The Next Arms Race
There are two large empires in the world today. Russia and China. The possibility of either becoming unraveled should, at the very least, lead Western governments to serious reflection. Of the two political entities, Russia is the one that has shown more stability over the course of the past two or three centuries. It is true that today Vladimir Putin does not enjoy the same raw power as Xi Jinping. However, as a country, and with its history, Russia has more holding it together.
The possibility of Vladivostok no longer being subservient to Moscow, in the near future, is small. Russia, as evidenced by the two-headed eagle that symbolized the former Czarist empire, sees itself as both European and Asian. As the world’s largest land mass, it has immense, disparate communities; spanning two continents, encompassing dominant Christians and a large minority of Muslims, historically ascendant Slavic languages as well as numerous speakers of Turkic languages.
The Chinese Revolution of Mao Tse-tung, the smashing of Tibet and the exile of the Dalai Lama are events recent enough for some living people to recall. Taiwan has never been allowed to feel safe and its people live in a state of permanent fear. The brutal repression of both the Uighurs and the residents of Hong Kong is ongoing. China’s current expansionism in the South China Sea has made it no friends, particularly in Vietnam and the Philippines. South Korea and Japan, American allies and close neighbours to the Middle Kingdom, are in a state of constant readiness.
Careful thought should be given to a scenario involving the potential end of the Chinese empire.
Should Chinese state power begin to show serious cracks, what would the reaction be of each of these groups and nations, or their leaders? Would they be pro-active or reactive? Would they be aggressive or passive? Would they exploit perceived weakness, or retreat into a newly gained safe-zone? Would they join in common cause, or would old rivalries among them re-assert themselves? Very few or none of the plausible answers to these questions contains a scenario that does not involve the threat of serious instability at best, and war, at worst.
What of the social consequences of the very tight controls under which Chinese citizens currently live, being removed? It would be useful to recall the great Spanish belt-loosening that occurred after the death of General Franco: the Fascist dictator had kept his country in such a state of reactionary repression that, once gone, the country’s youth exploded in a fiesta of well, everything that had been forbidden until then. And that was a lot.
What of China’s neighbours and client states? How many are unstable régimes, currently kept calm through Beijing’s intervention? While it is hard to say, it is equally difficult not to speculate. Without a strong China where would its protégé, the North Korean dictator, be today? Would his adversaries get the upper hand? Would he, feeling cornered, hit the nuclear button?
As Russian expansionism continues the simmer in Europe, one can only expect Germany to continue re-arming. It was long prevented by treaty conditions from doing so, as a consequence of the Second World War, which Germany initiated only 25 years after it had started the first. Berlin is now a member of NATO, a military alliance created to defend against a potential Russian aggression. It is also the largest economy in Europe, having intertwined its economic present and future with its continental allies. The closest is its traditional enemy and neighbour, France. In other words, it is not alone.
Or, at least, it was not meant to feel alone. However, Russia is a geographical neighbour. It controls the flow of natural gas, so important in winter. It also has a large, if uneven economy, is a huge military power, and is not averse to flexing its muscle in ways diplomatic, commercial, and otherwise.
NATO is a very important alliance, but it needs to be convincing. In recent years, the U.S government has seen it as a charity project, something to be used to manipulate Europeans and intimidate Russians, to be sure, but, ultimately, not a crucial piece of its own defense plans. Washington regularly complains of the expense and, under Trump, threatened to dissolve the Treaty altogether. Of course, this did nothing to re-assure European allies; in fact, they wondered if they were still allies at all. But it also did nothing to intimidate or even dissuade Russia. Quite the opposite.
Russian expansionism in the Middle East, such as in Syria, can be unsettling. But its invasion of Ukraine must be menacing to Berlin, which is trying to walk a fine line between maintaining a strong alliance with the US and other NATO members, on the one hand, and not provoking the Russian bear, on the other. If this menace grows, it is not difficult to see which side of this line Germany will finally land on, especially if Russia seems undeterred by its adversaries’ support group. Ergo, Germany will have a strong incentive to continue re-arming, in order to ensure its own survival.
As Chinese expansionism continues unabated in Asia and elsewhere, and Russian expansionism in Europe meets few obstacles, one can only expect Japan to re-arm as well. It is true that current treaty conditions prevent it from doing so. This is a consequence of the Second World War which Japan initiated in the Pacific, as well as its invasion of China in the early 1930s. Japan has long counted on the support of the U.S. The quid pro quo, official or otherwise, has been a very limited Japanese military, and in return the U.S. will implicitly ensure its defense against foreign aggression. Up to now, this has been a suitable arrangement. But, given the flexing of military muscle by its two largest neighbours, especially China, Japan may well decide to reconsider its geo-strategic future. America is far away. Russia, China (and North Korea, a Chinese client state that has nuclear weapons) are much, much closer.
Recent Chinese military intimidation of Taiwan as well as bullying of Vietnamese and Philippine fishing boats by the Chinese navy surely give Tokyo pause. Combined with Russian Air Force provocation of U.S. aircraft on the edges of American air space, as well as its own geographically exposed position, Japan must be asking itself how much longer it can, or even should, continue to rely on a distant ally for its own defense needs, especially when that ally clearly has pre-occupations of its own. With each passing day, Japan has a growing incentive to ignore previous treaty obligations and simply re-arm, in order to ensure its own survival.
And so Germany and Japan, defeated in the last World War after having started it, both long-subject to international measures aimed at preventing them from regaining their former power, are now on the verge of re-arming or have already begun to do so.
They are the planet’s third and fourth largest economies. If Japan reaches for its past military glory, will Asia, and particularly Russia and China, feel more secure? Will a resurgent Germany bring comfort to the other European powers? How would the global community at large react?