More U.S. warships in Asia-Pacific under new strategy: Panetta

Πηγή: Deccan Chronicle
By Reuters
June 2 2012

The United States will keep six aircraft carriers in the Asia-Pacific and move a majority of its other warships to the region in the coming years, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Saturday as he offered details of a new U.S. military strategy for the first time.

Speaking to an annual security forum in Singapore, Panetta also sought to dispel the notion that the shift in U.S. focus to the Asia-Pacific was part of an American effort to contain China's emergence as a global power.

"I reject that view entirely. Our effort to renew and intensify our involvement in Asia is fully compatible with the development and growth of China," Panetta said in remarks prepared for the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference that draws senior civilian and military leaders from 30 nations.

Panetta's comments came at the outset of a seven-day visit to the region to explain to allies and partners the practical meaning of a U.S. military strategy unveiled in January that calls for re-balancing American forces to focus on the Pacific.

The trip, which includes stops in Vietnam and India, comes at a time of renewed tensions over competing sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, with Manila and Beijing in a standoff over the Scarborough Shoal near the Philippine coast.

China has downgraded its representation to the Shangri-La Dialogue compared to last year, when Defence Minister Liang Guanglie attended and met with then-U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates. This year the Chinese military was represented by the vice president of Academy of Military Sciences.

Panetta, on the other hand, was accompanied by General Martin Dempsey, the U.S. military's top officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Samuel Locklear, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, who leads U.S. forces in the region.

Panetta said he was committed to building a 'healthy, stable, reliable and continuous' military-to-military relationship with China, but he underscored the importance of Beijing supporting a rules-based system to clarify rights in the region and help to peacefully resolve disputes.

"China has a critical role to play in advancing security and prosperity by respecting the rules-based order that has served the region for six decades," he said.

SIX AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

Fleshing out details of the U.S. shift to Asia, Panetta told officials attending the Singapore conference that the United States would reposition its Navy fleet in the coming years so that by 2020, 60 per cent of its warships would be assigned to the Asia-Pacific region, versus about 50 per cent now.

He said the Navy would maintain six aircraft carriers assigned to the Pacific. Six of the Navy's 11 carriers are currently assigned to the Pacific, but that number will fall to five when the USS Enterprise retires this year.

Panetta's announcement means the number of carriers in the Pacific will rise to six again when the new carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is completed in 2015.

The U.S. Navy had a fleet of 282 ships including support vessels as of March this year. That number was expected to slip to about 276 over the next two years before beginning to rise again toward the Navy's goal of a 300-ship fleet, according to a 30-year Navy shipbuilding projection released in March.

But officials warned that fiscal constraints and continuing problems with cost overruns could make it difficult to attain the goal of a 300-ship fleet over the course of the 30-year period.

Panetta underscored the breadth of the U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific, noting Washington's treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia as well as its partnerships with India, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries.

He said the United States would attempt to build on those partnerships with cooperative arrangements like the rotational deployment agreement it has with Australia and is working on with the Philippines.

Panetta said the United States also would work to increase the number and size of bilateral and multilateral training exercises it conducts in the region. Officials said last year the United States carried out 172 such exercises in the region.

The U.S. defence secretary also sought to address concerns that the Washington might be unable to meet its commitments to the region because of tightening defense budgets and fiscal uncertainty.

"The Department of Defence has in our five-year budget plan a detailed blueprint for implementing this strategy, realising our long-term goals in this region and still meeting our fiscal responsibilities," Panetta said.

U.S. to Keep Strong Presence in Pacific, Panetta Says

Πηγή: New York Times
By Elizabeth Bumiller
Oct 23 2011

BALI, Indonesia — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Sunday that despite hundreds of billions of dollars in expected cuts to the Pentagon budget, the United States would remain a “Pacific power” even as China expanded its military presence in the region.

Mr. Panetta, who is on his first trip to Asia as defense secretary, made the comments at a meeting of Southeast Asian nations on this Indonesian resort island. He sought to reassure Pacific nations concerned about China’s increasing assertiveness that the United States, as he put it, would be “a force for peace and prosperity” here.

He acknowledged that nations in the region were worried about the impact of at least $450 billion in Pentagon budget cuts over the next decade and whether the United States could afford to maintain a strong military presence in the Pacific.

“There’s no question that those concerns have been expressed,” Mr. Panetta told reporters before meeting with the defense ministers of the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But Mr. Panetta said that “I’ve made clear that even with the budget constraints that we are facing in the United States, there is no question that in discussions within the Pentagon, and discussions in the White House, that the Pacific will be a priority for the United States of America.”

