Rick Gunnell and Colonel Michael Long discuss the latest National Security Strategy and its implications for the US posture toward the Indo-Pacific.
Mr. Rick Gunnell
Welcome to CLSC Dialogues. Production of the China Landpower Studies Center at the Army War College. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and not necessarily those of the Department of Army, US Army War College, or the US government. I'm Rick Gunnell, research professor of China military studies here at the China Landpower Studies Center. And today, I'm talking to the director of the Army's China Center, Colonel Mike Long, about America's newly published National Security Strategy.
COL Mike Long
Thank you so much, Rick, for hosting this. And for those who aren't as familiar. The China Landpower Studies Center, as CLSC as we like to call it. I just wanted to first off, kind of make sure everybody knew who you were as one of the subject matter experts, chief researcher and experts on China, especially the PLA and its leadership. Rick is a Chinese speaker and an expert in the region, so we're very lucky to have him here hosting today's podcast. So, we're not just going to talk about the National Security Strategy. We're going to talk about its implications to the region as well as China specifically. So let me go to answer your question. And your question was on a little bit of background.
So first let's kind of think about what the National Security Strategy is. And it is that it's America's grand strategy. It's our highest-level strategy. It's mandated for the White House to produce this. So in 1986, a Congressional mandate called the Goldwater-Nichols Act came out. Most of the Goldwater-Nichols Act is focused on what the US military needs to do, but there are some portions for what the executive branch has to do, and one of them is publishing a National Security Strategy.
Gunnell
What is the goal of the National Security Strategy and who is the audience?
Long
The goal is to ensure that the executive branch is aligned around a singular strategy in all of its policies, and then what Congress is looking for is a rationale behind the budget. And so Congress controls the purse. And what they want to understand is what is the strategy that needs to be funded by Congress.
When you talk about the audience, which I thought was a great question, the audience is, of course, the rest of the executive branch to ensure that all of the service secretaries and those who work for them are aligned in policy and strategy. But it's also, like we said, Congress to say what the budget needs to be. It's also the American people.
You know, you can see when you read this document that a lot of this document is talking directly to the American people. In addition to that, it's our allies and our partners around the world as well as our adversaries. I think this has a wide audience after the National Security Strategy.
Gunnell
Are there other documents that will follow that will help kind of support or play out what is in the security strategy?
Long
The term we like to use is they nest. So from this document, the National Security Strategy, from the military's perspective, we have a series of other strategies now. This document, the National Security Strategy tends to be the most political. This one is no exception. It’s a very political document as you read into it. But when you look at these subordinate documents that the military produces, first is by the Secretary of War will develop a National Defense Strategy, then the chairman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff will develop a National Military Strategy.
From that, each one of the service secretaries will develop their own service strategies, and you'll see the combat commands make theater or more functional strategies for their areas as well. And so this is the overall document from which all that is aligned diving into the 2025 National Security Strategy, the NSS.
Gunnell
What would you say is the focus of the new NSS?
Long
I think when you look at it, I kind of like to look at it in a few pieces. One is to talk about how different it is than previous strategies. So the first is it's much shorter. It's about half the length of the previous strategies. We see this strategy, a lot is cut out because of its length. And one of those things that is cut out is a current state or an overall breakdown of the environment.
Because of that, there are elements that are different in this strategy than others. Additionally, this strategy tends to be much less antagonistic towards large scale powers like China and Russia than we've seen in the past. But you asked what the focus was, and I would say the focus is a few things. Right? So really when you look at it, it comes from an overall, it's a mostly a realist perspective.
If we're looking at international relations theory or political science, it really values hard power, military power, as well as economic power. It doesn't focus on great power competition in the way that we've seen in the past. And then I think the biggest aspect, and this is what we're going to talk about a lot, is this multipolar world view.
Gunnell
Why don't you think the US calls China or Russia threats? This is about accepting a new multipolar world order. Is it about trying to be as neutral as possible while also stating where our red lines are? How would you analyze that?
Long
I think it's a couple things. One is we don't have this sort of background of the environment that sort of lays out where everything is that you would see in the past, right. So you don't have this what we strategist call a current state of the environment articulated. So I think that's one reason why we don't see that. Another is exactly like you articulated, right, this multipolar world. We've heard Secretary Rubio talk a couple times about describing the world as multipolar. And this is the new position for the United States, at least recently. Right. So following the fall of the Soviet Union, we really went into a pretty unipolar world and most of the national security strategies since then, up until this, when really focused on a unipolar world with the United States as the lead. This one really looks at the world as potentially multipolar. And I would describe that as having spheres of influence.
