America's military 'imperial perimeter'

[furtherfield]

Middle East

America's military 'imperial perimeter'
By Marco Garrido

New bases in the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan, along with its sizable military presence in Afghanistan, not
only enable the US to loom over Iran and Syria but put it right in Russia's
underbelly and at China's western frontier.

To its west, Russia is further pinched by US bases in a number of Central
and Eastern European states. Although temporarily set up to assist in the
campaign against Iraq, bases in such states as Romania, Bulgaria, and
Slovakia are likely to become more permanent, especially given their recent
inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

China finds itself likewise corralled. Looking east, it finds 47,000 US
troops in Japan and 37,000 in South Korea. If that weren't daunting enough,
it finds in Southeast Asia a security network woven out of bilateral access
agreements with the United States. Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, and the Philippines allow the US access to their ports, airfields,
repair facilities, and training grounds in return for aid, equipment, and
training. This web of access agreements, which provides for the rapid
deployment of US troops, in effect checks Chinese ambitions on Taiwan.

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