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发帖数: 1181 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/world/asia/panetta-to-visit-a
The United States’ new way of war is defined by high-technology airborne
systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and a fleet of
advanced Global Hawk drones is being transferred to Asia from the Middle
East, he said. A significant number of older Navy surveillance systems —
the P-3 aircraft, designed for antisubmarine warfare but converted for
counterinsurgency — are also are being shifted.
“We are releasing so much capacity as a consequence of not having to have
that capacity tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. Carter said.
A number of the Air Force’s long-range B-1 and B-52 bombers will be
withdrawn from the Middle East and Southwest Asia and moved to the Pacific.
At the same time, the United States is discussing the placement of missile
defense radar installations on the territory of Pacific Rim allies.
In a speech to an international security conference in Singapore this year,
Mr. Panetta announced that deployment of Navy ships, which have been spread
evenly between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, would be divided 60-40
favoring the Pacific.
Likewise, the Pentagon said that ground combat units that were sent from the
Pacific region to Iraq or Afghanistan for the wars there would return to
their bases in Asia. Some Marine Corps units would begin conducting training
exercises in Australia. And the Army is drawing up plans to place combat
equipment in storage in the region, to be used in multinational training
exercises and be available on short notice in crises.
Budgets, however, have a way of restricting strategic goals. Still, Mr.
Carter said, the Pentagon’s spending plans will safeguard money for
personnel and hardware destined for the Asia-Pacific region.
“We have protected the newest stuff,” Mr. Carter said, noting that money
to buy aerial refueling tankers and a new bomber has not been cut. “And in
terms of posture, we are sending all of the newest stuff to that part of the
world,” he added, citing the deployment order for F-22’s, the Air Force’
s stealthy warplane. |
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