The time to fret about when China will acquire drones is over: it has them. The question now is when and how it will use them. But as with its other, less exotic military capabilities, Beijing has cleared only a technological hurdle — and its behavior will continue to be constrained by politics.

Drones, able to dispatch death remotely, without human eyes on their targets or a pilot’s life at stake, make people uncomfortable — even when they belong to democratic governments that presumably have some limits on using them for ill. (On May 23, in a major speech, U.S. President Barack Obama laid out what some of those limits are.) An even more alarming prospect is that unmanned aircraft will be acquired and deployed by authoritarian regimes, with fewer checks on their use of lethal force. …

Michael D. Swaine, Mike M. Mochizuki, Michael L. Brown, Paul S. Giarra, Douglas H. Paal, Rachel Esplin Odell, Raymond Lu, Oliver Palmer, Xu Ren, China’s Military and the U.S.-Japan Alliance in 2030: A Strategic Net Assessment (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013).

The emergence of the People’s Republic of China as an increasingly significant military power in the Western Pacific presents major implications for Japan, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and regional security. But a comprehensive assessment of the current and possible future impact of China’s military capabilities and foreign security policies on Tokyo and the alliance, along with a detailed examination of the capacity and willingness of both the United States and Japan to respond to this challenge, is missing from the current debate. Such an analysis is essential for Washington and Tokyo to better evaluate the best approaches for maintaining deterrence credibility and regional stability over the long term.

KEY FINDINGS

• The most likely potential challenge to the U.S.-Japan alliance over the next fifteen to twenty years does not involve full-scale military conflict between China and Japan or the United States—for example, one originating from Chinese efforts to expel Washington from the region.

• The likeliest challenge instead stems from Beijing’s growing coercive power—increasing Chinese military capabilities could enable Beijing to influence or attempt to resolve disputes with Tokyo in its favor short of military attack. 

• An increase in the People’s Liberation Army’s presence in airspace and waters near Japan and disputed territories could also heighten the risk of destabilizing political-military crises. 

• Significant absolute and possibly relative shifts in the military balance between China and the alliance in Japan’s vicinity are likely.

• In the most probable future scenarios facing these three actors, the U.S.-Japan alliance will either only narrowly retain military superiority in the airspace and waters near Japan or the balance will become uncertain at best.

• A significant drop in the potential threat posed by China is also possible if the Chinese economy falters and Beijing redirects its attention and resources toward maintaining internal stability.

• More dramatic shifts in the strategic landscape are unlikely in the fifteen- to twenty-year time frame. Such shifts include an Asian cold war pitting a normalized U.S.-Japan alliance against a belligerent China and a major withdrawal of U.S. presence that heralds either the dawning of a Sino-centric Asia or the emergence of intense Sino-Japanese rivalry with Japanese nuclearization.

U.S. AND JAPANESE POLICY RESPONSES

There are no “silver bullets.” No regional or alliance response can single-handedly deliver a stable military or political balance at minimal cost to all parties involved. Each of the major conceivable responses to these future challenges in the regional security environment will likely require painful trade-offs and, in some cases, the adoption of radically new ways of thinking about the roles and missions of both the U.S. and Japanese militaries.

Three general political-military responses offer viable ways to advance allied interests over the long term.

• Robust Forward Presence: This deterrence-centered response is designed to retain unambiguous allied regional primacy through either highly ambitious and forward-deployment-based military concepts, such as Air-Sea Battle, or approaches more oriented toward long-range blockades, such as Offshore Control.

• Conditional Offense/Defense: This primacy-oriented response nonetheless avoids both preemptive, deep strikes against the Chinese mainland or obvious containment-type blockades and stresses both deterrence and reassurance in a more equal manner. 

• Defensive Balancing: This response emphasizes mutual area denial, places a greater reliance on lower visibility and rear-deployed forces, and aims to establish a more genuinely balanced and cooperative power relationship with China in the Western Pacific. 

These responses could be complicated by a number of factors.

• Limits on the ability of Japan or other nations in the Asia-Pacific region to advance substantive security cooperation or embark on major security enhancements

• Unwillingness in the U.S. military to alter doctrinal assumptions in operating in the Western Pacific China’s own suspicions of alliance efforts that might constrain the use of its growing capabilities

• Low tolerance among stakeholders for uncertainty and even failure during political or diplomatic negotiations over vital security interests

The status quo is likely to prove unsustainable. Despite the potential complications, Washington and Tokyo must seriously evaluate these possible responses. Current economic and military trends in China, Japan, and the United States suggest that existing policies and strategies might fail to ensure a stable security environment conducive to U.S. and Japanese interests over the long term. …

For selected analyses cited in this study, see:

Andrew S. Erickson, “Assessing the New U.S. Maritime Strategy: A Window into Chinese Thinking” (Annotated translation and analysis of three Chinese articles), Naval War College Review 61.4 (Autumn 2008): 35-71.

Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011).

Andrew Erickson and Gabe Collins, “China Deploys World’s First Long-Range, Land-Based ‘Carrier Killer’: DF-21D Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Reaches ‘Initial Operational Capability’ (IOC),” China SignPost™ (洞察中国) 14 (26 December 2010).

Andrew S. Erickson, “China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Reaches Equivalent of ‘Initial Operational Capability’ (IOC)—Where It’s Going and What it Means,” China Analysis from Original Sources (以第一手资料研究中国), 12 July 2011.

Andrew S. Erickson, “Global Times Claims Chinese Conventional Ballistic Missile with 4,000 km Range (Sufficient to Strike Guam) ‘Ready for Service’ by 2015 & DF-21D is ‘Already Deployed in the Army’,” China Analysis from Original Sources (以第一手资料研究中国), 18 February 2011, http://www.andrewerickson.com/2011/02/global-times-claims-chinese-conventional-ballistic-missile-with-4000-km-range-sufficient-to-strike-guam-%E2%80%9Cready-for-service%E2%80%9D-by-2015-df-21d-is-%E2%80%9Calready-deployed-in-the-army/.

Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson, “Flying Shark” Gaining Altitude: How Might New J-15 Strike Fighter Improve China’s Maritime Air Warfare Ability?” China SignPost™ (洞察中国) 38 (7 June 2011).

Andrew S. Erickson and Michael S. Chase, “Informatization and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy,” in Phillip C. Saunders, Christopher Yung, Michael Swaine, and Andrew Nien-dzu Yang, eds., The Chinese Navy: Expanding Capabilities, Evolving Roles (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2011), 247-86.

Andrew Erickson and Gabe Collins, “Taking Off: Implications of China’s Second Stealth Fighter Test Flight,” China Real Time Report (中国实时报), Wall Street Journal, 3 November 2012.

Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson, “China’s New Project 718/J-20 Fighter: Development outlook and strategic implications,” China SignPost™ (洞察中国) 18 (17 January 2011).

Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson, “Jet Engine Development in China: Indigenous High-Performance Turbofans Are a Final Step toward Fully Independent Fighter Production,” China SignPost™ (洞察中国) 39 (26 June 2011).

Andrew Erickson and Gabe Collins, “Double Vision: Making Sense of China’s Second ‘Stealth’ Fighter Prototype,” China Real Time Report (中国实时报), Wall Street Journal, 18 September 2012.

Andrew S. Erickson, “Satellites Support Growing PLA Maritime Monitoring and Targeting Capabilities,” Jamestown China Brief 11.3 (10 February 2011): 13-19.

Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson, “China’s S-Curve Trajectory: Structural Factors Will likely slow the growth of China’s economy and comprehensive national power,” China SignPost™ (洞察中国), No. 44 (15 August 2011).

Andrew S. Erickson and Adam P. Liff, “Understanding China’s Defense Budget: What it Means, and Why it Matters,” PacNet 16 (9 March 2011).

Andrew S. Erickson, “Chinese Defense Expenditures: Implications for Naval Modernization,” Jamestown China Brief, 10.8 (16 April 2010): 11-15.

In March, the Chinese government announced another multibillion-dollar increase of its defense budget. In order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the latest budget’s implications, NBR asked Andrew S. Erickson (U.S. Naval War College) and Adam P. Liff (Princeton University) to assess trends in China’s defense spending within the wider context of China’s military development and transparency, as well as its broader strategic and national interests. Erickson and Liff are the authors of “Demystifying China’s Defense Spending: Less Mysterious in the Aggregate,” to be published in a forthcoming issue of the China Quarterly. …

For further analysis on PLA budget issues, see:

Andrew S. Erickson, “China’s Defense Budget: A Richer Nation Builds a Stronger Army,” Inaugural Presentation in “China Reality Check” Speaker Series, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, DC, 8 April 2012.

Adam P. Liff and Andrew S. Erickson, “Demystifying China’s Defense Spending: Less Mysterious in the Aggregate,” The China Quarterly, published online by Cambridge University Press 25 March 2013.

India’s development into a major economic and technological power is increasingly influencing the international system. India’s civil and military space programs, which have greatly furthered India’s progress in these dimensions, merit detailed historical study in their own right.

From its founding in 1947, independent India has long been determined to develop high technology in numerous fields, including that of aerospace, to safeguard its autonomy and to further its economic and social development. Over the past two decades, Indian rocket development has grown increasingly robust, both in civilian and military areas. Comparatively high rates of technological diffusion and exchange of human capital has meant that experience derived in one program often informs the other, thereby increasing India’s return on its investments. India spent the 1960s and early 1970s establishing a basic space infrastructure. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, India began to construct and operate satellites and launchers.

