My read of Noah was his frustration that no one is acting like they believe it (taking action). I agree with you that predicting these horrible things is not unusual, but if there is no action taken to prepare he is right that no one really believes.
Is there evidence he's wrong the military production capacity issue and there is change happening?
Noah Smith is a smug jerk about history and historians right up until he decides that he can Dunning-Kruger his way into a historically-driven argument ...
On the Politico piece analyzing the Iranian strike on Israel, what do you think of Reuel Marc Gerecht logical exposition quoted in the piece? Especially Gerecht's *criticism* of the US distancing itself from Israel's strike against Zahedi at the Damascus diplomatic facility in the penultimate line of the paragraph below? Is his critique spot-on, or bass-ackwards?
“I have to give the Biden administration credit. They have responded better than they did when Jerusalem whacked Zahedi in Damascus,” said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA official and a Farsi-speaking scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “When that happened, the White House was very quick to signal that the-Israelis-did-it-not-us; this time round, Washington ran towards Israel and has intervened on Israel’s behalf. This will induce greater Iranian anxiety.”
........and does his logic there, jibe with what he went on to the next paragraph, or am I right to sniff out some mentally gymnastic doublethink here:
“Does Khamenei want to escalate against Israel? Yes. Does he want to escalate against the U.S.? No,” said Gerecht. “Unfortunately for the clerical regime, Israel is going to respond directly against it. They have to. The only open question is the magnitude. We are in an escalatory spiral that likely favors Israel more than Tehran in great part because the White House chose not to sit this out and now will be unable to change its commitment to Jerusalem.”
logorrhea avalanche warning: (on the substance of Noah's WWIII type fears and Great Power conflict potential)
A concept that repeatedly comes up in the discourse is that, to one extent or another, Russia and Ukraine, or the Middle East, are distracting us from the "real threat". which is China. There's a wide swathe of people expressing this concept, from a fairly cartoon-ish MAGA and MAGA-adjacent version that says: "Russia likes Trump, Russia good; Trump tariffs China, China bad, so China must love Biden and Biden must love China; Clever strategy must be to tell Russia - 'let's be friends', then Russia will help US against China."
This version of "anti-China first" strategy is fairly easy to counter in its disconnection from the reality of comparative Administration foreign policies, and its naivete about Sino-Russian relations and what drives them. Biden isn't ignoring China but competing with it. Trump was always happy to challenge China on trade or to pass off blame for COVID to China and Chinese people, but was far more erratic about opposing China geopolitically and working with Asian allies to resist China. Also, MAGA conservatives' faith that offering Putin a deal on Ukraine and European questions is the "One Weird Trick" and Nixon-Kissingerian maneuver that would make Russia a willing "friend", supporting American strategy of containment of China is beyond naive. It is a fun-house reverse mirror image of the naive argument that anti-Vietnam War critics, generally liberal, made throughout that struggle that the US need only recognize or side with Ho Chi Minh against his enemy of the day (France, South Vietnam) and, out of gratitude at America *not being against him*, he would cut his ties with the USSR or China and become an apostate Communist like Yugoslavia's Tito. Believe it or not folks, while much of Sino-Soviet relations *are* based around countering the larger US threat to both of them, the two countries are neighbors, and their relationship with each other matter on their own terms. Russia and Putin have no interest, regardless of how successful or tranquil or favorable he regards the situation in Ukraine and Europe, to start antagonizing a China that has not been antagonizing him, and that he and his security establishment, state media and culture have been demonizing for the last few decades like the west.
There are more serious arguments however, from less ideological and less domestically focused sources, to "pivot" more attention and effort to China and the Pacific compared to Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. John Mearsheimer argues for it from a pure International Relations theoretical point-of-view. China's comprehensive national power, across multiple dimensions, and its foundational economic-industrial base, is simply far greater than Russia's, and on the ascendant, compared with Russia's, which is unbalanced, weighted to energy and military sphere, and on the long-term decline. Noah Smith fleshes this out in measuring indices of ability to manufacture physical things, like ships, and all the logistic components required to support protracted conventional war. He notes that, *with China providing supplies* to others like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, their military production would outstrip US production combined with its European, Pacific Rim, and Israeli allies.
If measuring strictly by broad measures of power and capability, rather than intentions, China is the bigger thing to worry about than Russia.
