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questionasker  1yr ago (text post)   2366 thread views

In a recent statement, China has said U.S. relations have left the 'rational path.' What can we call 'rational' in the realm of geopolitics, diplomacy, international relations?

Background: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/07/chinas-new-foreign-minister-qin-gang-holds-first-press-briefing.html

What is the rational course for US foreign policy regarding e.g. the Taiwan problem? What is China's? What is Taiwan's? Are the US, China, and Taiwan currently acting in rational ways in regards to this geopolitical issue? If not, why? If every actor was acting rationally, would this result in the possibility of cooperation to solve the problem peacefully? Or does at least one actor's rational course of action necessarily put them on a 'collision course' with the others? Or, worse, for this situation, is it possible that it is in every actors' most rational course of action to desire the same peaceful resolution/treaty, but some type of tragic coordination problem renders this impossible?

To avoid this being a culture war topic, let's avoid talking about what type of resolution would be best in the sense of most moral, just, etc. Let's only discuss what would be the most rational course of action for every party involved, whatever that may mean.

Of course there have been many attempts to solve geopolitics in the past (see: the various schools of international relations theory). Even still, I'd hope that this wouldn't prevent us from having a discussion of our own about this. Most schools of IR theory attempt to explain why nations do what they do, and some schools ascribe this to possibly non-rational reasons e.g. social constructivism which says that sometimes culture of a nation might explain that nation's actions, and of course often times cultures can hold irrational beliefs or encourage irrational actions. Other schools e.g. realism attempt to explain international relations by stating that nations are rational actors at least as wealth/power-maximizers, but this is obviously contentions, and even if true it could be said that nations that always act as wealth/power-maximizers are not acting rationally, etc.

I'll start the discussion by giving an example of what I consider to be an extreme version of an irrational geopolitical actor, and one for whose actual historical actions have well-understood explanations other than rational behavior: the Empire of Japan after the Meiji restoration. At a certain point it became clear to many Japanese elites that their country was on an undesirable path, one that put them on a collision course with the United States. This war was correctly predicted by many Japanese leaders to be an un-winnable war, if not at least a highly undesirable one. With this in mind, it would probably have been 'most rational' for Japan to abandon their colonial possessions in Manchuria and Korea in the interwar period in order to avoid war with the US, rather than starting a new and more ambitious war with China to try and expand their empire to acquire the natural resources required to prop up those colonies, instead. However, due to ideological sentiment, any Japanese leader against the expansion of empire was essentially selected against by a series of ultranationalist assassins, leaving only irrationally hawkish leaders to direct their country in terms of foreign policy. Thus, Japan irrationally went to war in China, which eventually brought them into war with the US which was disastrous for them.

And, I will provide examples of what I consider to be rational geopolitical actors, as well: both the US and the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union initially began to emplace nukes in cuba for a variety of reasons, but for one because they correctly determined that they were at a disadvantage in terms of MAD and putting nukes in cuba could bring more core American territory into range, in order to better ensure their deterrence against a US first strike. Ensuring national security against that of e.g. nuclear destruction, for example, seems to me like a rational goal. The US felt rationally quite threatened by the development, and as well felt their global political situation was threatened unless the responded properly, and so there was a crisis. The US considered doing nothing, which is a rational thing to at least consider, but correctly concluded that a better outcome for their own self-interest could be reached by brinksmanship. The US (namely, Kennedy) also rationally decided against a full scale invasion of cuba despite the unanimous advice of the joint chiefs, probably correct in his assumption that an escalation such as that would have been beyond the pale, and would probably be matched by a soviet invasion of at least west berlin, etc, which would necessitate further escalation, and so reasoned again that a better resolution could be reached through diplomacy. Eventually, the crisis was resolved through a decently clever compromise, with the nuclear disarmament of cuba in exchange for the secret nuclear disarmament of turkey -- a resolution which involved both actors properly considering the others' positions and being willing to make concessions in order to accommodate for the other's circumstances, rather than being driven by ideology, pride, etc. at least in and of themselves. Khrushchev is considered to have lost face from this outcome, and it perhaps seriously contributed to his eventual ousting two years later, but considering the alternative was potentially nuclear armageddon, (i.e. a situation which would have greatly harmed the Soviet Union) it seems notably rational to have leaders at the helm of your nation willing to lose face/sacrifice their own personal career in order to achieve better outcomes for the nation as a whole such as not having it destroyed by nuclear bombs. If any actor can be said to be irrational in this situation, it might be the United States considering that there is an argument to be made that nukes in cuba wouldn't have seriously worsened the soviet nuclear threat and that Kennedy/US was more beheld to the irrational whims of the US public, and that they should have been the ones to rationally decide to take the PR hit by 'losing' the crisis in order to avert even the risk of extremely negative outcomes posed by engaging in brinksmanship. However, I think both the US and the USSR acted rationally enough on balance, at least to demonstrate enough individual examples of rational international relations behavior over the course of the historical anecdote, for the example of them as 'rational' to be sufficient.

