Aspin Backs Capability for 2 Wars at a Time : Defense: He rejects the ‘win-hold-win’ strategy proposed to allow deep military spending cuts.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin said Thursday that he has decided against scaling back American armed forces to the point where they could no longer win two major conflicts at once and instead will seek to retain a two-war capability throughout the post-Cold War era.

His decision came amid mounting criticism of the “win-hold-win” proposal, both in the military and among some foreign governments. South Korea, for one, feared that it would be left vulnerable under the plan and sent a high-level envoy here to head it off.

Prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the proposal was one of several options that Aspin had been considering to help the Administration make deep cuts in defense spending without reducing U.S. global commitments. News of the plan surfaced late last month.

The plan was referred to as “win-hold-win” because it called for providing only enough forces to win one war immediately while holding a second adversary at bay with air power until the first set of American troops could be redeployed to defeat its forces.

Aspin also warned Thursday that merely maintaining the ability to win two wars at once, as now proposed, would not be sufficient because the United States also must be able to project its power around the globe to deter aggression and respond to regional crises.

He said the ability to project a “forward presence,” as such a capability is known, has become even more important in the post-Cold War world than it was when the Soviet Union was the United States’ principal threat.

As such, he declared, the United States not only would have to provide enough forces to win two regional conflicts simultaneously but it also would have to maintain sufficient numbers of aircraft and aircraft carriers to respond to trouble spots abroad.

The secretary’s remarks were interpreted as an attempt to dampen expectations--and, in some cases, fears--that the Administration was about to slash the budget so far that it would effectively end America’s role as a superpower.

Critics had complained that the “win-hold-win” plan that Aspin rejected Thursday would have overburdened American troops and would have all but invited potential adversaries to attack if the United States were ever engaged in another large operation like the Persian Gulf War.

American allies have been worried by a recent speech in which Peter Tarnoff, an undersecretary of state, told reporters that America no longer has the money to intervene actively in trouble spots around the world. The Administration since has retreated from that stance.

Some military analysts have warned that unless the Administration holds the line, it could end up risking a return to the “hollow forces” of the late-1970s, in which American forces were weakened by inadequate equipment, training and operating funds.

Officials suggested Thursday that the decision to maintain the U.S. ability to win two conflicts at once would probably require a minimum number of aircraft and combat troops but would not necessarily prohibit a reshaping of logistic elements.

They said that one factor that could provide them with more flexibility is that today’s armed forces are more mobile and equipped with higher-technology weapons--which can make existing forces more effective.

The “win-hold-win” plan had called for cutting military forces to only 10 divisions of troops, 10 aircraft carriers and 20 tactical air wings, supplemented by 100 ready-to-deploy attack bombers.

In contrast, the so-called “base force” that the United States has had for the past two years includes 12 divisions of troops, 12 aircraft carriers and 24 tactical air wings.