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Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy by Edward N. Luttwak (6-Nov-2012) Hardcover
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First published October 19, 2012
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About the author
Edward N. Luttwak
66 books215 followersEdward Nicolae Luttwak is a military strategist, political scientist and historian who has published works on military strategy, history, and international relations. Born in Arad, Romania, he studied in Palermo, Sicily, in England, LSE (BSc) & at Johns Hopkins (PhD). He speaks five languages. He serves or has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force; he is/has been an adviser to Treaty Allies of the United States. He is chairman of the board of Aircraft Purchase Fleet Limited (APFL), an aviation lessor, and he founded and directs a conservation cattle ranch in the Bolivian Amazon. He is the author of various
books and more articles including: The Rise of China vs the Logic of Strategy, Coup d'Etat: a practical handbook, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, The Endangered American Dream, and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy. His books are also published in: Arabic, Chinese (both Beijing simplified and Taipei traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian (Bahasa), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (and Brazilian Portuguese) Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Castilian, Spain, in Argentina and in Venezuela), Swedish, and Turkish. Before ever writing of strategy and war, he was combat-trained (Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry) and fought as a volunteer or a contractor in several countries on two continents. He likes Hebrew songs and the Greek & Latin classics. His best article is "Homer Inc." in the London Review of Books.
books and more articles including: The Rise of China vs the Logic of Strategy, Coup d'Etat: a practical handbook, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, The Endangered American Dream, and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy. His books are also published in: Arabic, Chinese (both Beijing simplified and Taipei traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian (Bahasa), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (and Brazilian Portuguese) Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Castilian, Spain, in Argentina and in Venezuela), Swedish, and Turkish. Before ever writing of strategy and war, he was combat-trained (Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry) and fought as a volunteer or a contractor in several countries on two continents. He likes Hebrew songs and the Greek & Latin classics. His best article is "Homer Inc." in the London Review of Books.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 3, 2013
Edward Luttwak is without doubt my favorite neoconservative – two words I can't imagine combining in any other instance. For years I'd been vaguely familiar with his "The Grand Strategy of the [X] Empire" books, but it wasn't until I read his infamous article in Prospect about the middle east in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion that he caught my political imagination.
His latest book, countering the thesis of the Inevitable Global Hegemony of China, is a characteristic grenade. "It is as a strategist and not as a Sinologist that I approach the phenomenon of today's China, for the universal logic of strategy applies in perfect equality to every culture in every age." Such a dramatic generalization, coming from a writer like Robert Kaplan, would probably be enough to cause a skeptical reader to close the book. In Luttwak's case this would be a mistake.
In brief, Luttwak argues that China's enormous strength, like Germany's at the end of the 19th century, creates its own limitations precisely to the degree that it attempts to impose its will by force. Luttwak devotes a fascinating chapter to "great-state autism." China's version of this affliction "derives from a deeply rooted strategic culture that is both intellectually seductive and truly dysfunctional." Like all great powers, China assumes that its opponents reason exactly as it does. They don't. The Chinese are brilliant in many fields – and have been for millennia – but as it turns out they're fairly incompetent when it comes to military strategy and diplomacy.
The cumulative strength of Luttwak's argument emerges in his chapters on the relationships between China and its neighbors – Australia, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Mongolia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Also instructive is his analysis of U.S. policies (he counts three, "two of which are moving in diametrically opposed directions") toward China. Page for page, this is the sharpest essay on world politics I've read this year.
His latest book, countering the thesis of the Inevitable Global Hegemony of China, is a characteristic grenade. "It is as a strategist and not as a Sinologist that I approach the phenomenon of today's China, for the universal logic of strategy applies in perfect equality to every culture in every age." Such a dramatic generalization, coming from a writer like Robert Kaplan, would probably be enough to cause a skeptical reader to close the book. In Luttwak's case this would be a mistake.
In brief, Luttwak argues that China's enormous strength, like Germany's at the end of the 19th century, creates its own limitations precisely to the degree that it attempts to impose its will by force. Luttwak devotes a fascinating chapter to "great-state autism." China's version of this affliction "derives from a deeply rooted strategic culture that is both intellectually seductive and truly dysfunctional." Like all great powers, China assumes that its opponents reason exactly as it does. They don't. The Chinese are brilliant in many fields – and have been for millennia – but as it turns out they're fairly incompetent when it comes to military strategy and diplomacy.
The cumulative strength of Luttwak's argument emerges in his chapters on the relationships between China and its neighbors – Australia, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Mongolia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Also instructive is his analysis of U.S. policies (he counts three, "two of which are moving in diametrically opposed directions") toward China. Page for page, this is the sharpest essay on world politics I've read this year.
May 12, 2013
Luttwak concedes early in this book that he's not a China specialist, but rather somebody who successfully applies the "universal logic" of strategy to myriad countries and situations - including China. Alas, even if you concede that principles of strategy (whatever that means) are universal, it's hard to accept that Luttwak's analysis is anything but a simplistic application of hackneyed neo-con concepts to an emerging superpower that deserves for more subtle thinking. Worse yet, Luttwak often recurs to (ugly) stereotype that reveals more about him than it does about his subject. With a world of books about China now available to the general interest reader, I see no reason to pick up this one.
