JCS Chairman General Mark Milley has a very serious and dangerous misunderstanding. He said, as paraphrased by The Wall Street Journal,

China’s investment in its navy, hypersonic missiles, cyber, and other technologies are designed to ensure that it, along with Russia and the US, are world-leading nations.

This is a man who isn’t paying attention to what’s going on around him. The People’s Republic of China’s investments, along with its foreign policy initiatives, are not at all concerned with enabling the PRC to operate on an equal footing with us and with Russia.

The PRC’s moves are centered solely on that nation being the sole world power, with Russia as its sidekick and our nation subordinated to its bidding.

See, for instance, the PRC-Russia agreement allowing the PRC to exploit Siberian mineral, timber, and other resources. In executing this agreement, the PRC is allowed to colonize move hundreds of thousands of PRC workers into south central and eastern Siberia to carry out the exploitation, and then it will share some of the produce with Russia.

The PRC’s navy, hypersonic missiles, cyber, and other investments, many of which are coming to fruition, are intended to give the PRC a first-strike military capability so overwhelming that no second-strike response would even be possible.