Perhaps I should say, David Ignatius hopes and prays you’re an idiot. This is the way Dave begins his latest column, “America is no longer guaranteed military victory. These weapons could change that.”
“The fight against the Islamic State may get the headlines. But it’s the military threats from Russia and China that most worry top Pentagon officials — and are driving a new arms race to deter these great-power rivals.
‘’’
“A drive to build exotic versions of conventional weapons may sound crazy in a world that already has too much military conflict. But advocates argue that strengthening U.S. conventional forces might be the only way to avoid escalation to nuclear weapons if war with Moscow or Beijing began.”
A conventional war with China, Dave? How would that go down? A 30-million-person U.S. army duking it out with a 120-million-person Chinese army in the Yellow River valley? Because that’s what a conventional war with China would amount to.
There’s no way that a serious collision between U.S. and Russian, or U.S. and Chinese forces could be kept at the conventional level.1 “Serious” planning for such wars is just an excuse for wasting money on ever-more-esoteric, and (of course) ever-more-expensive, weaponry.
It is money, of course, that is the real concern. According to Dave, the U.S. no longer has “military dominance” over Russia or China. Lacking in Dave’s “analysis” is (or are) data, like for example the fact that U.S. defense spending in 2015 was $598 billion, as compared to $146 billion for China and a near laughable $66 billion for Russia.2 But that’s only half the story.
The United Kingdom weighs in at $56 billion; France at $47 billion; Germany at $37 billion; Italy at $22 billion. Get the picture? Western Europe easily doubles Russian spending, without even counting the U.S.
But wait, there’s more. India spends $47 billion; Japan spends $41 billion; South Korea spends $34 billion; Australia spends $23 billion. The budgets for these nations balance that of China’s. Plus, you have to remember, China and Russia don’t get along. That’s right: the enemies of our enemies are each other!
Dave knows all this, of course. He just hopes to God that you don’t.
David Ignatius, you are a disgrace to journalism. Which is why you fit right in on the Washington Post’s editorial page.
- Back in the day, back when we actually had an enemy, Jimmy Carter’s secretary of defense, Harold Brown, admitted in his book, Thinking About National Security, which I reviewed (witheringly) here, that war-gaming significant conflicts with the USSR always culminated in a nuclear exchange. But (of course), that’s not important. What’s important is spending lots and lots of money, on any and every eventuality whatsoever, no matter how remote or repugnant (e.g., everyone’s favorite, chemical and biological weapons). Because the more money you spend, the safer you are. ↩︎
- Figures are from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, via Wikipedia ↩︎
