Yes, We Can Deter China

But It Is Going To Cost Money. Lots of Money

Last Friday’s meandering on the internet brought with it an interesting feature-length essay at Politico entitled “The Pentagon Is Freaking Out About a Potential War With China.” I noticed it first when the great Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Brent Sadler tweeted about it, and again when the also-great Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Bryan Clark chimed in. When people I trust and admire (and like!) pipe up about something, it is a signal that it is something about which I ought to be aware.

It is a worthwhile read. If you are not well-versed in the subject of ongoing great power dynamics, it will be eye-opening, as there are numerous quotes from competent people raising critical issues about our country’s readiness to go toe-to-toe with The People’s Republic of China. The piece tells the sorry tale of the decline of the defense industrial base in the aftermath of the Cold War, which was a choice. It hints at the growth in defense spending as a result of the War on Terror, without referring to the degree to which that growth was financed by restrained spending on the capabilities and platforms that would be useful for dealing with China (read: the U.S. Navy).

There is much to digest in the piece, but I do not intend to use this space to respond to it per se; I want to use this space to expound upon a few points the essay raises.

A War With China Would Be Devastating, Like Nothing We Have Seen Before

The piece begins with the aftermath of a wargame in which US and Taiwan forces attempt to stop an invasion by China. Here is that opening paragraph.

The war began in the early morning hours with a massive bombardment — China’s version of “shock and awe.” Chinese planes and rockets swiftly destroyed most of Taiwan’s navy and air force as the People’s Liberation army and navy mounted a massive amphibious assault across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait. Having taken seriously President Joe Biden’s pledge to defend the island, Beijing also struck pre-emptively at U.S. and allied air bases and ships in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. managed to even the odds for a time by deploying more sophisticated submarines as well as B-21 and B-2 stealth bombers to get inside China’s air defense zones, but Washington ran out of key munitions in a matter of days and saw its network access severed. The United States and its main ally, Japan, lost thousands of servicemembers, dozens of ships, and hundreds of aircraft. Taiwan’s economy was devastated. And as a protracted siege ensued, the U.S. was much slower to rebuild, taking years to replace ships as it reckoned with how shriveled its industrial base had become compared to China’s.

This is a pretty grim depiction, but for the moment, let’s assume it is reasonable. Loyal and attentive readers will remember that all the way back on February 2, 2023, I wrote an essay right here on this site that described the findings of a wargame just like this one. Americans have been shielded from the horrors of flat out great power war for a long, long time. If this battle comes, tens of thousands of people will die, many of them Americans, most of them Chinese (PRC and ROC), and most of those within a few weeks of combat starting. The US will lose hundreds of fighter jets, bombers, surface ships, aircraft carriers, submarines and logistics ships. It will be combat the likes of which we have not seen for decades.

But you know what else happens? China loses its Navy. Or most of it anyway. And all those shipyards and naval bases that we fear will spring into production and replace that lost Navy without breaking a sweat—how long do they stay off the target list? I do not say these things lightly. There will be mass carnage. But let’s say for the sake of argument that in this initial naval and aerospace conflict, a quarter to a third of ALL US Navy combat power is destroyed, and somewhere approaching 80% of the combat power of the PRC is lost. The Battle for Taiwan is unlikely to be where this all ends; this is the beginning of a war, not the end. Which side would you rather be on in that case—the one that wrecks and MAYBE occupies Taiwan at the cost of its Navy, or the one that has two-thirds to three quarters of the most powerful Navy on earth remaining—along with those of like minded friends and allies who will then use their maritime dominance and the geography of the First Island Chain to choke the Chinese war machine and economy of virtually everything it needs to sustain itself?

Chinese leaders know all these things. I am not saying this to assert that they will not assault Taiwan because of them, but because of them, they are deterred from assaulting Taiwan—for now. For the US, maintaining and improving the force posture that provides this knowledge is imperative.

