The Pentagon has indefinitely shelved its plans to ship 2,700 ground troops and 350 Special Forces troops to the Philippines, where they were to help train and fight alongside the Philippine armed forces in their battle against the Abu Sayyaf Islamic rebel group.
But Phillip Mitchell, ground forces analyst with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, says this reversal doesn?t mean the United States will curtail its global military presence.
?I think primarily because the U.S. is the sole remaining superpower. And as a superpower, it has global interests and therefore a global reach,? he says. ?It has to maintain not only the security of its own borders, but look to maintaining security on a worldwide basis. And on that fact alone we see the deployment of U.S. forces worldwide.?
Maintaining security on a worldwide basis keeps tens of thousands of American servicemen and women overseas. In recent months the Pentagon has deployed 235,000 troops in preparation for a war in Iraq. But more often than not Ivan Oelrich, senior research associate at the Federation of American Scientists, says U.S. troops are sent abroad in an advisory capacity.
?Some times these deployments might be literally a handful of people, just five or six people, who might even be attached to an embassy. They might be training or working on some liaison function or helping them to set up a communications system so they can communicate with U.S. forces,? he says.
?If some country has bought weapons from the U.S., U.S. military personnel might be there for some period to train the troops on how they?re used," Mr. Oelrich says. "So a deployment might be a very, very small number of people. So you have to look at not the numbers of countries but how many people are in each country. And when you do that it?s much less dramatic.?
While some troop deployments are for training rather than combat, other deployments are vitally important. Military analysts say U.S. forces in South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia are crucial. These troops act as deterrents to possible regional aggression.
But the U.S. military?s global commitments have led some to question whether America?s armed forces aren?t being pulled in too many directions at once. Patrick Garrett, associate analyst with Globalsecurity.org, says these worries are exaggerated.
?I think that the argument or the claims that the U.S. military is overextended are really misleading. I think that to say that in general is a misleading statement,? he says. ?I think that the U.S. has probably one of the best militaries in the world. It might not necessarily have the numbers of a North Korea, but it does certainly have much more in the way of capabilities.?
The United States has 1.4 million men and women in uniform. At present close to 20% of U.S. troops are deployed overseas. How does this compare to other periods in American history? At the height of the Cold War, the United States had 400,000 troops in Europe. Today there are some 40,000 to 50,000 troops there. Mr. Mitchell with the International Institute for Strategic Studies expects to see this presence scaled back even further as part of the shift from the Cold War to the War on Terror.
?At the present time there certainly has been some downsizing over the past few years. And that?s understandable given the end of the Cold War,? he says. ?But equally what the U.S. is looking towards now is to changing the emphasis of its deployment. And it?s considering not so much large numbers of troops manning tanks and armored personnel carriers, but a smaller number of troops who are able to be rapidly deployed to a given situation anywhere in the world.?
U.S. troop movements into new military arenas have been accompanied by a rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Thirty-seven thousand U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950 to 1953 Korean War. Visceral anti-Americanism among young South Koreans has led some Americans to question whether the United States should continue to risk American lives in places where they are not wanted.
While Defense Secretary Rumsfeld says he is willing to talk to the South Korean government about a reduction in U.S. forces, nobody thinks the Americans will pull out completely. To do so would be almost tantamount to inviting North Korea to invade the South, says Mr. Mitchell.
