China-Taiwan: deterrence theory and conflict analysis [Archive]

n4292936

07-01-2004, 01:10 AM

I thought this was a great article on the issue.

[quote:ba42822482]Navigating the Tiawan Strait:
Deterrance, Escalation Dominance, and US-China Relations
Robert S. Ross

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Since the end of the Cold War, the strategic focus of the United States has shifted from Europe to East Asia, in recognition of East Asia's growing economic importance and the strategic dynamism of the People's Republic of China (PRC). 1 In this context, the prospect for war in the Taiwan Strait has emerged as a major preoccupation of U.S. policymakers. The March 1996 U.S.-China confrontation, when the PRC carried out military exercises and missile tests near Taiwan and the United States deployed two aircraft carriers to the region, placed this concern at the forefront of U.S. strategic planning. The result has been increased U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the beginnings of a U.S.-Taiwan defense relationship focused on wartime cooperation, and heightened U.S. interest in missile defense. 2

The assumption of the George W. Bush administration is that war in the Taiwan Strait is sufficiently likely that the United States must strengthen its diplomatic and military ties with Taiwan, even though such ties could disrupt U.S.-China relations and regional stability. But the analysis supporting this key assumption is lacking. In the aftermath of the Cold War, interest among scholars and policymakers in deterrence theory and in its application to U.S. foreign policy has languished. 3 This article draws on deterrence theory to understand [End Page 48] post-Cold War East Asia and to contribute to the debate over U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan.

To understand the importance of deterrence theory for East Asia, it is useful to revisit some of the security concepts originally developed for the European theater during the Cold War and to consider the following questions: How do the factors that contribute to deterrence—including interests, capabilities, and resolve—interact in the Taiwan Strait? Similarly, what role do nuclear weapons play in China's consideration of the use of conventional force? 4 What do Chinese leaders believe is necessary to deter an adversary, and do they believe that such conditions exist? 5

This article argues that the United States can be very confident that, absent a Taiwan declaration of independence, it can continue to deter the use of force by China against Taiwan. The United States possesses the capabilities—including a robust war-fighting force and "escalation dominance"—that even the most cautious analysts argued were necessary for deterring Soviet aggression. 6 [End Page 49] Moreover, Chinese leaders respect not only U.S. military capabilities but also U.S. resolve, and thus believe that American retaliatory threats are credible. Effective deterrence enables Washington to avoid policies that undermine U.S.-China cooperation while maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait.

The first section of this article reviews the core concepts of deterrence theory and their relevance to the Taiwan Strait. The second section addresses the conditions under which China is either deterrable or undeterrable and the implications of asymmetric U.S.-China interests for deterrence. The third section analyzes Beijing's understanding of the role of nuclear weapons in deterrence—its response to the "stability-instability paradox"—and the implications for Chinese use of force. The fourth section assesses Chinese analysis of U.S.-China conventional deterrence dynamics. The fifth section examines potential sources of deterrence failure. The final section considers the implications of conventional deterrence dynamics in the Taiwan Strait for U.S. interests and how Washington can deter war while expanding U.S.-China cooperation.

Deterrence Theory and the Taiwan Strait
There are two deterrence dyads in the Taiwan Strait. The first involves U.S. deterrence of China's use of force against Taiwan for the purpose of unification. The second entails Chinese deterrence of Taiwan from declaring independence from mainland sovereignty. This article examines the U.S.-China dyad because it is of greater concern to U.S. policymakers and drives much of the decisionmaking regarding U.S. policy toward both China and Taiwan.

Effective deterrence demands that the status quo state possess the retaliatory capability to inflict costs that outweigh the benefits on a state that seeks to change the status quo. U.S. deterrence in the Taiwan Strait requires that Chinese leaders believe that the United States can use its military capabilities effectively in a war in the Taiwan theater and that it can inflict sufficient costs on China that outweigh the benefits of unification through war.

In some deterrence relationships, the revisionist state may have such a strong interest in challenging the status quo that it is not deterrable, regardless of the costs involved. U.S. deterrence of Chinese force thus requires that China values other interests more than unification with Taiwan. But even if China is [End Page 50] deterrable and acknowledges U.S. superiority in the Taiwan Strait, the United States must have still a reputation for resolve, so that its retaliatory threat is credible to China. U.S. interests regarding the Taiwan issue are therefore important because they influence China's assessment of the credibility of U.S. retaliatory threats. 7

Sometimes the deterrer's interests are so high that its credibility is not in doubt. At other times its interests are so low that the deterrer's reputation cannot enhance its credibility, regardless of its capabilities. In between lurks the extended deterrence problem, where uncertainty exists over the deterrer's interests and reputation can determine the credibility of threats. 8 In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. policymakers feared that insofar as the credibility of the United States to deter the Soviet Union from invading Western Europe was uncertain, U.S. ability to deter the conventional use of force by a nuclear-armed China was even less certain, because U.S. interest in the East Asian status quo was not as strong as U.S. interest in the European status quo. 9 Thus, Washington's extended deterrence problem in East Asia is no different now than it was during the first half of the Cold War. Today, there is considerable uncertainty in Washington over Beijing's assessment of U.S. resolve to defend Taiwan.

China's perception of U.S. resolve is thus a critical determinant of the effectiveness of the U.S. extended deterrence posture and the state of U.S.-China relations. China can acknowledge U.S. military superiority but still question U.S. resolve to risk war and high costs, including the potential for incurring a large number of casualties, over the defense of Taiwan. Thus, the United States must compensate for U.S.-Chinese asymmetric interests in Taiwan to deter China's use of force. Moreover, China's assessment of U.S. resolve affects U.S. defense planning. U.S. concerns over the credibility of its extended deterrence posture [End Page 51] could lead to a Taiwan policy that would be detrimental to American interests in U.S.-China cooperation.

