Barron's Bigger Threat
This entry was posted on 7/26/2011 12:24 PM and is filed under International Affairs, The Enemy Engineer, IQ data.
I like Barron's. I subscribe to it. I find discussions about economics, business, and finance interesting. I do not have enough assets to actually justify subscribing to Barron's, but the justification for reading it, is the same justification that I use when I ask myself whether I should have pursued an MBA at Northeastern all those years ago. I find a fair amount of it interesting. But I cannot point to an economic payoff.
If you have the June 27, 2011 issue of Barron's handy, read the article "Dragon Fire" by Leslie P. Norton. It is an interesting, if brief entry into not just China, but the assumptions of the literate, intelligent American economic establishment.
The author adopts the American assumption that nuclear weapons do not constitute a different behavioral species from the weapons systems that preceded 1945. She would place The Nuclear Weapons contest in about the same category of assets and behaviors that characterized weapons systems from the Stone Age to the carrier fleet: National wealth. I will first deal with her argument and that assumption.
The second part of this review will deal with the same ideas with the assumption that the central theme of this blog is correct: Nuclear weapons primarily are behaviorally different from that long line of weaponry that preceded them: Nuclear weapons are scores on IQ tests.
Now, Ms. Norton is aware that the fact that China is developing economically along an amazing trajectory has become part of the background noise of literate America. We all know it. Centuries ago Napoleon reportedly said, "There lies China, asleep. Let her sleep. For when she awakens she will shake the world." Well, we can say to the General, "Congratulations. You were right. We, the people alive in the first and second decades of the 21st century, have become that generation that witnesses that early morning awakening across China, just as you predicted."
Readers of this blog will correctly treat the first early 3:45 AM signal of China's awakening in the development of a universal school system for the boys. Once the undeniably fascist government set as a priority the development of a school system for all the Chinese boys, the Awakening was just a matter of time. The Chinese are too smart for it to be anything else.
Now, the Barron's article has a focus apart from geopolitical speculation: All Barron's articles take time to reflect on what the particular topic under review implies for stock prices. Appropriately so. That is why Barron's exists. Finance. What does China's growth as an economic and military power imply for the chess moves that the U.S. is likely to make? The article looks at the defense stocks and teases out some trends.
But this blog is primarily interested in the the writer's basic assumption about China, and possible war between the U.S. and China. She sees China as a serious threat. No doubt. The legend above the title says, "As President Obama removes U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, a bigger threat looms." That is an interesting statement, isn't it. I assume that polls have been done asking what rung China occupies on the ladder of threats to America. I suspect that China, as a named country, may outrank Iraq and Afghanistan, but if the question featured "Militant Islam" as a substitute for the two countries, the result might well place the threat above China.
There is a second very interesting statement: a quote from Jacqueline Newmyer, identified as head of Long-Term Strategy Group, a Massachusetts defense consultant: "There is a real potential for arms races to emerge . . . While once we assumed we'd have access to areas to conduct anti-terrorism or anti-insurgence operations, now we're compelled to think about preserving our ability to gain access to East Asia."
I like that statement as an intellectual template. It reflects the American defense establishment module on all important military issues: Any change that makes China stronger, is a challenge to America. The base line demand of America is simple: It has to be able to define what constitutes "anti-tourism" and "anti-terrorism" and to have access to treat the same all over Asia.
Now the flowing are some of the relevant variables that Ms. Norton uses to analyze and treat the threat:
China has a stealth jet that can rival the U.S.'s F-22, presently the sole stealth fighter: The plane will "impede" (her term) the U.S. ability to "roam freely in the region."
China conducted an air exercise with Turkey
Chinese fighters refueled in Iran.
Beijing dispatched a frigate to Libya to evacuate Chinese workers.
China has 1,500 ballistic missiles.
Some of the Chinese missiles are aimed at Taiwan.
China has made territorial claims that have challenged Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines,
China's defense budget is projected to increase to about $100 billion, compared to the U.S. Budget of roughly $700 billion.
China is scheduled to put its first aircraft carrier, a Soviet design, into operation in the near future.
The biggest gains have been in China's navy and missile forces, some of which could reach American bases.
China had developed a small but improving submarine attack force.
It appears that Japanese military spending has been redirected toward countering a threat from China, rather than Russia.
