Article Reviews

Annual Report On The Military Power Of The Peoples Republic Of China, 

Secretary of Defense, United States of America, July 2002, 

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2002/d20020712china.pdf  

The defining characteristics of the contemporary international political system is the dominance of the United States in the world, and its overwhelming lead over all other nations in terms of all the important indices of power. The United States remains the single most important power in Asia, despite its geographical distance from the region.

Modern day China has already propelled itself into the ranks of the leading nations of the world by accomplishing a remarkable economic and social transformation in the last twenty years. China, by virtue of its nuclear and conventional military capabilities, sustained high economic growth, status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, regime stability and embodiment of an alternate political model to the “West’, is seen by many as the only possible challenger to the U.S. in the global power stakes of the future.

Section 1202 of the National Defence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000, Public

Law 106-65, provides that the Secretary of Defence, of the United States shall submit a report “on the current and future military strategy of the People’s Republic of China to Congress. The report shall address the current and probable future course of military-technological development on the People’s Liberation Army and the tenets and probable development of Chinese grand strategy, security strategy, and military strategy, and of the military organizations and operational concepts, through the next 20 years.”

This annual report addresses:

1.        The gaps in knowledge of China’s military power;

2.        China’s grand strategy, security strategy, and military strategy;

3.        Developments in China’s military doctrine and force structure, to include developments in advanced technologies that would enhance China’s military capabilities;

4.        China’s relations with the former Soviet Union; and,

5.        The security situation in the Taiwan Strait.

This report begins with a cautionary note that was first outlined in the Office of the Secretary of Defence, Net Assessment’s Report to Congress on Implementation of the Taiwan Relations Act in 2000. The Net Assessment report surveys how little is known about the most significant aspects of Chinese military power. Chinese secrecy is extensive. China reveals little in its Defence White Paper about the quantity or quality of its military forces. China’s defence spending may be some four times larger than its public announcement in March 2002 of a defence budget of about $20 billion. Since the 1980s, U.S. military exchange delegations to China have been shown only “showcase” units, never any advanced units or any operational training or realistic exercises.

In conclusion the report states that Beijing is pursuing its long-term political goals of developing its comprehensive national power and ensuring a favorable “strategic configuration of power.” China’s efforts to accomplish its security goals involve an integrative strategy that applies diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power. China’s leaders believe that national unity and stability are critical if China is to survive and develop as a nation. Chinese leaders also believe they must maintain conditions of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. While seeing opportunity and benefit in interactions with the United States – primarily in terms of trade and technology – Beijing apparently believes that the United States poses a significant long-term challenge.

In support of its overall national security objectives, China has embarked upon a force modernization program intended to diversify its options for use of force against potential targets such as Taiwan and to complicate United States intervention in a Taiwan Strait.

In the view of this reviewer the authors of this report have done a very diligent analysis of the open source material that China publishes in relation to its armed forces and have traced the evolution of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) from a “guerrilla” force to one which is capable of now projecting Chinese state policy on a global scale. The authors have done this in a succinct and clear manner. The approach is quite methodical and the authors examine the fundamental drivers that influence the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) & the Peoples Liberation Army Air force (PLAAF).

The authors also note that the entire focus of the Chinese armed forces seem to be on the “recovery” of Taiwan to the mainland of China. The reviewer also noted the revolution in military affairs (RMA) has not by-passed the PLA leadership. Indeed the PLA is making and has made great changes to its strategy, doctrine & equipment is order to incorporate lessons of Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force, the NATO bombing of Serbia.

The reviewer however is confident that the PLAAF & PLAN currently do not pose any threat to India. However, Indian planners must always bear in mind the threat posed to India by PLA especially in the outer reaches of the Indian Union.

The reviewer would recommend that those who wish to study the equipment & doctrine of the Chinese armed forces should study this paper because of the wealth of information contained within it.

