The document details the Australian
government's plans to acquire and expand a full spectrum - air, sea and
land - arsenal of advanced weaponry in the nation's largest arms
buildup since World War II. Canberra will replace six submarines with
double that amount possessing greater range and longer mission
capabilities, "hunter-killer submarines" [2], representing "a big new
investment in anti-submarine warfare" [3] ; three new destroyers
"specialising in air warfare" [4], which presumably be be Aegis class
ones with missile killing capacity, and eight new frigates.
All
of the above are to be equipped with land-attack cruise missiles with a
range of up to 2,500 kilometers, almost certainly of the Tomahawk
ground-launched cruise missile variety, which will make Australia "the
first regional defence force to have the potent weapons system." [5]
The
nation is also to acquire 46 Tiger [German-French Eurocopter
multi-role combat] helicopters, Hercules and other new generation
military transport planes, 100 armored vehicles and, most alarmingly,
100 F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighters. The last is a Lockheed
Martin-manufactured fifth-generation, multi-role stealth-capable
military strike fighter capable of short- and medium-range bombing.
Australia
has been working with Norway on the Joint Strike Missile, "a newly
developed anti surface warfare and land attack missile that will be
adapted to meet an uncovered operational need on the F-35 Lightning II -
Joint Strike Fighter" [6], which will be available for the 100 of the
latter Australia plans to obtain.
In addition, plans include
"the veteran AP-3 Orion [anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare] fleet
being replaced with a mix of at least eight P-8 Poseidon [US Navy
anti-submarine warfare and electronic intelligence] long-range
surveillance aircraft, together with up to seven unmanned aerial
surveillance vehicles, possibly the US-made Global Hawk...." [7]
Insular,
comparatively isolated, unthreatened Australia has no legitimate
reason to amass such an array of offensive, advanced weapons for use on
land and sea and in the air. An article in a major Australian daily
entitled "Kevin Rudd's push for missile supremacy," referring to the
prime minister's unprecedented peacetime military expansion, states
inter alia that the "navy will acquire a formidable arsenal of
long-range cruise missiles for its new submarines, destroyers and
frigates, able to strike at targets thousands of kilometres from
Australia's shores." [8]
To project deadly force thousands of
kilometers from its shores, in various interpretations of the new
military policy, is based on designs that "Our military strategy will
be a proactive one in which we seek to control the dynamic of a
conflict, principally by way of sea control and air superiority" and
"The government intends to place greater emphasis on our capacity to
detect and respond to submarines" [9] and "Force 2030...will be a more
potent force in certain areas, particularly in undersea warfare and
anti-submarine warfare (ASW) surface maritime warfare, air superiority,
strategic strike, special forces, ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance) and cyber warfare" for use in a potential "wider
conflict in the Asia-Pacific region."
What the nature of that
conflict might be and which nations are viewed as prospective
co-belligerents in it was alluded to in a feature in the Financial
Times: "Joel Fitzgibbon, defence minister, said the country's first
defence white paper in almost a decade acknowledged the continued
regional dominance of the US. But he warned of 'strategic tensions'
arising from new powers, particularly China but also India, and the
re-emergence of Russia." (10)
India
is a red herring as it too is enmeshed in US-led plans for the
creation of an Asian-Pacific military bloc unless, of course, a change
in the political leadership and foreign policy orientation of the
country would ally it with Russia and China, thereby in fact creating
"strategic tensions" from the West's point of view.
The white
paper, as seen above, grants the United States "regional dominance" in
an area thousands of miles away from the superpower yet simultaneously
attempts to strike a pose of Australian assertiveness and even
self-reliance and independence. This is quite in keeping with the
foreign policy of the Nixon-Kissinger years in which certain key allies
were assigned the role of regional military policemen and enforcers
or, as many described it at the time, regional subimperialist
strongholds.
There is no truth is this 'patriotic' posturing,
though. Australia is being built up as the major military strike force
in its neighborhood and far beyond even as it is being integrated ever
more tightly with the Pentagon. And NATO.
