US ready to dump `two-war' policy

NEW KIND OF WAR: The notion that the US military should be ready to fight two major conflicts at the same time is not applicable anymore, the military said

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , WASHINGTON

The Pentagon's most senior planners are challenging the long-standing strategy that requires the armed forces to be prepared to fight two major wars at a time. Instead, they are weighing whether to shape the military to mount one conventional campaign while devoting more resources to domestic security and anti-terrorism efforts.

The consideration of these profound changes are at the center of a top-to-bottom review of Pentagon strategy, ordered by Congress every four years, and will determine the future size of the military as well as the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons.

The intense debate reflects a growing recognition that the current burden of maintaining forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the other demands of the global campaign against terrorism, may force a change in the assumptions that have been the foundation of all military planning.

The concern that the concentration of troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan was limiting the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts was underscored by General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a classified risk assessment to Congress this spring. But the review under way now is the first by the Pentagon in decades to seriously question the wisdom of continuing the two-war strategy.

The two-war model provides enough people and weapons to mount a major campaign, like the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or the invasion of Iraq in 2003, while maintaining enough reserves to respond in a similar manner elsewhere.

An official designation of a counter-terrorism role and a shift to a strategy that focuses on domestic security would have a huge impact on the size and composition of the military.

In a nutshell, strategies that order the military to be prepared for two wars would argue for more high-technology weapons, in particular warplanes. An emphasis on one war and counter-terrorism duties would require lighter, more agile forces -- perhaps fewer troops, but more Special Operations units -- and a range of other needs, such as intelligence, language and communications specialists.

Civilian and military officials are trying to decide to what degree to acknowledge that operations like the continuing presence in Iraq -- not a full-blown conventional war, but a prolonged commitment -- may be such a burden that it would not be possible to also fight two full-scale campaigns elsewhere.

In effect, the unusual mission in Iraq, which could last for years, has not just taken the slot for one of the two wars; it has upended the central concept of the two-war model. It is neither major conventional combat nor a mere peacekeeping operation. It does not require the full array of forces, especially from the navy and the air force, of the former, and it takes far more troops than the latter ordinarily would.

The force of 138,000 troops in Iraq is only 13,000 smaller than it was at the height of the offensive on Baghdad two years ago, yet the administration of US President George W. Bush describes the campaign not as a conventional war, but as the leading effort in the nation's fight against terrorism.

"The war in Iraq requires a very large ground-force presence," said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center. "War with China or North Korea or Iran, the other countries mentioned in the major review scenarios, would require a much more capable Navy and Air Force."

Thompson added that "what we need for conventional victory is different from what we need for fighting insurgents, and fighting insurgents has relatively little connection to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. We can't afford it all."

The Pentagon's sweeping study, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, is not due to be completed until early next year, when it will be submitted to Congress with the administration's annual budget request. Yet debate over the review cannot ignore the mounting costs of the war in Iraq, approximately US$5 billion a month.

Those pressures are forcing senior Defense Department officials and military officers to make pivotal decisions in the next few months.

Video about Falun Gong interrupts Chinese state TV

AP , HONG KONG

China's state television broadcasts were interrupted for nearly 15 minutes by video about the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, a spokesman for a Hong Kong-based satellite company said yesterday.

Falun Gong -- which China has labeled an "evil cult" and tried to suppress -- denied tampering with the programming beamed across the country.

The interference occurred on signals from the APSTAR 6 satellite on Sunday evening, and affected 25 channels -- 13 belonging to state-run CCTV and 12 provincial or city channels, spokesman Brian Lo for Hong Kong-based APT Satellite Holdings Ltd, which operates the satellite, said.

Lo declined to describe the inserted footage in detail, but said that whoever was responsible had tried to jam the satellite's signals for an hour but only managed to insert 14-and-a-half minutes of video, Lo said.

He said the interrupted programming was beamed to Shanghai and Shenzhen. Other provinces and regions affected included Guangdong, Hunan, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Zhejiang.

Lo said his company hasn't been able to trace the jamming signal and had reported the matter to Hong Kong's police and telecommunications authority. Police did not immediately comment.

Spokeswoman Diana Fu of the Office of the Telecommunications Authority said the department will study whether there are anti-jamming measures it can recommend to APT.

A Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Falun Gong, which mixes slow-motion exercise and Buddhist and Taoist teachings, denied the group was behind the satellite jamming, saying it doesn't have the resources to do it.

"I don't think it's something ... we can do because we're just ordinary volunteers," Sophie Xiao said.

She characterized the allegations as a smear campaign against the spiritual group.

Beijing plays the history card in rivalry with Japan

DPA , BEIJING

When Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi snubbed Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi during a visit to Tokyo in late May, it was the most visible sign yet of the Chinese government's determination to browbeat Japan into making up for its supposed lack of proper remorse for its wartime atrocities in China.

Top of China's demands is a promise from Koizumi that he will stop visiting the Yasukuni shrine, which honors 14 Japanese war criminals from World War II along with the 2.5 million Japanese people who died in wars since the 1880s.

China said Wu Yi canceled her meeting with Koizumi because he refused to rule out more visits to the shrine.

Without Koizumi's promise, China is likely to continue its opposition to Japan joining the UN Security Council.

Some analysts have said China might agree to Japan joining the Security Council if new permanent members are not given the right of veto, which is enjoyed by China and the four other current permanent members. The lack of a veto right for Japan would allow China to maintain a superior status in the UN body, but it may not be enough for Beijing.

"First of all, I think Japan will not give up the veto right. But even if it does give it up, it will only be temporarily or as a step towards having the veto right," said Liu Jiangyong, a professor at the Institute of International Studies in Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Japan and the other G4 members seeking Security Council seats -- India, Brazil and Germany -- have reportedly offered to accept a right of veto frozen for 15 years. But Liu suggested this may not satisfy China and would only lead to a "fiercer dispute" in the future.

Japan recently said that Koizumi visits Yasukuni as a "private citizen," but this seems unlikely to appease critics in China and South Korea.

"We do not accept it, and it's impossible to accept," Zha Daojiong, an expert in international relations at People's University in Beijing, said of Japan's claims that Koizumi's visits to the shrine could be deemed private.

"From the diplomatic aspect, it is quite clear," Zha said. Koizumi's shrine visits "mean that China and Japan do not have the exchange of [leaders'] visits."

Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to hold brief bilateral talks with Koizumi on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Britain, following a similar meeting in Indonesia in April.

But Hu is unlikely to invite Koizumi to Beijing and will almost certainly repeat his demand in April that Japan must "back up its remorse for wartime aggression with action, and deal with historical issues in a prudent and serious manner."

Both Japan and the US angered China earlier this year when they issued a US-Japan security treaty that referred to the possible defense of Taiwan. Many Chinese scholars also see Koizumi as taking a tougher diplomatic line to appease right-wing interests in Japan.

Wang Xiangsui, a well-known Chinese military analyst, accused Japan of trying to provoke China into an "extreme reaction" by taking a tough stand on issues such as disputed islands and gas fields in the East China Sea.

"If China doesn't react, Japan will gain interests [in the East China Sea]," Wang said in a commentary in state media. "If China does react, then Japan will spread the `China threat' ... and encourage the US to intervene and profit from it."

China allowed a series of anti-Japanese protests earlier this year. But after three weekends of large-scale protests in several major cities, and some attacks on Japanese-linked businesses, the government moved to rein in the anti-Japanese sentiment. Students were lectured on the importance of "understanding the government's position" and the need to maintain good economic relations with Japan. Some universities and at least one large Chinese company threatened to expel anyone who attended unauthorized protests.

The government may have called for an end to the protests partly out of fears that protesters could later target domestic issues. But with many nationalist groups urging a boycott of Japanese goods, and Japanese public opinion increasingly turning against China, the government was probably more concerned about potential economic damage.

With protests and calls for boycotts subdued, Zha believes there will be little long-term damage to economic ties between China and Japan.

"At the market level, there is some impact, but there is no impact on the economic relations at government level. Japan cannot do without China's market, and China also cannot do without Japan's market," he said.

This has produced what many Chinese academics call "cold politics, warm economics" between China and Japan. Some foreign and Chinese scholars also point to a new "victim" ideology that has emerged in China in the last decade.

Wu Yi's public humiliation of Koizumi was probably more for the consumption of an increasingly nationalistic Chinese public than for the international community.

The Chinese Communist Party wants Japan to take the initiative, making a gesture that the party can show the public to demonstrate its growing international stature.