Raj Kumar

Pakistan on the Edge, Ahmed Rashid,  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15740   

Ahmed Rashid comes with prescription and medicine for the state of Pakistan. But like all doctors suffering from the disease that afflicts their patients he is not keen to probe too deeply lest he reveal that he too is sick. But there are cues aplenty in his article that give the game away. Rashid suffers from the same problem that seemingly afflicts Pakistani intelligentsia: a selective reading of its history, a refusal to face facts about Pakistani identity and a deep, unshakeable belief that India cannot, should not and must not be granted moral authority in any affair that concerns both countries. A full analysis of Rashid's piece in the light of my remarks would require a doctoral dissertation; I'm sure several have already been written but I will restrict myself to a textual analysis of two his statements.

With reference to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, Rashid proceeds to make the following incredible assertion "Yahya Khan managed to lose a war with India". Is Rashid suggesting that it was a war to be won had Pakistan played its cards right? Nowhere is in this reading the possibility admitted that that it was not a war that Pakistan should have been engaged in. Nowhere in Rashid's glib reading is it mentioned that the war was in response a genocide carried out in the erstwhile East Pakistan by the West Pakistani dominated Army. There is no mention of the circumstances that led India to wage what Doug Lackey has referred to as a "just war".

Jumping forward 28 years, Rashid turns his gaze on the military misadventure by the Pakistani Army that in India is simply referred to as "Kargil". Rashid asserts that this crisis was "only" defused when Mr. Sharif was convinced by the American President Bill Clinton. Note the use of the word "only" i.e. the sole reason for the Pakistani withdrawal was American pressure on Pakistan. Perhaps Rashid is uncomfortable with the truth that the Pakistani Army incursion was a ghastly mistake in and of itself? That one reason for the withdrawal was the realization by the Pakistani Army of the military untenability of the situation it found itself in? That this had started to dawn on the Pakistani Army as its Northern Light Infantry suffered heavy casualties thanks to the deployment of heavy artillery and airpower by India? That the deployment of airpower was a possibility that the Pakistani Army does not seem to have catered for in its rush to dismiss Indian strategic thinking? That a similar miscalculation led to the start of the war in 1965?

Like most Pakistani journalists writing on Kashmir, the diagnosis by Rashid is that the Pakistani strategy has failed. There is no admission of the possibility that Pakistan does not have the authority or the competence to intervene in Kashmir. There is no mention either of the fact that Pakistan, after its failure to provide a safe haven for the subcontinent's Muslims in 1971, after its failure to recognize that there is more to a nation than simple religious identity (a fact proven in 1971 when Punjabi bigotry directed at East Pakistani Bengalis overcame any religious affiliation) is simply not competent or morally justified in claiming to speak for Muslims anywhere.

The true problem with Pakistan is not the simple presence of Army rule and the absence of a civilian government. It is that it is a failed state and the cultural productions of its intelligentsia as typified by Rashid are ample proof of this fact. Its raison d'etre vanished in 1971 with the genocide it committed in 1971. Its foreign policy is a failure: witness the mess in Afghanistan and Kashmir and its four wars since Independence. Three of these wars have failed to help the Muslims it claims to speak for, the fourth slaughtered millions of them. Its not just military governments that have gotten Pakistan into trouble. Changing governments is unlikely to fix a mental mindset that insists on defining itself as not-Indian. In the propositional calculus the negation of a proposition can be formed by simply affixing the negation operator. Pakistan seems to follow this facile formula for everything where the operative strategy seems to be define Pakistani identity as a simple negation of the Indian one.

Rashid is a tragedy. He is perhaps Pakistan most well-known journalist. His credentials are impressive. He is employed by influential magazines. His writings display a sincere concern for the Pakistani polity. But he is shackled by the problem that afflects all of Pakistani intelligentsia: a refusal to face the facts that lie at the core of Pakistani identity. Going from military rule to civilian rule in Pakistan will change very little till the nation is able to change its ways of thinking about itself and produce an intelligentsia that can be adequately critical and that is capable of inducing the painful introspection that being Pakistani requires.

Samir Chopra