With this in mind, how should we describe the geopolitical courses of China, the US, and Taiwan regarding the problem of Taiwanese sovereignty? Are any, or perhaps multiple of the involved actors making decisions meaningfully similar to imperial Japan on the leadup to war with the US i.e. irrationally? If so, why? Or are any or perhaps multiple of the involved actors acting more like the US/USSR during the cuban missile crisis, i.e. acting rationally -- but perhaps still on a collision course, even possibly on a collision course with other rational actors?

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(This was supposed to be more interesting but fuck it, I've forgotten what I had to say. Probably something about how you can win games by denying the other party the chance to develop past a certain stage for long enough. Conrad Bastable has probably said it better, in any case).

The latest wargames assuming the beginning of hostilities in 2026 (oh how time flies) show USA and allies beating China bloody, the attempt to annex the island failing miserably. I recommend reading the report, it's pretty good.

In all iterations of the base scenario, U.S. Navy losses included two ULS. aircraft carriers as well as between 7 and 20 other major surface warships (e.g., destroyers and cruisers). These losses were partly an artifact of U.S. forward deployment aimed at deterring China, as the scenario begins with two carriers and an additional SAG positioned in vulnerable positions off Okinawa. It also reflects the vulnerability of surface ships to large salvos of modern anti-ship missiles. These salvos exhausted the ships’ magazines of interceptors; even with the base case assumption that shipborne missile defense works very well, there are simply too many attacking missiles to intercept. The JMSDF suffered even more heavily, as all its assets fall within the range of Chinese anti-ship missile systems, which include anti-ship ballistic missiles and long-range ASCMs as well as submarines and shorter-range munitions.

China’s losses in the base scenario were also high. In all iterations, PLAN ships around Taiwan were the primary focus of attack, and China’s naval losses averaged 138 major ships in the three iterations of the base scenario. On average, these included 86 amphibious ships (90 percent of the total) and 52 other major surface warships.“ Chinese aircraft losses, averaging 161 fixed-wing combat aircraft per iteration, were smaller than those for the United States. But in the base iterations, the United States never attacked Chinese bases (though they were permitted to do so according to the scenario assumptions), so all of China’s air losses were suffered in the air. Therefore, China would have lost many aircrews but had no losses to ground crews.

China’s overall personnel losses were high. In ground combat, China suffered an average of 7 battalion-equivalents destroyed, equal to Taiwan’s ground losses. This would translate to about 7,000 casualties, roughly a third of whom are assumed killed. Another roughly 15,000 soldiers were lost at sea, with half assumed killed. Finally, many (and probably an overwhelming majority) of the 30,000-plus Chinese survivors on Taiwan would likely become prisoners at the end of combat. […]

The more pessimistic assumptions used in a scenario, the worse the outcome for the United States. The three iterations run with only one pessimistic assumption (the “no maritime strike JASSM” excursion case) produced one decisive Chinese defeat and two that were trending against China. Those scenarios with additional pessimistic assumptions produced a wider range of results—with an average result significantly worse for the United States and its partners than the three more moderately pessimistic scenarios.

In all the pessimistic iterations, the PLA was able to land an average of 60 battalions. The final strength of PLA forces ashore, after losses, averaged 43 battalions, or 43,000 combat soldiers and accompanying support personnel. At the end of game play, the PLA controlled an average of 6,240 kmˆ2 (or 17 percent) of Taiwan’s 36,000 kmˆ2, though, as noted, there was considerable variation between games. Finally, it should be noted that the games lasted an average of six turns (or 21 days of campaign time). Although the result was often clear at that point, getting to final resolution would require many additional weeks of combat. In the case of stalemate, the war might have continued for many months. […]

Ragnarok

Design: The “Ragnarok” scenario was designed to ascertain what conditions would be necessary for China to be victorious in the face of Taiwanese resistance and U.S. intervention. The need for a special scenario became clear after China failed to secure a total victory in a range of pessimistic scenarios. This scenario should therefore not be taken as a likely future but rather as a tool to illustrate what would be necessary to invalidate the project’s main result (that China is unlikely to succeed if Taiwan resists and the United States intervenes). […]

The base scenario produced relatively rapid and clear Chinese defeat, a result produced largely by the ability of U.S., Taiwanese, and Japanese anti-ship missiles to destroy the Chinese amphibius fleet before the PLA forces ashore can capture ports and airports to increase the force flow across the strait. Optimistic scenarios (favoring the United States and its partners) produced the same results but more quickly and with lower casualties. Pessimistic scenarios (favoring China) produced more protracted fighting and a wider range of operational outcomes, ranging from decisive Chinese defeat to stalemates in which China controlled damaged ports and airports. The “Taiwan stands alone” scenario produced inexorable Chinese advance, concluding with the Chinese occupation of the entire island—an unambiguous PLA victory.

