QandO

June 08, 2004

Realigning our forces globally
Posted by McQ

For whatever reason, there seems to be great consternation among some elements of the left about our reduction of troops in Korea.

A U.S. pullout would force South Korea to shoulder more responsibility for defending itself from possible North Korean military aggression. But the plan has spurred concern that North Korea could view the move as a sign of U.S. weakness as the North wrangles with its neighbors and Washington over its nuclear weapons program.

Lets get real here ... if North Korea decides, for whatever reason, to head south, the fact that US troops are there or not there will have little impact on whether it chooses to use nuclear weapons. And we certainly don't have to have troops there to respond with nuclear weapons. So, in reality, this is all nonsense.

The South Korean army is more than a match for the North Korean army. NoKo has a million men under arms. ROC has 650,000. In any offensive action, the optimum ratio desired is 3:1. NoKo could only achieve that locally and then they have to fight an army better equipped and better fed (and probably better trained) than their own while in hostile territory which has been prepared for decades to repel them. Add to that the fact that NoKo has old equipment and parts shortages and you can see why nuclear weapons are now being discussed.

As for American help, the best help we could lend has to do with air power, not ground troops, and we can muster that sort of help relatively quickly out of Japan and southern Korea (not to mention a carrier task force or two).

So I see this as much ado about nothing. Personally I've been of the opinion we should have been out of there a long time ago with our ground forces. And the plan has been to pull the 2nd Infantry Division out of the DMZ for quite some time and have the ROCs take it over.

What is happening in Korea is simply part of a realignment of US troops around the world. Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation does an excellent job of pointing out the why's and wherefore's of such a realignment in today's New York Post.

Germany: Down. The likelihood of a major war in Europe is about zilch. So it makes no sense to have 73,000 U.S. troops in Germany. Better to move them closer to the places we're likely to see military action, such as the Middle East and Central Asia.

Keeping some troops in Germany is reasonable for maintaining influence and exercising with NATO, although German environmental laws make field training there a real hassle.

Eastern Europe (e.g., Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria) is likely to see a plus-up in American troops withdrawn from Germany and placed in existing Soviet-era bases. Turkey is also a candidate, but more challenging politically.

Britain: Down. London is a great ally, but the island nation is far from the likely fights. Some of our 11,000 troops in Britain are likely to be shifted to Italy for operations in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

In the past, U.S. forces flying from Britain have had problems gaining overflight permission from continental nations (think France). Moving forces to Italy would avoid that problem.

Korea: Down. North Korea's military is large and dangerous, but South Korea is nearly capable of handling the 1.2 million North Korean army on its own. And the South, with the world's 11th largest economy, can do more for its own defense against the North, freeing up U.S. troops for deployment elsewhere.

American forces on the peninsula will drop from 37,000 to 25,000 soldiers and airmen. Some of these 12,000 troops will be sent to the Middle East to help relieve forces already deployed there (3,600 troops will leave Korea this summer for Iraq) — or rotated back to the United States.

Japan: No change. The 47,000 U.S. forces in Japan are there for the defense of Japan, but also in case of another Korean war (which, of course, would threaten Japanese security). Tokyo isn't up for hosting more Americans, but China's uncertain path makes Japan increasingly critical to peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

China's burgeoning might — political, economic and military — is of growing concern throughout Asia. America is likely to deploy additional naval and air force assets to the western Pacific island of Guam to balance China's rise in the region.

Middle East: Down (eventually). Once Iraq is stabilized, U.S. forces will draw down in the Middle East — but keep the capability to quickly redeploy to the region as needed.

This realignment and repositioning is something we should have been considering for quite some time. After the fall of the USSR and its eastern bloc, much of our troop positioning in Europe became "obsolete" for lack of a better term. It certainly wasn't nominal and remained as it was more out of tradition than need.

Korea is the first step in this necessary realignment of forces and despite all the concerns about NoKo, is the right thing to do.

TrackBack