I would like to see you lay out a proposal for how the US should be preparing. What the cost would be, how we could finance this (cuts to entitlements, taxes), and perhaps a theory of why the Biden Administration is currently so far off base. Would be a good piece!
I would like to see a followup piece addressing what a person can reasonably do to prepare for this risk in their personal life, not merely by political advocacy. Specifically:
1. Financial strategy. I have asked several different investment advisors whom I trust and respect what it looks like to hedge one's portfolio against the risk of war with China. Nobody has had an answer. Maybe that means it's impossible -- but if not, that is very useful to discuss.
2. Personal preparedness. I live in San Francisco, like you. Every once in awhile I think about what sequence of news events would cause me to leave for a rural area out of likely nuke range. There is a fine line between leaving "too early"-- i.e. when the real risk is very low and you will almost certainly be disrupting your whole life for nothing-- and "too late"-- I e. when everyone else wants the same thing and available resources to flee are oversubscribed. How do you think about navigating that tradeoff rationally?
Well laid out argument. What is to Noah's argument, and most concerning to me, is that the entire logic chain does not have to take place to reach the same results. My fear is the growing Israeli / Iran conflict turning into an oil crisis -- the logical next step for Israeli if Iran commits to an open retaliation for Israeli's strike against their leadership in Syria is to destroy the Iranian oil terminals. When/if that happens, all will fall apart quickly in the aftermath.
Thanks for an unsettling morning read. Given China's demographic situation, I.e. declining population, the leadership may have concluded that it is now or never to assert global dominance. Since the current leader of the Republicans is unabashedly pro-authoritarian, rousing the US to resist is going to be a Herculean task.
"even if America never sends another penny, Europe will continue to support Ukraine, because for them the conflict is existential"
Hearing this from Noah is ironic, since it is exactly the case conservatives have been making for 2 years now: let Europe deal with Europe's problem.
"Putin wants all of Ukraine, and then he wants other European countries too."
"if Ukraine falls, the Baltics, Moldova, and eventually Poland are likely to be next on Putin’s menu."
"if America withdraws into isolationism it will give a green light to carry out more conquests"
This may be true, Noah, but you're asserting it without evidence. If it is true, it severely undercuts the "let Europe deal with it" case. But it is not nearly as obvious as you believe it to be. You need evidence here. And right now, most of the verbal and physical evidence is against this argument. Putin has publicly stated his aims and red lines on NATO expansion for over a decade (that's the verbal side). On the physical side, the Russian army has been shown utterly incapable of subduing a vastly weaker next door neighbor, such that, even if he had the will, it's unclear Putin has the military ability to invade even Estonia let alone Poland. You're the China expert -- can you really see the Chinese Red Army fighting in trenches in Latvia? Now if Macron does openly send divisions to fight for Ukraine, maybe. Absent that, China will let Russia do deliver the small blows they are capable of.
You said it yourself: "Americans like to believe that we’re still the hegemon we were in 1999 — this is fantasy. " Yes it is. For a dozen reasons, US hegemony is coming to an end, which requires adaptation to a multipolar world on our part. I believe, we can still thrive in that world very well, but not if we're all dead in a nuclear missile exchange with Beijing.
The fundamental case for a more isolationist US policy in this realm is this: the best way to not fight WWIII is for one of the primary belligerents (us) to refuse to fight WWIII.
I agree 100% about the S. China Sea. Taiwan would be a nice prize, but control of the S. China Sea is critical (maybe existential considering their oil imports) for China. Only NHK News is talking seriously about the skirmishes between China and Philippines; Western press ignores them (flyover ocean). It's all water canons right now, but the Chinese boats have real canons available. It almost looks like they're baiting Marcos to retaliate too far.
And can someone please tell Biden and Yellen and our PMC that "sanctions" not a plaything to throw at anyone we dislike; they are a low-grade act of war.
Despite my criticisms, I'm very happy you are sounding the alarm. Some one needs to.
One thing that makes today different from pre-WW2 is that many states in the world have nukes. Nukes make an all out WW2 style war basically impossible (It will just be the end of civilization immediately).
