Trump, China and the Militarisation Drive
By Jenny Clegg
With the world in such disarray, how to make some kind of sense of what’s going on is the key question. Taking in the bigger picture, we should look back to just after the fall of the Soviet Union when Wolfowitz claimed the main task of the US superpower was to prevent the rise of any potential competitors. Then after 9/11, Bush, channelling Wolfowitz to seize the unipolar moment, vowed to deal with 7 countries in 5 years – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.
The problem now for the US is that they are still working through this list whilst the main competitor, that is China, now with a GDP two-thirds the size of the US, has become the world’s biggest in trade, in manufacturing, advancing along the technological frontiers.
It was Biden, in his 2022 National Security Strategy, that was to pinpoint the dangers of Chinese competition in areas of AI, quantum computing, space, and cyberspace, key areas in military modernisation and so seen as threatening US future dominance.
The Biden administration was to steer the NATO summit in 2024 towards identifying China as the ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s Ukraine war. Mention also of Iran and North Korea, suggesting a ‘deadly quartet’ of autocratic allies, aimed to underpin the call for a Global NATO from the EuroAtlantic to the IndoPacific.
But the hypocrisy of vaunting the Ukraine war as a moral crusade whilst supporting the Gaza genocide, saw not only the end of Biden but shattered the myths surrounding Western values on which the US claim to superiority in world leadership has rested since the end of WW2. The US can only now resort to coercion.
Trump erupted onto the world stage in a wave of shock and awe, doubling down on a trade war targeting not just China but everybody, and terrifying Europe with hints of abandoning them to face the threats from Russia and a chaotic Middle East. In so doing, he has extorted huge sums of military spending from the US allies.
Trump, it is said, wants the Europeans to cover the costs of defending Europe so the US can finally pivot to China. But what about the Middle East? Try as it might, the US seems unable to detach itself from this turbulent region: through Israel, and with difficulty, it still seeks to secure regional control.
In part, this is about keeping leverage over China, which imports roughly half of its crude oil from the Gulf. The Gulf states are a major arms market for the West but there’s also the fact that these states reinvest their dollar revenues from oil in the US so offsetting US debt and strengthening the dollar. The possibility of using the RMB in Middle East-China trade could be a major threat to US dollar hegemony.
To return to the ‘deadly quartet’ idea of the US hawks, now echoed by both Rutte and Starmer – what this is really about is establishing a complete system of military control over Eurasia – from Russia to the Middle East to China and North East Asia.
This military system is to be based on those technologies previously mentioned. What today’s wars show us is how what happens on the battleground is controlled from space, using cyber- and AI technologies: the surveillance, the targeting, the ability to shoot down incoming missiles. The huge military budgets are now going to build a globalised military-industrial complex centred on US core technologies.
Following Biden, Trump has declared a technological arms race with China as a fight that will define the 21st century, one the US is going to win. Seeking to tie trade deals into arms purchases and security arrangements, Trump’s tariffs aim not simply to constrain but to isolate China, forcing its trading partners not only to decouple, but locking them instead in to a US-centred world system. To see how the globalised production of military equipment constrains foreign policy options, just see the F35s.
So much more is going on here than the Ukraine war: Russia’s military spend may be the biggest in Europe but it’s still only one third the existing EU total – the military budgets of the UK, France and Germany are 1.5 times greater.
The US, perhaps banking on monies saved from Europe, plans an $800 billion Golden Dome project, modelled on Israel’s Iron Dome. This protective shield supposedly would allow the US to launch a missile or even nuclear attack on China or Russia without fear of retaliation. But it doesn’t even work properly for Israel just slightly bigger than Wales let alone a territory the size of the US.
Here in the UK, we’re increasing the number of Astute nuclear-powered submarines for AUKUS from 7 to 12; there’s also the Tempest fighter jet – a joint project with Italy and Japan. Neither of these items will be ready until the early 2030s, too late for Rutte, who predicts a Russian attack within 5 years. Cost and timescale overruns threaten to spiral out of control: even the government’s own projects agency says current goals are unachievable..
Here we might learn the lessons of the past: just over 15 years ago, the Labour government decided to go ahead with the construction of the two aircraft carriers and the production by BAE Systems of parts for the F35s. Last year, the aircraft carriers spent half their time in dock under repair. 15 years or so ago, China decided to go all out to develop renewable energy and EV vehicles. How do those decisions compare now?
Starmer’s argument that defence is the driver of growth does not hold water. Even the new director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies pointed out in a recent article in the Financial Times ‘merely building a stock of weapons won’t drive growth’ and that ‘more jobs in one area mostly means fewer jobs elsewhere’, adding, ‘Would investing in weapons and nuclear submarines be the best way to boost economic growth? I doubt it’.
War is imminent we are told, but it seems we are preparing for a forever war with Russia, burdening generations to come. Catastrophising the future, Rutte warns that China, in attempting to seize Taiwan, would urge Moscow to launch a parallel attack on NATO territory.
Why does Starmer support all this? Lets just note our ally Australia has just said it will not spend more than 2 percent of GDP on defence.
But for the UK its all about the special relationship, enabling our nuclear weapons. In return, we offer the US the services of our military bases around the world – the Akrotiri base of course playing a key role in the Gaza genocide. And we provide a key link between the EuroAtlantic and IndoPacific with the AUKUS project.
The point of being a Nuclear Weapon State is to retain our global status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. But the world is changing: becoming less Western, more multipolar – the influence of the BRICS is growing.
Much of the Global South is not buying into the militarisation agenda – 85 percent of the world did not support the sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. They see the world order failing their needs – on addressing climate change, the debt burden, world health; failing on Gaza. They see how the US and Israel wield the rule of power, shredding any norms of warfare, their disrespect for the UN, ready to push the international order off a cliff. So much for peace through strength. For their own survival many in the Global South seek a new kind of world.
The BRICS in fact are wondering about another proposal for UN reform: that France’s permanent seat on the Security Council should be taken over by Africa, and the UK seat by Latin America.
Surely that goes a significant part of the way to explaining why Starmer backs Trump’s agenda of world military dominance.
- Jenny Clegg is the author of China’s Global Strategy: towards a multipolar world, and a member of CND’s National Council.
- Jenny Clegg spoke at the recent Arise Festival event: Imperialism in the Middle East, NATO & the rearmament of Europe – Why does Starmer back Trump & Netanyahu’s War Drive? You can watch it back here or listen on the Arise Festival Podcast here.
