Krebs Good morning everyone. It's great to be here and a real honor So I'm gonna be talking this morning about what I was asked to talk about and what I work on which is political but this is a Not a paraphrase. This was what I was asked to talk about. So I wanted to put it in the title the political and economic restraints on American global power and So what I'm going to do in these remarks is walk through a few Different steps of an argument so first I'm going to talk about global power And I understand this came up yesterday, and so I'm not going to belabor this I'm also not going to belabor the next part Which I understand is something that will be very familiar to this group and simpatico with this group Which is technology as power and then stepping into Global competition as technology competition kind of Cold War 2.0 as a tank tech competition And then moving on to industrial policy. So this new set of policies that is Insisting not just that the US get ahead, but that it maximize its tech rate of difference rate of growth difference over its competitors and Where that might actually provide economic restraints on US global power and then thinking about Alternatives and ways to maintain global power So as a first step in that as kids these days do I I turned to the trusty chat GPT So what I because I really wanted to I know what I think of as global power But I thought what does what does what does chat GPT think about global power? And the good news was as it as tends to happen with chat GPT And the internet in general the one big Confirmation bias engine is that it told me what I wanted to hear Which is this kind of long thing as it does but then at the bottom and not too far at the bottom cultural influence Technological advancements diplomatic relations and the ability to promote norms and values all contribute to a nation's or Groups global power. So those of you in the audience who know about dime diplomacy What's the eye this isn't a test? Yes M&E military and economic we'll find that also very familiar And we know again sort of one of the things about chat GPT tells us something that seems feasible But in this case, I actually think that's right And it's validated by what we see here in the NDAA So strategic competition disruptive technologies like hypersonic weapons AI 5g and quantum computing Again, I don't think this audience needs this argument to be made about the importance of technology in Global power, but my point is we're seeing this all over the place and so we want to be mindful We want to take this all very seriously and so we do so again You know at the center of this and this seems very micro, but it's really important here the role of semiconductor chips and This has become the center of AI it's become the center of a lot of us industrial and economic and trade policy now So the the reason why some my conductor chips are so central here is that they're important not just for military But economic and civilian advancement and again what we know from international relations 101 is to the extent that a country is Excelling economically. It's able also to fuel its military engine But what we know here is that it's more than just a figurative military engine that these these chips are actually the source of An actual military engine, so they're really important. They're important military militarily and they're important economically And so we know not just so you know, so these chips are kind of a microcosm of this bigger question of Technology, which is why is tech so important in this kind of global power setting? so the digital economy is worth 11.5 trillion and 15.5 percent of global GDP, but what's even more important is the rate of growth So when we think about tech company when we think about our Rivals Nationally really the focus of that has been technology and I would submit for good reason So here Again kind of coming to this almost case study of semiconductor chips You may have read recently about Nvidia, which is a which had been in Until now a company that many people hadn't heard of so Nvidia makes semiconductor chips Which were known I think to the gaming community, but now it's at the center of AI Development so Nvidia makes a chip that now has as you can see here It now is the what is that six largest company in the world by market cap So that's huge and it's an American company and so again It's important economically, but it's also important kind of in this broader set of questions Economically and peer competitors. So here again, I put this up here I think this is maybe surprised was surprising to me again was doing some digging on data This wasn't chat GPT. This is well sourced data on the so in terms of us exports Integrated circuits these things here, which again are at the center of our military development and civilian development Is the fifth largest export in the United States? And so that's very significant. It's really at the point is it's very important to us economic growth but this also presents conundrums in terms of growth and competition and so here is Here's the challenge. So this is both kind of again. This will be very familiar. Tech is an engine in military development So in thinking about the role here in the third offset again, I'm sure this is very familiar to this the people in this auditorium The robotics 3d printing big data AI This is a way in which the US can kind of maintain that strategic advantage So again at the center of that and we can see these key elements here AI AI and autonomy chips then are at the center of that and so it presents again kind of these these conundrums and the conundrum and and I've thought about this and and our previous speaker probably has thought about this as a Historian even more but what has created challenges is sort of in thinking about competition and how The economy and global trade can be a rising tide that's lifting all boats is that the US and China now have through Decades of globalization developed a very kind of in it almost inextricably linked connection with each other, but now Increasingly that relationship is cast as global Cold War 2.0 a tech competition And so tech containment now has very much become part of US strategy and US economic policy and so the question and the provocation here Is whether and this is something again that you know Putin says that the nation again casting this as a race who ever leads an AI will be the ruler of the world again We know from the last speaker that Putin has a tendency to say very off-the-cuff kind of sometimes inane things But I don't I over states it a little bit but again the sort of view here is that AI and tech are central to how Globe what global competition looks like in the 20th or 21st century Here's the conundrum. I talked about how circuits are the fifth largest export But what you may say 3.5 percent of exports But what you might hopefully notice as a discerning audience member is the large square of China as the largest importer of this technology and Again, it's a policymaker. This really sets up a conundrum so if the goal is to increase kind of the relative advantage advantage relative to China and The policy then is to restrict those exports that also is going to have possibly some negative externalities for for the US economy as a whole So what though this power sort of where this policy has Arisen from is this view here that the US used to be responsible for 37 percent of semiconductor manufacturing China was zero percent China's now a quarter compared to the US at 10 percent And so there is very much this argument and imperative to increase resilience right and so the argument so you know in terms of Federal spending on semiconductor research it has been relatively flat And so how does the US again kind of what happened in that in the pandemic is what if there are scenarios where as we show here Taiwan which is responsible for 92 percent of the most advanced chips We know that there are a lot of scenarios security scenarios involving Taiwan so they push then in this arena is to Resure and bring resilience to this Manufacturing of what as I've been talking about is is the hub of both military and economic development However, it has created very much a kind of zero-sum mindset and so it's not as Jake's the national security advisor said recently it's not enough to Identify these other countries as countries of concern that the US needs to stay a couple Generations ahead and that has led to a very restrictive set of export restrictions with respect to China and so the policy that was outlined not too long ago was what the national security advisor referred to as small yards and High fences I have to make sure I get this right so I found this very interesting this Metaphor that we need to go from a global economic order shift from the Parthenon Up here to Frank Gary as an architectural model now. This may be a matter of Personal taste as you'll see I think I I I don't have problems with the