September 27, 1973
Page 31887
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in cosponsoring this compromise amendment or U.S. troop reductions abroad.
Yesterday, the Senate passed – then defeated – Senator MANSFIELD's modified amendment which would have required an overall reduction of about 190,000 land-based forces abroad over a 3-year period. The compromise amendment which we are considering today would require a reduction of about 125,000 over a 2-year period. I am hopeful that a majority of the Senate will be able to support this provision.
Many Senators have expressed their concern that we not make substantial unilateral troop reductions in Europe at the very time that we are commencing negotiations with the Soviet Union on mutual and balanced force reductions (MBFR). I share that concern. While I am skeptical that these negotiations will ever achieve significant reductions, I do believe we should give our negotiators a reasonable chance to do what they can in this direction. So I am opposed to large- scale unilateral troop cuts in Europe.
The Mansfield amendment which we considered yesterday concerned U.S. troop reductions worldwide – not simply in Europe. The Defense Department would have been given flexibility in choosing where reductions should be made. If it were deemed advisable to avoid large cuts in Europe, that would have been possible – and it would even have been possible to avoid any European cuts at all for the next 2 years.
So the Mansfield amendment did provide considerable flexibility in setting priorities for a U.S. force presence overseas. I was therefore able to support Senator MANSFIELD's amendment yesterday, even though I had voted against his amendments on European troop reductions in the past. I might add that I was privileged to have Senator MANSFIELD testify on this issue before my Arms Control Subcommittee last July 25. I think he has made an extraordinary contribution to the debate on U.S. force levels abroad in the detailed, scholarly analysis which he presented to my subcommittee, as well as in his presentation to the full Senate yesterday.
Mr. President, the compromise amendment before us today is a more moderate approach designed to point us in the direction of significant overseas reductions without necessarily touching our force levels in Europe at all. It is well to recall that in Asia and the Pacific our forces number over 225,000 today. This amendment would have the effect of continuing to lower the U.S. profile in Asia – as we lessen our commitments in accordance with the Nixon doctrine.
The amendment would not end the U.S. role in Asia, but simply cut back our military presence.
For example, I believe that significant withdrawals could be made from Thailand, where we had 45,000 troops at the end of March 1973, South Korea, 42,000; Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, 58,000; without jeopardizing our existing commitments.
Mr. President, it may be helpful to review the worldwide U.S. commitment of forces abroad. The United States has about 600,000 troops abroad in 1,963 bases, installations and properties abroad. Former Defense Secretary Elliot Richardson termed 322 of these as significant bases.
Accompanying these troops are 365,413 military and civilian dependents. In addition, the Defense Department employs over 160,000 direct hire and indirect hire foreign civilians plus 78,870 U.S. civilians outside the United States.
The cost of these overseas commitments is staggering. The distinguished majority leader estimates that the total cost of all U.S. troops committed to overseas missions is about $30 billion with equipment, personnel costs and installation maintenance combined. At least one-third of our current serious balance-of-payments deficit results from military expenditures abroad. The economic report of the President earlier this year set the net negative U.S. balance-of -payments deficit for all fiscal year 1972 military transactions at $3.6 billion.
Moreover, Mr. President, it should be pointed out that most of the deployments were made in a world situation very different from the one we find ourselves in today. The recent visit of Chairman Brezhnev to Washington only highlighted the changing world situation. The administration has moved significantly toward detente with both the Soviet Union and China.
Last year the United States and the U.S.S.R. signed the SALT accords limiting offensive and defensive weapons systems. Our trade with Russia and China has climbed dramatically in the last year, with more trade deals in the offing. And perhaps most significantly, the administration withdrew the last of our combat forces from Vietnam earlier this year and, as a result of congressional action, ended the U.S. bombing of Southeast Asia.
These changed circumstances should be accompanied by a changed level of U.S. troop deployment overseas. While the administration has made some tentative beginnings in this direction – particularly in Thailand and Taiwan – it seems to lack the determination to go far enough. I believe that it is up to Congress to encourage a new look at our overseas commitments by passing this amendment forcing a significant troop reduction overseas. There is a great tendency to stick with the status quo on overseas force levels without any consideration of the real military or political need for these troops.