The key to the extended deterrence problem is the role of nuclear weapons in the conventional use of force. Leaders in Beijing may believe that China's nuclear weapons can deter U.S. conventional use of force in defense of Taiwan, thus enabling the Chinese to start a war. This is the core issue in the "stability-instability paradox." 10 On the one hand, the history of the Cold War suggests that the deterrence of conventional war by the danger of accidental or unintended escalation to mutually assured destruction (MAD) may be a reality. 11 On the other hand, during the Cold War, U.S. officials feared that although the risk of nuclear war would deter the United States from launching a conventional war, they could not be sure whether the Soviet Union would respond similarly to the risk of an unintended nuclear exchange. Thus, after the Soviet Union acquired a second-strike nuclear capability in the mid-1960s, many U.S. government officials and defense analysts argued that deterrence required robust U.S. conventional and/or nuclear war-fighting capabilities and "escalation dominance." 12 These concerns contributed to NATO's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Western Europe. 13

Regarding contemporary East Asia, some U.S. policy analysts fear that leaders in Beijing may believe that China's limited nuclear capability deters U.S. intervention on behalf of Taiwan, thus tempting China to use force for unification. These concerns drive much of the desire of the Bush administration to enhance U.S.- Taiwan defense cooperation and missile defense. But if Chinese leaders are like their U.S. counterparts during the Cold War, they will lack confidence in the utility of nuclear weapons to deter U.S. intervention in a mainland-Taiwan war; instead they will focus on China's conventional capabilities as its deterrent force.

The capabilities and credibility of the status quo state interact with the revisionist state's interest in challenging the status quo to create the expected cost [End Page 52] of the use of force and thus the effectiveness of deterrence. During the Cold War, the probability that the United States would risk a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange in retaliation for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe may have been low, but the costs for the Soviet Union would have been catastrophic, thus creating sufficient expected costs to deter the Soviet use of force. 14 To determine the expected cost of the use of force in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese leaders must balance the credibility of a U.S. threat to intervene, the likely costs for China of U.S. intervention, and the potential benefits of unification.

Conventional deterrence by a stronger and credible power can fail when the weaker state relies on an asymmetric strategy to inflict high costs on a superior adversary. In the context of asymmetric interests, China may believe that such a strategy could compel the United States to concede rather than engage in a costly war over Taiwan. Deterrence can also fail when the deterrer's military strategy cannot eliminate the challenger's option of a fait accompli strike that achieves the challenger's limited objectives and leaves war initiation or escalation to the deterrer. In the Taiwan Strait, failed conventional deterrence could entail China starting a war to seek the rapid political capitulation of Taiwan. Thus, effective deterrence requires the United States to possess the specific capabilites necessary to frustrate a fait accompli strategy. 15

Finally, deterrence can be effective but unstable if either side fears that the other would benefit from a first strike, creating pressures for crisis escalation and/or preemptive war. Unstable deterrence can reflect exacerbated security dilemma dynamics. During the Cold War, the security dilemma was especially acute, as U.S. fear of a Soviet conventional first strike contributed to crisis escalation. In post-Cold War East Asia, the security dilemma as well as the likelihood of crisis instability and an unintended war will reflect U.S. and Chinese military capabilities and the geography of the Taiwan theater. 16 [End Page 53]

Asymmetric Interests in the Taiwan Strait
The United States and China have asymmetric interests in the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese leadership views Taiwan as Chinese territory, and it has strong nationalist and security incentives to seek unification. On the other hand, U.S. security interests in Taiwan are limited to reputational interests. Washington seeks to deter the mainland's use of force to preserve the credibility of U.S. regional security commitments. For this to succeed, Beijing must be persuaded that despite its greater interest in Taiwan, U.S. military capabilities and resolve make the use of force too risky.

Ultimately, the efficacy of U.S. deterrence depends on Chinese interests. Is China deterrable, or is it so dissatisfied with the status quo that it is prepared to adopt high-risk policies to secure its objectives? Since 1949, when the Republic of China (ROC) leadership moved to Taiwan and the PRC was established, Taiwan has enjoyed de facto independence from the mainland. Within the diplomatic cover of the "one-China principle," according to which the PRC and the ROC agreed that Taiwan was part of China, Beijing has tolerated the status quo. Despite China's interest in reversing the "humiliation" of Western and Japanese imperialism and ending foreign interference in its domestic affairs, Washington has successfully deterred Beijing from challenging the status quo. Rather than go to war for unification, Chinese leaders have pursued higher-value interests, including ideological objectives under Mao Zedong and economic modernization under Deng Xiaoping and his successors.

China's tolerance of the status quo does not preclude it from taking action if Taiwan were to challenge the status quo. Since the mid-1990s, Taipei has adopted a series of measures suggesting to Beijing that a secessionist movement is under way on Taiwan. For China, a formal Taiwan declaration of independence would be the equivalent of a declaration of war. It would challenge the nationalist legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is based on erasing the humiliation of past imperialist invasions. Thus as one observer has noted, "no Chinese politician, strategist, or anyone else will dare to abandon the objective of making Taiwan return and the unification of the motherland." 17 Moreover, Taiwan independence would increase the likelihood that Taiwan could be used by a rival power to threaten PRC security, much the [End Page 54] way that the United States used Taiwan in the 1950s in its "containment" of China. The island is both the "protective shield" (pingzhang) and the "strategic gateway" (suoyue) to southeast China. 18 Chinese leaders also have a credibility problem. Should Beijing fail to retaliate against a Taiwan declaration of independence, secessionist movements in Tibet, Xinjiang, and other parts of China could be emboldened to escalate their resistance to Chinese rule. 19

For some observers, the issue is whether advances in China's military capabilities have undermined the credibility of the U.S. retaliatory threat just as Beijing is becoming increasingly apprehensive that developments in Taiwan could lead to a declaration of independence. 20 Thus, to deter China from using force in a bid for unification, the United States requires both the military capability and the credibility to pose an unacceptable expected cost to Beijing of U.S. intervention.

But are U.S. interests in Taiwan sufficiently important that Washington will risk hostilities with China to defend Taiwan? Until the Korean War, Washington acknowledged that Chinese control over Taiwan would not significantly affect U.S. security. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson explained to members of Congress in January 1950 that PRC occupation of Taiwan would add only forty miles to mainland power projection toward Okinawa. U.S. military leaders concurred, noting that Taiwan was less important to Japanese security than Korea, from which the U.S. military had already withdrawn. 21 In June [End Page 55] 1950 Washington reversed policy by attaching strategic importance to Taiwan separation from the PRC. This shift reflected its Korean War policy of forward containment of China, rather than a reevaluation of Taiwan's intrinsic importance to U.S. security. Fifty years later, Taiwan still possesses minimal geopolitical significance. Thus U.S. policy has sought a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan conflict, suggesting that if Taiwan chose to join the mainland, absent PRC use of force, Washington could accept it.

