Pentagon: Russia has a nuclear arsenal comparable to the US
The United States views Russia as a country with a nuclear arsenal comparable to the American one, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced this on Friday, speaking at the Naval War College in Newport (Rhode Island), Voice of America reports.
“We view the Russian Federation as the country closest to us in terms of nuclear parity,” he said, opining that Russia seeks to “re-draw boundaries,” “veto” the policies of neighboring states and “undermine NATO unity."
Russia, Mattis argued, “seeks to diminish the appeal of the Western democratic model and is trying to undermine America’s moral authority.” According to him, Moscow’s actions are not aimed at posing an “armed challenge” to Washington, but at “undermining and compromising [Americans’] faith in ideals.”
The head of the Pentagon named China as another “potential rival” of the United States, which, in his words, “nurses long-term plans to revise the existing world order.”
Touching upon the issue of the meeting between the leaders of the United States and the DPRK in Singapore, he noted the need to remain vigilant. “Certainly President [Donald] Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un proves, and I want to use a quote here, that ‘the past should not determine the future,’” Mattis said. “However, as a new path to peace with North Korea emerges, we must remain vigilant about attempts elsewhere in the world to acquire nuclear weapons.”
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