THE RISING EAST

By Richard Halloran

The plans of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to transform the nation's armed forces ran into a spirited dose of skepticism at a recent gathering in Hawai'i of strategic thinkers from America, Asia and the Pacific.

An Australian strategist on land warfare, Michael Evans, set the tone by pointing to both the strengths and weaknesses of the Rumsfeld plan, which seeks to propel American military power so far ahead of that of any other nation that none would dare challenge it.

Rumsfeld

The conference on transforming U.S. armed forces was organized by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, where military officers, defense officials, diplomats and law-enforcement officers from America, Asia and the Pacific meet to examine security issues.

To encourage candor, speakers usually cannot be identified. Evans, however, agreed to be quoted.

The main cause of the Asian doubts, which were as much cultural as military, was their difficulty in discerning what "transform" means. American defenders of the plan acknowledged that it was an "elusive concept," but asserted that the objective was to assemble a force that could dominate the spectrum of conflict from nuclear war to terrorism.

This transformed force, which would include political, economic, diplomatic and cultural elements, would provide depth in homeland defense and would rely on a revitalized intelligence corps, innovative uses of space, streamlined logistics, and new weapons.

The deadline was set as 2012.

In Asia and the Pacific, the United States has already begun to redraw the map of its bases and to realign forces so that expeditions could be launched to points elsewhere in the region. War plans are being updated and speed of command will be emphasized.

Alliances with Japan, and to a lesser extent with South Korea, will become even more vital than they are today.

Even so, Japanese misgivings included concern that the plan relied too much on advanced technology that Japan's Self-Defense Forces could not match. There was concern that efforts to win hearts and minds through public affairs, psychological operations, and the Internet would be neglected.

For South Korea, the Rumsfeld plan is seen as ambitious but ambiguous and has been greeted with ambivalence. President Roh Moo-hyun has asserted that his nation should be "self-reliant" in defense against North Korea, but some South Koreans have deplored U.S. plans to reduce troop levels in South Korea and to assign those forces missions elsewhere.

A participant from Southeast Asia drew affirmative nods when he asserted that too often, U.S. leaders insist that "you must do it my way" rather than to seek Asian points of view.

Another participant said Singapore found the plan had little relevance for small powers.

A South Asian contended that most strategists in his part of the world saw the Rumsfeld plan as "too expensive and too expansive." It was "technologically exotic" and not suited to low-level threats, such as terrorism, that plague that region.

The Australian strategist, Michael Evans, did not go into detail about the Pentagon's flaws. Others have pointed to bloated bureaucracies, contorted chains of command, and unending disputes over roles and missions. They have cited warring rivals in the feudal domains within the Pentagon and the anomaly of commanding U.S. forces by a committee, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Further, Congress adds billions of dollars to defense spending every year with projects that bring money to members' districts but hamper military readiness. Allied with Congress is a defense industry that permits incompetent management, produces shoddy workmanship and is too often guilty of waste or fraud.

Moreover, Rumsfeld and his colleagues have made little effort to explain their plan to Congress or the American voters and taxpayers, whose sons and daughters serve in the armed forces. Nor apparently, have Pentagon officials or American diplomats been successful in persuading friends and allies in Asia of the need to transform and realign the U.S. armed forces in their neighborhood.

In his summary, Evans did not spare his own country from criticism but concluded: "The process of defense transformation in both Australia and the United States is an unfinished symphony whose final form remains unclear since neither country has yet seriously tackled the key issue of organizational culture."

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. He wrote this article for The Advertiser.