War China no longer Pentagon's top security priority

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9r8ezym3ro
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China is no longer the top security priority for the US, according to the Pentagon's new National Defense Strategy.
The document, published once every four years, instead says that the security of the US homeland and Western Hemisphere is the department's chief concern, adding that Washington has long neglected the "concrete interests" of Americans.
The Pentagon also says it will offer "more limited" support to US allies.
It follows the publication last year of the US National Security Strategy, which said that Europe faced "civilizational collapse" and did not cast Russia as a threat to the US. At the time, Moscow said the document was "largely consistent" with its vision.
By comparison, the 2022 National Defense Strategy named the "multi-domain threat" posed by China as its top defence priority. In 2018, the document described "revisionist powers", such as China and Russia, as the "central challenge" to US security.
The 34-page document, released on Friday, largely reinforces policy positions staked out by the Trump administration over its first year back in office.
In that time, US President Donald Trump has seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, carried out strikes against alleged drug boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, and more recently, applied pressure on US allies to acquire Greenland.
The strategy reiterated that the Pentagon "will guarantee US military and commercial access to key terrain, especially the Panama Canal, Gulf of America, and Greenland".
The document also says the Trump administration's approach will be "fundamentally different from the grandiose strategies of the past post–Cold War administrations".
It adds: "Out with utopian idealism; in with hardnosed realism."
Relations with China are to be approached through "strength, not confrontation". The goal "is not to dominate China; nor is it to strangle or humiliate them", the document says.
Unlike in previous versions of the strategy, Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by China, is not mentioned. However, the document does write that the US aims to "prevent anyone, including China, from being able to dominate us or our allies".
Late last year, the US announced a vast arms sale to Taiwan worth $11bn (£8.2bn), leading China to hold military drills around the island in response.
The strategy also calls for greater "burden-sharing" from US allies, saying that partners have been "content" to let Washington "subsidize their defense".
Though, it denies this demonstrates a move towards "isolationism".
"To the contrary, it means a focused and genuinely strategic approach to the threats our nation faces," it says, adding that it does not want to conflate American interests "with those of the rest of the world – that a threat to a person halfway around the world is the same as to an American."
Instead, it says allies, especially Europe, "will take the lead against threats that are less severe for us but more so for them".
Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, is described as a "persistent but manageable threat to NATO's eastern members".
The strategy also outlines a "more limited" role for US deterrence of North Korea. South Korea is "capable of taking primary responsibility" for the task, it adds.
In a speech made at the World Economic Forum earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the old world order is "not coming back" and urged fellow middle powers - like South Korea, Canada and Australia - to come together.
"Middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu," Carney said at the Davos meeting.
That came as French President Emmanuel Macron also warned of a "shift towards a world without rules".
 
I've had my criticisms of Trump, but this is perfect. China is the #1 threat to American hegemony, but you shouldn't telegraph everything you're doing to potential enemies. You also shouldn't underestimate them and underprepare, you should overprepare to ensure victory. Taking a step back diplomatically and building up our bases in the Pacific is the ideal move to contain them, much better than sitting on a beach in Taiwan screeching about the CCP and human rights, all while expecting to sail carrier groups into overlapping layers of missile and air defenses and magically not have them sink. China has spent decades preparing for a confrontation right off their shores and so has invested heavily in missile defenses and AA. Drawing any potential confrontation lines further out into the Pacific means that they are severely limited in bringing any of those land-based defenses to bear. The Chinese navy is a joke, and outside their protective umbrella they will get torn apart. Pull whatever fangs they've sunk into the Western Hemisphere out while they are cooped up inside the Pacific Island chains. Remilitarize Japan. It's the East Asia strategy we should have been pursuing all along instead of all this buttfuckery about norms, human rights, and democracy.
 
This just means they know there won’t be war anytime in the NEAR future.
They also note pacific strategy is the same as it was before. Beefing up defenses which is basically the only strategy to do.

They’re actively expanding our base in the Northern Mariana Islands to carry 250 more planes. So they are by all means still seeing the pacific as a theater in need of defense.

In other words, nothing has changed
 
Drawing any potential confrontation lines further out into the Pacific means that they are severely limited in bringing any of those land-based defenses to bear. The Chinese navy is a joke, and outside their protective umbrella they will get torn apart. Pull whatever fangs they've sunk into the Western Hemisphere out while they are cooped up inside the Pacific Island chains. Remilitarize Japan. It's the East Asia strategy we should have been pursuing all along instead of all this buttfuckery about norms, human rights, and democracy.
I fully agree with you, fight the battle where it can be won.
Taiwan can be defended, but I see no scenario where Kinmen avoids being 'liberated'.
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I'm surprised this is a new story. This was announced 4 months ago. Here's a China Uncensored video on it. From then.

 
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