The Pentagon’s Obsession With China Puts Hawai‘i at Risk

The Pentagon is reportedly overhauling its nuclear strategy, focusing on shorter-range tactical nukes rather than longer-range, higher-yield missiles, for possible regional wars with China and Russia. The man drafting this madness masquerading as a plan is policy chief and China hawk, Elbridge Colby. (You may remember him as the Pentagon official who wasn’t sure the U.S. was at war with Iran more than a month into the conflict.) 

“I think it’s empirically true that China is preparing for war, and we do have the possibility of a multi-front war and the possibility of a World War III in the coming years,” Colby predicted in 2024. He appears to be hard at work to make that prophecy come true with a strategy that one former Pentagon analyst told TomDispatch would make nuclear war “more, not less” likely.

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If the U.S. and China start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other, Hawai‘i is likely to find itself on the front lines of that conflict. It would be the latest and worst outcome of more than a century of ill treatment of the archipelago by the U.S. military, as TomDispatch regular Bill Hartung explains today.

Colby, the grandson of former CIA director and ruthless assassination maven William Colby, said: “We need to prioritize the potential for a conflict with China precisely in order to avoid it.” Hartung, on the other hand, offers an antidote to such lunacy. 

— Nick Turse, editor of TomDispatch

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The Real Cost of the Military’s Pacific Buildup

President Donald Trump and self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth are pushing for a post-World War II record $1.6 trillion Pentagon budget for next year, a sum so obscenely high that it is almost impossible to comprehend. The proposed $600 billion increase alone is almost twice the total annual military budget of America’s closest rival, China.

That supposed rivalry, despite the big spending gap, makes China central to justifying the Pentagon’s bloated budget. And Hawaiʻi is, in turn, central to the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific military strategy which assumes that deterring China requires a forward, offensive strike posture anchored by the archipelago. This not only puts a target on Hawaiʻi — as was the case during World War II, when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan — but it also deepens long-standing economic hardships and environmental degradation produced by more than a century of U.S. military occupation, according to “The True Cost of the U.S. Military in Hawaiʻi,” a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies.

The report finds that as the Pentagon has shoved Hawaiʻi toward the front lines of a potential nuclear conflict, it has also poisoned the islands’ land and waters, lied about its economic benefits, tied Hawaiʻi’s financial well-being to an inefficient use of tax dollars, and failed to pay more than $130 billion in back rent. And now the Trump administration is extending its buildup in Hawaiʻi — which has long “been central to the architecture of U.S. imperial power” to expand facilities, build new bases, and secure access to air and naval bases from Guam to the Pacific island chain to the Philippines to Australia. And these moves in the Pacific are just one part of that multifaceted $600 billion boost being sought for the Pentagon.

The China Syndrome

In addition to greed, grift and pork-barrel politics — practices that have reached an astonishing level due to the unapologetic corruption and feverish insider dealings of the Trump family and its hangers-on — the biggest driver of the Pentagon’s enormous budget is America’s quest for unrivaled global military dominance. At the center of that effort are preparations to “win” a war with China, a mission that is likely impossible and would be extremely dangerous to undertake.

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The probable outcome of a war with Beijing — which is, after all, a sophisticated technological power armed with nuclear weapons — would be unprecedented devastation for all concerned, especially the people of Taiwan, the independent island nation of the coast of the mainland that China considers a breakaway province. Hawai‘i, Guam, and the other launching pads for a U.S. military operation against China would undoubtedly be targets, with dire consequences for the residents of those islands.

Exaggerating the threat posed by China is a foolproof marketing scheme for those who profit handsomely from preparations for war with Beijing.

Well before recentering China as national security adversary No. 1, America’s quest for military supremacy was not going well, to put it mildly.

As the Costs of War Project at Brown University has shown, America’s post-9/11 wars have been an unmitigated disaster, costing or causing long-term obligations of an astonishing $8 trillion, as well as the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the displacement of tens of millions more, Meanwhile, these wars failed miserably in meeting their stated objectives, leaving in power a sectarian regime in Iraq that opened the door to the rise of ISIS and a Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, a status quo ante bellum after more than 20 years of war.

