AIR UNIVERSITY

AIR WAR COLLEGE

The Perils of Bipolarity

Subnational Conflict and the Rise of China

MARK O. YEISLEY

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Air War College

Maxwell Paper No. 72

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

October 2012
2

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are 

solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air 

University, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other 

US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

The Maxwell Papers are available electronically at the Air 

University Press website at http://aupress.au.af.mil.
3

The Perils of Bipolarity:

Subnational Conflict and the Rise of China

Lt Col Mark O. Yeisley, USAF

Intrastate conflicts, ranging from localized rebellions to civil war, 

increased linearly from 1946 through 1992 and then dramatically 

decreased in the post-Cold War era. This rise and fall of subnational 

conflict closely mirrors the “proxy” wars fought by or between the Union 

of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States. Proxy refers 

to “(g)reat power hostility expressed through client states” and describes 

superpower use of these states to pursue strategic and ideological goals 

within the confines of nuclear deterrent postures extant during the Cold 

War.1 This was done in large part to achieve strategic national interests 

and other political goals without risking nuclear war. In its waning years,

the USSR could no longer afford to fund these wars; America ended 

support to many of these commitments soon after the Cold War ended.2

The United States emerged from the Cold War as the sole 

superpower in a unipolar international system. However, evidence 

suggests this unipolarity could soon change as a new bipolar system 

emerges with China as the next challenger superpower. Scholars debate 

the likelihood of future war with a rising China, with each side arguing 

With resources dried up, former client states and subgroups had little 

choice but to resolve these conflicts, either via negotiation or decisive 

victory.
4

whether direct conflict is inevitable. Yet this debate does not consider 

what I suggest is the most probable future of United States–China 

relations; while direct conflict with China is indeed a possibility, it 

remains remote. I offer a quite different theory, in which subnational 

conflict will rise once more as the United States engages in proxy 

conflicts with China over resource access in Africa. These conflicts will 

place great demands on all US instruments of power, as involvement in 

counterinsurgency operations in Africa trends upward. Bipolarity and 

renewed proxy conflict will require rethinking of long-term national and 

military strategies focused primarily on large-scale interstate wars; this 

will impact defense acquisition and military doctrine as US strategic 

focus shifts from conventional conflict to counterinsurgency operations.

This paper defines subnational and proxy conflicts and explains 

why nuclear powers in a bipolar system make strategic policy choices to 

compete by proxy over contentious issues. It reviews the historical record 

of subnational proxy conflict conducted by the United States and the 

USSR from 1946 through the end of the Cold War era. This paper will 

discuss the rationale for my claim that China will soon be poised to 

challenge the United States within a new bipolar order, with a 

concomitant increase of proxy conflicts between the two. It reviews the 

implications for US grand and military strategies, as well as for defense 

acquisition programs and development of future doctrine to meet this 
5

new order. It concludes by discussing recommendations for strategic 

planning over the next several decades.

Renewed Bipolarity, Subnational Conflict and Proxy Conflicts

The modern international system in which states compete for 

survival has historically assumed three primary configurations: (1) 

unipolarity, in which a single state acts as a hegemon;3

Since the 1648 Treaties of Westphalia, multipolarity has been the 

norm, in which great power states jockeyed for power on the European 

continent. While the fortunes of these powers have waxed and waned, 

war has typically been the ultimate result of perceived power imbalances 

among them. While there have been historical instances of bipolarity,

each of these was regional rather than global in scope.

(2) bipolarity, in 

which two states control the majority of power with weaker states 

aligning with one or the other; and (3) multipolarity, where three or more 

nations are powerful enough to act as poles in the system.

4 When the United 

States and the USSR emerged from World War II as the two sole 

remaining great powers, the international system assumed a bipolar 

status for the first time and remained so until 1991, when the USSR 

disintegrated.5

Many scholars have argued that the international system has 

assumed a unipolar orientation, with the United States the sole 

remaining “superpower.”6 Of perhaps more importance are the 

predictions of what will follow for international relations; for example, 
6

some believe the United States will face no viable challengers in the near 

term, with unipolarity a stable and long term likelihood.7 Others see a 

return to a multipolar environment wherein many nations will possess 

military and economic might sufficient to be recognized as great power 

states.8 Still others foresee a return to bipolarity, with the United States

and one future great power locked once again in a struggle for primacy.9

Scholars have lauded bipolarity for the stability inherent in such a 

regime; however, these arguments focus on Cold War relations between 

states and reduced incidence of interstate war.

It is this last possibility that I address in this paper. While the 

international system is increasingly influenced by Brazil, Russia, India,

and China, I argue that China is the most likely challenger to US 

hegemony to emerge, at least in the foreseeable future. Only China will 

possess sufficient economic might to leverage into military spending and 

growth to rival the United States; it will soon become the second great 

power state in a new bipolar international regime.

