This Week at War: The New Pacific Theater

The United States and its allies take the first steps toward countering a growing China.

BY ROBERT HADDICK | SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

The U.S. and Australia try a new military deployment plan for the southwest Pacific

This week Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to San Francisco to meet with their counterparts from Australia. The occasion was the anniversary of the ANZUS mutual defense treaty, signed 60 years ago in San Francisco's Presidio. That treaty was signed near the start of the Cold War, while the United States and its allies were locked in bloody combat against the Chinese army in Korea. This week's event in San Francisco was an effort to update the defense pact, with China again looming over the meeting.

Six decades later, the Korean War still seems to have a strong influence on the positioning of U.S. military forces in East Asia. U.S. ground, air, and naval forces remain concentrated in Japan and South Korea in the northwest Pacific, seemingly focused on the prospect of renewed fighting in Korea. North Korea's continued belligerence since 1950 created a requirement for a U.S. military presence in the northwest Pacific. Over the decades, the United States, Japan, and South Korea built up a basing structure to support this permanent deployment, which they have long settled into.

But China's improving air and naval power and its assertion of claims in the South China Sea are very likely moving the most important defense mission 2,000 miles south from where U.S. forces in the region are now concentrated. This mismatch is presumably not lost on the U.S. and Australian ministers gathered in San Francisco.

In addition to pledging greater cooperation on cyberdefense (a problem increasingly blamed on sources in China), the United States will gain greater access to Australian military training areas, pre-position military equipment in Australia, obtain access to Australian facilities and ports, and establish options for more joint military activities in the region.

This step-up in military coordination with Australia follows similar U.S. diplomatic forays around the South China Sea. In 2005, the United States and Singapore signed a strategic framework agreement on military cooperation that was expanded this year with an agreement to deploy new U.S. Navy littoral combat ships to Singapore. The deepening of this agreement will enhance the ability of the U.S. Navy to support the multilateral military training exercises it leads every year with partners around the South China Sea.

However, Washington appears to be taking a notably different approach in the southwest Pacific. Unlike its agreement with Japan and South Korea, the new agreements with Australia and Singapore, along with other low-key arrangements with the Philippines and others in the region, do not call for the permanent basing of U.S. combat units in these countries. Both the United States and its partners in the region have an interest in maintaining the "forward presence" of U.S. military forces in the region. But the permanent bases and garrisons in South Korea and Japan have become corrosive, especially on Okinawa, where the local population has become hostile to the U.S. military presence. In addition, restrictions on training areas in Japan and South Korea are impairing the readiness of U.S. forces there and reducing the utility of their presence.

The model the U.S. planners appear to have in mind for Australia, Singapore, and around the South China Sea involves regular and frequent training exercises, temporary access to host countries' facilities, and frequent consultation by staff officers and advisors. For training exercises or in response to crises, U.S. air and ground forces would fly in and meet up with pre-positioned equipment, with naval forces arriving soon thereafter. This method would avoid the political friction the United States has encountered in Japan and South Korea and allow U.S. soldiers to remain at bases inside the United States that have better training facilities and provide better living arrangements for soldiers and their families.

This new method of providing security for the southwest Pacific remains mostly a theory and will face increasing pressure if Chinese forces eventually threaten easy access to the region. But if the model succeeds, it could call into question the utility of maintaining the existing garrisons on Okinawa and South Korea, which in any case are increasingly untenable as the Chinese missile threat expands. The trick for U.S. military strategists and diplomats will be implementing this more flexible deployment model while simultaneously reassuring regional partners that U.S. security commitments are as firm as ever. As pressures increase, that trick may not be easy to pull off.

Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Greg Johnson/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

 SUBJECTS:
 

Robert Haddick is managing editor of Small Wars Journal.

INNOCENT VICTIM OF US MILITARISM

12:36 AM ET

September 17, 2011

US Fears Drive US Decline

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself" proclaimed FDR shortly after he assumed office. How right he was! We, American people, have been led to heightened fear since 9/11 and on that fear we allowed our imperial presidents, GWB and BO, to bring our country to far greater loss than occurred a decade ago. Not the first such inculcation of fear by our treacherous presidents! We were persuaded to fear Communists in our State Department, Cubans 90 miles off Florida, Guatemalan efforts at democracy at modest land reform, similar national movements in Iran, in Vietnam and in Chile. Each such fear has brought us many consequences, some to this day, in US casualties and lost treasure. Now in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile, our militarism and violations of international law have given other nations valid reason to fear us. China does not have warships in the Caribbean; none reported so far. But we have warships that steam in the South China Sea.

