Politicians in Beijing, Moscow and Washington are ratcheting up rhetoric for a confrontation from which they can’t back down
(Originally published March 6 in “What in the World“) China will boost its defense spending by 7% this year, to $224 billion, to help put its military on par with its economy in terms of global heft.
That includes facing down what it sees as the U.S. challenge to Taiwan’s return to Beijing’s rule and China’s fantastic claims to the entire South China Sea.
Hawks in Washington will bellow that Beijing’s beefier budget belies its bellicose intentions, conveniently overlooking the fact that Congress last year passed an even larger, 8% increase in U.S. defense spending, to a record $858 billion. China still spends less than 2% of its GDP on its military. The U.S. lavishes 3.5% of its GDP on its military and the defense industry.
That largesse doesn’t even include U.S. sales of military equipment to its allies abroad. The State Department last week approved the sale of $619 million in munitions to arm Taiwan’s F-16s. What good those munitions might do against China’s increasing incursions is unclear, however, since Taiwan is still waiting for $19 billion in previously approved arms sales stuck in industry backlogs.
And U.S. defense spending isn’t about defending only the United States, either. U.S. defense extends to its allies and to maintaining the projection of U.S. military might anywhere in the world it might be needed.
When it’s being honest, American foreign policy is dedicated to maintaining an international order established by the U.S. that serves U.S. political and economic interests. Yet many Americans also believe their nation has a moral obligation to play global policeman and that American foreign policy aims only to preserve freedom and democracy. It’s a rhetorical posture repeatedly relied on by U.S. Presidents and others to justify foreign adventures, ignoring criticism that America’s application of law enforcement globally is about as equitable as it is at home, where it famously favors the wealthy and the white.
Washington thus picks its battles abroad based on biased appraisals of national interest. That prompts it to write cheques for conflicts in the name of freedom and democracy that Americans aren’t willing to cash. Ukraine is only the latest example: the U.S. has already supplied billions in arms to feed an escalating conflict even America’s top general has admitted Ukraine can’t win.
What Gen. Mark Milley, who heads the U.S. Chiefs of Staff, neglected to mention in his gaffe last November is that Ukraine can’t win unless the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization comes to its defense with their own troops. Unfortunately, direct NATO involvement also raises the risk that Moscow retaliates with nuclear weapons and sets off World War III. That’s a price Americans don’t appear to be willing to pay to defend democracy in Ukraine.
Europe is also divided, not over whether it needs to defend democracy in Ukraine, but whether Ukraine is the thin edge of a Russian wedge in Europe. Russia’s neighbors, notably Poland and the Baltic states, say attempts to negotiate with Putin will only feed his ambition to retake Eastern Europe as a buffer and restore Russian power. But France and Germany—the two countries whose past invasions of Russia are partly to blame for Moscow’s passion for a buffer in the first place—seem to recognize the need for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine to avoid a direct conflict that would result in a devastating, continent-wide war.
As it steps up shipments of ammunition to Ukraine, the West’s own arsenals are running dangerously low. Promises of armored columns to Ukraine have exposed the fact that Europe’s German-made tanks are in a sad state of disrepair. If Europe were attacked, one anonymous diplomat warned Newsweek, some nations would run out of ammunition in just days. If China attacks Taiwan, the U.S. will likely run out of fancy, precision-guided missiles in a week. And the entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets in service around the world is being grounded to retrofit their Pratt & Whitney engines to fix a vibration problem blamed for the crash of an F-35B in Texas. If Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping really are interested in a global battle of values, they might consider the present perhaps their last opportunity for a Pearl Harbor-style attack.
This year’s record-setting U.S. defense budget strives to overcome such shortages by allowing the Pentagon to negotiate multi-year purchase deals with defense contractors. That will give the companies greater confidence that they can invest profitably in new factories. The U.S. Army plans to start negotiating such contracts next year.