China, for the U.S./NATO combine, is now the biggest “threat.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made that clear during his first press conference as Secretary of Defense yesterday. “I applaud NATO’s work on China and I made it clear that the United States is committed to defending the international rules-based order, which China has consistently undermined for its own interests,” he said with reference to the just-concluded NATO defense ministers meeting. “We here at the Pentagon and the Department of Defense view China as our primary pacing challenge and we believe NATO can help us better think through our operating concepts and investment strategies when it comes to meeting that challenge.”
Making this explicit is a Feb. 19 report in Air Force Magazine entitled “Know Thy Enemy,” as if China is actually an enemy of the United States. “Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has a challenge for the force: Understand your enemy,” it says at the outset. “It’s not enough to count the aircraft in China’s air force. Brown wants Airmen to know what ‘makes them tick—what drives their intent?’ That, he has said, is the only way the U.S. can come out on top in a high-end fight with China, where air superiority is not a given, but must be earned.”
