US Foreign Policy in

a Turbulent Pacific

Hoover Institution Working Group on Military History

Interest, Fear, and Honor

THOMAS DONNELLY
The Meaning of Chinas Ascent

Military History

A HOOVER INSTITUTION ESSAY ON US FOREIGN POLICY IN A TURBULENT PACIFIC

There are two prisms through which to view Chinas rise to great-power status. Political
science and structural analysis provide one set of lenses; history and strategic culture
provide another. Alas, fairly considered, neither provides much reason to think that the
Peoples Republic will mature as a responsible stakeholder in the liberal international order
promulgated by the United States that is the framework for economic progress in China
andacross maritime East Asia.
Princetons Aaron Friedberg has been at the forefront in making the structural argument
about the dangers inherent in Chinas rise. His 2011 book A Contest for Supremacy: China,
America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia is a summary not only of his own writing but
that of political scientists more generally. The rivalry provoked by Chinas rise results not
from easily erased misperceptions or readily correctable policy errors. Rather, it is driven
instead by forces that are deeply rooted in the shifting structure of the international system
and in the very different political regimes of the two Pacific powers. Nor is this rivalry
simply a quirk of current circumstance:
Throughout history, relations between dominant states and rising ones have been uneasy
and often violent. Established powers tend to regard themselves as the defenders of an
international order that they helped to create and from which they continue to benefit;
rising powers feel constrained, even cheated, by the status quo and struggle against it to
take what they think is rightfully theirs.1

Friedberg never goes so far as to decree the contest to be inevitably violent. But hedoes
assert that Chinas purpose is to winthat is, establish itself as the hegemonic power
across East Asiawithout fighting. Nor does he believe that trade and economic
interconnectedness will, by itself, serve to limit Chinese ambitions. Given his analysis,
it is hardly a surprise that he recommends traditional balance-of-power methods,
includinga strengthened US posture in the region and what amounts to a strategy of
deterrence if not aCold-War-style policy of containment.
Even though Friedberg allows that China and the United States have antipathetic
political regimes, his argument stresses the structural differences rather than particular
characteristics. Yet the phenomenon of Chinas rise has given birth to a huge number
of works limning Chinese strategic culture. Although the number of explanations of
Chinese behavior probably exceeds the number of works, they do share an idea of China
as a singular and unique power still shaped by its imperial past. To Edward Luttwak,

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thesehistorical residues in Chinese conduct are reflections of the Tianxia, the all under
heaven that radiated outwardly from the emperor himself, giving order to the world,
confirming the distinction between stable tributary states and the barbarians beyond.
The effect was and remains a Sinocentric approach to strategy, which Luttwak describes
as a kind of great-power autism that allows Chinese leaders to look away from the need
for domestic reforms. In the end, Luttwak also argues for a US and coalition strategy of
deterrence but not a policy of containment.2
Sinologists Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell advance a more diffuse concept of strategic
culture driven by Chinas geographic vulnerability, emphasizing the weaknesses as well as
the strengths inherent in being the Middle Kingdom. In their reckoning, imperial mandate
is not a rigid imperative but a tributary framework that provides China with a repertoire
of[strategic] options.3
Sinocentrism was an idea sufficiently malleable that it could facilitate trade and legitimate
a range of diplomatic practices. The maritime subculture provided precedents of pragmatic
egalitarianism that China can draw on when it needs to. We have to analyze present
realities to explain when and how Sinocentric elements have remained useful in Chinese
diplomatic practice and when and how they have not.4

Given this somewhat Polonius-like assessment of Chinese strategic culture, Nathan and
Scobell have a more optimistic view of Chinas future. They believe that China and the
United States can establish a new equilibrium and that China has good reasons for choosing
this course. Further, they write, Even as the countrys military grows, it will continue
to need to invest in domestic security and territorial defense, which will make it hard to
project force on a large scale far from its borders.5 Thus, where Luttwak sees Sinocentrism
as a destabilizing and dangerous form of strategic autism, Nathan and Scobell believe
Beijings domestic obsessions will moderate its international behavior.
No survey of the strategic culture school would be complete without considering the views
of Henry Kissinger, who, more than anyone, has shaped American views of China for several
generations. Kissinger is a resolute Middle Kingdomist, asserting in On China (Clausewitzian
in its authoritative rhetoric as well as in title) that [a]ny attempt to understand Chinas
twentieth-century diplomacy or its twenty-first-century world role must begineven at
the cost of some potential oversimplificationwith a basic appreciation of the traditional
context.6
China is singular. No other country can claim so long a continuous civilization, or such
an intimate link to its ancient past and classical principles of strategy and statesmanship.
Other societies, the United States included, have claimed universal applicability for
their values and institutions. Still, none equals China in persistingand persuading its
neighbors to acquiescein such an elevated conception of its world role for so long, and

