US pivot strategy in the Asia-Pacific threatens region: Peace activist

The Obama administration’s so-called pivot strategy in the Asia-Pacific is a provocative move that poses a threat to China and other countries in the region, an anti-war activist and journalist in Maine says.

US President Barack Obama’s pivot policy is being implemented to “surround and control China” and restore Washington’s “global dominance as China rises,” said Bruce Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

“China is really not a threat, it's Obama’s pivot of military forces into the Asia-Pacific which is the real threat,” Gagnon told Press TV on Tuesday.

“It’s totally crazy, it’s provocative, it’s highly expensive and it has serious environmental implications,” he added.

The Obama administration is trying to keep its focus on a widely advertised shift to Asia, which it has pursued since 2011. The White House argues that no region is more important to the United States’ long-term interests than Asia.

The peace activist said the US military budget last year was equal to 34 percent of global military spending, while China was at 12 percent and Russia at 4.8 percent. “So it’s clear that neither China nor Russia are a military threat to the US; that in fact the United States is the one causing the instability in this case and really can’t afford to keep doing it anymore.”

Gagnon said the Pentagon’s emphasis on large aircraft carriers in the Pacific is financially unsustainable and outdated and is bankrupting the country.

According to a report released earlier this month by the Rand Corporation, a global policy think tank, the US should decrease its emphasis on expensive aircraft carriers in the Asia-Pacific and spend more on submarines, space capabilities and ways to make air bases and aircraft less vulnerable to a Chinese attack.

Since 1996, China’s ability to threaten the US Navy surface fleet “at significant ranges from the mainland” has multiplied, the report said.

“Over the next five to 15 years, if US and (People’s Liberation Army) forces remain on roughly current trajectories, Asia will witness a progressively receding frontier of U.S. dominance,” the report noted.

A recent assessment released in April by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that the Obama administration’s Asia pivot has not been successful and American power and influence in the region has been declining.

Observers believe America’s efforts to increase its presence in the Asia-Pacific region is aimed at containing China.

China accuses Washington of meddling in the regional issues and deliberately stirring up tensions in the South China Sea.

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