The Pentagon Says China and Russia are Bigger Problems for U.S. than Terrorists. American Voters May Not Agree.
The Pentagon Says China and Russia are Bigger Problems for U.S. than Terrorists. American Voters May Not Agree. by Adam Taylor – Washington Post
A newly released Pentagon strategy document proposes a new vision of America’s national security priorities — one in which competition with China and Russia is more important to the United States than the fight against international terrorism.
After almost two decades of a “war on terror” that came at huge expense but often had few tangible benefits, such a strategy would mark a noteworthy change in the way the United States conducts its foreign policy. However, the new strategy also raises a question: Do American voters agree?
Perhaps not. A number of polls conducted over the past year show that Americans remain deeply concerned about the threat posed by international terrorism, while they appear to be underwhelmed by the risks posed by a rising China or a belligerent Russia. That disconnect between U.S. voters and the U.S. national security apparatus may become an issue down the road.
The National Defense Strategy was unveiled Friday morning at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Speaking to reporters, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis explained that the document, which calls for a sustained financial investment in the military to overcome “a period of strategic atrophy,” reflects the real priorities for the United States at this moment in time…
This is surprising, most Americans get their security news in sound bytes my media that excessively hypes the threat of terrorism, while failing to take the time to educate the American people on the strategic and longer term threats that China and Russia pose to our interests that are much more significant than terrorism. We will always do counterterrorism, this isn’t a conflict you when, it is one you manage. The strategy is interesting, and there are a couple of keys to its success. First and perhaps the most obvious is getting Congress to fund it. Second, the underlying assumptions must be close to right. If a key strategic black swan emerges that the strategy doesn’t address, then it fails. However, as the Secretary said, all strategy has risks.
BEGIN QUOTE
Unlike their Cold War forebears, neither group (Russia and/or China’s rulers) sees itself as the standard-bearer for a transnational creed that it seeks to spread to every corner of the earth. To the contrary, eager to rally domestic support, bolster legitimacy, and secure their grip on political power, both regimes have crafted nationalist narratives that highlight the uniqueness, superior virtue, historical grievances, and glorious destiny of their respective peoples. Notwithstanding their efforts in this regard, both regimes believe themselves to be threatened, perhaps mortally, by the crusading ideological evangelism of the Western liberal democratic powers, led by the United States, and by certain key features of the order that those powers put into place at the end of the Second World War. It is this perceived threat, and the response of the authoritarian powers to it, that drives their growing challenge to the contemporary international system.
END QUOTE
(Item in parenthesis is mine.)
http://www.spf.org/jpus-j/img/investigation/The_Authoritarian_Challenge.pdf
Given the clear “threatened by the U.S./the West” problem identified above — and the use (by both non-state actors like AQ and ISIS, and now also by state actors like Russia and China) of such things as “identity” and “information” as a solution to this problem (see the quoted item above) — given these such aspects of our current “conflict paradigm,” maybe I should place this item over at our current “Shaping of Cold War 2.0: The Role of Information and Identity” thread? Consider it done.
Bottom Line Thought — Based on the Above:
Thus, our job today becomes explaining to the American people:
a. How our expansionist/evangelistic efforts, outlined above, have now come to scare the crap out of — not just non-state and minor state actors — but also some of the world’s most powerful nation states.
b. How all of these have, now accordingly, come to react to this threat in some adverse manner (exs respectively: terrorism, and nationalism and political and hybrid warfare?). And, finally,
c. How we will need to act now; this, in order to:
(1) Overcome these such Russian, Chinese, Iranian (with the new NDS, now at the front of the enemy/the “resisting transformation” line?), AQ, ISIS, etc., “barriers” — and their other “containment” and/or “roll back” efforts — these, employed to thwart/undermine/spoil our attempts to “transform” all these folks more along modern western political, economic, social — and especially our “value” — lines? And to, in spite of these such “resistance” efforts,
(2) “Convert” all these folks anyway?
(Thus, the entity that “sees itself as the standard-bearer for a transnational creed that it seeks to spread to every corner of the earth;” that would seem to credibly be only the U.S./the West today? Both our non-state actor, and indeed now our state actor reactions/problems also; all of these to be understood significantly in this context?)
We have to understand the world as it really is and not as we would wish it to be. Determining the real threats is not something that you vote on. It is the result of thorough assessment and understanding and application of intense intellectual rigor.
How we address the threats and what resources we are willing to expend to defend against those threats are subject to the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives who are responsible for raising an army and sustaining a navy. And if Congress wants to prioritize resources to counter terrorism that is its (and the people’s) choice but that does not reduce the threat from China or Russia). And while we like to say the enemy has a vote in combat – we do not have a vote on who is really a threat to us. Even if we chose to ignore a threat that does not mean the threat does not exist