Washington:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine highlights the “acute threats” posed by Moscow, but China is the most profound challenge for the United States, the US military said in a statement of its overall strategy released Thursday.
The Pentagon also made it clear – amid Russian rumors of the use of a nuclear weapon in the war in Ukraine – that the United States intends to use its nuclear arsenal to deter “all forms of strategic attacks,” including those involving conventional weapons. to be.
China “poses the most consistent and systemic challenge, while Russia poses an acute threat — both to vital US national interests abroad and to the homeland,” according to the unclassified version of the National Defense Strategy.
“The most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security is China’s coercive and increasingly aggressive attempt to reshape the Indo-Pacific region and international system for its interests and authoritarian biases,” it said.
The strategy highlights Chinese rhetoric about self-ruled Taiwan — which Beijing has vowed to take control, using force if necessary — as a destabilizing factor that risks miscalculation and threatens peace in the area.
As for Russia, it says Moscow’s threat “has been most recently demonstrated by Russia’s unprovoked further invasion of Ukraine.
“The Department (of Defense) will support a strong deterrent to Russian aggression against vital US national interests, including our treaty allies,” the strategy said.
It stressed the need for cooperation with allied countries and other partners to confront the dangers posed by China and Russia, saying such cooperation is “fundamental to US national security interests”.
In an updated US nuclear stance report released in parallel with the National Defense Strategy, the Pentagon defined the role of its nuclear arsenal to deter both foreign nuclear and non-nuclear attacks with strategic consequences.
“This includes nuclear deployment of all sizes, and it includes high-impact attacks of a strategic nature using non-nuclear assets,” a senior defense official told reporters.
The unclassified version of the Nuclear Posture Review contains a clear warning to North Korean Kim Jong-un against using the country’s growing nuclear arsenal.
“Any nuclear attack by North Korea on the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will lead to the end of that regime. There is no scenario where the Kim regime could deploy nuclear weapons and survive,” the strategy says.
Kim has declared the country an “irreversible” nuclear power, effectively ending negotiations over his banned weapons programs.
The reports were released as the United States and NATO allies pump weapons into Ukraine to help it drive out Russian forces after they invaded in February.
It also comes amid heightened tensions over China’s stated intention to potentially absorb Taiwan by military force, as the United States continues to supply weapons and provide political support to the self-governed island.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)