'저는 그들의 땅을 지키기 위하여 싸웠던 인디안들의 이야기를 기억합니다. 백인들이 그들의 신성한 숲에 도로를 만들기 위하여 나무들을 잘랐습니다. 매일밤 인디안들이 나가서 백인들이 만든 그 길을 해체하면 그 다음 날 백인들이 와서 도로를 다시 짓곤 했습니다. 한동안 그 것이 반복되었습니다. 그러던 어느날, 숲에서 가장 큰 나무가 백인들이 일할 동안 그들 머리 위로 떨어져 말과 마차들을 파괴하고 그들 중 몇몇을 죽였습니다. 그러자 백인들은 떠났고 결코 다시 오지 않았습니다….' (브루스 개그논)





For any updates on the struggle against the Jeju naval base, please go to savejejunow.org and facebook no naval base on Jeju. The facebook provides latest updates.
Showing posts with label South Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Asia. Show all posts

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Text Fwd: [ROBERT D. KAPLAN] Obama Takes Asia by Sea 미 극우 인사 카플란 말하길, 오바마는 바다에서 아시아를 차지

* Image source: Daniel Stolle, New York Times, Nov. 12, 2010

Click the image for larger view

이미지를 클릭하시면 확대됩니다.
_________________________________________________________


'Robert D. Kaplan, the author of “Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power,” is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic.
'(NYT)


New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
Obama Takes Asia by Sea
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Published: November 11, 2010

PRESIDENT OBAMA has insisted that his 10-day Asian journey is all about jobs: “The primary purpose is to ... open up markets so that we can sell in Asia, in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world, and we can create jobs here in the United States of America.” But this recasting of the agenda, a late reaction to the midterm election, obscured the vital geopolitical importance of the trip.

In fact, the president has been confronting a new strategic map that lies beyond our messy and diversionary land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In geographical terms, two of the countries on the itinerary, India and Indonesia, are in the same increasingly pivotal region: the southern coastal areas, or “rimland” of Eurasia, which is emerging as the world’s hydrocarbon interstate, uniting energy-rich Arabia and Iran with the growing economies of the Pacific.

Gone today are the artificial divisions of cold-war-era studies: now the “Middle East,” “South Asia,” “Southeast Asia” and “East Asia” are part of a single organic continuum. In geopolitical terms, the president’s visits in all four countries are about one challenge: the rise of China on land and sea.

India is increasingly feeling hemmed in by China’s military might. It lies within the arc of operations of Chinese fighter jets based in Tibet. China is building or developing large ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Burma, and providing all these Indian Ocean countries with significant military and economic aid.

Although India and China fought a border war in the early 1960s, they have never really been rivals, separated as they are by the Himalayas. But the shrinkage of distance thanks to globalism and advances of military technology has spawned a rivalry that is defining the new Eurasia.

Indeed, it is India’s emergence as a great Eurasian power that constitutes the best piece of news for American strategists since the end of the cold war. Merely by rising without any formal alliance with Washington, democratic India balances statist China. Even closer links between the United States and India would be better — and no doubt factored into Mr. Obama’s talk of backing India for a seat on the United Nations Security Council — but are made complex by our chaotic land wars.

While President Obama would like to withdraw from Afghanistan, Indian leaders remain afraid he will do precisely that. To Indians, Afghanistan is not a distant Central Asian country: it is historically part of the subcontinent. Empires as distant as the Harappans in the fourth millennium B.C. and as recent as the Mughals in the early modern era made Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India part of the same polity. Indian elites carry this history in their bones.

READ MORE
_________________________________________________________
Another Blog about Center for a New American Security

Saturday, October 23, 2010

[국문 번역] Text Fwd: Clinton and the colonial paradigm 클린턴과 식민지 패러다임

* Image 이미지: same as the link 같은 링크
'아태 사령부 로고를 배경으로 한 클린턴'


___________________________________________________________

* Text sent from Kyle Kajihiro, DMZ Hawai'i, through No US APbases list on Oct. 23, 2010
* 2010년 10월 23일 DMZ 하와이, 카일 카지히로, 보냄


Statehood Hawaii 스테이트후드 하와이
Clinton and the colonial paradigm
클린턴과 식민지 패러다임
Oct. 22, 2010
2010년 10월 22일


Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Hawaii, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Australia, October 27-November 8.

미 국무 장관 힐러리 로드햄 클린턴은 10월 27일 부터 11월 8일까지 하와이, 베트남, 캄보디아, 말레이시아, 파푸아 뉴기니아, 뉴질랜드, 그리고 오스트레일리아를 방문할 것이다.

Secretary Clinton arrives in Honolulu on October 27 where she will meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara to discuss a broad range of issues, including our close coordination during our back-to-back Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) host years. This meeting underscores the enduring importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance as a cornerstone of American engagement in the Asia-Pacific. On October 28, for the second time in Hawaii, the Secretary will deliver a major policy speech on the United States’ role as a Pacific nation.

클린턴 국무 장관은 10월 27일 호놀룰루에 도착해 일본 외무 장관 세이지 매하라를 만나 연속적인 아시아 태평양 경제 협력 회의 (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)) 주최 해 기간들 동안 가까운 협력을 포함, 넓은 범위의 이슈들을 토론할 것이다. 이 회의는 미국의 아시아 태평양 참여에 있어 미-일 동맹을 토대로 하는 것의 지속적 중요성을 강조한다. 10월 28일, 하와이에선 두번째로, 국무 장관은 태평양 국가로서 미국의 역활에 대한 주요한 정책 연설을 할것이다.

