Pentagon study urges U.S. military to shift its Asia focus

Advertiser Staff and Wire Reports

WASHINGTON — The United States should shift the focus of its military presence in Asia toward the Philippines and other nations closer to potential hot spots such as Taiwan, a Pentagon-sponsored study says.

The study says the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam should be developed 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.

Released yesterday, the study cites the potential for armed conflict between Taiwan and mainland China as a key U.S. security concern.

It recommends creating new arrangements in Southeast Asia to give the U.S. military access to ports and airfields that could be used to support Taiwan if China attacks. The study recommends maintaining traditional military ties to Japan and South Korea.

No change likely in Hawai'i

Christopher McNally, a research fellow in politics and security with the East-West Center, said such policy, if adopted, would have little impact on military presence in Hawai'i.

"The military presence certainly is going to be kept at present levels — unless the unlikely event that the Pentagon increases its troop levels in the Pacific radically," McNally said. "Then we would see increased levels of troops and traffic come through here."

McNally said the Bush administration's military policy toward the Pacific still is unclear, but the proposed policy could take advantage of Southeast Asian worries over China to renew ties with the Philippines and build stronger ties with Singapore.

A new strategy in Asia would also put the reoriented U.S. military in better position to respond to situations in other potential trouble spots, such as Indonesia, which is threatened by civil strife.

It also cites possible new defense arrangements in Japan's southernmost Ryukyu islands, and, in the longer term, Vietnam.

The lead author of the Rand study is Zalmay Khalilzad, who headed the Bush administration's transition team at the Pentagon before joining the White House staff yesterday 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 Rumsfeld is expected to conclude that the rising military power of China and India, combined with the decline of Russia and the prospect of reconciliation between North and South Korea, requires the United States to make Asia a higher priority in military planning and security alliances.

U.S. intentions stated

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. President Bush created a stir last month when he stated that the United States would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan.

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.

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.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland.

Philippines would play role

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:

• Extend security cooperation with the Philippines, not necessarily to obtain permanent basing of U.S. forces but to allow frequent, rotating deployments of U.S. forces. 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.

• If the United States reduced its forces on Okinawa, it might turn the existing Marine Corps air station there into a contingency base for Air Force fighter aircraft. The base would be kept in caretaker status during peacetime, capable of handling a quick influx of warplanes during a crisis. Okinawa, 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo, is home to 26,000 of the 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan.

• 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 Shimojishima, 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.

"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.