Warning Signs
The American Legion Magazine, October 1, 2025
“The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging…since 1945, and include the potential for near-term major war.”[i]
—The Commission on the National Defense Strategy (CNDS) CNDS isn’t exaggerating.
China boasts the world’s largest navy and is expanding its nuclear arsenal fivefold.[ii] China is threatening to seize Taiwan; standing up outposts in the Americas, South China Sea and Africa; deploying a constellation of anti-space assets; and conducting a cyber-siege of the free world.
Russia is diverting 35 percent of government spending into its military. Moscow has bludgeoned Ukraine; occupies swaths of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine; props up tyrants in Europe and the Americas; fires attack-drones into Poland; and shares weapons with Iran and North Korea.[iii]
North Korea is shipping ammunition and troops to fuel Putin’s war on Ukraine, while expanding its nuclear arsenal. Iran increased military spending 200 percent in 2025, supplies Moscow with kamikaze-drones, wages war on Israel and uses proxies to attack American troops.[iv]
As to the prospects for “near-term major war,” parts of the free world may already be embroiled in one: Beijing is essentially blockading Taiwan. Israel is fighting on seven fronts. Ukraine is maimed. Asked when America’s Navy last operated at the tempo it’s operating in the Red Sea, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper responded, “I think you'd have to go back to World War II.”[v] America’s Air Force calls its operations defending against Iranian missiles “the largest air-to-air enemy engagement in over 50 years.”[vi]
Will tomorrow’s historians view this era as the prelude to an unthinkable third world war or as the opening scenes of a manageable second cold war? The answer to that question is still up to the free world, but time is of the essence. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warns, “Danger is moving towards us at full speed.”[vii]
Parallels
The “period that is most like now,” former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concludes, “is the interwar period”—the two decades separating the two world wars.[viii]
In that period, tyrant regimes launched wars of aggression (Japan in Manchuria, Italy in Abyssinia). Civil wars pulled in outside powers and served as dress rehearsals (Spain in the late 1930s). Revisionist states used territorial disputes and ethno-national claims as a pretext for aggression (Germany in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland). And the free world failed to respond (see Germany’s unchallenged militarization of the Rhineland and Japan’s unanswered assault on Nanking).
Today’s crises offer striking parallels: Russia’s war against Ukraine couched in ethno-national claims; civil wars in the Middle East drawing in the world’s military powers[ix]; the free world’s toothless responses to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and 2014 invasion of Ukraine, to China’s manmade militarized islands, to North Korea’s outlaw nuclear program.
If these regional threats are unchecked, they could grow and, as during the interwar period, mutate into a global conflagration. Indeed, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of U.S. European Command, says NATO is preparing for “the risk of simultaneity of conflict across the globe.”[x]
Signals
Preventing that will require clarity and capability—the free world’s blueprint for Cold War I.
The free world must make clear its commitment to Taiwan’s sovereignty, postwar Ukraine’s security, the Indo-Pacific’s open waterways, Cold War I’s interconnected alliance system (NATO, the Five Eyes, bilateral treaties shielding the Philippines, South Korea and Japan) and Cold War II’s new security groupings (the Quad, AUKUS, NSATU, Olympic Defender[xi]). The free world must draw clear lines connecting the front lines: Just as South Korea and West Berlin were connected during Cold War I, what happens in Ukraine and Taiwan, Israel and India, the Balkans and the Baltics, is connected today. And the free world must bring clarity to what defines aggression in space and cyberspace.
Yet clear words are worthless without military capability to reinforce them. What Churchill observed of the Soviets during Cold War I remains true of our adversaries today: “There is nothing they admire so much as strength.”
Washington has unwittingly sent signals of weakness in recent years: the naïve approach to Iran, the shortsighted pullout from Iraq and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the unenforced “red lines” in Syria and disregarded security assurances in Ukraine[xii], the undercutting of NATO[xiii], defense budgets that haven’t keep pace with inflation.
To restore deterrence, CNDS calls for lifting defense spending to levels “commensurate with the U.S. national effort seen during the Cold War.”[xiv] Hovering just above 3 percent of GDP, defense spending today is less than half the Cold War average.
