Guam Presence Good – Heg/Prolif

Guam Presence Good – Heg/Prolif

In the complicated post-9/11 world, the United States believes it must be able to respond to various threats as flexibly as possible. This means keeping its forces close to the action. In the past that's required basing them in other countries' territories. But Guam offers an almost unique combination of a good location, excellent facilities (including a topnotch harbor, vast warehouses and massive airfields) and a lack of political restraints. As Kurt Campbell, a former White House staffer and Defense Department official now at the Center for a New American Security, says, "[Guam is] a point from which you can do a variety of things. And it's a place to remind people that you're still focused on the region." Campbell points out that these secondary missions, such as protecting sea lanes, countering weapons proliferation and conducting relief missions, remain important; the U.S. military's humanitarian efforts after the tsunami of December 2005 gave a huge boost to the country's reputation in Asia. Brad Glosserman, executive director of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank, agrees. The Asia-Pacific region, he says, "is a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are changing shape and size all the time. China's the big story—but there are also changes going in on Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan." The island has already become a convenient base for fighting Washington's "Global War on Terror" in Indonesia and the Philippines. Small wonder that Brig. Gen. Douglas H. Owens, the commanding officer of Guam's Andersen Air Force Base, describes the island as "an unsinkable aircraft carrier." It's also well positioned for possible trouble to come. As Rear Adm. Charles Leidig, U.S. Navy commander on Guam, points out, if you take a map and draw a circle with Guam at the center and a radius of 1,500 nautical miles—equivalent to three hours' flying time or two to three days by ship—you come close to the main islands of Japan, Okinawa, Indonesia and the Philippines. China and the Korean Peninsula are only a bit farther off. So are several of the world's most important sea lanes, such as the Strait of Malacca, through which some 50 percent of the world's oil passes each year.

In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed towards a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear “six shooters” on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather together on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.

Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

Guam Presence Good – Heg/Prolif

Troops in Guam would be better situated to intervene in conflict areas

Bandow 2000 (Doug, Foreign Policy Briefing for the CATO Institute, http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb59.pdf, date accessed: 7/6/2010) AJK

In fact, some people look to the United States for answers to such problems. Many Christian leaders are calling for American or United Nations action to stop the slaughter of Christians, with the apparent acquiescence of factions of the local government and military, in the Molucca Islands, for instance. Conversations in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 8–11, 2000. But Washington is, rightly, not prepared to coerce the world’s fourth most populous nation and could not solve the conflict even if it attempted to do so. Even if the United States was ready to intervene, forces located on the Korean peninsula are far from today’s principal arenas of turmoil—such as Fiji, Indonesia, and the Solomon Islands. Units stationed in Guam, Wake Island, and even Hawaii would be closer or roughly as close.

Moving troops to Guam key to better foreign policy

Bandow (Doug, CATO handbook for Congress, http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb104/104-31.pdf, date accessed: 7/6/2010) AJK

Jettisoning antiquated alliances and commitments does not mean the United States would no longer be a Pacific power. After withdrawing its forces from Korea and Japan, America should center its reduced force structure around Wake Island, Guam, and Hawaii. That strategy would maintain forces in the Central Pacific, with an ability to move farther west if an unexpected threat to America's security emerged. But the United States would no longer be subsidizing wealthy allies who face fading threats. After decades of protecting other nations from an enemy that no longer exists, it is time for America to develop a more cost-effective defense strategy in East Asia.

Moving troops to Guam solves readiness

Roh 4 (Jane, staff writer for FOX news, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133728,00.html, date accessed: 7/6/2010) AJK

U.S. defense officials have argued that pulling American troops out of the North's immediate line of fire would better position them for a counterattack. Rumsfeld has already told Seoul of plans to bring the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, stationed just south of the DMZ, farther south from the border — an idea that coincides with South Korea's plans to pull its capital down toward the tip of the peninsula to reduce the threat from the North. Rather than rely so heavily on ground troops to protect the South, the United States is expected to bolster air units in neighboring Japan, Singapore and especially Guam, a nearby U.S. territory. Should Pyongyang strike first, U.S. warplanes stationed in Guam can be in fighting position within a matter of hours.

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