Rationality is one of the central themes of Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age. People gravitate toward an either/or view of this trait, to wit: you’re either rational or you’re irrational. It’s not that simple.

We apply linear logic derived from economics and other fields to our daily lives. When considering some course of action, we estimate the costs, benefits, and pitfalls. We render a decision after judging whether the payoff we expect is worth the effort and risk.

That works reasonably well in everyday life, although it exaggerates how straightforward it is to assign numbers to the variables. What are the units of measurement for “benefits” when we debate whether to purchase a BMW instead of a Kia, or a mansion instead of a cottage? There’s no objective answer, only subjective ones. So much for unadulterated rationality.

Injecting a competitive element into rational decision-making compounds these ambiguities. Nations (and competitors in other fields of endeavor) interact constantly, vying to outdo one another in their quest for power, interest, and prestige. Indeed, interaction is the second core theme of Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age.

Strategist Edward Luttwak contends that linear logic gives way to a “paradoxical logic” of strategy once nations step into the arena of international competition. “Ironic reversals” of momentum are commonplace as thinking antagonists react to—and oftentimes outwit—each other’s designs.

And as economist Thomas Schelling points out, groups of people—societies, big institutions—depart from rationality in a variety of ways, such as inefficient communication, “faulty calculation,” “random or haphazard influences” on the decision-making process, or the sheer complexity of making decisions within groups where the members advocate for perspectives and courses of action sharply at variance with one another.

In short, the motives that drive human beings, the pitfalls of collective decision-making, and the nature of competition conspire to impair rational choice.

All of which is a long-winded way of getting around to today’s topic: apartheid South Africa. We begin a book about Asia with a non-Asian case precisely because it dramatizes how nuclear newcomers can do things that outsiders find wacky. Helen Purkitt and Steve Burgess show that paranoia gripped the apartheid regime in its waning days. Its bunker mentality distorted the rational calculus of foreign policy and strategy.

Pretoria built a small arsenal of tactical nukes, then retrofitted a strategy to the weapons. Apartheid rulers rightly saw their regime as being on “death ground,” to borrow Sun Tzu’s evocative term. Survival concentrates minds—impelling cost/benefit calculations toward expending every resource available for as long as it takes. Strategy can take some bizarre turns when a belligerent considers itself cornered.

For instance, Pretoria ran a variant of the good-cop/bad-cop routine vis-à-vis a hoped-for ally, the United States. The difference: there was no good cop to restrain the bad cop from his worst predilections, and the bad cop was not only bad but slightly unhinged. Should a conflict with the Soviet bloc loom, South African officials planned to gradually disclose that they had a working mass-destruction arsenal at their disposal.

The prospect of nuclear-armed government’s running amok, believed regime officials, would compel Washington to take Pretoria’s side against Moscow and its African surrogates. Why U.S. leaders would back them under such circumstances, apartheid leaders never explained. Staring political death in the face, Pretoria fashioned a strategy of desperation.

Thomas Schelling observes that in hard bargaining, being seen as less-than-fully rational confers significant advantages. In other words, your interlocutors may appease you for fear of what you may do if pushed. Schelling could have been writing about apartheid South Africa—or about recent nuclear newcomers such as North Korea, Iran, or Pakistan.

My trusty sidekick Toshi Yoshihara and I have a book coming out this December titled Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age. The premise behind this collection of essays is simple. Efforts at nonproliferation and counterproliferation are worthwhile and must continue, but nuclear proliferation has occurred. Averting our eyes from that unpleasant reality does no good. Accordingly, contributors to Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age try to get their minds around the strategic dynamics at work in this brave new world.

It is high time, that is, for officials and strategists to try to catch sight of how new entrants to the unofficial nuclear club will employ mass-destruction weaponry to protect themselves while advancing national purposes. (The official nuclear weapon states are the five countries recognized by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which also happen to be the permanent members of the UN Security Council.) Foresight will help oldtimers like the United States, the chief guardian of the first nuclear age, adjust their own strategies to shore up deterrence.

