{"id":58710,"date":"2018-02-13T06:01:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T06:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=58710"},"modified":"2018-02-13T06:01:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T06:01:08","slug":"biggest-u-s-force-in-years-joins-thai-military-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/biggest-u-s-force-in-years-joins-thai-military-exercise.html","title":{"rendered":"Biggest U.S. force in years joins Thai military exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Biggest U.S. force in years joins Thai military exercise<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The biggest U.S. force in years joined an annual military exercise in Thailand on Tuesday despite controversy over the Thai junta\u2019s invitation to neighboring Myanmar\u2019s army, which has been accused of ethnic cleansing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The United States scaled back attendance at Cobra Gold, Asia\u2019s largest multilateral military exercise, after a 2014 coup in Thailand. But relations between the junta and the United States have improved under President Donald Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The presence of the 6,800 U.S. personnel &#8211; nearly double last year\u2019s number &#8211; was a demonstration of America\u2019s continuing muscle in a region where China is growing ever more powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The Cobra Gold military exercise has been held for more than three decades. This year\u2019s Cobra Gold will be attended by some 11,075 personnel from 29 countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">\u201cThis exercise is the largest multilateral exercise in the Indo-Pacific region. It speaks to the commitment of the U.S. in the region,\u201d Steve Castonguay, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, told Reuters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">This year\u2019s exercise has been marked by Thailand\u2019s controversial invitation to Myanmar, where 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled military action that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing in response to insurgent attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Castonguay confirmed an army major from Myanmar was attending the opening ceremony but that Myanmar would not participate in any military drills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The United States has pushed for the restoration of democracy in Thailand, its oldest regional ally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha had promised an election would take place in November this year, but the junta last month said it could be delayed until February 2019 &#8211; which would be the latest of several postponements.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-olympics-2018-northkorea\/north-korea-says-no-u-s-talks-planned-at-olympics-pence-vows-continued-pressure-idUSKBN1FR1V5<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/biggest-u-s-force-in-years-joins-thai-military-exercise.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biggest U.S. force in years joins Thai military exercise The biggest U.S. force in years joined an annual military exercise in Thailand on Tuesday despite controversy over the Thai junta\u2019s invitation to neighboring Myanmar\u2019s army, which has been accused of ethnic cleansing. The United States scaled back attendance at Cobra [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":58713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5470],"tags":[119855,8775,2489,118058],"class_list":["post-58710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-biggest-u-s-force-in-years-joins-thai-military-exercise","tag-world-news-daily","tag-world-news-today","tag-world-news-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}