The world today feels about as contentious at certain times as it did during the days of World War II and the Cold War, but one of the most important aspects of gaining the upper hand on adversaries is the partnerships and cohesiveness made with allies.
Working hand-and-hand with partners and allies when dealing with global rivals was part of the talking points during panel discussions as the Department of Social Sciences hosted its second SOSH International Security Seminar (ISS) titled, “Order, Counterorder, Disorder? Regional and Global Security Orders in the Shadow of Sino-American Competition,” Feb. 9-10 in Jefferson Hall at the U.S. Military Academy.
During the event’s closing remarks, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilland reminded everyone about these partnerships, or relationships as he aptly called them, as being critical to the success in the national defense of the United States going as far back as the early days of the new nation in the late 1700s.
“Partnerships are vital to both our national and international security,” Gilland said. “Our alliances and partnerships as force multipliers is a strategic advantage and the foundation of our shared security.”
Gilland expressed from his dialogue with Chief of the General Staff of Polish Armed Forces, Gen. Rajmund T. Andrzejczak, who was present at the seminar, that you can only build and sustain relationships through trust.
“We must rely on each other especially in today’s environment and events like these (seminar) are important to strengthening the bonds of friendship as we discuss relevant and timely issues of shared importance,” Gilland said in context of Poland’s help in the Ukraine-Russia crisis.
However, the seminar wasn’t solely focused on just the Ukraine and Russia: Among other topics that were delved into were China, order and security in Eurasia and the Indo Pacific, emerging technologies, money and finance, climate, industry and terrorism.
Overall, the event involved more than 150 participants, both in-person and remote, partaking in 31 panels distributed over 15 working groups to share their expertise on regional and global security. Cadets and faculty from SOSH, the Department of Foreign Languages, the Department of Law and the Modern War Institute were joined by top academics from around the world, as well as senior policy officials and leaders in the Army, Joint and Interagency communities in the United States.
The lead in helping put this all together was Lt. Col. Jordan Becker, academy professor and director of the Social Science Research Lab. Becker said his role was to, “create the chemistry and set the conditions … (and) we are happy with the growth from last year to this year, but I think we’ll probably enter a consolidation or ‘deepening’ phase after our initial growth and ‘broadening’ phase.”
Becker credited many for their hard work to make the seminar run smoothly to include the Jefferson Library staff, the Visual Information team, the SOSH team, Maj. Josh Woodaz, Col. Heidi Demarest, Lt. Col. Guyton Robinson and several others who worked tirelessly behind the scenes.
Breaking down the seminar, Becker said the title of “Order, Counterorder, Disorder?” refers to shifts in the current international order and the challenges those shifts represent for U.S., allied and other policy makers.
The bringing together of many minds and experts to discuss the world issues through the panels gained traction off of last year’s seminar where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, and his action group approached SOSH and requested that it conduct another similar activity this year off of Milley’s team’s design.
“There is a perceived gap among academic research, policy decision-making and even private-sector economic decision-making,” Becker said. “Our vision is to bring together the brightest minds from across academic and professional disciplines to address tough problems. Rather than considering the academic peer review process and the professional peer review process as in opposition to one another, we are treating them as complementary – subjecting our collective work to multiple modes of critical review.
“We think by doing that, we will get a better analytical product to our primary policy consumer (OCJCS), and also get more relevant academic research into the professional conversation among scholars,” Becker added. “Ultimately, the idea is to foster one big conversation that includes all the stakeholders. I think we did that.”
With West Point hosting the event, many cadets were assigned as rapporteurs within the panels, and Becker feels that as the future leaders of the Army, it was great for them to get a taste of what scholars, whether they were the chairs, discussants or panelists, presented and deliberated during the two-day event.
“Cadets are the heart of what we do here,” Becker said. “The earlier they can get involved as active participants in professional (military), policy and academic conversations, the better.
