WASHINGTON – Discreet talks were under way today between senior advisers to the Pentagon and to the Indian government on the prospects for a new security system for Asian-Pacific republics, a kind of Asian NATO, anchored by the United States and India.
The idea comes as the Pentagon is preparing major shifts in the deployment of its forces in the region, including the movement of U.S. Marines from bases in Okinawa, Japan, to Australia, and the use of new basing facilities in Singapore and the Philippines.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz left Washington today for a five-day trip to Japan, South Korea and Singapore, where this re-alignment of U.S forces in the Pacific will be high on his agenda.