In March 1996, the United States responded to Chinese military exercises near Taiwan to signal its resolve to oppose PRC use of force. U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry declared that the presence of U.S. carriers near Taiwan was a warning that "the United States has a national interest in the security and the stability in the western Pacific region. We have a powerful military force there to help us carry out our national interests." The State Department explained that the carriers were "a signal meant to convey the strong interests that we have in a peaceful outcome" to mainland-Taiwan differences. 22 But did Washington persuade Beijing of its resolve despite its secondary, reputational interests in the Taiwan conflict?

Nuclear Weapons and Chinese Use of Force
China's limited number of nuclear weapons would seem to give it a retaliatory force sufficient to fulfill a minimal deterrence capability. Chinese analysts argue that based on the assumption that states make a "cost-benefit comparison" (bi deshi) in deciding to use force, a limited nuclear force can target an adversary's "strategic points" (yaohai) to inflict sufficient costs to deter a superior power's use of nuclear weapons. In this respect, China's nuclear forces serve as a "counter-nuclear deterrent" (fan he weishe) capability, undermining an adversary's ability to carry out "nuclear blackmail" (he ezha) to threaten China with a nuclear attack in response to the latter's use of conventional force to defend its interests. China's nuclear deterrent can also persuade other nuclear powers from escalating a conventional war directly against Chinese territory, for fear of a possible Chinese nuclear retaliation. 23 [End Page 56]

To the extent that China is thus engaged in mutual nuclear deterrence with the United States, it participates in the stability-instability paradox. Chinese leaders may believe that because the PRC can pose the risk of unintended escalation and mutually assured destruction, the United States would be deterred from interfering in a conventional mainland-Taiwan conflict over a second-level U.S. interest such as the independence of Taiwan. It is not clear, however, that leaders in Beijing believe that China has a sufficient nuclear deterrent capability or that nuclear weapons can deter the conventional use of force.

China possesses approximately twenty CSS-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. This force is sufficient to pose a risk to the United States of unacceptable destruction from unintended escalation. Moreover, at least one Chinese leader has suggested that the risk to Los Angeles of a Chinese nuclear strike might deter Washington from intervening in a mainland-Taiwan war, thus freeing China to act against Taiwan. 24 China also possesses CSS-2, CSS-3, and CSS-5 nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) that can reach U.S. regional bases and allies. This means, for example, that China could hold the security of Japan hostage to U.S.-China relations. 25

Nonetheless, Chinese leaders have minimal confidence that China's strategic forces have a second-strike capability or even a first-strike capability. China's missiles and nuclear warheads are stored in separate locations. The time required to fit a warhead onto a missile would give the adversary time to detect Chinese preparations. In addition, because China's missiles are liquid fueled, [End Page 57] considerable preparation is required, affording the adversary even more time for detection and the opportunity to launch a preemptive attack. 26 Most of China's IRBMs take even longer to prepare for launch. With the exception of the CSS-5, many are deployed in caves and must be transported to the launch site before they can be joined with the warhead and fueled. At best, the launch preparation time for these IRBMs is slightly more than two and a half hours. 27 As a further complication, reports have surfaced of serious desertion problems within China's strategic missile corps, which suggests that its missile forces may not be able to carry out timely launch preparation in a crisis. 28

Chinese military officials recognize that because China's nuclear force is small and underdeveloped, and because potential adversaries possess advanced technologies that permit high-accuracy and long-distance missiles to target Chinese missiles, its retaliatory capability is vulnerable to a preemptive strike. Moreover, there is widespread Chinese acceptance that because advanced U.S. conventional weapons inflict minimal civilian casualties and collateral damage, they can be used with greater flexibility and less restraint than nuclear weapons to achieve strategic objectives. 29 Chinese studies note that U.S. precision-guided missiles can play the role that nuclear weapons played [End Page 58] during the Cold War in deterring an adversary from using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). 30 Chinese analysts have also noted U.S. interest in using low-yield nuclear warheads deployed on high-accuracy missiles to target WMD, suggesting that Washington had "lowered the nuclear threshold" (jiangdi he menkan) for employing nuclear weapons in possible future preemptive strikes. These analysts are also aware that (1) the 2002 U.S. nuclear posture places China, along with "rogue countries," on the list of states potentially subject to a preemptive nuclear attack, (2) China's potential for using force against Taiwan significantly drives U.S. nuclear planning, and (3) Washington could use nuclear deterrence in a Taiwan crisis to deter Chinese use of conventional force. 31

Beijing's concern for the vulnerability of its nuclear forces has led it to rely on mobility, dispersed deployment, and camouflage to enhance its second-strike capability. Yet these methods, particularly its wide dispersal of launch sites, undermine China's command-and-control systems and thus the reliability of its retaliatory capability. 32 Concern for the survivability of its strategic forces has also led to "repercussions and controversy" among PRC specialists over whether China should reconsider its no first-use of nuclear weapons policy. Defenders of this doctrine insist that should circumstances change so that China "cannot not use or has no choice but to use nuclear weapons, it would not be a departure from the intrinsic nature of deterrence, but would be in coordinated unity with it." Similarly, if an enemy's conventional attack [End Page 59] would threaten its existence, China could counterattack with nuclear weapons, in accordance with its deterrence doctrine. 33

China's concern for survivability has encouraged its leadership to consider a launch-on-warning doctrine. An early discussion of Chinese nuclear doctrine explained that the meaning of a retaliatory attack was not "passive acceptance of attack. We cannot wait until after the enemy's nuclear missiles explode and there is confusion everywhere before carrying out a nuclear counterattack." More recently, Chinese military writings advise that "if the enemy first uses nuclear weapons," China's strategic missile forces, while preparing for the attack, "must resolutely carry out a counterattack." 34 Given the vulnerability of Chinese forces to a preemptive attack and its deficient early-warning capabilities, however, it is unlikely that China has a launch-on-warning capability.

China's next generation of ICBMs, the DF-31, will be mobile and solid fueled, thus reducing launch times and vulnerability to preemptive attack. Should China also deploy this missile with its warhead, it will be even less vulnerable to preemptive attack. This greater reliability would presumably enhance China's deterrent capability and the confidence of China's leaders that it could deter U.S. intervention in a mainland-Taiwan conflict. Nonetheless, not until the end of this decade, at the earliest, will China be able to begin deployment of the longer-range DF-31, which will be able to reach the continental United States. 35

Even if China develops a survivable second-strike capability, its leadership would still have minimal confidence that its limited nuclear arsenal could deter U.S. intervention in a war between it and Taiwan. China's understanding of the stability-instability paradox is that a mutual second-strike capability at the nuclear level and the risk of unintended nuclear war do not deter the conventional use of force. Its perspective is similar to that of the United States during the Cold War, when Washington feared that the U.S.-Soviet nuclear stalemate and U.S. threats of nuclear retaliation would not deter the Soviet use of conventional capabilities against Western Europe.

