SINGAPORE -- There was a time when the Pentagon saw "relieving regional anxiety" as one of its primary alliance maintenance tasks in East Asia. Today, it seems more adept at creating this anxiety, rather than providing the reassurance that lies at the heart of sustaining America's critical alliances in East Asia.
I'm talking about the now infamous Los Angeles Times story about U.S. military force restructuring in East Asia, built around an on-the-record interview with U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, in which he is quoted as saying that "Everything is going to move everywhere . . . There is not going to be a place in the world where it's going to be the same as it used to be. . . . We're going to rationalize our posture everywhere -- in Korea, in Japan, everywhere."
The Los Angeles Times article also cites other (unnamed) senior Pentagon officials as stating that plans were "on the table" to move the bulk of Marine forces based in Okinawa to Australia, and that Washington was "seeking agreements to base Navy ships in Vietnamese waters and ground troops in the Philippines." Malaysia was also mentioned as one of the places where Washington wanted to establish a "network of small bases" that would reportedly serve as "launching pads for moving U.S. forces quickly and clandestinely to future areas of conflict."