Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Laura Meckler WSJ(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada, November 13, 2011: President Barack Obama will announce an accord for a new and permanent U.S. military presence in Australia when he visits next week, a step aimed at countering China's influence and reasserting U.S. interest in the region, said people
familiar with his plans.The agreement will lead to an increase in U.S. naval operations off the coast of Australia and give American troops and ships "permanent and constant" access to Australian facilities, the people said. While no new American bases will be built under the plan, the arrangement will allow U.S. forces to place equipment in Australia and set up more joint exercises, they said.
The move could help the U.S. military, now concentrated in Japan and South Korea in Northeast Asia, to spread its influence west and south across the region, including the strategically and economically important South China Sea, which China considers as its sovereign territory.
It was unclear how much the new presence would cost the Pentagon, which is facing years and hundreds of billion dollars in spending cuts.
But the expanded military presence is designed as a demonstration of U.S. commitment to the region, part of an effort to refocus on Asia as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and draws its forces down in Afghanistan, officials in both countries said.
"It will demonstrate U.S. resolve, not just for Australia, but in the region," Maj. Gen. Tim McOwan, the Australian defense attaché in Washington, said in an interview this week.
At a daily press briefing on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Chinese officials "hope relevant countries' bilateral cooperation will be conducive to the Asia-Pacific region's security, peace and stability."
The strategy comes weeks after China sent its first its first aircraft carrier to sea, a defining moment in its effort to become a top-tier naval power that seeks to challenge U.S. military supremacy in Asia and protect Chinese economic interests that now span the globe.
Several Asian nations, fearful of the threat China poses, also are beefing up their arsenals, fearing that the U.S. security umbrella is being eroded by China's enhanced capabilities and possible U.S. defense cuts.
One base slated for the stepped-up American presence is in Darwin, on the country's north coast. Other locations are possible, including one near Perth, on the west coast, one person said.
"Strategically, we want to be able to reassure the rest of Asia that the American presence is still strong in the 21st century as China develops its force," said Ernie Bower, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Officials declined to detail how many new troops or sailors would be part of the U.S. effort, or how many ships would be stationed in the area, ahead of Mr. Obama's announcement next week. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, while traveling throughout the region last month, vowed an expansion in U.S. influence, but also declined to specify costs or force sizes.
An administration official said the stepped-up presence will be phased in over several years under the agreement. The deal isn't yet final and details could change.
On his trip, Mr. Obama will mark the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-Australian alliance with a speech to Parliament and a visit to a military base in Darwin, where he and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will jointly address Australian troops.
Neither leader is expected to characterize the move as directly confronting the Chinese. But U.S. officials said one of the goals of Mr. Obama's Asia trip is to clarify free access to the South China Sea.
Mr. Panetta, after a meeting with the Australians in September, said that enhanced military cooperation would counter "threats and challenges" to come. "Security and prosperity of our two great nations depends on the security and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region," he said.
The full range of U.S. naval ships is expected to rotate through the joint facilities, stopping for exercises as well as repairs and other shore work. Naval aircraft also will have access to a base in Darwin.
The increased U.S. presence will be a rotating force, one person said. In September, Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith said the enhance cooperation would be "more ships in, ships out; more planes in, planes out; more troops in, troops out."
Gen. McOwan, the defense attaché, said the increase in U.S. naval operations will send a message to the Chinese that the U.S. is committed to defending the security of regional sea and air trade routes. The stepped-up American presence will reassure Australia and well as other countries in the region that the U.S. is engaged at a time when Chinese intentions are uncertain, he said.
Still, Gen. McOwan added that the American commitments Mr. Obama plans to announce are "not going to frighten the Chinese."
"It's more symbolic than real," he said.
—Julian E. Barnes,
Brian Spegele
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“You know, the former leadership of [the Kyrgyz Republic] with their biased attitude towards the undertaken international obligations has already spoiled outside image of Kyrgyzstan. In order to break that image somehow, we just have to execute an already concluded agreement. The contract for the Transit Center will expire in 2014. Our position is the following: we will notify in six months the U.S. side of the termination of the contract in full compliance with assumed obligations and from 2014 there will be the first major civilian international transport junction. Any capital can participate in the formation of his transport junction even though the Russian although the western.”
The US has offered to periodically station some of its planes in Poland beginning in 2013. Last month, Poland announced that it will accept the US proposal to host American F-16 fighter jets and Hercules transport aircraft.
Moscow says Warsaw should change its decision. The Russian defense ministry says Moscow will take the plans into account and carry out its own military development projects in response to the US move.
This is after WikiLeaks released documents revealing that NATO has secret plans to defend Poland and the Baltic states against Russia, the Voice of Russia stated.
Russian representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the leaked documents “cast a shadow on the results of the Lisbon Summit.”
The summit had adopted a statement last month that "clearly says the security of NATO countries and Russia is intertwined, and the NRC [NATO Russia Council] member states will refrain from any use or threat of the use of force against each other," a Russian foreign ministry spokesman told Interfax news agency.
NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen responded to the ordeal by saying the alliance does not consider Russia a threat to Poland.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told CNN's Larry King in a recent interview that a threat from Iran is nonexistent. He also said that Russia would be forced to react in developing new nuclear weapons technology unless the United States Congress ratifies the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
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