But it makes many hot proxy conflicts around the world even more likely. Until we have another global hegemon I suspect that proxy conflicts such as the ones we have now will become the defacto standard and a constant background in todays world.
This was obvious to me at the start of the Russio-Ukraine war: That it would inevitably become a proxy Nato/China war. I am actually flabbergasted at the incompetence of American leadership in pushing for expansion of Nato into Ukraine. If we'd be honest Realists we should have used Russia as a balancer wrt China (the actual threat) and engage in security negotiations with Putin like a decade ago. Putin is a moron however, so it may have been impossible anyway.
I have listened to celebratory talks of USA military leadership along the lines of 'we are afghanistan trapping Russia in Ukraine detoriating their economic and industrial base'. And my immediate thought was "China". Not Russia "China". Like, USA foreign policy feels like as if it is still fighting the Cold War with the USSR --> Instead of recognizing the much much greater threat that is China
Truth to be told. I think we have checkmated ourselves by moving our industrial base to China.
USA+Allies can not fight China's industrial base, China's ability as an authoritarian power to organise and concentrate power is much greater than our band of democratic misfits still quibbling over race/etnicity and so forth.
Perhaps if it becomes USA+Allies+The-Entire-World, then we will win. This may be the case, as the global liberal world order is working very well for basically everyone, making me feel quite assured Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Taiwan, SK, Japan, et al will all fight against the Chinese.
But.. who knows. The borders of the Ukraine war are far away from me, but, not far enough; I am moving towards buying some property in Switzerland.
Not sure if anyone is interested in starting a reading list to help think about this issue but here are some books I have read or am reading:
Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy
Re-reading Barbra Tuchman's The Guns of August
Fareed Zakaria Age of Revolution
Magaret MacMillian The War that Ended Peace (interesting insights into how individual personalities play into geopolitical events- I think of leaders like Putin, Trump, Xi, Olaf Scholz, Biden, etc. and how their own foibles, blindspots, etc. could lead to bad outcomes).
David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts Conflict
Peter Zeihan's last couple books and some of his interviews
The Cambridge History of Warfare
re-reading Gary Klein's Source of Power (interesting ideas on decision-making in conditions of uncertainty...possibly too tactical but still interesting).
Anyone have other recommendations? I would be interested in some prepper type books that are not insane or do not require crazy investments (i.e., I am not building a bunker to live 20 years...if its that bad Ill just roll with it). Also interested in more recent/relevant geopolitical readings.
Hey Noah -- Have you considered doing an Econ 102 (or other) podcast episode with Bob Wright and the NonZero News Network? I'd love to hear you guys discuss/debate this topic, with your economics perspective and Bob's cultural-evolution/greater-world-order perspective. Do you know Bob?
Excellent article and appropriately alarming. This makes 2024 election choices even more stark. Each morsel of attention given to culture war nonsense is a tribute to our adversaries and makes our defeat more likely. Instead we should be maniacally focused on rebuilding our defense capacity and shoring up our allies.
I'm a pretty long time reader at this point and civilian in the DoD. I thank you for bringing these things to more people's attention. I've even used the Gandalf analogy with some friends of mine about myself (not to overstate my importance or anything) and I think it's appropriate here. Lots of work needs to be done. I hope more people realize that as time goes on.
Yep, its getting closer and closer. My fear is that we go opposite way. Head in the sand, appease China, while our manufacturing dies a slow death. US keeps tech industry, Europe luxury and pharma and thats about it, while China laughs. Then China can start pressuring its neighbors one by one with only India willing to stand up to them (except if Japan gets nukes).
Noah, Any chance the good old US of A can hold on for a couple of decades (enhanced inflow of migrants on our part) while China starts to age out, or are they just too big and powerful and motivated? I am trying to use my 83+ years to reflect backward and review how we survived previous perilous times such as the 60's and 70's, which had me looking at New Zealand and Canada. While we were clearly No. 1 at that time, Japan was the big rising power. Did we do anything or was it just that Japan is of modest size economically and population-wise, when compared to China? Is there anything we should be doing better with India, another population and developmental behemoth, albeit with very unpleasant social and governmental issues of their own?