Parthenon and I was we I was reading a little bit about the Frank Gary architecture that went into a building at MIT wherein MIT sued Frank Gary because it was leaking and I felt like that also was an interesting metaphor for why we might not throw the baby out with a bathwater here So what he says is that the 21st century capitalism needs to change and that globalization hasn't worked and that we need to Given this foundational nature of certain technologies Maintain as large a lead as possible and again, I I go back to my early international relations training about these debates about Relative gains and zero-sum game and you know, this is clearly kind of a zero-sum You know, whatever their gain is is to our detriment. So we need to kind of keep the competition as far behind as possible And so what that has created is this Really a revival of Industrial policy, which is the US is engaging in a degree of protectionism to try to reshore US manufacturing in this critical space of Semiconductor chips and It harkens back to previous previous eras where And this was something that countries in Asia had done in the 50s and 60s is really kind of create incentives and investment in domestic manufacturing But I think there's a real risk here and this is where I think I want to move to What I call the Greek revival and bringing the Parthenon back in here So one of the concerns here is that these policies might be self-defeating and what what I've tried to paint is this picture where The economic face of of the US and China like it or not are relatively Integrated and the US economy depends on these Economic gains from these tech developments and tech exports So I think there's a real and what we're seeing here, too is a real race to the bottom So as the US has engaged in these policies Europe is saying we're gonna do this Asia's saying we're gonna do this allies from the Netherlands to Japan to Taiwan are saying this is putting this is putting us at a disadvantage as well And so again sort of the question here is is that you know was was was globalization entirely bad? Or were there ways to think about economic efficiencies where we might leverage those? also bolster us economic Industry and our tech industries and help Our allies who are also part of this global trade You know just a sort of last point is there is some question about whether this these restrictions Even work sort of a history of 5g export restrictions is not necessarily indicative of a success So what might we think about if our goal is to maintain a a robust economy a robust technological advancement and Be resilient economically and in terms of this really key industry an Alternative that I think is starting to gain some traction and rightfully so is this idea of high-tech alliances and What you may have heard of as friends shoring or reshoring not reshoring on Near shoring so if you look here at the world of our research and development It turns out that the countries in that sort of upper-right quadrant Which would be the good quadrant to be in are all our friends and allies And so the idea would be here that the these high-tech alliances kind of Aligning with these countries and building resilience through those alliances might try to leverage the the issue of resilience Address the competitive aspect while not knee-capping US industry What you can also see here again on the left is that the US and Europe used to be dominant in this space No longer so but we do have allies and friends who have joined this space So the idea of this high-tech alliance is it is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts engage in more Collaboration on science technology and embrace comparative advantage and the efficiency benefits of trade while leveraging trust among our allies So I I live in upstate New York. We have a lot of Greek revival houses So I was I got sort of thinking about a mini Greek revival. So this was just two days ago As though the policymakers had a preview of my slides US to allow South Korea and Taiwan shipmakers to keep operations in China now that is a bit provocative But what it suggests is that the world is not so black and white and that there is an argument to be made to Capacity building of allies like Taiwan like South Korea, and I think that gestures in that direction so the upshot here is that that Parthenon has some enduring strengths that We you know have benefited as the United States as a global military power as a global economic power from an economic order of globalization and That there are good reasons to take resilience and risk mitigation seriously But there are strategies that might involve The strong economy and strong military strong allies meaning strong the US and strong tech Being a strong national power. Thanks everyone Thank you so much Israel Thank you very much I'm very grateful and honored to speak today as part of this conference and to share some thoughts about the nature of the Challenge that the People's Republic of China poses to the American global leadership It may be Difficult to imagine that the world as we know it could be replaced by something radically different The US has enjoyed three decades of unchallenged leadership and for 70 years liberal democratic norms and values Have not only underpinned the American worldview and driven its defense and foreign policy agendas But also to a considerable degree have shaped the international order we live in America's success was never pre-ordained Not has it ever come without immense sacrifice The US emerged as a global power after winning a world war against fascist powers in Europe and in Asia It asserted its global leadership after winning a four decades long competition against the Soviet Empire Not all world orders emerge out of war However, some may be the result of a relentless Painstaking and very deliberate process of erosion And I believe that the latter is the preferred option that Beijing has chosen as the course for its own rise to the top Episodically the Chinese leadership is gracing us with some remarkable clarity about its ambitions aspirations and purpose at the end of 2017 Xi Jinping observed that the world is in a state of profound changes unseen in a century He has since then repeated this phrase very often in his speeches And I think it doesn't require a degree in psychology to understand that the Chinese leader is Anticipating a power transition that will see China replacing the US and becoming number one Just like a century ago the United States emerged as the dominant power while Britain receded But what different does it make if the leader of the world is based in Jiangnan High instead of in the White House? Let's consider this for a minute In the aftermath of the Second World War the US had accumulated considerable power What did it choose to do with it? It no longer felt able to sit back within its own borders Instead it felt compelled to reshape the world in ways that would be safer for itself more secure for its national interests and consistent with its own values as China's material power has grown considerably. It's now facing similar questions even though obviously Circumstances are very different China is not emerging out of a total breakdown of the international system Resulting of a world conflict. It is emerging into a world that is still dominated by others For decades following Deng Xiaoping's advice Beijing accepted a subordinate position within the existing order But these days are over and in fact we may have only recently began to realize that but Beijing has been Seriously mulling over the next chapter for over a decade since at least the global financial crisis in 2008 and perhaps even earlier The Chinese leadership is now eager to use its newfound power to reshape parts of the world order To make it safer for itself more conducive to its national interests and non-threatening or even Supporting supportive of the principles on which its domestic system is based Now arguably Beijing faces a number of constraints as it begins its journey to reshape the world First and foremost I've I just as I've just mentioned China is rising within a system that already exists It doesn't have the luxury of working on a blank canvas like the US did in 1945 Second even though China feels threatened by some aspects of the existing system It also has benefited from it to a large extent and so destroying it completely would not make a lot of sense Even if China had the power to do so Plus there are elements of it that Beijing is content with at least for now such as the Westphalian concept of absolute sovereignty for example or Trading system in which the big markets of advanced industrial democracies remain open Therefore Beijing's main task consists of claiming and creating some viable space within the existing system Mostly by pushing back Against its most threatening and less desirable features and to this end China has become much more proactive on the international stage Including