https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...hina-grqc328bx
Army wants Cold War plan for China
Britain and its allies face a moment of truth over whether it is possible for the democratic world to peacefully coexist with China, the head of the military has suggested. The West needs to devise a long-term strategy to defend itself against Beijing’s expansionism akin to that adopted at the outset of the Cold War, General Sir Nick Carter said yesterday.
The chief of the defence staff used his annual lecture to the Royal United Services Institute to warn that Britain may need to adopt a similar way of thinking to its “authoritarian rivals” in Russia and
China to deny them the means to “take over our way of life” via cyberwarfare. He also said that Russia’s armed forces were “flexing their muscles in our own back yard with an ostentation they have not displayed since the Cold War” after a dozen of their warships and aircraft were seen off Scotland last month.
In remarks that reflect a shift in the military’s priorities away from traditional warfare, Sir Nick called for Britain to build a “digital sphere of influence” to combat threats from Beijing and Moscow.........
Sir Nick called for the review to take a “cross-cutting” approach to China and Russia, utilising “all of the instruments of statecraft, ideology, reputation, diplomacy, finance, trade policy and military power”.
Citing the “long telegram”, the 1946 dispatch on American relations with the Soviet Union by the US diplomat George Kennan, Sir Nick said that it was time for a reassessment of strategic thinking on relations with China in light of the “absence of global solidarity” throughout the pandemic.
“What’s needed is a catalyst somewhat like George Kennan’s ‘long telegram’ in which he observed that peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union in 1946 was unlikely to work,” he said. “This led to the Truman Doctrine of containment, which provided the basis of US and western strategy throughout the Cold War.”
Kennan’s treatise warned President Truman that the communist regime saw itself in a “perpetual war” with the West, directly and via its proxies, and that there was little if any basis for a conventional diplomatic relationship. Instead he advocated that the US and its allies pursue peaceful containment and deterrence, a doctrine that went on to underpin western defence and security policy throughout the Cold War.
Sir Nick endorsed proposals in a report by Nato’s internal reflections group last month, which called for the alliance to “devote much more time, political resources and action to the security challenges posed by China — based on an assessment of its national capabilities, economic heft and the stated ideological goals of its leaders”.
His comments reflect an emerging consensus that Beijing is engaging in warfare by stealth, the theme of another speech by Sir Nick last month.
While he acknowledged yesterday that Britain and its allies were not about to enter a conventional war, he said: “The threat of unwarranted escalation and therefore miscalculation is clear and present.” He stressed that the “most comprehensive modernisation of the armed forces since the 1980s” would involve conventional weaponry as well as cyberweaponry, and cautioned against suggestions that the army could scrap its tanks.
On the subject of Moscow he said: “Signalling to the Russian regime that we shall not tamely acquiesce should they escalate requires conventional hard power, warships and aircraft, as well as less conventional capabilities like cyber. It requires us to hold their backyard at risk, whether that’s in the Barents Sea, the High North, the Baltic or the Black Sea.”
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, told the Commons yesterday that the replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent was on track to enter service “in the early 2030s”.