SAIC Contributes to Study Aimed at Building U.S.-China Strategic Cooperation
Lewis Dunn, a senior vice president at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), recently completed a multi-year effort that brought together experts from the United States and China to explore steps toward building a stable and cooperative long-term strategic relationship between the two nations.
The result was a study that highlights challenges arising from the interaction of the two countries' doctrines, capabilities, and programs in the areas of nuclear offenses and defenses, outer space, and the cyber realm, and explores options to address those challenges. At the center of the project was joint analysis by U.S. and Chinese experts.
"I think of this project as throwing pebbles in the pond of Chinese and American thinking about how to lessen the mutual uncertainties about each other's strategic intentions and programs, how to build habits of cooperation in addressing those uncertainties, and how over the longer term to put in place a cooperative strategic relationship," said Dunn.
The report has been issued in English and Chinese for a target audience that includes active and retired officials in the United States and China, as well as experts in think tanks and similar organizations.
Study Outlines Ideas for Developing Way Ahead
Dunn said that he would like readers to take away the message expressed by all the experts who participated that both the United States and China have very important political, economic, and strategic interests in getting this relationship right. "There are serious challenges, but the possibilities for building habits of cooperation exist, and we need to work to take advantage of them," said Dunn.
As a start, Dunn noted that the two countries need to begin with a variety of actions for mutual reassurance, lessening concerns, uncertainties, and suspicions on both sides. From there, creative new approaches are needed, not traditional nuclear arms control from the Cold War, but other, less formal means of U.S.-China mutual strategic restraint.
"In some ways the very process of working jointly is as important as the specific results and ideas," Dunn said. "For this project, it was rewarding to see how persons in both countries wrestled with issues and sometimes changed their thinking, setting the stage for later progress."
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