Part 1

Friday, December 30, 2011
U.S. and NATO are on the march worldwide
(U.S. Navy photo)
Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

There is something big brewing across the globe and it does not look good. India, Japan and Australia are strengthening trilateral ties while the United States and NATO are looking to firm up alliances between them all along with Ukraine and Armenia.

This comes soon after the United States announced they are going to place 2,500 Marines in Australia, in addition to cutting-edge fighter jets and transport planes, and Australia announced they are going to purchase $950 million in military equipment.

This is a large and quite complex picture that requires a great deal of reading and research and I recommend that everyone check out my sources and come to their own conclusions.

I can only speculate as to the purpose of these geopolitical developments and I would love to hear what my readers think as well so please email me if you care to share your analysis.

I will be going country by country and breaking down these latest developments in order to present to you the most complete information I can, but I am sure this is far more intricate than even I realize at this point.

India-Japan-United States

Japan is reportedly partially lifting their 40-year-long, self-imposed ban on arms trade which began in 1967.

The ban stated that they could not buy or sell arms in concert with nations that had Communist governments or nations at war.


Slowly, Japan ceased all military cooperation with every nation, aside from the United States of course.

This is seen as a move to not only expand military cooperation but also to allow for Japan to get in on the controversial European Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) project.

Despite the ban on a great deal of arms trade, in the 1980s Japanese corporations outfitted the United States with some 15 new technologies for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

The SDI was proposed in 1983 by the President at the time, Ronald Reagan, and was derisively called “Star Wars” by the program’s many detractors.

Now, Japan, in a partnership with the Unites States, is in the process of creating a unit for a new, upgraded SM3 ship missile which is expected to become a key component in the European ABM system, according to the Voice of Russia.

The head of the Center for Japanese Studies, Valery Kistanov, said:

'Above all Japan wants to strengthen its military alliance with the US. Japan needs it amid current instability in the Asian Pacific region.

It is concerned about the so-called Chinese military threat and the situation on the Korean peninsula after the death of Kim Jong-il. The government’s recent move is probably intended to show that Tokyo is loyal and committed to its alliance with the US,' Kistanov added.

There is also the notable factor of a growing close cooperation between Tokyo and Brussels – the location of the headquarters of NATO – which would greatly contribute to a greater presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

This is just another instance of NATO mission creep far beyond what the alliance was originally intended to do, and as you will see, this is expanding to a disturbing degree just as we saw in the case of Libya.

Japan is also greatly strengthening ties between India, starting with a 2008 Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation which was modeled on a 2007 defense-cooperation accord with Australia.

This treaty later spawned a similar accord between India and Australia in 2009, leading to circular ties which are now developing into trilateral relations.

Japan is also reinforcing economic ties with India with a free-trade accord known as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which became active a mere three months ago.

CEPA covers over 90 percent of trade and even spreads into the sectors of services, rules of origin, intellectual property rights, investment, customs regulations and other related trade issues.

This agreement is intended to strengthen bilateral trade between the two nations in order to reduce trade with China, which still outweighs trade between Japan and India by a large margin.

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/...worldwide.html