The Trump administration\u2019s first defence strategy seeks to maintain a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region and prepare America for a power competition with Russia and China, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said.<\/p>\n
Unveiling the new defence strategy, Mattis told a Washington audience great power competition\u2014not terrorism\u2014is now the primary focus of America\u2019s national security.<\/p>\n
As a result he sought to increase the lethality of the American military.<\/p>\n
In an apparent reference to Russia, he warned against \u201cthreaten[ing] America\u2019s experiment in democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you challenge us, it will be your longest and worst day,\u201d he warned during his speech at the John Hopkins.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists, but great power competition\u2014not terrorism\u2014is now the primary focus of US national security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis strategy is fit for our time\u2014providing the American people the military required to protect our way of life, stand with our allies, and live up to our responsibility to pass intact to the next generation those freedoms we enjoy today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rogue regimes like North Korea & Iran persist in taking outlaw actions that threaten regional and even global stability, he said, adding that oppressing their own people and shredding their dignity and human rights, they push their warped views outward.<\/p>\n
And despite the defeat of the Islamic State\u2019s physical caliphate, violent extremist organisations \u2013 like the Lebanese Hezbollah, ISIS, and Al Qaeda \u2013 continue to sow hatred, destroying peace and murdering innocents across the globe, the Defence Secretary asserted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models\u2014pursuing veto authority over other nation\u2019s economic, diplomatic, and security decisions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As part of the defence strategy, he said the US is going to build a more lethal force, will strengthen traditional alliances while building new partnerships with other nations.<\/p>\n
Asserting that \u201ceverything we do must contribute to the lethality of our military\u201d, Mattis said changing US forces\u2019 posture will prioritise readiness for war fighting for major combat, making it strategically predictable for the allies and operationally unpredictable for any adversary.<\/p>\n
The 14-page unclassified version of the national defence strategy said that one of its objective is maintaining favourable regional balances of power in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cA free and open Indo-Pacific region provides prosperity and security for all. We will strengthen our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific to a networked security architecture capable of deterring aggression, maintaining stability, and ensuring free access to common domains,\u201d the strategy said.<\/p>\n
Without specifically mentioning India, Japan or other countries in the region, the strategy says with key countries in the region, the US will bring together bilateral and multilateral security relationships to preserve the free and open international system.<\/p>\n
China, it said, is leveraging military modernisation, influence operations, and \u201cpredatory economics to coerce neighbouring countries\u201d to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage.<\/p>\n
As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernisation program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future.<\/p>\n
The most far-reaching objective of this defence strategy is to set the military relationship between our two countries on a path of transparency and non-aggression, the strategy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cConcurrently, Russia seeks veto authority over nations on its periphery in terms of their governmental, economic, and diplomatic decisions, to shatter the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and change European and Middle East security and economic structures to its favour,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Trump administration\u2019s first defence strategy seeks to maintain a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region and prepare America for a power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19376,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19374\/revisions\/19376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}