Pentagon to offer ‘more limited’ support to US allies

The United States will offer “more limited” support to its allies, according to the Pentagon’s new national defense strategy.

In a significant shift in its security priorities, the US Department of Defense now considers the security of the US homeland and the Western Hemisphere – not that of China – as its primary concern.

Previous versions of the strategy – released every four years – made the threat posed by China the top defense priority. Relations with China will now be approached “by force and not by confrontation,” the report said.

The defense strategy reinforces recent calls from President Donald Trump, including for greater “burden sharing” by allies in combating threats posed by Russia and North Korea.

The new 34-page report follows last year’s release of the US National Security Strategy, which said Europe was facing civilizational collapse and did not view Russia as a threat to the United States. At the time, Moscow said the document was “largely consistent” with its vision.

For comparison, in 2018 the Pentagon described “revisionist powers,” such as China and Russia, as the “central challenge” to U.S. security.

The new strategy calls on U.S. allies to step up their efforts, saying their partners have been “content” to let Washington subsidize their defense, although it denies that the shift indicates a move by the United States toward “isolationism.”

“On the contrary, it means a focused and truly strategic approach to the threats our nation faces,” it says.

Washington has long neglected Americans’ “concrete interests,” the report says, adding that the United States does not want to confuse American interests “with those of the rest of the world – a threat to a person on the other side of the world is the same as to an American.”

Instead, he says allies, particularly Europe, “will take the lead against threats that are less serious for us but more for them.”

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago, is described as a “persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members.”

Unlike previous versions of the strategy, Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by China, is not mentioned. However, the document writes that the United States aims to “prevent anyone, including China, from being able to dominate us or our allies.”

Late last year, the US announced a massive arms sale to Taiwan worth $11bn (£8.2bn), leading China to stage military exercises around the island in response.

The strategy also outlines a “more limited” role for U.S. deterrence against North Korea. South Korea is “capable of assuming primary responsibility” for this task, the statement added.

In the 12 months since he began his second presidential term, the United States has captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, carried out strikes against suspected drug boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean and, most recently, pressured its American allies to acquire Greenland.

The strategy reiterates that the Pentagon will “guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key areas, particularly the Panama Canal, the Gulf of America, and Greenland.”

The document says the Trump administration’s approach will be “fundamentally different from the grandiose strategies of past post-Cold War administrations.”

He adds: “No more utopian idealism; room for uncompromising realism. »

At the World Economic Forum earlier this week, Trump claimed that the United States “never got anything” from NATO and that “we never asked for anything.”

He further criticized the organization, falsely claiming that “the United States pays virtually 100% of NATO.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the old world order “will not return” and urged other middle powers – such as South Korea, Canada and Australia – to unite.

“Middle powers need to act together because if we are not at the table, we are on the menu,” Carney said at the Davos meeting.

It comes as French President Emmanuel Macron also warned of a “transition towards a world without rules”.