Hegemonic Global Competition in the 21st Century

By Lt Gen HPS Klair

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It is evident that the Great Power rivalry of the 21st Century has begun, which in Mackinder’s words, “Man and not nature initiates, but nature in large measure controls.” His prediction of the Chinese conquest of the ‘pivot’ or ‘heartland’ now appears more realistic. The US too has imbibed Mahan who saw the Indian and Pacific Oceans as the hinges of geo-political destiny, which will help maritime nations to project power all around the Eurasian rim and effect developments deep into Central Asia, now bandied as ‘offshore balancing’ supported by an air-sea doctrine and an Archipelagic Defence. As a hegemonic power, the US is cautious of entangling alliances that George Washington warned against. Similarly, Chinese scholars talk of inevitable wars that China must fight over the next five decades. Starting from Taiwan, South China Sea, Southern Tibet, East China Sea islands, outer Mongolia and Russia – the arch rival, the global hegemon, is not on the list. Smaller states seeking security in alliances need to learn from the actions of the big powers and hedge their bets so that they are partners, not pawns. That may also be a lesson for India, along with Spykman’s adage that, “Only power can achieve the objectives of foreign policy.”

According to Dr Paul Craig Roberts, US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the US’ goal of ‘hegemony over the entirety of the Earth’ is seldom articulated. The US as the sole superpower frames the ‘agenda’ and sells the discourse. Classified ‘motives’ drive the agenda and ‘morals’ sell the discourse; any alternate narrative must bridge this reality. The most profound changes in the strategic affairs of the world over the next few decades will emanate from the rise of China. The Thucydides trap (coined by Graham T Alison) is inevitable. But despite the historical evidence ‘classical wars’ are unlikely with the advent of nuclear weapons. Hence, the more messy derivatives of ‘proxy’, ‘asymmetric’ and ‘hybrid’ variants will fester. Where elephants tango, the grass (smaller states) will be trampled upon.

Economics is at the heart of the competition. Both the largest economies are capitalist by design, China, with some socialist pretentions, needs consistent growth to remain viable. They are, however, in different phases of the economic cycle, with different characteristics/demands. The US is technology-driven and self-sufficient in energy resources. China is energy-dependent, entering the middle income trap of wages for its manufacturing economy and technologically trailing despite reverse engineering and cyber technological thefts. But both need resources and new markets for exports. With the developed economies slowing down, they are both eyeing the underdeveloped regions in South Asia, South East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, had listed the “opening of new markets for American businesses” as a foreign policy priority.

The US is technology-driven and self-sufficient in energy resources…

America controls the existing Bretton Woods financial institutions and therefore, China has created new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank to provide capital for projects in nations it is targeting for her economic priorities. Asia’s economic growth and dynamism is attracting the focus of both the hegemonic powers to this zero sum contest. Hence, competition in all its dimensions is inevitable. Politics provides the access to markets and resources; protection/security of the same is an essential corollary, thus making it a geo-political competition.

China being technologically and militarily inferior is expanding its influence predicated on a geo-economic model where the ‘flag follows trade’. As a great power on the Eurasian landmass, it is imperative for it to dominate the neighborhood or exclusionary sphere of influence, before expanding to the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. “It is also exploiting its two nuclear armed proxies (North Korea and Pakistan ) to neutralise its two substantive regional competitors, Japan and India,” The Chinese have encapsulated the historical lesson that the ancient Silk Route withered with the rise of the Ottoman empire astride it, forcing the European powers to discover a maritime alternative. Hence, the ‘New Silk Route’ has multiple prongs to the central axis through Iran and Turkey, with a Northern axis through Russia and a Southern maritime axis from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, collectively labeled as the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. A number of smaller subsidiaries such as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Gwadar also exist. This will efficiently link Eurasian and African markets to the Chinese manufacturing hub of the world and strengthen its geopolitical influence.

The macro US response counters each of these three trade pincers leading the geopolitical flag and will bring into play, US military technological strengths. The US offers protection and security from predatory Chinese practices, in reality small states have little choice and difficulty in identifying predator from protector; only the garb differs. For ease of the narrative, US response/strategy along each axis of the OBOR has been split/compartmentalised though any global strategy will be holistic/seamless. On the Northern alignment through Russia, freight trains already ply from China through eight European countries to Madrid in Spain undercutting the maritime route by half. But Europe is a continent in decline. Prolonged peace and the European Union have brought defence spending below the two per cent mandated by NATO. Near bankruptcy of Greece and some others has fractured the Union as Brexit shows. Thus America will continue to undermine Russia not just because of its potential or present close relations with China but the beneficial effect, the Russian bogey has in unifying Europe and NATO, its key Anglo-Saxon alliance partners.