within international institutions and the Chinese leaders have openly indicated their willingness to take the lead in shaping the future of global governance What are the main features of the existing international system that China is seeking to alter their main targets are belong to the economic Security and ideological domains and Incidentally over the last few months Beijing has formalized these priority domains in the form of things that you may have heard of The global development initiative the global security initiative and the global civilizations initiative So first China wants to become the dominant economic power It's not content content anymore to be the world's factory a position that is the result of its being Incorporated into the global economy for the past 40 years While being consigned to the bottom of the value chain It wants to become a high-tech powerhouse and wants to vault to the top of the fourth industrial revolution It wants to be positioned at the center of world economic trade and financial exchanges Second Beijing wants an overhaul of its security environment in three main ways It considers the US alliance system as a deliberate attempt to encircle and Contain China's strategic space Chinese officials now regularly publicly denounced the US alliances in Asia as destabilizing irresponsible and as Cold War relics in Addition to Declaratory statements China is actively working to undermine the credibility of the US security guarantees in the region by building up its own Conventional and nuclear capabilities to drive a wedge between the US and its regional allies and to keep those allies divided as much as possible China would like to see a change in the distribution of military power the US military superiority its ability to project anywhere Project power anywhere on the globe and to develop and operate the most sophisticated weapons system pose a significant challenge China's security therefore China is actually Actively working on improving its own ability to fight and win wars against its most powerful opponent And finally Beijing doesn't accept the territorial status quo It want to assert and enforce its territorial claims of China's Eastern coast in the East and South China Seas and over Taiwan So that's for the security domain and third perhaps to me at anyway most Consequential for the future of the world order China wants to sap the normative foundations of the existing system The CCP feels threatened by the liberal democratic ideals and principles embodied in the cure in the current order Which are at odds with its own ideology its political foundation and everything it stands for The CCP is attempting to undermine the validity of the quote-unquote So-called universal values, that's how the regime calls them such as human rights and the protection of individual freedoms By rejecting them as nothing but Western or even sometimes American values That are not applicable or viable anywhere other than in the specific confines of Western countries Beijing considers that these values are imposed on others only as a result of the US domination sometimes by force through the instigation of regime change or color revolutions that lead to instability and chaos on the other hand China embodies a new form of human advancement as Xi Jinping said last February an exemplar That and I quote Shatters the myth that modernization is equal to Westernization Expands the options that developing countries can turn to for their own modernization and Provides a Chinese solution for superior social system that the rest of humanity can explore and of course Beijing is trying to undermine the idea of universal values by claiming every single nation is Entitled to its own path including authoritarian and authoritarianism and repression of descent if it feels so inclined without feeling external pressure or lecturing and To establish its own authoritarian model not only as a legitimate alternative But a superior one to liberal democracy This idea is getting much more traction with many regimes around the world than Western capitals seem to realize So that's for the list of Beijing's main rejections But what does a China led world order look like in the end? Well, it's a work in progress, and I'm not sure whether Beijing Political elites have actually a fully formed vision either For the following description, I'm weaving together some of the CCP's official pronouncements With discussions within Chinese academic circles whose main task is precisely to help the Chinese leadership Delineate what this new world order could look like Beijing wants an Asia for Asians Free of US presence and of other external Western powers It calls for the creation of a community of shared future. That's what they call it now Where trade and financial flows physical connectivity and knowledge production exchanges are all centered on China Leading to the eventual creation of a subsystem in which China is the biggest most powerful nation towering over others In this brief new world the is the east is ridden is risen the West has declined China has emerged and the West has shriveled. This is a zero-sum game vision The US has become a distant and isolated island Whereas China's influence is thriving along the Belt and Road corridors spanning over the Eurasian continent Radiating from the Chinese mainland outwards to Southeast Asia Central Asia South Asia the South Pacific to the shores of the Middle East and the African Atlantic coasts a massive chunk of the world that Beijing thinks will become the engine of future demographic and global economic growth Even after China itself has ceased to play this role because it won't grow grow as rapidly A chunk of the world connected by land and sea Voting alongside Beijing in the UN whose markets are dominated by Chinese companies Whose best and brightest minds are trained in Chinese universities Where the prospect for the development of democratic institutions has been weakened the legitimacy and power of universal human rights has been eroded and where China is able to dictate outcomes Impose its will and constrain the options of other countries While being looked up to as the success story the model to follow the wave of the future In other words China is not just looking at Eastern Eurasia as its sphere of influence It's not seeing itself as a regional power of the likes of Iran or Russia Despite regular official statements scorning the idea Beijing wants to become a hegemon in its own right Setting the rules being looked up to and the place where it can fulfill this vision for a new Sino-centric world order the blank canvas that China can use to this end is the non-western developing world This is not the vision of a power on its last legs But one that reflects self-confidence of its present path and future prospects Beijing's outlook is global not regional It's also comprehensive not just focused on military power or conquest It's of course an open question whether Xi Jinping is going to lead his country to a ditch or to a glorious future It will depend in part on China's own mistakes and on other countries agency and contravailing Responses it will also depend on how the West reacts and by West I don't mean a geographic region, but countries that are dear to liberal democratic principles such as self-government rule of law and respect for individual freedom if The West can't be united in a common purpose to resist against Beijing's agenda The Chinese leadership will have more opportunities to have its way how Western powers respond depends on part on how accurate we are In our assessment of what Beijing is trying to do and I hope that in the last few minutes I have given you a clearer idea of what it is that Chinese that China is trying to achieve and that you see why if it's not Prevented the world would be very different from what we have so far being accustomed to Thank you very much for your attention Thank you so much. Dr. Shetha great Well, it's great to be here and even though we didn't really formally coordinate It turns out that Sarah and Adej and I I think will will identify some similar themes Although although some differences and that's a good thing because real change I think starts to happen when you actually have a build-up of similar ideas that move in a certain direction So I thought initially the topic of this panel is challenges to American leadership And I thought initially why are we having this conversation? Because in many ways we and especially probably most of you in this audience Understand how the nature of the world has changed over the past Decade or how it's been moving toward change and understand the shifts in power that have been taking place So why the conversation? Because I think essentially there's still these four big areas of uncertainty that we as a country are struggling with and As as a result We haven't come to the decisions that we need to within these four areas And so this is where I think I sort