China Is NATO’s Next War

Vladimir Putin’s once-ironclad grip on Russia has been badly undermined by his ill-conceived and mismanaged invasion of Ukraine.

He was embarrassed badly by a renegade group of mercenaries who marched on Moscow, and the guy who led the attempted coup has yet to face any real consequences. 

A Russian submarine commander was gunned down as he jogged through a park in a clear-cut case of retaliatory assassination. 

Russia’s economy is in a downward spiral. 

Turkey has finally green-lit Sweden to join NATO along with Finland.

And the Ukrainian resistance chips away at Russia’s front line every day, clawing back occupied territory mile by mile. 

That effort will be further accelerated by the cluster bombs President Biden agreed to supply to Ukraine earlier this week.

Obviously, this war is still not over, and there’s no telling when it will end. 

We still don’t know the depths to which a desperate Putin will sink to salvage some small Pyrrhic victory from its bloody depths (or if he even can). 

But we do know that no matter how this plays out, Russia won’t win. 

It's already lost — badly. 

So it’s no surprise that at its annual summit, which took place this week, NATO acknowledged its next war — the war that’s destined to follow this one in relatively short order...

The war with China. 

Sure, there was plenty of discussion around Ukraine, but in a sprawling 90-point communique released Tuesday, NATO made sure to fire plenty of warning shots at China. 

Here are some choice quotes:

• The People's Republic of China (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security, and values.
• We continue to be confronted by cyber, space, hybrid, and other asymmetric threats, and by the malicious use of emerging and disruptive technologies.
• The PRC employs a broad range of political, economic, and military tools to increase its global footprint and project power, while remaining opaque about its strategy, intentions, and military build-up.  
• The PRC’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security. 
• The PRC seeks to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains.  
• It uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence.  
• It strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber, and maritime domains.

It didn’t stop there. 

At a press conference on Tuesday, NATO Secretary Gen. Jens Stoltenberg made even more pointed attacks.

“China is increasingly challenging the rules-based international order, refusing to condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine, threatening Taiwan, and carrying out substantial military build-up,” he said, also noting that “China’s nuclear modernization is unprecedented in speed and scale and being carried out with no transparency.”

All of those assertions are pointed and telling.

No doubt, a lot of political analysts questioned NATO’s purpose following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

But Putin’s hard turn into authoritarianism, brazen acts of soft aggression, and violent effort to retake lost Russian colonies renewed its purpose. 

Following a Russian defeat, we may face similar questions about the necessity of the transatlantic alliance, but NATO is already getting out ahead of that. 

Because as the communique makes clear, China is guilty of all the same things Russia is. 

It's acting in the exact same manner.

It's using the same soft power tactics like cyberattacks and propaganda campaigns. 

It's using its growing military to intimidate smaller, weaker neighbors and press territorial claims that clearly violate international laws.

It openly defies the rules-based order that’s suppressed major military conflicts for seven decades.

And that's not to mention the way it masks its true intentions with policy feints and outright lies. 

Of course, like Russia, China believes all of that is justified — that it is the victim and NATO is the aggressor. 

Responding to the NATO communique, China pledged to “safeguard its sovereignty, security, and development interests, and it resolutely opposes NATO’s eastward expansion into the Asia-Pacific.”

Furthermore, NATO’s condemnation was “filled with Cold War mentality and ideological bias" and “fully exposes NATO’s hypocrisy and its ambition of seeking expansion and hegemony.”

China’s state-run news agency Xinhua further clarified that "despite all the chaos and conflict already inflicted, NATO is spreading its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific region with an express aim of containing China."

So, basically, this entire Ukraine saga is set to play out again in a few years... 

Only next time it will be China invading Taiwan.

And that’s why the United States and China are locked in a 21st-century arms race to build competing superweapons — missiles capable of striking anywhere on planet Earth in a matter of minutes. 

Hearing that may make you want to cower in a bomb shelter with doomsday rations, but honestly, the smarter thing to do is to get your finances in order. 

After all, a NATO-China war will obliterate stocks — all of them except for a small group of companies, that is. 

And one in particular is leading the U.S. response to China’s threat.

You can find out more about that here.

Fight on,

Jason Simpkins

@OCSimpkins on Twitter

Jason Simpkins is Assistant Managing Editor of the Outsider Club and Investment Director of Wall Street's Proving Ground, a financial advisory focused on security companies and defense contractors. For more on Jason, check out his editor's page. 

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