For most of my life, strong national defense meant spending lots of money on the military and deploying the military in this or that war, at least according to politicians and political talking heads.
Michael Lind's story, "America is Losing Cold War II and the Winner is China," explained how the People's Republic of China is winning our current Cold War without flexing military power. This is a sad situation, considering the PRC is an authoritarian country using other authoritarian countries as proxies. Lind points out the difference between the current Cold War and prior American wars going back to the 90's: "following George H. W. Bush's 1991 Gulf War and the Iraq War launched by his son in 2003. Rival great powers didn't back America's enemy in the first two wars. In contrast, the current operation against Iran and the post-2022 war in Ukraine are two proxy flashpoints in the same great-power conflict -- Cold War II."
Lind states that the second Cold War pits the US against the PRC, and he says that unless our country adopts a more modest strategy, it's bound to lose. Lind faults the US for trying to adopt a strategy of dominating all spheres of the world. The PRC and Russia, a Chinese ally, both want a multipolar world in which each state has a sphere of influence. He stated: "The Chinese dragon and the Russian bear can patiently wait until Uncle Sam exhausts himself from overextension and then goes home, just as he did when he abandoned Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And the major beneficiary of America's military overextension is likely to be its greatest rival -- Beijing."
China uses allies - usually authoritarian - to contain the power of the US. The war in Ukraine would end if China quit selling dual-use technologies to Russia. In addition, the PRC has allowed both Russia and Iran to evade American and European sanctions by buying their oil - with the assistance of "shadow fleets" and transactions denominated in China's currency, the yuan. The PRC has supplied Iran with components used in its devastatingly effective Shahed drones.
The PRC benefits from having the US occupied in the Middle East. We took missiles out of South Korea, which acted as a deterrent measure against the PRC, and placed them on the Iranian front, said Lind. The war has also divided the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, a deterrent to Russia, the PRC's proxy. Observing things close to home, President Trump has denounced our allies as cowards and then begged the PRC for help in the Middle East in opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Has the PRC been acting belligerently around the world? Not totally, and Lind gives examples. The PRC manufactures more goods than the next eight countries combined, and only 30 percent of the world's countries trade more with the US than with the PRC. Economic power is a key weapon in Cold War II, more so than military hardware. What about foreign aid? Of course, Trump declared war on it, and the PRC is currently the world's leading source of development finance, having provided $68 billion to developing countries, compared to only $39 billion from the US over the first two decades of the 21st century. Lind added that the US spent $76 billion on infrastructure in other countries over the past decade or so, while the PRC has spent $679 billion.
What about research and development? Of course, the Trump Administration lags in this area; it cut it. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said the PRC leads global research in 90 critical technologies, while the United States leads in 74. In quantum computing, China outpaces the US, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
Lind condemns the militarism in our approach to Cold War II: "What, then, is America's comparative advantage over China as a great power? China has surpassed us in manufacturing, but we Americans lead the world in militarism -- in lashing out here and there without a sense of deep strategic purpose or an appreciation for the problems associated with scarcity. Since Trump's second term began in January 2025, the United States has bombed governments or nonstate actors in seven countries -- Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. The Trump administration has illegally engaged in the extrajudicial murder of around 100 alleged drug smugglers on the high seas in the Caribbean and Pacific, even though drug smuggling doesn't carry the death penalty in the United States. Likewise, the United States has kidnapped the president of Venezuela and allowed Israel to assassinate most of Iran's leadership in a Pearl Harbor-style sneak attack, before unleashing an American military campaign of massive bombing of Iran with no evident plan to counter Iran's violent response -- or even a cogent definition of victory. In the same period, China, while quietly enabling its Russian and Iranian proxies, hasn't bombed any countries or killed any foreign nationals. Indeed, while the United States for decades has been almost constantly killing suspected terrorists, bombing and invading multiple countries, and piling up foreign civilian corpses all over the world, China has grown rich and influential without firing a shot."
Cold War II is also being fought by what's called "soft power," or non-military power. Lind cites a poll in his argument that showed citizens of Canada, Britain, Germany, and France now regard China as a more reliable partner than America. Given the facts, I think our country needs to reevaluate the meaning of power and realize it means more than just deploying the military around the world and leaving a pile of corpses here and there.
Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer of the Peace Economy Project