More Allied capacity, in all senses, but especially a military sense, would be very good. Noah Smith has actually pointed out that the dollar/euro value contribution of aid to Ukraine has been higher from Europe than from the USA, but the military support value or combat support value from the USA to Ukraine has been higher than Europe's.
Nevertheless, despite China's stronger power fundamentals, and better rounded capabilities compared with Russia, Russia remains in a class above China in nuclear "throw-weight" and especially intercontinental nuclear "throw-eight" and in lobbing even conventional munitions to US homeland in quantity. So, Russia still has more "fast, catastrophic" power and capability. It also has Clausewitzian doctrines that play escalation dominance to its "logical conclusion" and repeatedly calculate the likelihood of enemy first strikes, the disadvantages of that, and how its own first-strikes could mitigate it. It has many strategic "logics" to think or talk itself into escalation. While the Chinese are starting to contemplate some moves in this direction, they still adhere to a declaratory nuclear no-first use doctrine, still have much smaller nuclear arsenals than Russia and the USA, and have focused on being able to ensure they can inflict unacceptable damage in revenge against any nuclear attacker, rather than leveraging nuclear weapons to win battlefield advantages or conflicts.
Critics of China are correct that China, especially under Xi, has been more aggressive, assertive, and ruthless. It's expanded its building in the South China Sea, toughened its rhetoric, increased sorties in and over and around Taiwan, is increasing the size of its nuclear and conventional forces. It steals technology shamelessly, and long has.
Nevertheless, it seems to me there is value at ranking America's rival great powers, not just from a balance of power perspective, looking at capabilities, but another international relations theory lense, balance of threat, which looks at behavior and intentions. From that POV, Russia becomes a more urgent threat than China. China is the stronger and growing country, and is determined to do what it thinks China needs and can do within the realm of the possible, and with its growing strength, the realm of the possible is going to be expanding. It's no use asking or telling China to stop stealing tech, it needs to be protected at the source, or countervailing costs need to be imposed, or Beijing needs expected gains to be neutralized. The west and its regional allies need to comparably strengthen and harden themselves. But China continues to show a pattern of never "punching above its weight"
China has a great appetite to press for its own advantage, even when that screws over others. But it shows very little appetite to confront others in ways that would incur serious risk, cost, or even simply inconvenience to itself. China has toughened its rhetoric and "wolf-warrior" dplomacy and will inflict economic pain against world actors for exercising anti-China speech. It will increasingly voice anti-western positions on foreign policy issues. But it simply remains not super interested in active combat power projection outside its borders, committing itself to the direct defense of other nations, or directly supporting offensive operations of external states or non-state groups. It punches far below its weight. It may hate America, but it loves itself more than it hates America. It will hurt America and American allies, mainly when it does not involving hurting China.
That is simply less threatening than Russia, which hates America and the western alliances with the fury of 10,000 suns, at the Putin level, and down at the societal level. It is an Arab street hatred for Israel and America level hatred by this point. Putin and Russia see what's bad for America and western alliances as good for itself. Russia is willing to take risks and incur costs for its goals, like in Ukraine, and fight for and alongside others, like in Syria. The Russian threat is the one that needs to be countered most urgently, and by securitized means, whereas the Chinese threat is more to be countered with broad "self-strengthening" much of which is not military, or securitized, with the military mainly as a defensive shield.
I would also argue that because of China's engagement with capitalism, despite increased internal repression and reduced transparency in recent years, it inhabits a reality a bit closer to the west's own than Russia does. It's institutions and security professionals still put out more material with common assumptions with western sources than Russians do.
For this reason, I also would argue that, worst come to worst, in a limited conflict or contest over specific terrain, it would be less dangerous to appease China on a South China Sea issue, or a Senkaku island, or Outer Mongolia, or even Taiwan, than to appease Russia over NATO matter in Europe. China would be more likely to take a regional "win", for what it is, no more, no less. It would exploit and enjoy that win, would see it as an augmentation of its power (minor, except in the case of Taiwan, then more economically significant), and consider its future goals about as carefully as it has considered its past goals. Which has been very carefully and patiently. It would be a blow to US prestige and credibility, but that would not necessarily *compel* China to turn into a territorial acquisitive action and intervention addict, all the sudden keen to force all its Asian neighbors into a Warsaw Pact like treaty. Nor would Japan, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, Indonesia's, India's reactions to Chinese expansion in a borderland, even if unopposed, or not successfully opposed by the USA, be to rush to submit themselves to a Beijing led alliance or "tribute-system" or to cut ties with the USA. They would likely seek to strengthen their own capabilities as hedge against both a stronger, more aggressive China, and possible US unreliability, but still keep alive the possibility of US engagement and support.
