{"id":37598,"date":"2018-02-28T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T19:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=37598"},"modified":"2018-03-15T16:11:29","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T05:11:29","slug":"strength-west-curing-hypochondria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/strength-west-curing-hypochondria\/","title":{"rendered":"The strength of the West: curing hypochondria"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Being Russian, North Korean or Chinese at this moment in history and watching liberal democracies must be odd but satisfying.<\/p>\n

Commentators, analysts and former politicians in Western Europe, America and among American allies in the Asia Pacific are engaged in a tortured and self-obsessed analysis of the decline of the West. They seem so busy analysing their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities that they only have time to notice Russian, Chinese and North Korean strengths.<\/p>\n

This introspection could be mostly harmless at other times. Now isn\u2019t one of those. Now is a time for clear thinking and positive, calm action\u2014based on an accurate appreciation of our strategic environment and the relative balances of capabilities and resources between ourselves and others.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth a quick reminder of how strong Western liberal democracies are. America, Western Europe and America\u2019s allies in the Asia Pacific are a collection of the most highly developed, prosperous societies and economies in human history. They\u2019re sources of continuing intellectual, technological and organisational innovations dating from the Renaissance through the Industrial Revolution to the modern era and the start of the information age. They remain the key drivers of technological advance and innovation across the span of human endeavour, complemented by contributions from other nations, including India and China.<\/p>\n

These nations and their peoples possess the most capable militaries, with a history of successful collective action through NATO and throughout the Cold War. Their habits of cooperation\u2014strategically and economically\u2014are deep and longstanding, complemented over recent decades by deep shared operational experience in Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Gulf.<\/p>\n

Western liberal democracies are messy decision-makers that at times have chaotic internal debates\u2014because they are open societies. That messiness and chaos can be mistaken for weakness, but has actually been a source of strength through time. Diversity of debate produces, tests and develops ideas. Ideas adopted after such internal debate tend to stick better than ideas that are imposed from the top by an autocratic government whose first priority is to prevent social unrest and so stay in power.<\/p>\n

Measures of economic<\/a>, technological and military strength show that Western liberal democracies are prospering and growing\u2014from a very high base. IISS\u2019s The Military Balance 2018<\/a> data shows that the US, other NATO members, Japan, South Korea and Australia made up over 60% of planned global defence expenditure in 2017, with Russia and China combined making up less than 14% (leaving aside whether real or PPP measures are most representative). Western countries continue to innovate and adapt at a tempo as fast as at any time in the last 150 years. If this is decline, I want more.<\/p>\n

On the flip side, it\u2019s true that China\u2019s rapid development over recent decades has enabled the Chinese government to lift millions of its people out of poverty. Good. Growth has also allowed China to invest in a range of military systems that give it an ability to project power in its own territory, its neighbours\u2019 territories and into disputed areas between them\u2014like the East China Sea and the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

Along with this, China and Russia (and even more obviously Iran and North Korea) have more than their share of weaknesses and vulnerabilities that undermine their strengths.<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t know this by listening to commentators and former politicians, whose historical determinism seems more Marxist than Karl\u2019s own. They outline the inevitability of China\u2019s rise, along with the equally inevitable decline of the decadent, distracted West. \u2018Resistance is useless\u2019 seems to be the T-shirt they think we need. Luckily that\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n

China now, as throughout its history, has multiple internal tensions and pressures. Like the Qin, Han or Manchu emperors of the past, Chinese leaders fear that internal tensions could lead to social and political unrest that will end their rule. They continue to feel insecure about their borders. An abbreviated list of some of the major pressures the Communist Party leadership confronts includes:<\/p>\n