China has not had a history of expansionism far beyond border disputes. The US certainly has had such a history, especially since 1898. Yet, we fear the Chinese! What irony! The Chinese are beating us economically. They have no reason to engage us. If they have a hostile intention, they can just sit back and watch us destroying ourselves through our international warring and financial profligacy.

Maybe FDR's declaration needs to be updated to "We have nothing to fear but ourselves."

Innocent Victim of American Imperialism

 

MARTY MARTEL

1:46 PM ET

September 17, 2011

Nixon-Kissinger embrace of China haunts U. S.

Much-celebrated Nixon-Kissinger embrace of China to counter Soviet Union in 1972 has come back to haunt The United States.

Afterall China was a pariah country in the world just like today’s North Korea until Nixon’s 1972 visit. All the West European and East Asian countries stayed away from China following the US lead until 1972 and embraced China after Nixon’s visit. While US would not give MFN status to Soviet Union (remember Jackson-Vanik amendment?) unless Russia shed Communism, it had no problem giving it to China’s Communist dictators with a capitalist mask. Trade with China expanded by leaps and bounds during 12 years of Republican rule beginning in 1981. After campaigning against butchers of Beijing in 1992 elections, even Bill Clinton became enthusiastic supporter of trade with China once he took lessons in foreign policy from Nixon in early 1993 during a special Whitehouse-arranged meeting. US also promoted China to a super power status by accepting it as a permanent UNSC member.

Had it not been for that Nixon embrace in 1972, China’s rise to super power status would have been far more slower with all the US, West European and East Asian markets closed to cheap Chinese products. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s technological progress would have been far slower in the absence of West’s technology transfers. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s military progress would have been far slower in the absence of huge forex reserves that China accumulated from the massive exports of cheap Chinese products and China used those forex reserves to acquire latest military technology.

Now China has U. S. by the tail - U. S. businesses are hooked to huge profits that cheap Chinese products generate for them as a walk through any Wal-Mart, Sears, Home Depot and Macy’s filled with cheap Chinese goods prove and the U. S. government is hooked to huge investments that China makes in U. S. treasury bills from the sales of cheap Chinese products to U. S. businesses. It is a win-win for China and loose-loose for U. S. in this free trade. It has been said as a joke that if U. S. ever goes to war with China, U. S. would have to ask China to send boots for U. S. soldiers to go and fight against Chinese soldiers!

If capitalist U. S. had an upper hand against Communist Soviet Union in the first cold war, then creditor China has an upper hand against debtor U. S. in this second cold war.

Little could Mao or Deng have imagined that by wearing a capitalist mask, their followers will beat capitalists at their own game. Lenin used to say that ’capitalists will sell us the ropes with which we will hang them’. With West selling such proverbial ropes in the form of technology transfers, Chinese Communists have proven that Lenin saying quite prophetic.

 

JIMMYBOBBY

4:06 PM ET

September 17, 2011

Fear of China, my butt!

The only fears that are driving an arms race are the fears on the part of our defense industry that the gravy train will stop rolling if we're not either in a war or contemplating one. I'm sure the same is true on the other side, as China grows a defense industry. These murderous parasites have ginned up fear for centuries to keep themselves in business. We need to ignore them!

 

HAYATOV

1:21 AM ET

September 18, 2011

agreed

Suppresive people thinks for opposit growing and getting powerful is a threat for himself. This is insane. Before investing on war threats one must invest much less for human right education! to save lives.
oyun

 

XTIANGODLOKI

11:38 AM ET

September 19, 2011

Defense industry sucking up $$$

If USSR is of any indication, China going into an arms race will only bankrupt itself. The US is already half way there.

 

INNOCENT VICTIM OF US MILITARISM

11:22 PM ET

September 17, 2011

Mr Martel's refresher on US-China relations

Mr Martel mistakes, in my view, what is haunting the US. That since 1972, indeed since 1964, the US has wasted American lives and resources on wars and imperial projections of power cannot be blamed on China. Back even further, China cannot be blamed for responding with force, after warnings to the US, to Douglas McArthur's march towards the Yalu River. What is haunting the US are decades of arrogant militarism by its leaders, imperial overstretch as recognized in the writing of Paul Kennedy and, later, by Chalmers Johnson.

Not only our arrogant militarism but our corrupted leaders' subservience to American corporations by entering into trade agreements that resulted in the dismantling of our basic industries and the attrition of the US middle-class. Instead of making our own consumer goods, we became the chief exporter of arms and allowed the Pentagon to fasten its grip on the US economy by becoming a principal supporter of communities and employment throughout our country. Martel cannot blame China for those choices.

