U. S. President George W. Bush this week announced the long-anticipated plan to restructure U.S. military forces abroad. The proposal, the largest redeployment of the U.S. military in half a century, is designed to reflect changes in the international security environment. The moves have implications for Japan because of the forward-deployed U.S. forces based here and because of the potential impact on regional security. Close and continuing consultations between Tokyo and Washington are needed to ensure that the moves enhance global and regional security, and strengthen the bilateral alliance between our two countries.

The "transformation" of the U.S. military has been a long-standing objective of the Bush administration. For U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- and many other security analysts -- today's security landscape differs markedly from that of the Cold War. The prospect of a large-scale Soviet-style invasion on a specific front is slim; instead, the primary danger is a smaller-scale contingency somewhere on the globe. Military forces need to be quicker and more mobile, capable of deploying around the world at a moment's notice. The planned redeployments are designed to facilitate this objective.

The moves are not, as some have speculated, intended to ease the pressures created by U.S. deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither are they intended to "punish" some U.S. allies for their domestic politics (read: South Korea) or their positions in the war against terrorism (read: Germany).