Mr. Panetta offered no specifics, although he said that the United States “will maintain our force projection” in the region — some 85,000 forces in all, largely in South Korea and Japan.

Although he did not mention it, the United States is also stepping up investments in a range of weapons, jet fighters and technology in response to China’s military prowess.

In the last year, China tested its first radar-evading fighter jet, the J-20, and is developing an antiship ballistic missile that has the potential of hitting American aircraft carriers. China is also in sea trials with its first aircraft carrier, a refitted Soviet-era carrier from Ukraine. China’s People’s Liberation Army — with some 1.25 million ground troops, the largest in the world — is on track to achieve its goal of building a modern, regionally focused force by 2020.

The Chinese military remains focused on Taiwan, which it claims as part of its sovereign territory, and has deployed as many as 1,200 short-range missiles aimed in its direction.

At the same time, China has become involved in a number of maritime disputes with countries in the region over its claims to the South China Sea. On some Chinese maps, China’s territorial claims to the sea extend south nearly to the coast of Indonesia — a source of aggravation to top administration officials.

Earlier this month, Mr. Panetta was blunt about his worries. “We’re concerned about China,” he told American service members in Naples, Italy. “The most important thing we can do is to project our force into the Pacific — to have our carriers there, to have our fleet there, to be able to make very clear to China that we are going to protect international rights to be able to move across the oceans freely.”

Mr. Panetta will also visit Japan and South Korea this week.

When al Qaeda is defeated, can we have our liberties back?

Πηγή: The Examiner
By Gene Healy

07/18/11 8:05 PM

Last week brought the unsurprising news that the Transportation Security Administration had terrorized yet another 6-year-old with a humiliating pat-down. Dog bites man, federal agent gropes child -- we're getting all too accustomed to this sort of thing in post-9/11 America.

Meanwhile, even the administration's top terror warriors are starting to admit that al Qaeda is a spent force. Two weeks ago, in his first public comments after moving from Langley to the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta noted that al Qaeda's defeat was "within reach."

When we kill or round up some 10 to 20 remaining senior operatives, Panetta said, we'll "really cripple al Qaeda as a threat to this country." In fact, the al Qaeda threat has looked anything but robust for some time now.

Last summer, al Qaeda's online journal Inspire, a sort of Soldier of Fortune magazine for wannabe jihadis, suggested using "a tractor or farm vehicle in an attack outfitted with blades or swords as a fearsome killing machine" -- perfect for "mowing down the enemies of Allah."

Among the treasure trove of materials seized from the Abbottabad compound was a missive from Osama bin Laden himself, condemning that scheme as "indiscriminate slaughter" -- an odd objection, coming from a mass murderer.

Yet somehow, the terrorist mastermind missed the more obvious objection: The plan is utterly screwball -- an embarrassment -- the dumbest scheme since ... well, since al Qaeda operative Iyman Faris' 2002 plan to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. As I've said before, sometimes you get the sense that these guys aren't the sharpest scimitars in the shed.

The global intelligence firm Stratfor put it more politely in a recent analysis: "The jihadists seem to be having a problem ... finding people who can master the terrorist tradecraft" and travel freely to the West.

They've been reduced to urging potential sympathizers who already live here to stock up at gun shows and shoot some infidels at the mall. But, as Stratfor observes, "the very call to leaderless resistance is an admission of defeat."

We may be winning, but don't dare imagine that "victory" will take the form of a restoration of lost liberties. That's "defeatist" thinking. I suppose that's why, shortly after SEAL Team 6 killed bin Laden, Congress and the president's autopen got together to reauthorize the Patriot Act. The threat recedes, but the surveillance state must live on.

And there can be no talk of beating porno-scanners into plowshares. The Department of Homeland Security recently warned that terrorists might "surgically implant explosive devices" in their bodies.

Slate.com reports that several firms are already hard at work on scanners that can look inside our bodies instead of just inside our clothes. Like all other bureaucracies, the bureaucracy of fear has a merciless logic of its own. It exists to exist, generating new invasions of privacy -- and new federal contracts -- however speculative the threats.

Ten days after the Sept. 11 attacks, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, President George W. Bush laid out his vision of al Qaeda's demise: heirs to the "murderous ideologies of the 20th century," they'd end up "in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."

Nearly a decade later, U.S. Navy SEALs pitched the head murderer's body off the side of the USS Carl Vinson into the North Arabian Sea -- a watery grave that's a pretty close approximation of Bush's imagery.

Wired magazine defense analyst Spencer Ackerman asks the right question: "Why does the U.S. still need to devote such overwhelming resources worldwide against a force that's seeing history pass it by?"

