Russia is acute threat to US, China is systemic challenge, says Pentagon

Eight months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as China struggles to scale up its nuclear, space and cyber forces, the Pentagon outlined a comprehensive new strategy on Thursday that calls for firmer deterrence at this time of mounting tension. in international security.

The document, the National Defense Strategy, which includes reviews of the US nuclear arsenal and missile defenses, has been circulating confidentially on Capitol Hill for months.

The latest National Defense Strategy, published in 2018 by the Trump administration, was the first since the end of the Cold War to refocus US defenses on what it called the “revisionist” twin powers, China and Russia. President Joe Biden’s document builds on that theme, but distinguishes between describing China as a “slow-paced” technological and military challenger, and Russia as an “acute” threat but a declining power.

It prioritizes threats to the US, maps the military’s response in broad terms, and guides the Pentagon’s policy and budget decisions on a range of issues, such as what weapons to develop and the form of the military.

But its contrast with the last document issued by a Democratic president, Barack Obama, is stark. Obama’s strategy — first launched in 2010 with Biden, who was vice president at the time — aimed to dramatically diminish the role of nuclear weapons in US defenses and focused his attention on keeping nuclear material away from terrorist groups. At the time, China and Russia were considered full partners in the effort to contain North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and deter Iran from building nuclear weapons.

The new document does not include many specifics about how the Pentagon will modify its weapons and personnel to suit a new era of fierce competition from the superpowers.

He describes a Russia endowed with 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons and not bound by any treaty limiting that number, raising “the possibility of using these forces to try to win a war on its periphery or avoid defeat if it were at risk of losing a conventional war.” “.

That is exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened.

The document also describes an effort by China to expand its nuclear arsenal to around 1,000 strategic weapons in the coming years. “The current and growing importance of nuclear weapons in the strategies and forces of our competitors raises the stakes,” he says.

Threats from Iran, North Korea and terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State persist — and new challenges, such as global climate change, are emerging. But the strategy paper focuses on China and Russia.

“The PRC and Russia today pose more dangerous challenges to domestic security, even as terrorist threats persist,” the text reads, referring to the People’s Republic of China. He notes that both rivals have deployed space weapons that can disrupt GPS and other “space-based capabilities that support military might and daily civilian life.”

The Pentagon sent a confidential version of the defense strategy to Congress in March; at the time, it also released a two-page newsletter that summarized the contents of the document. Thursday’s release of the nearly 80-page, non-confidential version has been delayed until the White House presents its broad national security strategy this month.

In that document, Biden made it clear that, in the longer term, he was more concerned about China’s moves to “clothe authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy” than a declining and ill-treated Russia.

The Pentagon document cited several new challenges to strategic stability, including hypersonic weapons, advanced chemical and biological weapons, and emerging warheads, as well as delivery systems for conventional weapons and tactical nuclear weapons.

That threat has become more evident in recent weeks, amid signs that Putin’s commanders may be laying the groundwork for a sharp escalation in the war in Ukraine. Putin threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons.

While US officials said there had been no change in Russia’s nuclear posture, and that they believed the decision had not been made to use a tactical nuclear weapon, they made it clear that a move in that direction is their greatest concern.

The concerns reflect what Defense Strategy calls an “acute threat posed by Russia, most recently demonstrated by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.”

In response, the document reads: “The department will focus on deterring Russian attacks on the United States, NATO members and other allies, reinforcing our firm commitments in treaties, to include conventional aggression that has the potential to escalate to nuclear employment of any scale”.

The Pentagon has already taken several steps to strengthen its deterrence in Europe. The United States now has more than 100,000 troops on the mainland, more than 20,000 forces since before the start of the war in Ukraine in February.

If Russia was the Pentagon’s immediate security challenge, China was its long-term concern, or “slow-paced challenge,” according to the strategic document.

To counter China’s influence, the document said the Pentagon would continue to strengthen its bases and coordinate with the State Department to expand US access to the region.

“China is the only competitor with the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the power to do so,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at the Pentagon, repeating a phrase that appears in the strategy. of national security.

But it was the Nuclear Posture Review that angered many gun control advocates, who argue that Biden is backing off suggestions made during his presidential campaign that he would support a declaration that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

In a 2020 Foreign Affairs article titled “Why America Must Lead Again,” Biden said he believed the “sole purpose” of the country’s nuclear weapons should be to prevent — and, if necessary, retaliate — a nuclear strike. “As president,” he said, “I will work to put this thesis into practice.”

After he took office, however, European and Asian allies complained that “single purpose” language could put them in danger, because protecting the US nuclear umbrella, in their view, could deter an adversary like North Korea or China from mounting a conventional armed invasion. Biden relented.

The Nuclear Posture Review released on Thursday kept the usual Pentagon language. She says deterring an attack is “the fundamental role,” not the only purpose, of weapons.

This leaves open the possibility that, in certain circumstances, Washington will strike first with nuclear weapons.