In February of 2007 in
an article called "Secret new US spy base to get green light," it was
announced that "Australia's close military alliance with the United
States is to be further entrenched with the building of a high-tech
communications base in Western Australia" which "will provide a crucial
link for a new network of military satellites that will help the US's
ability to fight wars in the Middle East and Asia" and "will be the
first big US military installation to be built in Australia in decades,
and follows controversies over other big bases such as Pine Gap and
North West Cape."[11]
Last September Australian Prime Minister
Rudd visited Hawaii and met with the head of the Pentagon's Pacific
Command, Admiral Timothy Keating, to brief him "on the Australian
Defence Force deployments in East Timor and Solomon Islands.
"The
pair are understood to be discussing broader strategic trends in the
western Pacific, including the steady build-up in regional maritime
capabilities.
"Admiral Keating told a seminar at the East-West
Center in Honolulu in July that Asia wanted the US to maintain a strong
and visible presence throughout the region. 'It is certainly in the
minds of all our friends, partners and colleagues that the US should
maintain military superiority in the theatre.'" [12]
Australia
has more troops serving with its US counterparts and under NATO command
in Afghanistan, over 1,000, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announcing a
few days ago that 400 more (including some to serve with the Special
Operations Task Group elite combat group) on the way, than any other
non-NATO member.
Australian
troops, along with those from New Zealand, are among the foreign
forces scheduled to be evicted from the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan
where US and NATO personnel have been stationed for several years in
pursuit of the war in Afghanistan.
Last June the nation's
Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, was already calling for an expansion
of the Afghan War theater to include neighboring Pakistan, saying: "I
think we've got to start looking at the border between Afghanistan not
just as a bilateral issue between those two nations, but a regional
issue in which the international community has to play a role." [13]
In
the same month the head of Australia's Defence Force, Air Chief
Marshal Angus Houston, said of the US and NATO war in South Asia: "I
would say it's an endeavour that will last at least 10 years." [14] If
so Australia has no plans to leave.
As it will not leave Iraq.
Australia's troops were among the first to enter Iraq after the March
2003 invasion and are among the few national contingents that are
remaining there. At the end of 2008 the Iraqi parliament, not without
dissension, passed a resolution authorizing individual agreements on
the only non-US troops there: Those from Australia, Britain, Estonia,
Romania and NATO.
In January of this year when the head of the
US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, announced plans for aggressive naval
moves in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, Australia was one
of the first nations to offer support.
A month earlier
Australian Prime Minister Rudd traveled to the United Arab Emirates
"where Australia is in the process of consolidating its air crews and
Middle East command headquarters in a single secret base." [15]
This
April Australia completed its first command of the Combined Task Force
152, a permanent naval surveillance and interdiction operation in the
Persian Gulf run by the US Naval Forces Central Command. "The Royal
Australian Navy's command rotation also saw the integration of
representatives from Australia, the U.S., Bahrain and other Gulf
Cooperation Council nations into the CTF 152 staff." [16]
Australia also participates in Combined Task Force 150, a sister operation in the Gulf of Oman and the Horn of Africa.
Last
summer the commander of the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean,
Admiral James Winnefeld, referred to Iran as an "unpredictable
adversary" that "demands our immediate attention in the event of a need
for Australia or NATO response." [17]
Like the secret
consolidated Australian base in the United Arab Emirates, Winnefeld was
evidently speaking of matters not known to the general public or
ordinarily divulged by Western military officials.
In February
Canberra announced that it was quadrupling the amount of Pakistani
military officers to be trained in Australia for the expanding war in
South Asia, the same month that Australian troops killed five Afghan
children while engaged in a combat mission.
Foreshadowing what
would become this month's defense white paper, in September of last year
Prime Minister Rudd stated that his nation needed "an enhanced naval
capability that can protect our sea lanes of communication and support
our land forces. We need an air force that can fill support and combat
roles.'' [18]
The press wire service from which the above is
quoted reminded its readers that "Australia still has 1,000 personnel in
and around Iraq, about 1,000 soldiers under NATO command in southern
Afghanistan and about 750 peacekeepers in East Timor and 140 in the
Solomon Islands."
In the case of the last two nations,
Australia's role is indeed that of a subimperialist regional policeman,
with its nearly nine-year deployment in East Timor (Timor Este) as much
a matter of protecting preferential oil and natural gas concessions in
the Timor Gap and defying its major regional rival Indonesia as it is
one of peacekeeping.
