US Stealth Jets To Surround China By 2017 [Report]

The United States has made a strategic decision to project their power into the Pacific theater, specifically to counter the strongest military in the region, China. Reports from America’s top military planners are saying that by 2017 the entire country of China will be surrounded by US stealth aircraft capable of avoiding enemy radar. The stealth squadrons will include F-22 Raptors, B-2 foxed wing fighters, and a fleet of Marine F-35 Joint Strike fighter aircraft.

David Axe from Wired notes that in his many interviews with top players at the Department of Defense have hinted to a “strategic pivot” from the Obama administration was all just smoke and mirrors and that the US considers Asia to be one of its top priorities for the future.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had announced a decision in June to focus more than 60 percent of America’s warships in the Asia-Pacific by 2020. He said the move had nothing to do with China but would position American fighting power equally throughout the world.

Panetta has said in a press conference at the time:

“Some view the increased emphasis by the United States on Asia-Pacific as a challenge to China, I reject that view entirely. We’re going to continue to invest in the region [but] It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of focus.” He further said at The National Press Club “[W]e still have to maintain our global leadership and presence by building innovative partnerships and partner capacity across the globe and using these innovative rotational deployments as a way to do exercises and training with other countries, developing their capabilities so that they can help provide for their own security.”

8th Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Stephen Wilson told Air Force Magazine that fleets “will rotate to forward operating locations all over the world in small numbers for a few weeks at a time. beginning with a short Pacific deployment.”

China is considered to be the largest economic rival of the United States. While that may tie the two countries together and lessen the likelihood of a conflict, Chinese resource attainment and the desire for regional domination could lead to increased tension between the two nations.

China has also announced that within the next five years its first aircraft carrier will be operational and ready for deployment anywhere in the world. China has also announced that it has developed two stealth aircraft of its own that are ready to be put into the hands if their military. They have also been rumored to be working on a stealth cruise missile capable of taking out an aircraft carrier.

Do you think china and the United States will eventually get into a military confrontation?