Defending America or ruling the world?

America accounts for roughly half of the world's military spending, enjoys the largest and most productive economy, plays a leading role in every international organisation and is allied with every major industrialised state save China and Russia. The world inevitably will change, but Washington will control its own destiny for many more years.

You wouldn't know that, however, listening to the Bush administration and its hawkish supporters. In their view America is a weak and pitiful giant, threatened by evildoers around the globe.

Particularly worrisome is China. Lev Navrozov of NewsMax warns 'China's war with the United States will be won' before Americans understand 'what is going on'.

The Claremont Institute's Mark Helprin complains that Beijing is building up its military while the American 'story is evident without relief throughout our diminished air echelons, shrinking fleets, damaged and depleted stocks, and ground forces turned from preparation for heavy battle to the work of a gendarmerie'. Earlier this year the Pentagon pointed to China's improved intercontinental missiles, 'continued development of advanced cruise missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles', and more.

The warning that the Chinese are three metres tall mirrors similar claims regarding the former Soviet Union. Yet China faces a multitude of economic, political and social challenges. Indeed, the country remains poor, with a per capita GDP of around US$2,100, and is hardly poised to win an arms race.

Nevertheless, Washington is being filled with cries for a significant military build-up.

Consider the numbers 11 and 0. Those are the number of carriers possessed by America and China, respectively. Indeed, estimates of China's total defence spending tap out at around US$100 billion annually, one-fifth what the Bush administration proposes spending next year.

What China appears to be most interested in is deterrence. China is modernising its nuclear force, threatening US carriers, testing anti-satellite weapons, and developing asymmetric warfare capabilities. None of these give it much offensive power against the US.

Thus, proposals for a massive US military build-up have nothing to do with protecting America. To threaten the US, China would have to create a force capable of destroying America's nuclear deterrent, controlling US airspace and invading American territory. That is well beyond its obvious capabilities and apparent intentions.

Actually, hawkish US policymakers fear Chinese parity far more than Chinese superiority. For parity would prevent Washington from imposing its will on Beijing.

Defending America, not running the world, is the primary responsibility of the US government. A more humble foreign policy also is likely to yield greater national security for America and its friends and allies throughout Asia.

Doug Bandow is the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative Defence Alliance and a former special assistant to Ronald Reagan