And I know we're going to get into that a little bit when it comes to Western Hemisphere as well as Asia-Pacific.
Gunnell
Let's actually just go right into that then, because as I read through it, I think like many, we saw the biggest change as a focus more towards the Western Hemisphere. Over the past decade or so, we've been trying to balance or maybe pivot to Asia.
And I think that this puts the Western Hemisphere in a place that it hasn't been before. And why would you think there's such a focus on that? And can we kind of walk and chew gum at the same time, per the NSS, can we both focus on the Western Hemisphere but also counter Chinese influence, adversarial influences in the Asia-Pacific?
Long
I think one, that's an astute observation of the document. You know, it clearly articulates the Western Hemisphere as the priority theater. You know, it calls out the Monroe Doctrine, specifically stating that there's a Trump Corollary to this doctrine. I think the belief amongst the administration for this is that, you know, the real value in protecting our own backyard, for lack of a better term, small yard, big fence concept, vice giving up on some other area.
Also, if you accept that there is a multipolar world, you have to accept the other powers had some sort of regional hegemonic capabilities in them. I think that's one aspect of it. When you look at the document, what it talks about, the Western Hemisphere, it really articulates three specific threats that we've seen. The first is migration. The second is drugs and crime. Third is foreign power intervention. And I think we've seen all the military used to counter all three of those threats.
Gunnell
So, speaking of the Western Hemisphere, we can't ignore the most recent events in Venezuela. Do you see these events as something that is adhering to national security strategy? Is a nested within is it slightly different? How would you interpret the actual actions we've seen over the past week with what we saw in the strategy in December?
Long
I think that when you look at what we saw in Venezuela, and to be specific, I would describe that as a raid on the capital of Venezuela when military operation called snatch and grab for the president, his wife, and brought them back for them to face trial. I think you see a couple aspects of that. One part of the Monroe Doctrine, you know, when you look at it, a lot of presidents have viewed the Monroe Doctrine in different ways.
But the basic understanding of the Monroe Doctrine, it's that foreign powers don't have control over the Western Hemisphere. Now, there's this kind of famous Roosevelt Corollary to that, the Theodore Roosevelt Corollary to that, where you see Theodore Roosevelt really looking at having much more control inside of the countries of the Western Hemisphere. And this is where we get into the Panama Canal, the transition to Panama, becoming a country, [seceding from] Colombia.
I think this Trump Corollary is more similar to a Roosevelt Corollary. So if you look at, you know, each one of those specific threats, you know, one was drugs and crime. The indictment under President Maduro is about drugs and crime. Another concern is about foreign powers. You know, the vast majority of the military equipment inside of Venezuela that was used to protect it was Russian and Chinese equipment.
I think there's, you know, from a Chinese perspective, you and I might be really interested in how well that Chinese radar did not do. So I think that's a pretty interesting perspective for us. Definitely agree. And as I was reading through the NSS, although there weren't many explicit call outs about removing specific Chinese influence from the Western Hemisphere, it's hard not to read that chapter and kind of read between the lines and see that that is part of the effort.
When the Monroe Doctrine was originally established, it was about European colonial powers. And now, 200 something years later, we are working in a new global environment where China has risen and is trying to assert its more autocratic tendencies across the globe. And I think the strategy really said that, hey, no more in the Western Hemisphere.
We'll look at Asia-Pacific, we'll look at the other places. But really the Western Hemisphere is the US's and it's an interesting conclusion and strategy to kind of draw out.
Gunnell
What do you think the implications are for that on that specific topic or even for the US military from the US?
Long
One, I completely agree with you. There's I think, five pages written on this. It's a 29-page document, four and a half pages or so I think are focused on the Western Hemisphere, the priority theater. China's not mentioned once, but it's between every line of it. Right. And so, you know, when it talks about avoiding foreign power, avoiding foreign influence, avoiding foreign troops in areas, you know, you're thinking things like the access to the Panama Canal, you know, do we see, you know, how much control do Chinese companies or, or the PRC have over these key strategic areas?
And you see the amount of Chinese military and Russian military equipment going into that theater and arming that theater. When you look at Venezuela, right, it's the world's largest oil reserve. China has a massive amount of access to that. I think about 80% of Venezuelan oil goes to China. While it's only about, you know, four and a half, 5% of imported oil from China is Venezuelan.
And but it's about 80% out. So they have a ton of leverage over this country. I think that's correct. When we look at this Trump Corollary is that there's real concern over how much influence does China have in our region, and how close is Venezuela to us if it were to become a totally failed state? What type of leverage could whether it be violent extremist organizations or great powers like, like a Russia or China have from there?