A Brit here. Some people are noticing that the French are being quite friendly to us. In fact they sent some Republican Guards to help at Buckingham Palace. We sent some Coldstream guards to the Elysée in return, I think. This celebrates the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale. Militarily we will no doubt draw closer to France and indeed Germany.
Lloyd Austin just now enjoins Ukraine not to attack Russian oil refineries as it may make gas prices go up. Biden can't get Mike Johnson even to proceed to a vote on further Ukrainian support. The Majority Leader is too busy to see UK Foreign Secretary Lord (aka David) Cameron. Trump of course will not support Ukraine but Biden no longer seems able to. The war is not important to the US, let alone "existential".
Indeed, as some commentators here observe, there is a good argument for renewed American isolationism. For many in the US it must seem "horrible, fantastic, incredible" to contemplate joining "a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing". And, unlike Chamberlain in 1938, you have to factor in the possibility of nuclear war. So, the Ukraine war is not existential for the US, it is unclear that it is even very important.
The Ukraine war has and had nothing to do with NATO despite Putin's assertions to the contrary. The provocation that led to the 2014 occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donbass was the proposed EU/Ukraine agreement the consequent threat of an unfriendly government in Ukraine and maybe even unrest in Russia itself. The 2022 invasion is just the continuation of that. Essentially Ukraine has become the borderland between two weak but assertive "empires" - the EU and Russia. For the EU the war is therefore existential.
It looks to me that we are seeing the end of NATO - there is a divergence of interests. For Europe it is Russia that is the threat. For the US it is China. The sort of leadership of the West that might overcome that divide is at present wholly lacking.
Niall Ferguson's 2009 book "The War of the World" notes how declining empires, ethnic diversity, and economic volatility led to conflicts starting in the borderlands of those empires, which evolved into WW2. He notes, as Noah does, that WW2 started in many places at different times. He warns that the circumstances he describes, should they recur, may well lead to same effects. Noah is right to be scared.
I would like to see you lay out a proposal for how the US should be preparing. What the cost would be, how we could finance this (cuts to entitlements, taxes), and perhaps a theory of why the Biden Administration is currently so far off base. Would be a good piece!
I would like to see a followup piece addressing what a person can reasonably do to prepare for this risk in their personal life, not merely by political advocacy. Specifically:
1. Financial strategy. I have asked several different investment advisors whom I trust and respect what it looks like to hedge one's portfolio against the risk of war with China. Nobody has had an answer. Maybe that means it's impossible -- but if not, that is very useful to discuss.
2. Personal preparedness. I live in San Francisco, like you. Every once in awhile I think about what sequence of news events would cause me to leave for a rural area out of likely nuke range. There is a fine line between leaving "too early"-- i.e. when the real risk is very low and you will almost certainly be disrupting your whole life for nothing-- and "too late"-- I e. when everyone else wants the same thing and available resources to flee are oversubscribed. How do you think about navigating that tradeoff rationally?
Well laid out argument. What is to Noah's argument, and most concerning to me, is that the entire logic chain does not have to take place to reach the same results. My fear is the growing Israeli / Iran conflict turning into an oil crisis -- the logical next step for Israeli if Iran commits to an open retaliation for Israeli's strike against their leadership in Syria is to destroy the Iranian oil terminals. When/if that happens, all will fall apart quickly in the aftermath.
Thanks for an unsettling morning read. Given China's demographic situation, I.e. declining population, the leadership may have concluded that it is now or never to assert global dominance. Since the current leader of the Republicans is unabashedly pro-authoritarian, rousing the US to resist is going to be a Herculean task.
"even if America never sends another penny, Europe will continue to support Ukraine, because for them the conflict is existential"
Hearing this from Noah is ironic, since it is exactly the case conservatives have been making for 2 years now: let Europe deal with Europe's problem.
"Putin wants all of Ukraine, and then he wants other European countries too."
"if Ukraine falls, the Baltics, Moldova, and eventually Poland are likely to be next on Putin’s menu."
