Carter Describes Asia-Pacific Strategy in New Delhi

NEW DEHLI, July 23, 2012 – Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter today described the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy during a speech to Indian defense industry representatives, journalists and others here.
Setting the context for the U.S. desire to improve its military cooperation with India, Carter explained that two central tenets for the new U.S. defense strategy are an increased focus on the Asia-Pacific region and a new approach to security cooperation through enhanced partnerships with other nations.
“The last 10 years have had a profound impact on world affairs, affecting the United States but also countries across the Asia-Pacific and around the world,” he noted.
Carter said that after a decade of conflict, the United States has ended the Iraq War and, with coalition partners, is transitioning security responsibility in Afghanistan to that nation’s own forces over the next two years.
“But while we’ve been fighting insurgency and terrorism there, the world has not stood still, our friends and enemies have not stood still, and technology has not stood still,” he noted. “The successes we’ve had in Afghanistan, and in counterterrorism, mean that we can now focus our attention on other opportunities and challenges.”
A second strategic force shaping future U.S. strategy, Carter said, is the need to keep the nation’s fiscal house in order, as outlined under the Budget Control Act that Congress passed last year.
“While the U.S. base defense budget will not go down under this plan, neither will it continue to rise as we had earlier planned,” the deputy secretary noted. “But the wind-down of Iraq and Afghanistan gives us capacity to turn the strategic corner without an ever-rising budget.”
Strategic history and fiscal responsibility led U.S. leaders to design a new 21st century defense strategy, he said.
President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta steered that effort, and the resulting strategy will build a force for the future that will be what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey calls the Joint Force of 2020, Carter said.

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