Clinton’s five principles that has articulated the U.S. Pacific Policy:

미국의 태평양 정책을 표현한 클린턴의 5가지 원칙들

1. Using our bilateral alliance relationships as the cornerstone of our regional involvement while pursuing other partnerships and dialogues with regional players;

1. [더 많은] 지역의 주체들과 다른 협력(관계)과 대화를 추구함과 동시에 우리의 양자 동맹 관계들을 우리의 지역적 참여의 토대로 사용;

2. shaping regional institutions to advance shared objectives such as economic development and democracy;

2. 경제 개발과 민주주의등 공유된 목표들을 진전시키기 위해 지역 기관들을 형성하기;

3. ensuring that regional institutions are effective and results-oriented;

3. 지역 기관들이 효과적이고 결과가 중요시되는 방향으로 되는 것을 확실하게 하기

4. maintaining flexibility in pursuing objectives, including through sub-regional institutions; and

4. 지역 하부 기관들을 통한 과정들을 포함, 목표들을 추구하는데 있어 유연성을 유지하기; 그리고

5. determining which Asia-Pacific regional institutions are the defining ones that include all key stakeholders.

5. 어느 아시아 태평양 지역 기관들이 모든 핵심 이해 관계자들을 포함하는 결정적인 기관들일가를 결정하기.

This new plan, as stated in testimony by Asst. Sec. of State Kurt Campbell, has articulated that the U.S. will work in cooperation with the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat and the participating organizations, citing PIF as the cooperating regional players.” (For more information on the Pacific Plan go to: http://www.forumsec.org.fj/pages.cfm/about-us/the-pacific-plan/)

미 국무 차관보 커트 캠벨의 증언에 의해 진술된 것처럼, 이 새로운 계획은 태평양 제도 포럼(Pacific Island Forum)의 “협력하는 지역적 주체들”을 인용하며 미국이 태평양 제도 포럼 사무 총장, 그리고 협력 조직들과 일할 것임을 일목요연하게 했다. (태평양 계획들에 대한 더 많은 정보는 여기를 가시길: http://www.forumsec.org.fj/pages.cfm/about-us/the-pacific-plan/)

The five principles that Clinton has articulated lays the frame for further militarization of the Pacific through the use of Development Aid for strategic control over energy and other pacific resources.

클린턴이 정리한 5가지 원칙들은 에너지 및 다른 태평양 자원들에 대한 전략적 통제를 위하여 개발 원조의 사용을 통한 태평양의 더 많은 군사화를 위한 틀을 마련한다.

A good example of the kind of plan that is being perpetrated is the production of Palm Oil in Papua/New Guinea. In a 2009 report entitled “Commodity Colonialism,” David Gilbert describes the economic, environmental conditions imposed upon PNG, Palm Oil production by U.S. agribusiness, Cargill, which has created not only massive environmental degradation, but also the spread of debt, prostitution, alcoholism and violence in the oil palm regions.

그 계획이 저질러진 좋은 예는 파푸아 뉴기니아의 야자 기름 생산이다. “상품 식민주의”라고 제목붙여진 2009년 보고서에서 데이비드 길버트는 미국 농업 기업 카길이 파푸아 뉴기니아 야자 기름 생산에 부과한 경제적, 환경적 조건들을 묘사하는데, 그것은 기름 야자 지역들에서 대량의 환경적 감퇴뿐만 아니라 또한 빚, 매춘, 알코올 중독과 폭력의 확산을 가져왔다.

The combination of militarization, development aid, as well as traditional and new commodities in the Pacific, is well elaborated in the US State Dept. Pacific plan.
The upcoming G20 and APEC meetings among the larger countries around the Pacific will undoubtedly prepare for further exploitation of Pacific resources.

태평양에서의 전통적이며 새로운 상품들과 마찬가지로 군사주의, 개발 원조의 결합은 미 국무부 태평양 계획에 잘 묘사되어 있다. 다가오는 G20과 태평양 주위 더 큰 국가들간의 아시아 태평양 경제 회담은 의심의 여지없이 태평양 자원들의 더 큰 착취를 준비할 것이다.

In this critical era of acute climate change, this policy already accepts the reality of global warming, an assumption that threatens the existence of many Pacific Island nations and peoples. The use of militarization and aid, the logic of maintaining military presence as insurance to disaster relief programs, the continued exploitation of forests and natural resources in the Pacific; together, these all suggest the continuation of an old colonial paradigm.

기후 변화라는 이 심각한 시대에 이 정책은 이미 많은 태평양 제도 국가들의 존재를 위협하는 가정이란 지구 온난화의 현실을 받아들인다. 군사화와 원조의 사용, 재난 구호 프로그램들을 위한 보험으로 군사 주둔을 유지하기 위한 논리, 태평양의 숲들 그리고 천연 지원들에 대한 계속되는 착취: 이 모든 것은 구 식민지 패러다임의 계속성을 암시한다.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Text Fwd:[Rick Rozoff]Pentagon Provokes New Crisis With China

* Text sent from Rick Rozoff on July 10, 2010

Stop NATO
July 10, 2010
Pentagon Provokes New Crisis With China
Rick Rozoff

Three news features appearing earlier this week highlight tensions between the United States and the People's Republic of China that, at least in relation to the language used to describe them, would have seemed unimaginable even a few months ago and are evocative more of the Korean War era than of any time since the entente cordiale initiated by the Richard Nixon-Mao Zedong meeting in Beijing in 1972.

