National security threats

Pentagon Chief: Russia Is Not Our Biggest Threat

During a press conference on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter was asked to comment on the statements that Russia is the greatest threat to the U.S. made by newly appointed U.S. officials, including Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, who will assume the post of Joint Chiefs of Staff chief later this year.

Carter responded that he agrees that Russia “poses an existential threat to the United States by virtue simply of the size of the nuclear arsenal that it’s had.”

However, Carter noted that the U.S. has not viewed Russia as an enemy since the end of the Cold War, but “Vladimir Putin’s Russia behaves in many respects … as an antagonist. That is new. That is something, therefore, that we need to adjust to and counter.”