I get it. You’re made uncomfortable by the prospect of 75,000 human beings dying in a month of combat. You should be—it would be a terrible thing. But those are the stakes for our political leaders to consider. Either we are willing to demonstrate that we will go the mat for Taiwan and resource defense accordingly so that such carnage does not come, or we should inform the American people that we have surrendered our position of world leadership, and that it is now every country for itself. Just watch how unstable THAT WORLD will become.

Aiding Ukraine Is A Net Positive for Deterring China

There are several references in the essay to the possibility that aiding Ukraine is diminishing our ability to deter China. For instance:

The problem has come into sharp relief only in the last few years as Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to a prolonged war that has drained U.S. munitions stockpiles, and China dramatically escalated both its military spending and aggressive rhetoric against Taiwan. In the last year the U.S. has allocated nearly $50 billion in security aid to Kyiv, possibly cutting further into its deterrent against China. In other words, the failure to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine and the stress this has put on the U.S. defense industrial base should be sounding alarms for the U.S. military posture vis-a-vis Taiwan, many defense experts say.

Putting aside the inconvenient fact that very few (if any) munitions crucial to the China deterrence and warfighting mission have been shared with Ukraine (something the essay gets around to later), the very existence of a broad coalition of nations from across the globe coming together to aid a nation attacked without provocation by a large, nuclear-armed neighbor cannot go unnoticed by Chinese leaders. Had the US and the world sat back and let Ukraine fight it out on its own, China would have had the green light (or at least the European yellow light, which means the green light is coming) to move forward with its aspirations to bring Taiwan under its control.

Essence dissipator

One of the reasons this “we’re dissipating our essence in Ukraine” garbage has legs it that we simply are not spending what we need to spend on defense.

We Need To Spend More On Defense

A close reading of the Politico piece reveals three key facts:

• In 1990, (the last year of dying great-power competition with ONE nation), we spent 5.2% of our GDP on defense.

• Ten years later (2000), we were spending 3.0% of our GDP on defense.

• In 2023, we are STILL spending “just over” 3% on defense.

The words “just over” are in quotations as a way of bringing attention to the words that follow them; “but this was largely due to the rapid growth of the economy”. So let me get this straight. We are now “in war” with Russia (but not “at war”) and we are deeply engaged in deterring war with China at the same time. Additionally, while our economy has grown rapidly and the percentage of national treasure spent on myriad other desires has exploded, our commitment to national defense in the face of TWO great power competitors remains flat as a function of GDP. This is ridiculous, and this is unsafe.

Congress recognized this—at least as far as the Navy is concerned—when it created in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act the National Commission on the Future of the Navy. Among other things, this Commission is to report (by July 1, 2024 on a force structure for the Navy that (from the enabling legislation):

(bb) assumes four different funding levels of:

fiscal year 2023 appropriated plus inflation;

fiscal year 2023 appropriated with 3-5 percent real

growth; such as is necessary to build, man,

maintain and modernize the fleet required by

section 1025 of the National Defense Authorization

Act for 2018 (Public Law 115-91); and notionally

unconstrained to meet the needs of the National

Defense Strategy including a particular focus on

the areas of responsibility of United States Indo-

Pacific Command and United States European Command;

A Democrat in the House of Representatives from Virginia (Rep Elaine Luria) proposed this legislation, a Democratically-controlled House passed it, and a Democratic President of the United States signed it. The legislation was supported by Republicans and ultimately passed with overwhelming Republican support in both chambers. The LEAST generous increase in defense funding that the Commission is directed to entertain is the FY23 level plus inflation. Next is that level, plus 3-5% real growth. Third is the level required to build, maintain, and operate the “355 Ship Navy”, and fourth is an “unconstrained” level appropriate to attaining the strategy we say we are pursuing.*

Nowhere in that mix of options is the mess that came out of the debt limit negotiation that effectively cuts real defense spending in FY24 and FY25. Here we are, in the midst of renewed great power competition, this time with TWO other contestants (one of whose land power we are actively engaged in destroying), and a Congress that clearly wants a larger Navy—and we commit to a funding level that will almost certainly lead to a SMALLER Navy.

