VP Vance says use of military force under Trump will be careful, decisive

By Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Friday that the United States under President Donald Trump will choose carefully when to use military force and will avoid involvement in open-ended conflicts in what he called a break from recent U.S. policies.

Vance, delivering the commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, also said that the United States faces serious threats from China, Russia and other nations and will have to maintain its technological edge.

"The era of uncontested U.S. dominance is over," Vance said to the graduates, who will become officers in the Navy and Marine Corps.

Vance said Trump's order to use force against Houthi rebels in Yemen ultimately led to a ceasefire as part of a deal in which the group agreed to halt attacks on American shipping targets in the Gulf.

"We ought to be cautious in deciding to throw a punch, but when we throw a punch, we throw a punch hard, and we do it decisively," Vance said.

Vance, a former Ohio senator who served in the Marine Corps, said some recent presidents got the United States involved in conflicts that were not essential to American national security.

Vance did not identify past presidents for criticism. But his comments suggested he was talking about former President George W. Bush, a Republican who launched U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his successor Barack Obama, a Democrat who kept up the war in Afghanistan. A chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021 after Joe Biden became president continues to be sharply criticized by Trump.

"We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defense and the maintenance of our alliances for nation building and meddling in foreign countries' affairs, even if those foreign countries had very little to do with core American interests," Vance said.

"No more undefined missions, no more open-ended conflicts," he said.

Vance said the United States enjoyed a period of dominance after the fall of the old Russian-led Soviet empire and that American policies aimed at the economic integration of U.S. competitors had backfired.

Vance's sharp rhetoric echoed the isolationist tendencies of Trump, who has badgered NATO nations to spend more on their own defense to ease the burden on the United States.

Trump has called for increased U.S. military spending and this week ordered the construction of the Golden Dome missile defense system, a vast network of satellites and weapons in Earth's orbit set to cost $175 billion.

Trump will speak to graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, on Saturday.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu, editing by Deepa Babington)