PENTAGON — A panel of Pentagon leadership met Tuesday to discuss the problem of an ongoing real war in Europe that is distracting from a possible war with China.

“There’s a lot of noise out there,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “The important thing to focus on is that there’s the possibility of aggression from a peer competitor. We need to modernize our lethality towards that likelihood, and not get distracted by any actual aggression from any actual peer competitors.”

While current events in Europe were described as amusing and an interesting diversion from the day’s discussions of the pivot to Asia, the group stayed focused on how to fight and win any war that has a lead time of at least five years to plan for.