ment that advances U.S. interests and discourages the military developments that endanger them. Today in the Pacific Command we have a proactive military strategy for this theater that does exactly that. We call it "cooperative engagement.” We take the means provided by Congress and DoD (forces, assets, funds and programs) and apply them in three ways: through active forward presence, support for strong alliances and readiness for crisis response.

In peacetime, we reach out to more than 40 nations in this theater, seeking to engage them in militaryto-military relations. We promote their active participation in a wide variety of military programs, from major operations with our allies to modest exercises with specialized medical or communications teams, construction projects, port visits, training programs and senior-level exchange visits.

me recently by a workshop on economics and regional security which we sponsored at my headquarters. We asked military professionals and academicians from various fields to brainstorm with us for two days about what Asia and the Pacific could look like a decade from now, what it should look like from an American perspective and how we get there from here. I was struck by two things about their conclusions.

The first was the degree to which the interests of the U.S. and our Asian neighbors appear to coincide. Here's what our brainstormers thought the region ought to look like to best serve everyone's interests:

Regional military power at equilibrium, with aggression deterred and proliferation contained;

Key nations engaged by diplomacy and integrated by economics;

O U.S. alliances and military relations in place to promote a conducive environment for trade;

And finally, increased political freedom and fundamental human rights for all.

In such an environment, the U.S. benefits from Asian dynamism, and Asia benefits from U.S. presence as a leader, conciliator and honest broker. Everybody wins.

snakes." Those snakes inhabit Asia as well, coiled in the dark corners of the region, waiting for our misstep.

O Racial, ethnic and religious tensions abound in places like Kashmir, Punjab, Bangladesh, Timor, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea and the borders of China, to name just a few. Bosnia is not the only place where bitter men nurse a grudge from the past.

Economic tensions simmer in the Spratly Islands, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Tonkin, areas of Southeast Asia and the newly rich southern areas of China.

The proliferation of sophisticated weapons continues, especially from China and North Korea, who depend on arms profits to modernize their own military.

In the Russian Far East, people grow hungry and impatient waiting for the benefits of capitalism, while a frustrated military class watches its forces and its lifestyle wither away.

Meanwhile, the interests of four of the most powerful nations in the world, the U.S., Russia, China and Japan, overlap precisely at the point where an isolated and aging North Korean tyrant stands by his pledge to unite the peninsula by any means necessary.

Now, I'm not suggesting that this list of regional concerns should be interpreted as a list of national threats. In fact, I see far more potential partners in this theater than potential enemies. But I do agree with futurist Alvin Toffler, who just last week pointed out that Americans remain largely unaware of the potential for turbulence in Asia and how easily sudden, sharp shifts in the regional military balance could jeopardize U.S. investment, jobs and trade.

My job is to shape an environ

Winning Coalitions

In crisis, we work to deter aggression and encourage cooperation with friends and allies. Coalitions coalesce around winners, and we provide a quick, decisive response that lets friend and foe alike know we mean business. For example, most of the U.S. forces that brought relief to Somalia recently were from this command, as were the carrier planes that forced (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein) out of the "no-fly zone." In both cases, we were accompanied by a number of other nations - precisely because we responded rapidly with a winning combination of forces.

Finally, if conflict cannot be avoided, we remain ready to fight and win in a multilateral operation, if possible, or with a unilateral force, if necessary. But let me point out that if we have to fight at all, we have already failed twice once to promote peace through engagement and once to prevent conflict through deterrence. Our strategy must win at all three levels.

Cooperative engagement does exactly that, and I am happy to say we are being helped and supported by many other nations in the theater:

Nations like Japan, who has agreed to pay nearly three-quarters of the stationing cost for U.S. personnel;

The Dragon's Dead, But ...

The second conclusion from our brainstorming session was that achieving this promising vision in the disorderly, multipolar world of the future requires U.S. military forces to play a vital, continuing role in this region. Last month, James Woolsey, new head of the CIA, said, “We have slain a large dragon. But we now live in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous

Nations like Australia, who trains with us and offers access to their ranges;

Like South Korea, who is steadily moving to take the leading role in defending against aggression from the north, and Thailand, who offers training opportunities unavailable anywhere else in theater;

And nations like Singapore and others in ASEAN, who stepped forward to offer us access when we departed the Philippines, allowing us to retain an active presence in the region through "places, not bases."

