Newsman: President Biden’s National Security Strategy (NSS) identified China as the “most consequential geopolitical challenge”, proclaiming that the US is “in the middle of a strategic competition to shape the future of the international order.”The White House released its National Security Strategy (NSS) on Wednesday, the document mandated by Congress that details the country’s international interests and policies.
The US administration also stressed the need for “constraining Russia” amid the invasion of Ukraine and identified areas to deepen international cooperation, including with competitors. The report was scheduled to be released last year, but it was delayed by the then-looming war in Ukraine.
The Biden administration’s latest strategy identifies American security concerns in the coming years .National Security Strategy (NSS) outlined that the major-power competition with China as the “most consequential geopolitical challenge” facing America in a post-Cold War era.
Biden administration officials have used the guidance putting America’s national security priorities into two broad categories: competition between democracies and autocracies, and shared – or transnational – challenges, with climate change foremost among them.
“China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favors of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit,” Biden said in the document’s introduction. “Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war on its neighbor Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and impacted stability everywhere.”
“Autocrats are working overtime to undermine democracy and export a model of governance marked by repression at home and coercion abroad,” he added.
The NSS said the US will make investments to strengthen “innovation” at home while working with allies in “common cause” to compete “responsibly” with China.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,” the document read.
It said Beijing is planning to expand its sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific and become the world’s leading power.
The Biden administration has defined China as posing the main challenge to American global leadership and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking hours after the strategy’s official release, declared that the “post-Cold War era is over”.
“The competition is under way between the major powers to shape what comes next,” he said in a speech at Georgetown University.
Earlier on Wednesday, Sullivan said the fundamental premise underpinning the strategy was that the US had entered a “decisive decade” with respect to the two broad challenges.
“This decisive decade is critical, both for defining the terms of competition, particularly with the PRC, and for getting ahead of massive challenges,” he added, referring to China’s official name.
Sullivan said the administration’s strategy was to continue to invest domestically in “underlying sources and tools of American power influence” and “build the strongest possible coalition of nations” to enhance collective influence.
The administration has put “alliances” with countries in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region as well as Nato and the G7 as “the core of this strategy”, the national security adviser said.
“But the strategy also makes clear that we avoid seeing the world float solely through the prism of strategic competition. And we will not try to divide the world into rigid blocs. We are not seeking to have competition tipped over into confrontation, or a new Cold War,” Sullivan added.
Highlighting Biden’s emphasis on China, Sullivan noted differences with Beijing in the strategy’s list of transnational challenges, including climate change, food insecurity, communicable diseases such as the coronavirus pandemic, terrorism, energy transition and inflation.
“Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” is cited as one of many goals in the document’s “global priorities” section in which “out-competing China” tops the list.
“Geopolitical competition changes, and often complicates, the context in which shared challenges can be addressed while those problems often exacerbate geopolitical competition, as we saw with the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic when the PRC was unwilling to cooperate with the international community,” the document stated.
While a US government investigation into the pandemic’s origins dismissed the possibility that the pathogen was developed as a biological weapon, analysts trying to determine Covid-19’s origins remained divided about whether the virus came from a lab leak or jumped from an animal reservoir to humans naturally. Calls continue for more investigative work in China.
The Chinese government has pushed back by calling for a World Health Organization investigation of the US military base Fort Detrick and blocking the WHO’s proposed second phase investigation into the pandemic’s origins.
In terms of international cooperation, he said the US would adopt a “dual-track approach”. On the one hand, it would cooperate “with any country, including our geopolitical rivals” on shared challenges, and on the other, it would seek to “deepen and sharpen our cooperation with like-minded democracies”.
The expanded national security strategy comes nearly two years into the Biden administration. Sullivan said the administration did not release it earlier because it would have been “imprudent in such a fast-moving and consequential moment”, alluding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
President Biden also announced last week some of the toughest measures yet aimed at preventing Chinese companies from acquiring American hi-tech products in a bid to keep such technology from reaching China’s military, whose modernisation has raised alarms at the Pentagon.
Biden has drawn Beijing’s fury for saying on various occasions since coming to office in 2021 that Washington would militarily defend Taiwan – a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own – if China were to invade.
The two countries have also clashed over trade, Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea and Washington’s deepening alliances in the region.
The NSS accuses Russia of posing an “immediate and persistent threat to international peace and stability” through its policies that “culminated” in the invasion of Ukraine.
The report noted that the war in Ukraine was preceded by a Russian military intervention to back the Syrian government, the annexation of Crimea and interference in the internal affairs of other countries, including the US.
The document highlighted that the US and its allies are backing Ukrainian forces militarily and strengthening defenses in NATO countries neighboring Russia while sanctioning Moscow over the invasion.
“We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine as they fight back against Russia’s naked aggression,” it said. “And we will rally the world to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities they have unleashed across Ukraine.”
“The United States will not allow Russia, or any power, to achieve its objectives through using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons,” the document read.
US is “postured and prepared to use other means” to counter Iran
In the report, beyond China and Russia, the NSS said “smaller autocratic powers” are acting aggressively in ways that compromise global stability.
“Most notably, Iran interferes in the internal affairs of neighbors, proliferates missiles and drones through proxies, is plotting to harm Americans, including former officials, and is advancing a nuclear program beyond any credible civilian need,” the report read.
It said the US is “postured and prepared to use other means” to counter Iran if diplomacy fails.
The NSS said the US will pursue diplomacy to make sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, referring to efforts to restore the 2015 multilateral agreement that saw Tehran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for sanction relief.
“In the Middle East, we have worked to enhance deterrence toward Iran, de-escalate regional conflicts, deepen integration among a diverse set of partners in the region, and bolster energy stability,” it read.
US seek to extend and deepen Israel’s growing ties to its neighbors
The NSS reaffirms the US commitment to Israel’s security and the newly emerging alliance between Israel and Arab countries – namely the United Arab Emirates.
“We will seek to extend and deepen Israel’s growing ties to its neighbors and other Arab states, including through the Abraham Accords, while maintaining our ironclad commitment to its security,” it reads.
US “must maintain Cooperating globally“
The report said despite growing competition between countries, the US “must maintain and increase international cooperation on shared challenges”.
In a speech discussing the NSS on Wednesday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “Transnational challenges that do not respect borders or adhere to ideologies” – including climate change, diseases and food insecurity – represent a major strategic challenge for Washington.
“Our strategy to tackle the shared challenges that require global cooperation involves two simultaneous tracks: on one track, we will fully engage all countries and institutions to cooperate on shared threats, including by pressing for reforms where institutional responses have proven inadequate,” the NSS read.
“At the same time, we will also redouble our efforts to deepen our cooperation with like-minded partners.”
