The China Excuse: Last Refuge of American War Profiteers
I’ve never had much use for war. The benefits seem to be consistently outweighed by the liabilities, at least with the conflicts I’ve seen. There simply aren’t that many large-scale disputes these days that require a nation to “go all in” and commit its armed forces. Aside from World War II (which happened before my time), I’ve only had lukewarm support for limited police actions in places like Bosnia, East Africa, and Kuwait.1
And yet the war business seems to be booming:
For 2009, annual spending among the world’s militaries rose about 6% to $1.53 trillion — a record year even after accounting for inflation, according to Bates Gill, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute[.]
Apparently it’s a good time to be militant, particularly if you’re American. The U.S. alone accounted for more than half of that spending increase last year. Note that this occurred as the U.S. was coming out of a recession, flirting with double-digit unemployment, and dealing with severe structural fiscal deficit problems. In the face of all of this, the defense budget went up.
A recent column by Robert Scheer explains how all of this spending is justified on Capitol Hill. Although it is true that a great deal of hawkish rhetoric in recent years has focused on the threat of terrorism, and a huge amount of money has been shoveled into the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures, this is not nearly sufficient an excuse for spending the big bucks.
[T]he so-called “war on terror” does not cut it as a substitute excuse for feeding the immense maw of the military-industrial complex. It is laughable to suggest that the ever more complex and costly high-tech weaponry we continue to build is needed to defeat an opponent armed with the box cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers or a primitive roadside bomb set off by an Iraqi insurgent.
Once the Cold War was over, the Russian bogeyman wasn’t scary enough to keep the war fires burning. The “war on terror” has done its part but is ultimately not good enough to explain the high-end stuff.
It is simply too much of a stretch to argue that huge nuclear submarines are needed to flush out Osama bin Laden from a cave in a land-locked nation. Come to think of it, the U.S. wouldn’t need to build any kind of submarine to neutralize that threat, much less large nuclear ones.
But that’s no problem. Where there’s money to be had, a threat will be found. Take it away Senator Lieberman: “If we do not move to produce two submarines a year as soon as possible, we are in serious danger of falling behind China.” Ah, there you go. I knew he could do it if the motivation was there (e.g. the companies and facilities that build those submarines are located in his state of Connecticut).
So what was this new paradigm set into place to justify a continuation of massive military spending? Beware the Yellow Peril!
“The Chinese are coming” became the last refuge of war-profiteering scoundrels once the Russians started cutting back dramatically, but this alarm was never plausible. The authoritative quadrennial Defense Department reports have always made clear that China has at most threatened to become a regional power with Taiwan as its focus.
So if China is the bogeyman of choice, and Taiwan is the point of interest (and danger), then it obviously makes sense for American politicians with military interests in their states/districts to play up the China threat and suck up to Taiwan as much as possible.
Of course, this is exactly what we’ve seen for decades, and the plan seems to be working quite well, thank you very much. Not only has the U.S. military budget continued to grow, but despite the sensitivity of U.S.-China relations, America keeps selling weapons to Taiwan. Mission accomplished.
Scheer thinks, however, that the end may be in sight. With last week’s trade agreement between China and Taiwan (the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, or ECFA), any argument that there will ultimately be a military conflict over the island just became a lot more difficult.
To be clear, the free trade agreement only solidifies a trend that has been evident for many years. Many China watchers, including myself, have long thought that Taiwan will come back into the fold peacefully, it’s just a question of how and when. Economic integration has been an undeniable force that has dragged the two sides closer together.
Whither U.S. military spending and the China bogeyman? I have no doubt that blowhard hawks in D.C. will continue to bloviate about the “Communist” threat from “Red China” as sufficient need for military vigilance. For some folks in the U.S., that is indeed all they need to hear. One should never underestimate the military-industrial complex; they’ve been playing this game for a long time and are very good at it. The China threat is not going away anytime soon, but the ECFA does make the scary rhetoric ring a bit hollow.
