Abstract

The US and China are engaged in intensifying security competition involving competitive expansion of their respective military capability sets. But how is this competition impacting US-China deterrence dynamics? The predominant view in the US is that capability superiority translates into sustainable deterrability. Accordingly, the US has made “out-competing China” in an accelerating high-tech arms race an official strategic objective. It is suggested that this strategy is flawed in theory and practice. This seminar presents a logical theory indicating a capability increase-decrease paradox, where continued competitive capability expansion comes to undermine deterrability in the long-run.

To showcase the operation of the paradox in practice, this seminar reviews the evolution of US-China deterrence relations in Southeast Asia over the period from 1990 to 2023 and trace a perceptible diminution in the force of US deterrence since approximately 2007, despite concerted effort toward military capability improvements. The seminar will conclude by highlighting some immediate implications of the findings for the US-China deterrence relationship, as well as noting some broader ramifications for the future balance of global deterrence influence.

About the Speaker

Ryan Swan is a Fellow at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies and doctoral candidate at the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen in Germany. He was awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Gerda Henkel Foundation within its Special Programme for Security, Society and the State for his dissertation research on the effects of military competition on deterrence dynamics. He previously served as a Research Associate at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, working on major power military competition and deterrence relations, as well as on prospects for arms control and cooperative measures. Ryan holds an M.Phil. in International Relations and Politics from the University of Cambridge (Trinity Hall), a J.D. from the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law and a B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley, where he was a departmental valedictorian.