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Pedro Gonçalves

International Institute for Strategic Studies 30 May 2009 - Associated Press - Gates: T... - 0 views

www.iiss.org/...anctions-against-nkorea-needed

North Korea US Robert Gates China South Korea Lee Sang-hee Shangri-La Dialogue

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • North Korea's yearslong use of scare tactics as a bargaining chip to secure aid and other concessions — only to later renege on promises — has worn thin the patience of five nations negotiating with Pyongyang, said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.   "They create a crisis and the rest of us pay the price to return to the status quo ante," Gates told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting of defense and security officials. "As the expression goes in the U.S., I'm tired of buying the same horse twice."   "There are other ways perhaps to get the North Koreans to change their approach," Gates said. "I think this notion that we buy our way back to the status quo ante is an approach that I personally at least think we ought to think very hard about."
  • Additionally, the U.N. Security Council is drafting financial and military sanctions against North Korea as punishment for the weapons testing.   Similar sanctions approved after Pyongyang's 2006 atomic test have been only sporadically enforced, and largely ignored by China and Russia.
  • South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said the talks "could not have come at a better time."   "North Korea perhaps to this point may have mistakenly believed that it could be perhaps rewarded for its wrong behaviors," Lee told reporters. "But that is no longer the case."
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  • Gates does not plan to build up American troops in the region, and said Saturday he currently does not consider North Korea to pose a direct military threat to the United States.
  • Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nonproliferation issues with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former top U.S. State Department official, said North Korea is likely to respond heatedly to whatever actions the U.S. and allies take to stem the weapons threat.   "North Korea's responses to date have been so far above and beyond the normal tit-for-tat," Fitzpatrick said Saturday. "If they again escalate, I think we could see some low-level conflict, some shooting incidents at sea. But then one can't say, well, we can't respond at all because North Korea might use it as a provocation. North Korea will use any response as a provocation."
Pedro Gonçalves

Firepower bristles in South China Sea as rivalries harden | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...chinasea-idUKBRE85D04T20120614

US China Military South China Sea South East Asia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • In the early years of China's rise to economic and military prowess, the guiding principle for its government was Deng Xiaoping's maxim: "Hide Your Strength, Bide Your Time." Now, more than three decades after paramount leader Deng launched his reforms, that policy has seemingly lapsed or simply become unworkable as China's military muscle becomes too expansive to conceal and its ambitions too pressing to postpone.
  • The current row with Southeast Asian nations over territorial claims in the energy-rich South China Sea is a prime manifestation of this change, especially the standoff with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal.
  • In what is widely interpreted as a counter to China's growing influence, the United States is pushing ahead with a muscular realignment of its forces towards the Asia-Pacific region, despite Washington's fatigue with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Pentagon's steep budget cuts.And regional nations, including those with a history of adversarial or distant relations with the United States, are embracing Washington's so-called strategic pivot to Asia.
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  • reports last week in China's state-controlled media and online military websites suggested that the first of a new class of a stealthy littoral combat frigate, the type 056, had been launched at Shanghai's Hudong shipyard with three others under construction.Naval analysts said the new 1,700-tonne ship, armed with a 76mm main gun, missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes, would be ideal for patrolling the South China Sea.These new warships would easily outgun the warships of rival claimants, they said.
  • "Make no mistake, in a steady, deliberate and sustainable way, the United States military is rebalancing and bringing an enhanced capability development to this vital region," Panetta told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference in Singapore attended by civilian and military leaders from Asia-Pacific and Western nations.
  • As part of the strategic pivot unveiled in January, the United States will deploy 60 per cent of its warships in the Asia-Pacific, up from 50 per cent now. They will include six aircraft carriers and a majority of the U.S. navy's cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines.
  • As part of his swing through Asia last week, Panetta also visited India and Vietnam in a bid to enhance security ties with two key regional powers that have not been traditional U.S. allies but are increasingly apprehensive about China's rise.At Vietnam's deep water port of Cam Ranh Bay, a key U.S. base during the Vietnam War, Panetta said the use of this harbour would be important to the Pentagon as it moved more ships to Asia.
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