The “great power peace” that has dominated global affairs since the end of World War II is “under stress” and “fraying at the edge,” America’s highest-ranking military officer told Air Force Academy graduates Wednesday.
“With history as our guide, we would be wise to lift our gaze from the never-ending urgency of the present to set the conditions for a future that prevents great power war,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his commencement remarks.
“Right now we are in a great power competition with China and Russia,” Milley continued. “And we need to keep it at competition and avoid great power conflict … Each of you play an important role in keeping the peace.”
Milley gave his remarks one day after the White House confirmed that President Biden will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16 and on the same day that Biden announced he had tasked the intelligence community to undertake a 90-day review into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Washington’s relations with Beijing and Moscow have reached now lows in recent years. Putin has drawn bipartisan condemnation for his targeting of political opposition as well as his 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea in Ukraine and interference in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
The US-China relationship has foundered over a series of issues, including trade, Beijing’s military ambitions in the South China Sea, the persecution of ethnic Uighur Muslims in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, and most recently, disputes over whether China is hiding the truth about the origin of the coronavirus.
Milley warned the 1,019 graduates — approximately 100 of whom will join the Space Force — to “keep your guard up against the enduring nature of evolving security challenges.
“Each and every one of you are going to be fundamental to our nation’s defense in the years to come,” he said, “and it will be you that leads our country safely through the next 20 years.”
“The country that masters new technologies, combines them with doctrine and develops leadership to take advantage of them,” Milley added later in his remarks. “The side that does that best will have a decisive advantage at the start of the next war. It’s your challenge to be on that side.”
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