Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

China's Overstretched Military

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0163660x.2012.726438

1530-9177

Andrew Scobell, Andrew J. Nathan,

Military and Defense Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Department of Defense, “Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China, 2011,” Annual Report to Congress, 2011, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2011_CMPR_Final.pdf. 2. The first authoritative public articulation of “Diversified Military Tasks” was in the 2006 Chinese defense white paper. These have been re-stated in the 2008 and 2010 iterations of this document. The 2006 version can be found at: Information Office of the State Council, People's Republic of China, “China's National Defense in 2006,” December 29, 2006, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/wp2006.html. 3. The text of Hu Jintao's speech has never been made public, but it has been widely cited. For a succinct summary and analysis, see Daniel Hartnett, “China's Military and Security Activities Abroad,” testimony before the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, 111th Cong. 1st sess., March 4, 2009 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, April 2009), 5–55. 4. See, for example, Staff Commentator, “Emphasize strengthening the building of core military capabilities” [in Chinese], Jiefangjun bao [Liberation Army Daily], March 18, 2009. 5. By comparison, U.S. ground forces compose about 53 percent of total manpower. U.S. forces are deployed in a wide variety of locales across the fifty U.S. states and dependent territories as well as overseas, They are of course geared to undertake or support missions overseas rather than at home. 6. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments. 7. Roger Cliff et al., Entering the Dragon's Lair: Chinese Anti access Strategies and Their Implications for the United States (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007). 8. The most complete explication of this concept to date is Jan van Tol with Mark Gunzinger, Andrew F. Krepinevich and Jim Thomas, AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2010). 9. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments, pp. 18–19. 10. The phrase “beyond Taiwan” comes from Pentagon analyses. For detailed discussion, see Roy Kamphausen, David Lai, and Andrew Scobell, eds., Beyond the Strait: Chinese Military Missions Other Than Taiwan (Carlisle, PA.: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2009). 11. Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy in the Twenty-First Century, 2nd ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), pp. 174–178. 12. Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy in the Twenty-First Century, 2nd ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), pp. 109,96. 13. Jeffrey Lewis, The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007); M. Taylor Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, “China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of China's Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure,” International Security 35, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 48–87. 14. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, speech, Yakota Air Base in Japan, October 24, 2011, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4911. 15. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Remarks By President Obama to the Australian Parliament,” November 17, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament. 16. Department of Defense, “Quadrennial Defense Review Report,” February 2010, p. 62, http://www.defense.gov/qdr/images/QDR_as_of_12Feb10_1000.pdf. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAndrew ScobellAndrew Scobell is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND CorporationAndrew J. NathanAndrew J. Nathan is the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University. This article is drawn from their forthcoming book, China's Search for Security (Columbia University Press, 2012)