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- <text id=90TT0564>
- <title>
- Mar. 05, 1990: Ripples In The American Lake
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Mar. 05, 1990 Gossip
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 16
- Ripples in the American Lake
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Can the U.S. reap a peace dividend in the Pacific?
- </p>
- <p>By Ed Magnuson--Reported by Jay Branegan/Hong Kong and Bruce
- van Voorst/Washington
- </p>
- <p> Ever since U.S. forces destroyed the Japanese Navy in World
- War II, the Pacific Ocean has been, in military terms, an
- American lake. From naval bases in the Aleutian Islands and
- southward to Subic Bay in the Philippines, 107 U.S. warships
- and 51 submarines project commanding seapower. Ashore, mostly
- in South Korea, Japan and Okinawa, 120,000 American troops are
- poised to deter aggression along the Pacific's western rim.
- Now, with the Soviet threat waning under the U.S.S.R.'s
- economic and ideological decay, is that U.S. military presence
- still necessary?
- </p>
- <p> As he ended a two-week tour of the Pacific last week,
- Defense Secretary Dick Cheney concluded that the governments
- of Japan and South Korea still appreciate their U.S.
- protectors, despite anti-American sentiment among some
- political factions. Yet Cheney caught a slap from Philippine
- President Corazon Aquino. The U.S. Congress had recently cut $96
- million from a $481 million military and economic aid package
- that Aquino apparently considered a precondition for
- negotiations on renewing U.S. leases to operate the huge Subic
- Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base. Miffed, she canceled plans
- to meet Cheney. The Defense Secretary took the snub gracefully
- but declared that the U.S. will remain in the bases, whose
- leases expire next year, "only as long as the Philippine people
- wish it to stay--and only if the terms negotiated are
- acceptable to both parties."
- </p>
- <p> Both sides in the bases dispute may be just huffing, seeking
- an edge in the imminent bargaining. At the Pentagon, a Navy
- captain insisted that Philippine officials "have cried wolf one
- time too often" over Subic and that the U.S. might pull out.
- Aquino, who was saved from a military coup last December when
- U.S. jet fighters from Clark kept rebel air power grounded,
- caught a lot of domestic heat over her dependence on the U.S.
- She may have used Cheney's visit to show some distance. While
- the U.S. bases are often picketed by leftists, polls show that
- a majority of Filipinos want them to stay. They provide 68,000
- Filipino jobs and inject $507 million annually into the economy.
- </p>
- <p> Clark is clearly more expendable than Subic. The Air Force
- increasingly operates its long-range bombers and advanced
- fighters out of Guam. Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew
- has offered to accept some air units from Clark in his country.
- Subic's facilities, on the other hand, cannot readily be
- replaced. They include extensive machine shops that maintain
- the U.S. fleet with low-cost labor unavailable at alternative
- sites in Singapore or Japan.
- </p>
- <p> But what are the bases protecting? At a media conference in
- Manila last week, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi
- Gerasimov asked, "Suppose the bases go tomorrow--where's the
- threat?" The Soviets, he insisted, "will not fill the vacuum."
- American planners are not so sure of that. Subic is
- strategically situated across the China Sea from Cam Ranh Bay,
- the former U.S. naval base in Viet Nam, which now berths about
- 20 Soviet warships.
- </p>
- <p> And while Mikhail Gorbachev has promised to remove 120,000
- troops from Soviet Asia and Mongolia, that would still leave
- 600,000 along the Soviet border with China. At least 10,000
- troops are based in the northern territories just off Japan
- that were seized by the Soviets in 1945. The Soviet Pacific
- fleet of 77 ships and 120 submarines has access to ports in
- North Korea as well as its own facilities in Vladivostok.
- </p>
- <p> The Japanese, who take hope from recent negotiations with
- the Soviets over the Kurile Islands, urged Cheney to keep U.S.
- pressure on the Kremlin to reduce its military strength in
- Asia. As for the 50,000 American troops in Japan and its
- outlying island of Okinawa, Cheney said the U.S. plans to
- withdraw only about 5,000 over the next three years. The U.S.
- also wants the Japanese to increase the $2.8 billion they now
- pay toward the $6 billion annual cost of keeping American
- forces in Japan.
- </p>
- <p> There was no suggestion that Japan's Self-Defense Forces of
- 244,000 troops should handle that nation's security alone.
- U.S.-Japanese military cooperation underscores the larger
- partnership between the two nations. Moreover, Japan's military
- is still equated with evil by much of the Japanese public as
- well as by its neighbors. In defense, says a senior Foreign
- Ministry official, "we have to play a role without showing a
- big stick."
- </p>
- <p> In South Korea there is no doubt, despite serious
- unification talks, that North Korea's dictator Kim Il Sung
- still poses a threat. Within the South Korean military, there
- is disagreement over whether that nation's 650,000-member armed
- forces could turn back a North Korean invasion. Yet it is clear
- that the U.S. presence remains a deterrent. Cheney announced
- in Seoul that the U.S. plans to reduce the 43,000 troops now
- on the peninsula by only 5,000 over the next three years. This
- would include closing three U.S. air bases starting next year
- </p>
- <p>minority of South Koreans want the U.S. to pull out completely.
- Contends Kim Kyung Won, former Ambassador to Washington: "The
- U.S. has two options: to remain involved and avoid a
- catastrophe, or to go home and then return when things fall
- apart."
- </p>
- <p> But if the U.S., encouraged by its Pacific allies, remains
- essentially in a holding posture toward Asia, the region's
- rapid political and economic changes raise questions about the
- durability of current security arrangements. Writing in the
- Philippine Star, former Aquino press secretary Teodoro Benigno,
- a respected political analyst, posed a provocative scenario.
- "The rules of the big power game will change," he predicted,
- "as America weakens, Japan resurges, and the Chinese giant
- starts to bellow." The 21st century, in his view, will be "an
- Asian century." Even if he proves right, the U.S. military
- presence might help determine whether the coming changes will
- be violent or peaceful.
- </p>
- <table>
- U.S. FORCES IN THE PACIFIC
- Guam: Air Force 4,200
- Navy 4,000
- Japan: Air Force 16,500
- Navy 8,300
- Marines 23,700
- Army 2,000
- Philippines: Air Force 9,200
- Navy 5,500
- Marines 2,000
- Army 600
- South Korea: Air Force 11,600
- Army 31,600
- </table>
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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