Photo Credit: Sgt. Matt Hecht, for the USAF. F-15E Eagle
Defense outlays as a percentage of GDP are projected to be a modest 3.0% of GDP, according to the Defense Budget submitted for FY 2025; except for a spike in 2010 (4.5%) for the Iraq/ Afghanistan wars, defense spending as a share of GDP is projected to be only twenty basis points above its share in 1999.
We have read about experiments and provocative actions in China in the East China Sea. Our current arsenal of air and naval assets, while formidable, are not up to the nature of threats posed by the strategy, resource commitments, and technological advances made by the People’s Republic of China.
If the U.S. needs to make a “Moon Shot” scale national commitment to defense, which we probably do, then an “Iron Dome” from nuclear missiles of all ranges and sizes is not the answer, in our opinion. For the Israelis, where their likely threats are from Iran or some of its proximate clients, it is a much more restricted enterprise against opponents whose strategies are not complex or multidimensional.
Several unique weaknesses and inefficiencies in how American leaders come at international defense issues should be openly addressed. First, our longer-term strategic thinking is largely done in academic War Colleges, academic institutes attached to elite colleges, or in various left or right leaning private institutes. None of these institutions produce anything truly incisive or original, in my opinion.
As soon as talk begins of spending billions on new weapons, the traditional rivalry between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force comes into play reflexively. This rivalry feeds back into the strategists, think tanks, and academic institutes. No one is really looking at the enemy, or the historical or cultural imperatives driving our significant opponents. We didn’t understand Vietnam or Southeast Asia, and we understood Afghanistan not at all. These factors will be important in how we deploy our existing assets and select new investments to address the real threats. Everyone chooses by political ideologies and preferences for air power, naval power, or missiles.
The current defense budget includes items such as:
$28.4 billion for Missile Defeat and Defend system which sounds like part of an iron dome strategy.
$61 billion for next generation fighter planes, F-22, F-35 and F15-EX, the B-21 bomber(an additional line item for $5 billion), along with supporting aircraft like tankers.
$10 billion for Columbia class ballistic missile submarines.
The defense production industry has to become involved, to be ready to gear up for what will be, in any case, potential revenues in the hundreds of billions for the industry. But our defense procurement process itself is a big part of the problem. Both armed services never know exactly what they want in advance, and innumerable change orders and absurdly rigorous specifications for non-critical parts raise budgets for no economic reason. Overruns should avoided, but that is not the way we work.
On the human capital side, the vast U.S. education system does not produce enough engineers for private companies, especially for defense contractors and suppliers.. Looking at the new foundries being built by Intel, with $11 billion in grants and loans, each facility will have an attached engineering college to educate and train engineers and technicians for the foundries being built today. Look at Boeing, which is short of skilled trades such riveters to professional such as software engineers. A quick search of the General Dynamics Electric Boat Division in Groton, CT shows a long list of unfilled engineering positions.
According to Major (USN Ret.) Oriana Skylar Mastro, who has studied China extensively, “China now graduates more engineers than the rest world combined..” Anyone involved in college recruiting or interviewing knows that this has been going on for decades.[ii]
China’s goal is to be the dominant international nation state during the reign of one of President Xi Jinping’s successors. It will be a long game, but significant steps will be made under each Presidential administration. Therefore, the idea of conquering by nuclear conflagration is not meaningful to their strategic planning. Pyrrhic victories are from the Greco-Roman world.
China is certainly allying with Russia, and many photo opportunities for handshakes between the two leaders exist for propaganda purposes. Russia can provide some services and limited infrastructure to China’s advance. However, President Xi clearly doesn’t regard President Putin as an equal partner.
China’s experiments, tests and provocations in the East China Sea have all been planned, such as the concrete “islands” which impede foreign traffic. The Chinese government laughably claims a twelve mile territorial sea around each concrete slab; this is a term from the Third International Law of the Sea Treaty, which neither the Chinese nor U.S. ever signed. Small, agile high speed Chinese gunboats would harass various international ships which violated this zone. At some points, U.S. carriers and battleships have edged into the East China sea, suggesting that U.S. power could be projected if necessary. In this situation, our carriers and battleships are impeded by the islands and are kept at bay.
American policy wonks have often suggested that the unacceptable invasion of Taiwan, or forays toward South Korea or Japan could be prevented by our blue water navy and ground troops. If Mastro’s research is accurate, China does not want to engage the U.S. in such a conflict. Rather, “With several thousand precision-directed ballistic missiles, several hundred fourth and fifth-generation aircraft, 60 submarines, and a very large supply of cruise missiles, China can blockade Taiwan, which has about three weeks storage capacity for the natural gas that provides most of its electricity.” (see CRB citation) Many of the specialized ballistic missiles have been designed to destroy “slow moving targets at sea,” namely our carriers and battleships, which the Chinese now see as empty threats.
Addressing the problems of China and the greater neglect we have shown to East Asia as a whole, can remediate the situation, along with a combination of our existing assets, suitably redeployed, and enhanced by a “moonshot” initiative which will help our forces succeed for what they may face, to some degree, in the not distant future. The summary defense budget for 2025 has an overall title called “Integrated Deterrence,” which makes much more sense than, as the headlines suggest, betting the budget on an iron dome. Some items include:
Some $33 billion for a sentinel ground based strategic deterrent, a missile defeat and defense to protect the homeland, and a multi-service offensive long range defense program. This combination of programs has the suggestion of an iron dome program, along with some offensive capabilities.
$61 billion for the next generation of fighter planes, including the F-22,F-35, and F15-E Eagle. Along with supporting aircraft including airborne refueling tankers. The workhorse F-15s and the like were used on the rapid strike operations against Djibouti and the land-based rockets which were attacking American shipping in the Red Sea.
·$10 billion for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program.
It’s good to remember that U.S. experience and constant innovation in fighter planes is not just a defense department budget item, but these are export items on the balance of trade; many foreign allies use these aircraft at the core of their fleets. So, the planes, training, and parts are a positive item for our trade and our foreign relations.
This kind of hybrid program, with the services, Defense Department procurement, and legislative processes all working together may lead to a much more economically and strategically efficient outcome for U.S. forces than reaching for a magic bullet like an Iron Dome.
[i] See FY 2025 Defense Budget, Chapter 1, Overview, Pages 1-5.
[ii] Mastro, Oriana S., “Upstart: How China Became a Great Power,” Oxford University Press, 2024. See also David P. Goldman’s review of the book in Claremont Review of Books v. XXIV(4), Fall 2024.