| U.S. Defense Policy Primer | |
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The United States maintains a proactive international peacekeeping strategy designed by the Department of Defense (DoD) to work in concert with the diplomatic and economic efforts of other government agencies.
To
carry out its role in the combined world peacekeeping strategy, the DoD employs
five primary categories of military presence abroad:
• U.S. forces rotationally deployed overseas.
• U.S. forces deployed temporarily for exercises, combined
training, or military–to–military interactions.
• Programs such as defense cooperation, security assistance
(e.g., the International Military Education and Training and Foreign Military
Sales programs), and international arms cooperation.
• Regional academic centers (of which there are currently
four: the Marshall Center,
Asia Pacific Center, Center for Hemispheric Studies,
and African Center for Strategic
Studies) that provide training in Western
concepts of civilian control of the military, conflict resolution, and sound
defense resource management for foreign military and civilian officials. In terms of actual troop levels and military activities, the DoD peacekeeping
strategy looks like this: Forces Permanently Stationed Abroad A Rotationally Deployed Naval Presence Contingency Operations Next page > Wars and Weapons > Page
1, 2, 3,
4, 5
Just over 200,000 U.S. troops, mainly stationed in South Korea, Germany and
Japan, are currently deployed abroad. This is actually a reduction of almost
50-percent since the Cold War era, when U.S. troop levels reached the 450,000
mark. U.S. forces stationed abroad are intended to prevent and put down any acts
of aggression, or violations of human rights, and to maintain visibility as a
stabilizing presence in the region.
Perhaps no military force imparts a "stabilizing" effect the equal
of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle group supported by battleships, submarine
patrols and Marine Amphibious Ready Groups. During the Cold War, the U.S.
maintained an almost constant naval presence in the Atlantic, Pacific and
Mediterranean. The 1980s saw U.S. naval deployments added to the Indian Ocean
and Persian Gulf. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, defense cutbacks
limited the U.S. to maintaining a naval presence in only 2.5 regions of the
globe on a rotating basis.
An average of around 45,000 U.S. troops are deployed overseas in both combat
and peacekeeping missions. These contingency operations focus mainly in the
Balkans, the Persian Gulf and Taiwan Straits. Department of Defense planners
feel that such localized hostilities are typical of today's global situation and
that the need for temporary deployments will increase in the future.
