While Max Boot’s strategy for competing with China, expressed in his most recent Washington Post column:
First, end the covid-19 outbreak. Nothing has done more to foster a global image of the United States as weak and incompetent than the fact that we have more covid-19 deaths than any other country. What a difference a change of administration makes. The number of vaccinations per day has increased from fewer than 818,000 on Jan. 20 to more than 3 million on Sunday. That’s a 267 percent increase in just 60 days. The United States has become a world leader in vaccinations, with 38 doses administered per 100 people, compared with only 5.4 doses per 100 people in China.
Second, revive the economy. Because China stopped the spread of covid-19, its economy grew by 2.3 percent in 2020, while ours shrank by 3.5 percent. But Biden’s growing success in combating the pandemic, combined with the $1.9 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress, should turbocharge the economy. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal predict torrid 5.95 percent growth this year — the strongest pace since 1984.
Third, unify the country. This will be tougher, but Biden is off to a good start by refusing to engage in the GOP’s culture wars and pursuing popular initiatives such as his stimulus bill — which has 70 percent support in the country despite the lack of any GOP votes in Congress. Biden’s job approval rating is at 55.1 percent — far higher than Trump’s ever was — and Republicans are struggling to figure out how to attack him.
Fourth, reinvigorate America’s alliances. The administration is making this a priority. Before the Alaska summit, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited two U.S. allies in Asia — South Korea and Japan — and Biden convened a virtual meeting of the so-called Quad with Australia, Japan and India. Confidence in the United States has surged among our allies since Biden’s election. The Pew Research Center reported in January: “Large majorities in Germany (79 percent), France (72 percent) and the UK (65 percent) say they have confidence in Biden to do the right thing in world affairs — a dramatic change from the low ratings Trump received.â€
Fifth, reorient defense spending. The United States spends a lot on defense — $714 billion in fiscal year 2020 — but much of it goes for “legacy†systems such as aircraft carriers, short-range fighter aircraft and tanks that would be unlikely to survive a war against an adversary such as China equipped with precision-guided missiles, cyberweapons and other high-tech systems. Classified Pentagon war games “strongly suggest†that the United States would lose a conflict with China. Catching up requires, as retired Adm. James Stavridis and former Marine Elliot Ackerman argued in The Post, “investing in offensive cyber capabilities, smaller platforms, drone and stealth technology and artificial intelligence.†We can’t do that and maintain all of our expensive, existing capabilities.
Sixth, safeguard our technological edge. We can’t take that for granted, given that, from 2000 to 2017, China’s research and development spending grew by more than 17 percent a year while America’s grew only 4.3 percent a year. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, chaired by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former deputy defense secretary Robert Work, recently came out with a report that has important recommendations for how the United States can remain a tech leader. Its proposals include doubling research spending on artificial intelligence, reforming the immigration system to attract “highly skilled immigrants†and expanding domestic manufacturing of semiconductors. Congress can begin by passing a bipartisan Senate bill to expand funding for the National Science Foundation and to give it more of a technology focus.
is framed as things that might actually be accomplished, I think they vary from foregone conclusion to materially impossible.
The pandemic will end but it will end by becoming endemic. In that sense the outbreak of COVID-19 in the U. S. will never end. The economy will revive as soon as government (at all levels) allows it to. How fast, how strongly, which sectors of the economy will recover and which will never recover are different matters. I think Mr. Boot is overestimating what is actually going to happen, largely because he does not appear to understand how either government spending or the U. S. economy works. I also think that Mr. Boot’s view of how to assist the economy in recovering would be somewhat different than mine which would largely consist of proposing it get the heck out of the way. Increasing corporate income taxes is probably not the best strategy for fostering economic growth. Neither is focusing on reducing carbon emissions. I didn’t mention it in my last post but one of the secrets of our success has been abundant cheap energy.
The United States has not been unified in any meaningful sense other than for a few days following 9/11 since the end of World War II. I believe it would require an actual existential threat against the U. S. to unify the country. The present approval rate of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 is a lousy gauge for unifying the country. The ARRA was popular initially, too, but its popularity waned sharply over time and not just for partisan reasons.
I don’t believe that Mr. Boot recognizes it but his fourth and fifth suggestions are in diametric opposition. His recommendation to “reorient” defense spending is a lot more than that. It would be an abrogation of America’s grand strategy over the last 250 years which includes maintaining freedom of navigation. Extending that grand strategy to include freedom in telecommunications is one thing; abandoning our large Navy in the interests of doing it is something else entirely. Make no mistake: that Navy is really the only thing we have to offer the Quad countries. Without it we’re not much more interesting to them than Chile. I have suggested revisiting our need for a large, standing but I recognize that would mean doing a lot of things differently than we do now which Mr. Boot does not seem to appreciate. I’m skeptical that the United States government is temperamentally suited to engage in largescale offensive cyber capabilities. And artificial intelligence? That has been touted as right around the corner since I was in grad school which is now more than 50 years ago. Contrary to popular beliefs the main developments in AI over that period have been due to cheap hardware rather than any new insights into AI as such. Just as a for instance, neural nets have been around since 1958. I think that an AI breakthrough will remain elusive for years to come. I sincerely wish I had persuaded somebody to take me up on my wagers of some years back that there wouldn’t be a single street legal fully autonomous vehicle anywhere in the U. S. by 2020. There wasn’t and the latest test runs have been pretty catastrophic. A car that can park itself is still not a fully autonomous vehicle.
I agree that we need to reshore manufacturing of semiconductors. It’s something I’ve been saying for the last 30 years. It’s unclear to me how we can maintain our technological edge as long as we allow the Chinese to maintain their 24/7/365 cyber espionage programs not to mention their ordinary human espionage. Like the Soviets before them, all it takes to turn U. S. assets is money.
