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Checking the threat that could be China?!

RockLee

Hullu
22 Apr 2004
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Checking the threat that could be China

By RICHARD HALLORAN
Special to The Japan Times

HONOLULU -- When U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed the Shangri-la Security Dialogue in Singapore last weekend, most of the attention in the meeting and later in the press focused on his candid comments about China's military strategy, spending and modernization.

The secretary barely touched on the fundamental revision in the U.S. defense posture that is intended to counter a potential threat from China or to respond swiftly to contingencies elsewhere, pointing only to "a repositioning of U.S. forces worldwide that will significantly increase our capabilities in support of our friends and allies in this region."

American defense officials in Washington, at the Pacific Command here in Hawaii, and in Asia have spent many months seeking to bring Rumsfeld's policy to reality. They have fashioned a plan intended to strengthen the operational control of the Pacific Command, enhance forces in the U.S. territory of Guam, tighten the alliance with Japan and streamline the U.S. stance in South Korea.

As pieced together from American and Japanese officials, who cautioned that no firm decisions have been made, the realignment shapes up like this:

ARMY: The U.S. Army headquarters in Hawaii will become a war-fighting command to devise and execute operations rather than one that trains and provides troops to other commands as it does now. The U.S. four-star general's post in Korea will be transferred to Hawaii.

The 1st Corps at Fort Lewis, Washington, will move to Camp Zama, Japan, to forge ties with Japan's ground force. Japan will organize a similar unit, perhaps called the Central Readiness Command, to prepare and conduct operations with the U.S. Army.

Japanese officials are considering elevating the Self-Defense Agency to a ministry and renaming Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force as the Japanese Army; same for the navy and air force. Shedding those postwar names would reflect Japan's emergence from its pacifist cocoon.

In South Korea, the U.S. plans to disband the 8th Army, which has been there since the Korean War of 1950-53, to relinquish command of Korean troops to the Koreans and to minimize or eliminate the United Nations Command set up during the Korean War.

A smaller tactical command will oversee U.S. forces that remain in Korea, which will be down to 25,000 from 37,000 in 2008. That may be cut further since Seoul has denied the U.S. the "strategic flexibility" to dispatch U.S. forces from Korea to contingencies elsewhere.

MARINE CORPS: The Marines, who have a war-fighting center in Hawaii, will move the headquarters of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) to Guam from Okinawa to reduce the friction caused by the U.S. "footprint" on that Japanese island. How many Marines would move was not clear, but combat battalions will continue to rotate to Okinawa from the United States.

Some U.S. officers are displeased because local politics rather than military necessity dictated the move. They asserted that the Tokyo government, despite its desire to "reduce the burden" on Okinawans, has blocked U.S. attempts to move forces to other bases in Japan.

Other officers saw an advantage to having III MEF in Guam. If a Japanese government sought to restrict the movement of U.S. forces, III MEF would be able to operate without reference to Tokyo.

AIR FORCE: The 13th Air Force moved to Hawaii from Guam in May to give that service a war-fighting headquarters like those of the other services. General Paul V. Hester, commander of the Pacific Air Forces, was quoted in press reports: "We're building an air operations center and war-fighting headquarters that serves the entire Pacific region."

The Air Force plans to establish a strike force on Guam that will include six bombers and 48 fighters rotating there from U.S. bases. In addition, 12 refueling aircraft essential to long-range projection of air power will be stationed at Guam's Andersen Air Force Base.

Further, three Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft will be based on Guam. Global Hawks can range more than 19,000 kilometers, at altitudes up to 21,000 meters, for 35 hours, which means they can cover Asia from Bangkok to Beijing with sensors making images of more than 100,000 sq. kilometers a day.

In Japan, the Air Force is willing to share Yokota Air Force Base, west of Tokyo, with Japan's Air Self-Defense Force but has resisted opening the base to civilian aircraft, citing security concerns. Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara has demanded such rights.

NAVY: Kitty Hawk, the conventionally powered aircraft carrier based at Yokosuka, Japan, is scheduled to be replaced by 2008. The U.S. wants to station a nuclear-powered carrier there, although some Japanese politicians would prefer the last of the conventionally powered carriers, John F. Kennedy.

The Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, whose war-fighting element is Joint Task Force 519, has moved three attack submarines to Guam to put it closer to the Western Pacific and will probably be assigned an additional carrier from the Atlantic to be based at Pearl Harbor.

All in all, these changes will take upwards of three years to complete during which time Beijing can be expected to object in no uncertain terms.

This is the kind of thing that annoys me,although they want to keep good relations , they work together with Japan and Korea for a possible thread China could pose...that sounds so bad, like being good friends with China, and behind their back put up a plan to counterattack in case they would try something :eek: Shouldn't there be some kind of trust? Can't the big world nations just get along :unsure:





Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20050612a1.htm
 
Who Polices the Three, America, Britain, China, doh...

RockLee said:
This is the kind of thing that annoys me,although they want to keep good relations , they work together with Japan and Korea for a possible thread China could pose...that sounds so bad, like being good friends with China, and behind their back put up a plan to counterattack in case they would try something :eek: Shouldn't there be some kind of trust? Can't the big world nations just get along :unsure:

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20050612a1.htm
Thanks for sharing the article and your thoughts. After becoming desensitized about these kind of topics, it almost seems there is a subculture that goes on babbling the usual stuff regardless of how peaceful or hostile the realationship.

The military's there, and they've often been used to take away the power to decide from the enemy. A casual drill and the ususal speeches using the imagined "threat" is a common excuse to keep the military active when there is no evident threat. But what happens when, in the absence of an obvious threat, the military slacks, loses its edge, and slopes downhill... then suddenlhy the unexpected happens.

It would be too straining on my nerves if I followed all references to "the threat" literally. They all say that because everybody knows it's very difficult to maintain an expensive military when their reason of being is non-existent. By the use of words and threatening imagery, they create a false image that helps their corner of the world go round. Nothing evil in itself; just routine military big-talk. :)
But maybe they know something I don't. China's 'Taiwan Project' seems to be an old legacy of the GMD-GCD feuding era. Old habits die hard, but is it a real threat ? It looks very bad on paper; as to its reality, I have the slightest idea, and I doubt many people do. :?
 
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I am not quite as optimistic as you, I must say. Iraq was called a "threat" too, and after some machinations when it seems "ripe" to strike, they did. Military maneouvring is highly expensive and not for nought. There is intent behind this, just what exactly - a showdown? a scare? - I have no idea but it is certainly hostile and highly sinister. I wonder what it is that convinces the rightwing Japanese that it is to Japan's advantage right now to provoke a meltdown of Japan-China relations? It's funny how most posters here believe that it is the other way round, that it is China and the Chinese provoking Japan by demanding an honest account of WWII, when the acts [from Japan declaring China a "threat" and not the other way round to Koizumi's Yasukuni visits] are clearly designed to provoke China. Interestingly, the old-guard LDP conservatives, including almost all the former PMs from Nakasone to Hasimoto, seem to be very concerned about the deterioration in relationships and have urged Koizumi to hold back to no avail. See

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/06/news/policy.php

Note the comments from the Nonaka about how recent events reminded the 79 yr old of prewar Japan when politicians manipulated public opinion to rouse nationalism through fear-mongering.


Here's another very interesting piece in the always excellent Asia Times:

atimes.com

There is a split within the ranks of the LDP conservatives, mirorring the neo-con/paleo-con split within the US Republican party. Koizumi seems like the Japanese version of Bush defining a radical new Japanese order of dealing with its neighbours. Emboldened stupidity may just win him the votes, as it did for Bush, but we also know that the Bush agenda was global. Scary times.
 
Scary indeed. It runs in our newspapers that China considers the possibility of maintaining its military bases in Kirghizia, to balance US bases spreading all over Central Asia. And to prevent possible threat of Islamic revolution which might affect China as well
 
Void, it has been noted by many analysts that the US is doing an encirclement of both Russia and China with bases in Central Asia to the West cutting off the oil states, Afghanistan to the South and Japan from the East. It explains the mad scramble to kiss Karimov's *** by all 3 right after the Uzbekistan "Tiananmen". I just wonder if they are going to bait Putin as well. We can all say "This is madness!" but history is replete with paranoid megalomaniacs who launch huge destructive wars because they want to make history, seize the moment for power and hegemony and stoke nationalism, especially when they have messed up their economies.
 
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