“Our friends and allies in the region recognize that everyone has a stake in making cooperative engagement work. But to ensure this strategy remains viable, we must maintain certain minimum support from America as well. ... And that's going to be the hard part, because as the terrors of the Cold War fade, the American people are beginning to ask, “What's in it for us?'"

American Support

Our friends and allies in the region recognize that everyone has a stake in making cooperative engagement work. But to ensure this strategy remains viable, we must maintain certain minimum support from America as well. We've got to have adequate high quality, trained, ready, flexible forces. We've got to have adequate funding for programs to support strong alliances and friendships. But most importantly, we must maintain an adequate forward presence in this theater. And that's going to be the hard part, because as the terrors of the Cold War fade, the American people are beginning to ask, "What's in it for us?"

The answer is that if we want to benefit from the gathering economic momentum in Asia, we must be present as a full and enthusiastic partner. Does that require military forces? Let's not kid ourselves — sure it does. No diplomatic note, no political mission, no economic commission conveys the same clear message of commitment as a visible U.S. military presence.

Being present promotes confidence in our treaties and our word

- as it has on the Korean peninsula for four decades. Being present encourages cooperation when times get tough as it did when we built a coalition during the gulf war. Being present improves our own readiness, by putting us on the scene immediately when the moment for action arrives — as it has more than 200 times since World War II. And most importantly, being there may provide sufficient deterrent to convince others not to act in ways that threaten our

interests, as it has in Korea for the past 40 years. If we are going to be part of the progress and prosperity in Asia, then we must be present at the scene of the action and that means forward presence.

I would make three brief points about that presence. First, it doesn't have to be massive to be effective. In this entire half of the world, we have about 80,000 personnel stationed outside U.S. territory – that's less than 6 percent of the force stationed in the U.S.

Second, this force does not entail an enormous expense. Except for those afloat, almost all of our forward-stationed forces are in Northeast Asia, where allies help pay our stationing costs. In fact, thanks to Japanese burden-sharing, it's cheaper today to maintain a carrier battle group in Japan than in the U.S. - and we would have to replace our one carrier in Japan with at least three on the West Coast to maintain the same forward presence in Northeast Asia.

would be our options.

Some will question whether it is possible to maintain adequate presence, adequate forces and adequate programs in the face of shrinking budgets and multiple challenges to order around the world. Well, I'm confident that we will be able to do just what President (Bill) Clinton said: maintain "the world's strongest national defense, while restructuring our defenses consistent with the fact that the Cold War is over."

In PACOM, the refocusing of our regional strategy is complete. With less than 20 percent of the U.S. active duty force covering one-half the Earth's surface, PACOM is already an economy-of-force operation. I'm confident that future reductions in the Pacific will be modest and proportional and matched to the strategic situation which, except for Korea, is one of the most stable in the world. We will be doing things smarter, with more jointness, more consolidation and more reliance on our AsiaPacific neighbors to carry their share of the security burden.

But while I am confident we can make our strategy work, I also know that adequate support requires justification. We must do more than just successfully execute our strategy

we must explain it to the American people in a way that garners their support.

Two years ago, I appeared before this symposium as my first official duty after taking command of USPACOM. I talked then about the remarkable change taking place, the importance of stability in an unstable world, and the openings I could see for sharing the economic growth of Asia with America, and the blessings

If Not Us, Someone Else

But the best argument for maintaining forward presence is what we can expect if we don't provide the central, visible, stabilizing force in the Pacific — because someone else certainly will, although not necessarily in the same benign way. And with elimination of our forward forces would go our flexibility to send a message by fine tuning our presence short of war. Our access reduced, our influence dissipated, our ability to rally a coalition a thing of the past, we would be reduced to two choices in a crisis: inaction, or dispatching a force from U.S. soil. Hollow words or a punch in the nose those