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- I would be more than happy if the United Nations had a ‘real’ standing army that could respond to such needs, and its Member States had the political will to use it.[↩]
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Love reading your blogs, very informative. Thanks for the insightful posts. However I was wondering if I could throw a wrench into the notion that the ECFA makes the rhetoric ring hollow. The notion of China as a “peer competitor” has been there for a while now, with Mearsheimer and the Tragedy of Great Power Politics stating explicitly that China poses the greatest threat to upset the current balance of power. To lose Taiwan would be a major blow to the Security Architecture of the region that America has set up over the last 60 years, namely the “Hub and Spoke System” that has been integral in thwarting any real security competition. The rise of China threatens that system. Even just the thought that China can inhibit America’s ability to intervene in a conflict over the Island (see A2/D2 capabilities and “Assassins Mace” to get a better understanding) would create either a hedging mentality or band wagon mentality that would undoubtedly lead to an even bigger arms race than is already present in the region, which is due in large part to China’s rapid military rise over the last two decades. China is already aggressively pursuing its interests in the South and East China Seas, especially when it comes to competing claims over tiny islands that are contested between China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, among others. This wouldn’t be such a big problem if China were willing to settle these competing claims in a regional forum like ASEAN, but its not. It will only try and settle these claims on a country-to-country basis, which serves its interests best and allows it to bring its full economic, political, and military might to bear in these negotiations. As one of your more recent posts points out, China is following a Realpolitik foreign policy. So do you really think the reconciliation of the Taiwan weather economically or otherwise would serve to appease China rather than unleash it? There are many “hypothetical” scenarios that could happen with the “integration” of China and Taiwan, but generally speaking, the status quo seems to be in everyone’s interests…..
My problem with the current security infrastructure of the U.S. in Asia is that is presupposes a threat – mainly China. Whenever we talk about alliances with Japan, Taiwan, or others, it is always using China as the reference point. All well and good, as long as that threat exists and is serious. I don’t see China as an altruistic power, but neither do I see it as one that will try and take over the world (or even Asia) anytime soon.
To me, Taiwan has always been a fly in the ointment, a distraction that makes US-China relations that much more difficult. Take it out of the equation, and the relationship is slightly more straightforward.
I don’t worry about resolving the Taiwan issue a matter of appeasement or unleashing China. The question is what is this big appetite we are worried about that requires appeasement or further conflict? In other words, if we see China as a realist nation, what might it do next to protect itself against what it perceives as threats?
Thanks for the response.
I agree and disagree with the point about “presupposing” a conflict. It originally was formed to contain Russia. Today it certainly can be framed around China. However, it was also integral in the formation of multi-lateral institutions in the region, namely ASEAN. The current architecture has also tempered a lot of the nationalism that, regretfully, is starting to bubble to the surface again, and is in no small part due to the anxiety that a rising China could, and in some ways is, disrupting the “order” of things.
That being said, I do agree that Taiwan is the proverbial thorn in the side of stronger Sino-U.S. relations. Resolving that issue might alleviate some of the tension, at least for a while. However, sticking with the notion that China is using a realpolitik foreign policy, would relations be that much smoother between the U.S. and China? Would military-to-military exchanges be that much more developed? Would industrial policy, economic policy, human rights, etc. be any less contentious? If RealPolitik says nations do whats in there best interests, then certainly not, especially when China is the weaker power, particularly militarily.
It seems that Barack Obama tried in the beginning to be more conciliatory in his relations with China, to be more complementary. It seems those gestures only emboldened China to act more aggressively, from what I recall, and with no real conciliatory gestures in return. Conceit on this issue, to me, would see no real reciprocal gesture in return and would only embolden China to be more aggressive, if not immediately, then certainly in the near future. Appetites sometimes grow with eating. And if the last 10 years have anything to say about it, China’s appetite is only getting more voracious. But, in a RealPolitik world, who can blame them?
You forgot Grenada, maybe our only truly successful war since WWII. We went in, we kicked ass, we saved our own citizens (from what exactly, I am not sure) and then we got out. Now we get presidents like Bush and Obama who kill our troops strictly for politcal gain. What really kills me though is why nobody is marching in the streets about this a la Vietnam. Seriously.
Grenada. Good grief.
People don’t march in the streets for anything anymore, except maybe lower taxes. Actually, there were lots of anti-war protests during the Bush Administration, the media just didn’t cover them.