425 Ángel Rodríguez García-Brazales, Jorge Turmo Arnal y Óscar Vara Crespo The effect of global economic imbalances on the military strategy of the United States and China. THE EFFECT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC IMBALANCES ON THE MILITARY STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA 1. Introduction. On 31 May 2013, the Spanish government approved the “New National Security Strategy: a shared project”, which is the key document governing policy in this area over the coming years. Of the many aspects covered in the aforementioned document, we are going to focus on the strategic stance of the United States over the next few years. According to Mario Laborie Iglesias:1 “The National Security Strategy determines changing trends in what is considered a multipolar world. Shifts in the balance of power between States, transformations in the Arab world, greater interdependence or the adoption of a new strategic stance by the United States are just some of these trends.” Our paper will analyse changing trends in National Security and, more specifically, the adoption of a new strategic stance by the United States. Any decisions in this respect will be taken in Washington, but we need to anticipate their decisions as far as possible so that the appropriate course of action can be taken. In our paper, we will demonstrate how certain factors are going to condition and guide some of the changes in the U.S.’s strategic stance. It is a cliché, but nonetheless true that the military power of a country depends on the level of its economy. There are exceptions, such as the case of North Korea, which, pursuant to government decision, allocates an exorbitantly high percentage of its Gross Domestic Product to military spending. In general, however, there tends to be a positive correlation between GDP and military spending.2 An analysis of potential GDP growth over the coming years should therefore provide a good indication of trends in military spending and the strategic orientations of a country like the United States. Such an analysis could yield highly unreliable results, however, given that similar forecasts have proven to be inaccurate in light of the events of recent years, but it is 1 Laborie Iglesias, M. (2013) “La Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional” Documento de Análisis no. 34, IEEE. Page 2. 2 The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) provides detailed information on military spending as a percentage of GDP by year and country.
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