China's military power an increasing threat to US, Pentagon official admits
America's dominance in the battlefield slowly being eroded by competitors largely due to budget cuts, official says
The US military’s technological superiority is increasingly challenged by China, and efforts to maintain an edge are complicated by shrinking defence budgets that have cut money for development, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said on Tuesday.
Frank Kendall, the deputy undersecretary of defence for acquisition and technology, told lawmakers that the US military’s technological superiority is being “challenged in ways that I have not seen for decades, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region”, where China is pursuing a rapid modernisation program.
[China's] budget is far smaller than ours. But their personnel costs are also far smaller than ours
“Technological superiority is not assured,” Kendall told the Armed Services Committee in the House of Representatives. “This is not a future problem. This is a here-now problem.”
With China, Russia and other countries rapidly modernising their militaries, Pentagon officials are voicing increasing concern about the possibility of losing the technological edge that has enabled the US military to dominate the battlefield over the past 25 years.
US defence officials say they do not expect a conflict with China or Russia, but the chances are that some of what they develop will be sold to other nations and the US military may eventually face those systems.
Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel underscored the value of advanced research in a visit this month to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, saying the “technological edge that we’ve been able to maintain is critically important … in the world that we’re in today with more complications, more combustibility”.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, the head of US Pacific Command, told reporters in Washington recently that the military’s “relative dominance” had been diminishing after a period of unequalled superiority.