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inthe face of so many historical vicissitudes. From the emergence of China as a unified
state in the third century B.C. until the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China stood
at the center of an East Asian international system of remarkable durability.7

But whether understood as an emanation of internal and cultural motivations or as a

response to external and structural independent variables, an assertion of claims made in
the distant past or the result of rapid economic expansion and growing military might,
there can be little doubt that Chinas rise represents an undeniable and inherent challenge
to the current international systemglobally as well as regionallyand to the United
States as the guarantor of that system and its stability, shared prosperity, and broad political
liberty. Even the creation of a new equilibrium would represent a profound shift in the
balance of power as well as a precarious condominium between profoundly different
regimes.

Chinas Strategic Neighborhood(s)

From both a structural and cultural perspective, the odds on achieving equilibrium
lengthen when the geopolitical aperture is opened to take in the secondary and lesser
powers whose interests are entangled in Chinas rise. This is true not only for Chinas East
Asian littoral neighborhood but in continental Asia and, in fact, globally. In considering
Chinas effects on its neighbors, it may be necessary to begin with its maritime near
abroad, but sufficiency can only be found through a larger reckoning, which this paper can
only hint at. Chinese strategy for the region is an attempt to revive a quasi-tributary set
of relationships by dividing East Asian states from the United States, dividing the region
against itselfoften by stoking anti-Japanese resentmentsand establishing a new,
Beijing-centered order of tranquility.
Chinas territorial disputes with Japan represent the most proximate and profoundly
dangerous tensions in East Asia and reflect both structural and cultural imperatives in
Chinese strategy making. Japan is the wealthiest and most powerful state in maritime
East Asia, and its alliance with the United States makes it the central pillar of Americas
position in the western Pacific. Moreover, Chinas antipathy toward Japan is deeply
rooted, originating in the late nineteenth century when Chinas Qing collapse intertwined
with Japans Meiji modernization; Japans rise is an essential element in Chinas sense of
historical humiliation. Imperial Japans expansion into China from the 1930s through the
end of World War II, and the atrocities which attended it, exacerbated Chinas hatred of
Japan. The establishment of US hegemony in the region leaves China still resentful and
serves as a strong motivation to change the status quo.
Thus, this past February, two months after Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited the
Yakusuni Shrine honoring Japanese war dead but also the resting place of several World
War II war criminals, Fu Yung, the chair of the foreign affairs committee of Chinas Peoples

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National Congress, told the Munich Security Conference that Beijings relationship with
Tokyo was at its worst and that the Chinese were prepared to respond effectively to any
provocation that threatened the order of tranquility in the region. Until [the Japanese]
can take off the burden of history they keep on carrying on themselves, its very hard for
them to become a constructive member of [an] Asian partnership.8 Indeed, in the weeks
preceding Abes Yakusuni visit, the Chinese had asserted an air defense identification zone
in the East China Sea that also covered small islands belonging to Japan. In sum, ChinaJapan tensions have a logic of their own, independent and predating Chinas rise or Abes
election but also one inseparable from the US role in the region.
Beijings successful efforts to improve ties with South Koreawhich, at the time of
PresidentXi Jinpings state visit to Seoul, the Chinese described as hot in economy, warm
in politics and as having global strategic significancemark a recent initiative driven
by Chinas regional divide-and-rise strategy, increased instability in North Korea, and the
Republic of Koreas desire not to be caught between the United States and China. During
his visit, Xi was also at pains to emphasize common mistrust of Abe and shared historical
enmity toward Japan.9
Particularly under President Park Geun-hye, Seoul has attempted to fashion a bridging
strategy and avoid a zero-sum, either-or posture vis--vis China and America. Its unclear
whether such a happy outcome can be achieved or the strategy sustained; warier [Korean]
voices fear that Seoul is on a slippery slope that will ultimately envelop Korea in a Chinacentered political and economic order that will undermine Americas parallel alliance
arrangements in Northeast Asia.10 That would seem to fit neatly into Chinas strategic
plan. It also gives the Peoples Republic a kind of Korea card to play in the regional game
of thronesone that sidesteps the costs of dealing with the unpredictable regime in
Pyongyang. As Beijing reviews its maritime East Asia front, Seoul appears as a bright spot.
Looking southward at Taiwan, a hoped-for bright spot must look increasingly dark. Beijing
hoped that the return to power by the Kuomintang under President Ma Ying-jeou would
put Taipei back on a path to inevitable reunification, and indeed Ma has often been an
apparently pliant partner. But, if anything, the Ma yearswhich may be numbered; his
approval ratings rival those of the US Congressconfirm that the prospects for peaceful
reunification, or even reunification by intimidation short of the actual use of military
force, are not great. In this regard, the Taiwanese reaction to Chinese attempts to suppress
democracy in Hong Kong, and the tremendous protests they have sparked, reflects a
rejection of any one country, two-systems solution; when a KMT-run Mainland Affairs
Council expresses its regret about Beijings policies, its an expression of deep anger. The
Taiwanese have no wish to forgo their democratic forms of government or the sotto voce
but de facto independence that is the guarantee of that government. Neither deep trade ties
nor Chinese soft power nor an increasingly overwhelming military balance has served to
move Taiwan much closer to buckling to Beijings desires. Taiwans political identity, even

