Troop Movements

Reconfiguring American troops in Europe and Asia is long overdue. The challenge with President Bush’s plan to withdraw up 70,000 soldiers from these regions is that it appears to be done for political reasons – to calm the criticism of the much longer than expected U.S. deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan – rather than based on a coordinated re-structuring of the military. When Congress returns from its summer recess, its Armed Services Committees should review the new plan in light of broader military planning and spending.

Since the Cold War is long over and Western Europe has long remained stable, the need to keep thousands of U.S. troops stationed there has faded. So, too, has the need for American military personnel in South Korea, despite the nuclear buildup of the North. There, the United States has trained and equipped a strong South Korean Army and a continued American presence on the peninsula clearly has done nothing to dampen North Korean nuclear aspirations.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and others have criticized the president’s plan as abandoning international alliances. Such criticism confuses a military presence and diplomacy. Withdrawing soldiers from Germany does not equate to a withdrawal from NATO, although a good case could be made that the Bush administration weakened or outright undid many international alliances long before the troop withdrawal was announced last week.

Writing in a recent issue of the Washington Post, Ronald Asmus, a deputy secretary of state for European affairs in the Clinton administration, said U.S. troops remained in Europe after the Cold War for three reasons. They were there to ensure the peace and stability of the continent, to support NATO and expansion of the European Union while projecting democracy eastward, and to help our European allies to prepare for new conflicts elsewhere, he wrote.

All three objectives have been accomplished. Do European and Asian countries think that the war on terrorism can be better fought if there are American troops in Germany or South Korea? Since its physical presence, under the president’s proposal, would shrink in these areas, the United States must boost its diplomatic endeavors to assure NATO, the United Nations and other allies that the country is committed to participating in international peacekeeping and terrorism-fighting efforts.

At the same time, the Pentagon should put the Base Realignment and Closure process on hold, as both of Maine’s senators have suggested. It makes no sense to make decisions on closing U.S. bases when 70,000 soldiers will be re-assigned from overseas stations to bases here. Any future closure or realignment decisions must be based on the new reality, not numbers from last year that no longer reflect the military’s future plans.