Terrorism remains a threat, but it is now secondary to great power competition

by Kanwal Sibal 

The recently released US National Defence Strategy 2018 (NDS) speaks of overt challenges to the existing international order by China and Russia as "revisionist powers" that want to shape it to suit their authoritarian model so that they can gain veto authority over the economic, diplomatic and security decisions of other countries. 

China, according to the NDS, is leveraging military modernisation and predatory economics to coerce neighbouring countries to establish Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and eventually achieve global pre-eminence by displacing the US. In addition, Russia is accused of seeking to shatter NATO. A long-term strategic competition between nations is envisaged. "Rogue regimes"such as North Korea and Iran are charged with destabilising regions through nuclear weapons pursuit or sponsorship of terrorism. The NDS notes that America's traditional superiority is being contested in every domain — air, land, sea, space and cyberspace. It is facing competition in the development of new technologies with military implications such as advanced computing, "big data" analytics, artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics, directed energy, hyper-sonics and biotechnology.

Terrorism remains a threat, but it is now secondary to great power competition. NDS's response to these developments has relevance to India in some respects. Apart from modernising the nuclear triad (which Obama had sanctioned), investing in cyber and missile defence and expanding space capabilities (US is already ahead of others in this), and fortifying NATO (despite Trump's past ambivalence), the US intends to attract new partners, expand regional consultative mechanisms, reinforce regional security cooperation and deepen interoperability.

Indo-Pacific alliances and partnerships will be expanded to create a networked security architecture to ensure free access to common domains and preserve the free and open international system. It is surprising that it has taken the US so long to formally recognise China's hegemonic ambitions that include replacing America as the world's pre-eminent power. How the US intends to deal with this reality is not clear. China, in its own view, cannot be contained and America's trade and financial ties with Beijing put heavy constraints on any robust anti-China action. The US not only lacks the financial resources to match China's Belt and Road Initiative, its economic or geo-political stakes in building such connectivity for power expansion are not the same. On the Asian landmass both China and Russia leave the US little space.

Hostility towards Iran further limits US choices in the region. Afghanistan has become a millstone around America's neck rather than a base for expansion in Asia. Pakistan is defiant and so is Turkey now. It is only in the maritime domain that the US can constrain China, but here too the frenetic expansion of the Chinese navy will alter the balance in the coming years. Russia is a softer target for US pressure in the absence of substantial economic ties. America had played the China card against Russia during the Cold War. Rather than repeating the strategy in reverse, the US has brought the two together strategically against Washington itself, which to many would appear to be a self-defeating policy.