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among the KMT, is no longer simply Sinocentric. Like Japan, Taiwan remains a source of
tension with China, driven by its own internal dynamic.
Likewise, the tensions created in Southeast Asia, particularly between China and the states
rimming the South China Sea, are shaped by a mix of structural and political-cultural
factors. Chinas growing military capability and capacity threaten not just the geopolitical
and economic interests in the region but also touch a changing sense of self-regardof
national honorin places such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and even the Philippines. A quick
tour of the regional horizon reveals the durability of long-standing divisions but an
increased likelihood of conflict.
Vietnamese resistance to a Sinocentric Southeast Asia began a thousand years ago and just
a generation ago resulted in a brief but bloody border war that had little tangible strategic
purpose other than to satisfy Chinese amour propre. Although the current disputes over
the Spratly and Paracel island chains may or may not involve undiscovered but potentially
vast energy resources, they certainly involve issues of sovereignty that run deep for the
Vietnamese, to the point where Hanoi is investing heavily to upgrade its submarine fleet,
flirting with the United States in search of expanded military ties, and hinting at a more
substantive strategic partnership.11
Similarly, the Philippines increasingly view themselves as a front-line state facing Chinese
expansionism. Burdened with colonial memories, a fragile democracy, and a stagnant
economy, the Philippines have nonetheless increasingly welcomed a renewed US military
presence that is being shifted from an anti-salafist counterterrorism focus to broader and
more explicitly anti-Chinese purposes.12
Indonesia and Singapore, too, have been shaken out of their traditional hedgingbridging strategies in response to Chinas aggressive actions, even if they do not yet feel
directly threatened. Both retain a prickly sense of postcolonial independence, one that,
in Indonesias case, is buttressed by Jakartas ongoing effort at national consolidation
and centralization as well as a passionate and recent embrace of democratic governance
as the key to unity. Like the Philippines, Indonesia is gradually leveraging a successful
counterterror partnership with the US military to modernize its regular forces with a
view toward operations in and above the South China Sea and to subordinate its forces to
central and civilian control. Singapore has long relied on close military ties to the United
Statesand in recent years has rebuilt its port to accommodate US Navysized carriers
and has agreed to serve as home port for Littoral Combat Ships and is preparing to make
asubstantial purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.13
Increasing tensions in East Asia have, during the past decade and through changes of
governing party, confirmed Australia in its traditional strategies of forward defense and