10 Indeed, the Cold War 

bipolar era was arguably more peaceful than the era preceding it, as 

major wars between states were relatively rare and no militarized conflict 

ever erupted between the two superpowers. Yet the incidence of violent 

subnational conflict increased during the same period, peaking in 1992 

and falling rapidly in the nearly two decades after.11 Was Cold War 

interstate stability truly an artifact of a bipolar system, or were additional 
7

factors responsible? What can explain the concurrent rise in subnational

conflict observed during the same temporal period?

Bipolarity did not stifle interstate conflict between seventeenth

century Britain and France when they were imperial superpowers, yet no 

Cold War militarized conflict broke out between the United States and 

the USSR.12 The reason lies in the unique conditions of Cold War 

bipolarity; each superpower possessed sufficient nuclear capability to 

make war too costly to consider. Some scholars place this absence of 

conflict on the success of US deterrence and containment strategies, 

such as were recommended in Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and 

subsequently employed in the Truman through Reagan 

administrations.13 Others cite the “stability-instability paradox,” wherein 

nuclear parity precludes the use of such weapons while still allowing 

limited conventional conflicts between nuclear-armed states.14 Others 

infer that nuclear weapons played no part in Cold War peace at all.15 I 

argue instead that the perceived high costs of war in nuclear parity 

within a bipolar international system prevented war between the two. 

The United States and the USSR chose instead to address ideological 

differences indirectly by proxy within client states. While these strategies 

arguably kept the Cold War cold, what prescriptive logic was responsible

for these superpower decisions to engage in subnational conflict by 

proxy?
8

Subnational Conflicts

Just as interstate conflict takes many forms, from sanctions to 

militarized action, so too does subnational conflict cover a wide variety of 

cases. Civil wars often begin as grass roots organizing, followed by riots, 

rebellions, and insurgent conflict prior to culminating in open war 

between insurgent groups and forces of the state. For the purposes of 

this paper I use conflicts occurring solely within the geopolitical borders 

of the state, though examples of those spanning state borders also 

exist.16 Thousands of interstate conflicts have occurred since the Treaties 

of Westphalia, yet they have become relatively rare in the post-WWII era. 

Since 1946, 61 have been recorded, but only five have been initiated 

since the end of the Cold War. However, the number of ongoing 

subnational conflicts increased steadily during that period, some lasting 

50 years or more (fig. 1). Between 1946 and 2007 there were 225 

incidences of subnational conflict between some insurgent group and the 

forces of the state.17
9

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

194619481950195219541956195819601962196419661968197019721974197619781980198219841986198819901992199419961998

200020022004

2006

Ongoing Conflicts 

Figure 1. Ongoing Subnational Conflicts, 1946–2007. (Reprinted from Mark O. 

Yeisley, "The End of Civilizations: The Role of Religion in the Evolution of Subnational 

Conflict, 1946–2007" (PhD diss., Duke University, 2010), 100.

The number of subnational conflicts peaked in 1992 and has 

rapidly declined over the last two decades; ongoing conflicts in 2007 were 

at the same level as those observed in the 1970s.18

Proxy Conflicts

This pattern of 

subnational conflict naturally produces two related questions: What 

caused the increase in ongoing subnational conflict during the Cold War, 

and why has it rapidly decreased in the two decades since? Both of these 

questions may be answered by examining the strategic foreign policy 

choices each superpower made during the Cold War era.

Proxy conflicts are those in which great power hostilities are 

expressed through client states rather than between great powers 

themselves. These proxy conflicts occur between nations that disagree 
10

over specific issues but do not wish to engage in direct conflict. A 

significant portion of Cold War-era subnational conflicts were proxy 

conflicts, supported by the United States or the USSR in support of 

geopolitical and ideological differences. Note that impressions of power 

were just as important as military equality; this resulted in strategies 

that depended on perceptions of a balance of power as much as the 

balance itself.19

Cold War proxy conflicts usually took the form of aid provided to 

either insurgent forces or those of the state: cash transfers, provision of 

weapons/technology, and advisory or combat support. While many 

instances of US and/or Soviet aid to states in conflict remain classified 

and are thus impossible to account for at present, there are still many 

instances where such aid was identifiable. During the Cold War dozens 

of subnational conflicts were proxy wars of the United States or the 

USSR, and their distribution is suggestive. Nearly half of these occurred 

during the Cold War’s first two decades, when US–USSR competition was 

on the rise; this percentage declined in the 1980s as Soviet economic 

support dwindled and US aid to these nations quickly followed suit.

Thus US policy treated any Soviet gains as a threat that 

had to be countered in a zero-sum Realpolitik game. 

20

Thus while the high cost of interstate conflict in the Cold War bipolar 

system wherein nuclear annihilation was possible led to peace between 

the great powers, it increased the incidence of subnational proxy conflict 

via two complementary mechanisms. It provided the superpowers a 
11

means to achieve geostrategic goals without the risk of nuclear war while 

also providing groups within client states the means to achieve their 

goals, through violence if necessary.

