This article is very useful in aid of understanding the present US strategy toward Russia and China. However, its overwhelming focus upon this military infrastructure leads the author to significantly neglect several political and economic factors. mintpressnews.com/pentagon-plann…
This weakness is mostly keenly felt toward the article's conclusion. It asks the question "why is this happening?", but does not answer it. That this is missing is a significant problem. Without an understanding of the cause, one cannot truly claim to understand the symptoms. 
The US' actions are rooted in the international crisis of imperialism. As profitability declines and investment is hoarded, imperialism is forced to desperately seek new markets for exploitation or to destroy capital so that new investment is possible.
This is compounded by the fact that - since the collapse of the Soviet Union - nearly the entire territory of the earth has been divided between imperialist nations (the US, Germany, France, Britain, Japan etc). As such, securing a new market necessitates confrontation.
This division of the world between imperialists and the crisis of profitability are manifesting themselves in a specific form for US imperialism. Put bluntly, the dollar's hegemony is threatened.
Whilst the dollar accounts for 44% of the world's daily turnover in foreign exchange - a slim majority - it is too weak to act as the world's currency anchor much longer. This is a result of the rise of the so-called "developing nations" and the stagnation of US capital.
A failure to understand this is a failure to understand the significance of the crisis in historical context. This misunderstanding manifests in two further significant errors within the article.
The first is this piece's handling of Trump. What is suggested here is incorrect in two senses: (a) Trump is very clearly capable of long-term strategic thinking and he has repeatedly demonstrated this throughout 2018; (b) he does not view China and Russia as "frenemies".
Trump has used this year to wage the most belligerent economic warfare seen in living historical memory. Aside from sanctions on Russia and China, there have been tariffs placed upon other imperialists (Canada and the EU bloc) and the withdrawal of the US from the Iran deal.
Neglect of the economic sphere is expressed in a thorough misunderstanding of Trump. There is clear strategy in his approach (see article) and in no way can he be said to view China or Russia as even remotely friendly. Trump sees no friends, only enemies. medium.com/@jrbml.public/…
What Trump has achieved by his economic strategy this year is a reveal of the fault lines of the crisis. His strategy has revealed particularly that the EU is a competitor of the US, something very clearly expressed in its reaction to the Iran withdrawal.
The failure to grasp this is expressed in a third - and honestly quite glaring - mistake here. Europe is, throughout this entire piece, referred to as a battleground, rather than as a player in this game in its own right.
The EU imperialist bloc is, by far, the US' nearest competitor. In scale, its economy has already outstripped that of the US. Its currency, the euro, is second to the dollar, accounting for 13% of daily turnover. The third largest currency - the renminbi - accounts for only 1%.
As such, the crisis is necessarily forcing the US to confront the EU if it wishes to maintain its dominance. Although the EU has attempted to confront the US this year over the Iran deal, this has revealed only its inability to effectively skirt around the dollar's reach.
Far from dampening the EU's spirits, this has merely revealed the next line of competition to it. The EU is now consciously attempting to bolster its currency in an attempt to replace the hegemony of the dollar with the hegemony of the euro.
In order to do this, however, the European imperialists require independent trade with both Russia and China. This has been explicitly acknowledged in discussions on how to bolster the euro's reach.
Understanding this reveals that the US' belligerence against Russia and China is not directed only at them, but also at curbing the EU's ability to compete with it. Escalating antagonisms with Russia and China will necessitate that the EU take a definite stand.
Though the EU is attempting to take steps to gain military independence, it is unlikely that this can be achieved quickly given the scale of US-European military integration. As such, the US presently has the upper hand both economically and militarily.
All of this combined reveals that it is, bluntly, in the interests of US imperialism to ignite global war sooner rather than later. The longer the US waits, the weaker and more precarious its situation will become. If it strikes soon, the EU will be forced to follow it.
Understanding the scale of the crisis and the antagonisms within it is the primary task of Marxist analysis today. The conditions we are living through are deeply severe. Whether world war will happen is not the question. The question is when, and where the sides will fall.
Note: The link on the rate of profit and the international crisis broke, so I'm reposting it here!
