Maximizing Leverage: China’s Strategic Force Posture Choices in Information Age

• In Event: Beyond the Balance of Power: Causes and Consequences of Nuclear Policy Decisions

Abstract

How do nuclear-armed states coerce their adversaries in wars with limited aims without using nuclear weapons? This paper develops a theory of strategic substitution to explain why China uses space, cyber and conventional missile weapons instead of nuclear weapons to maximize leverage against its adversaries. It also explains how China selects space, cyber, and conventional missile force postures, defined as weapons and plans for using them. Threats to use space, cyber and conventional missile weapons are more credible sources of strategic leverage against adversaries in wars that do not threaten a state’s survival. China’s cyber force posture is used to demonstrate the plausibility of the theory. Using original Chinese-language written sources and interviews with experts in China, it shows that Chinese leaders pursued cyber weapons to maximize their strategic leverage after the United States bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. As China’s vulnerability to cyber attacks grew during the 2000s, its appetite for risk in using cyber weapons declined, resulting in a change to its military cyber force posture in 2014. The theory of strategic substitution offers insights into the strategic force posture choices of other nuclear-armed great powers seeking leverage in limited wars. Coercive postures for non-nuclear strategic weapons can also augment the leverage of states with more ambitious nuclear postures or facing a more favorable conventional military balance than China.

Author

• Fiona Cunningham, University of Pennsylvania