While he didn’t coin the phrase second nuclear age, Yale University professor Paul Bracken has done the most to popularize it. What is the second nuclear age? For one thing, it is an Asia-centric phenomenon. The first nuclear age was the age of relatively stable competition between the U.S.- and Soviet-led blocs.(“Relatively” being the operative word—especially this month, when we observe the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.) Writing in 1999, Bracken prophesied that newfound military strength would empower Asian governments to nullify Western superiority in the region. New technology would invert trendlines that originated during the fifteenth century, when Vasco da Gama first dropped anchor in Calicut. While China’s ascent to economic and military prominence has dominated headlines, this is a development of regionwide dimensions—and world-historical importance.

Today’s nuclear arsenals are a fraction the size of Cold War inventories. Nevertheless, the geometry of deterrence is more intricate than it was during the era of bipolar competition. Adding more competitors to the mix complicates the structure of the international system, for one thing. Each time a new country fields nuclear weapons, outsiders debate whether its leadership will abide by the familiar logic of mutual assured deterrence. In the 1960s, alarmed at Mao’s nonchalant talk about atomic war, both the United States and the Soviet Unioncontemplated striking at the Chinese nuclear complex preventively. North Korea is a wildcard today. So is the Islamic Republic of Iran, an incipient nuclear newcomer.

Trends among established nuclear powers further complicate deterrence. The late Samuel Huntington portrayed post-Cold War competition as a matter not of “buildup versus buildup but rather of buildup versus hold-down.” East and West ran a symmetrical arms race for decades. Today, established Western powers are striving to preserve their edge in unconventional weaponry vis-à-vis rising challengers. For Huntington the outcome of such a race was foreordained: “The hold-down efforts of the West may slow the weapons buildup of other societies, but they will not stop it.”

Huntington had it half right. Western nuclear weapon states do want to hold down proliferation, but at the same time they have undertaken partial disarmament rather than additional arms buildups. It would be more accurate, consequently, to describe the emerging dynamic as “build-down versus hold-down.” How Western governments will navigate the challenges of a world where no military can make the rubble bounce—but where many countries, driven by disparate histories, cultures, and incentives, deploy modest arsenals—remains to be determined.The Naval Nuclear Diplomat will survey some of the newcomers and their strategies over the next few days.

A Chinese friend raises an excellent point about the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s fitness for a one-on-one engagement against China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy. To wit: the JMSDF was founded mainly as an appendage of the Cold War U.S. Pacific Fleet. While the sea service has expanded its repertoire since the Cold War—dispatching minesweepers to the Persian Gulf in 1991, refueling coalition naval forces in the Indian Ocean after 9/11, and patrolling the Gulf of Aden for pirates—it remains largely true to its founding missions to this day.

Under the division of labor worked out between the two navies, the U.S. Navy supplied the offensive firepower, manifest in aircraft carriers and other high-end implements of war. The defensive-minded JMSDF acted as a gapfiller, making itself proficient atniche missions like minesweeping, anti-submarine warfare, and offensive submarine warfare. Japanese mariners performed these duties with aplomb. The composite U.S.-Japanese fleet kept the Soviet Navy largely in check, complicating Soviet ships’ egress from ports like Vladivostok into the broad Pacific Ocean. Many skippers chose not to bother.Though such endeavors took place mostly out of public view, they constituted one of the success stories of the Cold War.

An unintended consequence of Cold War maritime strategy is that the JMSDF remains a partial navy animated by a partial strategy, doctrine, and force structure. Fighting alone against a balanced peer navy would be tough. Whereas the U.S. Navy allocates warships to “expeditionary strike groups” and “amphibious ready groups,” as befits its offensive character, the Japanese fleet is organized into “escort flotillas” homeported at bases like Yokosuka and Sasebo. Escorts are intrinsically defensive assets. And with only five combat logistics ships in its inventory—ships that refuel and rearm combatant ships on the high seas, letting them remain on station longer—the JMSDF would be hard-pressed to sustain operations far from base without American logistical help.

