[Colonel Rich Butler] You're listening to CLSC dialogues, Landpower in the Indo-Pacific. A China Land Power Study Center production. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests, and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I am Colonel Rich Butler, the Director of CLSC.

Today we are talking with Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane, the commanding general of America's I Corps, headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Having served with distinction at all levels of the Army and Joint Force, he now leads the Army's senior tactical headquarters in the Indo-Pacific. Today we'll be chatting about his views of the operational environment and the hard work the Corps is doing across the Indo-Pacific.

Sir, welcome to the podcast. Let's begin by noting you're coming to us not from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, but from South Korea, where you are deployed supporting Exercise Freedom Shield. 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Thanks. It's great to be here. 

[Colonel Rich Butler] So let's start with one opening question. Can you describe I Corps and its role in the Indo-Pacific to our listeners? And how does I Corps contribute to U.S. deterrence efforts in the Indo-Pacific?

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] All right. That's, those are two big questions. I'll start with the first one here and break it down for you a little bit, and then, and then hit the second one because we certainly, do a lot of the deterrence, as we operate across the Pacific. 

First, U.S. Army I Corps consists of three, divisions. We have the 7th Infantry Division. That's it with the corps headquarters at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. It's got two Stryker brigade combat teams. And then we have the 11th Airborne Division located in Alaska between Joint Base Elmendorf, Richardson, and Fort Wainwright, Alaska. 11th Airborne Division has an airborne brigade and an air assault brigade, and then the 25th Infantry Division located at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. It has two infantry brigade combat teams, which are in the process of transforming now and I know we'll talk more about that throughout the podcast here. But they are our army's jungle experts. They operate and train, certify themselves in the jungle environment. And then obviously operate across the Pacific in the jungle environment.

The 11th Airborne Division that I mentioned is our army's Arctic experts, operating there in Alaska, where they, they are, the subject matter experts at Arctic warfare for Army and share that with their allies and partners. But they also contribute to our efforts across the Pacific at high altitude in India, cold weather in northern Japan. And then, also in the jungle environment, with many of our other partners south of Japan, and their airborne brigade, gives, gives, the army and the joint force a lot of strategic flexibility, if you will, as they can mass combat power quickly and move it quickly across the Pacific if it's needed for crisis.

So a lot of different capabilities across I Corps' maneuver elements, the three divisions. We also have an expeditionary sustainment command that helps ensure, we can, sustain our operations, across the Pacific. Right now, they're in the Philippines, helping prepare for exercises we have, starting this month, going through June; as well as some separate brigades that, provide an enabling capability for the Corps.

We have an engineer brigade, a field artillery brigade, medical brigade, military intelligence brigade, communications brigade, and a military police brigade. So a lot of, different capability within US Army I Corps. The separate brigades are located with me in Washington state. And, we apply all of those formation I just mentioned across the Pacific.

We organize. So for, exercises or operations, we, we align different parts of, the separate brigades with the divisions or subordinates in the divisions, for whatever's needed for a certain exercise. We generate readiness, at home station. Each of the home stations. Jungle readiness in Hawaii. Arctic readiness in Alaska and in in Washington state with their Stryker brigades will train, like, right now at our Yakima training center in Washington state.

Then we'll also generate the readiness, through what we call our combat training centers for the Alaska and Hawaii team. They do that, at in their locations, in their environments, Arctic and jungle to a joint Pacific multinational readiness center, which is, transformation of our combat training centers. But now doing it in those environments. We'll bring in, our observers, coach, and trainers from the National Training Center and Joint Readiness Training Center up to augment, a unit that we have in Hawaii that helps us certify those formations.

And then the Stryker brigades will we'll go to the National Training Center, Joint Readiness Training Center. One of those Stryker brigades will go to the National Training Center here in September. So generating readiness is a key aspect of being ready in the Pacific. And then we'll apply that readiness across the Pacific through what we call Operation Pathways.

I Corps organize and execute some 40 plus exercises over the course of the year with 20 some different partner nations. We work closely with them and our work with them drives the deterrence. The question you mentioned before, deterrence against the PRC, deterrence against Russia and other adversaries in the area. And as we do that, we build joint interior lines, which are incredibly important in the Pacific if you look at the long lines of communication. So our ability to sustain ourselves, protect ourselves, test and prove our equipment that can operate in that environment and interoperate with our partners. So that was a long answer to your question. But I wanted to [provide] a fulsome response based on all that U.S. Army I Corps does and the important area that we do it and that's in the Pacific.

[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, I really appreciate you making linear of what is a really complex organization for folks to understand and hopefully, you know, the Army and your website, and other things that have been written about what Corps do in the Army is important. So hopefully our listeners, if they want to do a little bit of deeper dive, can look into that and contact us through the CLSC and we can put them in touch with the right people too. Based on that, and I know you're in touch more on how the Army and the Corps, how you're transforming the Corps and the corps echelon. But we're preparing, you know, for a war fight at the you know, at the end of the day, there's a lot of missions that we do related to things that are less in war. But ultimately, the Corps is a warfighting organization. And obviously, you don't need to be living under a rock to know that we've been working to transition into the Indo-Pacific greater, into greater and greater strength over the last decade plus. So noting that China's rising, can you put things a little bit into the context of how you see is the U.S. Army being prepared for a potential conflict with China?

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] That's what we think about every day. You know, we are prepared, but we've got to be more prepared to dominate. If you think about, the evolving character of war that we're seeing around the world right now. The army's undergoing transformation, this transformation that our Chief of Staff of the Army is driving. So it's in how we operate. It's how we train, to get ready. It's how we organize our forces for large scale combat operations. In any environment, but especially in the Pacific, as we have not operated, in the Pacific, in terms of conflict, you know, since, since Vietnam. And so, we are continually looking at how we can gain technical advantage, and adjust how we operate based on lessons we're learning as we do exercises and lessons we're learning as we watch, conflict in the Ukraine, conflict in Gaza.

Lessons that I learned when I was in in charge of Operation Inherent Resolve, in terms of our forces in Iraq and Syria. And so we continue to, to drive foundational readiness, for soldiers, and then adjust how we're organizing, and operating, based on emerging technology. An example that would be we're much more distributed now. And so we know we need to, to drive, our technology to allow us to have multiple command and control nodes, command posts on the battlefield, distributed over long distances. We need our firing positions, from our artillery distributed, operating in smaller nodes, but still being connected, to understand, where we are and more importantly, understand where the enemy is so we can bring, precision effects on them, both lethal and non-lethal.

And, we are, continuing to drive this effort along with the rest of the army, to share lessons with what we're calling transformation in contact. We have a brigade, the second Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. That is one of these transformation and contact brigades for the army. There's one in the 101st, one in 10th mountain and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment... and we're starting a second iteration of that. But these brigades are spearheading experimentation with technology and organization to help us see and understand the best way to operate, optimizing the technology that's available to match and dominate against threat capabilities that we are watching very closely. And so we leverage our Operations Pathways to make sure we can not only transform, but when we apply it in the Pacific, we are doing it in a way that we are testing our way of war and our technology to ensure it can work.

So every exercise we do in the Pacific is a rehearsal. And every rehearsal is also an experiment to make sure we are stretching the limits of what we have, to optimize our ability to dominate on the battlefield. 

[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, a quick follow up on that. So you bring it into the field. Are you able to pull some of our allies and partners into those types of new tech, to see how that works, with them. So it becomes a more of an integrated, type picture and interest them in, in, investing with us. 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Yeah, that's a great question. We certainly do. If you look at the Australian Army right now undergoing the largest modernization they've had in recent history. As we work with our Japanese partners, the Koreans that we're working with right now, making sure they are learning about what we're doing, we understand about their modernization. The Koreans are modernizing as well. I just got briefed on that today. And so we're able to, but every nation has their own budgetary concerns. Some are much further along, technology wise, than others. We're deliberate, though, about making sure, we are interoperable as much as we can be with those partners. And that's technology interoperable. That's procedural understanding. And, their systems and processes for organizing and executing the fight. And then the human aspect, which is the partnership, understand our culture, the environment which they live in, to make sure we are ready to operate with any of our partners in any of their countries, if needed. 

