By John Hood

Are we on the brink of World War III? Not necessarily, argue the coauthors of a new book, so long as we do what is necessary to deter revanchists threatening peace and freedom around the world. But America and its allies have already entered a new Cold War with the CRINK Axis — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and their client states in Eurasia and Latin America — and policymakers inside and outside Washington need to understand fully its implications.

Over the past few years, I’ve repeatedly warned that North Carolina state and local governments are overly dependent on federal funds. Chronic deficits are a bipartisan problem. Attempting to “make other people” finance North Carolina infrastructure, medical care or disaster relief is a bipartisan temptation. When the bills come due, we’ll all have to make tough decisions.

My objections were largely on domestic-policy grounds. Now, international events have conspired to make acute what was chronic, sharp what was hazy, present what was future.   

The contributors to “Affording Defense: Investing in American Strength to Confront a More Dangerous World,” published by the American Enterprise Institute, explore these matters in great and expert detail.

“Most Americans alive now have known only a world structured, pacified and made prosperous by unrivaled U.S. power,” writes Hal Brands, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. “For most Americans, then, it probably seems unthinkable that the international system could buckle under assault by revisionist states, much less that the next great-power war could end in a U.S. defeat.”

Since 2008, the military adventures of Vladimir Putin and his henchmen have made it crystal clear they seek to rebuild the Russian empire through territorial acquisition and intimidation. Xi Jinping and his fellow thugs believe China’s natural place is to rule East and Southeast Asia, conquering Taiwan and bending the likes of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and even India to their will. Iran’s theocrats nurse comparable ambitions in the Middle East.

To a greater degree even than the prior Axis of Germany, Italy and Japan did during the late 1930s, these regimes are integrating their military resources and coordinating their respective plans. They have also been funding and coaching proxies to cause mischief elsewhere in the world, including America’s own near-abroad. China launches frequent cyberattacks on our infrastructure, government agencies and major companies. Polish intelligence reports that Russia is preparing to bomb airlines and commit other acts of terrorism, assassination and sabotage. Iran’s hands are already stained with the blood of innocent Americans.

Brand and other contributors to the new AEI volume aren’t urging us to pursue our own military adventurism. Rather, they argue that America and its allies must expand our militaries, rearm them with better and more plentiful materiel, and broaden our military, diplomatic and economic partnerships. We must convince the CRINK revanchists that they cannot achieve their ends, not permanently and not without catastrophic losses. 

We must, in other words, achieve peace through strength.

“If America doesn’t fix its defenses,” Brands argues, “it will ultimately pay the bill in lives, equipment and influence lost and in the return of a world far less prosperous and secure than the one we know. The great lesson of the 20th century is that preserving global security is expensive. But it is far cheaper than rebuilding international peace and America’s national security once they have been shattered.”

But can Congress and the administration really manage such a build-up while meeting America’s other pressing needs? AEI senior fellow James Capretta says yes. In his chapter, Capretta lays out a fiscal plan to raise defense spending by 10 percent a year through 2030 while paring back expenditures (including subsidies for states and localities), reforming entitlements, and making the tax code friendlier to growth-enhancing investment.

“A disruptive national election in the United States has opened the door to a new course for fiscal and defense policy,” he concludes. “It is an opportunity that leaders from both parties should seize.”

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books “Mountain Folk,” “Forest Folk,” and “Water Folk” combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).