Mullen Flies to China as U.S. Plans Naval Exercise

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. military officer departs for China July 8 in a trip designed to bolster a fledgling security dialogue with Beijing, even as a U.S. naval exercise in the South China Sea threatens to upstage his visit.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of staff, was to depart July 8 for the four-day tour that will include talks with senior officers and a visit to military units, officials said.

Mullen - who in May hosted his Chinese counterpart, People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde - "looks forward to continuing the engagement and dialogue" with Chen in Beijing, the Pentagon said in a statement.
But the admiral's trip coincides with a joint naval exercise set for July 9 with the U.S., Japanese and Australian navies in the South China Sea, where China has asserted territorial claims.
U.S. and Japanese officials said the exercise will include the Japanese destroyer Shimakaze, an American destroyer - the Preble - and a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat.
The ships will carry out communications training and other drills off Brunei, officials said.
The U.S. Navy played down the exercise, with a spokeswoman calling it a small-scale, "low-level" activity on the sidelines of an international defense exhibition in Brunei.
Lt. Commander Tamara Lawrence told AFP it was a "passing exercise," which typically includes flag semaphore drills, navigation and other exercises focused on "basic seamanship."
China has objected to previous U.S. naval drills in the South China Sea, and tensions in the strategic and resource-rich area have mounted in recent weeks.
The Philippines and Vietnam have expressed concern over what they call China's increasingly assertive stance in the area.
Mullen's visit also comes after the United States and the Philippines carried out joint naval exercises, which Manila and Washington insisted were aimed at deepening military ties and not related to worries over China.
China has insisted that it wants a peaceful resolution of territorial disagreements, but has warned Washington against involvement in the intensifying disputes in the region.
The trip to China is the first by a U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs since 2007, officials said.
Mullen "has a wide range of meetings with senior military officials scheduled, including visits to PLA military units," the Pentagon said.
The admiral was also due to address students at Renmin University in Beijing, it said.
As tensions in the South China Sea have mounted, the pace of China-U.S. military exchanges have also picked up, with the former U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates meeting Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie in Singapore in early June, following a January visit by Gates to Beijing.
Gates warned last month that clashes could erupt in the South China Sea unless nations with conflicting territorial claims adopt a mechanism to settle their disputes peacefully.

Gates: NATO Allies Must Pool Funds or Face Decline

WASHINGTON - European members of NATO need to pool their defense funds to bolster their declining military power, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.
The Libya air war has exposed serious shortcomings among NATO allies and European governments will have to agree on joint defense budget priorities to rectify the problem, Gates told AFP in an interview.

The Pentagon chief, who is due to retire this week after more than four years in the post, reiterated views he expressed in a blunt speech in Brussels earlier this month, in which he warned the alliance faced a potentially "dismal" future.
"The truth is, as I said in Brussels, there is a lot of military capability and a lot of money being spent in Europe," Gates said on Thursday.
"The problem is, is how it's being spent, and not a sufficient acknowledgement that every nation in NATO can't have a full spectrum capability militarily," he said.
European allies are spending more than $300 billion on defense, but often in an uncoordinated manner, he said.
"So at one point do countries begin to pool their resources, begin to pool their capabilities and say, together they can do this?" he said.
Gates added there are "several countries, and I'm not going to name any names, that can't afford F-16s (fighter jets), but they can pool their resources as they have on the C-17s, the cargo planes, then they have a real capability."
He said he was urging "greater integration within NATO."
In his Brussels speech on June 10, Gates said that many NATO members did not have the military resources to participate in the Libya air campaign and that failure to coordinate defense spending over the years had "short changed" operations.
He also warned that failing to pool funds and coordinate training and other efforts "bodes ill for ensuring NATO has the key common alliance capabilities of the future."
Gates' critique of NATO prompted a sharp response from French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week, who said the American defense secretary's comments reflected the "bitterness" of a future retiree.
"Mr. Gates was heading towards retirement and it gave him pleasure" to criticize the alliance, Sarkozy told a news conference Friday after a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels.
"You can't blame someone who's retiring for showing bitterness," he said, adding that what Gates said was "completely false."
The Pentagon chief's press secretary, Geoff Morrell, has declined to comment on Sarkozy's remarks.
In his Brussels address, Gates rebuked allies for what he called chronic underinvestment in defense, saying NATO members in the Libya campaign are running out of munitions and lacking surveillance aircraft and specialists to identify targets.
Senior British officers have warned that the Libya campaign is putting an increasing strain on the country's armed forces.