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strategic partnership with the United States. In a series of defense white papers stretching
back to 2009, and in a 2014 effort anticipating a new white paper next year, the defense
ministry has concluded that Australias strategic environment has become more complex
as a larger number of countries (language that is, primarily, a euphemism for China but
also accounts for the regional response) grow in economic and military power and seek to
shape their strategic environment.14 In sum, with the possible exception of Malaysia, which
is mired in domestic political uncertainty and faces a growing salafist tendency of its own,
Chinas rise and its increasingly adventurous behavior touch on both the security interests
and the various domestic political cultures of Southeast Asian states in a way that presages
continuedif not increasingtensions and prospects for crisis and conflict.
Plotting Chinas strategic landscape would be incomplete without at least a cursory
discussion of its most traditional concerncontinental Asiaand its expanding global
activities, not least those that reach toward Russia, into the Indian Ocean, and toward the
Middle East. In each case, tensions are rising, and the prospects for involvement in regional
conflictsif only through quasi-proxies or as an offshore but interested great power
should be weighed. Begin with Central Asia, the historical source of the invading hordes
who have been the special btes noires of Chinese strategists. Beijings relations with the
long-lived, post-Soviet autocrats who rule these khanates are in pretty good condition
there is a shared political philosophy and something of an entente with Russiaboth
Beijing and Moscow agree that the first order of business is to isolate the region from
the West, particularly the United States. But Beijings imperial desire to suppress its own
Muslim population, the Uighurs of Xinjiang Province, and its policy of changing the
provinces demographics by planting Han Chinese there, is not only creating internal
problems but creating an opening for salafist terror groups. Although, to many in the West,
enlisting China in the campaign against Al Qaeda and its affiliates sounds like a stroke of
Kissingerian genius, a counterinsurgency with Chinese characteristics threatens to be a
cure worse than the disease. For the moment, the most likely explanation of rising violence
in Xinjiang remains Uighur nationalism, or split-ism as the Chinese still call it. Theres
a lot more veil-wearing than there used to be, a lot more face-covering than there used to
be, a lot more beards than there used to be, says Rian Thum, a Uighur expert at Loyola
University in New Orleans. But I dont see any direct connection between that and, say,
the attack on the market in Urumqi or the train station attack [in Kunming].15 It even
seems probable that the Chinese government is casting an Islamist veil over the situation
to obscure its purposes and framing its plans in a way that will resonate internationally.
Whatever the Uighurs motivation, the trend toward sectarianism and internationalization
of the conflict is notable; to the degree that China plays a bigger role in the global struggle
to suppress violently political Islamist groups, it will likely be with a heavy hand and,
equally, with effects that extend rather than end the conflict. The United States does not
need another radicalized and violent Sunni people, even one that originates on the farthest
side of the world.

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But over the long term, and perhaps including Japan, the most consequential set of
tensionscreated by Chinas rise may be those that involve India. There have been multiple
Sino-Indian wars and continuing disputes in continental Asia. But Chinas growing
abilityto project naval power into and across the Indian Oceanthe Peoples Liberation
Army/Navy has just sent an attack submarine to join counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of
Adenand its growing string of pearls basing arrangements with the likes of Pakistan and
Sri Lanka are opening a new theater of tension and potential confrontation. In response,
India has begun to reform and modernize its military, particularly its air force and navy;
that effort is a high priority for Indias new and nationalistic Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Indias strategy-making apparatus is creaky, and its Pakistan-first traditions will be hard to
shake for very good reasons. An emerging neo-Curzonian sentiment in New Dehli argues
in favor of a more vigorous and traditional, if still independent and nonaligned, form of
forward strategy that is commensurate not only with Indias changing assessment of its
security interests but also with its self-regard as an aspiring great power.
Lastly, it is hard to imagine that, as a global actor with a desperate need for cheap and
plentifuland cleaner-than-coalenergy imports, despite its much ballyhooed gas deal
with Russia,16 Beijing can resist the sucking force of the chaos and power vacuum that mark
the Persian Gulf and the Arab Middle East. Despite their neuralgia about state sovereignty,
their past temptations to play all sides of the fence in the region, and that they are likely
to be even more clueless (and less experienced) about the deep currents of regional politics
than the United States, Britain, and France combined, the Chinese can no more stick to
a hands-off, let-it-burn posture than the Obama administration. The temptation to do
stupid stuff in the Middle East respects no borders and has long been a measure of global
power; the region is simply too important not to meddle. The Chinese will be damned if
they donteither because the United States will reassert its power in ways that potentially
threaten Chinese interests or the United States does not or cannot successfully do soand
damned if they do by stepping into a quagmire. Although its impossible to foresee how
or when China will become enmeshed in the region, its probable that it will and certain
that,when it does, it wont mark the end of tensions or even conflict; the region is more
violent and unstable than at any time since World War II.
Taken altogether, the vision of a twenty-first-century Sinocentric order or, more
euphemistically, an international balance of power that favors Chinese interests, is blurred
by troubles at every point of the compass. Not only are there structural geopolitical and
geographical disputes but domestic political cultural dynamics among its neighbors are
inhospitable to anything in the way of tributary arrangements. In particular, Chinas
East Asian neighbors seem not to have gotten the wordperhaps they dont read enough
Thomas Friedman op-edsthat fractious democracies are out and efficient strong men
andone-party rule are in.

