Last month New Zealand's Defence Minister Wayne Mapp announced that joint military exercises with the U.S. would resume after 23 years, since the nation's 1987 ban on the docking of nuclear-powered warships and submarines.
New Zealand has been brought back into the fold in part by providing NATO with over 200 troops for the war in Afghanistan. Australia, with over 1,500 soldiers assigned to the International Security Assistance Force in the nation, is the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the war. Last year it unveiled plans for the most extensive military buildup in its post-World War Two history. [7]
On April 23 the U.S. and India launched the ten-day Malabar 2010 military exercises after "Ships, submarines and aircraft from the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet arrived in Goa" to engage in maneuvers which include training for "surface and anti-submarine warfare, coordinated gunnery exercises [and] air defense...." [8] The U.S. contribution consists of two guided missile destroyers, a guided missile frigate, a guided missile cruiser, a nuclear fast-attack submarine, P-3 Orion anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, SH-60B Seahawk helicopters and Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) special forces.
The Malabar war games have been conducted jointly by the U.S. and India since 1992 (except for 1998-2001 after India carried out nuclear tests), but last year included Japan, and Malabar 2007 was a five-nation operation held in the Bay of Bengal with the U.S. and India joined by Australia, Japan and Singapore, leading to suspicions of U.S. designs for an Asia-Pacific analogue of NATO.
As Malabar 2010 was underway, "warships, combat aircraft and soldiers" from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore (all Commonwealth nations) began Exercise Bersama Shield 2010 "on the Malaysian peninsula and in the South China Sea." [9]
Malaysia is among a minority of maritime states not to have joined the U.S.-launched Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) whose architect was then U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. Established in 2003 as "a global effort that aims to stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors," [10], it has grown to incorporate over 90 of the world's 148 coastal nations. [11]
China, Indonesia and Malaysia have refused to join, though South Korea did in May of last year, and the first three countries along with Iran and North Korea - the states used as justification for the PSI - view the U.S.-led global surveillance, interdiction and boarding operation with deep concern and doubts about its legality, as it operates without a United Nations mandate, can be argued to circumvent and violate international maritime law, and in effect grants the U.S. and its allies the self-arrogated right to conduct piracy on the high seas.
"Launched on May 31, 2003, U.S. involvement in the PSI stems from the U.S. National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction issued in December 2002. That strategy recognizes the need for more robust tools to stop proliferation of WMD around the world, and specifically identifies interdiction as an area where greater focus will be placed. President Obama strongly supports the PSI. On April 5, 2009 in Prague, the President called on the international community to make PSI a 'durable international institution.'" [12]
The PSI has been effectively if not formally extended into the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa with the U.S.-run Combined Task Force 150 and Combined Task Force 151 warship deployments. Recently the South Korean navy assumed command of Combined Task Force 151 from Singapore. Combined Task Force 150 contributing navies include those of the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.
Last week it was announced that NATO welcomed South Korea as the 46th nation supplying it with troops for the war in Afghanistan. On March 29 Mongolia became the 45th. [13] Singapore also has troops serving under NATO in the country and until this year Japan was providing naval support to the U.S. war effort there.
On April 26 the China Daily reported that Rear Admiral Yang Yi, formerly in charge of strategic studies at the Chinese army's National Defense University, said "The United States is the greatest perceived threat to the People's Liberation Army" and that "the US was the only country capable of threatening China's national security interests in an all-round way." [14]
Another Chinese news source on the same day wrote of U.S. Prompt Global Strike (PGS) plans to be able to strike any target on earth within sixty minutes and the Pentagon's recent test flights of the X-37B orbital space plane and the Falcon hypersonic spy plane, reporting that "Chinese space technology expert Pang Zhihao said the spaceship...aids the PGS program, which he said could be a potential threat to world peace." [15]
The previous day London's Sunday Times acknowledged that "Obama's interest in Prompt Global Strike (PGS)...has alarmed China and Russia...." [16]
U.S. fast strike and first strike global missile and space strategy and its expansion of military alliances and networks in the Asia-Pacific area are rightly seen as threats to China and Russia. And to international security and peace.
1) Measured by battle fleet tonnage.
2) A supercarrier is currently defined as an aircraft carrier displacing 70,000 or more tons.
3) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow
4) Reuters, April 21, 2010
5) Xinhua News Agency, April 27, 2010
6) Ibid
7) Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato
8) Navy Newsstand, April 23, 2010
9) Agence France-Presse, April 26, 2010
10) U.S. Department of State
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm
11) Proliferation Security Initiative And U.S. 1,000-Ship Navy: Control Of
World's Oceans, Prelude To War
Stop NATO, January 29, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/proliferation-security-initiative-and-us-1000-ship-navy-control-of-worlds-oceans-prelude-to-war
12) U.S. Department of State, Ibid
13) Mongolia: Pentagon Trojan Horse Wedged Between China And Russia
Stop NATO, March 31, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia
14) China Daily, April 26, 2010
15) Global Times, April 26, 2010
16) Sunday Times, April 25, 2010
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