of align with with Sarah's discussion of architecture And the Dej's discussion of China perhaps having less uncertainty in some areas So initially as I said We understand I think the nature of power and what's what's been happening in the world over the past Decade really power is shifting the United States has no longer been a unipower Polar power for some time Relative military power is shifting as well. It's growing in other regions of the world At the end of the Cold War we had no peer competitor today clearly that has all changed China has a military that threatens East Asia. It's developing its nuclear forces Its powers expanding to other strategic regions of the world and it's using its power sort of in very creative ways In terms of its ports and how it's building out an infrastructure and its dual-use capabilities We've seen a Russia capacity however flawed and certainly clear weaknesses It's still invaded Ukraine and is you creating has created the conditions for a major war in Europe Iran is projecting power almost now to the Mediterranean Dynamics there are significant and troubling in terms of its nuclear forces in terms of some of the capabilities It's developing and I just saw today in the news Apparently another piece of you know good news for us and a brand new lithium mine has been found in Iran so North Korea is developing nuclear weapons as well Economically these shifts in power that we've seen the US share of global GDP GDP is eroding China's economy has grown, you know exponentially since its entry into the world trade organization And even though it's economy there are certainly weaknesses. We're going to see probably obviously less growth But still that the numbers are staggering one figure is that in 2000 its trade with Aizan nations was 29 billion dollars 20 years later. It's close to 700 billion dollars So obviously a lot of the world is highly economically intertwined with China Diplomatic shifts to we've seen largely as a result of kind of the the dynamics that Nadej described China's developing you know a very active diplomatic presence around the world the nature of multilateral Institutions is changing we're sort of holding on to a past But you're also seeing it in the arguments of the global South and Key Nations saying hey We want to see it at the table rightfully so understandably so but how to do this And Finally, you know, I think there's a sense that we and these are all things I think we agree with right which is an important part of my thesis and I'll tell you why There's a sense that that both Russia and China agree that they want to reshape the world and that they're they're successful at it A quote that I came across which I really found kind of telling was in March 2023 when President Xi met with President Putin At a summit and Xi said right now there are changes the likes of which we haven't seen for 100 years And we are the ones driving those changes together and Putin nodded his head and said I agree So a pretty clear good statement of intent And so given this fundamental agreement on on on the nature of these changes and what we face We still have these uncertainties these four areas of uncertainty in the technological domain Military political and economic we haven't settled on what to do in each We haven't developed the operating concepts And so this is where I maybe differ a little bit on you know in Sarah's analysis Maybe I'm not sure but sort of a sense of is the architecture that's emerging settled Have we decide on the pantheon or on Frank Geary? I would say no and that's part of the problem and it's funny because the quote on the Wall Street Journal article that you pulled I pulled that as as well about okay, but to me that indicated Not so much a settlement on the French shoring aspect, but more of an unsettled sense of Why are we giving the signal that it's okay to South Korea and Taiwan to continue to build Semiconductor facilities in China right because so that creates confusion in my view and confusion sort of in my sense of What what is the export control architecture? So it was a good example. So in these uncertainties and technology I don't think we've settled on how to manage the required Innovations in these areas right we know that we know that that AI is going to change the character of war We know that information operations is a problem But I don't believe that we've settled on the architectures yet to harness this power And we don't have the political leadership and haven't had it for a while to settle to basically say this is the way We need to go so I think we're very unsettled in this area I think information operations is a perfect example We have been discussing information operations and our problems in this domain for ten years We do not have an operational concept Maybe the military does at a tactical level because that is what always comes back to me But ask the State Department what their operational concept is for information operations when the levers of power when the platforms of Power are all owned externally. We don't have one I think it's a little bit better as I said at the tactical level So I think similarly we don't have public private models that are working We use the phrase all the time and yet you have companies out going out of business all the time because they have this great technology They can't bring it to DOD to scale. We still see stories all of the time I'm compiling, you know a little list so when I feel enraged I can turn to it and see and I'll pick on the army But a good one a recent one that I learned so sorry to my army friends It's taken the army ten years to field group one drones which are available on the Internet ten years for free You could just order them and now they're 17 times the price because of the special specific Requirements that have been added into the program. So these are stories. They abound in every service So to me this suggests we have not settled on the model yet. We keep describing the problem We're frustrated by it, but we haven't settled. I think in many respects China has settled on that model Although I'll leave that to Nadezh and Sarah and Yoshi to talk about I think within within sort of the world of politics and democracies We we're seeing populism which which is essentially Concern about the rules and a step of establishment parties, right? Social cohesion is waning making it much harder and politically more difficult to settle on the model of how to bring us back together Another I'm wary of polls, but this one I found particularly disturbing So I'll throw it out there. There's a recent Rasmussen poll Which when participants were asked if the US? Constitution should be mostly or completely rewritten rewrite the Constitution 72% of Republicans said no and only in my view 28% of Democrats said no Which means a lot of people think we should rewrite the Constitution So how do you begin to build social cohesion? How do you rebuild it? What is our concept for doing that? We don't have a concept. We're not an agreement about what our public schools should be teaching We're not in agreement on on even you know the nature of whether or not our Our institutions are strong or weak. So it's it's hard I think we don't we don't have we don't have that concept and in the economic domain, too We're really struggling with these operating concepts Globalization what's globalization 2.0 look like does the United States work to build a free trade agreement? With what's the successor to the TPP? How do we deal with this problem of other countries wanting market access? We haven't settled on it, which is why you see kind of everything is sort of at a standstill There's ipath, which is the I forget what it stands for but it's a new Pacific a framework in the Pacific For free trade. It's at a standstill It's at a standstill because we don't want to give countries actual market access Which is what they want and we want to demand that other countries abide by our labor agreements abide by Are kind of a lot of our domestic issues and so they're like they're saying no Don't tell us what to do internally So this is at a standstill and I don't see a way forward in terms of our political leaders Haven't really defined it and I think we're less. I think there's still Even in the industrial policy domain I think we're not really sure what we've passed legislation But we have huge hurdles to implementation and we're not really we don't have the operational plans to implement or the Operational concepts or the timeline set out so again I think all of this feeds into threats to American leadership Because we're playing catch-up. We're not leading with a vision and we're not leading with operational concepts And I love I'm sorry I keep repeating the term But I think it's really important and I think it's really a term that really only the military and our government understands Because without them you don't get from the tactical to the strategic and that's what's