SAN DIEGO — For much of the past year, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the Pacific have trained for a conflict with the Pentagon’s most powerful potential adversary, China.
Now the invasion of Ukraine by Russia — another “near peer” nation and newly aligned partner of China — has raised the stakes of such exercises and stoked fears among some that a Pacific confrontation might be closer than expected if China makes a similar move against Taiwan.
But national security experts cautioned against drawing too broad an association based on Cold War comparisons and the “unlimited” partnership that China and Russia announced upon the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics. In that agreement, the two nations signaled support for each other’s stated policy goals toward their neighbors, with China stating its opposition to NATO expansion into Ukraine and Russia saying it opposes Taiwanese independence.
