China's Naval Power

An Offensive Realist Approach

Yves-Heng Lim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317167167
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Internationale Beziehungen

The rapid modernization of the Chinese Navy is a well-documented reality of the post-Cold War world. In two decades, the People's Liberation Army Navy has evolved from a backward force composed of obsolete platforms into a reasonably modern fleet whose growth is significantly shaking the naval balance in East Asia. The rationale behind China's contemporary rise at sea remains, however, difficult to grasp and few people have tried to see how the current structure of the international system has shaped Chinese choices. This book makes sense of Chinese priorities in its naval modernization in a 'robust' offensive realist framework. Drawing on Barry Posen's works on sources of military doctrine, it argues that the orientation of Beijing's choices concerning its naval forces can essentially be explained by China's position as a potential regional hegemon. Yves-Heng Lim highlights how a rising state develops naval power to fulfil its security objectives, a theoretical perspective that goes farther than the sole Chinese case.

Chapter 1
Naval Power and the Quest for Regional Hegemony

How do ascending great powers guarantee their security? The short answer provided by offensive realists is that, as their capacity to impose their will increase, rising powers will look for opportunities to achieve hegemony over the international system (Mearsheimer 2003). China is, in this perspective, no exception. As its power grows, John Mearsheimer (2006: 162) argues that China will likely “try to dominate Asia,” “seek to maximize the power gap between itself and its neighbors,” and “want to make sure that no state in Asia has the wherewithal to threaten it.” Offensive realists predict that China, as previous powers in its position, will strive for hegemony not because it harbors malign intentions, but because it has no other choices if it wants to ensure its own security (Mearsheimer 2003). Achieving regional hegemony requires the potential hegemon to gather enough power to defeat any adversary or coalition of adversaries in a system-wide war. This type of war, argues John Mearsheimer, is mainly won on land, hence the “primacy of land power” (Mearsheimer 2003: 83) over other forms of military power. However, if international systems are primarily regional systems, and quests for hegemony are in fact quests for regional hegemony, there are good reasons to argue that a crucial part of the struggle will be played at sea. Facing an offshore balancer—or a potential offshore competitor—a rising regional hegemon will have to concentrate its efforts on excluding distant great powers from the regional game, a task that can be possibly achieved at sea.

Offensive Realism and the Grand Strategy of Rising Regional Hegemon

This section retraces the logic of offensive realism before shedding new light on the regional level of analysis used by the theory. In a context where regions constitute open systems, and where an actor has already achieved hegemony in another regional system, the main problem for a potential regional hegemon is more likely to stem from interference by some distant great power than from resistance by local actors. As a consequence, an important part of any bid for regional hegemony is played at the regional-global nexus. On this playing field, however, the potential regional hegemon benefits from a strong “home-court advantage” as it faces an adversary that has to project—or “transport”—its power away from its home region.

The International System as a Security-Scarce Environment

While there is no reason to exclude the existence of “evil”—defined as “the power-lust inherent in man” (Spirtas 1996)—in international politics, offensive realists essentially follow Kenneth Waltz’s argument (1979, 2001) that the causes of insecurity are to be found in the structure of international systems rather than in the nature of man or the state. The first cause of insecurity lies in the fact that as “states interact in an anarchic environment without the protection offered by an overarching authority” (Elman and Elman 2003: 83) the use of armed force and the eruption of conflicts, though not always present, remain always possible. The prevalence of international anarchy entails that “any state may at any time use force,” which means that “all states must constantly be ready either to counter force with force or pay the cost of weakness” (Waltz 2001: 160). To borrow the words of Raymond Aron (1984: 18), international relations “always take place in the shadow of war.” As a consequence, states tend to be extremely careful about their relative share of power and the evolution of the distribution of power in the system. Adverse shifts in this distribution mean a degradation of a state’s ability to meet “force with force” and, consequently, an augmentation of the risk that some adversary might try to take advantage of this vulnerability. Offensive realists therefore contend that “security in the international political system is scarce” (Layne 2006: 17) because unless they build up and maintain their own forces meaning to deter and repel aggression, states cannot be sure that their survival is assured.

Insecurity is seen as particularly pervasive because offensive realists see few guarantees in the “structural modifiers” (Layne 2006: 16) that defensive realists see as easing the conditions imposed by international anarchy. Though they share with defensive realists the idea that insecurity is mainly produced by the “security dilemma” (Herz 1950, Jervis 1978, Glaser 1997, Mearsheimer 2003, Tang 2010), offensive realists part way with their defensive counterpart in that they see the dilemma as basically insolvable. Pioneering the concept, John Herz (1950: 157) argued that, in an anarchic environment:

Groups and individuals … must be, and usually are, concerned about their security from being attacked, subjected, dominated or annihilated by other groups and individuals. Striving to attain security from such attack, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst.