To indicate the seriousness of the matter, the stories are from Global Times, a daily newspaper published in conjunction with the People's Daily, official press organ of the ruling Communist Party of China, and Time, preeminent American weekly news magazine. Both accounts use as their point of departure and source of key information a July 4 report in Hong Kong's major English-language daily.

On July 6 writer Li Jing penned a news article for Global Times called "US subs reach Asian ports: report," which detailed the following recent developments:

"Three of the largest submarines of the US Seventh Fleet surfaced in Asia-Pacific ports last week, the South China Morning Post reported Monday [July 5]. The appearance of the USS Michigan in Pusan, South Korea, the USS Ohio in Subic Bay, the Philippines, and the USS Florida in the strategic Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia was a show of force not seen since the end of the Cold War, the paper said, adding that the position of those three ports looks like a siege of China." [1]

The piece from the Hong Kong newspaper cited was entitled "US submarines emerge in show of military might: Message unlikely to be lost on Beijing as 3 vessels turn up in Asian ports," and was in fact dated July 4.

The author, South China Morning Post Asia correspondent Greg Torode, described the simultaneous arrival of three "Ohio-class submarines" equipped with "a vast quantity of Tomahawk cruise missiles" as a reflection of "the trend of escalating submarine activity in East Asia...." [2]

He further added this noteworthy data: "Between them, the three submarines can carry 462 Tomahawks, boosting by an estimated 60 per cent-plus the potential Tomahawk strike force of the entire Japanese-based Seventh Fleet - the core projection of US military power in East Asia."

The author quotes without identifying his name or nation a veteran Asian military attache with reported close ties to both Chinese and U.S. military officials: "460-odd Tomahawks is a huge amount of potential firepower in anybody's language.

"It is another sign that the US is determined to not just maintain its military dominance in Asia, but to be seen doing so...that is a message for Beijing and for everybody else, whether you are a US ally or a nation sitting on the fence." [3]

* Image source: same as the link, [USS Ohio]

On July 8 Time magazine's Mark Thompson elaborated on the earlier report with language, including that of his title, "U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a Message," derived from the South China Morning Post piece, which Thompson claims contained information planted by "U.S. officials...on July 4, no less" [4] in a clear signal to the government in mainland China.

The Time journalist added details, though, not in the original story, replete with a good deal of editorializing that perhaps serves the same source he attributes the contents of the Hong Kong article to and for the same reason: As a shot across the bow to China.

His account of last week's deployments included: "A new class of U.S. superweapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia."

The U.S. has eighteen nuclear-powered Ohio class ballistic missile submarines, fourteen still armed with nuclear warhead-tipped Trident missiles and four which "hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads."

"The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan." [5]

With the arrival of the USS Ohio in the Philippines, the USS Michigan in South Korea and the USS Florida "in the strategic Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia" [6] on the same day, "the Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 new Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood." [7]

The Time report also revealed that all four Ohio class Tomahawk-armed submarines were operationally deployed away from their home ports for the first time.

Thompson wrote that the coordinated actions were "part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater, which Washington sees as the military focus of the 21st century."

Regarding the submarines still carrying Trident missiles, he rhetorically added, "Why 14 subs, as well as bombers and land-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons, are still required to deal with the Russian threat is a topic for another day." [8]

All three journalists cited - Jing, Torode and Thompson - place the U.S. submarine deployments within a broader and also a more pressing context.

The South China Morning Post writer stated: "In policies drafted under then-president George W. Bush, a Republican, and continued by the administration of his successor, Democrat Barack Obama, the Pentagon is shifting 60 per cent of its 53 fast-attack [as distinct from ballistic and guided missile] submarines to the Pacific - a process that is now virtually complete.

"But the presence of the larger cruise-missile submarines shows that, at times, the US forward posture will be significantly larger."

The USS Ohio, for example, "has been operating out of Guam for most of the last year, taking advantage of the island's expanding facilities to extend its operations in the western Pacific.

"It is due to return soon, but the Florida and the Michigan are likely to remain in the region for many months yet, using Guam and possibly Diego Garcia for essential maintenance and crew changes."

Additionally, "The presence of the Florida, based on the US east coast, appears to confirm the US is still routinely bringing submarines under the arctic ice cap to East Asia." [9]

Just as the Pentagon is moving nuclear submarines under the northern polar ice cap to the Indian Ocean, so it has recently reached an "agreement [that] will allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the North Pole" to Afghanistan and "the region" by way of Kazakhstan, which borders China as well as Russia. [10]

The U.S. military "siege of China" is proceeding on several fronts, on land as well as under water and in Central as well as South and East Asia. But what primarily had been a policy of surveillance and probing China's perimeter is now entering a new phase.

That the U.S. currently has over 60 per cent of the Tomahawk cruise missiles assigned to its Japan-based Seventh Fleet near China emphasizes the qualitative escalation of Washington's show of strength vis-a-vis Beijing. One related to, as was seen above, a strategic shift of attack submarines nearer China and also to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula that was exacerbated by the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in March.

There has even been speculation that U.S. submarine deployments and other "messages" delivered to China of late were designed to pressure Beijing into taking a tougher stance toward North Korea over the Cheonan incident. What journalists have been referring to as messages would in an earlier age have been called saber-rattling and gunboat diplomacy.

U.S.-China relations sharply deteriorated this January when the Obama administration finalized an almost $6.5 billion arms sales package for Taiwan which includes 200 Patriot missiles. [11] An article on the subject in the New York Times on January 31 was titled, revealing enough, "U.S. Arms for Taiwan Send Beijing a Message."

