Last November Gates joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen for the 25th anniversary Australia-United States Ministerial meeting in Australia, during which visit the local press revealed that the Pentagon will gain access to several Australian army, air force and navy bases.
As with the naval facility in Singapore, the intended target is America's main rival in the Asia-Pacific region: China.
While in Singapore last month, Gates said that although there are "still some myopic souls" who believe that the U.S. cannot retain its preeminent military role in the Asia-Pacific, "In the coming years, the United States military is also going to be increasing its port calls, naval engagements and multilateral training efforts with multiple countries throughout the region."
The Pentagon moving into bases in Australia and Singapore follows the acquisition of new American staging and forward, supply and docking and refueling, air, interceptor missile and radar, special operations, infantry, drone and other surveillance bases and other military facilities over the past twelve years in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Djibouti, Iraq, Bulgaria, Romania, Israel, Seychelles, Colombia, Poland and Bahrain (a reported new unmanned aerial vehicle -- drone -- base for attacks inside Yemen), and smaller or not yet acknowledged bases and other forms of permanent military presence in nations like Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Panama, the Netherlands Antilles, Lithuania, Estonia and Hungary (in the last three cases air bases obtained under NATO arrangements). If the Yugoslav, Afghan and Iraqi war precedents are an indication, base plans for Libya are already underway.
Far from the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union curbing the military expansion plans of the Pentagon and NATO by eliminating their official reason for being, those two developments have led to ever-expanding global designs by the "world's sole military superpower" and its North Atlantic allies.
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