A house of cards: American strategy toward China

World Policy Journal

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 77-95

  Layne, Christopher ^a,b  

^a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL   (United States)

^b RAND CORPORATION   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031506655     PISSN: 07402775     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. Nicholas Kristof, "The Rise of China," Foreign Affairs 72 (Novemher/December 1993), p. 59.
2. "Realism and Domestic Politics," International Security 17 (summer 1992), p. 190.
3. For an extended theoretical explanation of great power emergence, see Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise," International Security 17 (spring 1993).
4. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), p. xxii.
5. "The Emerging Structure of International Politics," International Security 19 (fall 1994), p. 21.
6. See David Shambaugh, "Growing Strong: China's Challenge to Asian Security," Survival 36 (summer 1994), p. 44. Shambaugh notes that Chinese strategists have been strongly influenced by Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.
7. See David Shambaugh, "Growing Strong: China's Challenge to Asian Security," Survival 36 (summer 1994), p. 44. Shambaugh notes that Chinese strategists have been strongly influenced by Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.
8. Harry Harding estimates that China will surpass the United States and Japan as the world's largest economy by the twenty-first century's second decade ("A Chinese Colossus?" Journal of Strategic Studies 18 (September 1995), p. 106).
9. "The 'Constrainment' of China," International Security 20 (spring 1996), pp. 107-35.
10. See Alexander Gerschenkron, The Advantages of Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Ma.: Belknap Press, 1962).
11. I do not mean to suggest that a state must be a great power in order to compete effectively against the United States militarily. The Vietnam War demonstrated that, if doctrinally innovative, even an opponent that is vastly weaker than the United States economically and technologically may be able to neutralize American military strengths and exploit U.S. military vulnerabilities. Indeed, the problem of fighting asymmetric conflicts against materially weaker but intellectually supple opponents is one about which American strategists need to think seriously.
12. "The Effectiveness of Military Organizations," in Military Effectiveness, Volume I: The First World War, ed. Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray (Boston: Unwin and Hyman, 1987), p. 2.
13. "Do Unto Others as They Would Unto You? The Internal and External Determinants of Military Practices" (Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, unpublished paper, May 1996), p. 3.
14. The Sources of Military Doctrine: Britain, France, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
15. Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, Office of International Security Affairs, 1995, p. 6.
16. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 66.
17. Quoted in Alison Mitchell, "Meager Progress as China Leader and Clinton Meet," New York Times, October 25, 1995.
18. "America as a Model for the World? A Foreign Policy Perspective," PS (December 1991), p. 669.
19. Christopher J. Sigur, "Why Taiwan Scares China," New York Times, March 19, 1996.
20. For an extended discussion of this argument, see Christopher Layne, "From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America's Future Grand Strategy," International Security 19 (summer 1997).
21. "The World Shakes China," The National Interest, no. 43 (spring 1996), p. 39.
22. Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal, "Rethinking East Asian Security," Survival 36 (summer 1994), p. 13. It should be noted that Buzan and Segal are rehearsing an argument rather than advocating a policy. They point out that, over the long term, pursuing this strategy could undermine the security interests of the United States and Europe.
23. For a more extensive discussion of how offshore balancing could work in East Asia, see Christopher Layne, "Less Is More," The National Interest, no. 43 (spring 1996).