|
January 11, 2012 - 05:31 PM Continued “The question until Thursday was would the administration make tradeoffs or would they cut across the board, and they decided they would indeed make some priorities,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia Program at the Center for a New American Security. “It’s not unexpected, but it wasn’t absolutely a certainty either.” Obama has branded the new military policy as his own, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta noted that his involvement in formulating the strategy was “truly unprecedented.” As Obama heads into reelection, Republican presidential hopefuls have criticized the president for not taking a harsher stance against China. Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) has said he would “clamp down on China” and label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office. “It’s time to let a conservative businessman take the reins of government to make sure America, not China is the economic powerhouse of the world,” Romney said at the Values Voter Summit in October. An enhanced military presence in the Pacific doesn’t mean military conflict is on the horizon, and the move is as much about economics as it is security. “Our two countries have a strong stake in peace and stability in East Asia and an interest in building a cooperative bilateral relationship,” the Pentagon document says. “However, the growth of China’s military power must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region.” For the military, a shift to the Pacific means a shift toward air and sea power, at the expense of ground forces. Troop reductions are expected for the Army and Marine Corps, as the U.S. discontinues its policy of being ready to fight two ground wars at once. Of course, while Thursday’s announcement gave broad policy direction, the details of the new shift won’t really be known until the Pentagon budget is released. Officials say that will happen soon after the president’s State of the Union later thi... |