U.S. to Expand Military Ties with Asia

AP News reported on the 17th that U.S. is rapidly expanding military ties with Asian countries along with allied Korea and Japan, as it fights terrorism.

In the most visible example, 600 U.S. military advisory began to conduct guerrilla operations with Filipino troops fighting Muslim extremists. U.S. advisory is regarded as a preliminary stage to expand U.S. military intervention in Indonesia and Malaysia, where terrorists are highly flourishing.

And U.S. is talking with Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia about ways to increase military cooperation to pursue terrorists’ network including Al Queda.

U.S. Congress passed a bill to establish a counter terrorism training program for officers in Southeast Asian armies, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is quietly beginning to arm and train counter terrorist teams and intelligence services of Southeast Asian countries, U.S. officials said.

On the contrary to the tone increasing cooperation in Asia, U.S. Defense Ministry is likely to cut back two thirds of the Peace-keeping Troops sent to Bosnia.

Previously U.S. has established close military cooperation with Southwest and Central Asian countries like Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

Even though Afghanistan war actually is over, U.S. seems to station the troops for a long time. U.S. sent 200 troops to Kyrgyzstan and established an air base near Bishkek capitol of Kyrgyz. China is irritated, as Kyrgyzstan is a strategic place bordering on China and Uzbekistan oil region.

Asian countries are compensated with military technology transfer and economic aid through the military cooperation with U.S. Pakistan and Uzbekistan were provided with enormous economic support for cooperating on the war against terror, and emergency aid is guaranteed for Singapore which provided U.S. Navy with ship docks.

Military experts said, "U.S., on the whole, is expanding posting troops in foreign countries as strongly as at any time in U.S. history."

eodls@donga.com