Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley testified about the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2024 budget request at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, Voice of America reports.
The general is concerned about the relations between Russia and China.
"I wouldn’t call it a true alliance in the literal sense of the word, but we can see them getting closer, and Iran is the third. So I think these three countries together will create problems for years to come, especially Russia and China because of their capabilities," Milley explained.
Russia and China have the means to threaten US interests, he believes.
"There has been no war between great powers for the past 80 years, in large part because of the rules put in place after World War II and the capabilities of the United States military, along with our allies and partners,” he said and added that the US must remain the most powerful country if they want to continue maintaining great power.
The number one geostrategic challenge for the US in the long term is China.
In particular, Milley expressed concern about Beijing's nuclear program, since the US probably won't be able to do anything to stop, slow down, disrupt, prohibit or destroy the Chinese nuclear development program that they have planned for the next 10-20 years, and there's very little external leverage to prevent that. There might be some economic leverage, he said.
According to him, China's goal is to overtake and surpass the United States militarily, and this is worrying to Milley. America will have to not only keep pace, but also be ahead to ensure peace.
He emphasizes that Russia is also a threat to world security and stability.
"We support Ukraine in protecting its sovereignty and we support NATO in the form of a United States military presence in every country on the eastern flank of the Alliance. This struggle is not only in the interests of Ukraine, but also in the interests of the United States to protect the system that prevented wars of great powers during the last eight decades," he said.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff also mentioned Iran, noting that the country could produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks. According to him, it will take only a few months for Iran to produce real nuclear weapons. However, the United States has developed several options that it can consider in the event that Iran does decide to develop nuclear weapons.
On March 24, Milley said that Iran would only need a few months to develop its own nuclear weapons. However, he later promised that the US would not allow Iran to develop them.
On March 25, Vladimir Putin announced that a storage facility for Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be completed in Belarus by July 1. US President Joe Biden said that he was concerned about Putin’s decision.