As Kaleikoa Kaeo points out, if you imagine the U.S. military in Hawai’i to be a monstrous he’e (octopus) with tentacles strangling other lands and peoples around the Asia-Pacific region, its tentacles can regrow if they are cut off.  The Washington Post reported that the Philippines government may allow the U.S. to expand its military presence in the Philippines, despite U.S. bases having been thrown out twenty years ago:

Two decades after evicting U.S. forces from their biggest base in the Pacific, the Philippines is in talks with the Obama administration about expanding the American military presence in the island nation, the latest in a series of strategic moves aimed at China.

Although negotiations are in the early stages, officials from both governments said they are favorably inclined toward a deal. They are scheduled to intensify their discussions Thursday and Friday in Washington prior to higher-level meetings in March. If an arrangement is reached, it would follow other recent agreements to base thousands of U.S. Marines in northern Australia and station Navy warships in Singapore.

Among the options under consideration are operating Navy ships from the Philippines, deploying troops on a rotational basis and staging more frequent joint exercises. Under each of the scenarios, U.S. forces would effectively serve as guests at existing foreign bases.

The sudden rush by many in the Pacific region to embrace Washington is a direct reaction to China’s rise as a military power and its assertiveness in staking claims to disputed territories, such as the energy-rich South China Sea.

After 9/11/2001, the U.S. began to creep back into the Philippines under the guise of fighting a second front in the Global War on Terror:

The Pentagon already has about 600 Special Operations Forces members in the Philippines, where they advise local troops in their fight with rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda. But the talks underway between Manila and Washington potentially involve a much more extensive partnership.

However, the nature of these new proposed bases is changing:

Instead of trying to establish giant bases reminiscent of the Cold War, however, Pentagon officials said they want to maintain a light footprint.

“We have no desire nor any interest in creating a U.S.-only base in Southeast Asia,” said Robert Scher, a deputy assistant secretary of defense who oversees security policy in the region. “In each one of these cases, the core decision and discussion is about how we work better with our friends and allies. And the key piece of that is working from their locations.”

The distinction is critical in the Philippines, which kicked the U.S. military out of its sprawling naval base at Subic Bay in 1992 after lawmakers rejected a new treaty. Along with the nearby Clark Air Force Base, which the Pentagon abandoned in 1991 after a volcanic eruption, Subic Bay had served as a keystone of the U.S. military presence in Asia for nearly a century.

 READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

The New York Times article “Afghanistan’s Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces” paints a disturbing picture of the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan:

American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

Underscoring the danger, a gunman in an Afghan Army uniform killed four French service members and wounded several others on Friday, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan, prompting the French president to suspend his country’s operations here.

The level of animosity between U.S. and Afghan people was exacerbated by the recent video clip of U.S. troops urinating on Taliban corpses:

One instance of the general level of antipathy in the war exploded into uncomfortable view last week when video emerged of American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Although American commanders quickly took action and condemned the act, chat-room and Facebook posts by Marines and their supporters were full of praise for the desecration.

The article was based on a classified report “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility” that was conducted by a behavioral scientist who surveyed 613 Afghan soldiers and police officers, 215 American soldiers and 30 Afghan interpreters who worked for the Americans. It was blunt in its assessment of the situation and sharply critical of public statements to downplay the killings as isolated incidents:

“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” it said. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest,” said the report, and it played down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.

[…]

The classified report found that between May 2007 and May 2011, when it was completed, at least 58 Western service members were killed in 26 separate attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police nationwide. Most of those attacks have occurred since October 2009. This toll represented 6 percent of all hostile coalition deaths during that period, the report said.

Story Highlights

• USARPAC commander stresses significance of Hawaii to USARPAC
• U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii maintains successful partnership with local community
• Soliders from USARPAC have played critical role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — Lt. Gen. Francis J. Wiercinski joined senior military leaders of the Pacific Command at the 11th annual Hawaii Military Partnership Conference Jan. 5 in Waikiki.

Wiercinski, the U.S. Army Pacific commander, and other PACOM component commanders from each of the services based in Hawaii, presented an overview of current and projected posturing of the U.S. military in Asia and the Pacific to the Military Affairs Council, the Chamber of Commerce and other officials.

Wiercinski stressed the importance of Army forces in the Pacific.

“I’m here today to talk about the Army,” he said. “What is a fact, is that in a geopolitical and economic sense, the Pacific is the future. And it is, in this century because you are seeing a fundamental shift from Europe to the Pacific of our forces, of our priorities and where we’re headed.”

He stressed the significance of Hawaii to USARPAC.

“Obviously our center of gravity is here in Hawaii. It’s where the majority of our forces are, it’s where the majority of our families live, it’s where our headquarters are located. But we have forces prepositioned and stationed around the entire Pacific realm.”

Solider deployments from USARPAC have played a critical role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wiercinski said. Since 2001, USARPAC has deployed 115,000 Soldiers from the U.S. Army Pacific into those areas.

The commander also praised the success of U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii and its partnership with the local community.

“Our garrison here in Hawaii is the fourth largest garrison that we have in the Army. Just like we’ve signed a U.S. Army Covenant to our Families and our Soldiers, we’ve signed a Hawaii Covenant that is also a commitment to the people here in Hawaii, the local community and the ohana that we all belong. We have many forums that we conduct monthly, quarterly and yearly to make sure we’re staying on that path to meet our requirements and responsibilities. Some of the things that we do is teaching partnership and watching out for the environment and culture that is so rich here in Hawaii,” he said.

The keynote speaker at the conference was Adm. Robert F. Willard, U.S. Pacific Commander. He said Hawaii, as the forward most state, is the most strategic in terms of entry into Asia and is an important region of the world.