Over the past year, the Pentagon has talked a lot about refocusing on an era of “great power competition,” moving from a focus on Iraqi and Afghan-style counterinsurgency to countering China and Russia.
Throughout last month, the US military has been showing what that really means.
US soldiers have been arriving in Germany to pick up tanks and armored vehicles stored in Europe before heading to Poland for exercises.
Earlier in the month, hundreds of US Marines from the 31st Marine Expedition Unit flew 965km in a training exercise for seizing a small Japanese island, and set up artillery and an airbase to then conduct further strikes and troop movements. It was a high-profile demonstration of a tactic known as “island hopping” that was first honed against Japan in World War II and is now seen by the US as key to any future war with China.
Nuclear-capable B-52 bombers have been deployed to Europe and Asia to drive home the message that Washington is prepared. Over the two weeks, several have repeatedly crossed the Baltic, including circling the Swedish island of Gotland, which European states have long feared might be a Russian objective in the event of any war.
Two B-52s also flew over the South China Sea twice in little more than a week, again a significant uptick in activity.
The audience for these military moves, however, might go beyond the US’ potential foes in Moscow and Beijing. Pentagon military chiefs — some now reaching the end of their term in office and about to be replaced with US President Donald Trump’s appointees — are expressing frustration over funding, technology, the current administration and wider US industry.
Their message has been simple: that Russia and China are seeking to subvert Washington’s place in the world, that they have the means and will to do so, and that the US is not doing everything it needs to in response.
Speaking at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank two weeks ago, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford said both Russia and Beijing were trying “to establish pre-eminence, if not outright hegemony, in their geographic areas and both [are] trying to assert greater influence on the world stage.”
To do so, he said, they were marrying considerable military investment and innovation with economic, diplomatic, political, cultural and other forms of power — and the US was not doing so nearly as well.
US military chiefs want more resources and more support for, and from, allies. They also want the support of some of the US’ largest companies, especially tech firms, to recognize the threat, back the US military and reduce ties with China in particular.
The loss of the US’ long-running military technical edge is clearly a major concern within the Pentagon. Military chiefs have become increasingly open in their opposition to going through with US sales of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to Turkey, a NATO ally now seen as moving closer to Moscow.
Turkey is also looking to buy Russia’s S-300 air defense system and there are concerns in some quarters that integrating the two will simply mean the secrets of the cutting-edge US jet are compromised.
The Pentagon’s budget for next year makes clear that both the president and his commanders are focused on acquiring a host of high-tech new weapons that they see as part of a new era of great power rivalry.
The greatest divide between them, however, might be over how to handle the US’ much broader alliances. Trump has long accused US partners of paying too little for defense.
Pentagon chiefs are broadly supportive of attempts to make other nations spend more, particularly in Europe, but they also view the US’ alliances as central to its own defense. Stepping back US military support, they worry, could make attack by Moscow, Beijing or other enemies more likely.
Two weeks ago, US Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan denied there were plans to push ahead with charging US allies 150 percent of the cost of hosting US troops on their territories, but US officials have been pushing ahead with talks with Poland on “Fort Trump,” in which Warsaw would explicitly pay Washington for the presence of the US armored division.
The Trump administration’s budget strips 10 percent from the European Deterrence Initiative, which provides funding for US training and pre-positioning of equipment on the continent.
That could make the kind of high-profile military presence exercises that are currently underway more difficult in the future.
It would also appear to run counter to advice from Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Curtis Scaparott, who last month testified that he wanted more US military assets based in Europe.
The Trump administration clearly is not going to stop its efforts to get more money from US allies — its latest gambit is an US$8 billion loan fund to friendly states to buy US-built weapons systems.
The Pentagon is clearly similarly wedded to a global military presence it deems vital to confronting two increasingly assertive powers.
They will have to learn to manage that tension. Otherwise, they risk such convoluted mixed messaging that they may increase the risk of war.
Peter Apps, a former Reuters reporter, is a writer on international affairs, globalization, conflict and other issues. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century (PS21), a non-national, non-partisan, non-ideological think tank. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.
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