The military's top officer asserted on Thursday that the biggest threats the U.S. faces are China and Russia, a day after President Joe Biden recounted to American troops during a trip to the U.K. that military leaders told him climate change r…
The military's top officer asserted on Thursday that the biggest threats the U.S. faces are China and Russia, a day after President Joe Biden recounted to American troops during a trip to the U.K. that military leaders told him climate change represents the "greatest threat to America."
"Climate change does impact, but the president is looking at a much broader angle than I am," Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional panel Thursday morning. "I'm looking at it from a strictly military standpoint. And from a strictly military standpoint, I'm putting China, Russia up there."
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Milley, appointed to his current position during the Trump administration, was responding to a question from Sen. Kevin Cramer, North Dakota Republican, about comments Biden made on Wednesday during the first stop of his week-long tour through Europe.
Speaking to American forces based at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall, Biden recounted a discussion with the Joint Chiefs in their cloistered "tank" meeting room at the Pentagon when he was vice president: "This is not a joke. You know what the Joint Chiefs told us the greatest threat facing America was? Global warming."
Biden did not say when the meeting took place, though during the Obama administration the military began placing a much higher emphasis on the potential threats posed by climate change – both to U.S. forces directly but also the destabilizing effect on coastal and developing communities throughout the globe that will likely cause conflicts that will affect American interests. Then-President Donald Trump attempted to undermine that shift, including stripping any mention of climate change from the Pentagon's principal planning documents.
