COPENHAGEN (dpa-AFX) - For the first time since the end of the Soviet Union, the United States is facing a near-peer threat, and that is unsettling to many in the services, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff says.
Following meetings with Danish Chief of Defense Gen. Peter Bartram and his staff Monday, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey spoke at the Danish Army Academy about the changes he has seen in his 41 years in uniform.
The chairman said the first 15 years of his Army career were dominated by confronting the security threat posed by the Soviet Union.
'That threat went away with the fall of the Soviet Union and we had a 10-year period where we were doing small peacekeeping missions and contingencies. But there was nothing that really threatened the homeland during those years.'
Then after the 9-11 attack the United States military found itself fighting a counter-terrorism war from 2001 to 2011.
In 2012, Russia decided to annex Crimea, to change the borders of Europe, to stir up ethnic tensions and to threaten the credibility of NATO, Dempsey said. Added to this, al-Qaida morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
'It's the first time in 41 years we've had a legitimate risk emanating from state actors, and we clearly have a persistent threat emanating from sub-state and non-state actors alike,' the chairman said. 'That makes for a very volatile mix and makes it difficult for us to balance our resources to deal with these multiple threats simultaneously.'
Eighty percent of those serving in the U.S. military haven't lived in a world where United States military power wasn't preeminent and dominant, he said. 'As some of these other nations begin to develop capabilities, it's very unsettling for them,' Dempsey said.
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