DoD's blueprint for rightsizing the force was developed over the course of its seven-month Bottom-Up Review (BUR). The Review, which established the architecture for the Clinton Administration's long-term defense program, was a joint effort between civilian and military staffs in DoD. Task forces comprised of representatives drawn from elements throughout the Department -- including the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Joint Staff, the unified commands, each of the Services and, where appropriate, other defense agencies -- reviewed major issues regarding defense strategy, forces, modernization programs, new defense initiatives, and management reforms.
The findings of the BUR were based on detailed assessments of U.S. interests in the international environment, future American security needs, including assessments of post-Cold War threats, and the mobility requirements, combat capabilities, and support needs associated with a range of prospective U.S. military operations. These analyses, some of which drew upon work already underway prior to the commencement of the Bottom-Up Review, encompassed large-scale quantitative studies of future warfare and conveyed to DoD's leadership the best judgments of military and civilian experts.
The Bottom-Up Review called for forces capable of meeting a wide range of challenges. The United States must field forces sufficient to conduct these operations. U.S. forces must be positioned forward or ready to deploy rapidly to distant regions and achieve their objectives quickly and decisively.
MAJOR REGIONAL CONFLICTS
The United States' strategy of engagement and enlargement requires forces which are able, in concert with regional allies, to fight and win two major regional conflicts (MRCs) which occur nearly simultaneously. This requirement, established in the Bottom-Up Review, remains the most significant factor in determining the overall size of its general purpose forces.
In contrast to the days of the Cold War, when the focus of military planning was on winning a large-scale war in Europe, the most likely scenarios today focus defense planning on fighting and winning regional conflicts on the scale of the 1991 Gulf War or a potential conflict in Korea. Because the timing and location of these regional conflicts are uncertain, the bulk of U.S. forces needed normally will not be in theater prior to the outbreak of conflict. Although in areas of high interests and high threat, some equipment is prepositioned and troops are forward deployed, most U.S. forces will deploy from their home bases. Therefore, U.S. defense planning must focus on ensuring that selected forces can quickly project power from the United States into regions important to its interests to defeat hostile regional powers.
Often in these MRCs, the United States will be fighting as the leader of a coalition, with allies and friends providing some support and combat forces. In fact, DoD assumes that regional allies will fight along with U.S. forces. It is also expected that other friends and allies from beyond the crisis area will contribute forces to any MRC. However, U.S. forces must be sized and structured to preserve the flexibility and the capability to act without them, if necessary.
Detailed analyses of possible future MRCs suggest that the following forces will be adequate to successfully fight and win a single MRC, assuming that DoD continues to make critical programmed enhancements to the capabilities of these forces and their supporting assets.
OVERSEAS PRESENCE
The second broad class of military operations examined to determine the overall size and shape of U.S. general purpose forces was overseas presence operations. The United States will continue to maintain a robust overseas presence in several forms:
Stationing and deploying U.S. military forces overseas in peacetime remain essential elements of the United States' National Security Strategy and National Military Strategy. As noted above, the peacetime overseas presence of forces is the single most visible demonstration of America's commitment to defend U.S. and allied interests in key regions throughout the world. The presence of U.S. forces deters adventurism and coercion by potentially hostile states, reassures friends, enhances regional stability, and underwrites the larger strategy of engagement and enlargement. It also strengthens the U.S. role in the affairs of key regions.
Maintaining a sufficient level of U.S. military forces in Europe is essential to preserving U.S. influence and leadership, particularly its ability to help bring about a stable and democratic post-Cold War Europe. The United States must, therefore, preserve a visible and capable forward military presence to reassure both American allies in Western Europe and its new Partners for Peace in the East. President Clinton underscored U.S. resolve on this issue by pledging at the NATO Summit to maintain approximately 100,000 troops stationed in Europe, augmented by forward deployed naval forces in surrounding waters. In consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commander in Chief, U.S. Europe Command, DoD determined that 109,000 is the actual number required at this time. This level of presence will be sufficient to respond to plausible crises and to provide tangible evidence of America's commitment to preserving regional stability. In addition, this force level will permit active participation in multinational training while minimizing the likelihood of having to deploy additional forces from the continental United States (CONUS) in the early stages of any emerging crisis. Such a force will also anchor both NATO's deterrent capability and the Alliance's ability to respond to out of area contingencies.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the United States is in an unparalleled position to be a stabilizing force in the multipolar regional balance that has followed the Cold War. Because the United States is a powerful but distant state, its forward deployed forces are seen around the region as a reassuring presence. Any significant diminution of the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, in the absence of a corresponding reduction in potential threats there, would risk creating perceptions of a power vacuum. This, in turn, could touch off a regional arms race, threatening vital U.S. economic, political, and security interests.
The United States is thus committed to maintaining its current level of approximately 100,000 troops in Asia, almost all of whom are forward-stationed in Japan and Korea. These include an Army division consisting of two brigades and a wing of U.S. Air Force combat aircraft on the Korean Peninsula; and a Marine Expeditionary Force, an aircraft carrier, an amphibious squadron, and one and a half wings of combat aircraft in Japan. This force visibly demonstrates the U.S. commitment to the region, deters aggression by potentially-hostile states, and allows for decisive U.S. action should deterrence fail.