"if America withdraws into isolationism it will give a green light to carry out more conquests"
This may be true, Noah, but you're asserting it without evidence. If it is true, it severely undercuts the "let Europe deal with it" case. But it is not nearly as obvious as you believe it to be. You need evidence here. And right now, most of the verbal and physical evidence is against this argument. Putin has publicly stated his aims and red lines on NATO expansion for over a decade (that's the verbal side). On the physical side, the Russian army has been shown utterly incapable of subduing a vastly weaker next door neighbor, such that, even if he had the will, it's unclear Putin has the military ability to invade even Estonia let alone Poland. You're the China expert -- can you really see the Chinese Red Army fighting in trenches in Latvia? Now if Macron does openly send divisions to fight for Ukraine, maybe. Absent that, China will let Russia do deliver the small blows they are capable of.
You said it yourself: "Americans like to believe that we’re still the hegemon we were in 1999 — this is fantasy. " Yes it is. For a dozen reasons, US hegemony is coming to an end, which requires adaptation to a multipolar world on our part. I believe, we can still thrive in that world very well, but not if we're all dead in a nuclear missile exchange with Beijing.
The fundamental case for a more isolationist US policy in this realm is this: the best way to not fight WWIII is for one of the primary belligerents (us) to refuse to fight WWIII.
I agree 100% about the S. China Sea. Taiwan would be a nice prize, but control of the S. China Sea is critical (maybe existential considering their oil imports) for China. Only NHK News is talking seriously about the skirmishes between China and Philippines; Western press ignores them (flyover ocean). It's all water canons right now, but the Chinese boats have real canons available. It almost looks like they're baiting Marcos to retaliate too far.
And can someone please tell Biden and Yellen and our PMC that "sanctions" not a plaything to throw at anyone we dislike; they are a low-grade act of war.
Despite my criticisms, I'm very happy you are sounding the alarm. Some one needs to.
Yes, but, the world has Nuclear Bombs now.
One thing that makes today different from pre-WW2 is that many states in the world have nukes. Nukes make an all out WW2 style war basically impossible (It will just be the end of civilization immediately).
But it makes many hot proxy conflicts around the world even more likely. Until we have another global hegemon I suspect that proxy conflicts such as the ones we have now will become the defacto standard and a constant background in todays world.
Up next: the Indo-Pacific region.
This was obvious to me at the start of the Russio-Ukraine war: That it would inevitably become a proxy Nato/China war. I am actually flabbergasted at the incompetence of American leadership in pushing for expansion of Nato into Ukraine. If we'd be honest Realists we should have used Russia as a balancer wrt China (the actual threat) and engage in security negotiations with Putin like a decade ago. Putin is a moron however, so it may have been impossible anyway.
I have listened to celebratory talks of USA military leadership along the lines of 'we are afghanistan trapping Russia in Ukraine detoriating their economic and industrial base'. And my immediate thought was "China". Not Russia "China". Like, USA foreign policy feels like as if it is still fighting the Cold War with the USSR --> Instead of recognizing the much much greater threat that is China
Truth to be told. I think we have checkmated ourselves by moving our industrial base to China.
USA+Allies can not fight China's industrial base, China's ability as an authoritarian power to organise and concentrate power is much greater than our band of democratic misfits still quibbling over race/etnicity and so forth.
Perhaps if it becomes USA+Allies+The-Entire-World, then we will win. This may be the case, as the global liberal world order is working very well for basically everyone, making me feel quite assured Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Taiwan, SK, Japan, et al will all fight against the Chinese.
But.. who knows. The borders of the Ukraine war are far away from me, but, not far enough; I am moving towards buying some property in Switzerland.
Reading this made me feel sick
Not sure if anyone is interested in starting a reading list to help think about this issue but here are some books I have read or am reading:
Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy
Re-reading Barbra Tuchman's The Guns of August
Fareed Zakaria Age of Revolution
Magaret MacMillian The War that Ended Peace (interesting insights into how individual personalities play into geopolitical events- I think of leaders like Putin, Trump, Xi, Olaf Scholz, Biden, etc. and how their own foibles, blindspots, etc. could lead to bad outcomes).
David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts Conflict
Peter Zeihan's last couple books and some of his interviews
The Cambridge History of Warfare
re-reading Gary Klein's Source of Power (interesting ideas on decision-making in conditions of uncertainty...possibly too tactical but still interesting).