Chinese military and civilian analysts have studied the United States' persistent Cold War effort to make credible its extended deterrence posture toward [End Page 60] Western Europe, despite the combination of the Soviet Union's second-strike nuclear capability and its conventional superiority in the European theater. The United States developed nuclear war-fighting capabilities and deployed tactical and theater nuclear weapons, but Chinese analysts argue that the United States never overcame the weak credibility of its threat to use nuclear weapons against a Soviet conventional attack. The U.S. search for a space-based defense capability reflected this irresolvable dilemma. Although some studies argue that nuclear weapons may have contributed to European stability, Chinese analysts concur that nuclear weapons played a very limited role in preventing war elsewhere in the world. 36 Thus nuclear deterrence is not an "all-purpose" strategy. Rather in local war situations, because of the "enormous destructive power" of nuclear weapons, when mutual deterrence and the danger of nuclear retaliation exist, the "credibility of using nuclear deterrence is very very low and its role in containing local war is very very weak." 37

Thus, Chinese deterrence of U.S. intervention in a Taiwan conflict depends on China's conventional war-fighting capability. In this respect, China's deterrence calculus resembles the U.S. deterrence calculus for Europe once the Soviet Union gained its second-strike capability in the early 1960s. Because U.S. policymakers could not be sure that the Soviet response to stability at the nuclear level was caution at the conventional level, presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan consistently sought a conventional war-fighting capability to deter a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Chinese leaders are no different. They do not believe that Chinese nuclear forces can deter the United States from intervening with conventional forces in a mainland-Taiwan war.

Conventional Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait
China's emphasis on conventional capabilities in deterring local war means that the U.S.-China conventional deterrence relationship will determine whether China will use force against Taiwan to achieve unification. Three issues [End Page 61] determine whether or not China is deterred from using force against Taiwan: (1) Chinese leaders' understanding of the requirements of effective conventional deterrence, (2) their assessment of the war-fighting capability of the United States, including the effectiveness of U.S. capabilities in a Taiwan contingency, and the impact of U.S. intervention on Chinese interests, and (3)their assessment of the resolve of the United States to fulfill its commitment to defend Taiwan and intervene in a mainland-Taiwan conflict. Taken together, these issues determine China's assessment of the expected cost of an attack on Taiwan for the purpose of unification.

China and Conventional Deterrence
Chinese military leaders believe that limited nuclear capabilities can deter a more powerful nuclear state from launching a nuclear war or from using nuclear blackmail to achieve political objectives without war. They have a very different understanding, however, of the capabilities needed to deter a conventional war. China's senior military leader, Gen. Zhang Wannian, captures the Chinese military's position on conventional deterrence in the nuclear era: "The foundation for containing war is possession of war-winning capabilities. Only with the possession of war-winning capabilities can deterrence be effectively carried out." 38

The importance of "real war" (shizhan) capabilities permeates Chinese military analyses. As one authoritative analysis explains, "The struggle of deterrence and counterdeterrence is a confrontation of power." In this situation, if one does not have "the capability to prepare to win a war, then it is very difficult to even talk about deterrence." 39 This approach holds that China should strive for Sun-tzu's "ideal objective" of "defeating the enemy without fighting." Nonetheless, it is "necessary" that conventional deterrence be established on the "solid base of using war to stop war." In an approach similar to the U.S. concept of "escalation dominance," some Chinese military analysts argue that a war-fighting capability deters potential adversaries insofar as "winning a small war can hold back a medium-size war; winning a medium-size war can hold back a large war." Similarly, wartime deterrence can include surgical [End Page 62] operations designed to subdue the enemy and win quick victory. 40 But whether to deter the outbreak of war or to deter the expansion of a war, Zhang Wannian asserts that having "the will to fight and the ability to fight in order todefeat the enemy without fighting is the bedrock of Chinese deterrence thinking." 41

From this real-war, war-winning perspective, only when the deterrer has "extremely limited" political objectives, when there is an "extreme power imbalance," and when the target has a "conciliatory attitude," is it possible to deter conventional war without the actual use of force. 42 Chinese military analysts recognize the importance of military posturing and shows of force to signal intentions and establish a determination to "make good on a threat." This is sometimes described as "demonstration deterrence" (shengshi weishe or zaoshi weishe). These analysts also argue that demonstration deterrence was an effective device for deterring Taiwan's use of force in 1962, when Taiwan mobilized its forces, in the context of Sino-Indian border conflict, Sino-Soviet tension, and Chinese economic turmoil following the Great Leap Forward. They also indicate that China's 1996 military exercises and missiles test in the Taiwan Strait was a case of demonstration deterrence. But Chinese analysts also insist that wartime deterrence and military signaling are effective only when applied in combination with military superiority. Resolve and determination without capabilities cannot deter potential aggressors. 43

U.S. Capabilities and the Cost of War
Chinese military leaders believe that the United States possesses superior war-fighting capabilities in the Taiwan Strait. They also believe that U.S. superiority can impose high costs on vital Chinese interests. According to a senior analyst close to China's military leadership, by China's own assessment of the preconditions of deterrence, it could not deter U.S. intervention in a Taiwan-mainland war. 44 [End Page 63]

Chinese military analysts argue that the most fundamental change in U.S. conventional capabilities since the end of the Cold War is that the United States no longer faces adversaries with superior or even equal conventional power. When the United States confronted adversaries with effective conventional forces, it depended on its nuclear forces for extended deterrence. Today, U.S. extended deterrence relies on high-technology conventional weaponry that can be as effective as nuclear weapons in achieving military objectives. U.S. military superiority thus enables Washington to delink extended deterrence from a reliance on nuclear weapons.