In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, the U.S. response to Iraq's sudden deployment of Republican Guard divisions close to Kuwait in October 1994 showed a substantially improved ability to project U.S. military forces rapidly into the Persian Gulf region and have them ready to fight soon after their arrival. America's quick response was the result of several specific steps taken since the end of Operation Desert Storm:
U.S. interests in Latin America and the Caribbean are extensive and varied, and a strong U.S. defense capability is essential to the region's security. For example, the United States' trade with the countries of Latin America is growing faster than trade with any other region. The U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) and the U.S. Atlantic Command (USACOM) serve as crisis reaction forces, partners in cooperative regional security, and symbols of the U.S. commitment to the security of the region. Potential missions for U.S. forces in the region include counterdrug operations, counterterrorism, noncombatant evacuation operations, foreign internal defense, peace operations, interdiction operations, and disaster relief.
The United States will continue to operate bases and facilities in the Republic of Panama until the year 2000. As the Secretary of Defense noted in his trip to Panama in June 1994, the two governments may discuss possible stationing of U.S. forces in Panama beyond that date. USACOM operates a base at Guantanamo, Cuba, which has proven valuable in handling migrant flows from Haiti and Cuba. U.S. forces at these bases are supplemented by those in CONUS.
U.S. security and economic interests in Africa are not as prominent as those in Europe, the Asia-Pacific, or the Western hemisphere, and the United States has no bases in the region. Yet in recent years, U.S. forces have been called upon to serve in large-scale peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Somalia and Rwanda and to evacuate U.S. citizens from Liberia. With the continuing possibility of conflicts and humanitarian disasters in Africa, it is important that the United States help African states develop more effective capabilities for conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and humanitarian relief. DoD must, however, ensure that support of such efforts does not draw down the resources necessary for other high priority Defense Department missions.
Overseas presence needs can impose requirements for naval forces, especially aircraft carriers, that exceed those needed for MRCs alone. Therefore, programmed force levels for the Navy and the Marine Corps were developed based on their roles in overseas presence missions as well as MRCs.
CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS
The final set of operations for which DoD must size and shape its non-nuclear forces involves a variety of contingencies that are less demanding than an MRC but still require significant combat forces and capabilities. Such operations range from multilateral peace operations to unilateral intervention.
In some cases, U.S. involvement in these operations would be part of multinational efforts under the auspices of the United Nations or another international body. However, the United States will maintain the capability to act unilaterally when important U.S. interests are at stake.
Over the past decade, the United States has conducted more than 70 major contingency operations of the following types: peace operations, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, noncombatant evacuation, maritime escort, counterterrorism, reprisal, deterrence of aggression, intervention to support democracy, sanctions enforcement, no-fly zone enforcement, migrant rescue and support, search and rescue, and deployments to quell domestic civil disturbances.
In 1994, such contingency operations included crisis response in Korea and the Gulf; humanitarian relief, peace operations, and sanctions enforcement in and around the former Yugoslavia; peace operations in Somalia; fighting forest fires in the western United States; enforcement of a no-fly zone over southern Iraq; humanitarian relief in northern Iraq and Rwanda; and migrant operations, sanctions enforcement, and operations to restore democracy in Haiti.
The forces for these operations will be provided largely by the same general purpose and special operations forces needed for the MRCs. This means that the United States will not be able to conduct sizable contingency operations at the same time it is fighting in two MRCs. While these operations do not impose requirements for additional forces beyond those needed for two MRCs, they may often require some specialized training and capabilities.
OVERALL FORCE SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF GENERAL
PURPOSE FORCES
Based on the comprehensive assessment of U.S. defense needs in the Bottom-Up Review, DoD has determined that the force structure shown below, which will be reached by the end of the decade, can carry out America's strategy and meet its national security requirements.
If a major regional conflict erupts, the United States will deploy a substantial number of forces to the theater along with some overseas presence forces to quickly defeat the aggressor. If it is prudent to do so, limited U.S. forces may remain engaged in a smaller-scale operation like peacekeeping while the MRC is ongoing. If not, U.S. forces will be withdrawn from peace operations in order to help constitute sufficient forces to deter and, if necessary, fight and win a second MRC. If a second MRC were to break out shortly after the first, U.S. forces would deploy rapidly to halt the invading force as quickly as possible. Selected high-leverage and mobile intelligence, command and control, and air capabilities would be redeployed from the first MRC to the second as circumstances permitted. Once the United States and its allies had won both MRCs, U.S. forces would assume a more routine peacetime posture. As mentioned earlier, this force structure is not intended to support simultaneous U.S. involvement in MRCs while also sustaining active force involvement in any significant smaller-scale operations.
SIZING U.S. NUCLEAR FORCES
The Nuclear Posture Review, a 10-month effort which examined all aspects of the U.S. nuclear posture, made recommendations about the rightsizing of the U.S. nuclear force structure. These changes, discussed in detail in a later section, reflect the reduced role that nuclear weapons now play in U.S. security strategy, yet maintain a stable deterrent and protect, at affordable cost, options to increase U.S. nuclear capabilities should current positive trends in Russia or elsewhere reverse. U.S. strategic nuclear forces will be comprised of the following forces by the beginning of the next century:
This force structure will meet U.S. requirements for fighting and winning two nearly simultaneous MRCs. In peacetime, U.S. forces will conduct routine overseas presence operations and will sometimes be engaged in smaller-scale operations such as peace operations, as well as humanitarian assistance disaster relief activities.
