On February 22, 1946, George Kennan, a then-relatively unknown diplomat in the American Embassy in Moscow, sent his now famous “Long Telegram” to Washington. Kennan posited that the Soviet Union “learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power;” consequently, in combination with Marxist dogma, Moscow’s ambitions were “more dangerous and insidious than ever before” to U.S. national security.[1]
In Kennan’s estimation, however, Soviet power was not absolute. Moscow would withdraw “when strong resistance is encountered at any point” where the Kremlin aspired to expand.[2] As such, containment of Soviet ambitions would, as Kennan later noted in Foreign Affairs, “increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate,” forcing “upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years.”[3] Kennan’s thoughts ultimately became the framework for the strategy of containment, the guiding theory of U.S. diplomacy towards Moscow for the next 45 years that would lay the foundation for victory over the Soviet Union in 1991.
Seventy-eight years later, Washington faces yet another challenger with revisionist ambitions: the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Though the PRC today is not the Soviet Union, and the international environment the United States faces in 2024 is radically dissimilar to that of 1946, Kennan’s original framework for the policy of containment can serve as a suitable blueprint for a new grand strategy towards Beijing: a firm opposition to PRC revisionist ambitions in the economic, security, and political spheres to ensure their failure, with the aim of forcing upon Beijing a greater degree of moderation and circumspection than the PRC has recently demonstrated.
Recognizing the Sources of Chinese Conduct
To articulate a grand strategy aimed at managing the China challenge, U.S. policymakers must first identify the sources of Chinese conduct. Like all authoritarian regimes, the primary concern of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is to remain in power.[4] As Columbia University’s Thomas Christensen notes in The China Challenge, the CCP’s core interest is to maintain “the continued monopoly on power…the Chinese Communist Party regime” enjoys in their homeland. [5] Accordingly, China’s conduct revolves around this concern.
China’s post-colonial memory also informs its conduct. Indeed, for most of its pre-modern history, China was the most powerful nation in its region and possibly the world. As such, it was – and continues to be – a proud nation, one that considered itself the center of civilization. [6] In fact, China’s name in Mandarin literally translates to ‘the Middle Country,’ a name derived from China’s status of being the primary nucleus and beacon of settled civilization in its region for millennia.For the CCP, China’s weakness over the last 200 years is therefore an aberration, and it is abnormal for other states, particularly the United States, to be dominant political entities.
The sharpest experience characterizing the colonial era for China is what the Chinese term ‘the Century of Humiliation,’ a period when Western powers, not including the United States, intruded upon Chinese sovereignty and compelled China to sign treaties skewed against its national interests. Restoring the ‘natural’ political hierarchy of the international system with China at the center, and achieving the development of China so that it cannot be dominated by foreigners, are thus core Chinese security objectives. Concurrently, because many events during the Century of Humiliation occurred when China was internally and territorially divided, a final core security concern of the Chinese government is the maintenance of China’s domestic tranquility and territorial integrity, including the settling of territorial disputes on terms favorable to Beijing.[7]
These objectives explain why China is so hostile towards the United States. At the most basic level, the Chinese government resents Washington’s centrality in the current global order, viewing America’s dominant economic and political position with displeasure and believing China ought to be at the center of the Asian – and global – order.[8] The United States’s security architecture in the Indo-Pacific is one of the greatest roadblocks to the realization of this goal. As outlined in CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s aptly named “New Asian Security Concept,” the institutional view of the CCP is that it ought to be the rule setter and enforcer in Asia, not Washington and its allies.[9]
Above all, however, Washington is viewed as a clear and present ideological danger for the CCP. Indeed, the United States’s democratic values present potentially catastrophic consequences for the CCP’s hope of maintaining its authoritarian one-party system. As one Chinese internal document noted, “Western constitutional democracy” can be employed “to undermine the Party’s leadership, abolish the People’s Democracy, negate our country’s constitution as well as our established system and principles, and bring about a change of allegiance by bringing Western political systems to China.”[10] Given Washington’s history of spreading democracy, U.S. values are viewed as threatening to Beijing.
Of more immediate concern to Beijing, however, is the U.S. role in China’s territorial disputes. For the CCP, the legacies of the Century of Humiliation mean its position in China will not be secure until Beijing has resolved outstanding territorial issues.[11] In light of U.S. support for Taiwan – especially following Taipei’s democratization – and opposition towards Chinese totalitarianism in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, the CCP views Washington as a sponsor of division and ultimately secession within China. In other words, the United States is thought to inflame the biggest threat to the CCP’s authority.
