Posted on 07/24/2019 9:36:17 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Seven months after General James Mattis left his post following a series of policy disputes with US President Donald Trump, Army veteran Mark Esper has been confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
Esper, who was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 90-8, is taking the reins from acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and comes into his role amid a series of global challenges.
Those challenges include mounting tensions with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and the growing military challenges posed by Russia and China in the Middle East. With the growing tensions in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon has announced two new troop deployments to the Middle East, totaling about 2,500 troops.
For Israel which is fighting Iranian entrenchment in Syria, it is imperative to have a man who knows the region as top defense official.
Former Pentagon official Michael Rubin was quoted saying that Esper “understands the strategic relationship with Israel and also understands that the alternative is no alternative.”
Esper, who served as Pacific war planner on the Army Staff, the branch’s senior leadership body in the 1990s, has long pushed Washington to take a harder stance against the increasingly assertive China, "we are late — coming to the recognition that we are in a strategic competition with China.”
"Since the end of the Cold War, the US military has maintained an unparalleled overmatch on the battlefield but that gap has narrowed,” he said.
“Today, Russia and China are aggressively developing formations and capabilities and weapons systems that deny us that long-held advantage.”
Israel, which coordinates with Russia over Syria and which has allowed a Chinese company to operate parts of Haifa port for the next 25 years (with an option to extend it...), may feel a stronger blowback from Washington with Esper in office.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
The biggest challenge for DOD is stopping hypersonic missiles. The only way to do that is via space-based defense, and that means the “space force” or something like it.
Otherwise our surface navy is rendered useless
They have been useless against any super power, in a real war, for decades. The boomers are another matter at least for now.
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