The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford said “belligerent” Russia and strengthening China had left world leaders once again thinking in terms of great power competition. He said the post-Soviet years of US global dominance was coming to an end and NATO has to face up to this new reality.

Russia is a competitor and the NATO advantage over a resurgent Russia has eroded

General Joseph Dunford

General Dunford said Russia’s aggression in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria had highlighted its willingness to use military force to defend its strategic interests and retain what it considers its sphere of influence.

He said these interests were often in direct opposition to US and NATO goals.

He said: “Russia is a competitor and the NATO advantage over a resurgent Russia has eroded.”

He continued: “NATO defence chiefs recognise this new balance and it was is of the driving forces behind the alliance’s strategic plan.

“We are bringing a coherence to the planning that is going on inside NATO and the collective efforts to develop capability.”

Gen Dunford said the US and its NATO allies faced a multitude of threats from malign powers.

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He said Russia and China had both closely studied US military strategy and performance since the end of the Cold War and had tried to develop technologies and strategies to exploit any weaknesses.

Gen Dunford said NATO talks in Slovenia represented “a continuation of efforts to operationalise the alliance’s military strategy” and making progress on the NATO concept of “360-degree security” to protect against global threats.

He said: ”Much like in the United States, we didn’t have much competition in the 1990s, the need to be much more deliberate in the process of capability development, making assessments, developing concepts and strategy is what the focus is.”

Russia said frequent declarations about the possibility of a nuclear conflict with the West were a cause for concern and forced it to respond adequately.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “In all, those games with the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a conflict are becoming more and more alarming, maybe even threatening.

“We have to respond to that, including from the point of view of our own military planning.

“The reasons for that can be found in irresponsible conduct of the US administration, which not just authorises a limited use of nuclear weapons in this or that situation, but is also taking practical measures to that end, such as expanding the nuclear arsenal in its possession and creating small nuclear weapons which can only be viewed as a battlefield weapon.

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“Possibly, they expect to reach the stage of their technical, military and technological development when they can declare that their geopolitical rivals – first of all, Russia and China – will overstrain themselves from the economic point of view.

“My statement meant only a greater risk of a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons.

“I did not say that we are one step, or two steps, or one kilometer away from it.

“I only said that risks of this conflict are now higher than they used to be.”

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