China

China is waging a small war for control of the South China Sea (SCS) under the guise of protecting a ridiculous definition of its territorial waters in a manner designed to turn the SCS into a Chinese lake. She has militarized the area by using her Coast Guard to harass ships exercising the right of innocent passage and has built artificial islands in areas of disputed ownership. Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Republic of the Philippines have had vessels destroyed, detained, and otherwise intimidated.

Dreams never come reality when preached from the mouths of tyrants. They become nightmares, twisted by humanity’s flaws and the fallibility of systems that belong on the ash heap of history.

Though some security studies practitioners question securitizing unconventional security issues, the impact of fossil fuels on climate change and health must be securitized.

"There is no doubt that China poses one of the greatest espionage and cyber-attack threats to the United States. The Chinese government has committed to becoming the world’s cyber leader and has made no real attempt to hide that notion. When assessing Chinese cybersecurity, we look at the infrastructure the government has built to address cybersecurity. From creating some of the strictest domestic cyber laws in the world to building a cyber army larger than a standing army of most countries, proves that China is establishing a presence in cyber operations.

The belief that peer/near-peer/VEO competitors and adversaries will only fight us via traditional warfare, man to man, tank to tank, ship to ship, and plane to plane, are missing the historical and present day reality that these designated threats are currently competing and prevailing over us via Irregular Warfare activities in the competition space, and doing so quite successfully.

After a 20-year hiatus since the fall of the Soviet Union, the 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) identify a new great power competition as the priority security threat to the United States. Although focused on Europe with Russia, and Asia with China, this great power competition is just as applicable in Latin America where China is aggressively using the economic instrument of power.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy states that China is a strategic competitor and the United States must restore its competitive advantage in the international arena. However, power competition is more complicated now compared to the Cold War Era. Today, states are hyper-connected through technology and economic cooperation which increases complexity for projecting power. A good example is China’s use of economic power through its Belt and Road Initiative to expand its regional influence all over Euro-Asia.

"When it comes to China and Russia’s foreign policy, a Beijing-Moscow axis in practice is a much more complex reality, marred with competition in each state’s traditional spheres of influence. Central Asia exemplifies the intricate Sino-Russian relationship and illustrates that while there are significant short-term opportunities for cooperation and shared goals in attacking an American-led world order, a long-term alignment is hindered by fundamentally different strategic objectives. In short, on the ground, the explanation cannot be simplified as Russia and China in complete lockstep against the United States."

China’s increased security engagement in the Horn of Africa has important implications for United States’ policies equally in the region and globally. China’s expansion presents both risks and opportunities that the United States should judiciously consider and leverage to ensure continued stability and the advancement of interests shared between the U.S. and China.

As security competition looms within the re-emerging 4+1 threat environment (China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran plus the constant challenge of transnational threats), those once-archaic concepts of ‘great power war’ and ‘nuclear deterrence’ are worth revisiting.