David McCormick

Dave McCormick calls for closer cooperation on hi-tech military equipment with American allies like Japan and South Korea to counter Beijing

Speaking at the Hudson Institute after a recent trip to Japan and South Korea, Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania senator and West Point graduate, claimed up to 90 per cent of US defence spending funded decades-old equipment and technologies.

“We convince ourselves; we lull ourselves into a sense of false security,” he said.

Although China’s total defence budget was significantly lower than the US one, McCormick said China’s spending “on the new way of war … is much more comparable”.