The 117th Congress is conducting its annual hearings on the next defense budget and the future directions for the U.S. military. On a bipartisan basis, it is clear that China is now the “pacing threat,” referring to a potential foe’s ability to challenge U.S. strategy. The testimony of the U.S. commander of the Indo-Pacific region, Adm. Phillip Davidson, reinforced what appears to be China’s growing challenge to the U.S. and its allies.
Russia, possibly downgraded to the same level as Iran and North Korea as a threat, cannot be dismissed. Not only the SolarWinds hack but subsequent intrusions into U.S. networks continue, presumably by Russian intelligence. Kim Jung Un still is developing North Korea’s nuclear capacity, and Iran remains very engaged in the region as a major disruptive influence.
At home, medical experts warn of a fourth surge of COVID-19, observing that the current decline in cases and deaths may be the equivalent of the temporary respite in the eye of a storm. While a $1.9 trillion relief act was passed, the implications of the nation’s swelling debt cannot be ignored forever. And that the leading terrorist threat has been named by law enforcement as domestic extremism is quite chilling.
But are these and other known dangers the only ones we face? Or, just as COVID-19, SolarWinds and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol all came as complete surprises, what other considerations should be part of the dialogue in protecting and defending the nation? And, in addition, which of this list of current worries may be exaggerated or overblown?
As I have written before, a new strategic paradigm in which the old nuclear-war doctrine of mutual assured destruction, or MAD, should be updated — to reflect Massive Attacks of Disruption, whether by man or nature — and should take priority. Climate change is obviously one of the most important, and if the storms that paralyzed Texas are not regarded as harbingers, then many more disruptions, possibly more severe, are inevitable. State and non-state actors have exploited the new MAD through cyberattacks, disinformation, misinformation and misdirection, and will continue to do so.
The most worrisome strategic and cognitive failures of today are to miss that the danger is disruption, and not just the means. Unless or until the United States decisively moves to contain, prevent and defend against disruption in the broadest sense, it will become consumed with defeating means and not ends. In a military sense, that puts the cost exchange ratio — that is, what we spend as opposed to what our adversaries’ spend — to our great disadvantage. One vivid example is the $70 billion allocated to counter Improvised Explosive Devices for the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts, with virtually no costs to the enemy.
About exaggerating threats, Vietnam and the second Iraq War are stark examples. It is interesting that, on this Oct. 1, the People’s Republic of China will mark its 72nd anniversary. In October 1989, the Soviet Union celebrated its 72nd anniversary, too — and, less than two months later, the Berlin Wall came down and the USSR was on the irreversible path to dissolution.
The principal factor imploding the USSR was the irrationality of its political and ideological system of centralized control that ultimately strangled the innovation and entrepreneurism crucial to economic health, and that throttled the public’s aspirations through systematic failure to recognize its failings. The Soviet leader at the time, Mikhail Gorbachev, tried major reforms with perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). But the Soviet system could not tolerate both.
China is not the Soviet Union, of course. Its 72nd anniversary is coincidental. But, interestingly and ironically, the Chinese political and ideological structure has much in common with the old Soviet Union in attempting to impose greater party control over the people. President Xi Jinping’s policies for establishing stronger control and increasing research and development by over 10 percent, as an incentive for innovation, are in conflict. With facial recognition, social credits that virtually determine individual social status in China, and more rigid demands to conform to the party ideology, limits on Chinese innovation and entrepreneurship, are being set. Yet, by spending more money to create new technologies, an inherent contradiction is being created.
Further, China is affected by the demographics of a shrinking, increasingly numerical male-over-female population; huge internal debt; a shadow banking system; and the need for substantial economic real annual growth to continue to fill growing aspirations for improved standards of living. And the trillions allocated to its “Belt and Road” program means fewer resources for the domestic economy.
Dissent is not new to China. Currently, more than 100,000 major protests occur in China over standards of living, corruption and government failure to provide adequately for the people. None of this suggests China is about to collapse, of course. But the U.S. would be short-sighted at best, and derelict at worst, if it were not to attempt an objective assessment of China focused on strengths and weaknesses.
Harlan Ullman, Ph.D, is United Press International’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist. His latest book due out this year is “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: The Tragic History of How Massive Attacks of Disruption Endangered, Infected, Engulfed and Disunited a 51% Nation and the Rest of the World.”