The Bush team
plans to put U.S. military assets in better
position to take on threats.
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The Kremlin was quick
off the mark. Within hours of Washington acknowledging
in late November that it had begun formal negotiations
to take over several Polish military bases, Russian
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned during a trip to
Warsaw that any reconfiguration of the U.S. military
presence in Europe must consider his country's
national-security interests.
According to a Russian official, "The Kremlin is not
concealing from the Americans or the Poles its negative
attitude toward Polish-American discussions about
relocating bases in Germany." But in the weeks to come
the Russians won't be the only ones jittery about a
long-touted repositioning of U.S. forces and bases. For
different reasons allies and foes across the globe are
exercised about ambitious Bush administration plans to
shift and reshuffle tens of thousands of GIs posted
around the world.
The Polish talks are just the start of the biggest U.S.
military realignment since the end of World War II. With
the war on terrorism in mind, and the need to rethink
overseas base locations in the light of the military
commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, Pentagon planners
have been working for months on what Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld calls a "readjustment to fit the 21st
century."
In November, President George W. Bush himself addressed
the issue of a major realignment, saying in a statement:
"The once-familiar threats facing our nation, our
friends and our allies have given way to the less
predictable dangers associated with rogue nations,
global terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. It
remains for us to realign the global posture of our
forces to better address these new challenges."
Informal talks have been under way for weeks with old
allies such as Japan, South Korea and Germany about a
possible reduction of U.S. troops in their countries,
and there have been negotiations, too, about
establishing new bases in the former East Bloc countries
of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Last summer Paul
Wolfowitz, the deputy U.S. defense secretary, held talks
in Bucharest on establishing U.S. bases in Romania. For
the Germans and the South Koreans, slated troop and base
reductions spell economic loss. There also are concerns
in Seoul at any moves that would reduce the U.S.
military commitment on the peninsula. Pentagon sources
say that changes being discussed include moving U.S.
soldiers away from the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
Elsewhere in Asia, troops currently based in Japan could
find themselves shifted to Australia. A healthy spin-off
from that might be a reduction in hostility from locals
toward the large presence of U.S. troops in Okinawa. And
smaller bases are envisaged for several other countries
in the region.
And in the Balkans, sources say, the Pentagon is keen to
build an air base at Camp Sarafovo in Bulgaria and to
establish U.S. facilities at the air base of Mihail
Kogalniceanu in Romania. There also is a good chance
that U.S. facilities at the Black Sea port of Constanta
will be upgraded. So quickly is the Pentagon working now
that some troops currently serving in Iraq could learn
that their home bases have shifted before their tours of
duty are completed, among them the 1st Armored Division,
which is scheduled to leave Iraq in January and return
to Germany.
As far as Pentagon planners are concerned, the
logistical problems they encountered in deploying units
such as the 1st Armored to Iraq confirm the need for the
repositioning of U.S. forces based overseas. The
Pentagon was frustrated in the run-up to the Iraq War
with the time it took to move equipment for U.S. armored
divisions out of Germany and to deliver them to the
Persian Gulf.
But even before the Iraq War, Rumsfeld and his top aides
were sketching out plans for realignment. For them too
much of the U.S. global military posture was outdated
and designed to fight an adversary that no longer was on
the battlefield - namely, the Soviet Union. They wanted
more forward, but smaller, bases and lighter and more
mobile forces that could react quickly, be deployed fast
against enemies and project power. Rumsfeld and his
aides thought advanced U.S. military technology and air
power would reduce the need for the kind of expensive
and large foreign outposts required during the Cold War.
Since 9/11 the Pentagon hasn't confined itself to
planning. Away from the public gaze, the United States
has been securing air bases and landing rights and
signing military agreements with a series of countries
located in what military planners call the "arc of
instability" - namely, troubled and failing nations in
parts of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, the
Balkans and Central Asia. Military bases have been
upgraded or established in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman,
Bulgaria, Romania, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, the
Republic of Georgia, Djibouti and the Philippines.
Ahead of final agreement with the Poles, millions of
dollars already have been spent on repairing runways,
improving infrastructure and building roads at the
Krzesiny air base near Poznan in western Poland.
The U.S. military has been pressing for dispersal of its
assets in Europe for some years. The amount of money
invested in bases in Germany acted as a political
deterrent. So, too, did German opposition. But Bonn no
longer is in favor because of its opposition to the war
in Iraq, and two of the U.S. Army's six heavy divisions
remain based in Germany. "That's a huge fraction of our
army for a theater that doesn't plausibly offer any
operations to use those forces," writes Michael
O'Hanlon, a military strategist at the Brookings
Institution.
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So long,
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Some experts, though,
worry that pulling U.S. assets out of "old Europe" might
make the Germans and the French even more reluctant to
agree to U.S. requests. On the other hand, say Pentagon
hard-liners, what does it matter? As far as Rumsfeld is
concerned, there is no need for the kind of large,
expensive and permanent overseas bases that predominated
during the Cold War. Speaking at a news conference,
Rumsfeld remarked: "We're moving worldwide from a static
defense to a different footprint." Overall he wants
larger and quicker naval and airlift capacity able to
exploit equipment stockpiles located overseas and to
utilize harbors and air bases abroad for replenishment
and as temporary strike bases.
Many critics say the Pentagon is out to create a new
military empire spanning the globe. They worry also that
a military presence in so many far-flung places might
encourage U.S. adventurism and intervention when
national-security interests really aren't at stake.
Supporters of the Rumsfeld plan maintain that what is
being planned isn't an old-fashioned imperial vision but
a program that will cut costs and allow U.S. forces to
strike fast and quickly on the global battlefield
against terrorism. Furthermore, they argue that by
having a lot more options from which to launch strikes
the United States won't be so reliant on a handful of
allies. According to Celeste Johnson Ward of the
Washington-based Center for Strategic and International
Studies, this vision in some ways is born out of
American distrust of some of its oldest allies,
including Germany, which opposed the war in Iraq.
Jamie Dettmer is a senior editor for Insight
Magazine.