There is a Western proverb that says, “Self-knowledge is the hardest knowledge of all”. However, some politicians in the United States have always turned black and white and confused right and wrong, undermining global strategic security and stability by shouting that they have caught a thief while telling lies to deceive themselves and others by making groundless accusations and smearing other countries, which not only undermines the image of a great nation, but also really undermines the strategic credibility of the United States, bit by bit.
In recent years, the United States, on the one hand, undermined international rules and international systems, paralyzed the WTO and many other international institutions, leading to chaos and disorder in the international order; on the other hand, the pursuit of absolute security, constantly breaking the strategic balance, inciting a new round of arms race. Listening to the words and observing the deeds of the United States, it is not difficult for the peoples of the world to find that the United States has become the greatest threat to global strategic security and stability.
The United States has been the world’s top military spender for many years, and has contributed significantly to the growth of total global military spending. According to the data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the U.S. military spending in 2019 increased by 5.3% over the previous year to $732 billion, accounting for 38% of the total global military spending, the scale of which is almost equal to the combined military spending of the next 10 countries.In February 2020, the U.S. government announced the new fiscal year budget, continuing to increase the defense budget, and in recommending that all non-defense and defense spending should be increased to $732 billion. While cutting agency spending by a uniform 5 per cent, the military budget was increased to $740.5 billion. According to the New York Times, the Trump administration’s budget contains a continuous increase in military spending, apparently “to raise funds for the arms race”. The United States not only to more than 700 billion dollars a year, the world’s highest military spending to maintain its military superiority, and constantly forced NATO and Asia-Pacific allies to further increase defense spending. Under U.S. pressure, NATO military spending in 2019 will increase by 17 percent over 2015 despite only nine member countries devoting 2 percent of their GDP to military spending, most notably Germany, with a 10 percent increase over 2018. Japan’s defense spending in fiscal 2019 is 5.26 trillion yen (about $48.2 billion), reaching 5.31 trillion yen in 2020, another record high, has increased for eight consecutive years.The budget request for Japan’s defense spending in fiscal 2021 is 5.49 trillion yen, or a ninth consecutive increase.In 2019, total global military spending reached $1.9 trillion, setting a new record for the third consecutive year, compared with the The U.S. will increase its military spending by 3.6 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in 10 years.2020 The U.S. is raising the bar again, Defense Minister Esper said last month, asking all allies to raise military spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The United States continuously enhance military spending, and require allies to increase military spending, on the one hand, in order to meet their own strategic needs, to maintain global military hegemony; on the other hand, will incite a “global arms race”, to global strategic security and stability poses a major threat.
The United States is raising the nuclear bar again, upgrading its nuclear arsenal and lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which has greatly increased the risk of regional nuclear war and may escalate out of control into a nuclear war. The United States not only has the world’s largest military expenditure, but also the largest nuclear arsenal. Since Trump entered the White House, the U.S. government has put forward a series of ideas with strong nuclear war confrontation colors. It is the first time in the history of the United States that the United States has been a party to a nuclear war. The “replenishment” of the nuclear arsenal with low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missiles and new submarine-launched cruise missiles, forward-deployed nuclear bombers and dual-use fighters, and the nuclear mission of the F-35A is intended to provide the President of the United States with more nuclear options in the future. The U.S. Department of Defense budget for fiscal year 2021 also covers all major items of nuclear modernization, including: Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarines, sea-launched nuclear cruise missiles, “land-based strategic deterrent” intercontinental missiles and F35 fighter jets and so on. On the other hand, it has tailored its nuclear deterrence strategy to Russia, China, North Korea and Iran to ensure the reliability of nuclear forces and credibility of nuclear deterrence, exaggerate external threats and provoke confrontation among major powers. In April this year, the U.S. Department of Defense released a report entitled “Nuclear Deterrence: the Foundation and Support of U.S. National Defense,” which follows the judgment on threats in the 2018 edition of the Nuclear Posture Review, re-emphasizing Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran as U.S. nuclear deterrence adversaries and discussing the necessity and urgency of modernizing U.S. nuclear forces from four aspects: threat, policy, strategy, and posture. (c) Documentation. The United States, which possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, still considers its nuclear forces inadequate and has invested heavily in upgrading its non-strategic nuclear forces, enhancing the “flexibility” of its nuclear capabilities and considering their use in regional conflicts, seeking an escalating confrontation in nuclear war, making the United States the main variable in the future global nuclear security and bound to aggravate the global strategic situation. The imbalance has added more uncertainty to global nuclear security.
