America’s war-based economy still strengthens its rivals — and Trump is accelerating this |
For more than two decades, experience has shown a clear pattern: whenever the United States rushes into wars, it does not weaken its enemies as it expects. Instead, it often opens wide doors for them to grow, expand, and build influence. The question is no longer whether rival powers benefit from Washington’s constant wars.
The real question is: how much do these wars speed up America’s rivals economically and politically?
Today, with Donald Trump returning to the center of global influence and using escalating rhetoric and threats — commercial, military, and geopolitical — Beijing increasingly views “Trump’s wars” as a rare strategic opportunity, not an existential threat.
Wars drain Washington and disrupt its priorities
Any major war or military confrontation does not only consume money. It also consumes political attention, strategic capacity, and international credibility. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq proved that getting trapped in “long wars” creates a costly swamp that is hard to escape. It keeps the United States focused on daily security and military details instead of the bigger challenge: competing with China economically, technologically, and militarily.
Beijing understands this well. When the U.S. spends its resources on military campaigns and naval deployments, it is not building new factories, not investing at the same speed in education, research, and technology, and not focusing on the long-term industrial race. That is exactly what China wants: more time and more space to speed up production, deepen innovation, and expand its........