Why did the United States and the USSR engage in Cold War proxy 

conflict? Realists of the period warned against doing so; involvement in 

Third World conflicts was detrimental to US interests and did not 

enhance the all-important balance of power.21 One possible explanation 

is that great powers prefer to compete by proxy to achieve their strategic 

interests without direct conflict and engender goodwill via soft power 

strategies.22 But the historical record does not support this, as great 

powers have often fought with one another. A more credible explanation 

is found in the structural conditions that existed in the Cold War 

international environment. As the United States and the USSR reached 

nuclear parity, danger of nuclear annihilation successfully deterred both 

sides from direct conflict. Yet each was driven to spread its ideology to 

the greatest extent possible, both to maximize alliance pools and achieve 

Realpolitik goals of maximum security.23

Examples of Cold War Proxy Conflicts

Thus a combination of realist 

political goals, coupled with the reality of nuclear parity, moved each 

away from direct confrontation and toward goal achievement via proxy 

conflict in client states.

The earliest Cold War example of subnational proxy conflict was 

the Greek civil war—a communist uprising supported by Yugoslavia and 
12

Bulgaria and countered by the Greek army, with support from the United 

States and the United Kingdom.24 The United States also funded and 

equipped the 1954 coup in Guatemala that ousted President Guzman 

and ultimately led to the 36-year civil war that followed.25 Examples in 

the Western Hemisphere include the Cuban revolution, the long civil war 

in El Salvador where the United States supported Salvadoran 

government forces against the left-wing Farabundo Marti National 

Liberation Front, as well as the funding of rebel Contras in Nicaragua.26

Following the end of European colonization of African nations in the 

1950s and 1960s, many additional cases of Cold War proxy conflict 

began there as well.27

Probably the most infamous of these was the Angolan civil war, 

which began in 1975 and continued until 2002; estimates of battle 

deaths exceed half a million. In this conflict the United States provided 

monetary assistance to Angolan government forces while Cuban troops 

participated as a Soviet expeditionary force on the side of the communist 

rebels.28 Other examples include the USSR’s provision of weapons to the 

Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, and United States/USSR backing of the 

civil war in Mozambique.29 Examples in Asia include both the USsponsored mujahedeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and US

involvement in the Vietnam War.30

Although some of these conflicts persist, many ended with the 

dissolution of the USSR. Support for the Nicaraguan Contras ended after 
13

the scandal broke in the United States; a negotiated peace followed two 

years later.31 Moscow ended all support for the Mengistu regime in 1990; 

it fell to rebels soon after.32 When backing for the Angolan conflict was 

withdrawn, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola and 

the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola soon agreed to a 

settlement.33 Many of the conflicts during this period were arguably 

initiated and certainly prolonged by external support from the two 

superpowers; it has been argued such external support is in fact vitally 

necessary for successful insurgencies.34

The rising incidence of subnational conflict during the Cold War 

and its decline in the current era were thus influenced by superpower 

policy decisions to pursue strategic goals by proxy within client states to 

avoid the high costs of nuclear war. As the USSR lost the ability to fund 

these proxy wars, it ceased such aid and the United States followed suit.

Although it is impossible to prove the loss of aid was a primary causal 

factor in many conflict resolutions in the post-Cold War era, loss of 

support would likely have forced belligerents to search for alternative 

funding or prepare for peace. Since conflict resolutions since 1990 have 

occurred at nearly three times the Cold War rate, many seem to have 

While neither side had direct 

stakes in these conflicts, desires to resolve ideological differences within 

the constraints of nuclear parity drove each to create national security 

policy that took Realpolitik and domestic security concerns to foreign 

battlefields and engage in conflict by proxy.
14

chosen the latter.35

Future Challenges to the Current Unipolar Order

The current unipolar environment appears to be 

more peaceful in terms of relations both between and within states. 

However, several states now appear capable of achieving great power 

status; if one of these amasses a sufficient level of economic and military 

might to challenge the United States, a return to international bipolarity 

is likely.

The so-called “BRIC” states—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—

arguably possess the potential to rise to great power status at some 

future point, yet only China has both the capability and the will to do so 

in the near term. I offer the rationale for singling out China as the next 

United States peer competitor and explain how and why this competition 

will occur in a bipolar international regime. In addition, I outline how 

US–Sino competition will lead to a resurgence in subnational proxy 

conflict, primarily focused in Africa, as both states compete for future 

access to scarce strategic resources in the region. 

A Modernizing China and the Return of a Bipolar System

China’s economy has exploded in recent years, surpassing Japan 

to become the world’s second largest economy (behind the United States) 

in the second quarter of 2010.36 This gap is likely to decrease in the 

ongoing economic crisis; US growth remains sluggish while China’s is 

again 9 percent per annum. China has embarked on an ambitious 

program of military modernization, acquiring advanced offensive and 
15

defensive capabilities.37 US deficits are likely to result in reductions in 

defense expenditures, further decreasing the military capabilities gap.38

The Rise of China and Implications for Regional Control

China’s economic and military might, coupled with a large population, 

point to its emergence as both a great power and a US peer competitor in 

the near future. 

