US Air Force air supremacy fighter F-22A
(pixabay.com)
That is exactly why the US has built an incomparable military machine. At the height of the Cold War, the United States sometimes spent more than 12% of its GDP on the army. During President Reagan’s term of office and the expansion of the armed forces in the 1980s, over 6% of GDP was spent.
The US Armed Forces no longer had to face the mighty Soviet troops, so the Armed Forces significantly decreased in numbers as well in the 1990s.
Despite this, the reduction of military spending in recent years – let alone in the face of growing geopolitical threats – has no precedent since the US first fully emerged as a global actor some 75 years ago. Between 2010 and 2016, the Pentagon’s budget decreased by about 30 percent in terms of the ratio of expenditure to domestic GDP, and in real terms by 14%. First of all, as a result of sequestration.
Despite this and despite the mounting challenges and, above all, despite the bellicose announcements of Trump and other politicians regarding increased military spending, estimates of the prestigious Congressional Budgetary Office (CBO) predict a further decline in Pentagon expenditure from 3.6 to 2.6% GDP until the mid-2020s.
The US debt is growing rapidly. Covering the same percentage of debt in 2015 cost an astronomical amount of 233 billion USD. The CBO predicts that if there is no revolutionary change in US finances and the fiscal system, the cost of interest on debt will increase by 250% by 2025, i.e. reaching USD 830 billion. At this point, interest on debt servicing will exceed the expenditure on the world hegemon’s military.
Fiscal problems are not just the result of a lack of federal government discipline or the level of military spending. Many states and counties in the US and even Puerto Rico have accumulated debt that may not be repayable. To this must be added a huge increase in local retirement benefits of about 5 trillion USD.
With the exception of the Great Depression period, any major increase in debt (except the current one) resulted from America’s “big” wars. Now things are different and this difference has profound implications. For instance, with the end of World War II and the demobilization of millions of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of units of military equipment put into storage, federal expenditure quickly decreased by orders of magnitude, and this translated into a smaller national deficit.
Federal spending dropped from 92.7 billion USD in 1945 to 29 billion USD in 1948. Budget deficits – from 47.6 billion USD in 1945 – led to the emerging surplus of 11.8 billion USD already in 1948. This is a fundamentally different situation compared to that the Americans have today, because the current rapid increase in government spending is associated not with a major war but with broadly defined social consumption (mostly through a system of compulsory social benefits that “must” be legally paid as acquired when the entitled person meets certain criteria, and with coverage of increasing interest on debt).
It follows from the foregoing that in the foreseeable future it is not expected to reduce the payment of social benefits at a level specified by law without a major socio-legal and political revolution in these matters. The expansion of social benefits under Obama and George W. Bush and the retirement (just now taking place) of an exceptionally large generation, the so-called Baby Boomers, will cause the statutory social benefits payable to be increased significantly. Probably up to 15% of GDP in 2025, six times more than Pentagon spending.
In order to restore the level of debt from 1965-2015, i.e. on average 38% of GDP, it would be necessary to achieve 14% more federal income or generate 13% of social cuts. For this to happen without great and revolutionary cuts in social benefits, state revenues would have to increase to 20.5% and 22.1% of GDP by 2040.
Either way, the growing debt creates a deadly debt whirl threatening the country’s economic health and its ability to generate military power in Eurasia. This will raise a question mark as to the strategic solvency of the hegemon and its commitments, and at the national level how to deal with possible social destabilisation, social conflicts of the young with the old, the poor with the rich, the private and public sectors.
Powers with the problem of strategic insolvency have three basic options:
The risk of such behavior would remain great: powers such as Great Britain and the Soviet Union have historically acted in this way, but also the United States, for example in Vietnam, from which withdrawal allowed the new US opening in Eurasia with China and a much better defensive perimeter in the 1970s at the cost of the fate of South Vietnam.
First, through concessions to Japan and the USA, giving them influence zones in the Pacific and the Eastern Hemisphere, respectively. Then agreeing with Washington that they would help the British in the World Wars and take responsibility for the global burdens of primacy – for example, the freedom of the World Ocean – in exchange for the British giving Washington global leadership. Such an abdication would not be so easy today in terms of stability or war and peace. It is enough to see what the withdrawal of the United States, for example, from Iraq has brought, and the emergence of a security vacuum in the Middle East that has had terrible effects unravelling before our eyes.
2. The second option is to continue functioning in the “old” way by accepting a greater risk of war. The assumption here would be that opponents would not test the US guarantee, nor would they take the risk of confrontation, fearing the reaction of Washington and its allies. This approach always replaces deterrence by punishment by the “lighter” deterrence-by-denial, and this is what is happening on the Alliance’s eastern flank. Admittedly, in recent years this has actually been – apart from symbolic movements – the basis of American strategy. The hegemon functioned by accepting risks. Maybe this is the “default” option for overstretched powers, when they have no will or resources to make decisions that might resolve this fluctuating status.
