The world’s health systems face a complex and interconnected set of challenges that threaten to outpace our capacity to respond. Geopolitical fragmentation, climatic breakdown, technological disruption, pandemic threats, and misinformation have converged to strain the foundations of global health.  Building resilient global health systems requires five urgent reforms: sharpening the mandate of the World Health Organization (WHO), operationalizing the One Health concept, modernizing procurement, addressing the climate–health nexus, and mobilizing innovative financing. Together, these shifts can move the world from fragmented, reactive crisis management to proactive, equitable, and sustainable health security.

Emerging and Escalating Threats

While the global community demonstrated remarkable resilience in weathering the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis also exposed profound structural weaknesses in global health governance and architecture. Chronic underinvestment in health systems led to coverage gaps, workforce shortages, and inadequate surveillance systems. The pandemic also revealed a fragmented global health architecture, plagued by institutional silos among key agencies (Elnaiem et al. 2023).

Years later, the aftershocks of the pandemic still resonate worldwide, with the ongoing triple burden of disease—the unfinished agenda of maternal and child health, the rising silent pandemic of noncommunicable diseases, and the reemergence of communicable diseases. These challenges, combined with the persistent challenge of malnutrition, unmet needs in early childhood development, growing concerns around mental health, and the threat of other emerging diseases, as well as the rising toll of trauma, injury, and aging populations, have placed countries across the world under immense strain. Health systems face acute infrastructure gaps, critical workforce shortages, and persistent inequities in service delivery, making it increasingly difficult to address the complex and evolving health needs of their populations. Post-pandemic fiscal tightening has constrained health budgets with debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 70–80% in parts of the region (UN ESCAP 2023).

 Furthermore, climate change is fundamentally redefining the risk landscape. Rising temperatures, more frequent floods, intensifying storms, and shifting vector ranges for organisms like mosquitoes and ticks are disrupting food systems, displacing populations, and driving new patterns of disease transmission. Over the next 25 years in low- and middle-income countries, climate change could cause over 15 million excess deaths, and economic losses related to health risks from climate change could surpass $20.8 trillion (World Bank 2024). The cost of inaction has never been higher.

Meanwhile, deepening political polarization is amplifying conflict and weakening the global cooperation essential for scientific progress. The number of geopolitical disturbances worldwide is at an all-time high, displacing over 122 million people and eroding access to essential health services (UNHCR 2024). In 2023, false and conspiratorial health claims amassed over 4 billion views across digital platforms, compromising vaccine uptake and fueling health-related conspiracy theories. (Kisa and Kisa 2025). Furthermore, exponential technological advances in artificial intelligence are outpacing public health governance systems, creating new ethical and equity dilemmas. Global development assistance for health has significantly declined by more than $10 billion, with sharp cuts driven by the United States. This decline is likely to continue over the next five years (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation 2025).

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Note: Development assistance for health is measured in 2023 real US dollars; 2025 data are preliminary estimates.

Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation 2025.
 

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Five Critical Reform Directions for Future-Proofing Global Health Systems

1.    WHO matters more than ever — but only if it sharpens its focus.

The World Health Organization remains the technical backbone of global health, with a mandate to set norms and standards, shape research agendas, monitor health trends, coordinate emergency responses and regulation, and provide technical assistance. COVID-19 underscored both its indispensability and its limitations. During the pandemic, WHO convened states, disseminated guidance, and spearheaded initiatives like the Solidarity Trial and COVAX to promote vaccine equity, illustrating why it remains vital as the only neutral platform where 194 member states can cooperate on pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, or climate-related health risks. Its work on universal health coverage, the “triple burden” of disease, and global health data continues to anchor policy across countries.

At the same time, the crisis exposed structural weaknesses: WHO lacks enforcement authority, relies heavily on voluntary donor-driven funding, and sometimes stretches beyond its comparative strengths. When it shifts from convening and technical guidance into direct fund management, logistics, or large-scale program delivery, it risks diluting its mandate and eroding trust. Critics argue this reflects a broader challenge of an expansive mandate and donor-driven mission creep, pushing WHO beyond what 7,000 staff and a modest budget can realistically deliver. The way forward lies in sharpening focus: leveraging its convening power and legitimacy, providing technical expertise and evidence-based guidance, coordinating emergencies under the International Health Regulations, and advocating for equity in access to medicines and care. Anchored in these core strengths, a more agile WHO can better lead during crises, sustain credibility, and ensure that global health standards are consistently applied across diverse national contexts.

2.    Animal Health as the Next Frontier

More than 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic in origin, with roughly three-quarters of newly detected pathogens in recent decades spilling over from animals into humans (WHO 2022; Jones, Patel, Levy, et al. 2008). The economic costs are staggering: the World Bank estimates that zoonotic outbreaks have cost the global economy over $120 billion between 1997 and 2009 through crises such as Nipah, SARS, H5N1, and H1N1 (World Bank 2012). The drivers of spillover are intensifying due to deforestation and land-use change, industrial livestock farming, wildlife trade, and climate change. These are further accelerating the emergence of novel pathogens. 

