AMERICA S PERMANENT STAKE IN ASIA

THE success of last week's national elections in South Viet Nam showed in remarkable fashion that the U.S.'s determined moves there have accomplished far more than a military standoff of the Communists. They have not only stiffened the spirit of the South Vietnamese but--what is less noticed in the national preoccupation with the war--they have created a new atmosphere of hope and confidence throughout Asia's southern crescent of nations, shoring up and strengthening Red China's fearful neighbors from Pakistan and India to Japan and South Korea. In this new atmosphere, usually with little direct action by the U.S., a rather astonishing series of transformations has taken place.

The change consists of a quickening of national pride, a new solidity of national spirit, a sense of autonomy and freedom. Ever since the Communist siege of Pleiku in February 1965 galvanized the U.S. into action in the air and an ensuing buildup on the ground, the nations of the crescent have stood up and gone their own way with a new assurance that Chinese Communism need not be the battering wave of the future. There is no longer much talk of the "domino theory," which held that the fall of Viet Nam would be followed in quick succession by the fall of other nations in the area, precisely because no one any longer talks seriously of the fall of Viet Nam--or feels like a domino.

The Philippines and South Korea, though expectable American allies, have both shown their confidence in U.S. determination by sending troops to Viet Nam. Thailand has given the use of airbases to the U.S. while moving vigorously, with American help, to counter Communist insurgency in its troubled northeastern provinces. At the other extreme, Indonesia, not long ago-Peking's most belligerent camp follower, has turned on its own Communist Party, ousted it from influence and well-nigh annihilated it. This, in turn, has led to the end of the Indonesian-Malaysian confrontation that for so long kept that part of Asia tense.

Burma's neutralist strongman Ne Win, whose nation shares 1,200 miles of border with Red China, feels secure enough to take a 21-month trip abroad -- including a visit to the U.S. that he hardly would have considered making a few months ago. Having bitterly broken away from Malaysia a year ago and first set out on a violently anti-American, pro-Peking trajectory, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, himself a Chinese, has lately warmed up to Malaysia and now openly praises America's role in Viet Nam. Faced by the xenophobic madness of the Red Guards, whose actions sent a cold shiver running through Asia, Japan is beginning to contemplate a future in which Tokyo rather than Peking may emerge as the most important Asian capital. Even Prince Sihanouk's Cambodia, which not so very long ago was trailing along after Peking, is now eyeing a safer seat on the fence. And it may not be too much to say that Red China's setbacks helped to encourage North Korea to proclaim its own path of independent Communism. Like others--and perhaps more than others--Asians favor the side of the winner, and, says Thailand's National Development Minister Pote Sarasin, "Everyone is now convinced that the future does not lie with the Communists."

Rights & Responsibilities

One measure of the success of the U.S. position in Asia is that there is already serious discussion about the nature, the size and the role of the U.S. presence there once the shooting stops in Viet Nam. No one predicts that the war in Viet Nam will end quickly or easily, but end it some day must--and it is not too early for the U.S. to begin thinking about the postwar period. Since it was the massive arrival of U.S. troops in Viet Nam that spelled the difference in the conflict, it is not surprising that discussions about both peace and postwar plans have begun to whirl around one word: withdrawal.

In the broadest sense of the word, the U.S. will never withdraw from Asia. The U.S. has been an Asian power ever since Commodore Matthew Perry's black ships opened up Japan in 1853-54. Five of its states border on the Pacific, and one is smack in the middle of it. The U.S. fought a major war against Japan to defend its interests in Asia, spilled American blood again in Korea to stop Communist aggression and last week saw the number of its dead in Viet Nam rise to 5,000. It is committed to the defense of Taiwan, has treaties with 18 Asian nations, supplies food and other foreign aid without which India and Pakistan could scarcely manage. The U.S. not only has rights in Asia but also responsibilities, and it could no more withdraw from Asia in any absolute sense than it could from Europe.

