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WSJ

U.S. Defense Strategy Casts China as Greatest Danger to American Security

Biden administration warns that Beijing is trying to undermine U.S. alliances and presents threat to homeland

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin unveiled the Biden administration’s new defense strategy on Thursday, and identified China as a country “with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the power to do so.”

By  Michael R. Gordon

 and  Brett Forrest

Updated Oct. 27, 2022 4:42 pm ET

The Biden administration unveiled a new defense strategy Thursday, casting China as  the greatest danger to American security  and calling for an urgent, concerted effort to build the military capabilities to deter Beijing in the decades to come.

The strategy document warns that China is seeking to undermine U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific, is engaging in  coercive activity on Taiwan  and is posing a potential threat to the U.S. homeland through  its ability to mount cyberattacks  against the U.S. industrial base and the system used to mobilize American forces.

“The PRC remains our most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in the introduction to the strategy, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “I have reached this conclusion based on the PRC’s increasingly coercive actions to reshape the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to fit its authoritarian preferences, alongside a keen awareness of the PRC’s clearly stated intentions and the rapid modernization and expansion of its military.”

The national defense strategy, which is mandated by Congress, is issued every four years as the Pentagon plans what forces to develop for the future and sets priorities among a multitude of potential threats.

The document was released along with two companion reviews: one on the U.S.’s nuclear doctrine and programs, the other on efforts to protect American territory and forces from enemy missiles. It follows on the heels of the White House’s national-security strategy, which was issued earlier this month and underscored the broad theme that  China is the major competitor to the U.S.  as Washington seeks to navigate what the White House called a “decisive decade” ahead.

The defense strategy describes Russia as an “acute” threat because of  its invasion of Ukraine  and bellicose hints that  it could employ nuclear weapons . The formulation suggests that Russia is a major worry but a more transitory danger than a rising China with its large economy and growing military.

Both China and Russia, the document notes, pose a greater threat to the U.S. homeland than foreign terrorists because of their cyberwarfare and space capabilities, which the strategy document said could threaten the defense industrial base, the military mobilization system and Global Positioning System technology “that support military power and daily civilian life.”

The Trump administration’s national defense strategy, issued in January 2018, similarly presented China and Russia as the two principal threats confronting the U.S. But Biden administration officials said their document took the Trump-era strategy as a starting point and is giving greater emphasis to China’s ambitions.

President Biden discussing national security this week with senior defense officials at the White House. PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

An array of former officials from Democratic and Republican administrations, as well as lawmakers, are questioning whether the Pentagon is moving quickly enough to restructure the armed forces and prepare for the decade ahead.

“The issue confronting the Defense Department now is less about strategy formulation than strategy execution,” said Jim Mitre, who helped prepare the 2018 defense strategy and now serves as director of the International Security and Defense Policy Program at Rand Corp., a nonpartisan research organization. “The principal problem is whether the department can make the necessary changes to execute its strategy in time.”

At issue isn’t only whether the Pentagon will field the new cutting-edge weapons it says will transform the U.S. military’s ability to defend allies and partners in the Pacific by the 2030s. There is also concern among the former officials and military-affairs specialists about the Pentagon’s ability to deter Chinese aggression over the next five years—when  China’s military  is projected to be more capable but before the U.S. fields those new technologies and armaments and strengthens its regional posture.

“A critical piece of the deterrence puzzle is still missing: a focused Department of Defense-wide effort to dramatically accelerate and scale the fielding of new capabilities needed to deter China over the next five years,” Michèle Flournoy, the top policy official at the Pentagon during the Obama administration, and Michael A. Brown, a former senior Defense Department official from 2018 to 2022, wrote last month in Foreign Affairs.

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“The Pentagon is developing both offensive and defensive capabilities that will take decades to design, build, and deploy. But emerging dual-use technologies are changing the character of warfare much faster than that,” they wrote.

A senior Defense Department official, in a briefing to reporters Thursday, rejected that criticism, saying that the billions of dollars the Pentagon is spending on military readiness shows that it is attentive to the need to “manage risk in the near term.”

A classified version of the defense strategy was distributed internally in March at the Pentagon for budgeting and planning purposes and was shared with Congress then. It was held back from being made public until the White House premiered its broader national security strategy.

The nuclear-posture review, which sets forth U.S. nuclear doctrine and plans on nuclear-weapons program, has also stirred debate in defense circles. That review generally endorses the continuing effort to modernize the U.S. nuclear triad of land, sea and air forces. It also reiterated the longstanding U.S. doctrine of using the threat of a nuclear response to deter conventional and other nonnuclear attacks, in addition to nuclear ones.

President Biden, when campaigning for the presidency, had promised to move to a doctrine under which the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons would be to deter or respond to an enemy nuclear attack.  Mr. Biden stepped back from that position  in March after allied nations expressed concern that such a shift could weaken deterrence against a Russian conventional attack.

Instead, the nuclear-posture review repeats language from the Obama administration that the fundamental role of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack and that Washington would only consider using nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the U.S., its allies and partners.

