US defense strategy and Nepal

The United States has said that throughout 2023, the superpower worked alongside allies and partners to deliver groundbreaking achievements for peace, stability and deterrence in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J Austin III said: “In this decisive decade, 2023 will be remembered as a decisive year for implementing US defense strategy in Asia.

A press release from the Department of Defense states that the US delivered historic achievements with allies and partners to make US force posture in the Indo-Pacific region more mobile, distributed, resilient and lethal. The United States is deploying cutting-edge military capabilities right now, developing the capabilities needed to maintain deterrence in the Indo-Pacific in the future, and supporting allies and partners as they invest in their own capabilities by releasing the most-strategy-driven defense in history.  

The department said it has proposed $170bn for procurement to advance air, sea, and land power; $145bn for research, development, test, and evaluation; and $9.1bn for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative—more than ever proposed for these key lines of effort. The US is joining hands with Indo-Pacific allies and partners in ways that strengthen peace and security across the region, including by operating together like never before, the department said. 

In Nepal, the US objective is to help Nepal to increase its capacity to counter threats to its security interests and become a stable partner in a rule-based regional and international order.