This idea of the Chinese not going "overboard" even in victory also comes from their Cold War experience. The PRC did not react to the collapse of the USSR by trying to press its historic claims which it screamed about under Mao to land in Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrghizstan in the early 1990s. A China interested in "punching above its weight" and "filling vacuums" would have tried to exploit the Soviet fall, like the USA did, to grab land, or at least more influence. Maybe not Russian specifically, because Russia kept its nuclear arsenal, but Mongolia being separate from China is only of recent vintage, and an expansionist China might think land grabs from the new Central Asian "stans" might be possible, or claims could be used as leverage to gain influence exclusive of Moscow in those new states, which Beijing did not do.
On the other hand, the Russians, if successful in Ukraine, or against NATO territories, are at much greater risk of strategic euphoria and overinterpreting their success and ability to reshape the situation in Central Europe, and they have precedents of being able to dictate foreign policies as far as Warsaw, Prague and Budapest.
Good piece. Small correction. I suspect you intended the last sentence to read "Whether he is right or not.. " rather than "Where he is right or not ..."
Glad to help. Just part of the Substack game. I think it's literally impossible to fully copy edit oneself. We can't help but read what we meant rather than what we actually typed.
I think Angell was right. Look what's happened in the last world wars, and I don't think we say that, just to pick three, the results in VN, Iraq, & Afghanistan were worth their cost. If Xi is smart, he'll learn from Ukraine that invading Taiwan would be a huge error.
My read of Noah was his frustration that no one is acting like they believe it (taking action). I agree with you that predicting these horrible things is not unusual, but if there is no action taken to prepare he is right that no one really believes.
Is there evidence he's wrong the military production capacity issue and there is change happening?
Noah Smith is a smug jerk about history and historians right up until he decides that he can Dunning-Kruger his way into a historically-driven argument ...
I agree with you and openly state that WWIII is right around the corner
Daniel,
On the Politico piece analyzing the Iranian strike on Israel, what do you think of Reuel Marc Gerecht logical exposition quoted in the piece? Especially Gerecht's *criticism* of the US distancing itself from Israel's strike against Zahedi at the Damascus diplomatic facility in the penultimate line of the paragraph below? Is his critique spot-on, or bass-ackwards?
“I have to give the Biden administration credit. They have responded better than they did when Jerusalem whacked Zahedi in Damascus,” said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA official and a Farsi-speaking scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “When that happened, the White House was very quick to signal that the-Israelis-did-it-not-us; this time round, Washington ran towards Israel and has intervened on Israel’s behalf. This will induce greater Iranian anxiety.”
........and does his logic there, jibe with what he went on to the next paragraph, or am I right to sniff out some mentally gymnastic doublethink here:
“Does Khamenei want to escalate against Israel? Yes. Does he want to escalate against the U.S.? No,” said Gerecht. “Unfortunately for the clerical regime, Israel is going to respond directly against it. They have to. The only open question is the magnitude. We are in an escalatory spiral that likely favors Israel more than Tehran in great part because the White House chose not to sit this out and now will be unable to change its commitment to Jerusalem.”
logorrhea avalanche warning: (on the substance of Noah's WWIII type fears and Great Power conflict potential)
A concept that repeatedly comes up in the discourse is that, to one extent or another, Russia and Ukraine, or the Middle East, are distracting us from the "real threat". which is China. There's a wide swathe of people expressing this concept, from a fairly cartoon-ish MAGA and MAGA-adjacent version that says: "Russia likes Trump, Russia good; Trump tariffs China, China bad, so China must love Biden and Biden must love China; Clever strategy must be to tell Russia - 'let's be friends', then Russia will help US against China."
