In its new military strategy, the US government sees China as the biggest permanent threat. It is the only country that “both want to restructure the international order and increasingly has the strength to do so,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday as he presented the strategy.
Russia, on the other hand, is classified as an “acute” threat. The word was carefully chosen, Austin pointed out. “Unlike China, Russia cannot systematically challenge the United States in the long term,” Austin said. “But Russian aggression is a direct and acute threat to our interests and values.”
As for the use of American nuclear weapons, it is said that a very high threshold will continue to be set. However, the strategy does not stipulate that they should only be used in response to a nuclear attack.
For North Korea, the strategy includes a warning that the use of nuclear weapons against the United States or its partners would spell “the end of the regime” of ruler Kim Jong Un. “There is no scenario in which the Kim regime can use nuclear weapons and survive,” the Pentagon said.
As for Iran, it is said that the country does not currently have a nuclear weapon “and we currently believe that it is not trying to obtain one”. However, Iran is building nuclear capabilities that would allow for the development of nuclear weapons. (Dpa)
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