Even more worrying is the Biden administration’s approach to China, which sees Beijing primarily as a threat to American global supremacy and thus defines relations with the world’s other superpower in largely zero-sum terms. In a May 26 speech at George Washington University outlining the administration’s China strategy, Mr. Blinken said it could be “summed up in three words”: The United States will “invest” domestically, “align” its policies with those of its allies and “compete” with Beijing. The word “cooperate” was notably absent. Biden officials describe their turn away from…
Tag: Defense Department
To Counter China, Austin Vows to Shore Up Alliances With Others in Region
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on Saturday that the Biden administration would push both allies in the Pacific and U.S. businesses to step up efforts to counter the increasingly urgent threat of China, and that the Pentagon was prepared to help Ukraine better defend itself against Russia as tensions flare between the two countries. “America is a Pacific power,” Mr. Austin declared during a speech at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum, the first in-person meeting of defense officials and experts since the start…
China Could Have 1,000 Nuclear Warheads by 2030, Pentagon Says
WASHINGTON — China is continuing to strengthen its strategic nuclear arsenal and could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to a new Defense Department report released Wednesday. The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China’s military might estimates that China could have 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027 and 1,000 three years later. In addition, it warns that China has “possibly already established a nascent nuclear triad with the development of a nuclear capable air-launched ballistic missile and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities.” Even with the…
What AUKUS Means for U.S.-China Great Power Competition
This is a hallmark of great power competition: Competitive initiatives like AUKUS provide visible ways to counter or balance or complicate China’s military activities but don’t necessarily help allies meet defined objectives. More often, competition becomes an end in itself — an open-ended imperative that assumes everything an opponent dislikes must be good policy. Another common feature of competitive policies is that officials tend to overlook their costs. For one thing, AUKUS carries significant diplomatic costs at a time when the United States is in desperate need of credibility with…
Biden Expresses Confidence in Milley Amid Questions About His Calls to China
WASHINGTON — The senior-most U.S. military officer did not bypass his civilian leaders when he called his Chinese counterpart in October and January, his office said on Wednesday after the release of excerpts from a new book that alleges that the conversations centered on concerns about President Donald J. Trump. “Peril,” by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, says that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretly called China twice to offer reassurances that Mr. Trump had no plans to start…
Pentagon Asks Personnel to Report Any Symptoms of Mysterious Ailments
“We’re going to figure it out,” he added. There are various reasons the United States has struggled to identify who, and what, is responsible for the episodes. Officials have considered that intelligence services from multiple countries could be involved, each with varying motives and equipment causing the illnesses, according to some U.S. officials. Officials stress that the possibility of multiple adversaries remains only a theory, and that intelligence officials have yet to draw hard conclusions. But Cold War-era surveillance technology developed by the Soviet Union proliferated to other countries, each…