However, the governance of animal health remains fragmented. While WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) each hold mandates, they often operate in silos. The Quadripartite, expanded in 2021 to include the United Nations Environment Programme, launched a One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–26), but it remains underfunded and lacks strong political commitment. 

There is an urgent need to move One Health from principle to practice. To fill this governance gap, the world should consider establishing an independent intergovernmental alliance for animal health with a clear mandate. This could strengthen global One Health response by augmenting joint surveillance, building veterinary workforce capacity, and integrating environmental data into early warning systems. Such an alliance should avoid creating new bureaucratic layers and instead leverage the Quadripartite as its operational backbone. Embedding One Health into national health strategies and cross-sectoral policies would enable animal, human, and environmental health systems to work in tandem and address risks at their source. Preventive investments are also very cost-effective; the World Bank estimates that annual One Health prevention investments of $10–11 billion could save multiple times that amount in avoided pandemic losses (World Bank 2012). Strengthening One Health is both a health and economic necessity. 

3.    Agile Procurement: The Missing Link in Global Health Security

COVID-19 revealed how vital procurement and financial management are to global health security. A system built for routine procurement was suddenly called upon to handle crisis response on a worldwide scale, and it struggled to keep up. When vaccines became available, strict procedures, fragmented supply chains, and export restrictions meant access was uneven and often delayed. Developed countries’ advance purchase agreements stockpiled most of the supply, leaving many low- and middle-income countries waiting for doses. Within the UN system and its partners, overly complex procurement rules slowed the speed to market, and the lack of harmonized regulatory recognition caused further delays. As a result, those least able to handle shocks faced the longest waits and highest costs.

Reform must begin by making procurement agile, transparent, and equitable. Emergency playbooks should be pre-cleared to ensure that indemnity clauses and quality assurance requirements can be activated immediately when the next crisis arises. Regional pooled procurement mechanisms, like the Pan American Health Organization’s Revolving Fund or the African Union’s pooled initiatives, should be expanded to diversify supply sources and anchor distributed manufacturing. End-to-end e-procurement platforms would provide real-time shipment tracking, facility-level stock visibility, and open dashboards to strengthen accountability. Financial management must be integrated with procurement so that contingency funds, countercyclical reserves, and fast-disbursing credit lines can release resources in tandem with purchase orders. Together, these reforms would ensure that in future health emergencies, these procurement systems act as lifelines rather than bottlenecks.

4.    Addressing the Health–Climate Nexus

Climate change poses severe health risks, disproportionately affecting women and vulnerable populations in developing countries through heatwaves, poor air quality, food and water insecurity, and the spread of infectious diseases. Climate-related disasters are increasing in frequency and severity worldwide, reshaping both economies and health systems. In 2022, there were 308 climate-related disasters worldwide, ranging from floods and storms to droughts and wildfires (ADRC 2022). These events generated an estimated $270 billion in overall economic losses, with only about $120 billion insured—underscoring the disproportionate burden on low- and middle-income countries where resilience and coverage remain limited (Munich Re 2023). Over the past two decades, Asia and the Pacific have consistently been the most disaster-prone regions, accounting for nearly 40% of all global events, but every continent is now affected, from prolonged droughts in Africa and mega storms in North America to record-breaking heatwaves in Europe (UNEP n.d.).

Meeting this challenge requires a dual agenda of adaptation and mitigation. Health systems must be made climate-resilient by hardening infrastructure against floods and storms, ensuring reliable, clean energy in clinics and hospitals, and building climate-informed surveillance and early-warning systems that can anticipate disease outbreaks linked to environmental change. Supply chains need redundancy and flexibility to withstand shocks, and frontline workers require training to manage climate-driven health crises. At the same time, health systems must rapidly decarbonize. This means greening procurement and supply chains, phasing out high-emission medical products like certain inhalers and anesthetic gases, upgrading buildings and transport fleets, and embedding sustainability into financing and governance. Momentum is growing. The 2023 G20 Summit in Delhi, supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), recognized the health–climate nexus as a global priority, and institutions such as WHO, the World Bank, and ADB have begun to advance this agenda. The next step is to translate commitments into operational change by embedding climate-health strategies into national health plans, financing frameworks, and cross-sectoral policies. Climate action, sustainability, and resilience need to be integrated into the foundation of health systems.

5.    Mobilizing Innovative Financing

Strengthening health systems and preventing future pandemics will require massive financing, but global health funding is in decline. Innovative mechanisms to mobilize new resources are essential. This requires stronger engagement with finance ministries, development financing institutions, and the private sector to design models that attract and de-risk investment while enabling rapid disbursement during emergencies. International financing institutions (IFIs) need to unlock innovative financial pathways to amplify health investments. They need to deploy blended finance initiatives, public-private partnerships, guarantees, debt swaps, and outcome-based financing tools to mobilize private capital for health. Over the past few years, IFIs have committed billions in health-related financing worldwide. This has included landmark support for vaccine access facilities, delivery of hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses, and mobilization of large-scale response packages that combine grants, loans, and technical assistance. 