The question, then, is one of withdrawal of troops--not of influence, power, interest or aid. Hanoi, of course, has made immediate U.S. troop withdrawal the preposterous precondition for any peace negotiations, and Charles de Gaulle echoed the same line three weeks ago in a speech in Cambodia that called for the U.S. to begin a programmed troop withdrawal. But since such a pull-out would be tantamount to handing South Viet Nam over to the Communists right now, any genuine move toward withdrawal must await ironclad guarantees that the Communists will also withdraw. In his Labor Day speech, President Johnson succinctly stated the U.S. position: "If anyone will show me the time schedule when aggression and infiltration will be halted, then I will lay on the table the schedule for the withdrawal of all our forces from Viet Nam."

A Second Card to Play

The language could hardly be plainer, but a surprising number of people doubt that the U.S. will ever withdraw its troops from Asia under any circumstances. This is partly the Administration's own fault, the legacy of having been less than totally honest in the past about other aspects of the war. But a larger reason lies in the very magnitude of the U.S. commitment to the Asian mainland: the 330,000 troops and airmen now stationed in Viet Nam and Thailand, the dozen major airfields constructed or abuilding, the giant port complexes of Cam Ranh Bay in South Viet Nam and Sattahip in Thailand, the massive infusion of material and equipment. As others see it, these are the kind of Great Power investments that, once made, are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to relinquish.

Yet, as hard as it may be for Asians and allies to believe it, the U.S. is both willing and anxious to withdraw its troops completely from every part of the Asian mainland. Once peace is restored and guaranteed, it intends to begin a withdrawal that it hopes will leave not a single U.S. fighting soldier on Asian soil. Says one of the President's top advisers: "It is possible to say what sort of U.S. military presence we should like to have in Southeast Asia after the Viet Nam fighting is over. The answer is: none."

Does this policy mean that the U.S. will leave the nations of the Asian perimeter once again to the mercy o' the Chinese Goliath? Not at all. Far from abandoning its role as a Pacific power for aggressors to reckon with, the U.S. has a second card to play along with its intention to withdraw from Asia: its equally firm intention to go back in--fast--when its interests so dictate or the needs of its allies require. In place of the static physical presence of military garrison forces, the U.S. intends to substitute the mobility created by modern technology. Its means: bigger and ultimately faster aircraft that can move large numbers of troops quickly, the forward deployment of "floating depot" ships, pre-positioned supplies and equipment and the right to use the ports and bases left behind in such places as Thailand and Viet Nam.

The Pentagon has increased its airlift capability by 300% since 1961, will raise it by 1,000% by 1971. By then, the Lockheed C-5A transport, able to carry at least 600 men, will be in operation. A mere 25 of the big planes can airlift an average infantry division of 15,000 without their equipment--much of which will already be in Asia. Thailand, for example, is already stocked with enough combat equipment for an army brigade of 6,000 men, and Okinawa warehouses hold enough for a full division. Depot ships, such as those now stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines, will sail to supply airlifted troops within a few days of their arrival. With such new mobility--and careful intelligence estimates of any brewing armed aggression--U.S. forces intend to arrive back on the mainland before any enemy can fully get in harness.

The Yo-Yo Strategy

Even if the U.S.'s large investments in facilities in Southeast Asia are never again required for military purposes, they hardly constitute a compelling reason for a postwar U.S. presence. Says a top State Department officer: "This is a country with a gross national product of around $740 billion. No one should ever underestimate our ability to waste a few million dollars." In fact, as the officer well knows, the facilities will not be wasted: plans are already under way for their postwar use. The Stanford Research Institute is making an engineering study of civilian uses for Cam Ranh Bay, and another survey is plotting the peacetime uses of Viet Nam's airfields. The bulldozers, graders and other equipment now in use will not be repatriated, but given to the Vietnamese.