This is why Beijing’s revisionism is directed against the United States and the world order that it built. As Rush Doshi notes in The Long Game, China has pursued a strategy aimed at undermining the economic, political, and military power of the United States, while also laying the foundation for an alternative world order with China at the center.[12] Consequently, China’s present conduct is explained by deep-rooted defensive and offensive anti-American policies aimed at both restoring China’s status as the dominant power and preserving China’s authoritarian system.
Available Means and the Chinese Threat
Yale’s John Gaddis defines grand strategy as “the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.”[13] Meeting the China challenge therefore necessitates a clear understanding of the means available to the United States to address China’s revisionist conduct.
As scholars like Fareed Zakaria and William Wohlforth note, the United States is and will likely continue to be the most influential state in the world.[14-15] Widely held perceptions of America’s relative power decline, however, mean debates concerning multipolarity have ceased to be relegated to the ivory tower and now actively influence the foreign policies of states, including U.S. allies.[16-17] Indeed, unlike in 1946, global economic power is now far less concentrated. Though the United States retains significant advantages over allies and foes alike,the rise of countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and India means the margin of U.S. diplomatic flexibility must widen as its margin of economic preeminence shrinks. [18-19] Accordingly, in light of what Zakaria further notes as “the rise of the rest,”Washington’s grand strategy must be crafted to consider the interests of existing, and potential, allies.[20]
This is particularly important when considering the reduced effectiveness of certain policy tools that once offered the United States more leverage and leeway in international affairs. In particular, the deindustrialization and supply chain perils wrought as a consequence of the post-war globalized world limit Washington’s ability to employ industrial policy as a means of countering Chinese manufacturing’s grip on societies across the globe. Unlike a century ago, the United States today is simply not capable of producing all manner of goods on a scale that completely outpaces its rivals. In fact, much of this capability was sacrificed for cheap products from China. Simultaneously, domestic polarization and an uncertain fiscal outlook suggest available means could become further circumscribed. A sober recognition of this reality and an accurate assessment of potential strategic limits therefore ought to guide U.S. goals and objectives.
But restricted means do not mean Washington should not attempt to address the breadth of the China challenge. Beyond the moral imperative of ensuring a totalitarian state fails in its oppressive aims, strong strategic reasons exist for preventing Beijing’s success. China’s regional hegemonic aspirations directly challenge two longstanding U.S. national security objectives: preventing a state from attaining preeminence in Eurasia or one of its subcontinents and preserving free lines of sea-based navigation, both of which the PRC actively threatens through its ambitions to dominate the South China Sea and assert control over Taiwan. If China succeeds at both objectives, American economic prosperity would be under direct threat, and the U.S. Asian security architecture would be irreparably damaged.[21] The U.S. dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency would also come under greater stress, and the gradual costs of being sidelined from Asia’s economic heartland would be devastating for the U.S. economy.[22] Additionally, if Asia falls deeper into a Chinese sphere of influence, China would eventually be able to project power beyond the Indo-Pacific, threatening American interests elsewhere.
Above all, a global and regional order where China sets and enforces the international rules of conduct would not be favorable to democratic values. To protect its authoritarian system at home, China aspires to legitimize authoritarianism abroad by promoting non-interference in the affairs of its fellow authoritarian states.[23] A totalitarian China that has the power to determine the global rules governing the internet and artificial intelligence will also create new moral and strategic threats to continued U.S. domestic stability and democratic governance.
As such, meeting the China challenge compels Washington to confront a difficult situation head-on: the United States faces a dangerous adversary harboring entrenched hostility towards the West with the ambition to warp the international order into one that would favor authoritarianism, a threat against which limited resources are available to be mobilized. Aligning ends and means is therefore vital.
Heeding Kennan’s Lessons
What, then, should constitute Washington’s grand strategy? Kennan’s original conception of the policy that came to be known as containment provides some answers. To be sure, like containment, effective competition with Beijing will be a long-term international challenge. More significant, however, is the ultimate outcome of what the United States should aim to achieve: a change in Chinese behavior.
As Kennan noted in Foreign Affairs, no entity “can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.”[24] Washington ought to demonstrate to Beijing that its revisionist conduct will not only fail but also be counterproductive; if Beijing’s behavior backfires, China’s leadership will come to realize the futility of revisionism. To echo Kennan: the shape of Soviet power “is like that of a tree which has been bent in infancy and twisted into a certain pattern. It can be caused to grow back into another form” through “the exertion of steady pressure over a period of years in the right direction.”[25] Kennan’s analogy applies to the CCP today. With enough pressure, longstanding Chinese policy can be molded in a more favorable direction.
