WHAT OSAMA HATH WROUGHT :

A spreading menace : By forging new alliances and strategic agreements ostensibly to fight Islamic terrorism, the United States has, post-9/11, spread its military presence even to hitherto inaccessible areas in Asia. (RAHUL BEDI, July 20-August 02, 2002, Frontline : India's National Magazine)

The September 11 attacks on the United States have, ironically, proved to be a strategic bonus for Washington in extending its military presence across Asia. Through a complex web of alliances, ostensibly to fight the scourge of Islamic terrorism, and backed by economic sops and clever strategic agreements, the world's lone superpower has manoeuvred itself not only to exploit the vast energy resources of the Central Asian Republics (CARs), but also to encircle China, its potential economic and military rival.

Ten months after 9/11, U.S. military presence is palpable not only in Kabul, Islamabad and strategically located CARs such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - vital to U.S. oil conglomerates, anxious to begin laying pipelines to the Arabian Sea - but in varying degrees in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and to a lesser extent in Myanmar. Further east, the U.S. military is combating Al Qaeda cadres in the Philippines and bolstering its presence in Indonesia and the South China Sea.

You have to be somewhat ambivalent about all this, particularly if this massive projection of power were to continue for a period of years. But it does provide some perspective against which to judge the absurd claims that the EU and/or China can conceivably rival our military and geopolitical might. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2002 3:37 PM