China suspended military ties with the U.S., and bad blood has persisted throughout the year, resulting in Secretary of Defense Robert Gates scrapping plans to visit Beijing early last month when he was effectively disinvited by Chinese officialdom on the prompting of the military.

The White House and the Pentagon have been sending a number of unequivocal - and increasingly provocative - messages to China this year.

The new U.S. administration signalled a confrontational approach early on. In May of 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, barely three months in her post, stated, “The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere....” [12]

Later in the year then Director of National Intelligence (and retired admiral and former commander-in-chief of the Pacific Command) Dennis Blair released the latest quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report which said “Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States’ national interests. [13]

While Blair headed up the Pacific Command (PACOM) from 1999-2002, his role included overseeing a vast area of the planet that includes China (since the Ronald Reagan administration assigned it to that military command in 1983).

Arrogating the right to divide the entire world into military zones, areas of operation, has never been attempted by any other nation, any group of nations, not even all the nations of the world collectively (in the United Nations or otherwise). But the U.S. has and does do just that. It has even added two new Unified Combatant Commands - Northern Command and Africa Command - in recent years, in 2002 and 2007 respectively.

* Image source: same as the link

The Pacific Command is the oldest and largest of the six current regional commands (the others being the Africa, Northern, European, Central and Southern Commands), and was formed during the dawning of the Cold War in 1947. Its area of responsibility takes in over 50 per cent of the world - 105 million square miles - 36 nations and almost 60 per cent of the world's population.

300,000 troops from all major branches of the U.S. armed forces - the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy - are assigned to it, 20 per cent of all active duty American service members.

Pacific Command is in charge of military defense treaties with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Korea.

The U.S. is also alone in assigning the world's oceans and seas to naval commands. Washington has six naval fleets - the Fourth Fleet (the Caribbean, Central and South America) was reactivated in 2008 after being disbanded in 1950) - and just as Pacific Command is the largest unified, multi-service command, so the Seventh is the largest forward-deployed fleet, with 50-60 warships, 350 aircraft and as many as 60,000 Sailors and Marines at any given time. It is based in Japan and its area of responsibility includes over 50 million square miles of the (largely western) Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The U.S. also has eleven aircraft carriers, ten of them nuclear-powered and all eleven part of strike groups. [14] (China has no and Russia one carrier.)

The Time magazine article quoted from earlier mentioned that the deployment of four U.S. guided missile submarines to East Asia and the Indian Ocean is not the only development that China needs to be concerned about. The U.S. is simultaneously presiding over six-week biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises in Hawaii with over 20,000 troops, 36 warships and submarines (25 American) and 180 planes and helicopters.

This year's RIMPAC, which began on June 23 and is to be completed by the end of July, includes for the first time the participation of France, Colombia - with which the U.S. has recently concluded an agreement for the use of seven of its military bases [15] - and the Southeast Asia nations of Malaysia and Singapore. The other countries involved are Australia, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Peru, South Korea and Thailand. The five-week war games involve "missile exercises and the sinking of three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy ships." [16]

The combined task force commander for RIMPAC 2010 is commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, whose area of responsibility is approximately 50 million square miles of the eastern Pacific, Vice Admiral Richard Hunt, who stated, "This is the largest RIMPAC that we've had," and one which "clearly focuses on maritime domain awareness dealing with expanded military operations across the complete spectrum of warfare." [17]

Time's Mark Thompson also wrote: "Closer to China, CARAT 2010 - for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training - just got underway [July 5] off Singapore. The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

"China is absent from both exercises, and that's no oversight." [18]

This February Cobra Gold 2010, "the largest multinational military exercise in the world," [19}, was launched in Thailand (separated from China by only one nation, either Laos or Myanmar) and as with all previous Cobra Gold war games was run by U.S. Pacific Command and the Royal Thai Supreme Command. Joining the U.S. and Thailand in this year's exercises, designed "to build interoperability between the United States and its Asia-Pacific regional partners," [20] were the armed forces of Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and, for the first time, South Korea.

From June 8-25 the latest U.S. Air Force-led Red Flag Alaska air maneuvers were held near the eastern Pacific. "The Red Flag exercises, conducted in four-to-six cycles a year by the 414th Combat Training Squadron of the 57th Wing, are very realistic aerial war games. The purpose is to train pilots from the U.S., NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations." [21]

Over a thousand airmen from five nations - the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Romania and Belgium - assembled at Alaska's Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force Bases for air combat training which "unites forces from all over the world."

"South Korea, a country already accustomed to working with U.S. troops, is also in Alaska to strengthen the two nations' ties after the sinking of a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine.

"'We have the American Air Force in Korea, and the coalition and the combined working environment is very important,' said Lt. Hoon Min Kim, a member of South Korea's air force. 'And being able to perform under a combined environment is therefore essential as well.'" [22]

The incorporation of progressively more Asia-Pacific nations into what has been referred to as an Asian NATO is by no means directed solely at North Korea nor is it understood as such by officials in Beijing.

Participants in that arrangement, among them Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Mongolia, have troops serving under NATO in Afghanistan. Recently 140 new South Korean forces arrived at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to reinforce a base in Parwan province recently subjected to repeated rocket attacks. Seoul's troop strength in the war zone is now at 230.

This month the government of Singapore announced it will increase its soldiers in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to "a record 162, from 97 last year."

