There is a growing threat of peer competitors ready to challenge the U.S., and a need to maintain readiness and interoperability among NATO allies, the commander of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa warned Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was speaking to a gathering of allied amphibious maritime leaders at the Amphibious Leader Expeditionary Symposium held at Rand headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are peer competitors that are out there that are willing and capable to hand it to us,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Russell A. Sanborn, the commander of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa. \u201cAre we ready?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The illegal Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 has pole vaulted Russia back into the top spot of major threats to the NATO alliance. And Russia\u2019s investment in long-range cruise missiles poses a grave challenge to U.S. and NATO maritime dominance in the Mediterranean, Baltic and Black Seas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Schwartz, an expert on the Russian military at the Center for Naval Analysis, said, \u201cSince 2014, Russia has clearly emerged as NATO\u2019s most significant state-based security challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To meet the challenge, the U.S. and its allies must maintain a credible deterrent threat to keep Russia in check, Sanborn said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The European theater has 27 amphibious ships, but they don\u2019t always act in sync. This means Russia can go after individual countries, hitting amphibious capabilities one by one, picking rivals off, Sanborn warned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are a gang,\u201d he said of the NATO alliance. \u201cIf you mess with one of us, our treaty says if you mess with one, you mess with all.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The combined effort of Europe\u2019s amphibious ships in the region is a force \u201cthat we can all bring to bear,\u201d he said. \u201cThink about the power of being able to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust having the capability is a deterrent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. has spent the past 17 years engaged in low-tech conflicts and conducting operations in relatively easily accessible permissive environments. The challenges America faces in the future will not be so easy. The unabating conflicts have also sapped resources and placed a strain on U.S. readiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a myth that \u201cAmerica has the biggest budget,\u201d and that it can do anything that it wants unilaterally, Sanborn said. \u201cThat is not reality \u2015 nobody can do it alone.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian provocations over the past several years have NATO and the U.S. on edge as the powerful alliance watches Russia making major geopolitical and strategic movements that threaten European and NATO hegemony in the region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia\u2019s thawing of relations with Egypt has given the Kremlin a foothold into North Africa, where it has propped up rogue Libyan general Khalifa Haftar\u2019s efforts to destabilize the UN- and U.S-backed Government of National Accord. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, the annexation of Crimea \u201cfundamentally altered the balance of power in the Black Sea in Russia\u2019s favor,\u201d Schwartz said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Russia\u2019s intervention in Syria has made it into a \u201cmajor geopolitical player in the Middle East,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre we ready as a partner, as a coalition, as a gang, to go after that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a growing threat of peer competitors ready to challenge the U.S. and its allies, one Marine general says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":10,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[10,15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3472],"class_list":["post-51543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"JJT3MKMCMFGBXKMRM5M7MEFUNA","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2018\/01\/22\/peer-competitors-ready-to-hand-it-to-us-general-says\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n