December 17, 2019
I cannot truthfully say that I have read 'The Rise of China...' to completion after a mere three hours. But a veteran reader of Luttwak's can doubtlessly anticipate, after a certain number of pages, what the rest of the book holds - as accurately as fra' Guglielmo da Baskerville could rehearse the contents of the Second Book of Aristotle's Poetics to Jorge da Burgos, without having ever touched it.
Luttwak was first introduced to me by the fascinating 'The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire'. I read it in a large room of a former Khedivial palace in Cairo, in one day and one night. There were three beds in the room and a balcony, and there still was still room to walk around and dance (so large it was!) With a sand storm raging outside, there was little else to do. I sustained myself with dates alone during that curious ordeal.
'The Grand Strategy...' unlike most of his more recent books, was Aristotelian in conception: that is, starting from the particular, Luttwak would work up his argument to breathtaking general conclusions. It was a strange marriage of a fascinating subject (the imperialistic aspect of the Roman Empire) and a fascinating character (a most learned Romanian capable of accessing the literature of the country where Roman imperial policy had seen the most radical shifts and, at the same time, an analyst fighting the Cold War, looking into Rome for a mirror for NATO).
The rest of his books on strategy have been mostly Platonic. That is, departing from general principles he has proceeded down to particular details in order to prove his principles right. In this he has evidently tapped his Germanic intellectual formation, delving foremostly on von Clausewitz's Hegelian analysis of conflict and power. Though he does not refer to him often, undoubtedly he has in mind Basil Liddell Hart's reinvigoration and correction of the Prussian thinker's paradigm (the British strategist was once a fetish of the Israeli Defence Forces, and curiously in my native Argentina it is still a popular author, reportedly one of the current Pope's bedside readings). From Liddel Hart Luttwak takes much influence from Sun Tzu's emphasis on the permanence of struggle and thus the necessity of economising force.
This book of his on China must be view from the standing point of Luttwak's life-long rivalry with Henry Kissinger, the well-known architect of the US-China rapprochement of the early 1970's. It might be no coincidence that this book was published a year after Kissinger's 'China' - most likely in response to it.
More of a long-term thinker than his rival, Luttwak embraces Huntington's belief in the incompatibility of the different strands of civilization and Fukuyama's faith in the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy. His main criticism of Kissinger is that his 'Realpolitik' approach to diplomacy compromises both articles of faith in the pursuit of short-term gains.
In the case of China, Luttwak has come to think that it is invitable that her growth (economic and military) will cause by itself sufficient resistance in the remaining countries that it will eventually stop. He deploys this line of thinking most efficiently in his elevator metaphor: all countries are running to fit into the elevator of economic growth. There is a very fat Mr. America in it, and all countries have at some moment or other been squeezed around by his curves. But they would seldom take any additional offence, since Mr. America has been a longtime companion inside the elevator and, more importantly, has now been adjusting his diet and might indeed have started to grow lean... Whereas Mr. China is a newcomer who eats and eats and cannot help grow fatter, pushing everyone around and making all have to move around uncomfortably. If it goes on like this, soon the inhabitants of the elevator will grow fed up with Mr. China, and will react angrily at the mere sound of his palate crushing a chip!
That being the main argument, what follows is the tedious demonstration that the Chinese elite have not yet woken up to this reality, obfuscated as they are by misconceptions arising from the influence of traditional Chinese thought. The Chinese classics presuppose both a centrality of the Chinese civilization (reflecting the situation of the Han period) and conceive international relations in terms of ultra-pragmatism (a reflection of the Warring States era). Both paradigms are woefully inadequate for conducting diplomacy in the modern world, and Luttwak predicts they will generate unnecessary resistance and caution in China's partners.
Chapter after chapter is devoted to hammering these truths out, enriched with Luttwak's rich repository of personal anecdotes and his undeniable talent for finding the odd piece of statistics or news that sheds a rare beam of light into a well-know topic.
Though these chapters offer the reader the pleasure of watching an analytical mind at his best, finding patterns in a confused mesh of informations with the aid of clear concepts and basic intellectual tools, in the end they are unnecessary to grasp the gist of the author's argument, and one might hop at any time to the conclusions once the basis is understood.
This book might be a source of inspiration to those political and economical analysts wanting to learn how to ground their assessments and predictions in solid reasoning and scholarly research.
Luttwak was first introduced to me by the fascinating 'The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire'. I read it in a large room of a former Khedivial palace in Cairo, in one day and one night. There were three beds in the room and a balcony, and there still was still room to walk around and dance (so large it was!) With a sand storm raging outside, there was little else to do. I sustained myself with dates alone during that curious ordeal.
'The Grand Strategy...' unlike most of his more recent books, was Aristotelian in conception: that is, starting from the particular, Luttwak would work up his argument to breathtaking general conclusions. It was a strange marriage of a fascinating subject (the imperialistic aspect of the Roman Empire) and a fascinating character (a most learned Romanian capable of accessing the literature of the country where Roman imperial policy had seen the most radical shifts and, at the same time, an analyst fighting the Cold War, looking into Rome for a mirror for NATO).