Another point of controversy is the review’s decision to scrap the program to build a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, which was to be deployed in 2035. Advocates of the program say it would give the U.S. another option for more modest nuclear strikes and, thus, help deter Russia from thinking it could carry out a limited nuclear war.

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Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, noted that military officials have supported the program and said lawmakers would push to fund it. “Our nation faces unprecedented nuclear threats from China, Russia and North Korea,” Mr. Rogers said.

Mr. Austin, in a news conference Thursday, said that the U.S. already possesses a sizable nuclear arsenal and that the weapon isn’t needed.

The separate missile-defense review, also issued Thursday, comes as  China’s development of hypersonic missiles  and Russia’s extensive use of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones in Ukraine have focused renewed attention on  the potential role of defensive systems .

Tom Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said the review represented a “step forward in better aligning our missile-defense efforts with the threat from China and Russia as opposed to just rogue states.”

Mr. Karako, however, said this review is vague about the timetable for developing new missile-defense capabilities. Budget documents, he said, “suggest key capabilities like hypersonic defense and cruise-missile defense of the homeland appear to be pushed to the 2030s.”

Write to Michael R. Gordon at  [email protected]  

Breaking Defense

The Pentagon’s new defense strategy is out. Now the real work begins, experts say

“The issue is, can the department execute this strategy and really do it in time?” said Jim Mitre, he director of the international security and defense policy program at the RAND Corporation. "In particular can it do so on a timeline that's sufficient to deter war with China, not just in some far-off future, but in the next few years?”

By    VALERIE INSINNA on October 28, 2022 at 2:09 PM

WASHINGTON — After months of delays, the unclassified version of the  National Defense Strategy  hit the streets  on Thursday , pledging a renewed focus on  China  and including not much in the way of surprises.

Now, experts say, is time to answer the big question: Can the Defense Department actually execute it?

“Bottom line, regarding the strategy writ large, I’d say it’s fundamentally sound and logically supported. The department did a good job of thinking through what problem it needs the military to focus on, and has a sensible, coherent approach to getting after it,” said Jim Mitre, who served as executive director of the 2018 NDS.

“The issue is, can the department execute this strategy and really do it in time?” Mitre, currently the director of the international security and defense policy program at the RAND Corporation, told Breaking Defense. “Can it modernize its forces, establish greater resilience to adversary attack, develop a more tech savvy workforce, et cetera, with alacrity? … In particular can it do so on a timeline that’s sufficient to deter war with China, not just in some far-off future, but in the next few years?”

Stacie Pettyjohn, director of defense programs at the Center for a New American Security, agreed that the strategy lays out a “sound vision,” but will require the Biden administration to make difficult choices to allocate resources to prioritize threats — in particular, managing the immediate threat posed by Russia without “derailing efforts” to compete against China.

The need to deter China is the single biggest theme of the NDS, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said yesterday during a briefing on the new strategy. China is “the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly, the power to do so,” he said. In contrast,  Russia  represents an  “acute threat”  that poses an immediate threat to US interests, as seen in its invasion of Ukraine, the NDS states.

“Immediate needs have a tendency of overwhelming future threats, and the Pentagon has repeatedly deferred making changes to its force structure and posture necessary to bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region,” Pettyjohn said in a written statement.

On the technology side, the NDS lists command, control and communications systems, long-range strike, and space as key investment priorities, said Seamus Daniels, the defense budget analysis fellow for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

However, “I think the strategy lacks a discussion of sort of the main trade offs when we’re talking about force structure versus modernization versus readiness,” he said. “Are they going to try and free up funds by limiting the day-to-day deployments? Or is that going to come in the form of force structure cuts?”

One missed opportunity, Mitre said, was that the strategy did not focus enough on how the department plans to overcome the well-established barriers that keep it from moving as quickly as it needs to accomplish its goals.

For example, the strategy notes a need for the Pentagon to forge closer ties with academia and industry — particularly with companies outside its typical roster of defense firms. It states that the department will be a “fast follower” on technologies like artificial intelligence, autonomy and microelectronics, where commercial firms are driving innovation. The NDS also vows to increase collaboration with the commercial space industry, a space it believes it can leverage “[industry’s] technological advancements and entrepreneurial spirit to enable new capabilities.”

But all those ideas have been well agreed upon for years, with a serious push for commercial technology starting with  former Defense Secretary Ash Carter  in 2015. While it’s positive that the NDS signals the Pentagon’s desire to work more closely with the private sector, Mitre noted that the strategy falls short in that it does not spell out why that has historically been difficult, and how the department will overcome those impediments this time.

“We know that that’s been a challenge, there’s been some important progress there. But the department’s still grappling with the  ‘valley of death.’  And the strategy doesn’t have a clear solution to how the department should address the valley of death problem,” he said, using a phrase that describes the funding gap between the research and development phase and a program of record, where technologies often wither and die.

During a Thursday background briefing on the NDS, a journalist asked how the strategy would lead to faster technology adoption. A senior defense official acknowledged that “this is a refrain you have no doubt been subjected to before,” but said they had greater hope of success after seeing how the Pentagon mobilized to provide weaponry for Ukraine, including existing systems that have been used in new ways on the battlefield.

