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Weekend Reads
The main gun of Chinese guided-missile destroyer Nanchang attacks a target during a China-Russia military drill on October 15, 2021, in Russia. (Sun Zifa/China News Service via Getty Images)
The axis of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is stepping up its attacks on the United States–led world order. But media coverage fails to connect the dots among the growing number of global crises.
Walter Russell Mead argues in the Wall Street Journal that the Commission on the National Defense Strategy’s recent report, which concludes that the US faces its “most serious and most challenging” threats since 1945, should serve as a wake-up call about the dangers of American weakness.
To discuss this report, Rebeccah L. Heinrichs hosted two members of the commission at Hudson. Key takeaways from the event are below.
Key Insights
1. Increasing defense spending makes war less likely. Complacency makes war more likely.
“Some folks in the commentariat who’ve read our report and criticized it said you just guys want to throw more money at defense, and you build forces to go to war, and if you build it, we’ll go to war. This is not about that. This is about restoring America’s ability to deter conflict. . . . We have to restore our ability to deter conflict because the cost of conflict will be infinitely higher than what it will cost us to try and prevent it.”
— Eric Edelman
“The complacency that we sense across the US is a very dangerous thing that is not helping to motivate the people in Washington who speak for them to do the right thing on the defense budget and a number of other matters. We are hoping to use this report to change that.”
— Mariah Sixkiller
2. While American political unity declines, bonds within the China–Russia–Iran–North Korea axis are growing.
“It breaks my heart to see the breakdowns in Congress. I remember when it really worked well. I started up there in 1999, and it’s unfortunately not working the way it used to. We used to pass the [appropriations] bills. There was a different number back then, but on time. We used to pass the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, on time for the fiscal year. And that’s just not happening anymore, and it’s really problematic.”
— Mariah Sixkiller
“How has Russia been able to go on and, despite the enormous equipment losses that they’ve suffered in Ukraine, continue to fight the way they have and wreak death and destruction on the civilian population of Ukraine? Well, it’s because they’re being largely financed by the People’s Republic of China, assisted by transfers of, first of all, some goods that are skirting US export controls that come in through China, but also provision of precision machining. That’s allowed the Russian defense industry to go on a three-shift, 24-hour-a-day basis, wartime footing. When you add to that literally millions of shells [and] 152mm rounds for Russian artillery from North Korea, thousands and thousands of drones provided by Iran, and a factory for drone production built by Iran in Russia. That’s how it’s worked.”
— Eric Edelman
3. The US-led alliance system is the greatest guarantor of American security. But Washington needs to reduce regulations that prevent collaboration among allies.
“Our system of alliances is, has been, and remains our huge comparative strategic advantage over these four malefactors of the world. . . . We need more out of allies, that’s for sure. And that’s across the board, whether it’s in Europe, in the Middle East, or in the Pacific. But we have to have the framework.”
— Eric Edelman
“We applaud, in the report, initiatives like AUKUS, which has extraordinary potential, but is going so slowly. And despite Congress working really hard and doing wonderful work to relax the [International Traffic in Arms Regulations] and other roadblocks to effective implementation of Pillar 2, it’s still costing the UK, for example, upwards of a billion dollars a year just to comply with the exemptions they have to seek in order to collaborate in earnest with us.”
— Mariah Sixkiller
Quotes may be edited for clarity and length.
Go Deeper
This week Hudson launched a limited series, Rising Axis, to examine how the axis of aggressors is countering the United States and its allies. Over the next seven weeks, the newsletter will showcase the depth of Hudson’s analysis on how to compete with and defeat this axis.
“The axis of adversaries has discovered that the most direct way to break this US-led order is to undermine the credibility of America’s military alliances,” warns Rebeccah L. Heinrichs. In a new essay compilation, deterrence experts explain how the US can adapt its strategic posture to secure American alliances and defend the US-led order.
On The Bulletin, Rebeccah L. Heinrichs explains why Americans—and America’s allies—would be worse off in a China-dominated world.
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