Now, the US says India is an ‘ally’ China a ‘competitor’, and Russia a ‘threat’!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: As several countries recalibrate their priorities and frenemies, the world undergoes a realignment of forces, and the planet reshapes geopolitics to restructure a New World Order, America has set out to identify its chief targets: India is now an ‘ally’, China a ‘competitor’—the only US competitor that can reshape the world—and Russia a ‘threat.’
Interestingly, the US still sees China only as a ‘competitor’—to prevent its full alignment with Russia, a ‘threat.’
President Joe Biden’s administration labeled China as the nation’s top competitor, while Russia remains a danger to be constrained in a new defense strategy that also calls inflation a threat to global security, the media reported on Thursday.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Adviser (NSA), said the US is in “the early years of a decisive decade” in which “the terms of our competition with the People’s Republic of China will be set.”
“The PRC’s assertiveness at home and abroad is advancing an illiberal vision across economic, political, security and technological realms — in competition with the West,” he said at a Georgetown University event after releasing the Biden administration’s long-delayed National Security Strategy (NSS).
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, prompted a major rewrite of the congressionally mandated document, which provides a window into the White House’s thinking on foreign policy and national security issues.
“This war has loomed large in the formulation of the strategy, as it should, but we do not believe it has blotted out the sun,” said Sullivan.
The new 48-page public document describes China and Russia as “increasingly aligned” with each other, but says the two countries pose distinct challenges.
It calls China the US’s only competitor “with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.” It described the challenge of handling Russia as one of “constraining a still profoundly dangerous” force.
The US released its revamped strategy after over 600 days into President Biden’s administration, compared with the just 300 days it took former President Donald Trump’s team. The Trump document had portrayed China and Russia as co-equal threats.
The document said the US, for the first time, will need to deter two major nuclear powers by the 2030s, viz, China and Russia. “To ensure our nuclear deterrent remains responsive to the threats we face, we are modernizing” the US nuclear force “as well as strengthening our extended deterrence commitments to our allies.”
The Biden administration is still seeking to reinforce that China is “looking for competition but not conflict — and we’re not looking for a new Cold War.”
The document observed that inflation is the Democrats’ biggest political liability and among the threats to global security. This observation came less than a month before midterm elections, which will determine if Biden’s party keeps control of the House and Senate. It lists inflation as one of the cross-border issues “people all over the world are struggling to cope with.”
High inflation has been a drag on Democrats’ midterm prospects. The Department of Labor will release the latest inflation numbers on Thursday, the last release before Election Day.
On Tuesday, Biden said a recession in the US is possible but any downturn would be “very slight” and the US economy is resilient enough to ride out the turbulence.
Among the other cross-border issues cited is climate change. “The window of opportunity to deal with shared challenges like climate change will narrow drastically even as the intensity of those challenges grows,” Sullivan said.
