IThere is broad agreement among those on the center right that China now poses the greatest threat to the safety, freedom, and prosperity of Americans, and that the danger is increasing. As the Chinese government continues its historic military buildup, it is widely understood that Japan’s military capabilities are not keeping up and that the United States is rapidly running out of time to deter war over Taiwan. Worse, there is a growing recognition that the United States could actually lose a war over Taiwan if deterrence fails.
Hawks, like many on the center-left, believe in an aggressive and expansive U.S. foreign policy, but unlike them, military power and superiority are the true core of that policy. is emphasized. Therefore, hawks support increased defense spending and active deployment of U.S. forces around the world. But while they tout the growing threat from China, they argue that Taiwan’s defenses run through Ukraine, and are a major voice on the right calling for continued military aid to Ukraine. Hawks are distinguished on the right from prioritarians, who recognize the limits of current American power based on realism and advocate an American foreign policy that puts the interests of the American people first. As a result, they are calling for prioritizing China above all other threats and asking America’s allies to shoulder a greater burden in supporting friends and allies in Europe and the Middle East. At the other end of the spectrum on the right are repressionists, who generally oppose U.S. involvement in conflicts and involvement abroad.
The Hawks, among these groups, need to recognize the urgency and seriousness of this moment. After all, the definition of a hawk is someone who takes hard power very seriously and knows that it can become decisive if left unchecked. Thus, for more than a decade, hawks have loudly lamented the chronic underinvestment in our military compared to the demands our traditional strategy places on it. Ta. Prominent defense hawks have argued year after year that sustaining this multi-theater national strategy requires spending more on defense. Today, they emphasize that China is engaged in a historic military buildup, with shipbuilding capacity 200 times greater than ours, for example.
But now, many hawks are suddenly convinced that despite years of relative underinvestment, which they themselves have criticized, our military still has the upper hand in three theaters, especially given the challenges of a rising China. They act as if they can deal with it. Most worryingly, many have refuted calls to prioritize military aid to Taiwan and strengthen U.S. military posture in the Pacific in favor of continued heavy engagements and material flows into Europe and the Middle East. That’s what I’m refusing. How could this happen anyway? If past hawks are correct, the current military situation must be dire relative to the challenges we face. So why do we suddenly become complacent?
Some hawks argue that tradeoffs can be better managed by sequencing the dangers at hand. But it is clear that Russia, Iran, and terrorist groups are not going away. The hawks themselves also point out that they cannot be “parked” because they are powerful, dangerous and aggressive. Other hawks argue that despite the poor state of our defense industrial base, a “smart”, low-cost strategy could avoid such trade-offs altogether. The most reliable of these is to rely primarily on long-range precision-guided missiles, especially anti-ship missiles, to deter or defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. A relatively modest amount of approximately $10 billion to $15 billion per year over several years has been set for revamping the military industrial base, a strategy that would allow China to continue business as usual while doing business with China. It seems possible.
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However, while this solution is attractive in its simplicity and affordability, it would be a big mistake for hawks to argue that it is a wise choice, and in fact, it would be would be contradictory. Hawk’s logic itself shows why.
First, the strategy assumes that a broken military industrial base can actually be repaired with an investment of $10 billion to $15 billion per year. But as we’ve seen over the past two years, our defense industry lags behind in simultaneously producing weapons for the U.S. military itself, as well as for Taiwan, Ukraine, and other partners. Stories of delays in production of major missiles have become the norm rather than the exception. Key stockpiles are currently depleted and will take years to replace.
While these supply chains remain vulnerable and indeed systemically dependent on China, it is extremely difficult to expect industry to produce the weapons needed to fight the People’s Liberation Army on time. It would be risky. To be clear, the United States absolutely needs to make historic efforts to revitalize its defense industrial base, especially to increase its military stockpile. However, those who emphasize military reality above all else should take a hard look at industrial, political, financial, and other constraints.
Second, even if industry were able to produce these weapons on time, this strategy would still be dangerously dependent on vest casing. Of course, precision-guided missiles would play a key role in deterring China’s amphibious invasion of Taiwan. But just as we develop such missiles, just as Russia is doing in Ukraine, the People’s Liberation Army will also build countermeasures and defenses. For example, China could attack U.S. forces and bases, or launch a large-scale cyberattack against our infrastructure and space assets that enable such long-range attack assets, both of which could reduce our ability to implement our nation’s plans in a timely and effective manner. Alternatively, it could use a different operational concept to attack Taiwan. For example, in the early stages it is likely to rely more on aviation than on navy. Hawks himself points out that China spends about the same amount on defense as our country, which allows Beijing to leverage advantages such as size, status, adaptability, and initiative. In this context, hawkish logic argues that one cannot sensibly rely on what is essentially a single theory of success. Rather, you should have multiple defenses and layers of defense.
That’s why the United States and its partners will need more than long-range missiles to effectively defend Taiwan. Hawks believe that our strategies and plans must be guided by a healthy respect for our potential adversaries, rather than by wishful thinking that we can defeat China by simply threading a needle. It stipulates that it should not. Therefore, we also need more attack submarines and torpedoes, robust air and missile defenses, capable logistics assets, sufficient intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, and ground weapons, among many other capabilities. would be. But none are enough.
The final problem with the hawks’ proposal is political. Suppose we told the American people today that we could deter China for several years for $10 billion to $15 billion a year. There’s probably a small chance that’s true. But which world is blocking the hawkish approach? And does that strategy adequately convey the scale of the challenge posed by China, which the hawks themselves have emphasized? How much of a threat does the People’s Liberation Army pose at such a small cost? And if such a deal can deter a mighty China, it could also deter threats like Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Naturally, it will also become smaller. So American taxpayers, burdened with soaring debt and high taxes, may rightly wonder why the United States spends nearly $1 trillion a year on defense. So how did the hawks go from advocating doubling the defense budget to implicitly calling for cutting it?
Hawks has been saying for decades that we live in an incredibly dangerous world. That was exaggerated 20 years ago, but now it’s actually true. In such a situation, our country is dominated by strong powers, we are faced with deficiencies that will take years at most to redress, we cannot “walk and chew gum”; We need hawks who follow this belief. And the most dangerous threat we face is the country with the most hard power: China. In such a situation, it would be extremely imprudent to rely on the only theory of victory and lose ground against the most important threat. Hawks must now match their laudable rhetoric about China with real action and, above all, a commitment to confronting our greatest threat.