The Trump administrationâs defense secretary, former Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, rolled out a new National Defense Strategy Friday that signals open preparations by US imperialism for direct military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia and China.
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, Mattis made clear that the strategy, the first such document to be issued by the Pentagon in roughly a decade, represented an historic shift from the ostensible justification for US global militarism for nearly two decades: the so-called war on terrorism.
âGreat power competitionânot terrorismâis now the primary focus of US national security,â Mattis said in his speech, which accompanied the release of an 11-page declassified document outlining the National Defense Strategy in broad terms. A lengthier classified version was submitted to the US Congress, which includes the Pentagonâs detailed proposals for a massive increase in military spending.
Much of the documentâs language echoed terms used in the National Security Strategy document unveiled last month in a fascistic speech delivered by President Donald Trump. Mattis insisted that the US was facing âgrowing threat from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models.â
The defense strategy goes on to accuse China of seeking âIndo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.â
Russia, it charges, is attempting to achieve âveto authority over nations on its periphery in terms of their governmental, economic, and diplomatic decisions, to shatter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and change European and Middle East security and economic structures to its favor.â
âChina is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea,â it states. âRussia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors.â
In what appeared to be a threat directed against both Russia and China, Mattis warned, âIf you challenge us, it will be your longest and worst day.â
Both Moscow and Beijing issued statements condemning the US defense strategy. A Chinese spokesman denounced the document as a return to a âCold War mentality.â Russiaâs Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, told a United Nations press conference: âIt is regrettable that instead of having a normal dialog, instead of using the basis of international law, the US is indeed striving to prove their leadership through such confrontational strategies and concepts.â A government spokesman in Moscow characterized the document as âimperialistic.â
Like the National Security Strategy released last month, the defense strategy also singles out North Korea and Iran as ârogue regimes,â charging them with destabilizing regions through their âpursuit of nuclear weapons or sponsorship of terrorism.â It accuses Tehran of âcompeting with its neighbors, asserting an arc of influence and instability while vying for regional hegemony.â
The document calls for the preparation for war across what it describes as âthree key regionsâ: the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. The document also makes brief references to Latin America and Africa, asserting the necessity of US imperialism striving for hegemony on both continents. It makes clear that these continents are arenas for the global âgreat powerâ struggle that forms the core of the strategy, asserting that a key aim in Africa is to âlimit the malign influence of non-African powers.â
What emerges clearly from the Pentagon document is a vision of US imperialism besieged on all sides and in mortal danger of losing global dominance. It reflects the thinking among the cabal of retired and active-duty generals that dominate the Trump administrationâs foreign policy that the past 16 years of unending wars in the Middle East and Central Asia have failed to further US strategic interests, creating a series of debacles, while grinding down the US military.
âToday, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding,â the document states. âWe are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international orderâcreating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.â
The Pentagonâs aim, according to the defense strategy, is to ensure that the US remains âthe preeminent military power in the worldâ able to âensure the balance of power remains in our favor,â âadvance an international order that is most conducive to our security and prosperityâ and âpreserve access to markets.â
The thrust of the document is a demand for a vast buildup of the American war machine, which already spends more than the next eight countries combined, including nearly triple the military spending of China and roughly eight times the amount spent by Russia.
A failure to implement the huge military spending increases that the Pentagon is demandingâthe Trump White House has called for a $54 billion increase in the military budget, while Congressional leaders have suggested an even bigger hikeâwill result âin decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in our prosperity and standard of living,â the declassified summary of the defense strategy warns.
Despite having siphoned trillions of dollars out of the US economy to pay for the past 16 years of war, Mattis and the defense strategy present the American military as an institution that has been virtually starved of resources, unable to meet âreadiness, procurement, and modernization requirements.â
The overriding objective in terms of modernization is the buildup of the US ânuclear triadââWashingtonâs array of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers, capable of destroying life on the planet many times over.
The document said the Pentagon will seek to upgrade all aspects of its nuclear war-fighting apparatus, âincluding nuclear command, control, and communications, and supporting infrastructure.â It added that âModernization of the nuclear force includes developing options to counter competitorsâ coercive strategies, predicated on the threatened use of nuclear or strategic non-nuclear attacks.â In other words, the US military is prepared to launch a nuclear war in response to a conventional or cyberattack.
Tellingly, the Pentagon document uses the words âlethalâ and âlethalityâ 15 times to describe the aims of Mattis and his fellow generals in regard to their proposed military buildup. Clearly, what is being prepared is a level of mass killing far beyond the bloodbaths carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
In Mattisâs speech there was a strong element of resentment toward the civilian government and its constitutional control over the military. He described US troops being compelled to âstoically carry a âsuccess at any costâ attitude, as they worked tirelessly to accomplish the mission with inadequate and misaligned resources simply because the Congress could not maintain regular order.â
Mattis warned that the war plans outlined in the document will require âsustained investment by the American people,â noting that âpast generationsâ had been compelled to make âharsher sacrifices.â
These new âsacrificesâ will take the form of savage cuts to essential social services, including the gutting of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with the transfer of resources to the military, the arms industry and the financial oligarchy.
The National Defense Strategy released Friday constitutes a grave warning to working people in the US and throughout the world. Driven by the crisis of their system, Americaâs capitalist ruling class and its military are preparing for a world war fought with nuclear weapons.