Daily Management Review

Review Of Its Global Force Deployment Being Done By US To Counter China, Says Mike Pompeo


06/26/2020




Review Of Its Global Force Deployment Being Done By US To Counter China, Says Mike Pompeo
In order to appropriately posture the deployment of forces, the United States is reviewing its global force deployment so that it is bale to counter the increasing threat of China’s People’s Liberation Army particularly in the Asian region for countries such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, said the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
 
The comment was made by Pompeo during a question posed to him at the virtual Brussels Forum 2020 of the German Marshall Fund
 
“We’re going to make sure we’re postured appropriately to counter the PLA. We think that the challenge of our times, and we’re going to make sure we have resources in place to do that,” Mr. Pompeo said.
 
He said that review of posturing its arm forces is being done as directed by the US president Donald Trump and the reduction of the number of US troops in Germany from about 52,000 to 25,000 is a part of that review.
 
Ground realities would dictate the actual force posture, Pompeo said. “In certain places there will be fewer American resources. There’ll be other places — I just talked about the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, so now threats to India, threats to Vietnam, threats to Malaysia, Indonesia, South China Sea challenges, the Philippines,” he said.
 
“To the extent that that changed, the difference in what the US decided to do impacts adversely a threat some place, it may be that other nations need to step up and take responsibility for their own defense in ways that they hadn’t done previously. So, we want to do this in full consultation with all of our partners all around the world, and certainly our friends in Europe,” Pompeo said.
 
The decision of reducing US troops from Germany by Trump has been criticized over arguments that it would increase the threat to Europe from Russia.
 
However Pompeo disagreed with that argument.
 
He said that a considerable amount of time has elapsed since the US last conducted a strategic review of its force posture all across the world. The last time it was done was about two and half years ago such as with respect to using its forces in Africa or Asia or the force presence that US has in the Middle East and in Europe.
 
“We began to say these are often decisions that were made in a different time. Should we reallocate those a different way? Should we have a different composition of those forces? Everyone always wants to talk about ground troops. I get it. I was a young tank officer. You described that. There’s nothing I like as much as a good M1 tank,” Pompeo said.
 
“But it’s often the case that the capacity to deter Russia or other adversaries isn’t determined any longer by just having a bunch of folks garrisoned some place. So, we really went to back fundamentally relook, what is the nature of the conflict, what’s the nature of the threat, and how should we allocate our resources, whether that’s our resources in the intelligence community, our resources from the Air Force or the Marines and Army,” Mr. Pompeo said.
 
The Chinese army was criticized last week by Pompeo, blaming it for escalating the tensions at the border with India as well as militarising the strategic South China Sea. The ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) was also described by him as a “rogue actor”.
 
(Source:www.thehindu.com)