Anniversaries mean things, more in some cultures, less than others. Nice round numbers are significant in all cultures, but in a few, more so.
What about 2027 is worth a blog post?
Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology produced and English translation of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, covering the years 2021-2025, from March of this year.
There is not a lot of direct military information here, but there doesn’t need to be. In China, the military is very much a supporting not supported branch of the Communist Party. As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of wordclouds, and from the below you can get a good feel for the priorities in the 14th Five-Year Plan;
There are enough hints in the military sphere worth a ponder. Let’s look at them.
Back to 2027. There are roughly two schools of thought about the military threat, if any, from China, the “short-time” and “long-time” school. The short-time school sees a more immediate danger, this decade, where China will make her move to announce her military presence on the world stage not unlike the USA did at the end of the 19th Century against Spain, and Japan did a decade later against Russia.
For the short-time school, we are just now entering the window of vulnerability centered on the middle of this decade. This represents the intersection of two vectors. First, the Chinese’s successful execution of a decades long program of growth and modernization of her military, specifically naval and air forces. Second, their greatest military rival, the United States, is harvesting the fruit of two decades of self-inflicted damage to her primary power projection service that threatens China’s global interests; its Navy – a circumstance we call The Terrible 20s.
In the 14th Five-Year Plan, 2027 is mentioned twice. First;
…comprehensively strengthen training and battle preparedness, increase strategic capability to defend the nation’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and ensure achievement of the centennial objective of building a [modernized] military by 2027.
Why is this significant?
2027 is the centennial of the 1927 founding of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, the precursor to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
2027 is also in the center of the window of vulnerability for the short-time school. What a great year, for the Chinese, for their military’s coming out party … if the conditions are right.
What could help make those conditions right? Simple, where the two vectors mentioned above intersect.
When two nations cross a point where the power of deterrence – when looked at simple force on force capability comparisons – you pivot from a deterrence force to, if one nation is in an aggressive phase, a power differential that encourages conflict.
If that intersection overlaps with a point in time of national or cultural significance, you have an accelerant.
Perhaps a picture can help. Let us humbly call this the “Salamander Deterrence Space” (SDC).
How does this work?
For the territorial and economic concerns of Communist China, the primary military threat comes from the maritime and aerospace capabilities of its primary adversary, the United States and its allies. Land power is of tertiary concern.
At the turn of this century, the United States’ capability in these areas was well ahead of the Chinese armed forces. A decade after learning the lessons for them from Desert Storm, they we well along the path of shifting investments to maritime and aerospace capabilities that they knew would be essential in protecting the sea and air lines of communication needed to move the materials and data their growing economy needed as their population aged and became more prosperous.
Meanwhile, we engaged in expensive wars of rage in Central and Southwest Asia, distracting focus and consuming resources. We find ourselves now with flat to declining budgets containing allocations that made sense decades ago but are decoupled from today’s security requirements.
Combined with serial failures to manage technology and program risk, our capability (Vectors A, B, or D) is either slowly declining (Vector-A) or flat (Vector-B).
As SDC shows, China (Vector-C) is not a “pacing threat,” it is an advancing threat. When their capabilities west of Wake match ours, we pivot from deterrence to an open window for the Chinese war-party to make their pitch. Worse, if you think we are close to that pivot point, anything that moves that pivot to the left down Vector-C such as “divest to invest” is an act of provocation that gives the Chines war-party an even easier sell.
As decline is a choice, so is enabling a more unstable international order. If we invest to maintain something more along the lines of Vector-D, we can maintain a credible deterrence effect on the Chinese war-party that will keep the Chinese peace-party holding the better hand.
Greater the difference grows between Chinese vs. American capability (if we allow such), the greater incentive for at worse the war party to have solid option, or for best the diplomatic party to more effectively use the threat of military power to its advantage. Neither of those are good for America’s status in the world, nor the international order it underwrites.
Where will 2027 intersect that line?
If 2027 takes place down Vector-C from any pivot point, then perhaps we will just have a nice parade, fleet review, and smog-generating airshow. Up vector from the pivot? Huh.
That is in our control. We control our budget and can encourage our allies, by our example, to prioritize theirs.
A little side bar note derived from this Five-Year Plan, as pointed out by Ryan Fedasiuk, what dual use technology will the Chinese be investing in if you assume it will be roughly in line with articles mentioned in PLA Daily?
Now ask yourself; how many citizens of the People’s Republic of China are at American universities studying those topics? How many are doing research in those areas?
Yes, it’s all related.
