East Asian Security: The Pentagon's Ossified Strategy

American troops are still in South Korea 45 years after the outbreak of the Korean War, five years after the end of the Cold War, and five years after Russia and China--South Korea's former aggressors--gave it official recognition. But is the American military, deployed largely as it was during the Cold War, still needed in East Asia today?

The Department of Defense answered that question in a report, supervised by Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and released in February, entitled United States Security Strategy for the East Asia?Pacific Region. In a cover letter, Secretary of Defense William Perry wrote that the DOD strategy reports of 1990 and 1992 "envisioned post--Cold War troop reductions in the region through the end of the decade. This year's report, by contrast, reaffirms our commitment to maintain a stable forward presence in the region, at the existing level of about 100,000 troops, for the foreseeable future."

The Department of Defense, in effect, has declared that nothing essential has changed in East Asia and that U.S. policy should be to freeze relations in the Pacific indefinitely. To many East Asians, such a policy shows that Americans do not comprehend how hollow their superpower pretensions are and that Japan and China have a few years to consolidate their ascendancy before telling the Americans that they are no longer even marginally useful. The dod report also ignores the profound shifting around the world, particularly in East Asia, from military to economic power. Moreover, the maintenance of U.S. troops in Japan and South Korea at a cost of more than $35 billion a year is a politically potent issue in America, where many believe both Asian nations have the economic resources to build and maintain sufficient defense forces.

Nye's opening metaphor has been picked up by officials throughout the administration. "Security is like oxygen," the report begins. "You do not tend to notice it until you begin to lose it. The American security presence has helped provide this `oxygen' for East Asian development." The report then postulates:

--For the security and prosperity of today to be maintained for the next 20 years, the United States must remain engaged in Asia, committed to peace in the region, and dedicated to strengthening alliances and friendships.

--A continuing United States security presence is viewed by almost every country in the region as a stabilizing force.