Analyst Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, penned an essay for The Federalist Friday and also appeared on “Fox & Friends Weekend” to warn that China is conducting a massive military buildup the likes of which we haven’t seen since the days of the Third Reich.
His conclusions are concerning:
…[Devore] referenced the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress and warned that the United States has spent $5.4 trillion on its war on terror and futile nation building while the Chinese threat has grown. He urged that Congress get on board with the incoming Trump administration to reallocate resources within the Pentagon to better prioritize naval strength, nuclear deterrence, missile defense, and logistics.
“China is engaging in an unprecedented military build-up that the world frankly hasn’t seen since Adolf Hitler in the 1930s,” DeVore, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, told “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
The Chinese navy, not by tonnage but my numbers, is now larger than the U.S. Navy. China has something like 250 times the ship building capacity that America does. And it isn’t easy to build ships. It takes a long time. We need trained workers. We need people who know how to weld. We need manufacturing that knows how to make the right alloyed steel, etc. etc. It takes a long time to build a navy.
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Not only is China building up, DeVore contends, but the U.S. is falling dangerously behind.
“Now the big difference there, is that he really focused on land power, which frankly is pretty easy to build up pretty quickly,” he added. “Navies are much more difficult to build up. And we are way behind. And not only do we need to catch up, but we also need to modernize our nuclear weapons, and we need to put a lot of effort into missile defense.”
DeVore also argues that Donald Trump is right to be concerned about the Panama Canal because while we’re busy woke-ifying our military, China is staying occupied with different concerns:
Rachel Campos-Duffy [cont’d]: And we’re busy building climate friendly ships, and DEI programs in our military. That’s the corruption…
Chuck DeVore: It’s insane.
Rachel Campos-Duffy: It’s totally insane.
Chuck DeVore: We need to focus on warfighting.
Rachel Campos-Duffy: Amen to that.
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DeVore continues, arguing that we need budget reform and we need to wake up to the fact that “China’s military buildup and cognitive warfare strategy are clear indications of its intent to defeat the U.S. and its allies by any means necessary.”
That being said, he ends on a somewhat positive note, pointing out that with the departure of the feckless Joe Biden and a new administration coming in, we may be able to counter the CCP threat:
Fortunately, President-elect Trump has assembled a team that understands this threat. With Pete Hegseth at the helm of the Pentagon, and other key positions filled by people who understand the danger and the urgency of the situation, it comes down to whether Congress will join in the effort to preserve peace through strength.
Amen to that.