[Colonel Rich Butler] As you work and push the Corps into, you know, new warfighting concepts, in your mind, can you sort of, open your brain to us a little bit and describe how you see the character of war evolving? You mentioned that a little bit earlier. 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Well, I talked, about, the importance of, you know, decision dominance. You know, whoever has the information the quickest and makes the decision the fastest, is going to, has a much higher chance to prevail. It's like a bar fight. Usually the person that gets the first punch in wins that fight. And that's what we want to make sure we're able to do. And so if you look at our convergence that we do or our multi-domain operations that we have, making sure, we optimize our ability to, to see the enemy deeper, quicker than they can see us and then strike with precision, lethal [or] non-lethal, quicker to do either open up for the joint teammates we have. To operate, or to ensure we can finish on the ground. And so, an example of that would be, for, you know, transformation would be the decision dominance, the data processing or, or staff process. First, we organize with what we call a multi-domain effect cell. That'll help us, pull in, all the multi-domain effects from the joint team and organize it and sequence it so we can create windows of opportunity, to, either, strike deep, or see further or, or maneuver where they can't see us or we don't want them to see us.

So then we can have a position of dominance. So the multi-domain effect cell is something we worked on during an exercise in December. And we are now applying that and improving that, refining, the manning of that organization, the tools that they have in that organization, to, better and quicker, you know, more quickly, coordinate with different entities on the joint team and in our multinational partners to achieve the effects we want.

[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, as a quick follow on. All over the world, everyone talks about what do you think we're learning about war fighting between looking at what happens in Gaza and places like Ukraine and, and the way the authoritarians are sort of colluding with each other. And you've sort of mentioned both the, the capacity of the Army to do, rapid operations to the joint force and also the staying power of the Army. Are there any specific things you think we're learning out of Gaza, in the Ukraine, that portend what the future of warfare looks like? 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Absolutely. I mean if you just look at the number of drones flying every day in the Ukraine. It's unbelievable. And so there are low cost ability to, see further, drop munitions and, you know, first person view drones. I just saw on YouTube here last night, you know, first person view drones, attack on Russian soldiers or North Korean soldiers. So the evolution of drones, swarms of drones, which I saw was when I was in, Operation Inherent Resolve. Same thing there, except in a much larger scope and scale. You look at the electromagnetic environment, so the ability to get jammed, not have the use of GPS, degraded, denied communications.

The consistent contact you're in because of satellites, in different ways that adversaries can collect information on you, has a requirement for you to continually reposition, you know, command post are repositioned multiple times a day just to survive. The importance of resilient logistics, making sure you are thinking through how to sustain yourself, across all the different classes of supply, as we call it in the Army.

So that that the evolution of warfare, of the character of war is real and, staying in front of that is going to be a continuous race we're on. And we're driving that way, across the joint force within Indo-Pacific with Admiral Paparo and certainly in the Army and with General Clark in the Pacific, and General George, leading the Army with our transformational contact. A key aspect of our transformational efforts here with the character warfare changing is, the transformation contact allows us to get bottom up feedback and from the environment where we're going to operate.

So we will take, you know, that brigade I mentioned from the 25th ID is going into the Philippines. They're learning about and providing bottom up feedback on, you know, power generation. Battery life at 110 degree heat index is something we've got to think about. We put batteries on drones, we have in our radios, we have in our vehicles now.

And so thinking through how we generate power, so that's important. As you talk about technology transformation, we also have to make sure as we're transforming and preparing for conflict anywhere, we understand the impact on human beings at 110 degrees heat index in the Pacific. And so the physical stamina you need to have is part of the foundational readiness I mentioned for soldiers. The 25th Infantry Division has a specially built incline skills trainer. So every organization can get ready to walk up a gulch and does it for physical training every day, up a hill. They a different size steps on their trainer, which is a great way to stay ready for what you might have there.

And then as are also bottom up feedback for our health team. You know, we have a medical brigade. Health of the force is important. We learned during World War II, disease, non battle injuries were a real degradation on our formations because of, you know, malaria and other things, disease that can float around. And so being conscious of that, figuring out how to make sure we stay ahead of that during our, our exercises.

Operation Pathways is another, you know, readiness builder we have for being ready for the Pacific. But the technology and the character of war is, is something, the team is, is focused on. We get updates from the Ukraine often, and we share them quickly across the formation. So it helps us think and inform every, every level that's, that's transforming.

And we want everyone to have a transformational mindset. But so they are they were thinking that even without the technology, how do we got to stay ahead of adversaries that may have the satellites, the cyber, the EW capability and long range fires to make sure we can, we can dominate. 

[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, thanks. You brought a lot to that, that discussion. You started with robotics, which everybody keys in on. 

And it's not just the UAVs. It's robotics that assist human beings or do things that supplement human beings. And then you tied it to human beings, and you also tied it to the knowledge and the decision making tools that commanders are going to need at all echelons. That's aacritical thing that I think people who live in the ground terrain tend to think about more.

So thanks for that, because one of the things that's important to me, as I sort of watch the way the strategic and operational environment are playing out in conflict, is that drones have done, a wonderful job enabling defense, but we haven't quite figured out how do you transition things that are robotic with faster decision making tools to offense and those hard missions that really only ground forces, armies and Marine Corps on the ground and special operators can do related to a large scale land based breakout in each operation, a large scale amphibious assault, a large scale airborne operation, a large scale air assault. Those are only things that that an Army tied to the Joint Force can do, which require offensive operations and w'ere inherently an offensive oriented army. So you just you described a whole lot, there, that from a strategist standpoint of watching what the Chinese are up to and what the American forces and our allies and partners need to do, you know, to all come together to make sure you can not lose the first battle but win the final campaign.

All ties this together from technology to people. And it's the people that become the foundation of all that still. 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Yeah, I love it. You know, the last hundred yards is a thing, and we've got to be ready for the last hundred yards and making sure, we understand that and that that gets to the criticality of the home station training and in leveraging every day, even when we're not forward on pathways.

But [also] what are we doing to make sure we're ready? You know, physically, mentally, to outthink, and persevere here in the, the rigors of combat, is something we have to think about because, there is no greater challenge in my eyes based on what I've seen over my career. For human beings to be able to do that, and, you know, it starts with cohesion and having trust in those on your left and right, in your leaders, and then having confidence and belief in your own skills, and the desire to take, to do what's necessary to prevail on the battlefield.

And, you're right. It doesn't get talked about as much. 

[Colonel Rich Butler] You also mentioned multi-domain operations. Let's talk about that a little bit, if you don't mind. Can you describe a little about what's role the I Corps plays in multi-domain operations? 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] That is a, a great question. And, you know, we are experimenting with that, with every exercise on how we organize the command relationships for our multi-domain task forces.

And like I said, within, the Corps headquarters, we have a multi-domain effect cell. And so Corps integrate the joint capabilities, all domain effects from the joint force to enable a ground maneuver, and sometimes enable maritime maneuver or air maneuver. And so we employ those capabilities to achieve what we call convergence in that is, combining it all to create a, a window of opportunity for us or, prevent the enemy from achieving what they want to achieve.

And so it really allows us to preserve combat power and exploit these opportunities to gain marked advantage. And sometimes that marked advantage may start with, a convergence window to allow an air, deep air strike, which then allows us to see and understand where enemy long range fires, air defense capabilities are, where the radars are.