While they agree on the pivotal role of the security dilemma in the production of insecurity, defensive realists argue, following Robert Jervis’s work (1978), that the dilemma can nonetheless be solved under certain circumstances. The solvability of the security dilemma has been mainly linked to offense–defense balance theories. Robert Jervis (1978: 186–187) argued that the severity of the security dilemma is determined by “[t]wo crucial variables: whether defensive weapons and policies can be distinguished from offensive ones, and whether the defense or the offense has the advantage.” On the one hand, if states can differentiate between the means and strategies serving offense and defense, they can easily identify possible aggressors from potentially friendly actors, and signal their own benign intents by investing exclusively on defense. On the other hand, if defense has the advantage, aggression rapidly becomes a costly business, and states without expansionist objectives find themselves in a favorable position to defeat and deter those with less benign intents (Jervis 1978). Offense-defense balance theoreticians further argue that the state of the offense–defense balance has far-reaching consequences on the strategies states can implement to guarantee their security because the balance “determines the relative costs of offensive and defensive strategies” (Lynn-Jones 1995: 666–667). To put it simply, a defense-oriented balance inhibits aggressive strategies by making them inefficient—if not counterproductive, favors more cooperative relations between states, and, everything else being equal, creates a relatively secure world (Jervis 1978, Lynn-Jones 1995). Conversely, an offense-oriented balance favors first strike, preventive war and defensive expansion (Lynn-Jones 1995, Van Evera 1998, 1999) even among states with the most benign intentions.

In stark contrast, offensive realists see the security dilemma as essentially insolvable, in large part because they consider that it is seldom, if ever, possible to distinguish between the means of offense and defense, or define the equilibrium between the two terms of the equation. Offense-defense theories are classically divided in two main groups: narrow, technology-based theories (Lynn-Jones 1995, Quester 2003) and broader versions which, in addition to technology, factor in variables such as geography, the size of opposing forces, the degree of political and national cohesion, the cumulativity of resources, the type of diplomatic arrangements and the perception states have of each of these factors (Van Evera 1998, 1999, Glaser 1994–1995, Glaser and Kaufmann 1998). Broader versions of the offense–defense theories pose inextricable problems of measurement—especially for factors such as “nationalism” (Van Evera 1998) or “social and political order” (Glaser and Kaufmann 1998)—and, perhaps more importantly, integration (Betts 1999). Factors impacting the offense–defense balance might, more often than not, vary in contradictory directions making any assessment of the movement of the balance, at the very least, difficult. For instance, if the states of a given system become less cohesive—favoring offense—at the same time as technological innovations create an advantage for defense, it is basically impossible to determine in which direction the offense–defense balance is tilting.

Technological-based versions of the offense–defense balance, on the other hand, tend to overstate and misconstrue the impact of technological factors in international politics (Lieber 2000, 2005, Biddle 2001, Shimshoni 2004). The first problem posed by the narrow version of the offense–defense theory is that technology and weapons can rarely be seen as naturally offensive or defensive (Mearsheimer 1983, Levy 1984, Gray 1993, Lieber 2000, 2005). Offense–defense theories also tend to oversimplify the relation between technology and the higher levels of strategy. Charles Glaser and Chaim Kaufman (1998: 73) assert, for instance, that “a change that shifts the balance in a given direction at one level will usually also shift it in the same direction at all higher levels.” The axiom that technological shifts have linear effects at tactical, operational and strategic levels remains, however, debatable. Contradicting this view, Edward Luttwak (2001) notably argues that while being organized in a hierarchical way, the levels of strategy are linked by paradoxical links rather than by linear ones. In another way, Jonathan Shimshoni (2004, 199) suggests that the link between lower and higher levels of strategy is, in fact, undetermined:

Perhaps at the lowest tactical level there is sense in differentiating between offensive actions … and defensive actions … We might think of such actions as modules of operation. However, at any level above this, operations are composed of accumulations of modules, and such discrimination becomes impossible. Military operations are composed of both offensive and defensive components—in parallel, series, or both.

Finally, even if “ballpark estimates” (Glaser and Kaufmann 1998) of the offense–defense balance at each of the levels were available, any equilibrium is likely to be unstable and provisional. Factors inducing innovation at the technological, tactical, operational and strategic levels are, to a large extent, beyond the control of any state. As a consequence, even if the offense–defense balance was to be measured, states could not equate a defense-oriented balance with a higher level of security because they can neither predict nor prevent a more or less sudden swing of the balance in the sense of offense (Mearsheimer 2003, Shimshoni 2004). For offensive realist, the narrow version of the offense–defense balance is therefore, at best, unstable and doubly undetermined because there is no way to distinguish clearly between the means serving respectively offense and defense, and because the relative equilibrium between both terms is impossible to determine at higher levels.

