US arms obsession put nation on path to poorhouse
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Top Chinese general Chen Bingde's recent visit to the US was an occasion for photo ops and flowery speeches about the need for greater cooperation between the world's two great military and economic powers.
But after cameras stopped rolling, the US media began singing a different yet all-too-familiar tune. Commentators rehashed the narrative of a Cold-War-style arms race and battle for spheres of influence as they stoked fears of a Chinese military buildup.
China has become the new boogeyman for the US to justify its ever-expanding military budget. The start of Chen's visit coincided with the release of news that the US is developing a long-range unmanned carrier-based aircraft.
Analysts believe the drone is designed to counter China's land-based anti-carrier missile, which is currently operational though untested. Such a move is reminiscent of the kind of military one-upmanship seen at the height of the Cold War.
But if China's increases in military spending signal the start of a new arms race, then it isn't much of one considering the US 50-year head start.
If it were a foot race, then America would be sprinting while China is still lacing its shoes.
According to official figures released by the Chinese government, the latest annual military budget is equal to $91 billion, which amounts to about 1.4 percent of China's GDP, whereas the US military budget is more than seven times that amount and accounts for at least 5 percent of the nation's much larger GDP.
Though China's armed forces outnumber those of the US in terms of regular personnel, the US has an overwhelming advantage in both the amount and sophistication of its hardware, which are the real deciding factors in modern warfare.
The US has at least twice the amount of combat aircraft and military vehicles as China does, not to mention 11 aircraft carriers.
China's military technology is still decades behind.
There are some parallels between the current situation and the Cold War, but not the ones that are most often mentioned.
One is that circumstances prevent the two powers from confronting each other in direct military confrontation.
During the Cold War, it was the threat of nuclear annihilation that kept the peace between the Soviets and the US, a policy known aptly known as MAD, short for Mutually-Assured Destruction.
Now, we have an economic equivalent of this policy. The two nations are so economically intertwined that a war between them would be catastrophic to both and indeed the whole world.
Also, given China's similar economic interdependence with its neighbors, such as Japan and South Korea, it is unlikely that China will use its improved military might to bully its neighbors.
One of the fundamental strategies of the US during the Cold War was the belief that free enterprise was stronger than the Soviet system, and that by constantly driving the arms race to new extremes, the US could force the Soviets to spend itself to death.
So it is all the more ironic that the same thing seems to be happening to the US, which recently hit its debt ceiling just shortly after a budget crisis nearly forced a government shutdown.
Military spending had no small part to play in this. The total military budget for 2012, including non-Department of Defense expenses and interest paid debt from past wars, is between $1.03 and $1.4 trillion.
China's possession of an anti-carrier weapon is a threat to the US perceived right to park an aircraft carrier off China's coast any time it wishes as it did last year.
The US responded like it was a global game of rock, paper, scissors. Paper covers rock, and drone beats missile.
If there is no actual threat that China and the US will engage in a shooting war nor a threat that China will attack its neighbors, why does the US continue to fund projects like the F-35 jet and drone aircraft at the expense of other more important domestic projects?
One reason is that Washington practices what can be called "military Keynesianism," in which it intervenes in the economy through military spending.
But this policy along with the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq are taking the US on a one-way express train to the poorhouse.
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