Chinese Avionics Advances Ripple Throughout Asia

ISLAMABAD - China's avionics industry is closing the gap with other avionics producers, with benefits flowing to Pakistan and new challenges emerging for the U.S.

Chinese aircraft are helping Pakistan maintain conventional deterrence toward India as New Delhi pursues cutting-edge technology to revamp its airpower. As a result, said Usman Shabbir, of the Pakistan Military Consortium think tank, the new "JF-17 Block II [combat aircraft] may see a Chinese AESA [active electronically scanned array] radar along with an IRST [infrared search and track] sensor, and an even better ECM [electronic countermeasures] suite."

Wider advances by China's aviation industry would result in "greater use of composites to reduce the overall airframe weight" for the JF-17 Block II, and also a thrust vectoring control engine; though Shabbir conceded the latter "has never been officially confirmed."

Analyst Kaiser Tufail said an AESA radar is "the way to go," and that "all future [radar] acquisitions or retrofits would be AESA, whether mechanically scanned or phased-array type."

Tufail said the current JF-17 radar, a variant of which is fitted to the Chinese Chengdu J-10 combat jet, is an interim solution "because the [Pakistan Air Force] had been unable to find a radar vendor who could sell cutting-edge technology at an affordable price."

Tufail said Pakistan's acquisition of advanced Chinese avionics should not be seen through the prism of Indian programs, such as the Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft program. Rather, he said, it should be seen as Pakistan's effort to keep pace with modern weaponry.

And China benefits from its collaboration with Pakistan.

"Traditionally, the Chinese aviation industry has found an excellent test bed in the PAF, and their products have been, and can be, proven in ways that are not possible with [China's Air Force], due to limitations of comparative analysis in truly operational scenarios and with respect to Western equipment that PAF operates," he said.

As a result, a "Chinese AESA radar would, therefore, be a synergetic success in partnership with Pakistan," he said.

However, it is unknown whether the new JF-17 Block II radars are variants of those fitted to the improved J-10B. If that is the case, analyst and Chinese specialist Andrei Chang said the new radar is unlikely to be an AESA type.

"The phased-array radar testing on the J-10B is a passive model," he said.

Chang said he does not think the Chinese have developed "a useful AESA radar for the JF-17 and J-10B," but they could in the future.

"I know they are researching AESA radars, but it takes time," he said.

China's technological advances give potential adversaries cause for concern, Tufail said.

"As in many other fields like space and information technology, China is making a mark in major ways which impacts geostrategic and security issues," he said. "Technological developments like AESA radars would, thus, certainly have a bearing on the comfort levels of countries that have an adversarial relationship with China."

The potential threat posed by Chinese advances in avionics is an issue Carlo Kopp of the Air Power Australia think tank has tried to raise.

"Chinese technology is a mix of reverse-engineered Western and Russian designs, and some often very good indigenous ideas," he said. The danger this poses is clear.

"As the Chinese advance and proliferate these products, they are increasingly narrowing the range of environments in which Western air forces and navies can operate," Kopp said.

CHINESE DEFENSES

"Today, only the U.S. F-22A [stealth fighter] and B-2A [stealth bomber] can penetrate Chinese airspace with impunity," he said. "All other Western designs, including the intended F-35 [Joint Strike Fighter] and existing F/A-18E, would suffer prohibitive loss rates" to surface-to-air missiles, he said.

