"U.S. air power grows in East Asia"

U.S. air power grows in East Asia
By Robert Burns
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 13, 2006

Much of the U.S. ground combat might is tied up in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and Washington is reducing its infantry forces in South
Korea.
But U.S. air and sea power in East Asia, a key to almost any
imaginable military conflict with North Korea, has grown in numbers and
reach. So, on balance, it appears the United States has sufficient
forces for the more likely military missions to be required in a Korea
crisis -- perhaps some form of sea and air blockade, officials and
analysts say.
If North Korea initiated a surprise attack on South Korea, the
United States would face hard decisions on multiple war fronts.
Soldiers and Marines getting ready to rotate into Iraq would have to be
diverted to Korea, requiring the troops in Iraq to stay much longer
than planned.
These issues arise as the U.N. Security Council considers imposing
tougher sanctions on North Korea in response to its reported nuclear
test.
Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat and a close observer of
military issues, said in an interview Tuesday that he worries that if a
major military crisis erupted in North Korea, the Army and Marines
would be over-stretched.
Mr. Skelton said the Army has only two fully ready combat brigades
available -- one in Germany, the other in Kuwait. The rest are either
in Iraq or Afghanistan, are getting ready to deploy there, or have just
returned.
The U.S. military has about 140,000 troops in Iraq and about 20,000
in Afghanistan, mainly soldiers and Marines.
One Army combat brigade is based in South Korea -- the Republic of
Korea, ROK for short -- as part of a U.S. force numbering 28,000. That
force has been pared down from 32,500 over the past few years and is
scheduled to drop to 25,000 by 2008.
There are about 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan; of those, about 8,000
Marines are scheduled to move from Okinawa to Guam.
Michael Green, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, a Washington think tank, said in an interview
Tuesday that short of a total collapse of North Korea, the U.S.
military has what it needs to handle the problem.
"The South Korean ground forces are strong enough to handle and
deter a North Korean attack on the ground," said Mr. Green, who was
senior director for Asian affairs on President Bush's National Security
Council. "What they need is help with air forces and naval forces, and
that is not what we're using in Iraq right now."
He sees no shortage of U.S. air and naval power.
Mr. Skelton agrees that "we're in pretty good shape" in terms of
air and naval forces available for Korean duty. He added that he does
not see an immediate need to send more U.S. ground troops to South
Korea.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others argue that even
with smaller numbers of U.S. ground troops in South Korea, recent
technological advances and improvements in the South Korean army have
actually increased the overall level of military power facing North
Korea.
The U.S. Air Force has a range of fighter planes, surveillance
aircraft and support planes at two major bases in South Korea -- Osan
and Kunsan -- and at three bases in Japan, including Kadena Air Base on
Okinawa. It also has begun in recent years to rotate continuously a
fleet of long-range bombers to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, an
island in the Pacific well within range of any target on the Korean
Peninsula.
There are six B-52 bombers on Guam, where B-2 stealth bombers
recently did a rotation.
The Air Force also has begun basing C-17 long-range transport
planes in Hawaii. As part of a broader strategy for focusing more on
Asia, the Navy is considering shifting one of its aircraft carriers
from the Atlantic region to the Pacific, possibly to Guam or Hawaii.
The Navy has added two Los Angeles-class attack submarines to its
forces on Guam.
The Navy also is installing missile-tracking radar and interceptor
missiles on 18 Pacific Fleet ships.
Next week, Mr. Rumsfeld is scheduled to meet at the Pentagon with
his South Korean counterpart to discuss progress in reducing U.S.
forces in South Korea, consolidating the remaining troops on fewer
bases farther from the North Korean border, and shifting more command
authority to the South Korean government.
The Pentagon wants to restore wartime control of South Korean
forces to the Seoul government as early as 2009, but the South Koreans
say they need more time, at least until 2012, to create a new command
structure.
Since the end of the Korean War in July 1953, a U.S. commander has
had wartime command of South Korean troops. In the proposed
arrangement, U.S. troops in Korea would remain under U.S. command.