missing in many of these areas and it's driving Continued American weakness or or we're not exploiting the opportunities that we could be and finally even in the military domain All you know what you all follow most closely There are many of these uncertainties We are now struggling and it's natural because it's hard to come up with a new concept for deterrence That we hope will hold because we have obviously more than two nuclear powers, right? So deterrence is just up in the air today, right? We were not sure what the new formula is going to look like And it's that's pretty dangerous, right? And it's really difficult hypersonics at least I mean, you know now three major nuclear powers us China and Russia but Iran North Korea serious capabilities hypersonics Asymmetric threats, so it's really it's really hard. We're we're struggling with approaches to how do we make our platforms more survivable? What's the right formula between existing platforms and adding on new capabilities to those or scrapping most existing platforms and going for new? You know there are concepts out there, but they haven't been adopted and we'll hear later from from General Berger And I would say you know the Marines actually have said okay here We are going to be developing a new operational concept here and look at the pushback, right? Right or wrong, but but it's an example of taking a choice to solve a particular problem sets I think the military has been criticized rightly so by some like Andy Krepenevich He's written a great new book on this where he argues against the tendency to focus on on kind of abstract domains as opposed to specific adversaries I think China is very specific in looking at what American satellite structures look like what American forces look like and China has developed as I'm sure Yoshi is the expert specific asymmetric capabilities against us, right? We have this tendency and this has been a tension in our military for some time the abstract the capabilities or the threat-based planning So I don't I don't think we're there and you know just to poke a little bit my pet peeve We don't have an operational concept, but yet we've told DoD that climate is an existential threat for DoD What's an operational concept to deal with a non-thinking adversary, right? So you need to actually think about that. What are you being asked to do? Can you so it's it's just an example. There's a lot of uncertainty out there But given that you know to sort of go to where I began our heads are not in the sand We are seeing problem sets that we all pretty much agree with but our focus now has to be on solving the problems We don't need as much description of the problem set anymore But institutions like this and back in your wherever you go back to I think the focus needs to be more and more And how we are going how we are going to get there So, you know some some answers going forward and these aren't easy and I can't look you know I can't solve the problem now I don't have the time but that's sort of a lucky way out because it's actually pretty hard to do all this But you know decide I mean I think a focus needs to be the traditional maintaining regional balances of power, right? Just because it's an older concept doesn't mean we reject it But what's different about it is that we approach those regions in different ways with new operational concepts with new approaches And with a new toolkit, you know, there are some I mentioned some out there Actually, Admiral Selby and a co-author Mike Brown wrote something very interesting recently about distributed deterrence with a concept for what to do You might not agree with every component of it, but it's a good example of a concept and thinking through the problem sets There's the the time old, you know, how do we get How do we deal with this problem of speed or lack thereof again? We know the problem I mean, I would venture to say that we need to incorporate time as the more specific element of Strategy and account for it and if you can't get there don't promise anymore I have an article coming out on that which I'm happy to send And so finally, you know to do all this we need a fundamental confidence in the United States and in our role in the world So I think in many ways in these four domains of uncertainty We're struggling because of that fundamental lack of confidence about what do we want to represent in the world How do we when we're dealing with our social cohesion problems? What is our formula for advancing or thinking about human rights in the world, right? I mean we it's it's hard to manage that and we're seeing the repercussions of that, right? We're seeing that because countries are saying well, okay Look what happened in Afghanistan and you're advancing human rights and look what you know I mean, however you feel about about about that situation It's very hard to come up with an operational concept for advancing human rights When millions of women have been re-enslaved in Afghanistan. It's hard So I'm gonna end with a quote and I think you know and maybe we're overstating China's confidence, but China at least externally as as Nadej pointed out is really is it it's expressing confidence It's saying to the global South and other countries in the world Our model is the better model. We are not saying that as a country, right? So I'm sorry. I wish I could end on a higher note I mean, I do think a lot of this can change I do think a lot of it can change with leadership and with the right coalitions of leadership Certainly the outward projection of confidence. There's a lot going for this country We still have students who want to come here all of those metrics that you all know and hear But we have to work harder on some of the concepts and we have to basically stop looking at processes as Outcomes and really start focusing on the outcomes and on demanding of our students and of our leaders To constantly push toward that toward that outcome because I think that that's the only way we're going to get around these these four uncertainties That I described and that's good because that means there's a lot for all of you in the audience to do So, um Thank you Thank you so much. Dr. Yoshihara Good morning It's always a real pleasure to be back at the war college and back at the forum I hold many fond memories of this institution having taught here for over Ten years this morning what I'd like to do is to address China's great power military challenge to the United States I'd like to discuss how the People's Liberation Army the PLA Thinks about great power war as a peer rival of the United States and like the keynote speech by Mary I'm going to make the case for history My talk will be based on my latest CSBA study published in January of this year about Chinese lessons from the Pacific War and How those lessons inform Chinese thinking about a great power war with the United States in this study I survey the extensive Chinese language literature to pinpoint Operational insights that Chinese strategists have gleaned from them I find that Chinese analysts including those affiliated with the PLA have carefully studied the Pacific War Their accounts of the war at sea draw explicit lessons for the future of Chinese warfighting Including war in the information age modern amphibious landings land-based maritime strike and expeditionary logistics These analyses reveal hints of the PLA's deeply held beliefs about future warfare and of the PLA's Enduring weaknesses that it is determined to reverse So by looking at the Pacific War through Chinese eyes I argue that the policy community can better appraise Beijing's evolving views of potential great power wars in the Indo-Pacific So why should we study Chinese views of the Pacific War? Well first China is pursuing a world-class military a goal that it seeks to achieve by mid-century I expect the PLA to emerge as a formidable regional and global power in the coming decades Possessing the means to influence events near and far and as it does so It will no longer be an exclusively anti-access area denial force Focused on defending the approaches to the homeland rather it will go global and as we've already witnessed over the past decade The PLA is in fact quite busy in various theaters outside of the western Pacific and therefore it will acquire The capabilities for sea control and power projection and in many cases it will rival the US military The Pacific War which featured a war at sea between pier navies is thus an increasingly relevant historical analogy Second we know that the PLA is a learning organization. It has learned vicariously through other people's wars This is primarily because it itself has not fought a major conventional combat for many decades For the most part the PLA has focused on wars between weak and strong powers Basically the United States beating up on second-rate and third-rate military powers of the past three decades Now this was entirely understandable then Since the PLA