US Marine Commandant: US tops China but will need to use everything in cupboard - Breaking...

While the United States is ahead of China technologically and can draw on an array of allies and partners, US forces will still have to use “everything in the cupboard to prevent a conflict,” US Marine Commandant David Berger told a small group of Australian defense analysts and reporters here this week.

Berger, visiting the Australian capital for the second time in 10 months, did not come armed with any major announcements about Marine rotations. Instead, the commandant made clear this is part of a regular, but important, series of meeting with his Aussie mates to discuss the best ways to deter China. The US officer said his Marines and Australian troops are experimenting with new combinations of weapons and new ways to use existing ones, though he avoided discussing any examples.

“We may have to use them in a different way than we were schooled or educated in or have used them in the past,” he said during the Tuesday meeting. That toolbox will include diplomacy, economics and every element of US national power, Berger said.

During his remarks, Berger went out of his way to offer examples of how the century of close military ties between the US and Australia can pay off. One such tie came during the August 2021 evacuation of US and allied troops from Afghanistan.