Winning depends upon the combination of will and capability. In the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, U.S. capability was twice that of our enemies, and our will was three times less. Consequently, we lost all three wars.
Isaiah Berlin observed that understanding how a person thinks requires drilling down to the central idea he holds, usually hidden behind diversionary rationalizations. In the cases of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the hidden central idea of the policymakers was that America was too rich to lose. In each war, the policymakers believed the enemy—a fraction of our size in population, wealth and modernity—was outclassed. Our weapons and firepower seemed to assure our inevitable success. This Jupiter complex restrained the commitment of both adequate resources and resolute persistence. Since America could not lose and the wars were not existential, our presidents sought to win without inflicting too much harm upon the enemy or committing the required number of American forces, while not arousing the American people by demanding taxes to pay for the wars. Our presidents lacked the will to win. Our enemies had more determination than did a succession of seven American presidents.
Today, the situation is worse. We no longer have a superior capability, let alone the will to win. Under President Reagan four decades ago, America confronted the Soviet Union, and the Defense budget was 6% of GDP. In 2025, America confronted China, and the Defense budget had been slashed in half, to under 3%. Either we spent twice as much as necessary to deter the Soviet Union, or we are foolishly underfunded to deter China, a more formidable foe than was the Soviet Union. We’re like the owner of a fine house in a rough neighborhood who cuts in half his home insurance because he is tired of paying 6% in insurance. Then his house is burnt down.
There is no consensus to increase military funding. Congress annually spends 30% of revenues on welfare payments to fund our least wealthy, and 11% to protect our entire country. There is no historical precedent for that imbalance. It represents a monumental gamble that America will never again fight a major war. China, however, intends to overthrow America as the world’s superpower. There’s no middle ground and no enduring accommodation between two nations with global reach and antagonistic philosophies of human rights. As Professor Graham Allison has expressed it, “when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule, not the exception.”
With military funding barely keeping up with inflation, our capabilities will eventually be surpassed by China. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] has made it clear,” FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in 2023, “that it considers every sector that makes our society run as fair game in its bid to dominate on the world stage.”
Chairman Xi is determined to emplace China as the dominant power in the Pacific by subjugating Taiwan. “All indications point to the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive,” Admiral John C. Aquilino, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in 2023, “to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.”
Taiwan could increase it its defense spending from an inadequate 2.5% of GDP to 6% and produce two million antiship drones every year. China’s invasion fleet numbers 2,000 ships. If each ship had to survive more than a thousand AI-enabled drone attacks, an assault would be impossible. Taiwan refuses to do this because it believes America will fight World War III on its behalf.
The odds are against that. U.S. policy has deliberately left ambiguous whether we will defend Taiwan. Before Xi, in his 70s, passes from the scene, he will test our resolve. An analogy is 1938, when Hitler ordered his military to seize the Sudetenland. His generals objected that the British could send in a superior force. If so, Hitler replied, pull out. Ironically, the British generals told their prime minister the same thing; they weren’t strong enough to resist. In a contest of wills, England backed down and Hitler marched into the Sudetenland without firing a shot.
When, like Hitler, Xi tests America’s resolve, the outcome will depend upon our culture and the president in office. Consider 1991, when Iraq seized the tiny nation of Kuwait. President George W. Bush declared, “this will not stand.” He blurted it out and our nation—our culture—spontaneously agreed. Our coalition swiftly drove Iraq from Kuwait.
But in the three decades since, we lost two wars. Trust in our leaders plummeted. Worse, our body politic is divided about what kind of country we have been and what we should be in the future. Confronting the Soviet Union, President Reagan said, “we win, and they lose.” No president has declared that about China, our determined enemy.
When the Chinese military challenge does come, will the president declare, “this will not stand”? Or back down and not risk a confrontation that could escalate into a world war?