Kopp's opinion of the F-35 is perhaps surprising, but he said he believes China's investment in more maneuverable aircraft will expose severe weaknesses.

"The notion that having a good AESA [radar] can overcome kinematic performance limitations in a design is predicated on the idea that your missiles are 100 percent effective in long-range combat," he said. "The evidence shows otherwise for the AIM-120 AMRAAM."

The approach that says "let the missiles do the turning," rather than the aircraft, "is a mantra in the F-35 and F/A-18 camps," Kopp said. "Unfortunately, it is wishful thinking by folks promoting obsolete designs. The mathematics and physics of aerial combat do not support this proposition."

Therefore, the strategic impact of China's advances will be substantial and exacerbated by poor long-term decision-making by the U.S., Kopp said.

"As China wholly recapitalizes its fleets, and exports these products, there will be an inevitable strategic impact, as the U.S. has been reluctant to export the F-22, has chopped F-22 production funds, and has no new products in the pipeline capable of robustly surviving against top-end Chinese products in combat," he said.

Kopp also blames the reluctance by Washington to share high-technology weaponry with allies that could check China's advance.

He singles out Defense Secretary Robert Gates for making decisions that will produce "a dangerous long-term strategic environment in Asia as China introduces and proliferates advanced technology, and the U.S. chooses for ideological reasons to no longer invest in advanced air power."

Gates Laments NATO's Military, Political Flaws

BRUSSELS - In his last official policy speech at the end of an 11-day tour, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates lambasted NATO for its shortcomings in terms of military capabilities and political will in Afghanistan.
In a speech at a high-level Security and Defence Agenda think-tank event in Brussels, Gates cited helicopters, transport aircraft, surveillance and reconnaissance, and intelligence as areas where NATO has struggled. Gates added that "similar shortcomings in capability and political will had the potential to jeopardize the NATO air and sea campaign in Libya."

Although NATO has achieved its initial objectives of grounding Libya's air force and reducing Moammar Gadhafi's ability to attack civilian populations, Gates said fewer than one-third of NATO allies had taken part in airstrike missions. "In the Libya operation, many allies are running short of munitions, requiring the U.S. to make up the deficit," he added.
Gates also said the emergence of a "two-tier alliance" of peacekeepers and those doing the hard combat missions is unacceptable.
Describing himself as the last senior leader to be a product of the Cold War, Gates issued a stark warning to European leaders: "The emotional and historical attachment U.S. leaders had with allies is ageing out. Decisions and choices [in the future] will be made more on what is in the best interests of the U.S. The drift of the last 20 years can't continue if we want a strong trans-Atlantic relationship."
Gates also noted that only five of the 28 NATO allies currently exceeded the agreed NATO benchmark of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. "Regrettably, the situation is highly unlikely to change. The question is how these dwindling resources are allocated," he said.
NATO should do more to pool and share resources, he added. "We should be alert to areas for trans-Atlantic cooperation, but there is a rich agenda for pooling in Europe that should get attention first," he said.
Both NATO and the European Defence Agency are currently working on potential areas for pooling and sharing. Gates cited NATO's Strategic Airlift Initiative and its Allied Ground Surveillance System as good examples of cooperation.
He said the U.S. has no problem with Europe's efforts to build up its own equipment defense market and that a robust industrial capability between the U.S. and its allies is very important.
Gates also said the U.S. government was looking at dramatic cuts in a wide range of programs. "Defense will have to bear some of that burden," he said.
Introducing Gates to the audience, former NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called for solidarity from NATO countries. He lamented the "uncoordinated budget cuts we're witnessing in NATO and the EU" and the lack of balance in burden-sharing between the U.S. and European allies.

NATO Nearing 'Decisive Blow' In Afghan War: Gates

KABUL - Defense Secretary Robert Gates, wrapping up a final visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief, said on June 7 that U.S.-led forces are on the verge of securing a "decisive blow" against the Taliban.
"I leave Afghanistan today with the belief that if we keep this momentum up, we will deliver a decisive blow to the enemy and turn the corner on this conflict," Gates told coalition officers in Kabul.