A group of experts familiar with Asian affairs, almost all of whom were officials in past administrations, has spotlighted the new world situation in a statement placed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD by the distinguished Senator from Minnesota (Mr.HUMPHREY) on September 17. These 14 experts, who include such notables as Robert Barnett, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Roger Hilsman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Far East Affairs, and Earl Ravenal, former Director of the Asian Division System Analysis in the office of the Secretary of Defense, have endorsed a call for the return and deactivation of 100,000 U.S. troops from Asia "with no harm either to our national security or our important interests in the area."
Their statement goes on further to say:
It is our sincere hope that Congress will take such firm and timely action as is necessary to bring our East Asian force level in line with present diplomatic realities.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this statement be included in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
JULY 31, 1973.
STATEMENT ON ASIAN TROOP REDUCTIONS
The United States is completing a significant reduction in our involvement in East Asia. We have withdrawn from direct participation in the conflict in Vietnam, and are soon to refrain from all direct combat operation in Indochina. We have also begun to establish mutually beneficial relationships with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union.
Because of these factors, we, the undersigned, believe that substantial reductions can be made in those military forces now deployed in East Asia and the Western Pacific. There are now 227,000 military personnel stationed in these areas, of whom 45,000 are in Thailand; 18,000 are in Japan; 15,000 are in the Philippines; 40,000 are in the Ryukyu Islands; 42,000 are in South Korea; 9,000 are in Taiwan; and 58,000 are afloat. We feel that at least 100,000 of these can be returned and
deactivated with no harm either to our national security or our important interests in the area.
It is our sincere hope that Congress will take such firm and timely action as is necessary to bring our East Asian force level in line with present diplomatic realities.
Endorsed by:
Robert Barnett, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Jerome A. Cohen, Professor, Harvard Law School (Chinese Law).
Chester L. Cooper, Special Assistant to Gov. Harriman for the Paris Peace Conference on Vietnam.
Alvin Friedman, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.
Morton Halperin, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Roger Hilsman, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Far Eastern Affairs.
Townsend Hoopes, Former Under Secretary of the Air Force.
Anthony Lake, Former Staff Member, National Security Council.
Dwight Perkins, Associate Director, East Asian Research Center, Harvard University.
Earl Ravenal, Former Director, Asian Division (Systems Analysis), Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Gaddis Smith, Professor of History, Yale University. Speciality: 20th Century diplomacy. Author of recent biography, Dean Acheson.
Richard C. Steadman, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Affairs.
James Thomson, Former Staff Member, National Security Council.
Paul C. Warnke, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, let us look at some specific cases where U.S. force reductions are both feasible and desirable. The changed world situation is perhaps best illustrated in South Korea. The last extensive fighting there occurred over 20 years ago. Since then, the South Koreans, with the generous support and aid of the United States, have built up their ground combat forces to 600,000 – many of whom are Vietnam combat veterans – backed by a large trained reserve. In contrast, there are about 360,000 North Korean ground combat forces, most of whom have not fought for 20 years. An Institute of Strategic Studies report of 1969-70 concluded that even then the South Korean army was amply prepared to defeat any invasion from the North.
Since then, in 1971 the United States embarked on a large-scale modernization program of the military forces of the Republic of Korea. This program is scheduled to last for 5 years at a cost to the U.S. taxpayers of $1.5 billion. In conjunction with this modernization, the United States has promised to withdraw our forces by the time the program is completed. The Senate Armed Services Committee reported that by the end of fiscal year 1973, 47 percent of the total funds for the 5-year plan had been spent with a scheduled completion time in fiscal year 1975.
Despite the South Koreans' proven combat ability and despite the modernization program, the United States still maintains 42,000 troops in Korea, the same level as fiscal year 1971. The pay,
upkeep and operating costs in fiscal year 1972 for these troops were $584 million. In addition, the United States supplied South Korea with $192 million in economic assistance and $155 million in military assistance. All this is happening in the midst of preliminary detente negotiations between the two Koreas.