To safeguard national security and foreign policy autonomy, India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and physicist Dr. Homi Bhabha prioritized the development of nuclear technology. Driven at least partially by nuclear development priorities, India developed a relatively capable missile industry overall by focusing material and human resources and thereby improving institutional information flow and technological absorption. Particularly successful has been the Indigenous Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP), established by Dr. V. S. Arunachalam in 1983 with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s approval.

At the same time, India’s civil space program has followed the humanitarian vision of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. By thus developing practical technologies to serve national development, New Delhi’s space program has retained popular support while achieving particular competence in remote sensing, communications, and weather forecasting to improve land use, mitigate damage from natural disasters, and to further rural education, telemedicine, and poverty reduction.

This chapter will review Indian rocket and satellite development to date and contrast it with India’s aircraft development, in order to better understand the prioritization of national goals and how so much has been achieved amid competing domestic imperatives in the world’s largest democracy. …

John Garnaut, “Xi’s War Drums,” Foreign Policy (May/June 2013).

China’s new leader is using the military to consolidate his power. But has he unleashed forces beyond his control?

Every morning at 6 a.m., more than two dozen of the world’s leading submarine watchers, aviation experts, government specialists, imagery analysts, cryptanalysts, and linguists gather at the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. …

“No other great power today enjoys China’s ability to dedicate such vast amounts of capital and personnel so dynamically to such a wide range of new programs,” says Andrew Erickson, an expert on PLA technology at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute. “China enjoys unparalleled flexibility and adaptability and could increase production rapidly if desired.” …

Section 347 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act called on the Department of Defense to commission an independent assessment of the overseas basing presence of U.S. military forces. As the recipient of that commission, RAND’s National Defense Research Institute conducted an independent assessment of the advisability of changes in the overseas basing presence of U.S. forces based on an evaluation of strategic benefits, risks, and costs. The report characterizes how overseas presence contributes to assurance of allies, deterrence, contingency responsiveness, and security cooperation, along with the risks involved with investing in facilities overseas. It breaks new ground in the understanding of the costs associated with overseas presence, including how permanent and rotational presence costs compare, and provides cost models for policymakers to weigh alternative posture options. To support this understanding of costs the report also lays out the conditions of U.S. installations and levels of host nation support.

The report concludes that there are certain minimum requirements necessary to carry out the current national security strategy, but it is prudent, based upon the net value produced, to maintain an overseas posture that goes beyond these minimums. Additionally, it combines benefit, cost, and risk considerations to distill a number of strategic judgments that have implications for the advisability of considering identified posture changes. …

For full text of one of the articles cited in this study, see:

Andrew S. Erickson, Walter C. Ladwig III, and Justin D. Mikolay, “Diego Garcia and the United States’ Emerging Indian Ocean Strategy,” Asian Security 6.3 (Autumn 2010): 214-37.

Wu Zhengyu, “Toward ‘Land’ or Toward ‘Sea’? The High-Speed Railway and China’s Grand Strategy,” Naval War College Review 66.3 (Summer 2013): 53-65.

China’s maritime development having come up against pressures and challenges in recent years, the concept of “strategic hedging”—that is, pursuit of and investment in policies meant to protect the nation against the effects of geopolitical and economic uncertainty—has emerged. One of its most important proponents is Gao Bai, an ethnic Chinese professor of sociology at Duke University (in Durham, North Carolina) and the author of the article “The High-Speed Railway and China’s Grand Strategy in the 21st Century” (高铁与中国21世纪大战略). Professor Gao believes that the 2008 global financial crisis and the return, through its own strategic adjustment, of the United States to the Asia-Pacific region mean that China’s “blue-water strategy” has come to an end. The financial crisis severely battered China’s export market, which will be difficult to restore even after the crisis has subsided. America’s return to the Asia-Pacific region has not only complicated China’s situation in its own neighborhood but made East Asian economic integration more difficult to achieve. As Professor Gao points out, because China’s economic transformation cannot be achieved in the short term, the nation must find a new way out—and a high-speed rail provides a realistic way to break through the current impasse.

The development of a high-speed rail has the potential not only to promote the integration of Eurasian economies but to prevent a reversal of globalization and gain time for China’s domestic economic restructuring. A high-speed rail could also represent a hedging strategy, leading to a more favorable position for China in the global arena. Professor Gao stresses that such a project, a land/sea hybrid in nature, offers a measure of freedom of strategic choice: if a problem arises on the maritime front, China can develop westward and dedicate itself to the integration of Eurasian economies; if difficulties emerge on the Eurasian landmass, China can turn eastward, dedicating itself to the integration of Asian-Pacific economies. It is no exaggeration to say that the importance of Professor Gao’s article is on a level well beyond that of a high-speed rail in itself. The strategy that he advocates is essentially related not only to China’s present dilemma but at the same time to China’s strategic choices into the foreseeable future.