Military analysts in China argue that the U.S. victories in the 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 war in Kosovo confirm not only that high technology has become the most important factor in war fighting, but that the elements of high- technology warfare "to a very high degree determine the outcome of war." In particular, superiority in "precision-guided weapons of greater variety and higher performance" results in "battlefield control." 45 Moreover, the U.S. military's rapid deployment capabilities allow it to project force "as soon as needed" for any regional contingency, further reducing U.S. dependency on nuclear missiles for retaliation. 46

The conventional military superiority of the United States is primarily based on its overwhelming information warfare capabilities. In the era of information warfare, "Military combat 'transparency' [toumingdu] ... has already become an effective form of ... combat." The superior power can blind the adversary by destroying its information systems, thus immobilizing its war-fighting capabilities and establishing information dominance. Indeed a fundamental element of contemporary deterrence is "information deterrence" (xinxi weishe). Some Chinese military specialists argue that superior information capabilities can create an "information umbrella" (xinxi san) that not only can substitute for the nuclear umbrella but is superior to it. Information deterrence is the "finest result" of "defeating the enemy without fighting." It seeks "bloodless confrontation to achieve military victory." 47 Moreover, Chinese military analysts argue [End Page 64] that whereas nuclear deterrence poses excessive risks and thus is not usable in war, "the information umbrella," while it cannot pose a terrifying threat, has greater potential use than the nuclear umbrella." It is a "peace umbrella" (heping san). 48

The conventional superiority of the United States enhances U.S. credibility to intervene in regional conflicts and thus to deter war. This development reflects three aspects of U.S. capabilities. First, if nuclear extended deterrence had failed during the Cold War, the United States could not have used its nuclear capabilities to retaliate without exposing itself to universal condemnation. Today U.S. extended deterrence relies on conventional capabilities. Because collateral damage to an adversary would be relatively small, there are reduced U.S. misgivings about punishing potential challengers. 49 As one Chinese military analyst has concluded, "The usability of conventional deterrence forces is far greater than that of nuclear deterrence forces," and U.S. credibility of its extended deterrence commitments to intervene in local conflicts is thus higher than in the past. Superior conventional forces thus provide the United States with an effective and usable "independent" deterrent capability to prevent war in such places as Europe and on the Korean Peninsula. 50

Second, even if deterrence fails, the United States can still achieve its objectives through victory on the battlefield. Conventional deterrence failure therefore has the unintended effect of actually enhancing the credibility of subsequent U.S. deterrence threats. This was the effect of deterrence failure against Iraq and the subsequent U.S. victory in the Gulf War. Presumably, Chinese analysts would conclude that U.S. deterrence failure and subsequent military actions first against Serbia and then against the Taliban government [End Page 65] inAfghanistan have had a similar effect in enhancing the credibility of U.S. deterrence. 51

Third, if nations do not submit to U.S. demands, Washington can use conventional forces to carry out "assured destruction" that in the past would have depended on nuclear weapons. Chinese analysts cite numerous examples of successful U.S. conventional deterrence and coercive diplomacy in the 1990s based on threats of conventional preemptive attacks. Moreover, its offensive conventional capabilities enable the United States to abandon the strategies of limited war and gradual escalation that it unsuccessfully employed in the Vietnam War. Should deterrence fail in the post-Cold War era, U.S. strategy calls for the rapid and decisive introduction of U.S. forces, facilitating victory in the shortest possible time in the initial stages of the war. 52

Chinese leaders acknowledge that U.S. capabilities would be particularly effective against Chinese forces operating in the Taiwan theater. A senior Chinese military officer has lectured his troops that China's likely adversary in a local war would possess high-technology equipment that could neutralize China's ability to rely on manpower to defeat the enemy. A civilian analyst has noted that, in a war in China's coastal region, it would be difficult for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to take advantage of its superior numbers—as it did during the Korean War—and that the adversary could "make full use of its superiority in air and naval long-range, large-scale, high-accuracy weaponry." 53 A military analyst was more direct, explaining that not only would such superior capabilities seriously restrict China's ability to seize and maintain sea control around a "large island," but they would also pose a major [End Page 66] threat to China's coastal political, economic, and military targets. 54 Experts at China's Air Force Command College have concluded that an "air-attack revolution" has occurred and that a "generation gap" exists between the high- technology air-attack capabilities of the United States and the "stagnant" airdefense capabilities of less advanced countries, causing a "crisis" in air defense. 55

Thus China assumes that if the United States intervened in a mainland- Taiwan war, the PLA could not protect its war-fighting capabilities, nor could it prevent U.S. penetration of Chinese airspace. It must also assume that the prospect of victory would be close to nil and that the costs of war and defeat would be massive. Once war began, the United States could target China's large but backward navy. Even China's advanced Russian destroyers equipped with highly capable missiles would not contribute to its war-fighting capability, because they lack sufficient stand-off range to challenge U.S. offensive forces. Indeed U.S. capabilities would be even more effective in targeting Chinese surface assets at sea than they have been in targeting enemy assets in deserts, as in the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. 56 Moreover, China's air force would likely remain grounded, because neither its pilots nor its aircraft could challenge U.S. air superiority.

A U.S. defeat of the PRC, however, would entail more than the loss of Chinese military assets. China's modernization effort would be set back decades. War with the United States would compel China to switch to a wartime economy, [End Page 67] requiring the reallocation of resources away from civilian infrastructure development to the large-scale acquisition of outdated military hardware; it would also cost China access to international markets, capital, and high technology. The resulting economic dislocations would defer China's ability to achieve great power status well into the second half of the twenty-first century. 57 Most important, the combination of a military defeat over Taiwan and a domestic economic crisis would challenge the leadership's core value—continued leadership of China by the CCP. Nationalism and economic performance, the twin pillars of CCP legitimacy, would collapse, bringing down with them party rule.

Asymmetric Interests and China's Assessment of U.S. Resolve
The U.S.-China military balance undermines PRC confidence that it can deter U.S. intervention on behalf of Taiwan. But given U.S.-China asymmetric interests in Taiwan, the extended deterrence capability of the United States also depends on China's assessment of U.S. resolve. Although U.S. security interests in Taiwan are limited to reputation interests, China has enough respect for U.S. resolve that U.S.-China asymmetric interests do not appreciatively enhance China's confidence that it can use force without it leading to U.S. intervention.

