The War of Revision Is Coming – WSJ

Mr. Hegseth isn t the only one sounding the alarm in the Indo-Pacific. Even New Zealand is waking up to the peril and plans nearly to double its defense spending. Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, India and Australia are all boosting budgets.

But the world crisis is bigger than Asia. China, aligned with Russia, North Korea and Iran, has formed an axis of revisionist powers aimed at challenging the existing world system on every continent, at sea, in space and in the cyberworld.

The War of Revision has already begun in Ukraine, and families across the country huddle in bomb shelters as Russian missiles and drones bring the war home to civilians. Stunned into sobriety by a combination of Russian aggression and American unpredictability, Europe is awakening from a generational slumber. Britain s Labour government has targeted 3% of gross domestic product in defense spending; Germany s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is aiming for 5%.

No serious person wants war, but decades of neglect have hollowed out Western defenses, and both the military foundations of American power and the political underpinnings of our alliance system are in poor condition. Between the steadily rising challenge from the revisionists and the uncertain responses of the defenders, peace grows more fragile as the challenges rise. A new era of great-power war isn t inevitable, but it is getting harder to prevent.

All democratic societies will ultimately have to reckon with this unwelcome global transition from a postwar to a prewar era in world history. Frontline states like Taiwan already live in this new reality.

via www.wsj.com

Walter Russell Mead