Other countries, including India, are responding with more money on their own military systems, to counter China's spending.
Now, again remember, we are assuming here that we are in the same old world where the fact that nuclear weapons are IQ scores does not matter. How does the piece end? What are the reasonable alternatives that she sees? The following are three quotes that will give you a rough map of her ambition.
I. "Of course, the U.S. must respond as well. Incoming Defense Secretary Panetta has stressed that the U.S. 'must be prepared' for adversaries armed with air-defense systems, long-range ballistic missiles, and anti-ship cruise missiles. That means it needs to modernize long-range strike and surveillance capabilities."
II. "Expect to hear the term 'AirSea Battle' more often. . . . This strategy would integrate U.S. air and naval forces to defeat enemies with sophisticated abilities to deny them access.
The idea would be to develop ways to blind satellites and defend against or attack with long-range strikes. It's a defense against both China and Iran."
(emphasis mine)
III. "'This will shift demand from counterinsurgency warfare toward more traditional systems like long-range strike aircraft and missiles, high-end naval forces and robust space and cyber capabilities,' says Jeffrey Roncka, managing partner at defense consultant Renaissance Strategic Advisors."
Absent nuclear weapons, the last three suggestions are unexceptional. They define conventional wisdom. To the man on the street, they equate to "common sense."
But, of course, the Nuclear Age has been with America as a real threat since 1962. The Cuban Missile Crises was what it was because Americans had become targets inside America. While 50 years isn't worth everything, 50 years is worth something. One truth that cannot be missed is that the United States today is a lot more vulnerable to Chinese nuclear weapons than it was 50 years ago. The Chinese are facing an American nuclear arsenal vastly more sophisticated and dangerous than the arsenal it faced a half century ago, but it is also true that Americans are staring at a Chinese arsenal vastly more threatening and sophisticated than it was 50 years ago.
Sooner or later, intelligent college-educated middle-class people will be forced to address precisely what drives that vulnerability that China can now force onto American three year olds. What can America do about it?
Ms. Norton has a slogan "AirSea Battle" that suggests her answer. Her brief explanation of the term suggests that there is an intelligent way to manipulate the relevant material and engineering variables to solve the Chinese threat. The response of the blog is simple: There is no such solution possible. Because the best Chinese 11th grade algebra student is as good as the best American student, her "solution" guarantees an enhanced risk for America. China, and Russia will respond to America's attempt to protect itself with a defense system with improvements in their offensive systems. The first 50 years of the Nuclear Weapons contest is over. America has become orders of magnitude more vulnerable than it was at the beginning of the contest.
Teddy Roosevelt wanted America to attack Hawaii and to annex it on the grounds that the White Race was superior to the Chinese Race and that it would be a crime to leave the islands in the control of an inferior race.
However, white students in America in college today have started to form an opinion about Chinese students in math class. They know something that Teddy Roosevelt could not have guessed.
The one comment that I find most illuminating is the one that put Iran and China in the same sentence. There is a kind of breathtaking white arrogance in that sentence. It brings to mind that English lady, in a thousand different cities from Moscow, to Florence to Tokyo who sees herself in their cities, as being surrounded by the "natives". The Iranians are the natives, the Chinese are the natives. There is a flat globe overseen by one population, all by itself, on a mountain. British exceptionalism followed by American exceptionalism.
Nuclear weapons finally put the white English speaking lady, and all her neighbors at risk. Her arrogance finally becomes dangerous to her.
To the degree that I am right, and conventional analysis is wrong, two conclusions are inevitable. The Chinese will respond to America's attempt to produce a world where America "has access to" basically everywhere, and China has access to nowhere, with an engineer as good as the best American engineer. The risk level will not recede.
The second conclusion features Iran. It is fortunate that she used the Iran and China in the same sentence. In a discussion of engineering nuclear threats against the U.S., I would not have thought of it. But it suggests the point. All would agree that right now, China does have the ability to kill several million Americans with nuclear weapons and Iran does not. There is a window of time, where if the response were to be to accommodate China; Russia, China and the U.S could force Iran, and all other potential nuclear threats off the proliferation highway.
R Peppe
ontinuing the contest to develop superiority in strategic nuclear weapons is bound to lead to increasing vulnerability for the American people. The argument 