There is a need to broaden the financing mandate beyond investing in universal health coverage and mobilize capital for emerging areas, including the climate-health nexus, mental health, nutrition, rapid urbanization, demographic shifts, digitization, and non-communicable diseases. By leveraging their balance sheets, IFIs can generate a multiplier effect in fund mobilization and attract new financing actors. Innovative instruments are already demonstrating potential. For example, the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), which issues “vaccine bonds” backed by donor pledges, has raised over $8 billion for Gavi immunization programs (IFFIm 2022; Moody’s 2024).  Debt-for-health and debt-for-nature swaps have redirected debt service into social outcomes. For example, El Salvador’s 2019 Debt2Health agreement with Germany channeled approximately $11 million into strengthening its health system, while Seychelles’ debt-for-nature swap created SeyCCAT to finance marine conservation, yielding social and resilience co-benefits for coastal communities (Hu, Wang, Zhou, et al. 2024). Similarly, contingent financing facilities—such as the Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP) and the International Financing Facility for Education (IFFEd)—also hold significant potential for health (IFFEd n.d.; ADB n.d.).  These examples demonstrate how contingent financing and swaps can expand fiscal space without exacerbating debt distress.

This can create a virtuous cycle of facilitating investments that create regional cooperation for sustainable and scalable impact. In this vein, the G20 Pandemic Fund is a beacon of catalytic multilateralism funding in a fragmented world. Launched in 2022 with over $2 billion pooled from governments, philanthropies, and multilaterals, it strengthens pandemic preparedness in low- and middle-income countries. Every $1 awarded from the Pandemic Fund has mobilized an estimated $7 in additional financing. The fund demonstrates that nations can still unite around shared threats, offering hope and a template for collective action on global challenges.

Equally important is the ability to deploy funds rapidly in emergencies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, reserve and countercyclical funds, used by countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Lithuania, along with the Multilateral Development Bank’s fast-track financing facilities with streamlined approval and disbursement processes, provided urgent and timely financing support (Sagan, Webb, Azzopardi-Muscat, et al. 2021; Lee and Aboneaaj 2021). These mechanisms should be institutionalized in national financial management systems as well as IFIs to ensure rapid funding disbursement in future health emergencies

Moving Forward

Delivering on this reform agenda requires more than technical fixes—it demands political will, sustained financing, and cross-sectoral collaboration. Member states must empower WHO to lead within its comparative strengths, while reinforcing One Health through stronger mandates and funding. Governments, IFIs, and the private sector should jointly design agile procurement and financing mechanisms that can be activated at speed during crises. Embedding health into climate policies and climate resilience into health strategies will ensure that future systems are both sustainable and resilient to shocks. Above all, reform efforts must be anchored in equity, so that the most vulnerable are protected first.

The opportunity before the global community is to reimagine health as the backbone of resilience and prosperity in the 21st century. A whole-of-systems approach is necessary to clarify mandates, integrate animal and environmental health, develop agile and fair procurement systems, embed climate action into health systems, and mobilize innovative financing. The steps taken in the next few years can lead to a more connected, cooperative, and future-ready global health architecture. 

Works Cited

ADB (Asia Development Bank). n.d. “IF-CAP: innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific.”

ADRC (Asian Disaster Reduction Center). Natural Disasters Data Book 2022. 

Elnaiem, Azza, Olaa Mohamed-Ahmed, Alimuddin Zumla, et al. 2023. “Global and Regional Governance of One Health and Implications for Global Health Security.” The Lancet 401 (10377): 688–704. 

Hu, Yunxuan, Zhebin Wang, Shuduo Zhou, et al. 2024. “Redefining Debt-to-Health, a Triple-Win Health Financing Instrument in Global Health.” Globalization and Health 20 (1): 39. 

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. 2025. “Financing Global Health.” 

IFFEd (International Financing Facility for Education). n.d. “A Generation of Possibilities.” 

IFFIm (International Finance Facility for Immunisation). 2022. “How the World Bank Built Trust in Vaccine Bonds.” October 21. 

Jones, Kate E., Nikkita G. Patel, Marc A. Levy, et al. 2008. “Global Trends in Emerging Infectious Diseases.” Nature 451: 990–93. 

Kisa, Adnan, and Sezer Kisa. 2025. “Health Conspiracy Theories: A Scoping Review of Drivers, Impacts, and Countermeasures.” International Journal for Equity in Health 24 (1): 93.  

Lee, Nancy, and Rakan Aboneaaj. 2021. “MDB COVID-19 Crisis Response: Where Did the Money Go?” CGD Note, Center for Global Development, November. 

Moody’s. 2024. "International Finance Facility for Immunisation—Aa1 Stable” Credit opinion. October 29. 

Munich Re. 2023. “Climate Change and La Niña Driving Losses: The Natural Disaster Figures for 2022.” January 10. 

Sagan, Anna, Erin Webb, Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, et al. 2021. Health Systems Resilience During COVID-19: Lessons for Building Back Better. World Health Organization and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. 

UN ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific). 2023. “Public Debt Dashboard.” 

UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). n.d. “Building Resilience to Disasters and Conflicts.” Accessed September 1, 2025. 

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). 2024. Global Trends Report. Copenhagen, Denmark. 

WHO (World Health Organization). 2022. Zoonoses and the Environment. 

