The U.S. Navy in the Pacific: Past, Present, and Glimpses of the Future

It is one thing to observe the changes that have taken place over the last ten years in the size and character of the U.S. military presence in East Asia and the Western Pacific. It is quite another to forecast the nature of that presence ten years from now. One is, of course, tempted simply to extrapolate the past into the future. Some succumb to that temptation. They look at the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and Thailand. They look at the reduction in the strength of the U.S. forces that remain in Korea and the Western Pacific. They look at the refocusing of U.S. security concerns on Europe. An based on what they see they conclude that the United States is retreating from Asia. But simple extrapolation often misleads; and it clearly does so in this case. One reason is obvious: in concentrating on change one tends to neglect stability, and in certain fundamental respects the U.S. military presence in the Asian-Pacific region hasn't changed at all. There is another, less obvious but in the long run more important reason as well: the processes that brought about the changes that have taken place in that presence over the last ten years, and those likely to produce change during the next ten years, are quite different.