U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in November 2011: “As we end the war in Iraq and begin bringing troops back from Afghanistan, we are making an important pivot. The world’s strategic and economic center of gravity is shifting east, and we are focusing more
On the Asia-Pacific region.” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, a Californian, amplified this view as reported by an Australian radio public affairs program in January 2012, which quoted him as saying: “The U. S. military will increase its institutional wake and focus on enhanced presence, power projection and deterrence in Asia Pacific. This region is growing in importance to the future of the United States in terms of our economy and our national security” A base in Darwin, Australia, will be used as a staging area for U. S. Marines. California will figure prominently in America’s historic Pacific “pivot.” Because of North Korea’s and especially China’s arms buildups, the Pentagon is taking a keen interest in the state’s international security role.
China’s military buildup during the last two decades has focused on strengthening its sea power. A paper published in the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS) journal Strategic Insights (January 2003) notes a major change in Chinese military policy beginning in the 1990s. Since then “the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] has transformed its military focus from a ‘continental’ defense to a ‘peripheral’ defense of the coastal and maritime regions of China.”
That nation’s nuclear submarines, and launching of its first aircraft carrier in mid-2011, exemplify China’s augmented naval presence in Asian Pacific waters. With China and the United States being the strongest powers in that region, and given America’s security commitments there, the Pentagon wishes to reduce tensions and manage relations between the two governments. Accordingly, since 2005 Monterey’s NPS, a leading center of research and teaching related to Pacific affairs, has been facilitating talks between mid-level Chinese and American military strategists on prevention of an arms race and control of nuclear forces.
Thus, the U. S. Navy tracks changes in Chinese military policy and adapts its operations accordingly. The U. S. Pacific Fleet, the world’s largest naval juggernaut, is charged with defending America’s interests in that ocean basin. Though headquartered at Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i, San Diego is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, and its base accommodates one-sixth of all of America’s warships. Camp Pendleton, the West Coast’s largest Marine Corps amphibious training center, is located nearby. Other naval installations dot California’s coast up to Monterey’s NPS, plus a few air stations inland.
The best measure of the U. S. government’s concern about maintaining the Golden State’s military readiness to respond to developments in the Asian Pacific is federal spending. Despite the ending of the Cold War in the late twentieth century, and the resulting base closures in the state, in 2005 California still had more military installations and personnel than any other state in the nation, according to Department of Defense figures. The state’s 424 military facilities support nearly 200,000 service people and civilians. Pentagon spending in California in the early 2000s amounts to about $40 billion annually. Clearly, as in all of America’s major conflicts since the Spanish-American War of 1898, California remains the nation’s West Coast bastion.
World History