It is important to recognize, however, what elements of containment are not fit to be emulated in the twenty-first century. Total containment of the PRC today is impossible given the degree of economic interdependence between both the United States and China as well as China and the rest of the world; the economic costs of total economic decoupling would be too high for the United States and its allies to tolerate. At the same time, containment is a policy often linked with the aim of producing the collapse of rival power or regime change. Not only has the CCP proven itself adept at survival,but such an ambitious goal is unlikely to be supported by allies given the international chaos that would accompany China falling into disunity and even warlordism.[26] Considering the limited means available to the United States, multilateral action on China policy is essential. For allies to support any U.S. policy on China, something approaching a consensus must be achieved, and few – if any – allies want the PRC to collapse like the Soviet Union.
In contrast, emphasizing the intent to change Chinese behavior like Kennan argued with respect to the Soviets will be more likely to resonate with current and potential U.S. allies. To be sure, China’s aggressive conduct is deeply troubling to many nations – particularly those in China’s immediate periphery – as most countries do not wish to be in a China-led world. As Ryan Hass pointedly highlights, “American allies and partners share a common trait: none of them want to be subordinated within an exclusive Chinese orbit and be forced to commit to Beijing’s goals.”[27] Ergo, if the stated aim of U.S. policy is to change China’s behavior, U.S. allies will be more supportive of that policy. At the same time, the United States ought to lead allies by example, not necessarily only by coercive pressure. Policies aimed at changing problematic behavior are thus more likely to receive consensual backing from allies and potential partners.
Accordingly, Kennan’s behavioral prescriptions, adapted to the China challenge, are the best basis available for the creation of a grand strategy. But can U.S. pressure truly change Chinese conduct? History suggests that it can –– and has.
As Thomas Christensen further argues, “a robust American security presence and commitment to East Asia” has historically incentivized “China to behave more moderately.” [28] During the 1990s, for example, in part as a response to destabilizing Chinese action towards Taiwan, the Clinton administration strengthened U.S. alliances in East Asia, as embodied through means such as the Nye Initiative. These actions compelled China to embrace its “peaceful rise” strategy, eschewing overt confrontation and instead emphasizing a less destabilizing foreign policy.[29] Such success illustrates how sustained U.S. pressure can change Chinese conduct.
Since the Great Recession, China has pursued a markedly more revisionist policy towards the United States, one that culminated with Xi’s tacit support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine. Yet many aspects of this policy backfired. Wolf Warrior diplomacy, which was characterized by confrontational rhetoric and policy, tarnished China’s international image; the militarization of the South China Sea led the Philippines to expand the number of U.S. bases there; clashes with Indian troops led New Delhi to pursue closer ties with the United States; the economic punishment of Australia helped produce AUKUS; China’s military build-up and support for Putin led Japan to begin a significant rearmament; and, most acutely for Beijing, the PRC’s authoritarian policies, particularly its smothering of freedom in Hong Kong and interference in Taiwanese governance and society, continue to push Taiwan further from the mainland.[30-35] In all these cases, U.S. leadership played a vital role in exposing and countering Chinese aggression.
In response to so many setbacks, coupled with domestic pressure and a slowing economy, Beijing pursued a less overtly hostile policy towards Washington in 2023, one that led to the Biden-Xi summit in October of that year.[36] To be sure, as the Asia Society Policy Institute argued, these policies are “likely to be short-to-medium term and therefore tactical in nature.”[37] Regardless, history demonstrates that China’s behavior can change in response to pressure. A long-term policy aimed at punishing Chinese revisionism in conjunction with allies can, in due time, change the CCP’s behavior. As Doshi argues, the sources of China’s conduct are deep-seated,but if recent setbacks were enough to spark a shift in Chinese short-term conduct, a long-term policy will eventually lead Beijing to shift its focus –– if Chinese ambitions end in failure.[38]
As Gaddis emphasizes when addressing Kennan’s original strategy of containment, “there would be no change in the Soviet Union’s strategy until it encountered a sufficiently long string of failures to convince some future Kremlin leader” that their “nation’s behavior was not advancing its interests.”[39] Recent history suggests that the same holds true for China today. Xi will not change his policies overnight, but with enough failures, his successors can readjust, just like Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev did in 1985 with the policies of glasnost and perestroika.
