US 'might lose' war against China or Russia, report to Congress says
'US military superiority is no longer assured. The implications for American interests and security are severe'
The US could lose a future war against Russia or China, a new report to Congress has suggested.
America is losing its edge while rivals innovate and blend conventional, cyber and even non-military capabilities to gain the upper hand in key regions, according to a dozen national security experts tasked by politicians with scrutinising Donald Trumpās national defence strategy.
The bipartisan group, led by former undersecretary of defence Eric Edelman and Gary Roughead, an ex-chief of naval operations, wrote: āThe US military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict.
āIt might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously. US military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe.ā
The unquestioned dominance the US enjoyed at the end of the Cold War no longer holds, the expert commission concluded following interviews with key defence officials and reviews of secret documents, and Washington faces serious challenges to its interests in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
The experts identified Mr Trumpās tax reform bill ā which greatly benefited the most wealthy ā as having drained potential defence funding, alongside tax cuts by both his immediate predecessors. The White House should look to increase taxation and slash entitlements to drastically increase funding available for the military despite the short-term āpainā the move would cause, they suggested.
The US spends more than any other country on defence ā budgeting $716bn in 2019, about three times the investment made by the next-biggest spender, China, in 2018. Its military is the most powerful in the world, boasting the most powerful navy with 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers; 1.3 million active-duty troops; the most advanced fighter aircraft; the second-biggest nuclear arsenal, after Russia; and decades of experience of close working between its separate branches. The US has used its armed forces to project influence around the world for more than a century, though not always successfully.
Despite all that, the commission recommended that the base defence budget be increased by between 3 and 5 per cent above inflation over the next several years. According to the authors, Barack Obamaās 2011 Budget Control Act had had āpronounced detrimental effects on the size, modernisation, and readiness of the militaryā. Mr Trump made building up Americaās armed forces a central campaign pledge and the experts said his strategy was on the right track, but did not go far enough.
Providing For The Common Defence, their report, claimed the US was in the grip of a āfull-blown national security crisisā because āthe number and geographic diversity of security challenges, the technical sophistication of US rivals and adversaries, and other factors, mean that Americaās military capabilities are insufficient to address the growing dangers the country facesā.
In particular it identified hybrid warfare and what is known as āgrey-zone aggression ā intimidation and coercion in the space between war and peace ā [which] has become the tool of choice for manyā. The authors included senior former Defence Department staffers, ex-diplomats, a former CIA deputy director, a senator, former senior military personnel, and think-tank experts.
They said China posed a āparticularly dauntingā strategic threat due to āpredatory economic statecraftā and its build-up in the South China Sea, a major global shipping route, as well as rapid military reform. Beijing has created new islands in the South China Sea and equipped them with both weaponry and bases, extending its influence over waters it claims as its own ā to the consternation of Washington, London and its regional neighbours.
Both US Navy and Royal Navy vessels have sailed through the South China Sea region to assert freedom of navigation rights. Americaās former top admiral in the Pacific, and current ambassador to South Korea, has repeatedly warned of Beijingās ambitions in the area and said earlier this year that the US should prepare for conflict there. Americaās Pacific Command would āstruggle to compete withā the Peopleās Liberation Army unless the threat was taken seriously, Harry Harris told Congress.

Mr Trump has frequently denounced what he called Beijingās āunfair trade practicesā and launched a trade war by instituting tariffs between the two countries.
His defence plan drew praise for emphasising competition with China and Russia as the key issue shaping the US militaryās future, but the experts said it did not āarticulate clear approaches to succeeding in peacetime competition or wartime conflict against those rivalsā. Special focus must be placed on technological advancement and interoperability, they added.
Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea were expanding their military capacity, the authors said, and jihadist groups constituted a fifth ācredible challengerā on the global stage. The US must have a military able to fight two wars at once, they wrote, as opposed to Mr Trumpās plan for āwhat is functionally a one-war force sizing constructā.
