28.07.2003, 01:24
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Zitat:A new way of projecting American power - The number of troops based abroad will be reduced
Little is being said in public and, for the moment, most of the changes are imperceptible. Yet they amount to an extraordinary reassessment of the way US forces will be positioned around the world. Washington will continue to plan for wars anywhere around the globe. However, most troops will be positioned in the US, rather than in forward bases on various continents.
US military planners are engaged in two complicated processes. The first entails a rearrangement of existing US military bases around the world, partly to complete the readjustment begun a decade ago when the threat of international communism ended and partly to reduce political dependency on any host nation.
The deployment of US troops in Europe was originally designed to meet the threat of a Soviet invasion. That threat has disappeared but tens of thousands of US forces remain in Europe, largely because neither the Europeans nor the Americans want to tackle the sensitive question of their withdrawal. The recent war in Iraq, however, changed the situation. Washington discovered that, while it could use these troops and their equipment in the Middle East, it could not fly them over the territory of some countries that opposed the war.
US attention is now moving to the former communist countries of eastern Europe where the stationing of US troops makes greater sense. The use of airfields and ports in Romania or Bulgaria provides easy access to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, the areas where the USA is most likely to be engaged in future warfare.
A similar process is taking place in the Middle East. Immediately after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Washington announced that it would withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia. The official explanation was that these troops were no longer required; the real reason is that Washington is keen to free itself from dependence on the Saudi regime. Indeed, the entire pattern of US deployment in the Middle East suggests that the USA is preparing for the possibility that the Saudi monarchy will eventually collapse. Since the terrorist attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001, the Pentagon has poured billions of dollars into the creation of new bases in the smaller Arab sheikhdoms around the Gulf. The strategy makes sense on two counts.
First, the smaller Arab monarchies remain dependent on the US for protection and should the Saudi regime collapse, the USA would be able to contain any radical Muslim government that may appear in its wake.
Second, the most spectacular change of strategy came with the idea of creating 'virtual' military bases around the world - staging posts for US troops - rather than long-term, fixed installations where US forces are stationed for decades. The US has invested heavily in new transport aircraft - vast monsters that can airlift whole units, complete with all their equipment, in a matter of days to any corner of the globe. The result is that the USA does not need many fixed bases; all it requires is the certainty that some areas around the world can be used as staging posts for the airlift of US forces whenever necessary. This scheme has the added advantage of precluding political disputes, for the stationing of US troops can create huge difficulties. In contrast, the conclusion of agreements about the possible use of staging posts in case of crises can pass unnoticed. Few are aware that Washington has already created a constellation of such 'virtual' military bases on the territories of all the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, conveniently close to Iran, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and China.