The rest of his books on strategy have been mostly Platonic. That is, departing from general principles he has proceeded down to particular details in order to prove his principles right. In this he has evidently tapped his Germanic intellectual formation, delving foremostly on von Clausewitz's Hegelian analysis of conflict and power. Though he does not refer to him often, undoubtedly he has in mind Basil Liddell Hart's reinvigoration and correction of the Prussian thinker's paradigm (the British strategist was once a fetish of the Israeli Defence Forces, and curiously in my native Argentina it is still a popular author, reportedly one of the current Pope's bedside readings). From Liddel Hart Luttwak takes much influence from Sun Tzu's emphasis on the permanence of struggle and thus the necessity of economising force.
This book of his on China must be view from the standing point of Luttwak's life-long rivalry with Henry Kissinger, the well-known architect of the US-China rapprochement of the early 1970's. It might be no coincidence that this book was published a year after Kissinger's 'China' - most likely in response to it.
More of a long-term thinker than his rival, Luttwak embraces Huntington's belief in the incompatibility of the different strands of civilization and Fukuyama's faith in the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy. His main criticism of Kissinger is that his 'Realpolitik' approach to diplomacy compromises both articles of faith in the pursuit of short-term gains.
In the case of China, Luttwak has come to think that it is invitable that her growth (economic and military) will cause by itself sufficient resistance in the remaining countries that it will eventually stop. He deploys this line of thinking most efficiently in his elevator metaphor: all countries are running to fit into the elevator of economic growth. There is a very fat Mr. America in it, and all countries have at some moment or other been squeezed around by his curves. But they would seldom take any additional offence, since Mr. America has been a longtime companion inside the elevator and, more importantly, has now been adjusting his diet and might indeed have started to grow lean... Whereas Mr. China is a newcomer who eats and eats and cannot help grow fatter, pushing everyone around and making all have to move around uncomfortably. If it goes on like this, soon the inhabitants of the elevator will grow fed up with Mr. China, and will react angrily at the mere sound of his palate crushing a chip!
That being the main argument, what follows is the tedious demonstration that the Chinese elite have not yet woken up to this reality, obfuscated as they are by misconceptions arising from the influence of traditional Chinese thought. The Chinese classics presuppose both a centrality of the Chinese civilization (reflecting the situation of the Han period) and conceive international relations in terms of ultra-pragmatism (a reflection of the Warring States era). Both paradigms are woefully inadequate for conducting diplomacy in the modern world, and Luttwak predicts they will generate unnecessary resistance and caution in China's partners.
Chapter after chapter is devoted to hammering these truths out, enriched with Luttwak's rich repository of personal anecdotes and his undeniable talent for finding the odd piece of statistics or news that sheds a rare beam of light into a well-know topic.
Though these chapters offer the reader the pleasure of watching an analytical mind at his best, finding patterns in a confused mesh of informations with the aid of clear concepts and basic intellectual tools, in the end they are unnecessary to grasp the gist of the author's argument, and one might hop at any time to the conclusions once the basis is understood.
This book might be a source of inspiration to those political and economical analysts wanting to learn how to ground their assessments and predictions in solid reasoning and scholarly research.
April 4, 2018
This is a great book focusing on the nature of great-states, and China is the core of it. It is clear that in various points of history one could replace China with the an emerging entity and this book would still be relevant.
The idea of great-state autism has stuck with me, and like a virus will be carried along for a while. It makes one realize that the very quick growth of power creates a temporal dislocation of expectations. Simply put, you keep expecting the same things from others that you did as a weaker power. An odd symmetry, yet perceptive of the geo-economic situations we are encountering today.
Definitely worth a read for everyone trying to decrypt the world today.
The idea of great-state autism has stuck with me, and like a virus will be carried along for a while. It makes one realize that the very quick growth of power creates a temporal dislocation of expectations. Simply put, you keep expecting the same things from others that you did as a weaker power. An odd symmetry, yet perceptive of the geo-economic situations we are encountering today.
Definitely worth a read for everyone trying to decrypt the world today.
July 19, 2022
A snapshot of 2012 and the Chinese threat. The problem with projection especially along a straight line, is chaos intervenes, and the Chinese had a population problem even then, but now get rich before get old that's the game
March 11, 2019
I enjoyed this book as I have each book of Luttwaks. He provides an interesting perspective on the nation which commands so much attention.
August 17, 2014
Luttwak sets out with several ambitious goals, one of which is to argue that the principles of Sun Tzu are detrimental to China’s emergence as a global power. While Luttwak’s unconventional approach is useful for broadening the intellectual debate, his analysis is rather Western-centric. He applies Western notions of strategy and self-preservation (which the author claims are “universal”) to China, and assumes his understanding of these issues outweighs those derived nuanced understandings of Chinese philosophy.
January 1, 2014
The author provides insights on how China uses its economic and military leverage in the Asian region and beyond. As he explains, China's foreign policies have elicited mixed reactions from stakeholder countries, but the overall result of these current policies may be unfavorable to China in the end.
Want to read
March 28, 2013January 27, 2017
Brilliant
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews