James Holmes
That startling claim came up some years ago during the Q&A following a China talk I gave at a gathering of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Executive Panel down in Washington. This philosophical query entails colossal practical import for the course and outcome of what some now call a second Cold War.
Dr. Steve Wills of the Navy League’s Center for Maritime Strategy raised this question obliquely in replying to my column on the US Navy’s 250th birthday. Steve maintains that open societies such as the United States—where all segments of society excoriate their institutions for subpar performance—enjoy better prospects than authoritarians in strategic competition and warfare.
The syllogism is straightforward. Discussion and debate, hallmarks of a liberal society, beget wiser policies over time, including those touching the naval service. Debate fuels public and elite pressure on institutions to improve. Accountability results. QED.
The postulate that criticism gives rise to improvement should be true. I hope it is true. But I’m not sure how much confidence it merits these days. To date the results of the US-China competition—the defining challenge before our navy and joint force—have done little to bear out the notion that an open society is more dynamic than a closed one.
The Executive Panel was a body of advisers to Admiral John Richardson, then serving as the CNO, the US Navy’s top uniformed officer. The drift of the conversation seemed to say Yes: today’s authoritarian regimes, China’s in particular, command both the advantages that go to closed societies and those typically ascribed to open societies. They can act swiftly and decisively because, by definition, authoritarians give orders and their subjects carry them out.
Dictators Get Fast Results—but Often Can’t Think Creatively
The greats of strategy agree. In his works on sea-power theory and history, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan affirms that “despotic power, wielded with judgment and consistency, has created at times a great sea commerce and a brilliant navy with greater directness than can be reached by the slower processes of a free people.”
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