The U.S. has also expanded its military presence in the Middle East: Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Yemen.
Two years ago Washington reactivated its Fourth Fleet for the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America and last year's coup in Honduras and this September's attempted coup in Ecuador are proof that the U.S. will not allow developments in Latin America to pursue their natural course unimpeded.
The U.S. has intensified efforts to forge and expand military alliances and deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, but there is still a small handful of countries there not willing to accept a subordinate role in American geostrategic designs. They are, to varying degrees and in differing manners, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Myanmar. Attempts to replicate the "color revolution" model used in former Soviet republics in Myanmar and Iran since 2007 have failed, "regime change" plans for North Korea are of another nature, and neither China nor Russia appears immediately susceptible to equivalents of the so-called Rose, Orange, Tulip and Twitter revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova, respectively. The preferred technique being applied to Russia at the moment is cooption, though its success is not guaranteed as the U.S. and NATO military build-up around Russia's borders continues unabated.
What's left is the military expedient. In the first half of November the quadrivirate in charge of U.S. foreign policy - President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen - all toured the Asia-Pacific area. Collectively they visited ten nations there: India, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
Clinton and Gates were in Malaysia at separate times and both joined Mullen on November 8 for the annual Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting in Melbourne, where the U.S. military chief called the 21st century the "Pacific century." [1]
In India Obama secured what William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, estimated to be the sixth largest arms deal in U.S. history. [2]
In Australia, Gates and Mullen won a backroom arrangement to move U.S. military forces into several Australian bases.
While in New Zealand, Clinton in effect renewed the Australia, New Zealand, United States (ANZUS) Security Treaty as a full tripartite mutual defense pact after a 24-year hiatus in regard to her host country.
On November 13 Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan "thanked the United States...for supporting Tokyo in a series of recent disputes with Russia and China" [3], an allusion to a statement by Clinton on October 27 that the U.S. would honor its military assistance commitment to Tokyo over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute with China and her spokesman Philip Crowley's affront to Russia five days afterward over the Kuril Islands, which he identified as Japanese territory. [4]
In a tete-a-tete ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Yokohama, the Japanese head of state "sought US President Barack Obama's assurance on defence in the Asia-Pacific region," as "Tokyo's territorial disputes with China and Russia are becoming high priorities for Kan, who told Obama through a translator, 'The US military presence is only becoming more important.'" [5]
Verbatim, Kan said:
"Japan and the United States, at this meeting of APEC, of pan-Pacific countries, we shall step up our cooperation. So we agreed on doing that. And in Japan's relations with China and Russia, recently we've faced some problems, and the United States has supported Japan throughout, so I expressed my appreciation to him for that.
"For the peace and security of the countries in the region, the presence of the United States and the presence of the U.S. military I believe is becoming only increasingly important." [6]
In return, Obama "voiced support for Japan to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and reaffirmed the U.S.-Japan security alliance."
He also assured Kan that the U.S.-Japan alliance is "the cornerstone of American strategic engagement in the Asia Pacific" and "the commitment of the United States to the defense of Japan is unshakable."
According to a U.S. armed forces publication, "While Obama's support for the continuing security alliance is no surprise, it comes amid tension in Japan over China's...claims on territory in the East China and South China seas." [7]
Two years ago Washington reactivated its Fourth Fleet for the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America and last year's coup in Honduras and this September's attempted coup in Ecuador are proof that the U.S. will not allow developments in Latin America to pursue their natural course unimpeded.
The U.S. has intensified efforts to forge and expand military alliances and deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, but there is still a small handful of countries there not willing to accept a subordinate role in American geostrategic designs. They are, to varying degrees and in differing manners, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Myanmar. Attempts to replicate the "color revolution" model used in former Soviet republics in Myanmar and Iran since 2007 have failed, "regime change" plans for North Korea are of another nature, and neither China nor Russia appears immediately susceptible to equivalents of the so-called Rose, Orange, Tulip and Twitter revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova, respectively. The preferred technique being applied to Russia at the moment is cooption, though its success is not guaranteed as the U.S. and NATO military build-up around Russia's borders continues unabated.
What's left is the military expedient. In the first half of November the quadrivirate in charge of U.S. foreign policy - President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen - all toured the Asia-Pacific area. Collectively they visited ten nations there: India, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
In India Obama secured what William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, estimated to be the sixth largest arms deal in U.S. history. [2]
In Australia, Gates and Mullen won a backroom arrangement to move U.S. military forces into several Australian bases.
While in New Zealand, Clinton in effect renewed the Australia, New Zealand, United States (ANZUS) Security Treaty as a full tripartite mutual defense pact after a 24-year hiatus in regard to her host country.
On November 13 Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan "thanked the United States...for supporting Tokyo in a series of recent disputes with Russia and China" [3], an allusion to a statement by Clinton on October 27 that the U.S. would honor its military assistance commitment to Tokyo over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute with China and her spokesman Philip Crowley's affront to Russia five days afterward over the Kuril Islands, which he identified as Japanese territory. [4]
In a tete-a-tete ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Yokohama, the Japanese head of state "sought US President Barack Obama's assurance on defence in the Asia-Pacific region," as "Tokyo's territorial disputes with China and Russia are becoming high priorities for Kan, who told Obama through a translator, 'The US military presence is only becoming more important.'" [5]
Verbatim, Kan said:
"Japan and the United States, at this meeting of APEC, of pan-Pacific countries, we shall step up our cooperation. So we agreed on doing that. And in Japan's relations with China and Russia, recently we've faced some problems, and the United States has supported Japan throughout, so I expressed my appreciation to him for that.
"For the peace and security of the countries in the region, the presence of the United States and the presence of the U.S. military I believe is becoming only increasingly important." [6]
In return, Obama "voiced support for Japan to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and reaffirmed the U.S.-Japan security alliance."
He also assured Kan that the U.S.-Japan alliance is "the cornerstone of American strategic engagement in the Asia Pacific" and "the commitment of the United States to the defense of Japan is unshakable."
According to a U.S. armed forces publication, "While Obama's support for the continuing security alliance is no surprise, it comes amid tension in Japan over China's...claims on territory in the East China and South China seas." [7]
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