His “capability” against us is virtually zero. Thus, his threat to us is nil. Of course, Vladimir Putin is a different story. No one can really anticipate what Russia will do in the future without understanding Putin’s behavioral history, the history of his state since the end of the Cold War, and the limits of Putin’s social insensitivities.
So let us apply Tetlock and Kahneman to the usual suspects. Then let us expose their scope insensitivities to the war-college equation, threat equals capability times will, to see what behavior and history tell us about whom we will fight in the future.
Without question, the Beltway believes (and some in that realm even hope) that our future enemy will be China. The Chinese are perfect enemies. Their capability score is big and growing. They may be the only potential adversary whose matériel capabilities make it worthy of our expensive, high-tech weaponry. The big defense corporations can rely on the modernization of the Chinese military to justify almost a trillion dollars (yes, that’s with a t) of new aircraft, ships, and missiles. The Chinese threat touches all of the schools: the technologists warn of Chinese missiles capable of killing our aircraft carriers; the scenario makers love to anticipate crushing the new Chinese navy in a great sea battle; and the concept theorists are thrilled with the chance to showcase U.S. weaponry as the best tools for confronting nascent Chinese expansionism.
But if we apply the template of behavioral history and score their social insensitivity, the Chinese simply do not fit the profile of an enemy ready to go to war against us. First, the obvious: great nuclear powers simply do not go to war with great nuclear powers. The proliferation of nuclear weapons among enemies like China, Russia, and soon Iran offers good news and bad news: the good news is that no large power can threaten us; bad news—we can never return the favor. There is no logical, strategic reason for the United States to bomb a major power to achieve any end other than national survival. Thus, the presence of nuclear weapons has virtually eliminated any chance of great powers fighting each other in big wars that demand the mobilization of the nation and the commitment of massed forces. Likewise, the muting effect of the nuclear ceiling on great-power violence eliminates the possibility of massive air or naval campaigns, because the risk-versus-reward curve is simply out of kilter.
Second, the tenets of geostrategy argue against a war with China. Simply put, the United States cannot fight a war on the continent of Asia and expect any strategically useful outcome. There are two countries on the planet that are unconquerable: China and Russia. China in particular cannot be conquered because of its vast spaces and a three-thousand-year-old culture, strictly averse to fighting extraterritorial threats . . . that is more than a billion people, by the way, with an army five times the size of ours.
Another even more subtle argument for focusing on China comes from the current administration’s new strategy that calls for a “pivot to Asia,” a thinly veiled expression of intent to shift focus away from the Middle East. Truth is, the pivot toward China is really just a cynical, strategic “head fake.” The administration knows we will not fight China. Yet the pivot allows it to perpetuate the myth of muscular U.S. military power after leaving the Middle East—all without having to expect a real war.
The AirSea Battle gurus beat the drums for a war against China by citing the growing strength of its navy and air forces. Of course, the Chinese military is growing. Throughout history, all emerging great powers have sought to express their places in the world by spending on their militaries. Theodore Roosevelt gave the British fits at the turn of the last century as the United States began to flex its naval muscles. However, this time, the war-college equation gets in the way; a threat is a multiple of capability times intent. If intent is zero, the threat is zero. There is ample evidence in Chinese history that the Chinese, while nationalistic, are not expansionistic. They already have their empire; they just want to keep it.
Of course, the Chinese view us with suspicion. Any two great powers juxtaposed across the Pacific would act in a similar fashion. But suspicion, envy, and cultural jingoism are not sufficient to justify a war against a nuclear power. It just does not make sense to them, and it should not for us either.
Next in the line of the most popular “usual suspects” is North Korea. During my career I served four years in the Republic of Korea—as a major, colonel, and general. All of my service was with tactical units, preparing to fight the North. I commanded an artillery battalion whose mission was to protect the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which separates North and South Korea. So I think I know the region and the threat well enough to call myself an authority. Bottom line up front: we will not fight the North Koreans. To be sure, they maximize the capabilities quotient with a million-man army and nuclear weapons. Any shaky Stalinist regime headed by a thirty-something sociopath has to command our attention. No doubt, Kim Jong Un’s “scope insensitivity” tops the charts. But from a purely military perspective, the threat of a spontaneous North Korean attack on the south is highly overrated. The North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) seems impressive at first glance. The truth, however, is that this army is a rusting relic of the sixties; NKPA tanks and aircraft are museum pieces. Soldiers spend most of their training time scratching for food. Few of North Korea’s aircraft are flyable. Its air force is so strapped for fuel and spare parts that North Korean pilots are essentially untrained.
The only conventional capability in the NKPA is their artillery, with its rockets and long-range guns strung along the DMZ in range of Seoul. The North Korean Special Forces pose a serious unconventional threat. These two forces would cause serious damage to the South. Yet the North Koreans know well they would eventually lose against the more modern and powerful South Korean and U.S. militaries.
What about the North Korean nuclear threat? This is where mythology trumps strategy. Kim Jong Un, like his father and grandfather, is the one character who can order a nuclear strike or an invasion of the South. But the historical-behavioral background of the Kims argues that they have been in the shakedown business—not the war-making business—for more than seven decades. Their scope insensitivity is incredibly narrow; they are leaders with no experiential depth. They carry on a predictable comic-opera rant after each of their underground nuclear tests in order to extort food and fuel from the West. In truth the North Koreans know they have nothing that even comes close to a legitimate strategic nuclear capability. It will be years—if not decades—before they put together a rudimentary nuclear missile force, one capable of threatening anyone. These people act like clowns, and their repetitively bad behavior has become tiresomely antiquated. North Korea is nothing more than an isolated, neo-Stalinist enclave sandwiched between superior fighting neighbors who would crush it if it dared to advance beyond its borders . . . and the North Koreans know it.
Next in line among the usual suspects is the sentimental favorite: Russia. Vladimir Putin is indeed another international sociopath who has been given an extraordinary license to bully his “near abroad” neighbors. No one questions that it is Putin’s hand that directs the ethnic Russian “separatists” to defy the legitimately elected Ukrainian government. This administration and members of NATO and the European Union (EU) have failed to halt his aggression. Sanctions may harm the new urban middle and upper classes, but Putin’s stranglehold on the Russian media and his promise to restore Russian power and prestige maintain his popularity among the people. He and his country score high on both variables: a huge nuclear arsenal and past personal behavior that is both troubling and unpredictable; further, Putin’s social insensitivity equals Hitler’s.
Putin has publicly stated that his national security objective is to split the NATO alliance. He believes NATO and its prime benefactor, the United States, are the principal impediments to his grand design to return Russia to imperial greatness, and Russia will do what Putin wants. But on the surface, Putin holds a weak military hand. Putin’s Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is a failing state only half the size of the Soviet Union, with an economy less than a tenth of those of the United States and the EU combined. Putin’s military is getting better, to be sure, but a closer look reveals an establishment made up mostly of unwilling young men who lost the conscription lottery. The Russians do not have a single fifth-generation stealth
