Is US Preparing For War Against China?
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A pair of American B-52 bombers flew unannounced into a recently established Chinese no-fly zone in the East China Sea, in a direct rebuke of Beijing’s asserted authority over the area. The bombers, based out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, entered the contested airspace as part of a training operation dubbed Coal Lightning, according to The Wall Street Journal.”
President Obama has been moving the US military into Asia in what has been dubbed the “Asia Pivot.” He is moving 60% of the US Navy to the region along with other military resources. At the same time there is more propaganda in the US media that is building fear against China like the article below from USA Today. The US is pushing Japan to have a military something not allowed by the Japanese Constitution since World War II. The US is supplying Japan with drones and saying the US will defend Japan if it is attacked by China. Was the decision not to go to war and seek a negotiated settlement with Iran part of an effort to focus the US military on China? The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has been described as a global corporate coup, is being negotiated with Pacific nations but does not include China. Is one of the goals to isolate and weaken China economically?
A war with China sounds like an absurd, really insane, plan but Americans who oppose war need to wake up to that possibility and begin to organize against it. US News and World Report ran an article in 2011 saying war between the US and China may be inevitable. The Diplomat ran a five part series on the nightmare scenario of US was with China. The US and Japan have conducted war games off of California simulating an attack on China, Australia joined the two countries in war games as well and the US and Philippines have run war games in the South China Sea. China’s economy will be larger than the economy of the US in the foreseeable future. Can US leaders accept China being a larger economic giant than the United States? Perhaps this is the United States trying to pull China into an arms race that will hurt the Chinese economy while benefiting the US armaments industry, just a the Cold War with Russia did. Or, perhaps it is to create an opportunity for the US to bomb China and undermine its economy?
No doubt the Asian Pivot is designed to threaten and contain China while asserting US power in the region. But how far will the Pentagon go? It is impossible to completely predict what the US Empire is planning but it is important for activists who oppose war to monitor this closely and oppose military action against China. Indeed the US should be pivoting out of the world military, closing foreign bases and returning home to focus on rebuilding the United States and our economy. The Pentagon should be reduced to a size needed for the real defense of the nation, not a military used for offensive military actions anywhere in the world.
KZ
Pentagon builds forces in Pacific, eyes China
Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, November 25, 2013
The Enola Gay the plane that dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Associated Press.
Story Highlights
- Missiles extend China’s reach in the Pacific, threaten Japan
- Pentagon strategists hope to keep China guessing
- Moves are another part of U.S. ‘pivot’ to Asia
The strategy indicates the evolution of the administration’s shift toward Asia, which includes the creation of a growing base in northern Australia. Chinese missiles have been a preoccupation of Pentagon planners who worry they could be used as a threat to deny access to the region by U.S. ships, planes and troops.
Chinese ballistic missiles — termed anti-access, area denial weapons — mean that virtually every U.S. base in the Pacific is under “heavy threat,” said Michael Lostumbo, director of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Study. A RAND report found that 90% of the bases were within 1,080 nautical miles of China, the distance it defined as being under heavy threat.
“We compared threats in the Pacific region with other regions,” Lostumbo said. “The Pacific bases are all under threat if you are considering Chinese ballistic missiles.”
RAND identified three options for dealing with the threat: moving bases out of missile range, hardening aircraft hangars and dispersing aircraft to limit the damage any one attack could exact.
Pentagon strategists are re-examining bases such as Kadena on Okinawa because its proximity to China makes it particularly vulnerable, a senior officer said. The other reason to explore options, according to another senior officer, is to disrupt planning by the Chinese military and keep it guessing. Both officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Among recent developments with U.S. forces in Asia:
•Darwin, Australia. The Marine Corps is beefing up its presence. The first deployment of 200 Marines occurred last year. The goal, says Capt. Eric Flanagan, a Marine spokesman, is to rotate as many as 2,500 Marines to the base as part of an air-ground task force.
“This rotational basis allows for Marines to be present in the region without large basing requirements,” Flanagan said in an e-mail. “We won’t need big mess halls, exchanges or other military base comforts, lessening the cost of having Marines in the region.”
•Guam. Since 2000, the Pentagon has been bolstering forces on the westernmost U.S. territory, according to the Congressional Research Service. About 8,000 Marines based on Okinawa are slated to move there. The buildup and regular military exercises concern the Chinese, the service said in a report dated Nov. 15. The island has two important U.S. bases: Apra for the Navy and Andersen for the Air Force.
For the Pentagon, a key concern on Guam is an attack by Chinese or North Korean missiles, the report says. That is reflected in requests for hundreds of millions of dollars to fortify fuel bunkers and airplane hangars. The Air Force seeks a “hardened facility” for its bombers, cargo and tankers. The hangar would have a concrete roof and walls with a thickness of 3½ feet, according to budget documents.
Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh told Congress this month that the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific has asked for the protection in the event of a missile attack. Welsh put the cost at $256 million for the new fortifications.
“The hardened facilities on Guam are in response to a combatant commander request to provide more resilient capability on Guam because of an increased threat of surface-to-surface missile attack,” Welsh said. “He didn’t request that everything be hardened, just those things that are key facilities that you couldn’t improvise if there was damage.”
•Tinian and Saipan. Two islands in the North Pacific, U.S. territory not far from Guam, could be candidates for dispersing aircraft among a number of bases, according to the Pentagon. The Air Force seeks more than $115 million to build infrastructure on Saipan. The intent, according to budget documents, is to use the island for exercises and as emergency landing strips in case of bad weather.
The islands have long held strategic importance to the U.S. military. In World War II, American troops seized them from Japanese forces in 1944 and set up a sprawling base on Tinian for B-29 bombers to strike Japan. The Enola Gay and Bock’s Car flew from Tinian in August 1945 to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Follow @tvandenbrook on Twitter.
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