Naval presence, according to historian Eric Margolis, has not been the real issue of US military expansion in Asia, which has been aimed at a supposed encirclement strategy of China, as already half of US warships, aircraft, and logistics vessels have already been deployed in the region.
The real goal is to expand air power.
Writes Eric Margolis,
However, naval forces are no longer the primary expression of America’s power. The US Air Force has dominated much of the non-communist globe since the 1950’s and serves America’s strategic interests in the same way the Royal Navy imposed the British Empire’s military and commercial power. Air power has played the decisive role in all of America’s military victories since World War I.
The Pentagon plans to strengthen its Pacific air power. This likely includes re-establishing US air bases in the Philippines and Australia, and expanding air bases in Guam, Okinawa, and South Korea.
America has been at war for decades. Its aircraft and warships are aging rapidly. Equally threatening, Congress may force deep military spending cuts as deficits worsen – at a time when the US military is being ordered to keep China bottled up on the Asian mainland.
China need only build its military power close to home. The United States must project and maintain its naval and air power 10,000 km across the Pacific Ocean, a hugely expensive, complex undertaking that gives cash-rich China an important, even decisive advantage.
The recent report of a Drone strike against supposed terrorists in Mindanao coupled by a free hand use of Subic and Clark facilities seems to validate this theory as well as partly my theory of the stealth resurrection of US bases here.
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