Pentagon downgrades claimed threat level from Russia
A comparable document under President Joe Biden in October 2022, shortly after the escalation in Ukraine, described Moscow as an “acute threat.” The updated strategy, released by the War Department on Friday, now labels Russia as “a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future.”
The report emphasizes that Moscow “possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify, as well as undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the US Homeland.” It also notes that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine demonstrates Moscow “retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power,” along with the “national resolve required to sustain a protracted war in its near abroad.”
However, the Pentagon concludes that Russia is “in no position to make a bid for European hegemony. European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and, thus, latent military power.”
The document states the US will “continue to play a vital role in NATO” and “remain engaged in Europe,” but will now “prioritize defending the US Homeland and deterring China,” in line with the White House National Security Strategy issued in October.
Although Europe accounts for “a smaller and decreasing share of global economic power,” NATO members on the continent are “strongly positioned to take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense, with critical but more limited US support.” The strategy also emphasizes that the EU and UK should “take the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defense,” echoing President Donald Trump’s position that the Moscow-Kiev conflict “must end.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated last October that he views the Trump administration as guided by American interests, describing its approach as “rational.”
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