…native wisdom can prevent instability, but history shows that this Islamic belt has been turbulent for over a millennia…

The forward push of NATO will continue under different pretexts, be it the forward location of Anti Ballistic Missiles (ABMs) in Poland and Romania to counter the so-called Iranian threat, when Iran has neither ballistic missiles nor nuclear weapons, or to aid democracy in Ukraine/the Baltics. The Russians are clear that, “We have slid into a new period of Cold War”, in the words of their Prime Minister Medvedev. This is likely to continue for at least the next three decades or so, when the Chinese threat may reach an inflection point for a US Secretary of State to travel to Moscow, reminding them of their old alliance in the Second World War and the historic Sino-Russian divide (a la Kissinger to Beijing). By then, Russia and Germany would have lost relative power with their population having shrunk.

The central thrust of the OBOR is to the Middle East or West Asia, the gateway to Europe and Africa and a region of vital interest to China. It has a 230-billion-dollar trade with it and imports 30 million barrels of oil per day, which will double by 2035. Chinese President XI Jinping toured the region this summer seeking a “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

The energy self-sufficient global hegemon seeks to dominate or destabilise this Asian energy jugular. It is also the region in which the three strongest powers US, China and Russia are contesting for geo-political space. Only native wisdom can prevent instability, but history shows that this Islamic belt has been turbulent for over a millennia and wisdom does not seem to be on the horizon. The tribal and ethnic divides have been exacerbated by the artificial boundaries drawn by imperial powers and ignited by fissiparous fires of religion.

The only stability is in the most regressive monarchies that have funded global Jihad and are all allies of the US. The US Central Command has bases/headquarters in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. The relatively secular and socially liberal regimes of Saddam Hussain, Gaddafi and Assad have been decimated, creating large ungoverned spaces.

One such ungoverned space in the Levant has seen the rise of the ISIS. While the creation of Al Qaida and the decade-long US support to Islamic terrorism through Pakistan, is well documented; the paternity of this new creation is only attributed not yet acknowledged. Its millions of dollars funding remained a mystery, till the Russian intervention in Syria exposed one strand – the oil revenue generated by hundreds of tankers lining up on the Turkish border. Strangely, the ISIS targets the strength of the Iraqi and Syrian regimes, not the wealth and vulnerabilities of the monarchies.

China is aggressively building ‘low tide elevations’ as artificial islands ‘consolidating’ if not ‘legitimising’ its “indisputable sovereignty”…

Similarly, the Iranians captured US Riverine Command boats in the Persian Gulf transporting an ISIS commander from Saudi Arabia to Syria. The Syrian President caustically explained how the Al Qaida had acquired an air arm. The Al Qaida passes information of Syrian government assets to its affiliate, The Al-Nusra and US allies/creations such as the Free Syrian Army who inform the Israelis for prompt action by US air assets. Turkey is the latest to exclaim “Et tu, Brute?” after the failed military coup attributed to the Philadelphia / CIA link.

The civilizational state of Iran, the former axis of evil, had been sanctioned and contained for decades, but isolation stymied further damage or cooperation, pushing Iran closes to Russia and China. It also emboldened US allies Saudi Arabia and Israel to dictate policy, in the absence of US options. With its location pivotal both for Russian outreach to the region as also the Chinese OBOR initiative and its leadership critical to galvanise the Shia component of the Islamic divide, rapprochement was essential. This led to the Iranian nuclear deal – a window for further cooperation in a region where ‘promiscuity’ and not ‘fidelity’ defines inter-state relations.

‘Peace’ is not an ‘aim’ in the Middle East. President Obama has stated that the conflict is not worth ‘expending blood and treasure’ on. Resulting in a US policy of keeping a ‘light footprint’ or the Palin doctrine of ‘leave it to Allah’. This prevents blow back to homeland security and ensures that the Islamic fires are only ‘managed’ and not ‘contained’ or ‘extinguished’, as Islam extends right up to Russia and China. The ‘equilibrium’ that President Obama seeks in the region is not through peace and stability, but as a by-product of the violent contest. This will entangle Russia and slow Chinese geo-economic penetration, while feeding a bonanza to the American Military Industrial Complex during the ‘sequester and historical lows in US defence budgets.

