U.S. defense chief calls China, India 'threats'

[W.G.Ewald]

china is the biggest threat to USA, not India.

No question about it.

 

[Eiffe]

No question about it.

Also let me add, that you need to get your act together. at the moment you have overstretched yourself and earning bad names in certain country while your rival is growing.
Only God can tell what you guys have in mind.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

pannetta has bad timing, India is being offered SCO membership by Russia and if India is pushed towards SCO it will be further decline for the west in economic,military terms as wells as resorurces.

You can't say it was bad timing because it should have never been said.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

You can't say it was bad timing because it should have never been said.

The timing is also bad from an economic point of view EU and US are both looking for free trade agreements with India. Maybe this came out of frustration from MRCA /F-35 negotiations not going well??

 

[kickok1975]

A lot American would consider China as threat, but India, maybe not.
India is no threat to US. What can India do to harm US world dominance? US GDP is almost 10 times bigger than India and its military bases are all over the world. While many Indian are lived upon their relatives in US to wire money back to India, American are not rely on India except occasionally talk with someone from an Indian call center.
American know little thing beyond their borders. Most of them probably can't correctly point where India is in world map or even know New Deli is Indian's capital. Yet their official called India a threat? It just simply shows there is something secretly cooking in their mind. Maybe it's just a friendly mistake since people will call China, India together all the time.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Also let me add, that you need to get your act together. at the moment you have overstretched yourself and earning bad names in certain country while your rival is growing.
Only God can tell what you guys have in mind.

"In God We Trust" is our motto.

 

[thakur_ritesh]

There is nothing like timing being bad, or it should have never been said. With the way the relations between India and the US have evolved, the way china is posturing itself, and added benefits that this relationship brings along, no one in India is going to take a note of this, if at all it will all be in hush hush voices, and no retaliatory reaction in the media, but yes the hawks within the MEA would have taken a quiet note.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

With China being the biggest buyer of US debt and biggest exporter of cheap goods
during a bad recession/depresssion the timing by Panetta was not just terrible but also
very irresponsible . I still don't know how USA plans to deal with the "China threat" while
being so closely economically linked to China. A war maybe viewed as a way to erase the
debt owed but it may also mean a collapse of the world banking system?

 

[Eiffe]

if panetta had included pakistan instead of India, then it would be OK. No need to correct such a statement.

 

[kickok1975]

Chance of war between US and China is close to zero in today's world. No matter how bitterly they claiming hate each other, they couldn't walk away from each other. China rely on US market for sure. But to some extent China is actually the biggest beneficiary of an US dominated world rule and got a free ride. Chinese CCP elite understand a disgracefully defeat by US military could end their regime and years of wealth accumulation process from dictatorship. They will prevent such scenario at all cost if necessary
US, on the other hand, is always a country driven by greedy big companies and double faced politician. They can say anything to get elected but at the end of the day, they serve to big companies and their own interest only. They need a country like China who relentlessly loans them money at fire low rate, work their ass off to make cheap, high profit margin product for them while remain a huge market for them to dump their products.

Chinese government and US government are actually in bed. They feed each other on the same mold. Watch very carefully this relationship drama, it always has high and low moment.

 

[satish007]

china is the biggest threat to USA, not India.

India is also taking more and more jobs supposed to be American and has Russia be it's good partner.

 

[Ray]

The US knows well that it will be a long time before India poses a 'threat' to the US.

More so, when the Indian Govts, be it any one, has a very cautious approach to all knotty problems and more in the grip of a Hamlet like mentality of double mindedness i.e. To be or Not to be is the question!

However. it would raise hackle to single out China, which actually is the intent and so, it is prudent to club India and give a unseen to others a heavy, slow wink and a wry smile.

The rational why the US is basing in Australia is given in Post #21 of the thread:

http://defenceforumindia.com/united...0-us-send-marines-australia-3.html#post351870

And the next two posts gives the general situation around the area.

 

[ejazr]

U.S. defence chief calls China, India 'threats'

Goof up or Freudian slip?

U.S. defence chief calls China, India 'threats' | Reuters

(Reuters) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta appeared to call China and India "threats" on Thursday, in comments that the Pentagon quickly sought to correct.

Panetta, addressing workers at a submarine plant in Connecticut, was talking about emerging challenges facing the United States as it looks beyond the Iraq and Afghan wars.

After detailing the threat of cyber warfare, Panetta turned to concerns over "rising powers."

"We face the threats from rising powers, China, India, others that we have to always be aware of," Panetta said.

"And (we have to) try to make sure that we always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we're never going anywhere."

