Opinion | To Outbuild China, America Needs Friends

One of the most important weapons in the American arsenal is the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can travel over 1,000 miles to deliver 1,000 pounds of explosives within just feet of a target. In June, the military fired 30 of them to destroy parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities without putting a single American soldier in danger. With threats growing in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the United States and its allies can’t get enough of them. In a protracted war, we would run out of Tomahawks for our own forces, let alone for those of our allies.

Last year, a solution seemed to present itself. The United States was close to a deal to co-produce Tomahawks at a factory in Japan, potentially doubling production of the missiles. The negotiations had been hard. The Americans had to convince Japan to agree to a long list of limits on how it could manufacture and use the weapons, and to whom it could sell them.

It wasn’t the Japanese who scuttled the partnership, however. It was opposition from within. Some State and Defense Department officials argued that expanding production abroad would damage the U.S. economy and put our technological edge at risk. An executive at RTX (formerly Raytheon), which makes the Tomahawk, sided with the opponents and argued for waiting until after the election in November, according to a former senior official involved in the negotiations. (RTX denies it tried to slow things down.) In the chaotic first months of the second Trump administration, the deal went cold.

The Tomahawk episode points to a central problem for American national security: By itself the United States cannot keep up with China’s soaring industrial capacity, which translates directly into military might. China has close to a 28 percent share of global manufacturing, while the United States has around 17 percent. By one count, it is acquiring advanced weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than America is. One Chinese shipyard can build more than all American builders combined.

The United States now risks finding itself in the position of Britain in the late 19th century and Germany and Japan in the 20th: overtaken militarily by a rising industrial powerhouse. History shows such competitions between rising powers and established ones often end in catastrophic wars. China’s gaming of international trade, rising hostility to neighbors and especially its accelerating military buildup show the urgent need for credible deterrence.

There is a ready solution to the problem. While the United States can’t match China on its own, when joined by its closest allies, including Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia and the European Union, it can match China’s manufacturing capacity. For the sake of global security and freedom, the world’s democracies need to collaborate far more fully than they do now.

For too long, many allies have outsourced their own protection to the United States — “free riding,” as President Barack Obama put it. They have spent small shares of their economic output on the military, relying on the United States instead. That is no longer tenable, given China’s increasing aggression in Asia and Russia’s warmongering in Europe.

The United States is also at fault, as the failed Tomahawk case shows. We need to rethink our approach to alliances for a world where America is no longer the dominant superpower. We need to put more trust in steadfast allies, such as Australia, South Korea and Japan, and be open to collaborating with a wider range of partners. We must build alliances that are about more than just military cooperation but also about competing economically and technologically to match China’s industrial capacity.

Instead, in real time, Americans are watching as our president undermines the foundations of our alliances.

Following President Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, Denmark said it would buy missile defense systems from European makers rather than American ones. After Mr. Trump temporarily suspended military and intelligence aid to Ukraine early this year, some allies said they would reconsider using the F-35 for fear the United States could cut off support for the aircraft.

Mr. Trump is similarly damaging the relationships America needs in Asia. He has focused negotiations with Japan not on military production but on rice, of all things. Pressuring South Korea over trade, he has suggested he would withdraw U.S. troops. He undermined 25 years of efforts to forge an alliance with India against China by slapping the country with tariffs after Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to credit Mr. Trump for defusing tensions with Pakistan.

China, meanwhile, is on an industrial tear. In 2024, Beijing produced 12 times more steel than the United States, and it refines most of the critical minerals that are needed for weapons such as the F-35 fighter and Tomahawk missile. In those distinct areas and others, even with allies and partners, the United States will struggle to catch up without making other changes.

There are not many historical analogues to China’s growth. It has more than tripled its share of the world’s global manufacturing since 2004, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. To keep up, the United States needs its allies to step up. Mr. Trump rightly claims credit for taking on free riders. Over the past six decades, U.S. military spending has ranged between 3 percent and 9.4 percent of G.D.P., while that of our allies has been as low as less than 1 percent.

In recent years, that has started to change. Japan has said it will spend 2 percent of G.D.P. on defense. Europe, too, has shown a willingness to spend more. Russia’s war on Ukraine, combined with Mr. Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO, spurred the alliance’s members to pledge to spend 5 percent of their G.D.P. on defense in the coming years.

That progress builds on the Biden administration’s less coercive, more enduring efforts to strengthen alliances. President Joe Biden brought two European military powers — Sweden and Finland — into NATO, rebuilt military ties with the Philippines and helped warm relations between distrustful allies in South Korea and Japan. In areas like electricity production and ships, strengthened alliances can make a difference in competition with China.

For all that, the alliances America builds in the 21st century will be different from those of the past. In the Cold War, America and its allies were united by the common defense of democracies against Russian-led communism. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, as the sole remaining superpower, the United States could largely dictate the terms of its alliances to countries that were dependent on it economically and militarily.

Now countries, even close allies, have other options. The United States needs to reassure those who share our values that we remain committed to them. For those who don’t, like Saudi Arabia, we must work to show it is in their interest to align with us, not with China. And we must begin to repair the damage to relationships in the developing world, where cuts to aid and other soft power tools have left the field open to Beijing.

China is not invincible. Its considerable challenges include an aging population, falling property values and entrenched corruption. Even if Beijing falters, however, it will remain formidable in the coming century, thanks to its large population, broad geographic reach and established economic heft, as Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi, two top Asia experts in past Democratic administrations, argued in a Foreign Affairs article in April.

Ideally, America’s allies will work together, collaborating to offset China’s influence and the disruptive power of other autocracies even without the United States intervening. There are signs that that may be possible. In recent years, the South Koreans have provided Poland with tanks when Western allies couldn’t. When North Korea sent troops to Ukraine in support of Russian forces, Seoul sent a contingent of intelligence officers to brief NATO powers on what to expect. NATO’s secretary general has made assistance to Asian democracies a pitch for the pact’s continuing relevance.

In the end, this is about more than military collaboration. Just as Europe was saved from 20th-century totalitarianism thanks to the industrial might of the United States, Washington must find common cause where it can in the coming competition. China’s economic, trade and manufacturing power will require alliances that stand together beyond the battlefield. To compete with Beijing’s strength over the long run, the United States is going to need all the friends it can get.