MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. The United States is forming new proxy alliances in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR), oriented against China and Russia, military expert Alexander Stepanov has told TASS.

"The launch of the Balikatan-2024 multinational annual exercise under the auspices of the United States in the Philippines can be characterized as a new stage of militarization of the Asia-Pacific Region. The war games involve about 11,000 American and 5,000 Filipino servicemen - the largest contingent in their history - as well as Australian and French military personnel. In practice, this means the formation of a distributed network of new proxy alliances of anti-Chinese and anti-Russian nature under the auspices of the United States and a shift of the enemy's focus to the Asia-Pacific Region," said Stepanov, the program director of the Academy of Political Sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of Latin America under the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He added that 14 Asian and European countries were represented as observers. It can be said that after the change of political leadership in 2022, the Philippines is regaining its Cold War-era reputation of another "unsinkable aircraft carrier" of the United States in Southeast Asia, the expert said.

The Pentagon has formed a kind of strike group comprising Japan, the Philippines and Australia, which includes high-accuracy and long-range weapons systems and components of the US missile defense and air defenses, Stepanov added. Washington is forming, along with the earlier-established AUKUS alliance, a new SQUAD partnership involving the Philippines and Australia.

US exercises and threats

The exercise’s area included the islands of Palawan and Luzon, as well as the Batanes archipelago. The emphasis was placed on joint actions by several countries at the beginning of a full-fledged conflict, in which China was identified as the enemy, the expert specified.

"The Pentagon's task is to escalate the tensions in the region and provoke China to retaliate, primarily near the disputed Spratly Islands and Scarborough Reef," Stepanov noted.

For this purpose, through proxy forces, which already include the armed forces of the Philippines, the US will continue to trigger incidents and conflict situations, forcing the Chinese military command to retaliate, he believes. It is for this purpose that some stages of Balikatan 2024 are held outside the territorial waters of the Philippines in the China-disputed exclusive economic zone.

At the same time, the Philippines’s military potential is being beefed up with new weapons, including anti-ship missiles, Stepanov added. The most important element of the exercise from the strategic point of view was the transfer to the Philippines of a new ground launcher Typhon, capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles (having a range up to 1,800 kilometers) and Standard SM-6 multirole missiles (with a range up to 460 kilometers).

"The distance from the Philippines to China is about 1,300 kilometers and to the Spratly Islands - about 700 kilometers. Potentially Typhons are capable of hitting China's key maritime regional shipping routes and all major coastal port cities and military bases. This is a direct threat to China's national security," Stepanov added. The Chinese authorities have reacted negatively to the US plans for deploying new missile systems in the region, he emphasized.

France’s active participation is an important factor of the maneuvers in question. Also, the German military-industrial complex is keen to lay hands on a piece of the defense pie in the Asia-Pacific Region, the expert added. Against the backdrop of the imminent start of negotiations between France and the Philippines on a defense agreement, Germany has announced that it will hold land force exercises with Japan next year. What is noteworthy, this is going to be the first bilateral training of land forces. So far only sea and air exercises were held," he recalled.

"The question is: what is the purpose of practicing the cohesion of land components? The answer is obvious. For joint ground operations. In Taiwan and in mainland China, the DPRK, Russia’s Far East," the expert noted.

In the near future, Germany’s Air Force plans to conduct a series of exercises with countries located in the Asia-Pacific region.

"The formal reason for such a revision of the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific Region, if the Western military-political establishment is to be believed, is the ostensible protection of stability and international order based on some rules. However, the obvious goal is to increase military pressure on Beijing in the context of Washington's obvious setbacks in the East European theater of military operations," Stepanov concluded.