"Next month, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) will send a 52-man unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team - its biggest deployment to Afghanistan - to Oruzgan [Uruzgan], one of two provinces where Singapore has troops." [23]

Earlier this year NATO announced that Mongolia and South Korea have become the 45th and 46th nations to provide it with troops for the war in Afghanistan. Mongolia borders both China and Russia and is the object of intense efforts by the U.S. to increase military cooperation and integration. [24] On July 6 NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy Dirk Brengelmann paid a two-day visit to South Korea, where he stated, "Our security interests and security interests of countries like Korea coincide today more than ever."

A news report of his visit paraphrased his comments as asserting that "The world's biggest military alliance, NATO, is looking to increase cooperation with South Korea and other partners beyond Europe and North America," and added that "Speaking of cooperation, Brengelmann noted NATO's show of support for South Korea in light of the sinking of its warship Cheonan....The diplomat said some NATO members also serve on the U.N. Security Council and that the NATO members will try to ensure any Security Council action on the Cheonan sinking will represent their views expressed in the NATO statement." [25]

Another country that shares borders with China and Russia, Kazakhstan, has allowed the U.S. and NATO transit and overflight rights for the Afghan war and last week the nation's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed a law permitting the Pentagon to ship "special cargo" - armored vehicles - through his country.

The U.S. and NATO have transited hundreds of thousands of troops through the Manas Air Base (now Transit Center at Manas) in Kyrgyzstan, which also borders China, since 2001 and in recent months troops have passed in and out from Afghanistan at the rate of 55,000 a month, 660,000 a year. [26] Washington has announced plans to open new training bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the second nation also adjoining China.

With Afghanistan and Pakistan, which also have borders with China, the U.S. and NATO have a military presence in five nations on China's western flank and a foothold in Mongolia. The U.S. and NATO war in South Asia will enter its tenth year this autumn with no sign of Western military presence departing from China's backyard.

The U.S. military remains ensconced in Japan and South Korea, has returned to the Philippines (including camps in Mindanao), is solidifying bilateral and multilateral military relations with practically all nations in Southeast Asia, and for the past five years has cultivated India as a military partner. [India is currently an observer at the RIMPAC exercises.) Japan, Taiwan and Australia are being integrated into a U.S.-designed regional and broader global interceptor missile system.

The U.S. is conducting regular military exercises, building military partnerships, stationing troops and opening bases around China's periphery, in addition to the positioning of warships, submarines and aircraft carriers in the waters off its coasts.

What alarms China most at the moment, though, is a proposed joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise in the Yellow Sea, enclosed by both Koreas to the east and China to the north and west.

China's Global Times recently quoted Xu Guangqian, military strategist at the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Sciences, issuing this warning: "China's position on the Yellow Sea issue demonstrates its resolution to safeguard national rights and interests. It also reflects that China is increasingly aware of the fact that its strategic space has confronted threats from other countries." [27]

China, which just concluded six days of naval drills of its own in the East China Sea, had more reason to be concerned when it was disclosed earlier this month that a U.S. aircraft carrier would join the maneuvers off its Yellow Sea coast.

On July 8 China renewed its opposition to the planned U.S.-South Korean war games, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang telling reporters, "China has expressed its serious concerns with relevant parties. We are firmly opposed to foreign military vessels engaging in activities that undermine China's security interests in the Yellow Sea or waters close to China." [28]

An unsigned editorial in the Chinese Global Times of July 8 stated, "Beijing sees the joint exercise not only as being aimed at Pyongyang, but also as a direct threat to its territorial waters and coastline," and blamed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for worsening relations between the two nations:

"It is not known whether Lee had thought of China's reaction when he announced in May the drill with the US.

"Did he foresee Chinese people's anger? Or, did he intend to provoke the country on the other side of the Yellow Sea?

"It is a shame and a provocation on China's doorstep.

"If a US aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it will mean a major setback to Seoul's diplomacy, as hostility between the peoples of China and South Korea will probably escalate, which Beijing and Seoul have been working for years to avoid." [29]

President Lee met with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Toronto late last month, during which a previous arrangement to transfer wartime command of South Korean forces to the nation in 2012 were postponed if not abandoned. In Obama's words, "One of the topics that we discussed is that we have arrived at an agreement that the transition of operational control for alliance activities in the Korean peninsula will take place in 2015." In the five-year interim "if war were to break out on the Korean peninsula the United States would assume operational command of South Korean forces." [30]

If Washington is planning direct intervention on the Korean Peninsula as its military buildup in the region, including off China's shores, might indicate, the words of former South Korean president Kim Young-Sam a decade ago are worth recalling. Two years after stepping down as head of state, Kim revealed to one of his nation's main newspapers that he had intervened to prevent a second Korean war, that his government "stopped US President Bill Clinton from launching an air strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities in June 1994."

He initiated a last-minute phone conversation with the U.S. president which "saved the Korean peninsula from an imminent war," as "The Clinton government was preparing a war" by deploying an aircraft carrier off the eastern coast of North Korea "close enough for its war planes to hit the North's nuclear facilities in Yongbyon."

Furthermore, Kim warned the U.S. ambassador in Seoul that "another war on the Korean peninsula would turn all of Korea into a bloodbath, killing between 10 and 20 million people and destroying South Korea's prosperous economy." [31]

Any catastrophic event on the Korean Peninsula, and war is the ultimate cataclysm, could lead to hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees fleeing to Russia and millions to China.

