By Ellie Kaufman,
WASHINGTON USA
The Pentagon will focus on building up bases in Guam and Australia to better prepare the US military to counter China, a senior defense official said on Monday.
The moves have been prompted by the Department
of Defense's global posture review, which President Joe Biden ordered Secretary
of Defense Lloyd Austin to undertake shortly after taking office in February.
Austin started the global posture review in March. The review is classified,
but a senior defense official provided some details about the review's findings.
Biden "recently approved" Austin's
findings and recommendations from the global posture review, Dr. Mara Karlin,
performing the duties of deputy under secretary for policy, said at a briefing
on Monday.
The Indo-Pacific region was a major focus,
because of Secretary Austin's emphasis on "China as the pacing
challenge," for the Department, the senior defense official said.
The Biden administration has made countering
China its main foreign policy priority as tensions have increased with Beijing,
particularly over the issue of Taiwan and senior Pentagon officials have publicly
expressed alarm about China's efforts to upgrade and modernize its military.
Last month Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said China
had successfully tested a hypersonic missile in what was "very
close" to a Sputnik moment.
To counter China, the review directs the
Department to enhance "infrastructure in Guam and Australia," and to
prioritize "military construction across the Pacific Islands," the
official said, as well as "seeking greater regional access for military
partnership activities."
"In Australia, you'll see new rotational
fighter and bomber aircraft deployments, you'll see ground forces training and
increased logistics cooperation, and more broadly across the Indo-Pacific,
you'll see a range of infrastructure improvements, in Guam, the Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands and Australia," Karlin said during the
briefing.
The global posture review also directs the
Department to focus more on the Indo-Pacific region by "reducing" the
number of troops and equipment in other areas of the world, "to enable
improved warfighting readiness and increased activities" in the
Indo-Pacific, the official said.
On Russia, the Department declined to provide
specific information about how the global posture review is directing the US
military to prepare to counter threats from Moscow. Broadly speaking, one of
the goals of the review is to "re-establish readiness standards," so
that the US military is "agile and responsive to crises as they
emerge," the official said.
The US military is working to
"re-establish readiness" in Eastern Europe "with the goal of strengthening
a combat credible deterrent vis a vis Russia and the specific requirements of
that region," the official said when pressed on the issue, but they would
not go into more detail on how the US military is preparing to counter Russia.
In the Middle East, the review directed the
Department to "continue to support the defeat ISIS campaign," with
the current US military presence in Iraq and Syria, as well as continuing to
work on building up "the capacity of partner forces," in those countries.
But overall, the review directs Austin to "conduct additional analysis on
enduring posture requirements in the Middle East," the official said.
Afghanistan was not officially included in the
global posture review, because there is a "separate" National
Security Council-led "process" that is "reviewing the way ahead
for US presence there," the official said.
Overall, the US had "something like 75
consultations," with allies and partners when putting together the review,
among them "NATO allies, Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and over
a dozen partners across the Middle East and Africa," Karlin said.
The review also did not include
"functional capabilities" like nuclear, space and cyber, because
those are being addressed in other Department specific reviews, the official
said. - CNN
No comments:
Post a Comment