Study: U.S. should shift
military focus
in Asia closer to potential hot spots
WASHINGTON — The United States should shift its military focus in Asia toward the Philippines and other nations closer to potential hot spots such as Taiwan, a Pentagon-sponsored study says.
The Rand study, released Monday, cites the potential for armed conflict between Taiwan and mainland China as a key U.S. security concern. It recommends creating arrangements in Southeast Asia to give the U.S. military access to ports and airfields that could be used to support Taiwan if China attacked. The study recommends maintaining traditional military ties to Japan and South Korea.
A new strategy in Asia would also put the re-oriented U.S. military in better position to respond to situations in other potential trouble spots, such as Indonesia, currently threatened by civil strife.
Issues raised by the report:
Developing Guam into a major hub from which the U.S. Air Force and Navy could project power into the South China Sea and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Creating a possible defense arrangement in Japan’s southernmost Ryukyu islands, and, in the longer term, Vietnam.
Maintaining an Air Force presence on Okinawa, even if the U.S. Marine forces are reduced.
Creating a deployment schedule to the Philippines so the United States can be prepared for rapid deployment of military operations in a crisis.
The lead author of the study is Zalmay Khalilzad, who headed the Bush administration’s transition team at the Pentagon before joining the White House staff as a senior director at the National Security Council. Rand is a research organization that studies a wide range of public policy issues; the Asia study was done by a Rand division financed by the Air Force.
The Bush administration is in the midst of reviewing its Asia security strategy. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to conclude that the rising military powers of China and India, combined with the decline of Russia and the prospect of reconciliation between North and South Korea, require the United States to make Asia a higher priority in military planning and security alliances.
One of the Rand study’s recommendations has already been adopted by the Bush administration: to more explicitly state U.S. intentions to defend Taiwan against attack from China, while continuing to oppose Taiwan moves toward independence from the mainland. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland.
For decades, U.S. administrations have issued vague statements on whether the United States would actually go to war with China over Taiwan, as opposed to arming Taiwan well enough to enable the island to defend itself.
The Rand study says that while the United States should strive to avoid making an enemy of China, the U.S. military must consider how it would carry out war plans in East Asia in the face of Chinese opposition.
Among the possibilities cited in the study:
Philippines
The United States should extend security cooperation with the Philippines, not necessarily to obtain permanent basing of forces but to allow frequent, rotating deployments.
That would keep military facilities there "warm" to allow the rapid start of military operations in a crisis involving Taiwan.
During the Cold War, the Philippines was a major U.S. military outpost, but the last U.S. troops left in 1992.
"The removal or reduction of U.S. forces elsewhere in the islands, such as the withdrawal of the Marines from Okinawa, could be the currency with which Washington might pay for a foothold in the critical area surrounding the troubled waters of the Taiwan Strait," the report said.
The United States maintained two major military bases — Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base — in the Philippines until 1992, when the Philippines refused to renew the leases, ending a defense treaty that dated back to 1951.
Large scale joint military training and visits were canceled in 1996 because the two countries did not have a Visiting Forces Agreement, which spells out guidelines for U.S. troops on Philippines soil.
The VFA was ratified in 1999, allowing the U.S. military to once again train in the Philippines.
Guam
U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Thomas B. Fargo said Saturday that the Navy will have three fast-attack submarines based from its Apra Harbor facility by the end of 2002, and is beefing up its submarine tender USS Frank Cable to better maintain Western Pacific forces.
Fargo said the recent visit to Guam by the USS Kitty Hawk battle group and last year’s carrier air wing training at the island’s Andersen Air Force Base are clear indications of the Navy’s intention to make Guam a key component of the services’ forward strategy.
Guam’s Congressional delegate, Robert A. Underwood, D-Guam, said Tuesday that he had just returned from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., where he had been briefed on military special operations capabilities. The Navy maintains a SEAL unit at Apra Harbor, but the Defense Department is looking at how the U.S. territory might support other services’ special operations training and missions, Underwood said.