“Overall, as both academics and Soldiers, we are part of a community and part of a conversation,” he added. “We have a responsibility to be careful, thoughtful participants in that conversation. We can’t opt out of it, and we also have an obligation not to just opine about things we haven’t taken the time to seek to understand. I hope the cadets were comfortably uncomfortable – I know I was.”
A cadet’s view of the seminar
One of the cadets who assimilated into the seminar was Class of 2025 Cadet Sarah Cao, an International Affairs and Chinese double major, who acted as a rapporteur, with Class of 2024 Cadet Megan Nkamwa, for the “China and International Order – International Relations Perspectives” panel.
“From the notes that we took from the two-hour (panel), we’re going to write five-to-seven pages synthesizing the main points of the conversation and taking a broader, bigger picture look at China-U.S. relations from an international relations perspective,” Cao said. “It is recapping the panel, but also zooming out a little bit and talking about some policy implications.
“(Nkamwa and I) got to sit in and hear everyone speak and, ultimately, we work with the chair, Capt. (Merlin) Boone, and the discussant (Paul Poast) to put together the five-to-seven-page synthesis of the panel,” Cao added. “Being involved in the entire process from start to finish is huge. It is a great experience to have under your belt – especially with interests of pursuing research in the future.”
Cao was interested in seeing everyone’s different perspectives on China and understanding terms that were thrown around such as “Tianxia,” which is China’s version of Heaven on Earth. But, overall, it was gathering an understanding of everything China and how that coexists in the world today.
“In general, the best way to phrase it would be we’re in a phase of general uncertainty and it’s really interesting to see that any perspective can be argued for at this point and should be argued for,” Cao said. “We really should explore every single avenue of approach to China policy and China strategy. Just because you don’t initially see a certain avenue working, there’s literature, research and data out there that can be done to support that knowing we’re in a phase of uncertainty and moving forward there is arguably a lot at stake with China as a hot topic.
“With the entire conference, we’re looking at Sino-American relations in a sense in each and every panel, and because of that we must make sure we consider every single avenue of approach toward China,” she added.
Cao’s interest in China is not just about being a Chinese major where she is focused on improving her abilities to read and write, so that she can one day be at an equivalent level with her speaking since she is a heritage Chinese speaker. But much of her interest is about staying connected to the country of her ancestry.
“It’s great to be able to invest, in a sense, in my Chinese language learning while it is also connected to some heritage aspects – it’s a holistic identity thing,” Cao said. “It’s like it comes full circle and I’m able to use this skill I have and apply it to international relations, apply it to IR theory in terms of how that connects and where it connects.”
Cao’s mother immigrated to the U.S. from China after earning her masters’ degree.
“Being able to communicate with family in Chinese and Mandarin is huge,” Cao said. “It’s important to me to maintain that linguistic capability, not just because it is useful, but also to able to communicate with my mother and grandmother, that’s big for me.”
As for the seminar, Cao was happy to just be able to be in the room and be a part of the conversation with the ability to, “take and apply theories and IR concepts, and essentially using things that we’re learning in the classroom.”
Although Cao can’t wait to get into the Army and apply what she learned at West Point in the field, she also is considering at some point of getting into research down the road.
“I think the field of academia is really interesting and that you are able to instruct, teach and you’re also able to ask these more nuisance questions and delve really deep into a niche within your field – I think that is cool,” Cao said.
But what does Cao hope to take away from the seminar when it is all said and done? To her, it is about the research and the interaction among scholar colleagues.
“Research looks and comes in all different shapes, forms and sizes, and everyone is at different stages of research as well … not being afraid when asked about your methodology or presenting your research, even if it is unfinished or imperfect, and coming out and asking for feedback,” Cao said. “It’s exciting to see where we’ll go into the future, and how real-world feedback and this seminar might influence a researcher to look at another data set and look at a larger period of time of data, include another variable, include another factor into their research just through the simple conversations.