"And if we do, it will be because of the service and sacrifice of all of you," he said, before departing for Brussels.
During a four-day trip that took him to American bases in the south and east, Gates offered a cautiously optimistic forecast for the war effort, saying now was not the time to ease up on the Taliban-led insurgency.
Although the main purpose of his trip was to say goodbye to troops, Gates found himself sparring at a distance with White House aides who are pushing for a faster drawdown of the 100,000-strong U.S. force.
Gates' farewell remarks reflected his view that a troop surge in the nine-year war has begun to bear fruit and that a withdrawal, set to start in July, should proceed at a cautious pace.
His comments in recent days amounted to a rebuttal to some White House officials who believe the death of Osama bin Laden and a ballooning budget deficit demand a steep reduction in the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
Appointed by former President George W. Bush in December 2006, Gates has spent his time at the Pentagon consumed with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Brussels, Gates is due to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers on June 8 and June 9, where the drawdown in Afghanistan and the alliance air campaign in Libya will top the agenda.

Robert Gates' Victory Lap

Before stepping down as U.S. secretary of defense in a few weeks, Robert Gates is taking a victory lap, warning the country - and implicitly, his successor, Leon Panetta - that cuts in military spending would increase risk to the force and the country. But the secretary exaggerates the threats facing us, and he misconstrues the benefits that we derive from our enormous military.
Most important, Gates focuses on the risk of spending too little without considering the risks associated with spending too much.
During his long tenure as defense secretary, Gates could have overseen a serious review of roles and missions; he refused, believing that he could fend off deep cuts in spending while preserving a military posture designed to defeat the Soviet Union. His failure to re-evaluate the purpose of the U.S. military merely postponed the inevitable day of reckoning and has increased the risk that our overburdened force will be asked to do more with less.
Gates has scored some successes and deserves credit for his willingness to ax a few unnecessary and costly weapon systems. These decisions, Gates likes to claim, saved more than $300 billion. But that amounts to less than 5 percent of projected military spending over the next decade. Plus, a number of these programs were already slated for cancellation, the cuts might never materialize, and Gates intended that much of the savings from cuts be plowed back into the Pentagon, not returned to taxpayers or devoted to deficit reduction.
A military that costs less needs to be smaller and do less. Thankfully, we can cut military spending and reduce the burdens on the force without undermining U.S. security. Indeed, we are extraordinarily secure, by any reasonable measure.
What makes us secure? The combination of nuclear weapons and favorable geography. We can effectively rule out the prospect of land invasion (most countries can't), and a million-man amphibious operation from the sea is extremely unlikely. Any leader foolish enough to launch an overt attack on the United States would have to get past the Navy and the Air Force. These forces exist to deter attacks, and win a decisive military victory if deterrence fails.
Most of the growth in spending over the past decade, however, has gone to the Army and Marine Corps, to fight very different sorts of conflicts: nation-building operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that are indecisive by their nature. But as those missions draw to a close, both forces can be returned to pre-9/11 levels. After all, Gates has said that we are unlikely to attempt "forced regime change followed by nation-building under fire" any time soon.
This wise judgment reflects the fact that such missions are enormously costly, unpopular with the American people and unlikely to achieve their stated objectives in a reasonable amount of time.
Most important, they aren't necessary. Good counterterrorism, which is to say effective counterterrorism, is cheap. It includes operations that have successfully degraded al-Qaida's capabilities over the past decade - like the one that killed Osama bin Laden. These occasionally rely on the precise application of force. But stationing 100,000 or more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, or anywhere else for that matter, is at best irrelevant, and often counterproductive.
The U.S. needs to focus its military efforts in a few key areas that are vital to U.S. national security, and call on other countries to do more for their own defense and in their respective regions.
Gates suggests that shedding certain roles and missions, and shifting burdens to others, entails intolerable risks. People in other countries might choose not to direct some money from generous social welfare programs to defense. Perhaps they will refuse to share some of the costs of keeping the oceans free from pirates, or fail to keep local troublemakers in their respective boxes.
According to Gates, that is a risk not worth taking. He seems to believe that every problem, no matter how small or distant, will inevitably arrive on our shores. Therefore, we cannot rely on other countries to do more - or anything, really - to defend themselves and their interests. As he told graduates at the University of Notre Dame, "make no mistake, the ultimate guarantee against the success of aggressors, dictators, and terrorists in the 21st century, as in the 20th, is hard power - the size, strength and global reach of the United States military."
But our military power doesn't do all that he says that it does, and understanding the limits of that power is both prudent and wise. The United States is an exceptional nation, but we are not the indispensable nation.
Today, American taxpayers provide half of the world's military spending, while our share of the global economy has fallen to less than one quarter. It isn't realistic to expect 5 percent of the world's population to bear these costs indefinitely. Gates seems to think that it is, or, at least, that there is no alternative. But if there is no alternative to U.S. power, then that is largely a problem of our own making. And it is one that we can solve.
Gates failed to do so; it is not clear that he even tried. Here's hoping that his successor does.