Gunnell
As a China watcher, I agree with most of the commentary that I've seen out there is as to, you know, how does China interpret the US's actions in Venezuela? I'll leave the legality question to legal scholars. That's not something I'm great on. What I'm more interested in is does China see this action and go, you know what? Now there's precedence.
We have a core interest, a core strategic interest in bringing Taiwan back into the fold. And if the US can do this, maybe we can do it too. You know, it's really hard to really understand XI Jinping's true intentions, but surely that's crossed his mind. I think what's also interesting, and maybe not as much talked about, is maybe a bit of fear from Beijing.
If the US military can do this at both the scale, speed, and effectiveness as what happened, regardless of legality, then Beijing might say they could do that to us, or maybe they could do that to North Korea, and that might actually give them a little bit more pause over the next couple months as they assess how these actions affected both the US and the larger world order.
Gunnell
So with that, do you have any final thoughts on the Venezuela issue or the US in general as a strategist? I think that you're on to something. When you ask that question. You know, clearly it's from a military perspective. This was a massive tactical success, right? Achieve the military objective did it with zero loss of US life. Right.
Long
It's there's some debate numbers on how many Venezuelans were killed, but the numbers are pretty small for such a complex operation and the complete success that's occurred. Additionally, along with that mission, we currently have a quarantine going on off Venezuela, where we're using the control of oil in and out of Venezuela as leverage for the current regime inside of Caracas.
In the short-term, this is seen as a very big win for the United States. And I think it makes the United States look pretty scary. I am interested in your question. Right. I would love to read more about, hey, what are the potential, you know, second and third order effects of an operation like this? Does it make a China or Russia more or less likely to conduct operations?
I know that you are the China expert, and I'm certainly no Russia expert. It appears to me that those countries are quite comfortable using their military to achieve these political goals, right? As we've seen in Ukraine, as we've seen in Hong Kong, as we've seen in India on the Line of Actual Control. So, there's been a significant amount of that.
To get back to your question about what does this pertain to the military? And I think there's a few interesting ways to think about this from a military perspective. When we're looking at the Western Hemisphere specifically, we talked about three threats: migration, drugs and crime and foreign powers. And what we've seen is the US military used to combat each one of those three threats, [e.g.] migration on the southwest border.
The military has a huge role. The Army, especially in supporting the Border Patrol, drugs and crime. We've seen a significant amount of US military forces being used to destroy drug boats from Venezuela and in this form, power, as we just talked about, you know, the potentially cutting off some of China's access to our region with Venezuela in this way.
And so, I think interesting other ways to look at this is, you know, there's $12 billion of Chinese debt that Venezuela has. They're not going to get that money, are unlikely to get that money. Those are all parts of this big puzzle that we need to put together to sort of understand what are the long-term strategic consequences of a mission like this.
I like to hit on the Pacific Theater a little bit. I think the Pacific Theater is an interesting portion. So of all of the documents, the most similar to other National Security Strategies. So it's very similar when we look at it. Right. It's actually the longest portion. It's even longer than the Priority Theater. It's quite detailed. China's mentioned 29 times in this document.
So they're clearly the country that we're most interested in. It's also just consistent with a lot of what the last three administrations, four administrations have really been interested in. Right. Avoiding conflict in the Pacific. It's pro quad. It's pro free and open Indo-Pacific. It wants to deny conflict over Taiwan. And this is where it gets interesting. From the military perspective.
It says to deny conflict from Taiwan. It's really focusing on ideally by preserving military overmatch. And once again it's this realist perspective of the value of a strong military. There's no mention of North Korea at all in this. That is an interesting aspect. Is it cut for specific reasons, or was it just there wasn't a significant aspect of it? Those would be great questions to know. Once we're lucky enough to get the National Security Advisor on the team, in the podcast.
Gunnell
Thank you, I appreciate that. As I was reading it again as a China watcher, I thought the NSS did a good job of compartmentalizing the entire piece and asking and answering very specific questions. What I was curious about, or one thing that jumped out at me that that I wonder if you have an opinion on, is under the “What should the United States want?” question.
They said to deter wars, but if necessary, win them quickly and decisively with the lowest possible casualties to our forces. When I think about the Taiwan scenario and what the US military has positioned itself as, it is showcasing a huge might, and we are clearly practicing for large scale combat operations. Both may be for practical need or as a deterrence operation is that line that it's to deter wars and to win quickly with lowest possible casualty.
Does that stand in contrast to LSCO [Large-Scale Combat Operations]? Is that a change in strategy, or has that always kind of been the case as the US military looks at a Taiwan scenario, the capabilities that make you effective at deterring are not always the capability that make you effective in each type of war scenario.
