The 2024 election ensures that China will remain the new administration’s top national security priority – the “pacing threat” receiving first call on resources and attention from the Department of Defense. Administration leaders have built their reputations on a “singular focus on China,” arguing that Europe must “fend for itself” in a new era of great power competition. At least since the Obama administration, the “China First” crowd has held sway, consistently arguing that China poses the greatest and most urgent threat. But they’re wrong. Here’s why.
Any threat assessment must begin with sizing up those challenges to America’s vital interests – those that directly threaten our national existence, population and territory, economic prosperity and political institutions. Across the board, Russia comes in first in this calculus. With 5,580 nuclear warheads to China’s 600, Russia is vastly superior as a nuclear power. Self-sufficient in energy and agriculture, Russia has opened new markets abroad and actually grown its economy despite severe international sanctions. In recent elections, Russian disinformation materially and effectively influenced voters in presidential and congressional elections, a direct challenge to our institutions. Unlike China, which hasn’t fought a war since its border clashes with Vietnam in 1979, Russia’s military has extensive combat experience in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine over the past generation. Where China has rattled its saber, Russia has returned major theater war to the European continent on the largest scale since 1945, with hundreds of thousands killed and injured and whole cities destroyed outright.
And Europe matters. The combined GDP for the EU in 2024 (plus the UK and Norway, NATO allies but non-EU members) was $22T to China’s $17T. The US-EU economic partnership is the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world, accounting for more than 40 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), while US goods and services trade with the EU totaled an estimated $1.2 trillion in 2023, 25 percent more than US goods trade with China. The US-EU trade and investment relationship is the largest in the world, with four times more US foreign direct investment than with Asia-Pacific countries. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, “no two other regions in the world are as deeply integrated as the US and Europe.” The loss or disruption of these trade relations would have an immediate and drastic impact on the US and global economies.
Our European allies also include 30 of our 37 treaty allies, supporting us in international organizations like the UN and on the battlefield, where thousands of European soldiers were killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. America is much stronger militarily, economically and diplomatically with these allies than without them – and abandoning historic allies in Europe will surely discomfit our treaty allies in the Pacific. Despite criticism by US conservatives, our NATO allies spent $500B on defense in 2024 – more than four times what Russia spent and collectively exceeding 2% of GDP (Japan spends 1.4%). Those figures are sure to grow. To be sure, there are readiness and capability gaps that need to be addressed, as coordinating defense policies and standards across dozens of polities is challenging (a thorny problem that confronts us in the Pacific as well). Europe also invests heavily in US defense industries, with sales of the F-35 fighter, Patriot air defense system, M1-series main battle tanks and other defense articles booming.
With continued US support and leadership Europe can stand against the Russian threat, providing the bulk of the manpower, funding and combat platforms needed to deter and prevent a wider war in Europe (only about 10% of US force structure and defense spending is focused on Europe today). But that strength depends on a firm transatlantic link, and above all, on American extended nuclear deterrence. Should the US disengage, a wider war in Europe is not only possible but likely, threatening the stability of the international system, the global economy and US national security directly.
Could that really happen? Despite severe losses, the Russian military has been reconstituted and is now larger than before the 2022 invasion. Putin continues to frame the conflict as a war with NATO and the West, not just Ukraine. For years, national security experts pooh-poohed the likelihood of large-scale Russian aggression in Europe, even after Georgia in 2008 and the Donbas and Crimea in 2014. They were proven wrong with a vengeance. Where Putin sees weakness, he has shown repeatedly that he will act.
In prioritizing our national security needs, it’s also important not to exaggerate or overstate the threat from China. Despite the protestations of our admirals (“China has more ships!”), the US Navy is far stronger, with twice the surface tonnage , a huge advantage in vertical missile launchers and many more destroyers, cruisers and frigates (as opposed to the smaller coastal patrol ships which constitute much of the Chinese fleet). US Navy nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear attack submarines far outnumber China’s, while US naval technology enjoys a clear lead. The addition of the Japanese, Australian, South Korean and Philippine navies are often not mentioned, but add greatly to this overmatch. US airpower is similarly dominant, with many more 4th and 5th generation combat aircraft and vastly superior C4ISR and tanker assets – again augmented by allies. Within range of its landbased missile systems, China is a dangerous opponent. In blue water, the US and its allies are far more capable.
China is similarly disadvantaged by a lack of strong allies in its neighborhood and by an utter dependence on maritime trade for its economic survival – trade that will be swiftly interdicted in time of war. (80% of China’s oil imports pass through the Straits of Malacca each year, far beyond the reach of the Chinese navy) Unable to project its military power well, China is ringed by states with significant militaries backed up by US air and maritime power. With an economy in decline and serious internal problems of its own, China can ill afford a major regional conflict it is almost certain to lose. It will certainly seek to impose its influence on its neighbors where it can through political, economic and even military threats. But a major war can only put the survival of the Chinese Communist Party at grave risk.
As a matter of responsible statecraft, the US should consult its interests and assess its challenges objectively and unemotionally. America is a global power – still the only economic and military superpower in the world. It is both unnecessary and imprudent to place all its strategic eggs in one basket. Overemphasis on China, leaving Europe to go it alone, risks a failure of deterrence with unacceptable consequences. Both are important. Both deserve real attention and commitment. For more than a century the US has been both a Pacific and an Atlantic superpower. That kind of strategic balance and equilibrium has served it well. It can still.
R.D. Hooker, Jr.
The author is a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council and a Senior Associate with the Belfer Center at the Harvard JFK School. He is a former NSC Senior Director for Europe and Russia.
Photo Credit: Krzysztof Hepner on Unsplash