The nearly nine-year war in Afghanistan being waged by the U.S. and NATO has led to an explosion of violence and destabilization in three nations flanking China: Afghanistan itself, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Also, since 2001 Afghanistan has become the world's largest producer of opium and hashish, flooding the European and other drug markets. A forum entitled "Afghan Drug Production - A Challenge to the International Community" was held in Moscow a month ago.

A Russian report on the meeting stated "The situation around drug production in Afghanistan has gained a catastrophic character. Some 100,000 people died globally from Afghan drugs in 2009 alone. In all, Afghan-made opiates have claimed one million human lives in the past decade, and 16 million more ruined their health." [32] 30,000 of the drug-related deaths occurred in Russia. The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan currently accounts for 92 per cent of world opium cultivation.

China and Russia are viewed as, if not challengers to U.S. global dominance, impediments to its further consolidation. And not in the military sphere but in the fields of economics, trade, energy and transportation. Destabilization of their neighborhoods and frontiers is one manner of limiting competition.

All means fair and foul are employed to eliminate obstacles to uncontested supremacy, and what the world's sole military superpower (the term is President Obama's from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech) truly excels at is expanding its international military machine with an unflinching willingness to use it.



1) Global Times, July 8, 2010
2) South China Morning Post, July 4, 2010 http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=6c48dbee25999210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=Asia+%26+World&s=News (Subscribers only)
3) Ibid
4) Time, July 8, 2010
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2002378,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
5) Ibid
6) South China Morning Post, July 4, 2010
7) Time, July 8, 2010
8) Ibid
9) South China Morning Post, July 4, 2010
10) Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military Outpost Between Russia And China
Stop NATO, April 14, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military-outpost-between-russia-and-china
11) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow
12) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
13) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
14) U.S. Consolidates Military Network In Asia-Pacific Region
April 28, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/s-consolidates-military-network-in-asia-pacific-region
15) Colombia: U.S. Escalates War Plans In Latin America
Stop NATO, July 22, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/colombia-u-s-escalates-war-plans-in-latin-america
16) Time, July 8, 2010
17) Navy Times, July 6, 2010
18) Ibid
19) American Forces Press Service, January 13, 2010
20) Ibid
21) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_(USAF)
22) KTUU TV, June 24, 2010
23) AsiaOne, July 1, 2010
24) Mongolia: Pentagon Trojan Horse Wedged Between China And Russia
Stop NATO, March 31, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia
25) Yonhap News Agency, July 6, 2010
26) Kyrgyzstan And The Battle For Central Asia
Stop NATO, April 7, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/kyrgyzstan-and-the-battle-for-central-asia
27) Global Times, July 6, 2010
28) Agence France-Presse, July 8, 2010
29) Global Times, July 8, 2010
30) Agence France-Presse, July 27, 2010
31) Agence France-Presse, May 24, 2000
32) Itar-Tass, June 9, 2010

Friday, July 9, 2010

Text Fwd: U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send Message

* Image source: same as the link: The U.S.S. Ohio, a guided-missile submarine, moors at a harbor in Pusan, South Korea, on Feb. 21, 2008 (Choi Jae-Ho / AFP / Getty Images)


* Text sent from Rick Rozoff on July 8, 2010

Times Magazine
July 8, 2010
U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a Message
By Mark Thompson
_____________________________________________________________

-The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan.
That's why alarm bells would have sounded in Beijing June 28 when the Tomahawk-laden 560-foot USS Ohio popped up in the Philippines' Subic Bay. More alarms likely were sounded when the USS Michigan arrived in Pusan, South Korea, the same day....The Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 additional Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood....The move forms part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater, which Washington sees as the military focus of the 21st Century.

_____________________________________________________________

Washington: If China's satellites and spies were working properly, there was a flood of unsettling intelligence flowing into the Beijing headquarters of the Chinese Navy last week. A new class of U.S. super weapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia. But this one was different: for nearly three years, the U.S. Navy has been dispatching modified "boomers" to who knows where (they do travel underwater, after all). Four of the 18 ballistic-missile subs no longer carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. Instead, they now hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads.

Their capability makes watching these particular submarines especially interesting. The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan.
(See pictures of the U.S. military in the Pacific.)

That's why alarm bells would have sounded in Beijing June 28 when the Tomahawk-laden 560-foot USS Ohio popped up in the Philippines' Subic Bay. More alarms likely were sounded when the USS Michigan arrived in Pusan, South Korea, the same day. And the klaxons would have maxed out as the USS Florida surfaced the same day at the joint U.S.-British naval base at Diego Garcia, a flyspeck of an island in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 additional Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood. "There's been a decision to bolster our forces in the Pacific," says Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There is no doubt that China will stand up and take notice."

U.S. officials deny any message is being directed at Beijing, saying the Tomahawk triple-play was a coincidence. But they did make sure news of the new deployments appeared in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post — on July 4, no less. The Chinese took notice quietly. "At present, common aspirations of countries in the Asian and Pacific regions are seeking for peace, stability and regional security," Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Wednesday. "We hope the relevant U.S. military activities will serve for the regional peace, stability and security, and not the contrary."
(See pictures of the most expensive military planes.)

Last month, the Navy had announced that all four of the Tomahawk Tridents were operationally deployed away from their home ports for the first time. Each vessel packs "the firepower of multiple surface ships," says Capt. Tracy Howard, commander, Submarine Squadron 16 in Kings Bay, Ga., and can "respond to diverse threats on short notice."