3. The third option is appropriate investment and the restoration of strategic solvency. At present, this would mean an expansion of the Pentagon and a military budget similar to that ordered by President Reagan at the end of the Cold War. It would include reforms of the armed forces, their equipment, new military capabilities and new operational concerts – like the current Multi Domain Battle. This would also represent a return to the real 2.5MRC standard or even three regional wars – 3MRC. In Europe, this would mean the emergence of new heavy brigades, additional aviation, artillery in advanced positions near the borders of Russia, significantly more full-time positions in the structure of land forces especially. It would require military spending of around 4% of GDP. This can be obtained under the condition of the above tax/fiscal reform and the reform of social benefits. Without this reform, changes in the Pentagon are hardly possible.
In October 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formulated a vision of the “Pacific Age of America” in which she outlined the need for a strategic shift towards Asia and the Pacific. Clinton said that America is at a turning point and needs “a wise implementation of a coherent strategy in the region.” A month later, President Barack Obama – in a speech in the Australian Parliament – announced that “the United States is shifting its attention to the enormous potential of the Asia-Pacific region”.
This term is accepted because it reflects the geopolitical essence of the “turning” of the maritime power along the Eurasian coastal zone towards a new challenge.
He also revealed during the interrogation several assumptions developed in the concept, such as the need to disperse forces and resources, disperse and strengthen bases in the region, and develop appropriate the operational art to defeat an opponent (China) using its own, increasingly improved A2AD (anti-access area-denial) capabilities – preventing or hindering the US armed forces, the guarantor of the existing international order, its principles and its norms, from effectively projecting force in the Western Pacific and the coastal seas of Southeast Asia, and maintaining undisturbed control of maritime communication routes in the region.
Then the new secretary of defense Chuck Hagel at the most important security conference in Asia, at the Shangri-La in Singapore in June 2013, repeated all the elements of the new strategy, and a year later (June 2014) at the same conference put special emphasis on security issues as inseparably related to (and a condition of) prosperity in the region. President Obama while speaking in West Point confirmed the new US Pacific strategy expressed by the pivot towards Asia and the Pacific. These speeches were followed by diplomatic activities, in particular the renewal of the alliance with Australia and Japan. Both of these countries are pillars of US support in the region and without them the pivot would not be possible. Also for military reasons, it is impossible to effectively maintain a militarily effective US presence in the region without using the territories of both countries.
Hajnan, Chiny, access to the Western Pacific
(pixabay.com)
Russia does not, and will not have, over the next decades, a military and economic potential comparable to China. An extremely important circumstance is that the West Pacific operating theatre is one of three theatres important to American primacy, where the Americans and their allies have no advantage over the military and economic potential of their main opponent. In the European theatre, both economic power, technology level and demography are on the side of the US and NATO, far ahead of Russia. The same applies to the Middle East. Even a loose coalition of US allies: Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has a decisive advantage over Iran.
In addition, in the Pacific, the Americans do not have strategic depth, and therefore must be advanced deeply “under the opponent.” In Europe, on the other hand, they have considerable strategic depth in the western part of the continent, although just using it causes a violation of the interests of Poland and the other Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium states dependent for their security on the external sea hegemon.
The strategic depth in Europe in the event of war allows Americans to gain the time they need, obtained by the effort of resistance put up on the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium.
Thus, the Americans have the opportunity to deploy for quite a long time in the western Atlantic part of Europe – even after losing space on the bridge to Russia. They will still be able to defeat Russia or, optionally, negotiate a favourable agreement that will not question the dominant role of the US in a more important place from the point of view of the maritime influence of the empire – in Rimland Europe. Quite simply, the US may lose the entire Baltic-Black Sea bridge to Russia, and Russia will not dominate the entire continent.
The situation would be similar with Iran and the US-partnered neighbours balancing it. It is completely different when competing with China in the Western Pacific. Japan is a key country for the US presence in East Asia and at the same time is a frontline state. Its loss would lead to the US being unrelentingly pushed out of the West Pacific and unable to wage an intense war with China in the coastal seas of East Asia, without the Japanese islands and the potential of Japan. Every finlandisation of Japan is a catastrophe of the world primacy of the USA.
Russia had strategic depth in the Northern War with Sweden, which ended with the defeat of the Swedes near Poltava – tired of the huge penetration into the landmass of Russia. The situation was similar during Napoleon’s campaign in 1812, and twice in both world wars. Unlike, for example, France, whose industrial base and decision-making center were located in the northeast, close to enemy Germany. Because of this, it had to defend itself in advanced positions. In doing so, it suffered great losses in World War I, and in World War II, the lack of French strategic depth was one of the main reasons for its rapid defeat. During the Cold War, West Germany did not have any strategic depth at all and could not give up its own territory in exchange for the precious time necessary to mobilise and pull up reserves for a counter-attack maneuver in the chosen place. For this reason, the German army had to be ready for a cordon fight right at the border.
The US, having a strategic depth deficit in the West Pacific, does not have it in Europe. Western Europe is located thousands of kilometers from Russia, and close to the Atlantic fleet dominated by the US. Even if the Russians conquered the Baltic States and Poland, they would need many months to reorganise and supplement their units to be able to go further west, although the general weakness of Russia and its armed forces makes it rather incapable of such a great war. Europeans alone in coalition could defeat Russia.