Gates: New Weapons For 'Robust' US Role In Asia

SINGAPORE - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday vowed the U.S. military would maintain a "robust" presence across Asia backed up with new high-tech weaponry to protect allies and safeguard shipping lanes.

Seeking to reassure Asian allies mindful of China's growing power and Washington's fiscal troubles, Gates told a security conference in Singapore that Washington's commitment to the region would not be scaled back.

Instead, the U.S. military will expand its presence in Southeast Asia, sharing facilities with Australia in the Indian Ocean and deploying new littoral combat ships (LCS) to Singapore, where it has access to naval facilities, he said.

The LCS is a speedy, lighter ship designed to operate in shallow coastal waters.

Gates, who steps down at the end of the month after more than four years as Pentagon chief, said the U.S. military planned to deepen its engagement with countries across the Pacific, with more port calls and training programs.

The U.S. military will be positioned in a way "that maintains our presence in Northeast Asia while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean," Gates said.

The speech came as countries facing a rising China watch the United States for signs of its long-term security plans in Asia, amid mounting disputes over territorial rights in the potentially resource-rich South China Sea.

"The U.S. position on maritime security remains clear: we have a national interest in freedom of navigation; in unimpeded economic development and commerce; and in respect for international law," Gates said.

Citing investments in new radar-evading aircraft, surveillance drones, warships and space and cyber weapons, Gates said the United Sates is "putting our money where our mouth is with respect to this part of the world - and will continue to do so."

The planned weapons programs represented "capabilities most relevant to preserving the security, sovereignty, and freedom of our allies and partners in the region," he said.

The programs also include maintaining America's nuclear "deterrence" amid continuing concern over North Korea's atomic weapons.

Senior U.S. officers have long pointed to China's military buildup, saying Beijing's pursuit of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles as well as cyber warfare capabilities pose a potential threat to US naval power in the region.

Without naming China, Gates said the new hardware was a response to "the prospect that new and disruptive technologies and weapons could be employed to deny US forces access to key sea routes and lines of communications."

Although the Pentagon's budget would come under growing scrutiny and military spending in some areas would be cut back, Gates predicted that investments in the key "modernization" programs would be left untouched.

"These programs are on track to grow and evolve further in the future, even in the face of new threats abroad and fiscal challenges at home."

This would ensure "that we will continue to meet our commitments as a 21st century Asia-Pacific nation - with appropriate forces, posture, and presence", he said.

Looking back on US policy in Asia since he took over at the Pentagon in 2006, Gates said the military had bolstered ties with old allies, such as Japan and South Korea, as well with new partners, including India and Vietnam.