Volumes of scholarly literature exist detailing China’s rise to great 

power status and the likely implications thereof.39 Given China’s 

prodigious economic growth, it is natural to question whether such a rise 

will be accompanied by US–Sino conflict. I agree with other scholars that 

such an outcome is unlikely, primarily because of a return of nuclear 

parity within a bipolar environment.40 There are, however, concerns over 

China’s increasing need for fuel imports to support its expanding 

infrastructure. For example, China shows little concern with the political 

ideologies of regimes with which it treats; yet its willingness to deal with 

states like Iran and Sudan could worsen relations with the United 

States.41

China is expanding its web of regional alliances via arms transfers 

and inducements that may result in a wall of allies the United States will 

China’s ongoing military modernization appears also designed 

in part to deny US ability to deter China in the near future through 

strategies that would focus primarily on interruptions of its oil supply 

through area denial or control of critical Eastern sea lines of 

communication.
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find difficult to penetrate in order to protect its interests in the Eastern 

Hemisphere.42 China is willing to protect its interests militarily where 

necessary; some claim the 1996 Taiwan Crisis indicates China may be 

prepared to take Taiwan by force in a preemptive attack.43 Yet evidence 

suggests its neighbors welcome the economic opportunities China 

presents to them, and believe its intentions are peaceful and focused on 

domestic stability and growth rather than regional dominance.44

Bipolarity, Nuclear Weapons and Sino–US Proxy Conflict in Africa

Since it 

is unlikely that any regional attempts to balance a rising China are 

forthcoming, at least in the near term, it falls to the United States as the 

peer competitor to do so. While US military preeminence is still clear, 

trends indicate the United States will find it increasingly difficult to 

compete with China over strategic resource requirements as China’s 

geostrategic influence continues to expand.

It is likely China will achieve economic and military parity with the 

United States in the next two decades. China currently possesses 240 

nuclear warheads and 135 ballistic missiles capable of reaching the 

United States or its allies; it is estimated by the mid-2020s the number 

of nuclear warheads will double.45 As in the Cold War, a bipolar system 

in which war between the United States and China is too costly will lead 

to policy decisions that seek conflict resolution elsewhere.46 But why will 

a rising China necessarily lead to geostrategic competition with the 

United States, and where would this most likely occur? Unlike in the 
17

Cold War, access to strategic resources, rather than ideology, will lie at 

the heart of future US–Sino competition, and the new “great game” will

be played in Africa.

The Race for Access to Strategic Resources

Despite Communist Party control of the government, China is 

uninterested in spreading its version of communism and is much more 

pragmatic in its needs—securing resources to meet the needs of its 

citizens and improve their standard of living.47 Some estimates show that 

China will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest 

economy by 2015; rising powers usually take the necessary steps to 

“ensure markets, materials and transportation routes.”48

China is the leading global consumer of aluminum, copper, lead, 

nickel, zinc, tin, and iron ore and its metal needs now represent more 

than 25 percent of the world’s total.49 In contrast, from 1970 to 1995, US 

consumption of all materials including metals accounted for one-third of 

the global total, despite representing only five percent of the global 

population.50 China is the largest energy consumer, according to the 

International Energy Agency, surpassing the United States in its 

consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas in 2009.51 As the two largest 

consumers of both global energy and materials, the United States and 

China must seek foreign policy prescriptions to fulfill future resource 

needs. Since the majority of these needs are nonrenewable, competition 

will be of necessity zero-sum, and will be conducted via all instruments 
18

of power.52

China’s Strategic Focus on Africa

While the United States can alleviate some of its energy needs 

via bio- or coal-based fuels, hydrogen, or natural gas alternatives, China 

lacks the technological know-how to do so and currently remains tied to 

a mainly nonrenewable energy resource base.

Africa is home to a wealth of mineral and energy resources, much 

of which still remains largely unexploited. Seven African states possess 

huge endowments of oil, and four of these possess equally substantial 

amounts of natural gas.53 Africa also enjoys large endowments of bauxite 

(used to make aluminum), copper, lead, nickel, zinc, and iron ore, all of 

which are imported and highly desired by China. Recent developments in 

Africa serve to prove that China seeks greater access to natural 

resources; it has been avidly promoting Chinese development in a large 

number of African nations. South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, has 

