SNIP
article | Posted April 7, 2005
Imperial Reach
by Michael T. Klare
As the Defense Department begins to look beyond the war in Iraq, a major
priority will be to commence a systematic realignment of US forces and bases
abroad. This massive undertaking will result in a substantial reduction of
American forces in Germany and South Korea, and the establishment of new
facilities in Eastern Europe, the Caspian Sea basin, Southeast Asia and
Africa. Tens of thousands of troops (and their dependents) now stationed
abroad will be redeployed to the United States, while fresh contingents will
be sent to areas that have never before housed a permanent US military
presence. These steps are largely justified in terms of military
effectiveness--to eliminate obsolete cold war facilities and ease the
transport of American troops to likely scenes of conflict. Underlying the
planning, however, is a new approach to combat and a fresh calculus of the
nation's geopolitical interests.
The first big steps in the Pentagon's basing realignment were announced last
summer by President Bush during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in
Cincinnati. Up to 70,000 American combat troops will be redeployed from bases
in Germany, Japan and South Korea to bases in the United States or to US
territories abroad, including Guam. Most of these forces--approximately 40,000
troops from the First Armored Division and the First Infantry Division--will
be withdrawn from Germany. At the same time, however, the Army will station
one of its Stryker Brigades, built around the Stryker light armored vehicle,
at the Grafenwöhr training area in what used to be East Germany. Bush also
indicated that new basing facilities will be acquired in other countries,in
order to facilitate the rapid movement of American troops to likely areasof
combat. "We'll move some of our troops and capabilities to new locations,"
Bush explained, "so they can surge quickly to deal with unexpected threats."
In conjunction with this announcement, the Defense Department disclosed that
it is looking at two new types of basing facilities in areas that at present
do not house permanent US military installations. The first type, designated
"forward operating sites" or "forward operating locations," will consist of
logistical facilities (an airstrip or port complex) plus weapons stockpiles;
these installations will house a small permanent crew of US military
technicians but no large combat units. The second type, termed "cooperative
security locations," will be "bare bones" facilities utilized at times of
crisis only; such sites will have no permanent US presence but will be
maintained by military contractors and host-country personnel.
In discussing these new facilities, the Defense Department has gone out of its
way to avoid using the term "military base." A base, in the Pentagon's
lexicon, is a major facility with permanent barracks, armories, recreation
facilities, housing for dependents and so on. Such installations typically
have been in place for many years and are sanctioned by a formal security
partnership with the host country involved. The new types of facilities, on
the other hand, will contain no amenities, house no dependents and not betied
to a formal security arrangement. This distinction is necessary, the Pentagon
explains, to avoid giving the impression that the United States is seeking a
permanent, colonial-like presence in the countries it views as possible hosts
for such installations.
"We have no plans [for military bases] on a permanent basis in those areas,"
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld averred when speaking of Eastern Europeand
the Caspian Sea region. "We're trying to find the right phraseology. We know
the word 'base' is not right for what we do.... We have bases in Germany and
we will continue to. But we also have had things that we call 'Forward
Operating Locations' or sites that are not permanent bases: they're not places
where you have families; they are not places where you have large numbersof
US military on a permanent basis.... [They are places] where you'd locate
people in and out or where you use it for refueling--these types of things."
The Defense Department has not publicly stated where it will establish these
new, no-frills installations, but Pentagon officials have inspected possible
locations in Eastern Europe, the Caspian Sea basin and Africa. Additional
sites have been mentioned in Congressional reports and news media. It is
possible, then, to identify many of the most likely sites [see sidebar [below]].
The decommissioning of older bases in Germany, Japan and South Korea and the
acquisition of new facilities in other areas has been described by the White
House as "the most comprehensive restructuring of US military forces overseas
since the end of the Korean War." In explaining these moves, the Bush
Administration emphasizes the issue of utility: Many older installations eat
up vast resources but contribute little to overall combat effectiveness, and
so should be closed; at the same time, new facilities are needed in areas
where few American bases currently exist. But while it is certainly arguable
that the closing of obsolete bases in Europe and East Asia will free resources
that might be better employed somewhere else, it is also clear that a lotmore
is going on than mere military utility. Indeed, a close look at Pentagon
statements and policy reports suggests that three other factors are at work: a
new calculus of America's geopolitical interests; a shift in US strategic
orientation from defensive to offensive operations; and concerns about the
future reliability of long-term allies, especially those in "Old Europe."
Most significant, overall, is the revised calculation of America's
geopolitical interests. During the cold war, when "containment" was the
overarching strategic principle, the United States surrounded the Soviet bloc
with major bases. With the end of the cold war, however, this template no
longer made sense, and many of these bases lost their strategic rationale.
Meanwhile, other concerns--terrorism, the pursuit of foreign oil and the rise
of China--have come to preoccupy American strategists. It is these concerns
that are largely driving the realignment of US bases and forces.
There is a remarkable degree of convergence among these concerns, both in
practical and geographic terms. Oil and terrorism are linked because manyof
the most potent terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, arose in part as a
reaction to the West's oil-inspired embrace of entrenched Arab governments,
and because the terrorists often attack oil facilities in order to weakenthe
regimes they abhor. Similarly, oil and China are linked because both
Washington and Beijing seek influence in the major oil-producing regions.And
the major terrorist groups, the most promising sites of new oil and the focal
points of Sino-American energy competition are all located in the same general
neighborhoods: Central Asia and the Caspian region, the greater Gulf areaand
the far reaches of the Sahara. And the United States is establishing new
basing facilities precisely in these areas.
In combating the threat posed by terrorist forces, the United States naturally
seeks an enhanced military presence where these groups first arose. Moreover,
as the older oilfields of the North are gradually exhausted, more and more of
the world's oil will have to come from producers in the Global
South--especially the Persian Gulf countries plus Africa and Latin America. In
1990, according to the Energy Department, these countries produced 32 million
barrels of oil per day, or 46 percent of total world output. By 2025, however,
they are expected to deliver 77 million barrels, or 61 percent of global
output. Over this same thirty-five-year period, the combined production of the
United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Europe will drop from 29 percent
to 19 percent of total world output. With America's domestic production in
decline, an ever-increasing share of its oil requirements will have to be
satisfied by imports, meaning greater US dependence on oil supplied by
countries in the Middle East, Africa and other non-Western areas.
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