The Hill quotes House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry from an Atlantic Council event, A Strategy for America, on America’s strategic priorities, particularly with regard to Russia, in a tumultuous and dynamic security environment:

In remarks prepared for delivery at the Atlantic Council on Tuesday, Thornberry warns that Russia’s defense budget is increasing and its military is conducting provocative maneuvers “rarely seen even at the height of the Cold War.”

Russia is the “one country that clearly poses an existential threat” to the Untied States, and it has growing military capabilities, Thornberry will say.
It also has a “growing willingness to use them, a string of provocative actions and outright aggression, along with brazen deception without much of an effective response,” he will add.

He will say the Russian military openly discusses doctrinal changes about the use of nuclear weapons while being in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and other international agreements.

Read the full article here.