Yesterday’s Wars Didn’t Prepare the Pentagon for Tomorrow’s China
The U.S. military’s long-sought pivot to Asia is slow, uneven, and beset by difficulties.
Peter Martin and Roxana Tiron
August 2, 2021, 4:00 AM EDT
President Joe Biden has pledged an era of “extreme competition” with the People’s Republic of China. For the U.S., that means being able to challenge Beijing for the commanding heights of global commerce, to shape the rules around trade and technology, and—if push comes to shove—to fight and win a war with the world’s second largest economy. The question is how to steer the behemoth U.S. military, which has almost 2 million personnel across six branches, away from the Middle East and terrorism to focus on a new region and different threats, 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks and the ensuing invasion of Afghanistan.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III has dubbed China “the pacing challenge”—military-industrial verbiage for the leading competitor. In June, Austin issued a directive aimed at reorienting the Department of Defense to better compete with Beijing. That echoed signals of a pivot under the past two presidential administrations.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-02/past-wars-haven-t-prepared-u-s-military-biden-for-taking-on-china-xi
