Army Shifts to Asia; Troops May Follow

U.S. troops might be redeployed from Europe to Asia to serve as a hedge against potential conflicts there, and weapons and combat equipment have already been shifted, the Army’s top official said Thursday.

Army Secretary Thomas E. White Jr. said that, as part of a pending review of military strategy, “you have to look at your positioning around the [Pacific] Rim, and you have to see if there are opportunities” for change.

Although White said no final decisions on troop redeployment have been made, such a move would likely be controversial in Asia and Europe.

Key U.S. allies in Asia don’t want more U.S. troops on their soil, and there is a general uneasiness about further militarization of that heavily armed region. Rivals such as China and North Korea would be alarmed by any buildup of U.S. military forces in the Pacific. And if the troops came to Asia from Europe, the move would likely raise questions about whether America is scaling back its security role there.

The Bush administration has already expressed its intention to focus U.S. military might more sharply on national security threats emanating from Asia, and White’s comments Thursday provided an important signal of how that might happen.

They also underscored how markedly the new administration’s approach differs from that of the Clinton team, which, beginning in 1995, sought to achieve military stability by keeping a steady force of about 100,000 troops in both Europe and Asia.

Since coming into office, members of the Bush national security team have emphasized their view that Asia is likely to be the center of security challenges this century, starting with the potential conflicts between China and Taiwan and between North and South Korea. Officials have argued that the United States needs to be better able to project its military power in the region to prevent wars or to respond quickly to them.

The Army has about 70,000 troops in Europe, including 55,500 in Germany. It has roughly 29,300 in Asia, including 27,482 in South Korea and 1,763 in Japan.

White said he thinks that all of the military services--not just the Army--are going to consider whether to shift their troops so they can better deal with the security challenges in Asia.

“If the Pacific becomes of greater importance than it typically has in the past, relative to Europe and the other regions of the world, you’re going to reexamine the whole business” of troop positioning, he said. “We’re doing that.”

White said the movement of military equipment to Asia is “a signal, once again, that we’re going to shift our available resources around to fit the strategy.”

The military equipment has been moved from several European sites, including in Germany and Italy, to depots in Asia that have been short of some weapons and gear, officials said. The amount shifted was not disclosed.

It has become a standard practice of the U.S. military to “pre-position” military equipment in spots around the globe so that it is readily available for use by troops in emergencies. The equipment includes a full range of gear, from tanks and trucks to tents.

Derek Mitchell, an Asia specialist at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, said that, while U.S. allies in the region rely on U.S. military support, they would be made uneasy by any sign of a sizable U.S. military buildup.

“They don’t want any instability,” he said, or any change in approach that might suggest a shift from political to military means for solving problems.

In the decades since World War II, U.S. allies around the world have been increasingly reluctant to provide bases for U.S. troops. And some analysts predicted that it would be difficult for the United States to find new places to base U.S. troops.

The stationing of U.S. forces in Japan has remained intensely controversial. Though the United States has met much less resistance in South Korea, efforts are underway even there to reduce the “footprint” of U.S. forces.

Moving U.S. troops to Australia also has been discussed. But such a move would put Australia in a touchy position because of likely opposition from Indonesia and perhaps other Southeast Asia countries.

White acknowledged that any repositioning of U.S. forces would be a sensitive issue abroad and said the United States would take pains to ease allies’ doubts.

“Any time you make shifts in strategy and deployments, there’s a lot of concern by a lot of different people and consequently it will take time,” he said. If the administration does adopt a strategy more focused on Asia, “we’ll have to very deliberately engage NATO, obviously, and our alliance partners, both [in Europe] and in the Pacific.”

Talk of the new emphasis on Asia has already provoked a reaction in Europe, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stressed during a trip there earlier this year that the American commitment to European security has not diminished. But some defense analysts said the 100,000-troop figure has taken on a real significance to European governments in recent years, and a scaling back would be difficult for the United States to explain.

White said he will not recommend moving any of the four brigades of combat troops--which number about 20,000--now stationed in Europe to the Asian theater.

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said plans to shift materiel from Europe are “very sensible,” since much of the pre-positioned equipment in Europe is not likely to be needed for war.

He downplayed the potentially negative reaction of Asian nations to a U.S. buildup in the region.

Such a redeployment might go largely unnoticed, he said, since U.S. troop strength in Europe is now slightly over the 100,000 benchmark and troop strength in Asia is slightly under it.

As of March 31, there were 96,000 U.S. troops in Asia and about 119,000 in Europe.