Pentagon Prepares For Prospective War With China

[jakeXT]

The Pentagon's new China war plan
Despite budget woes, the military is preparing for a conflict with our biggest rival -- and we should be worried


This summer, despite America’s continuing financial crisis, the Pentagon is effectively considering trading two military quagmires for the possibility of a third. Reducing its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it refocuses on Asia, Washington is not so much withdrawing forces from the Persian Gulf as it is redeploying them for a prospective war with its largest creditor, China.

According to the defense trade press, Pentagon officials are seeking ways to adapt a concept known as AirSea Battle specifically for China, debunking rote claims from Washington that it has no plans to thwart its emerging Asian rival. A recent article in Inside the Pentagon reported that a small group of U.S. Navy officers known as the China Integration Team "is hard at work applying the lessons of to a potential conflict with China."

AirSea Battle, developed in the early 1990s and most recently codified in a 2009 Navy-Air Force classified memo, is a vehicle for conforming U.S. military power to address asymmetrical threats in the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf -- code for China and Iran. (This alone raises a crucial point: If the U.S. has had nothing but trouble with asymmetrical warfare for the last 45 years, why should a war with China, or Iran for that matter, be any different?) It complements the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, a government white paper that precluded the rise of any "peer competitor" that might challenge U.S. dominance worldwide. The Planning Guidance is the Pentagon’s writ for control of what defense planners call "the global commons," a euphemism for the seaways, land bridges and air corridors that are the arteries of international commerce. For a foreign power to challenge this American dominion is to effectively declare war on the United States, and that is exactly what China appears to be doing in the South China Sea, a resource-rich and highly contested waterway in Southeast Asia.

It was in this spirit that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim Amos, at a dinner hosted by the Center for a New American Security in late May, remarked that the wars in the Persian Gulf were denying Washington the resources it needed to cope with an increasingly assertive China. "We’d like to turn that around," he said. "I don't think we're there to we need to be." In his candor, Amos became the latest U.S. military leader to speak about his service’s plans following the Afghanistan drawdown.

..

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/08/13/sino_us_stephen_glain

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Well, that would suck.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. It is the military's job to figure out how to fight a war...

It is the job of politicians to make sure that the war doesn't happen.

[ashling]

6. Sooner or later these military planners will come to the conclusion

that it would be a real shame to have all these swell war plans on the shelf and not use them .... so we engineer another war...and make it look like Guilder started it. :sarcasm:

[ladjf]

8. Weapons in space are the real threat, not ships at sea. nt

[Scuba]

3. Unlikely that China will attack its largest market, so that must mean....

....hmmm, not a pleasant thought at all.

[gateley]

4. I saw someone comparing how much $$$ is spent on the military.

Of course, we're by FAR the biggest spender, and China is way down on the list. But the speaker said that China is ramping up their military big time. For example, we have the only aircraft carriers in the world. China is producing a (several?) state of the art carrier.

[Frustratedlady]

5. Is that what they refer to as job security?

Maybe we need to get rid of the Pentagon. They seem to keep something in the works all the time, which makes me think they are afraid someone might get axed if we end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maybe they're getting ready for a Repub. president?

Maybe we're in deep doodoo.

[ladjf]

7. That's what our economy needs, a new cold war. Go military

industrial complex. Talk that up and you will successfully hasten the eminent downfall of America.

[RC]

9. Obama needs to fire all of Bush's installed top brass. War is very seldom the answer.

[shockedcanadian]

10. I have to agree with Ozymanithrax`s comment...

Regardless of ones opinion of war, the military has to be prepared logistically for such a potential occurrence. The leaders of the nation and all those who broker relationships and agreements with other nations need to ensure that the military never reaches a day in which they need to engage their strategy.

In reality, there is a Cold War of sorts already with China. As with the one waged against Russia let`s hope real war never sees the light of day.

[bemildred]

11. More military masturbation.

All of this "planning" will immediately fail in a real war. If you want to know what Pentagon "planning" looks like, study events in Iraq and Afghanistan in the two or three years after we invaded them in 2002 and 2003, rspectively.

[Name removed]

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[D-Fens]

13. Saber rattling at the Pentagon

I think it shows that the Americans are afraid of something. They need a new boogeyman once they've stopped bombing the Middle East, so they'll try to take the war to the Far East.

A war with China will be a disaster for the whole world.