{"id":35328,"date":"2018-06-21T06:39:26","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T11:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35328"},"modified":"2018-06-21T06:39:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T11:39:26","slug":"the-pentagon-expands-its-provocative-encirclement-of-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35328","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon Expands Its Provocative Encirclement of China"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2018\/06\/20\/the-pentagon-expands-its-provocative-encirclement-of-china\/\">The Pentagon Expands Its Provocative Encirclement of China<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>It failed to make headlines, but the recent change in name of the U.S. Pacific Command is an ominous sign of a coming U.S. confrontation with China, argues Michael T. Klare. <span id=\"more-28597\"><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a momentous shift in American global strategic policy in a little noticed statement on May 30.<\/p>\n<p>From now on, he decreed,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), which oversees all U.S. military forces in Asia, will be called the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). The name change, Mattis\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pacom.mil\/Media\/News\/News-Article-View\/Article\/1537107\/pacific-command-change-highlights-growing-importance-of-indian-ocean-area\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explained<\/a>, reflects \u201cthe increasing connectivity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans,\u201d as well as Washington\u2019s determination to remain the dominant power in both.<\/p>\n<p>Such a name change may not sound like much, but someday you may look back and realize that it couldn\u2019t have been more consequential or ominous.\u00a0 Think of it as a signal that the U.S. military is already setting the stage for eventual confrontation with China.<\/p>\n<p>If, until now, you hadn\u2019t read about Mattis\u2019s decision anywhere, it\u2019s not surprising as the media gave it virtually no attention \u2014 less certainly than would have been accorded the least significant tweet Donald Trump ever dispatched.\u00a0 What coverage it did receive treated the name change as no more than a passing \u201csymbolic\u201d gesture, a Pentagon ploy to encourage India to join Japan, Australia, and other U.S. allies in America\u2019s Pacific alliance system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Symbolic Nod to India, U.S. Pacific Command Changes Name\u201d was the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-defense-india\/in-symbolic-nod-to-india-us-pacific-command-changes-name-idUSKCN1IV2Q2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">headline<\/a>\u00a0of a Reuters story on the subject and, to the extent that any attention was paid, it was typical.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"more\"><\/a>That the media\u2019s military analysts failed to notice anything more than symbolism in the deep-sixing of PACOM shouldn\u2019t be surprising, given all the attention being paid to other major international developments \u2014 the pyrotechnics of the Korean summit in Singapore, the insults traded at and after the G7 meeting in Canada, or the ominous gathering storm over Iran.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pentagon Expands Its Provocative Encirclement of China It failed to make headlines, but the recent change in name of the U.S. Pacific Command is an ominous sign of a coming U.S. confrontation with China, argues Michael T. Klare. U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a momentous shift in American global strategic policy in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[130,6963,14836,11761,827,1174,11226],"class_list":["post-35328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-china","tag-consortium-news","tag-james-mattis","tag-michael-t-klare","tag-united-states","tag-us-foreign-policy","tag-us-pentagon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35329,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35328\/revisions\/35329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}