Bloggers on Kaplan’s Latest

Little of what Kaplan writes elicites a moderate response. Most people say the man is a dangerous nutcase or a geopolitical genius. The same is true in his latest piece How We Would Fight China and its reaction in the blogosphere.

Those Against:

Thinking contrarian Praktike says Kaplan is afraid and has a brief critique of the article:

But the main question begged by and not answered in the piece is: Why We Would Fight China, a question that is above PACOM’s collective paygrade and therefore not asked by Kaplan. I have to say that it would be deeply unfortunate and downright foolish if America and China backed themselves both into a “second Cold War,” as Kaplan puts it. It could only be the result of a mutual miscalculation.

This was picked up in quite a few other left-leaning blogs. Mr. Bradford Plumer echoes the LAT party line here, and says “Kaplan’s main problem seems to be that he thinks all our relationships with other countries need to be zero-sum” (which is wrong, Kaplan does not think like that). And Mr. Brad Delong has some diamond-in-the-eye optimism about our future relationship with China were it not for people like Kaplan:

U.S. policy ought to be about finding ways to create a win-win situation in Asia rather than on blundering into a pointless new Cold War that can only make everyone poorer and stupider. We shouldn’t be afraid of China, but rather we should be afraid that U.S. China policy will be determined by people who think in zero-sum terms. People like Robert Kaplan.

Professor Vikash Yadav says we misunderstand China’s goals: “Kaplan is making an assumption that China harbors a deep desire for hegemonic dominance. This is incorrect strategic analysis.” He also defines China’s strategic goals as such:

China is not seeking a military confrontation with the US. China has four objectives 1) National integrity; 2) Reunification with Taiwan; 3) Economic growth and development; 4) Minimal credible nuclear deterrence. The last point is very important. If the Chinese were seeking to oust the US from the Pacific, we would expect to see a rapid nuclear arms build up accompanying its general growth in naval power.

I respectfully disagree Even North Korea has enough nukes to deter us. And I don’t think there’s such a logical relationship to be found ala nuke buildup = desire to challenge US power. . . see Mr. Sheridan’s blog post below.

Those For:

The Beijing-based blogger at Billsdue posts the article in full here, and sums up his thoughts with this:

Let’s hope that nothing bad comes to pass, but the US needs to be realistic and prepare for the worst.

Daniel Starr gives a quick positive mention before doing the same here. Peking Duck also has some kind words about the article here, but “realized we’d all better pray nothing like this ever happens.” Journalist and blogger Gavin Sheridan, without mentioning the article per se, recommends Mr. Kaplan’s view on China here.

And for those of you who still haven’t read it, many bloggers have posted the unabridged article: here at Dao Duck Tsu, and even New York Times Shanghai based journalist Howard French’s blog here. I would again encourage everyone to subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly and get unfettered access to all of their archives—buy a subscription and you can read everything Kaplan’s written at the Atlantic back to 1989!

And for the gazillionth time, Kaplan is no neocon! If you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth, listen to the second mp3 available here.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have a relationship at all with Richard Pearle or…

KAPLAN: I’ve never met him or William Kristol, no, never, and I think a number of them are quite uncomfortable with my views because I’m not a proponent of democratic revolution. . . I don’t subscribe to this notion that all we’ve had is bad Arab dictators. . .