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Russia, China set to launch joint military exercises
Why is it in news?
- China will join Russia in a giant military exercise, sending a message of deterrence to the U.S. which has designated Beijing and Moscow as “revisionist powers”.
Vostok 2018 exercises
- The five-day Vostok 2018 exercises, to be held from September 11, will be bigger than Zapad 81 — the mammoth manoeuvres carried out in Eastern Europe by the former Soviet Union in 1981.
- Mongolia will be the third country participating in the drills.
- The Vostok-2018 will involve 300,000 troops.
- They will engage in tri-service mock-operations, involving 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets and all its airborne units.
- Nearly 36,000 military vehicles will participate in the drills that will take place at Russia’s Tsugol training range in the trans-Baikal region.
- China will dispatch about 3,200 troops, along with more than 900 pieces of weaponry, as well as 30 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters
Reasons for the exercise
- These exercises are taking place amid Washington’s growing friction with Russia and China, which include mounting sanctions and a trade war.
- The Pentagon’s national defence strategy unveiled in January focused on Russia and China as principle strategic challenges to the U.S.
- In presenting the new strategy, U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis called China and Russia “revisionist powers” that “seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models”.
- He stressed that “great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of U.S. national security”.
- Upcoming exercises are “a clear indication to the U.S. that it’s a response to their national security strategy, as well as a response to U.S. and NATO posturing in the South China Sea, in the Taiwanese Straits, as well as…the permanent stationing of troops that we are seeing on Russia’s western border”.
Source
The Hindu