“The Trillion Dollar War Machine,” by Willian D. Hartung and Ben Freeman Available at Bookshop.org

It’s hard to envision a more complete mismatch between stated war aims and real-world results than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, until we take a hard look at the illegal, immoral, and ill-conceived conflict with Iran which is fast becoming a new forever war.

Despite this dismal record, the Trump regime — and the Biden administration before it — has chosen to double down on a military-first foreign policy, with the demonization of China fueling the fire.

The Pentagon refers to China as the “pacing challenge,” even as military spending far outpaces Beijing’s defense budget. And in its most recent assessment, the Pentagon outlined a strategy to cow China into submission by “being so strong that aggression is not even considered.”

China hasn’t been involved in a major shooting war since the much smaller nation of Vietnam fought it to a virtual standstill in 1979, nearly five decades ago. China’s forces “severely underperformed” in the one-month conflict; according to one account, “PLA soldiers were so undertrained that there were reports of infantrymen tying themselves to tanks with ropes to avoid falling off, sealing their fate when they were ambushed.”

Presumably Chinese forces are much better trained now, but China is not a serial aggressor, and although it has engaged in border skirmishes with India, it has not been embroiled in virtually nonstop conflicts over the past half century, as the United States has, nor has it fought regime-change wars. So the question arises: Who is setting the pace in the U.S.–China arms race, Washington or Beijing?

Two Systems, Two Countries

In the real world, China’s military is not 10 feet tall, and throwing more money at the Pentagon is the worst possible way to address the greatest challenges posed by Beijing, which are actually not military in nature.

China’s vast global influence leans heavily on its economic clout, which is built on aid and trade, including the Belt and Road Initiative, a globe-spanning collection of interconnected infrastructure projects. (To be clear, the Belt and Road has too often involved dubious deals with unaccountable leaders who give Beijing long-term leases on their nation’s critical natural resources in exchange for roads, railways, port facilities, or other infrastructure projects — not exactly a model of free trade in action.) China is also the top trading partner to 120 nations worldwide, including key countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, alongside a brisk trade with Europe. This is the lynchpin of China’s global clout.

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But U.S. power projection in Hawai‘i and beyond, the entire Pacific strategy, is based on a different type of projection — the belief that China aspires to usurp the U.S. as the global hegemon through military might. Exaggerating the threat posed by China is a foolproof marketing scheme for the weapons contractors, Pentagon bureaucrats, K-Street lobbyists, and venture capital firms that profit handsomely from preparations for war with Beijing.

As military budget analyst Stephen Semler has documented, more than half the Pentagon budget goes to private companies, for everything from long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles to F-35 combat aircraft that are virtually useless in modern warfare, to the unproven, overhyped products of the Silicon Valley military tech moguls, like the at least 686 artificial intelligence projects currently being funded by the Pentagon.

Throwing more money at the Pentagon is the worst possible way to address the greatest challenges posed by Beijing, which are actually not military in nature.

On the military front, China’s ability to challenge the U.S. is grounded in its nuclear forces, which are much smaller than America’s but are on the rise in an effort to keep Washington from having a large-enough edge to wipe out Beijing’s ability to respond to a first strike.

The U.S. may not be able to threaten China’s nuclear deterrent any time soon, but in the face of the U.S. military build-up in the Pacific, Beijing appears to be preparing for a worst-case scenario. Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to value nuclear weapons more than his predecessors, who were content to keep a few hundred nuclear warheads that could reach U.S. soil versus Washington’s much larger nuclear arsenal. China is also leveraging is technological base, including its faster pace at training scientists and engineers. This positions China to challenge Washington in an AI arms race.

And yet war is not inevitable, despite what many China hawks constantly suggest. Returning to a common understanding on Taiwan — one in which the U.S. agrees to limit its political recognition of the island or support for independence in exchange for a Chinese pledge not to seek reunification through military means — is the best way to avoid a catastrophic conflict. It would also clear the way for cooperation on urgent issues like addressing the climate crisis, preventing pandemics, and promoting equitable global arrangements to reduce poverty and inequality. At the same time, it would make things safer for hundreds of millions of people from Japan and South Korea to Guam and Hawai‘i.