Long
I think it can be argued that a very effective deterrence strategy with the Taiwan scenario that you mentioned would be making it very clear to China that this isn't what they call a fait accompli.
This wouldn't be a quick action. This would be a long, protracted war. That's very unclear who would win and how much it would cost. And this brings so much uncertainty into the situation that it seems would, you know, Carl von Clausewitz, you know, the famous strategist would say, you know, it makes the value of the object not worth the operational costs, right?
And so once you see that value of the object outweighed by what it would cost, you know, it's very unlikely that you would see a conflict which may mean we'd be successful in deterrence. And so I think when you look at the Taiwan scenario, you look at a scenario where you say, hey, the best way to deter is to have it to make it clear that we're going to be involved, and that it would be a massive conflict with this large-scale combat operations.
Contrast that with what we saw in Iran, with this administration, right, in Iran tried to negotiate using diplomacy. Diplomacy didn't work when in single strike. Very successful, overwhelming force instantly out and publicly said, hey, this is over for the United States. We destroyed these specific assets we were going to. We've moved out. We're done with this conflict. This is an example of success in conflict. And Taiwan is, is . . . hopefully remains an example of what's successful in deterrence.
Gunnell
One of my mentors, Canal, and a legend in the China field. He has a lot of great quotes, but one of my favorite is for every single rule, there's an exception, including this one. I think the Taiwan scenario always creates much different stakes. So, it's a high stakes game, and therefore, we can we can look at it differently.
To me, the necessity doesn't say we must treat everything the same. We can have boutique approaches, but in general overall strategy, again, kind of going back to the thinking about China and how they might have read this National Security Strategy and maybe some differences from the US lens versus the China lens. What I found interesting is the emphasis on ends, ways, and means in the National Security Strategy, which is a very American way to look at things.
It's very linear. It's very decisive. When you look at the way that the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, looks at how to achieve its objectives, it is not ends, ways, and means, it is more systems thinking. What I mean by that is ends, ways, and means is very short- to medium-term in my opinion. You have an end goal state and you're going to go and get it and you're going to execute it, and you're going to probably do a pretty good job of it.
Whereas that systems thinking from the Chinese perspective is they think about it in more kind of environmental terms, like a larger ecology in which they try to position themselves in this huge moving system. And while they may not necessarily accomplish something in a year or two, they are looking at it from a five to 10- to 15-year perspective.
I say all that to try to, to pull out any kind of understanding from the American side that can [make] these two things live in contrast to each other, where the National Security Strategy emphasizes ends, ways, and means as it applies to a Chinese way of thinking? Can those compete with each other? Do we need to go a little bit further? I just kind of wondering if you have any thoughts on that.
Long
I love the perspectives, you know, sort of looking at the difference of how different cultures look at solving problems. And so what I would say is, you know, the traditional ends, ways, means balanced over risk concept of a strategy is, you know, this is a model. This is a model of a way to develop a strategy. And that's the model that this National Security Strategy for sure uses. More correctly, I think, from sort of a doctrinal or academic standpoint than most have in the past. And so when I look at this, what I see is, hey, this is a good way to look at how to think about a problem and how to potentially solve it.
It doesn't necessarily mean that that a holistic, more overview of the Chinese way is better or worse. I do agree with you. And so my time working in the Pacific and working with Asian countries, I've seen a similar sort of thought process, and I don't necessarily think one is necessarily significantly better or worse. I'm much more trained in the Western way, so I feel much more comfortable in that world.
But I'm very interested in seeing how others are very effective. You know, even just looking at, you know, how the Chinese develop every five years remaking their constitution and sort of the constant revamping and slow movement into a direction. I think that to me feels that feels very Chinese versus you know, hey, there is this overall singular truth of a constitution that the US has, and we just need to make some, some changes on the periphery here and there in this sort of living document.
Gunnell
One last question about the Asia-Pacific in this document. One of the things that is emphasized is the need for more burden sharing. That's not, that's true both in the Asia-Pacific, in the strategy, and even maybe more so in Europe. Do you think that we need to have a burden sharing strategy that is nuanced and based on the economies of each nation? And what I mean by that is NATO members maybe spend more, but Asean members spend less. To me, I imagine almost a sliding scale, one that's a little bit more curated than just saying you have to put up 5% country X, Y and Z. I did a little bit of numbering, a little bit of calculating on who are the highest GDP rates per European country and Asean countries.
And in the top ten of GDP rates per country, 70% of them are NATO. You go to the numbers 11 to 20. That number fundamentally flips where it's 70% Asian countries, 30% NATO. And I say all that to try and figure out in this new approach, this new strategy for burden sharing. Is there a way to yes, have NATO spend more, but also understand that there are a lot of poorer countries in the Asia-Pacific where maybe they can't share as much, and we have to have a, like I said, a little bit more nuanced strategy. Would you agree with that?
