Inside the Ring

By Bill Gertz (Contact) | Thursday, June 5, 2008

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Beginning today, Inside the Ring moves from Friday to Thursday and will appear each week in the National Security section of Plugged In.

Pacific America

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates placed new strategic markers outlining U.S. security strategy in Asia during a speech in Singapore on Saturday. His subtle message that the United States will remain a "resident power" in Asia was meant to signal China and bolster the semisecret U.S. policy of "hedging" against the emergence of a threatening Beijing, according to defense officials.

Mr. Gates told the annual International Institute of Strategic Studies meeting, which included numerous defense and military leaders from the region, that by using the term resident power, "I mean there is sovereign American territory in the western Pacific, from the Aleutian Islands all the way down to Guam."

It was the first time a defense chief emphasized U.S. territory in the Pacific as a basis for U.S. security strategy.

The U.S. military buildup on Guam, where Mr. Gates visited before Singapore, is designed to help U.S. forces "respond quickly to new contingencies," Mr. Gates said. New submarines and advanced bombers are being sent to the western Pacific island, along with 7,000 Marines redeployed from Okinawa, Japan.

Guam in the future also will be used for international military training and possibly the prepositioning of military assets, Mr. Gates said.

The defense secretary made no mention of the Pentagon's hedge strategy, which was developed under his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose 2005 speech in Singapore sounded a more alarming tone about China's military buildup. The Chinese military buildup, Mr. Rumsfeld said, was being carried out in secret and with little or no explanation from Beijing about its goal and the nature of the threat it was directed against.

Mr. Gates, in his speech, made only veiled references to concerns about Chinese hegemony in Asia, which U.S. defense officials say is aimed at pressuring the United States to withdraw from the region.

He said U.S. concerns for the region are to maintain "openness of trade, openness of ideas and openness of what I would call the common areas - whether in the maritime, space or cyber domains." A defense official said later that this remark was "clearly directed at China."

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