“It’s cool to see the flow and interaction in this natural convergence of ideas in this low stress, low stakes environment among participants,” Cao added. “The interaction has been great and to see people curious about West Point and want to make that connection or have those interactions has been good.”
A doctor’s perspective of Russia with a view of China
Dr. Rob Person is an associate professor of International Relations and director of curriculum, International Affairs program, at West Point. His concentration for the seminar was Russia as he led as the chair for the “Russian Asymmetric Strategies of Dis-ordering” panel. He also was a discussant in the “Alternate Reality: Russia’s Strategic Vision for International Order and What to Do About It” panel.
Person discussed that the idea of order in the international system has long been a feature of international politics and has led to structured, normalized relationships between states, but especially among great powers.
“When (those relationships are) present in international politics, it tends to be more stable, more peaceful where avenues of communication and regularized forums can take place,” Person said.
Since the end of World War II, but especially since the end of the Cold War, Person said much of the architecture of international order has been built by the United States. Countries came together, through institutions like NATO, the European Union, the World Bank, the IMF, to pursue common interests and purpose, to collaborate and cooperate as they were fundamentally premised on what he described as core American interests and values, free markets, free ideas and free people.
China is a country that plays the game of the free market system, but they also in other ways try to undermine it, Person said. But, then there is Russia, who always seems to be the fly in the ointment when it comes to being the problem child on the international stage.
“Coming out of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its allies were really the only true challengers to the western vision,” Person said. “They disappeared and America was left as the sole global superpower, so for most of the post-Cold War period, that architecture of order is what has dominated and even become more globalized – to the point of including the Chinese into elements of that order and the Russians.”
However, within the last decade, Person said, “that (western) order and vision – those rules, those patterns, those institutions – are being challenged in ways they have not been in recent memory.”
“They are not working as well as they once did, so we’re seeing signs of cracks and signs of these revisionist powers like Russia and China becoming much more assertive in not just trying to undermine that essentially American-led order, but then also propose and bring to life alternatives of their own – that serve their interests,” Person said.
When discussing Russia’s asymmetric strategies during his first panel, Person threw out words like hybrid warfare, gray zone conflict, asymmetric tactics, but more or less he calls it “shenanigans” in terms of leading toward political warfare, information warfare and cyber warfare, which are all things that, “tend to remain below the level of kinetic, conventional military action but are very directly aimed at undermining American influence, American interests and those of our allies, and undermining and fracturing unity between that western alliance.”
“The panel ties into this big theme of disorder,” Person said of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goals and agenda.
However, the stark reality about Russia, from Person’s perspective, is that its war in the Ukraine has been a strategic disaster.
“(The war) has undermined and setback in significant and perhaps in permanent ways Russia’s achievement of the alternative vision and strategy that its been pursuing,” Person said. “In the long run, Russia through these actions has certainly consigned itself to be a second-rate, second-tier power … there is every possibility that as they continue to struggle in this very costly war, we may see signs of domestic dissent that could fundamentally upend or destabilize Putin’s political power.”
Considering a time in the 1980s where the old Soviet Union regime withdrew from Afghanistan, that any hiccup in the Ukraine could have ultimate consequences to the Putin regime.
“I think the Ukraine issue is far more central to Putin’s vision of Russia, its place in the world and fundamentally central to his own domestic legitimacy,” Person said. “There is a risk that this really could undermine his political control.
“However, I always warn people of two things – one, this war in some form will continue as long as he’s alive, even if the military combat ends, the war will continue in the political sphere,” he added. “When he dies, in that I’m relatively confident, but whoever comes next, there is no guarantee that he’ll be any better and he could very well be worse.”
Person spoke about these panels as being important, and talking about Russia and the Sino-American Competition shows the specter of a bigger problem down the road.