rightly assumed that it would be fighting from a position of relative weakness against the United States But as the PLA catches up achieves parity and even assumes superiority in certain warfare areas Over the US armed forces. It is finding that the wars of the last three decades are less relevance to less relevant to its Circumstances instead it is finding that wars between pure great power militaries like the Pacific War offer more useful parallels Now this is a very huge topic I had to scope my research down and so I chose to engage in campaign level analysis This is important because this is a basic building block of PLA theory In practice for case election. I chose Midway, Guadalcanal and Okinawa These campaigns illustrate different aspects of the Pacific War including fleet-on-fleet engagements Protracted war and phibious operations and shore-based firepower and of course all of these factors are highly relevant to the PLA today And to potential contingencies in the Indo-Pacific Drawing from these three cases Identify common themes that emerged from the writings and so for the purposes of brevity I'm just gonna focus on five cross-cutting themes The first is that Chinese analysts have paid very close attention to the role of combined arms tactics and inter-service coordination Which of course substantially boosted US combat power during the Pacific War Second Chinese observers appreciate the critical importance of shore-based air power Across all three campaigns which conferred major advantages to the side that possessed this kind of air power Third they understand that logistics was absolutely essential to American success in the war fourth Chinese writer see concentration of force as a key ingredient to operational victory and in this in the sense They're actually quintessentially class of it's Ian Fifth they attribute us successes to superior intelligence and reconnaissance Particularly at midway. What I'd like to do is to dive in deeper on two of these themes The first is the role of shore-based air power and at midway Chinese writers note that US Air Forces at midway Despite their tactical ineffectiveness Knocked Japanese carrier fleet sufficiently off balance to allow American carrier based aviation to deliver the decisive blow At Guadalcanal Chinese analysts observed that Henderson airfield Provided the bases for different uses of air power including close air support air defense and interdiction at Okinawa Chinese observers understand that the inability of US carrier aviation to suppress numerous Japanese airfields on Kyushu Allowed Japanese shore based air power Including kamikaze's to inflict heavy losses Conversely, US air power established on Okinawa provided different uses of air power Including deep fighter sweeps against Japanese air bases on Kyushu that pushed back Japanese air power away from the theater of operations The second factor is the role of logistics at Guadalcanal Chinese analysts observed that American forward basing Convowing and effective defense of sea lines of communication by air and my by sea Allowed for the constant flow of material and troops to the island They note moreover the effective interdiction of enemy resupply by a shore based air power and artillery Further cemented America's logistical advantages this superior American performance contrasted sharply with poor Japanese Logistics which were ill-equipped to resupply their forces on the island a predicament that was made worse by American interdiction At Okinawa Chinese observers very impressed in fact frankly in awe of US forward basing at the Korama Islands The entire logistical infrastructure across the Pacific including the anchorage at Ulythi The at sea replenishment fleet the massive amphibious assault force and the follow-on resupply efforts that kept the ground offensive going All of these to Chinese eyes were absolutely extraordinary one scholar described it as a miracle Chinese analysts also engaged in counterfactual analysis Which is to assess alternative courses of action by either side that could have changed the course of the conflict Such critical analysis in my view gives some hints as to the quality of Chinese thinking So first counterfactual if the Imperial Japanese Navy had concentrated forces at Midway Rather than disperse forces against the Aleutians and against Midway itself It might have had overwhelming power to defeat the American carrier fleet Second counterfactual if Japan had not contested the Solomon's rather than poor resources into an untenable and over extended position It might have been able to withdraw to more defensible positions To impose more cost on the incoming Americans Third counterfactual if Admiral Mikawa had pressed his attack against vulnerable American transports at Guadalcanal Rather than withdraw his fleet after inflicting heavy losses on the Allied fleet Japan might have significantly disrupted the logistical foundations that contributed to later American success Last counterfactual if Japan had conducted an all-out early air assault against U.S Forces assembling around Okinawa and had conducted a ground offensive to push American landing forces back into the sea Japan might well have bloodied the Americans even more. I think this counterfactual is rather problematic, and I'll come back to it Chinese writings have furthermore Explicitly linked their analyses to the future of PLA warfighting to the Chinese U.S. intelligence and reconnaissance at Midway Confirms the essential characteristics of informationized warfare in the future The role of U.S. seaborn radar pickets at Okinawa as an air defense layer illustrates to PLA analysts the centrality of commanding the electromagnetic domain The importance of shore-based air power parallels key elements of the PLA's doctrine of a joint fire power strike campaign When Chinese analysts describe the landings and counter landings at Okinawa at the Guadalcanal They are reminded of the importance of defending against Taiwanese counter-landing operations in an invasion scenario When they look at logistics they see how the Chinese Navy should emulate the U.S. Navy in conducting future Farsi's operations Admiral Mikawa's mischance against American logistical vulnerabilities at Guadalcanal reinforces the PLA's principle in its own thinking about future counter logistics campaign Now I conclude the report with some thoughts about the need to in to sort of further interrogate these Chinese lessons I think it's important not to take all of these lessons at face value We should seek to understand why Chinese writers have chosen to focus on some lessons, but perhaps ignoring others Many of these lessons speak well to PLA strengths such as Informationized warfare and shore-based firepower in other words. They're drawing these lessons because they're reinforcing existing beliefs and concepts I Speculate in the report on whether the harsh judgments rendered against the Japanese reflect a kind of prejudice that in turn reveal an analytic blind spot among Chinese analysts on things related to Japan both past and present The counterfactual analysis can frequently can be disconnected from the larger strategic picture Chinese strategists for example do not take the extra analytical step to Consider what might have happened had the Imperial Japanese Navy won at Midway could the Japanese have gone further Chinese analysts do not really address that question Some counterfactuals go entirely unexplained in particular the highly problematic assertion that Japan should have gone on an early counteroffensive at Okinawa Here too, I speculate whether this view about conducting this all-out attack Really reflects the PLA's own preferences for striking first in the context of its active defense doctrine In other words, the PLA in this case is essentially projecting its own beliefs onto its own interpretation of the past We have another counterfactual Repeated across multiple writings is the idea that Admiral Mikawa missed that opportunity to wreck vulnerable American logistics I think this is interesting because this notion Parallels another more recent PLA counterfactual view that Saddam Hussein missed a similar opportunity To attack US forces assembling in Saudi Arabia during the early phases of the first Gulf War again This seems to be another kind of projection Finally, I acknowledge that there's certainly a difference between knowing a lesson and truly learning a lesson right for the PLA or for any Organization for that matter to learn in a meaningful way these lessons need to be institutionalized and this is a process That's frequently opaque to us outsiders particularly with regard to the PLA So I caution readers to be aware of inferring too much from these lessons Let me conclude by talking about a few other lessons I came across cases in which the Chinese are learning from American learning They appear quite interested in examining what lessons we're learning from our own conflict I came across a Chinese