Page 10A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Mattis says U.S. competitive warfighting edge has eroded
WASHINGTON (AP) — Coun-
tering China’s rapidly expanding
military and an increasingly
aggressive Russia are now the U.S.
military’s top national security
priorities, outpacing the threat
of terrorism, Defense Secretary
Jim Mattis said Friday. He said
competition with those adversaries
has threatened America’s military
advantage around the world.
Laying out a broad new strategy
for the Defense Department, Mattis
warned that all aspects of the mili-
tary’s competitive warfighting edge
have eroded.
He said building a force that
can deter war with established
and emerging military powers in
Moscow and Beijing, and U.S.
enemies such as North Korea and
Iran will require increased invest-
ment to make the military more
lethal, agile and ready to fight.
“We will continue to prosecute
the campaign against terrorists that
we are engaged in today, but great
power competition — not terrorism
— is now the primary focus of U.S.
national security,” Defense Secre-
tary Jim Mattis said in remarks
at the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies.
He said the Islamic State group’s
“physical caliphate” in Iraq and
Syria had been defeated, but that IS,
al-Qaida and other extremists still
pose threats across the globe.
Mattis repeated his call for
America to work closely with allies
and partners — an approach that
aligns more closely with previous
administrations than President
Donald Trump’s “America First”
ideas. That mantra was repeated in
a national security strategy released
in December.
The U.S. and its allies, Mattis
said, are stronger together. He
recalled going to his first NATO
meeting last year, carrying Trump’s
demand for nations to increase
their defense spending and thinking
about how to fit Trump’s message
into the broader framework of
working with partners.
“Great power
competition — not
terrorism — is now the
primary focus of U.S.
National Security.”
— Jim Mattis,
U.S. Secretary of Defense
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Defense Secretary James Mattis listens to his introduction before speaking about the National
Defense Review, Friday in Washington.
When he got to Brussels, Mattis
said he told the alliance: “Here’s the
bottom line: Please do not ask me to
go back and tell Americans — the
American parents — that they need
to care more about the safety and
security and the freedom of your
children than you’re willing to care
for, than you’re willing to sacrifice
for. We’re all going to have to put
our shoulder to the wagon and
move it up the hill.”
Did the message resonate? “It’s
going better than expected,” Mattis
said Friday.
The most dominant theme in his
strategy is for the U.S. to regain its
competitive edge with China and
Russia, according to an 11-page,
unclassified version released by the
Pentagon.
That shift reflects persistent
U.S. worries about China’s military
buildup in the South China Sea, its
moves to expand its political and
economic influence, and what has
been described as Beijing’s system-
atic campaign of cyberattacks and
data theft from government agen-
cies and private U.S. corporations.
The shift also underscores broad
American concerns about Russia,
given Moscow’s takeover of
Ukrainian territory, involvement in
Syria’s war and alleged meddling in
the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“We’ve been doing a lot of
things in the last 25 years, and
we’ve been focused on really other
problems and this strategy really
represents a fundamental shift to
say, look, we have to get back, in
a sense, to basics of the potential
for war,” said Elbridge Colby, the
deputy assistant defense secretary
for strategy. “This strategy says
the focus will be on prioritizing
preparedness for war and particu-
larly major power war.”
Previous defense chiefs long
warned about China, and the
Obama administration put a greater
focus on the Asia-Pacific region.
Derek Chollet, former senior
Pentagon official in the Obama
administration and now with
the German Marshall Fund in
Washington, said much of the
strategy is “old wine in a new
bottle, but in this context, that’s
a good thing.” He said he was
“struck by his emphasis on strong
diplomacy, getting out from under
budget chaos, and the importance
of having a healthy democracy.
That’s all correct, just seemed to be
at variance with what’s happening
elsewhere in the government,
including the White House.”
Russia’s Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told reporters at
U.N. headquarters in New York
that militaries frequently want more
resources, but “it is regrettable that
instead of having normal dialogue,
BRIEFLY
Tabloid held porn star’s
2011 interview after
Trump threat
NEW YORK (AP) — A tabloid
magazine held back from publishing
an adult film star’s 2011 account of
an alleged affair with Donald Trump
after the future president’s personal
lawyer threatened to sue, four former
employees of the tabloid’s publisher
told The Associated Press.
In Touch magazine published
its 5,000-word interview with the
pornographic actor Stormy Daniels
on Friday — more than six years after
Trump’s long-time attorney, Michael
Cohen, sent an email to In Touch’s
general counsel saying Trump would
aggressively pursue legal action if the
story was printed, according to emails
described to the AP by the former
employees.
At the time, Trump was a reality
TV star on the NBC show “The
Apprentice.”
The ex-employees spoke to the AP
on condition of anonymity because
they were not permitted to discuss their
former employer’s editorial policies.
Daniels, whose real name is
Stephanie Clifford, signed a source
contract with the magazine, which
said a friend and Clifford’s ex-husband
corroborated her account of a 2006
tryst. She also passed a lie detector test,
the magazine said.
In the interview, Daniels claims she
and Trump had a sexual encounter after
meeting at a golf tournament in Lake
Tahoe, Nevada, a year after Trump’s
marriage to his third wife, Melania.
Cohen has denied Trump had any
relationship with Clifford.
U.S. flu season gets worse,
has ‘lot more steam’
NEW YORK (AP) — The flu
season in the U.S. is getting worse.
