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“Great power war is neither imminent nor inevitable” and efforts must continue to deter another world war, according to the America’s highest-ranking military officer, Army General Mark A Milley.
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The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense, and National Security Council made the comments during a news conference at the National Press Club on 30 June.
The international rules-based order and the strategy of deterrence underpin peace in the world and are worth defending, he said.
“Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine is a direct frontal assault on that rules-based international order,” he said.
“China’s economy has been growing rapidly for the last four decades, as we all know, and is now leveraging its financial power to build up an incredibly powerful military. They are well into doing that.
“(Chinese leader want it) to be the regional hegemonic in Asia within the next 10 years, and they want to exceed global US military power by mid-century.
“The geostrategic history of this century will likely be determined by the United States-China relationship and whether it remains in a competition or tips into great power war.”
General Milley noted that between 1914 and 1945, during World War I and World War II, approximately 150 million people were killed.
He related a conversation between himself and an 82nd Airborne Division sergeant who had parachuted into D-Day ahead of the amphibious forces in World War II.
“(I) asked him what his biggest lesson was from World War II. I expected him to give me some sort of tactical advice on manoeuvre and shooting. But he didn’t. He looked up at me and tears welled up in his eyes, and he said, ‘General, never let it happen again’.
“It was the most violent three decades ever recorded in human history, all in the conduct of great power war.
“Two world wars and 30 years, two continents destroyed, millions killed, more refugees than at any point in history, systemic genocide of an entire ethnic and religious community. And, of course, the dropping of two nuclear weapons.
“It was a global slaughterhouse by any measure … and the world collectively said in 1945, never again.”
The character of war has fundamentally changed in the modern ability to surveil opponents and use unmanned systems to achieve objectives, according to GEN Milley.
“We are in an age of incredible ability to surveil. Every GPS watch, every iPhone, every Fitbit, all of them are sensors,” he said.
"Our ability to see and sense the environment is unprecedented, and what you can see, you can shoot and hit with precision munitions, you can hit it great range, and with great accuracy.
“In fact, in the next 10 to 15 years, we’re likely to see that at least third of the advanced industrial militaries of the world likely will be robotic. Think of a pilotless Air Force, or a sailor-less Navy, or crew-less tank.
“The battlefield of the future will require rapid and constant movement, and the ability to remain small and relatively invisible, just to survive.”
“(However) great power war is neither imminent nor inevitable. I believe that there’s human choice. Our task is to continue to deter large-scale war.”
“If we have that power and we have the will to use it, and that power is known to an adversary, and you assume their adversary is rational, then the probability, not certainty, but probability is that deterrence will prevail, and the great power peace established in 1945, will be sustained.”