recently allowed China to help it develop its vast mineral wealth; it is 

China’s number one African source of manganese, iron, and copper.54

Chinese involvement in Africa is not wholly extractive; the continent 

provides China a booming export market for its goods and a forum to 

augment Chinese soft power in the region by offering alternatives to the 

political and economic baggage that accompanies US foreign aid.55

Of primary interest is open access to Africa’s significant deposits of 

oil and other energy resources to feed its booming industrial base. For 

example, China has 4,000 military personnel in Sudan to protect its 
19

interests in energy and mineral investments there; it also owns 40

percent of the Greater Nile Oil Production Company.56 It has been 

estimated that within the next few decades China will obtain 40 percent 

of its oil and gas supplies from Africa.57 Trade and investment in Africa 

have also been on the rise; trade has grown more than 10 percent 

annually in the past decade. Between 2002 and 2004, African exports to 

China doubled; it now ranks third behind the United States and France 

in terms of total trade with the continent. Chinese investment is also 

growing; there are more than 700 Chinese business operations across 

Africa totaling over $1 billion. Aid and direct economic assistance is 

increasing as well, and China has forgiven the debt of some 31 African 

nations.58

The Return of Proxy Conflict to Africa 

Thus, Africa is a vital foreign interest for the Chinese and must be 

for the United States; access to its mineral and petroleum wealth is 

crucial to the survival of each.59 The nonrenewable nature of these assets 

means competition for them will be zero-sum. Nearly all African states 

have been independent entities for less than 50 years, and consolidating 

robust domestic institutions and stable governments remains 

problematic.60 Studies show weak governments are prime targets for civil 

conflicts that prove costly to control.61 Many African nations possess 

strategic resources and weak regimes, making them vulnerable to 

internal conflict as well as valuable candidates for assistance from China 
20

or the United States to help settle their domestic grievances. Access to 

these resources will be of vital strategic interest to each side. Competition 

in nuclear parity will occur by proxy via diplomatic, economic, or military 

assistance to one (or both) of the parties involved.

Realist claims that focusing on Third World issues is misplaced are 

thus fallacious; war in a future bipolar system between the United States

and China remains as costly as it was during the Cold War. Because of 

the fragile nature of many African regimes, domestic grievances are more 

prone to result in conflict. US and Chinese strategic interests will dictate 

an intrusive foreign policy to be both prudent and vital. US–Sino proxy 

conflicts over control of African resources will become necessary if these 

great powers are to sustain their national security postures, especially in 

terms of strategic defense.62

Implications for the United States

What this means for the future of US grand 

and military strategy, foreign policy prescriptions, future defense 

acquisition priorities, and military doctrine and training will now be 

explored.

The Obama Administration released the 2010 National Security 

Strategy (NSS) last year, moving away from the preceding 

administration’s focus on preventive war and the use of the military to 

succeed in this effort. The new NSS instead focuses on international 

institutions and robust alliances to build a more peaceful world, a 

restructuring of the global economy, working to limit the spread of 
21

weapons of mass destruction, and combating terrorism. To do this, the 

2010 NSS argues that the United States must:

“. . . balance and integrate all elements of American power 

and update our national security capacity for the 21st

century. We must maintain our military’s conventional 

superiority, while enhancing its capacity to defeat 

asymmetric threats”63

All this is based on the assumption that the current unipolar 

international environment persists. If a new bipolar order arises in which 

Chinese competition for scarce resources represents the new status quo, 

future NSS submittals must reflect the nature of such competitive 

behavior.

(emphasis added).

The current US defense budget required approximately $680 

billion, more than all other nations on earth combined. To support the 

current NSS, the National Military Strategy must focus on maintaining 

conventional military superiority, requiring the acquisition of military 

equipment that supports traditional force-on-force military operations.64

While I do not suggest that the maintenance of current capability 

is unnecessary, current conventional strategies focus overmuch on 

fighting the last war. If the United States is to maintain access to the 

strategic resources it needs to sustain its place in the future global order, 

it must improve its ability to meet the asymmetric threats it will face in 

Yet the United States must ensure access to strategic resources as well, 

and as African subnational proxy conflict rises, national and military 

strategies must adapt to meet this future challenge.
22

proxy conflicts in Africa, where counterinsurgency operations will 

dominate. The asymmetric nature of future conflict over African 

resources means defense acquisition must focus on equipping and 

training military and civilian counterinsurgency teams. Both military and 

civilian doctrine must be altered to allow robust and effective interagency 

actions to meet the challenges of proxy conflict that will span the 

continuum of counterinsurgency warfare, from information and combat 

operations to peace enforcement and post-conflict stability efforts.

Recommendations

Current “conventional wisdom” suggests that the United States will 

benefit by ending its recent forays into counterinsurgency operations, 

returning to conventional warfighting preparation to meet a rising China 

head on.65 However, the likelihood of a direct militarized conflict between 

the United States and China is low, and war between the two nuclear 

powers is unthinkable. It is imperative that the United States reduce its 

focus on maintenance of conventional force superiority; it already 

outdistances anything that could challenge it in the near future. Instead

it should better fund acquisition and training programs to deal with 

future asymmetric subnational warfare. Advances in interagency support 

to counterinsurgencies have been substantial, yet doctrinal 

improvements such as those covering provincial reconstruction teams 

and interagency cooperation for combat and Phase IV operations must 

continue. While US military forces have proven invaluable in the post-
23

conflict efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, resource constraints caused by

the current financial crisis will undoubtedly force future defense cuts 

and require enhanced interagency involvement instead.

Reliance on conventional “business as usual” warfighting to meet 

the threat of a rising China will divert precious resources away from a 

looming crisis in US access to foreign strategic resources, especially in 

Africa. Tying financial aid to democratic institution building is a failed 

strategy; instead, the United States must employ its soft power to 

persuade African nations to work with us. The time to do so is now, 

before China’s inroads into African states become insurmountable. If the 

United States is to secure its resource needs from Africa in the future, it 

must be prepared to employ all elements of hard and soft power to meet 

the demands of future proxy conflict on the continent.

