New Delhi: The US has identified China as its “most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades” whose “coercive tactics” are the most comprehensive and a serious challenge to U.S. national security. The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, released late Thursday by defence secretary Llyod Austin, directed the Department of Defense “to act urgently” to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the department’s “pacing challenge”. However, it noted that “conflict with the PRC is neither inevitable nor desirable”. It also identified Russia as an “acute threat” and said that...