Encircling China With U.S. Military Bases

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel welcomes Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chang Wanquan as he arrives for meetings at the Pentagon, Aug. 19, 2013. DOD photo by Glenn Fawcett

Surrounded: How The U.S. Is Encircling China With Military Bases -- John Reed, Killer Apps/Foreign Policy

The U.S. military is encircling China with a chain of air bases and military ports. The latest link: a small airstrip on the tiny Pacific island of Saipan. The U.S. Air Force is planning to lease 33 acres of land on the island for the next 50 years to build a "divert airfield" on an old World War II airbase there. But the residents don't want it. And the Chinese are in no mood to be surrounded by Americans.

The Pentagon's big, new strategy for the 21st century is something called Air-Sea Battle, a concept that's nominally about combining air and naval forces to punch through the increasingly-formidable defenses of nations like China or Iran. It may sound like an amorphous strategy -- and truth be told, a lot of Air-Sea Battle is still in the conceptual phase. But a very concrete part of this concept is being put into place in the Pacific. An important but oft-overlooked part of Air-Sea Battle calls for the military to operate from small, bare bones bases in the Pacific that its forces can disperse to in case their main bases are targeted by Chinese ballistic missiles.

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My Comment: While this establishment of a chain of air bases and military ports is raising eyebrows in China .... when it comes to the West this is what the Chinese government is really afraid of.