Defense Expenditures to Be Cut by $450 Billion; Asia-Pacific Still Navy's Main Focus

The highest commander in the American Navy, Jonathan Greenert, indicated on Wednesday that even though the Defense Department’s budget is being reduced to the point where the U.S. may reduce its global role, America still sees the Asia-Pacific region as that of the highest strategic importance.

Following China’s emerging and continuously expanding military power, President Obama’s advisers and high-level military staff have for the past few years viewed this region as critical to American national security.

The recently appointed commander of the U.S. Navy Jonathan Greenert also holds this opinion. He said that the U.S. defense budget is increasingly tight, but the plan for the Asia-Pacific region to be a priority won’t go off track.

Greenert, via video conference, told the reporter: “Asia is definitely a priority area, the navy will make a corresponding adjustment.”

He said the navy’s USS Washington aircraft carrier is at present stationed full-time in the Pacific Ocean. Ten years ago there was only an aircraft carrier stationed here 70 percent of the time.

American officials have promised to expand the forces stationed in Southeast Asia. As for the South China Sea, which China claims sovereignty over, America also says it will defend those waters’ “freedom of navigation.”

Greenert said that besides Asia, the American navy also must establish a military presence in other parts of the world, but because of the tight budget, when carrying out military operations or joint military exercises with partner countries, they must weigh their options.

He pointed out that if the American military leaves a power vacuum in certain regions, the problems in those areas may worsen, and in the end become bigger and more difficult to manage. He said consideration of the choices will determine the circumstances of how the navy deploys its forces around the world.

He said the Pentagon is preparing to reduce national defense expenditures by $250 billion over the next 10 years (about 567 billion Singapore Dollars). To continue to undertake its duties, it must find a set of innovative methods and deploy naval ships and personnel near strategic harbors.

Greenert used a new agreement signed by the U.S. and Spain as an example to point out that according to the agreement, under NATO’s new Ballistic Missile Defense System, four American destroyers will be stationed in the Port of Rota, Spain, as a more efficient front-line deployment, saving time, fuel and labor expenses.

He said compared with 10 years ago, the navy’s transferable warships and personnel have both decreased.

According to the Navy’s data, in 2001 the Navy fleet had 320 warships and 375,000 troops. The current strength has been reduced to 284 ships and 325,000 personnel.

Greenert revealed that if the Navy withdraws from Afghanistan in 2015 as planned, whether the aircraft carrier stationed there will be withdrawn has still not been decided by American officials.

America has 11 active duty aircraft carriers. Experts believe that in order to reduce the budget, America might subtract one.

When talking about reducing the number of aircraft carriers, Greenert said to the reporter, “these issues have all already been brought up for discussion.”

Editor’s Note: The quotations in this article, accurately translated, could not be verified.