At the same time, we became the foremost source of terrorism in the world, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before fall of the Berlin Wall, we had achieved milestones in terrorism in Central, South America, and Asia by toppling legitimate, elected governments and by supporting regimes that murdered their own peoples. The hatred and blow-back that now haunt us from those crimes by our government cannot be blamed on improvements in US-China relations.

With all his emphasis on China, Martel would have us forget that during the 1960s, before Nixon, we were already importing large numbers of Volkswagens, Datsuns, Hondas, Volvos and Renaults, because US capitalists refused to innovate to meet not only changing domestic demand but the demands of the export market. American manufacturers were just as arrogant as the US foreign policy establishment.

Martel refers to "the butchers in Beijing". Does he doubt that our leaders in Washington are butchers to families in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Does Martel think that it is China's fault that the US makes wars on borrowed money? Is China less trapped by its vaults filled with US Treasury notes and bonds than the US is on made in China goods? Borrow a few dollars, and your lender has the upper hand. Borrow hundreds of billions of dollars and you dominate your lender. I think China is doing what it can to free itself of its dollar dependence. Are we withdrawing from our costly global bases and military commitments in favor of rebuilding our domestic economy and reducing our borrowing from China?

With the economies of western Europe and the US threatened by sovereign debt defaults in the PIGS, I don't think the Chinese (or anyone else) would proudly wear a capitalist mask, these days. Capitalism ultimately means the corruption of governments for the benefit of corporate interests; it means the withering of civil liberties and the wedding of corporations and government. It is called corporatism, a precursor to fascism.

 

MARCOSARCONDICIONADO

8:29 PM ET

September 18, 2011

Agreed

Suppresive people thinks for opposit growing and getting powerful is a threat for himself. This is insane. Thanks !!!
Ar Condicionado Massagista Acompanhantes

 

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XTIANGODLOKI

11:35 AM ET

September 19, 2011

Witness the impact of the debt ceiling debates

First, the whole debate is a mess and embarrassment to this country. Now f anyone has paid any attention they would see that after the threats from senators to cut defense budget in order to make up the budget short fall, suddenly we are getting all types of "news" and "analysis" about China's supposed military aggression. Most of this is hardly news. China like all other asian nations have been in border disputes for decades. Nations have been spying on each other for far longer.

The fact is that the US is still far ahead of China in terms of military strength, that nuke powers will NEVER invade each other. Since US is spending some 5 times more on defense than China, the gap is widening. The problem is economic. If the US wants to better compete with China economically it should spend the money into infrastructure, education, and services so that it's best asset (the people of course) could do their jobs better.

 

YARINSIZ

3:42 PM ET

October 6, 2011

With all his emphasis on

With all his emphasis on China, Martel would have us forget that during the 1960s, before Nixon, we were already importing large numbers of Volkswagens, Datsuns, Hondas, Volvos and Renaults, because US capitalists refused to innovate to meet not only changing domestic demand but the demands of the seslichat export market. American manufacturers were just as arrogant as the US foreign policy establishment.

 

GREGBUNT

7:10 AM ET

October 8, 2011

We shall

We shall reduce the Palestinians to a community of woodcutters and waiters." --Uri Lubrani , Gurion's Special Advisor on Arab Affairs, Tel Aviv, Palestine, 1960. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace in 1972, China’s rise to super power status would have been far more slower with all the US, West European and East Asian markets closed to cheap Chinese products. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s technological progress would have been far slower in the absence of West’s technology transfers. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s military progress would have been far slower in the absence of huge forex reserves that China accumulated from the massive exports of cheap Chinese products and China used those forex reserves to acquire latest military technology.

 

ANTIE

5:54 AM ET

October 10, 2011

U.S should review its defense policy

U.S is tightening its grip over the Pacific waters by entering into treaties with the likes of Australia, Singapore, and Philippines etc. as a way of checking the China’s claim to power in this region. U.S’s ploy of using the base for training the forces rather than creating a permanent set-up shows its matured approach towards the defense strategies in Asia. U.S is creating a healthy military model that will benefit all the parties involved, just like the way systemic enzymes work. The proposed cuts in Pentagon’s budget forces the U.S military to review these models to conclude, up to what extent they can sacrifice their resources.

 

CHRISBIKER

12:00 PM ET

October 16, 2011

At the same time

At the same time, we became the foremost source of terrorism in the world, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before fall of the Berlin Wall, we had achieved milestones exercise bikes in terrorism in Central, South America, and Asia by toppling legitimate, elected governments and by supporting regimes that murdered their own peoples. The hatred and blow-back that now haunt us from those crimes by our government cannot be blamed on improvements in US-China relations.