World Bank. 2012. People, Pathogens and Our Planet: The Economics of One Health.  

World Bank. 2024. The Cost of Inaction: Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Washington D.C. 

The world stands at a critical juncture. Today, about 2.3 billion people are living with moderate or severe food insecurity worldwide (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO 2024). By 2050, our planet will be home to nearly 10 billion people, requiring at least a 50% increase in food production from 2011 levels (FAO 2017). This challenge is not simply about producing more food. It is about doing so on degraded land, with less water, under extreme weather conditions in the face of climate change. 

The traditional, resource-intensive farming that sustained the global human population for decades is no longer a viable path forward. Reliance on labor inputs and intensive use of resources cannot meet these complex, interconnected challenges. We must transform our agricultural systems into climate-smart, high-tech agriculture—driven by data and Industry 4.0 technologies, such as AI, robotics, remote sensing, and big data. These tools hold the promise of a “quantum leap” in sustainable food productivity. Yet this transformation cannot happen without investing in agricultural education and training.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, institutions such as the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, USAID and its precursors, and multilateral development banks made significant global investments in agricultural research, education, and training. These investments laid the foundation for the Green Revolution, demonstrating that human capital and agricultural research and development (R&D) are as critical as physical inputs in driving productivity growth and food security. Since then, however, global public investment in agricultural education and R&D has declined or stagnated, except in a few countries, such as China (Ruane and Ramasamy 2023). For example, in the United States, public agricultural R&D spending—adjusted for inflation—fell by nearly one-third between its 2002 peak and 2019, returning to levels last seen in the 1970s. 

Why Investing in Agricultural Education Is a Global Necessity

There is now an urgent need for a renewed commitment to build agricultural human resources that can lead the next transformation. This is not just about teaching farming. It is about cultivating a new generation of innovators, scientists, policymakers, and agro-entrepreneurs who can lead the Green Revolution 2.0. Here are seven compelling reasons why investing in agricultural education is a global necessity.

1. The times call for a quantum leap in sustainable productivity

The first Green Revolution helped avert mass famine through high-yield varieties, but at great environmental cost (see, inter alia, Tilman 1999 and Yang 2024). Now, we need a  Green Revolution 2.0 to drive a "quantum leap" in food production. This next revolution must be “smart” and sustainable. Agricultural education is the engine of this revolution. It will educate scientists, policymakers, and high-tech farmers, enabling them to develop new climate-resilient crops and adopt sustainable practices. Furthermore, the digital technologies driving the Green Revolution 2.0 can improve market access and help ensure fair prices for smallholder farmers.

2. Innovation adoption must be accelerated

Innovation is meaningless if it does not reach those who need it most. However, farmers, especially smallholders (e.g., small-scale and family farmers) and those with limited education, are often risk-averse in adopting new practices. Worse, the traditional systems supporting technology adoption have become ineffective. Government extension services struggle to keep up with the latest technologies, while farmers increasingly rely on commercial vendors for advice. Recent studies suggest that newer approaches, like social networks and farmer-to-farmer learning, have proven far more effective. Investing in education helps create "agropreneurs" who can champion innovation within farming communities, thereby accelerating the adoption of new technologies.

3. The agriculture workforce needs upskilling

The nature of work in agriculture is rapidly changing—vertical farms, AI-driven analytics, automated systems, and climate-resilient practices are redefining food production. Farmers need new skills in data, systems management, digital operations, and climate-resilient methods. Without education, millions risk being left behind, especially in developing countries, resulting in worsening inequality. Investment in upskilling enables farmers to collaborate with technology, thereby avoiding a poverty trap.

4. Empowering smallholder and family farmers will create opportunities and aid their survival

Unlike past mechanization that favored large farms, today’s advances in precision and digital agriculture can empower smallholders. And it creates new opportunities for smallholder farmers to serve growing niche, diverse markets. With supportive policies and education, smallholders can become key drivers of inclusive agricultural transformation.

5. Agriculture needs new, young blood

Farmers are aging worldwide, while youth are leaving rural areas to seek careers in other fields. Traditional agricultural curricula and programs fail to spark their interest. By integrating robotics, AI, biotechnology, and data science into agricultural education, coupled with the use of app-based market-access solutions, we can redesign agricultural systems and make farming an attractive, future-oriented career. Investing in high-tech agricultural education is the key to filling the labor gap with skilled, motivated, next-generation farmers

6. Greenhouse gas reduction

Agriculture is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and consumes 70% of global fresh water. Climate-smart farming practices can reduce emissions, store carbon, and build resilience against droughts, pests, and diseases. Education is the gateway to equipping farmers with the knowledge to implement such solutions at scale.

7. Agricultural investment boosts national prosperity and global collaboration

The benefits of investing in agricultural education extend far beyond farms. Past investments in the 1950s–70s powered the Green Revolution, saving over a billion people from starvation, reducing rural poverty, and fueling industrial development. A notable example of a successful investment is the US-funded Seoul National University (SNU) Minnesota Project (1954–1962). Under the project, the University of Minnesota helped rebuild SNU’s College of Agriculture and train a generation of agricultural scientists. These scientists not only transformed Korea from a food-deficit to a food-secure nation, but are today contributing to agricultural advancements globally. Replicating such initiatives worldwide could deliver similar results in today’s food-insecure countries.

