The United States claims to be pivoting its martial involvement
toward Asia, but one can truly discern the U.S. military’s
priorities by looking at where it warehouses military weapons for
war. When these stockpiles are examined, it looks like the future
will be similar to the 1990s and the first decade of the new
millennium.
In fact, from the Cold War to the present, the United States has
always been heavily involved in Asia to contain rival powers. The
primary potential enemy has shifted from the now defunct Soviet
Union to a rising China, the U.S. naval presence in the region has
merely been augmented, and the string of Asia-Pacific alliances — in
which the U.S. guarantees other nations’ security — have been
incrementally upgraded. One of the most likely sources of conflict
in that area is a Chinese dustup with U.S. friends or allies
Vietnam, the Philippines, or Japan over disputed island chains, many
of which have nearby waters containing oil. In addition, important
shipping lanes carrying Persian Gulf oil to U.S. friends and allies
run through the region.
In warehouses in Japan and South Korea, the U.S. Army will stockpile
equipment for a heavy combat brigade and a brigade to support and
sustain that fighting unit. Troops will be flown in to use such
pre-positioned stocks, thus saving the time to transport equipment to
any Asian military contingency.
But even more weapons and equipment will be stockpiled in the
Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia. In three countries in that region,
the U.S. will stockpile equipment for a heavy combat brigade, an
infantry brigade, and infantry battalion and sustainment and support
units. Despite its pivot toward Asia, the United States will apparently still expend much effort to defend Persian Gulf oil.
Also likely defending oil will be pre-positioned stocks remaining in
Italy to use to assist local counterinsurgency forces in Africa.
The Army also has pre-positioned stockpiles afloat, with one ship
with weapons assigned to the Asia-Pacific region, one ship assigned to the
Middle East, and the other six ships in the United States containing
a swing force that can carry equipment for an infantry brigade and
a sustainment brigade where needed.
In the decades after the Cold War ended, the U.S. armed forces
were sized to fight two major regional contingencies — one in
Asia and one in the Persian Gulf. Those theaters are still being
emphasized, and adding a new minor emphasis on Africa, the U.S.
military seems more like an oil-protection force than it was even
back then. The U.S. completely withdrew forces from Iraq only
because the Iraqi government refused to allow American troops
immunity from Iraqi laws. Otherwise, the U.S. military presence in
the Persian Gulf would be greater than even the current robust force
posture.
The U.S. military has responded to the national fiscal crisis
and (possibly substantial) budget cuts by relying more on such
pre-positioned equipment and less on permanent overseas bases. That
may be an improvement, but only at the margin. Foreign countries
hosting pre-positioned stocks of weapons still demand to be defended
as the price for storing the weapons.
Thus, despite the current financial crisis in Washington, the
military’s actions indicate that it still has grandiose ideas
about what the future U.S. role in the world will be. However, even
this Cold War Lite policy is fiscally unsustainable.
In my book No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East,
I debunk the stated need to militarily defend Persian Gulf oil,
which will likely flow into the world market even during a crisis in
that region, because oil producers can make much money selling it.
It is actually cheaper for the United States to pay the market price
for oil than to spend the vast sums needed to keep armed forces and
the aforementioned pre-positioned equipment in the region to try to
keep the price down (even this effect is in doubt, because wars
usually make the oil price go up). In short, as the classical
economists of the 19th century noted, empire never pays
from a financial standpoint. As for Africa, it has never been
strategic to the United States and won’t be even if oil
production in a couple of nations there is increasing.
As for the possible non-oil-related contingencies in Asia,
relatively wealthy East Asian nations — such as Japan, Taiwan,
Vietnam, and South Korea — could and should band together as a
counterweight to China, relying on the United States only as a last-ditch emergency backup. In short, surprisingly, without
endangering U.S. security, the American military could pull back its
forward forces and pre-positioned weapons stockpiles allocated for
the three primary regions in which the U.S. is still planning for
war.
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