WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has signaled to President Bush his intention to press dramatic changes in U.S. military strategy with increased emphasis toward Asia, senior defense and administration officials said Friday.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a Washington Post report that Rumsfeld outlined broad shifts away from Cold War planning for a major war in Europe during a White House meeting Wednesday.
But the officials stressed in interviews with Reuters that Rumsfeld had made no decisions yet on pending U.S. weapons programs and had not made any arms recommendations to Bush at a meeting attended by representatives of the Defense and State Departments and the National Security Council.
The president, they said, agreed with the thrust of Rumsfeld's emphasis on China's growing military and economic importance and on all of Asia.
"He (Rumsfeld) did not make any recommendations or discuss weapons in detail. But the secretary made clear that China and Asia — and the distances involved there — are looming ever larger on our radar. That will obviously make (arms) changes necessary," one administration official told Reuters.
The Post, quoting senior government officials, said a sweeping defense review being conducted by Rumsfeld on orders from Bush was likely to lead to a recommendation to build smaller Navy aircraft carriers that might be less vulnerable to new missiles and to put more emphasis on radar-avoiding, long-range bombers such as the batwing B-2 for power projection in Asia.
"The secretary has not received any detailed briefings on specific weapons programs yet," one senior defense official told Reuters in response to questions. "His reasoning is 'First-things-first — and first comes strategy — followed by the weapons to carry it out,' " the official said.
The top-to-bottom review of strategy and arms is aimed at moving the cumbersome Cold War U.S. military away from a decades-long thrust toward all-out war with the former Soviet Union toward threats posed by high-tech arms proliferation in the 21st century.
The Post quoted officials close to the defense study as saying that it will lead to a shift away from the current Pentagon strategy of being prepared to fight two major wars — perhaps in Korea and the gulf — virtually simultaneously.
The newspaper said the review also could lead to buying a smaller number of planned F-22 fighter jets for the Air Force.