WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the U.S. is building a more lethal force posture in the Indo-Pacific as part of efforts to make sure China doesn’t dominate the region the way it intends to.
China is “the only country with the will and, increasingly, the power to reshape its region and the international order to suit its authoritarian preferences,” Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday. “So let me be clear — we’re not going to let that happen.”
Austin said the U.S. would “sustain and sharpen our war-fighting advantages” and bolster its force presence “to build a more lethal, mobile and distributed force posture.”