And then we, the next iteration, we've since we've been able to see and detect, we'll destroy them and then so on. And so it is, it's incredibly important for a Corps to provide that for divisions, but also for our joint partners, that we're fighting with. I mentioned what we've done with, multi-domain effects cell, and, you know, we have reps from all the domain space, cyber, to drive those effects. For me, until you see it in action and understand the different capabilities and the different coordination, to, synchronize the timing of them to create a convergence window is what we call it. Some call it pulse. It just takes practice. And because, we're co-located with a multi-domain task force in the Pacific, where we are wrapped by joint partners, that's the benefit of being stationed in Hawaii and Alaska and on Joint Base Lewis-McChord is where we're inherently at least with one partner.

We've got the Navy right up the road with two carrier strike groups now. Right up the road from us north to Seattle [and also] in, Pearl Harbor, Hickam and Schofield. So when we do our Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotations, the joint wrap is much larger than you have at the classic CTCs the armies run because they're located right there with them. And then when we do our joint exercises, I know you're familiar with from your time at INDOPACOM. That is a significant joint force that's there ensuring we're taking the time to connect, share, make sure we can share data quickly, have a common understanding of the fight with, you know, transformational technology to allow us to have the same common operational picture, same common intelligence picture, and kill chain, and actually rehearse and connect them during these exercises all contribute to our ability, to have multi-domain dominance.

And so as you think about the importance of the Pacific. A lot of people think, it's just a lot of water, but it is a joint theater. As I know you know, having been at the joint headquarters there and the joint theater, every member is critical for the for the fight. And everyone's bringing resources you need.

If you don't have joint fires, it's going to, it's going to be a quick fight. It won't go well unless you are wrapped in tight with your partners in the Pacific. And so our ability to do those exercises and rehearse with those joint partners and execute multi-domain operations is a huge opportunity for us that we can't pass up. And we get to optimize every time we do a joint exercise. 

[Colonel Rich Butler] One final question. And, not to scare the listeners, sort of the question about, like, what keeps you up at night? But what about a potential war in the Indo-Pacific are we not paying close enough attention to? 

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] This isn't going to be earth shattering, but it's based on my personal scar tissue having operated operational in Europe and the CENTCOM area. But the Pacific environment is like no other. The extended lines of communication across the Pacific, the contested logistics, but the extreme terrain on land, the humidity, the heat index I mentioned, you know, here in Korea, the, the mountainous terrain, often, you have to be ready for it.

And you have to understand the effects on your equipment. Both the equipment you ride in or transport on, as well as, you know, what you communicate with and the effects on, on your comms for that. And so being deliberate about understanding the environment, and making sure your equipment can operate can function in, in the environment, the high humidity, the winds.

So UAVs in the Pacific, you know, have to be rated for higher winds just based on, the winds coming off the sea when you hit an island. And so I think, that's what we need to be thinking about is, is being ready for the environment, making sure our transformational effort is tested and proven in that environment as we go to scope and scale with the technology. But also with just how we organize and operate, getting used to doing that.

If you look at history Rich, you know, look at the Battle of Buna and what the environment did to the formation of World War II. You we will [see what we] take for granted. And we can't [do that]. Then, sustaining ourselves in this environment is extra hard. You know, we're learning that and we're going to use robots if we can [and] build their capability to operate on the land. But in this environment, you know, we may have to use water buffalo at times, because vehicles won't make it up some of these hills, down some of these small paths. Certainly some of our vehicles are too big for the roads or heavy for the bridges. So conscious on how we've got to operate in that environment.

[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, thanks for that and appreciate your time coming on the podcast today. And with that, we'll call it a wrap, sir. Thanks for your for your time. And listeners, you can learn more about the China Landpower Studies Center at https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/CLSC. For more Army War College podcasts, please check out Conversations on Strategy, Decisive Points, SSI Live, and A Better Peace. Sir, with that, thank you very much.

[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Thank you.

Keywords: jungle environment, Arctic warfare, strategic flexibility, Indo-Pacific, Indo-Pacific, decision dominance, multi-domain operations, drone swarms, satellites, Operation Pathways, strategic and operational environment, China, PRC, PLA, cyber, CENTCOM, 

You're listening to CLSC Dialogues, a China Landpower Studies Center production. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the U.S. Army War College, or any other agency of the U.S. government. I’m Jake Rinaldi, a defense analyst at the China Landpower Studies Center.

Jake Rinaldi:

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how Chinese leaders conceptualize protracted war.

Joining us is Dan Rice, the China political and military subject matter expert at Marine Corps University. He’s also the CEO of the geopolitical analysis firm Foreign Brief and president of Dongfeng LLC, his consulting company. Dan has published on Chinese strategy and the PLA with various think tanks, academic institutions, and U.S. Department of Defense China centers.

00:00:57:18 – 00:01:25:15

Rinaldi:

He recently published an article—completely in Chinese—with Taiwan’s National Defense University on countering dual-front threats in the maritime domain. We’ll be talking with Dan about research he presented at the 2024 Carlisle Conference on the PLA. His paper explored how the concept of protracted war—a war lasting months or years, consuming vast quantities of munitions, equipment, and lives—appears in Chinese publications from party, state, and military institutions.

00:01:25:18 – 00:01:30:00

Rinaldi:

Dan, welcome, and thank you for being here. Excited to see this paper published.

00:01:30:02 – 00:01:34:17

Dan Rice

Jake, thank you very much for having me. It’s always a pleasure talking with you—really looking forward to this.

00:01:34:19 – 00:01:46:28

Rinaldi:

Let’s start with a quick overview of the paper you wrote for our conference. What’s your central argument or the most interesting or surprising conclusion you reached?

00:01:47:00 – 00:02:13:26

Rice:

Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot to unpack, but I think the big takeaway is that the way China officially discusses protracted war is slightly different from how we’ve been approaching it.

At the conference, we tried to define what protracted war is and where it fits in our framework. But the way they approach it—across the institutions you mentioned—looks more like a grand strategic framework than a purely military one.

00:02:13:26 – 00:02:54:29

Rice:

So instead of viewing it solely as a military concept, they’re incorporating Mao Zedong’s ideas about protracted war into various aspects of grand strategy.

It’s a bit of a conceptual tangle at first, but it offers insight into trends we see in the news or broader CCP strategic behavior.

00:02:55:02 – 00:03:22:14

Rice:

This is really a whole-of-government, whole-of-civilization type of fight. That was probably the biggest takeaway.

And then, of course, we focus a lot on the PLA—you at CLSC and me at MCU.

For the PLA specifically, one of the most interesting ideas came from a PLA-affiliated author who discussed not a protracted battle per se, but a protracted process of war—emphasizing preparation, technology development, and gaining small edges in military-adjacent areas to build power.

00:04:24:15 – 00:04:49:06

Rice:

Those were some of the more interesting insights. Personally, I learned a lot from the research and appreciate CLSC for the opportunity to be part of the conference and dig into this topic.

00:04:49:08 – 00:05:12:27

Rinaldi:

Absolutely—a really interesting and well-written paper. Your use of the term "military tangential" really highlights a core theme: the idea of protracted war often appears in economic or national policy discussions rather than strictly military ones.

00:05:12:28 – 00:05:38:13

Rinaldi:

You did find some PLA Daily articles and other military writings, but why do you think the Chinese shy away from discussing protracted war in a military context?

Does it reflect confidence in their ability to win a quick, decisive war—or is it more about political constraints on media and scholarship?

00:05:38:15 – 00:05:42:18

Rinaldi:

That seems like a really important question.

00:05:42:21 – 00:06:21:25

Rice:

Yeah, and it’s a really interesting one. You kind of have to read the tea leaves, because they don’t say it explicitly.

But I’d guess it’s not about confidence in winning a short, sharp war.