This version of "anti-China first" strategy is fairly easy to counter in its disconnection from the reality of comparative Administration foreign policies, and its naivete about Sino-Russian relations and what drives them. Biden isn't ignoring China but competing with it. Trump was always happy to challenge China on trade or to pass off blame for COVID to China and Chinese people, but was far more erratic about opposing China geopolitically and working with Asian allies to resist China. Also, MAGA conservatives' faith that offering Putin a deal on Ukraine and European questions is the "One Weird Trick" and Nixon-Kissingerian maneuver that would make Russia a willing "friend", supporting American strategy of containment of China is beyond naive. It is a fun-house reverse mirror image of the naive argument that anti-Vietnam War critics, generally liberal, made throughout that struggle that the US need only recognize or side with Ho Chi Minh against his enemy of the day (France, South Vietnam) and, out of gratitude at America *not being against him*, he would cut his ties with the USSR or China and become an apostate Communist like Yugoslavia's Tito. Believe it or not folks, while much of Sino-Soviet relations *are* based around countering the larger US threat to both of them, the two countries are neighbors, and their relationship with each other matter on their own terms. Russia and Putin have no interest, regardless of how successful or tranquil or favorable he regards the situation in Ukraine and Europe, to start antagonizing a China that has not been antagonizing him, and that he and his security establishment, state media and culture have been demonizing for the last few decades like the west.
There are more serious arguments however, from less ideological and less domestically focused sources, to "pivot" more attention and effort to China and the Pacific compared to Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. John Mearsheimer argues for it from a pure International Relations theoretical point-of-view. China's comprehensive national power, across multiple dimensions, and its foundational economic-industrial base, is simply far greater than Russia's, and on the ascendant, compared with Russia's, which is unbalanced, weighted to energy and military sphere, and on the long-term decline. Noah Smith fleshes this out in measuring indices of ability to manufacture physical things, like ships, and all the logistic components required to support protracted conventional war. He notes that, *with China providing supplies* to others like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, their military production would outstrip US production combined with its European, Pacific Rim, and Israeli allies.
If measuring strictly by broad measures of power and capability, rather than intentions, China is the bigger thing to worry about than Russia.
More Allied capacity, in all senses, but especially a military sense, would be very good. Noah Smith has actually pointed out that the dollar/euro value contribution of aid to Ukraine has been higher from Europe than from the USA, but the military support value or combat support value from the USA to Ukraine has been higher than Europe's.
Nevertheless, despite China's stronger power fundamentals, and better rounded capabilities compared with Russia, Russia remains in a class above China in nuclear "throw-weight" and especially intercontinental nuclear "throw-eight" and in lobbing even conventional munitions to US homeland in quantity. So, Russia still has more "fast, catastrophic" power and capability. It also has Clausewitzian doctrines that play escalation dominance to its "logical conclusion" and repeatedly calculate the likelihood of enemy first strikes, the disadvantages of that, and how its own first-strikes could mitigate it. It has many strategic "logics" to think or talk itself into escalation. While the Chinese are starting to contemplate some moves in this direction, they still adhere to a declaratory nuclear no-first use doctrine, still have much smaller nuclear arsenals than Russia and the USA, and have focused on being able to ensure they can inflict unacceptable damage in revenge against any nuclear attacker, rather than leveraging nuclear weapons to win battlefield advantages or conflicts.
Critics of China are correct that China, especially under Xi, has been more aggressive, assertive, and ruthless. It's expanded its building in the South China Sea, toughened its rhetoric, increased sorties in and over and around Taiwan, is increasing the size of its nuclear and conventional forces. It steals technology shamelessly, and long has.
Nevertheless, it seems to me there is value at ranking America's rival great powers, not just from a balance of power perspective, looking at capabilities, but another international relations theory lense, balance of threat, which looks at behavior and intentions. From that POV, Russia becomes a more urgent threat than China. China is the stronger and growing country, and is determined to do what it thinks China needs and can do within the realm of the possible, and with its growing strength, the realm of the possible is going to be expanding. It's no use asking or telling China to stop stealing tech, it needs to be protected at the source, or countervailing costs need to be imposed, or Beijing needs expected gains to be neutralized. The west and its regional allies need to comparably strengthen and harden themselves. But China continues to show a pattern of never "punching above its weight"
China has a great appetite to press for its own advantage, even when that screws over others. But it shows very little appetite to confront others in ways that would incur serious risk, cost, or even simply inconvenience to itself. China has toughened its rhetoric and "wolf-warrior" dplomacy and will inflict economic pain against world actors for exercising anti-China speech. It will increasingly voice anti-western positions on foreign policy issues. But it simply remains not super interested in active combat power projection outside its borders, committing itself to the direct defense of other nations, or directly supporting offensive operations of external states or non-state groups. It punches far below its weight. It may hate America, but it loves itself more than it hates America. It will hurt America and American allies, mainly when it does not involving hurting China.
