The Pentagon is building a $12.5 billion "super base" in Guam "in an attempt to contain China's military build-up."
The construction "will include a dock for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a missile defence system, live-fire training sites and the expansion of the island's airbase. It will be the largest investment in a military base in the western Pacific since the Second World War, and the biggest spend on naval infrastructure in decades."
In addition, "The US is also investing another -126 pound [$197] million on upgrading infrastructure at the British-owned Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia, 700 miles south of Sri Lanka." [4]
He was further cited claiming that "There are many American military facilities in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean.
"They are scattered over a large territory north of Alaska across Okinawa and as far as the Hawaiian Islands, where, traditionally, the U.S. Navy has a stronghold. Which means that there are many U.S. military facilities there, which form an arc and which must guarantee America's hegemony in the Pacific Ocean."
The U.S. maintains that "these facilities have been set up to guarantee the security of commercial communications in the region, including the security of oil supplies from the Persian Gulf area to the western coast of the USA. But taking into account current tendencies, this infrastructure is regarded by many people in Beijing as one that is aimed against China." [5]
Since late last July the U.S. has conducted ongoing war games with South Korea, Japan and Vietnam in the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan/East Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The nearly 100,000-ton nuclear-powered supercarrier USS George Washington has been deployed for naval maneuvers in all four locations.
USS George Washington
The U.S. and South Korea completed four days of exercises in the Yellow Sea on December 1 and the U.S. and Japan concluded their largest-ever joint military drills, codenamed Keen Sword 2011, which included naval exercises in the East China Sea.
America's top military commander, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and his South Korean counterpart General Han Min-koo recently confirmed that their two militaries will continue the joint exercises that have occurred since July: Invincible Spirit in that month, the mammoth Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2010 in August, an anti-submarine drill in the Yellow Sea and Proliferation Security Initiative maneuvers in September, and naval drills in the Yellow Sea in late November and early December.
On December 15 General Walter Sharp, commander of United States Forces Korea, repeated Mullen's assertion that Washington and Seoul are planning further joint military exercises and that "The U.S. and South Korea will meet future North Korean attacks with the 'utmost response' available that 'the laws of land warfare permit.'" [6]
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