Bruce Gagnon: Pumping Up the Next Military Conflict?

US Secretary of War Leon Panetta is making a tour of the Asia-Pacific, where he is pumping up the next military conflict. Yesterday I hear he was in Vietnam, trying to close a deal to allow the US Navy to once again have access to the base at Cam Ranh Bay. Before leaving on his trip, Panetta made the speaking rounds back home to consolidate US media and build public support for Obama's "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific. "One of the key projects that our generation will have to face is sustaining and enhancing American strength across the great maritime region of the Pacific," he told graduates of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland last week. "China's military is growing and modernizing. We must be vigilant. We must be strong. We must be prepared to confront any challenge," Panetta said. While in Singapore Panetta stated, "By 2020, the Navy will re-posture its forces from today's roughly 50/50 percent split between the Pacific and the Atlantic to about a 60/40 split between those oceans. That will include six aircraft carriers in this region, a majority of our cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, and submarines, to project power and operate in the Asia-Pacific." He told an audience of Asian military officials that the US planned new investments in capabilities needed "to project power and operate in the Asia-Pacific," including radar-evading fighter jets, a new long-distance bomber, electronic warfare and missile defenses. The message to them is essentially, play along with us, and we will share a piece of the action with you. The Pentagon has a name for this new strategy - its called the Air-Sea Battle fighting "concept".