The Pentagon on Thursday asked Congress to approve an $842 billion defense budget in preparation any conflict with China.
What happened: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in testimony before the House Defense Subcommittee on Budget Appropriations that the budget aims to do so Modernization of armed forces in Asia and other parts of the world.
“This is a strategy-driven budget — and one that is driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China,” Austin said.
Austin said the proposed budget aims to spend more than $9 billion — a 40% increase from last year — to Build new defense technologies such as hypersonicin the Pacific and defend allies.
In the meantime, General Markus MilleyChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said China’s actions “put it on the path to confrontation and potential conflict with its neighbors and possibly the United States.”
He added that deterrence and preparation for war “is extraordinarily expensive, but not like that as expensive as fighting a war. And this budget prevents war and prepares us to fight it if necessary.”
Austin argued that amidst the growing alliance between two nuclear powers Xi Jinping‘s overtures to Wladimir Putin during the Ukraine war are “worrying”.
According to the US, though China has not yet delivered weapons to Russia If so, “it would prolong the conflict and certainly potentially widen the conflict not just regionally but globally.”
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