The speech reflected how Washington has sought to strike a delicate balance between countering a more assertive Chinese military with a bigger presence in the region while seeking to defuse tensions through dialogue and exchanges.

Gates, who held talks with his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie on Friday, said efforts to promote a security dialogue with China had borne fruit and that military relations had "steadily improved in recent months."

Gates To Reassure Asian Allies on Military Ties

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to reassure anxious allies in Asia this week that the U.S. military will maintain a strong presence in the region despite budget pressures at home, officials said.

The Pentagon chief will address the allies' concerns "head on" at a security conference this week in Singapore, said a senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
As Washington moves to tackle a ballooning deficit and debt, Asian allies fear a scaling back of the U.S. military's role just as China's armed forces take a more assertive stance, defense officials said.
"There's no doubt that the region has that concern, and I think it's one that we're well aware of, and hence it's one the secretary will want to address," the official told reporters.
Gates, who departs May 31 on his global tour, will seek "to assure the region that we will maintain our commitments in the region and that we have both the capability in addition to the will to do so," the official said.
In a speech in Singapore, Gates is "going to talk in greater detail than in the past about what we in DoD (Department of Defense) are doing to make that more tangible, specifically in terms of U.S. presence in the region," the official said.
Gates will stress that the United States is "not distracted" from defense issues in Asia despite crises elsewhere in the world, the official said.
In his last international trip as defense secretary before he steps down at the end of June, Gates will use the speech at the security summit in Singapore to discuss U.S. policy on Asia and the underlying principles that guide it, officials said.
After arriving June 2 in Singapore following a stop in Hawaii, Gates plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Liang Guanglie, to try "to build on the positive momentum that exists in the military-to-military relationship right now," a second official said.
Last year's conference in Singapore was marked by sharp exchanges between Gates and senior Chinese generals, who said U.S. arms sales to Taiwan remained a serious obstacle to building a security dialogue between the two countries.
But officials have cited positive signs more recently, with Gates having traveled to China in January and the People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde making a week-long U.S. visit earlier this month.
During his U.S. tour, Chen struck a mostly conciliatory tone and said his country had no plans to take on the American military in the Pacific.
In his talks with Liang in Singapore, Gates hopes to renew his proposal for a civilian-military dialogue that would address "sensitive security issues," including nuclear weapons, missile defense and cyber warfare, officials said. The Chinese have yet to agree to the idea.
The United States has also disagreed with Beijing over the South China Sea, saying it has a right to sail U.S. naval ships in the area and backing calls from smaller countries for a diplomatic arrangement to settle territorial disputes.
The Spratlys, a reputedly oil-rich South China Sea island chain, is claimed in whole or in part by China as well as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
At the Asia security conference, Gates plans to meet his counterparts from Japan, Australia, Thailand and Singapore as well as Malaysia's prime minister, officials said.
After Singapore, Gates was due to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, where the air campaign in Libya and the war in Afghanistan are expected to dominate the agenda.

U.S. Rolls Out Red Carpet for China Military Chief

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military will lay out the red carpet for China's military chief as Washington renews its effort to forge a defense dialogue with Beijing despite tensions and mutual distrust.
People's Liberation Army (PLA) Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde starts a week-long visit May 15 to the United States, the first trip to America by the country's top-ranking officer in seven years, officials said.