Alone, then, the JMSDF is an unbalanced force—unlike the larger, increasingly balanced PLA Navy it faces across the Yellow Sea. By no means is this a knock against Japanese ships, weaponry, or crews. But it does suggest that the sea service would find it hard to fight the PLA without U.S. support. That would limit Tokyo’s unilateral options for a conflagration over the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, to cite the controversy that has dominated headlines of late.

Why? Because such a contingency would have a weaker claim on American interests and sympathies than would an assault on the Ryukyus, the home islands, or Japanese forces.U.S. leaders might balk at a risky, potentially costly conflict remote from U.S. interests—a conflict that could well make a permanent enemy of China, Asia’s foremost power. While they would probably honor their commitments to Japan’s defense, they would do so with no particular enthusiasm. Disagreement, delay, and missed opportunities might ensue in alliance circles.

Consequently, it behooves Tokyo to cultivate a degree of independence from Washington. Filling out the JMSDF force structure, drawing up a maritime strategy that holds open the option of fighting without the U.S. Navy, and readying officers and crews to go it alonewould render the JMSDF a well-rounded fleet. Such a fleet would deter—and counter—aggression better than one dependent on outside support.

Self-help is a time-honored principle of international relations in this hardscrabble world of ours. It’s a principle worth rediscovering for Japan.

Defense News is running an interview between reporter Chris Cavas and former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman that’s well worth your time. Now a senior advisor to the Mitt Romney campaign, Lehman presided over the expansion of the U.S. Navy to almost 600 ships during the 1980s. The chief takeaway from the interview is a number: 350. That’s the number of ships that Romney & Co. believe should comprise the future fleet. The campaign has apparently embraced the vision put forward by a blue-ribbon panel that evaluated the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon’s official view of the strategic environment and the best methods for coping with it. The QDR panel recommended fielding a 346-ship fleet. The navy’s goal stood at 313 ships from 2006 until earlier this year, when naval officials dialed the total back to “about 300.”

Two things to ponder about this. First, the fleet currently stands at 287 ships. A massive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier counts as one of those hulls; so does a dainty minesweeper. One ship is not like another. Which leads to the question: which 63 ships would the Romney team add to reach the target figure? The new administration would step up shipbuilding rates by about two-thirds, from nine to “approximately fifteen” new hulls per year. Some of Lehman’s observations are boilerplate, such as sustaining a fleet of eleven aircraft carriers and pressing ahead with destroyer construction. More intriguingly, he floats the idea of building a new class of guided-missile frigates to replace the workhorse Perry-class FFGs, which are going to their reward after three decades of service. That would reverse the trend toward substituting single-mission-at-a-time Littoral Combat Ships for multi-mission FFGs—and thereby attenuating the fleet’s overall combat strength. The LCS has its uses, as Lehman points out, but it is not a battle-force ship. LCS construction will continue should the White House change hands—but not as a substitute for higher-end combatants.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, how would the politics of a 20-plus-percent buildup of U.S. naval strength play out? Today’s strategic setting differs markedly from the early 1980s, when Secretary Lehman oversaw the Reagan buildup. Then, the United States confronted an overbearing adversary, the Soviet Union, with the “hollow” post-Vietnam military—a chronically overworked, undermanned, underfunded force. Under such duress, it was relatively easy to make the case for restoring U.S. military power. But how would a President Romney make his pitch? Is China, or Iran, a catalyst of Soviet proportions? If not, the electorate might see a reinvigorated, more expensive U.S. Navy as a wasting asset—never a healthy thing in a liberal society. If Romney wants to superintend a naval renaissance, he must convincingly explain America’s larger strategic purposes, and how a more muscular fleet will help the republic match purpose with power. That could be a challenge.