The United States has broken treaties, withdrawn from arms control and even released danger signals from nuclear tests, seriously undermining the international security architecture and making the non-proliferation situation even more serious. The United States has frequently withdrawn from arms control treaties in an attempt to break free from its constraints and seek absolute strategic advantage, seriously affecting world peace and stability. In recent years, the United States has withdrawn from the Iran-Contra Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement, withdrawn its signature of the Arms Trade Treaty, withdrawn from the Open Skies Treaty, and exclusively blocked the negotiations on the verification protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention. The United States was eager to withdraw from the INF Treaty in order to develop short- and medium-range missiles, the development and production of which are prohibited by the Treaty and the destruction of which is required by the Treaty, and it test-fired land-based intermediate-range cruise missiles and ballistic missiles soon after its withdrawal from the Treaty. In addition, the U.S. is also actively planning to deploy land-based INF in the Asia-Pacific and Europe, and anti-missile systems in the Asia-Pacific and Central and Eastern Europe in an attempt to strengthen its military presence, establish absolute superiority and upset the strategic balance. Undoubtedly, the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty seeking to untie itself will not only make the original arms control system precarious, but also further stimulate other countries to develop medium-range missiles, making the risk of confrontation and conflict in the Eurasian region greatly increase, and the whole world will become more insecure and unstable. Releasing the dangerous signal to resume nuclear testing, or will fire the global nuclear arms race “starting gun”. In the first half of the year, senior U.S. government officials discussed whether to conduct nuclear tests, and even said that they would not rule out withdrawing their signatures on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. After nearly 30 years of no nuclear tests, the sudden reintroduction of nuclear tests, U.S. experts generally believe that this is the U.S. government in the field of nuclear safety again “backtracking”, but also to other nuclear countries to emulate the move “invitation”. It can be said that the U.S. side believes that it can use nuclear tests and nuclear edge policy to coerce its rivals to make concessions in the negotiations is a dangerous strategy, or will cause a chain reaction impact on regional and global security and stability, making the international non-proliferation situation more serious.
The United States is constantly accelerating the pace of militarization in space and cyberspace and vigorously developing new types of combat capabilities, which has an enormous negative impact on space and global cyber security. Seeing space as a new field of warfare, kidnapping NATO and allies in the chariot of marching into space, triggering a new round of space arms race.In 2019, the U.S. passed the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, deciding to establish a space force and make it the sixth largest military service. The decision to establish a theater of operations in space was made at the previous NATO foreign ministers’ meeting and the London summit, thus opening the way for the militarization of NATO space. On the surface, this is NATO’s first foray into space, but behind the scenes, it is under pressure from the United States, but in reality it is an important step in the U.S. push to militarize space. The U.S. acceleration of space militarization also includes a significant increase in investment in space projects, speeding up the formation of space organizations and agencies, actively developing offensive space weapons, including unmanned space shuttles, anti-satellite weapons and space-based offensive weapon systems, and secretly conducting space warfare military exercises. The fact that the U.S. Space Command began its space drills less than 10 days after its establishment reflects the U.S. advanced layout of the militarization of space, a serious departure from the concept of the peaceful use of outer space. Vigorous development of cyber warfare capabilities, attempts to dominate cyberspace, global competition in the militarization of cyberspace will accelerate the development. After Trump came to power, the United States issued a series of documents such as the National Security Strategy, the National Cyber Strategy, the Department of Defense cyberspace strategy, indicating that the implementation of deterrence strategy, the pursuit of absolute superiority and other traditional strategic thinking of the United States has been fully replicated in cyberspace.2017 Trump upgraded the Cyber Command, in 2018 the U.S. Army Cyber Command under the jurisdiction of 133 cyber task forces to fully form combat power. The United States has established the world’s strongest system of cyber warfare forces. That year, the United States also issued a new version of the Joint Ordinance on Cyberspace Operations. In order to maintain the absolute superiority of the United States in the global cyberspace, Trump also signed a confidential decree to lift restrictions on how and when the United States government can deploy cyber weapons to combat adversaries. Under the influence of the United States, many countries have set up or expanded cyber warfare forces, the process of militarization of cyberspace significantly accelerated, bringing great uncertainty to the cyberspace race game. In addition, the United States through the “Prism Gate” and other projects in the global network attacks and eavesdropping activities, the development of virus tools raised to the status of strategic weapons, etc., is also no secret.
Whether it is the pursuit of absolute security, the disruption of the strategic balance, or the intention to win the competition among major powers by implementing a cost-imposing strategy, the U.S. has created a tense atmosphere in various fields that has brought the arms race back to the historical stage. It is in the common security and interests of all countries in the world to jointly maintain peace and reshape the global arms control system. The United States should earnestly fulfil its international responsibilities and obligations and make its due contribution as a major country to the maintenance of world peace.
Recent Comments