So—let’s all click our heels together three times and wish for higher defense spending, because that appears to be the only way it is going to come about within a meaningful time horizon (and by that, one that Chairman Xi is scanning) short of a national emergency.

*The legislation creating this Commission specified that Commissioners were to be nominated within 90 days of its passage, which would have been March 22. As of this date, only four have been nominated, one of whom is me.

We CAN Spend More On Defense

There are voices in our midst who look at decades of underfunding conventional military power, the decline of the US defense industrial base, and brittle supply chains in some cases leading straight back to our strategic competitors, and throw up their hands in despair, claiming that even if we wanted to spend more, we could not do anything meaningful with the money within a relevant timeline. Accordingly, they call for significant—even “radical” changes. One of them is quoted in the Politico essay:

“We’re in a window of maximum danger,” says Christian Brose, a former senior aide to the late Sen. John McCain, who for years was a lone voice in the wilderness warning against the Chinese and Russian buildup. “We could throw a trillion dollars a year at the defense budget now, and we’re not going to get a meaningful increase in traditional military capabilities in the next five years. They cannot be produced.”

And then this:

First, this would mean de-emphasizing traditional platforms like expensive, and newly vulnerable, aircraft carriers and moving to exploit the best of U.S. high tech advantages, including the most recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence that American industry dominates and which could power new generations of drone aircraft and ships

“The only way we win is by radically scaling our investments in non-traditional military capabilities, such as lower-cost autonomous systems,” says (Christian) Brose, who is chief strategy officer at a company that makes such systems, Anduril Industries

Here’s another (the aforementioned Bryan Clark) on Twitter, citing Chris Brose’s comments in the Politico essay:

I disagree with both of these men.

First, Brose says “We could throw a trillion dollars a year at the defense budget right now…” as if it is some crazy figure out of the realm of possibility, when it is in fact, $200B LESS than what the defense budget would be if the 1990 proportion of defense to GDP (remember—a dying Cold War against one opponent then—an active period of great power competition against two opponents now) were maintained. The FY23 defense budget is two-thirds of the size that a linear increase would have suggested.

But what I take him (and Clark) to be saying is that because the industrial base is not capable of flexing to build traditional platforms (such as ships, sophisticated aircraft, and precision weapons) fast enough to meet immediate needs, we need to walk away from those capabilities. And if we walk away from those capabilities, we really don’t need to spend MORE on defense, we just have to spend it DIFFERENTLY. How do I know this? Because Brose SAYS it. “The ONLY WAY (my emphasis) we win is by radically scaling our investments in non-traditional military capabilities…”. Not “one way we improve”, or “we should allocate additional investment to…”. No. “The only way…”. Nonsense.

I am a huge believer in the kind of technology that Brose (and Clark) wants more of, and I spend a little bit of most days thinking of diabolical ways to integrate those capabilities into the existing force. But this hand-waving at the contributions of “traditional” (often referred to derisively as “legacy”) capabilities and the concomitant pooh-poohing of additional resources to build those capabilities has the impact of making it seem that not only is investing in them not wise, but growing the defense budget at all is unnecessary. Neither is true.

What Can We Do With More Defense Spending?

Since I do not believe that we cannot effectively spend more money, the burden is on me to point out some places where it can be spent with impact.

• We cannot build sophisticated ships, planes, and weapons overnight, this is true. But overnight, we CAN plan to build more sophisticated ships, planes, and weapons, and get money flowing in that direction. Continuing to resource the defense industrial base for efficient peacetime production will no longer suffice. We must spend public money to build out private capacity. The Politico essay makes reference to the Defense Production Act having been applied to components of hypersonic missiles, and this is to be applauded. That said, there are myriad other deserving channels for DPA activity. The federal government must provide loans and guarantees to help bring on tier 2 and 3 suppliers to the defense industrial base, and far more energy needs go into innovative agreements to build precision guided munitions in selected partner nations. It is time for wartime levels of production, and we will not get there relying on efficient market forces to build out the American industrial base.

