The fancy guns are trained on China
By Michael T Klare
On February 4, President George W Bush announced a baseline military budget of
US$515.4 billion for the next fiscal year, not including funds for operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is the largest one-year Pentagon request in real, uninflated dollars since
World War II. This Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 figure represents a 7.5% increase over
the 2008 appropriation of $479.5 billion and is expected to be the first of
many rising requests supposedly needed to replace equipment lost and damaged in
Iraq and to gear up for the security threats to come. As chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen explained last October, "We're just going
to have to devote more resources to national security in the world we're living
in right now."
At first glance, all these additional funds will be used to sustain the "war on
terror", and replace equipment destroyed or rendered
inoperable in the wars now under way. "The Fiscal Year 2009 defense budget
request sustains the president's commitment to growing US ground forces that
are needed to prevail in the current conflicts in Iran and Afghanistan," a
Pentagon press release notes. Additional funds are allocated for "operations,
readiness and support" - troop training, replacement parts and equipment,
combat supplies, and so on.
But a close examination of the FY 2009 request indicates that the principal
sources of future budget growth are not the "war on terror" or other such
low-intensity contingencies but rather preparation for all-out combat with a
future superpower. Probe a little deeper into Pentagon thinking, and only one
potential superpower emerges to justify all this vast spending: the People's
Republic of China.
Strategic modernization
Not that China is actually mentioned in the public, unclassified budget
documents. Rather, discussion is limited to the need to "invest in the
strategic modernization necessary to meet current and future threats from land,
sea, air or space". This entails both the procurement of advanced weapons and
stepped-up research on promising technologies for eventual incorporation into
future combat systems. To achieve these objectives, $183.3 billion is allocated
for "strategic modernization" in FY 2009, representing the largest share (36%)
of the overall budget.
Look closely at some of the most costly weapons being sought in FY 2009, and it
rapidly becomes apparent that they are not designed to fight insurgent bands or
Third World armies equipped with third-class weapons. Instead, they are
designed to fight some imaginary successor to the Soviet Union, a "peer
competitor" equipped with a full complement of modern weapons. Among the items
highlighted in the "strategic modernization" category are:
F-22 Raptor air-superiority fighter: The most advanced fighter
aircraft in the world today. According to the budget request, "The F-22
penetrates enemy airspace and achieves first-look, first-kill capability
against multiple targets. It has unprecedented survivability and lethality,
ensuring that the joint forces have freedom from attack, freedom to maneuver,
and freedom to attack." (FY 2009 request: $4.1 billion for 20 aircraft.)
CVN-78 advanced aircraft carrier: A futuristic replacement for
the Nimitz-class vessels that now form the backbone of the US carrier fleet. It
will incorporate many new technologies, including a new nuclear propulsion
plant, an electromagnetic aircraft launching system, advanced radars and other
innovations. Among other functions, the new carrier is intended to "carry the
war to the enemy through multi-mission offensive operations". (The FY 2009
request of $4.2 billion for the first vessel includes long-lead time items for
a second ship of this class, CVN-79.)
DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer: Armed with an array of missiles
and employing the latest stealth technology, the DDG 1000 will be a
"multi-mission surface combatant designed to fulfill volume firepower and
precision strike requirements". It will also serve as a test-bed for a new
stealth cruiser, the CG(X). (FY 2009 request: $3.2 billion for one ship.)
Virginia-class submarine: A nuclear-powered submarine designed to
replace the existing, Los Angeles-class ships in the US submarine fleet and
"provide the navy with the capabilities to maintain undersea supremacy in the
21st century". The Virginia class vessels "are able to attack targets ashore
with Tomahawk cruise missiles and conduct covert long-term surveillance of land
areas, littoral waters or other sea-based forces". (The FY 2009 request of $3.6
billion includes funding for one ship plus advance items for several others.)
Against whom are these super-sophisticated ships and planes intended to be
deployed? Not Iran, which is still largely equipped with aging US arms acquired
in the 1970s during the reign of the Shah. Not Syria or North Korea, both still
equipped with Korean- and Vietnam War-era Soviet castoffs. Not any of the other
so-called rogue states against which Bush has railed so often. In fact, it is
impossible to conceive of any adversary with the capacity to engage the United
States on anything approaching major-power status except China.
The China threat
In their efforts to secure funding for all these costly new weapons, US
military officials - and their allies in Congress and the corporate world -
have begun highlighting the China threat. When China successfully tested what
Washington described as an anti-satellite missile last January, the
threat-mongering kicked up a notch. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also
cited this test as justification for an increase in Pentagon spending on space
technology. "The department's heavy reliance on space capabilities is clear to
potential adversaries, some of whom are developing anti-satellite weapons," he
declared on February 6, in an obvious reference to China. "Protecting our
assets in space is, therefore, a high priority."
Supporters of the F-22 program have also hyped the China threat. "I'm trying to
look beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm trying to look at what is the threat down
the road," said Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha, chairman of the
Defense Sub-committee of the House Appropriations Committee at an industry
meeting in February.
Murtha favors increased spending on the F-22, and he left no doubt in the minds
of his listeners that China is the most likely "threat down the road" against
which the extra fighters would be needed. In his efforts to promote the F-22,
Murtha recently met with Gates, who told members of the Senate Armed Services
Committee on February 6 that the fighter "is principally for use against a near
peer in a conflict, and I think we all know who that is".
Just as the Department of Defense and its corporate allies often touted the
"Soviet threat" during the Cold War period to stampede Congress and the
American public into supporting ever-increasing spending on advanced weapons,
so a hypothetical "China threat" will now be conjured up to achieve the same
purpose in the post-Cold War era.
With the US public concerned over the rising costs of the Iraq war and other
national priorities - health care, education, alternative energy development,
the mortgage crisis, and so on - such threat amplification will become
indispensable to ensure adequate funding for the Pentagon's favored weapons
programs.
Indeed, an early indication of this inevitable phenomenon was revealed on March
3, when the Department of Defense released its annual report on the Military
Power of the People's Republic of China. Compared to previous reports of the
same title, it trumpeted a heightened effort by China to challenge America's
supremacy in a wide variety of military capabilities, especially naval, missile
and space warfare.
In particular, the report warned of China's "continued development of advanced
cruise missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles anti-ship ballistic missiles
designed to strike ships at sea, including aircraft carriers, and the January
2007 successful test of a direct ascent, anti-satellite weapon". The report
further chided the Chinese leadership for shielding the details of its military
budget from scrutiny. "The lack of transparency in China's military and
security affairs poses risks to stability by increasing the potential for
misunderstanding and miscalculation. This situation will naturally and
understandably lead to hedging against the unknown" - an unmistakable call for
increased US military spending.
As the national debate over US military spending intensifies, these sorts of
claims are certain to be repeated with ever greater regularity and sense of
alarm. It is not that Pentagon officials dislike the Chinese or believe that
war with China is inevitable or even likely - they don't. It's just that they
want to deploy ever more sophisticated weapons, and the only way to justify the
acquisition of such costly munitions is to posit the existence of a
superpower-like enemy.
Because only China fits that role, it must be demonized as a potential
adversary. Thus, even as US trade with China increases, the world could be
thrust into a New Cold War simply to satisfy the institutional and financial
objectives of what president Dwight D Eisenhower once termed the
military-industrial complex.
Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world-security studies at
Hampshire College, a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist and the author of the
forthcoming Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of
Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008).
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