Though in the same news conference reported
above, Rudd also affirmed that "Australia will strengthen security
cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore."
There
are two significant aspects to the last statement. The first is the
nation not mentioned, China, and the second is that it reflects a basis
for what for several years now has been referred to as Asian NATO.
The
expression has been used since the beginning of this century but first
gained wider currency after then US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz paid a five-day trip to Japan, South Korea and Singapore in
May of 2003. The first two countries already had troops stationed in
Iraq, and South Korea and Singapore would later deploy military forces
to Afghanistan with the Japanese navy playing a supporting role in the
Indian Ocean.
Asian NATO has been referred to with increased
frequency over the past several years and the concept, and project, was
poignantly demonstrated in the 2007 Malabar naval exercises in the Bay
of Bengal where warships from India, United States, Japan, Australia,
and Singapore engaged in the largest multinational exercise of its sort -
25 ships - in Indian history. The exercises ranged from "Vizag on the
eastern seaboard to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that guard the
approaches to the Strait of Malacca, considered the world's busiest
waterway." [19]
The Malabar exercises before 2007 were bilateral
US-India affairs but two years ago were employed to showcase an
emerging American-led Asian military bloc.
In most discussions
of Asian NATO the term is used metaphorically, as in an Asian-Pacific
military alliance that parallels the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
in the Euro-Atlantic zone, if in no other manner than it is becoming a
military bloc in a world that has only one other, NATO.
This loose connotation of the term doesn't do justice to the truth.Even
with the addendum that Asian NATO is an attempt by Washington to
reproduce NATO in the Asia Pacific, also under its domination, it is not
the full truth.
In fact what has developed is an
ever-broadening structure for integrating Asian nations directly with
NATO as well as with its individual members, the US primarily of
course, and an extension of NATO into the East. Previous articles in
this series have examined direct NATO penetration of Asia and the South
Pacific [20], the stationing of the bloc's military forces and the
securing of permanent bases from the Balkans to the eastern rim of the
Caspian Sea [21] and efforts by the US and its NATO allies to establish
a global naval fleet to dominate most of the world and the Asia
Pacific region in particular. [22].
The main components of this
absorption of the Asia Pacific zone include individual partnerships;
establishment of bases and positioning of military, including combat,
forces; actual invasions, wars and occupations; conducting regular
Western-led multinational military, including live-fire, exercises;
recruiting and deploying troops from Asian nations to war zones like
those in Afghanistan and Iraq; and in general integrating the military
of Asia Pacific states under the direction of individual NATO nations
and the alliance collectively.
Applying the above criteria, as
will be shown below or has been examined in reference to the South
Caucasus and Central Asia in the Stop NATO articles referred to
earlier, there are few nations in the entire Asia Pacific area,
including the South Caucasus and West Asia (the Middle East), that are
not to some degree involved in the process of creating a
Western-dominated Asian military bloc.
Excluding several smaller
island nations in the South Pacific, those exceptions are Russia,
China, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, Bhutan, Iran and Syria.
In
addition to collective NATO partnerships partially or entirely outside
of Europe and North America - Partnership for Peace includes all three
South Caucasus and all five Central Asian former Soviet republics; the
Mediterranean Dialogue takes in all North Africa nations on the Atlantic
Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea from Mauritania to Egypt except for
Libya as well as Israel and Jordan; the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative
includes the Persian Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the
United Arab Emirates, with Oman and Saudi Arabia soon to follow, NATO
has a category of individual partnerships it refers to as Contact
Countries.
This is how NATO itself describes it:"In
addition to its formal partnerships, NATO cooperates with a range of
countries that are not part of these structures. Often referred to as
'other partners across the globe' or 'Contact Countries', they share
similar strategic concerns and key Alliance values. Australia, Japan,
the Republic of Korea and New Zealand are all examples in case." [23]
The
Alliance has de facto individual partnerships with Afghanistan and
Pakistan and heads up a Tripartite Commission with both nations for the
prosecution of the war in South Asia.
