Could Trump’s Military Spending Surge Be the First Salvo of WW3?
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Donald Trump’s election. Yet World War 3 seems closer now. The Russians feared Hillary Clinton, who spoke aggressively about Russia. Yet, not two months into the Trump presidency, and conflict with Russia, or WW3, seems closer. It was under Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State that the Maidan revolt took place in Ukraine.
That was the catalyst for a civil war between pro-West and pro-Russia Ukrainians. Putin toasted Trump’s win last November. But, as Trump announced a massive increase in military spending, the Kremlin issued a statement that, while short on words, was deafeningly loud on content.
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The Russian president said that relations between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest point since the Cold War. What has changed? Russia WW3 2017, China WW3, or WW3 predictions in general are not just for catastrophists any longer. Trump’s first—and most successful so far—address to Congress made it clear he wants a much bigger military.
During the campaign, Trump did not hide his military ambitions. Yet, even as he advocated more spending on military equipment, his major military and geopolitical target was Islamic State or ISIS, rather than Russia. Trump’s focus was going to be the Syrian war. The bigger military, moreover, was going to serve as a “friendly reminder” to China about its own military buildup.
But China is not the only power on Trump’s agenda. There have been allegations that members of his cabinet have had meetings or contacts with Russian officials. There’s nothing especially incriminatory about that. But while the media harps on about what that Russian ambassador said to this Trump insider, it has ignored a crucial thing.
Trump and Putin Are Not “Buddies” As So Many Accuse
Trump and Putin have not met yet. Trump has done absolutely nothing that Putin might interpret as a win for Russia. If anything, the Trump administration has stayed on message where Ukraine is concerned. Trump has also threatened Iran, a close Russian ally in the fight against ISIS and the Syrian rebellion in general.
The one member of the Trump cabinet who may have had the closest ties to Putin was General Michael Flynn. He resigned a few weeks ago from the post of National Security Advisor. Flynn allegedly told Moscow’s ambassador to Washington that the Trump administration would cancel the additional sanctions leveled against Russia by the outgoing President Obama.
Flynn, according to critics, became vulnerable to “possible blackmail” from the Russians. Flynn thickened clouds of suspicions about Trump’s relationship with Moscow. Regardless of the level of contact, what is clear is that the many deliberations about the budding Trump-Putin ties have died in the bud.
Putin is pursuing a “Russia First” policy; it was never going to mesh with “America First” properly. Indeed, the kind of spending that Trump has promised to lavish on the military deserves to be described as “historic.” The Cold War ended to help stop the military buildup that ended up crippling the Soviet Union’s finances.
It also helped reduce fears of another war, a nuclear war. And what is WW3 if not a nuclear war? The U.S. military budget under Trump will inflate by $54.0 billion. And that’s just the first taste of what Trump has in mind. That amount will pay for new attack aircraft and for the production of other weapons to bolster the quality of the U.S. defense systems.
Is World War 3 Inevitable?
It’s almost as if World War 3 is inevitable. In effect, the Pentagon will get almost 10% more than it did in 2016. In turn, other federal agencies will see a reduction in funding. These other pure Cold War policies are those which many Americans thought they would never see again. Trump complained that the U.S. has not won a war in ages.
Both the boost in military spending and the logic that has prompted it are unusual. The U.S. is not involved in any major military conflict now. It’s true that Special Forces are on the ground in Iraq and the U.S. Air Force has bombed ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. But neither one of these goals or theaters of war requires special stealth aircraft or new weapon systems.
Trump’s vision is wider and he wants to cast a shadow over China—expected—and Russia—unexpected. Trump mentioned ships as one of the reasons to increase military spending. He also wants more planes. The addition of a single ship or watercraft would add nothing in the fight against ISIS or terrorism in general.
It would, however, help drive a China WW3 or Putin WW3 scenario. The ships and planes make nothing but sense against the lens of the Strait of Hormuz, which separates the Arabian Peninsula the coast of Iran. The Pentagon clearly wants a bigger presence to control key international waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz and the South China Sea.
Military Spending to Increase Sharply
More ships and planes would also help keep a closer watch over the Arctic and northern seas, where Russia has been intensifying its own patrols. Apart from Iran, this military buildup, then, provokes Russia as well as China. America already has the most powerful fighting force in the world, by several orders of magnitude.
America already spends more on defense than any other country:
| Rank | Country | Spending ($Billion) |
| 1 | United States | 596.0 |
| 2 | China | 215.0 |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | 87.2 |
| 4 | Russia | 66.4 |
(Source: “Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2015,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Last accessed March 3, 2017.)
