Bush administration to cut, realign forces abroad

The U.S. government is consulting with other countries about realigning U.S. military forces abroad so they can be deployed more quickly, a top defense policy official announced Wednesday.

The Bush administration intends to create a military force that is based more on strategic capabilities than raw numbers and equipment, said Defense undersecretary for policy Douglas Feith during a speech before the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Realigned forces will rotate in and out of countries as needed.

The coming changes could mean a reduction in the number of forces stationed in countries such as Germany and South Korea, and shorter, but more rotations for U.S. military personnel, Feith said. He also said changes to the U.S. military posture abroad could affect planned base closures in the United States if more troops return to the country.

"We are aiming to achieve the most basic and comprehensive review of the nation's global defense posture since the United States became a world power," he said. "We are going to be making changes to our posture in every region of the world."

According to Feith, the Bush administration is consulting with countries in Europe and Asia to determine how U.S. military forces should be realigned, adding that he will travel to Germany next week for continued discussions.

"For this deployability concept to work, U.S. forces must be able to move smoothly into, through and out of host nations, which puts a premium on establishing legal and support arrangements," he said. "We are negotiating, or planning to negotiate, with many countries, legal protections for U.S. personnel."

However, he said it is too early to know whether the realignment would create more "hardship" tours and strain on military personnel and their families.

Feith added that a major component of realigning U.S. forces consists of reexamining and reshaping strategic relationships with other countries, such as by encouraging them to develop more agile forces and resources. He emphasized that existing U.S. commitments-such as in Germany, Japan and South Korea-should no longer be gauged by the size of U.S. forces in those countries.

"Part of what we are going to be doing in our consultations on this subject, is to try to educate people everywhere around the world about the fact that what we see as the key to preserving our alliances and fulfilling our commitments is ensuring that we have the capabilities forward that we need to do the job and maintain the alliances," he said. "In some cases, our ability to push those capabilities forward depends on our reducing the numbers."

Feith also said the administration's planning is being driven more by the types of capabilities it believes will be needed in the coming decades, as opposed to current trends.

"While we note the world as it is and we note threats that now exist, what we think we can do with greater confidence is identify the kinds of capabilities that we may confront and the kinds of capabilities that we're going to need to have to deal with the threat down the road," he said. "And we have a greater sense of our ability to do that than we do to predict precisely where we might have to fight and against whom and under what circumstances."