Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has proposed a budget plan that will leave the U.S. military weaker, precisely as the Chinese military is growing stronger.
And the Sino military already is a force to be reckoned with, even for the greatest power on Earth, the United States. The day when the United States must compete toe-to-toe with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is not in some uncertain future era, but today, right now.
Those were key points forwarded by Dan Blumenthal, resident fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. He spoke at a forum of The Heritage Foundation, another Washington think tank, responding to a question from Space & Missile Defense Report.
To be sure, Blumenthal said he is “sympathetic to Secretary Gates’s focus” on attempting to reform Pentagon procurement policies and programs, eliminating those less needed. Gates is under pressure to cut the defense budget, Blumenthal said. That referred to the arrival in the White House of Barack Obama, the first Democratic president in eight years.
But Blumenthal warned that the United States already is seeing “a slow, gradual change in the balance of power with China,” in favor of Beijing and against Washington.
The United States can’t focus, as Gates does in his defense budget plan for the next fiscal year, on just the wars it currently is fighting, such as the ongoing wars against ad hoc insurgent forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather, the Pentagon also must prepare for far different military engagements, Blumenthal said. In other words, America can’t focus just on hot-war conflicts it is in now, but also must counter competitions it is in right now.
While some describe China as a near-peer military power, China already is competitive in some areas, Blumenthal cautioned. “This military competition is going on today,” he said, with the clout of Sino forces ascendant and “our own eroding.”
For example, he said, “the North Koreans launched a missile, and we announce that we will cut the Airborne Laser” missile defense program. “That doesn’t send exactly the right signal in the Asia Pacific region,” Blumenthal observed. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, April 6, 2009.)
On another point, Chinese submarine production is vastly greater per year than U.S. submarine output, which until now has consisted of one Virginia Class attack sub per year. Yes, U.S. military hardware is top quality, Blumenthal conceded, but one U.S. sub still can only track one Chinese sub. If China has far more subs, that’s a problem.
The U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor superstealth, supersonic cruise fighter aircraft is a great plane, the sole fifth generation aircraft, but Gates is cutting its production at 187 planes, and not all of them can be based in the Pacific theater near China.
If China were to invade Taiwan, as it has threatened, China has 1,500 missiles aimed at the Taiwan Strait. Before the United States could send its non-stealthy, non-radar- evading aircraft carriers into the strait to block the Chinese invasion, Raptors would be required to take out those Sino missile batteries. Otherwise, the missiles would sink the American carriers.
The bottom line to all of this is that the Gates budget places the United States in peril of losing what former President Theodore Roosevelt called its “big stick,” needed to back up the soft voice of its diplomacy, Blumenthal said. If Congress passes the Gates budget, it “will make it much more difficult” for the United States to influence and dominate in foreign affairs, such as in Asia, Blumenthal predicted. “The big stick … matters a great deal.”
It is vital that the United States should remain the preeminent power on the planet, he added. As things now stand, South Korea, Japan, Australia and others have not developed their own nuclear weapons, relying on the United States and its vast nukes arsenal for protection. “We want to keep it that way,” Blumenthal said.
Former President Bush may not have dominated China, but Obama “has already made decisions that make matters worse” by cutting critical defense programs, Blumenthal said. This is eroding the U.S. military presence against China, he said.
Obama next month will unveil details of his defense budget plan that he will send to Congress.
To be sure, Blumenthal isn’t saying that Chinese forces are the equal of the U.S. armed might. But China is engaged in a long, unrelenting “silent struggle” with the United States.