The Cost of War on China is Incalculable
What does it cost to turn another country into an enemy? The United States has spent trillions of dollars on wars and military interventions, and now hundreds of billions more each year preparing for confrontation with China. Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates that the U.S. has spent at least $3.4 trillion countering China militarily since 2012, an average of $260 billion every year.
But the price of militarism cannot be measured in dollars alone. There is the human cost of war: lives lost, civilians displaced, soldiers and veterans killed or traumatized, and communities torn apart. There is the economic cost of diverting public resources toward weapons and war instead of housing, healthcare, education, infrastructure, climate action, and human needs. There is the environmental cost of military bases, weapons production, fossil-fuel consumption, pollution, toxic contamination, and the destruction of ecosystems. And there is the political and social cost: endless militarization, erosion of civil liberties, racism and Sinophobia, hostility toward immigrants and Asian Americans, and the normalization of war as a solution to political problems.
Across the Pacific, these costs are already being borne by communities living alongside U.S. military bases and training grounds. The more we prepare for war, the more we build a world shaped by war. We should be asking what we could build with those resources if we stopped treating China as an enemy and began investing in diplomacy, climate cooperation, healthcare, education, and a future in which security means human wellbeing rather than military dominance.
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Financial Costs
The U.S. has already spent enormous sums preparing for confrontation with China. Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates that the United States spent at least $3.4 trillion on militarized competition with China between 2012 and 2024—about $260 billion every year.
Human Costs: At Home
The rhetoric of China as an enemy has intensified anti-Asian and anti-Chinese racism, including hate crimes, suspicion and targeting of Chinese American scholars and students, and discriminatory policies. When an entire population is portrayed as a threat, ordinary people become targets.
👉 See our Stop the Hate on the AAPI Community page for more information.
Human Costs: Abroad
U.S. militarization also has consequences for people living where American forces, bases, and military exercises are concentrated. Communities across Okinawa, the Philippines, South Korea, Guam, and other Pacific locations have experienced displacement, pollution, accidents, sexual violence, and other harms associated with the U.S. military presence.
Environmental Costs
War preparation has an enormous environmental footprint. The U.S. military is one of the world's largest institutional greenhouse-gas emitters, while bases, weapons production, military exercises, and fuel consumption contribute to pollution, toxic contamination, habitat destruction, and climate change. Expanding the U.S. military presence across the Pacific means expanding that environmental burden in communities already facing the impacts of the climate crisis.
👉 See our Cooperate for People & Planet page for more information.