US President George W. Bush unveiled a plan last Monday to bring home as many as 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia or to shift them to new strategic strongholds as part of a global rearrangement of US forces.

As the result of an extensive review of the US defence posture launched by the Bush administration since it took office, the planned military realignment would be the most significant restructuring of the US forces overseas since the end of the Cold War.

Speaking to an audience at the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bush said the redeployment is intended to transform the US military into a lighter, more agile and lethal force in an age when security conditions facing the United States are different from those of the Cold War era.

According to the rearrangement outline, which is expected to begin in 2006 and continue for several years, about one-half of the 71,000 US troops currently stationed in Germany will return home or be re-stationed in what Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld called a "new Europe," some Eastern European countries which were on the US side in its war against Iraq, or the region beyond. That will make the US military presence closer to the Middle East and Central Asia - Russia's traditional range of influence.

Additionally, the United States is expecting to cut almost half of its current 39,000 troops in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and 35,000 in Japan.

Weeks ago, the Pentagon decided to send another aircraft carrier to Asia-Pacific region to deal with the perceived threat posed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) nuclear programme and a possible conflict across the Taiwan Straits.

The new US alignment plan will also be an important step towards Rumsfeld's goal of building the US forces into a contingent that can make a potent and swift response to any unexpected emergency in all corners of the world.

The United States has begun contemplating this redeployment of its military since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the largest Cold War adversary facing the United States, with Washington showcasing its military muscle throughout the world.

In the eyes of Washington decision-makers, the disappearance of its largest Cold War competitor has already made unnecessary the previous US large-scale military assembly in any individual country.

The September 11 terrorist attacks made the US perception clearer that it is terrorism rather than a certain major power that poses the most immediate and greatest threat to US national security and overseas interests.

Commander-in-Chief Bush has not said the United States would send the withdrawn troops to Iraq, but the current US overextended military presence in Iraq has undoubtedly been a factor behind the military redeployment thinking.

Analysts have said that with such a large number of overseas forces returning home or having been sent to other military bases, the Bush administration has had to shift military forces from other bases to Iraq, drawing as many as 14,000 US troops.

Washington's relations with its traditional European countries following the Iraq War as well as the eastward movement of the US strategic focus have likely also caused decision-makers to accelerate the repositioning of US troops overseas.

The US plan has invited complex reactions at home and abroad.

Japan has expressed its support of the US redeployment plan.

"Japan welcomes the review of the US military framework that will better suit the global security environment and further contribute to peace and stability," the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement a day after Bush's announcement.

The ROK said it was not surprised by the plan.

But Germany and Russia have expressed their concerns over the matter.

On the same day of Bush's announcement, Karsten Voigt, Berlin's co-ordinator for German-American relations, said the withdrawal of US troops could cause harsh damage to economies of some local German towns.

German Defence Minister Peter Struck also expressed his regret over the withdrawal although he said the move is understandable.

Russia, whose strategic space has been unceasingly squeezed by the eastward expansion of US-led NATO, has also shown its uneasiness towards the US military redeployment, since it would push the US military presence nearer to Russia's doorstep.

Following Bush's troop shift announcement, Russia called for a detailed explanation from the United States.

Moscow has been extremely concerned that as the NATO membership expansion to Central Asian and the Baltic states, Russian influences in these regions will further lessen, while its security further compromised.

In a statement, Russia stressed that it expected Washington to adhere to previous agreements that, in Moscow's view, ban the United States from stationing its troops in the Baltics or the Caucasuses.

Bush's redeployment proposal has provoked scathing criticisms within the United States.

A day after Bush's disclosure of the plan, retired US Army General Wesley Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander and now a senior adviser to democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, said the proposal made little strategic sense for the US on-going war on terrorism and warned it would undermine US ties with traditional allies.

"As we face a global war on terror with al-Qaida active in more than 60 countries, now is not the time to pull back our forces," Clark said on Tuesday. "This ill-conceived move and its timing seem politically motivated rather than designed to strengthen our national security."

Richard Holbrooke, a Kerry foreign policy adviser and former ambassador to the UN and Germany under former President Bill Clinton, also lashed out at Bush.

"This is another example of the (Bush) administration's unilateralism. It's going to weaken our national security," he said. "It is not going to save us money. It will cost billions of dollars to bring these troops home."

Calling bases in Germany, ROK and Okinawa "essential" along with other forward deployments, Holbrooke said the troop withdrawal from the regions would weaken US traditional ties with its closest allies just when the United States needs them most.

Kerry himself voiced his own opposition to the Bush administration's plans while giving a speech to the VFW in Cincinnati on Wednesday.

"Nobody wants to bring troops home more than those of us who have fought in foreign wars, but it needs to be done at the right time and in a sensible way. This is not that time or that way," he told the veterans.

"This hastily announced plan raises more doubts about our intentions and our commitments than it provides real answers."

The post-Cold War world situation, the strategy of maintaining and prolonging the United States as sole superpower in the world, and the need to counter terrorism have made it natural for the US redeployment of its global military forces.

But at a time when Bush and his political adversary are banging their respective drums in a presidential race, Bush's announcement of this plan obviously shows a tinge of US politics.

Source: China Daily