On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, America awoke the undisputed superpower, commanding advantages across all dimensions of national power.
America boasted unprecedented diplomatic and military strength. Our companies dominated the U.S.-developed internet, spreading soft power at light speed. Our economy was 32 percent of global gross domestic product, the federal budget generated surpluses and the national debt was less than $6 trillion. A true “near peer” was laughable.
This strategic advantage eroded as America fixated on a small, at times lethal, band of extremists.
Oh, please. Raise your hand if you think America would have forcibly stopped China from building islands in the South China Sea if we hadn't spent the previous decade at war with jihadis? Anyone? Bueller?
And remember, our policy was to promote China's economic growth in the belief that it would lead to democracy and rule of law in China. That predated the war on terror and no doubt would have continued. If there are people who think the Cold War "peace dividend" wouldn't have continued with a shrinking defense budget and a shrinking military with perhaps some amazing new weapons in the laboratories--but not in the field--they are fooling themselves.
The Army and Air Force have a lot of wartime experience now, and new weapons accelerated during the war like drones, precision ammunition for artillery and planes, and more effective body armor. With a refocus on great power rivalry they will be fine.
Heck, the war on terror didn't prevent the Air Force from accepting new F-35s into their inventory. We do need to get the Navy larger and more lethal with dispersed anti-ship weapons throughout the fleet. But I seriously doubt that absent a war on terror that the LCS, Zumwalt, and Ford projects would have been more efficiently carried out.
And consider that without our efforts the jihadis might have gained more support and more lasting territorial control than ISIL managed with their transient Islamic State spanning western Iraq and eastern Syria. The Taliban would still be in charge of Afghanistan and Saddam or his evil spawn would run a jihadi-friendly Iraq with access to at least chemical weapons. Who knows if the Saudis would have fallen to the jihadi surge following 9/11. And who else would have gone down without America supporting enemies of jihadis in Arab states around the Middle East?
The argument that China won the war on terror rests on assuming that without waging that war that nothing much different would have happened in the Arab world. And it rests on America somehow reacting to China's military rise faster by abandoning the policy of promoting China's economy and rearming despite the lack of overt Chinese hostility.
Just stop.