A Capable Grand Strategy
Coercive strategies necessitate a clear cost-benefit calculus and a mix of threats and assurances to succeed. [40] To that end, the aim of U.S. grand strategy ought to be a demonstration that revisionism will not only fail but be counterproductive to the betterment of Chinese society and the regime security of the CCP. The United States must communicate that greater militarization of the South China Sea will mean more U.S. forces around, and local partnerships against, China; threats against Taiwan will mean more support for Taipei; and economic coercion will be met with more economic reprisals. These are just some examples of how a new cost-benefit calculus can be fostered in Beijing, one that is geared towards moving China in a better direction.
At the same time, threats alone are not enough. Washington needs to provide assurances to Beijing that would disincentivize a revisionist and destabilizing policy. For example, Washington’s ‘One China’ policy, and its corresponding emphasis on a peaceful resolution for the Taiwan dispute, must continue given that this provides Beijing with an incentive to abide by the status quo. Similarly, though Washington should continue to maximize its economic and technological advantages, it must not openly aim for the containment of the whole of the Chinese economy, which is already suffering due to internal mismanagement. [41]
In fact, China’s socioeconomic development aspirations do not necessarily threaten American interests, nor can Washington realistically prevent China from achieving these aims if the CCP begins to chart a better economic course, given the scale of the Chinese economy. [42] Whether China develops or not ought to then be a reflection of the CCP’s ingenuity; the United States need only demonstrate that China’s goals are less likely to be attained through a revisionist approach to world order. As such, Washington ought to only punish Chinese economic behavior explicitly designed as revisionist — or, to use Rush Doshi’s terms, economic conduct explicitly aimed at blunting the sources of U.S. power or building the sources of Chinese power. [43] The United States should also conduct such punishment alongside allies to the greatest extent possible. Ultimately, resisting the temptation to see every Chinese economic act as a threat is paramount.
Some would respond by arguing that a democratic market-based economy is incompatible with a state-led authoritarian model. [44] Yet such arguments fail to stand up to scrutiny; the U.S. economy remains one of the most dynamic and competitive in the world, even after it was integrated with that of China. [45] More pressing, however, is the relationship between economic decoupling and diplomacy. The war in Ukraine demonstrated that interdependence alone does not produce permanent peace, yet because the degree of interdependence between the Chinese and American economies far eclipses that which is shared between Europe and Russia, the incentive to forgo open conflict in Asia remains strong to avoid mutual economic devastation. [46] Total decoupling, accordingly, would remove a strong guardrail for Beijing to further abide by the status quo.
At the same time, total decoupling will likely not be supported by the United States’s Asian and European allies, nor by the rest of the developing world. Though many countries share concerns about Beijing’s conduct, the truth is that U.S. partners still see trade with China as necessary for sustainable economic growth in a post-pandemic world. To build a coalition to shape Chinese behavior, allies must be brought together on a basis of shared goals, namely the preservation of deterrence, open sea lanes, and non-discrimination against private industries. These goals can be maintained while still preserving open trade with China, but they would be compromised if the United States compels other states to pick a side, which decoupling implies. As such, Washington should only aim to decouple in very specific sectors – such as industries producing clear dual-use technologies, the semiconductor industry, and similar sectors – where there exist true threats to U.S. national security. This limited decoupling should also be done in a collaborative manner with U.S. allies. As technology develops and innovation persists, newfound areas with national security implications will inevitably arise, so long-term economic vigilance is in order.
Ultimately, however, even the best grand strategies amount to nothing if a nation’s internal cohesion and sense of purpose falter. China’s current degree of hostility towards the United States implies that its coercive strategy is geared towards the long-term, likely lasting multiple generations. As a result, it is vital that U.S. leaders recall that the United States will retain an advantage in any competition against Beijing as long as it can continue to serve as a democratic example that delivers both for its citizens and the world. To this end, Kennan’s final policy prescription is by far the most prescient: “The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.” [47]
Providence has yet again compelled the American people to serve as the prime bastion of hope against authoritarianism. Whether they can muster the moral courage to adequately meet this challenge is yet to be determined.
Lucas de Gamboa Canon ’25 served as the President of the AHS chapter at Columbia University, where he is majoring in Political Science.
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Notes:
[1] George F. Kennan, “The Long Telegram,” United States Department of State, 861.00/2 – 2246 (Truman Library Institute: United States, 1946), https://www.trumanlibraryinstitute.org/kennan/.
[2] Kennan, “The Long Telegram.”
[3] George F. Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, July, 1947, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/george-kennan-sources-soviet-conduct.
[4] Dai Bingguo, “Adhere To The Path Of Peaceful Development, ” USC US-China Institute, December 6, 2010, https://china.usc.edu/dai-bingguo-%E2%80%9Cadhere-path-peaceful-development%E2%80%9D-dec-6-2010.
[5] Thomas J. Christensen, The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2016), 254.
