Is US-China conflict a possibility?

Is US-China military conflict a real possibility? If for a moment we ignore the strategic, political and military aspects of the issue and focus our attention on what the Americans have been thinking since the rise of China as a military and economic power on world stage became a hard reality, it will appear that the war between two giants of world politics is just round the corner. Just scan the archives of American think-tanks like RAND Corporation, United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and Atlantic Council. You will find out that American military and strategic experts have been wasting rims of papers to write on possible scenarios where direct military conflict between China and the United States would become a real possibility. They have produced a plethora of literature on the military strategy, thinking and political inclinations of Chinese political and military thinking. They paint scenarios like conflict will start in the South China Sea and will spread to the Persian Gulf instantly–this will be when the direct conflict between China and America becomes strategically and militarily relevant to Pakistan. Any possible war between the United States and China will not be a local or regional war. It will assume an international character from day one.

An eminent historian describes war as a norm in human history and not as an aberration. Media, academics and liberal intellectuals around the world have been telling us otherwise that War is history, Events in international politics have made our generation believe that war is a phenomenon which belongs to past human history. The “Longest peace” that started in 1945 after World War II and lasted till early 1990s—with Gulf War happening on the world stage—reinforced the liberal belief that war was an instrument in the hands of past tyrants. Of course, the Iran-Iraq war happened in the 1980s. But at least the world has not witnessed war between great powers since World War II came to a conclusion. We have not witnessed a world war in the post-1945 situation.

The world has been transformed during the last two years–Ukraine war, Gaza War, India-Pakistan War, Iran-Israel war have again made war a norm rather than an aberration. We have witnessed many low intensity conflicts like the one in Afghanistan and Kashmir. We have also witnessed nuclear armed super powers like the US attacking military dwarfs like Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq wars were more of policing operations and can’t be described as a war in the classical sense of the term. Experts, however, have long been pointing out that prevalence of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence that define international relations in the 21st century will make war between militarily equal states in the classical sense of the term nonexistent in the 21st century. The US dominance of international politics in the wake of the end of the Cold War led to the creation of a unipolar world in which the US had no military rivals. In the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union, the war the US conducted including Kosovo operations, two Gulf Wars and Afghanistan were all unilateral military operations and could hardly be described as wars. Liberal internationalists and American Foreign policy hawks were on the forefront of media and propaganda campaigns that alluded that the institution of war has been relegated to the dustbin of history. Two types of conflicting intellectual currents defined academic approach towards war in the western academic world. First says that the international system of nation-states is inherently prone to war since it is anarchic and there is no overarching governing body that provides security to a nation-state whose survival is threatened by another state. Second, intellectual current says that the economic interdependence has increased to a level where war has ceased to be an option for world powers which are getting benefit from economic interdependence and the network of institutions, laws and norms that have come to define international politics. A historian or a theorist may adhere to one or the other intellectual current, but he or she cannot deny the fact that there is not even a short period of human history, which has passed without conflicts and wars. It is not that time since the conclusion of the Second World War has not seen wars and conflicts. It is only that full scale conventional wars between rival nation-states have been rare since 1945. The world is changing around us. Perhaps for the first time since 1945 war between major world powers appears possible.

One is astonished to see the proliferation of lengthy reports by international think-tanks about possible war between China and the United States on the one hand and United States and Russia on the other hand. In October 2021 RAND Corporation-Washington based think-tank close to the American security establishment—produced a report in which it depicted three possible scenarios of full-scale conventional war between China and the United States in the light of emerging geopolitical trends in world politics. On the other hand, Russia-US or Russia-Western world war has emerged as a real possibility in the wake of Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Putin has been speaking in an extremely threatening tone both in terms of conventional conflict with the west and its possible escalation into a nuclear catastrophe. He has taken some practical steps to implement his nuclear threat by shifting some of its tactical nukes into neighboring allied countries, which have geographical proximity to Western allied nations in Eastern Europe and which are acting as a conduit for supply of American military hardware to Ukraine forces.

There was a time when liberal internationalists in Washington used to describe Kashmir as a flashpoint. They used to express the fear that the Kashmir situation could lead to nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India. Now Kashmir doesn’t seem as dangerous a flashpoint as the Korean Peninsula. Now the Economically advanced and highly industrialized nation of South Korea—which displays the same signs of pacification and liberal political ideology as the west—is demanding Washington to put its nuclear assets on display in the Korean Peninsula to deter the rudderless North Koreans. Close by Japanese society is witnessing a revival of interests in geo-politics and recent trends in Japanese politics indicate signs of aggressive security policy. Japanese are afraid of Chinese assertiveness in East Asia and have been in talks with Washington on geopolitical issues of the region. India and China have not come out of military tensions that manifest themselves in military clashes on the international border. And yet US Strategists have started laying out plans for incorporating Indian military potential into an integrated deterrence strategy that would involve the process of making India a regular member of Western military plans against China. This plan doesn’t simply mean that India would counter China as a military force on its international border primarily because US strategists have started talking about the Indian role in the overall US military strategy over possible conflict in Taiwan Strait. Indians were initially reluctant to become part of Western military strategy against China. Limited clashes on the international border changed Indian attitudes. Taiwan itself is a major flashpoint for military conflict between major world powers.

Arms sales have increased around the world as a result. Pacific countries like Japan are now talking about adopting aggressive security policy. India, which has resisted world power politics in its foreign policy since independence, is becoming greatly involved in super power politics. Chinese geo-political ambitions are manifesting themselves in ambitious projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative. Geo-politics is back and back with a vengeance. War that can trigger a chain of events leading to world conflagration appears just round the corner.

Pakistan cannot avoid entanglement in this international conflagration. Pakistan is too weak a state to withstand the repercussions of any conflict involving world powers or any conflict between any two nation states in its vicinity. For instance, if China and India go to war, it will prove disastrous for Pakistan even if we don’t have to become part of the conflict. Economic impact of the conflict will be too horrendous for us to contemplate. Even if peace persists in the region, the sheer financial weight of the arms race that our military bureaucracy will push us into after taking into account India arms acquisition spree—as part of the American, “Integrated deterrence” strategy against China—will push us into an economic abyss. But we do have a viable option emerging before us. India is reversing its role—from an advocate of non-alignment and disarmament it is turning into a frontline state of west against China. We should think about reversing our role as well—from a satellite state of the west during the Cold War and a frontline state in War against Terror, it should start preparing for a role as a liberal democracy advocating peace, conflict resolutions and world disarmament. This is the only viable option for us. Our economy is not in a position to sustain an excessive defense budget in the foreseeable future. We cannot afford an arms race with India. In such a situation our diplomacy should undergo major transformation. We should become advocates of peace and disarmament around the world. However, to make it a possibility an unending program of domestic reforms must go underway on an immediate basis. Political consensus on domestic political and economic reforms is the first prerequisite of any program of transformation of our diplomacy. Old forms of politics, military conflicts and diplomacy will prove too costly for the Pakistani state in the changing geo-political environment that is taking shape around us. Peace within and peace without are the answers. A big no to, costly military build-up should be our answer to the emerging situation.