It is time for the United States to withdraw more of our troops from Korea. At a minimum, the Defense Department should follow through on its pledge to withdraw our forces by the end of the modernization program in fiscal year 1975. The Armed Services Committee report on H.R. 9286 quoted the Secretary of Defense as recently as the spring of 1973 as saying that–
Further withdrawal of U.S. forces in South Korea should be phased with the completion of the modernization program.
In light of this and other promises, it was dismaying to see Deputy Secretary of Defense William Clements begin backtracking on that pledge in a recent news conference held in Tokyo. On September 17, Clements declared that the U.S. assessment of the threats in the area, rather than the modernization program, will become the determining factor concerning U.S. troops in Korea. The Pentagon should be held to its previous pledges.
Thailand is another area where a U.S. withdrawal should be carried out. The United States stationed 45,000 troops there as recently as March of this year. The purpose of the bulk of these troops was to carry out bombing operations in Indochina from several air bases in Thailand. The bombing has come to a long-delayed end, thanks to congressional action. Further legislation in this and other bills precludes U.S. air operations in the area without express congressional approval.
With the mission ended, the United States should take its troops out of the country. In this connection, it is worth noting that the administration has already begun limited withdrawals from Thailand, with about 3,650 troops having been withdrawn as of September 21.
Yet another reason for bringing home our forces in Thailand is the insurgency underway in northern Thailand. The fighting has not been heavy and the threat to the government remains uncertain, but the lessons of Vietnam should make the United States wary of intervening in new insurgencies. As a 1971 Members of Congress for Peace Through Law Military Manpower Report stated:
If Vietnam has taught us anything, it is that our foreign policy interests are not served by deployments of land troops in Asia.
Back in 1959 the United States had only 327 troops in Thailand. By 1964, that number was up to 9,000. The onslaught of the fighting in Vietnam brought a vast influx of U.S. forces to Thailand, a number which was not reduced until the 1970's. Then with the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, many of the U.S. troops in Vietnam shifted to Thailand to continue air operations. The trend should now be reversed. We should return to the 1959 level.
Japan is yet another country from which troops could be withdrawn. The United States has maintained close ties with this rising power since World War II, and has extended our nuclear umbrella for the protection of the Japanese. I believe that our close ties with Japan are an overriding interest of U.S. foreign policy. However, continuing close relations with our Japanese friends and providing nuclear protection does not require almost 60,000 U.S. troops in Japan and the Ryukyus Islands. The Japanese themselves have indicated they would welcome a reduction of at least half the U.S. forces; 30,000 troops will guarantee our commitment just as well as 58,000 and with fewer frictions.
There are two other Asian countries in which the United States maintains a significant number of troops. At the end of March, we still had 9,000 personnel in Taiwan and 15,000 in the Philippines. We should ask ourselves whether we should have any troops in Taiwan at a time when we are establishing ties with China and if the 15,000 troops in the Philippines are likely to get us involved with the insurgency and strife in that country.
Mr. President, the amendment before us will give the Pentagon the discretion and the flexibility to choose which 125,000 troops are in areas of lower priority, while at the same time forcing a cut that large by the end of fiscal year 1976. While I do not favor a withdrawal to any Fortress America, neither do I favor the deployment of over 225,000 troops in Asia and 600,000 worldwide. United States active involvement in world affairs can be maintained by many fewer troops.
I am sure that opponents of this amendment will cite U.S. commitments. In fact, most of those treaties are vaguely worded, discretionary documents which do not call for the standing commitment of any prescribed level of U.S. military manpower. Indeed, when the administration recently announced the withdrawal of a 5,200-man Air Transport wing from Taiwan over the next several months, it made sure to stress that there was "no relation whatsoever between this move and the mutual defense treaty" under which the United States pledges aid to Taiwan if attacked. Withdrawals elsewhere could be accompanied by similar pledges.
Mr. President, a move to reduce our overseas force level is long overdue. Congress can continue its effort to reassert its prerogatives by making its will known in this important policy area. The passage of this amendment will result in substantial savings in absolute costs and in balance-of-payments deficits. I urge its adoption.