Chinese civilian and military analysts understand that U.S. domestic politics increases the likelihood of U.S. intervention in defense of Taiwan. Domestic political opposition toward China and political support for Taiwan in the United States are at their highest levels since the late 1960s. U.S. domestic politics has encouraged the growth in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan since the early 1990s, and it will constrain the administration's options during a mainland-Taiwan conflict. Chinese military and civilian analysts also grasp the extent of Washington's strategic commitment to Taiwan. They acknowledge that the March 1996 deployment of two U.S. carriers was a "strong military signal" of U.S. readiness to intervene in a possible war over Taiwan. 58 Moreover, the carrier deployment firmly coupled the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan with [End Page 68] the credibility of its security commitments to its allies in East Asia. Since then, Chinese leaders have assumed that a war with Taiwan means a war with the United States. As one observer has noted, "What many, many people realize is that the effectiveness of [U.S.] deterrence . . . must markedly exceed that of 1996, so that the likelihood of U.S. military intervention is even more notable, with a likely corresponding escalation in the deterrence dynamics." 59 Another analyst has warned that the possibility of U.S. intervention means that any Chinese action could encounter "unexpectedly serious consequences." 60

Chinese analysts also realize that because of its superiority in long-range, high-accuracy weaponry, the United States can wage war while remaining out of range of enemy forces. Moreover, it can use precision-guided munitions to target leadership command-and-control centers to shorten the war and further reduce casualties. Chinese studies of the 1991 Gulf War conclude that high- accuracy, long-range weaponry was the decisive factor in the U.S. victory. One Chinese military analyst, summing up the impact of high technology on warfare, has argued that "whoever possesses the newest knowledge and technology can thus grab the initiative in military combat and also possess the 'killer weapon' to vanquish the enemy." Moreover, Chinese analysts recognize that the development by the United Sates of increasingly sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will enable U.S. forces to carry out these missions while further reducing their vulnerability to enemy forces. 61 Thus the ability of the [End Page 69] United States to wage war with minimal casualties contributes to the credibility of its extended deterrence commitments.

China's expectation of U.S. intervention in a mainland-Taiwan war is reflected in various PLA studies. Analyses of blockade operations and warfare against a "large island," for example, assume the intervention of an advanced power using large surface vessels—including aircraft carriers—which could significantly impede PRC operations. 62 PLA studies of the use of its short-range DF-15 conventional missiles against Taiwan assume that China's coastal launch sites could be targeted by advanced technology, high-accuracy cruise missiles. Mobility and camouflage are thus critical to PLA planning. The PLA further assumes that in a war over Taiwan its coastal military installations and deployments—including airfields and advanced aircraft, radar, and command-and-control facilities—and civilian and military infrastructure would be vulnerable to devastating air assaults by long-range and highly accurate cruise missiles (similar to those the United States used against Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan) and by advanced UAVs. The PLA has reportedly deployed its Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles around Beijing, in apparent preparation for possible U.S. raids during a mainland-Taiwan war. Chinese leaders understand that the United States can penetrate Chinese airspace as effectively as it penetrated the airspace of Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan. 63 [End Page 70]

Beijing's respect for U.S. resolve and for the high cost of a U.S.-China war produces a very high expected cost of an attack on Taiwan for unification. Accordingly, Chinese military officers and civilian analysts urge caution and promote reliance on "peaceful unification" with Taiwan through long-term development of China's economy and modernization of its military. "Smooth economic development," not immediate unification, is China's most fundamental interest and most important national security strategy. It is also the most effective way to assure Chinese territorial integrity. As long as China's economy continues to develop, time is on its side. 64 As one Chinese analyst has argued, China has already waited 100 years to achieve unification and should be prepared to wait another 50 years. 65 For these analysts, China should not use military force for unification, but should continue to deter Taiwan from declaring independence by threatening military retaliation. They argue that as long as Chinese deterrence of Taiwan is effective, China can avoid war with the United States and achieve unification. 66

Challenges to Peace?

Deterrence can fail despite the overwhelming logic of accommodation to superior capabilities and high resolve. Failure can result when the weaker state believes that it can use an asymmetric strategy or a fait accompli strategy to achieve its military objectives. Deterrence can also fail due to instability associated with the security dilemma. Asymmetric strategies and fait accompli/ limited aims strategies can give the weaker revisionist power the optimism necessary to use force despite otherwise unfavorable expected cost assumptions. In contrast, unstable deterrence poses the risk of unintended war. Neither state wants war, but either or both prefer starting a war than risking an adversary's first strike. [End Page 71]

Asymmetric Strategies (I):
Searching for the Strategic "Trump Card"
Chinese military analysts are seeking to develop asymmetric capabilities to exploit U.S. weaknesses. They are especially interested in undermining U.S. information dominance and electronic warfare superiority. In so doing, they hope to be able to obstruct U.S. ability to carry out surveillance of Chinese activities and to reduce the effectiveness of U.S. targeting capabilities. In other words, China is looking for the "unexpected thrust," the "trump card," or the "killer mace" (shashoujian or sashoujian)—weaponry that can render the United States "blind and deaf." 67

Chinese military analysts observe that the destruction of any weak link in advanced technologies can compromise the war-fighting effectiveness of the entire weapon system. They are particularly interested in the use of viruses that can attack computer systems and missiles that can destroy communication nodes, thereby undermining early warning systems and "paralyzing" the enemy's command-and-control facilities. They have also researched such asymmetric strategies as attacking surveillance and communication satellites, including with space-based weapons, and using antiradiation and electromagnetic pulse weapons to degrade radar systems. Ultimately, an attack on an adversary's intelligence system could amount to an "electronic Pearl Harbor" (dianzi Zhenzhugang), destroying the adversary's war-fighting capa-bility. 68

The Chinese motivation for studying these strategies is clear. None would give China the confidence or capability to launch a war and risk U.S. intervention. Rather, these are precautionary strategies that could give China additional [End Page 72] capabilities should it find itself at war with the United States. These studies examine asymmetric strategies in theory and in the classroom. They do not evaluate such strategies in the context of a war with a superior adversary that is attacking China's command-and-control facilities and its aircraft and naval vessels. At best, these studies reflect the preparation for war, not the planning of one. As Zhang Wannian has explained, "The overall level of China's military equipment is still relatively low, and its high-technology forces are still relatively few. This fundamental situation will not entirely change for a relatively long period. Within this period, if war should happen, China will still have to use inferior equipment to defeat an enemy with superior equipment." 69

China faces daunting obstacles to developing an asymmetric strategy that can level the playing field. To undermine critical U.S. communication technologies and surveillance operations, high-technology military capabilities and considerable funding are needed. Long-range missiles that are effective against mobile maritime targets, sophisticated antisatellite weaponry, and spaced-based weaponry are not within China's reach. Meanwhile, as China advances its offensive asymmetric capabilities, the United States is continuing to develop high-technology countermeasures. It is thus doubtful that China is closing the gap in the offense-defense balance in information warfare.