That is simply less threatening than Russia, which hates America and the western alliances with the fury of 10,000 suns, at the Putin level, and down at the societal level. It is an Arab street hatred for Israel and America level hatred by this point. Putin and Russia see what's bad for America and western alliances as good for itself. Russia is willing to take risks and incur costs for its goals, like in Ukraine, and fight for and alongside others, like in Syria. The Russian threat is the one that needs to be countered most urgently, and by securitized means, whereas the Chinese threat is more to be countered with broad "self-strengthening" much of which is not military, or securitized, with the military mainly as a defensive shield.
I would also argue that because of China's engagement with capitalism, despite increased internal repression and reduced transparency in recent years, it inhabits a reality a bit closer to the west's own than Russia does. It's institutions and security professionals still put out more material with common assumptions with western sources than Russians do.
For this reason, I also would argue that, worst come to worst, in a limited conflict or contest over specific terrain, it would be less dangerous to appease China on a South China Sea issue, or a Senkaku island, or Outer Mongolia, or even Taiwan, than to appease Russia over NATO matter in Europe. China would be more likely to take a regional "win", for what it is, no more, no less. It would exploit and enjoy that win, would see it as an augmentation of its power (minor, except in the case of Taiwan, then more economically significant), and consider its future goals about as carefully as it has considered its past goals. Which has been very carefully and patiently. It would be a blow to US prestige and credibility, but that would not necessarily *compel* China to turn into a territorial acquisitive action and intervention addict, all the sudden keen to force all its Asian neighbors into a Warsaw Pact like treaty. Nor would Japan, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, Indonesia's, India's reactions to Chinese expansion in a borderland, even if unopposed, or not successfully opposed by the USA, be to rush to submit themselves to a Beijing led alliance or "tribute-system" or to cut ties with the USA. They would likely seek to strengthen their own capabilities as hedge against both a stronger, more aggressive China, and possible US unreliability, but still keep alive the possibility of US engagement and support.
This idea of the Chinese not going "overboard" even in victory also comes from their Cold War experience. The PRC did not react to the collapse of the USSR by trying to press its historic claims which it screamed about under Mao to land in Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrghizstan in the early 1990s. A China interested in "punching above its weight" and "filling vacuums" would have tried to exploit the Soviet fall, like the USA did, to grab land, or at least more influence. Maybe not Russian specifically, because Russia kept its nuclear arsenal, but Mongolia being separate from China is only of recent vintage, and an expansionist China might think land grabs from the new Central Asian "stans" might be possible, or claims could be used as leverage to gain influence exclusive of Moscow in those new states, which Beijing did not do.
On the other hand, the Russians, if successful in Ukraine, or against NATO territories, are at much greater risk of strategic euphoria and overinterpreting their success and ability to reshape the situation in Central Europe, and they have precedents of being able to dictate foreign policies as far as Warsaw, Prague and Budapest.
Good piece. Small correction. I suspect you intended the last sentence to read "Whether he is right or not.. " rather than "Where he is right or not ..."
Oh, FFS. That does it, no pressing publish late at night before I've had a chance to do one last once-over.
Thanks for the catch.
Glad to help. Just part of the Substack game. I think it's literally impossible to fully copy edit oneself. We can't help but read what we meant rather than what we actually typed.
Meanwhile, definitely interested in your perspective on whether he is right. Hope "another day" comes soon. :)
You say
“ Smith’s observations about the downsides of predicting disaster do or make any sense in the world of international relations”
There is a missing “don’t “ I think.
GAH. Thanks, fixing.
Generally, the issue in predictions is lack of specificity, rather than optimism or pessimism.
I think Angell was right. Look what's happened in the last world wars, and I don't think we say that, just to pick three, the results in VN, Iraq, & Afghanistan were worth their cost. If Xi is smart, he'll learn from Ukraine that invading Taiwan would be a huge error.