Military Power And Policy In Asian States

China, India, Japan

Onkar Marwah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429727207
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This study challenges the belief that the security concerns and strategic objectives of lesser states are dependent on the dominant power alliances and on assessments by major powers of the prospects for peace or war. Focusing on the views of security and military power adopted by elites in China, India, and Japan, the contributors point out that e

1
Introduction: Asia and the International Strategic System

Onkar Marwah Jonathan D. Pollack

During the past decade, both scholars and practitioners in the field of international politics have experienced a growing unease about the validity and viability of long-prevailing political and intellectual beliefs. The predominant focus on the European state system in international relations theory and practice has seemed increasingly questionable in light of the decline of the major colonial regimes and the concomitant emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's preeminent military powers. The singular importance of postwar U.S.-Soviet relations and the strategic nuclear competition that so shaped these ties testifies to the existence of a vastly different structure of international power. Yet, despite the change, scholarly effort has failed to produce a newer and more coherent conception of the international state system and the institutional and legal norms underlying it. As a result, past assumptions—in particular, those ascribing to the European state system universalistic norms about the exercise and management of power—have persisted.

The continued erosion of European power has been an inescapable trend over the past thirty years. Further, the global rivalry between the superpowers has frequently obscured a broader process of international change that has been increasingly evident during the past decade. It is this latter process—a widespread diffusion of political, economic, and military power—that the essays in this volume attempt to address. Though this process has been long underway, scholars have been somewhat slow in reacting to such change and its implications. Comparative political studies since World War II have been oriented principally toward the internal dimension of political change, with particular attention to issues of political participation, institutionalization, and economic modernization. Without denigrating this prodigious and frequently impressive research effort, the categories employed in such scholarship can still be considered unduly restrictive. The inattention to the external realm—both as a constraint upon and stimulant to political action as well as the object of much elite activity—is all too apparent. The study of military behavior and institutions has also been almost exclusively within the context of the domestic politics of various regimes.

Yet newly established regimes in Asia have not developed in a vacuum. They have emerged within the context of an unstable (and frequently threatening) international environment—with external imperatives frequently encountered in terms of a superior military presence. The vulnerabilities induced by the technological, material, and organizational power of the West both in the past and present have been a source of frustration for indigenous elites. What Chinese have termed their "century of shame and humiliation" applies elsewhere in Asia with comparable force and conviction. The effort to rectify these disparities in national power has been a central element in the brief histories of states throughout the Asian world.

In this volume, attention is focused on three Asian societies—one already industrialized and two in the midst of modernization—that have sought to come to grips with such questions. In considering these three to the exclusion of many others, we are vulnerable to the charge of a major-power fixation. Yet the diffusion of power is a vastly understudied topic. Inquiry must therefore begin with those Asian states most acutely conscious of the external world and their relationships to it.

An additional question raised by our orientation concerns its focus on military power and policy. There is a widespread belief that it is unwise and indeed illegitimate for states, especially in the Third World, to expend considerable energies and effort on acquiring the instruments of violence. Three principal reasons underlie these objections. First, it is feared that a use for such coercive power is more likely to be found in a domestic context than in the maintenance of territorial integrity and national sovereignty against external threats. Second, it is widely assumed that attention to the military realm can only be to the detriment of extremely pressing social, economic, and educational inequalities. Finally, the very objective of acquiring and employing force in relation to external goals is widely questioned.

However, as some of the authors have indicated in their essays, the validity of these arguments—in particular the second, which deems defense and development separable and antagonistic objectives—is open to some question. Moreover, these critiques ultimately reflect divergent political values on the part of those either articulating or challenging the worth of military power. This essay will not attempt to resolve these difficult issues in any conclusive way. Much of this volume, however, seeks to come to grips more fully with why and how the accumulation of military capabilities has been deemed a vital need in the Third World. Any arguments seeking to deny the validity of acquiring such power must somehow override an incontrovertible fact—an acute remembrance within these societies of their vulnerabilities when superior force was employed against them.

Thus, whatever policies now exist or are likely to emerge must be seen in terms of the inescapable overlay of the past. In various ways, each of these states has had to operate within the context of technological, economic, and diplomatic constraints that have impinged substantially on their freedom of action. The remembrance of such constraints occupies a central position in the political and military conceptions that elites in Asia and elsewhere have adopted.

We do not consider past dependencies as immutable or permanent. Indeed, the recent history of each state considered in this volume reveals a progressive growth in national identities, with indigenous elites increasingly able to chart their own course vis-à-vis the outside world. In this respect, the realm of national security is far from unique. However, it is central in different ways to their respective experiences, and continues to vitally affect each of these polities, albeit on varying terms. The future relationship between the major states of Asia and a global strategic system will continue to reflect such historical remembrances; this factor should be kept in mind throughout these essays.

