the heads of China and the US maintain
regular contacts in various forms
China attaches great importance to the
proposal of the U.S to hold a meeting
between the two heads of state President
Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with
President Xi Jinping of China this is
the first time that they will meet face
to face since President Biden became
president
the U.S should meet China halfway
properly manage differences promote
mutually beneficial cooperation avoid
misunderstandings and misjudgments and
push Chinese us relations back to the
right track of healthy and stable
development
President Biden has made it a priority
to keep lines of communication open with
President XI to responsibly manage the
competition between our two countries
and he believes there is no more
important Channel than that between the
leaders of the United States and China
Joe Biden and Xi Jinping two presidents
about to meet face to face two leaders
who represent Two Worlds that many
consider to be on a collision course
next week President Biden will hold his
first in-person meeting with the Chinese
leader it will take place on the
sidelines of the G20 Summit a summit
where leaders come together to find
hopefully common ground but the meeting
of the minds is unlikely and not
necessarily in the National Security
interests of the United States that is
according to the commander of U.S
strategic command Navy Admiral Charles
Richard in a recent speech the Admiral
called for a fundamental change in the
way the U.S thinks about its own defense
he says the Ukraine crisis is just a
warm-up and that the big one is coming
the big one being conflict with China
all right let's talk about the military
aspect here and how fit the United
States is and to do that I'm joined
tonight by Brad Bowman he is the senior
director for the FDD Center on Military
and political Powers he's also served in
the U.S service and so I'll wish you a
happy Veterans Day Brad I appreciate you
taking the time to join us today
um
let me just go through one a couple of
quotes here the first one from the
Admiral he he said this as I assess our
level of deterrence against China the
ship is slowly sinking I mean do you
agree with him and it's so you know
where are the the biggest water leaks
thanks for the opportunity to join you
and thanks for the question you know
Admiral uh Charles Richard the head of
strategic command U.S strategic command
that oversees America's nuclear
deterrent command control and
communication system uh you know has
served our country honorably for many
decades and uh knows what he's talking
about he's using some uh sobering
language there I would say and I I think
I understand the impulse I would just
flag for your viewers that more than a
year ago he kind of sounded the alarm
that China was conducting a quote
breathtaking expansion of strategic and
nuclear capabilities
um you know that's not normal Washington
speak if you will and when someone in
his position says something like that
and here we are about a year later with
him giving this speech using words like
that you know at risk of oversimplifying
uh from my Foxhole when I look at what
the United States military is doing I
see is generally speaking moving the
right direction to try to close the gap
between the military we need and the
military we have but almost without
exception we're doing it too slowly and
we seem to be kind of moving at the the
pace that we did uh in in past years
when we could kind of get away with that
tectonic pace and I do worry that
Americans and our allies and dare I use
the word free world will will suffer uh
if we don't understand that we can no
longer conduct business as usual in many
ways Beijing is sprinting and we're
slumbering and we need to wake up and
move a heck of a lot faster than we are
up to this point yeah the Admiral said
that a rethink may require looking back
maybe 60 to 70 years he's quoted as
saying we used to know how to move fast
and we have lost the art of that I mean
what exactly is he talking about there
you know if you go back and look at
America's
um history with uh World War II uh in in
getting geared up for World War II
competing and fighting World War II and
during the Cold War you have
extraordinary instances where we went
from almost nothing to just uh truly
becoming the arsenal of democracy in a
way that makes me proud as an American
but when I asked myself could we
replicate that today I'm not so sure and
that's that's a scary answer for me and
when you look at his particular
portfolio nuclear deterrence you look at
our icbms our intercontinental ballistic
missiles we're relying on Minuteman
threes which are you know half a century
old were intended for a decade or so uh
and we've been nursing them along and we
can and he's been warning we can't nurse
these along any longer yeah it's
replacement is coming but it's coming
slowly with delays look at the Ohio
class submarines the sea leg of our
nuclear deterrent we've nursed that as
long as we can we have to replace those
you can't extend them any longer and yet
you know we're taking a little bit
longer than we should on bringing the
replacement online and and the B21
strategic rate or the bomber so the list
goes on and on meanwhile Beijing is you
know moving to have uh an extraordinary
Triad uh knitted together
um uh ASAP and and one has to be worried
about the lessons they're drawing from
Ukraine and how they could potentially
conduct aggression in the Taiwan Strait
and then rattled their nuclear saber and
get us to back down and so these issues
are more connected I think than most
people realize it the animal also said
that the U.S needs to to find it I mean
you know you're alluding to this the the
can-do spirit that it had when it
decided to put a man on the Moon by the
end of the 1960s and and there he's not
if I understand him correctly he's not
talking about money he's not talking
about policies he's talking about people
and attitudes
um how do you change that Bradley I mean
you know you've been in the military
it's a great yeah it's a great question
a lot of the things that slow us down
from going to concept or requirement to
fielded combat capability these are not
evil or nefarious things they're they're
processes and boxes to be checked that
are put there for good reason to avoid
wasting money and to a solicit Fair
competition and get the best result we
can but you know sometimes you just
can't let the perfect be the enemy of
the good and we're now entering a world
where instead of having one pure nuclear
adversary we're going to have two and we
have if China if he's right and he is
that China is conducting a nuclear
breakout you know we don't have a
strategic treaty with China so there's
no verification or transparency elements
and they won't even often return our
calls and that's going to be one of the
issues in the G by media it's like hey
we've got to establish these mechanisms
to avoid miscalculation given the stakes
if you're going to armed with the teeth
with nuclear weapons you know maybe you
should at least pick up our our calls
when we call to try to avoid
miscalculation and increase risk yeah
well you know what you say is
fascinating and it'll be interesting to
see what comes out of that meeting
between the U.S president and the
Chinese president next week as always
Brad we appreciate your time and your
insights have a good weekend
thank you you too