Brendan Smialowski | AFP |Getty Images
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a meeting in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018.
The latest revelation comes as a crucial nuclear weapons treaty between the world's two greatest nuclear powers hangs in the balance. In October, Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, Treaty, an agreement that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons from U.S. and Russian arsenals.
Russia, Trump says, has violated the arms agreement by building and fielding the banned weapons "for many years." On behalf of the administration, national security advisor John Bolton flew to Moscow to personally deliver the decision to the Kremlin.
Earlier this week, the U.S. rejected a Russian offer to save the Cold War-era treaty that has kept nuclear-tipped missiles off the European continent for the last 30 years. The U.S. is on track to withdraw from the INF Treaty next month.
Trump's speech at the Pentagon marked his first public comments since four Americans — two service members and two civilians who worked for the DoD — were killed in northern Syria in a suicide bombing for which the radical militant group ISIS took responsibility.
Trump expressed his "deepest condolences to the families of the brave American heroes who laid down their lives yesterday in selfless service to our nation" in the speech.
The president also took time at the beginning of his remarks to address the ongoing clash over border security funding that has resulted in the longest government shutdown on record.
"We need strong borders. We need strong barriers and walls. Nothing else is going to work," Trump said.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Vice President Mike Pence both stressed the need to enhance America's missile defense systems in remarks preceding Trump.
"Our nation does not seek adversaries, but we will not ignore them either," Shanahan said.
The report delves into new technologies being developed by a number of the world's biggest military regimes. A summary of the document notes that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's missile systems have given the isolated state "the capability to strike U.S. territories, including Guam, U.S. forces abroad, and allies in the Pacific Ocean."