His remarks came the same day that President Barack Obama said on a visit to Australia that the U.S. military would expand its role in the Asia-Pacific region despite budget cuts. Obama declared America was "here to stay" as a Pacific power.

Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby moved to correct the record, saying Panetta believed that relationships with both China and India were absolutely vital.

"Any suggestion that he was implying either country was a military threat is just false," Kirby said.

Kirby said Panetta was referring instead to the challenges that China and India face "within themselves."

"And (he was referring to) the challenges that we share with them as we try to forge better relationships going forward in a very turbulent, dynamic security environment," Kirby said.

Panetta made the comments after touring a nuclear-powered, Virginia-class attack submarine in the very final phase of construction. The U.S. submarine fleet is considered one of the most important counters to China's growing military might, which includes advances in missile technology that make surface targets easier to reach.

Obama also announced this week that the United States will extend the military's reach into Southeast Asia with Marines, naval ships and aircraft deployed to northern Australia from 2012.

China has questioned the deployment to Australia, raising doubts whether strengthening such alliances will help the region pull together at a time of economic gloom.

 

[Bangalorean]

^^ Already posted and discussed earlier today...

 

[LETHALFORCE]

India is also taking more and more jobs supposed to be American and has Russia be it's good partner.

2% of India's economy are jobs from outsourcing while 60% of Chinese economy is dependent on exports to USA. One factory a day leaves USA for China and has been doing so for a decade. India is nowhere close to this.

 

[Bangalorean]

India is also taking more and more jobs supposed to be American and has Russia be it's good partner.

As far as 'taking jobs' is concerned - let us get one thing clear: outsourcing of jobs benefits the outsourcer more than the one the job is outsourced to. No company is out to do charity. Everyone looks at their benefits and bottomline. A company will not outsource if they do not see tangible gains.

The Americans who are angry with outsourcing do not realize that the cheap goods they buy in Wal Mart are that cheap ONLY because the job was outsourced. Setting up a factory to manufacture the same item in the US would make the item unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans.

The benefits of software outsourcing are not as apparent as manufacturing outsourcing, but that is simply because software is intangible, and most people don't understand software and IT. People sit in Bangalore and write code to build the Oracle database - Oracle sells the database to thousands of companies in the US. Oracle is an indispensable tool for the companies which buy it - a non-computerized setup is unsustainable in today's world. That database would have been unaffordable to most companies which bought it, had the code been written completely in the US. Crude example, but it should help in understanding the dynamics to some extent.

 

[Yusuf]

Arre bhai log, understand this as part of the US hot and cold policy. One blows hot and tr other cold. The statement is just a nudge to India to consider US partnership and buy weapons, treaty including the pacific nations etc in a grand alliance against China. If not you are a threat. You are either with us or them kinda thing. This policy I use in my business too. I am the hot one and my business partner the cold.

 

[sayareakd]

We have not tested Agni 10 and they are already concern, out ATV is not even armed yet.

 

[Yusuf]

Leon Panetta's comments came at an awkward moment just when Barack Obama met Manmohan Singh and the two leaders agreed to boost ties at all levels.

http://toi.in/W2TmVa

 

[ejazr]

LF,

from what i have read about the foreign policy of a few republican presidential candidature hopefuls, if obama is bad, a few republican candidates are going to be many times worse. obama in front of those still comes across as a much saner bet.

So right Ritesh,

Obama is the most sane person to run Foreign Policy in America. If any of the current top Republican candidates become President and actually put into practice what they said, we are looking at the great American meltdown.

If the Bush 1 and 2 had not waster 4 trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan they way it has and instead focused single handedly on Pakistan right from the beginning followed by China, US and Obama would have been in a much better position.

---------------

Btw, I think this was a genuine slip here. However, I think a few months back we were discussing George Friedman's new book The Next Decade and he had highlighted some of the policy points for the US that seem to be moving in that direction although I would not assume this is exactly what is happening just yet.

(1) Germany and Russia getting closer. Resurgent Russia will be the biggest threat in the next decade.
(2) US should detach from India and stablise Pakistan to re-establish the "balance of power" in the subcontinent. Make India focus on China and Pakistan to build their air and land forces and their Navy weak so that the Indian Ocean can continue to be dominated by the USN
(3) Disengage with Israel and return the "balance of power" in the middle east that is skewed in Israel's favour and has seriously damaged US ability to maneuver in the region.
(4) China's growth will slow and can be easily be balanced by Japan, S. Korea and ASEAN with US backing. China seriously depends on the US for its economy and providing employment to its people. One of the reason why they buy US debt all the time.