Allan Topol is a partner in a large Washington-based international law firm. He has a science and engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon, and a law degree from Yale University. For almost 40 years, he has been involved in issues at the height of the Washington power structure.
He is also a national bestselling novelist, using the thriller genre to explore international geopolitical and military issues. His 2001 novel, SPY DANCE, is about a former CIA agent on the run and Saudi Arabian oil. His 2003 novel, DARK AMBITION, deals with the corruption of power in Washington and China's threatening posture toward Taiwan. In January 2004, his new novel CONSPIRACY was released dealing with a foreign leader's attempt to influence an American presidential election and the possibility of renewed militarism in Japan.
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August 25, 2004
[Have an opinion about the issues discussed in this column? Sound
off here.]
Last week when President
Bush announced the worldwide realignment of American troops,
it was greeted with anguished outcries in one place -- not in the
Pentagon, where officials were involved in drafting the plans, and
not in the American press (although the anti-Bush writers took shots
at some of the details, particularly the Korea shifts) -- but in
Germany.
Both the German national government and local communities rose
up with a single voice in opposition. They're not concerned that
they'll be exposed to a military threat without the American shield.
Rather, their concern is economic.
Two United States Army divisions are and have been stationed near
or along the old border between East and West Germany. They were
the first line of defense against a western movement by the Soviet
Union. Along with dependents and support personnel, the United States
currently has a huge infrastructure in Germany.
This American presence -- particularly the bases with their personnel
and dependents -- pump badly needed money into the German economy,
permitting local areas to thrive. Once tens of thousands of American
troops leave, these communities may resemble American rust belt
communities where manufacturing plants have closed.
Please forgive me for not shedding any tears for Germany. Our country
and economy are already hard-pressed economically with plenty of
communities in the United States needing assistance. Why shouldn't
troops with their accompanying costs be removed from Germany as
long as the Pentagon is convinced our military preparedness will
even improve?
Some Germans have said their nation is being punished for not supporting
the American war in Iraq. The facts are that this redeployment was
on the drawing board at the Pentagon before the acrimonious debate
between the United States and Britain on one side, and Germany and
France on the other, which preceded the war in Iraq.
With that said, why should President Bush have overrode Pentagon
recommendations to help a nation which, along with France, has been
a constant thorn in our side regarding Iraq. Their opposition to
the war was, in part, economic. The Germans, along with the French,
have done lots of business with Saddam's
government. They have outstanding debts that will never be collected.
Allies help and support each other. That's what the word means. Once
we move past the German economic issue, the redeployment in Europe
makes perfect sense. President Bush inherited a structure created
by General Eisenhower that existed since the end of the World
War II to confront a Soviet enemy that is no longer there. The
plain fact is that the Cold
War has ended. Even the Soviet Union has vanished.
With our military resources strained to the limit in Iraq
and Afghanistan,
as well as other Middle Eastern hot spots, we can't afford the luxury
of an expensive cultural exchange program. Moreover, military technology
has radically changed in the last sixty years. Rapid deployment
to different points in the world when trouble erupts is now state-of-the-art.
Precision-guided munitions that can be swiftly moved, not large
armies in place, proved to be effective in the Iraqi war, and are
the way of the future -- at least in the near-term.
Even though North
Korea still poses a threat to South Korea, the South Koreans
have been less publicly vocal in expressing opposition to the United
States' troop deployment. South Korea has become a powerful industrialized
nation in the last fifty years. It has a well-equipped and trained
army, which is now able to assume responsibility for its defense.
Moreover, there are new and different threats in the region that
must be contemplated; for example, the risk that China may attempt
to retake Taiwan militarily.
Whether the United States would respond militarily to China is
an open question. However, one thing is clear -- a huge American
army hunkered down in South Korea is not the most effective way
to deal with the threat. Rather the contemplated movement of heavy
bombers to Guam and redeployment of an aircraft carrier from the
Atlantic to the Pacific makes sense.
Then there is the terrorist
threat to the United States in a post 9/11
world. Our own country is now at risk of being under attack. We
must increase military capability at home.
The world has changed a great deal in the last fifty to sixty years.
It's about time the President and the Pentagon recognized that fact.
© 2004 Allan Topol. All opinions expressed
in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those
of Military.com.
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