In fact, in talking with colleagues, we’re still trying to figure out if China has ever used the term “short and sharp war” to describe a conflict with the U.S.—and the answer is probably no.

00:06:21:25 – 00:07:01:14

Rice:

Many Chinese sources suggest the opposite: that a war with the U.S. wouldn’t be short. They often avoid the term “protracted,” but the implication is that it would be long.

That likely connects to history. Under Xi Jinping, there’s been a significant emphasis on studying party history and strategic thought. The CCP and PLA share very similar strategic roots.

00:07:01:14 – 00:07:27:00

Rice:

So it’s partly about using party history—particularly Mao Zedong Thought—to frame modern challenges. There are probably a number of reasons for this approach.

00:07:27:02 – 00:08:06:01

Rice:

One possibility is that Xi used protracted war discourse to consolidate ideological leadership before securing his third term.

A group of authors from CITIC—China International Trust Investment Corporation—even tried to redefine protracted war in economic terms.

00:08:06:07 – 00:08:49:04

Rice:

They published that book in 2016—right around the time the 14th Five-Year Plan was coming into focus.

So the concept of protracted war became a sort of thought-leadership tool aligned with Xi’s emphasis on party history and long-term planning. It helped lay the ideological groundwork for that Five-Year Plan, which coincided with Xi’s third term.

00:08:49:07 – 00:09:23:11

Rice:

So really, it’s a way of consolidating party strategy and thought under Xi.

They’re using these older, not-always-successful models to address modern challenges—and to support Xi’s vision for China’s future.

00:09:23:11 – 00:09:44:27

Rice:

That thinking also informs how they approach different domains, including the military—but always as part of a broader, more strategic framework.

00:09:44:29 – 00:10:17:11

Rinaldi:

Very interesting. At the conference, there was a lot of discussion about China’s so-called “gray zone” tactics—low-level confrontation strategies.

Some participants even argued that we’re already in a protracted competition with China.

Do you think that’s a useful analytical lens?

Rice:

Yeah, fantastic. I think “protracted competition” is actually a pretty apt way to describe it. And I incorporated this into the paper that you guys are publishing. I did the due diligence of buying that CITIC Press book and reading through it—though it’s not from the PLA; it’s more of an economic strategy book. But what I found fascinating was its descriptions of globalization and, in particular, its take on the Thucydides Trap with the U.S., framed under protracted war theory. It emphasized the need to avoid an existential battle with the U.S.

And that’s a core idea of protracted war: many small, decisive engagements instead of one large, existential battle. The way to avoid that kind of decisive conflict is through gray zone or coercive activities that fall below the threshold of open war. If the strategy is to gradually accumulate favorable, small-scale victories to shift the balance of power, then these quasi-war operations—what I’d call coercive activities or PLA operations—are key tools.

That’s how you start to shift the balance without engaging in a full-scale, existential fight—or what some might call the Thucydides Trap: a large-scale war with the current hegemon. So when we say “protracted competition,” I think that’s a fair description. Their writings reflect that, across different levers of comprehensive national power.

They also talk more broadly—not always directly tied to protracted war—about using coercion to gain advantage. And, quick plug: we’re standing up a Journal of PLA Studies at MQ. One of the first articles will be a comprehensive look at operationalizing PLA coercive activities.

There’s a broad spectrum across PLA services and fields where they envision applying pressure—whether it’s to deter or compel adversaries—to shape international conditions for China’s rise. So stay tuned for that.

Rinaldi:

That sounds very, very interesting. Important work. A lot of what we’re discussing is how Mao’s writings are being resurrected—whether for political mobilization or analytical framing of U.S.-China competition, or even just China’s broader regional goals. So I wonder: to what extent does this modern framing signal a shift in how China approaches global competition or national security?

And how much of it is really a departure from historical PRC policies and rhetoric in these areas?

Rice:

Yeah, excellent questions. And I think there are a couple layers to each of them.

First, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a shift. Earlier we talked about the political backdrop to this resurgence in discussion of protracted war. I’d say it’s more of a refocus—or maybe a doubling down—on how China has traditionally approached both grand strategy and military conflict.

Mao’s On Protracted War came out of the Chinese Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War—what we’d call the beginning of WWII. But it was also invoked during the Korean War, though not as successfully. At one point, someone in the CCP even asked Mao to write an update—On Protracted War 2.0, so to speak.

So it’s not just a one-off historical moment. The CCP has revisited protracted war multiple times. And with Xi Jinping leaning more toward the “red” than the “expert,” he’s drawn back to older, tried-and-sometimes-true strategies. So I wouldn’t call it a major shift. But the rhetoric surrounding it does suggest a more aggressive way of framing international problems.

Now, folks listening might say, “China’s always aggressive,” or maybe, “No, they’re not.” But if you’re looking through a red lens, what you’ll see is the persistent duality of internal versus external. Protracted war addresses both.

When applied to international policy, it suggests a kind of existential struggle against a major external force. So yes—it comes off as more aggressive externally. But internally, too, it signals something.

Invoking protracted war means something to the domestic audience as well. And that’s where the duality really shows. While it may trigger concern or resistance among regional players—especially after they published that terminology in party meeting minutes—they quickly scrubbed it from the record.

You can still find it through secondary sources if you dig deep, but they realized, “Oh wow, this comes across as aggressive.” So yes, it might rattle China’s neighbors—but domestically, too, the idea of protracted war carries weight. It’s not exactly friendly.

So overall, the tone is a little more grim, a little more tense. But definitely worthwhile to study further—especially as we see how this rhetoric gets tested internationally.

They’ll sometimes roll out terms like protracted war, see how they land, and if they’re too aggressive, they pull them back. So we’ll see how it plays out. But if you try to take a neutral stance on this, it gets even more interesting.

00:19:43:11 – 00:19:58:24

Rice:

We over here—you at CLSC, me at MSI—and our colleagues in the other DoD China centers are really starting to dive into this problem at the same time that China is starting to talk and dive into it as well.

00:19:58:26 – 00:20:24:22

Rinaldi:

Absolutely. I think that’s kind of where I’d like to finish up, too—with a final question. How do you anticipate protracted war continuing to play a role in your research, particularly? But also, how do you see it evolving in our field? As China subject matter experts, what analytical problem sets should we be looking at related to protracted war?

00:20:24:25 – 00:20:51:22

Rice:

Sure. So first and foremost, I think like we just mentioned—nothing is ever really all that new—but this is certainly an interesting time to be relooking at the issue and recontextualizing what it means. That’s true both for us on the blue side, as well as for China.

00:20:51:24 – 00:21:19:24

Rice:

It will absolutely play a role in research, because I think what we can glean from the current situation is that both sides understand this would not be ideal. Protracted war is not good for anyone. If we were to engage in it, the outcomes would be significant—honestly, world-altering.

00:21:19:24 – 00:22:07:23

Rice:

So as we look at the reconstruction of protracted war into, as you’ve suggested, protracted competition, what are the military implications for us? I think we’re already starting to see some of those bubbling up—strong pushes on both sides into smart systems, drones, and AI-enabled systems. What the PLA would call the “intelligentization” of warfare. That pursuit of a military edge in technology is mirrored by our own reexamination of the defense industrial base, trying to spin it back up to speed.

00:22:07:26 – 00:22:45:11

Rice:

China may be a bit deeper into that game—although there are all sorts of variables affecting it—but their focus on building out those capabilities clearly plays into this concept of protracted competition. I think that’s something we’ll need to understand in greater and greater detail, especially as we approach some of the big milestone years ahead.

00:22:45:17 – 00:23:07:26

Rice:

Right—and not to name them specifically—but if you know, you know. So I think those moments are going to be very important. And one thing I took away from the recent conference was our effort to figure out what protracted war even means.

