Angry Planet - How China’s military might matches up with the United States

Episode Date: August 12, 2015

To understand just how strong China’s military really is, it’s important to understand its true mission and objectives. And those are very different from what the United States is trying to accomplish around the globe.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the participants, not of Reuters' News. After a decade of double-digit growth in its military spending, China is now the dominant power, regional power, in the world. Western Pacific.

I'm Jason Fields, Reuters' opinion editor, and this week I'm talking with David Axe and Matthew Galt of Wars Boring about just how strong China is militarily, and also how the U.S. military matches up with China's. It's the subject of a great piece that David wrote for us a few weeks ago. You're listening to War College, a weekly discussion of a world in conflict focusing on the stories behind the front lines. Here's your host, Jason Fields. David, do you mind just sort of taking us through the article? I mean, what's what it's all about? Sure. So I'm going to posit two seemingly contradictory things. Number one, China is strong. Number two, China is weak.

Both of these things are true from a certain point of view. And it helps to understand how those things can be simultaneously true. Helps us understand what China is, as a military power, is trying to achieve in the world and what the United States should do about it.

Okay, so, I mean, we're looking at the two, I mean, the United States often said to be the greatest military in the world, right? Certainly most aircraft carriers, a lot of other measurable details that point that direction.

China, I mean, we're sort of talking about how comparable they are, right? How they stack up or, and at least you were talking in the article about it being regional versus global, right? Right, so that's the most important distinction. The United States possesses the world's most powerful global military, but if you zero in on a particular region of the world, that calculus changes. In the Western Pacific, China possesses the most powerful military. So if what you aim to do is to be able to influence events all over the world and even influence them decisively, then you have to build a military that can start from wherever it's based, usually your own country, get to wherever the action is, and make a big difference.

preferably quickly. That is a global military power befitting a country that has assumed for itself a global role. So in other words, the United States. That's a different thing though than being the sort of permanent dominant power in a region of the world. And in the Western Pacific, which is one of the increasingly important economic centers of gravity of the entire world. The United States can deploy forces there and possibly even decisive forces for some sort of high-tech conflict. But the United States is not the dominant power in that region. After a decade of double-digit growth in its military spending, China is now the dominant power, regional power,

in the Western Pacific and has equipped itself to be that. The implication is that China does not appear to be trying to challenge the United States in military terms on a global scale. It hasn't bought the equipment that makes that possible. But China has clearly staked out a claim on the Western Pacific as that region's dominant military power. And I think it's safe to say today the United States comes second to China as a military power in that region. Okay, so when we're talking about the Western Pacifics, people have been hearing an awful lot about the South China Sea in the last few weeks, maybe the last couple

of months. And that seems to be where a lot of the concerns centered. I mean, China is actually building islands, if I understand it right, out of, I guess it's very shallow water. And the Philippines are there, and the United States has been saying stop building islands. I mean, do you see this as, I mean, is this kind of a potential flashpoint? Is this a good example to sort of look at where the United States stacks up against China in a potential conflict there? The islands themselves, there may be, yes, it's true. true China is building artificial reefs in the South China seas or in the China seas. But there may be

a diplomatic or environmental solution to that problem. You may be able to talk your way out of any kind of potential clash or the islands may simply collapse and dissolve into the sea. Building artificial islands on a fragile coral reef is not always a plan for long-term structural stability. So, but yeah, is it a flashpoint? Sure it is. But the islands themselves are not the point. In fact, from a certain

point of view, the islands reflect weakness. The fact that China has to dredge sand and dump it onto a coral reef in order to build an outpost in the China seas is indicative of the fact that China

doesn't possess the military power to, well, I don't know, you know, put airplanes, on a ship and simply sail them out into the China seas. Which is not to say China is not powerful in the China seas. Absolutely it is, because China's there, so you don't need a whole lot of long-range military power projection to make a difference in the China seas.