Anyone have other recommendations? I would be interested in some prepper type books that are not insane or do not require crazy investments (i.e., I am not building a bunker to live 20 years...if its that bad Ill just roll with it). Also interested in more recent/relevant geopolitical readings.
Hey Noah -- Have you considered doing an Econ 102 (or other) podcast episode with Bob Wright and the NonZero News Network? I'd love to hear you guys discuss/debate this topic, with your economics perspective and Bob's cultural-evolution/greater-world-order perspective. Do you know Bob?
Excellent article and appropriately alarming. This makes 2024 election choices even more stark. Each morsel of attention given to culture war nonsense is a tribute to our adversaries and makes our defeat more likely. Instead we should be maniacally focused on rebuilding our defense capacity and shoring up our allies.
I'm a pretty long time reader at this point and civilian in the DoD. I thank you for bringing these things to more people's attention. I've even used the Gandalf analogy with some friends of mine about myself (not to overstate my importance or anything) and I think it's appropriate here. Lots of work needs to be done. I hope more people realize that as time goes on.
Yep, its getting closer and closer. My fear is that we go opposite way. Head in the sand, appease China, while our manufacturing dies a slow death. US keeps tech industry, Europe luxury and pharma and thats about it, while China laughs. Then China can start pressuring its neighbors one by one with only India willing to stand up to them (except if Japan gets nukes).
What would you guess are the odds of a real war with China? Metaculus: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/11480/china-launches-invasion-of-taiwan/?sub-question=10880 has it at 33% by 2035.
Noah, Any chance the good old US of A can hold on for a couple of decades (enhanced inflow of migrants on our part) while China starts to age out, or are they just too big and powerful and motivated? I am trying to use my 83+ years to reflect backward and review how we survived previous perilous times such as the 60's and 70's, which had me looking at New Zealand and Canada. While we were clearly No. 1 at that time, Japan was the big rising power. Did we do anything or was it just that Japan is of modest size economically and population-wise, when compared to China? Is there anything we should be doing better with India, another population and developmental behemoth, albeit with very unpleasant social and governmental issues of their own?
A Brit here. Some people are noticing that the French are being quite friendly to us. In fact they sent some Republican Guards to help at Buckingham Palace. We sent some Coldstream guards to the Elysée in return, I think. This celebrates the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale. Militarily we will no doubt draw closer to France and indeed Germany.
Lloyd Austin just now enjoins Ukraine not to attack Russian oil refineries as it may make gas prices go up. Biden can't get Mike Johnson even to proceed to a vote on further Ukrainian support. The Majority Leader is too busy to see UK Foreign Secretary Lord (aka David) Cameron. Trump of course will not support Ukraine but Biden no longer seems able to. The war is not important to the US, let alone "existential".
Indeed, as some commentators here observe, there is a good argument for renewed American isolationism. For many in the US it must seem "horrible, fantastic, incredible" to contemplate joining "a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing". And, unlike Chamberlain in 1938, you have to factor in the possibility of nuclear war. So, the Ukraine war is not existential for the US, it is unclear that it is even very important.
The Ukraine war has and had nothing to do with NATO despite Putin's assertions to the contrary. The provocation that led to the 2014 occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donbass was the proposed EU/Ukraine agreement the consequent threat of an unfriendly government in Ukraine and maybe even unrest in Russia itself. The 2022 invasion is just the continuation of that. Essentially Ukraine has become the borderland between two weak but assertive "empires" - the EU and Russia. For the EU the war is therefore existential.
It looks to me that we are seeing the end of NATO - there is a divergence of interests. For Europe it is Russia that is the threat. For the US it is China. The sort of leadership of the West that might overcome that divide is at present wholly lacking.
Niall Ferguson's 2009 book "The War of the World" notes how declining empires, ethnic diversity, and economic volatility led to conflicts starting in the borderlands of those empires, which evolved into WW2. He notes, as Noah does, that WW2 started in many places at different times. He warns that the circumstances he describes, should they recur, may well lead to same effects. Noah is right to be scared.