Health officials last week said flu
was blanketing the country but they
thought there was a good chance the
season was already peaking. But the
newest numbers out Friday show it
grew even more intense.
“This is a season that has a lot
more steam than we thought,” said Dr.
Dan Jernigan of the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
One measure of the season is
how many doctor or hospital visits
are because of a high fever, cough
and other flu symptoms. Thirty-two
states reported high patient traffic last
week, up from 26 the previous week.
Overall, it was the busiest week for flu
symptoms in nine years.
Hawaii is the only state that doesn’t
have widespread illnesses.
This year’s flu season got off to an
early start, and it’s been driven by a
nasty type of flu that tends to put more
people in the hospital and cause more
deaths than other common flu bugs.
The flu became intense last month
in the U.S. The last two weekly report
show flu widespread over the entire
continental United States, which is
unusual.
Family: Tom Petty died of
accidental drug overdose
NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Petty’s
family says his death last year was due
to an accidental drug overdose.
His wife and daughter released
the results of Petty’s autopsy via a
statement on his Facebook page Friday
night. Dana and Adria Petty say they
got the results from the coroner’s
office earlier in the day that the
overdose was caused due to a variety
of medications.
The statement was posted moments
before the Los Angeles coroner’s
office issued its official findings, which
confirmed that Petty had a variety of
medications, including fentanyl and
oxycodone in his system.
They say Petty suffered from
emphysema, a fractured hip and knee
problems that caused him pain but he
was still committed to touring.
He had just wrapped up a tour a few
days before he died in October at age 66.
Congestion pricing:
Driving in Manhattan
could cost $11.52
NEW YORK (AP) — A proposal
to charge motorists nearly $12 to drive
into the busiest parts of Manhattan
provoked protests and complaints even
before it was released Friday, though
there are signs the idea of congestion
pricing is quietly gaining momentum in
the nation’s largest city.
London, Stockholm and Singapore
already have congestion surcharges.
But calls to impose similar tolls in New
York as a way to address gridlock while
raising funds for public transportation
have been rejected in the past over
concerns about the cost to middle-class
and poor commuters.
On Friday even some past critics of
congestion pricing said the ideas hold
promise for addressing gridlock while
raising funds for the city’s beleaguered
subway system.
instead of using the basis of inter-
national law, the U.S. is trying
to prove their leadership through
such confrontational strategies and
concepts.”
He said Moscow is open to
discuss military doctrines and
the kind of military contacts that
previously existed between the two
countries.”
Colby said the U.S. still seeks
areas of cooperation with Russia
and China, stressing “this is not a
strategy of confrontation.”
The U.S. has pushed China to
increase pressure on North Korea
to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Washington has maintained talks
with Russia to ensure no conflicts
or accidents in the sky over Syria,
where both nations are bombing IS
fighters.
The strategy, however, faces
grim budget hurdles. And Mattis
criticized Congress for budget caps
that have done more to erode mili-
tary readiness than any other enemy
since 9/11.
“For too long we have asked
our military to stoically carry a
‘success at any cost’ attitude, as
they work tirelessly to accomplish
the mission with now inadequate
and misaligned resources, simply
because the Congress could not
maintain regular order,” Mattis said.
Lawmakers have been dead-
locked on a spending bill, bringing
the federal government to the
brink of a shutdown at midnight
Friday. They’re still constrained
by the Budget Control Act of 2011,
which put mandatory spending
caps in place.
HERMISTON’S STAND
UP COMEDY EVENT
COMING SOON!
Melonville Comedy Festival
Saturday, January 27
Hermiston community Center
The 25th edition of the Melonville Comedy Festival will
feature three headline stand up comedians. These
comics are in demand corporate show entertainers.
CORY MICHAELIS
A comic who appears in clubs in
Las Vegas, Seattle, New York and
Los Angeles. Cory has been
on the stage of several
Comedy Festivals.
KERMET APIO
A Hawaiian native, Kermet has been
working in standup comedy since
1990. His credits include Las Vegas,
Seattle and Aspen Comedy
Festivals and everyday life.
DEREK RICHARDS
Derek is a comic who has
worked USO Tours, the
Bob and Tom Show and
you can hear him on Siri-
us/XM Satellite Radio.
Tickets $35 per person
Sponsor:
Doors open at 7pm, Show starts at 8:00
Tickets available at Hermiston Chamber of
Commerce at the Cornerstone Plaza
Reserve Tickets at: 541-561-7488 •
NO REFUNDS • 21 & OVER
A DVERTISING W ORKS W ITH T HE E AST O REGONIAN & H ERMISTON H ERALD
Pendleton Art & Frame
36 SW Court Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801
541-276-3617
pendletonartandframe.com
“We feel our consistency with the chamber ad.. and BTW, thank you for that
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We joined The Chamber in our first year and were glad to be able
to take our first step in advertising on the monthly “Chamber Page”
thru the East Oregonian, we have been able to reach a wide area of
potential customers about the services we offer, custom framing
and representing regional Artists works.
The community has supported us to be able to continue to do
what we love, and keep downtown Pendleton alive!
Thank You!
Cherise & Dena
To advertise in the most
powerful local media
available, call Kimberly or
Angela at 1-800-962-2819 .
Kimberly Macias
Angela Treadwell