Military

US Worried That Military Advantage Over Russia, China Getting Ever Smaller

Speaking to the newspaper, Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, explained that after the end of the Cold War, the US military has "never really had to fight an enemy that had its own arsenal of precision-guided weapons." 

Moreover, he added, in all its military campaigns since then, Washington "was able to use air bases and other bases located fairly close to the borders of an enemy because there wasn't that much of an air and missile threat to those bases." Now, unfortunately (for Washington), "that's changing."

Moscow and Beijing, The Hill notes, are now "improving their ballistic and cruise missile technologies and hoping to create what they call 'anti-access area-denial bubbles' where they can threaten US air and ground operations. Russia is in particular presenting a challenge to the US in the Baltics region, where it has recently been harassing US aircraft and ships."

Other advances by the two countries, according to Institute for the Study of War senior analyst Chris Harmer, include improved air-to-air capabilities, stealth, advanced aerodynamics, advanced air-to-air radars and weaponry, and improved air-to-ground weaponry.