00:23:07:26 – 00:23:41:23

Rice:

One answer someone gave was, “Thirty days—that’s protracted war.” And I was like, really? Desert Storm took a little longer than that, right? Depends on if you’re talking about the Air-Land campaign or the broader conflict. It’s about 32 days, give or take. So when we look at this concept, we need to take a more holistic view of what it means—and what it means for the Department of Defense as we prepare for a protracted competition.

00:23:41:25 – 00:24:01:21

Rice:

And I think if we do that—if we really lean into that kind of thinking—it’ll help us move into the future more prepared, no matter the outcome. It’s always better to be overprepared than caught unawares.

00:24:01:23 – 00:24:07:24

Rinaldi:

Absolutely. Super insightful. Dan, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

00:24:07:26 – 00:24:09:26

Rice:

Thank you, Jake. It’s been a pleasure.

00:24:09:29 – 00:24:23:25

Rinaldi:

Listeners, you can learn more about the China Landpower Studies Center at ssi.armywarcollege.edu/CLSC—that’s the abbreviation for the China Landpower Studies Center.

Keywords: China, PLA, Taiwan, maritime domain, protracted war, technology development, global competition, national security, historical PRC policies, Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong

In this episode of CLSC Dialogues, Brian Carlson interviews David Stone, a Russia expert from the U.S. Naval War College, about potential forms of support that Russia might or might not provide to China in the event of a protracted war in the Indo-Pacific. They discuss the likelihood of direct Russian military intervention in support of China, possible ways that Russia might create distractions for the United States and its allies and partners, and Russia’s ability to support China by providing additional weapons, ammunition, or energy supplies. They conclude with a discussion of the likely future trajectory of the China-Russia relationship.

Keywords: China, Russia, protracted war, defense cooperation, energy supplies

Episode Transcript

You're listening to CLSC Dialogues, land power in the Indo Pacific, a China land power studies production. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, U.S. Army War college, or any other agency of the U.S. government.

I'm Brian Carlson (USAWC/SSI), research professor of Indo Pacific security studies at the China Land Power Studies Center at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College.

HOST (Brian Carlson)

Joining me today is David Stone of the William E Odom professor of Russia studies in the Strategy and Policy department at the US Naval War College. He has published extensively on Russian military history and foreign policy.

Thank you for joining us today, David.

STONE (David Stone)

My pleasure to be here.

HOST

David and I were on a panel together back in October at the PLA conference sponsored by the China Land Power Studies Center and the topic of our panel was China's cooperation with strategic partners in the event of protracted war.

David's paper focus on likely assistance that Russia could provide to China in that kind of eventuality.

My paper attempted to look at how China views strategic partnerships in that kind of situation, and I also focused primarily on Russia.

That will be the main topic of our podcast today.

We'll discuss potential Russian support for China in the event of protracted war, and then we'll end by talking a little bit about the likely future trajectory of the China Russia relationship.

So, in my paper, as I say, I attempted to analyze how China views strategic partnerships and the kind of support that they might expect from Russia and other partners in the event of protracted war. Now Chinese leaders don't say much about this. Perhaps not surprisingly. They might want to protect the confidentiality of discussions with their Russian counterparts.

It's possible that they also don't have a clear understanding of what kind of support Russia might provide in the event of protracted war.

The only official statement I could find on this came from last summer, when a Russian journalist at the newspaper Izvestia asked the Chinese ambassador to Russia what kind of support might China count on for Russia in the event of tensions in the Taiwan Strait?

And the ambassador essentially just reiterated the one China principle. He said that the international community recognizes this principle.

Russia has always supported China on it and we expect that that will continue in the future.

So, he didn't say anything about possible material assistance.

And some Chinese media coverage speculated on this some of the accounts said China's not showing its hand very much, or possibly the unspoken message is that China really isn't counting on Russia for much support.

And might view it as a liability and might not even want much support from Russia in that kind of case.

But there were also media accounts that said Russia could play a useful role, for example in intimidating other countries in the region that have become troublesome for China and Russia.

So, so I looked at it from that angle in the paper, and then David and I both discussed ways that Russia might possibly be of assistance to China in the event of protracted war.

So, we're going to discuss a few of those different topics today.

And so, David, the first question I'd like to ask you is if China were to find itself in a war, especially one that became protracted with a U.S. led coalition in the Pacific, how likely is it that Russia would provide any kind of direct military assistance to China?

STONE

So, that's a question that relates a lot to time horizon. I think in the near term, it's extraordinarily unlikely that Russia would participate. And part of that simply has to do with the commitments that Russia has with the war in Ukraine, there is just not a lot of resources left to give.

As we're taping this the Assad regime has just fallen in Syria, and I would note that as an intriguing example in that in Syria, Russia has a lot of very concrete interests at stake.

And appeared to have no resources available to try to prop up the Assad regime, even with an air base and a naval base in Syria.

And so, if the Russians aren't in a position to provide kinetic support to a direct ally in direct support of their own interests, at least in the near term, it's impossible to think that they'd have much to offer to the Chinese in the event of protracted war in the Pacific now, over the longer term, when the Ukraine war ends and it has to end at some point that might change, but at least in the near term I see it is highly unlikely.

I don't see it as particularly likely even in the long term, but that's a different set of constraints and a different set of reasons.

HOST

If we look at the long term and we consider the possibility of some kind of direct Russian military intervention.

What is the difference based on what kind of scenario we're talking about, for example, if it's a Taiwan scenario or a South China Sea scenario, is that a lot different from, say, a potential scenario on the Korean Peninsula?

STONE

I think it does make something of a difference, and it gets back to this question of Russian interests, Russian interests in the South China Sea are fairly marginal.

Certainly, Russia sees itself as having a cooperative relationship with the PRC and that is a Russian interest. South China Sea not particularly relevant to Russian interests. Korea, on the other hand, is right next door.

There's no direct border but very, very close; I am sorry, there is a direct border but it’s a short border. But Russia has a border with North Korea. Vladivostok is the key Russian city and port in the Far East is very close to North Korea.

And so, anything that happens in Korea matters a lot to the Russians. And so, what they might do would depend a great deal on what particular scenario we are talking about, it's easy for Korea experts to imagine bad scenarios, for example, the North Korean regime collapses and something has to be done and China, the US and South Korea have different ideas about what that might look like.

Or Kim Jong Un decides to be a little bit ambitious and attack the south. That's a very different scenario, but certainly Russia has more at stake in the game when it comes to North Korea.

HOST

We've started off by discussing possible scenarios in which Russia might or might not provide some kind of direct military assistance to China in a war, including one that became protracted.

Another possibility that we discussed during our panel was the possibility that Russia wouldn't directly intervene militarily.

But it might do certain things to create distractions for the United States and its allies and partners that could complicate the effort to fight China in a protracted war.

And it seems to me that there are , broadly speaking, at least a couple of different possibilities in this regard.

One would be in or near the actual theater of war, and another is far away from the theater.

So, on the latter point, China and Russia have built this partnership that allows them to not be worried about a threat from the other, so this has given them the opportunity to pursue their interests in their own regions.

We've seen Russia, of course, posing a dire threat to European security, while most notably with the war in Ukraine. While there are growing concerns about the potential security threat that China might pose in Asia.

So one possibility is that in a scenario of protracted war, Russia might do certain things in in Europe far away from the theatre of war in Asia that could create complications for the United States and its allies and partners.

The review Commission on the National Security Strategy, published the report last summer, saying that the US military isn't prepared for challenges, that it's likely to face in the coming years, especially from Russia and China and there's also been a lot of discussion about the fact that the US military isn't really equipped right now to fight simultaneous great power wars against Russia and China.

So, in the event of a war in Asia involving pitting China against a U.S. led coalition, if it became protracted, what do you think Russia might do? Are there certain things it might do in Europe to create distractions?