Chen will tour four military bases, deliver a speech to American officers and hold talks with his U.S. counterpart, Adm. Mike Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a senior defense official said.
"We've pulled out all the stops" for the visit, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
Military relations between the nations have been strained and lagged behind diplomatic and trade ties, with Beijing objecting to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan while Washington has voiced concern about China's military buildup.
Gates and other U.S. officials have appealed to China to agree to a more reliable dialogue that could help defuse tensions and avoid potential misunderstandings, similar to ties that were built up between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War.
"What we're really looking for is a relationship that there's some mutual transparency and trust developed between us. So that if there is some incident or some disagreement, it's a relationship that we can depend on," the official said.
The Pentagon did not expect a breakthrough during Chen's visit but the official said Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, hoped to persuade Chen to agree to more regularly scheduled discussions.
"We will discuss options for more contact, with some established rhythm, periodic phone conversations, something like that," he said.
The last U.S. visit by a senior leader from the PLA was in 2009, when Gen. Xu Caihou came to Washington and toured military bases.
When the U.S. defense secretary paid a high-profile visit to Beijing in January, the Chinese military upstaged Gates with an inaugural test flight of the country's J-20 stealth fighter.
Chen was expected to offer his view of military relations at a May 18 speech at National Defense University after holding talks May 17 with Mullen and senior military staff in the Pentagon's "tank."
Over the course of the week, the Chinese general is due to get a first-hand look at U.S. naval warships at Naval Station Norfolk, Va.; a "live fire" exercise at Fort Stewart, Ga.; fighter aircraft at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.; and the military's National Training Center in California.
Chen also plans to attend a concert May 16 at Washington's Kennedy Center with bands from the U.S. Army and the PLA performing. U.S. officials said it will mark the first time a PLA band has ever played in the United States.
Chen's visit comes after the United States said May 11 that it wanted to set guidelines with Beijing on the use of space, voicing worries that the Asian power is increasingly able to destroy or jam satellites.

U.S. to Bolster Security for SEAL Team: Gates

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates voiced concern May 12 about the safety of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden and said security would be stepped up for the commandos.
"When I met with the team last Thursday, they expressed a concern about that, and particularly with respect to their families," Gates told U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

He said he could not divulge details publicly but that "we are looking at what measures can be taken to pump up the security."
The raid against bin Laden's compound less than two weeks ago has sparked an avalanche of media attention around the secretive Navy SEAL "Team Six" that carried out the operation.
Reporters have traveled to Virginia to try to uncover more details of the SEAL team, which is based at Dam Neck, and retired SEALs are in high demand as guests for television news broadcasts.
"I think there has been a consistent and effective effort to protect the identities of those who participated in the raid. I think that has to continue," said Gates, whose remarks were carried live on the Pentagon's television channel.
He joked about how details of the raid leaked out even though there had been an understanding among the president's top deputies at a White House meeting to keep information about the operation secret.
"Frankly a week ago Sunday, in the (White House) situation room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden," he said. "That all fell apart on Monday, the next day."
The role of the more than 20 SEALs who carried out the helicopter assault on bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan was first publicly confirmed by CIA Director Leon Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden in the days after the raid.
Team Six is an elite unit drawn from the already elite ranks of the SEALs, an acronym for sea, air and land.
The unit is so secret that the military does not openly acknowledge its existence, but its reputation has taken on near mythic proportions and features in books, films and video games.

China Army Chief to Visit U.S. in May

BEIJING - China's army chief of staff will visit the United States in mid-May, the defense ministry said April 27, as the two countries try to bolster military relations despite their growing rivalry.

"Chen Bingde will pay an official, friendly visit to the United States from May 15 to 22," spokesman Geng Yansheng told reporters at the ministry's first monthly briefing, held in what it said was a move toward greater openness.

Geng said Chen would hold talks with Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; meet with military and political leaders; and visit military command centers, troops and academies.
"Chen's visit to the United States ... is one of the most important events in this year's Sino-U.S. military exchanges," Geng said, adding that it was the first in seven years by an officer of his rank. "It will play an important role in the healthy, stable development of Sino-U.S. military ties."
Tensions soared early last year when China suspended high-level defense contacts with the United States over Washington's sale of more than $6 billion in arms to Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its own territory.
Tentative plans for U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to visit were subsequently called off, but he finally came to China in January this year - his first trip to Beijing since 2007.
Geng's comments confirmed an earlier report by the official Xinhua news agency, which quoted Chen as saying that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan accounted for the "largest obstacle" in bilateral military relations.
But he added that ties between the two countries' armed forces "face good opportunities now," according to the report.
U.S. military leaders and China's neighbors are increasingly anxious about the pursuit by the People's Liberation Army of sophisticated missiles, satellites, cyber-weapons and fighter jets.
Amplifying these concerns, China last month announced a fresh double-digit hike in military spending in 2011 after funding slowed last year, saying the budget would rise 12.7 percent to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.7 billion).
But Beijing has repeatedly sought to alleviate these fears, stressing that the nation's defense policy is "defensive in nature."