Long
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the State Department does a good job of looking at that. Right. So, you know, when we look at the Pacific theater, the one you and I focus on the most, you know, when we look at a South Korea, a Japan, a Singapore, a Taiwan, these are wealthy countries that do a great job with how much, what percentage of their GDP.
And all of them are increasing how much they're spending on their militaries. Right. Significant amount. You know, this is something that the United States has wanted for a long time, but this is something that is definitely happening now over the last 3 or 4 years, is really a push to raise the burden sharing of these countries. You see it significantly in Japan and South Korea a little bit with the Philippines as well.
I think that what this document is saying is that here the United States, it's a multipolar world. The United States isn't the singular cop anymore, right? The United States needs these countries to pick up some of the burden and not be in what, you might hear in, like, political science theory called, like, a free rider, right to take on a larger share of this.
I'm not quite as familiar with the European theater other than what we see on the news. But when we look at our theater, you know, South Korea has significantly increased. It's Japan, [which] has had to change its own constitution to increase how much they're paying. Taiwan, I think, is just on its third increase in, budget. All of these are making the militaries of these countries larger, more powerful, more capable, which I think is overall good for deterrence.
At least that's the hope. I think there's recognition out there that burden sharing comes in many way shapes and forms. Yes, there is a set amount of money per GDP, a country can contribute to resilience or to some form of, countering China or any adversary that you throw in there. But there's also ways to pass policies, increased US access to basing in certain areas of the Asia-Pacific, or leveraging even local strengths, Korean shipbuilding, whatever it may be, that can help contribute to the fight so that we can solve some of these more sticky problems, these complex problems that we routinely face as we go into the Pacific theater.
Gunnell
Are there any other pieces of the NSS that you wanted to hit on either Africa, Middle East, a little bit more Europe?
Long
I would just say that I like the way this strategy, like most, it prioritizes[by] theater. So as we read through each one of those, you can kind of see what the, the administration thinks is the most important.
And this will just be, you know, we're part of the Army War College. We are a teaching institution. So something I would put out to all of those, you know, soldiers and troops and civilians who focus in those theaters is make sure you get the National Security Strategy. Read your section. Right, the longest section on any theater is Western Hemisphere, and it's the Pacific, and it's six pages.
So this stuff is pretty fast reading, pretty easy, and it'll give you a pretty good understanding of what the administration's overview is. Let me turn the tables on you now. And what I'd like to do is ask you a question and that's, you know, what do you think the Chinese perspective of this document is right now?
Gunnell
It's a great question. Xinhua News Agency, one of China's largest news agencies, two days after the NSS was released, did provide feedback on what the CCP thinks of the NSS to not go line by line. I highlighted some of the areas that they highlighted, recognizing that those are the ones that I think they're most interested in. There are three core pieces that Shinhwa talked about, and the NSS they said that they recognized that the US is seeking to reduce its global security burden.
So to me, China, the Chinese Communist Party says, okay, the US is becoming we're recognizing a multipolar world order, which gives us an opportunity to start playing even more in that space, almost a little bit of a recognition that, yes, we can compete in this space. We don't have to keep trying to fight the narrative that it's the US and nobody else.
The second point that Shinhwa highlighted was that the US is seeking to avoid costly wars and prevent regional conflicts from escalating into intercontinental and global conflicts. So from that perspective, the CCP is maybe even seeing the US as being more of a peacemaker than as one that is more inclined to wage war against mainland China. And the third is that the US seeks to rebuild strategic stability with Russia, ending the Ukraine crisis as quickly as possible.
Now, whether any of these come to fruition is secondary to the point that China read this and sees maybe a US that would want to come to the table a little bit more, a US that might be able to have a conversation about Taiwan and to really lower the temperature of the issues in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands, fill in the blank.
I found that fascinating that they leaned into the peace, maybe even peace through strength. Peace. And that might be an opportunity for the US and China to have or to renew, negotiations and a dialog that will be far short of conflict and play more on the competition sphere.
Long
I appreciate that, and I definitely hope you're right. You know, I think you and I both think that the United States, Taiwan, China, most of the region, most of the world doesn't want conflict along in the South China Sea or in the Taiwan Strait. And I think the more we can do to reduce that temperature and deter that conflict from both sides’ perspective, I think it is well said.
Long
I really appreciate that. What else did you see?