Asia Pacific partners are also integrated in other fashions.Last
autumn the US Congress "passed a bill...aimed at helping South Korea
purchase American weapons systems cheaper and faster in order to
strengthen
the Korea-U.S. alliance, as well as increased interoperability between
the two countries' militaries. Under the bill, South Korea will be
granted the same status as members of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) and three FMS [foreign military sales]-favored
nations - Australia, Japan and New Zealand." [24]
When the Senate
passed an equivalent resolution days later, a South Korean official
stated, ``Now we can call the highest U.S. FMS group `NATO+4.' That is a
symbolic move to prove the Korea-U.S. alliance has been upgraded
further.'' [25]
Australia and Japan both participate in a
NATO/Partnership for Peace Trust Fund in Azerbaijan, the Alliance's main
military outpost on the Caspian Sea and the most pivotal partner for
trans-Eurasian energy strategies.
This January NATO held a
conference in Turkey called Changing Security Environment and a Renewed
Transatlantic Vision for the 21st century which "highlighted the
importance of setting up cooperation ties with countries such as Japan
and Australia." [26]
This year the Standing NATO Response Force
Maritime Group 1 was scheduled to visit Pakistan, Australia and
Singapore and travel through the strategic Strait of Malacca - the first
time the bloc would penetrate this part of the world - but was
diverted to the coast of Somalia. However, the warships joined with the
Pakistani navy for a two-day exercise in late April.
In
September of last year NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, General John
Craddock, visited Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Japan to
"provide their leadership with an assessment of the current operations
in Afghanistan and express his appreciation for their efforts in the
NATO-led mission." [27]
Australia is the only non-NATO country
involved in the global SeaSparrow (ship-borne short-range anti-aircraft
and anti-missile missile) system, along with members Canada, Denmark,
Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the US.
This
March it was announced that "Australia is set to conclude a deal with
NATO on exchanging secret military information" in order to insure "a
deeper strategic dialogue between Australia and NATO and increased
cooperation on long-term common interests." [28]
In June of last
year NATO deployed AWACS to Australia for the first time for Exercise
Pitch Black "a Royal Australian Air Force led exercise with
international participation that includes 3,000 participants and more
than 60 aircraft from Australia, the United States, Singapore,
Malaysia, Thailand, France and the E-3A Component." [29]
The
E-3A is "NATO's Flagship Fleet. The E-3A Component is the world's only
integrated, multi-national flying unit, providing rapid deployability,
airborne surveillance, command, control and communication for NATO
operations." [30]
"This historic deployment to Australia is
another example of our transformation into a world-wide deployable
force," said Brig. Gen. Stephen Schmidt, Component Commander.
"We
are a lead element of the NATO Response Force and our daily mission
requires that we be prepared to deploy on short notice to any location
in the world as required by the Alliance...." [31]
Last winter
NATO conducted joint training in Germany with Afghan troops and their
counterparts from the United States, Germany, France, Hungary, Canada,
Slovenia, Slovakia, Italy...and Australia.
In the same month
perhaps the most influential - and infamous - Australian, media baron
Rupert Murdoch, citing the "Russian invasion of Georgia," delivered
himself of this demand:
"Australia needs to be part of a reform
of the institutions most responsible for maintaining peace and
stability. I'm thinking especially of NATO....The only path to reform
NATO is to expand it to include nations like Australia. That way NATO
will become a community based less on geography and more on common
values. That is the only way NATO will be effective. And Australian
leadership is critical to these efforts." [32]
Murdoch echoed
demands of a Republican presidential candidate in last year's primary
campaign: Rudolph Giuliani, who in 2007 called for NATO to admit
Australia, India, Israel, Japan and Singapore to its ranks as full
members.
This January NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer while visiting Israel spoke on this and related topics:
"NATO
has transformed to address the challenges of today and tomorrow. We
have built partnerships around the globe from Japan to Australia to
Pakistan and, of course, with the important countries of the
Mediterranean and the Gulf. We have established political relations with
the UN and the African Union that never existed until now. We've taken
in new [countries], soon 28 in total, with more in line.
