| 摘要 | Washington is abuzz over the recent release of new National Security and National Defense Strategies. Dry and wonky though they may be, these documents serve as crucial drivers and reference points for the nation’s many national security efforts for the years to come. Both strategies share a common emphasis on the return to what is being called “great power competition.” In this competitive milieu, Russia and China top the list of countries whose behaviors threaten America’s standing in the world.
While referring to China and Russia as “great powers” is ultimately a gift to their propagandists, official recognition of Beijing and Moscow’s destabilizing behaviors is a welcome change. Too little attention has been paid in recent years to the serious, long-term challenges to America’s place in the world posed by revisionist powers. However, by singling out a focus on “great powers,” the United States implicitly must accept risk elsewhere. Moreover, the United States runs the risk of misunderstanding the nature of the threats posed by these countries.
For all of the challenges that Russia and China present, recent history has shown that direct confrontation between near-peer competitors is increasingly rare. In fact, since the end of the Second World War, the United States has not directly confronted any near-peer competitor on the battlefield. Rather, America’s military has been used against foes that are comparatively far weaker.
Despite America’s unquestioned military strength, applying force against weaker foes has proven problematic for the United States. Weaker enemies understand that they cannot compete with the United States directly, so they must find other ways to achieve their aims. They must either correctly identify and then exploit potential weaknesses or redefine conflict to terms more suitable to their own strengths.
Comparatively weaker adversaries, from the Viet Cong to Islamic revolutionaries and extremists, have employed these two strategies to thwart America’s aims. They have exploited America’s lack of will to dedicate the resources and time required to achieve its goals, and, rather than confront the U.S. military directly, they have shifted the realm of competition to what is called the “gray zone,” or the space between war and peace.
One recent and topical example is the ongoing fight against the Islamic State group. America’s lack of resolve, as evidenced by its hasty withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, helped to create the conditions for the Islamic State group’s rise. Since that time, it has taken years of effort to erase the gains made by the group. Yet at this critical moment when the United States should be consolidating its gains – and squelching the Islamic State group’s efforts elsewhere in and outside of the Levant – the new strategies give the ongoing fight against Islamic extremists relatively short shrift. By shifting to focus on “great powers,” America risks overlooking the real threats that weaker actors pose.
America’s struggles to thwart much smaller enemies have not gone unnoticed in the capitals of the so-called “great powers.” Because these states are still militarily inferior to the United States, it makes sense that they would consider emulating the strategies that have bedeviled the United States for decades. True, Russia and China are also attempting to compete with the United States as peers, and their nuclear weaponry and increasingly modernized military forces pose real challenges to American interests. But they have also learned how to challenge America’s resolve and to exploit the false dichotomy between war and peace. Whether through Russia’s “little green men,” cyberattacks conducted by shell organizations or China’s three warfares, America’s “great power” adversaries are challenging old definitions of war and attempting to reframe competition in terms that are more advantageous to them.
Neither China nor Russia is a “great power” in terms of their military capabilities or the manner by which they compete in the international arena. In framing the way forward as a competition between “great powers,” the United States risks overlooking where the front lines of international competition with these actors now lay. It risks doubling down on old notions of direct military confrontation rather than mitigating the weaknesses that its adversaries have long exploited. If there is one lesson that America should have learned over the past 70 years of conflict, it is that winning battles is not enough to win a war. Societal will, clearly defined goals and adaptability all factor into whether military engagements are translated into lasting success.
“Great power” competition may have a nice ring to it. It comes at a time when America has grown weary of fighting wars that have not produced expected results on an acceptable timetable. It implies a return to conventional warfare, and a move away from the messy, intractable, gray conflict that has defined America’s military engagements over the past several decades. Because that style of conflict has been so effective against America, however, our adversaries will ensure that it is here to stay. The sooner we recognize that, the better off we will be. |