Gunnell
If I had to provide, a constructive critique, that, that China noticed, then I think other countries noticed as well. Is that the NSC was quite wary of multilateral institutions, especially ones on the international stage at times questioning the validity of them and China. And when I say China, I really always mean the Chinese Communist Party as they read through that, they internalized that as well.
NATO may be at stake. And to me, that's not necessarily a message that I like them receiving. I want them to see a unified group of allies and partners, not just in the Pacific, but in the Western Hemisphere and Europe as well. Kind of prophetically, an unnamed Chinese analyst in one of these reports wondered if, even as the US proclaims non- interventionism, its recent actions just increased economic pressure and political intervention in Latin American countries.
This was before the Venezuelan invasion, and so they are deep and good students on our actions and our words and they are following. I can guarantee you they are following every line and adjusting in that system thinking kind of way, because I think that they look at this from that systems thinking perspective and go, okay, the state of the state might be changing and we might need to adapt in this new environment so that we can still achieve our end goal per se.
But they are realizing, as I think this NSS is actually saying, we as a country are trying to try out a new strategy, one that is Western Hemisphere as the priority, but also one that will try to reduce Chinese aggression, not just in the Asia-Pacific region, but across the world.
Long
You know, if we look at this document from the realist perspective, you know, a realist would say, hey, these multilateral institutions, these are constructs that are unlikely to be successful.
You know, realism doesn't look at the value of multilateral institutions, right? Like a NATO as a long-term valued prospect. If I was to put on my cynical counterpoint hat to that, what I would say is the death of NATO has been predicted for a long, long time ago. I don't think there's been an administration since the end of the Cold War for sure, that hasn't complained about NATO, hasn't complained about NATO members, and hasn't complained about their burden sharing capabilities.
Right. So I think you've seen every single president - that includes Obama and Clinton -complaining about that from the other perspective. All we you know, if you were working in the European theater aisles, you hear about the problems of NATO. But if you're working in the Asian theater, you know what so many people talk about is, wow, we really need an Asian NATO.
We really need the value of this. So is this a terrible organization that has trouble with its membership, or is it a perfect model that we need to move to? Right. So once again, that's my cynical hat. I'll pull it back on and I'll be, I'll be my normal, optimistic self. I definitely see your perspective on that from NATO to kind of circle back just quick about China paying attention.
Gunnell
The CCP seeing it and recognizing that they need to adjust. Given this fairly dramatic shift in strategy, about 4 or 5 days after the National Security Strategy was released, China released a white paper on Latin America and the Caribbean, and the document leaned on common CCP tactics to change the international order, including appeal to the Global South and the the common phrase “community with a shared future for mankind.”
It's a very CCP propaganda, but what it really means is a Chinese-led international order, or at least the diminishing of the international liberal order as led by, the West. And the White Paper I thought was interesting because it offered five major cooperation programs. So we have this US national security strategy that comes out and says we're focusing on the Western Hemisphere, but then China goes, oh, we can play here too.
But they heard the message and they said, we're still going to try something. And those five major cooperation programs were put into five key buckets solidarity. That was key leader engagements and global governance reform. Development really economic growth, civilization. That's cultural exchanges with a focus on education, peace, which is really just security with the focus on both traditional and non-traditional security and people-to-people connectivity.
So that's poverty reduction and increased tourism. It also highlights the less talked about China-CELAC forum. That's the community of Latin American and Caribbean states. And I say all that because this is both that response that immediate CCP response systems thinking style, we must adjust to the new normal so that we can still achieve our end state. Also, to highlight that those five cooperation programs bucket almost perfectly and as explicitly said in that white paper that I mentioned into China's four global initiatives, and I always try to take an opportunity to highlight these four global initiatives because we have such a focus on the Belt and Road Initiative, we really understand what's going there, its strengths for China, but also its weaknesses as exposed through various corruption pieces or maybe unfair trade deals. But there's these four other global initiatives. I just want to briefly mention that China will be using to counter the National Security Strategy in Latin America and South America, and those are the Global Development Initiative, which promotes China's economic growth model, poverty reduction, the Global Security Initiative, which is really their traditional and nontraditional security piece to really enhance the CCP's role both at home and abroad.
Sheena Chestnut, greetings, CLSC fellow. With us. She writes a whole great number of pieces on how XI Jinping and the CCP are using extended actions abroad to secure regime security at home. There's also the global Civilization Initiative, which basically says countries shouldn't impose their own governance models. This is where there's more state-to-state, party-to-party, and cultural engagement issues.
And then lastly, the Global Governance Initiative, which is a rebalancing of multilateral institutions. CLSC’s own Colonel Kyle Markram wrote a nice short piece on this. And really the possibility for a fifth initiative focused on the environment. But I want to just kind of pull that out, to not just show or say how the CCP responded to it in public writings, but some real practical actions that they're going to take in the Western Hemisphere so that they can still maintain a foothold.
