Ukraine War Is 'Warmup' for
U.S. in Face of China "Threat": Stratcom
Commander
By Gerrard Kaonga
November 07, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- "Newsweek"
- Navy Admiral Charles A. Richard,
the commander of the United States Strategic
Command (Stratcom), has warned that the war in
Ukraine isn't the largest conflict that the U.S.
will see right now—it must be prepared for a
global conflict involving China.
"This Ukraine crisis that we're in right now,
this is just the warmup," Richard said during a
speech at the Naval Submarine League 2022 Annual
Symposium and Industry Update. "The big one is
coming. And it isn't going to be very long
before we're going to get tested in ways that we
haven't been tested in a long time.
"We have to do some rapid, fundamental change
in the way we approach the defense of this
nation," he continued. "I will tell you, the
current situation is vividly illuminating what
nuclear coercion looks like and how you, or how
you don't stand up to that.
"As I assess our level of deterrence
against China, the ship is slowly sinking.
It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as
fundamentally they are putting capability in the
field faster than we are," Richard said. "As
those curves keep going, it isn't going to
matter how good our [operating plan] is or how
good our commanders are, or how good our horses
are—we're not going to have enough of them. And
that is a very near-term problem."
Richard also said that the U.S. needs to look
to its military development past to see how it
could increase its domination in the
international military sphere.
"We used to know how to move fast, and we
have lost the art of that. We have got to get
back into the business of not talking about how
we are going to mitigate our assumed eventual
failure[s]," he said.
"[We need to] flip it to the way we used to
ask questions in this nation, which is what's it
going to take? Is it money? Is it people? Do you
need authorities? What risk? That's how we got
to the Moon by 1969. We need to bring some of
that back. Otherwise, China is simply going to
out-compete us, and Russia isn't going anywhere
anytime soon."
Despite Richard's concerns, China's president
Xi Jinping has recently called for a
better relationship between the U.S. and
China.
In his first public message to U.S. President
Joe Biden since he extended his rule over
the Communist Party, Xi indicated the two
countries should return to a "sound and steady
relationship."
"The world today is neither tranquil nor
stable. China and the United States are two
major countries. Closer communication and
cooperation between us will help bring greater
stability and certainty to the world, and
promote world peace and development," Xi told
the National Committee on United States–China
Relations (NCUSCR).
"China stands ready to
work with the United States to find the
right way to get along with each other in the
new era on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful
coexistence and win-win cooperation. This will
benefit not only our two countries but also the
whole world," the letter said.
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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