Transforming the US Military: Implications for the Asia-Pacific

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released its latest report, which examines how US defence transformation affects the leading nations and militaries in the Asia–Pacific region, and how those countries and their armed forces are responding to a transforming US military.

Under the stewardship of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, transformation became the guiding principle of the US military. Ongoing developments and breakthroughs in such areas as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, precision-strike, stealth technologies and command and control have made the US military the most formidable armed force in the world.

The report is authored by Richard A Bitzinger, a Senior Fellow with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) in Singapore. His work focuses on military and defence issues relating to the Asia–Pacific region, including the challenges of defence transformation in the Asia–Pacific, regional military modernisation activities, and local defence industries, arms production and weapons proliferation.

‘Defence transformation has major implications for the future course of US military and security policy, particularly when it comes to the Asia–Pacific region, says Bitzinger.

‘As the US continues to transform its forces, this process will have a profound impact on the ways in which US forces operate in the region, including their future basing and deployment, where and how they’ll operate, and what kind of equipment they’ll require.’

US defence transformation will affect a number of critical regional security concerns, such as alliance relationships and interoperability, regional competition and cooperation, and local force modernisation activities.

For Australia there might be hard choices to make in how far we should adapt our military capabilities given US transformation strategies and their implications. Mark Thomson, of ASPI, takes up this theme in a short counter-point to Bitzinger’s analysis.