Risk Management Perspective:

1. Analyze the possible downsides realistically

2. Take account of worst-cases in your planning/budgeting

3. Learn from past experiences: good, bad, ugly

4. Expect the unexpected, & act – “Failures of imagination”

5. Better safe than sorry – “Unprepared mindsets”

Fathoming China-as-possible-threat requires some grasp of its:

History -- both ancient and modern

Sociology, Anthropology, and National Psychology

Politics/Economics of Beijing’s hybrid communist system

Military Experiences, and Potential, including psy-ops & spies

Outline of the Whole Talk: 3 questions to be answered

Is China mentally/culturally enabled to wage aggressive war?

Does China have strong motives to ever wage aggressive war?

Are there flash points to goad China into actual aggressive war?

Opening “Teasers” for Submariners:

SSNs are expeditionary, SSBNs are for power-projection

This goes for PLAN as much as for USN

PLAN now seeking to acquire aircraft carrier(s)

Russia as partner opens whole new horizons for PRC in

Hardware and training availability

“Leapfrogging” tactics, doctrine, C4ISR

Inland border security: turn covetous gaze out to sea

Submarine basing options, bypass “First Island Chain”

Non-maritime sourcing of oil and natural gas

PLAN surface squadrons already circumnavigated Earth

Beware of the games countries play

We are being manipulated

Mao vs. Kissinger/Nixon

The old triangulation game: US/PRC/USSR

Mao’s unadulterated global superpower ambitions

Mao as destructive opportunist, not ideological communist

Those books in Mao’s library: Cultural Revolution trophies

Mr. Hu’s unstately visit

Seen by Beijing as a U.S. botch-up

Snit now over refueling stop

Defense spending voodoo economics

Many items left off of PRC’s official budget

Labor costs comparison a very distorting factor

Artificial versus real Renminbi/dollar exchange rates?

Taiwan’s Mr. Chen “wags the dog” over diesels

Internal Taipei politics; natives resent Nationalists

Beware a “reverse Red October” defection

Kuomintang was riddled by communist moles

“One Country, Two Systems”

Taiwan democratic legislature seems to want this, not war

New triangulation game: China/U.S./Taiwan

“Quadrangulation” coming with EU?

“China’s Peaceful Development Road”: Numbing bullcrap

Word wars – “dual use” phraseology as info warfare

“Democracy”: remember the GDR and DPRK

“Harmonious”: one of Mao’s favorite words – uh oh!

Coy jabs at U.S., portions notably anti Bush policies

Why PRC folks really aren’t like us, and don’t like us

Twin societal pillars: Bureaucracy and conservatism

Confuscius helped this gel, and stay gelled, from 500 BC

Millennia of emperors, warlords: endless “regime changes”

Pictograms versus alphabet, & reading not watching movies

Main rivers run west/east, at constant latitude

Local Cadres under Mao & since – intrusive bottom-up control

Aloof, arrogant leaders in Beijing – rigid top-down control

Obsessed with statistics, not fundamentals – beware, changing

“New Capitalism” hypocrisy & “Shift to Democracy” nonsense

Socialism is path, Maoism the mantle – his face everywhere

Bankrupting new private schools, cadre-aided test cheating

Local “open elections” just a tool to clean corrupt house

Falon Gong banned, members beaten/killed

“One Religion, Two Popes” tensions with Vatican

Internet monitored; newspapers and movies censored

Foreign journalists detained on slim pretexts: underreported?

World view: West/Japanese invasion & exploitation

Opium Wars and Boxer Rebellion not forgotten

Burning desire for revenge, and to “show us up”

Point not lost imperialism enabled by Sea Power

Taiwan belonged to China, not Japan, pre-1895

They quote our own Civil War at us now

Chinese people(s) very patriotic/nationalistic/paranoid

PRC Belgrade embassy bombed, EP-3 near/on Hainan

Seen as connected U.S. plot against PRC, not over yet

“Man and woman in street” glad about our 9/11

They enjoy “New Modernism” just enough to threaten U.S.

300,000,000 unregistered second and third children

The reckoning will come in mid/late 2020s

Greed and fear are strong motivators to Beijing regime

New “Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”?

Need for “Lebensraum” as population explodes?

PRC citizens of all ages are well “blooded”

Japanese invasion/occupation in the 1930s

Communist/Nationalist Civil War in late ‘40s

Korean War against U.S., many border skirmishes since

Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution bloodbaths

Tianenmen Square massacre: 10,000 dead? National PTSD?

Ongoing violent repression in restive rural areas today

Chinese wear masks to survive; new disasters a constant worry

Result: Chinese proud, anti-American, and OBEDIENT

Today’s cadre person could be tomorrow’s labor-camp inmate

Ten million troops and militias could be quickly mobilized

Who says we won’t fight more big wars?

Counterterror is “in addition to,” not “instead of”!

Put yourself in 1906. What would you have foreseen?

PRC much better than U.S. at “thinking the unthinkable” today

Nuclear scarcity morphs to plenty, changes doctrine, attitude

Lessons/questions from history:

Does a peaceful world have room for more than 1 superpower?

Do two or more vying superpowers prevent a peaceful world?

All economic systems are cyclical and discontinuous

Remember, U.S. had bad recessions and bank panics 1866-1927

People-expertise is a dual-use technology: e.g., Einstein, Bohr

“Intellectual capital” relocation is a dangerous transfer

Possible trigger points expanding to PRC/USA war

Economic, diplomatic, espionage tensions as ramp-up

Direct invasion of Taiwan?

“One Country, Two Systems” suggests war there a red herring

Taiwan superb defensive country, few good landing beaches

Recent joint Russian/Chinese amphibious exercise – why???

Beijing knows they couldn’t stop at Taiwan if invading anyway

Disputed security interests?

Malacca Strait -- SLOC major artery: terrorists, pirates

Spratlys and other islands in East and South China Seas

Coming to blows over energy needs? Advantage China

New Three Gorges hydroelectric plant biggest in world

Conservation & ecocide rendered easy by dictatorship

An “accident” during tensions?

Remember IranAir shootdown during Tanker War

A ship collision while monitoring other guy’s exercises

Another EP-3 type of incident

PRC’s own leadership miscalculations, poor civilian/PLA comms?

Superpower wannabe competition over disaster aid?

Humanitarian navy deployments deteriorate to shooting match

U.S. drawn into third-party conflict that escalates?

China versus Japan – watch this one carefully

China helps Iran too much, or North Korea brew-up

Pretexts and provocations can always be manufactured by PRC

Our long cross-Pacific logistics tails would be very vulnerable

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com

Copyright © 2006 by Joe Buff, All Rights Reserved.