Uncertainties about the offense–defense balance directly impacts on the range of available security strategies. Most notably, status quo powers become unable to signal their benign intentions by privileging the acquisition of defensive weapons and the adoption of defensive postures (Biddle 2001), thus forbidding any cooperative solution to security issues. Promises of lower security requirements implied by the possible existence of Jervis’s (1978) “fourth world”—in which defense and offense are distinguishable and defense has the advantage—are, in this perspective, essentially void. In the same way, uncertainty about the equilibrium between offense and defense entails that determining how much—defensive—power is enough to thwart potential aggression is simply not possible as any miscalculation would have dramatic consequences for the defender. Consequently, security cannot be achieved by attaining a certain threshold of power that could be used as a sort of universal shield.

Offensive realists are also rather skeptical about the security guarantees provided by the “iron law” of the balance of power. These doubts stem from the idea that, at the individual level, balancing strategies might not always be seen as the optimal available strategy. In a defensive realist perspective, “[b]alance-of-power politics prevail wherever two, and only two, requirements are met: that the order be anarchic and that it be populated by units wishing to survive” (Waltz 1979: 121). While Kenneth Waltz has recurrently argued that his balance of power theory was only addressing the issue of international outcomes and was essentially agnostic in terms foreign policy (Waltz 1979, 1996), it remains difficult to conceive how balance can arise without deliberate balancing efforts by at least some of the members of the system (Elman 1996, Snyder 1997, Levy 2004). As a matter of fact, Kenneth Waltz (1991, 1993) himself implicitly linked both phenomena on several occasions. Examining the post-Cold War system, Kenneth Waltz (2000: 28) argues, for instance, that a new balance will form because “[a]s nature abhors a vacuum, so international politics abhors unbalanced power,” but this balance will form because “[f]aced with unbalanced power, some states try to increase their own strength or they ally with others to bring the international distribution of power into balance”—which is another way to say that a post-Cold War balance will arise because states will adopt balancing strategies. In this sense, though a differentiation between “manual” and “automatic balancing” (Elman 1996) is theoretically possible, the hypothesis that balances arise simply because “[i]f any state or alliance becomes dangerously powerful or expansionist, others will mobilize countervailing power through arms or alliances” (Snyder 1997: 17) appears significantly more viable.

The hypothesis that states always prefer balancing and that balances recurrently arise is directly linked to defensive realism’s conclusion that “an anarchical international system is a safe place and that security is relatively plentiful” (Lee 2002–2003: 197). If overambitious policies mechanically lead to “self-encirclement” (Snyder 1991: 6), states have generally little to fear from overambitious or over-powerful actors. As coined by Stephen Walt (1987, 49):

If balancing is the norm … then hegemony over the international system will be extremely difficult to achieve. Most states will find security plentiful. But if the bandwagoning hypothesis is more accurate … the hegemony will be much easier (although it will also be rather fragile). Even great powers will view their security as precarious.

At the level of the state, the balancing hypothesis implies a more secure environment because states can be confident that they will not be left out in the cold when faced with an aggressor. States cannot be indifferent to the possibility of successful aggression because such success would adversely impact the overall distribution of power and weaken the chances a balancing coalition has to defeat the overambitious power in a subsequent confrontation. In this perspective, and in spite of their anarchic nature, international systems provide, in most circumstances, a minimum degree of security as efficient balancing strategies are mechanically implemented by the actors of the systems and formidable coalition form against over-powerful and overambitious actors.

The optimality of balancing strategies might, however, not always be as clear as stated by defensive realists. First, Randall Schweller (1996) points out that contradictions might appear between dyadic and systemic logic in a state’s quest for security. A state might indeed consider that striking a deal with the most powerful state is advantageous if the agreement allows him to increase its security against other members of the system. Moreover, the balancing hypothesis requires the most powerful actor in absolute terms to be the most important threat for each member of the system. However, if, as emphasized by some authors, power is eroded by distance (Boulding 1962, Bueno de Mesquita 1981, Walt 1987, Lemke 1995, 2002), the most powerful actor in actual terms—as opposed to absolute terms—might not be the same across the system. The adoption, by all members of the system, of balancing postures might, in this sense, not produce the hypothesized security guarantees provided by the “iron law” of the balance of power because problems regarding the identification of the most threatening actor will cripple the rise of a balance.