Conclusion

The United States currently enjoys a unique position as the sole 

global superpower, yet it is unlikely this unipolar moment will endure 

much longer. China is uniquely positioned to translate rapidly expanding 

economic might into sufficient military resources to achieve regional 

hegemony and spread its influence further abroad. To meet the needs of 

its growing population and burgeoning economy, China must focus on 

obtaining strategic resources abroad. Herein lies the challenge for future 

US foreign policymakers. In a future bipolar system where a nuclearequipped China and the United States require nonrenewable strategic 
24

resources, competition for such resources will be a vital strategic interest 

for each side.

Scholars debate whether such strategic interests will necessitate 

conflict between the United States and China in the future. Preparations

for such conventional conflict now dominate US defense policy. I have 

offered an alternative future in which proxy wars with China for 

continued access to strategic resources in African states will be

strategically justified in the future. While I do not suggest the United 

States drastically reduce current preparations for conventional 

warfighting dominance, I believe it prudent to also prepare for future 

proxy conflict management in Africa.

The ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly force reductions in 

future defense spending if the United States is to reduce its national debt 

load. This will necessitate further strategic, military, and interagency 

doctrinal and training realignments if we are to successfully meet the 

challenges of future counterinsurgency operations in Africa and 

elsewhere. Preparations must begin soon if we are to meet the looming 

challenge of strategic resource competition with China. A failure to plan

for this proxy competition might make a future war with China 

inevitable; we have only to examine Japan’s reaction to its loss of 

strategic resource access in the early twentieth century to illuminate the 

consequences such a situation could easily produce.
25

Notes

 

1. Dillon Craig, “State Security Policy and Proxy Wars in Africa—

Ultima Ratio Regum: Remix or Redux?” Strategic Insights 9, no. 1, 

(Spring/Summer 2010): 2. Although definitions of proxy conflict are 

varied, I find the one used by Craig, which he cites and expands upon, to 

be most useful.

2. See, for example, Alex Thomson, An Introduction to African 

Politics (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 160.

3. I define a unipolar system similarly to that in Christopher 

Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” 

International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 5 wherein a single power 

possesses sufficient military and economic resources to preclude any 

attempts to balance against it.

4. Athens and Sparta are an early example, as are Philip II’s Spain 

and France during the sixteenth century, and Great Britain and France 

during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

5. Kenneth Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International 

Politics.” International Security 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 44 similarly argues 

that this was the first case of international bipolarity in history.

6. Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs

70, no. 1 (1990); William C. Wohlforth “The Stability of a Unipolar 

World,” International Security 24, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 5–41; and 

Michael Mastanduno “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories 
26

 

and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security 21, 

no. 4 (Spring 1997). See also Stephen Brooks and William C. Wohlforth’s 

defense of unilateralism in “International Relations Theory and the Case 

against Unilateralism,” Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 3 (2005).

7. These are made by those Christopher Layne, The Peace of 

Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2006), 134–35) by what he terms “unipolar 

optimists,” who argue that US hard power allows no likely 

counterbalancing because of the high costs involved.

8. One example is made in John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of 

Great Power Politics (New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 

2001), in which he warns of the likelihood of a return of international 

conflict in multipolarity.

9. Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion,” 5–51.

10. A detailed argument about the alleged stability of bipolar 

international systems can be found in Kenneth Waltz, Theory of 

International Politics (Boston, MA: McGraw Hill, 1979).

11. There were 61 interstate conflicts between 1946 and 1990, yet 

most of these resulted in relatively few battle deaths and were of limited 

duration. Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP)/Peace Research 

Institute Oslo (PRIO), Armed Conflict Data Set, version v4–2009.

12. Other instances of regional bipolarity (e.g., Athens versus

Sparta, seventeenth century Spain versus France) were also conflictual.
27

 

13. An evaluation and appraisal of the evolution of Cold War US 

Grand Strategy can be found in John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of 

Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy 

During the Cold War (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1982).

14. Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand 

Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

2006), 176.

15. John Mueller, “The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons: 

Stability in the Postwar World,” International Security 13, no. 2 (Fall 

1988): 56.

16. Jon Abbink, “Proxy Wars and Prospects for Peace in the Horn 

of Africa” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21, no. 3 (September

2003).

17. Conflict data were obtained from the UCDP/PRIO Armed 

Conflict Data Set, version v4–2009,

http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/UCDP-PRIO/.

18. Ibid.

19. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 90.

20. The United States and the USSR were involved heavily in proxy 

conflicts in the first two decades following WWII; by the 1980s their level 

of involvement had dropped to less than 20 percent. Sources include 

John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, IL: 

Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 2006).
28

 

21. Realists like Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The 

Struggle for Power and Peace (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978) and 

Waltz, Theory of International Politics, have argued against US 

involvement in Third World proxy wars.

