In the Pacific, the U.S. military has 85,000 troops permanently stationed in the Indo-Pacific region and is expanding its longstanding series of exercises called Pacific Pathways with extending the time Army units are in countries in Asia and the Pacific, including in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. A division headquarters and several brigades would have a South China Sea scenario where they will be around the South China Sea and the East China Sea over the course of a 30- to 45-day period.
In 2019, under the Pacific Pathways exercises, US Army units were in Thailand for three months and four months in the Philippines. The U.S. Army is discussing with the Indian government about expanding military exercises from roughly just a few hundred personnel up to 2,500 for a duration of up to six months which "gives us a presence in the region longer as well without being permanently there," according to the US Army of the Pacific commanding general. Breaking from the larger exercise, smaller US Army units will deploy to countries such as Palau and Fiji to participate in exercises or other training events.
In May, 2020, the Australian government announced that a delayed six-month rotation of 2,500 US Marines to a military base in Australia's northern city of Darwin will go ahead based on strict adherence to COVID-19 measures including a 14 day quarantine. The Marines had been scheduled to arrive in April but their arrival was postponed in March because of COVID-19. The remote Northern Territory, which had recorded just 30 COVID-19 cases, closed its borders to international and interstate visitors in March, and any arrivals must now undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days. U.S. Marine deployments to Australia began in 2012 with 250 personnel and has grown to 2,500.
The Joint US Defense facility Pine Gap, the U.S. Department of Defense and CIA surveillance facility that pinpoints airstrikes around the world and targets nuclear weapons, among other military and intelligence tasks, was also adapting its policy and procedures to comply with Australian government COVID-19 restrictions.
As the U.S. military expands its presence in Asia and the Pacific, one place it will NOT be returning to is Wuhan, China. In October, 2019, the Pentagon sent 17 teams with more than 280 athletes and other staff members to the Military World Games in Wuhan, China. Over 100 nations sent a total of 10,000 military personnel to Wuhan in October, 2019. The presence of a large U.S. military contingent in Wuhan just months before the outbreak of the COVID-19 in Wuhan in December 2019, fueled a theory by some Chinese officials that the U.S. military was somehow involved in the outbreak which now has been used by the Trump administration and its allies in the Congress and the media that the Chinese deliberately used the virus to infect the world and adding justification for the U.S. military build-up in the Pacific region.
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