Paying the Price

America’s military-first approach to China and the world at large comes at a high price, even when the guns are silent. History demonstrates that merely preparing for war costs lives, as the fate of victims of Cold War-era nuclear testing from New Mexico and Utah to the Marshall Islands attests. But as Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear engineer and the president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, has pointed out, the toll of nuclear weapons research, development, and production is global in scope, creating “a worldwide archipelago of radioactive wastelands” that have cost millions of lives since the dawn of the nuclear age. The military’s impact on lives and health is also exacerbated by the proliferation of non-nuclear toxins and unexploded ordnance created by generations of war.

In short, military buildups mean far more than moving money around, although that too poses serious risks when it comes at the expense of investments in public health, nutrition, education, and anti-poverty efforts. 

War is not inevitable, despite what many China hawks constantly suggest.

Military expansions involve constructing and maintaining new weapons factories and existing military bases, deploying new weaponry, engaging in costly training exercises, and, all too often, prosecuting senseless, devastating wars like the current conflict with Iran, the forever war in Somalia, and a new conflict percolating in Ecuador.

The Institute for Policy Studies report, prepared by both mainland and Hawai‘i-based analysts and advocates, offers a lesson in the perils of military expansion. Hosting facilities geared toward a future war against China come at a human and environmental cost that far outstrips the (routinely overstated) economic benefits that U.S. military bases and weapons deployments generate, according to the IPS analysis.

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The report reveals that decades of military use of PFAS (known as “forever chemicals”) have contaminated soil, groundwater, and nearshore waters far beyond the footprint of military bases. Remediation at just three installations is estimated to cost almost $500 million. A leak at the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility — which stored roughly 250 million gallons of jet fuel — in Oʻahu also contaminated the drinking water supply of 93,000 people. Due to these and other environmental disasters, residents of Hawai‘i have suffered unnecessary health risks and mortality and could suffer the effects of further accidents as preparations for war with China ramp up.

Trading short-term jobs for long-term environmental devastation and generational health risks is a terrible bargain that would never have been struck without Hawai‘i’s history as a colonial outpost and a pawn in a superpower competition over which the people of the islands have had far too little control. While military bases in the mainland U.S. have also caused enormous health damage, the sheer extent of Hawai‘i’s territory occupied by military facilities heightens the impact.

Meanwhile, the archipelago’s longtime status as a floating military base and the foundation for U.S. power projection in the Pacific makes it a primary target in any U.S.–China conflict, either in a first strike designed to hobble a looming U.S. attack or in retaliation once a U.S. intervention begins.

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The IPS analysis also found that the Pentagon has overstated the military’s supposed $10 billion annual economic benefit to Hawai‘i by nearly 30 percent. On top of this, Hawai‘i is getting little bang for the buck. Military spending creates approximately 5.3 jobs per $1 million invested, compared to 12.3 jobs from the same investment in education, food production, healthcare, or housing. The researchers also found that the federal government owes Hawai‘i up to $133.7 billion in back rent on top of the massive environmental cleanup costs.

A non-militarized plan for Hawai‘i’s economy would supply more jobs and be far more sustainable than the current approach, according to IPS. And there is a unique opportunity to change, as two military leases of huge swaths of Hawaiian territory are set to expire.

Trading short-term jobs for long-term environmental devastation and generational health risks is a terrible bargain.

Washington needs to thoroughly rethink its narrow, self-defeating approach to Beijing. A less aggressive, more cooperative posture toward China would help free Hawaiians politically and economically, and it would open the path to a safer, more peaceful, more prosperous future. It would also allow for a rollback of the extensive U.S. military buildups in Guam and the Pacific islands, activities that mirror and are at times even worse in their environmental damage and security risks than the situation in Hawai‘i itself.

A less aggressive foreign policy toward China requires the demilitarization of Hawai‘i and a rollback of America’s costly and ill-conceived buildup in the Pacific. The IPS report clarifies what is at stake and provides a starting point for what should be a thorough debate on Hawai‘i’s role in U.S. security strategy. It is, as one of the authors, Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwoʻole Osorio of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, put it: “a blueprint for reclaiming our nation here, in hope and faith in one another.”

The post The Pentagon’s Obsession With China Puts Hawai‘i at Risk appeared first on The Intercept.

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