China has been identified as the number one “threat” facing the US in the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy (NDS), which was sent to Congress on Monday.
The full NDS is still classified, but the Pentagon released a fact sheet on the document that says it “will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department.”
The fact sheet outlines four priorities for the Pentagon:
- Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC
- Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners
- Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
- Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem
The Pentagon says that while China is the focus, Russia poses “acute threats” because of its invasion of Ukraine. “We will collaborate with our NATO Allies and partners to reinforce robust deterrence in the face of Russian aggression,” the fact sheet reads.
The fact sheet says that the Pentagon will “remain capable of managing other persistent threats, including those from North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations.”
The last NDS was published in 2018 by the Trump administration. It outlined the US military’s shift in focus from counterterrorism in the Middle East to so-called “great power competition” with Russia and China. The 2018 NDS appeared to put equal focus on Beijing and Moscow.
The Biden administration’s focus on China is demonstrated by the uptick in US military activity in Southeast Asia. According to a report from the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI), the US conducted nearly 1,200 surveillance sorties over the South China Sea in 2021, about a 20% increase from 2020.
The presence of US aircraft carriers and other warships in the South China Sea has also significantly increased. According to the SSCPI, US carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups entered the South China Sea 12 times in 2021, more than twice the frequency of 2020.
Chinese aggression, like Russian aggression, serve as useful lies to ensure more wasteful and dangerous spending on WMD which do NOT “defend” Americans.
The US people have shown in polls that their needs in their Homeland are peace, real jobs, education, housing, decent food, security from the aggressive policies against others and even some possibility of their needs being address by the “Congress” they elect.
I agree, the only question is how do we get there and get them to listen?…
For starters, we stop electing warmongers. That would bring about a 99% change in Congress and 100% change in the presidency. But it’s the only way.
No one will vote them out. No third-party candidate is “viable” they say. And yet they cast their votes for Biden and Trump, who also wouldn’t be viable if they didn’t have an “R” or “D” next their names. And when the midterms come along and the party in the White House loses seats in congress no one can figure out why, apparently, and will do the same god damn thing the next election cycle. We’ll vote out the “D” warmongers and vote in the “R” warmongers. Forever.
The real hegemonic challenge to Washington comes from Beijing. The West’s war against Russia (proxy Ukraine) is being fought to prevent this end – the consequences for all catastrophic.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
Putin launched a full scale invasion on Ukraine and us still hung up on China, putin just can’t get get the luv🤣😂
And that’s supposed to justify additional billions for the Pentagon. It’s a scam, and war is a racket.
Seriously? Bye-Done just maintained that Putin should not be in power, and we’re already moving on to China?
WHEN is this godforsaken nation going to realize that real respect will be achieved only through extending the hand of friendship, not by one-upping other nations militarily?
Might does not mean right; might means eventual catastrophe. By increasing Pentagon spending we are only encouraging others to increase their military capabilities as well.
One day this whole thing is gonna blow.
It already blows. But I think you meant something different.
Yup, Wars, as in “goes Chernobyl”
I don’t think the focus ever really moved from China at all.
While Russia has been a convenient punching bag for everything from “we lost an election, it must be their fault” to energy competition, it wasn’t seemingly thought of as much of a military threat outside full-on nuclear war. And if it’s doing as poorly in Ukraine as one side would have us believe (I’m agnostic on that question), then militarily it’s slipped somewhere below further down the scale.
Agree Thomas, China has never left the picture; it just temporarily was overshadowed.
I don’t see where China was called a top threat directly, only indirectly.
China is “our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenger” with (later on) “growing kinetic and non-kinetic threats to the United States’ homeland from our strategic competitors.”
There are only threats to the homeland, and that can only be nukes which can’t be defended against beyond MAD.
So what are we doing with all the Naval provocations in the South China Sea. Why the Marine island-hopping plans? And the Army is useless against China (and others).
But facts be denied, the Pentagon will get billions more from the corrupted Congress while the US has half a million homeless people, the worst medical care among developed countries, also the most homicides and largest prisoner population.
Do the American people want these things? No, but since the US is not a democracy the people don’t have a say.