The Pentagon
will begin flying surveillance drones off the coastlines of Japan, China and
Taiwan, an agreement reached after talks between Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
and Japanese Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto at the Pentagon on
Sunday.
The unmanned
aerial missions will focus on a Pacific island chain called the Diaoyutai
Islands, which have become the focal point of a simmering territorial dispute
between China and Japan. Even Sen. John McCain, one of the biggest hawks in
Congress, called the deployment “unnecessarily
provocative.”
In keeping with
the Obama administration’s antagonistic military postures towards China, the
U.S. has backed various neighboring countries from Japan to the Philippines. And
it’s no surprise drones have taken a larger role in what the Pentagon plans to
make a new military theater of Air-Sea Battle.
New war
strategies called “Air-Sea Battle” reveal Washington’s broader goals in the
region and illustrate how a war with China - which the U.S. apparently yearns
for - would play out.
“Stealthy
American bombers and submarines would knock out China’s long-range surveillance
radar and precision missile systems located deep inside the country,” reports
the Washington Post. ”The initial
‘blinding campaign’ would be followed by a larger air and naval assault.”
The Obama
administration has been ramping up the pressure on China with an increasingly
antagonistic foreign policy. The so-called ‘Asia pivot’ is an aggressive policy
that involves surging American military presence throughout the region - in the
Philippines, Japan, Australia, Guam, South Korea, Singapore, etc. - in an
unprovoked scheme to contain rising Chinese economic and military
influence.
Chinese
officials have not appreciated this unprovoked bellicosity. In May the Chinese
Defense Ministry accused the Pentagon of hyping a Chinese military threat out of
thin air. Others have said these Pentagon moves could start an arms
race.
“If the U.S.
military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People’s Liberation Army],
the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle,” one officer, Col. Gaoyue
Fan, said last year in a debate sponsored by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, a defense think tank.
A recent report
from the Center for Strategic International Studies predicted that next year
“could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leadership’s
judgment that it must respond to a U.S. strategy that seeks to prevent China’s
reemergence as a great power.”
“Signs of a
potential harsh reaction are already detectable,” the report said. “The U.S.
Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that
will increase pressure on China’s incoming leadership to stand up to the United
States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the
bolstering of America’s military posture in the region and the new U.S. defense
strategic guidelines.” Antiwar
AHT/HJ
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