Read the whole thing.

Strategist Edward Luttwak likens warships to “black boxes” during peacetime strategic competition. Without peering inside, outsiders have a hard time judging how well designed, maintained, and operated a ship is. Combat clarifies a ship’s fitness by the most stringent standard possible, but battles are infrequent. The U.S. Navy’s last major fleet engagement, for example, took place at Leyte Gulf in October 1944. Absent that severe test, observers are forced to infer the state of things within the black box. Yet navies—like all big institutions—have defensive instincts. Few naval officials relish advertising ships’ or crews’ shortcomings. Such disclosures tarnish an institution’s reputation with domestic constituents and foreign audiences. In short, it’s hard for outsiders to take the measure of a navy in peacetime. A heavy guesswork quotient prevails.

Dramatic events—fires, groundings, collisions at sea, engineering accidents—offer a rare glimpse inside the box. Seldom is the view encouraging. Exhibit A: engineering travails on board the Soviet-built aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov. The flattop has undergone a major conversion since 2004, when New Delhi and Moscow inked a deal for the refit. It will join the Indian Navy as INS Vikramaditya. After repeated postponements, the transfer was slated for this December. Last month, however, the ship encountered major engineering problems during sea trials in the White Sea. The capacity to operate at full power for a specified period of time constitutes a key performance benchmark for propulsion plants. While details remain sketchy, the Gorshkov’s crew evidently had to take seven of eight boilers offline when they overheated during a full-power run. It appears the schedule will slipyet again, until—probably—sometime next year.

How long repairs will consume remains a matter of dispute. At fault was the insulation used to protect the boiler casings from the flames that burn within to generate steam. Indian officials rejected Russian proposals to use asbestos, which fell out of favor long ago owing to health hazards. Instead the boilers were lined with firebrick, long the standard in conventional steam-propelled U.S. warships. The bricks were evidently unable to withstand the heat generated when operating the boilers at full power. Accounts of the fault and likely repair timelines conflict. Some sources within the Russian shipbuilding industry indicated that the boilers will have to be replaced entirely—a major enterprise that would require cutting open the hull. If so, the ship’s delivery date will fall back another year or more.

Such estimates seem unduly dour. Unless the engineering watch team was asleep at the switch, they reduced the firing rate or shut down the boilers altogether when the problem appeared, and long before the heat could compromise the machinery’s structural integrity. In all likelihood, consequently, the shipyard can install new insulation without removing these massive pieces of gear. Betting against fresh setbacks to the Indian carrier program is typically a losing proposition. Still, I place my bet with the Russian boiler-design official who foretold a much shorter delay.

Who pays? is the other lingering question. The controversy took a comic turn late last month when Russian shipyard officials blamed imported, low-grade Chinese firebrick for the Gorshkov’s troubles. No less a personage than Defense Minister Yan Yujun rebutted the charges, maintaining that Chinese firms have “never” exported firebrick suitable for naval propulsion.

Engineering woes, questions about battle efficiency, diplomatic flare-ups—there’s clearly a reason navies like to keep their problems within black boxes. One hopes the Indian Navy affords this one close scrutiny as it nears service.

I am more sanguine than most about how the Japanese Self-Defense Forces stack up against China’s People’s Liberation Army. The SDF would acquit itself well in combat if commanders artfully combined all warfighting implements at their disposal, from ships to aircraft to shore-fired missiles. Tokyo has options; it even has advantages.

Judging from the contents of my email inbox the past few weeks, however, some Japanese commentators mistook this guardedly upbeat assessment for a prediction that Japan would prevail in any trial of arms—including a clash over the Senkaku/Diaoyu archipelago, west of the southernmost tip of the Ryukyus chain. Au contraire. Extolling the JSDF’s material and human excellence in general terms is a far cry from predicting a Japanese triumph in any particular contingency. There are no sure things in war.