Unlike Mr. Boot I think we should be capitalizing more effectively on our strengths rather than putting a futile attempt at shoring up our weaknesses. But that’s material for a different post.
Max Boot? What would possess someone to spend time on Max Boot’s views, unless Boot is just a convenient stooge?
the United States would lose a conflict with China
What does this mean? I have seen this being touted for the last few weeks, but nobody defines winning or losing.
Without going nuclear, it is almost impossible for the US to force China to surrender, and China does not have enough nukes to force the US to surrender. Both countries have too much land that would need to be controlled in order to force the other to surrender.
The majority of China’s navy is costal, and they do not have the logistics capabilities needed to resupply in-port much less at-sea. China does not have the long range air force needed for bombing the US mainland.
Historically, the Japanese have been formidable militarily, and they could not defeat the US. There is nothing in Chinese history to suggest they are more formidable.
… precision-guided missiles …
Military engagement is won by taking, holding, and controlling ground (or water), and this is primarily accomplished by infantry with rifles, period. Everything else is support, period. Air power will not win a war.
The number of ships in a navy is immaterial. The US has 12 carrier strike groups, and no country has anything remotely close in number, ability, or resupply. The Soviet’s sub fleet was the only thing close, and even then, it was the nuclear missiles that were a threat.
Max Boot is delusional to the point of actual psychosis. Unfortunately, he is typical of our Ruling Class. We are in for a very bad end.
As to China, Alaska is important because it marks a new policy for them, one of aggressive responses to our words and actions. In the past, when our representatives opened a meeting with the boiler plate list of demands and insults, the Chinese would either ignore it or make some mild response. This time Blinken got a 20 minute slap down. He was visibly stunned. This new policy appears to be coordinated with Russia. Viz. Putin’s slap down of Biden and our establishment. The video is up at The Saker, in Russian with subtitles.
I think TastyBits seriously underestimates China’s nuclear power and misunderstands the effects of a nuclear strike. If China struck the 50 largest cities in the US, they would destroy the cohesion of the country. Those 50 largest cities are nodes for highways, railroads, airlines, communication networks, financial networks, electrical transmission networks and much else. The destruction of, or even serious damage to the nodes collapses the central government and economy. The initial death toll would likely be less than 50 million, but the survivors would have no means of coordinating their actions. We would be a nation of 250 million scattered across the countryside starving, cold, without medical care, without transportation (no fuel), without telephones or TV, without electricity (no refrigeration), out of touch with anyone more than a few miles away…
China has at least 300 warheads on ICBM’s. Some think it might have 1,000 warheads.
John Matherson’s novel “One Second After” is an optimistic story of survival after and EMP attack. Most estimates are that without electricity or electrical devices 90% of the population would starve to death in one year.
That is what makes Boot’s mental state so frightening. The ever escalating tit-for-tat confrontations with China and Russia must lead to nuclear war. Every President knew that before the fall of the Soviet Union. But every President since the fall, from Clinton forward has been overwhelmed with hubris and has succumbed to aggressive, expansionist, imperialist policies.
@bob sykes
It has been a while since I have actively kept up on military hardware, but as of a few years ago, China had 250 – 300 nuclear weapons. Of these, there are 50 – 75 ICBMs, and of these Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), there are 0 Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs).
Any nuclear targeting strategies must account for a retaliatory nuclear strike, and China’s nuclear arsenal is not large enough to substantially eliminate enough US ICBMs and no Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) to stop the guaranteed retaliatory strike.
The US has enough SLBMs to provide a substantial strike that the Chinese cannot defend against. It should be noted that all or the vast majority of the Chinese submarine fleet is diesel, and due to China’s non-existent resupply capacity, these boats are limited to costal or near-coastal waters.
(You may or may not be aware that an advantage of diesel subs over nuclear subs is noise level, but this advantage is dependent upon how densely the US has seeded the Chinese coastal waters with listening devices.)
Since the US is not limited to a single retaliatory strike, the Chinese nuclear strike you propose would result in the eventual Chinese surrender. The US could target military, civilian, infrastructure, and/or command & control nodes.
Under your scenario, the US and allies would still have the ability to conduct a land invasion of China, and presently, China does not have this ability.
So, China would kill their best customers, subject itself to a devastating retaliatory strike(s), and a possible land invasion. Not even the Chinese are this stupid.
As to literary post-apocalyptic dystopian scenarios, they are fiction. Except for hurricane Katrina, no widespread disaster has resulted in this dystopian prediction, and in New Orleans, the local radio broadcasters were the cause of delusional police officers, on the Danziger Bridge, imagining they were “making a last stand” in a Mad Max movie.
An EMP is the natural result of a nuclear air burst detonation, and ro my knowledge, an EMP weapon, like gamma radiation bombs, is as elusive as a snipe.
Regarding nuclear strike abilities, Russia is another matter. The USSR was a legitimate threat, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian nuclear arsenal has not been maintained or improved, as need. Putin is rectifying this, but since the Russian sub fleet has not been restored, it is unlikely they are back to full capacity.
Nonetheless, Russia has the ability to provide a devastating strike on Europe, and they could produce a substantial strike to the US. Afterwards, Russia would enact a “scorched earth” strategy and retreat towards the Urals, and then, they would wait for winter. Historically, this has been quite effective.
In my opinion, the Russian mindset is prone to self-loathing and is likely to assume an existential threat, easily. Historically, this has been accurate for the past 500+ years. So, it seems silly to needlessly provoke them, but others have a different opinion.
I have a very limited knowledge of Chinese history, but from what I know, China is not a very formidable militarily. They invented gunpowder and used it for fireworks. When the Europeans stole the formula, they immediately used it for weapons.
Again, I do not advocate provoking the Chinese, but the idea that they would win a military confrontation against the US is ludacris.