America’s hawkish gamble: Biden’s proposed $715 billion defense budget
NICOLAS GARDNER: American citizens are accustomed to hearing about the threats that the United States faces around the world. With China’s political, economic, and military rise in recent years, the U.S. appears to have found its new foe for justifying a bloated and unnecessary military budget that jeopardizes world peace.
In post-world war Europe, the U.S. assumed the mantle of a global superpower along with the Soviet Union and, since this time, the U.S. has always sought to maintain its global hegemony. In the pursuit of power, the U.S. has often invaded and intervened in countries worldwide, using the Truman Doctrine as justification to halt the spread of communism anywhere it could be found. From the invasion of the Dominican Republic to the invasion of Grenada, which the United Nations voted by a margin of 108-9 was a “flagrant violation of international law,”the U.S. has most often used military means to impose its will on foreign countries. The most famous of such examples is Iraq which Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared was an illegal invasion because of its noncompliance with the United Nations’s founding charter and because the U.N. security council did not sanction the operation.
Even today, the U.S. continues to deploy troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and many members of congress still refuse to pull out of these countries. Essentially, since the conclusion of the second world war, the U.S. has come to rely on its military to enforce its will on the world to an alarming extent. From fears of the spread of communism to the suspicion of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. has not missed an opportunity to flex its military muscle. I fear that the rise of China has already become the new rationale for an incomprehensibly large and irrational military budget that only threatens to bring us closer to a serious military conflict.
The international relations theory of the security dilemma states that defensive measures are often interpreted by other countries as inherently aggressive. This causes a feedback effect wherein each country continually arms and develops higher levels of technology to increase and extend its security, even if this means that each country devises weapons capable of bringing an end to humanity. According to the recently announced proposal to raise the defense budget to $715 billion, which represents a 1.6% increase from the enacted $704 billion for fiscal year 2020, the U.S. appears to be escalating its plans for military intervention in the world.
Biden’s plan for an increasing military spending sends a clear message to China that the U.S. is not afraid to use its military superiority to enforce and maintain its global hegemony. In response, the Chinese government will likely continue augmenting its defense budget to tip the scales of military power in its favor. In the National People’s Congress’ annual meeting on March 5, 2021, China announced that its 2021 defense budget would reach $209.16 billion, a 6.8% increase from last year, which highlights China’s plans for military modernization and opposition to US influence in the Indo-Pacific region. The arming of the two superpowers of the world only threatens to jeopardize world peace.
While the Biden administration has announced the full withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the U.S. should reinforce this by vastly downscaling the U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2022, and committing to peaceful and diplomatic solutions, rather than military encroachments on other countries. Furthermore, talks with China to prevent an increasingly hostile military situation in the Indo-Pacific region and an emphasis on diplomacy and collaboration would ease the two countries’ currently tense relationship.
Nicolas Gardner is a sophomore in the SFS studying International Politics and Chinese.