Returning to Cold War-levels of defense spending will demand shared sacrifice. Policymakers and organizations of influence must help Americans understand that the sacrifice required to wage great-power war is far greater than the sacrifice required to deter it.
Reversal
The Royal Navy had a fleet of 171 warships at the end of Cold War I; by the early 2020s, just 80 remained.[xv] During Cold War I, West Germany deployed 2,125 tanks; by 2014, Germany had fewer than 300.[xvi] In 2008, only seven NATO members met the alliance’s standard of investing 2 percent of GDP on defense. South Korea’s defense budget cratered from 5 percent of GDP at the end of Cold War I to 2.5 percent in 2008. Japan’s defense spending represented just 0.89 percent of GDP in 2007.[xvii]
Those trends have been reversed.
Japan will boast the world’s third-largest defense budget by 2027. Japan is acquiring Tomahawk missiles to deter China and North Korea, deploying two aircraft carriers armed with F-35Bs, fielding 22 attack submarines, and building airbases on its southernmost islands.
South Korea’s defense spending has jumped 27 percent since 2020. Seoul is partnering with Japan and the U.S. on unprecedented multidomain military exercises, delivering tanks to Poland, and supplying ammunition to Ukraine via the U.S.
Britain is building 28 new warships,[xviii] with two new aircraft carriers already in service.[xix] Germany has almost doubled defense spending since 2022, created a $500-billion rearmament fund, and approved U.S. missile deployments. France is increasing defense spending 40 percent by 2030. All three allies are deploying assets to the Indo-Pacific to deter China and to NATO’s eastern flank to deter Russia.
NATO’s rapid-response force has grown from 40,000 troops to more than 300,000.[xx] Twenty-three NATO members invest at least 2 percent of GDP in defense. NATO members recently agreed to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense.
Australia unveiled a record defense budget in 2024; is partnering with the U.S. and Britain to deploy a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines; and has opened its territory to U.S. Marines and B-52s.
America is doing its part for the common defense: The U.S. is opening new bases in Poland[xxi]; reviving bases on Tinian, Wake Island and Peleliu; knitting together missile-defense assets in North America, Europe and the Indo-Pacific; strengthening ties with underappreciated partners like Mongolia and[xxii] Indonesia[xxiii]; and deepening bonds with allies like Japan, the Philippines and Israel. The Navy is deploying strategic assets to South Korea. The Air Force has set-back Iran’s nuclear program and forward-based bombers in Britain and Australia. The Army and Marines are deploying missile-armed units to strategic chokepoints in the Indo-Pacific. Washington is delivering arms to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Poland and other democracies in the crosshairs.[xxiv]
Allied
Those allies and partners are using American arms to confront our common enemies: Ukraine has ground down Putin’s military. Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines are standing up to Xi. Israel has crippled Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities, eviscerated Hezbollah’s ranks and erased Syria’s WMD stockpiles[xxv]—all threats to America’s security.
In short, those weapons deliveries and relationships serve U.S. interests—the most important of which is deterring another global war. “To counter the threat of those who seek to rule by force,” President Dwight Eisenhower counseled early in Cold War I, “we must…build the security of others.”[xxvi] Near the end of Cold War I, President Ronald Reagan added, “support for freedom fighters is self-defense” and “is tied to our own security.”[xxvii]
Allied contributions to the common defense reveal silver linings in the gathering storm clouds: The free world seems more awake to the danger than it was before World War II. And thanks to alliance structures, the free world is better postured to deter its foes than at the beginning of Cold War I.
The global system of alliances is America’s not-so-secret weapon—a decisive edge over our adversaries. To keep Cold War II from exploding into something worse, we must remember that our alliances serve as outer rings of our own security; that our alliances sustain our prosperity; that our alliances are not a liability to cut, but a resource to nurture.
If Americans think it’s difficult and expensive to deter Moscow and Beijing, to protect U.S. interests, to promote U.S. prosperity today—with our transatlantic and transpacific alliances intact—wait until those alliances are gone. There’s a reason Putin has attacked Georgia and Ukraine but not Poland and Estonia. There’s a reason Xi is circling Taiwan but not Japan. There’s a reason Pyongyang has blustered about finishing what it started in 1950, but hasn’t tried to do so. There’s a reason the world hasn’t stumbled into a third global war.
