The People’s Liberation Army Navy might not actually be able to beat the US Navy in the Indo-Pacific. But if it looks like it can, China will reap strategic benefits.

The authoritarians are the dynamists now.

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.”

Mahan would hail Communist China’s accomplishments, but at the same time he might regard them as perishable. As he points out, for an authoritarian state to flourish at sea, the despot must approach the nation’s high-seas project with “judgment and consistency.” Leaders boasting these traits are few and far between. They cannot be replaced if they fall short in judgment and consistency, or if they fail to keep pace with change. The fallacy of an authoritarian society, then, is that it depends on the wisdom and mental dexterity of one or a few leaders, Xi Jinping and his lieutenants in the case of China.

This is where human nature gets in the way. Ambient surroundings have a way of metamorphosing around a society. Times and circumstances are transient. Yet human beings—including paramount leaders—do not cope well with transients. They resist change, and tend to fall behind changing times. They might develop policy implements unfit for the times, or develop the right implements but misuse them. Stasis prevails, and their quest for national greatness falters. Plus, no authoritarian leader lives forever. A successor might entertain different priorities. His predecessor’s policies might languish through neglect.

So how to navigate change lies at the core of competition between open and closed societies. Some commentators, Renaissance statesman-philosopher Niccolò Machavelli the standout among them, come close to saying that individuals do not and cannot change with fluid times. 

Free Societies Are More Dynamic—at Least in Theory

Which leads to the advantages afforded free societies. While individual people may not change, an open society can change out people to keep abreast of the times. Machiavelli cites the example of Rome, which appointed the defensive-minded Fabius “the Delayer” to fend off defeat in the Second Punic War against Carthage. Fabius resisted going on offense when the time came—again, change is an ordeal—and so Roman magnates sent him into retirement and handed the offensive-minded Scipio “Africanus” command of the army. Scipio carried the war from Italy across the Mediterranean to North Africa and vanquished Carthage at the source.

In theory, at least, open societies are more flexible and adaptive than authoritarian antagonists, and thus better able to keep pace with change. They can choose fresh leadership for new times. This adds up to a compelling brief on behalf of open societies.

But what if Machiavelli and kindred philosophers are wrong about the nature of individuals and regimes? That would be worrisome. An authoritarian society gifted with dynamism could act decisively without stultifying enterprise and innovation the way command societies commonly do. Such a society would harness the best of both modes of governance.

If the CNO panelists had it right, America stands in dire need of cultural reform. Its leadership must do its utmost to restore dynamism to the workings of government, the armed services, and private industry to outcompete China and other rivals.

Whether or Not It Is Strong, the PLA Navy Looks Strong

Back to Steve Wills’s critique. Let’s break it down. Toolmaking and tool-wielding are the rudiments of maritime strategy. Mahan contends that the goal of maritime strategy is “to found, support, and increase, as well in peace as in war, the sea power of a country.” For him, sea power—the tool to be forged—consists of industrial production at home, merchant and naval fleets, and commercial, diplomatic, and military access to foreign seaports.

That China has reinvented itself as a foundry for sea power is beyond serious dispute, even as US and Western efforts at a seapower renaissance flounder. Beijing’s share of world manufacturing and trade is daunting. It has constructed the world’s most numerous commercial fleet, navy, and coast guard. And it has parlayed economic largesse into commercial, diplomatic, and—perhaps, eventually—military access to harbors the world over. Late last year, for example, General Secretary Xi traveled to Peru to commission a massive Chinese-bankrolled seaport north of Lima. In other words, China’s Mahanian project has yielded lodgments in the Americas, the United States’ traditional preserve.

Impressive.

Now, Steve is correct that the jury remains out on how well China will perform as a tool wielder relative to America and its allies. By their nature, authoritarian societies can stamp out bad news before it poisons domestic popular opinion or soils the nation’s reputation abroad. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) has doubtless suffered its share of travails, but party leaders can muffle their impact, and thus navy leaders’ incentives to do better. By contrast, officialdom, media outlets, and ordinary folk rain constant opprobrium on the US Navy and fellow armed forces following bad news. Collisions at sea, shipbuilding woes, and even imagery of rusty hulls on social media hurt the Navy’s good name, casting doubt on whether the service is a good steward of taxpayer largesse and can be counted on to prevail in martial strife—but also providing it with a strong incentive to do better.

There is another critical point here as well. Tool wielding involves much more than winning high-seas battles. Battle does not happen in peacetime. Reputation is everything in the absence of open combat to render an objective verdict on which contestant is superior to which. In other words, peacetime strategic competition takes place in the minds of influential observers, foreign and domestic. A China that appears to perform better than its opponents as a tool wielder derives real political benefit from appearances—even if that reputation is unwarranted by objective metrics. Here, the PLA Navy wields a decisive advantage. It looks like a force on the make. It looks like the probable victor should competition flare into sea combat. Perceptions of relative superiority have consequences. Human nature being what it is, people tend to rally to stronger contenders while shying away from the weak. Few relish pooling their fortunes with the likely loser and sharing the wages of defeat. Whoever most observers judge would have won in battle tends to “win” showdowns short of war. Whether they judge rightly or wrongly, their opinions matter all the same.

Bottom line: warfighting prowess constitutes only part of the nautical endeavor. Communist Party leaders understand how repute pays strategic and political dividends. Hence the all-consuming, tireless, 24/7/365 efforts Beijing devotes to image-making and image management. Come to think of it, party leaders’ sophisticated view of peacetime maritime competition is one more instance of authoritarian dynamism.