U.S. diplomats and military officials rejected concerns that recent — and sudden — changes to the American political landscape are a sign of weakness, warning America’s adversaries Thursday against trying to seek any sort of advantage.
“They should think again,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, briefing reporters.
“They should be disabused of the notion that we are anything but focused on the national security challenges that the country faces,” he added. “That includes responding to our adversaries when appropriate.”
At the Pentagon, officials insisted that whatever challenges U.S. adversaries might have in store, the U.S. military is ready.
“As to whether or not our adversaries are testing us at this particular time, they’re always testing us,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“It’s just a nature of who they are and what they do,” he told reporters. “I don’t think that this particular point in time is any different.”
The warnings from Washington come less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, instead endorsing fellow Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris to run against former president and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump.
In an address from the White House late Wednesday to explain his decision to quit the race with just more than 100 days to go until the presidential election, Biden spoke in stark terms about the future of the country.
“Nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy,” Biden said.
“America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division,” he added. “We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy?”
Adding to the public concerns, the U.S. military announced just before Biden’s speech that, for the first time, Russian and Chinese long-range strategic bombers flew a joint training mission, coming within 350 kilometers of the northwestern U.S. state of Alaska.
Other officials have also warned of emboldened U.S. adversaries.
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday told lawmakers that Iran still seeks retribution against Trump and some of his advisers for the January 2020 killing of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
“We need to recognize the brazenness of the Iranian regime, including right here in the United States,” he said, while declining to share details of a reported assassination plot against Trump.
“I expect there will be more coming on that,” he said.
Others have voiced concerns about the actions of Iranian proxy forces, like the ongoing attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, or attacks by Iranian-backed militias on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
“We are taking away capability from the Houthis,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown Jr., speaking to reporters Thursday at a Pentagon briefing.
“But at the same point, it’s going to take more than just a military operation,” he said. “This is an engagement with the international community, but also the [U.S.] interagency to use the various tools to put pressure on the Houthis to cease this.”
At the State Department, spokesperson Miller said no matter the challenge, U.S diplomats will be up to the task.
“The president has made it incredibly clear to the secretary and the rest of the national security team that he expects them to be focused for this next six months, that he expects them to advance the foreign policy objectives that he laid out from the outset of the administration and we have put into place over the course of the last three and a half years,” he said.
And should any adversary seek to weaken the U.S., the Pentagon’s Austin said, the military will be waiting.
“I think we’ll continue to see this going forward,” he told reporters. “But again, we have the world’s greatest military, most capable military, and we will continue to protect this nation.”