There is no doubt that, China at the moment being under intense pressure, the hedging strategy that Professor Gao proposes is highly appealing. If this proposition really comes to fruition, for quite some time China will no doubt enjoy the enviable position of having the best of both worlds on the global political and economic stage. But the problem is that while Professor Gao’s article is principally based on the usefulness of the high-speed rail in integrating the economy of the Chinese mainland, this proposal is not as feasible as it seems at first glance; also, and more importantly, even if it were realizable, it would not help China escape its present conundrum. In modern history, the emergence and development of the railway has indeed played an important role in increasing the power of continental countries vis-à-vis maritime countries. However, this does not mean that we must see the importance of the railway as unquestionable. In actuality, though more than a hundred years have passed since the emergence of the railway, the Chinese “heartland” mentioned by Professor Gao (he borrowed it from Halford Mackinder’s Democratic Ideals and Reality) is still a relatively backward region. Since there exists no substantial “generation gap” between the high-speed rail and its existing precursor, the modern railway, it is highly doubtful whether the high-speed rail really has the force to “integrate the economies of the Eurasian landmass.”

An even more important question is, Can the continental strategy with the economic integration of the Eurasian landmass as the core really live up to the strategic utility to which Gao refers? The answer to this involves three issues. First, can the continental strategy help China sidestep strategic contradictions and conflicts between China and America? Second, as a pillar in the economic integration of the Eurasian landmass, what impact will the high-speed rail have on Sino-Russian relations? Third, what are the possible strategic impacts of great Chinese inroads into Central Asia? In view of Professor Gao’s proposed strategy relating to the direction of China’s long-term development, it is necessary to explore and analyze systematically the wisdom of his hedging strategy and on this basis strive to clarify what path China should take in response to maritime pressure. …

For further analysis of China’s continental versus maritime evolution and choices, see:

Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and Carnes Lord, “When Land Powers Look Seaward,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 137.4 (April 2011): 18-23.

Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, “Studying History to Guide China’s Rise as a Maritime Great Power,” Harvard Asia Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 3-4 (Winter 2010), pp. 31-38.

Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and Carnes Lord, “China Sets Sail,” The American Interest,Vol. 5, No. 5 (Summer, May/June 2010), pp. 27-34.

Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and Carnes Lord, eds., China Goes to Sea: Maritime Transformation in Comparative Historical Perspective (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, July 2009).

Jessica Chen Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” International Organization, 67.1 (January 2013): 1-35.

How can authoritarian states credibly signal their intentions in international crises? Nationalist, antiforeign protests are one mechanism by which authoritarian leaders can visibly demonstrate their domestic vulnerability. Because protests in authoritarian states are risky and costly to repress, the decision to allow or stifle popular mobilization is informative. The threat of instability demonstrates resolve, and the cost of concession increases the credibility of a tough stance. The danger of instability and escalation increases foreign incentives to make concessions and preserve the status quo. This logic helps explain the pattern of authoritarian tolerance and repression toward nationalist protest. A case study of two U.S.-China crises shows how China’s management of anti-American protests affected U.S. beliefs about Chinese resolve. …

After a year-long hiatus, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)’s annual report on Chinese military developments is back and better than ever. Its 43-page 2012 predecessor was widely criticized for arriving far later than Congress requested and containing little substance or new data. But this year’s expeditiously-issued 92-page document continues a tradition of detailed, sophisticated, publicly-available U.S. government analysis previously seen in the 2011 DoD report, the 2010 National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) report on China’s air force, and the 2009 and 2007 Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) reports on China’s navy.

Like these other landmark reports, this year’s DoD iteration clearly and understandably comes from a U.S. military perspective, yet strives to provide a comprehensive picture of Chinese military developments and the strategic concerns that motivate them. This represents an admirable effort to offer a balanced assessment, as can be seen in remarks at the time of its release by David F. Helvey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. Useful data are presented on everything from Chinese sea- and -land based energy access to apparent ambiguities in Beijing’s “no first use” nuclear doctrine to members of the Central Military Commission and their key professional relationships. …

The U.S. Department of Defense annual report on Chinese military developments, released on Monday, has made a splash by putting forth the most direct official accusations so far of Chinese cyberintrusions into the U.S. government computers. But the 92-page report – much improved from its 43-page 2012 predecessor, which was widely criticized for being many days late and dollars short – offers a number of other important insights into China’s growing military capabilities. …