It's yet another point of contention between the United States, American allies, countries in the region besides America's strong allies and China. The point, though, is that you have two competing economic and political systems, the sort of U.S.-centric, quote-unquote, free world, and then China. And one of the tenets of America's role in the world for a long time has been free trade and freedom of navigation. Now, China is certainly in favor of trade, but China has disputed freedom of navigation in what once were international, undisputed

international waters and international airspace. So China's been carving out air defense identification zones where it sort of unilaterally declares that it is in command of a big chunk of air that previously was, you know, everyone understood to be international and so open to everyone. and China, by building these artificial islands, could be trying to make a legal claim that it also then owns the economic zone around those islands, which, depending on what treaty and what international law

your sighting gives China control over possibly millions of square miles of ocean and everything underneath that. and the United States would dispute those claims. So what do you think it would take for these two countries to go to blows with each other over this area? The end of the world. I think it would take the end of the world. So this is just extremely, this is an extremely unlikely scenario that you think that they would ever go to war. A high-tech shooting war between China and the United States,

the moment we fire, we or they, the United States where China fires the first shot, we've all lost. I mean, the world's economy. would, I don't know if collapse is the right word, but the damage that a shooting war between the U.S. and China would do to the entire planet means you can't win. No one can win. I mean, the economic destruction, the ecological destruction, the sort of rolling back of decades of effort on the part of most of the world to kind of create a safe rule-oriented system for, you know, development and trade and et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, nobody wins in a shooting war to the United States of China. So the thing is that military force is not always for military force.

You possess a military in order to back up your diplomacy and also for domestic purposes. So you don't always have to pull the trigger for a gun to be useful. There's a lot of posturing. And posturing, I don't mean that to imply that. posturing is empty. You can project force as a clear expression of your seriousness. And hopefully you don't ever really have to use it, although you can come close and even use it a little bit. There's plenty of examples of limited use of force between major powers that didn't escalate into a full-scale war. So, you know, just because I think think that a global war between the United States and China or a full-scale war, I don't think

it would be truly global in nature, just because I think that's highly, highly and likely doesn't mean that China's military moves and America's military moves in the Western Pacific don't matter. They do. They are part and parcel of negotiation, of diplomacy, of politics in that region. Could you describe the Chinese military as it now stands? I mean, would you say that it's, I actually don't know whether it's got more, does it have an enormous land army with millions of troops? You know, just sort of tell us what it's comprised of. Right, so the Chinese military today does have a substantial land force

because China is a, not exclusively, but is a continental power that borders rivals. or outright enemies. So China needs, unlike the United States, China is always going to need a large land army, at the very least, to keep an eye on Russia, among others, among other neighbors. But China looking to its east and eyeing the mineral resources of the China seas

and also the sea trade routes that China depends upon to import its energy and export its goods. So, eyeing its eastern frontier, China has also developed into a powerful naval and air force. So China is on track to very soon have, by most measures, the world's second largest navy after the United States and is pretty much neck-in-neck with Russia at present, for the world's second largest air force after the United States. And the air and sea forces are mostly for power projection into the region, not globally. China has not developed the systems and the infrastructure it needs for global,

sustained global presence. But it can project these forces into the China seas in order to back up its increasingly forceful claims on those waters. Just to ask for specifics, if you're going to become a global force, what do you need? Don't look at the pointy stuff. If you want to understand a country's intentions, like how far it wants to project force and on what scale it wants to be a, you know, influence world events in the military terms. So don't look at the pointy stuff.

Don't look at the aircraft carriers and the fighter jets. That stuff's important. But look behind that stuff at that stuff. the logistical systems and the basing infrastructure that makes it possible for things like fighter jets and aircraft carriers to even get to where they need to be to matter. So the United States, for example, as the world's sole globe-spanning military superpower has hundreds of bases literally all over the world, from pole to pole, both hemispheres, all hemispheres, every ocean. every landmass. So the United States can put people and equipment everywhere at great cost. I mean, the defense bill, the defense bill, we put more into defense as a percentage of GDP than anybody. Is that correct in the United States? Well, we don't really have good numbers from China

because China lacks transparency. Also, when you talk about military spending, what are you counting. So if you count, in the United States, if you count the Department of Defense budget, if you count nuclear weapons spending in the Department of Energy, if you count the Veterans Administration and other miscellaneous accounts that are not technically in DOD, the United States spends close to a trillion dollars a year. And the United States total budget, something about $4 trillion, if I remember, right? Something like that. So it's significant. It's very significant. Yeah, it's a awful lot of money. Matt's going to check my numbers.

