One of the great swindles of the 21st century, so far, as been the notion, first arbitrarily decreed in the Trump national security documents of the 2017-2018 period, that somehow the U.S. had entered “an era” of great power competition against Russia and China. The narrative that such “great power competition” was inevitable has been reshaping the strategic outlook at the Pentagon ever since.
On Feb. 12, the Department of the Air Force announced “sweeping plans for reshaping, refocusing, and reoptimizing the Air Force and Space Force to ensure continued supremacy in those domains while also better posturing the services to deter and, if necessary, prevail in an era of Great Power Competition,” reported an Air Force press release. “Today, we are announcing 24 key decisions that are going to address the current force and our ability to stay competitive,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in announcing the changes and the rationale behind them. And Kendall wants action now on these initiatives. “We need these changes now; we are out of time to reoptimize our forces to meet the strategic challenges in a time of Great Power Competition,” he claimed.