Regardless of the significant accumulation of power in these societies, the perception of this power and the leverage it affords them remains obscured. There is a tendency in scholarship as well as politics to view China, India, and Japan as essentially reactive in their power and policy. A related premise is that "central system" actors can still effectively curb their exercise of power. No doubt the external capabilities of all three states (in a purely military sense) remain highly constrained. Yet it does not follow that they can thus be readily assimilated within various centrally conceived and managed security systems. While each of these actors has accommodated to a larger international security system, and will continue to do so, the process is no longer one of wholesale acquiescence to great power norms. It rather represents a conscious strategy in two senses: first, to greatly raise the stakes of any external actor seeking to exercise military power with impunity against them; and second, to develop capabilities that address the real needs of national security for these states in the context of their own regional environments.

An appreciation of both facets of military power in Asia remains lacking in most efforts to conceptualize the security needs of noncentral system actors. Arguments about which states are most appropriately included among the "regional influentials" obscure the ongoing efforts of these states as well as others to rectify acutely felt disparities and vulnerabilities. The consciousness and determination with which these efforts are being pursued in Asia are too often ignored or disparaged. Over time, new security arrangements in East, South, and West Asia have slowly but inescapably started to emerge, as the abrupt changes within Iran indicate. The specific configurations of power remain very much in flux. Thus, there is not much merit at present in undertaking highly detailed projections on the prospects for peace, war, or external involvement. What these essays do attempt to sketch is when, where, and how elites in these societies (either in the past or at present) have seen their security as threatened, and what kinds of efforts have been undertaken to deal with such conditions.

What is the role of military power in effecting the transition to more autonomous regional security arrangements? Classically, the instrument of armed force and the threatened or actual use of violence has been justified as a means of achieving greater control and predictability in the international system. Though there is a self-serving aspect to such a rationale, this function is still very much evident. The ability of leaders to influence (if not wholly determine) the way in which their nation will interact with a larger international system remains highly coveted, but very difficult to achieve. This is a goal which all three states considered in this volume have consciously sought. Though the power of external actors remains resilient and is obviously still very substantial, the "rule-changing" capacities of these states in relation to Asia's emergent powers have been progressively reduced. It would be presumptuous to try to predict with any degree of certainty the ultimate result of this transformation, and we will not attempt to do so. However, we should remain sensitive to the circumstances, conditions, and events which testify to such change.

Regardless of the political, ideological, and economic differences among these states, all have sought to change from a subjected position to one that is less physically vulnerable, and hence more secure. We are looking at the military dimension not because it is the exclusive focus of this effort, but because it constitutes a particularly revealing means by which these three states have sought to cope with the outside world. There are, to be sure, inescapable dilemmas and ironies in such reliance on military power. For all three, past military deficiencies were a principal cause of the outside world successfully encroaching upon them. For Japan, the possession of substantial arms became an instrument of expansion abroad. Thus, the purposes to which such capabilities have been put can be a source of restraint as well as an incentive to acquire military power. At the same time, there is obviously no simple relationship between the accumulation of such power and a corresponding increase in political leverage or influence. Two considerations, therefore, equally merit attention: the potentialities inherent in each of these states in the realm of modern military power; and the political, diplomatic, and strategic purposes toward which such arms might be directed.

Analyzed in a static sense, the absolute quotients of power presently available to Asia's major powers remain modest by comparison with the superpowers or indeed some of the European powers. Such comparisons, however, reflect past constraints (political, technological, and economic) affecting the participation of these societies in the competition to acquire modern arms. As the individual chapters indicate, with the exception of Japan, Asian states have embarked upon their efforts in a sustained way only in the relatively recent past. Moreover, the appropriate comparison is less with the capabilities of external powers, but more in relation to what the various Asian regions and security environments might look like in the absence of indigenous military strength. Though each of these states in various ways is conscious of its broader international role, all presently remain regional rather than global powers. By basing our assessment on the latter criterion, a more meaningful appreciation of the significance of their military efforts is possible.

Irrespective of any political or ideological quirks that might occur within any of these polities, the weapons development and acquisition process is now a sustainable national objective in all three regimes. While this does not guarantee predominance by any of them within their own regional environments, it greatly reduces the possibility that they will be subject to severe external compulsions.

