‘Beijing’s Starting To Win Without Fighting’: Defense Expert Warns Of U.S. Weakness

Defense expert Mackenzie Eaglen, the author of “Keeping Up with the Pacing Threat: Unveiling the True Size of Beijing’s Military Spending,” explained how the U.S. defense budget is inadequate, leaving the U.S. vulnerable to communist China.

Eaglen made her comments on the podcast “School of War” with host Aaron MacLean, published on Tuesday.

Most discussions of the defense budget don’t make you fear for your life—but here on @schoolofwarpod @MEaglen and I posit, maybe they should…https://t.co/UFMcbvZ6uV

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) December 3, 2024

Eaglen dismissed the emphasis some critics of the Pentagon have put on the exorbitant costs of defense, saying, “If we’re just looking at our own investment in isolation and not accounting for the enemy  … or the competitor in this case, deterrence is expensive. … Just talking about what we’re spending and the fact of that doesn’t mean anything all by itself because is that enough relative to what?”

“I like to look at our spending relative to what we need to do with this tool of statecraft, which is as busy as it ever was,” she stated. “It matters what Beijing is spending…not only are they outpacing in output in defense investments, which is manifest all over the world; they have a blue water navy, full-stop; they are present in every single major waterway where we are, but of course, how is that changing the risk calculus for what they might do that we might disagree with to change the status quo, whether that’s the Philippines, Taiwan or somewhere else.”

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“And so I’m done with tired tropes like you are … what my research shows is that we don’t spend more than anyone else, actually, if you put us next to China’s budget on a relative basis,” she said.

MacLean quoted China stating that in 2022, the country spent $229 billion on defense. He recalled the U.S. spending “somewhere in the 700s.”

“You’re saying that the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party are lying?” he asked.

“Shocking, I know,” Eaglen responded. “So, once a year, through state media, Beijing puts out its annual defense budget expenditure, total figure, top-line number, and we’re supposed to just nod and take them at their word and move on. … Their missile production and capacity rate is absolutely astounding, and I’m mostly focused on conventional forces. If we were to talk nuclear … it gets even worse. The math and firepower, the size and strength of the Chinese military is overwhelming. … The Pentagon says Beijing omits several major categories of expenditures in actual military-related spending. … It would have been closer to a trillion that they’re really spending.”

Referring to China’s theft of intellectual; property, she stated, “That’s why so much of their aircraft, many of their ships, a lot of missiles, look like ours; it’s literally by stolen design. When you do it that way, it’s not going to be the perfect product,  it’s not as good as ours, at first, but you can rapidly iterate once you’ve stolen the IP and come up with a better product.”

“If they know if this ever got beyond competition to something with the use of violence, we don’t have that capacity to rapidly repair and resupply forward in Asia, and it’s a really long way home to sail and fly things. You see how Beijing’s starting to win without fighting,” she concluded.