And there we will see competition, hopefully not conflict. But I would say that the CCP is doubling down. They heard the message. The Western Hemisphere is the US. And they said, no, I'm not sure we totally buy that.
Long
I appreciate that. And what I really like is having a guy like you on this podcast, because we can get some original source stuff because of your ability to read and speak Chinese.
So I certainly appreciate that. Hey, with that said, I'd like to switch over to mailbag and we kind of talk to what we're getting from our, audience here. All right. So for those of you who are not familiar, new to the podcast CLSC, the China Landpower Studies Center, we have an email address, CLSC@ArmyWarCollege.edu.
Send us an email, ask us questions. We'll get them on the podcast. Tell us what you want us to podcast about. We'll get on there and then, let us know if you want us to add you to our distro list. We've sent out a quarterly newsletter. All right. So let's look at we got two questions. I'm going to give you the first one here because it's about China.
And this is what you know.
“Why did Xi just fire nine PLA generals? And what does it mean for the future of the PLA?”
Yeah it's a fantastic question. And honestly, I could have an entire podcast and maybe I will on this topic. So I'll try to give the quick reaction to it. So why did the PLA, why did Xi Jinping do this?
Gunnell
The answer is there is both true corruption in the PLA. Their procurement system is highly corrupt. And it wasn't just these nine PLA generals that were indicted for corruption recently. It was also a host of defense industrial companies in China, in the largest state-owned enterprises, who conveniently work directly with the PLA. So there is a line between the defense industrial complex and the PLA, where there are likely bribes happening.
And XI Jinping is intent on being a true reformer to the system. XI Jinping has a lot of problems and he has committed genocide in various parts of China. He has squashed democracy. He is not a good human being. However, he is also a practical actor. And that practicalness is him looking at the PLA, looking at the problems that they suffered for decades and no longer just talking.
The talk of cleaning up the PLA, but really walking the walk and taking out PLA generals who are corrupt now, were all nine of them involved in procurement bribes? Fill in the blank of kind of standard corruption. Maybe. Maybe not. China doesn't give us that answer. I would speculate there is some infighting within the PLA. Hard to say who and how much, but looking at how some of the PLA persons who've been indicted for corruption, some of them have had extensive contact with the outside world, for lack of a better term, with either the West, with Russia, with other countries.
And I have to wonder, under this increasingly nationalistic China, that Xi has fostered, that there are people within the PLA who are asking for him to kind of take his foot off the gas a little bit, maybe, maybe not get so nationalistic. Let's try to engage with the West a little bit more. And I wonder if that opinion has fallen out of favor with Xi as he becomes increasingly insular and, in control and firm control of the PLA.
I thought it was also interesting that or find it currently interesting that the political work department, the Central Military Commissions, Political Work Department Director Miao Hua, who is also on the CMC, he is the party's top political commissar, for lack of a better term. The whole political commissar structure is a great podcast for another day, but one of the key aspects that he's in charge of is the party committee system, which exists in largely every single organization and unit in the PLA.
That party committee structure is responsible for promotions and so when Xi looked at the PLA and he looked at the system, the political system, the party system that was promoting people, he likely saw that the entire system was corrupt from the top all the way to the bottom, that people would pay for promotions, that people would appeal to these party committees and political commissars up to the most senior levels in order to advance and get better pay and have more prestige.
It's interesting. I'm currently reading a book, and it was discussion between Mao and his personal doctor for 25 years and his doctor, his personal doctor was refusing to take a bribe because that was the CCP's mantra as early as the early 1920s, 30s and 40s. And he told Mao the story of refusing this bribe. And Mao, in response, just laughed at him.
He said, you're such a bookworm. Why are you so stingy? You don't understand human relations. Pure water can't support fish. And so this is such a cultural issue that Xi is up against that. Even through the early part of his reign, in the early to mid-2010s, when the Tiger and Flies campaign was rampant, he is still struggling with this issue and finding that he has to really take some real actions.
Active duty, the highest officers in charge. I mean, just look at the people who were indicted, the nine Chinese officers that were indicted. It was the number three person in charge of the PLA. It was the Central Military Commissions Joint Operations Center. It was the Eastern Theater Command commander. That's the guy that's responsible for Taiwan, the Rocket Force commander.
It's the PAP [spell this out] commander. And then a whole host of political commissars in various services, including the Army and the Navy. That is a lot of key senior leaders who were removed, and probably rightly so. Maybe not all of them, but some of them surely were part of the real problems that the PLA struggles with. But it also is going to affect the PLA as command and control at the senior level.
