US military-industrial complex the real threat: China Daily editorial

In 1961, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the "unwarranted influence" of the military-industrial complex in the United States whereby a powerful union of defense contractors, the armed forces and policymakers might get control of national policy. Subsequent decades have seen his words of caution turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the US, the world's largest military spender, continually increasing its military budget for the benefits of certain interest groups.

Now the US accounts for 40 percent of the world's annual military spending, with its military budget — at around $820 billion in 2023 — larger than the next nine countries combined. That this "misplaced power" thrives on wars and regional tensions may explain why the US has been engaged in almost all conflicts and wars across the world over the past several decades.

The nexus forged by the government, legislature, military institutions and the weapons industry in the US makes the country a significant source of global tensions and conflict.

Yet despite the US having established nearly 800 foreign military bases in at least 80 countries and regions, and its 11 aircraft carrier strike groups patrolling the high seas ready to project US firepower in any corner of the world, Washington still does not feel secure enough from the perceived threat from its adversaries. And it is demanding that its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and those in the Asia-Pacific spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product on their defense needs, calling it a "global standard".

When explaining the US Defense Department's view on US allies in Asia, department spokesperson Sean Parnell said on Friday that "given the enormous military buildup of China as well as North Korea's ongoing nuclear and missile developments, it is only common sense for Asia-Pacific allies to move rapidly to step up to match Europe's pace and level of defense spending".

Yet it is also common sense that it is the taxpayers who will have to foot the bill of increased military spending. In the US, about 45 percent of its citizens' income taxes go to pay for current and past military spending. This has made it increasingly difficult for the US to continue to use its China-threat hyperbole to try to hoodwink its allies into dipping into their pocket to help increase the revenues of major US arms producers.

Which explains why Japan canceled an annual high-level meeting with the US after the US administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for the annual 2+2 security talks. But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the US asked Japan to boost its defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, higher than an earlier request of 3 percent. Japan's military spending as a share of GDP was 1.4 percent in 2024.

Apart from Japan, more US allies have stood up to say no to the US' defense spending coercion. Spain has officially rejected the US demand that it increase its military spending to 5 percent of GDP, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling it "unreasonable".

"For Spain, committing to a 5 percent target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive, as it would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the EU's ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defense ecosystem," Sanchez wrote in a letter sent to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte last week.

The US should heed these voices of reason and rethink its ideologically driven perpetual military spending that only benefits its own military-industrial complex at the cost of human lives and peace.

A relic of the Cold War era, NATO has become a war machine and a threat to world peace. The US should stop pushing the organization to evolve in the wrong direction in an era when peace and development remain the joint pursuit of the world.

How much money a country decides to spend on its defense and security is its internal affair. To dictate other countries the size of their military spending constitutes a violation of their sovereignty and interference in internal affairs. If the US takes its security treaties with its allies and partners as an excuse to justify the move, it only serves to expose the coercive and exploitative nature of these pacts. Rather than bedrocks of global security, they are nothing but de facto mortgage contracts the countries are forced to ink sacrificing their autonomy for "protection", and fattening the US military-industrial complex with their own interests.