"[The]
Alliance is projecting stability in Afghanistan, in Kosovo, in the
Mediterranean (with Israeli support), and elsewhere - including fighting
pirates off the Somali coast...." [33]
The incoming US
ambassador to NATO, the Brookings Institution's Ivo Daalder, is
reportedly an advocate of "Washington want[ing] NATO to be expanded by
inviting counties like Australia, Japan, Brazil and South Africa and
becom[ing] a global organization...." [34]
The mainstays for the
evolving Asian NATO, or as Daalder's, Scheffer's and Giuliani's
positions make clear an Asian NATO plus, are Australia and Japan with
India eyed as the third leg of the stool.
Australia and Japan
both have, in addition to hosting US military bases and deploying forces
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, entered on yet more dangerous
ground by joining the American worldwide interceptor missile system.
In
May of 2007 "Australia said...it had joined the U.S. and Japanese
missile defense plans and would consider the deployment of a missile
shield on its soil" at the same time that NATO Secretary General Jaap de
Hoop Scheffer announced that his "organization will create its own
missile defense system, which would be linked to the American system."
[35]
With US interceptor missile installations in place at Fort
Greely on the Alaskan mainland and the Aleutian Islands in the Bering
Sea facing Russia, the incorporation of Japan and Australia into the
missile shield system complements plans for similar facilities and
deployments in Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway and elsewhere in
Europe, neutralizing Russia's deterrent and retaliation capabilities on
both ends of its territory.
Ahead of a visit to Japan in October
of 2007 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "Moscow regarded
the joint missile defense effort as an 'object of concern,' expressing
wariness over what he called the possibility that the system could be
directed against Russia and China.
"We oppose the construction of missile defense systems whose purpose is to ensure military superiority." [36]
Lavrov
would reiterate Russian concerns late last year when he "mentioned the
problem of antimissile defences, which actually stands to reason,
since the United States seeks to build such system on a global basis
and deploy, among others, some of the system elements in Asia and the
Pacific."
The report from which the preceding came concluded with
the observation that "Moscow has major strategic interests in Asia and
the Pacific, interests that invariably clash with no less significant
US interests." [37]
A week later the US and Japan, in a
significant return of the latter's military to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii,
conducted a sea-based interceptor missile test.
"The Japanese
missile destroyer Chokai will take part in a training firing session as
part of the American-Japanese programme for testing a sea-based
missile defence system, Christopher Taylor, a spokesman for the
Pentagon’s Missile Defence Agency says, adding that the destroyer which
is equipped with the AEGIS BMD Weapon System and with the Standard -3
interceptor missiles, has already arrived at the U.S.-operated Pearl
Harbor Base in Honolulu.
"Missile defence complexes the Japanese destroyers are equipped with are linked to the U.S missile defence system.
"They
can receive information about targets and provide it to the American
warships, equipped with both missile defence systems and bases for
interceptor missiles in Alaska and California." [38]
The US has
also shifted substantial military forces and focus from Okinawa to
Hokkaido on the Sea of Japan immediately across from Russia.
It
is not only Russia that is alarmed by these developments and not only
Australia and Japan that are being integrated into the global American
interceptor missile, so-called son of Star Wars, network.
Last
December the defense ministers of China and Russia met in Beijing and
"Anatoly Serdyukov and Liang Guanglie [discussed] a project by the U.S.,
Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan to establish a regional
missile defense system. China is against the project...." [39]
Earlier
in the year Andrew Chang, a Hong Kong-based military expert, remarked
on the US missile shield component in Asia that "it is aimed at
targeting not only North Korea but China as well" and that "that China
has every reason to voice unease over the matter, adding that US plans
stipulate the deployment of elements of the missile defense shield also
in Japan and Australia.
"Aside from missile interceptors, an
array of high-power radars will be deployed in the areas – a move that
will make it possible for the US to track down China’s launchings of its
missiles from the main launch pad in the Shangsi province." [40]
The
purpose of Asian NATO, then, is to establish US and broader Western
military superiority, even invincibility, throughout Asia across the
full spectrum of ground, air, naval and space forces and weapons.
Lastly,
the following survey of reports over the past few months is not an
exhaustive one, but provides an overview on how the web of Western
military penetration of the Asia Pacific region is simultaneously
widening and tightening.
