China is accelerating the largest military build-up the world has seen since Nazi Germany in the 1930s, a top national security expert has warned, citing chilling new findings from the Pentagon’s annual report.
Chuck DeVore, the chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a retired Army lieutenant colonel, drew stark parallels between China’s actions and those of Adolf Hitler’s regime. He emphasized the urgency for the United States to redirect its defense priorities, calling on lawmakers to align with the expected Trump administration’s vision.
“China is engaging in an unprecedented military build-up that the world frankly hasn’t seen since Adolf Hitler in the 1930s,” DeVore said.
Report Sounds the Alarm: Naval and Nuclear Power Expansion Is Surging
The Department of Defense’s 2024 report on military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China presents a sobering picture of Beijing’s ambitions and scale of operations. According to DeVore, U.S. defense spending in recent decades has failed to address the real long-term threat.
“Now the big difference there, is that he really focused on land power, which frankly is pretty easy to build up pretty quickly,” DeVore said.
“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.”
The report notes that China is significantly enlarging its nuclear stockpile. By 2030, the arsenal is expected to exceed 1,000 warheads five years from now.
“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,” said DeVore.
Chinese Navy Outpaces U.S. in Ship Numbers, Missile Arsenal Grows
While America still leads in overall naval tonnage, China’s navy now outnumbers the U.S. fleet. The report shows how China’s shipbuilding capabilities dwarf America’s.
“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,” DeVore emphasized.
China’s People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) has ramped up its arsenal, now fielding 50 new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the continental U.S., bringing the total to 400. Medium-range ballistic missiles have surged by 300 units, and long-range cruise missiles increased by 100. The nuclear arsenal already includes more than 600 operational warheads.
Hypersonic Weapons and Psychological Warfare: New Frontiers of Threat
The Department of Defense also highlights China’s dominance in hypersonic missile capabilities. Notably, the DF-27 system can bypass U.S. missile defense systems and reach critical U.S. territories.
DeVore warns these systems “are capable of evading U.S. missile defenses and targeting Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska.”
Furthermore, China currently commands the world’s largest navy and is set to expand its fleet from 370 ships and submarines to 435 by 2030.
Cognitive Domain Operations: China’s Weaponization of the Human Mind
Beyond physical weaponry, China is now focused on information dominance and psychological warfare. The 182-page DoD report underscores Beijing’s interest in “cognitive domain operations” (CDO) a sophisticated form of psychological manipulation designed to influence both military and civilian populations.
The PLA “to expand the reach of its influence operations around the world and seize information dominance on the battlefield,” using what it “believes to be the next evolution of psychological warfare,” according to the report.
CDO integrates cutting-edge technologies such as AI, big data, brain science, and neuroscience to shape public perception and disrupt decision-making.
The DoD assesses that CDO “blends previous PRC concepts, such as public opinion guidance and psychological warfare, with modern internet technologies and communication platforms and is designed to achieve strategic national security goals by affecting a target’s cognition to change the target’s behavior and decision-making.”
‘Mind Dominance’ and the Pursuit of Strategic Control
The report explains that China’s military arm, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), aims to gain “mind dominance” a chilling concept that focuses on altering public opinion to create favorable conditions for Chinese operations.
“The goal of CDO is to achieve what the PLA refers to as ‘mind dominance,’ which the PLA defines as the use of information to influence public opinion to affect change in a nation’s social system, likely to create an environment favorable to the PRC and reduce civilian and military resistance to PLA actions,” the report says.
The Pentagon believes the PLA intends to use CDO as both a deterrent and an offensive tool. It’s designed to shape social perceptions, sow division, and manipulate responses—without ever firing a shot.
“The PLA probably intends to use CDO as an asymmetric capability to deter U.S. or third-party entry into a potential conflict, or as an offensive capability to shape perceptions or polarize a society,” the report says.
Psychological Pressure as the Ultimate Weapon
The report concludes with an alarming perspective: China sees psychological subjugation as the highest form of warfareReportaiming to defeat adversaries by instilling fear and confusion rather than engaging in combat.
The report says the PLA seeks to bring psychological pressure and fear on an opponent, assessing that using CDO to subdue the enemy without fighting “is the highest realm of warfare.”
