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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
U.S. Defense Forces Overseas: Where, How Many and Why
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
CRS Review, April-May 1992
U.S. Forces Overseas: How Many, Where and What Do They Cost?
</hdr>
<body>
<p>By Stephen Daggett, specialist in national defense with the CRS
Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division.
</p>
<p> A fundamental premise of the Administration's defense policy
is that the Unites States should maintain a substantial, if
reduced, forward troop presence abroad. Some nongovernmental
experts and many Members of Congress call for larger withdrawals
of troops from overseas than the Administration is planning.
</p>
<p> As of September 30, 1991, the latest date for which official
figures are available, the United States has deployed about
448,000 active-duty troops abroad, including about 52,000 on
ships at sea, 265,000 in European NATO nations, 45,000 in Japan,
and 40,000 in South Korea. The extent of U.S. military
deployments overseas and the cost of U.S. military commitments
have been a source of contention within the Congress for many
years.
</p>
<p>From Burdensharing to Collective Security
</p>
<p> In the past, debate about overseas troop deployments focused
mainly on the burdensharing issue, with many Members of Congress
complaining that U.S. allies were not contributing their fair
share to alliance forces and to military operations, like the
Persian Gulf war, outside of alliance areas of responsibility.
Now, with the collapse of the Soviet threat in Europe and a
reduction in global tensions, the issue has been compounded by
debate over the rationale for maintaining substantial overseas
troop deployments at all.
</p>
<p> The Bush Administration argues that a substantial, if
reduced, forward military presence remains an essential element
of U.S. national security policy. Administration plans call for
reducing the U.S. presence in Europe from more than 300,000 two
years ago to 150,000 by 1995 and for withdrawing about 6,000
troops from Korea. The United States would still remain a large
forward presence abroad, however. Pressures for larger
withdrawals, especially from Europe, have grown quite strong in
Congress. In 1991, for example, both Houses of Congress approved
advisory language calling for no more than 100,000 troops in
Europe by 1995. Moreover, a number of defense policy leaders in
Congress appear inclined to support the ultimate withdrawal of
U.S. ground troops from Korea, though tactical air units would
remain.
</p>
<p> In the end, debate over U.S. troop levels abroad is a
political issue as much as a military one. An underlying
question is what kind of collective security arrangements will
evolve in Europe, Northeast Asia, and elsewhere, and what the
U.S. role in these arrangements should be. An even more far-
reaching question concerns whether the United States should
seek to assert itself as the single global superpower and
provide a degree of stability and military leadership sufficient
to dissuade other nations from developing a level of military
power that could eventually challenge U.S. interests.
</p>
<p>Costs of U.S. Military Commitments Abroad
</p>
<p> A major element of the debate about overseas troop
deployments in particular, and burdensharing in general,
concerns the costs of U.S. military commitments to various
regions. The debate may be muddled, however, by a failure to
make careful distinctions between different kinds of costs.
Four kinds of costs should be distinguished.
</p>
<p> The first is incremental cost of U.S. forces deployed
abroad, which is the difference between the cost of operating
U.S. troops deployed in a foreign nation and the cost of
maintaining the same troops at installations in the United
States. Officials estimate that the operating costs of U.S.
forces in Europe are about 10 percent higher than similar costs
in the United States, mainly because of the need to provide
services like post offices and family counseling that are
available off base in the United States but not abroad. These
incremental costs are relatively small, however--less than $2
billion a year. Direct costs in Japan are lower than in the
United States because Japan is paying a growing share of base
operating expenses.
</p>
<p> Second is the direct operating cost of U.S. forces deployed
abroad--paying troops, operating weapons, and maintaining
bases for U.S. units overseas after taking account of
offsetting contributions by host nations. These direct costs
amounted to about $17 billion in Europe in 1990, $3 billion in
Japan (an amount kept so low by Japan's contributions), and $2.2
billion in Korea.
</p>
<p> Third is the total cost of U.S. forces deployed abroad,
which adds to the direct cost of troops deployed abroad a
proportional share of "indirect" costs, including weapons
modernization and "overhead" costs such as recruitment,
training, medical care, administration, base construction and
operation, communications, and intelligence. In recent years,
the Defense Department has classified estimates of such costs on
the grounds that the allocation of such costs to particular
military units is inherently arbitrary, and may be misleading,
if it is assumed that the elimination of particular units would
result in budget savings equal to the "cost" measured in this
manner.
</p>
<p> Fourth is the total cost of U.S. forces that potentially
could be committed to regional contingencies in the event of a
major conflict. In recent years, DOD has also classified these
cost estimates, arguing that they are misleading for the
reasons noted in the preceding paragraph, and also because
forces normally assigned to Europe, for example, are also
available for use in other contingencies, as the Persian Gulf
war illustrated.
</p>
<p> Given these considerations, and making assumptions that DOD
finds objectionable, it is possible to allocate the defense
budget by region, and DOD has done so in the past. The
following table, a DOD analysis of the FY82 Carter
Administration defense budget request (which was substantially
boosted by the incoming Reagan Administration in early 1981),
distinguishes funding for forces oriented mainly toward Europe
from funding for other forces. This remains the most recent,
unclassified data available providing a full regional breakdown
of defense dollars. There is little reason to believe that the
allocation of funds changed significantly between then and the
beginning of post-cold war force reductions in FY91.
</p>
<p>Allocation of DOD Funding for U.S. Military Forces, FY82
(Budget Authority in Billions of Current Year Dollars)
</p>
<table>
Percent
of FY82
Item Dollars Budget
Forces rapidly available to NATO
Europe Deployed 31.5 16.0
Early reinforcements 41.1 20.9
Multipurpose forces
Later reinforcements 42.6 21.7
Strategic reserves 4.5 2.3
Strategic forces 29.3 14.9
Intelligence & Communications 14.3 7.3
Forces for other contingencies
Reinforcements for Asia 3.4 1.7
Asia deployed 14.1 7.2
Unallocated costs (retired pay) 15.6 7.9
DOD total 196.4 100.0
Forces formally committed to NATO
in the annual Defense Policy
Questionnaire 105.1 53.5
</table>
<p>Source: Department of Defense data provided in U.S. Senate,
Committee on Armed Services.
</p>
<p> Since 1983, Congress has required DOD to provide annual
reports to defense committees on the cost of forces formally
committed to NATO using the same regional breakdown reflected
above. As noted, these reports have been classified. In 1984
the report for FY85 included an unclassified summa