Are US and China doomed to conflict?
- By Sumantra Maitra
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 7, 2015
However, things are changing again. There is a huge debate inside the American security establishment that the United States has been pushed around by everyone, because it tried to be good to the other great powers around the world. As a result we see U.S. resending troops back to Iraq, keeping troops indefinitely in Afghanistan and creating an entire force in the Arctic. It is also sending weapons to the Kurds and Syrian opposition. Most importantly the United States is sending a Stryker armored cars force to parade through Eastern Europe, reinforcing NATO borderlines, and sending navy ships in South and East China Sea.
All of these point to a new "Rollback" era in U.S. policy. It might well be the fact that U.S. is doing it due to domestic compulsion and upcoming elections, but it also might expand and become more aggressive and overarching. A new administration, whether it is a Republican president or the Democrats under Hillary Clinton, would be more assertive than the Obama administration, that's for sure. The rollback techniques might even increase.
However, there is one simple problem. This is not the Cold war. The world is not in a stable binary balance, and the systems in place for de-confliction and the practices that were reflectively inside the foreign and defense policy establishments are forgotten in the sands of time. Back then, Great Powers knew when to stop and how far to push without ever crossing the threshold, the leaders were mostly sensible and the media was more responsible. It's a different world now, with a much more divided and chaotic global conflict situation, and social media that can take down governments and start a war.
Being a realist myself, I don't believe Mearsheimer's prediction that the U.S. and China are doomed to conflict. I believe the leaders of both countries are working together to form a steady stream of confidence building measures. It is also a different and much more economically interconnected time than that of the Cold war. However, one needs to keep in mind, sometimes one's actions encourage their allies to act rashly as well, and most of the conflict on this planet was started due to a lack of clear understanding or perception and resolve. Perhaps the United States, China and Russia, being the three predominant military powers, should take note.
The writer is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm
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