Dem Rep. Moulton: ‘China Has Gotten Ahead of Us’ in Some Ways

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) stated that “China has gotten ahead of us” in some areas and stated that the issue isn’t a lack of military spending, rather, “The problem is that we’re not investing in the right things.”

Moulton said, “[T]he way to prevent war is to show Xi Jinping that, if he starts a war, he will lose, if he starts a war, it’s a bad idea, just like Putin is discovering that now. And we do have some catching up to do. There are places where China has gotten ahead of us. There was a recent announcement just in the last couple of days about the rapid advancement of their nuclear program. They are making progress in space. And of course, we were surprised by their spy balloons. So, clearly, we have work to do. But ultimately, I’m confident that we can do it. And the message that we’re sending to Xi Jinping and the whole world with Ukraine, with our success there alongside our NATO allies, is a powerful deterrent in and of itself.”

He added, “The problem is not that we’re underinvesting overall. We’re spending historic amounts on our military. The problem is that we’re not investing in the right things. We’re spending too much money on big, heavy, old weapons systems rather than the modern new systems that are actually going to win the wars of the future, things like AI, like drones, making sure that we have advanced missile systems, not just large, lumbering aircraft carriers and extremely expensive fighter aircraft. So, this is exactly, by the way, what the Marine Corps is doing. You can see the Marine Corps is taking an ambitious modernization program. They’re getting rid of tanks. They’re getting rid of artillery, these are things that are not really relevant in a war amongst the islands in the Pacific, and they’re modernizing by equipping Marines for the fight of the future. That’s what we need to do. But the interesting thing about the China conflict is it’s not just about the military. Deterrence has to be a whole of government project. One of the things that will deter China from invading Taiwan is knowing that they’re not going to solve their semiconductor problems by conducting that invasion. There [are] all of these economic dimensions that are interesting to this relationship with China as well. Deterrence really has to be a whole of government project.”

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