Kathleen Hicks, one of the reportās authors and the international security director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, told The Washington Post: āThere is a strong fear of complacency, that people have become so used to the United States achieving what it wants in the world, to include militarily, that it isnāt heeding the warning signs.ā
But Dr Nicola Leveringhaus, a war studies lecturer at Kingās College London, told The Independent that a US defeat by China āremains unlikelyā, despite Beijingās āadvancements in conventional and asymmetric, especially cyber and AI, technologyā. She said: āChina cannot realistically catch up in the near to medium term with the US military in either a qualitative or quantitative sense [because] it does not have the economy or skills to do so.ā
She also said: āThe bigger, and more likely fear, is of escalation to a nuclear level involving China or Russia. This could happen inadvertently, from either side, through poor communication and the deployment of dual-use weapons systems that can be mistaken as escalatory in nature.ā
Both the US and China would prefer to avoid a war, she said, but added: āUnfortunately, neither side has managed to set up continuous and regular ātrack oneā [official diplomatic] meetings that cover military issues, and the militaries donāt talk to one another at a high level.
āMisunderstandings and poor communication are a big problem in bilateral relations. This problem existed under Obama too, the difference now under Trump is that the public narrative, especially from the bipartisan US side, is far more recriminatory and anti-China, and there was no ātrade warā under Obama.ā
Addressing international concern over Chinaās increased activity in the South China Sea, Dr Leveringhaus told The Independent Beijing was now reaping the benefits of a ādecades-long military modernisation underway especially since Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, of which certain new weapons systems are now coming online under Xi Jinpingā.
She added: āGiven that China was such a weak military power in the 1970s and 1980s, the results of its military modernisation [as] evidenced in its navy especially, but also in the next decade in its air force too, this presents a fundamentally stronger military China ā the strongest People's Republic in military terms since its establishment in 1949.
āThis is uncomfortable for regional powers that are already concerned by Chinaās broader re-emergence and economic power, and upsetting to a US that has been militarily dominant and unrivalled in Asia since the mid to late 1940s.ā
Defence officials said on Thursday that the US military would withdraw hundreds of troops from counter-terrorism missions in Africa to bolster the Pentagonās focus on opposing China and Russia as part of the plan laid out in Mr Trumpās national defence strategy. Russia, however, recently suffered a blow to its force projection capacity when a huge dry dock holding its sole aircraft carrier, the ageing Admiral Kuznetsov, sank, putting back the Soviet-era vesselās refit by months or even years.
Vladimir Putin has been forthright about his desire to strengthen Russiaās military and has boasted particularly of its missile capacity and innovations.
China, which bought Kuznetsovās sister hull for use as a training ship and converted it into the Liaoning, has since launched its own home-grown aircraft carrier called the Type 001A.
Also on Thursday, Mike Pence told leaders of southeast Asian countries that āempire and aggression have no place in the Indo-Pacificā. Speaking in Singapore but without mentioning China directly, he added: āLike you, we seek an Indo-Pacific in which all nations, large and small, can prosper and thrive, secure in our sovereignty, confident in our values, and growing stronger togetherā.
On Friday, North Korea announced its leader, Kim Jong-un, had observed a successful test of a new ātactical weaponā which the official propaganda agency, KCNA, said could protect the country like a āsteel wallā. And just days ago commercial satellite images revealed more than a dozen undeclared North Korean missile bases.
Mr Trump and Mr Kim signed an agreement to work towards ādenuclearisationā on the peninsula during their unprecedented meeting earlier this year, but little headway has been made since.
The US president, while saying he will build up his own military forces, has also berated his Nato allies for failing to do the same. Europe should no longer take American military support for granted, he has said, urging other Nato countries to meet the defence spending target of 2 per cent of GDP in often undiplomatic language.
Yet the defence strategy, published by his government, acknowledged that āmutually beneficial alliances and partnerships are crucial to our strategy, providing a durable, asymmetric strategic advantage that no competitor or rival can matchā.
The Trump administrationās strategy said it aimed to create āa more lethal, resilient, and rapidly innovating joint force [that], combined with a robust constellation of allies and partners, will sustain American influence and ensure favourable balances of power that safeguard the free and open international orderā. The military would work with all domestic departments of government, law enforcement bodies and other groups āto address areas of economic, technological, and informational vulnerabilitiesā, it continued.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments