self-destruction? If so, the consequences for global peace would be catastrophic. Hence this question has to be asked at the outset, especially since at first glance the similarities between the Asia of today and the Europe of yesterday seem striking.
In the early twentieth century, Europe stood at the apex of its global influence, but within a mere thirty years it self-destructed. The precipitating cause was the difficulty of accommodating the rise of an assertive and increasingly powerful imperial Germany within the existing European system. Thence some similarity to the challenges posed by the rise of contemporary China in today’s new Asia. France, resentful of its defeat by Prussia in 1870, opposed Germany’s rise and was alarmed by it. Some contemporary parallels with India thus come to mind. Offshore, but very influential in Europe, was Great Britain, not directly involved in European affairs but certainly concerned by them. In that regard, some analogy with contemporary Japan also suggests itself. Last but not least, Russia was also involved. Its opposition to Germany’s support of Austria-Hungary against Serbia ignited the First World War in 1914, and its collaboration with Germany in 1939 produced the second and final round in Europe’s self-destruction. Today’s Russia, worried by China, is sympathetic to India as a counterweight to China.
The major impulse for the European catastrophe was the inability of the European interstate system (shaped largely a century earlier by the grand imperial bargain contrived in the Congress of Vienna in 1815) to handle the simultaneous rise of a new imperial power and to satisfy the effervescent aspirations of populist nationalisms throughout Central Europe, which became more intense over the course of the subsequent decades. In today’s world, in which Europe is no longer the center, the issue of Asia’s regional stability is obviously of crucial relevance to global well-being. That is so not only because of China’s climb to international preeminence, but also because of the self-evident importance of Japan, India, Indonesia, and South Korea in the global economic hierarchy, not to mention the cumulative economic weight of the several medium-sized Southeast Asian states. Measured together —even if they do not all act in concert—the Asian states account for 24.7% of global GNP and 54% of global population.
Moreover, as noted in Part 1, the huge Asian portion of the world’s population is now largely politically awakened. Its political awareness is defined and energized by nationalism and/or religion, each infused with varying degrees (depending on specific historical experiences of the individual countries) of lingering anti-Western resentments. The common thread in their respective—if varying—historical narratives is the theme of anti- imperialism, with specific segments of the West held accountable for past real or imagined abuses. In brief, the East is not one—and politically, religiously, culturally, and ethnically it is more diverse than the hesitantly unifying West. The East’s political awakening is more recent and its bitter memories fresher. The East is collectively proud and increasingly rich as well as powerful, but its huge populations are still mostly poor, crowded, and deprived. And many of the countries in the East are hostile toward one another. Their populist energies are volatile while the intensity of their nationalisms is reminiscent of Europe’s during the previous century and a half.
Asian nationalisms, especially if reinforced in some cases by religious fervor, are thus a major threat to the political stability of the region. They could also become a major impediment to the emergence and/or consolidation of genuinely stable democracies, especially if their potentially explosive appeal is triggered by some emotive incidents in interstate relations over a variety of conflicting issues. Unleashed passions, politically ignited by nationalistic slogans, could generate pressures that even the region’s authoritarian regimes could not resist. Still worse, its few existing relatively democratic systems might have no choice but to embrace aroused nationalistic expectations as evidence of their own populist solidarity.
In that potentially menacing context, the possibilities of conflict are many. Some could arise out of intensifying regional power rivalries, with that of China and India being the obvious example. Disputes over water rights or borders could provide both the pretext and the spark. Some—as in the case of Pakistan and India—could be triggered by unresolved and potentially explosive territorial conflicts that could then unleash violent nationalistic and religious hatreds to the point of threatening respective national survival. Some could be the unintended products of lingering historical enmity, as in the case of Japan and China. Some could simply be the by-products of internal instabilities and of human miscalculation at the highest level; clearly the attitude of North Korea toward South Korea comes to mind. Some could also be triggered by overlapping maritime claims, as between China and Japan, as well as between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors next to the South China Sea. In addition, a declining Russia that fails to Westernize and thus to modernize, could also be resentful of the increasingly effective Chinese efforts to expand its access to the natural resources of Mongolia and of the new Central Asian states.
Very serious international tensions could also result from a reciprocal failure by America and China to adjust cooperatively to the changing distribution of political and economic power in their bilateral relationship. Specific precipitating issues—in addition to the obvious economic rivalry and persistent financial disputes—might involve the status of Taiwan, or the extent of the American naval presence in the proximity of Chinese territorial waters, or conflicting interests in a Korean conflict.
Finally, one has to consider the potential impact of nuclear weapons on these regional contests. The new East already includes three overt nuclear powers (China, India, and Pakistan), as well as a less transparent fourth, North Korea, which periodically both postures and threatens as a self-proclaimed nuclear power. If uncertain of American security commitments, Japan could very quickly become a significant nuclear power as well, while on the southwestern fringes of the new Asia, Iran may already be in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons. The absence of any larger framework of collective security in Asia (of the kind that exists in today’s Europe) and the potential of so many possible conflicts erupting in a setting of such volatile nationalistic aspirations justifies concerns that, at some point, an international incident could spark a larger regional outbreak on a scale that— especially if nuclear weapons were employed—could match or even overshadow the horrors that Europe experienced in the previous century.
MAP 4;2 POTENTIAL ASIAN CONFLICTS
But, in spite of the multitude of uncertainties and asymmetries in Asia, the arguments in support of the proposition that the new East is doomed to destructive international warfare fall short of being conclusive. Though the similarities with twentieth-century Europe may seem compelling, the differences—derived from the novelty of twenty-first-century global realities and from the unique history of the Asian interstate system—are equally meaningful.
First is the geopolitical fact that—unlike the Europe of the early twentieth century, which was still then the center of world power—Asia currently is not or at least is not yet the center of world military power. That means that any Asian leader, in considering major warfare, has to take into account the possibility of intervention by indirectly affected outside powers. For example, in the case of a truly significant war (and not merely a border skirmish) between India and China, Russia would almost certainly decide to help India in some fashion simply because that would weaken China. America’s reactions would probably be calibrated by concerns that no one power should emerge as the decisive Asian potentate. Hence America, in order to avoid a one-sided outcome, would be likely to strive to reduce the scale of respective war aims as well as the scope and intensity of violence between the protagonists.
Awareness among the ruling Asian elites of the reality of more powerful potential external protagonists may in part be the reason why the military budgets of the Asian countries are relatively low in relationship to their respective GDPs. (According to the Word Bank, China spends 2%, India 3%, and Japan 1% of their GDPs on the military. The United States spends 4.6%.) Even in the cases of China and India, their military spending and their relatively modest nuclear arsenals suggest that neither side is seriously contemplating the possibility of a decisive resolution by the use of force to their existing or potential differences—continuing national suspicions of each other notwithstanding.
Second, contemporary Asia thrives now in a setting of worldwide commercial interdependence, which not only inhibits reliance on unilateral military action but also creates opportunities for alternative sources of self- gratification and of the fulfillment of national aspirations, such as through economic growth spurred by foreign trade, thereby dampening nationalistic extremism. China certainly is aware of the fact that the remarkable thirty- year-long transformation of its domestic socioeconomic conditions has gained it international preeminence as well as remarkable economic-financial standing. And China’s experience is not unique. Other increasingly successful Asian states (notably South Korea and the ASEAN bloc) benefit from a web of connections and relationships that induce some degree of restraint over nationalistic irrationality. Their twenty-first-century middle classes tend to be
