Diplomacy Growing Troubles for U.S. Bases |

By William R. Doerner

Spain's Torrejon Air Base outside Madrid boasts the longest runway in Western Europe. Last week, as usual, that shimmering 2.8-mile ribbon of concrete served as takeoff and touchdown point for U.S. F-16 fighters flying daily practice missions. But suburban Madrilenos, grown used to wincing at the ear- splitting shriek from the planes, took comfort in the knowledge that they would not have to endure it indefinitely. As the result of negotiations between the U.S. and the Socialist government of Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, the 79 F-16s flown by the U.S. Air Force's 401st Tactical Fighter Wing must leave Torrejon by May 1991. The pullout will take place to Washington's regret -- but at Madrid's insistence.

One less U.S. fighting unit around the world may not significantly affect the global balance of power. But Torrejon is by no means the only U.S. military outpost whose future has been called into question by a host government. Partly because of a chance convergence of treaty expiration dates, but mainly because many countries are increasingly reluctant to allow American armed forces to be housed on their soil, the U.S. could soon be facing a global basing crisis. Washington has already been asked to withdraw installations from such friendly nations as Thailand and Pakistan, and some strategists warn that the day may come when Washington will be forced to find alternatives to overseas bases as a means of projecting its strategic power.

While the "de-basing" phenomenon has not quite reached that point, defense agreements covering U.S. installations in five nations, four of them NATO allies, are the subject of intense and sometimes rancorous negotiations. "This is a watershed issue that can't help but affect American security," says Frank Gaffney, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, now at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. Items:

-- Negotiators are working against a May 14 deadline to reach agreement on three major U.S. military installations in Spain besides Torrejon. The Gonzalez government has agreed in principle to permitting continued U.S. access to any of the three. But Spanish public opinion is hardly reassuring. A poll published in December by the Madrid daily Diario 16 showed that 48% of those questioned favored total withdrawal of U.S. bases from Spanish territory.

-- Portugal has requested a review of its eight-year treaty permitting the U.S. use of the Lajes Air Base in the Azores. The reason, says right-of-center Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva, is that the agreement "is not being entirely respected." Translation: because of congressional cuts, the $147 million in U.S. aid that Portugal received last year was substantially less than it expected.

-- U.S. and Greek negotiators have been meeting since November to discuss a follow-up to their current bases treaty, which expires next December. The Socialist government of Andreas Papandreou is seeking an increase in the level of U.S. aid it receives -- $430 million in 1987 -- as part of a deal allowing Washington to continue using its four Greek bases.

-- Turkey has been sitting on a pending military treaty with the U.S. for nearly a year, refusing to ratify the document until it is satisfied that Congress will deliver the $913 million in military and economic aid promised by the Reagan Administration negotiators. The stalling tactic has so far not significantly impaired operations at more than two dozen U.S. military installations in the country.

-- With their current military treaty due to expire in 1991, U.S. and Filipino negotiators are planning to open talks in April on a possible renewal. The pact covers Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay Naval Base, the two largest American military installations outside the U.S. The Philippines depends heavily on the $266 million in U.S. aid and $164 million in local earnings that the bases provide each year. Even so, Philippines Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus has warned that any new treaty would require the U.S. to accept "new conditions" that would ban nuclear weapons from the bases. A similar stipulation by New Zealand prompted Washington to renounce its defense arrangement with that country in 1986.

Technically, Washington pays no "rent" for its foreign military bases, since they are assumed to be used for the defense of the local country as well as the U.S. But the costs linked directly to their operation, which ran to only about $400 million in 1960, are expected to hit $6 billion by 1990 -- not to mention the billions more in aid payments to host governments. Such spiraling prices are certain to fuel a growing U.S. debate over whether foreign bases are the best use of defense dollars.

Some host nations, moreover, are having second thoughts about allowing American installations on their soil at any price. One reason is their belief that the bases are less likely to be used against a threat posed by the Soviet Union than against a state like Libya, whose primary offense would probably be directed against the U.S. Writes Neoconservative Guru Irving Kristol in the Wall Street Journal: "What they do fear is getting entangled in a conflict that serves American interests but not their own. In short, what was once defined as an identity or at least mutuality of interests has ceased to be so."

Concerned that the U.S. could face a shortage of available or affordable bases in the future, the Pentagon in 1986 commissioned a report by the Hudson Institute to explore alternatives. The study suggested the possibility of opening U.S. facilities in countries with which Washington does not have basing agreements at the moment, including Morocco and Israel, in part to "reduce the negotiating leverage" of current partners. Some highly advanced future technologies, including the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) and the proposed National Aerospace Plane, which is designed to maneuver both in orbit and in the atmosphere, might eventually allow the U.S. to operate out of domestic bases for some purposes. Yet such systems will take years, and billions of dollars, to develop.

For the foreseeable future, said NATO Supreme Commander General John Galvin last week, the U.S. will have to come to terms with the "military reality that you must tie your base structure to what you need for long-range mobility." What the U.S. needs for that mobility continues to be an array of overseas bases in roughly their present configuration. That makes the precedent set at Torrejon all the more worrisome.

With reporting by Murray J. Gart and Bruce van Voorst/Washington, with other bureaus