China is conducting the largest military build-up seen since that of Nazi Germany during the 1930s, one expert warns, after a new Department of Defense report detailed Beijing’s operations including bolstering weapons and psychological warfare.
In a piece for The Federalist, Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, referenced the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress and warned that the United States has spent $5.4 trillion on its war on terror and futile nation building while the Chinese threat has grown.
He urged that Congress get on board with the incoming Trump administration to reallocate resources within the Pentagon to prioritize better naval strength, nuclear deterrence, missile defense, and logistics.
“China is engaging in an unprecedented military build-up that the world frankly hasn’t seen since Adolf Hitler in the 1930s,” DeVore, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, told “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
“Now the big difference there, is that he really focused on land power, which frankly is pretty easy to build up pretty quickly,” he added. “Navies are much more difficult to build up. And we are way behind. And not only do we need to catch up, but we also need to modernize our nuclear weapons, and we need to put a lot of effort into missile defense.”
DeVore further detailed the Department of Defense’s findings in its report, which summarized “military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China” in 2024.
“They’re massively building up their nuclear arsenal. We expect it to expand to at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, only five years from now. Probably going to be bigger than that,” DeVore said Sunday.
“The Chinese Navy, not by tonnage, but by numbers is now larger than the U.S. Navy. China has something like 250 times the ship building capacity that America does.”
The report cites how China has bolstered its People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) arsenal to include 50 new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can strike the continental U.S., raising its total to 400.
As far as the report discloses, the DoD says China has added 300 medium-range ballistic missiles and 100 long-range cruise missiles. Their arsenal also now includes more than 600 operational nuclear warheads and is expected to have more than 1,000 by 2030.
The DoD says the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has the world’s leading arsenal of hypersonic missiles, including the DF-27, which as DeVore notes, “are capable of evading U.S. missile defenses and targeting Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska.”
China already has the largest navy in the world but is expected to expand from its current 370 ships and submarines to 435 by 2030.