Chinese military analyses stress the "serious challenges" that China faces in developing high-technology weaponry that can degrade U.S. technologies. Given China's significant inferiority in information technologies vis-à-vis the United States, its ability to engage in counterinformation warfare is severely limited. This would be especially true after a preemptive strike, which would undermine China's ability to target U.S. information warfare facilities. Even if China launched a successful first strike, its impact on the war would be limited. Because of the large gap in capabilities between China and the United States, China would have difficulty carrying out "hard destruction" (ying cuihui) measures, including targeting weaponry on information system hardware. It would easier for China to use "soft destruction" (ruan cuihui) measures, such as computer viruses and electronic interference, to attack an adversary's advanced information systems. But penetrating the Pentagon's backbone computer communication systems would be difficult. Moreover, such attacks would not diminish overall U.S. capabilities, China's military analysts [End Page 73] acknowledge, because information systems can generally recover from "soft damage" attacks. 70 In addition, because the high-technology weaponry and rapid deployment capability of the United States would help to shorten the duration of a war, the opportunities for an inferior power such as China to employ traditional asymmetric strategies—including protracted warfare aimed at sapping the enemy's will—would also be reduced. 71

Most important, a Chinese preemptive strike against U.S. communication systems might degrade U.S. information warfare capabilities, but it would not change the final outcome. The United States would retain superiority in all aspects of warfare in the Taiwan theater. Thus, asymmetric strategies cannot address China's fundamental deterrence problem: The United States would retain its war-winning capability, and China would still confront high expected costs from the combination of credible U.S. intervention in a mainland-Taiwan conflict war and the resulting high costs to high-value Chinese targets.

Asymmetric Strategies (II):
Imposing High Costs on a Risk-Adverse Adversary
The second approach to asymmetric warfare focuses on the use of accessible capabilities to inflict high costs on a superior adversary, compelling it to withdraw rather than continue to incur costs in pursuit of secondary interests. In a Taiwan scenario, high U.S. casualties could undermine the resolve of the United States to continue intervention on behalf of Taiwan. 72 Numerous Chinese studies, for example, emphasize the vulnerability of large surface ships (e.g., destroyers and aircraft carriers) to submarines, torpedoes, mines, aircraft, antiship missiles, and electronic jamming. 73 [End Page 74]

This strategy offers some hope to China that it could reverse U.S. intervention in a mainland-Taiwan conflict should war occur. It does not, however, create sufficient Chinese confidence that China can start a winnable war. Chinese planners acknowledge that this strategy would require a significant improvement in Chinese capabilities, including the ability to target distant moving objects and to carry out surprise attacks. One analyst stresses that, for Chinese forces, long-distance rapid maneuvers and concealment of intentions are "extremely difficult." Another analyst observes that China's aircraft possess minimal fighting radius, limited ability to penetrate enemy defenses, and weak electronic warfare capabilities. 74 In addition, China lacks high-precision guidance systems. China's Sovremenny-class destroyers are equipped with advanced Moskit missiles. But China does not have the reconnaissance capability necessary for the Moskit to find a target. Moreover, the Moskit lacks the stand-off range necessary to threaten a U.S. carrier. 75

China has ordered four Kilo-class submarines from Russia. If it orders an additional eight Kilos, as has been reported, China will be signaling its commitment to focus its resources on targeting U.S. surface vessels and developing an access-denial capability for the Taiwan theater. The Kilo is a sophisticated submarine. But the PLA must still learn to maintain and operate it effectively. Moreover, in the absence of surface and air support, submarines cannot permit reliable access-denial capability. 76 Given the antisubmarine-warfare capability of the United States and its overwhelming advantage in information warfare, long-range missiles, and air defense, a Chinese strategy aimed at sinking an aircraft carrier to deter U.S. intervention would seem to be a high-risk approach to achieving unification with Taiwan. Moreover, as the United States converts its Trident submarines to nuclear-powered guided missile submarines (SSGNs) and deploys them in East Asia, the vulnerability of U.S. power-projection capability to China's navy as well as to its close-in, land-based, [End Page 75] access-denial capability will dramatically diminish. At the same time, China's vulnerability to U.S. retaliation will significantly increase. 77

But even if China's leaders were confident that its forces could target a U.S. aircraft carrier, Chinese military and civilian analysts acknowledge that the United States could respond with an even greater commitment to fight, rather than retreat. 78 Although the Somalia analogy (the suggestion that the United States cannot tolerate even minimal casualties) is comforting to some Chinese, 79 U.S. war against a great power in support of a fifty-year commitment to a de facto strategic and ideological East Asian ally is not the same as war in support of famine relief in a small African country. Moreover, the war in Somalia occurred at the dawn of the post-Cold War era. Since then, U.S. confidence in its global military supremacy and its reputation for resolve have grown significantly. Washington has shown that it can fight a war with minimum casualties and that it has the will to put troops on the ground and incur casualties in response to attacks on Americans, as it has done in Afghanistan. Given the uncertainty that the United States would retreat, combined with the certainty of high costs to China of U.S. intervention, Chinese reliance on this asymmetric strategy is an unlikely source of deterrence failure. Chinese assertions that the United States is averse to taking casualties are best understood as the effort of a weaker power to gain some leverage through expressions of false confidence.

Fait Accompli Strategies and the Taiwan Strait
Deterrence could fail if China's leaders believe that the rapid use of coercive military power could decisively destabilize Taiwan, compelling it to acknowledge PRC sovereignty over the island before the United States could intervene. This strategy would depend on a massive short-term barrage of PRC missiles and air assaults on Taiwan to create political and economic chaos and associated psychological pressures. In the absence of timely U.S. intervention, Taiwan could capitulate. It could sue for peace by accepting hitherto unacceptable symbolic concessions, thus ending its aspirations for independence. 80 The [End Page 76] United States would then face a PRC fait accompli and have to ponder going to war to reverse Taiwan concessions that would not damage U.S. interests directly but would harm U.S. regional credibility.

