America Reveals 'Great Power' Plans Against Russia and China

[Lodestar]

The United States is entering a new era of great power competition facing off against a resurgent Russia and a reemerging China. As such, the United States has to prioritize its defense spending to meet those rising challenges—which Washington will start to do with President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget proposal, announced this week.
“These challenges reflect a return to great power of competition. First is in Europe, where we're taking a strong and balanced approach to deter Russian aggression, and we haven't had to worry about this for twenty-five years,” U.S. defense secretary Ashton Carter told an audience at the Washington Economic Club on Tuesday. “Second is in the Asia-Pacific, where China is rising and where we're continuing and will continue our rebalance.”

While great power confrontations have existed since before Athens faced off against Sparta in the Great Peloponnesian War that ended about 2,400 years ago, this new confrontation will be different. The United States won’t just face off against Russia and China in the air, on land or at sea. Washington will also have to confront Moscow and Beijing in the emerging cyberspace and electronic warfare domains.
“We will be prepared for a high-end enemy. That's what we call full spectrum. In our budget, our plans, our capabilities and our actions, we must demonstrate to potential foes, that if they start a war, we have the capability to win. Because the force that can deter conflict, must show that it can dominate a conflict,” Carter said. “In this context, Russia and China are our most stressing competitors. They have developed and are continuing to advance military systems that seek to threaten our advantages in specific areas. And in some case, they are developing weapons and ways of wars that seek to achieve their objectives rapidly, before they hope, we can respond.”

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http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/america-reveals-great-power-plan-against-russia-china-15103