[6] Henry A. Kissinger, On China (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2012), 10.
[7] Kissinger, On China, 64.
[8] Ryan Hass, Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021), 53.
[9] Xi Jinping, “New Asian security concept for new progress in security cooperation,” (speech, Shanghai, China: May 21, 2014), https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1159951.shtml.
[10] “Document 9: a ChinaFile Translation,” ChinaFile, November 8, 2013, https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation.
[11] Christensen, The China Challenge, 307-308.
[12] Rush Doshi, The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2021).
[13] John L. Gaddis, On Grand Strategy (London, UK: Penguin Books, 2018), 21.
[14] Fareed Zakaria, “The Self Doubting Superpower,” Foreign Affairs, December 12, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/self-doubting-superpower-america-fareed-zakaria.
[15] William Wohlforth, “The Myth of Multipolarity,” Foreign Affairs, April 18, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/china-multipolarity-myth.
[16] Michael Singh, “The Middle East in the Multipolar Era,” Foreign Affairs, December 7, 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/middle-east-multipolar-era.
[17] Olaf Scholz, “The Global Zeitenwende,” Foreign Affairs, December 5, 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/olaf-scholz-global-zeitenwende-how-avoid-new-cold-war.
[18] Emma Ashford and Evan Cooper, “Yes, the World is Multipolar,” Foreign Policy, October 5, 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/05/usa-china-multipolar-bipolar-unipolar/.
[19] Michael Beckley, Unrivaled: Why America will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018).
[20] Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of the Rest,” Columns, May, 12, 2008, https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the-rest.
[21] China Power Team. “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?” China Power, August 2, 2017, updated January 25, 2021, https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/.
[22] Elbridge Colby, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021), 12-13.
[23] Hass, Stronger, 53.
[24] Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”
[25] John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005), 48.
[26] Aaron Friedberg, Getting China Wrong (Cambridge, UK: Polity Books, 2022).
[27] Hass, Stronger, 82.
[28] Christensen, The China Challenge, 292.
[29] Christensen, The China Challenge, 195.
[30] Susan L. Shirk, Overreach (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022).
[31] Karen DeYoung and Rebecca Tan, “U.S. Military Base Access Agreement in the Philippines,” Washington Post, February 2, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/01/united-states-military-base-philippines/.
[32] Banyan, “China’s Frontier Aggression Has Pushed India to the West,” The Economist, December 15, 2022, https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/12/15/chinas-frontier-aggression-has-pushed-india-to-the-west.
[33] Charles Edel, “The AUKUS Wager,” Foreign Affairs, August 4, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/aukus-wager.
[34] Jennifer Lind, “Japan Steps Up,” Foreign Affairs, December 23, 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/japan/japan-steps.
[35] Thomas Wright, “Taiwan Stands up to Xi,” The Atlantic, January 15, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/taiwans-new-president-is-no-friend-of-beijing/605020/.
[36] Stephen Walt, “Can China pull off its Charm Offensive?,” Foreign Policy, January 23, 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/23/can-china-pull-off-its-charm-offensive/.
[37] “China’s Political-Economy, Foreign and Security Policy: 2023,” Asia Society Polity Institute, January 2023, https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/chinas-political-economy-foreign-and-security-policy-2023.
[38] Doshi, The Long Game.
[39] John L. Gaddis, The Cold War: a New History (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2005), 29.
[40] Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 47-48.
[41] Chad de Guzman and Koh Ewe, “How China’s Government Keeps Inadvertantly Hurting Its Own Economy,” Time, January 24, 2024,https://time.com/6576849/china-social-policies-negative-economic-effects/.
[42] Hal Brands and Michael Beckley, Danger Zone: the Coming Conflict with China (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2022).
[43] Doshi, The Long Game.
[44] Oren Cass and Gabriela Rodriguez, “The Case for a Hard Break with China,” Foreign Affairs, July 25, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/case-for-hard-break-with-beijing-economic-derisking.
[45] “America’s Economic Outperformance Is a Marvel to Behold.” The Economist. April 13, 2023. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/13/from-strength-to-strength.
[46] Dale Copeland. “When Trade Leads to War.” Foreign Affairs, August 23, 2022. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/when-trade-leads-war-china-russia.
[47] Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”
Image: “Members of a Chinese military honor guard march during a welcome ceremony for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Peter Pace at the Ministry of Defense in Beijing, China” by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen (USAF), retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_honor_guard_in_column_070322-F-0193C-014.JPEG. This image or file is a work of a U.S. Air Force Airman or employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image or file is in the public domain in the United States.