22. An example of nonmilitary involvement can be found in US 

humanitarian efforts in Haiti, yet this effort has been blasted by 

Venezuela and France as a US occupation attempt. Barron Youngsmith, 

“Proxy War: How Haiti Became a Battlefield for the Great Powers” The 

New Republic, January 30, 2010. Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to 

Success in World Politics (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2004) also explains 

how soft power increases US security in the modern age.

23. Layne, The Peace of Illusions, 28–38.

24. Maria Nikolopoulou, The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict 

of Exceptionalism and Silences (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2004). US 

policy for the conflict was first outlined in Pres. Harry Truman’s speech 

of 12 March 1947, when he stated the United States should “make full 

use of its political, economic and, if necessary, military power in such a 

manner as may be found most effective to prevent Greece from falling 

under the domination of the USSR.” John O. Iatrides, “Britain, the 

United States and Greece, 1945-9,” in Greek Civil War, 1943-50: Studies 

of Polarization, ed. David H. Close (London: Routledge, 1993), 202.

25. Susanne Jonas, Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, 

and U.S. Power (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 70. Additional 
29

 

information is included in Guy Arnold, Wars in the Third World since 

1945 (London: Cassell Villiers House, 1995), 601.

26. Elisabeth Jean Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War

(New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 28. Corroborating 

information was obtained on US intentions from a speech by former 

secretary of state Alexander Haig to NATO on 18 February 1981, in 

which he states: “We consider what is happening is part of the global 

Communist campaign . . . to support the Marxists in El Salvador.” From 

Martin E. Gettleman, ed., El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold 

War. (New York, NY: Grove Press, 1981). Also see Guy Arnold, Wars in 

the Third World since 1945 (London: Cassell Villiers House, 1995), 594–

99 and 616–20. For the Nicaraguan civil war, see Roger Miranda and 

William Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua: Inside the Sandinistas (New 

Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993).

27. Thomson, An Introduction to African Politics, 152–53, describes 

the evolution of Soviet support in Africa in its goal of expanding socialism 

on the continent.

28. William Minter Apartheid’s Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of 

War in Angola and Mozambique (London: Zed Books, 1994) and Arnold, 

Wars in the Third World, 362–64.

29. Richard J. Bloomfield, ed., Regional Conflict and U.S. Policy: 

Angola and Mozambique (Algonac, MI: Reference Publications, Inc., 1988) 

and Arnold, Wars in the Third World, 400–11.
30

 

30. This is not to say proxy conflict was not present in the Middle 

East–US cash grants to Israel. CIA support to the Afghan mujahedeen 

and the ouster of Mossadegh in Iran all supported US policies meant to 

disadvantage Western competition and forge a strategic alliance against 

the USSR, according to Beverley Milton-Edwards and Peter Hinchcliffe, 

Conflict in the Middle East since 1945 ( London: Routledge, 2001). 

31. John R. Thackrah, Routledge Companion to Military Conflict 

since 1945 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2009), 32.

32. Ibid., 74.

33. Raymond W. Copson, Africa’s Wars and Prospects for Peace

(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1994), 114–25. Although Soviet support 

was high through 1988, by 1990 the USSR no longer had the will to fund 

the conflict; both the United States and the USSR cut funding with the 

1991 negotiated peace settlement.

34. Jeffrey Record, Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win

(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2007), xi.

35. Data obtained from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Data Set, 

version v4–2009, http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/ArmedConflict/UCDP-PRIO/.

36. “China Overtakes Japan as World's Second-Biggest Economy,” 

Bloomberg News, 16 Aug 2010, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-

08-16/china-economy-passes-japan-s-in-second-quarter-capping-threedecade-rise.html.
31

 

37. Jonathan Pollack “American Perceptions of Chinese Military 

Power” in The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality, eds. Herbert 

Yee and Ian Storey (New York, NY: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 44, outlines 

an array of Chinese military advances.

38. Aaron Friedberg, “Implications of the Financial Crisis for the 

US-China Rivalry,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 52, no. 4, 

August–September 2010, 33–36, describes a wide range of effects 

resulting from the financial crisis on US–Chinese rivalries.

39. Jack S. Levy, “Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China,” 

in China’s Ascent: Power, Security and the Future of International Politics, 

eds. Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

2008), 32, argues China will challenge the US in Asia and to a lesser 

extent Africa only, until it develops sufficient power projection capability 

to expand further. Zhu Feng “China’s Rise will be Peaceful: Unipolarity 

Matters,” in China’s Ascent: Power, Security and the Future of 

International Politics, eds. Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2008), 53, claims China’s rise will be peaceful, 

using soft balancing against the United States in a unipolar construct.

40. John Ikenberry, “The Rise of China: Power, Institutions and the 

Western Order,” in China’s Ascent: Power, Security and the Future of 

International Politics, eds. Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2008), 92, shows how strengthening 

international institutions will force China to peaceably rise within them, 
32

 

rather than mounting a challenge to the international order. Jonathan 

Kirschner, in China’s Ascent: Power, Security and the Future of

International Politics, eds. Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2008), 239, claims that while Sino–US economic 

tensions will sometimes be high, war is also unlikely over this issue.

