in the clear warning to Russia and North KoreaThe Pentagon has pointed out that its nuclear weapons are intended deter “all forms of strategic attack”including those involving conventional weapons.
Also, during the presentation National Security Strategy 2022 Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin He specified that Russia is currently under consideration “acute threat”while China is the only competition for his country, because it is trying to change the international order, and it has the power to do so.
What does the defense strategy of the Pentagon propose?
In a clear warning to Russia and North Korea, the Pentagon said Thursday that nuclear weapons are intended to deter “all forms of strategic attack,” including those involving conventional weapons.
“It includes nuclear use at any scale and it includes attacks of a high impact strategic nature that use non-nuclear means,” Lloyd Austin said at a news conference announcing the release of the US strategy for the coming years.
He added that this new approach is intended to “complicate the decision-making” of the adversary, at a time when Russia accuses Ukraine of preparing to use a “dirty” bomb.
“Russia has carried out aggression on Ukraine under nuclear threatwith irresponsible statements, nuclear drills on irregular dates and lies about the potential use of weapons of mass destruction,” said the document, which was released for the first time alongside the new US defense strategy.
Meanwhile, as the United States expects North Korea to conduct a nuclear test, the Pentagon dismissed the weapons show and assured that a nuclear attack by the Asian country would only mean the end of the Kim Jong Un regime, as it does not have the power to deal with a conflict of that scale.
“Any nuclear attack from North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners this is unacceptable and would lead to the end of that regime. There is no scenario in which the Kim regime can use nuclear weapons and survive,” warns the US Department of Defense in that document.
Noting that China is looking to expandmodernize and diversify its nuclear forcesso that Beijing “probably wants to possess at least a thousand nuclear warheads by the end of the decade”.
But “Russia is the main rival of the United States with the most diverse nuclear forces,” he says, with 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 2,000 non-deployed.
“Its modern nuclear arsenal, which is expected to grow, represents a long-term existential threat for the United States and our allies and partners,” added the Department of Defense, which emphasizes that “in the 2030s, the United States will be, for the first time in its history, faced with two major nuclear powers (that will be) strategic rivals and potential opponent.
What will the Pentagon focus on?
At a press conference, as well as in a declassified document, the Defense Ministry pointed out that Russia poses an “acute threat” to the United States, although China is your “most important” challenge in terms of security in the coming decades.
China “poses the most far-reaching and systemic challenge, while Russia poses an acute threat, both to vital US national interests abroad and on US soil,” according to a US document setting out military strategy for the next few years.
“The deepest and most serious challenge to the national security of the United States is (China’s) coercive and increasingly aggressive efforts to reshape the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to adapt it to their interests and authoritarian preferences,” this new strategy, published for the first time together with the new nuclear strategy of the United States, indicates.
It added that China’s rhetoric against Taiwan, whose sovereignty it claims and promises to retake by force if necessary, is a “destabilizing” factor that risks committing misjudgment and threat to peace in the zone.
With this in mind, the US government has confirmed in the future that it will strive to “avoid Chinese dominance in key regions while protecting US territory and strengthening a stable and open international system”, while stressing that “conflict with China is neither inevitable nor desirable.