Moving Forward

Momentum for significant investments in agriculture is building. The G20 has committed to food security, emphasizing investment in sustainable productivity. The World Bank has invested $45 billion in food and nutrition security programs since 2022, exceeding its target of $30 billion. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) pledged $40 billion (2022–2030), including $26 billion in new financing. It is encouraging that more than 50 countries have launched programs to nurture young and next-generation farmers, recognizing their vital role in food security, as well as in ensuring the future sustainability and competitiveness of the agricultural sector (although the outcomes of these programs remain mixed). Countries are also stepping up their investment in agricultural education and training. For example, Bangladesh is developing a $150 million project with ADB and the Korean Eximbank to upgrade its agricultural tertiary education, while Thailand is developing a $120 million investment project in agricultural technical and vocational education.

However, to avert a coming food crisis, these efforts need to be scaled, and to achieve that, concerted global action is necessary. One such initiative, now being proposed by ADB in partnership with a consortium of agricultural universities, is the establishment of a global climate-smart, high-tech agricultural education network to mobilize public and private investments, accelerate knowledge sharing and technology adoption, and prepare the next generation of agriculture leaders and entrepreneurs globally.

The challenges are immense, but so are the opportunities. Investing in agricultural education and training is not just about farming—it is about building a sustainable, food-secure, and climate-resilient future.
 

Works Cited

FAO. 2017. The Future of Food and Agriculture—Trends and Challenges.

FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO. 2024. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024—Financing to End Hunger, Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in All Its Forms.

Ruane, John, and Selvaraju Ramasamy. 2023. Global Investments in Agricultural Research: Where Are We and Where Are We Going? Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Tilman, David. 1999. “Global Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Expansion: The Need for Sustainable and Efficient Practices.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 96 (11): 5995-6000.

Yang, Yi, David Tilman, Zhenong Jin et al. 2024. “Climate Change Exacerbates the Environmental Impacts of Agriculture.” Science 385 (6713).
 

This interview with Oriana Skylar Mastro was originally published by the Center for Advanced China Research.

A little over a year ago, you pointed out in an article in Foreign Affairs that there is “no quick and easy fix” for the United States to ensure Taiwan’s security. How would you assess the United States’ Taiwan policy in the time since you wrote those words? How much progress has Washington made in improving Taiwan’s security picture and our military posture in the region?

Unfortunately, I don’t think we have made much progress in those particular areas. One of the reasons I wrote that article is that I was trying to make the argument that an assessment of US capabilities right now is largely driving Chinese thinking. They are assessing US capabilities and also their own capabilities to achieve certain military goals much more than they are assessing questions of resolve, as I wrote in that article. Chinese strategists are assuming US military intervention. Unfortunately, the Biden administration seems to still be focused on this communication of resolve aspect, and they spend a lot of their time and effort doing things like signing joint declarations about how Taiwan is important or having Biden make statements that lean much more towards strategic clarity, saying they’re going to defend Taiwan. I don’t think this enhances deterrence because this is not the primary factor that Beijing is currently considering when they’re deciding whether or not to attack Taiwan. It’s really about those capabilities.

Under the Biden administration, there’s more consideration of what Taiwan needs to defend itself, but none of that has actually come to fruition to any significant degree. There’s also more consideration about the need for more funding for things like the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, but not much has actually come to fruition on that either. So I think we’re not in any better position than we were when I wrote that article.

It sounds like you feel that the communicative aspect of deterrence doesn’t matter and that it’s only capabilities that matter, but you have also argued in the New York Times that the United States would be “outgunned” in a Taiwan conflict, which you based on tabletop exercises that you’ve been a part of and other assessments. If the United States is really at a military disadvantage in a Taiwan contingency, are US capabilities really the thing that’s deterring China anymore, or is it simply the geographical challenges in conquering the island, which you also talked about? Is the US military factor not really doing the deterrence job anymore?

I see those as the same thing. I say the United States is “outgunned,” and this is more of a balance of forces type of scenario, but the most important thing to keep in mind is, I’m talking about situations under which China initiates the conflict. So if we’re in that scenario, they’re going to find a time and place that is most favorable to them and least favorable to the United States. There are many ways the war could happen that the United States wins. So it’s not the case that China wins every time, but I guess part of my argument is, China is going to try to not fight those wars that they know that they would lose and instead guide the conflict towards areas of success, and one big aspect of that is moving quickly. So the problem with the amphibious assault is, let’s just say it’s completely uncontested, you’re just talking about a couple of hours of moving ships across a narrow strait, that’s not quite so difficult. The issue is if there’s any contestation. And sure, Taiwan is a component of this, but Taiwan doesn’t really have the military means, even with the geography and difficulty of landing stuff. Taiwan has the means to impose some costs on China for the invasion but not to stop the invasion. The real question is whether or not the United States can bring the massive firepower needed in a timely manner while they're trying to conduct that invasion, and a lot of that has to do with the amount of early warning the United States gets, whether or not we can get better at more quickly deploying our assets, things of that sort. So I think the Chinese calculations about how difficult the invasion is going to be are also predicated on how quickly and with what the United States can respond once it becomes apparent that the invasion is underway.

