ACCESSION
NUMBER:370066
FILE ID:LEF103
DATE:12/05/94
TITLE:ASPIN SEES MORE NON-TRADITIONAL FUNCTIONS FOR U.S. MILITARY (12/05/94)
TEXT:*LEF103 12/05/94
ASPIN SEES MORE NON-TRADITIONAL FUNCTIONS FOR U.S. MILITARY
TR94120503 (May have to protect "values" as well as security) (750)
By Jacquelyn S. Porth
USIA Security Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- The chairman of President Clinton's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board says the U.S. military will increasingly be called on to
conduct "peacekeeping and peacemaking" operations and to carry out other
less traditional military roles in the post-Cold War world.
1es Aspin, former secretary of defense and chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, said U.S. military assets have been traditionally used
to protect American security and interests. But, he told participants in a
recent conference sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace, there is a
diminished threat to security "now that the Soviet Union has disappeared."
This reduced threat does not mean that the United States will not be
concerned with other challenges such as dealing with terrorists, weapons
proliferators and drug traffickers, but he predicts that the armed forces
will become involved increasingly in the protection of "American values."
The "new world" wants to see high-profile leadership from the United States,
according to Aspin, and often America is the only country with a military
"capable of doing what is necessary" because it is the only one with
sufficient logistics, technology and training. "So the world, much more
... would rather like the United States military to get involved," he said.
The former defense secretary suggested in remarks to the conference that
after an extended foreign policy debate in the United States a consensus
may emerge favoring U.S. intervention to prevent famine, ethnic cleansing
or the fall of democratically elected governments, lest they be replaced by
dictatorships.
"Using U.S. military assets to protect American values," he stressed, "is a
different ball game from using them to protect security and ... (national)
interests." Most of the problems occurring in the world today, he said,
involve "moral" or "values cases," and intervening in such cases may result
in the United States getting involved "in the internal fights within a
country as opposed to dealing with the aggression" of one country against
another.
He described this new world as a much more complicated one. Preparing
military intelligence for values cases is especially challenging, according
to Aspin.
Intelligence collection is set according to priorities, with security and
national interest being high on the list, he said, but intelligence
officers "don't know where (in the world) a values case is going to crop
up." Rwanda, for example, Aspin said, keeps bouncing up and down on the
intelligence priority list depending on changing circumstances there.
"The values agenda" is frequently driven by the spotlight of major news
media such as CNN, Aspin noted. He also warned that the general public can
change its mind often and quickly when reacting to values cases. The
public may accept loss of life if U.S. soldiers are deployed for
interventions associated with defending U.S. security or interests, he
suggested, but may not if they are thought to be dying exclusively for
American values.
The U.S. military is concerned about the signals sent to hostile forces when
American forces are deployed and then quickly withdrawn when public opinion
turns negative as it did in Somalia. The military, Aspin said, worries
about the possibility of decisions regarding deployments being manipulated
through the media.
The U.S. military, Aspin noted, "is not anxious" to be involved in any
operations which are not tied to U.S. security and interests and are
"generally uncomfortable" supporting missions tied to protecting American
values, largely because it impinges on military readiness and is considered
closer to "police work" than soldiering.
He suggested that the United States may want to explore the idea of
developing a "Foreign Legion" concept whereby U.S. military units would be
devoted to traditional duties while other units would be tasked with
international policing functions. Alternatively, Aspin suggested the
possibility of using reserve forces for peacekeeping functions abroad where
1anger is highly unlikely.
He also suggested consideration be given to sharing the workload on values
cases with other nations so that the U.S. military would be responsible for
the tasks it does best, such as intelligence, logistics and communications,
while leaving other aspects of the mission, including manpower, to the
militaries of other nations. A United Nations international police force
concept could be creatively employed, he said, although he had no
recommendations on who would pay for it.
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