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By Jim Mannion, Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON: The United States,
analysts say, has ruled out the use of US military force in Georgia,
but the Pentagon will almost certainly be looking for other chess
pieces to move to check a more aggressive Russia.
Will it rebuild and strengthen
the militaries of Georgia and other countries on Russia’s
periphery? Reverse a drawdown of US forces in Europe? Rethink its
military investments? Intensify missile defense efforts?
The answers to those questions
will depend on how the current crisis unfolds, analysts opine. Few
predict a return of the Cold War.
But the Russian invasion of
Georgia has already called into question the “entire premise” of
a cooperative US-Russian strategic relationship, US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates warned last week.
The Pentagon has cancelled
upcoming military exercises with Russia, and NATO ministers warned
Tuesday that there would not be a return to “business as usual.”
“I think that the whole world
is looking at Russia through a different set of lenses than just a
week and a half or two weeks ago, so there are already
consequences,” Gates said in a television interview Sunday.
“I think they may not
appreciate the magnitude of those consequences yet,” he added.
Among the near term issues facing
the United States and its allies is how to rebuild the battered
Georgian military.
Trained and equipped by the
United States for deployments in Iraq, it proved no match for the
Russian military.
Frederick Kagan, a military
expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said one reason was
that Georgia and other similarly situated countries were discouraged
from developing large military reserves, air defenses and anti-tank
capabilities.
Their militaries should be
rebuilt “to turn each of those states into a daunting porcupine
capable of deterring the Russian bear,” wrote Kagan, who is best
known as an early advocate of the US surge strategy in Iraq.
He called for an expanded
military advisory presence in “threatened states” on Russia’s
periphery.
“I think one area of US
military spending that will definitely get bolstered by the Russian
invasion of Georgia is spending on strategic defense, meaning
defenses against nuclear weapons,” said Loren Thompson, who heads
the Lexington Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
In a situation like the conflict
over Georgia, he said, the threat posed by Russia’s nuclear
arsenal “trumps any other consideration.”
“Most US missile defense
efforts over the last 20 years have been focused on countries like
North Korea. That may now change,” he said.
Other analysts, however, said
nuclear deterrence—not missile defense—will remain at the core
of the US strategy for dealing with Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
But the United States may move to
provide theater missile defenses to countries in Russia’s shadow,
they said.
It has promised Poland a
US-manned Patriot missile battery and other unspecified military
upgrades in return for hosting interceptor missiles for a US missile
defense system aimed at threats from Iran.
Russia vehemently opposed the
installation of missile defense sites so near its borders, but
Poland quickly reached agreement on them with Washington after the
invasion of Georgia.
The uncertainties created by a
resurgent, oil-rich Russia also is likely to raise questions here
about the broader US military posture, and whether or not to scrap
plans to bring more US troops home from Europe.
Even before the current crisis,
the US military had put brakes on the drawdown, opting to keep
40,000 troops in Europe for at least the next couple of years.
“The US decision to pull troops
out of Europe was based on a belief that Russia had become
democratic, and peaceful,” said Thompson. “Many policymakers in
Washington will now be rethinking whether that will be prudent or
not.”
Michele Flournoy, a former
Pentagon strategist, said a new administration will weigh the
tensions with Russia against US military requirements elsewhere.
She said the crisis over Georgia
“is a signal that all is not well, and Russia is making choices
that people think will take them down a very nasty road.”
The Pentagon will watch
Russia’s defense investments very closely “and make sure we have
hedges that position us to respond appropriately as necessary,”
she said. “But I don’t think we’re at the point where we upend
all our planning assumptions, and put this new threat front and
center.”
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