This one came in via the mil-email net.
The spinning continues…
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says the Pentagon has the resources to implement its strategic re-balance toward the Asia-Pacific, despite increasing budget restrictions in Washington.
Speaking Wednesday at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, Carter acknowledged that it is fair to question whether the United States has the ability to meet the objectives of the “pivot” toward Asia announced by the Obama administration last year.
The plan was recently criticized in a U.S. government-mandated report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which found that the pivot has not been presented in a way that reflects “current budget realities.”
snip…
US sends “newest assets” to Asia
But he also outlined details of plans that have angered Beijing, including the transfer of U.S. military ships to the Pacific and the stationing of U.S marines in Australia.
“By 2020, we will have shifted 60 percent of our naval assets to the Pacific. That’s an historic change for the United States Navy. The Marine Corps will have up to 2,500 marines in rotation in Australia. We will have four littoral combat ships stationed forward in Singapore,” said Carter, “And, we’ll proceed to fully build out our military presence on Guam and surrounding areas.”
As wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, Carter says the United States have more flexibility to send its “newest assets” to the region, including warships, aircraft carriers, B-1 bombers and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
Full article HERE on Global Security.
Wheeet… Bullshit flag…
This is not even CLOSE to the truth! All one has to do is search public documents to see that ALL of the services are in trouble, and what new assets???
F-35 is on the chopping block…
P-8 is on the chopping block (Again)…
DD1000 is now a 2-3 ship class (maybe only ONE ship)…
B-1’s classify as ‘new’???
Hell, they’re still deploying B-52s world wide since they can actually DO the job…
LCS? There are only two, and the rest are possibly on the chopping block…
2500 Marines to Australia? From where???
And the Army??? They’re in Korea…
And all those other ‘new’ ships… Well, that’s DESRON 15, webpage HERE…
All seven of them…
To cover THIS area… And yes, that map IS to scale…
And we’re ‘not’ paying any attention to China??? Geez, these folks truly HAVE drunk the koolaid!!!
One can only wonder ‘why’ these speeches/articles/comments are coming out. Can’t possibly have any impact on the upcoming sequestration could it???
I do know there is a LOT of churn on the mil-email and real concerns about the folks we’ve got on the front lines after the last couple of weeks…
Is it 1939 again?
I also think there’s a lot of “choom” going on to be so out of touch with reality.
They could take 2500 Marines off of Okinawa, might give those Air Force guys a better chance at winning a couple bar fights.
The “2500 marines to Australia” – I had heard locally that this was being offered as a potential substitute to the “Nippon base situation”
I have also heard that the wrangling over who is to pay for all the basic base needs are flying back & forth between our two countries..
Whether either points are correct… the media can be a fickle reporter
Pax
Lots of chaff, very little wheat.
Politics….
I don’t know anyone who does as good a job covering this as you do.
Lets see, guarding Australian beaches with beer and shelias or a pier and scrub in Djibouti?
Tough choice for a young Marine.
Gerry
That map does a lot to put this into perspective.
He is just spinning what he is told to spin.
In this kinder, gentler post-modern world where hope and change mean so much, the liberals are ‘re-imagining’ American defense to include flying unicorns and rainbows. It’s a progressive thing, and if you change the language of the issue, you make the world safe, right?
Just think re-imagined security — and you’ll sleep soundly.
However, IF I was a young Marine (and I’m not), I’d rather be based down under, so long as I didn’t get screwed on a hotel room in Perth… ;^)
“…he also outlined details of plans that have angered Beijing…”
I know what Yamamoto is reported to have said about awakening a sleeping giant, but here’s the original quote:
“China? There lies a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! For when he wakes he will move the world.”
— Napoleon, c.1800
I don’t know which concerns me more – Iran getting nukes (short term), or China’s increasing economic and military strength (long term).
You know, it used to be that the U.S. Military would do long-term planning based on Rational Threat Assessments and the military Capabilities of potential enemies. Then they would do the Procurement and Budget Dance. But 95% of the time, it was all Hardware and Manning Levels that would be discussed and debated.
But now we are getting GeoPolitical Policies that are being made as if there were NO changes in Leadership coming. WTF? Haven’t the Top Brass and their Civilian Bosses ever heard of ELECTIONS!?
2020? Good God, these Yahoos couldn’t predict the so-called “Arab Spring,” and yet they think they know what the World Situation is going to be EIGHT years from now?
Uh, Hello! McFly! Anybody Home? Gee, if I could predict the Future, I’d be winning the Lottery! But these Idiots seem to know what the Chicoms are going to be doing in 2020?
I though McNamara’s Pentagon was run by Fools, but I guess I was wrong.
I’ve always wondered how the threat of using U.S. troops to quell uprisings in the States was going to jibe with insulting those same troops, overworking/over-committing them, and cutting their budgets.
The libs, for whom “loyalty” and “reality” are only words found in old dictionaries, never stop to think – and international security is yet another piece of the puzzle. Too few forces, too little money, and too much ground to cover. Recipe for failure, and we’ll all suffer the consequences for that.
Ed- yes and yes… sigh
MSgt- LOL, maybe… 🙂
Pax- Good point, and I don’t think it’s final yet… On EITHER side…
Carteach- More like dope that chaff… Just sayin…
BP- I’ve still got friends in the mix… And we DO have a rather large email group that this stuff bounces around.
Gerry- LOL, yeah, ‘hard’ decision…
Andy- Doesn’t it though!
WSF- yeah, but there ‘should’ be some facts behind the spin, and we’re not seeing any!
LL- No, NO, and oh ‘thank’ you… 🙂
Tim- We can shut down Iran; China, not so much…
Les- I don’t think they even KNOW what an RTA is, they’re being told you get this many bodies, and this much equipment, now figure it out from THAT… sigh
Rev- Sadly, I can only agree with you…
Oh, we can shut down China.
We’d have to either initiate with a surprise counterforce strike (“special munitions” via either cruise missiles or B2s with gravity bombs), or accept a dozen smoked cities in response.
We’d have to accept the reprecussions (international and ecological) for glassing every single Chinese city above 100,000 people, every Chinese city with a paved airfield, every Chinese with modern port facilities, docks, or yards, and half the world’s Asian archaelogical sites and museums.
But we could do it.
I think, however, we neither would, nor should, unless it was the only way to avoid subjegation or destruction.