Why the Pentagon Needs Friends in Beijing

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Why the Pentagon Needs Friends in Beijing

Our decision to cut ties with Pakistan's army cost us dearly after 9/11.

JOSEPH W. RALSTON

Last week, China announced it was cancelling a planned visit to the United States by Gen. Chen Bingde, the chief of the general staff of China's army. At the same time, a visit to China by the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Robert Willard, was scrapped.

These are only the latest casualties in the broad suspension of all military-to-military exchanges with the U.S. by China—a step Beijing is taking in retaliation for Washington's decision to sell $6.4 billion in military equipment to Taiwan.

Some may ask: What's the big deal? Suspending military contact seems like a low-stakes way to express displeasure, especially compared to the alternatives.

In fact the costs can be enormous. Military-to-military contacts help us build relationships of trust in peacetime that we rely on when tensions rise. Such relationships can potentially mean the difference between war and peace when a crisis arrives.

Unfortunately, Washington is in no position to lecture Beijing on its current policy. We have been just as quick to use our military-to-military ties as a weapon to punish other nations. But every time we do so, it hurts us more than it hurts the intended recipient.

Consider Pakistan. In 1985, Congress passed the Pressler Amendment, which required that all military-to-military ties with Pakistan be terminated if the president could not certify that Pakistan did not have a nuclear program. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush could no longer make that certification. So he was forced to cut off military ties with Islamabad: no more high-level meetings of senior officers; no more joint exercises; no more Pakistani junior officers training at American military schools and academies.

This did nothing to stop Pakistan from eventually declaring itself a nuclear power. And it cost us dearly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the U.S. needed rapid and unprecedented cooperation with Pakistan's military in the fight against al Qaeda but had lost a generation of contacts with Pakistani officers.

Such contacts are invaluable to the security of our country. When we hold exercises with foreign militaries, we build the confidence that can only be gained through joint operations in the field. When the U.S. brings junior officers from foreign militaries to study here, they build friendships with American officers that can last a lifetime.

I experienced this time and time again during my military career. When I was serving as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. received a diplomatic note from a foreign government declaring it had intelligence that a squadron of jet fighters from another country was preparing to attack it.

It just so happened that two of the highest ranking military leaders in both countries had been classmates of mine at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. I called the first classmate and told him about the note we had received. He assured me that all his fighters were accounted for and no such attack was planned. Then I called the second classmate, waking him up at 4:30 a.m. to pass on those assurances. He accepted them, based on my word.

A potential crisis was averted thanks to personal relationships that had been forged 20 years earlier through the U.S. military exchange program.

Today, there is an officer somewhere in China who was planning to come to the U.S., quite possibly to study at Fort Leavenworth. There is a young American officer who would have sat next to him in class and gotten to know him in informal settings.

It's likely that they would have stayed in contact as both rose through the ranks of their respective militaries. And in a moment of tension between our countries somewhere down the line, one might have picked up the phone and called the other to find out what the other country intended.

Now that phone call may never be made. That could prove to be a tragedy one day—for China, for the U.S., and for the world.

Gen. Ralston is vice chairman of The Cohen Group, an international consulting firm. He served as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (2000-2003); Commander, U.S. European Command (2000-2003); and vice chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (1996-2000).