Pentagon analyzing potential China-India tensions
The Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment is continuing its focus on China as one of the nation's primary future trouble spots, as it has commissioned two studies of Chinese relations and intentions, military contract records show.
ONA is a Pentagon think tank chartered with the task of studying potential future trouble spots and shaping the military response to them. It has long predicted problems with China over the nation's growing military and demand for natural resources to fuel its manufacturing economy. A Washington Post report in August 2012 quoted a foreign policy strategist calling ONA the "Office of Threat Inflation" for its fixation on China and promotion of a military strategy called Air-Sea Battle.
In recent weeks, the office has commissioned studies on "Mining the Gaps in Chinese Strategic Discourse" for $199,800 from a Georgia firm called Joint Management Services, which is run by Georgia Tech professor Michael Salomone, and a $220,000 contract to the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, for a study on issues in the strategic contest between China and India.
China and India have long had a tense relationship, including a brief 1962 war over the nations' border in the Himalayan Mountains. China has been a longtime supporter of Pakistan, India's western neighbor. Both nations have rapidly growing economies that compete for many of the same natural resources.
The Hudson Institute, which contains several ONA alumni, has a long record of viewing China's activities with concern and skepticism. Recent articles published by Hudson scholars include those entitled "China's Growing Challenge to U.S. Naval Power," "Beware a Revanchist China" and "China's Cyber Spies are Stealing More Than Secrets."
Such concerns have gained attention at the White House. In November 2011, President Obama announced a "pivot" of U.S. focus toward Asia, including the stationing of what will eventually be a 2,500-Marine unit in the northern Australian city of Darwin. Such a move, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, was "entirely appropriate. Without such a move, there was a danger that China, with its hard-line, realist view of international relations, would conclude that an economically exhausted United States was losing its staying power in the Pacific."
The Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment is continuing its focus on China as one of the nation's primary future trouble spots, as it has commissioned two studies of Chinese relations and intentions, military contract records show.
ONA is a Pentagon think tank chartered with the task of studying potential future trouble spots and shaping the military response to them. It has long predicted problems with China over the nation's growing military and demand for natural resources to fuel its manufacturing economy. A Washington Post report in August 2012 quoted a foreign policy strategist calling ONA the "Office of Threat Inflation" for its fixation on China and promotion of a military strategy called Air-Sea Battle.
In recent weeks, the office has commissioned studies on "Mining the Gaps in Chinese Strategic Discourse" for $199,800 from a Georgia firm called Joint Management Services, which is run by Georgia Tech professor Michael Salomone, and a $220,000 contract to the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, for a study on issues in the strategic contest between China and India.
China and India have long had a tense relationship, including a brief 1962 war over the nations' border in the Himalayan Mountains. China has been a longtime supporter of Pakistan, India's western neighbor. Both nations have rapidly growing economies that compete for many of the same natural resources.
The Hudson Institute, which contains several ONA alumni, has a long record of viewing China's activities with concern and skepticism. Recent articles published by Hudson scholars include those entitled "China's Growing Challenge to U.S. Naval Power," "Beware a Revanchist China" and "China's Cyber Spies are Stealing More Than Secrets."
Such concerns have gained attention at the White House. In November 2011, President Obama announced a "pivot" of U.S. focus toward Asia, including the stationing of what will eventually be a 2,500-Marine unit in the northern Australian city of Darwin. Such a move, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, was "entirely appropriate. Without such a move, there was a danger that China, with its hard-line, realist view of international relations, would conclude that an economically exhausted United States was losing its staying power in the Pacific."