You also talked in the New York Times article about the difficulty of responding given that we have a limited number of air bases that are within refueling range, and of course our forces are dispersed all over the globe. How dire, for lack of a better word, do you think the situation is for the US military? Is this something that we could fix with more aircraft carriers in the region, or is this something that we can only do over a longer time frame? You have mentioned trying to get more basing rights in regional partners; is this something that we really stand a decent chance of addressing in the near term, or is that something that it would just take longer to do?

It’s very dire, and it’s not even just the number of bases. As a crazy hypothetical example, let’s say that the president says tomorrow, Asia is so important that now I’m dedicating all military forces to Asia. There’s no place we could put them! These airfields, for example, can only generate so many sorties, they can only house so many aircraft. It’s not like all of a sudden you can put all these forces forward deployed in Asia.

I don’t want to say that it’s long-term because these things can happen quite quickly when there’s political will on both sides, but it really is a diplomatic problem, it really is about getting the United States more access and more flexible access to the bases we already have, because there are rules, regulations, and restrictions to what we can have certain places, what types of operations we can do. The South Koreans, for example, we have to consult ahead of time, we have all these sorts of things that slow us down, and so we do need more places from which we can operate, and we need more flexibility with our allies and partners in how we operate when the time comes. That is going to be negotiated and that is going to be paved by diplomats.

So when Secretary Blinken says he wants to lead with diplomacy, I’m all for that, but you have to actually put in that work, and I don’t see that work being put in with key countries in the region.

Given that the Biden administration has already been in office for a year and a half, do you feel that’s something that is likely to be turned around, or do you think we’re going to be stuck in neutral for the foreseeable future?

I think the Biden administration is a bit risk averse. There’s a number of very logical reasons for this. They inherited a mess domestically, just like President Obama before, having to dig our way out of economic troubles and with COVID and all these other issues. I’m not an expert on American domestic politics, but my sense is that you always need support for certain policies, and so where are you going to be pushing things forward? Is it going to be on gun reform, or is it going to be on bases in Palau? And you know that because of the hostility of our politics these days, if things aren’t easy and perfect and everything isn’t going the way it’s supposed to go, the opposing party is going to jump down your neck about it. And so I understand the reluctance, the desire to engage with countries that we already have close relationships with and that we already do things with, the easier route of less resistance, versus potentially seriously reconsidering what our force posture should look like in a Taiwan conflict, because then you’re talking about changing your relationship with countries that are not unproblematic, like Vietnam. So I get why they are reluctant. Even with diplomatic initiatives, if they put together an initiative to try to regulate military uses in outer space or in cyber for the first time, what if it failed, what if no one came along with us? Politically, that wouldn’t look good, so I understand why they’re reluctant to try and fail. But I think just in government more generally, we can’t always predict all aspects of things, and we think doing nothing is better than something. But in this competition, we can try smaller-scale stuff, see how it works out, see what happens, and then hopefully experimentation in military strategy becomes more politically viable.

What happens after a Taiwan conflict? A lot of the discussion about a war over Taiwan is predicated on the idea that it’s a vital US interest, but is there a scenario in which Taiwan gets “reunified” but the United States’ network of alliances in Asia remains intact? Or is it an all-or-nothing deal, like a lot of people assume?

It completely depends on how it happens. Let’s say China moves very quickly and the United States is not able to come to Taiwan’s aid in time. That doesn’t really call into question US capability. For example, we have US forces in Japan, we have the forces necessary to defend Japan that are already there, so that’s a different scenario than the United States, with all of its might, waging major naval battles and major air battles and losing. Then, all of a sudden, I think the alliance system is more likely to fall apart because then it becomes clear to countries in Asia that the United States military no longer has the capability to stand up to the Chinese military, so then we see a lot more bandwagoning. So it kind of depends on what the United States’ role is in the actual conflict, and then a lot of it depends on the political decisions the United States makes after the conflict. One of the things I point out, for example, about the economic ramifications of a conflict or whether or not the United States has access to semiconductors and things like that, is that a lot of that depends on the US. We’re going to sanction, we’re going to prevent ourselves from engaging with the new Taiwan as punishment to China for taking Taiwan, that’s my most likely prediction of how the United States, at least politically and economically, is going to respond. We won’t recognize it, and then we’re going to try to lead some very serious decoupling economic sanctions against Beijing, so one of the ramifications of that war could be very serious economically if all of a sudden now we have two blocs and China and the United States don’t trade at all. Alternatively, it could be very minimal, if Europe and the US are like, “well, we didn’t want that to happen, but now it did, so let’s move on,” and we continue a similar economic relationship with Taiwan and China even in spite of that use of force. So whatever the situation is, it’s worse than if we defend Taiwan and win, that much I know for sure, but then in terms of how bad it would be for the United States and our allies and partners, I think that depends on so many of those factors it’s hard to say with 100% certainty what the situation will be.

Could the fear of losing all that credibility in a direct conflict with China over Taiwan create an incentive not to fight or to accept one of the phased invasions you talked about in the Foreign Affairs piece?