STONE

The fundamental thing I would say is that Russia will pursue Russian interests and if it can pursue Russian interests in a way that is of use to China, then that's fine.

But I don't see Russia as exerting a great deal of time, energy and risk for someone else's interests. So, the question would be, would a protracted war in Asia, which would certainly have enormous effects on American military commitments, American military resources, and the world economy would that create the for Russia to do something in Europe.

And I think that again this comes back to something of a short term, long term; in the short term, Russia really does not have a lot of resources to spare. I think given the constraints of the Ukraine war, if Ukraine was over and Russia had to recover, then that's a possibility even there, though, I think there's a limit.

One of the things that's been pretty clear about Vladimir Putin's foreign policy has been that he is quite leery of the prospect of a war with NATO, that seems to be something that he really does not want to risk. He's been quite careful to avoid that.

And with the loss of so much Russian land power in the Ukraine war, it's hard to imagine him wanting to start a war in Europe against NATO. Now non-NATO neighbors, that's a separate question. But at the moment at least, I think Vladimir Putin would be leery of that possibility.

Certainly, that is something that American planners need to be aware of, but at least in the short term and even in the longer term, I think a tangle with NATO does not see something like something that Vladimir Putin would choose as a voluntary act.

HOST

Turning then to scenarios in which Russia might try to create distractions closer to the theater of war in Asia. China and Russia have conducted a lot of joint military exercises in recent years - Ground exercises going back to 2005, Joint naval exercises going back to 2012 and more recently joint air patrols, and other activities.

And a lot of those activities, especially in recent years have been in the waters and airspace around Japan. And Russia has also on its own, flown near Japanese territory many times, forcing Japan to scramble fighters to intercept them.

And so, when we look at that and also the fact that China and Russia have done joint naval exercises in the East China Sea, not too far from Taiwan and reportedly there were Russian ships in the area just in recent days when China was doing major military exercises near Taiwan.

So, if we look at all of that what are some scenarios that you see in which Russia might not directly intervene militarily in support of China, but might do certain things to create distractions, particularly with regard to Japan?

STONE

Sure, and so this is a case where a potential threat may actually be more potent than an actual realized threat, a potential threat you can keep in advance for a long time, and it gives you a lot of options over the longer term. Once you use a threat then that that threat is expended.

And so, the Russians, as you say, have been engaged regularly in probing of Japanese airspace. And they've been the same thing in US airspace, sending aircraft to the air around Alaska and down the West Coast and Russia can do that at relatively low cost and relatively low risk but, that requires diversion of time and attention and platforms that could be quite bothersome in the event of a protracted war in the Western Pacific.

In a protracted war, obviously, systems and platforms and human time are going to be at a premium. And if the Russians can draw down the time and effort and attention of the United States and its allies without actually entering the kinetic fight, that's absolutely something they could do to assist a Chinese partner without necessarily putting their own material and their own people at risk.

And you can see some of the thing in in the naval domain as I have been talking in terms of sort of air sorties probing Japanese airspace, for example. But the Russians have demonstrated a capability, and this has been covered pretty widely in mass media of sending naval task forces to the Central Pacific.

And any war in the Pacific is going to have enormous logistical demands on all sides and all parties. And so that means a lot of things and people coming from the West Coast of the United States to the theater, traversing sort of Hawaii and Guam and moving to the to the Western Pacific. And if there's a Russian task force sitting in middle of the Pacific, American military planners and their partners and allies will have to take that into account and think carefully about the implications of that, even if those Russian ships never fire a shot.

Even if they never relay targeting information to Chinese, for example, could a US Commander be certain that wasn't happening and so there's a real kind of constraint that Russian naval power projected into the Pacific could put on US and coalition operations again, at very low risk and relatively low expense to the Russians, so they don't have to join a kinetic fight to make it harder for the US-led coalition to wage war.

HOST

And could that even affect the calculations of US allies and partners in the region? For example, if Japan were considering intervening in support of Taiwan, could Russian activities possibly make Japan think twice about getting involved at all?

STONE

Certainly possible, that gets into questions of sort of Japanese policy making and Japanese risk calculations. I'm not an expert but, I could speculate, but I really just don't know enough to say, but certainly if I'm sitting in the Japanese Ministry of Defense, I have to be conscious of a number of axes of potential threats, and Russia would certainly be one of them.

HOST

OK. Then turning to economic warfare, the theme of the PLA conference back in October was protracted war and if a conflict between China and a US led coalition were to become protracted, what would that mean for that conflict? And David, as you argued in the panel, when a war becomes protracted, then the economic warfare aspects of it become especially prominent and so in this sense, Russia's possible support for China in the energy realm seems particularly relevant - China and Russia have a long-standing energy partnership.

There are oil and gas pipelines transporting Russian oil and gas to China and in the period since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, China has greatly increased its purchases of Russian oil and gas, and at the same time, there are reports that China is greatly increasing its storage capacity for oil, gas, and other commodities, leading some people to wonder whether those might be part of preparations for anticipated warfare in the future, including potential protracted warfare.

All of that said, if war were to break out and then become protracted, how much could Russia help China in the energy sphere after the war has gotten started? The US Navy might impose a blockade on China that could cut off seaborne oil and gas shipments to China and in that case, China might look to Russia for overland shipments that would be more secure, but in that case, what's Russia's capacity to help supply China's needs?

STONE

Sure, as I mentioned at the panel, when you and I were discussing this and presenting it. Often times you'll get a kind of a blanket statement that Russia can solve China's energy problems in the event that things go bad and there's a there's war in the Western Pacific. To my mind, that hand waves a little bit the question of how it actually gets there, the concrete details of how energy gets to China.

So, if you'll indulge me, just for purposes of the podcast listeners, let me just give some figures that will help to illustrate the scope of the problem. So, take oil, modern economies depend on oil. China imports about 16,000,000 barrels per day of oil, sorry, it consumes about 16,000,000 barrels per day of, 11,000,000 barrels per day are imported, so roughly speaking, 2/3 of China's energy needs in oil are imported. Russia accounts for about 2,000,000 barrels of that 11,000,000 import.

Now, as you said, there's a lot of variables, a lot of things we don't know if it came to protracted war in the Indo Pacific. Would that involve a formal blockade? How close would that blockade be, and even if there is no blockade. I'm guessing that lots of ship owners and insurance agents wouldn't want to send their ships into war zones.

So, it would seem to be pretty clear that seaborne supplies to China would be disrupted. Could Russian landborne oil fix Chinas problems and the answer really is no. Russian pipeline oil is maybe 5 to 10% of Chinese imports and the nature of pipelines is that their capacity is their capacity you can't sort of surge oil through a pipeline. Most of the Russian oil that goes to China goes by sea, and so if seaborne oil is shut off most Russian oil to China shut off over the long term, you can build bigger pipelines, that is certainly something that you can do. Russia at the moment is really short on spare cash, the Ukraine war has meant that Russia does not have a lot of money to invest.

The nature of the geography here is that the distances are enormous, a lot of these pipelines would be built over areas of permafrost, which makes things a lot more complicated. So Russia could, conceivably, and China could conceivably build more pipelines capability but, that's going to take a long time and it's going to take a lot of investment and at least at the moment the Russians don't have that money to invest. So, that's oil, China can certainly stockpile oil and does but modern economies burn through an awful lot, and China's oil is overwhelmingly carried by sea. Russian land capability is only partially going to be able to make up for that. Let me turn to natural, that's the other big energy question in terms of imports, so China's total demand for natural gas is, roughly speaking, 35 to 40 billion cubic feet per day. Of that, under half of that is imported, that's still, let's say, 16 billion cubic feet per day of imported natural gas. Russian gas accounts for roughly speaking 1/6 of that, roughly 1/6 of Chinese imports. Like with oil, the over the majority of natural gas that gets to China comes by sea in the form of liquefied natural gas carried by sea. If there were an interruption to Seabourne supply, China, some of that Russian gas gets to China by sea, it would be cut off.

