Bill Gertz
Washington Free Beacon
February 7, 2018
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress on Tuesday the United States will deploy small nuclear weapons on two new missiles to counter growing threats posed by Russia and China.
“What we’ve seen is that Russia and China from Ukraine, to mucking around in our democratic elections in the case of Russia, to China’s militarization of features in the South China Sea, we have seen them choose to become strategic competitors with us, versus what at one time we had hoped would be some level of partnership,” Mattis said.
The defense secretary made the comments during House Armed Services Committee testimony along with Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Paul Selva on the Pentagon’s latest Nuclear Posture Review, made public last week.
The nuclear review represents a major shift from the Obama administration’s 2010 review that altered U.S. military doctrine away from relying on nuclear weapons under the since-outdated assumption Russia was no longer an enemy.
This article was posted: Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 7:49 am
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