Are US Marines in the Pacific about to experience exercise overload?

via ABSCBN News.

MANILA - The Philippine Navy is set to do a war exercise with its United States counterpart in October.
The war exercise, the third major military activity this year, is initially scheduled for ten days beginning October 7. The activity, called the PH-US Amphibious Landing Exercise, will involve at least 1,000 troops from each side.
Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Gerard Fabic said the exercise will be held at the training grounds in Zambales, Crow Valley in Tarlac, Marine Base Ternate in Cavite and in the National Capital Region.

"The purpose is to promote interoperability between the Philippine Marine Corps and the US Marine Corps. The focus will be in the areas of warfighting, disaster response and nation building," he said.
The first major exercise, the Balikatan, was done last April in Clark Air Base in Pampanga, Camp O'Donnel and Crow Valley in Tarlac, Subic Bay in Zambales and Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.
The Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (Carat), meanwhile, was conducted in June near the Scarborough Shoal in Zambales.

The shoal is being claimed by both the Philippines and China. The United States earlier promised defense capabilities for the Philippines.

Looks like ops tempo isn't going to decrease after the drawdown is completed in Afghanistan.

Quite honestly I'm of mixed opinion...the Chinese need to be put back in their box, but the forces need to be reconstituted.

A bigger concern is that we're seeing the military acting in the role of the State Dept.  Military exercises, memorandums of understanding between forces etc ... are being established throughout the Pacific but we don't see nation to nation work being done.

Mutual defense pacts, donation of material, foreign aid that would require the US manufacture goods to be sent to some of the smaller nations isn't be negotiated.

This will bear watching.

Side Note;  The you notice the words "NATION BUILDING" in the statement.  We're back to that tired old concept.  You would think that we would have learned our lesson.