WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China’s faster-than-expected military buildup has alarmed the United States and its Asian allies and could help the Pentagon gird against deeper defense cuts threatened in some corners of Congress.

But even though the sophistication of China’s People’s Liberation Army has exceeded U.S. military forecasts, there is a recognition within the Pentagon that some of its most-cited conventional capabilities are still in their infancy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China’s faster-than-expected military buildup has alarmed the United States and its Asian allies and could help the Pentagon gird against deeper defense cuts threatened in some corners of Congress.

But even though the sophistication of China’s People’s Liberation Army has exceeded U.S. military forecasts, there is a recognition within the Pentagon that some of its most-cited conventional capabilities are still in their infancy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday played down an apparent split with Iraq over legal protections for U.S. troops at the heart of talks on keeping them in the country beyond a year-end deadline for their withdrawal.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s shaky coalition government is in negotiations with the United States to keep some of the roughly 43,000 U.S. forces in the country as military trainers, amid concerns about security gaps once American forces leave.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Five months of successful strikes against al Qaeda leaders reflect an increasingly precise, covert U.S. counter-terrorism campaign that appears to be reaching critical mass after years of heavy investment.

The death of Anwar al-Awlaki in a CIA drone strike in Yemen on Friday followed about a month of crucial intelligence gathered on one of the highest-value U.S. targets, one U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. But the intelligence footwork goes back much further.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Five months of successful strikes against al Qaeda leaders reflect an increasingly precise, covert U.S. counter-terrorism campaign that appears to be reaching critical mass after years of heavy investment.

The death of Anwar al-Awlaki in a CIA drone strike in Yemen on Friday followed about a month of crucial intelligence gathered on one of the highest-value U.S. targets, one U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. But the intelligence footwork goes back much further.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States expects some fraying of relations with China over its $5.3 billion plan to upgrade Taiwan’s F-16 fleet but not as “shrill” a reaction as if it had met the request for new fighter jets, the top U.S. military commander in the region told Reuters on Friday.

China has condemned the planned retrofit of Taiwan’s 145 F-16 A/B fighters sold in 1992. But it has not yet announced any retaliatory steps.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Sept 15 (Reuters) – U.S.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is warning members of Congress
that threatened defense cuts in the order of $1 trillion over
the next decade would add 1 percentage point to the U.S.
unemployment rate, a senior defense official said on Thursday.

The assessment, disclosed by the Pentagon, appears to be
the latest attempt by the new defense secretary to buck bigger
defense cuts he says could be “devastating” to the U.S. armed
forces and national security.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Pakistan on Wednesday the United States would “do everything we can” to defend U.S. forces from Pakistan-based militants staging attacks in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials, including Panetta, suspect militants from the Haqqani network were behind Tuesday’s rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul, as well as a truck bomb last Saturday that wounded 77 American forces.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Despite U.S. success in weakening al Qaeda, the United States faces a long-term threat from global affiliates that are likely to exist even a decade from now, U.S. intelligence chiefs said on Tuesday.

The future of al Qaeda has been in sharp focus in the days surrounding the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks and since the May killing of the group’s leader, Osama bin Laden, in a covert U.S. raid in Pakistan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When it comes to the tricky political calculus of deciding how many U.S. troops to keep in Iraq, President Barack Obama may truly have no good options.

Obama was an Iraq war opponent who repeatedly promised no U.S. troops will remain in the country beyond 2011, the deadline for the U.S. withdrawal under a bilateral pact.