New Battle Stations?

Kurt M. Campbell & Celeste Johnson Ward

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003

Summary:  The Pentagon is planning the greatest change in the U.S. overseas military posture in 50 years. Small, light forward bases in new countries are to replace large, heavy deployments in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. But such changes may have unintended political consequences, ones Washington has yet to seriously consider.

Kurt M. Campbell is Senior Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Director of the Aspen Strategy Group. Celeste Johnson Ward is a Fellow in the International Security Program at CSIS.

In the post-September 11 world, the Pentagon has new objectives. U.S. forces are now responsible for fighting terrorism and curtailing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and so the Defense Department wants to change the U.S. basing posture accordingly. Some of the moves being contemplated reflect genuinely new thinking. For example, General James Jones, commander of the U.S. European Command, envisions creating a set of what he calls "lily pads": small, lightly staffed facilities for use as jumping-off points in a crisis. These "warm bases," as they have also been called, would be outfitted with the supplies and equipment to rapidly accommodate far larger forces. These small, expandable bases would be linked like spokes to a few large, heavy-infrastructure bases (such as Ramstein in Germany and Misawa and Yokosuka in Japan). At the margins, "virtual" bases would be established by negotiating a series of access rights with a wide range of states. Much more equipment would be prepositioned at land and sea, with an increased focus on specialized units for rapid base construction.

The Pentagon is already preparing a range of specific proposals for Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf. Already, Washington and Seoul have agreed to consolidate U.S. bases in South Korea, and then the Second Infantry Division and other supporting units will be moved south. The United States will increase its prepositioned equipment at air and sea hubs at the bottom of South Korea, so that forces can be rapidly reinforced in the event of a conflict. In Japan, the United States will likely seek to maintain most of its major air and sea bases as hubs, but it is considering moving some marines either out of Okinawa or to less-populated areas in the north of the island.

The U.S. air and naval presence in Asia will likely be increased, meanwhile, with Washington arranging for greater access, joint training, and other activities in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. This larger Asian deployment will be facilitated by the forward basing of bombers and attack or cruise-missile submarines on the islands of Guam or Diego Garcia, along with the prepositioning of more equipment there. Access to naval facilities in Vietnam might also be sought at some point in the future. And the United States and India are steadily improving relations, including military-to-military consultations. In all likelihood, Indo-U.S. defense cooperation will expand and may lead to American access to South Asian bases, facilities, and training grounds.

Whereas the changes being made to the U.S. military posture in Asia are gradual, those contemplated for Europe are radical and abrupt. Reports are now widely circulating that, after its tour of duty in Iraq, the U.S. Army's First Armored Division will return to the United States rather than Germany, where it has been based. Other U.S. units may be moved from Germany to bases in NATO's new eastern European members. Poland, for example, has large training grounds and ranges not subject to the civilian encroachment or heavy regulations that have bedeviled U.S. forces in Germany. And Bulgaria and Romania offer ports and airfields on the Black Sea, closer to potential instability in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

The U.S. European Command's responsibility extends to Africa, where enormous change is also in the offing. During the last several months, 1,800 U.S. personnel have been deployed to Djibouti and have been given responsibility for counterterrorism planning and training in the Horn of Africa, and U.S. military planners contemplate a similar arrangement for western Africa.

In the Middle East, the United States will soon remove its forces from Saudi Arabia and transfer the major functions now performed at Prince Sultan Air Base to bases in Qatar. Other changes will depend on developments in Iraq and in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but may also be forthcoming. And finally, new U.S. bases in Central Asia, established to assist the Afghanistan campaign, may end up serving longer-term aims, such as prosecuting the war on terrorism or, perhaps, checking a rising China.

IN WITH THE NEW

Behind the drive for change lies a complex mix of hard-nosed strategic assessments and political objectives. Pentagon officials believe that threats to U.S. security are likely to emerge from regions where there is a high risk of failed states, Islamic radicalism, drug trafficking, and other forms of volatility. Together, these regions form an arc of instability that bends from the triborder region of South America through most of Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Central and Southeast Asia.