In an interview with Katie Stallard of *The New Statesman,* former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger makes the case for achieving “unmistakable strength in the form of military hard power” that will ensure that China is “not tempted to resort to force” to resolve the status of Taiwan. As he argues, “If we are going to prevent a catastrophe, then we need to recognize that the middle path between outright hot war on the one hand, and abject capitulation on the other, is something cold-war-like,” he said. “That is a competition between hostile adversaries, but where we try to avoid either of those terrible extremes, and even if you recognize that there are significant differences between China and the Soviet Union, we learn the lessons of the Cold War in order to help things stay cold.”
Do you think the west is broadly in agreement that the US (and its allies) and China (and its allies) are in a new Cold War?
And to what extent do you agree or disagree with Pottinger’s overall assessment that we are in the foothills of actual great power kinetic conflict?
Pottinger’s thoughts on this are actually pretty lucid. He’s also a proponent of Vandenberg’s “Politics stops at the water’s edge” philosophy, which imo gives him more credibility. I don’t completely buy into his sense of urgency (yet) but his thoughts are well worth contemplating.
If you take a step back from the trees and look at the forest, great power wars happen roughly every 70-100 years in the modern age, at least in the west. The European Wars of religion (namely the 30 Years War), War of the Spanish Succession, Napoleonic Wars, and WWI/WWII occurred along those intervals. The Seven Years War is a bit of an exception, but AFAIK it wasnt nearly as large scale as those others were on the European continent. (As far as I know this very roughly applies to Chinese history too, but I don’t know details.) You could argue that the reason is that it takes several generations for countries to lust for blood again/for people to forget how awful war is, or that demographic and economic cycles on that timescale push countries to war, or that international systems will degrade on that timescale as the world changes, or something else, but the fact remains that since ~1500 great powers go to war at scale every so often.
We are about 80y out from WW2 and the world is only getting more unstable, it’s just a question of whether nukes are enough of a deterrent to prevent all out war. Given global political shifts to the right, incoming demographic implosions, climate change, and the slow breakdown of supply chains/international trade in the wake of the Ukraine War and COVID, I can see any number of reasons to expect a grear power war sooner than I’d like to think.
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In an interview with Katie Stallard of *The New Statesman,* former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger makes the case for achieving “unmistakable strength in the form of military hard power” that will ensure that China is “not tempted to resort to force” to resolve the status of Taiwan. As he argues, “If we are going to prevent a catastrophe, then we need to recognize that the middle path between outright hot war on the one hand, and abject capitulation on the other, is something cold-war-like,” he said. “That is a competition between hostile adversaries, but where we try to avoid either of those terrible extremes, and even if you recognize that there are significant differences between China and the Soviet Union, we learn the lessons of the Cold War in order to help things stay cold.”
Do you think the west is broadly in agreement that the US (and its allies) and China (and its allies) are in a new Cold War?
And to what extent do you agree or disagree with Pottinger’s overall assessment that we are in the foothills of actual great power kinetic conflict?
Pottinger’s thoughts on this are actually pretty lucid. He’s also a proponent of Vandenberg’s “Politics stops at the water’s edge” philosophy, which imo gives him more credibility. I don’t completely buy into his sense of urgency (yet) but his thoughts are well worth contemplating.
If you take a step back from the trees and look at the forest, great power wars happen roughly every 70-100 years in the modern age, at least in the west. The European Wars of religion (namely the 30 Years War), War of the Spanish Succession, Napoleonic Wars, and WWI/WWII occurred along those intervals. The Seven Years War is a bit of an exception, but AFAIK it wasnt nearly as large scale as those others were on the European continent. (As far as I know this very roughly applies to Chinese history too, but I don’t know details.) You could argue that the reason is that it takes several generations for countries to lust for blood again/for people to forget how awful war is, or that demographic and economic cycles on that timescale push countries to war, or that international systems will degrade on that timescale as the world changes, or something else, but the fact remains that since ~1500 great powers go to war at scale every so often.
We are about 80y out from WW2 and the world is only getting more unstable, it’s just a question of whether nukes are enough of a deterrent to prevent all out war. Given global political shifts to the right, incoming demographic implosions, climate change, and the slow breakdown of supply chains/international trade in the wake of the Ukraine War and COVID, I can see any number of reasons to expect a grear power war sooner than I’d like to think.