In this photo released by US Navy, a US Navy SH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter provides support to a visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) team in a 7-meter rigid-hull inflatable boat, assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd (DDG 100) in the Arabian Sea January 5, 2012.

The US is shifting more military muscle to the Pacific, including adding another aircraft carrier to its five already there, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

In the coming years, 60 percent of US Navy ships will be in the Pacific, up from 52 percent now, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told an industry conference.

Elaborating on military priorities that US President Barack Obama announced in January, Carter said US forces had played a crucial role in preventing conflict in the Pacific region for roughly the last 60 years.

"We don't want that to change. We want to continue to have that role and that's really what our investments are aimed at," the Pentagon's second-ranking official said when asked whether the goal was to pre-empt, deter or hedge against China.

The Pentagon's move further adds to its growing military presence in the region, following its announcement last year to base US marines in northern Australia.

Against such backdrop, analysts have called for Washington to rethink its strategy in this region.

"The US needs to work more closely with China. Its strategy of containment will not work," Odd Arne Westad, an expert on contemporary international affairs at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told the Global Times.

"There is a lot of emotion in the Sino-US relationship at the moment on both sides. On the US side, it should not enter into a military build-up in the region that will be unsustainable in the long run," Westad said.

He also noted that China needs to build support in the region by making its own foreign policy priorities clearer, minimizing the possibility of those in the US beating the war drum in the area, especially the South China Sea.

Carter also cited a range of upgrades and new programs that he said were directed to the region, including radar sets, anti-submarine warfare improvements and development of a new long-range, nuclear-capable bomber. The programs were largely outlined in a five-year spending request that Obama sent to Congress last month.

However, Alexia Ash, head of North America Forecasting with London-based Exclusive Analysis, considered US military expansion doesn't mean an increasing chance of war in the Asia-Pacific region.

"US priorities in the region also include North Korea and access to the Middle East, particularly Iran, as well as strengthening ties with Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines," Ash told the Global Times.

Sun Wei in London and agencies contributed to this story