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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.
Pedro Gonçalves

Analysis - Obama's Asia pivot advances, but obstacles await | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ic-pivot-idUKBRE85E1B720120615

US China South East Asia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • the polite fiction employed by Washington serves Asia-Pacific countries who seek security assurances from the far-away United States without sacrificing important trade with nearby China and its fast-growing economy."Treading too forcefully on China's interests can and has resulted in economic reprisals against Southeast Asian countries," said Scott Harrison of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a consultancy in Manila.
  • Beijing responded last month to its South China Sea dispute with Manila by tightening quality controls on Philippine fruit and cutting the number of visits by Chinese citizens to the Philippines.
  • Some regional security experts, however, say the renewed U.S. emphasis on Asia has emboldened China's opponents in the South China Sea dispute, an outcome Washington might not have intended."The U.S. becoming involved has fired up the Philippines and Vietnam to contest things more strongly," said Sam Bateman, a retired senior Australian naval officer and maritime security researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | South Asia | US opens 'major Afghan offensive' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8129789.stm

Afghanistan US ISAF Helmand

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Jul 09 - Cached
  • The United States army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
  • The US military says about 4,000 marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes.
  • Officers on the ground said it was the largest marine offensive since Vietnam.
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  • The operation would have an initial highly aggressive stage lasting 36 hours, AFP news agency reported. It aims to improve security ahead of presidential elections on 20 August 20, allowing voter registration where before there was none, Gen Nicholson said.
  • As of June 2009, Nato's International Security Assistance Force had 61,130 personnel from 42 countries including the US, European countries, Australia, Jordan and New Zealand. The US is the largest contributor, providing 28,850 soldiers.
  • It also has troops under Operation Enduring Freedom - mostly in the east of Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan - that are not under Isaf's command. In December 2008 they numbered 17,100. President Obama has pledged to send an additional 21,000 extra soldiers to Afghanistan, many of them redeployed from operations in Iraq, to help with training Afghan security forces and to tackle the insurgency.
Argos Media

Extremist Tide Rises in Pakistan - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009041901731_2.html

Pakistan Swat Valley Taliban Mingora Sharia

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • In the northwestern town of Mardan, insurgents attacked girls schools, forced CD shops to close, ordered barbers not to shave beards and bombed the office of a nonprofit aid agency, killing a female worker. Taliban commanders accused the agency of "propagating obscenity." Taliban fighters occupied the Buner district for several days, closed a religious shrine and burned DVDs in the streets. They then toured the region in a convoy of trucks, even entering a secured army area while displaying heavy weapons.
  • "The inescapable reality is that another domino has toppled and the Taliban are a step closer to Islamabad," the Pakistan-based News International newspaper warned last week after the Buner takeover. The paper compared Pakistan to Vietnam: a weak and corrupt state being "nibbled away" by determined insurgents: "The Taliban have the upper hand, and they know it."
  • Surprisingly, there has been little official or public protest against the creeping tide of Islamist extremism. Analysts said this is partly because of fear of retaliation and partly because of strong religious sentiments that make Pakistanis reluctant to criticize fellow Muslims.
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  • Sharia in Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, exists in tandem with a modern legal code but does not supersede it. Sharia courts rule on certain religious and moral issues, while other cases are tried by regular courts. Mohammed, Aziz and other radicals espouse a more severe version like the one Taliban rulers imposed on Afghanistan in the 1990s, which segregates women and imposes harsh punishments.
  • Supporters of the Swat agreement pointed out that residents have been demanding sharia for years to replace the slow, corrupt justice system. But Swati leaders said that the local version of Islamic law was traditionally moderate and that in elections last year Swatis voted overwhelmingly for two secular parties.
  • This week, after the peace accord was endorsed, officials and pro-government news media described the atmosphere in Swat as relieved and heading back to normalcy. But several people who visited the Swati capital of Mingora this week said they saw worried faces, no women in the markets, and clusters of black-turbaned men watching everyone closely.
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