CLSC Dialogues – Ep 20 – Brian Carlson and David Stone – “Potential Forms of Russian Support for China in a Protracted War”

In this episode of CLSC Dialogues, Brian Carlson interviews David Stone, a Russia expert from the U.S. Naval War College, about potential forms of support that Russia might or might not provide to China in the event of a protracted war in the Indo-Pacific. They discuss the likelihood of direct Russian military intervention in support of China, possible ways that Russia might create distractions for the United States and its allies and partners, and Russia’s ability to support China by providing additional weapons, ammunition, or energy supplies. They conclude with a discussion of the likely future trajectory of the China-Russia relationship.

Keywords: China, Russia, protracted war, defense cooperation, energy supplies

Episode Transcript You're listening to CLSC Dialogues, land power in the Indo Pacific, a China land power studies production. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, U.S. Army War college, or any other agency of the U.S. government. I'm Brian Carlson (USAWC/SSI), research professor of Indo Pacific security studies at the China Land Power Studies Center at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College. HOST (Brian Carlson) Joining me today is David Stone of the William E Odom professor of Russia studies in the Strategy and Policy department at the US Naval War College. He has published extensively on Russian military history and foreign policy. Thank you for joining us today, David. STONE (David Stone) My pleasure to be here. HOST David and I were on a panel together back in October at the PLA conference sponsored by the China Land Power Studies Center and the topic of our panel was China's cooperation with strategic partners in the event of protracted war. David's paper focus on likely assistance that Russia could provide to China in that kind of eventuality. My paper attempted to look at how China views strategic partnerships in that kind of situation, and I also focused primarily on Russia. That will be the main topic of our podcast today. We'll discuss potential Russian support for China in the event of protracted war, and then we'll end by talking a little bit about the likely future trajectory of the China Russia relationship. So, in my paper, as I say, I attempted to analyze how China views strategic partnerships and the kind of support that they might expect from Russia and other partners in the event of protracted war. Now Chinese leaders don't say much about this. Perhaps not surprisingly. They might want to protect the confidentiality of discussions with their Russian counterparts. It's possible that they also don't have a clear understanding of what kind of support Russia might provide in the event of protracted war. The only official statement I could find on this came from last summer, when a Russian journalist at the newspaper Izvestia asked the Chinese ambassador to Russia what kind of support might China count on for Russia in the event of tensions in the Taiwan Strait? And the ambassador essentially just reiterated the one China principle. He said that the international community recognizes this principle. Russia has always supported China on it and we expect that that will continue in the future. So, he didn't say anything about possible material assistance. And some Chinese media coverage speculated on this some of the accounts said China's not showing its hand very much, or possibly the unspoken message is that China really isn't counting on Russia for much support. And might view it as a liability and might not even want much support from Russia in that kind of case. But there were also media accounts that said Russia could play a useful role, for example in intimidating other countries in the region that have become troublesome for China and Russia. So, so I looked at it from that angle in the paper, and then David and I both discussed ways that Russia might possibly be of assistance