Top US general: Potential for 'significant international conflict' is increasingThe top US military officer told lawmakers Tuesday that the world is becoming more unstable and the "potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appeared before the House Armed Services Committee in their first testimony before Congress since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The two Pentagon leaders said the threats from both Russia and China remain significant, while they defended the US approach to the war and the flow of arms the US is sending to Ukraine.
Milley said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is "the greatest threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world" in his 42 years serving in the US military, but added it was "heartening" to see the world rally around Ukraine.
"The Russian invasion of Ukraine is threatening to undermine not only European peace and stability but global peace and stability that my parents and a generation of Americans fought so hard to defend," Milley said.
"We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules based current global order," Milley added. "We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable and the potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing."
Lawmakers in both parties focused at the hearing on the weapons that were being provided to Ukraine, asking whether more could be done as Ukraine has continued to ask for additional capabilities.
"One of the biggest questions we're going to have in this committee is, 'How can we do more?'" House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, a Washington state Democrat, said at the top of the hearing. "How can we make sure we're doing absolutely everything we can to help them?"
Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the panel's top Republican, said he would support the US setting up permanent bases in eastern NATO countries like Poland and the Baltics in order to deter Russia. Milley said that he would support establishing permanent bases but added that he thought US forces should rotate through them to create a deterrent without incurring the costs of moving family, establishing schools and other measures required when a permanent US base is established abroad.
"I believe a lot of our European allies, especially those such as in the Baltics or Poland or Romania or elsewhere, they are very, very willing to establish permanent bases," Milley said. "They'll build them, they'll pay for them, etc., for us to cycle through on a rotational basis. So you get the effect of permanent presence of forces, but the actual individual soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines are not permanently stationed there for 2-3 years."........................
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/05/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-reaction-international-conflict/index.html
