China as Excuse for Bloated Pentagon Spending

 On the eve of his visit to Asia in March 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained that for the past 20 years, the United State had been focused on the Middle East, while China had been modernizing its military. "We still maintain the edge," he noted, "and we're going to increase the edge going forward." Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat.

What Austin calls America's "edge" over China is more like a chasm. The United States has about 20 times the number of nuclear warheads as China. It has twice the tonnage of warships at sea, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, compared with China's two carriers (which are much less advanced). Washington has more than 2,000 modern fighter jets, compared with Beijing's  600, according to national security analyst Sebastien Roblin. And the United States deploys this power using a vast network of some 800 overseas bases. 

At the height of its imperial might in the late 19th century, when it ruled a quarter of the world's population, Britain adopted a "two-power standard" -- its navy ha to be larger than the next two put together. U.S. military spending remains larger than the defense budgets of the next 10 countries put together, most of which are Washington's close allies. The United States' intelligence budget alone --around $85 billion --is larger than Russia's total defense spending.

In any case, the size of military sending is a misleading indicator of strength. Far more important are the objectives sought and the political-military strategy used to achieve those objectives. The United States has probably outspent the Taliban 10,000 to 1 in Afghanistan. And yet Washington has been unable to achieve its objective there -- ensuring that the Kabul government rules the country uncontested. If the United States defines its goals carefully and assembles an intelligent and consistent political and military strategy to achieve them, it can succeed. Without that, millions of troops and trillions of dollars will not guarantee victory. Bigness is not a substitute for brains.

The Pentagon operates in a realm apart from any other government agency. It spends money on a scale that is almost unimaginable --and the waste is, too. Every government agency is required to audit its accounts, but for decades, the Pentagon simply flouted this law. In 2018, it finally obeyed, paying $400 million for 1,200 auditors to examine its books, yet it still could not get a clean bill of heath. As writer Matt Taibbi noted in a brilliant 2019 expose of Pentagon accounting, the auditors "were unable to pass the Pentagon or flunk it. They could only offer no opinion, explaining the military's empire of hundreds of acronymic accounting silos was too illogical to penetrate." The Pentagon has failed to pass two more audits since then.

Having spent two decades fighting wars in the Middle East without much success, the Pentagon will now revert to its favorite kind of conflict, a cold war with a nuclear power. It can raise endless amounts of money to "outpace" China, even if nuclear deterrence makes it unlikely there will be an actual fighting war in Asia. Of course, there might be budget wars in Washington -- but those are the battles that the Pentagon knows how to win!. (Source: Excerpts from an op ed by Fareed Zakaria in the March 19, 2021 Washington Post).