• Specific to the Navy, we need to make it clear that we will continue to build aircraft carriers at regular intervals until a fleet architecture emerges in which the capabilities of the carrier and its air wing ACROSS THE SPECTRUM OF CONFLICT are exceeded by some combination of other capabilities. To grow the carrier force (as I believe we must), a new carrier should begin production every four years. We need to bring a second shipyard into the frigate program as soon as possible and build at least 4 a year. Any suggestion that we should “pause” in building amphibious ships is ridiculous, and the current requirement for 31 is insufficient. As for large combatants, we need to buy three a year for as far as the eye can see. These are the actions of a country serious about its place in the world, interested in sending challengers serious messages of intent.

• Neither of the two previous bullets provide near-term capability pay-off, but an efficient way to get “… a meaningful increase in traditional military capabilities in the next five years…” is to resource current readiness accounts to get more operational availability from the fleet we have. Aggressively match ships and shipyards up and down the coasts so that no facility with capability to contribute is without work. Regional consortiums run by empowered flag officers with checkbooks and bull-whips can drive this lash-up. Fully fund spare parts accounts and get more comfortable with inventory on shelves, so that ships do not have to spend weeks waiting on crucial parts for weapons, propulsion, navigation, and auxiliary systems.

• As the readiness of the force increases, employ it more. Keep a powerful, networked force forward at all times, and supplement it with surged capability on an unpredictable basis.

• Buy capability now. Anyone worth a damn who looks at US Navy shortcomings points almost immediately to logistics vessels—oilers, tankers, multi-product ships—you name it. There’s a lot of capability out there on the market today for both purchase and charter. Why just the other day, these two beauties came available:

• This one should make Chris Brose and Bryan Clark happy—buying capability now means spending a lot more money on unmanned vehicles (I’m a druid and do not use “uncrewed”) that travel under, on, and above the ocean. The Navy should be goosed into moving faster on its Large and Medium Unmanned Surface Vessels even as it continues to ride the CTF 59 wave of smaller, more tactical capability. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good enough. Use employment CONOPS to ensure security and control of unmanned vessels as we work out the bugs in them.

• Make every ship more lethal today, without waiting on elegant solutions. Every Navy ship of even modest size should be able to kill another ship over the horizon. The Navy ought to be thinking now about how to harvest vertical launching systems from decommissioning Cruisers for placement on other ships with room to accommodate them. There was momentum in the previous administration for shipping-container based missile launchers, but much of that momentum has diminished. Solutions don’t have to be elegant, but they do need to work.

Conclusion

To be honest, the recent debt-limit agreement and its impact on national defense took a bit out of me. There had been sustained, bi-partisan support for continuing to increase defense spending, and the Navy was receiving the kind of attention it needed to plus up the force to meet the challenges. Without VERY DIFFICULT political compromise, DoD will tread water for the next two years. We have not yet seen what Congress will do with the Biden Administration’s 2024 Defense Budget (it is being marked over the next few weeks), but we can be sure that its (the Congress) priorities will find their way into the mix, without the benefit of additional dollars to smooth the way.

Money spent on capability and capacity that is available in the near term is money well-spent. But we cannot become so hyper-focused that we lose perspective on the importance of long-term investments, especially as they signal our desire (or not) to remain at the top of the heap.

The suggestion that we cannot afford to spend more on defense is belied by the facts. We spent much more as a function of our wealth thirty-three years ago in a time that was arguably less fraught than the one we are in. The suggestion that, were we to decide to spend more on defense, there is nowhere for it to go, is also belied by the facts. There is a ton of lethal capability that can be brought forward quickly, but only when there is money to do it. Winter is coming.