Future War and the Defence of Europe by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

China, the US, and European defence

China’s military-strategic method is to impose strategic complexity on the US by investing in the seven multi-domains of future war—air, sea, land, space, cyber, information/espionage, and knowledge—whilst extending the very concept of conflict itself into strategic investment as part of a complex concept of strategic coercion. For Beijing, the power to influence others is thus an essential strategic commodity and, in many ways, the real strategic purpose of Beijing’s wealth-creation. It would be naïve in the very least for Europeans to believe China is either going to stop seeking more power at the expense of the US, or indeed become less adversarial with the Americans and the wider West. Would a bipolar US–Chinese strategic relationship make the world, and by extension Europe, more secure? History would suggest not. Rather, it would place Europe on a new global frontline, and certainly make the world much more dangerously competitive as both sought allies, and partners of the US became embroiled in new bipolar stand-off.

Chinese military ambitions are fuelled by the structural transfer of wealth and power underway from West to East which has enabled the Chinese defence budget to grow by 60 per cent since 2012.13 In 2019, a CSIS report stated, ‘how much China actually spends on its military is widely debated. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates the overall 2018 figure at $250 billion and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) puts the number at $209 billion in 2017. The US Department of Defense (DoD) concludes that China’s 2018 defense budget likely exceeded $200 billion’.14 Whilst Chinese defence expenditure would appear to be far below US defence expenditure in 2019, the gap is not as wide as it appears, with profound implications for the assumptions upon which European defence rests. First, the US must spread its forces and resources across the globe, whilst China can concentrate its military power, mainly in and around East Asia. Second, declared Chinese defence expenditure is believed to be far below the actual amount Beijing spends, particularly in crucial areas such as defence research and development. Third, China would also appear to get more bang for each buck than the Americans. Pork-barrel politics in Washington increases overhead costs and imposes inefficiencies on the US defence effort with which the Chinese do not have to contend, and undermines the ability of any administration to spend money effectively.

Beijing’s aggressive military-strategic ambitions are also clear for those willing to look at the evidence. China continues to arm the series of reefs and atolls it has illegally seized, fast turning them into advanced military bases, as part of the so-called ‘string of pearls’. Beijing also claims that all movements by the air and sea forces of other states across the South China Sea now breach China’s sovereignty unless authorized by Beijing which, it warns, it reserves the right to forcefully defend. If Beijing continues to assert ‘rights’ that are seen by many states the world over as illegal, then China is on a collision course with other powers, most notably the US.

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