During the Obama Presidency, Saudi Arabia and the GCC countries have procured nearly $100 billion worth of arms. The beneficial effect is evident from the balance sheets of leading defence companies that have outperformed the 4.3 per cent rise of the Dow Jones industrial average. Boeing shares have risen 9.6 per cent, Lockheed Martin 8.3 per cent, Northrop Grumman 6.1 per cent and Raytheon 6 per cent.

The US President aware of this region under its hegemonic control said in his State of the Union address, “Instability will continue for decades in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, in tracts of Central Asia.” With the State Department’s assessment that terrorism does not threaten homeland security or the world order, American insouciance will continue. This instability may be attributed to the ‘inefficiency’ or ‘complicity’ of the global hegemon, the two options given to Pakistan when Osama Bin Laden was discovered in Abbottabad.

The maritime silk route constitutes the third arm of the OBOR initiative. The industrialised Han Chinese heartland abuts the East and South China Seas. The region from which 600 years ago Chinese mariner Zheng He travelled to SE Asia and the Indian Ocean. It is now bottled by the hostile ‘first island chain’ with few narrow exists right up to the Malacca Strait. Eighty per cent of Chinese imported energy and forty per cent of its traded goods pass through it.

The South China Sea has multiple overlapping maritime claims. The Chinese Nine Dash Line claims virtually the entire sea and China is aggressively building ‘low tide elevations’ as artificial islands ‘consolidating’ if not ‘legitimising’ its “indisputable sovereignty”, despite the adverse award by the arbitration tribunal in The Hague. In addition, it has a dispute with Japan over Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and the reunification issue with Taiwan.

This is the region of the Indo-Pacific that the US ‘pivot’ or ‘rebalance to Asia’ addresses militarily, while forging an economic Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) excluding China. US battle/carrier groups transit through the claimed waterways upholding freedom of navigation under various clauses of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) a treaty that the US has still to ratify. In addition, under the pretext of North Korean Nuclear and missile brinkmanship, the US is planning to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missiles in South Korea with its long range TPY-2 radar covering large parts of China, encouraging Japan along a more militaristic path and strengthening ties with ASEAN countries.

The Chinese are talking of an ‘Asia for Asians’, the ‘sea of peace friendship and cooperation’ and bilateral mechanisms to resolve disputes. However, their past behavior does not inspire confidence in the small littoral states. Whenever a big power vacuum permitted, they have exploited the situation. In 1974, they seized the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam when US interest waned. In 1998, they seized reefs and shoals from Vietnam when the Soviets withdrew from Cam Ranh Bay and in 1995, occupied Mischief Reef when the Philippines terminated its military bases agreement with the US. Today, China is aggressively asserting her claims using fishermen, reclamation and naval boats masquerading as coastal police. In the last couple of years, China has reclaimed 3,200 acres in the Spratlys and built military infrastructure on them. The PLA has been re-organised in line with the assessment that the ‘most serious security threat comes mainly from the sea’. In four years, the PLA Navy will expand to 260 ships and become the largest Navy in the region. They are technologically focusing on Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities to keep US Naval assets at bay. With capabilities in place they will gradually abandon Deng’s advice to “bide your time and conceal your capabilities” and declare Air Defence Identification Zones over their artificial islands or ‘rocks’, in a calibrated manner. Clashes/skirmishes are inevitable, but being in the maritime domain, escalation control is more feasible and state stability remains.

It is evident that the Great Power rivalry of the 21st Century has begun, which in Mackinder’s words, “Man and not nature initiates, but nature in large measure controls.” His prediction of the Chinese conquest of the ‘pivot’ or ‘heartland’ now appears more realistic. The US too has imbibed Mahan who saw the Indian and Pacific Oceans as the hinges of geo-political destiny, which will help maritime nations to project power all around the Eurasian rim and effect developments deep into Central Asia, now bandied as ‘offshore balancing’ supported by an air-sea doctrine and an Archipelagic Defence. As a hegemonic power, the US is cautious of entangling alliances that George Washington warned against. Similarly, Chinese scholars talk of inevitable wars that China must fight over the next five decades. Starting from Taiwan, South China Sea, Southern Tibet, East China Sea islands, outer Mongolia and Russia – the arch rival, the global hegemon, is not on the list. Smaller states seeking security in alliances need to learn from the actions of the big powers and hedge their bets so that they are partners, not pawns. That may also be a lesson for India, along with Spykman’s adage that, “Only power can achieve the objectives of foreign policy.”

© Copyright 2016 Indian Defence Review