Commentary: Cooperative Engagement

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At a naval conference earlier this year, Admiral Charles Larson, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, spoke eloquently about his vision of cooperative engage­ment between the United States and our Pacific Rim friends and allies. In Admiral Larson’s view, the first step toward the establishment of a stable Pacific region, based on solid military alliances, is to avoid the “Fortress Amer­ica” brand of nationalism by creating and maintaining warm relationships between our leaders and those of our regional partners.

As usual, Admiral Larson is right on the money. Al­liances are based on trust; trust is based on mutual un­derstanding; and the entire chain is based on continuing relation­ships. There is another area, how­ever, in which the concept of co­operative engagement can be considered and pursued produc­tively: military hardware.

Military readiness is based both on trained personnel and capable equipment. Training is wholly within the purview of a military organization, and combined exer­cises go a long way toward establishing a high state of training within the structure of our various alliances. Equip­ment, however, is another matter entirely. Equipment is by no means wholly within the purview of the military, even domestically—no matter what our friends in the development, funding, and procurement agencies would like to have us believe. Equipment comes from a multi­tude of sources, and competition both within U.S. indus­try and worldwide makes the outfitting of forces within alliances quite unpredictable.

The problem is made more difficult by the juxtaposi­tion of politics, military readiness, and commercial sales. It is a tough challenge to maintain friendship and coop­eration between military allies whose industries are in di­rect competition. It also is more than a bit ironic that the United States—whose military presence throughout the various theaters provides the dominant force for stabil­ity—is the only nation that does not actively promote and officially support the export of its defense technology be­yond a few large, politically motivated instances that tend to arise during presidential campaigns.

Here is an example of what we are up against: During the first few months of 1992, when I was in Seoul help­ing the Korean Navy set up the training program for its new submarine force, the French Chief of Naval Opera­tions came through on an official visit, as part of a re­gional tour. He was traveling with representatives of

France’s defense industry, and the primary reason f°⁽ the trip was to further their export interests.

I would not suggest that our naval leadership should follow suit. What we should do is establish a national en­vironment of “cooperative engagement” between U.S. go'¹' ernment agencies (including the Department of Defens^e and the various armed services) and members of th^e U.S. defense industry, to promote sales of U.S. equipmd¹¹ to our friends and allies around the world.

The gains would be large and varied. The potential & duction of our trade deficit and benefit to our economy^c* increased exports are obvious and are frequently discuss^ in the media. The value to the readiness of allied region^ forces is not quite so obvious. Nevertheless, when on^e considers the problems involved in a region like South' east Asia—where U.S. forces operate with allies whoS^e major hardware may be French, whose combat system may be British, and whose C^J‘ equipment may be German or I^s' raeli—it becomes evident th^at gains could be made in the effc^c' tiveness of combined operation⁵ by promoting a situation whef^e U.S.-led forces are outfitted with U.S.-built equipment.

The regional operational coni' manders have a clear understand' ing of the gains in readiness th^llt such a situation would provide Yet we continue to have elements in government—on th^e Hill, in Crystal City, and at the Pentagon—who steadfast!) oppose the export of U.S. defense technology to alli^e^ markets worldwide. They say we need to keep a techno' logical edge, and they are absolutely right, in concept"'' and in limited practice.

No responsible participant in the arena wants to gi^ve away the store. Certainly, there is a group of core tech' nologies that should be reserved for use by U.S. force^5. This group, however, is significantly smaller than the ma^sS of technologies currently being denied licenses for expo*^1.

There is little to be gained in continuing to promote th^e success of foreign products by prohibiting our own fro¹¹¹ joining the competition. In short, the current rate of d^e' nial of export licenses for U.S. defense products promote the sale of equipment from our international compel tors, boosts their economies at the expense of our oWj^1, and limits command-and-control effectiveness with¹'¹ our military alliances worldwide.

Alarmists point to examples like Iraq and decry tlf “arming of our enemies.” They also point out that today ⁵ allies may be tomorrow’s opposition. This is the kind ⁰ paranoia that fosters the Fortress America mentality abo^lit which Admiral Larson is so rightly concerned. It also leti'¹' to the old philosophy of “find one rotten apple and thro" out the whole barrel.” Of even greater concern, it gend' ates doubts about the basic value of our alliances. I P^e>

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Proceedings / December

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