It goes without saying that American wargames are biased against the side the US is cheering for: this was the case in Iraq, in Ukraine, and here it will be the case too. (American experts do not earn their bread in the copium business, they're MIC shills if anything, although one can come up with a more charitable take). So the Chinese loss is a credible prediction. The report does not account for novel technologies, but for the sake of argument let's assume the Chinese will maintain the same qualitative gap.

For more holistic analyses concerning global economic impact and such, I direct you to RAND.

Most people in the sphere, Zeihan being a notable exception, seem to believe (or at least that's what they claim) that in the scale of a few more years – by 2030 and beyond – the odds will grow to be more favorable to China. So it stands to reason to provoke a war as soon as possible. It's rational.

Reasons the Chinese are urging against brinkmanship are twofold. First, they want to postpone the war for already-mentioned reasons. Second, they are genuinely worse at understanding the stakes. Everything the Chinese have succeeded at, they have succeeded through trade and industry. It is inconceivable to them that a nation excelling in commerce even more than they do would rather go for a destructive exchange to maintain its primacy. They wouldn't have done so.

Moreover, they think it just for that nation to accept its (purported) decline. That's the natural way of the world, so why struggle in a futile effort to delay the inevitable?

Very charitably, the Chinese share Jordan Peterson's idea of winning:

His kid was very good at playing hockey, but he wasn't very good at being a good player. And so, you know, you always tell your kids, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it matters how you play the game." And of course, you don't know what that means, and neither does the kid, and it's often a mystery to the kid what the means because obviously you're trying to win. But imagine it this way: imagine that human beings, that the goal of human life isn't to win the game. The goal of human life, in some sense, is to win the set of all possible games. And in order to win the set of all possible games, you don't need to win any particular game. You have to play in a manner that ensures that you will be invited to play more and more games.

The West has Ender Wiggin's idea:

“Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they'd leave me alone.”

It's a cliché, but the big difference between «Western» and «Eastern», or more archaically Occidental and Oriental, or more properly Abrahamic and Dharmic+Confucian cultures is the paradigm of linear time versus cyclical time. Cyclical universe is a theory informed by observing patterns of the natural world: the change of the times of day and phases of the moon and seasons of the year, children succeeding their parents to bequeath their legacy to the next generation, dynasties establishing their mandate, flourishing and falling into ruin, the great wheel turning and turning.

The West used to believe in this as well, from Greeks to the Norse. But it's a shallow and comforting vision, the default intuition all cultures arrive at when they begin to ponder the nature of things. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that Time is an arrow, not a circle; both the fundamental bits and the highest-order processes perform an irreversible computation. Entropy rises, the species evolves; the Paradise is forever lost, but the Rapture is drawing ever closer – and it matters whether you end up on the side of the damned or together with the saints.

Americans, despite protestations, have a certain Grand Idea. Few and unimportant people have put it into words, but it can be sensed in the air and the water supply. This idea depends very much on the Chinese not having acquired a number of technological tools in this decade, before those tools are properly leveraged by Americans. It looks like this requirement is best satisfied in the condition of Taiwan maintaining it sovereignty or, at least, its high-tech industry not surviving the Chinese attempt at annexation. So this is how it will go.

Most people in the sphere, Zeihan being a notable exception, seem to believe (or at least that's what they claim) that in the scale of a few more years – by 2030 and beyond – the odds will grow to be more favorable to China.

Really? There's a gap in US Navy procurement that has the number of operational ships dropping, without replacements coming online soon enough, the "Terrible 20s". The US would be happy to punt the war to the 30s, so that SSN(X), DDG(X) and the AUKUS submarines could be fielded. The CSIS paper also calls out our current stocks of antiship missiles:

The LRASM was particularly useful because of its ability to strike Chinese naval forces and directly reduce Chinese invasion capabilities. In every iteration, the United States expended its entire global inventory of LRASMs (about 450 missiles) within the first week of the conflict.

Having another decade to build more of those would be nice!

I'm not sure Chinese demographics support waiting, either. Their population is already dropping, and the narrow age band of "military aged males" being what they are, their fighting population will fall even faster still. China might be in a "use it or lose it" moment regarding their armed forces. I'd expect them to make their move in the next four years.

But does it have to be an armed invasion? A sea blockade would achieve important war goals, (denying semiconductors to the first world) while avoiding their costs. (A Ukraine-style rally in global opinion to defend a small nation against its larger neighbor) The PRC could easily allow food relief through and block everything else, choking out Taiwan economically over decades. The US's blockade of Cuba is a salient example!

You seem dismissive of your own comment, but the last three paragraphs here seem incredibly profound to me. Thanks for your interesting reply.

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