Yeah. I mean, that’s actually one of my biggest fears, that China moves quickly and the United States looks at the situation and says, “well, you could send this, but we know it’s not going to be enough.” So actually I think the worst-case scenario is that the United States sends some sort of token force. This is also why I’m very much against the statements Biden is making about strategic clarity, because I think it means that people in the administration are so focused on the rhetorical aspect of credibility that they might think it’s a good idea to send a token force so you can say that you tried, but it didn't work, and in my mind, that’s the worst of both worlds, because again, it might give people the impression that the United States doesn’t have the capability to defend them anymore, and then also China gets to defeat the United States. So in my mind, if the situation is such that we know we cannot win, I’m sorry to say, but I think it’s better that we don’t do anything versus sending some sort of token force to say, oh, well, you know, at least we tried.

But doesn’t the existence of that issue, the possibility that it would be more in our interest not to fight, reinforce the notion that we should have strategic clarity if we want to deter an attack?

Well, no, because again, China is not moving with the expectation that we will not fight. When they make that decision, they have to take a look at what’s going to happen if the United States counters [them], can they still win, so whether or not we do or we don’t in the end, they’re basing it on that worst-case scenario thinking. Of course, if tomorrow the United States said, we won’t defend Taiwan under any circumstances, that would impact Beijing’s calculus. I guess my point is it’s not about not saying anything at all, it’s just that in the 1990s, it used to be the case that if the United States would intervene, China could never win, and so making those clear statements would have really significantly impacted their decision-making, but that’s no longer the case.

You spoke in both those articles about the possibility of China striking US bases at the outset of a conflict. Would that create a risk of NATO allies and other US partners being drawn into the conflict, and if so, would that even be a factor for China?

So the short answer is no, which is really disturbing. I’m here speaking to you in my civilian capacity, and my views do not represent those of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. But I was just on military orders out in NATO – and I’m a China expert, so I’m with all of our NATO partners and allies, but I’m not an expert on NATO, and of course, we start talking about Article V, and I’m very curious about this exact question that you have about mutual defense if the United States or a US European presence is attacked. [Article V] very specifically makes reference to US European forward bases, so I asked explicitly if US forces are attacked in Japan, or attacked in Korea, does Article V cover that? It seems like the specification of European bases means no. They wouldn’t give me a direct answer on that. And so then I emailed some European specialists and NATO specialists at Stanford because I thought maybe they know, and they said, no, it’s very vague, you should keep on harassing them about it. So the bottom line is that Europe wants no part of this. It seems to me that the way that the NATO treaty is written, they’re not obligated to do anything, militarily I mean, and I think they’re probably not, and I’ve never heard or seen any situation in which people are considering European military involvement. So I would say no to Europe.

Now, the situation with Asian allies is a bit different. It completely depends. I mean, I have heard people in Japan, for example, Japanese government officials have told me that attacks on US bases wouldn’t necessarily constitute an attack on Japan enough to trigger the clause that allows them self-defense. But we’ve had that understanding for quite some time, I mean, we even fought a whole war in Vietnam and the Japanese wouldn’t let us use Japanese bases for combat reasons during the Vietnam war. If China attacks the United States, you could also say that that creates a lot of disincentives for countries to allow the United States to engage in military operations from their territory if China has already demonstrated the willingness to use military force against those bases. So China will also go to countries and say, “listen, we won’t do anything to you as long as you don’t allow the Americans to operate,” and then that sort of puts the burden on them to make that decision.

When you were talking about that NATO summit, was it government officials you were talking to who weren’t giving you a straight answer about that?

I was there in uniform, so it was all military members.

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Maybe a more important question related to that – would a preemptive attack on US bases in Asia have a significant impact on the United States’ willingness to fight and try to win a longer, escalated war, a la Pearl Harbor?

So that’s the thing – just like Pearl Harbor, it’s the same calculus. The United States has significant advantages in a protracted war against China. So China’s making the same calculation that the Japanese made, right? That they can win before those advantages come into play, before the United States can reconstitute its forces, before the United States can flow more forces in the region, even if the United States has the will to do that – because even strategic clarity just says you’re willing to fight, but it doesn't tell you anything about the costs we’re willing to absorb to fight. So they’re making a very similar bet, that they’ll get to Taiwan before that happens. Because once you have Chinese forces on Taiwan, it’s my view that there’s nothing we can do to get them to leave.

So you don’t think we have the military capability to get them off the island or to take any part of the island?

No, I mean, this is – it would have to be a brute force strategy, given the difference in resolve at that point. Then I think we’re kind of toast. That’s why I feel like we have to stop them from the landing.

[On an earlier point,] China would be deterred if they felt like a coalition of all European and Asian allies were going to fight against them.

That’s really what I was asking – would the deterrent effect of that outweigh the advantages of them hitting US bases in Japan?

Oh, yeah, absolutely, so you don’t even need everyone, you just need Japan. If Japan was going to fight militarily with the United States, we win. We win that war every time.

Wow, I didn’t know that – like in the tabletops?