As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, isn't it time we started thinking about a "peace dividend"?

Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and author of "The Cult of the Presidency."

Panetta Discusses Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Πηγή: Globalsecurity

By Jim Garamone

19 Aug. 2011

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2011 – Even as deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan draw down, American service members will continue to deploy in the future, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said here today.

In a roundtable meeting at the Pentagon with military media representatives, the secretary also discussed the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.

Though the United States is withdrawing forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is a fair bet that the U.S. military will be called upon to meet new challenges, the secretary said.

“Service members will continue to confront threats in the world,” he said. “The likelihood is that we’re going to face some other crises. If the Arab Spring has told us anything, it’s that we’re dealing with an awful lot of turmoil in a complicated part of the world.”

Some 46,000 American service members are serving in Iraq, and the United States has not received a formal request for American trainers to remain there after the Dec. 31 deadline set by a 2008 agreement between the two countries for all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq. Panetta said he sees some progress in that regard, as the Iraqis have agreed to discuss within their government a continued U.S. presence. They agreed to name a defense minister and interior minister, the secretary noted, and they agreed to a tougher line with Iran, which has been shipping in weapons and providing training to Iraqi insurgents.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces in Iraq are drawing down, and they are on pace for all to out by the year’s end, Panetta said. “The issue then will become what is the kind of training assistance and presence Iraq feels it needs in order to defend itself and secure itself,” he said.

The Iraq and Afghanistan missions are similar, the secretary said, in that the mission in both countries is to ensure governance so they can secure and defend themselves and cannot become havens for al-Qaida or other terror groups that might threaten United States.

Iraq has made a lot of progress, he noted, with 650,000 members now serving in its security forces. The level of violence is down, he added, and government officials are trying to work together to sort through very difficult issues.

In Afghanistan, the coalition surge has made a difference and al-Qaida and the Taliban have been weakened, Panetta said. “One of the real questions was [whether we were] going to be able to develop an effective Afghan army and police force,” he told the media representatives.

The Afghan army and police have grown in numbers and capability, he said, and seven areas of the country have transitioned to Afghan security control. “The real challenge will be whether or not the central government … is going to be able to maintain a level of governance that can provide stability for that country,” he said.

Pakistan remains a key player in the region, the secretary said. “Pakistan has got to get the clear message that they can’t pick and choose among terrorists,” the secretary said. “Terrorism represents as much a threat for their country as it does for ours. They’ve got to take on this responsibility as well.”

The Pakistanis are getting better about cooperation since the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Panetta said. “They have done better about going after some targets we’ve given them since the bin Laden raid,” he said. “At the same time, we have some bumps in the road in terms of relationship.”

But the bottom line is that the United States must continue to work with Pakistan, Panetta said. “We have got to continue to put pressure on them, because the bottom line is that we can’t … win in Afghanistan without winning in Pakistan,” the secretary said.

"More drones... to protect civilians?". A brief update on the Libya war.

Civilians training in Tripoli

As the operation "United Protector" keep going on, after 100 days of war with 12,000 sorties flown in 5,000 attack missions and hit over 2,400 targets NATO asked US to provide more drones: "It's getting more difficult to find stuff to blow up," said a senior NATO officer, noting that Kadafi's forces are increasingly using civilian facilities to carry out military operations. "Predators really enable you study things and to develop a picture of what is going on." Panetta has emphasized that winning the war in Libya is one of his top priorities. His predecessor, Robert M. Gates, had urged European allies to do more and had stressed that the U.S. military was overstretched.The Pentagon's willingness to consider strengthening the North Atlantic Treaty Organization force in Libya marks an apparent shift since Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta took over the Pentagon early this month. Given that the UN mandate was about protecting civilians and not conducting an offensive attack the contradiction with CIA Director's statements is obvious. For how can one claim victory when serving a protective role? As Colonel Roland Lavoie, military spokesman for Operation Unified Protector confirmed in his Press Conference on 26/7: "I would like to say that it's not the NATO... the NATO mission is not about winning or losing. It's about basically saving lives. NATO has no intent of taking Brega or any other cities. We are basically monitoring the situation and acting where it is required to prevent attacks on civilians or to prevent a build-up of military capabilities that could stop humanitarian aid, for example".

"Recently NATO admitted civilian casualties, the Libya's Ministry of Health reported that during the first 100 days of NATO targeting of civilians, 6121 were killed or injured, HRW reported abuses inflicted on civilians by the rebels that were verified by an eye - witness journalist while a mass grave of brutalized bodies of regime's forces was discovered and the US Admiral Samuel J. Locklear has confirmed that NATO forces are trying to kill Muammar Qaddafi.