Is the China-Russia axis a single threat to the West? Or are we living through peak inter-war period with a true light at the end of the tunnel?
Are China and its fellow traveler vassals like Russia an actual alliance?
This de-facto alliance, a modern version of the World War Two “pact of steel”, is truly global in scope. It extends from Ukraine to the shutting off of the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis, and even Venezuelan plans to conquer much of oil-rich Guyana. Rather than Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, we are seeing Samuel Huntington’s bleak vision in his 2011 book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”.
The wider war pits on one side the revanchist powers – China, Russia, Islamist, Latin American and African countries – who feel they have been wronged by the West and liberal capitalism. On the other side are the West and non-European allies like Japan, South Korea and perhaps most importantly Modi-led India.
Certainly, different elements of that alignment pose threats to the West in 2024.
If this is in fact an alliance, the West has military readiness problems that harm an effective response:
Last year, the scarcity of equipment was so acute that the British military contemplated refurbishing rocket launchers from museums for Ukraine, but this plan was abandoned.
France, another major defense spender in Europe, possesses less than 90 heavy artillery units, roughly the amount Russia reportedly loses each month in Ukraine.
Denmark lacks heavy artillery, submarines, or air defense systems. The German army is reported to have sufficient ammunition for only two days of combat.
Since the end of the Cold War, European militaries have diminished, partly because of an assumption of continued American military support under NATO. The U.S. accounted for nearly 70% of NATO’s defense spending last year.
However, concerns have risen with the U.S. adopting a more isolationist approach and the re-emergence of Russia as a potential threat to Europe, particularly after nearly two years of conflict in Ukraine. ...
European nations have seen a decline in their industrial capacity to manufacture weapons due to budget cuts. Reversing this trend is challenging due to economic constraints and political resistance to reducing welfare spending and increasing defense spending.
NATO countries, despite having greater economic and industrial resources than Russia, are not producing ammunition at a rate sufficient to support Ukraine’s ongoing conflict.
The concern over America is over-blown. Honestly, Europeans seems to be in a needless panic over the possibility that Trump will win the 2024 election. Trump's record on defending Europe is pretty good, isolationist rhetoric notwithstanding.
Contrast that with Obama--who Europeans swooned over--who removed our main battle tanks from Europe and reduced our Army in Europe to just two brigades. Our ammunition stocks dwindled. He threw Poland under the bus over missile defense. And he embarked on a "reset" with Russia in 2009 despite its invasion of Georgia the prior year.
Just who was in thrall to the Russians?
Perhaps this panic is related to Western elites who fear their own people more than this developing Axis of Steal:
Both [Trump's 2016 election and Brexit] triggered four years of vicious establishment counter-mobilisation and reactionary fight-back against the democratic will of the people, breaching untold numbers of democratic conventions and norms but also laws in the process.
This was all done with the connivance of the “mainstream” media, which happily boosted all the fake witch-hunts such as the Russia Hoax or, in the UK, the insulting narrative that voters did not know what they voted for with Brexit. ...
Without doubt, the New Year will find the geopolitics of our planet at their most precarious and perilous low-point since the Second World War. This fact – and its gravity – are not sufficiently understood by our leaders, otherwise we would be seeing decisive action to mitigate the risks.
The threat from that grouping of foes fueled by China is there. But I think these states under their current leadership are united for now only by their common perceived enemy, America.
China could turn on Russia if Russia looks like too much of a burden. Russia's outlaw status in the West could make such a pounce be forgiven if it isn't too much of a land grab. And is being the second largest economy in the world that bad even if it is within an America-designed system? What would China really gain by redesigning the system even if it can win and impose its will globally?
And Russia surely sees the threat China poses to them. But Putin doesn't act like it.
Further, even before wrecking his ground forces by invading Ukraine, Russia is so much weaker than China that Russia is really China's vassal rather than an ally. The rest of the alignment are barely pawns in the threat that would find themselves adrift if the main pair aren't going in the same direction. Although the Islamists pose a Fifth Column danger inside the West that could be decisive.
But with America and our allies awakened to the need to prepare for war to deter it--or win it if our enemies decide on war regardless--the economies of the West give it the foundation to rebuild its military power.
Let's add up the economic heft of the allies of America and China, with a cut off of at least $1 trillion in GDP to add to the figures. Including those with less would add far more to America's total than to China's, but doesn't change the picture significantly.
United States $27.0 trillion
Germany 4.4
Japan 4.2
India 3.7
United Kingdom 3.3
France 3.0
Italy 2.2
Canada 2.1
South Korea 1.7
Australia 1.7
Spain 1.6
Turkey 1.2
Netherlands 1.1
Saudi Arabia 1.1
$58.3 trillion
China (incl. Hong Kong) $18.4 trillion
Russia 1.9
$20.3 trillion
Yes, you could use purchase power parity to inflate China's GDP. But I think it can be mis-used. If this was a comparison of defense spending only, I'd use PPP to account for lower personnel and logistics costs in China. But for global heft, I'll stick to GDP.
So America's coalition has about three times the GDP of China's "coalition" which is mostly beneath my cutoff for counting. And to China's chagrin, Russia's invasion of Ukraine woke up the West about its logistics weakness. China might be miffed at Russia for denying China that advantage if/when it strikes, no? And for giving the members of the Western coalition reason to stand together and rearm, eh?
Until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, NATO was disarming and in 1997 promised not to move NATO's defenses east. NATO had no logistics infrastructure in the east and no actual war plans to defend the east.
Even guilt-ridden Germany is rearming now.
Note, too, that $13.5 trillion of the American coalition is from continental European states. If those countries are yoked to the China coalition, America's side is reduced to $44.8 trillion. And China's is increased to $33.8 trillion. This is why I keep saying that Europe is an objective to be defended and not merely a favor to Europeans.
And Russia gets a bigger say in the relationship with China if America loses Europe--whether to neutrality or enemy control. Plus, who else defects to China or slides into neutrality if we lose Europe?
Still, China might decide that it would be better off getting on the good side of the economically superior coalition by turning against Russia because it has become more of a liability than asset.
Maybe the revanchist alignment dominated by China holds together long enough to be good enough as an alliance to weaken the West. Or maybe it splinters because the risk of fighting for other members of that alliance is too great with too little gain for individual members. Stealing from each other might seem a wiser strategy. Or maybe plugging into the system America built after World War II will seem more profitable and safe.
I've long thought we were living in an eerily familiar inter-war period. But as the West gets a justified sense of alarm, that feeling is both growing and seeming like it could fade over time.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
