The US government has begun a massive program to rewrite its naval strategy in the Asia-Pacific in response to China's expanding naval presence in the region.

China's growing naval might, and Beijing's escalating efforts to enforce its claim over much of the South China Sea, have sent Washington's naval commanders scrambling to modernize the US Navy and revise the US agenda for naval bases in the region, according to a global foreign policy advisory organization.

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Foreign Policy Magazine reports the US Navy's new program does not require large, permanent bases in the Asia-Pacific.  Instead, it adopts a strategy that builds on the US Navy's access to a number of airfields scattered across the increasingly contentious area. These include several airbases in the Philippines under a landmark defense treaty currently being reviewed by the Philippine supreme court. 

With US spy planes already operating in Japan, Singapore and the Philippines, US naval commanders are said to be considering additional naval facilities in the Pacific islands of Saipan and Tinian, over which the US has territorial claims.    

Some 60 percent of the US Navy's entire fleet is expected to be deployed to the Asia-Pacific by 2020 under the new program, chiefly because China's growing presence in the area has alarmed US naval planners.   

Washington insiders say the US Navy's new program came into being after the Pentagon realized that its Pacific fleet strategy had become obsolete, and could no longer guarantee minimal casualties in a conflict with China.

"Our military establishment came to this realization reluctantly," says former Pentagon senior official David Ochmanek. "The challenge is as much conceptual as it is hardware related."

Under the new program, US Navy Vice Admiral Thomas Rowden has called for more firepower across the Pacific, including arming logistics ships that are not usually equipped with weapons.  In keeping with this order, the US Navy is currently arming the guided missile cruisers of the fleet with converted Tomahawk missiles, new AEGIS missile defense systems, state-of-the-art radar, and improved anti-submarine weapons. 

"We are saving money, preserving force structure and generating options for leadership," Rowden said in a naval modernization ceremony held in California in September.  

Funding the new strategy has apparently not been easy.  In March, US chief of naval operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert complained to the US Senate committee on appropriations that budget shortfalls has forced the navy "to accept significant risks in key mission areas."  

To remedy the problem, Greenert has submitted a hefty 2016 budget proposal for the US Navy.  The proposed budget seeks, among other things, to increase US naval presence in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Beijing does not conceal the fact that it is girding its navy to become a major maritime power. Foreign Policy Magazine reports that policymakers in China have allocated about a third of the country's $165 billion defense budget for its new classes of destroyers, cruisers, submarines and its first aircraft carrier.

The build-up has precipitated grim speculations from Washington's military analysts. 

In a report issued last month for US lawmakers, Ronald O'Rourke of the US Congressional Research Service said China is building its naval capabilities to pursue two main objectives: to address its issues with Taiwan militarily, if need be; and to add muscle to its claims over the South China Sea. 

TagsUS, US naval base, Philippine South China Sea Arbitration, Tomahawk, warship cruiser, Western Pacific, Asia Pacific, People's Liberation Army Navy