Stop Driving Russia and China Together

The U.S. would be wise not to do anything that causes Beijing to increase its support.

Matt Pottinger trots out the nonsense “red line” argument to agitate for sanctions on China:

This is a moment akin to President Obama’s 2013 red-line failure in Syria. When dictator Bashar al-Assad defied Mr. Obama’s warning not to use chemical weapons on his people, the president abstained from military action, and the consequences were dire. Six months later Moscow launched its 2014 invasion of Crimea—the beginning of the now-decadelong Ukraine War. A failure to act decisively against China now would open a path for Russian victory in Ukraine.

Pottinger wants the U.S. to penalize China for its alleged assistance to Russia’s war effort, but this would be a very risky move that could easily backfire on the U.S. and Ukraine. Suppose that the U.S. imposed harsh sanctions on China as Pottinger demands. Does anyone believe that this would discourage the Chinese government from helping Russia? U.S. sanctions have typically led to the targeted state increasing the behavior that Washington dislikes. Piling on sanctions might very well convince China to begin providing Russia with lots of lethal aid in addition to any materials that it provides now. It would also likely have negative consequences for the global economy and it would cause further deterioration in U.S.-Chinese relations when we can least afford heightened tensions.

Pottinger’s story about the “red-line failure in Syria” is untrue and ridiculous. There is no connection between the U.S. decision not to illegally bomb Syria in 2013 and the Russia’s illegal intervention in Ukraine the following year. Hawks have tried to link the two for years, but all that they have done is prove to everyone else that their understanding of international politics is crude and simplistic. Demonstrations of resolve in one part of the world do not create magical shields that prevent undesirable things from happening in other places. Adversaries are not stunned into passivity in their own regions because the U.S. blows things up in some other distant country.

Russian intervention in Ukraine had nothing to do with U.S. “inaction” in Syria and everything to do with Moscow’s reaction to Ukraine’s post-Maidan move towards the U.S., the EU, and NATO. If the U.S. had bombed Syria in 2013, does anyone think that this would have intimidated Putin? If Obama had upheld his ill-advised “red line,” we can be fairly sure that it would have infuriated Russia, whose client would have just been attacked. Past Western military interventions did not awe Russia into submission. When there was an opportunity to mimic them, Putin did so. Killing Syrians was never going to help Ukrainians, and you would have to be a fool to think that it could.

Russia and China have not cooperated as closely on the war as they could. The limits of the “no limits partnership” have been clear for the last two years, and the U.S. would be wise not to do anything that causes Beijing to increase its support. If the U.S. gave China a reason to deepen military cooperation with Moscow, that would be extremely bad news for Ukraine and for the U.S. in other areas as well. Pottinger’s hardline posturing would almost certainly lead to a worse outcome if the administration were stupid enough to listen to him.

Hawks always insist on confrontational policies that create incentives for adversaries to collaborate more closely. Then they will point to the collaboration that they have encouraged as a new reason for more confrontation. Hawks whine about a non-existent “axis” and then do all they can to help make the axis into a reality. When their preferred policies create a new threat, they will use that threat to call for more of the same failed approaches that have made everything worse.

The worst thing that the U.S. could do is to wage yet another fruitless economic war that will end up harming everyone with its disruptive effects. The more that the U.S. relies primarily on coercive measures, the more coordinated opposition it is going to face around the world. The smarter way to go is to ignore the hawks and look for divisions between the other major powers that can be used to keep them at odds.