Furthermore, a Senkakus conflict is probably the hardest case the JSDF may confront. Glance at the map. Geography may not be destiny, but it molds destiny. The archipelago lies within easy reach of PLA air, naval, and missile forces concentrated opposite nearby Taiwan. Advantage: China. On the allied side, Okinawa is home to U.S. Marine and Air Force bases as well as the JSDF’s Naha Air Base. It is situated a couple of hundred miles away, roughly the same distance as the mainland coast. That’s no small thing. But the Senkakus are remote from major bases in the Japanese home islands. The U.S. naval station at Yokosuka, for example, lies over 1,000 miles distant.

Even though Japan holds the contested ground, then, geography and the balance of forces would favor China should a conflict transpire today. The PLA will hold that edge unless Japan takes dramatic measures to fortify its southern ramparts. If the JSDF cannot win the air and sea battle around the Senkakus, it will lose the islands to any concerted PLA offensive. If nothing else, Chinese forces that controlled nearby waters and airspace could simply cordon off the archipelago and wait out the JSDF. Any Japanese defenders emplaced there would wither over time, bereft of food, water, and other critical supplies.

What to do? If commanding the air and sea is the key, then Tokyo must devise forces and plans for assuring JSDF access to the islands while denying PLA forces access. That could mean positioning mobile anti-ship missiles on Yonaguni Island, at the southern tip of the Ryukyus and within missile range of the Senkakus. (Such a move would be certain to play well with the locals.) It could mean expanding the submarine fleet and adjusting submarine deployment patterns southward. Patrolling the waters near the islets would comprise a potent deterrent. It could mean fielding new classes of small missile craft to wage guerrilla war at sea against Chinese surface ships—much as the PLA Navy envisions doing against U.S.-Japanese naval forces.

It certainly means Tokyo must act. Agonizing endlessly over measures like stationing token ground forces in the Ryukyus—as the nation has been doing for years now—does little to shore up Japan’s strategic position along its southern periphery. Fielding excellent military forces is a start. But if Japan’s leadership wants to win, it must put the JSDF in position to do so. Faster, please.

The Naval Diplomat’s pal Chris Weuve recently gave an interview that will be a crowd-pleaser for naval and science-fiction enthusiasts—two communities that overlap to a striking degree, for reasons that may be worth speculating about in a future post. The exchange is mostly about Battlestar Galactica. It’s on the long side, but read the whole thing.

Chris dwells mainly on the mechanics of space combat. For instance, he questions whether the aircraft carrier is the right warship to project skyward as the pattern for war in the heavens. In space, after all, the carrier and its fighter and scout wings operate in the same element, an empty void, rather than different ones, water and air. The Galactica’s “Viper” fighters need no catapults to fling them into space. Pilots can fly without worrying about whether that pesky Bernoulli’s Law will keep them aloft. Nor do fighters fall crashing to earth after suffering battle damage, incurring equipment failures, or running out of fuel. Crippled Vipers would simply drift off, much like ships adrift at sea—well, except for that suffocating and freezing-to-death thing. Space is a particularly harsh operating environment.

The aircraft-carrier concept largely works for me despite the differences Chris illuminates. The Galactica carries a contingent of unarmed “Raptor” scout craft capable of faster-than-light jumps, but its fighters are limited to sublight travel. (The enemy Cylons have stolen a technological march on our heroes, constructing “raiders” that manage to perform as faster-than-light fighter spacecraft. Infernal machines.) Vipers are built for speed, maneuverability, and a heavy weapons payload for close-quarters combat. These attributes consume space within their small airframes that might otherwise go to more ambitious propulsion plants. If fighters are the humans’ warfighting instruments of choice, they need a mothership to transport combat power from battle zone to battle zone. And catapults make sense, even though there’s no aerodynamic reason for them. They accelerate the Galactica’s Vipers to combat speed—furnishing a significant tactical edge from the moment the fighters clear the flight deck.