More problematically, defensive realism tends to overstate the importance of balancing because it often focuses on a binary choice between balancing and bandwagoning to the detriment of other alternatives. John Mearsheimer has pointed out that states might not be tempted by bandwagoning so much as they are by “buck-passing” strategies (Mearsheimer 2003) as an alternative to balancing. A state might, in fact, “fully recogniz[e] the need to prevent the aggressor from increasing its share of the world power but loo[k] for some other state that is threatened by the aggressor to perform that onerous task” (Mearsheimer 2003: 158). To use the dichotomy introduced by neorealists, states are likely to welcome the emergence of a balance against a potential hegemon, but they are at least as likely to be rather unenthusiastic about carrying the heavy burden of balancing strategies. Indeed, a problem sometimes understated by defensive realists is that the implementation of balancing strategies comes at a price that is, more often than not, significant. On the one hand, “internal balancing” (Waltz 1979: 168) entails obvious opportunity costs as investments in “guns” have to be made to the detriment of “butter” or “productivity” (Gilpin 1981: 167). On the other hand, “external balancing” cannot be limited to the sole identification of a common threat. It is likely to incur significant costs and constraints if it is to become efficient. Glenn Snyder (1997: 44) argues that the formation of a formal alliance typically involves “[t]he risk of having to come to the aid of the ally,” “[t]he risk of entrapment in war by the ally,” “[t]he risk of counter-alliance,” the “[f]orclosure of alternative alliance options,” and “general constraints on freedom of action entailed in the need to coordinate policy with the ally.” Less formal alignments might come at a less expensive price, but they cannot be conceived as cost-free arrangements if they are to have any relevance.

Aside from the very real risk that neither alliance nor alignment might form at all, buck-passing and free-riding strategies introduce the risk that balancing coalitions might perform inefficiently even in conditions where a robust countervailing coalition is needed (Mearsheimer 2003, Schweller 2006). Balancing coalitions are prone to underperformance because the kind of security they produce is essentially a collective good (Snyder 1997: 50). The problem is that, as pointed out by Mancur Olson and and Richard Zeckhauser (1966: 268), “[w]hen … the membership of an organization is relatively small, the individual members may have an incentive to make significant sacrifices to obtain the collective good, but they will tend to provide only suboptimal amounts of this good” (Olson and Zeckhauser 1966: 268). In terms of security, however, the underperformance of balancing coalitions could obviously have disastrous consequences. As a consequence, considering possible—if not likely—failures of the balance of power, offensive realists argue that states cannot safely rely on balance mechanisms and “automatic” balancing behaviors to produce for them a minimum level of security.

The Hegemonic Solution

In the absence of the security guarantees provided by both of the aforementioned mechanisms identified by defensive realists, the international system turns into a security-scarce environment mainly ruled by the Hobbesian logic of the potential “war of all against all.” As states cannot define a level of power that would guarantee their security under all conceivable conditions (Labs 1997, Mearsheimer 2003), they are naturally pushed to power-maximization strategies simply “because the greater the military advantage one state has over the other states, the more secure it is” (Mearsheimer 1994–1995: 12). A power advantage does not guarantee that other states will refrain from initiating conflict or that adversaries will be certainly and easily defeated if war occurs (Paul 1994). However, offensive realists safely follow John Mearsheimer (2003: 58) when he asserts that “there is no question that the odds of success are substantially affected by the balance of resources” (Mearsheimer 2003: 58). In other words, when it comes to power, more is, in an offensive realist world, always better.

In an offensive realist perspective, the relentless quest for power is not linked to the malign intentions of unsatisfied states—in Randall Schweller’s (1998) evocative bestiary “wolves,” “foxes” and “jackals”—or to the existence of an immediate and specific threat (Labs 1997, Mearsheimer 2003). As put forth by John Mearsheimer (2003: 21), offensive realism contends that “[g]reat powers behave aggressively not because they want to or because they possess some inner drive to dominate, but because they have to seek more power if they want to maximize their odds of survival.” In a way, offensive realism desc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acronyms
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Naval Power and the Quest for Regional Hegemony
• 2 China’s Rise in East Asia: The Political Context of Beijing’s Bid for Regional Hegemony
• 3 The Offensive Turn of China’s Naval Strategy and Doctrine
• 4 The Modernization of Chinese Naval Forces
• 5 Taiwan … and Beyond
• 6 Territorial and Maritime Issues in the China Seas
• 7 The Great Naval Chessboard: Sea Power and the Chinese Quest for Hegemony
• Conclusion
• References
• Index