Confidence that China can carry out this strategy depends on its capability to compel Taiwan to submit before the United States can intervene. But the forward presence of the U.S. military in East Asia and U.S. intelligence capabilities minimize such confidence. U.S. forces deployed at Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa, including seventy-two F-15s, are an imposing threat. Although this force lacks numerical superiority over the Chinese air force, U.S. qualitative superiority, including electronic warfare capabilities and pilot expertise, would neutralize Chinese aircraft, including the advanced Su-27s and Su-30s. The deployment of U.S. forces in close proximity to Taiwan and the possibility that in a crisis the United States would act first and consult with Japan later should give China pause. Moreover, the likelihood of Japanese support for the U.S. use of Kadena would be high should China use force for unification, rather than in response to a destabilizing Taiwan declaration of independence. Also, in recent years Japanese concern over China's growing power has increased, and Japanese public opinion has become less tolerant of Chinese transgressions on Japanese interests. This further enhances the credibility of U.S. intervention with Kadena-based U.S. aircraft. 81

In addition to the U.S. forward presence at Kadena, a carrier task force would likely be present near the Taiwan Strait at the outbreak of war and would consolidate U.S. air superiority. 82 In response to increased apprehension over the prospect of a mainland attack on Taiwan and heightened suspicion of Chinese intentions, the United States has begun to routinely deploy a carrier task force near Taiwan when China conducts major maritime military exercises. The addition of a second carrier battle group would provide the United [End Page 77] States with overwhelming superiority, yet it would amount to only a fraction of the forces that the United States would mobilize for a major theater war. Moreover, U.S. forces will continue to carry out transfers from the European theater to the Pacific theater. A Los Angeles-class attack submarine left for its new home port in Guam in September 2002. Two additional attack submarines will arrive in Guam by fiscal year 2004. The U.S. Navy will also gain increased access to facilities in Singapore and the Philippines. Thus the U.S. forward presence near Taiwan will grow. 83 In addition, a fait accompli strategy cannot compensate for China's vulnerability to a rapid U.S. preemptive strategic strike as a prelude to intervention.

U.S. signal intelligence capabilities, in cooperation with facilities based on Taiwan, and satellite surveillance capabilities can detect Chinese preparations for the use of force. 84 Only if China relied on missile launches could it confidently take the United States and Taiwan by surprise. Yet in the absence of other military operations, including air attacks, conventional missile strikes would likely lack both the destructive and psychological force necessary to coerce Taiwan to surrender. If U.S. intelligence estimates are correct and Beijing deploys as many as 650 DF-15 missiles across from Taiwan by 2010, China will still lack a powerful coercive capability. 85 In the wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the United States dropped approximately 22,000 bombs. In Afghanistan, this figure included more than 12,000 precision-guided bombs. Yet in both cases, these attacks did not cause enough destruction to coerce rapid surrender. In comparison, Chinese missile deployments in the Taiwan theater are [End Page 78] both fewer and of lesser quality than those used by U.S. forces in Kosovo andAfghanistan. 86 Moreover, with a circular-error-probable of 300 meters, the DF-15 lacks the accuracy to degrade with confidence Taiwan's command-and-control centers, radar facilities, aircraft, and runways. Even with greater accuracy, Chinese missiles would not be very effective at destroying hardened targets.

Thus, a Chinese missile-based fait accompli strategy might be able to wreak havoc in Taiwan, but Beijing cannot have high confidence that it would cause the government of Taiwan to accede to even symbolic political unification. If Taiwan did not surrender, the ensuing humiliation would devastate the CCP's legitimacy and significantly undermine it staying power. If Taiwan fought back, using its superior air power to damage the Chinese navy and air force and to fight the mainland to a draw, the humiliation would be even greater. 87 Should Chinese leaders then decide that they had no choice but to prosecute a long-term war for unification, the CCP would face an even greater likelihood of U.S. intervention, military defeat, domestic humiliation, and collapse. Chinese missiles and aircraft may be a powerful deterrent, and a fait accompli strategy might be China's only recourse should deterrence fail and Taiwan declare independence, but it is not a reliable instrument of coercive warfare. China faces a high expected cost of use of force that deters it from using a fait accompli strategy to challenge the status quo.

Crisis Instability and Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait
Deterrence could also fail if either the United States or China believed that it was vulnerable to a debilitating first strike. The danger of crisis instability in the Taiwan theater could involve a U.S. temptation to strike first if Washington believed that Beijing was preparing for a first strike against U.S. forces as a prelude to an attack on Taiwan. Given U.S. maritime superiority, however, a Chinese first strike could not determine the outcome of the war. Even if China were able to inflict costs on U.S. forces, it could not significantly weaken U.S. capabilities. The United States could still defend Taiwan against mainland air and naval capabilities and inflict punishing retaliation against Chinese military and economic targets.

Thus, during periods of heightened tension in which Chinese forces mobilize for military exercises for diplomatic signaling, U.S. forces do not need to [End Page 79] go on heightened alert, much less carry out a preemptive attack in response to a possible Chinese first strike. Rather Washington can monitor Chinese activities and reinforce U.S. defensive capabilities, enhancing its deterrence of a first strike. This was the case in March 1996, when China mobilized for its largest show of force against Taiwan since the 1950s. Although Chinese forces could conceivably have been used against U.S. maritime forces, U.S. policymakers did not expect war and did not believe that there was a crisis. Secretary of Defense Perry explained that attacking Taiwan would be "a dumb thing" for China to do. China did "not have the capability" to invade Taiwan. Although Perry believed that China had the ability to "harass" Taiwan, he observed that "it does not make any sense....I do not expect China to be attacking Taiwan." 88 U.S. fear of a Chinese strike against U.S. forces was even more remote.

Improved Chinese capabilities have not greatly increased the vulnerability of U.S. forces to a first strike. Although China's short-range missiles and Russian aircraft have given it a much improved deterrent against a Taiwan declaration of independence, [End Page 80] it is unlikely that China will develop first-strike capabilities well into the twenty-first century. In the offense-defense balance, the advantage will remain with the defensive capabilities of the maritime power, thus mitigating the security dilemma and the likelihood of unintended escalation. U.S. maritime forces enjoy overwhelming advantages that assure it of significant retaliatory capabilities, and geopolitical constraints pose a long-term impediment to Beijing's ability to challenge U.S. maritime superiority. First, China's land-power forces lack offshore offensive capabilities. Water provides a significant defensive "moat" for U.S. naval forces. Second, as a land power facing significant long-term challenges to border security from many potential adversaries, China will be hard-pressed to devote adequate financial resources to enable development of a significant maritime capability. 89 Third, the U.S. lead in capabilities will enable the United States to maintain its advantages even as China modernizes.

Conclusion:
Managing Deterrence and U.S.-China