By John Chan, WSWS.ORG
At more than 8 million, China’s military is the largest in the world in troop strength, but its actual capabilities are severely limited in other areas such as advanced aircraft, naval vessels, and long-range weapons. The US military remains by far the most powerful in both offensive and defensive clout, and still leads in scientific research.
Last week’s announcement by President Barack Obama of a new strategic focus on China has intensified a debate already underway in Chinese ruling circles over how to respond to Washington’s confrontational stance and threat of military conflict.
The Pentagon document, “Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defence,” represents a major reorientation of the US military forces globally, particularly toward the Asia-Pacific region. It insisted that China’s military expansion “must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region.” Read more…
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By Linh Dinh
Using Bin Laden as a pretext, America invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and a decade later, it is still there, though its bogeyman is long gone. America never runs out of enemies, however, for it can always generate them anew, with either its bombs and guns, or through its jingoistic media. Along with Iran and Syria, Pakistan, supposedly an ally, has become a target.
IMAGE: Bush started shooting into Pakistan in 2004, and Obama has continued this bloody practice Read more…
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ARCHIVES
Editor’s Note: American foreign policy has many layers of duplicity, all designed to hide its true motives, and now that American power is aggressively on the move in many areas simultaneously, from the Middle East to Burma, Eastern Europe, and the larger Pacific, it’s critical for Americans to understand what is really going on. This piece goes a long way to explaining the actual situation. As usual no such analysis will ever be found in the mainstream media.
By F. William Engdahl
Left: The April 6 Youth Movement emblem. The April 6 movement is using the same raised fist symbol as the Otpor! movement from Serbia, that helped bring down the regime of Slobodan Milošević and whose nonviolent tactics were later used in Ukraine and Georgia.
Originally posted on February, 5, 2011
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/
Fast on the heels of the regime change in Tunisia came a popular-based protest movement launched on January 25 against the entrenched order of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.
Contrary to the carefully-cultivated impression that the Obama Administration is trying to retain the present regime of Mubarak, Washington in fact is orchestrating the Egyptian as well as other regional regime changes from Syria to Yemen to Jordan and well beyond in a process some refer to as “creative destruction.” Read more…
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Introduction
As the purported assassination of Osama bin Laden has placed the focus on Pakistan, it is vital to assess the changing role of Pakistan in broad geostrategic terms, and in particular, of the changing American strategy toward Pakistan. The recently reported assassination was a propaganda ploy aimed at targeting Pakistan. To understand this, it is necessary to examine how America has, in recent years, altered its strategy in Pakistan in the direction of destabilization. In short, Pakistan is an American target. The reason: Pakistan’s growing military and strategic ties to China, America’s primary global strategic rival. In the ‘Great Game’ for global hegemony, any country that impedes America’s world primacy – even one as historically significant to America as Pakistan – may be sacrificed upon the altar of war.
Read more…
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Osama bin Laden
WATCH The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill talk to Amy Goodman about what happened yesterday at Osama Bin Laden’s compound and the reaction around the world: Read more…
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