Bush aide proposes major U.S. adjustments in Asia

Asia faces a political-military situation that is becoming 'increasingly fluid' according to a new report

WASHINGTON -- A report from one of President George W. Bush's senior aides has advocated "major adjustments to U.S. strategy and military posture" in Asia.

The changes include developing Guam as a key regional military hub and possibly opening new bases in Oman and Vietnam, Reuters reports.

The report also urged Washington to deepen and widen its bilateral security alliances in Asia to create a "comprehensive partnership" of countries that would "create militaries that can respond to regional crises as coalitions."

The report, financed by the U.S. Air Force, is the product of a project carried out by RAND, a think tank that does considerable work for the government.

The project was directed by Zalmay Khalizad, a RAND analyst who recently joined Bush's National Security Council staff.

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Given the rising influence of China and India, the potential reunification of Korea and a host of unresolved regional border disputes, Asia faces a political-military situation that is becoming "increasingly fluid," according to the report entitled "The United States and Asia."

"Even if the Korean threat persists, the rest of Asia is changing in ways that seem likely to require major adjustments in U.S. strategy and military posture (as part of) an integrated regional strategy," it said.

A Pentagon spokesman said the report, "like many others before it, will be considered as part of the mix" as the administration devises its national security strategy.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has already signaled that he intends to press dramatic changes in U.S. military strategy with increased emphasis toward Asia. But final conclusions have not been announced.

The RAND report outlined three main U.S. objectives in Asia, including preventing the rise of a regional dominating power, maintaining regional stability and managing Asia's transformation so that events "do not spiral out of control."

South Korea top priority

Washington must manage a number of critical challenges in Asia but "the one that must occupy the immediate attention of the United States is Korea," it said.

Bush has refused to continue his predecessor's policy of engaging North Korea until his four-month-old administration reviews U.S. policy toward the peninsula.

After decades of isolation, North Korea, its economy in tatters and its people dying of malnutrition, has begun to connect with its rival to the south as well as to the United States and Europe, raising hopes of eventual reunification.

But the report said reunification, for all its potential benefits, likely would put pressure on the United States to abandon its military bases in South Korea and Japan and possibly also increase tensions between those two countries.

Shifting southward

Since the 1950s the U.S. focus in Asia has been in the northeast, oriented toward Russia and North Korea.

But the report concluded that "this posture will need to shift broadly southward."

If the Korean Peninsula confrontation should end, the United States still would benefit from maintaining military bases in South Korea and Japan, but it should establish a base for U.S. jet fighters in the southern Ryukyu Islands, it said.

Also, the report said that the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally that once was home to major American military bases, is an "attractive potential partner" for new bases and in the longer term, Vietnam "could provide additional access in southeastern Asia beyond that offered by Singapore and Thailand."

The United States at present lacks reliable access to South Asia, a critical link between the Middle East and Asia where rivals India and Pakistan face off on the world's most likely nuclear battleground, the report said.

It proposed Oman, with a government that has been a "reasonably steadfast ally," as the most plausible venue for a U.S. military base within proximity of the subcontinent.

Beyond that, Guam, a sovereign U.S. territory, "should be built up as a major hub for power projection throughout Asia" with the stockpiling of munitions, spare parts and up to 150 fighters and 50 bombers, the report said.

The report endorsed U.S. support for Japan's efforts to revise its constitution to "expand its security horizons beyond its territorial defense and acquire appropriate capabilities for supporting" operations undertaken by a coalition of U.S. allies in Asia, including South Korea, Australia and perhaps Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand.

Reuters contributed to this report.