The move forms part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater, which Washington sees as the military focus of the 21st Century. Reduced tensions since the end of the Cold War has seen the U.S. scale back its deployment of nuclear weapons, allowing the Navy to reduce its Trident fleet from 18 to 14. (Why 14 subs, as well as bombers and land-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons, are still required to deal with the Russian threat is a topic for another day.)
(See "Obama Shelves U.S. Missile Shield: The Winners and Losers.")

Sure, the Navy could have retired the four additional subs and saved the Pentagon some money, but that's not how bureaucracies operate. Instead, it spent about $4 billion replacing the Tridents with Tomahawks and making room for 60 special-ops troops to live aboard each sub and operate stealthily around the globe. "We're there for weeks, we have the situational awareness of being there, of being part of the environment," Navy Rear Adm. Mark Kenny explained after the first Tomahawk Trident set sail in 2008. "We can detect, classify and locate targets and, if need be, hit them from the same platform."
(Comment on this story.)

The submarines aren't the only new potential issue of concern for the Chinese. Two major military exercises involving the U.S. and its allies in the region are now underway. More than three dozen naval ships and subs began participating in the "Rim of the Pacific" war games off Hawaii on Wednesday. Some 20,000 personnel from 14 nations are involved in the biennial exercise which includes missile exercises and the sinking of three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy ships. Nations joining the U.S. in what is billed as the world's largest-ever naval war game are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Peru, Singapore and Thailand. Closer to China, CARAT 2010 — for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training — just got underway off Singapore. The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
(See "Hu's Visit: Finding a Way Forward on U.S.-China Relations.")

China is absent from both exercises, and that's no oversight. Many nations in the eastern Pacific, including Australia, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam, have been encouraging the U.S. to push back against what they see as China's increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea. And the U.S. military remains concerned over China's growing missile force — now more than 1,000 — near the Taiwan Strait. The Tomahawks' arrival "is part of a larger effort to bolster our capabilities in the region," Glaser says. "It sends a signal that nobody should rule out our determination to be the balancer in the region that many countries there want us to be." No doubt Beijing got the signal.

See pictures of President Obama visiting Asia.

See "Why Is China Slowing Its Military Spending?"

===========================
Stop NATO
Blog site:

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Text Fwd: QDR: New U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan Focuses On China, Iran

StopNATO
QDR: New U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan Focuses On China, Iran

Business Week
Bloomberg News
February 1, 2010

China, Iran Prompt U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan in Strategy Review
By Viola Gienger and Tony Capaccio

-The joint Air Force-Navy plan would combine the strengths of each service to
conduct long-range strikes that could utilize a new generation of bombers, a new
cruise missile and drones launched from aircraft carriers.

-“This is truly a wartime QDR,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in a

cover letter for the report.

-“In the mid- to long-term, U.S. military forces must plan and prepare to

prevail in a broad range of operations that may occur in multiple theaters in
overlapping time frames,” the Defense Department says in the review.
“This includes maintaining the ability to prevail against two capable
nation-state aggressors.”

-[T]he review calls for “a more widely distributed” and flexible U.S.
presence in Asia that relies more on allies. Partners would include Australia,
Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

-The Pentagon has about 400,000 U.S. military personnel stationed overseas,
either in war zones or elsewhere. The review emphasizes “taking care of our
people” serving in multiple long deployments that take a “significant
toll” on them and their families.



The U.S. military is drawing up a new air-sea battle plan in response to threats
such as China’s persistent military build-up and Iran’s possession of
advanced weapons, according to the Pentagon’s latest strategy review.

The Air Force and Navy are seeking more effective ways of ensuring continued
access to the western Pacific...according to the Quadrennial Defense Review to
be released later today.

The joint Air Force-Navy plan would combine the strengths of each service to
conduct long-range strikes that could utilize a new generation of bombers, a new
cruise missile and drones launched from aircraft carriers. The Navy also is
increasing funding to develop an unmanned underwater vehicle, according to the
report.

The battle plan is among a range of new initiatives outlined in the review,
which is conducted every four years to revise U.S. military strategy for the
coming decade or more. The new report places top priority on the fights in
Afghanistan and Iraq and against terrorist threats elsewhere, while also
preparing for future threats.

This is truly a wartime QDR,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in a
cover letter for the report. “For the first time, it places the current
conflicts at the top of our budgeting, policy and program priorities.”

Two-War Capability

The review deemphasizes but does not abandon the Pentagon’s doctrine that
calls for the military to be able to fight two major wars nearly simultaneously.
It acknowledges this mission but says planning should focus more closely on
other scenarios, such as irregular warfare including conflicts involving
insurgents or drug traffickers and even humanitarian disasters.

“In the mid- to long-term, U.S. military forces must plan and prepare to
prevail in a broad range of operations that may occur in multiple theaters in
overlapping time frames,” the Defense Department says in the review.

“This includes maintaining the ability to prevail against two capable
nation-state aggressors,” it states.

Alluding to China in his cover letter, Gates cites longer- term threats such as
“the military modernization programs of other countries.” He also hints at
dangers such as al-Qaeda in referring to “non-state groups developing more
cunning and destructive means to attack the United States and our allies and
partners.”

Tensions With China

U.S. officials have often called on their Chinese counterparts to provide
explanations and assurances that their moves are purely defensive. The two
countries resumed military talks last June, then China halted visits again over
the Defense Department’s Jan. 29 announcement of a new arms sale to Taiwan.

China is developing and deploying “large numbers” of advanced missiles, new
attack submarines, long-range air defense systems and capabilities to wage
electronic warfare and target computer systems, according to the report, which
echoes an assessment of China’s military power issued almost a year ago.

