OVERSEAS BASES: DURABLE ASSETS

They Bolster Good Defense & Good Politics

THE menacing Soviet offensive after World War II spurred the U.S. and its allies to one of the great military-diplomatic achievements of history. Within months the allied nations began to rim the Communist land masses with a network of forward airbases that put to best advantage the single deterrent that the West then had--the atomic bomber. The process was stepped up during the Korean war, until now U.S. planes and ships operate out of 80 U.S. bases in 25 lands and territories. Under terms of bilateral treaties and NATO and SEATO alliances, the U.S. also has the stand-by use of some 170 other air- and sea-bases. So effective has been this round-the-compass deterrent that the Soviets have made destruction of the U.S. base system a prime point of policy, have pursued it by threats against U.S. allies, by propaganda against U.S. forces, by subtle cajolery that puts destruction of bases foremost in any tantalizing disarmament offer.

The Communists get an innocent assist from a fact of international life: in sensitive, prideful nations the cost in political irritation over foreign bases can come to outweigh the military advantage. In the wake of the Japanese rioting over the U.S. Security Treaty (which guarantees U.S. bases for a minimum of ten years), India's Prime Minister Nehru last week denounced foreign bases as an "irritating symbol of foreign power and a reminder of war." Columnist Walter Lippmann, citing Japan, held that the forward-base system had become "increasingly unworkable" since the Soviets developed a nuclear striking force. "There is a profound weakness in a strategical policy which rests on bases that are indefensible," he wrote. "Bases are no good in a country which is terrified and in rebellion because of the danger they create . . . it is the task of the Pentagon to find substitutes for the obsolete and essentially indefensible peripheral bases."

In the Pentagon itself, generals and admirals were reappraising the forward-base structure to see how it met the rapidly changing combination of military need and politics. The bases are indeed outgrowing the original military needs that spawned them. Many were built to bring the U.S.'s short-legged B-47 jet medium bombers within striking distances of Soviet targets and to provide for quick interception of Soviet bomber attacks. Prudently recognizing the danger of a military strategy that depends on bases in foreign hands, Pentagon planners rushed the development of military hardware that had the range to strike from home bases in the U.S. The Air Force moved up to the long-legged B-52 jet, which, refueled by tankers based at U.S. outposts, can fly missions from North America to any Communist target. The Navy equipped its Sixth (Mediterranean) and Seventh (Pacific) fleets with enough tankers and supply ships to operate, if necessary, from home bases. The missile future promises more of the same trend; the Navy's Polaris submarines can range around the world, and the Air Force's intercontinental missiles can be fired 7,500 miles from the U.S. to any target in the Soviet empire.

While hardware changed, the case for the base system changed too. For its own defense the U.S. could, if necessary, now leave its forward outposts and retreat to Fortress America. But for the defense of the free world alliance--which in a larger sense is the U.S.'s own best defense--the base system is still an essential and will be for the foreseeable future. Offensively, U.S. policy is to prevent any dangerous no man's land by maintaining forces along the Communist borders. This local force usually consists of highly flexible tactical aircraft or carrier aircraft, which can deal with local threats without calling up the massive bombers (or indeed can add short-range atomic strike power in the event of allout war). By swift intervention in Lebanon in 1958, U.S. forces forestalled any Russian attempts to exploit the turmoil in Iraq. The string of U.S. bases in the Pacific, says Admiral Harry Felt, Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in the Pacific, is as much a part of the deterrent as atomic bombers. In a matter of hours, Admiral Felt's forces can pick up airpower, troop and armament elements from Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines and be on their way to any Southeast Asia brushfire attack. The Army, strongest proponent of the forward-base strategy, cites the presence of the small garrison in Berlin as the surest guarantee against a Communist takeover. Defensively, U.S. bases provide the all-important element of dispersal. "Bring all our forces back to the U.S.," said an Air Force officer last week, "and this country would become one tempting target." Additionally, the bases provide sites for the radar eyes and radio ears that would forewarn the U.S. of any coming assault.

Diplomatically, the presence of U.S. forces assures allies of the essential nature of the alliances: an attack against one is an attack against all. Over the long pull of the cold war, the presence of U.S. forces is bound to stiffen smaller nations against rocket-rattling threats from the Soviets. It also reassures small nations against the greatest fear of their allout alignment with the West--that in time of local crisis the U.S. might abandon them on the ground that movement of forces from afar could provoke a big war on a small issue.

The hallmark of current policy is flexibility in dealing with local irritations over bases--thanks to the extra margin of safety in the long reach of home-based weapons. When U.S. forces became a political issue in Iceland, the U.S. in 1959 withdrew a small U.S. army detachment but left elaborate, manned air facilities intact. On pressure from newly independent Morocco, anxious to wipe out any vestiges of deals made by France, the U.S. agreed last year to abandon four major SAC fields and a naval base by 1963, began to move the bulk of its power into new bases in Spain. When Charles de Gaulle demanded control over U.S. nuclear warheads in France last year, the Air Force simply shifted its nine fighter-bomber squadrons to bases in Britain and West Germany.

In the Middle East, Air Force bases in Libya and Saudi Arabia are under pressure from Nasser-lining neutralists; the U.S. could comfortably retire to Turkey and other Mediterranean bases. In the Far East, Japan is vital for its proximity to Korea and the shipyard facilities of its well-equipped port of Yokosuka, the best west of Pearl Harbor. But if need be, the U.S. could rely wholly on rock-solid bases in the Philippines (where deepwater Subic Bay could accommodate all the 122 ships and three carriers of the U.S. Seventh Fleet). Okinawa (which has one of the world's biggest airfields at Kadena) and Formosa (where a 12,000-ft. runway has just been completed at Kung Kuan).

The remarkable fact is that the U.S. has encountered so little trouble in countries where it has bases. A few U.S. servicemen have been caught brawling or black marketeering, but the incidents were rarely blown out of proportion. Many an out-of-power foreign politico has campaigned on an out-with-the-U.S. platform, but few have been elected. And, surprisingly, Nikita Khrushchev's open threats that U.S. bases make host countries sitting ducks in case of war, have barely shaken U.S. allies. Latest example: Khrushchev's threats over the U-2 incident. Norway, where the U-2 was to have landed, issued only a mild, pro forma protest to Washington. And Manzur Qadir, Foreign Minister of Pakistan--where the U-2 took off--turned up in Washington and said, "I do not look frightened, do I?"

Like all other elements of power in a fast-changing world, the base system is not beyond re-examination and reassessment as weapons, or the nature of alliances, change. But for the foreseeable future the overseas bases are such a bulwark of strength, such an effective deterrent against the kind of all-or-nothing big war that base critics fear most, that the here-and-now U.S. policy is properly to hold fast to its key bases. "One of Mr. Khrushchev's main objectives in life," says Defense Secretary Thomas Gates, "is to destroy our collective security arrangements and thereby to destroy our forward strategy, to push us back into the Fortress America position. We cannot permit these things to happen. We must maintain deployed forces to put determination and strength into the free world."

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