No, you're right. It's about $4 trillion in 2014. Now, we don't know how much China spends. We know that we can safely assert that that number has been growing rapidly. The Chinese economy shows some fundamental weaknesses that have revealed themselves lately, what with their stock market collapse, that could squeeze those numbers in coming years. That was one of my questions is,

how do you think that this recent stock market turmoil is affecting their military spending, or is it at all? We don't know yet. I mean, first of all, we don't know how lasting the damage is going to be from the... I think the stock market correction in China is absolutely necessary

because much of the apparent wealth in China is built on a massive real estate bubble that lacks real value, because nobody actually wants that property or wants to live in it or use it for anything practical and sustainable. So anyhow, the Chinese economy needs to correct, so the stock market needs to correct. And where it lands, I don't know,

and what the long-term spending implications will be. I don't know. Let me, I'll go ahead and propose that 10% increases in your defense budget year on year are not sustainable for anybody ever. So China will settle after a period of the extent. explosive growth, some of which is hollow. China will settle, and, you know, the real world will intervene in this apparent economic miracle,

and China will have less money to spend on its military. So, but leaving aside spending, look at China's priorities. So if it's got a pot of money, how does it allocate that pot of money for its military development? And what's notable is the things that China doesn't buy. So the United States possesses huge logistical forces. So the kind of boring ships and planes that help your exciting ships and planes get to where they need to be, which is why the Military Seelift Command, which is the quasi-ci-ci-civillian branch of the U.S. Navy, has dozens of support ships, tankers and storage, dry storage ships,

that haul the oil and gas and weapons and food and spare parts that you need to project your naval forces far from home. So the United States has a military, a naval logistical force that's bigger in terms of numbers of ships and tonnage than the entire navies of many countries. China does not. China possesses just a handful of logistical ships, and they are on average much smaller than American logistical ships.

ships, which is indicative that China doesn't want, or at least can't for a while, send to send naval forces all over the world. Equally, you look at China's investment in aerial tankers. So one of the secret weapons of the U.S. military are these big, boring tanker planes, these converted airliners that haul gas and can deliver gas to, fighters and bombers in the air. So those fighters and bombers can either travel to bases overseas or can fly long-range missions spanning hours or even days.

The United States possesses more than 500 aerial tankers, way more than the entire rest of the world combined. China possesses a handful, which is indicative. China does not, cannot or does not want to, project its air forces over long distance. All of this points to the fact that China has a regional military force with a regional military strategy. Something you said interesting to me earlier

that they need to maintain a large ground army because they should be concerned about Russia. Over here in America, at least, we like to talk about, and it's a fun thing for armchair analysts to sit around and think about what a war between China and America would look like. I mean, you've kind of soundly debunked that we would ever have in it like that kind of open war. Do you think that, yeah, seriously. Do you think that something like that could happen between China and Russia?

I think people think that because they both used to be communist countries, they have a lot of common in their past, but that's not quite true. Yeah, I'm not an expert on Russia-China relations, but I mean, Those two countries have been... They fought a war along their border. Sure, and they've been enemies as often as they've been friends. You might recall that during the 1980s, China was an American ally. And the United States, this is prior to Tiananmen, the United States viewed China as a, in a sense, as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

And for a while in the 80s there were all these expensive high-tech collaboration efforts between U.S. and China industry to re-equip the Chinese military with modern weapons so they could fight the Soviets. Those days have passed. The politics have changed, but I don't think it's very, it's silly to assume that Russia and China are friends, but it's equally silly to say that they're on the brink of war or anything.