Another naval analogy for the battlestar and its complement of Vipers and Raptors is USS Ponce. This recently refitted amphibious platform dock now acts as a floating support ship for mine-countermeasures assets and other small craft unable to sustain themselves at sea for long intervals. These ships all operate in the same element, water, but lesser craft and their crews benefit from a forward-deployed repair, refueling and rearming, and logistics base.

Which leads me to the other reason the Galactica remains one of my favorite starships. The battlestars’ builders appear to have designed them in a non-cost-constrained environment. The ships can do everything, and cost is no object!! That’s every sci-fi geek’s (and every seafarer’s) dream—a man-of-war that can perform every mission, mount every offensive and defensive weapon, withstand attack because of its heavy armor and shielding, provide its own logistical support, and still offer a comfy place to lounge around in one’s off-duty hours. Captain Jean-Luc Picard tells an awestruck visitor as much in one of the Star Trek films. The economics of the 24th century, says Picard, are such that starships like the Enterprise can be built in large numbers with little thought about competing priorities.

The Galactica is an aircraft carrier. As I proposed above, it’s also a mothership. It’s also a battleship. The battlestars sport not just a secondary battery of cannon for fighting off Cylon fighters but a main battery of heavy guns for taking on Cylon “base ships,” or dreadnoughts. The ability to close with an enemy base ship for a knife fight comes in handy once or twice during the series. Being able to ignore the inescapable trade-offs among speed, armament, and protection is a fantasy all mariners entertain from time to time. They can indulge it in fiction.

One point on a different subject: Battlestar Galactica inveighs against certain hazards of high technology. “Network-centric warfare” has been a U.S. Navy mantra for two decades. But the Galactica escapes destruction at Cylon hands only because it’s an antique. It is the oldest capital ship in the Colonial fleet. Its skipper—Commander Adama, a veteran of decades of war against the Cylons—refused to upgrade its technology with networked computers. With no networks connecting individual computer consoles, the ship and its fighters are impervious to viruses of the kind the Cylons use to disable human defenses—including the defenses of scores of more advanced battlestars and their fighter wings. Lesson: golly-gee technology like GPS and networks is all very well, but let’s not become too dependent on it. The first thing a savvy adversary will try to take away in wartime is American use of satellites and the electromagnetic spectrum. Thinking about workarounds ahead of time constitutes a healthy habit for warriors. Failing to do so could bring about, well, a Colonial fate.

As a mathematician (another sci-fi-inclined crowd) might say, martial endeavors at sea don’t map to outer space on a one-to-one basis. But they don’t need to. Debating what filmmakers get right and wrong about space warfare helps us reexamine our earthbound profession in a new light.

The Naval Diplomat took part in a War of 1812 conference in Saint John, New Brunswick, last week. The conference organizers zeroed in on the part British America played in that half-forgotten conflict. And a fascinating part it was. Presenters covered such topics as the 104th Regiment of Foot’s epic 700-mile march from Fredericton, New Brunswick, to Kingston, Ontario, during the frigid winter of 1813. And who knew about the 1814 sack of Bangor, Maine?

But enough about bloodthirsty Canadians! I held forth on how the warshaped early American attitudes toward the sea, and on how two eminent scholar-practitioners—Alfred Thayer Mahan and Theodore Roosevelt—later sought to revise Americans’ collective memory of the war. Both Mahan and Roosevelt wrote histories of the war at sea. Composed in 1882, TR’s remains in print to this day. It remains the account by which others measure themselves.

The upshot for both historians: U.S. naval strategy for the War of 1812 was something to avoid, not an example to emulate. They openly and unapologetically contradicted decades of lore surrounding the conflict, in hopes of helping Americans unlearn false lessons.

The founding generations saw war as an endeavor for minutemen at sea. When war broke out, the United States would dispatch its miniscule, lightly equipped navy to do battle with the enemy. It would also raise a “militia” force of privateers—private mariners issued government charters to raid enemy merchant shipping. Best of all, the republic could accomplish wartime goals while sparing itself the expense of maintaining standing peacetime forces—just as it had in 1812-1815. Right?

Well ... no.

In popular memory, plucky U.S. Navy frigates commanded by the likes of Isaac Hull and Stephen Decatur stood out to sea to duel Great Britain’s Royal Navy. True enough, declared Roosevelt and Mahan. But they pointed out that U.S. frigates’tactical victories were strategically meaningless. Royal Navy squadrons subsequentlybottled up U.S. Navy warships in port while shutting down American trade. With no ships-of-the-line, the United States had no way to lift the blockade.

The war, in short, was a debacle. How to forestall future debacles? First, TR and Mahan beseeched Americans to embrace a culture of naval preparedness. And by preparedness they meant advance preparedness. Maritime strategy cannot be a slapdash affair. The republic had to build warships before a conflict erupted, or lag fatally behind events. And second, the U.S. Navy needed a true battle fleet, not a hodgepodge of small craft unable to win command of the sea. A modest force of capital ships would let the United States fight on equal terms, exercising dominion over nearby waters without bankrupting itself.

To protect commercial shipping, then, the United States needed a fleet capable of breaking any new blockade. Why did Roosevelt and Mahan belabor this obscure history? Because the United States only started riveting together a battle fleet during their lifetimes, seventy years after the Treaty of Ghent. They feared that public opinion would remain apathetic toward sea power. Tearing down a culture that considered naval warfare a pickup game—and replacing it with a culture of preparedness—was naval proponents’ aim.

Their cultural reformation goes on. Or at least it needs to. The U.S. Navy’s slogan for this year’s bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812 is “America’s Navy: Keeping the Sea Free for More Than 200 Years.” The promotional materials are uniformly excellent, including a video narrated by actor Richard Dreyfuss. Nevertheless, TR and Mahan (and I) would attach an asterisk to the navy’s slogan. The U.S. Navy can plausibly claim to have kept American seas free since the 1880s, when its first battle fleet took shape. But since 1812? No way.

Sea power is a conscious political choice. Early in their history, Americans and their leaders made the conscious political choice not to field a great navy—and paid a heavy price for that decision. As a slogan, “Stuck in Port” would do little to fire enthusiasm for War of 1812 commemorations. But it might be more instructive than “Keeping the Sea Free”—especially in an age when America is again mulling its destiny on the high seas. Let’s be frank about past shortcomings.

Last week Captain Zhang Zheng, the photogenic commanding officer of the PLA Navy’s first aircraft carrier, gave a remarkably frank interview in which he confessed that the PLA Navy has a long way to go before it operates carrier task forces proficiently. I agree.

I intend no slight; it takes time and trial-and-error to master an entirely new platform. But the hype that greeted the ship’s commissioning was decidedly premature. Now christened Liaoning, China’s flattop does not begin to approach the size or capability of U.S. Navy nuclear-powered carriers. Nor can its crew match the skill and experience of U.S. CVN crews. Herewith, my list of the Top 5 reasons why the Liaoning is outclassed by its American counterparts:

5. No air wing. At first blush this seems like the main hurdle to an effective carrier task force. The air wing constitutes a carrier’s “main battery,” or offensive punch, not to mention a major element of the fleet’s defense against aerial, surface, or subsurface attack. But the PLA Navy now possesses a working flattop and, apparently, combat aircraft capable of operating from its flight deck. The rest is a matter of doctrinal development and sheer practice for aircrews. These are soluble problems given ample time, resolve, and patience. Indeed, training will be the Liaoning’s chief function for the foreseeable future.

4. Size. The Liaoning displaces about two-thirds the tonnage of an American CVN. Its air wing is commensurately smaller. Built by the Soviet Union, it was designed to accommodate 28 fighter/attack aircraft, a fraction of the U.S. complement. A one-on-one shootout between the Liaoning and a U.S. flattop, then, would be no contest.

3. Non-nuclear propulsion. Naval nuclear propulsion isn’t everything, but it does comprise a commanding advantage. U.S. CVNs are swifter, boast virtually unlimited cruising range, and steam for years without refueling. They do need to take on jet fuel every few days to conduct regular flight operations; their aircraft aren’t nuclear-powered. Still, reducing the logistical burden translates into greater tactical and operational flexibility for commanders.

2. Escorts and combat logistics. Carriers steam in company with a coterie of escorts and support vessels. The PLA Navy, however, has not yet filled out the remainder of a carrier task force. The navy’s newest guided-missile destroyers appear adequate for air-defense purposes, but anti-submarine warfare remains a puzzling shortfall—particularly since China’s likely adversaries, the United States and Japan, excel at undersea operations. Combat logistics—oilers, ammunition ships, refrigerated stores ships—remains another glaring shortcoming for the PLA Navy. These unglamorous but crucial vessels can replenish men-of-war, allowing them to stay at sea for long intervals without returning to port. Chinese task forces will remain vulnerable and tethered to shore logistical support until shipbuilders plug these gaps in the inventory.

1. Human excellence. As Theodore Roosevelt observed in his history of The Naval War of 1812, it takes the finest ships and the finest crews to make up a fleet capable of vying for maritime command. The finest weapon is no better than its wielder. Until the Liaoning ship’s company and air wing start operating regularly at sea, they are unlikely to develop the skills, habits, and esprit de corps necessary to contend with rivals like the U.S. Navy or Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. This may not matter that much for the foreseeable future, since the PLA Navy fleet will probably operate mainly within reach of extended-range shore fire support. But once the navy ventures beyond that protective aegis—and should competitors find ways to blunt the PLA’s anti-access weaponry—the human factor promises to become critical indeed.

Early in 2011 I wrote a Diplomat feature asking whether China had patterned its diplomacy on that of Otto von Bismarck, Germany's Iron Chancellor. The verdict is in, and the answer is no. Bismarck was a coldhearted man, devoted single mindedly to preserving and advancing German imperial power. But he knew the diplomatic value of self-restraint. Situated amid fellow great powers, newly united Germany had to convince prospective rivals it had no claims on their territory, lest they combine against and overpower the Reich. The chancellor also deftly encouraged competition among Germany's rivals. The upshot: a "hub-and-spoke" system in which Berlin was on better terms with each potential competitor than they were among themselves.

Bismarck, then, was the consummate alliance breaker -- or, more accurately, alliance preventer. These days Chinese diplomacy could hardly be less Bismarckian. After waging a rather impressive charm offensive for some years -- after pursuing a subdued diplomacy in which the Iron Chancellor would've taken pride -- Beijing has wantonly squandered the reserves of goodwill it accumulated in Asian capitals.

If further proof were needed, China's Defense Ministry generously supplied another bit late last week when spokesman Yang Yujun confirmed that PLA Navy warships have conducted patrols near the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Yang disgorged what appears to be Beijing's boilerplate on the dispute, namely that the islets "have been an inseparable part of Chinese territory since ancient times." Thus naval and law-enforcement ships had a perfect right to police the waters around the Japanese-administered archipelago. Shades of "indisputable sovereignty" over the South China Sea -- another non-negotiable position Beijing has carved out for itself in recent years, seemingly ruling out compromise.

Far from reassuring fellow Asian nations or stoking frictions among them, Beijing has given them reason to make common cause -- both among themselves and with their balancer of first resort, the United States. But if not Bismarck, there is a German ruler whose erratic, reckless diplomacy foreshadowed China's. His name was Kaiser Wilhelm II. He frightened Germany's neighbors, isolated his nation, and united a hostile alliance against it. He also marched Europe over the precipice in 1914. That's what we call self-defeating behavior.

One hopes the Kaiser isn't the new face of Chinese foreign policy.