Political Science 378

Spring 2009

Assignment 3. Due: Wednesday, April 29

Introduction

In this assignment, your group will consider a number of issues related to intervention. This will involve reading the book by Richard Haass, Intervention, and using it to develop a better understanding of issues relating to a potential situation involving China and Taiwan.

Assume that the following scenario takes place.

China announces that it is no longer tolerable that Taiwan remains a "renegade province." China moves additional military forces into Eastern China, to locations nearer to Taiwan, as well as the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. The following events then take place.

  1. China begins to interfere with air and sea traffic to Quemoy and Matsu.
  2. The government of Taiwan responds by escorting air and sea traffic to Quemoy and Matsu.
  3. Several incidents occur in which shots are exchanged by Taiwanese aircraft or naval vessels involved in escort duty, and Chinese aircraft and naval vessels. There are no casualties in these incidents.
  4. China announces that the waters between China and Taiwan are "the sovereign waters of China," and that it reserves the right to stop, inspect, turn back, and/or seize shipping in this area. Taiwan, the United States, and other countries protest this action. One result, however, is that shipping (including oil tankers) are diverted so that the give these waters, China, and Taiwan a wide berth. Concern over potential military action causes insurance rates to rise, and in turn, oil prices climb.
  5. China responds to the protests of Taiwan by firing several ballistic missiles from China over Taiwan. The missiles land harmlessly in the water to the east of Taiwan. It is quite clear that the Chinese intended the missiles to overshoot Taiwan and to land without exploding.
Your group is to advise the president on what military actions should be taken to support Taiwan.

Specific Tasks

The assignment consists of completing the following tasks:

  1. Conditions that should be present for the use of force. [10 points] As noted in chapter 1, in recent years a number of individuals have proposed criteria and/or conditions that should be present for the US to use military force. Go through the conditions advocated by Caspar Weinberger (Appendix C). Go through each condition and indicate whether the condition applies to the situation described in the scenario (i.e., the situation that is present immediately after China fires the missiles). If you feel that a condition is inappropriate, indicate why.
  2. Haass' guidelines for whether to intervene. [10 points] Now go to chapter 4, "Whether to Intervene." Look over each guideline proposed by Haass (these are the section headings such as "Interests are only a guide," and "The Adversary's response must be anticipated"). For each guideline, in a paragraph, explain whether it applies to the situation present at the end of the scenario. If you feel that a guideline is inappropriate, indicate why.
  3. Haass' guidelines for how to intervene. [10 points] In chapter 5, "How to Intervene," Haass provides another set of guidelines (i.e., the section headings). For each guideline, consider what is implied for US intervention in the crisis. If you feel that a guideline is inappropriate, indicate why.
  4. Forces, Mission, and Rules of Engagement. [20 points] Since the US may have to act quickly, the forces that it can use are those assigned to the US Pacific Command (PACOM). What forces would you recommend using? Remember that this is not the only situation that you have to worry about in this region (for example, suppose North Korea acts up during this time). Consequently, you may not use any of the forces the US has deployed in South Korea, and you must retain one-half of the US aircraft deployed in Japan to deal with a potential threat from North Korea. What mission(s) would you assign to the US forces (what are their goals)? What rules of engagement would you use? For the purposes of this assignment, the possible rules of engagement are given below. Note, however, that actual combat between the US and China carries the risk of escalation to higher levels, including all the way to attacks on the homelands of the US and of China with nuclear weapons.

    5. Possible Rules of Engagement for US Forces.

  5. Length The assignment can be no more than 12 double spaced pages in length. This does not include a title page, reference page(s), and any maps that you might care to include.

The Goal of the Assignment

The goal of this assignment is for you to apply the arguments and insights of Haass to a potential situation in which the US may have to use military force. I hope that you will learn some things in the course of doing this assignment. But please remember to answer the questions. You may have some very strong feelings about the situation. That's fine; nothing about this assignment or this course is designed to influence your feelings on this subject. But remember this is an analytic exercise. Answer the questions in the most straightforward fashion. I will not infer from your answers or conclusions what your feelings are about this situation (that's actually none of my business).

Some Hints

You may find it useful to have to information on the following:

China has a very large military, but it has a number of responsibilities and concerns. So, just as you can only use PACOM forces (i.e., you cannot use forces assigned to CENTCOM), there are limits to the Chinese forces that can be used against Taiwan and the US. The Chinese can use only the following military forces (note: "MR" means Military Region):

Some websites that you may find useful are:

The information on globalsecurity.com is interesting, but it is not clear when the webpages were last updated.

There is also information on a possible China-Taiwan conflict in chapter 6 of the O'Hanlon book.

All the information you need on the various military forces can be obtained from O'Hanlon and the websites listed above. You make have to poke around a bit to get the information you need (for example, how many aircraft are in a Chinese air force regiment), but it should all be there.

You are welcome to look for more information beyond the recommendations I have made above but you can complete the assignment with the sources I have listed. The Internet is probably the most convenient source of information for this assignment. But be aware that anyone can put together a website. If possible, find multiple sources on all the additional information you use.

The Pledge

The assignment is pledged. You may not consult anyone outside of your group. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the assignment, including issues that relate to the Honor Code. Note that one way to violate the Honor Code is to fail to include a complete list of the sources you used in the assignment. This, of course, includes all the sources that you use which are mentioned in this webpage -- including Haass' book.