The U.S. ability to move back into Asia quickly should provide an adequate assurance to friends and a deterrent to troublemakers. And there are compelling reasons that make this kind of withdrawal strategy welcome to both the U.S. and the Asians. U.S. power, which must cope with responsibilities the world over, needs to be as flexible and mobile as possible. Washington learned a lesson from both World War II and the Korean War aftermaths: the longer a division remains committed in a foreign country such as West Germany or South Korea after the guns fall silent, the more difficult is it to redeploy it elsewhere in an emergency--often because U.S. troops become pawns in foreign politics.

From the point of view of the Asians, a withdrawal of American troops under the right circumstances would be even more welcome. Because of their comparative affluence and their massive backup needs, U.S. forces inevitably distort and disrupt local economies. Necessary as the U.S. military presence is in Asia now, few Asian leaders are very happy about it--or want it to continue indefinitely in the future. Their sentiments spring from pride and from fears that massive American garrisons will destroy traditional cultural values and unduly shape local political decisions. "There is a feeling among Asians," says Edwin Reischauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, "that they should be running their own affairs without being led and pushed by us. They want to be sure they are deciding their own fate and that we, as outsiders, are only playing a supplementary role."

There are limits, in any case, to just what the U.S. can do in Asia. It cannot--and, in fact, does not want to--exert control over the political and social life of Asian nations. Despite the fact that both India and Pakistan largely depend on American aid for their viability, for example, Washington failed in its efforts to end last year's Indo-Pakistani war. But in the national life-or-death issue of survival in the face of Communist subversion in Asia, only the U.S. is powerful enough to check the Chinese export and exploitation of revolutions.

Despite their understandable desire to see U.S. troops leave once they have done their job, Asians may need some time to get accustomed to an American presence and protection based on mobility from afar--and hence largely invisible. Some Pentagon planners foresee a transition period in Asia that will be marked by a sort of Yo-Yo strategy. In times of tension, there could be U.S. maneuvers and training exercises that would dispatch men and planes to friendly Southeast Asian fields, pull the patrolling Seventh Fleet into allied ports. Then, as the tension subsided, the G.I.s would be pulled back to the U.S., the ships head back out into the Pacific.

Once it has healed the wounds of Viet Nam, the U.S. hopes for an Asian future that will be more and more mastered by Asians themselves. In Viet Nam, it has bought time for independent Asians to get on with the business of nation building; over the next decade, it will pour out at least $1 billion a year to provide economic thrust, including funds for a vast Mekong Delta project. Its goal is a community of nonCommunist, though not necessarily aggressively antiCommunist, Asian nations that will act as a balance to Red China and create a pattern of practical meaningful cooperation.

Pacific Community

Under the aegis of what the U.S. has already accomplished in Viet Nam, a new Asian cooperativeness is, in fact, already emerging. All told, the free nations of Asia have embarked upon more cooperative action in the past year than ever before in their thousands of years of history. Though often historically at odds, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Viet Nam are working together on joint development of the immense resources of the Mekong River. Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have set up the Association for Southeast Asia, an economic and social alliance aimed at ultimately achieving a Common Market.

A broader alliance of nine nations, ranging from New Zealand to Japan, recently formed the Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC) for closer cooperation. Nineteen Asian and Pacific nations joined together in December 1965 to participate in the $1 billion Asian Development Bank. Japan and South Korea, ending more than half a century of hostility, last June signed an accord under which Japan will provide $800 million for Korean modernization. Indonesia's new regime last week returned to the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) --another form of Asian togetherness.

Given time, the free Asians should be able to act together to speed up their own development, aided by U.S. money, technical assistance and encouragement. The U.S. hopes that they will also create the resources necessary to cope with insurgency from within largely on their own--and some day even swing enough moral and military force to discourage Peking's more violent designs. What is growing up in Asia with U.S. help is the beginning of a Pacific Community, much as the free world is already linked in the Atlantic Community. Once the war in Viet Nam is ended, the U.S. sees no reason why it should not watch and cheer that community from its own shores, ready to act to protect its members against aggression, but willing to let Asia select its own path into the modern world.

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