There is Russian pipeline gas that goes to China and there's quite a bit of Central Asian pipeline gas. But if you put those pipelines together, Central Asia and Russia, it's only maybe a third or 40% of Chinese imports and so can only cover a fraction of what China would need. Like with oil, you can build more gas pipelines, but that takes time and that takes a lot of money, and again, the geography here is important and it's a long way and the climatic conditions are not great, so Russia can alleviate Chinese problems of seaborne supply in the event of a war, but there's no way that Russia's going to be able to replace what China would be missing. So that, a long-winded answer, but I think the details are fairly important here just to get across the scale of the problem.

HOST

And going back for just a second, there was one other issue I wanted to discuss in the military realm and that is the possibility that Russia could provide arms and munitions to China after the outbreak of war, especially if it becomes protracted. China and Russia have a long-standing defense relationship and Russia has been China's main foreign arms supplier over the last 30 plus years.

And in recent years, Russia has provided certain systems to China that have been very significant. The S400 air defense system, SU-35 fighter jets, both of those systems improve China's ability to control airspace around Taiwan or the Senkaku Islands or other areas and could potentially complicate US efforts help defend those. But if war were to break out and become protracted, how much could Russia do to help China in this area in terms of providing additional systems or providing ammunition or help with repair and so forth?

STONE

So, two big questions there, one again as I have been saying over and over and I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but I think it's really vital is we are looking at the short term of the long term? In the short-term Russian capability is being spent almost as the Russians are expending almost as fast as they are making in the Ukraine war. There's been some good open-source reporting on this. Ukrainians have done analysis of serial numbers on Russian missiles and missiles basically, as soon as they come out of the factory, they're being sent Ukraine and so the Russians don't have a lot to spare while the current war is going on. When the current war is over, if Russia keeps building at the pace that it's been doing, then that would create pretty quickly a pool of equipment that the Chinese could potentially use. But couple things to say there, one is the Russians are going to want those for themselves they need to rebuild our stockpiles when the Ukraine War finally ends. The Russian economy is under a great deal of strain. The Russian interest rates are high, inflation is high, the Russians are very short on labor. They are straining a lot to maintain their current levels of production of military equipment, and it's not clear that once the war is over, that's going to be sustainable. So, you can't just take what Russia is producing right now and assume that will be the case five years from now, or 10 years from now, the Russians might or might not maintain that so there's a short-term, long-term issue. There's also the question of what exactly we're looking at in terms of things going bad in the Western Pacific.

It's easy to imagine lots of bad scenarios and some of those bad scenarios would be very land heavy, let's say things go bad in the Korean Peninsula, that's a war that presumably could involve a lot of land power and land systems. If it's a conflict over, say, the Senkaku’s or over Taiwan, that would put a premium on air and sea systems. And the thing to note there is that Russia can and does produce very high-end sea and air systems and air and naval platforms, but their production is very slow. Russian military industry can produce some very high-end aircraft, ships and subs but, it does that very slowly.

It's very hard for the Russians to get serious serial production going so again there's a limit to how much they can pass off to the Chinese given the constraints on how fast they can build things. The Russians have been building some very impressive new Subs - ballistic missile subs and guided missile subs but, they don't have a lot and they're going to want those for themselves. Things like missiles and air cruise missiles or ballistic missiles, or air defense missiles are those things that are being used a lot in Ukraine, that the Russians are building up. Presumably they could pass those on to the Chinese if the Russians are willing to do that, and if they feel like they've built up their own stocks.

The other thing to think about, and this is going to be again hard to know until the Ukraine war finally ends. The Russians have been forced to rely on a lot of Chinese kind of intermediate goods. Given to some things that a public statements by the Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense, the Department of Defense has not accused the Chinese of giving the Russians lethal aid, but they've come close to saying that it seems like generally the Chinese are giving components and selling components to the Russians if things go bad in the Western Pacific and China is fighting a war, the odds that it's going to be sending components to Russia rather than using it themselves seem to be pretty slim.

So, one of the big constraints on Russian production now is getting components from China. If those components from China stop coming, it's not clear what the Russians can build. So those are the kinds of variables that I think we need to be thinking about. How soon are we talking? Is the Ukraine war over? What kind of war is this – is it a land, is it primarily in the air and sea domains? And then can the Russians produce without Chinese intermediate goods? Those are all still I think kind of up in the air and undetermined.

HOST

Speaking of the support that China has provided to Russia since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and this can be kind of a transition into our concluding discussion about the long term trajectory of the relationship. But clearly China and Russia have gotten much closer over the course of the last 30 plus years, especially since 2014 and the Russian war in Ukraine since 2022, it seems to have accelerated this trend. Russia has become even more dependent on China, economically, diplomatically and potentially in in the military sphere as well. So, do you see a possibility and you mentioned earlier that Russia will act in its own interests, not in Chinese interests, but is there a possibility that Russia is becoming so dependent on China that for the sake of preserving that partnership it might go beyond what it would like to do in helping China and that China might, even under certain circumstances, be able to put pressure on Russia to do its bidding to help it in the event of a protracted war.

STONE

Yeah, so, the question you raise here gets at the much bigger question of the long-term potential for the Russia, China relationship. I think the Ukraine wars in some ways instructive, right before the Ukraine War, Xi Jinping and Putin pledged sort of like “full throated support”, there was for some particular type of language that was used. And what we've seen is certainly Chinese support but, it's hard to argue that that support has been everything that China could do. Looks as though by and large, China has refrained from providing lethal aid to Russia. Certainly, no Chinese troops. North Korean seems like, but not Chinese. The Chinese have not been a bulwark of the Russian war effort like the Russians might like.

And so I think that may signal that if things go bad in the Indo Pacific, what Russia might reasonably expect to get back to China if China is not working particularly hard to get a Russian victory, not sure that Russia would work particularly hard to get a Chinese victory but it certainly doesn't want China to lose a war; China is a valuable partner. And then this gets the question of also, what leverage would China have if again we're working in terms of a very bad scenario of a war in the Western Pacific that goes long. That would suggest China has plenty of stuff on its plate to handle. That's going to be a huge commitment of resources for everybody concerned and leaving aside the disruption of the world economy. Would China be in a position to spare time and energy to coerce Russia in the midst of a long war with the US and partners in the Western Pacific? I'm not sure, I’m not clear that that is the case. And the other thing I would say, and this will start to transition us to thinking about the long-term arc of Russia China relations.

The Russians have thought about that possibility, and they use to in the not so recent past exercise what it would look like if China tried to sort of strong-arm Russia. The Russian military exercises work on a cycle. Basically, they rotate on a four-year cycle around the country. And so, you can look and enter time which Russian neighbors going to freak out every four years when the exercises roll around again and a stock or east in Russia, the eastern exercises come every four years, and Russia and Vostok exercises in 2010 and 2014 and those exercises were characterized by the Russians preparing to fight a big Continental Army and the rhetorical question would be how many big Continental armies are there on Russia's eastern borders? There's only one and it's China. Now it is absolutely the case that more recent versions of the Vostok exercises have not looked like preparing for potential war with China. But nonetheless, 2014 is not that long ago. So, I think there's some Russian concern about the long-term prospects of the Russia-China relationship, certainly right now Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have this kind of bromance, they actually seem to actually like each other. Putin does not appear to have many friends and maybe Xi Jinping is one of them. And they both see themselves as working in opposition to an undermining a US led kind of Western centered world order. But that's a kind of transactional relationship, and that's a relationship that depends on particular circumstances. And the question of how long that lasts, and how much, it depends on the two particular people involved, Putin and Xi Jinping, those are questions that may not speak to the long-term health of that relationship. There's optimists and pessimists on the question of where the China-Russia relationship is going. But certainly, there are reasons to think it might not last again. This will set up, I think, some other things we may want to discuss.