New Wrinkle for Gates' Successor

The job facing the next U.S. defense secretary just became a little more daunting.
In addition to overseeing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, the successor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates will likely walk into the job at the end of the summer just as the Pentagon wraps up a "fundamental" review of its missions and capabilities to help identify $400 billion in savings in security spending over the next 10 years.
If the Defense Department wants the review to influence its 2013 budget submission, it will have to complete it this summer, defense analysts say. This means the next secretary will have to implement a plan in which he or she had little input.
The Pentagon maintains that a schedule for the review has not yet been established.
"It is going to take some time for it to be done thoughtfully and properly," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters after President Obama's April 13 speech on his deficit reduction plan.
In an April 18 email, Morrell said, "We haven't yet determined who is going to head up this effort and what its mandate will be, let alone how long it will take."
And Gates said during an April 21 press briefing that he has had only one meeting to discuss how to structure the review.
The administration has said that while the review will have no effect on the 2012 budget, it should be completed in time for the 2013 budget submission.
Defense experts said that if the White House truly wants to shape spending choices for 2013, the review needs to be completed before August, when the budget is already largely built by the services.
"If this is really going to influence the FY 13 budget, then they're going to need to finish the review by June or July," said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Under this schedule, the review's conclusion would coincide with Gates' departure, which many believe is only a few months away.
"It's a little hard to understand why an outgoing defense secretary would be doing a strategic review for the next several years at this point in his tenure," the Lexington Institute's Loren Thompson said.
It looks as if the new defense secretary will not only pick up the strategic review right away, but will also take over the job just as DoD analyzes the services' multiyear spending plans and crafts its guidance.
"The new defense secretary is going to have a steep learning curve," and that probably means Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn will end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting, Harrison said. "He would ideally provide a lot of the continuity between Gates and whoever follows him."
To meet Obama's call to cut $400 billion in security spending over 10 years, Gates has said the country will have to accept risk in certain mission areas and capabilities.
Yet the White House and analysts note that the reduction in planned spending means only keeping the defense budget roughly flat in real terms.
Still, there are large parts of the defense budget that are growing much faster than inflation.
During his April 21 press briefing, Gates named two: military health care and fuel costs.
With or without the $400 billion in cuts, these costs will begin to crowd out the Pentagon's investment accounts, which in turn will force the Pentagon to make tougher choices, Harrison said.
QDR As Guide To help make these choices, DoD will turn to the last Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), released inFebruary 2010, as the jumping-off point for the new review, Gates said April 21.
"It will start, probably, with the QDR and in the terms of the scenarios, and then try to translate that into what are the programmatic implications as you begin to reduce the mission sets," Gates said.
When the QDR was published, it was criticized for not prioritizing future missions and capabilities and making none of the difficult trades the Pentagon is now being asked to consider.
But the Pentagon will have to rely on this previously established baseline, especially if it wants to turn the review around quickly, Thompson said.
Even so, it's not an encouraging sign that the QDR might be used as the framework for the new review, Harrison said. "They may be better off just starting with a clean sheet of paper because what they fundamentally need to get out of this is different than what the QDR produced," Harrison said.
This time around, the Pentagon needs to lay out all of the roles and missions it currently is responsible for or has some role in; prioritize that list; and then start trimming from the bottom, he said.
Gates is overseeing the early stages of the review, but he is also signaling that his departure is near.
Asked if he was worried that the Libyan war would be a stalemate when he left office and if NATO should be doing more, Gates said, "Well, the worry will be my successor's."