Brian M Downing
Throughout the Cold War Soviet and American planes buzzed each other, their ships slipped in and out of the other’s territory and otherwise tested each other. Probes were sometimes done with a wink, sometimes with malice.
China was weak and relatively inactive then. By the late sixties China and Russia were probing each other and even skirmishing over the Amur and Ussuri Rivers. They are for now cooperative and determined to weaken the United States. One of the chief ways is testing the US and its allies across the vast Eurasian land mass, from Seoul in the east to Stettin in the west.
Locations
North Korea intermittently fires missiles near or over South Korea and Japan. It has for the time renounced further nuclear test but activity is currently building around test sites.
Chinese fighter aircraft routinely violate the airspace of Taiwan. The number of violations has gotten larger as has the number of jets in each sortie. Elsewhere in East and Southeast Asia, Chinese naval vessels menace commercial and military ships of Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
Russia and China cooperated in embarrassing the US in Afghanistan – Russia by clandestinely supplying the Taliban, China by weakening the Kabul government through corruption. China is now working with the Taliban to develop the country’s resources, using roads, bridges, power grids, and communication links built mainly by the US.
China is probing Indian positions in Kashmir and Jammu. Skirmishes have taken place and dozens of soldiers on both sides have been killed. The US and India have recently conducted joint exercises in Alaska – far from the conflict in geography but quite close in climate and terrain.
Iran, now firmly in the Sino-Russian camp, strikes American positions in Iraq and Syria. Russian mercenaries have driven on US positions in eastern Syria. Drones and rockets are launched. Iranian naval vessels harass shipping in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
Russian planes buzz American and allied ships in the Black, Mediterranean, and Baltic Seas. Its ships come uncomfortably close to American and British vessels.
Russia has invaded and annexed the Crimea. It’s proxies and thinly-disguised troops have invaded eastern Ukraine and fought Kiev’s forces for several years. Russia has massed troops along the Ukrainian border more than once. A mobilization on the border is underway now.
Intentions
Invasion of Taiwan is unlikely. The outcome is uncertain – as is the reaction of East Asian powers. They might interdict Chinese commerce and afterwards develop their own nuclear weapons. (1)
Russian moves on the Ukrainian border might be more serious. A full invasion is unlikely, but an armor thrust into the Ukraine, perhaps coming within thirty miles or so of the capital, might force Kiev to cede the Donbas and recognize the loss of the Crimea.
Iran’s attacks on US positions in Syria and Iraq try to wear down Washington’s resolve and make it reconsider the worthwhileness of a protracted presence in an inhospitable, volatile region. Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence will be brought to bear on the Iraqi political system to order a US withdrawal, as happened in 2008.
North Korea may increase tensions through more missile tests and a nuclear test. China could then intervene and announce it has convinced its neighbor to behave less belligerently. The message: the US can no longer guarantee East Asian security, it’s in China’s sphere now. (Paradoxically, this would suggest Beijing had the clout to prevent Pyongyang’s belligerency in the first place and has been abetting the North all along.)
The probes have more general intentions. They increase, if only incrementally, the US defense budget and may cause weariness in the public. Greater acrimony in already deeply contentious budget debates will ensue.
The world will be watching. Is the United States in decline and will China be the new sole global power in a decade or two? And will the United States respond to the probes along the Eurasian wisely, or rashly and destructively and fruitlessly as it has in the last twenty years from Syria to Afghanistan.
(1) See “Is China about to attack Taiwan? Parts 1-3 (Downing Reports, October 2020).
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.