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Bret Bair (FOX NEWS, "Special Edition") said Bush will unveil the new Global Force Posture in a speech on Monday and say where forces will be stationed in the 21st century.

Generally we know DoD wants to reduce its presence in Germany, setup lilly pads in E. Europe, reduce its numbers in Korea while adding C2 capability and high-tech systems, beef up Guam, and relocate forces within Japan.

With Germany, my big question is what do they do with V Corps? Leave it in Europe, or bring it CONUS? That's significant. And how many brigades remain in Germany after this process is over? Probably two I think, eventually including a Stryker BCT. Are some fighter squadrons moved away from Europe?

Korea will lose front-line soldiers but gain upgraded Patriot systems, Apaches, and more PGMs. How do they sort out the command structures (with the 2nd Infantry Division, 8th U.S. Army, and US Forces Korea) will be something to watch, but they'll probably keep it close to as it is now.

Guam will continue to get more USAF squadrons and USN ships.

Japan (and the Korea command structures) is the most interesting in my view. Do the Marines move away from Okinawa but stay stationed in mainland Japan? Does I Corps and a Fort Lewis army brigade move to Japan as was rumored a few months ago? That would make waves but I doubt it happens.

Anyway we'll find out Monday, at least some of it.



Edited by - ViperTTB on Aug 13 2004 4:54 PM

NY TIMES article on it today with details:

Bush to Back Pentagon Plan to Redeploy 70,000 Troops
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

ASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — President Bush is to announce on Monday that he supports a Pentagon redeployment plan and will withdraw up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in the most significant rearrangement of the American military since the end of the cold war, an administration official said Saturday.

The redeployment plan itself was first reported by The New York Times in early June.

Mr. Bush will also announce in a speech on Monday to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cincinnati that the withdrawal will affect an additional 100,000 military support staff and family members, who will leave the regions as well.

"This will strengthen our ability to address threats abroad, improve our capability to protect America, and ease some of the burden on our uniformed military and their families," said the administration official, who requested anonymity because Mr. Bush had not officially unveiled the plan.

The president's decision, first reported by the Financial Times of London, comes at a time when the Army is stretched thin by large deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, but administration officials said the new realignment is unrelated to the conflicts in those countries. Instead, the White House cast the repositioning as part of a broader initiative to reshape the military in the 21st century.

Mr. Bush's speech, which he will make two weeks before the start of the Republican National Convention in New York, is also part of an effort to promote his credentials on national security beyond the war on terrorism, which will be a major theme of the Republican gathering.

Pentagon officials, who have been working for more than a year on the troop plan, have said the goal is to create more flexibility to send forces to the Middle East, Central Asia and other sites of potential conflicts.

As Pentagon policy makers envisioned the plan in June, the Army's First Armored Division and First Infantry Division, both based in Germany, would return to the United States. A brigade equipped with light armored vehicles would be deployed in Germany in their place. A typical division can number as many as 20,000 troops, or three brigades, but the First Armored Division and the First Infantry Division have only two brigades each in Germany.

Pentagon officials also said in June that a wing of F-16 fighter jets could be shifted from its base in Germany to the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, moving the aircraft closer to the Middle East. In addition, Pentagon officials said the Navy's headquarters in Europe would be transferred to Italy from Britain.

Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, has briefed German officials. "Everything is going to move everywhere," Mr. Feith said a year ago, as the administration was developing the details of the plan. "There is not going to be a place in the world where it's going to be the same as it used to be."

Here it is.
http://www.pentagon.gov/transcripts/200 ... -1153.html

Pretty much what was expected, but we do now know that V Corps will remain in Iraq which I was unsure about before. They say V Corps will become a one-combat-brigade corps, interesting, so much for a two-division requiremnet for a corps to be a corps.

1 ID and 1 AD from Germany redeploy CONUS.
A Stryker brigade is moved to Germany.

V Corps HQ does remain in Germany, but is modified to be more deployable and presumable some of the CS and CSS units will be redeployed to the US while others remain in Europe. Many smaller facilities throughout Europe will be closed.

F-16s will remain in Germany until arrangements with Turkey can be made and they can move to Incirlik.

The Pacific won't be nearly as hard hit as Germany is.