Lethal Force Posture Will Keep China In Check : US
Washington : Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said the US is building a more lethal Force Posture in the Indo-Pacific as part of efforts to make sure China doesn’t dominate the region the way it intends to
China is “the only country with both the will & increasingly, the power to reshape its region & the international order to suit its authoritarian preferences, “ Austin told the Reagan National Defence Forum on Saturday. ”So let let me be clear- we ‘re not going to let that happen”
Austin said the U S would “sustain & sharpen our war - fighting advantages” and bolster its force presence “ to build a more lethal ,mobile &distributed force Posture.” He cited the B21 stealth bomber, unveiled on Friday, as a key element of its deterrence strategy, and said the U S is charting the best way forward for Australia to get a nuclear-powered submarine as soon as possible - a deal announced early in the Biden administration
The speech amounts to a new warning shot to President Xi Jinping even as the US looks to establish what it calls guard rails & keep tension with China from spiraling out of control. In its latest report on China’s military strength, released late last month, the US government said China is still intent on gaining the capability to invade by 2027 & become the world’s most powerful military by 2049
As it looks to counter that push, Austin outlined other measures, saying the Pentagon had sharpened its focus on the Indo- Pacific as the primary theater of operation, including by pushing to be able to mobilize troops more quickly & investing in military construction & logistics
“These next few years will set the terms of our competition with the People’s Republic of China. They will shape the future secretly in Europe,” Austin said. Between the two nuclear power threats, China remains the greater risk, Austin said
To meet that rise, “ We’re aligning our budget as never before to the China challenge,” Austin said. “In our imperfect world, deterrence does come through strength”. The bomber is part of a major nuclear triad overhaul under way that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will cost $1.2 trillion through 2046
It includes the Raider serving as the backbone of the future air leg of the triad , but it also requires modernising the nation’s silo launched nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles & its nuclear submarine fleet. The defence department has the largest discretionary budget of all the federal agencies , and it may receive up to $847 billion in the 2023 budget if Congress passes the current funding bill before this legislative session ends. The B-21 Raider, a new high-tech stealth bomber developed for the US Air Force along with Northrop Grumman, was on display in Palmdale, California this week
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