I mean, but there's not like a scenario where, just like there's no scenario where the United States and China go to war and everything turns out all right. I also don't think you can go to war with Russia, one high-tech power, fighting Russia and there's like a winner of that conflict. So yeah, cross your fingers and hope that doesn't happen either. People felt before World War I and, you know, especially before World War I, but also World War II, that there was this balance of terror, right, and to quote Star Trek,

that, you know, everybody, I mean, the war between different powers, great powers would be incredibly damaging. And now everybody knows that wars would be incredibly damaging. Does that really mean that they're off the table? No, I think, but David was saying that they're not off the table, but that they would be horrifying and cross your fingers that they don't happen, right? Okay, so it's just, but like, I mean, I guess it would be worse than ever before because the bombs are bigger than ever before. Well, we also lived through the Cold War and didn't have the massive conflict that people were frightened of and some predicted, right? That's because we all have nukes.

You really think that that's the big game changer? It will require someone to be crazy. The world's nuclear powers possess an arsenal that could wipe out humanity several times over in minutes. We can't ignore that reality. I mean, nuclear weapons have shaped our geopolitics for half a century. It's got to be a factor in the increasingly distant memory of great powers going to war. It has to be.

Because we, counter to what most people would think, we were actually living through one of the most peaceful times in human history of all time, right? And I'm not ready to chalk that up to nukes, like, yay, nukes. But when's the last time that two major nukes? nuclear powers went to war. It's very rare. I think the two countries, India and Pakistan, are constantly squabbling across their border, but even those two countries, there seems to be a limit on how hard they can fight each other, since they're both high-tech powers with nukes. You said, I thought, the smartest thing I'd heard in a long time about, you know,

it's important to have the military. It's important to have land forces. It's important to have, you know, however many thousand tanks. It's not for show, but it's, it is about posturing, right? I mean, it's almost like monkeys making themselves large in order to drive off a predator, right? Yeah, sure, but, I mean, we shouldn't forget that there's still plenty of war in the world. it's just that the kinds of wars that great powers tend to fight now are limited in scale and duration

are often interventions in civil wars or conflicts between minor powers. But yeah, the idea that two great powers would completely unleash their arsenals against each other, I'm going to go ahead and say that that's not going to happen, because if it does happen, we are all wrong about everything, and so I don't mind being wrong on that count. Fair enough. Thank you very much for sort of walking us through this.

I mean, as Matthew said, it's sort of like a war gamer's dream to sort of go through what might happen. And it's interesting to just sort of learn... I mean, that's... Your answer to what might happen is, we'd all be screwed. Well, we'd all be screwed in what...

in what event, in the event that the United States and China go... Spotted out over a bunch of islands in those... That doesn't mean that they're... I mean, look at China and Japan. They are ramming each other's ships and harassing each other at sea and occupying little spits of land. And it's pretty forceful. It's not war by any means. But there's a military element to China's disputes, territory disputes in the China seas with Japan.

and the Philippines, for that matter. I mean, there's other disputes, too, that could easily escalate into a push and shove. The United States hasn't gotten forcefully involved in those disputes wisely, but is certainly orbiting the field of battle, keeping an eye on things. I think the great,

the political or actual violence in the China seas is yet to come, as China continues. to grow in regional military strength and continues to boost the assertiveness of its claims in the region. We haven't seen the breaking point yet, and I don't know what happens when we reach that breaking point. I don't think it's going to be global Armageddon, but, I mean, I wouldn't be shocked to see ships at sea inflicting violence on each other, and I wouldn't be shocked to see American vessels somewhere in that mix. let's just say that if and when that happens,

it's going to be incumbent on the diplomats to talk fast and convincingly. All right, well, thank you very much for that. Matthew, do you have anything you want to add in here? No, no, I'm good. The chaos of history scares me, and it's always something unexpected. I feel like it's often something unexpected

that we didn't see that sneaks up and causes these large conflicts. But hopefully David's right, because he's right, the consequences would be awful. All right. Well, thank you both for talking with me today. And we'll talk to you again soon. Next time on War College. Almost exactly the same kind of thing you see at parties.

Glousticks came out of a Navy development program that started during the Vietnam War as a way of creating a target marking a, Thank you.