DOD official: Review unlikely to call
for big reduction in forces in Europe
By Lisa Burgess,
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s most important planning document, the Quadrennial
Defense Review, is unlikely to recommend a significant reduction in U.S. forces in Europe,
according to a senior Pentagon official.
J.D. Crouch, the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, told
reporters on Tuesday that he has been briefed on the development of the much-anticipated,
much-dreaded Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
He said that as a result, he does not foresee that the document will recommend
large-scale adjustments to the number of U.S. troops in Europe.
"I don’t see any major changes coming of the [QDR] process with respect to
forces in Europe," Crouch said.
Crouch’s comments mark the first time a senior Pentagon official has given any
indication of the direction the QDR will take with regard to the size or distribution of
U.S. forces.
Senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy
Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, have consistently ducked questions on whether or not the
QDR would recommend such changes.
Crouch, a former Pentagon official from the first Bush administration, was sworn in
three weeks ago as the Pentagon’s point man for policy and strategy in Europe, the
Balkans, Russia and all of the former Soviet Union states, including the Caucasus.
A Congressionally mandated planning document that is due for delivery to Capitol Hill
lawmakers on Sept. 30, the QDR is the guidance document on which all Pentagon budgets are
based.
The QDR is supposed to act as a common vision statement for the services, so that each
military branch can match its yearly budget requests, including which weapons to fund,
with overall Pentagon objectives.
But this QDR — only the second such document the Pentagon has produced — is
much more than just a four-year planning tool.
The 2002-2006 QDR has become the Bush administration’s vehicle to show the world
the direction in which it plans to take the U.S. military.
Senior defense officials have hinted that Rumsfeld intends to use the QDR to shift U.S.
defense policy away from Europe and towards Asia, where China’s recent efforts to
upgrade its military forces and capabilities has concerned national security experts.
And if the Pentagon’s focus shifts towards Asia, many defense insiders have said,
forces in Europe will be drawn down for the second time in a decade, perhaps severely.
That speculation was further fueled in early August, after a group of Pentagon planners
presented Rumsfeld with two very different visions of a new military structure for
possible inclusion in the QDR.
The first option recommended no cuts in force. The second option recommended deep cuts,
including 2.8 of the Army’s 10 divisions, 16 of the Air Force’s 61 fighter
squadrons and one or two of the Navy’s 12 carrier battle groups.
Rumors that the report recommending the Army cuts said that those cuts should come
largely from Europe immediately swept through the Pentagon — but Rumsfeld was mum on
the subject when questioned by the press.
Rumsfeld subsequently told his planners to go back to the drawing board and come up
with a third option that struck a balance between the two extremes, according to sources.
Since that time, however, Rumsfeld has danced around every question about the
QDR’s possible recommendations regarding reductions in force.
"You want to talk about force cuts and I want to talk about transformation,"
he scolded a reporter at a press conference Aug. 23.
Crouch’s comments Tuesday seem to put many of those fears to rest.
While the QDR may recommend tinkering at the margins, the bulk of the forces in Europe
will stay put, Crouch said.
Crouch said although he doesn’t "count out minor adjustments, I don’t
think that what we have deployed [in Europe] is largely out of whack with what we
need."
Crouch said that while the United States is no longer concerned that "Russians
will come pouring through the Fulda Gap" in Europe, the United States "still
certainly has important [issues] in Europe, including the Balkans."
Crouch said that keeping troops in Europe is useful for unexpected contingencies.
"Forward-deployed forces are more readily available than if they were here"
in the United States, he said.
Moreover, "we certainly use our infrastructure in Europe" to support missions
in the Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia, Crouch said.
ON THE WEB:
Transcript of
Crouch's meeting with reporters
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