The Obama administration is continuing its strategic pivot to Asia-Pacific and now trying to cultivate renewed relationships with countries in a bid to further expand the amount of US military bases throughout the region.
Much of this means rebuilding and refurbishing former US bases that were abandoned since WWII or since the Vietnam War. Administration officials have been in intense talks with the Thai government over using airfields and naval ports and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently visited Vietnam to visit the naval and air base at Cam Ranh Bay.
The Obama administration has been ramping up the pressure on China with an increasingly antagonistic foreign policy. The so-called ‘Asia pivot’ is an aggressive policy that involves surging American military presence throughout the region – in the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Guam, South Korea, Singapore, etc. – in an unprovoked scheme to contain rising Chinese economic and military influence.
The US has also been refurbishing long-abandoned World War II bases scattered across the Pacific for potential use in the event of a major conflict with China. Last month, US Marines rebuilt and restored the 8,000-foot runway at the abandoned North Field air base on the island of Tinian and engaged in a military exercise with nearby US forces based in Guam. The Tinian airbase is where the B-29s that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki took off from in 1945.
The idea is to have enough U.S. bases peppered throughout the region so that China would be too surrounded to safely attack. “Doing so would make it more difficult for China to wipe out entire squadrons sitting on the ground with surprise attacks from its long range ballistic missiles,” according to reports from Military.com.
This bellicose posture has increased tensions between the U.S. and China and between China and its weaker neighbors, like the Philippines. A recent report from the Center for Strategic International Studies predicted that next year “could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leadership’s judgment that it must respond to a U.S. strategy that seeks to prevent China’s reemergence as a great power.”
“Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable,” the report said. “The US Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that will increase pressure on China’s incoming leadership to stand up to the United States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of America’s military posture in the region and the new US defense strategic guidelines.”
Raw deal from the military
During the Vietnam War, my best buddy and I went out on a maneuver together, he never came back and I always wondered what his mother’s reaction to it was. For he was a tall black teenager from Panama who joined the U.S. Army to get his citizenship.
There is more to it then just “refurbishing" these military bases, I wonder if China has been paid in 2011 and for the first or second quarter of 2012. US owing China many billions of dollars for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other loans made to US., perhaps this is one way for US saying to China that US is not going to pay, what are you gong to do about it China…? In the other hand if China is going to do something about it then US would have no other choice but to attack China from these bases which is useful in such time.
China could really screw things up by dumping treasuries.
they only own around 13%, and they would be shooting themselves in the foot should they do so, seeing that not only is their export-based economy is reliant on U.S trade, and their currency is pegged to the U.S dollar.
“Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable"…. No shit. It's no different than having your neighbor across the street threatening to "contain" you all the while building machine gun nests to your left, right and elsewhere. Then this lunatic says that your angry surprise about this is a sign that YOU are the dangerous party.
I guess they need all those bases in case a few aircraft carriers get hit…
Gotta love the recycling policy of the Untied Asstates of Amnesia. So what if it didn't work out the first time? Surely, it will work just fine this time around. For sure. Absolutely. No doubt.
The Anglo-American Agenda – China the next cold war
People living through change rarely comprehend its significance. Things happen slowly, so slowly that few observers are able to relate seemingly disjointed events to one another. Once the end result occurs, the patterns and causal relationships become apparent. Then we understand how what seemed like unrelated events were not. However, then it is too late.
Once you perceive you are a cockroach [an unnecessary eater] polluting the world belonging to the Elite Cabal that runs the world; then you may begin to puzzle together the big picture.
The US Military belongs to the Cabal. They intend to use our [their] military to depopulate the world to a manageable level. The Russians are far too bright a culture to allow many of them to live. While the Chinese are highly intelligent, they outnumber the Cabal by far too many…but…will make great slave laborers. The Middle East has huge oil reserves that need to be controlled by the Cabal. They want America returned to a pristine condition that it may continue to provide the Cabal with its food production and become a natural resource environment they may enjoy forever at their leisure.
Russia, China and Iran know the plan and they have banded together to save themselves. Vladimir Putin is drawing a line in the sand, right now, in Syria. He knows that Syria, Lebanon, and Iran are but stepping stones to an attack on Russia itself. Are you getting the picture-? He has sold China on the idea of a first strike if the West crosses this line in the sand. Anything more than this wold lead to an essay on forthcoming events. With what you now know surely you can piece together the forthcoming of WW III.
Please, China — pull the plug. Stop funding the Upstart Reich. Start dumping your dollars, and refuse to buy any more bonds.
This kind of comment by John Glaser amounts to a stupid comment. Reason:-
1) US is broke. She is not what she has used to be. If US $ is rejected or substituted as a reserve currency, America is screwed!
2) You should not provoked your largest creditor
3) America should position herself to attract investment and other opportunities from China as the next economic locomotive, and not to do silly thing like what John Glaser advocates
4) Contrary to what anyone would think, America is not the sole superpower as she is during 1990 or even up to 2004
5) the kind of war mongering only benefit one great shark in the US – gigantic military complexes – which a big chunks of American monies go to, where huge sum can benefit the American public, if it uses properly.
6) Further American foreign bases are never welcome in most, if not all the locals in that country.