Therefore, there is a greater concern in Washington, when it comes to Europe, about the possibility of Moscow conducting a non-linear limited war – dangerous for Poland – than the outbreak of an open continental war – risky for Russia – against all of NATO.
This means that in the coming years and decades, the US should be measured only by its expeditionary posture in Europe and in so far as it assigns the defence of the Old Continent further priority behind the Pacific. This would be similar to the decision of President Roosevelt’s administration to first deal with Germany and the European theatre during World War II (the famous “Germany First” strategy). It’s just the opposite, this time the Pacific has priority because of the change of importance of the Atlantic and the Pacific in the 21st century. Therefore, one should take into account the limited presence, including moderate air (always easier to relocate) and land forces with elements of logistics and warehouses (prepositioned). Sufficient to maintain the conviction of countries in the region to orientate themselves around the US. All US operational reserves will be strength for lack of funding and as a result of challenges in the Pacific, quite modest in the European theatre regardless of verbal assurances of the administration in Washington.
The acceptance of a greater risk of war in Europe and the Middle East is expected to cause a new division of tasks between regional allies and the United States. Allies are to bear most of the burdens arising from these tasks.
During the post-Cold War period, subsequent US attempts to create one global collective security system failed. This is due to the simple fact that great powers never have identical interests. No collective security principle could ever prevent a great power if it wanted to from acting against the system.
As Kissinger used to say, a collective security system is not able to survive when one or more great powers influencing it reject the status quo expressed by that system. Now is the situation in which the United States is struggling with three revisionist powers: China, Russia and Iran, including one with the potential for global dominance – China, which is geared after Xi Jinping for a revision of US primacy.
The United States itself, of course, has enormous strategic depth resulting primarily from its remoteness from Eurasia, which the Russians and the Chinese cannot say about themselves. The American location may award “depth” or “layered” defence, as exemplified during the Cold War and during World War II both in the Pacific and in Europe. This was possible thanks to an entire portfolio of strong allies, although the Americans had to have the freedom at their disposal to project power to these allies and to provide free large-scale communication to them at transcontinental distances. The problem has always been that the US as a global naval power coming from the Western Hemisphere must disperse its efforts throughout the entire outskirts of Rimland Eurasia. Thus, it is extremely difficult for America to concentrate power in one selected place, while its main rival – China can do it (Russia is also stretched on the strategic southern and western perimeters). Added to this is the development of new anti-access technologies eroding the former US military advantages. The above situation weakens the US strategic presence in Eurasia, and if Washington does not change this trend, the primacy of the US will be broken, and US-based alliances will fall apart because the cost of power projection to allies will become politically and militarily unacceptable to Washington.
In 1917, US GDP was three times greater than that of imperial Germany and yet in the war with the central states, the US sided with France, Britain and Russia – all colonial powers. In 1943, the combined GDP of Japan and Germany accounted for less than 40% of US GDP. In 1980, the Soviets generated a maximum of 40% of US GDP, although the Office of Net Assessment and its boss Andy Marshall in the Pentagon claimed that it was, in fact, much, much less. And so the US had on its side at that time Great Britain, Germany, Japan and France – the great economic powers of the maritime world.
To illustrate the difference: China is currently the world’s largest trading country and the largest importer of raw materials. The Chinese New Silk Road challenges economic lines of communication based on the global ocean and its influence. China wants to replenish the sea routes through the Pacific and the Atlantic, potentially realigning economic blocs of countries currently grouped around the US economy as a Eurasian trade bloc with China in the centre.
Today’s China is without a doubt a far greater challenge to maintaining US dominance in Eurasia than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War – it is a great production hub at the centre of the maritime commodity exchange system, which the Soviets could never have dreamed of being. China generates at least 60% of US GDP, although according to purchasing power parity the Chinese economy has grown larger to the American in 2014, dethroning the world system leader after more than 100 years. China’s GDP is about 7 times higher than Russia’s and 100 times higher than Iran’s. And 75% higher than the total GDP of the Axis countries during World War II or the Soviet Union at the peak of its power during the Cold War (if Soviet data were not overstated).
This forces you to look beyond the pattern of primacy, the current order and in general to look outside Poland and its immediate surroundings and to take an interest in what is happening beyond your ” home window” so as to be able to ‘play’ well in any possible breakthrough moment, not to be surprised and (to paraphrase the anecdotal answer of the Prussian field marshal Helmut von Moltke) to have scenarios in the drawers for all possible events.
Otherwise, countries have to make choices, difficult decisions and sacrifices every day to shape the world around them so that they remain safe or become safe and prosperous. It is also a test of the ability to prove to be a core area capable of independent living without looking for another core area for protection. Even remaining in an alliance with the US, Germany or the European Union, it makes sense to strive to consolidate and develop, because any constellations, deals or alliances with Germany, the European Union or the United States may not turn out to be particularly lasting in the end – unlike Poland should be.
Autor
Jacek Bartosiak
CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.
Strategy&Future
Trwa ładowanie...