Translation of a student paper by a Marine officer who had attended the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School here at the Naval War College And what was the paper that so attracted this Chinese analyst's attention? The relevance of the battle of Wake Island to the Marine Corps recent operational concepts Interesting to say the least so be aware. They're reading your papers Let me conclude by tying this research to my learning here at the War College Particularly when I taught the strategy and policy course The idea for this research can actually be traced to my time here the Pacific War case study Particularly the mini case study on the Guadalcanal campaign Struck me as potentially relevant for future warfare in the Indo-Pacific And I found that PLA analysts appear to agree with me Which led me to keep digging and that was how I stumbled across a large untapped literature in China That became the basis of this report So I'm particularly pleased to share my findings with you based on what I learned here. Thank you Thanks so much and thanks to our panelists coming in right on time. We have about 20 minutes for questions Good morning. Thanks for coming here and taking my question. I'm Tony King from Naval Engineering Systems Command When thinking about executing a strategy And the means to do it resource constraints I feel one of the resource constraints that is kind of given short shrift recently is human capital You know what we're seeing, you know, I hear people in the national security space and say You know, we're really trying to execute a defense strategy that costs 1.2 billion or 1.2 trillion And we're trying to do it with 800 billion dollars But if we were given another 400 billion tomorrow, I don't think we could execute it If we made the decision tomorrow that we're going to build 10 virginia class submarines a year Even if we had the shipyards to do it, we couldn't do it And we're seeing these constraints imposed both on us and on industry as we're both Chasing the same talent pool So my question for any one of you probably dr. Krebs, but anybody could probably You know give you your thoughts on is this a concern that is percolating up through the national security, you know Through the blob, right? Is it widely acknowledged as this is something we're going to run into? You know, there's a reason so we offshore a lot of our Manufacturing's we just don't have the you know, we don't have the human capital to do it So just just wondering your thoughts on that Yeah I think that's a huge question and it's something I've Written about but didn't have a chance to touch on in these remarks, which is that This idea of reshoring manufacturing Requires human capital Intel has said that they don't have the manpower to build these plants in Ohio And that's just one small example, but it's representative of a bigger problem And so I think that you know in this uh science Chips and science act. They're trying to build a pipeline Of high tech kind of stem oriented people, but that's only part of the issue so you need both the kind of High skilled and lower skilled labor and I think that's a real deficit That is not receiving the attention it it deserves and I think it percolates through all different facets You know to your point it's it's happening an industry is happening across the economy So I think that's a limitation that is certainly important that we didn't touch on until now. So I appreciate that I'd just like to add. I mean, I think that's a perfect example of the operational concept problem set Right, so we say we want to achieve a certain set objectives But haven't figured out the alignments of new types of certification programs of specific companies that can work in states To increase throughput of people. I mean there are ways to do this, but we're just not doing it And if you go back um to to continue to be the In 2009 if you go back to president obama statements across obama all the way through today all presidents They've identified the same set of problems And in fact the numbers in terms of stem have continued to decline and where the united states finds itself You know in sort of international ranking So it's just to say we're repeating the same sets of problems But if we had actually created operational plans to do something differently 10 years ago We'd be at a different place today So and I think some of the tech community Is looking to external visas for this and that's fine But we can't give up on our educational system here, too And we have opportunities now uh to do things differently. Um, so Pardon I mean I think there's time to do so if we actually work really quickly with industry and take a state-based approach And and also change the way the government allows for funding of different types of educational institutions So right now it's much harder for students who want to do certification programs to get loans Right, that's that's all biased toward higher education. We need different kinds of workers But certainly there could be I think there could be ways Hi, good morning commander steven collins. Thank you so much for your time here today You've really I've been thinking a lot this whole panel. So you presented us with a lot of significant artifacts And I've heard terms. I wrote down some global power regional power hegemon near pier Eroding current international order superiority economic leader. Our model is better competitor adversary Are these adjectives appropriate for a country benefiting from developing nation status? And if yes, why and if no, how would the premise of your? Presentation to change if china has to bear the requirements of a developed nation would our disadvantage change and What would change economically and as well as budgetary budgetary assessments? Thank you I think that's actually changing now. So I think you I think it's changing on the hill, right there actually there is an effort now to re To remove that status because of the benefits it confers, right? Right. Yeah Yeah, it's it's a very recent. I I saw something like a couple of days ago that on the hill there are going to question the Developing nation status I'm not sure about the impact that this is going to have. I'm I'm just spending my time Trying to understand what Beijing thinks not what the americans think so That's my limitation It will have an impact in in the in the world bank and some of the multilateral organizations and the way those incentives are set up so If that if it's um, if it's status changes Good morning, john davidson department army civilian. First of all great presentations Very thought-provoking. So thank you my question is for miserable on and Dr. Yoshihara And it ties back to the analogy that you presented to us earlier miserable on about China sees the the developing world kind of as a blank canvas upon which to put its premature So what I would like to ask is can either of you foresee a point in the not too distant future Where china Makes sweeping claims of sovereignty Over the eastern indian ocean region similar to what it's done with the south china sea based upon dubious legal justifications dubious history and Attempts to back those claims up with the development and fielding of a large Indian ocean fleet that would be based out of say qiao fu in me and mar and sustained through the China me and mar economic corridor Thank you for this question. I think You know the blank canvas is not necessarily going to be One full of military deployments or even Boots on the ground necessarily I think the way beijing is approaching it at least to this point, you know We'll see how this grows as their military capabilities grow But for now it's more it's everything It's a very comprehensive vision that starts with economic influence that can be used both as incentive and leverage against the decision-making of those countries This is what the belt road is about. It's not a development plan. It's an influence plan It's it then evolves into political cooperation and training So that seems into the ideological governance part It evolves into diplomatic Support for china in international institutions On things that are on on aspects that are growing, you know, it used to be taiwan Xinjiang Tibet But now it really is about the core Vision for what the What the values that and the norms that underpin the current order should look like and this Effort to push, you know the right to development That is very appealing to many of the developing countries as well um, the degree of Chinese penetration of these societies is usually under Screwed scrutinized If you look on at the detailed level of how They are developing what they call sharing experience programs Both with at the you know level of uh educational high education media health Anything you can think of really To train The sort of rising future generations of these societies. It's really important. So And then when you think about actual boots on the ground deployment I know