The United States’ next national defense strategy will not focus solely on China, but will seek to address a broad array of threats through increased work with allies, according to a senior Pentagon official. “We recognize China as the ‘pacing challenge,’ as the secretary [of defense] has underscored, and remain profoundly concerned about Russia, and other issues as well,” said Mara Karlin, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities. “We will in many ways focus on getting after that China challenge, while ensuring that we are responsibly working with our closest allies and partners to deal with many of the other challenges that we also see metastasizing or shifting and not going away.” The national defense strategy is slated to be published in early 2022. A quadrennial document, the last edition was compiled in 2018 under then-defense secretary Gen. James Mattis. That strategy shifted the United States’ defense …