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Stationing US troops in Europe vital to deter Russian aggression -- US Gen.

WASHINGTON, March 21 (KUNA) -- Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said Thursday that the presence of US troops and military equipment in Europe alongside NATO allies is important to deter any Russian aggression.
Moscow would "be much happier if there was not a physical manifestation of our commitment to NATO because their message that we are not willing to meet our alliance [commitments] would be much easier to sell," Dunford told Atlantic Council event attendees here.
He said that increasing Russian capabilities has made it "more difficult for us to project power in Europe than it was ten or fifteen years ago." However, Dunford maintained that Moscow would not be successful in a direct attack against NATO allies because of the presence of forces from the US and other allies across NATO's eastern flank.
"Russia is deterred from conventional action," the top US general said.
"I don't believe [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has an intent right now of attacking a NATO ally in a conventional sense because I think it is very clear that the cost that would be imposed on Putin would far exceed whatever he could hope to gain," he said.
The United States, Dunford explained, has two key competitive advantages: "our network of allies and partners, and the ability to project power where and when necessary to advance our national interest." Dunford added that Beijing has also focused on military investments to "push away our ability to project power in Asia," including significant new maritime, space, and cyber capabilities. He warned that Chinese efforts to gain equal footing with the US' military power are enabled by forays into the Chinese market by US companies.
Dunford reiterated his criticism of Google that he made during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 14. "If a company does business in China, they are automatically going to be required to have a cell of the Communist Party in that company. That is going to lead to that intellectual property from that company finding its way to the Chinese military," he said. Dunford underscored that the US still has advantages over both Moscow and Beijing.
"Economically, politically, and militarily, I have no doubt that with will, we have a comparative advantage over Russia," he said.
Maintaining those advantages, however, will require getting out ahead of technological changes that Moscow and Beijing have exploited to increase their power, Dunford added.
While direct military confrontation has been avoided, Russia has used new technology to undertake "information operations, cyber operations, economic coercion, political influence, (and) unconventional military operations to advance [its] objectives in places like Georgia [and] Ukraine," he went on.
China, meanwhile, is racing toward development and potential domination of 5G mobile networks, which Dunford worried could affect not only "potential vulnerabilities in our system, but also exchanging information with our allies and partners." He added that "any future capability along the lines of 5G has to be trusted," and that Chinese domination of the technology could put the US and its allies at a "competitive disadvantage." (end) rsr.gb