Milley Says US Rhetoric on China Needs to Become More Realistic, Less ‘Emotional’

©AP Photo / Susan Walsh

The United States’ rhetoric towards China needs to become more realistic and less emotional, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said on Friday.

“I think that [US rhetoric on China] needs to be a little bit more realistic and a little bit less, perhaps, emotional,” Milley said during a Defense One.

The US should approach its relationship with China with a “steely-eyed, cold-eyed realism” and keep its military competitive with Beijing across all domains, Milley said.

The US needs to be pragmatic and cautious going forward, but can decrease the chances of conflict if it remains strong relative to China, Milley added.

US has small stockpile of long-range missiles to hand them over to Ukraine — Pentagon

The United States has an small stockpile of long-range missiles, which limits the possibility of handing them over to Ukraine, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said in an online interview with the Defense One media outlet.

Asked whether Washington was planning to supply Ukraine with ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles with a strike range of up to 300 kilometers, Milley replied "Well, there's a policy decision to date not to, so far. And I would never predict anything on the table, off the table, for the future."

"But from a military standpoint, we have relatively few ATACMS, we do have to make sure that we maintain our own munitions inventories, as well," he continued. "And the range of the weapon - I think there's a little bit of overstating of what an ATACMS can do and can't do."

"You're looking at a single shot, so think of a musket versus a repeating rifle. Whereas the GMLRS fires six shots, and ATACMs fires one. Now the range of the ATACMS is longer, but there's other systems they can get you that range," the high-ranking military official said.

"There’s UAVs, for example, that could do it, and the Brits have a couple of systems. So, those are some things that we're looking at to give them a little bit more legs. But right now, we're not providing the ATACMS," Milley added.

Ukraine repeatedly asked the United States to provide it with ATACMS missiles, but was refused.