Focus on Asia-Pacific as a long-term objective

• A congressional study published in August suggests that the U.S. considers the modernization of China’s navy an aggressive act.
• China has developed ballistic anti-ship missiles that are the first capable of striking aircraft carriers.
• China has launched three nuclear subs of its own design that are capable of firing nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles.
• The number of Chinese military-related patents has increased by an average of 35 percent per year during the last decade.
• U.S.  Marine Corps is moving troops to Asia/Pacific and will end up with 22,000 Marines west of the International Date Line
• The U.S. 7^th Fleet, the Navy’s largest and strongest force with more than 60 warships and around 40,000 personnel, is stationed in Japan and Guam.

Greater focus on Special Operations

• U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year.
• President Obama asked for a 5.7 percent increase in the Special Operations budget for fiscal 2011 (total $6.3 bil) plus an additional $3.5 billion in 2010 contingency funding.

Advanced drones

• The Air Force Chief of Staff General claims they will pursue “manned-unmanned” pairings, including using a manned Apache helicopter to control UAV or UAVs payloads.

Cyber War

• The U.S. military recently participated with other countries in the Cyber Endeavor- full on cyber warfare drill focused on protecting information in a collaborative environment.
• The Department of Defense is building cyber ranges (controlled battlefield environments) to evaluate cyber defense tools.

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