Charles Larson Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Photo by Jane Scherr

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Asia

Let's talk a little about Asia. The Cold War has been over now for more than a decade. What is our role there? What do we want to achieve with our military forces?

We want to be a stabilizing influence in Asia. I still think we're looked at as the one person who doesn't have any designs on Asia. No one really fears us over there, we're accepted as an honest broker. Through multiple bilateral relationships we can work to help achieve the stability, and I think our military undergirds that stability that allows economic prosperity to go forward. What we don't want to have in Asia is an arms race. We don't want to have anyone emerge as a single power over there with hegemony. We want to maintain a balance in Asia that will allow all the nations to feel comfortable with each other and comfortable as they move forward and prosper economically.

There are several key players -- Russia and Japan among others -- but the one that we seem to worry most about these days is China. What sorts of things should go into our thinking about influencing China's emergence, fulfilling its role as a great power in that area?

We should work with China. We're not a strategic partner, but we're not an adversary. We should recognize that it's an important strategic relationship and we should work with them on areas where we have common interests. We should be working on stabilizing the Korean peninsula. We should be working on South Asia. We should be recognizing and encouraging foreign investment and economic progress. We should support anything that encourages political liberalization, modernization, and moves toward democracy in China. And I think that will happen slowly over time. Their democracy will not look like ours, I'm convinced, in the final end state, but it will be more democratic than it is today. We should support all the things that move in that direction. We should handle our disagreements in private and our agreements in public, and we should try to move toward these common objectives. I think the principal way we can help is through their entry into the World Trade Organization. I think they should be granted normal trade status and that we should encourage economic investment in China. It's the best way to move forward.

There are some in Washington who argue that the historical example is containment, which was used to try to shape the way that the Soviet Union, our adversary at that time, would emerge as a great power. Now that factional view periodically has some influence in our debates. What I'm curious about is, as a former commander of CINCPAC, how should we assess the Chinese military in the context of a debate where one of the factions seems to be so concerned about China's emergence as a great power?

Well first of all, Harry, let me say that I don't think containment is a proper strategy for China. Russia, or the Soviet Union, had a well-articulated policy of world expansion, of world domination. China will tell us, and they have told me several times and my most recent trip there was last September, they have no designs on any territory outside their borders and they do not have a history of territorial conquest. Now, they do believe that Tibet and the whole South China Sea and other things are their legal authority, within that sphere. They said outside that sphere, they are not expansionist. So I think a policy of containment for China would probably drive them towards being an adversary, and we don't want them to be an adversary. We want them to be a person that we can work with and really have some common goals.

What we need to look at in our military, and what I look for in our military is, are they developing a power projection capability? If they start reshaping their military in a way that would give them an ability to become expansionist and go for other territory, then I would say their capability has a mismatch with their words. And when you have a mismatch between policy and capability it becomes of concern because you can change policy overnight, but you can't change capability overnight. So I watch very carefully; if their modernization programs and things like that are tailored for home defense and stability, fine. But if they start reaching out to aircraft carriers, amphibious operations and things like that, you have to ask the question: who's the enemy? Who are they targeting and where are they going with that capability? At this point, their modernization programs are really designed to operate within that sphere that they have designed.

If there would be signals for a change, what sort of a lead time would one then have?

Well, fortunately, when you look at the technology and the difficulty in building new military systems it's a fairly long time frame between initiation and full operational capability; sometimes up to ten years or more. So it's not something that they're going to surprise us with overnight. We will be able to see it coming, we will be able to see the investment and the movement, and it certainly gives us time to readapt our strategy or our policies if necessary.

So what you're advising is that we should have our mind working and our feet on the ground as we assess charges and counter-charges in the debate about future relations with the PRC.

Absolutely. And one of the things I think people tend to forget is there are domestic political considerations in Beijing, just like there are in Taipei and in Washington, D.C. We need to assess the rhetoric that comes out of all three locations and understand that some of it is for domestic political consumption, and so instead of overreacting, we need to try to stay cool as we look at some of these things. Certainly the latest pronouncements out of Beijing look outrageous and unacceptable, and we won't rule out the use of force if the negotiations for reconciliation drag on indefinitely. But who are they firing at, the United States? Or are they firing a paper missile at the Taiwanese? By paper missile I meant the white paper becoming a missile. So, I think we have to take some of that with a grain of salt. Certainly some of that [saber rattling against Taiwan] was to influence us and some was to influence Taiwan. But we just have to back off and say, "Well, look at some of the rhetoric that will come out of the United States." Right now in our presidential primary campaign it's been fairly quiet on China. There has only been I think one candidate in some of the early debates, Gary Bauer brought China up a number of times, and there's only been one question I think on China and that was a very low-level question. So we've been a little quiet in the United States, quieter than we were certainly in the '92 campaign when there was a lot of rhetoric and strong rhetoric about China.

One of the skills you seemed to acquire which goes with your role is a diplomatic skill. In a way, our hope is that we have a military that we don't use in the sense of actually going to war. Tell us about that dynamic, that is, the need to have an adequate force but the wish to never use it.

The ultimate use and investment in a strong military is to have one that does not have to be used. The ancient Chinese [military strategist] Sun-tze in some of his writings and doctrines would say that your ultimate victory is to never have to fight but to get inside the head of your opponent in such a way that you either deter or defeat your opponent without going to war. So a strong military is really meant to be an effective deterrent and a stabilizing force for prosperity in the world.

Somebody did an audit on my job once at CINCPAC. It was before I got there, and a group came in and they did a thorough audit, and they came to the conclusion that although I was a major war-fighting commander for the entire Pacific theater -- anything that would have gone on in Korea or anywhere else in Asia, I would have been the major war fighter; I even sent 90,000 people in 75 ships to Desert Storm as a supporting commander -- but even with all those war-fighting responsibilities, they came to the conclusion that the day-to-day focus and energy of my job was 60% political and diplomatic and 40% military, as we worked with all of the countries of Asia on political and military strategy and also on stability.

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