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Americas Role
In the late spring, a small group of American pundits and scholars traveling to Tokyo was
granted an audience with Shinzo Abe. What was supposed to be a grip-and-grin photo-op
developed into a lengthy discussion when the Japanese prime minister asked why President
Obama had failed to impose consequences on Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad for crossing
the redline over the use of chemical weapons.17 Japan has no direct security interest in the
Syrian civil war, but Abe was deeply worried that US credibilitythe key to the balance of
power and continued stability in maritime East Asiahad suffered a heavy blow.
Abes concern came despiteor perhaps even in part because ofthe administrations
much-lauded Pacific pivot, or, as it pleased the White House to rebrand the policy, a
rebalancing toward the region. From the vantage point of late 2014, Obamas foreign policy,
patterns of strategy making and deep cuts to US military power look less like a pivot or a
shift and more like a global withdrawal. This is not only upsetting regional balances of
powerin Europe and the Middle East as well as South and East Asiabut casting doubts
about the United States role as the system administrator, the rule maker of the international
order. The prominence of emerging Republican politicians who flirt with isolationist,
America-first rhetoric do little to reassure allies or check adversaries that the current retreat
is a onetime, Obama-only phenomenon.
The questions are not limited to issues of American will power. Outside western Europe,
the doctrines of soft power and smart power gain little traction; where tensions are high,
hard powermilitary powerremains the coin of the realm. The world can count. When
it counts US defense capacity it sees military services that are shrinking rapidly and, thanks
to the 2011 Budget Control Act, on a hard-to-derail track to preWorld War II levels. In the
Obama years alone, the defense department will have lost about a trillion and a half dollars
of purchasing power. The recent report of the independent and bipartisan National Defense
Panel concluded that the losses had created a dangerous gap between strategic needs and
military means:
This gap is disturbing if not dangerous in light of the fact that global threats and
challenges are rising, including a troubling pattern of territorial assertiveness and regional
intimidation on Chinas part, the recent aggression of Russia in Ukraine, nuclear
proliferation on the part of North Korea and Iran, a serious insurgency in Iraq that both
reflects and fuels the broader sectarian conflicts in the region, the civil war in Syria,
andcivil strife in the larger Middle East and throughout Africa.18

The effect on the US defense posture in the western Pacific is easily calculable. Even
thoughthe United States plans to shift 60 percent of its fleet to the Pacific, budget and force
reductions will soon result in fewer ships in the theater than there are now.19 Moreover, the
continuing crises in the Persian Gulf and Middle East will in effect diminish force presence

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and lengthen response times; the fleet may be stationed in the Pacific but will often be
operating in the Middle East. This is equally true of army, air force, and marine forces.
Indeed, the US posture in maritime East Asia became a bill payer for defense reductions
even before the end of the Cold War, particularly in Southeast Asia. Although the
decision to withdraw from the Philippines in the late 1980s was more than justified and
geopolitically wise in the context of the time (the withdrawal was complete by 1992), it is
painfully ironic to see the Filipinos trying to find some way to reverse course now. The loss
of Clark Air Force Base and the Subic Bay Naval Complex created a military operational
and geostrategic vacuum that has, in recent years, proved an irresistible temptation to the
Peoples Liberation Army/Navy. The Chinese can now put substantial naval forces into
the South China Sea and, beyond that, dwarf the capability and capacity of the navies
ofthe region and threaten Americas ability to project power into the region to either
deter or respond to a crisis. The combination of Chinas rising capability and capacity and
US operational absenceplus an eroding technological and qualitative advantagehas
alreadycreated serious strategic and geopolitical uncertainties.
To one degree or another, this pattern is being repeated throughout Chinas neighborhoods
of strategic interest: Northeast Asia, Taiwan, the Indian Ocean, and farther afield. Even in
the Middle East, where Chinese influence is indirect and capabilities limited, the net effect
is to increase tensions at the margin. No one knows what China might do in any given
situation, but thats the point: the loss of US military preeminence is a key ingredient in
many recipes for mischief.

Inevitable or No?
No one with the slightest sense of military history would tolerate a prediction that the
tensions created by Chinas rise would inevitably lead to conflict in any of its many
neighborhoods. Divining which of the many elements and actors in play will be dispositive
is a little like trying to determine the single cause of the Peloponnesian War: Was it
Athens imperial rise? Spartan fear? The desire for honor? Nonetheless, the arithmetic is
intimidating: the sheer number of potential disputes is impressive. Divergent interests, deepseated fears, and antipathetic national political cultures mark the course of Chinas ascent.
As the Dragon rises, the world does shake but does not yet fall to its knees.

