Transforming the U.S. global defense posture

Naval War College Review,  Spring, 2006  by Ryan Henry

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In sum, transformation is far more dynamic than the common conception of applying high technology in war. For the Defense Department, it is about:

* A command climate that swept away preconceived notions of strategic affairs and of the department's traditional role in those affairs

* The shift from a threat-based to a capabilities-based approach

* The need for increased efficiency and effectiveness

* The shift from engagement to security cooperation.

Transformational thinking respects the facts, rejects fixed ideas, and promotes new and necessary relationships and capabilities that position us to contend with the uncertainty of the new strategic landscape.

THE GENESIS OF THE U.S. GLOBAL DEFENSE POSTURE

Before turning to how this transformation has helped drive the strategy for realigning our global defense posture, a bit of history is in order. In 1985, at the height of the Cold War, the United States had 358,000 military personnel deployed in Europe, 125,000 in East Asia, and nine thousand in the Persian Gulf. In Europe, ground, air, and naval forces were stationed in support of NATO from Iceland in the northwest to Turkey in the southeast. In the Pacific region, forces were stationed in Korea, the Philippines, and Japan. Our defense posture at that time was the product of the collective legacy of the wars of the mid-twentieth century, but our basing and operating patterns were relatively well matched to the challenges of the Cold War era. Forces in Europe and Asia were primarily designed to fight in place--potent for defensive operations close to garrison, but difficult to deploy outside of the theater where they were stationed. Essentially, we maintained forward-deployed forces that served as defensive tripwires.

The end of the Cold War dramatically altered the global landscape. As a result, during the first half of the 1990s the United States closed or turned over to host governments about 60 percent of its overseas military installations and returned nearly three hundred thousand military personnel to the United States. During the 1990s the United States also closed large military facilities in the Philippines, Spain, and Panama.

By the mid- 1990s, although we had dramatically reduced the overall numbers of forward-stationed military forces, they remained concentrated largely in Western Europe and Northeast Asia. After the end of the Cold War, however, our operating patterns had diverged from our basing posture. Western Europe and Northeast Asia had become springboards for operations in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf, and later, Central Asia. The result was a shift in the rationale for our forward posture--forces were no longer expected to fight in place. Rather, their purpose was to project into theaters that were likely to be some distance away from their garrisons. In other words, while a primary purpose of forward presence was to provide for the direct territorial defense of treaty allies, this could no longer be the sole purpose. Threats to the security of our nation and that of our allies had begun emerging in unexpected and faraway lands.