The U.S. Department of Defense is locked in a tense debate over whether to base American troops and high-end weapons within reach of newly capable Chinese missiles, multiple current and former officials with knowledge of the talks told Foreign Policy, a battle pitting the agency’s more risk-averse analytical wing against other parts of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill.
The battle has come to a head after the Pentagon’s budget loaded a fund that lawmakers designed last year to position more U.S. forces near China in the Western Pacific with research and development for destroyers, fighter jets, and submarines that could end up outside the region, prompting near-instantaneous anger from Congress, where many insist that the Pentagon isn’t abiding by the law.