As an illustrative example, the US has
just completed the two-week (April 16-30) Balikatan 2009 joint military
exercise in the Philippines, the latest in a series of annual war
games. This year 5-6,000 US troops participated and at one point US
Marines conducted a drill that can only be training for use against
unarmed civilians - "'When you've got a big crowd agitated and moving
at you,'" the nonlethal grenade would be a good choice." [41]
The
exercise was held on the grounds of the former Clark Air Base which
the US Air Force had vacated in 1991, one of only a few bases the US
has departed voluntarily. Not only were US Marines back on the site of
the base, but F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft were employed for Balikatan
2009, the first American warplanes operating in the Philippines in
sixteen years.
The Pentagon also deployed the PHIBRON-11, the
Navy's only forward-deployed amphibious squadron, consisting of four
warships, from Japan for the occasion.
The war games, note, were
conducted in a nation that is waging several years-long
counterinsurgency operations against not only the Abu Sayyaf Group but
also the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the secular New People's
Army.
That war is backed by and includes the direct
participation of US military forces (and those of Australia) who have
established camps in Mindanao.
Given that the war games were
designed for combat operations in an armed conflict zone, it's
revealing that military observers were present from Britain, Australia,
New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam,
Laos and South Korea. [42]
May 2008:The
defense ministers of Japan and South Korea met to "boost three-way
military ties with the U.S." and to "revive a suspended three-way
military dialogue with the United States as soon as possible...."
South
Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee "also met his Australian
counterpart Joel Fitzgibbon and stressed the need for a military
information protection accord between the two countries." [43]
June:US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japanese and Australian
foreign ministers Masahiko Komura and Stephen Smith, respectively, met
at the third ministerial meeting of the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue
and vowed to "to work in close strategic partnership to boost stability
and security in the Asia-Pacific region as well as the world at
large." [44)
July:US Pacific Air Forces
commander Gen. Carrol Chandler, mentioning that the US Air Force has
partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Thailand,
Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, said "We're not at war in the
Pacific, but we're really not at peace, either," and stated that a
"good example of...bilateral cooperation is missile defense." [45]
It
was announced that a large US military contingent would participate in
Exercise Maru in New Zealand along with Australian warships and
aircraft and with Japan contributing a P3 Orion surveillance aircraft.
"In
what will be seen as another step in breaking down the 20-year freeze
by the Americans on joint participation in routine military exercises,
its military will be strongly represented...." [46]
The US
hosted the annual Rim of the Pacific naval exercise in Hawaii which
involved naval forces from Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, South
Korea, the Netherlands, Peru, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the US.
"A
total of 35 ships, six submarines, 150 aircraft and 20,000 personnel
from the maritime forces of the 10 nations were involved in the
exercise.
"[T]he 22-day sea phase exercise which covered
combined anti-submarine and air defence exercises including the
live-firing of the missile off the Hawaiian coast...." [47]
In a
related development, the 2008 Pacific Rim Airpower Symposium was held
in the capital of Malaysia, hosted by Royal Malaysian Air Force and US
Pacific Air Forces' 13th Air Force officials and including the
participation of delegations from Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei,
Cambodia, Canada, Chile, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia,
Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
"'Through this
symposium, we have a great opportunity to share and understand what
each nation brings to the battlefield,' said Lt. Gen. Loyd S. "Chip"
Utterback, the 13th Air Force commander." [48]
August:
The
Japanese defense ministry announced that in his upcoming visit to the
United States the country's defense minister would discuss a series of
proposals for expanding bilateral military cooperation including
"rendering ...logistical support by Japan to a group of US battleships
in the Indian Ocean that are involved in a military operation in
Afghanistan.
"[T]he last few years saw Japan and the US
successfully cement bilateral military cooperation, including the joint
deployment of missile defense
systems....Aside from missile interceptors, an array of high-power radars will be deployed...." [49]
September:Australian
and New Zealand troops were among 2,000 from the Anglo-Saxon quint,
along with forces from Britain, Canada and the United States, that
trained in Germany for warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"[A]
group of New Zealand soldiers are practicing breaking into buildings and
then making instant decisions on whether the occupants are friendly or
hostile.
