Who imagines that The Economist is a big influence on U.S. imperialist planners? Quoting at length from this article is a backhanded ploy to:

 

·       overlook PRC expansionism. Check with the Philippines and Vietnam if you need examples.
·       peddle the notion that massive military spending boosts growth. Who believes that today? There is a reason why “American defence spending is near an 80-year low as a share of GDP.” (Meanwhile, the PRC just raised its military budget faster than inflation yet again.)
·       ignore the debate within the U.S. ruling class over the importance of giving priority to Taiwan versus other issues in the South China Sea, as well as ignore the unspoken vital question of what would happen to TSMC's huge chip foundries in Taiwan.

 

 

I suggest a new mission for [Marxmail]: 

On Mar 12, 2023, at 12:51 AM, Vladimiro Giacche' <vladimiro.giacche@...> wrote:

In terms of gdp ratio, Us “defence” spending it’s now pretty negligible with only 3,48% (2021 data). It was never at this low.

I think your concerns might be misplaced Vladimiro: 2022-2023 promises to be a banner year for key sectors of the US war industry with all the armaments being shipped to Ukraine to counter the Russian invasion. The worst thing that might happen to armaments producers this year is if Russia withdraws from their neighbor's territory and negotiates a settlement.

But then there is the China threat that some on this list have been studying for us (or you can just watch US cable news for pretty much the same message). In a particularly outrageous move, China reportedly has helped sponsor a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia behind Joe Biden's back, a big threat to future sales in western Asia.

One threat to weapons production that won't materialize is the Republican effort in Congress to cut the budget. The number of US Congressional Representatives who are open to cutting the war budget can likely be counted on one's hands. US Republicans understand that the real threat is medical coverage for working people, the poor and indigent, not nuclear or biological war.

Mark

You’re right. I would add the threat posed by Mexico: they want nationalize lithium mines and - as I heard - are even seriously considering the possibility to join BRICS. A regime change is needed over there!!!

I also agree about Russia. No problem on this front, too: it takes two to tango…

V

Inviato da iPhone

Charlie unfortunately accepts at face value the talking points of US propagandists in relation to the "China threat”. But what is said for public consumption in order to sustain the US war economy is radically at odds with how the US military assesses for itself the current relationship of forces between the two sides. 

Some excerpts from an article in the USAF’s in-house Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs published in December 2021 illustrates the huge power imbalance:

• The United States outweighs China in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), technology, and military spending. China’s GDP is 15 percent of global GDP, compared to 24 percent of the United States.
• The United States alone spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined. 
• The United States has spent $19 trillion on its military since the end of the Cold War. This spending is $16 trillion more than China spent and nearly as much as the rest of the world’s combined expenditure during the same period.
• The United States retains a technological edge in key areas like command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) and air, surface, and undersea weapon systems.

(It’s interesting to note that in discussing the huge gap in military spending, the authors observe that “an arms race will lead to an increase in China’s military spending, affecting its development goals.” This is precisely the strategy the US employed in the Cold War to help topple the Soviet Union. The analogy should not be stretched too far, however, since the resources available and development strategy of China significantly differs from that which existed in the former USSR.)

• The US military can be deployed at short notice anywhere on Earth. The United States maintains strategic peace through military bases and defense alliances in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
• The US military has 516 installations in 41 countries and bases in more than 80 countries. The United States spends $156 billion on 800 bases in foreign countries, while China’s defense budget is US$180 billion/year. The US military has bases in Italy, Diego Garcia, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Kuwait, and Qatar. Collectively they store a million pieces of weapon systems.
• US military personnel are stationed in 160 countries and has operational ground troops in more than 15 countries. The USN has 31 fast combat supply ships with a total tonnage of 1.29 million tons, while the PLAN has only 12 supply ships totaling 330,000 tons. China lacks global reach, as it does not have foreign defense treaties or logistical bases abroad equipped with military stockpiles.
• The US Navy (USN) has established maritime supremacy. It operates 11 carrier groups. The United States is in a familiar terrain in the Indo-Pacific, having fought during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. INDOPACOM accounts for 60 percent of USN, 55 percent of the US Army, and 40 percent of US Marine Corps. 
• The United States has been fighting conventional and unconventional wars on every continent. The United States has war-fighting experience in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Panama, Grenada, the First Gulf War, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. 
• In the post–Cold War world, the United States achieved dominance thorough AirLand Battle. Now the United States is shifting its military assets to the Indo-Pacific as it prepares for a SeaAir Battle.
• The number of Chinese warheads is roughly 200 and is expected to double over the next decade. By comparison, the United States has close to 4,000 superior nuclear warheads with 1,600 strategic weapons…
• It is possible that China could target Guam with its small fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). However, the use of ICBMs will lead to massive retaliatory strikes by the United States leading to total annihilation of China’s military and economic centers of gravity. 
• The USN Maritime Strike Tomahawk Cruise Missile Block V will destroy coastal cities like Shanghai, obliterating China’s hi-tech industries in a matter of hours...China’s nuclear policy is based on low-level deterrence, “minimum deterrence,” and its nuclear arsenal remains small and vulnerable.
• People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Major General Zhang Shaozhong ranked Chinese military power in 2020 in the fifth place behind the United States, Russia, Britain, and France, while PLAN surface power was ranked in the eighth place behind Japan and India. The Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) was ranked seventh in the world, due to its lack of fourth-generation fighter planes and high-end drones. 
• In General Shaozhong’s view, China will become the second-largest military power in the world only in 2049, when it celebrates its centennial anniversary.

Full: https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/2870650/why-china-cannot-challenge-the-us-military-primacy/

Thanks to Marv for letting the U.S. air force remind us  how big U.S. military power is. He should review British versus German arsenals in the run-up to World War One. He should read Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction to learn how stretched the Nazi economy and arms buildup were in the run-up to World War Two. Strange thing, though, the Nazis went ahead anyway.

One can find U.S. military in-house assessments of what counts for the next several years: U.S. and China strengths and weaknesses in a war on Taiwan or in the South China Sea more broadly. Marv will find the assessments and scenarios nearly evenly matched. His litany of past U.S. global actions and sunk assets in global bases does not go far when it comes to understanding the antagonism between the established imperial power and the expansionist monopoly capitalist power.

On Sun, Mar 12, 2023 at 11:19 AM, Charlie wrote:

He should read Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction

I have, and also highly recommend it. Same for Tooze’s The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 and Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.