The Rand study "fits into the pattern of reassessment of America’s role in Asia," said Underwood, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said.
The United States is now set up to project power into Southeast Asia from Japan and South Korea, Underwood said, but Guam’s military role could become enhanced as officials look for ways to address areas further south, like Taiwan.
Guam would welcome an increased defense role, as long as it fits into the existing military footprint, which is substantial, Underwood said.
The military owns about 25 percent of Guam’s 212 square miles of land area. Guam is home to the Navy’s Apra Harbor, as well as a magazine that serves the 7th Fleet and a communications station that links ships in the region to Navy headquarters in Hawaii and Washington. Andersen Air Force Base is also there.
The Navy also maintains training areas in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, about 100 miles north of Guam. About 6,000 active duty military are now assigned to Guam.
Another of the study’s recommendations — that the Air Force expand its fleet of long-range bombers — is believed to be an option Rumsfeld is considering as he reviews U.S. military strategy and structure.
The Air Force has reported that it will send its B-2 stealth bombers — in time of crisis — to spots such as Guam, where they could rearm, refuel and be sustained by ground crews much closer to potential combat zones.
Cruise missiles are being stockpiled at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, the first time these missiles have been stored outside the continental United States.
Okinawa
If the United States reduced its forces on Okinawa, it might turn the existing Marine Corps air station into a contingency base for Air Force fighters.
The base would be kept in caretaker status during peacetime, capable of handling a quick influx of aircraft during a crisis. Okinawa, 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo, currently is home to 26,000 of the 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan.
The report is not the first to suggest the Marine presence on Okinawa be reduced. In October, a bipartisan study by the Institute for National Strategic Studies said Marines should conduct more of their training elsewhere in the Pacific.
Richard Armitage, who has since been named deputy secretary of state, presented that study, sponsored by the National Defense University, to Congress. The report stressed that it "is essential to ease the burden borne by the Okinawans" beyond the ongoing process of consolidating bases on the island and encouraged "diversification throughout the Asia-Pacific region," though no alternate training sites were cited.
In 1996, following the resurgence of an anti-base movement sparked by the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa girl by three American servicemen, the U.S. and Japan agreed to cut the amount of land on Okinawa occupied by U.S. bases by 20 percent.
Besides closing some bases and cutting the size of others, the agreement called for the move of Marine air units to a more remote location on the island. A new airport to replace the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in urban Ginowan is being planned for Henoko, on Okinawa’s northeast shore.
More recently, following a series of crimes committed by U.S. servicemen, Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine and the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly called for the reduction of the 16,000 Marines on Okinawa. Inamine traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to press his case for reducing the U.S. footprint on the island.
Ryukyu islands
Arrange for U.S. Air Force access to airfields in the southern reaches of Japan’s Ryukyu islands, well south of Okinawa. The island of Shimoji, for example, is less than 250 nautical miles from the Taiwanese capital of Taipei and has a commercial airport with a 10,000-foot runway. However, the mayor of neighboring island Irabu, Ken Hamakawa, is not happy with that idea.
Irabu Island, with a population of 7,181, is adjacent to Shimoji Island. Hamakawa has protested the refueling of Marine helicopters there as they transit from Okinawa to Guam and the Philippines for exercises.
He said that using the commercial airport so close to Taiwan is like painting a big bullseye on the island.
U.S. military officials on Okinawa have a policy of not commenting on studies and reports concerning regional security issues.
Mikio Shimoji a member of the Japan’s House of the Representatives from Okinawa, said the report was welcome news.
"I believe that it is important to form a security system for the entire Asia area, including the Philippines, and Guam," he said. "Of course there is no way that Okinawa could be a base-free island. There is a role for Okinawa.
"Shimoji Island has great potential," he said.
Staff writers Donovan Brooks, David Allen and Wayne Specht contributed to this report
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