“I’ve been talking, thinking and discussing for two days about Russia and a lot about the Ukraine, but it’s a good reminder (through this seminar) that the broader challenge we’re focused on and what may be the real long-term challenge is the relationship and competition with the Chinese,” Person said. “In that context, we know that Russia has the ability to suck a lot of oxygen out of the room. They have the ability to cause a lot of disruption and problems, and though they may be a declining power, they can do a lot of damage on the way down.
“We need to figure out our strategies for how to contain and mitigate the challenge coming from Russia, so that we and our allies can be better positioned to face the probably more significant peer-challenger from China,” Person added.
The latter panel looked at Russia’s strategic vision with a recognition of China and the relationship among Russia, China and the United States and the results of all these dynamics.
“My sense of it all is that it’s hard to know at this moment just how everything is changing and as (Carl von) Clausewitz famously wrote about the fog of war, we’re kind of in that trying to understand how the war in the Ukraine impacts the broader strategic order as we’re in the middle of it,” Person said.
And while Russia’s aggression in the Ukraine has had a destabilizing effect in parts of Europe and Asia, the possibility of China invading Taiwan would be more destabilizing on a global scale.
“Any conflict originating over Taiwan would be far more consequential, far more disruptive that what we’re seeing in the Ukraine with Russia,” Person said. “That’s a function of a lot of things such as China’s size, the size of its population, size of its economy and the way the world is, for better or for worse, economically dependent on China.
“I do think one of the important consequences of the western response to Russia’s aggression has been frankly a signaling that we the collective west will not let these types of aggression go unpunished,” he added. “We can maintain significant unity among allies to challenge it and then we’re willing to put quite a lot on the table in terms of support weaponry and other measures to help counter that. I have to believe that is a message that Beijing is paying attention to.”
As for the panels, Person was impressed with the papers that were submitted by an array of scholars and believed they were “all fascinating and really fantastic perspectives.”
He also gave kudos to the cadets who participated and has high hopes that they took a lot away from this experience working in these panels with scholars.
“I hope what the cadets have gotten from this is an appreciation that the value of expertise, the value of having learned, studied, debated and discussed, and these discussions can only happen among people who actually care and know what they are talking about,” Person said. “As they think about being decision makers in challenging, ambiguous situations as Army officers, it’s an appreciation that you won’t always have a computer next to you for the answer, you have to use the computer up here (brain) and that’s what these types of gatherings are about – they’re smart people applying their critical thinking to these intractable problems and coming up with new ideas that way.”
Lasting message – “Bridging Alliances”
The seminar ended with a discussion roundtable titled, “Bridging Alliances,” that featured Gen. Andrzejczak, Ambassador Douglas Lute, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, and Professor Dr. Luis Simon, from Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
The prevailing message for all who took part in the seminar was tied together with a bow with the lasting message of bridging alliances, which is a very important aspect in creating strong allies to deter future conflicts or having a strong presence to quell any aggression.
Both Person and Cao, from a scholar and cadet perspective, agreed that bridging alliances is a critical aspect of thinking big picture in deterring future plights with a collective stronghold among allied countries.
“In order to bridge alliances and build that connection, you have to have those conversations, create dialogue and have conferences and seminars like this …and as part of that narrative, we have instructors and cadets at West Point who are taking part in these important academic conversations and thinking about these problems,” Cao said. “As long as West Point is active in our participation and participating as active thinkers that we will be part of the narrative and we’ll be caught up to speed and ready to face whatever challenges that may come our way (in the Army). Eventually, we’ll be better prepared to bridge that gap and make that connection.”
Person sees that our security, our interests, our well-being and our American way of life, since the end of World War II, has been deeply intertwined and tremendously enhanced by the alliances the U.S. has made.
“To some degree, it’s preaching to the choir with this group who understands that, but as we think about this future and the challenges that will be posed to order, stability, peace and prosperity by threats and revisionist powers like Russia and China, now more than ever we need to solidify, strengthen and reinvigorate those alliances,” Person concluded. “It’s something our national leaders have to continuously sell to an American public that’s often inherently isolationist.”
Social Sharing