Daily Times

To many observers in the United States, China is now America’s main threat and enemy. The litany of wrong doings and evidence of China’s malevolence is long. Theft of IP; militarization of tiny islets off its coasts in international waters; repression from Hong Kong to the Uighars; hostile penetration of American society; and of course the Wuhan Flu are among China’s obvious transgressions.

One solution, agreed to by Republicans and Democrats alike, is to increase America’s military forces. In particular, the plans for Battle Force 2045 and a Navy almost double its current size of about 290 ships is illustrative. And the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have shifted strategic focus to the Pacific and a potential conflict with China.

Today marks the 215th anniversary of the greatest naval battle of the modern era and certainly since Salamis two and a quarter millennia ago. On this day, Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson hoisted his famous signal from the starboard yardarm of his flagship HMS Victory: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” Then the Royal Navy obliterated the Combined French and Spanish fleet under the command of French Admiral Pierre Villeneuve at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Of thirty-three Franco-Spanish ships of the line, twenty-one were captured and one sunk and about 4500 sailors killed. The Royal Navy lost no ships and had only 1/10 the casualties with one major exception. Nelson died of wounds.

This history lesson does not suggest that the U.S. should not and cannot compete with China economically, diplomatically, ideologically, strategically, politically and technologically. But over-militarizing policy as we did from Vietnam to the second Iraq War almost always induces some form of failure

Perhaps the U.S. Navy has similar visions of a future sea battle against China’s PLA Navy. And a similar outcome could occur. However, Trafalgar was fought in 1805. It would take a full decade until Napoleon and France would finally be defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. No matter how decisive British sea power was in commanding the oceans, the war had to be won on the ground.

The current U.S. National Defence Strategy continues the Obama “four plus one” policy focusing on a great power competition with China and Russia. The Pentagon is directed “to deter and if war comes defeat” a list of adversaries topped by China and Russia. But no where are specific definitions to be found of what “compete, deter and defeat” mean; how each is to be achieved; and how success or failure is measured.

One suspects that the Cold War maxim of ensuring deterrence by virtue of maintaining countervailing military strength suggests that war with China will not arise as the risks are too great. That proposition obviously worked during the Cold War when thermonuclear war would have been existential and neither East nor West had irreparable differences that only could have been resolved by military force. But does that logic still apply today? That, to quote Shakespeare, is THE question.

Should war break out between China and America and if the PLA Navy was eviscerated as Villeneuve’s fleet was, would that make any strategic difference? Then, London had allies in Europe. Wellington, the other great military commander of the day, had bled the French Army badly in the Peninsula Campaign in Spain greatly weakening Napoleon. And if Blucher had not appeared at the moment critique, the “close run thing” as Wellington later described Waterloo could have gone the other way.

Trafalgar also provided other strategic and tactical insights. HMS Victory was forty-six years old at the time of the battle, far more than the life expectancy of modern warships and is still in commission moored in Portsmouth in the south of England as an historical monument Realizing the only way to defeat a continental power was to win on the periphery, this was Britain’s strategy. And it depended on allies.

My concerns with the current identification of China as an adversary are, first, there is no apparent off-ramp to de-escalate a deteriorating relationship and, second, as great power competition in 1914 was a major cause of World War I this one could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Third, as two world wars and a cold one should have taught us, allies are crucial to success and to victory. How many allies would we have if there were a naval confrontation or worse a major conflict with China?

This history lesson does not suggest that the U.S. should not and cannot compete with China economically, diplomatically, ideologically, strategically, politically and technologically. But over-militarizing policy as we did from Vietnam to the second Iraq War almost always induces some form of failure. And, in areas of vital mutual interest from climate change and terrorism to preventing future pandemics, cooperation cannot be dismissed.

In 1805, England had Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister and Nelson and Wellington. Who are America’s Pitt, Nelson and Wellington today?

Dr Harlan Ullman is Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council. His next book is The Fifth Horseman: To Be Feared, Friended or Fought in a MAD-Driven Age