I would just say based on my experience of thinking about planning and forces, that with the United States’ ability for allowing to operate our forces from Japan – we have one airbase, and I forget the numbers, but Japan has thirty, forty airbases – all of a sudden, where we can operate from, our sortie rates, or ability to achieve air superiority is significantly advanced. Japan also has, second to China, the most advanced Navy in the region and one of the most advanced in the world, so if they’re projecting power with their navy into the Taiwan Strait, they can hold them off on their own for a period of time. That definitely gives us enough time to flow what we need.

So it sounds like Japan’s involvement is really the key question, almost.

Yeah, but it’s kind of one of these, like, magic unicorns. Also, if we could all of a sudden not require fuel to conduct military operations…

Is it that unlikely, though? Because Japanese officials have been talking more about how important Taiwan is to Japan’s defense since last year.

No, I mean, even when they make those strong statements and then have meetings with Japanese government officials, I asked them about those strong statements, and often I’m like, are you actually going to do something? They say, well, no, we’re still not going to do anything, but we just want to voice our unhappiness or voice our solidarity with the United States. But it’s not like operationally things are really changing in Japan, in my understanding. I’m not an expert in Japanese domestic politics, but it’s my understanding that this is a bit of a gray area of how it would go.

What are your thoughts about China signing a security cooperation agreement with the Solomon Islands? Are Western concerns about the military consequences of that agreement overblown? Does China’s subsequent attempt to secure a multilateral security agreement with ten more Pacific Island countries suggest that it wants military bases throughout the Pacific?

I think it’s too soon to tell. You know, in my own research about Chinese military strategy, I do argue that there are many aspects of the US approach which they have not emulated to date, not because of lack of capability, but because they feel like those approaches are ineffective. And one of those is a global military presence coupled with forward military intervention as a main tool of promoting your interests. A lot of aspects of how they’ve protected overseas interests to date over the past 25 years have been fundamentally different than how the United States does it. And so I was very interested when that agreement was signed about what the actual details of those [other] agreements were. Is China preparing to engage in high-intensity combat operations from these bases, or are they more logistics hubs, or [are they] for surveillance and reconnaissance against the United States? That would still not be great, but it would be a different operating concept of how a base structure would fit into overall military strategy than what it is for the United States. And so I actually think that we shouldn’t be discouraging China from having overseas bases, because we’re at such an advantage. China is at an advantage only a couple hundred miles from its coast – 2, 3, 400 if we’re generous – but if they go any farther, we destroy-- we would knock them out of the park. So if all of a sudden China wants to start contesting us militarily in other parts of the world, I recognize that that’s uncomfortable from the perspective of a lot of other countries who are there, but my perspective as a military planner is that this is the way that we maintain our military position. China is just so far behind in its ability to project power to the degree that the United States does that this would give us a significant advantage and a significant ability to impose costs on them in the short term. So I’m not particularly concerned about it. If China does start building these bases, it means that it’s significantly shifted its thinking on military strategy, and I think towards a direction in which they’re trying to directly compete with the United States, and my research shows that whenever they try to directly compete with us, we win every time. So I’m not as concerned about that as I am about how they can be pretty entrepreneurial about exploiting US weaknesses or gaps and competing with us less directly.

On March 22, 2022, APARC's Japan Program welcomed a delegation from the Embassy of Japan in the United States and the Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco, including Ambassador Koji Tomita and Consul-General Hiroshi Kawamura, who met with a joint panel of scholars and administrators from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley for a discussion about fostering a greater understanding of Japan studies in the United States.

APARC Deputy Director and Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui presented data on enrollment and employment statistics for Japanese studies in higher education. According to the report, Japanese studies have been in a slow state of decline since the late 1980s, when many in the United States viewed Japan as an economic threat and the country was not as well-understood as it is today. Despite this decline, students today are still very interested in studying Japan and are eager to visit the country.

Naomi Funahashi, Manager of the Reischauer Scholars Program and Teacher Professional Development at the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), presented outcomes from SPICE's outreach efforts and promotion of Japanese studies in the K-14 context. Funahashi indicated strong interest in and engagement with SPICE curricular units focused on Japan and with its local student programs in six regions, one university, and two high schools in Japan.

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Professor Junko Habu, Chair of the Center for Japanese Studies (CJS) and Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, along with Kumi Sawada Hadler, Program Director of CJS, described logistical challenges Japan scholars have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the inability to access the country under lockdown, and indicated that, across the board, universities are not providing as much support for Japanese studies as they used to, especially in terms of endowed faculty positions and departmental "slots" specifically for Japan specialists.

Ambassador Tomita and Consul-General Kawamura agreed that more support was needed to bolster scholarships of Japan. Ambassador Tomita stated that over his long career, he has seen the theoretical focus of Japan studies in the United States shift away from bilateral relations between the two countries toward the region at large. He noted that the public discussion is increasingly directed at Japan as part of a broader complex of nations in East Asia. Consul-General Kawamura indicated that the pandemic has posed a host of challenges for his office but that Japan will continue to open its doors to scholars in the future. 

The meeting concluded with a reaffirmation of the longstanding and crucial relationship between the two nations and of the importance of Japan studies in the United States in fostering fruitful collaboration between the two nations.