That reason is the U.S. alliance system, which is premised on the notion that clarity of commitment plus military capability is the best formula for deterring great-power war.
Will
“There is but one sure way to avoid total war,” Eisenhower bluntly concluded, “and that is to win the Cold War.”[xxviii]
The blueprint he helped draft is there to guide us. But we must summon the wisdom—and the will—to follow it.
[i] https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html
[ii] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_231348.htm
[iii] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-finds-large-troves-of-russian-arms-in-hezbollahs-hands-eeed9445?mod=hp_lead_pos8 www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission
https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-provided-targeting-data-for-houthi-assault-on-global-shipping-eabc2c2b?mod=middle-east_news_article_pos2
[iv] https://www.statista.com/statistics/752640/ballistic-missile-tests-by-north-korea-by-result/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/iran-raise-military-budget-by-around-200-government-spokesperson-says-2024-10-29/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korea-has-history-assassination-attempts-foreign-soil-n823016 https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/iranian-plot-to-kill-donald-trump-thwarted-by-fbi-justice-department-says-9323b620?mod=article_inline https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-russian-strike-that-hit-residential-building-kyiv-used-north-korean-2025-04-24/
[v] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-counters-houthi-red-sea-attacks-in-its-first-major-battle-at-sea-of-21st-century-60-minutes-transcript/
[vi] https://www.usafe.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3965883/gallantry-under-fire-raf-lakenheath-honors-decorated-airmen-for-repelling-mass/
[vii] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_231348.htm
[viii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlD9cvaPDy4 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qV-xcWmTzknpDLKHWR8bP9B26UGB8IOAHizPwlyj1Ow/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0
[ix] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/syria-assad-power-vacuum-9f9e3067?mod=hp_lead_pos1
[x] https://www.ausa.org/news/nato-needs-real-capabilities-soon-possible
[xi] https://www.spacecom.mil/Newsroom/News/Article-Display/Article/3959789/operation-olympic-defender-allied-space-operations-centers-prioritize-efforts-f/
[xii] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/budapest-memorandum-25-between-past-and-future
[xiii] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/12/08/trump-calls-immediate-ceasefire-ukraine-and-says-us-withdrawal-nato-possible.html?ESRC=eb_241209.nl
[xiv] www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission
[xv] https://www.statista.com/statistics/603297/type-of-vessels-in-royal-navy/
[xvi] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/977778/royal-navy-fleet-halved-uk-ministry-of-defence-cuts
[xvii] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/kor/south-korea/military-spending-defense-budget https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/jpn/japan/military-spending-defense-budget
[xviii] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-golden-age-of-shipbuilding-as-new-uk-built-warships-boost-navy-building-programme-to-up-to-28-ships-and-submarines https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175/ https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/united-kingdom/military-spending-defense-budget
[xix] https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-now-has-two-aircraft-carriers-at-sea-2/ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-accelerates-military-support-to-northern-europe-following-visit-to-sweden
[xx] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_192648.htm https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-increase-high-readiness-force-300000/ https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2024/07/nato-defence-spending-a-bumper-year/https://www.politico.eu/article/defense-spending-target-nato-joe-biden-jens-stoltenberg/
[xxi] https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2024-08-08/mihail-kogalniceanu-base-growth-romania-14790206.html
[xxii] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3482715/us-mongolia-discuss-military-to-military-relations-during-pentagon-visit/
[xxiii] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3976773/austin-bolsters-us-cooperation-with-fiji-concludes-12th-trip-to-indo-pacific/ https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3713133/dod-strengthens-indo-pacific-regional-ties/
[xxiv] https://thedefensepost.com/2024/11/25/us-missiles-japanese-bases/ https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2024/01/02/new-in-2024-marines-build-3rd-littoral-regiment-to-fight-peer-threats/
[xxv] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/09/israel-orders-capture-syria-buffer-zone-destroy-weapons/
[xxvi] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-inaugural-address
[xxvii] https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-joint-session-congress-state-union-february-1985
[xxviii] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/annual-message-the-congress-the-state-the-union-16