- Listen for howls from America's European allies and its
non-ally communist China. The Army will be relocating massive war materiel
- and strategic emphasis - to Asia.
-
- This latest development underscores that the Bush-Cheney
administration definitely regards the People's Republic of China as a major
potential military threat to the United States.
-
- It sets the stage for a strong protest from Beijing that
the United States is embarked in the Pacific on warlike policies, directed
at China.
-
- And it is certain to arouse resentment and criticism
from those European nations that rely on U.S. military might to protect
them but have been blasting President Bush for "putting America's
interests first" by proposing a missile-defense shield to protect
the United States from a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation.
-
- An Asia-First Policy?
-
- There is no question that it raises the issue - on
Capitol
Hill as well as in European capitals - of whether the United States is
downgrading Europe to a secondary strategic concern behind American
interests
in Asia.
-
- The Army's announcement is a major foreshadowing of the
fundamental revision of the United States' strategic global deployment
of military strength being directed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
He was given that assignment by Bush to develop a strategy to fit the new
realities of an end of the Cold War with the old Soviet Union.
-
- In a surprise announcement Thursday, the Army's highest
civilian authority revealed the Army intends to shift from Europe to the
Asia/Pacific theater enough missile launchers, armored vehicles, fuel,
ordnance and assorted troop-support paraphernalia to equip several combat
brigades. Around 5,000 troops compose a typical brigade comprising four
battalions.
-
- Army Secretary Thomas White left open the very real
possibility
that after the support hardware and supplies are transferred, troops might
also be shifted to sensitive Asian locations.
-
- Why Europe Will Be Antsy
-
- An undisclosed, but major, amount of war-fighting
equipment
now stored primarily in Germany and Italy, for the strategic defense of
Western Europe, is to be shipped to forward Asian positions, such as South
Korea; to staging bases, such as Guam, and to shipboard supply depots,
such as the British-owned island of Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean.
-
- White was at pains to reassure Europe, as Rumsfeld did
in his recent tour of America's allies there, that the United States is
not abandoning its commitments on the continent.
-
- As the Associated Press reported on a Pentagon news
conference
conducted by the Army secretary:
-
- None of the 65,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe
will be deployed - at least not yet - to Asia, the secretary said.
-
- But White went on to say, with European and Chinese
nervousness
in mind:
-
- "I suppose anytime you make shifts in strategy and
deployments, there's a lot of concern by a lot of different people.
-
- Taking a Whole New Look
-
- "If the Pacific becomes of greater importance than
it typically has in the past, relative to Europe and the other regions
of the world, you're going to re-examine the whole business [of troop
deployment.]
We're doing that."
-
- White let the Europeans - and the Beijing government
- know the Bush-Cheney administration has grown more concerned of late
about China and also communist North Korea as military threats:
-
- "There's been a heightened awareness of concern
about the Pacific region. It's been talked about a lot."
-
- Asked if this means the Army will be stationing soldiers
in Guam, where the Air Force maintains a major staging base for its
operations
in the Pacific, the Army secretary said:
-
- "You have to see if there are opportunities for
forward basing or engagement" on the Pacific Rim. "I think all
the services are going to do that."
-
- No Reduction in Force
-
- When a reporter asked White if the Army would have to
cut its overall forces of 480,000 active-duty soldiers to pay for
Rumsfeld's
modernization, during a federal budget tightening, White replied:
-
- "I don't intend to cut force structure."
-
- In addition to its 65,000 troops stationed in Europe,
mainly in Germany, the United States has tens of thousands based
permanently
in Japan and South Korea.
-
- One of the major concerns facing Rumsfeld as he goes
about reconfiguring America's military strategy and deployment is whether
the United States could throw enough well-equipped, adequately trained
forces into combat in Asia on short notice if U.S. vital interests there
were endangered.
-
- China continues to threaten to use military force to
retake Taiwan, if it deems that necessary. And within the past several
days, the People's Liberation Army embarked on a giant military exercise
along its coast facing Taiwan.
-
- Transfer of large stores of American war materiel to
Asia and possible redeployment of some European-based U.S. troops to the
Far East should be considered in that context.
-
- How Much Can Uncle Sam
Afford?
-
- It also adds to the speculation as to whether it is
realistic
for the United States to equip its military to fight only one war at a
time - and whether it can afford to do any more than that.
-
- Those are some of the intractable issues Bush, Vice
President
Dick Cheney and their Republican administration must face on Capitol Hill
as the battle over the shrinking budget heats up and the economy chills
down.
-
-
- John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and
writer
who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is senior editor for
NewsMax.com.
-
- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/8/31/165502.shtml
- Posted by permission of NewsMax.com
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