Support for overseas bases remains
despite potential risk of terrorism
By Kevin Dougherty,
Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — In the months leading up to the Persian Gulf War, U.S. military
personnel in Europe were given the option of sending their families back to the friendly
shores of the United States.
Few families took the military up on its offer, said retired U.S. Army Gen. John R.
Galvin, who commanded NATO and U.S. forces in Europe during the war. The vast majority of
dependents opted to stay despite Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s threat to harm
Americans living abroad.
As the country prepares for military action in the wake of the attacks in New York and
Washington, Galvin doubts it would be different this time around if a similar offer was
made to military families.
"This is a threat you can’t run away from," Galvin said. "You have
to confront it. To run away from it is to give into it. However, that doesn’t mean we
have to turn all family members into warriors."
Galvin was one of 14 members on a commission that completed a report earlier this year
on homeland security. The blue-ribbon panel was co-chaired by former senators Gary Hart,
D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H.
The congressionally mandated report, widely quoted in the press following the Sept. 11
attacks, concluded that a major terrorist attack on American soil was likely in the next
25 years.
It didn’t predict that terrorists would hijack airliners and crash them into
buildings, though there was a reference to them disrupting "the air traffic control
network on the east coast."
Instead, the Hart-Rudman commission postulated that a terrorist strike might hit home
in any number of ways. It mentioned ballistic missiles, chemical and biological agents,
and cyber attacks, or "weapons of mass disruption."
The commission also spoke of the vulnerability of overseas bases and suggested that an
attack "may erode support for such bases from the home front," as might
budgetary, political or alliance concerns.
"Taken together," the report stated, "the pressures against the
permanent forward-basing of U.S. military forces have profound implications for U.S.
strategy, power projection capabilities, and alliance relationships."
The report stressed the need to adapt to the changing dynamics in the post-Cold War,
not only on the military side of the equation but in political, social, technological and
economic arenas.
"Military power is more than the sum of the various armed services or the size of
the defense budget," according to the report. "Continued national support for
the military and the preservation of the political will to pursue national interests will
remain necessary ingredients to success."
Stephen Flynn, one of the architects of the report, said he expects public support for
the overseas bases to remain high in the wake of Sept. 11 attacks. Flynn, a commander in
the U.S. Coast Guard, said television images of troops — at home as well as abroad
— mobilizing for military action against terrorists gives Americans a sense that
"the guys are on the beat."
But Flynn said support could erode over time if the public perceives that not enough is
being done. And one strike isn’t going to cut it, he added.
"In a way," said Flynn, who is a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign
Relations, a think tank, "it’s easier to take on the Soviets than to track down
one guy in Afghanistan."
Up until Sept. 11, military and political leaders were proceeding on a more or less
fixed course, he said. He likened the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, for example, as
nothing more than "old wine in new bottles."
"Now the paradigm has really changed," Flynn said.
In this current state of upheaval, Flynn said there are three givens. Anti-American
terrorists with global reach will be around for the foreseeable future. Secondly, the
terrorists will continue to have access to means to carry out additional attacks. And
thirdly, they feel a power surge.
"They’ve been inspired by the events of Sept. 11," Flynn said. "The
terrorist box has been opened."
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