China’s refusal to provide adequate assurances of its intentions raises “a
number of legitimate questions regarding its long-term intentions,” the
Pentagon says in the review.

Citing “more complex” security conditions in the region, including North
Korea and terrorist threats in Southeast Asia, the review calls for “a more
widely distributed” and flexible U.S. presence in Asia that relies more on
allies. Partners would include Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore,
Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Threat From Iran

In the Middle East, Iran is fielding small attack boats in the Persian Gulf, a
development that U.S. officials have cited in the past. That compounds the
threat to naval operations from the acquisition by Iran and other nations of
weapons such as quiet submarines and advanced cruise missiles that can target
ships, according to the report.

Iran also has provided drones and shoulder-fired missiles to the Islamic
militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Russia and other nations have
contributed to the spread of surface-to- air missiles, the department said.

Among the solutions proposed are more ways to deploy U.S. forces abroad, such as
naval assets, “in regions facing new challenges.” Existing bases also need
to be either hardened to protect against potential attacks or reinforced with
back-up locations or by dispersing them in multiple places, the department
concluded.

The Pentagon has about 400,000 U.S. military personnel stationed overseas,
either in war zones or elsewhere. The review emphasizes “taking care of our
people” serving in multiple long deployments that take a “significant
toll” on them and their families.

Other Concerns

In addition to supporting existing wars, the Quadrennial review emphasizes the
need for more unmanned aircraft, intelligence, special forces, helicopters and
long-range strike capabilities as well as skills such as foreign languages and
training of foreign military forces.

The U.S. military, especially the Navy and Air Force, also should find better
and faster ways to strengthen the defense systems of foreign allies and partners
as needed, the Pentagon said.

The Pentagon should continue to maintain a nuclear arsenal as a “core
mission” until “such time as the administration’s goal of a world free of
nuclear weapons is achieved,” according to the report.

The potential threat of cyber attacks and the need to conduct “high-tempo
operations” will require more expertise in that field and centralized command
of cyber operations, the department said.

-Editor: Bill Schmick
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Text Fwd: Afghanistan: World's Lengthiest War Has Just Begun

Rick Rozoff
Afghanistan: World's Lengthiest War Has Just Begun
Stop NATO
December 18, 2009

The higher number of Defense Department contractors, 160,000, added to over 100,000 troops - with the likely prospect of both numbers climbing yet more - will result in over a quarter of a million U.S. personnel serving under the Pentagon and NATO. The latter has 42,000 non-U.S. troops fighting under its command currently and pledges of 8,000 more to date, with thousands in addition to be conscripted after the London conference on Afghanistan next month. Approximately 35,000 U.S. soldiers are also assigned to NATO's ISAF and if the 33,000 new American troops are similarly deployed the North Atlantic bloc will have over 120,000 forces fighting a land war in Asia. Along with a Pakistani army of 700,000 active duty troops fighting on the other side of the border and an Afghan army of 100,000 soldiers, there will soon be well over a million military personnel engaged in a war with a few hundred al-Qaeda and a few thousand Taliban forces.

----------
Despite U.S. President Barack Obama's pledge in his December 1 address at the West Point Military Academy that deploying 30,000 more of his nation's troops to Afghanistan would be coupled with "a goal of starting to withdraw forces from the country in July 2011," everything else he has said and all the facts on the ground suggest that the war will continue into the indefinite future.

At a press conference a week before the West Point troop surge announcement he said "it is my intention to finish the job," and in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on December 10 he affirmed: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes."

History establishes that it is easier to deploy to than to withdraw from an active war zone.

The White House has already increased U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan from 32,000 at the beginning of the year to over twice that amount - 68,000 - currently, with the first contingent of even more reinforcements arriving this week. The 30,000 additional troops headed to the war front and the 3,000 more support forces pledged by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will push American military personnel in Afghanistan to over 100,000.

That number, likely to be increased yet further and accompanied by a veritable invasion of private military contractors and State Department operatives, will be augmented by over 10,000 more non-U.S. troops serving under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), bringing combined American and NATO regular military forces to well over 150,000 and total Western personnel to over 300,000 with an estimated surge of as many as 56,000 new U.S. contractors. With the addition of assorted security, intelligence, private contracting and other military camp followers from NATO nations, the figure could top a third of a million.

An occupation and warfighting force of those dimensions is not designed for a limited mission or a short stay.

In fact on December 6 U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones (former top NATO military commander in Europe) gave the lie to the 2011 withdrawal anodyne in an interview with CNN when he brashly asserted "We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times. We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”

Jones also emphasized the extension of the war in space as well as time by stating American reinforcements and redeployments would concentrate on eastern and southern Afghanistan to "eliminate the safe havens" inside Pakistan, a nation with a population of 175 million and nuclear weapons.

His claims, more authoritative than those of the president he serves, were echoed by Pentagon chief Robert Gates. Earlier this week it was reported that "In a visit to the war zone last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Afghanistan's senior military officials that while the U.S. looks forward to the day when the Afghans can take control of their country, the United States would have a large number of forces in Afghanistan for some time beyond July 2011."

Gates in his own words: "This is a relationship forged in blood. We will see it [through] to the end." [1]

To demonstrate the scale of the U.S. and NATO intensification of the war in Afghanistan - so urgent, evidently, that it is being qualitatively escalated during the Christmas season - in addition to Gates's visit to the Afghan war front, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, new German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor Zu Guttenberg and other top Western military and political leaders have recently traveled to Afghanistan to inspect their respective nations' military forces stationed there.

READ MORE