“So it does tell me … that this can be more more feasible going forward, because we’ve had this experience,” the official said.

The fiscal 2024 budget could shed further light on how serious the Pentagon is about funding its strategic priorities, as well as the tradeoffs it is willing to make, Daniels said. One key indicator to look at is the size of the FY24 budget request next spring, specifically whether the department is able to keep defense spending from dropping below the rate of inflation.

“The still a significant and expensive strategy, similar to 2018,” he said. “It will still require a significant level of investment, at least keeping pace, if not above inflation.”

Daniels added he would be interested in seeing how the Pentagon “balance[s] the procurement platforms for the fight today versus [long-term] modernization investments.”

Mitre added that the responsibility for implementing the defense strategy doesn’t fall squarely on the Defense Department’s shoulders. Congress must also allow the Pentagon to take calculated risks in order to fund its strategic priorities.

“There’s too many programs that are sacred cows. Too many times people claim that any reduction in US forces anywhere is assuming unacceptable risk,” he said. “As people critique what the department is trying to do, what happens is that the trade space gets narrower, and as its trade space narrows, its progress slows down.”

China Poses ‘Most Comprehensive and Serious Challenge’ to America, New Defense Strategy Says

Samantha Aschieris / October 28, 2022

The Pentagon identifies China as the No. 1 threat to U.S. national security in the latest version of the  National Defense Strategy, released just days after the leader of the communist regime secured a third five-year term.

“The key theme … is the need to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence with the People’s Republic of China as our pacing challenge,”  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday during a press conference on the new document.

Austin noted that  President Joe Biden’s National Security Strategy, released earlier this month, describes China as, in the defense secretary’s words, “the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the power to do so.”

. @SecDef : "The key theme of the [National Defense Strategy] is the need to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence with […] China. […] The PRC is the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the power to do so."  pic.twitter.com/3cCMvujyrw

— The Hill (@thehill)  October 28, 2022

In Beijing last Saturday, the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party finished its weeklong, twice-a-decade meeting. President Xi Jinping further tightened his grip by  securing an unprecedented third term Sunday as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

“The third term was not a surprise at all, [but] the extent to which he consolidated his power was,” Michael Cunningham, a research fellow on China in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center,  said of Xi’s leadership of the  Chinese Communist Party. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

Xi “managed to get to force people to retire prematurely, who were not his proteges, and to replace them with proteges, his own handpicked people,” Cunningham said. “So now he controls, essentially, the entire Politburo Standing Committee.”

The National Defense Strategy, revised every four years, provides insights into the challenges the U.S. is expected to face in coming years, as well as a plan to address those challenges. 

The first National Defense Strategy under the Biden administration also calls on the Defense Department to “act urgently to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence” of China.

The strategy says:

The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is [China’s] coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.

[China] seeks to undermine U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and leverage its growing capabilities, including its economic influence and the People’s Liberation Army’s growing strength and military footprint, to coerce its neighbors and threaten their interests.

Tom Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general who directs the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, criticized the new National Defense Strategy for “lacking on details how the U.S. will deter Chinese aggression, particularly an invasion of Taiwan.”

“While calling for additional ‘asymmetric’ weapons, the strategy says nothing about the pressing need to increase the size of the U.S. Navy and Air Forces to counter China’s growing capacity for military operations,” Spoehr told The Daily Signal. “The strategy is similarly silent on the subject of increasing our stockpiles of precision weapons, a need which the Ukraine conflict has brought into sharp focus.”

The new strategy notes that China’s aggressive activity and rhetoric toward  Taiwan “are destabilizing, risk miscalculation, and threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait,” which are part of China’s larger “pattern of [destabilization and coercion]” in the South China and East China seas and along the Line of Actual Control.

The Line of Actual Control, as  CNN reported, is an “inhospitable piece of land where the disputed border between India and China is roughly demarcated.”

The People’s Liberation Army, China’s main military force and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party, has been “expanded and modernized” with the intent of undermining U.S. military advantages, the report says.

The Pentagon’s strategy also notes that China’s military has swiftly advanced and integrated its “space, counterspace, cyber, electronic, and informational warfare capabilities to support its holistic approach to joint warfare.”

In addressing threats to the U.S. homeland, the National Defense Strategy highlights that both China and Russia “now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist.” The strategy says:

Both states are already using non-kinetic means against our defense industrial base and mobilization systems, as well as deploying counterspace capabilities that can target our Global Positioning System and other space-based capabilities that support military power and daily civilian life.

[China] or Russia could use a wide array of tools in an attempt to hinder U.S. military preparation and response in a conflict, including actions aimed at undermining the will of the U.S. public, and to target our critical infrastructure and other systems.

The National Defense Strategy also cites additional threats to the U.S., including North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations, or VEOs. 

“North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and missile capability to threaten the U.S. homeland, deployed U.S. forces, and [South Korea] and Japan, while seeking to drive wedges between the [U.S.-South Korea] and United States-Japan alliances,” the strategy warns. 

Iran, the strategy says, “is taking actions that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon should it make th

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