1. Introduction
1.3 Literature Review and Author’s findings
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1.3 Literature Review and Author’s findings
For the main theoretical body of my thesis, I rely on six leading volumes on deterrence.
The most important of these is “Conventional Deterrence” (1983), written by John J.
Mearsheimer, from which I borrow the architecture of this essay. Mearsheimer built his theory from a comparative case study involving deterrence failures and successes in the past. By comparing the decision-making of actors involved in each of them, Mearsheimer tried to find similar patterns to explain why wars broke out at some times but not at others. Then he applied the teachings he gathered to the situation of Central Europe during the 1980s (then contemporary, the book was published in 1983) when NATO commanders feared a conventional Soviet offensive and were concerned about how to deter it. Mearsheimer said that, according to his theory the Soviet would not attack. He was proved right.
Mearsheimer says about conventional deterrence that it is “a function of the costs and risks associated with military action [and] it is most likely to obtain when an attacker believes that his probability of success is low and the attendant costs will be high”
(Mearsheimer, 1983). In addition, “the likelihood that deterrence will obtain in a specific instance largely depends on which strategy the potential attacker is considering.”(Mearsheimer, 1983). Translated to our situation, this means Taiwan’s deterrence will obtain if the island’s defense capabilities are capable enough and if China is not able to find a satisfactory attack plan. Because Mearsheimer sees conventional deterrence from the viewpoint of the nation that is contemplating war (China in our case), I should ask ourselves: What are the strategies envisioned by China for taking-over Taiwan, and what is Taiwan doing to deter them? After I answer this question I will be able to estimate the health of Taiwan’s conventional deterrence.
The six other volumes about the theory of deterrence I used were written by Robert Jervis, “Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics” (1976), Richard Ned Lebow & Janice Gross Stein, “Psychology and deterrence” (1985), Patrick Morgan,
“Deterrence – a conceptual analysis” (1977) and “Deterrence now” (2003) and Lawrence Freedman’s “Deterrence” (2004). These volumes provided many of the much needed theoretical tools useful for identifying and discussing the patterns of Taiwan’s deterrence. Combined to Mearsheimer’s theoretical guidelines, teachings were used throughout the writing in order to back the argumentation with a solid theoretical basis.
There of course exist a number of other valuable discussions on deterrence, and, however fewer, on conventional deterrence.
Conversely, English resources are scarce when it comes to Taiwan’s deterrence. Many other works about deterrence cite Taiwan’s deterrence as an example among others, while few of them examine Taiwan as a case study. In addition, a lot of prominent works about deterrence focus on lessons gathered during the Cold War, rather than actual issues. This lack of existing literature is surprising because there is no doubt that the
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relationship between China and Taiwan is about deterrence. Also, deterrence in the Taiwan Strait is a very interesting issue which bears strategic implications for the entire Asia-Pacific region, if not globally.
This remark has exceptions however. There is the work of Ian Easton, the writer of a volume entitled “The Chinese Invasion Threat”5, in which he presents the potential Chinese war plan to take Taiwan, the island’s likely military response and the implications for America’s foreign policy. His volume is highly referenced with Chinese language sources and is rich of valuable details about the nature of the balance of forces and the decision-making of both Taiwan and China. Easton has graduated from the same Master degree as the author of this work, in NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan. He is now an analyst for the think-tank Project 2049 Institute in the United States.
There is also the work of J. Michael Cole, a Canadian journalist based in Taipei. Mr.
Cole became a public figure in Taiwan after he spent numerous years documenting and analyzing cross-strait relations. His works about China’s political warfare and Taiwan’s civil society are certainly ones of the best available, so I took inspiration from many of his analyses in this work. He is now the editor in chief of the online magazine Taiwan Sentinel as well as a Taipei-based Senior Fellow with the China Policy Institute and the Taiwan studies Program at the University of Nottingham, U.K., he is also an associate researcher with the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) in Taipei, Taiwan.
Besides these references, I have relied on secondary sources including various volumes about Taiwan and China, relevant official and government-issued publications (from Taiwan, the U.S. and China) such as Taiwan’s 2017 Quadrennial Defense Review and National Defense Report, U.S. diverse reports to Congress involving China’s armed forces and Taiwan, China’s 2013 Science of Military Strategy and 2015 PLA White Paper, as well as many think-tank and academic publications, which list is available below in the References section. For our study, I have also read and gathered in a database hundreds of online articles which data and insights will be mobilized throughout the essay.
A “Non-military” aspect of Deterrence for Taiwan?
Like the majority of the challenger states studied in the deterrence literature, China has good incentives to achieve its objective without declaring a war. However, the method chosen is unique to every challenger. Here, China has never abandoned its threat to attack Taiwan, but the majority of its efforts are actually short-of-war. They are pursued
5Easton, “The Chinese invasion threat – Taiwan’s defense and American strategy in Asia”, The Project 2049 Institute, 2017, ISBN 9781546353256.
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over the long-term, with China seeking innovative way to persuade the Taiwanese to opt for unification.
Therefore, a study of Taiwan’s deterrence could take into account the variety of Chinese efforts designed either to bring unification by peaceful means, or to soften Taiwan’s deterrence before a military option is envisioned. This limited, non-military strategy, would be made of the comprehensive set of economic and political warfare as well as of other frequent intimidation and pressures against Taiwan. Through such means, China would attempt to persuade the Taiwanese that the island’s inescapable fate is political unification with the continent.
This idea, the existence of a non-military aspect of China’s challenge to Taiwan’s deterrence, is one of the central ideas of this work. It would mean that deterrence may be impacted, or “bypassed”, by non-military forms of influence or pressures exerted by a challenger state. For example, China would aim to impact Taiwan’s deterrence by using political warfare in order to undermine Taiwan’s national cohesion and defense spirit. To “bypass” Taiwan’s deterrence would mean that China seeks to achieve the totality of its unification objective without having to wage a war, a very attractive option.
China could do so by decreasing the odds of using force to achieve unification, or diminishing the cost of force should the military option be ultimately chosen.
If China invests time and money in such tools, it may mean that it its leadership has reasons to believe that it will help to bring unification. In this way, China could attempt to lower the Taiwanese confidence in their long-term capability to withstand the pressure, and seek to lower the cost of a potential unification. National cohesion is key for a successful defense, explaining why China aims to undermine Taiwan’s one by inducing doubt and division as much as it can.
Alternatively, China’s limited-aims strategy could be dangerous because exhausting the stock of so-called “peaceful options” gives China a rationale for employing force later.
Limited strategies could therefore take the form of steps in an escalation process: when it decides that all peaceful options are exhausted, and that pressures have “born fruits”, China’s leadership could pursue at an unknown moment the unlimited, military option in order to achieve unification.
Therefore, with regard to Taiwan’s objective to safeguard sovereignty, its deterrence could encompass “something else”, than its military aspect and incorporate such fields as economic resilience, international standing, soft power and national cohesion.
Protecting these “fronts” would be like putting up barriers as a double layer of defense.
According to this view, I will consider in this work Taiwan’s efforts to diversify its economic partnership, strengthening of national identity, and attempts to engage the international community as part of a “short-of-war” aspect of its deterrence posture.