US ‘Grooming Asia for War’ With Military Exercises

The United States is grooming Asia for a war with China, peace activist and political analyst KJ Noh told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday.

While discussing reports that the US will have nearly half of its aircraft carriers deployed in the Pacific, Noh noted that it is the largest gathering of US naval forces in the Pacific since World War Two. “Remember, it's not just five aircraft carriers. It's at least five to ten attack submarines, plus 30 service combatants, including Aegis destroyers and three to 500 planes, [including] F-18s and F-35s. So it's an extraordinary projection of firepower, and it has a very, threatening message,” he summarized.

“This also serves to normalize aggressive shows of force. It’s like grooming Asia for war and, of course, there’s the ratchet effect from that normalization … It just signals that the escalation is coming.”

Co-host Garland Nixon supposed that the move may have been made to assuage concerns from neocons that the US is focusing on Ukraine at the expense of China, a motivation that Noh agreed was “possible.”

But Noh noted that there are different groups of neocons in the US government, some that “are ready to cut their losses [in Ukraine] and pivot to war with China,” and another group, including recently appointed Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who is “very happy to have an ambidextrous war or just focus on China.”

The neocons “know their time is running out on Taiwan, their advantages are ticking down and so I think they want to pivot rapidly,” Noh argued. “China is a war that both parties can get behind as opposed to Ukraine, which they consider to be a tough slog because so many Republicans are opposed [to it].”

Asked by Co-host Wilmer Leon about a growing generational divide on foreign aid both among the public and in Congress, Noh attributed it to a technological gap. “Younger people are more likely to see social media, TikToks, [so] they’re probably getting a better sense that there is a real genocide [in Gaza] and that there are real losses happening in Ukraine. So they’re not buying it.”

That distrust also stems from economic factors that affect the young. “The younger generations see that there is no hope under neoliberal capitalism, that they have been thoroughly and totally messed with as far as the system is concerned. So they’re not behind it. They’re certainly not behind sending thousands or tens of thousands of their hard-earned money personally to a war that makes absolutely no sense,” Noh argued, adding that it is only “the ruling imperial elite and the aged … that [are] really still entranced by this madness.”