When the coronavirus pandemic recedes, the 2020 presidential campaign will recommence apace. As on foreign policy, the Joe Biden campaign will assert that its defense plan is superior to that of President Trump.
But I’m not convinced Biden’s plan will support America’s most exigent need: the ability to deter and defeat adversaries.
When it comes to the two top U.S. adversaries, China and Russia, the evidence suggests Biden’s platform isn’t on the mark. A key problem: Biden offers platitudes rather than strategy.
Yes, I recognize that Trump’s foreign policy is quite platitude heavy. And quite unpredictable. But one of Trump’s great successes has been in strengthening the U.S. military after a multiyear investment drought under the Obama administration. That drought weakened the U.S. military’s readiness and reduced U.S. deterrent power in the face of communist China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This allowed Beijing and Moscow to narrow the capability gap with Washington, and even overcome us in some areas. Concerns such as space warfare, long-range strike, and nuclear forces stand out here. As the former vice president, Biden must bear his share of responsibility for those failings. This is especially so with China, where the Obama administration effectively ceded vast areas of the South China Sea to an imperial power.
But where does 2020 Biden stand?
Well, in a November 2019 Military Times interview, Biden seemed to accept the idea that the U.S. military needs significant continuing investment. As the former senator put it, “With the return to great power competition posed by the rise of China and a revanchist Russia, we need to maintain our superiority. But we must do so affordably and by preparing for the wars of tomorrow.”
Biden added, “We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less. The real question is not how much we invest — it’s how we invest.” This notion of doing more for less is Biden’s defense policy headline.
Unfortunately, it’s just not credible.
It’s fashionable to suggest that the United States can significantly reduce defense spending because “we spend more than X number of nations combined,” etc. And while we certainly do sometimes misspend military funds, at the margin, we need a very significant defense budget.
First, the cost of paying our service personnel and managing our bases is far higher than comparative Chinese and Russian costs. More importantly, the U.S. military is the world’s sole truly global power-projection force. That global reach allows us to deter adversaries at range, forcing them to temper their ambitions to the prospect of our arrival in dominating force. This military capacity underlines that which Biden claims is crucial: our ability to advance democratic values and defend allies that share these values.
It thus rings hollow, for example, that Biden calls for defense cuts but simultaneously attacks Trump for weakening Western security.
The defense of our European and the Pacific interests and allies does not ultimately rest on whether or not we have nice conversations with those allies, though cordial relations are important. In the end, that defense rests on America’s ability to penetrate Russian air defense bubbles and Chinese maritime strongholds. And that prospect is simply not credible without significant defense spending.
After all, to deter China and Russia, we need more than ships, satellites, missiles, intelligence networks, bombers, electronic warfare units, jets, Marines, and maneuver-enabled soldiers. We also need vast logistics chains, experienced noncommissioned officers, and capable commanding officers. That costs a lot of money. But it’s the price we pay for an international order that favors individual freedom, the rule of law, and free movement and trade. Rather than, that is, China’s offering of Beijing-centric feudal mercantilism and Russia’s offering of corrupt autocracy.
So if he wants to be both realistic and persuasive, what Biden should be saying is that he’ll provide for a military which deters adversary aggression and, if necessary, ends it. Biden should add that even as we should show greater respect to our friends, so also must we ask them to provide greater support for the defense of our common interests.
That would be the foundation of a defense policy that makes sense. Biden’s current approach isn’t credible.
