Bipolarity, Proxy Wars, and the Rise of China

Scholars debate the likelihood of future war with a rising China, each side arguing whether direct conflict is inevitable. Yet this debate does not consider the most probable future of U.S.-China relations. While direct conflict is indeed a possibility, it remains remote. A more likely outcome is subnational conflict as the United States and China engage in proxy wars over resource access in Africa. These conflicts will place great demands on all U.S. instruments of power as involvement in foreign internal defense, particularly counterinsurgency operations in Africa, trends upward. Bipolarity and renewed proxy conflict will require rethinking of long-term national and military strategies now focused primarily on large-scale interstate wars. This will impact defense acquisition and military doctrine as U.S. strategic focus shifts from conventional conflict to more low- end operations. To understand this argument, one must first define subnational and proxy conflicts and explain why nuclear powers in a bipolar system make strategic policy choices to compete by proxy. The historical record of subnational proxy conflict conducted by both the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1946 through the end of the Cold War era is illustrative, even though it was more about ideology than resources. The next section discusses the rationale for the claim that China will soon be poised to challenge the United States within a new bipolar order, the concomitant increase of proxy conflicts between the two, and the implications for U.S. grand and military strategies, defense acquisition programs, and development of future doctrine to meet this new order. The final section discusses recommendations for strategic planning over the next several decades. Published in Strategic Studies Quarterly, v5 n4 p75-91, Winter 2011.