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Congressional Report on the Russian/Chinese Threat

From the Congressional Research Service: (Summary)

The post-Cold War era of international relations—which began in the early 1990s and is sometimes referred to as the unipolar moment (with the United States as the unipolar power)— showed initial signs of fading in 2006-2008, and by 2014 had given way to a fundamentally different situation of renewed great power competition with China and Russia and challenges by these two countries and others to elements of the U.S.-led international order that has operated since World War II. 

The renewal of great power competition was acknowledged alongside other considerations in the Obama Administration’s June 2015 National Military Strategy, and was placed at the center of the Trump Administration’s December 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and January 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS). 

The December 2017 NSS and January 2018 NDS formally reoriented U.S. national security strategy and U.S. defense strategy toward an explicit primary focus on great power competition with China and Russia.

 Department of Defense (DOD) officials have subsequently identified countering China’s military capabilities as DOD’s top priority.

The renewal of great power competition has profoundly changed the conversation about U.S. defense issues from what it was during the post-Cold War era: Counterterrorist operations and U.S. military operations in the Middle East—which had moved to the center of discussions of U.S. defense issues following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and which continue to be conducted—are now a less-dominant element in the conversation, and the conversation now features a new or renewed emphasis on the following, all of which relate to China and/or Russia:

 ∙ grand strategy and the geopolitics of great power competition as a starting point for discussing U.S. defense issues; 

∙ organizational changes within DOD; 

∙ nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence; 

∙ the global allocation of U.S. military force deployments;

 ∙ U.S. and allied military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region; 

∙ U.S. and NATO military capabilities in Europe; 

∙ new U.S. military service operational concepts;

 ∙ capabilities for conducting so-called high-end conventional warfare;

 ∙ maintaining U.S. superiority in conventional weapon technologies;

 ∙ innovation and speed of U.S. weapon system development and deployment;

 ∙ mobilization capabilities for an extended-length large-scale conflict; 

∙ supply chain security, meaning awareness and minimization of reliance in U.S. military systems on foreign components, subcomponents, materials, and software; and 

∙ capabilities for countering so-called hybrid warfare and gray-zone tactics. 

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The issue for Congress is how U.S. defense planning should respond to renewed great power competition, and whether to approve, reject, or modify the Trump Administration’s proposed defense funding levels, strategy, plans, and programs for addressing renewed great power competition. Congress’s decisions on these issues could have significant implications for U.S. defense capabilities and funding requirements. 

Issues for Congress Potential policy and oversight issues for Congress include the following: 

∙ December 2017 NSS and January 2018 NDS. Do the December 2017 NSS and the January 2018 NDS correctly describe or diagnose the renewal of great power competition? As strategy documents, do they lay out an appropriate U.S. national security strategy and national defense strategy for responding to renewed great power competition? 

∙ Defense funding levels. In response to renewed great power competition, should defense funding levels in coming years be increased, reduced, or maintained at about the current level? 

∙ U.S. grand strategy. Should the United States continue to include, as a key element of U.S. grand strategy, a goal of preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon in one part of Eurasia or another? 67 If not, what grand strategy should the United States pursue? What is the Trump Administration’s position on this issue?68 

∙ DOD organization. Is DOD optimally organized for renewed great power competition? What further changes, if any, should be made to better to better align DOD’s activities with those needed to counter Chinese and Russian military capabilities? 

∙ Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence. Are current DOD plans for modernizing U.S. strategic nuclear weapons, and for numbers and basing of nonstrategic (i.e., theater-range) nuclear weapons, aligned with the needs renewed great power competition? 

∙ Global allocation of U.S. military force deployments. Should the global allocation of U.S. military force deployments be altered, and if so, how? 

What are the potential benefits and risks of shifting U.S. military force deployments out of some areas and into others? Should the Trump Administration’s proposals for changing the global allocation of U.S. military force deployments be approved, rejected, or modified?

 ∙ U.S. and allied military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region. Are the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region taking appropriate and sufficient steps for countering China’s military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region? To what degree will countering China’s military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region require reductions in U.S. force deployments to other parts of the world?

 ∙ U.S. and NATO military capabilities in Europe. Are the United States and its NATO allies taking appropriate and sufficient steps regarding U.S. and NATO military capabilities and operations for countering potential Russian military aggression in Europe? What potential impacts would a strengthened U.S. military presence in Europe have on DOD’s ability to allocate additional U.S. forces to the Indo-Pacific region? To what degree can or should the NATO allies in Europe take actions to strengthen deterrence against potential Russian aggression in Europe? 

∙ New operational concepts. Are U.S. military services moving too slowly, too quickly, or at about the right speed in their efforts to develop new operational concepts in response to renewed great power competition, particularly against improving Chinese anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) forces? What are the potential merits of these new operational concepts, and what steps are the services taking in terms of experiments and exercises to test and refine these concepts? To what degree are the services working to coordinate and integrate their new operational concepts on a cross-service basis? 

∙ Capabilities for high-end conventional warfare. Are DOD’s plans for acquiring capabilities for high-end conventional warfare appropriate and sufficient? In a situation of constraints on defense funding, how should trade-offs be made in balancing capabilities for high-end conventional warfare against other DOD priorities? 

∙ Maintaining U.S. superiority in conventional weapon technologies. Are DOD’s steps for maintaining U.S. superiority in conventional weapon technologies appropriate and sufficient? What impact will funding these technologies have on funding available for nearer-term DOD priorities, such as redressing deficiencies in force readiness? 

∙ Innovation and speed in weapon system development and deployment. To what degree should defense acquisition policy and the paradigm for assessing the success of acquisition programs be adjusted to place greater emphasis on innovation and speed of development and deployment, and on experimentation, risk taking, and greater tolerance of failure during development? Are DOD’s steps for doing this appropriate and sufficient? What new legislative authorities, if any, might be required (or what existing provisions, if any, might need to be amended or repealed) to achieve greater innovation and speed in weapon development and deployment? What implications might placing a greater emphasis on speed of acquisition have on familiar congressional paradigms for conducting oversight and judging the success of defense acquisition programs? 

∙ Mobilization capabilities. What actions is DOD taking regarding mobilization capabilities for an extended-length conflict against an adversary such as China or Russia, and are these actions appropriate? How much funding is being devoted to mobilization capabilities, and how are mobilization capabilities projected to change as a result of these actions in coming years?

Supple chain security. To what degree are Chinese or Russian components, subcomponents, materials, or software incorporated into DOD equipment? How good of an understanding does DOD have of this issue? What implications might this issue have for the reliability, maintainability, and reparability of U.S. military systems, particularly in time of war? What actions is DOD taking or planning to take to address supply chain security, particularly with regard to Chinese or Russian components, subcomponents, materials, and software? What impact might this issue have on U.S.-content requirements (aka Buy America requirements) for U.S. military systems?

.Hybrid warfare and gray-zone tactics. Do the United States and its allies and partners have adequate strategies for countering Russia’s so-called hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s information operations, and China’s socalled salami-slicing tactics in the South and East China Seas?

Photo: n the Irkutsk region, a large-scale command and staff exercise of the strategic missile forces (SMF) was completed, in which more than 3 thousand military personnel took part and about 300 pieces of equipment were involved. This event was the first after the complete re-equipment of the Irkutsk missile formation to the “Yars” mobile complex. (Russian Defense Ministry)