A Tale of Two Militaries
A friend who has spent a good deal of time covering US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at various bases and training sites in the US, recently made an interesting comment that really resonated withe me. He said that right now it feels as if there are two US militaries: one that is stuck fighting low-intensity (counterinsurgency) conflicts in in the Middle East and Central Asia, and one that is consumed with documenting and preparing for the rising “China threat.”
My sense is that he’s right, and that it comes down to money. There’s very little of it for the military in Iraq but there’s plenty for PACOM and its partners in East and Northeast Asia.
Now, it’s not like we are about to stop spending money in Iraq and Afghanistan. Significant appropriations for economic development and political assistance, peacekeeping, counternarcotics, and more will be necessary for many years to come (unless Democrats decide to just walk away and leave these countries in total disarray after we “bombed them back to the Stone Age,” but I don’t think that will happen). But no longer does Iraq offer justification for new tanks and fighter jets.
Smart minds in the defense industry realized this some time ago and began turning their attention to China. And so the cottage industry of China “analysts” who lobby for additional defense and intelligence spending to counter the “gathering threat” from China continues to grow. Many of these people are the ones who whipped up support for the Iraq war but have since turned their backs on that conflict. Others have made a career of anti-China polemicism.
These efforts have been widely effective on Capitol Hill, whose leaders hold decidedly unfavorable views of China, especially when compared with those of American business leaders and American citizens. Here’s Neil King, Jr.’s take from a recent (and good) story in the Washingtonian:
So perhaps it’s no surprise that in DC and the heartland, the span of public opinion toward China borders on schizophrenic. Two years ago, the Committee of 100, a group made up of top Chinese-Americans, released a poll on American attitudes toward China. Asked their impression of China, the general public was generally positive: six in ten said they viewed China “favorably.” Business leaders came in at 63 percent. But on Capitol Hill, eight in ten staffers held unfavorable views. More than a third of those staffers considered China a “serious military threat” to US national security.
Given the Hill’s deep distrust of China, it’s not impossible that we’ll see Congress curtail funding for Iraq but actually increase the overall US defense budget over the next 5-10 years in an effort to “keep up” with China. President Bush has already requested an 11 percent increase in defense-related spending for FY2008. I don’t expect Congress to put up much of a fuss — beyond the dollars for Iraq, of course.
So the money’s still there for the military — only it’s a different miltary than five years ago. Instead of the Humvees and tanks, we’ll be buying satellites and fast ships. Because not even the most wild-eyed strategist could foresee us getting into a ground war with China.
March 26, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Well, I think we have to keep our edge and while I cannot deny that terrorism is a real threat. but because you have know way of knowing what China is thinking…better to be prepared for all scenarios and hope for the best.
March 27, 2007 at 2:18 am
A money qoute from Kaiser Kuo’s blog, this came from a china hand at one of the Washington think tanks: full link: http://kaiserkuo.typepad.com/ich_bin_ein_beijinger/2007/03/chalmers_johnso.html
” I live in Washington, and there’s a certain percentage of people here who see the Chinese as some faceless guy stroking a white Persian cat on his lap in a floating volcano island headquarters.”
-priceless
March 27, 2007 at 8:50 am
I don’t know about you, but there is one thing that concerns me about current military spending more than anything else. This is the increasing dollar value of each of each item of hardware that is being brought.
Right now, Washington is spending billions and billions on high tech, high price hardware that massively exceeds US needs. For example, the military is rolling out the F-22 and the JSF. Sure, they’re unbeatable in combat, but most of America’s enemies are still don’t have the technology to deal with the much older and cheaper F-16 and Harrier that these new toys are replacing.
What American troops need now is not expensive toys to fight the cold war, but instead more body armor, more armored hummers, and more Arabic speaking soldiers on the ground. For anything that an F-16 or an Abrams can’t take out, there’s cruise missiles and UAV, and finally nukes.
March 27, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Arabic speaking- now that would be a valuable asset. They need to start teaching arabic now and because there are so many different dialects, it is important to learn them all.
Of course body armor…the thing is the military is trying to catch up. They have to be prepared for conventional and unconventional warfare. They were prepared for neither.
There are things that China does have some things that we cannot beat-not a lot but they have it. And there are items that the Chinese actually manufacture for our military. Last I checked Singapore makes the circuit boards that go into our Sonobuoys. That it is even made in China for goodness sakes- how dumb is that?! I’d like to make a suggestion that we make our own military stuff- ya know to be on the safe side.
And the fact that they do not have the same interest as we do and that they do have nuclear capabilities. That they have Taiwan on their to do list should they ever get the urge to free themselves and now the world is looking more and more towards China as the leader…well yes, I’d say body armor and armed hummers are a good idea along with all those fancy planes and gizmos. Most of Americas enemies won’t be shooting hypersonic cruise and anti-aircraft missiles.
March 27, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Communism does not have the same goals as a democracy does. And the fact that we have put ourselves in a position where we have to go to two communists countries to try to get Iran to stop proliferating nukes says a lot. Let a angry Persian or Arab get their hands on a nuke and it has the possibility of being worse than N. Korea. Then do you actually think that a Chinese sub actually accidentally came up behind one of our ships? Don’t you think the fact that we didn’t know it was there is a bit troubling? Do you think they knocked out that satellite for the fun of it? No.
March 27, 2007 at 4:30 pm
No offense to Arabs and Persians on the above…it’s just that they have a long past of oppressive and abusive ways towards their people.
Look we can’t look the people of the world in the eyes because all in the name of fighting terrorism the President has detention of American citizens as lawful enemy combatants without proof of criminal activity; took away habeas corpus for alleged alien enemy combatants;National Security Agency intercepts phone conversations or emails or breaking and entering homes beacuse of fear;kidnapping, detaining, and torturing persons abroad in collaboration with foreign governments;torture or coercion in military or civilian tribunals is all being done under the nose of this United States. We cannot look to them and say what are you doing in Darfur? What are you doing China spying on your people? What are you doing China when you are stripping away your poor peoples lands to make room for the Oympics? What are you doing China in Darfur when we do business with Saudi who denies women the right to employment, education, health, and freedom of movement and who routinely detain children suspected of even minor offenses such as moral offense?
When we reward these countries because someone is going to make big bucks off of cheap labor all the while taking jobs from the middleman here in America and when we have allowed this president out of fear to strip away our freedoms…what does that say about us?