"The Kiwis are taking part in joint exercises with
four other English-speaking nations — the U.S., Britain, Canada and
Australia — designed to help them operate together and work out any
kinks before they hit the battlefield...." [50]
October:India
and Japan signed a defense pact during a visit by Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to Tokyo, "a security cooperation agreement
under which India and Japan...will hold military exercises, police the
Indian Ocean and conduct military-to-military exchanges....Japan has
such a security pact with only two other countries - the United States
and Australia." [51]
In a trip to the Czech capital of Prague,
US Missile Defense Agency chief Henry Obering and Czech first Deputy
Defence Minister Martin Bartak signed a framework treaty on strategic
cooperation in missile defence, about which the local press revealed,
"The United States has signed a similar agreement only with Australia,
Britain, Denmark, Italy and Japan." [52]
A New Zealand government website inadvertently divulged that military ties with the US were being strengthened.
"After
decades of cold-shoulder treatment, United States military brass are
now saying a US-New Zealand military partnership is vital to meet
security challenges in the Pacific region.
"Joint military
exercises are on offer again, according to US Air Force commander
Lieutenant General Loyd S. Utterback, who was in Wellington last month
for a conference hosted by air force chief Air Vice-Marshal Graham
Lintott." [53]
November:Spanish Defense
Minister Carme Chacon and her Australian counterpart Joel Fitzgibbon
signed an agreement for defense industry cooperation. "Earlier this
year, the two members of NATO [verbatim] struck a deal to enhance
cooperation between their naval forces." [54]
December:Australia and Japan signed an agreement in Tokyo to increase security cooperation and to conduct more joint military operations.
"Japan only has a similar security pact with the United States, while
Australia has agreements with the US and Great Britain." [55]
Japan's
parliament voted to extend the nation's naval operations in the Indian
Ocean to support the US-NATO war in Afghanistan by another year.
January 2009:The
outgoing US ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, called for Tokyo to
play a larger role in global military missions "including
reinterpreting its pacifist constitution to allow it to defend an ally
if attacked." The Japanese constitution forbids what it calls
collective defense.
Evoking a hypothetical case, "if a Japanese
destroyer failed to eliminate a missile launched from Asia on the
basis that it was headed for the US," Schieffer warned "I think the
American people would find that very difficult to understand the value
of the alliance with Japan."
He added that, in regards to US-Japanese post-World War II military relations, a "redefinition would be appropriate." [56]
The
Financial Times reported that "The US is in preliminary talks with
India over the sale of missile shield systems" in reference to Pakistan
and "other volatile countries in the region." [57]
An Indian
press service reported that "After signing its biggest-ever military
deal with the US for eight long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft
for the Indian Navy for $2.1bn, New Delhi is now eyeing to fast track
three key military pacts with Washington." [58]
February:In
a visit to Japan US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that
Washington and Tokyo had "agreed to intensify consultations and
coordination with the Republic of Korea, Australia, and India, which
share universal values." [59]
March:The
head of Singapore's military, Lt-General Desmond Kuek, visited India to
meet with his counterpart, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, to discuss
increasing military ties and to sign pacts for joint military training.
"Singapore
has signed similar agreements for training facilities with countries
like the US, France, Australia, Thailand and Taiwan...." [60]
The
US deployed F-15s to Thailand for Exercise Cope Tiger 2009 to engage
in air combat training with the Thai and Singaporean air forces.
An American military official speaking of the exercise said:
"This
exercise is a great opportunity to hone our air combat skills while
practicing against different adversaries than we normally train against
here.
"This will facilitate any responses to regional events or contingencies in the future." [61]
Gen.
Songgitti Jaggabatara, chief of the defense forces of the Royal Thai
Armed Forces, invited the Philippines to join in a US-led multinational
military exercise in his country.
"We have a multi-national
exercise between Thailand, the United States, Indonesia, Singapore, and
Japan and the Philippine Armed Force still is an observer. After this,
maybe the Philippine Armed Force will join the exercise."[62]
Cambodia announced it will host a US and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) military exercise.