Not all in the U.S. military share Trump’s bellicose ambitions. A group of over 100 retired U.S. generals and admirals have urged Congress to fully fund American diplomacy, rather than weapons. They see more strength in a combination of diplomacy and defense as the best way to keep America safe. Trump thinks adding 74 ships and 100 jets is the best way.
But diplomacy must take a back seat now. Not only does Trump want to increase spending on military hardware, he wants to increase the army to 540,000 active-duty soldiers. That’s a 15% increase, given that there are currently 480,000 active-duty soldiers. And that’s just the Army. Trump also wants more Marines; 50% more, from 23 to 36 battalions.
The president made no specific reference about the nature of the threat that requires this massive increase in military spending. But just a day later, like a thunderbolt from Thor, the Swedes delivered a hint. Sweden wants to bring back conscription. Sweden happens to share the Baltic waterways with Russia.
The Baltic States, including Latvia, Estonia, and Poland, are among the most concerned about Russia. They happen to be in NATO. They are asking the U.S. for more defensive artillery and “Patriot” missiles to deploy along the borders with Russia. The Baltic is one of the regions of the world where World War 3 could start.
The other scenario comes from trade. Trump would like to find how the World Trade Organization (WTO) can impose sanctions and reprisals against countries accused of damaging America’s trade interests. Thus, Trump’s trade policy matches his military ambitions. Just to clear any doubts, Trump supports NATO. Now, he wants the WTO to support it as well.
Trump has ordered the Pentagon to develop a plan to demolish and destroy ISIS. The new U.S. National Security Advisor, General Herbert McMaster, has advised Trump to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” sparingly. McMaster is more diplomatic than his predecessor, Flynn, but the Middle East, as ever, remains a major trigger point for the next global conflict.
It’s not so much ISIS, but Iran, that’s the problem. Trump has not spoken much about the nuclear deal that Obama secured in 2015. But, if the new president were to repeal it, it would necessarily require a military strike against Iran’s well-protected facilities. The problem is that the deal ensured that Iran’s nuclear program remains civilian only.
Without the deal, there are no internationally binding agreements holding Iran’s enrichment plans—or threats—back.
Attacking the Iranian nuclear facilities would not be easy. Even stealth “F-35” or “F-22” fighter jets would suffer losses. Iran has Russia’s “S-300” defense system, which renders the nuclear facilities virtually impenetrable.
Russia has a stake in this as well. Russia and Iran have been the main powers against ISIS and other Islamists—the very kind Trump wants to eliminate. Attacking Iran would put Moscow and Washington in direct opposition. Not since the Cuban missile crisis would relations take such a turn for the worse.
Neither Trump nor Putin would ever authorize the use of nuclear warheads in a conflict. But the first strike option exists and could be unleashed, given the imminent threat of any kind of catastrophic attack. Neither John F. Kennedy nor Nikita Khrushchev, both milder than Trump and Putin, were going to push the nuclear button. But the Cuban missile crisis did almost get there.
Nobody wants to test those odds again. Deterrence is not an exact science. There is also an art to it which, thankfully, nobody has had the misfortune of practicing yet. One party will always strike first. It’s up to the retaliating party to decide what direction the conflict, in this case WW3, might take.
Albert Einstein famously observed that he didn’t know how World War 3 would be fought, except that World War 4 would be fought with sticks and stones. But, there is a nuclear threshold. Both Trump and Putin can choose a scalable nuclear conflict rather than a full-out one. Miscalculation could trigger unimaginable consequences.
The general view is that both the U.S. and Russia would use nuclear warheads only after defeat would be assured in the conventional scenario. Thus, the idea that WW3 might be won using conventional weapons alone still exists. It’s up to the losing party to decide if they want to bring down the world with them.
That said, this, theoretically, justifies Trump’s military buildup. The logic being that an overwhelming conventional attack would defeat the enemy before they would have a chance to bring nuclear weapons into the calculus. Putin did not appreciate Trump’s military spending plans because it forces Russia to respond in kind.
But Russia’s economy is in a slow recovery mode at best. It can’t afford an arms race. Trump, perhaps, wants to take advantage of that weakness with a massive spending surge now to overwhelm any potential enemy from even considering challenging the United States. It’s a gamble.
It’s also a guarantee that, for the next few years, defense contractors in Washington will do brisk business. Russia will have to increase its arsenal buildup as will China, perpetuating the cycle.
