For the past couple of years, the Pentagon has made much of its “Asian Pivot,” planning increased deployments in and around the Pacific Rim with an eye toward expanding US power in the region and “containing” China.
This was a change of pace after pouring massive resources into the Middle East for the past decade, but as the military continues to grow and foreign policy ambitions grow with it, the US is finding that just one surge isn’t enough.
That’s because even as they look to get the pivot off the ground, the US is also dramatically escalating its presence across Northern Africa, and Africom officials are scrambling for ever more resources, complaining they only receive about seven percent of what they really need to deploy across the continent properly.
Between the Libyan War and the new French invasion of Mali, interest in getting US troops on the ground in Africa is greater than ever, since Pentagon officials seem to feel that any time there might be a war of some sort they want to be right in the middle of it. One would think that with the budget crunch officials might take huge new commitments with a bit of care, but that seems not to be the case.
It all depends on how you define "Pacific". The Pacific and Indian Oceans are in fact a single space reaching all the way to the east coast of Africa.
only a ballerena could not get dizzy from all these pivots
Why are BILLION$ being wasted in racist, anti-american, TECHNO- thief, SOUTH KOREA?
It's an inter-service thing, with budget considerations. The pivot to Asia-Pacific was picked up by the Air Force and Navy as the AirSea Battle Concept, which cut the Army out.
Enter Africa, a very large land mass with AFRICOM becoming a more involved combatant command which is mostly Army with some Navy around the edges. We're talking greatly increased special ops, intelligence, joint exercises with African countries, medical missions — whatever they can dream up.
But the new concept is to use other people's forces (reminds me of OPM — other people's money) to safeguard US interests. So don't worry when General Odierno says "Sequestration Would Impact Army Readiness." That's actually a good thing.
We don't need the US Army any more, we need other armies. So suck it up, General Odierno, you're not about to to enjoy Operation Malian Freedom. That's so yesterday.