Pol
Saroeurn, Commander-in-Chief of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, said:
"It is an honor for Cambodia to be chosen by ASEAN (the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations) and the superpower U.S. as the location for
such a large-scale international military exercise" and recalled that in
2008 his forces had participated in a three-week exercise in
Bangladesh in 2008 which "involved some 400 soldiers from 12 countries,
including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Malaysia, Nepal, Brunei, Mongolia, Tonga, Cambodia and the U.S." [63]
South
Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Australian Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd met in Seoul and signed a bilateral security treaty, one which
"calls for increasing joint military training exercises and
peacekeeping operations, as well as military-to-military exchanges and
cooperation in defense industry, including the exploration of airborne
early warning and control aircraft." [64]
April:American
arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin officials met with ranking Indian
naval officers to discuss Aegis ship-launched anti-missile missile
acquisitions.
"Apart from the US Navy, the Aegis system is
operational on Japanese, South Korean, Norwegian, Spanish and Australian
naval vessels." [65]
In coordination with US-supplied Aegis
class destroyer and joint US-Japanese ground-based missile shield
elements, Japan announced what the government called its first strategic
space policy.
By which is meant not only space surveillance
but preparing for warfare in outer space. Joining the United States in
the militarization of the heavens. Plans for Asian NATO are not limited
to Asia. Or to the Earth.
Notes1) Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific century: force 2030 (PDF)
http://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/defence_white_paper_2009.pdf2) Christian Science Monitor, May 3, 2009
3) The Australian, April 25, 2009
4) Financial Times, May 4, 2009
5) The Australian, May 2, 2009
6) F-16.net, May 1, 2009
7) The Australian, April 25, 2009
8) The Australian, May 2, 2009
9) Ibid
10) Financial Times, May 4, 2009
11) Sydney Morning Herald, February 15, 2007
12) The Australian, September 23, 2008
13) Agence France-Presse, June 15, 2008
14) Agence France-Presse, June 4, 2008
15) Sydney Morning Herald, December 22, 2008
16) U.S. Naval Forces Central Command Public Affairs, April 27, 2009
17) Zee News (India), July 4, 2008
18) Bloomberg News, September 10, 2008
19) India Defence, September 3, 2007
20) Stop NATO, January 24, 2009
Global Military Bloc: NATO's Drive Into Asia
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/3694621) Stop NATO, March 4, 2009
Mr. Simmons' Mission: NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/3767222) Stop NATO, January 29, 2009
Proliferation Security Initiative And US 1,000-Ship Navy: Control Of World's Oceans, Prelude To War
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/3705823) NATO International, March 9, 2009
24) Korea Times, September 24, 2008
25) Korea Times, October 2, 2008
26) Xinhua News Agency, January 30, 2009
27) NATO International, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, September 1, 2008
28) Canberra Times, March 13, 2009
29) NATO International, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, June 13, 2008
30) NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force, April 23, 2009
31) NATO International, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, June 13, 2008
32) ABS CBN News (Philippines), November 5
33) Ha'aretz, January 10, 2009
34) Russia Today, March 13, 2009
35) Russian Information Agency Novosti, May 22, 2007
36) Associated Press, October 13, 2007
37) Voice of Russia, November 8, 2008
38) Voice of Russia, November 17, 2008]
39) Russian Information Agency Novosti, December 10, 2008
40) Voice of Russia, August 29, 2008
41) Stars and Stripes, April 26, 2009
42) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 29, 2009
43) Yonhap News Agency (South Korea), May 31, 2008
44) Xinhua News Agency, June 27, 2008
45) Pacific Air Forces, July 11, 2008
46) The Dominion Post, July 22, 2008
47) Bernama.com (Malaysia), July 29, 2008
48) Air Force Link, July 23, 2008
49) Voice of Russia, August 29, 2008
50) Associated Press, September 25, 2008
51) Reuters, October 25, 2008
52) Czech News Agency, October 30, 2008
53) The Dominion Post, October 11, 2008
54) Agence France-Presse, November 25, 2008
55) Radio Netherlands, December 18, 2008
56) Agence France-Presse, January 14, 2009
57) Financial Times, January 7, 2009
58) Indo-Asian News Service, January 6, 2009
59) The Hindu, February 18, 2009
60) Times of India, March 3, 2009
61) Air Force Link, American Forces News Service, March 6, 2009
62) Xinhua News Agency, March 3, 2009
63) Xinhua News Agency, March 3, 2009
64) Defense News, March 5, 2009
65) Indo-Asian News Service, April 23, 2009
