Striking the balance

International Security

Volumn 30, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 177-185

  Art, Robert J ^a,b,c,h   Brooks, Stephen G ^d   Wohlforth, William C ^d   Lieber, Keir A ^e,f   Alexander, Gerard ^g  

^a BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

^c HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d Dartmouth College   (United States)

^e UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (United States)

^f Nanovic Institute for European Studies   (United States)

^g UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

^h NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33645728558     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: 15314804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/016228805775969609     Document Type: Letter

References (35)

1. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, "Hard Times for Soft Balancing," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 72-108. Subsequent references to this article appear parenthetically in the text.
2. See Robert A. Pape, "Soft Balancing against the United States," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 7-45;
3. T.V. Paul, "Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 46-71;
4. T.V. Paul, "The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory and Their Contemporary Relevance," in Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann, eds., Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the Twenty-first Century (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 13-17;
5. and Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), pp. 126-132.
6. See Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander, "Waiting for Balancing: Why the World Is Not Pushing Back," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 121-122. Further references to this article appear in parentheses in the text.
7. Lieber and Alexander take roughly the same position: "The growth in Chinese conventional capabilities is primarily driven by the Taiwan problem.. . . But China's defense buildup is not new, nor is it as ambitious and assertive as it should be if the United States posed a direct threat that required internal balancing. Lieber and Alexander, "Waiting for Balancing," pp. 121-122.
8. For the figures and data, see Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: The Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2005, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/ d20050719china.pdf, pp. 16, 21-22. For additional information on China's military buildup since the 1980s,
9. see You Ji, The Armed Forces of China (New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999);
10. Mark A. Stokes, China's Strategic Modernization: Implications for the United States (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1999);
11. Kenneth W. Allen, "PLA Air Force Operations and Modernization," in Susan M. Puska, ed., People's Liberation Army after Next (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2001), pp. 189-254;
12. and Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-first Century (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001).
13. Office of the Secretary of Defense, The Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2005, p. 23.
14. The 2004 Defense White Paper, in ibid., p. 17.
15. The 2004 Defense White Paper, Ibid.
16. For the argument that China is enhancing its military capabilities vis-à-vis the United States across the military spectrum, see Robert S. Ross, "Bipolarity and Balancing in East Asia," in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, pp. 267-304.
17. Chinese leaders became concerned in the mid-1990s about other states' perceptions of a "China threat" and took steps to dampen those perceptions. See Avery Gold stein, Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005), especially chaps. 4, 6, 7.
18. For a lucid assessment of the effectiveness of China's defense efforts vis-à-vis the United States, see Robert S. Ross, "Assessing the China Threat," National Interest, No. 81 (Fall 2005), pp. 1-7.
19. The Pentagon report also suggests that China is generating military power that goes beyond the Taiwan scenario to pursue what it calls an "active offshore defense" that involves the ability to advance its territorial claims, maritime interests, and critical sea line of communications. If successful, these efforts will have major consequences for U.S. military power in East Asia. See Office of the Secretary of Defense, The Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2005, pp. 12-14.
20. See Robert J. Art, "Europe Hedges Its Security Bets," in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, p. 196. My views on the origins of ESDP are based largely on forty interviews conducted in London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels in June 2000 with national security officials in foreign affairs and defense ministries and prime ministers' offices, as well as with officials at NATO headquarters.
21. See also Barry R. Posen, "The Unipolar Moment and ESDP," Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November 2004. Posen emphasizes more than I do the abandonment fears also provoked by the Bosnian war. Posen's piece is also based on extensive background interviews.
22. See Art, "Europe Hedges Its Security Bets," pp. 196-207;
23. and Posen, "The Unipolar Moment and ESDP," pp. 17-23.
24. Brooks and Wohlforth agree that one reason the EU wants enhanced military capabilities is to better influence the United States, but they dismiss this as balancing behavior and instead call it "policy bargaining." I address this point in the last section of this response.
25. See Seth G. Jones, "The Rise of a European Defense," Political Science Quarterly, forthcoming.
26. See also Seth G. Jones, The Rise of Europe: Great Power Politics and Security Cooperation (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
27. The EU declared in mid-2003 that the ERRF had achieved operational capability, but that it had deficiencies in deployment times and the more demanding "high end" (war-waging) missions. In June 2004, the EU adopted the 2010 Headline Goal, in which it committed itself to rapid deployment and redress of the qualitative deficiencies in the ERRF. Emphasis was also put on fielding rapid intervention forces in the form of 1,500-member battle groups, and thirteen are currently planned. See Council of the European Union, "Headline Goal 2010," May 4, 2004, http://register.consilium.eu.int/ pdf/en04/st06/st06-re06/en04.pdf.
28. Posen, "The Unipolar Moment and ESDP," p. 39;
29. and Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), chap. 8.
30. See Judy Dempsey, "London and Paris Push Ahead on Common EU Defense Goals," Financial Times, March 14, 2003;
31. and Daniel Dombey, "Anglo-French Defense Drive Central to EU Foreign Policy," Financial Times, June 23, 2005.
32. Posen, "The Unipolar Moment and ESDP," p. 39.
33. Art, "Europe Hedges Its Security Bets," p. 180.
34. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 106.
35. European Space Agency, ESA Navigation, "Why Europe Needs Galileo," http://www.esa.int/esaNA/GGG0H750NDC_galileo_0.html. I am indebted to Barry Posen for pointing out this source to me.