As reported by Defense One on 14 February 2025, “The Chinese government is “on a dangerous course” and its military’s “aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises, as they call them. They are rehearsals,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leader Admiral Sam Paparo said.

What did the SECDEF recently say in his remarks to NATO just a couple of days ago?  He said, "We need to vastly increase our ability to build ships and submarines-not just for ourselves, but also to honor our obligations to our allies.  And we will do that."

At the NATO conference days ago, SECDEF bluntly told NATO nations they were deficient on defense spending and that they needed to step up.  He said we are not abandoning NATO but the EU, with a GDP on par with U.S. GDP, spends much less on their defense than we do and that needs to end.  We are not pulling out of NATO, but we expect them to be able to defend themselves as the EU collectively has vastly more resources to defend themselves against Russian ambitions than Russia does.  The EU + U.K. GDP is 23.6 T versus Russia’s GDP of 2.3 T which is less than 10% of that of the EU and U.K. combined.  SECDEF was emphasizing exactly what President Trump has repeatedly said.  The EU and NATO must primarily rely on themselves for security against Russia and any other threat in Europe.  The U.S. will not fight another war on the ground with our troops in Europe.  Russia is potentially dangerous, but they cannot match a united Europe who is serious about defending itself.   Our eyes and efforts must turn to the INDO Pacific.