MANILA, Philippines (Reuters) — U.S. forces and their Asian allies are combat-ready after years of joint combat exercises, a U.S. general said Wednesday, adding that Russia’s retreat in Ukraine is a threat to China’s military. It added that it serves as a warning to potential Asian attackers such as China should be North Korea.
Among other things, the United States treaty allies such as the Philippines, Japan and Australia have “unified themselves and demonstrated that they will not tolerate aggression by those nations who have decided to change the world order here,” Major General Joseph said.
Asia has no counterpart to NATO, the 30-nation military alliance whose mostly European members defend each other against outside attack, and the US network of treaty alliances and defence partnerships that maintain international order. It provides protection, he said. 25th of March and April and Commander Ryan of the Philippine Forces.
The Philippines, Asia’s oldest treaty ally and previously home to the largest U.S. naval and air force bases outside the mainland United States, will see more visiting U.S. troops stay in rotating batches, with at least nine Philippine weapons and combat operations. Allows you to keep your equipment. Prepositioning military camps as part of the 2014 defence agreement The Philippines’ decision to allow a broader US military presence was announced last week during a visit to Manila by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
In the wider Asia-Pacific region, Washington has strengthened a series of alliances to counter the threat posed by increasingly belligerent China and North Korea.
China frowns on combat exercises involving Americans in coastal areas overlooking the South China Sea, Washington’s meddling in Asian conflicts, and its routine attacks on U.S. warships and jet fighters to make the region dangerously militarized. accusing it of becoming.
More recent venues of large-scale exercises by American and Filipino forces included coastal Philippine provinces close to the disputed South China Sea, where China has taken increasingly assertive actions to cement its territorial claims, and in the northern Luzon region, which lies across a narrow sea border from Taiwan.
The U.S. and the Philippines have agreed to hold about 500 small and major combat exercises in 2023 and expand annual military drills following disruptions caused by two years of coronavirus lockdowns, according to Philippine military officials.
While military commanders say the joint exercises are not directed against any particular country, Ryan said China’s increasingly aggressive actions were an alarming reality the region should brace for.
The Philippines filed nearly 200 diplomatic protests in 2022 alone against China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea, a resource-rich and busy waterway where Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also lay overlapping territorial claims.
Asked if U.S. forces and their Asian allies were ready to respond if a major crisis similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine breaks out in the region, Ryan said, “Absolutely.”
It was also crucial that the United States and NATO had helped train Ukrainian troops and enhanced their capabilities to deal with security contingencies for years before Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. On the 24th of 2022, he said:
“I think our allies in the region respect sovereignty, freedom and independence, and our opponents shouldn’t take that lightly,” Ryan said.
