Russia: Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Strategy Spoiler? (From RealClearDefense)

While the U.S. military likes to talk about being in an era of great power competition, it acts like there is only one real challenger: China. The armed forces are moving to reorganize and re-equip themselves to meet the specific dictates of potential future crises and conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region. Each is seeking to stake a claim on future resources and the prominence of their roles in countering the advance of China. Unfortunately, in its rush to make China the more imminent threat, the Pentagon is downplaying the threat from Russia, the actual most likely adversary, at least in the near term. Yes, Russia is a power in secular decline, but its military power has improved significantly over the past 15 years. As a result, Moscow is poised to spoil the Pentagon’s desire to shift its focus to the Indo-Pacific. I have written more about this here.