So as we're approaching 2027, this notion that it is an opportunity that Xi might take, I think you look at those corruption inquiries and those removals, and from where I sit and how I think about PLA persons, I go the senior strategic level C2 network is destroyed. And so they're going to take a little bit of time to really fix the issue.
And that's okay. In my personal opinion. I've written on this that XI Jinping sees that long road, that systems thinking kind of perspective, that we have a goal and we're going to get there, but it's going to take some pain to get there. Yeah, probably a long march to get there maybe. Yeah. Yeah. When I was asked about Venezuela and, you know, why do we think we didn't lose any of the aircraft?
My first answer was corruption. The corruption in the Chinese equipment that was sold to the Venezuelans, or the corruption that made the Venezuelans untrained and unprepared and unable to use their equipment. But I think corruption is, you know, when we look at conflicts with a lot of these countries, their own corruption is kind of an ally of the United States.
So I'll take the second question from the mailbag and throw it to you.
“What is the transition that's currently going on with US Forces Japan? “
Long
There's a lot going on with that. USFJ, US Forces Japan. So that's the overall US military lead inside of Japan is transitioning to a joint force command. So an operational headquarters where USFJ in the past had been really focused as a an administrative command that was really in charge of the administrative aspect of a lot of units, as well as maintaining the alliance is really changing into a more operational focus.
And so what that means is USFJ is becoming capable to run significant serious military operations. So that could be something as simple as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief missions. Right. Something in the Pacific. There's a big tsunami in the Pacific. USFJ could be the lead of that. There [are] dozens of exercises that the US military does across the Pacific.
They could run those. Right. So there's a series of these. But really, what it's to build is that capability on who will command and control, and how can you command and control all of portions of a conflict inside of the Pacific? Right. So if we look at a conflict with a China scenario, USFJ is, well positioned, you know, its location inside of Japan, well west of the International Date Line, inside of that first island chain, part of that first island chain.
They're well-suited. They have a lot of force forces, they’re 60,000 forces inside of Japan to do that. And so this is something that both the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of the United States are working towards. And we see the United States Secretary of War and his counterpart in Japan, developing that. So this is a big time of change and a big refocus area of the Pacific that we've talked about.
And so there's been a long time coming. And I think this is a really good step for progress into how we should think about organizing command and control and conflict in the Western Pacific. Again, if you have a question for us, send it to us at our CLSC email. That's CLSC at ArmyWarCollege.edu. Let me finish this up with asking what you're reading.
So I love to give the people something to read and kind of know what's in the zeitgeist right now. I'll turn it over. You. Rick. Rick, what are you reading right now?
Gunnell
I referenced it a little bit earlier. The conversation or the quote on corruption between, Mao Zedong and his personal doctor. It's called The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
It's a fascinating read. China has such an obfuscated information environment that we very rarely get insight into how their leaders truly think. And behave, and I found this book to be a page turner. It's funny at times. It's both the story of the doctor, of his initial strong, fervent belief in communism and it wearing down over time, but also how Mao was as a leader.
And it turns out he was deeply paranoid and a bit of a loner, and he would have this big public show of face. But behind the scenes, he struggled with many, very real human issues. And so I found that to be quite fascinating. I'm also kind of going back into some of the classics, Chinese culture and reading to better understand and assess, you know, how much of New China, modern China is truly new?
Is it just an extension of thousands of years of history, or are they really rooted in Confucian ideals, among many other ones that have existed over time? Or did Mao actually take out a lot of those more historical cultural ways of thinking so that he could truly have his cult of personality and the Communist Party ruled above all in any ideology that ever existed.
So that's what I'm reading. Are you listening to any podcasts or things that you're following?
Long
I'm an avid podcast listener, so, two great podcast that I'd love for our listeners to check out. One is “Pekingology.” It's produced by CSIS and I, and I can recommend it higher. I really enjoy it. Get a lot out of it.
The second is called “Haunted Dilemma.” Great title of a podcast because it's coming out of [the] University of Texas. It's the National Review there. It's a, it's a national security-focused podcast, and it's actually hosted by our own visiting professor, Doctor Sheena Chestnut. Great. And she does an awesome job. She brings in experts from across the world.
And there's a heavy focus on the Indo-Pacific, especially China. So recommend all those China watchers out there. Korea watchers, Japan watchers. Check that one out. And, I think they'll enjoy it. And I think that's probably all of our time. I want to say, Rick, thank you so much for hosting today. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
And, look forward to doing another podcast with you.
Gunnell
Thanks. Really appreciate it.
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