Ripples in The American Lake

By Ed Magnuson

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?

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

% 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."

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 (leaving two). According to opinion polls, only a small 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."

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.

With reporting by Jay Branegan/Hong Kong and Bruce van Voorst/Washington