that over here you think about naval bases I think the way they think about it is more But she knows better than I do More in terms of dual use access and dual use facilities where you know I've just concluded a A research project on on on the way the chinese elites think about the african continent Like at the strategic level And you can see that they are sort of building those very integrated Uh knitted together hubs that Connect railways to ports to industrial zones That are perfectly for commercial purposes But you can see that actually next to the industrial zone you have hospitals And then those pipelines and and trains can deliver Whatever you need to replenish your ships perhaps later on So you need to try to think about what this blank canvas could look like and it could be very different from what we're used to it's uh I was uh Reading just yesterday before coming here a discussion among Like strategic planners in beijing that dated 10 years ago and they were saying You know, we cannot become colonialists But sort of this is what we need to do right to continue to to expand our our Our our influence So to me the question is how they are going to square That circle of the need to expand Uh under A context of a 21st century Um Context yeah where where the the things are That are acceptable are very different um But i'll i'll turn to um to toshi for the For the indian ocean part Sure, so i'll i'll talk a little bit about uh chinese military strategy within the larger architecture That was just talked about um, and I think um We typically think of sort of china's The key maritime domains as being those in its Immediate periphery the yellow sea east china sea in the south china sea But I think increasingly we do need to think about other sub maritime theaters Beyond what the chinese call the near seas and I think one sub Theater is the bay of bengal or the northern indian ocean area Because that is in many ways uh one of the Uh thoroughfares that chinese naval and air forces have to pass through In order to reach out into the broader oceans of the in uh of the indian ocean and and beyond I think it's also Important to think about the bay of bengal as actually a part of china's thinking about homeland defense So uh in their um Science of military strategy document that was published now 10 years ago Actually describes china's homeland defense as having a strategic arc that covers not only large parts of the western pacific but also The northern indian ocean to include the bay of bengal Which means that For pla planners they believe that their forces have to be able to conduct what they call deterrent operations As far out as the bay of bengal in order to defend the chinese homeland And so I think as the pla continues to modernize and continues to acquire power projection capabilities their definition their the their The the geographic scope of what they consider to be homeland defense will continue to to expand And so I think it's worth thinking about some of these sub theaters that we typically exclude You know when we talk about china's defense strategy One one thing i may add is also when you when you see this sort of maritime expansion you you You may understand why it is so important for beijing to be Like closely knitted to russia Because if the northern continental theater is insecure, then you cannot progress to the To the maritime domain And so this is it's not the only reason obviously, but it's one of the reasons why Having you know being in the lockstep with with russia is so important because you secure the the continental site All right, I think we have time for one maybe two more Upfront here Good morning, randy johnson The foundation appreciate your being here This is a question I asked yesterday, but because of your additional insights. I'd like to ask it again How do the russians and the chinese view the united states? What do what do they see as our strengths and what do they see as our vulnerabilities? I think i'm not sure about russia. This is not my area of expertise, but China sees the us both as the model and the Hated model. It's a love in hate. I think relationship Um It's uh, it's the only thing that stands in the way of china's own ambitions Um, and I think that no matter what the us is doing Um Beijing will always see the us as the main adversary Um, because it's not about what you're doing. It's about What you are? And it's because it's completely antithetical to antithetical to the ccp's own ideology So This is this is what is in there Is and has been in their mind. Um, they're Afraid of us power and also jealous of it And they're not necessarily trying to model themselves on the us, but there certainly are As as toshi just mentioned you they're studying a lot of what you are doing And learning a lot from it But the the point of my question. Do they see it as Of you know a power that's declining. Did they see corruption within our society? Do they see vulnerabilities? And what are they, you know that kind of thing? I We always when we had these discussions we always Do it from our perspective, which is reasonable. But what are they thinking about us? Yeah, they they They see that the us has started to decline a while ago already like the relative decline of the us has started and the the main like the the marker Was really 2008 2009 with the global financial crisis. This is where they saw Or that's how they read it. It's that the the the liberal Democratic capitalist model was on its last legs and had shown A lot of its problems and issues and this is where they start to see that their own trajectory is going up so You you see regularly Chinese leadership and the lead saying that the you know, the east is rising and the west is declining On the other hand, they don't really see that this decline US decline is going to be very sharp. It's going to be a long protracted process Which is going to give and their own rise is going to be a long protracted process as well They see all sorts of problems the rise of populism The the frictions inside of the u.s. Society The decline of soft power um Just like what nadia was mentioning, you know, it's it's like the shining light anymore the discontent the I think What's interesting to me is also that many of these assessments are actually A reflection of what they hear you say about yourselves And I think that goes to the point that nadia was was talking about Which is we need to regain self confidence, you know, after all, this is this is the united states. Damn it So it's a french saying that okay, so i'm i'm i'm not a i'm not a us passport holder But so yeah, you know, and I think that they they can they read a lot of You know the the media and how people talk about it here And so their assessment is partially a reflection of how you see yourselves So yeah So i'm just going to take a step back and sort of Think about how this Helps in the formulation of our strategy, which is to understand areas where the chinese overestimate us And to understand areas where they underestimate us And I think those types of misassessments can be highly informative in terms of our strategy formulation What can we do to essentially surprise them in areas where they persistently underestimate us Where are areas where we can bluff our way through if they overestimate us in certain areas? I think those are those are good ways of thinking about strategy formulation I do want to talk about a one sort of sharp apparent asymmetry Uh That has informed Chinese writings about the pacific war, which I think is actually quite informative Which is the command culture? And the ability to deal with uncertainty between the imperial japanese navy and the us navy And the metaphor that was used by one analyst is that uh, the Japanese command culture is like a highly choreographed Western opera Whereas the american command culture is like jazz blues In other words, uh, the u.s. Military performs very well Especially at time when the plan goes out the window right when it's time to improvise when it's time to adapt When it's time to make adjustments to uncertainty and risk That's where in many ways the u.s. Military stood out during the pacific war and in other conflicts So it seems to me what what is interesting is that the pla appears to be aware of this asymmetry Because the pla is in many ways very much like uh, the imperial japanese navy a tendency to choreograph The tendency to to have very structured plans that are highly inflexible So understanding those strengths and weaknesses Based on their assessments of the past might gives us hints about pla weaknesses that we could potentially exploit right so If indeed their own description of their weaknesses are in fact true Then we should think about ways to spring surprises on them to put pressure On uh an inflexible more sort of doctrinaire command structure Unfortunately, i'm gonna have to cut us off there. We are at time. Uh, please join me in thanking our panelists one more time