The top four priorities for the president-elect\u2019s transition team are defeating Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL), eliminating the sequester, developing a new cyber strategy and eliminating wasteful spending, according to a December 1 memo from Undersecretary of Defense for policy Brian McKeon.<\/p>\n
The list was communicated to McKeon by Mira Ricardel, one of the leaders of Trump\u2019s Pentagon transition team, according to the memo obtained by\u00a0Foreign Policy<\/a> magazine and published Tuesday.<\/p>\n Notably absent from the memo is Russia, which the current Pentagon leadership labeled the number-one threat to the US.<\/p>\n Foreign Policy cited the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, as saying that Russia \u201ccould pose an existential threat\u201d<\/em> to the US \u2013 more so than China, North Korea or IS, which rounded out the list. The link provided by the magazine refers to Dunford\u2019s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July 2015.<\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n The US \u201cforeign policy establishment \u2013 including large swaths of employees at the Pentagon, State Department and CIA \u2013 remains deeply skeptical of Moscow,\u201d<\/em> said the magazine. The article included quotes by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Evelyn Farkas and Brookings Institution scholar Steven Pifer, both known for hostility towards Russia.<\/p>\n Foreign Policy also reached out to Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges, commander of US Army forces in Europe. Without quoting him directly, the magazine reported that Hodges saying that the Pentagon and NATO have \u201crevamped some training exercises specifically to replicate fighting Russian armed forces\u201d and that US, British and Canadian troops were training Ukrainian forces who are \u201cseeing daily combat with Russian-trained and equipped separatists.\u201d<\/em> Hodges reportedly also claimed that many of those units were led by Russian officers.<\/p>\n READ MORE: US troops rushed to Poland before Trump\u2019s inauguration<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFor the media to speculate that this list of issues represents all of the president-elect\u2019s priorities is completely erroneous and misleading,\u201d<\/em> a Trump transition official, who insisted on anonymity, told Foreign Policy.<\/p>\n Trump and Obama are, ironically, united in downplaying the threat Russia poses to America and its allies. Some Pentagon brass beg to differ: pic.twitter.com\/RruJSohyS9<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Oren Kessler (@OrenKessler) December 20, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/center><\/div>\n .@realDonaldTrump<\/a> Don’t let the CIA and Pentagon roll you like embarrassing weak loser Obama. The American people want peace with Russia!<\/p>\n \u2014 Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) December 20, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/center><\/div>\n The published priorities list matches what Trump has addressed on the campaign trail, from pledges to defeat IS to promises to rebuild the US military and review expensive but ineffective weapons programs such as the F-35<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President-elect Donald Trump is looking to focusing on defeating ISIS and cutting wasteful spending, according to communications between his transition officials and the Pentagon. Russia\u2019s absence from the list, however, has alarmed some in Washington. The top four priorities for the president-elect\u2019s transition team are defeating Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL), eliminating the sequester, developing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-287392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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