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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, June 03, 2003

US Planning Historic Shift of Military Power Abroad: Report

The United States is planning to shift most of its forces from Germany, South Korea and Japan in the most sweeping realignment of American military power since World War II, US foreign and military officials said on Monday.


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The United States is planning to shift most of its forces from Germany, South Korea and Japan in the most sweeping realignment of American military power since World War II, US foreign and military officials said on Monday.

The plan would reorient America's presence in Europe eastwards to Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, and shift US power in eastern Asia toward southeastern Asia, with options for new bases in northern Australia, the Philippines and even Vietnam being explored, the NBC television network reported Monday.

Currently there are about 70,000 American troops based in Germany, 38,000 in South Korea and 47,000 in Japan, of which about30,000 are based on the tiny island of Okinawa.

The combination of new threats, the friction US troops are causing domestically in these countries and a desire on the part of the Pentagon to rethink the structure of the military in general, has convinced the Bush administration that a thorough reconfiguration of America's overseas presence is in order.

"What's going on is partly a long-overdue adjustment, and partly a reaction to what is perceived as a very ungrateful attitude toward us in some quarters," a senior US military officerwas quoted as saying.

As part of the sweeping plan to reposition US forces around theworld, US forces have largely pulled out of bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey over the last month. The pentagon has also moved rapidly to establish bases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, in territories formerly controlled by the Soviet Union.

United States officials have publicly denied any concrete plansto move specific units or bases from one country to another. But Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confirmed on Friday that acomplete rethink is underway.

"We are in the process of taking a fundamental look at our military posture worldwide, including in the United States," Wolfowitz told reporters during a visit to Singapore. "We're facing a very different threat than any one we've faced historically."


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