Robert Kaplan in the Washington Post

More and more, there is a relentless drumbeat of concern showing up in the editorial pages of our great newspapers.   It is a concern that reflects the strategic dialogue that has occupied navalists for some time now, and that is the growing power of the Chinese Navy. 

The latest is a view from The Atlantic/CNAS guru Robert Kaplan.  I'm struck by the extent to which this once highly concentrated debate has now spilled out into the national dialogue.  This is a good thing, one that I hope has an impact on the strategic direction of our country.

I grow more convinced as time goes on that we need to act now to avert a future war with China.   I see two ways to do so.  The first is to walk away from the Western Pacific as an area of interest to the United States.  Were we to do so, China would likely be unbound and positioned to act as the region's hegemon.  Nations in the region would reach accommodations and a new security balance would be achieved, albeit one in which we were without any real voice or influence. 

The second way to avert war is to convince China that we are in the Western Pacific to stay, and that we intend to remain the region's hegemon.  We should consider new and innovative employment patterns, in addition to forward deploying additional forces to new locations--irrespective of the financial burden of doing so.  We should aggressively court new friends, and we should warmly value old ones.  We must make Chinese officials wake up every morning and look out the window--before saying  "today is not the day" (this is rumored to have been Joe Sestak's mantra at N8--something for which I give him great credit).  This is because once China eventually takes an aggressive move--it will not back down from it.  We will either go to war over it, or we will accept it as a fait accompli.  Our strategy MUST be to ensure they do not make the first dumb move.

What we cannot do is continue the current strategic uncertainty.  I see signs of the Administration waking to its responsibilities here, and I hope they continue.  But a strategy in which China arms while we siphon off national resources to Asian land wars, is a strategy in which China will eventually become emboldened.  This will result in the first dumb move (have we not seen evidence enough lately of China's being its own worst enemy?). 

Man up or move out.  That is the choice we face.  I move for the former. 

Bryan McGrath