41. Robert Kaplan, “The Geography of Chinese Power: How Far can 

Beijing Reach on Land and at Sea?” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 3, May/June 

2010, 2, states that such actions are also conflictual in that they are 

shifting the balance of power in the Eastern Hemisphere, which “. . .must 

mightily concern the United States.”

42. Jacqueline Newmyer, “Oil, Arms and Influence: The Indirect 

Strategy behind Chinese Military Modernization,” Orbis 53, no. 2,

February 2009, 207, also shows how Chinese military modernization will 

soon make US efforts to protect Taiwan too costly to consider, and 

obviate the need for a Chinese use of force in such a conflict.

43. Andrew Scobell, China’s Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great 

Wall and the Long March (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 

2003), 189-91, describes Chinese offensive capabilities during this 

incident.

44. David Kang, China Rising: Peace, Power and Order in East Asia 

(New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007), 197–98, makes a 

strong case that regional balancing against China is thus unlikely.
33

 

45. Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 

2010,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 66, no. 6 (November 2010): 134.

46. Aaron Friedberg, “The Future of U.S.–China Relations: Is 

Conflict Inevitable?” International Security 30, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 17–19,

argues that the costs of such conflict will cause both sides to carefully 

avoid direct conflict.

47. Kaplan, “The Geography of Chinese Power,” 2, argues China is 

anxious to secure energy, metals and strategic minerals to meet these 

needs.

48. Friedberg, “The Future of U.S.–China Relations,” 17–19, also 

highlights China’s potential for economic growth and its implications.

49. Kaplan, “The Geography of Chinese Power,” 4, notes that 

resource acquisition is “the primary goal of China’s foreign policy 

everywhere.”

50. Grecia Matos and Lorie Wagner, “Consumption of Materials in 

the United States, 1900–1995,” Annual Review of Energy and 

Environment, 23–107, http://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-

107/aerdocnew.pdf, 4.

51. Data obtained from the US–China Economic and Security 

Review Commission, “2010 Report to Congress,” 

http://www.uscc.gov/annual_report/2010/10report_chapters.php, 183.

52. Friedberg, “The Future of U.S.–China Relations,” 19, shows 

how rising power states such as China will take necessary steps to 
34

 

ensure its access to required resources; he also states that disputes over 

these issues are “seldom resolved peacefully.”

53. These states are Libya, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan,

and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Reserve information was 

obtained from CIA: The World Fact Book,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.

54. “China to Help South Africa Develop Mineral Wealth,” 

Bloomberg News, 25 August 2010.

55. Peter Lewis, “China in Africa,” The Bretton Woods Committee 2, 

no. 1 (Spring 2007): 1.

56. Bill Emmott, Rivals: How the Power Struggle between China, 

India and Japan will Shape our Next Decade (Orlando, FL: Mariner 

Books, 2009), 53.

57. Jonathan Holslag and Sara Van Hoeymissen, The Limits of 

Socialization: The Search for EU-China Cooperation towards Security 

Challenges in Africa, Policy Report (Brussels, Belgium: Brussels Institute 

of Contemporary China Studies, 30 May 2010). China currently imports 

more than a quarter of its oil from Africa.

58. Economic data from Lewis, “China in Africa,” 12.

59. Stephen Burgess, “Sustainability of Strategic Minerals in 

Southern Africa and Potential Conflicts and Partnerships,” Air War 

College Research Paper, 2010, 

http://www.usafa.edu/df/inss/Research%20Papers/2010/Report%20B
35

 

urgess%20Southern%20Africa%20Strategic%20Minerals.pdf, 4. Burgess 

argues that the US has traditionally relied on free market forces in Africa 

and elsewhere for access to its strategic resource needs. However, 

China’s monopolistic practices in Africa mean that future access to these 

materials is no longer guaranteed and may be in serious jeopardy.

60. Note for example Tunisia’s recent ouster of President Ali and 

the recent antigovernment rebellion in Egypt.

61. Steven R. David, Catastrophic Consequences: Civil Wars and 

American Interests (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 

2008), describes how such regimes provide fertile ground for civil wars.

62. Burgess, “Sustainability of Strategic Minerals,” describes the 

US need for “defense critical materials,” primarily available only from 

Africa, which the United States must have access to in order to maintain 

its national security. These include platinum, cobalt, chromium, and 

manganese—each is vital to US defense and civilian industrial sectors 

and found primarily in African states and Russia. The lack of these 

materials would represent a critical loss in US ability to manufacture 

weapons and other defense systems and thus conceivably weaken US 

national security.

63. Barack H. Obama, National Security Strategy (Washington DC:

Government Printing Office, May 2010), 6.

64. Examples include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Virginia-class 

submarines, and ballistic missile defense programs.
36

 

65. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets: 

The Eroding Foundations of American Power” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 4 

(July/August 2009): 28–33. Such “wasting assets” have implications for 

future US foreign policy as well, as outlined in Donna M. Oglesby,

“Statecraft at the Crossroads: A New Diplomacy,” SAIS Review 29, no. 2 

(Summer/Fall 2009): 94.