Recalling that in testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Blair was rueful: “He was excited about it; I was embarrassed.” Pearl Harbor Naval Station, headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command, has been so starved of modernization funds that it’s a period-film set. For most of the last half century, the Pacific Command was the military’s orphan child–deprived of money that went to Europe, front line of the cold war.
But the Pacific may be neglected no more. President George W. Bush’s surprise statement last week that the United States would do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan from an attack by mainland China appeared to abandon decades of calculated U.S. ambiguity about Washington’s intentions in the event of a conflict between the two Chinas. Some question remains about whether Bush meant exactly what he said. But his remark gave a glimpse into a major shift that is gathering momentum in U.S. defense planning. Part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s strategic review, this involves changing the focus of America’s military from Europe to the Pacific, and putting in place a new doctrine of deterrence.
The main target of the new doctrine is Beijing, not Moscow. A core group of administration officials–led by Rusmfeld’s deputy Paul Wolfowitz–believes that now is the time to raise the American military profile in Asia while China is still too weak to respond. Or, as one senior administration official put it, “China is not yet a great power but is clearly going to be.” This group believes the China relationship will inevitably be part cooperation, part confrontation. But it also holds that engagement poses dangers for Washington unless China clearly understands what America sees as its vital strategic interests in Asia, and that it is ready to defend them. Beijing’s brazen challenge to a U.S. spy plane over the South China Sea on April 1 only emphasized that such a message needs to be sent, officials said.
Two unclassified studies suggest that such a strategic shift could be costly, requiring a doubling of U.S. carrier groups in the Pacific to four, longer-range strike aircraft and probably a new forward base. But Rumsfeld himself may need little persuasion. Recently he talked to aides about his amazement at seeing, on a visit to Beijing during the 50th-anniversary celebrations of Chinese Communist Party rule, a giant diorama laying out a dramatic depiction of the coming invasion of Taiwan. It was complete with model ships, planes and missiles. Washington may soon be readying its own armada in answer.
