(Military Times) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced Wednesday that U.S. Pacific Command would now be called U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, in the latest move to counter Chinese economic and military pressure in the region.
By Daniel Gouré, Lexington Institute: “Studies show the Army is approximately $9 billion below historical funding levels for modernization and 80% of its current spending goes to programs conceived before 9/11.”
By Euan Graham, the interpreter: “While Mattis’s speech will be analyzed most acutely, it was striking how many defense ministers, including Singapore’s Ng Eng Hen, went out of their way to flag China’s stepped-up militarization of the South China Sea as cause for strategic concern.”
(Military Times) The U.S. Southern Command gets only a side reference in the National Defense Strategy. It doesn’t grab the headlines of Central Command and the recently renamed Indo-Pacific Command that are home to the major strategic threats identified by defense officials.