Winning Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific
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NATIONAL SECURITY FELLOWS PROGRAM Winning Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific Jason Begley PAPER SEPTEMBER 2020 National Security Fellowship Program Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138 www.belfercenter.org/NSF Statements and views expressed in this report are solely those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, the Australian Government, or the Department of Defence. Design and layout by Andrew Facini Copyright 2020, President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of America NATIONAL SECURITY FELLOWS PROGRAM Winning Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific Jason Begley PAPER SEPTEMBER 2020 About the Author A Royal Australian Air Force officer, Jason Begley was a 19/20 Belfer Center National Security Fellow. Trained as a navigator on the P-3C Orion, he has flown multiple intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance opera- tions throughout the Indo-Pacific region and holds Masters degrees from the University of New South Wales and the Australian National University. His tenure as a squadron commander (2014-2017) coincided with the liberation of the Philippines’ city of Marawi from Islamic State, and the South China Sea legal case between the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China. Prior to his Fellowship, he oversaw surveillance, cyber and information operations at Australia’s Joint Operations Command Headquarters, and since returning to Australia now heads up his Air Force’s Air Power Center. Acknowledgements Jason would like to acknowledge the support of the many professors at the Harvard Kennedy School, particularly Graham Allison who also helped him progress his PhD during his Fellowship. He would also like to thank his wife, Sian, and children, Ava and Bryn, for supporting his academic interests and career, and the Royal Australian Air Force and Belfer Center for providing an Australian the unique opportunity to join the 19/20 National Security Fellowship. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School iii Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................ 1 1. Introduction ................................................................................5 2. Observe ........................................................................................ 7 2.1 The Indo-pacific? ...................................................................................... 7 2.2 China, Chinese and the CCP .................................................................... 8 2.3 Strategic Competition: cooperation, confrontation, contestation or conflation? ................................................................................................. 9 2.3.1 Defining strategic competition ..............................................................................9 1.1.1 Winning’ in competition ........................................................................................ 12 2.4 Perception is reality .................................................................................13 2.4.1 Western perceptions of the CCP .......................................................................... 13 2.4.2 CCP perceptions of the West ............................................................................... 15 2.4.3 So what? ................................................................................................................ 16 3. Orient ......................................................................................... 18 3.1 Western concepts ................................................................................... 18 3.1.1 ‘On Competition’ ................................................................................................... 18 3.1.2 ‘Essence of competition’ ...................................................................................... 19 3.1.3 Power .....................................................................................................................22 3.2 CCP concepts ..........................................................................................24 3.2.1 Unrestricted Warfare ............................................................................................24 3.2.2 The Three Warfares ...............................................................................................24 3.3 Strategic Competition’s Key Terrain ..................................................... 25 3.4 The CCP in Competition ......................................................................... 27 3.4.1 CCP policy and strategy for strategic competition ............................................27 3.4.2 Three Warfares in action .......................................................................................28 3.5 Is the CCP ‘winning’? ..............................................................................43 iv Winning Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific 4. Decide ........................................................................................ 51 4.1 The direct approach ................................................................................51 4.2 The indirect approach ............................................................................56 4.2.1 The U.S. and Australian approaches ....................................................................57 5. Act ............................................................................................. 66 5.1 What is to be done? ................................................................................66 5.1.1 Journeys need destinations .................................................................................67 5.1.2 Approaching the key terrain ................................................................................ 69 5.1.3 Targeting the audience .........................................................................................72 5.1.4 Who, what, where, when, and how? .....................................................................74 5.2 But the simplest thing… ......................................................................... 77 6. Conclusion .................................................................................85 Annexes ......................................................................................... 88 Annex A. Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere ....88 A Notice from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s General Office ..................................................................................... 88 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 88 Noteworthy Problems Related to the Current State of the Ideological Sphere ........ 89 Pay Close Attention to Work in the Ideological Sphere ............................................... 96 Annex B. South China Sea ‘Facts on the Ground’ .........................................99 Overview ......................................................................................................................... 99 Spratly Islands.............................................................................................................. 100 Paracel Islands ...............................................................................................................113 Annex C. Pew Opinion Data .......................................................................... 133 Annex D. Lowy Power Index Data ................................................................. 138 Annex E. Joint Targeting Cycle overview ..................................................... 140 Works Consulted .........................................................................143 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School v A 10 Squadron AP-3C awaits its crew as the sun rises over RAAF Base Edinburgh, Australia. Photograph by Wade Roberts Executive Summary The strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific involving the United States (U.S.), Australia and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is arguably the most significant contemporary international relations issue. It spans all aspects of state power: hard, sharp and soft; diplo- matic, information, military and economic; and all domains: air, sea, land, space, cyber, technology and innovation. But in their rush to recover ground perceived to be already lost to the CCP, neither the U.S. nor Australia have paused to devote sufficient attention to understand- ing the nature of strategic competition, to comprehend what winning it actually means, and therefore to grasp how best to approach it. As a result, they both continue to cede the initiative to the CCP, while it continues to compete on the terms most favorable to it. Most current interpretations of strategic competition view it as a con- stant state, one that therefore defies clear articulation of end-states and the metrics that demonstrate progress towards their attainment. Such interpretations are not only imprecise but unhelpful, as they pre- vent development of concrete strategies, leaving only abstract visions against which executable planning and commitment of resources is unachievable. A more exact approach views strategic competition structurally—poised atop a hierarchy