Reuters April 30, 2003
Saudi Move Part of Broader U.S. Military Realignment
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to pull most of its forces out of Saudi Arabia represents the first big move in a broad realignment of forces overseas, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying on Wednesday America must be ready to encounter future threats rather than past ones.
A major shuffling of U.S. forces in Europe may be the next step in the Pentagon's review of the worldwide U.S. military presence, with some of the 68,000 American troops based in Germany moving to eastern European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, defense analysts said.
In Asia, the United States in the coming years may seek access to bases in countries such as the Philippines and even Vietnam while maintaining troops in South Korea and Japan despite resentment among some local residents toward the U.S. military presence, analysts added.
"There are two trends that we will definitely be seeing," said analyst Christopher Hellman of the Center for Defense Information think tank. "One is an emphasis in expanding our access in the Pacific. And the other is a redistribution of our European forces, particularly into the former Warsaw Pact."
The United States said on Tuesday it would remove nearly all of its roughly 5,000 troops in Saudi Arabia. The ouster of Saddam Hussein removed the threat posed by Iraq that led to the U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia, Rumsfeld said.
U.S. officials are expected to make some additional key decisions within months, such as preparing a blueprint for a revised military relationship with South Korea by October.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decisions would not be made suddenly or simultaneously. "There are clearly some areas where you're going to see some restructuring and reductions," he added, but it is too early to know whether the overall troop presence overseas would change from the roughly 200,000 present before the buildup for the Iraq war.
"It is necessary that we arrange ourselves for the future rather than the past," Rumsfeld said in Baghdad on Wednesday.
"There's no question in my mind but that we have probably too large a number of folks in western Europe -- some of which is still a leftover from the Cold War and the fear of the Soviet Union coming across the north German plain. It was appropriate then. It's less appropriate now," Rumsfeld said.
Among the 112,000 U.S. troops based in Europe, 68,000 are in Germany, with 12,000 in Italy and 10,000 in Britain.
CHILLY RELATIONS
U.S.-German relations have deteriorated amid strong German opposition to the U.S.-led Iraq war. Former Soviet bloc nations Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland could end up providing bases for U.S. troops moved out of Germany, analysts said.
"It definitely makes sense to base forces in countries that you like and are extremely friendly to you. There is a political dynamic between the United States and countries in eastern Europe that, quite frankly, does not exist between the United States and Germany any more," said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with the Globalsecurity.org military think tank.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday it planned to return U.S. Army facilities, including barracks and family housing, in five towns to the German government and partially close a depot in the period from 2006-2008 in a move affecting 3,400 American soldiers and 5,000 family members. The facilities are in Giessen, Friedberg, Butzbach, Wetzlar and Bad Nauheim.
Gen. James Jones, commander of U.S. forces in Europe, said this week the United States was likely to keep open large, important bases such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany, while exploring "bare-bones facilities" in eastern Europe.
Analysts emphasized the importance of the Pacific region.
"The Middle East and Europe are important, but the Pacific is where the future action is going to be. You're not going to see a global base restructuring that diminishes U.S. presence in Asia," said Heritage Foundation analyst Jack Spencer.
The United States maintains about 37,000 troops in South Korea and another 42,000 in Japan, including Okinawa.
Hellman said he expects the United States to secure a basing agreement with the Philippines by the end of the decade. This would mark quite a turnaround, considering that the Philippines ejected U.S. forces from bases there in the 1990s.
Copyright © 2003, Reuters
