Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring, Washington Times

After years of conducting counterinsurgency operations while being largely being left out of the Pentagon’s new strategy for Asia called “Air Sea Battle,” the U.S. Army is being urged to play a greater role in the region.

A new report by the CNA Corp., a federally-funded think tank, is urging the Army to adjust its forces for a greater role in maintaining peace and stability in Asia, mainly against the growing threat from China and continued dangers posed by North Korea. …

The report says North Korea remains the biggest threat to the region. It quotes a senior U.S. Pacific Command officer as saying the major worry is “a 28-year-old five-star general with nukes,” a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. A Chinese war over Japan’s Senkaku islands, a Taiwan conflict, or in the South China Sea is another danger that could involve Army forces.

Army forces can provide missile and air defenses to U.S. and allied forces in Asia and could play a “forced-entry role” in the region to prevent the takeover of strategic choke-points. Army communications also could contribute in a crisis.

The Air Sea Battle concept was unveiled in February 2010 as an Air Force and Navy plan to break through China’s so-called “anti-access” and “area denial” weapons — missiles, submarines, anti-satellite weapons and cyber warfare capabilities — that are designed to drive U.S. forces from the Asia Pacific. The concept called for improving bombers and aircraft along with naval forces that could strike targets deep inside China to quickly defeat Beijing in any future conflict. …

This year the Pentagon did away with Navy- and Air Force-dominated Air Sea Battle and renamed it the “Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Common,” known as JAM-GC.

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