NOTES
1 Aaron Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2011), 1.
2 Edward N. Luttwak, The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy (Cambridge and London: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2012), 2, 1323, 24870.

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10

3 Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, Chinas Search for Security (New York: Columbia University Press,
2012), 2327.
4 Ibid., 27.
5 Ibid., 356.
6 Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 3.
7 Ibid., 2.
8 Patrick Donahue, China-Japan Relations Reach Low Point, Chinese Official Says, Bloomberg
Businessweek, www.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-01/china-japan-relations-reach-low-point
-chinese-official-says.
9 See, for example, Jonathan D. Pollack, The Strategic Meaning of China-ROK Relations: How Far Will the
Rapprochement Go and with What Implications? Brookings Institution Assn. Institute for Policy Studies,
September 29, 2014.
10 Ibid., 4.
11 See Carl Thayer, Vietnam Gradually Warms Up to U.S. Military, The Diplomat, November 6, 2013,
http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/vietnam-gradually-warms-up-to-us-military.
12 See Richard Javad Heydarian, The Philippines-China-U.S. Triangle: A Precarious Relationship,
TheNational Interest, May 1, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-philippines-china-us-triangle
-precarious-relationship-10342.
13 Robyn Klingler Vidra, The Pragmatic Little Red Dot: Singapores U.S. Hedge against China, London
School of Economics, www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/publications/reports/pdf/sr015/sr015-seasia-vidra-.pdf.
14 Defence Issues Paper 2014: A discussion paper to inform the 2015 Defence White Paper, Australian Ministry
of Defense, www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper/docs/defenceissuespaper2014.pdf.
15 Brent Crane, Resisting Beijingfor God or Country? The American Interest, September 28, 2014,
www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/09/28/resisting-beijing-for-god-or-country.
16 See Derek Scissors, Sino-Russian gas deal is largely fake, www.aei-ideas.org/2014/05/sino-russian
-gas-deal-is-largely-fake.
17 Author interview with Gary Schmitt and William Kristol.
18 William Perry and Gen. (ret.) John Abizaid, Ensuring a Strong U.S. Defense for the Future,
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2014), viii.
19 See Statement of Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, Before the House Armed
Services Committee, September 18, 2013, http://news.usni.org/2013/09/18/document-cno-greenerts
-sept-18-2013-testimony-house-armed-services-committee.

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11

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Working Group on the Role of Military History

inContemporary Conflict

About the Author

THOMAS DONNELLY
Thomas Donnelly is a writer on
military affairs and codirector
of the Marilyn Ware Center for
Security Studies at the American
Enterprise Institute. He has
writtenand edited numerous books,
essays, and articles, including
Operation Just Cause: The Stormingof
Panama; Ground Truth: The Future
of U.S. Land Power; The Military We
Need; and Operation Iraqi Freedom:
A Strategic Assessment. From 1995 to
1999, he was policy group director
and a professional staff member for
the House Committee on Armed
Services. Donnelly also served as a
member of the US-China Economic
and Security Review Commission.
He is a former editor of Armed
Forces Journal, Army Times, and
DefenseNews.

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

434 Galvez Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
650-723-1754

Donnelly_InterestHonor.indd 12

The Working Group on the Role of Military History in

Contemporary Conflict examines how knowledge of past
military operations can influence contemporary public
policy decisions concerning current conflicts. The careful
study of military history offers a way of analyzing modern
war and peace that is often underappreciated in this age of
technological determinism. Yet the result leads to a more
in-depth and dispassionate understanding of contemporary
wars, one that explains how particular military successes
and failures of the past can be often germane, sometimes
misunderstood, or occasionally irrelevant in the context
ofthe present.
The core membership of this working group includes David
Berkey, Peter Berkowitz, Max Boot,Josiah Bunting III, Angelo
M.Codevilla, Thomas Donnelly, Admiral James O. Ellis Jr.,
ColonelJoseph Felter, Victor Davis Hanson (chair), Josef Joffe,
Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Edward N. Luttwak,
Peter Mansoor, General Jim Mattis, Walter Russell Mead, Mark
Moyar, Williamson Murray, Ralph Peters, Andrew Roberts,
Admiral Gary Roughead, Kori Schake, Kiron K. Skinner, Barry
Strauss, Bruce Thornton, Bing West, Miles Maochun Yu, and
Amy Zegart.
For more information about this Hoover Institution Working Group
visit us online at www.hoover.org/research-topic/military.

Hoover Institution in Washington

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