The Middle Kingdom – Page 3 – The Scholar's Stage

Fear the First Strike

18 June, 2021Dogs of War, Japan, The Middle Kingdom

The closing days of the First World War gave birth to modern combat. Previous to these developments, advances in firepower made titans of the trenchworks. For four years the trenches were assaulted: for four years storms of steel mowed all offensives down. But as the war reached its end tactics were developed to storm through the gauntlet. Stephen Biddle has called these tactics, and what evolved out of them, “the modern system of battle.” The closing developments of the 1918 made offensives possible again—but the playing field remained tilted towards the defender.

15 Comments

Welcome to the Decade of Concern

01 April, 2021Dogs of War, Military Affairs, The Middle Kingdom

We’re looking at that big bow wave and wondering how the heck we’re going to pay for it, and probably thanking our stars we won’t be here to have to answer the question. — Brian McKeon, Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy [2016] The most dangerous concern is [the use] of military force against […]

33 Comments

Against the Kennan Sweepstakes

06 March, 2021Bargaining and Balancing, By The People, Entangling Alliances, The Middle Kingdom

Image source Last month there was a minor hullabaloo about the latest entry in the “Kennan Sweepstakes,” a long document published by the Atlantic Council titled “The Longer Telegram.”1 I read it three times. I did not like it. This week Foreign Policy gave me some column space to explain why. I will note here […]

5 Comments

All Measures Short of a Cross Straits Invasion

03 March, 2021Dogs of War, Japan, The Middle Kingdom

Much of what I have written about Taiwan defense issues assumes that the primary challenge facing Taiwanese forces and their allies is defeating (and thus deterring) a proper amphibious invasion. Two recent reports argue—convincingly, I think—that this assumption is wrong. In his testimony to Congress a few weeks ago, former DIA analyst Lonnie Henley asks […]

12 Comments

Understanding Taiwanese Nationalism: A Historical Primer in Bullet Points

03 February, 2021Culture, History, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Noah Smith has a recent substack note discussing Taiwan. In the comments section there are a number of heated arguments over whether Taiwanese language, history, politics, and so forth are enough to justify thinking of Taiwan the way Smith does: as its own “civilization.” When reading through these debates I was struck by the […]

18 Comments

Bootstrapping Marx With the Peasant Masses

29 January, 2021Books and Literature, Political Theory, Russia, The Middle Kingdom

One of the great ironies of 20th century history: Marxist revolutionaries could only ever seize power in the wrong countries. Marx imagined a revolution of industrial proletariat; he expected that this proletariat would at first achieve its aims in highly industrialized nations like England and Germany. His theory of socialism presupposed that a successful transition […]

4 Comments

Assessing the Trump China Strategy: The Key Documents

18 January, 2021Bargaining and Balancing, Diplomacy, Entangling Alliances, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Now is the proper time for the broader foreign policy community to step back and assess the successes and failures of Trump era diplomacy. There have already been a few attempts of this sort for Trump’s China policy, but I find myself disappointed, if not entirely surprised, with how vapid and partisan these assessments tend […]

4 Comments

Everything I Got Wrong in 2020

06 January, 2021Cognition, Complex Systems, Domestic Politics, Epidemiology, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, The Middle Kingdom

What did I get wrong in 2020? What did I change my mind about? As I have argued that the mark of a good mind is a willingness to admit mistakes and to come to terms with why one might have made them, I am now forced into the uncomfortable position of trying to live […]

10 Comments

A Theory of Authoritarian Personality Cults

19 December, 2020Monied Interests, Political Theory, The Middle Kingdom, Tyranny

Mary McAuley’s Soviet Politics: 1917-1991 is one of those rare works that marries concision with intellectual heft. Though only 123 pages in length, every page sparkles with insight. Though not a tour de force in the traditional sense, it manages to say something noteworthy about nearly every aspect of Soviet political history. Many of the […]

2 Comments

China’s Attack on Australia is About America

11 December, 2020Bargaining and Balancing, Entangling Alliances, Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom

Image source The escalating crisis in Sino-Australian relations prompts a new piece. Foreign Policy publishes my latest under the title “Biden’s First Foreign Policy Crisis is Already Here.” I approve of the title. Not everything is about America, and I often spend my time trying to show how the moving force behind any given international […]