Bad Idea: Dismissing Russia as a Declining Power in U.S. Strategy
Bad Ideas in National Security Series
December 18, 2020 — Michael Kofman
Although the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) lists both China and Russia as the United States’ principal great power competitors, in practice China commands the lion’s share of attention from policymakers and much of the national security community. Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was clear on his desire to focus the Pentagon’s efforts on China. His predecessor, Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan, put it less eloquently as “China, China, China.†Some NDS authors — not satisfied with a China-heavy focus — want to center defense strategy even more specifically around a fight over Taiwan. These statements speak to a mindset that China is the real challenge and Russia is some much lesser temporal threat. Indeed, an earlier piece in this series argued that Russia “no longer qualifies as a ‘great power,’†and “great power competition†terminology is misleading because it conflates the threats posed by China and Russia.
Admittedly, Russia is a relatively weak great power when compared directly to the United States and China. Whether one accepts the “great power competition†framework or not, China is rightfully placed at the top. But writing off Russia as a declining state or dismissing it as no longer a great power to focus exclusively on China is a serious mistake. Russia remains one of most assertive and powerful states in the international system, and should be regarded as an enduring strategic competitor. Russia is a different challenge than China, but it is not going to go away. Like China, Russia too should be considered a pacing competitor of a different kind.
https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-dismissing-russia-as-a-declining-power-in-u-s-strategy/