Equally important, these states have a political conception of their power which their emergent defense capacities can be expected to serve. While all three have fostered or maintained considerable external involvements and political commitments, an underlying adherence to "nonalignment" is also discernible. Our use of this term is not in its rhetorical sense or as a reflection of the stark bipolarity of the early postwar world. Rather, pursuit of nonalignment is indicative of a widespread urge among such states to define in independent, active terms the level, form, and extent of their participation in the external world.

In this respect, China, India, and Japan are all challenger-states, irrespective of whether they call themselves aligned or nonaligned, revolutionary or status quo. If not an immutable or irreversible trend, it is the predominant direction for the politics and strategy of each. Regardless of the extent to which any of them have in the past been protected by an external great power-—or made over in the image of a central-system state—a radically different process and outcome are now in motion. In military terms, all three societies are actual or nascent powers within their own regions. In political-diplomatic terms, this urge for autonomy is even further advanced, and will not be lightly or easily reversed. It is an understanding of this dual process of power acquisition—developing both the attributes and ideas underlying political, diplomatic, and strategic independence—that students of international security must now seek.

Thus, if the field of international relations requires new conceptualizations to replace outworn ones, the issues raised in this volume merit consideration. Bipolar conceptions of world politics increasingly seem as overdrawn as the Eurocentric views that preceded them. Regional powers such as China, India, and Japan are not only beginning to articulate a role of greater independence and national initiative; they are successfully implementing such policies. Moreover, past discrepancies between the conception of power and the actual capability have been reduced. If independence is assessed in terms of the capacity to resist external pressure as well as convey and carry out indigenous conceptions of security, then each of these states has made significant progress toward achieving this objective. Wherever international politics may be headed, lesser rather than greater concentration of power seems certain. Such a process will surely require far greater effort to assess the political and strategic consequences of a more complex, differentiated world. The individual essays in this volume hopefully constitute a modest first step in that direction.

2
Toward a Great State in Asia?

Stephen P. Cohen

States strong enough to do good are but few.
Their number would seem limited to three.
Good is a thing that they, the great, can do,
But puny little states can only be.

—Robert Frost, "The Planners," 1946

Introduction

In Bismarckian Europe the presence of a great power could be readily determined. It was a state that was able to decide on its own whether or not it would engage in warfare.¹ The remaining nations were subordinated to the will or whim of the great states of Europe. With the qualified exception of imperial Japan after 1905, the suggestion that great powers existed outside of Europe was laughable. Retrospectively, the widespread notion that only within such a great power could the individual achieve true self-fulfillment is of equal interest. The greatness of the state was believed to enhance the quality of citizenship, a conviction that dates from as early as the Greek city-state.

One hundred years later such views are simply not uttered in polite society. All states—great and small—are deemed equal, at least before the UN secretariat. Universal democratic egalitarianism encompasses relations between most states (if not within them) and all, large and small, are equally great powers—a nonsense which may be marginally functional in taming the excessive pride and ambition of some of their numbers.

The determination of great-power status has not advanced much beyond Treitschke's cynicism. Outside of the two superpowers no state can apply its military power at will and there are serious (and increasing) limits on even their capacity to intervene.² Some would ask of what use is military power in an era of nuclear stalemate, exploding populations, fragile economies, and disintegrating societies? How can Third World states, in particular, rationally (let alone morally) contemplate the acquisition of enhanced military power when such power will probably be used by the military against the government in power or the population in the streets?³ In sum, great powers as we have known them—as military powers—are said to be obsolete, if not more dangerous to themselves than to others.

Some, however, still maintain the old arguments about the necessity of force and power. Morton Kaplan has recently tried to revive Mackinder's geopolitics, and there has been a curious effort to quantify various aspects of "perceived power" by Ray S. Cline.⁴ Both Kaplan and Cline argue for the existence of critical regions surrounding the global heartland, and Cline suggests a new "Athenian Alliance" to the United States and the Western European powers, "who must associate themselves with at least one great power in each major "politectonic" region.⁵

Without completely rejecting the utility of such approaches to the analysis of great powers, this volume grows out of quite a different perspective and should not be confused with this new school of regional power politics. Between the superpower and the smaller (or fragile) state there are perhaps a dozen or so middlepowers.⁶ At least three of these middlepowers are in Asia and appear to be increasing their relative advantage over both immediate neighbors and distant states. Collectively, the chapters in this book raise the question of the emergence of one or more of these states—China, India, Japan—as a latter-day version of Europe's great powers. Even while accounting for the differences in the international system in which t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• About the Book and Editors
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• The Contributors
• 1. Introduction: Asia and the International Strategic System
• 2. Toward a Great State in Asia?
• 3. China as a Military Power
• 4. India's Military Power and Policy
• 5. Japan's Security Perceptions and Military Needs