So, to sort of summarize the current relationship, they have not formed a formal military alliance, the 2001 treaty that they signed envisions certain scenarios in which either country would perceive a threat to its security and under those scenarios the treaty obligates them to consult with each other to try to remove the threat but no mutual defense guarantee the defining characteristic, as they're usually defined of military alliance.

HOST

And as you mentioned, not long before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, about 3 weeks before that, Putin was in Beijing and he and Xi Jinping issued a joint declaration in which they declared that their friendship had no limits and there were no forbidden zones of cooperation. But as we've seen in the period since then, although China has assisted Russia in many ways in the course of that war in Ukraine, there are in fact limits on how closely they have cooperated. And so that's sort of the current situation and I think you covered several of the key issues here. China and Russia want to work together to weaken US power and to weaken US leadership of the world order. They have a close personal, they have a shared desire to uphold regime security, they believe that that's constantly under threat from the West and from the United States. And so that seems to provide a pretty durable relationship basis for the relationship, at least for the near-term future, at least as long as Putin and Xi are around and maybe longer, depending on how their successors and their regimes look like.

But you in the course of this podcast have described many of the limitations on the relationship, you've described limitations on what Russia could do to support China in a protracted war, and also the limitations that we've seen on what China has been able to support Russia, on ways that China has been able to support Russia in its war in Ukraine. Looking forward, do you see certain factors that could not only lead to a stagnation of the relationship, but over the long term, could even drive them apart, as you say, it wasn't long ago that Russia was doing military exercises, envisioning a possible Chinese invasion and Russia has long term concerns about the underpopulated and underdeveloped, Russian Far East and Siberian regions, which are bordering China and what China's long term intentions might be for those regions, do you see the possibility, maybe not in the immediate coming period, but over the slightly longer term that China and Russia could actually diverge and that this close relationship could come apart.

STONE

Yeah, I do think there are potential wedges between them, and I've been talking about short term versus long term and in the short term, I really don't see those as operating because both countries, see too much of a shared interest in trying to undermine a kind of Western world order. And when I say Western, I recognize Western world order includes South Korea and Japan and countries that you wouldn't describe geographically or culturally as Western.

Over the longer term, though, you've alluded to many of the things that that are problematic in that relationship. Demographics is one of them. China is in desperate need of resources and arable land for a large population. One of the things I like to do for students is show them, just go to Google Maps and satellite view and do a look at the border between Russia and China and Manchuria and what you see, and it leaps out, is that on the Chinese side of the border, there are towns and cities and plowed fields and on the Russian side of the border Manchuria there's nothing. So, you have a very large population right next to a chunk of Russia that’s empty and that's a long-term problem that Russia has been aware of for a very long time.

You know we talk in this country about the yellow peril, this storied idea of the danger of this enormous Asian population overwhelming Europe and the Western white races. It's very like 19th century, but you don't have to look very hard in Russia to find elements of that that are still around. Because of the populations, because eastern Russia is so sparsely populated, and China simply is not. So that's going to be a long-term issue. The Russian military thinks in those terms. I've heard it's speculated and it's hard to say for sure, but one of the reasons why the Russians are so eager to maintain tactical nuclear weapons is because part of Russian military thinking is if we have to fight a massive Chinese army, we don't have the manpower to do it, we would need to go with tactical nuclear weapons. That is speculation I have seen, but I don't know that for a fact, but there's a kind of logic to that and that kind of long-term issue is a problem for the relationship.

Central Asia is another interesting one, certainly the Russians have historical connections to Central Asia that were the five countries of Central Asia were part of the Soviet Union; many of the elites are still Russian speaking, Central Asian elites will still go to Russia for university. The security structures often look to Moscow, but China is certainly seeing Central Asia as part of its natural, legitimate sphere and there's an incipient tension there, I think. Often what is happening is that Russia tends to have a more dominant role in security spheres in Central Asia. China is increasingly asserting an economic role, whether that's selling consumer goods or buying energy or building infrastructure and I think there's a long-term potential for a clash there between those two interests with Russian interest deteriorating over time and Chinese growing overtime. Whether Russia's going to be comfortable with that is I think an open question and something that over the long term might cause some issues.

There's also, interestingly, some questions about Arctic that are fairly subtle, but I'll just go into them briefly here. Though as a result of global warming and climate change, passage through the Arctic along the northern edge of Russia is much more practical and viable than it had been. And the Russians think a lot about this, this Northern Sea route across the top of Eurasia presents opportunities, but also dangers from the Russian point of view, this is a frontier that they didn't really need to worry much defending and now they do. Now they need infrastructure in the far north to deal with this. But the Russians always talk about that as Russian territory, these are Russian waters, this is a Russian question that the Russians will decide. When China talks about interest in the Arctic, China always phrases this in terms of that the Arctic is a global common and a global resource for global partners to exploit and use on a global basis. And you've actually had times in places where Russian scholars will point out that the Chinese are making very expansive claims about territory that's Russian. This is a very low priority at the moment, but overtime I think it's an issue that has real potential to cause some kinds of concern over the Arctic. What is resources are going to be used? How it's going to be used as Commons and how those Commons are going to be governed by either territorial states that have territorial claims or by some more kind of multilateral framework.

HOST

Well, thank you, you've mentioned several sources of possible tension in the China Russia relationship, you also mentioned the Vostok 2010 exercises and the issue of tactical nuclear weapons and there were reports that in those exercises, Russia actually simulated the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the invading army and as you say, that wasn't that long ago, so I think it's correct based on my experience in Russia as well and people I've talked to that, that those fears about China's long term rise and intentions are there, although in the short to medium term, Russia has set aside those concerns, perceiving that they can use the partnership with China to help advance their mutual interest in trying to weaken the US-led international order.

So, I'll just conclude by asking if you care to make any kind of prediction about how long the trends that we see now are likely to continue, the trend of a close China Russia relationship and close cooperation, and when might we expect these the tensions that you described to become more prominent and potentially cause strain on the relationship?

STONE

So, Brian, that is a great question. And as an historian, I know that historians are terrible at predicting the future and again, this is fresh in my mind because as we're taping this the Assad regime just fell. A conflict that it seemed frozen for a decade, all of a sudden became unfrozen and things looked very different. And we simply don't know how the Ukraine world will finish. How that will end and on what terms and that's going to have an enormous effect on Russian policy going forward.

A Russian victory of some kind in Ukraine would have a very specific effect on that regime. A Russian loss would look very different as well so, it's extremely hard to say, so I'll fall back on my short term, long term in the short term, I don't see anything shaking the Russia China relationship in the long term I do think there are a number of trends that are going to push them apart but, how soon that operates, you know a large of it will depend on how long Vladimir Putin is in power and how long Xi Jinping is in power and there's no way to know the answer to those questions.

Well, thank you very much David, for joining me for this podcast, I've very much enjoyed this conversation, and I hope our listeners do as well. And for the information of listeners, a conference volume is coming based on the PLA conference that was held back in October. And our papers will be in that volume, which we hope to have published by the late spring sometime so, you can look for that. So, thank you very much for joining us. This has been classic dialogues, land power in the Indo Pacific, a China land power studies production. For more. War College Podcast check out conversations on strategy SSI live and a better peace.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

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Keywords: China, CCP, PLA, illiberal order, technology, military campaigning, integrated deterrence, open source analysis

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Keywords: China, U.S. Army Pacific, Indo-Pacific, operational environment, operational level of war, campaigning, planning, allies and partners, protracted war, command and control, posture, force modernization, protracted war, fires, maneuver, landpower

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mentoring, career, China, PLA, Landpower, open source analysis