The Clinton Administration's Early Defense Policy toward Asia

Abstract

During the first year of the Clinton administration, American defense poli- cy toward Asia was marked by substantial continuity with policies created by former President George Bush, increasing tension over North Korea`s nuclear weapons program, and growing uncertainty over Clinton`s willingness to pay for a US military force structure necessary to meet American post-Cold War strategic requirements. Clinton benefited from the previous work of the Bush administration, which formulated the East Asia Strategy Initiative (EASI), a careful, phased approach to reducing US forward-deployed military forces in Asia, in response to a declining threat from the former Soviet Union. In their early poIicy statements, Clinton administration officials reaffirmed the pace of EASI force reductions. The Bottom-Up Review, a major review of overall US force levels issued in September 1993, affirmed Clinton`s intention to maintain US forward-deployed troop levels at about 100,OOO. Considerable anxiety, however, has resulted from early doctrinal and defense budget disputes within the Clinton adminsitration. Early initiatives to define a more limited role for the United States in world leadership and to limit US military capabilities to fight only one war at a time were reversed, in part due to the concerns of American allies in Asia. Yet, the declared inten- tion, made by Clinton during his July visit to South Korea, to preserve a US capability to fight two wars has fallen into question over concern that his defense budget will not be able to afford the forces proposed in the Bottom- Up Review. Estimates of a five-year cumulative budget shortfall for the Bottom-Up Review force range from $100 billion to $35 billion. If Clinton does not increase his expenditures on defense, one result may be a further reduction of US military forces deployed in Asia. In Korea, Clinton`s efforts in 1993 and early 1994 to craft a diplomatic solution to North Korea`s nuclear weapons ambitions have given way to sterner measures after an inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities in March 1994 revealed progress in building plutonium reprocessing facilities and a new larger nuclear reactor. The confrontation with North Korea also highlighted the importance of China and Japan in the event that political and economic sanctions become necessary to compel North Korean compliance with nuclear inspections. Clinton began military-to-military contacts with China that had been suspended by Bush and proposed to Japan that it cooper- ate with the US in building Theater Missile Defense systems. In Southeast Asia, Clinton undertook to improve defense relations with Malaysia and the Philippines. However, Clinton`s efforts to improve military relations could become overshadowed by his efforts to politicize trade relations with China and Japan. Clinton`s proposal to increasingly manage trade with Japan threatens to increase sympathy in Japan for proposals to create an Asian trade zone that could exclude the United States. Such an event would constitute a major set- back for future US relations with Asia.