3:10 P.M. EDT
Real Audio of Briefing
MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Welcome also to journalists at the New York Foreign Press Center. We're very pleased this afternoon to be able to have a briefing on the Global Defense Posture Review. Since this is a background briefing, I would ask you to refer to our briefers as the senior administration official from the Department of State and the senior administration official from the Department of Defense. Each gentleman for today's briefing on Global Defense Posture Review will have an opening statement to make and, after that, we'll be very glad to take your questions. So first I'll ask the senior administration official from the Department of State to make his statement.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thank you. As you know, today President Bush gave a speech in which he described some of the aspects of a very important initiative to change and to modernize the alignment of U.S. Military Forces around the world. My Pentagon colleague will be able to elaborate on that initiative, much of which comes from the Department of Defense's own initiative.
But it, of course, involves many countries around the world and profoundly involves a United States commitment as a security partner to many countries around the world, and so we are very pleased to be able to respond to your questions, which will focus not only on what will be different from the past but will also show some very new features of our security cooperation around the world in the future, the net effect of which will be that the United States will revitalize its commitments as a security partner in Europe, in Asia and around the world; it will be able to present greater military capabilities than ever before as a consequence of technological advances and lessons learned from recent military operations; and we will be able to engage our security partners, our allies, our friends, in modernizing their own concepts, side by side with U.S. military forces. So this is a very significant initiative, one that has been a long time in conception, and one that involves working side by side with allies.
Since last November, when the President first spoke publicly about this review, there have been important diplomatic discussions in Europe and in Asia at senior levels involving both the Departments of State and Defense with countries throughout Europe, as well as throughout the Pacific region. And what the President's speech today signifies is his endorsement of the overall concept and his signal that it's now time for us to discuss in earnest the details of these many important changes.
And so we will be sitting down with governments to talk about what we have in mind and to see if we can negotiate in detail the plans for this important change in our defense posture. So it is a military plan, in the first instance, but the political dimension of it is equally important. It revitalizes the U.S. ability to be a faithful, strong and reliable security partner and it positions the United States to work very closely and cooperatively with friendly military forces around the world.
And with that, let me invite my defense colleague to add a few words.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thank you very much for this opportunity. I know over time I've had the chance to speak to some of you; to others, this is a new opportunity to share some views that we've had on this project of our Global Defense Posture Review.
I'd like to start with just a few brief points that I think are really worth emphasizing in our message to you. The President's statement today, as my colleague pointed out, carried the broad outlines of what we're intending. But beyond that, I want to emphasize that this has been an ongoing process that has been long term and has been deliberate. It had its roots in some of the very initial work of this administration.
In 2001, we undertook a major review of our defense capabilities and posture worldwide, the QDR, we called that, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and if you were to look back to that you'll see some references there to the need to look at our posture overseas. The President in 2002, in his National Security Strategy, made reference to the need to support our commitments to our allies, to be able to have a presence in the world, but also to have a presence that was relevant to the challenges of this era, and so he was signaling then the need to have some changes in that, and we've been involved in the dialogue with many of your countries over time.
As my colleague pointed out, this is very much a process that we've tried to do with our allies. From the very beginning, we've been involved in extensive consultation. The President this morning talked about the transformation of our armed forces. I might suggest that there was a global transformation underway. We and our allies are changing forces and capabilities and disposition, and one of the things that is important to us is that we do this in parallel, that we and our allies working together are able to see how our forces and capabilities are going to change to meet the challenges of our time, as the President talks, and that, in some instances, we're able to move away from having capabilities that were relevant to the military challenges of a former era.
One of the big emphases in the work that we're doing is the notion of capabilities and not numbers. Through much of the last 50 or 60 years, we measured the American commitment abroad in terms of the number of troops. But we know today that with the military capabilities that we possess, that a troop number isn't always the best measure and, in fact, in many ways, it can be a misleading measure.
And so one of our messages is that our focus here is on capabilities and not numbers, and the President spoke to that earlier today in terms of the types, locations, and numbers and capabilities of our forces, and there, we give a real big emphasis. And we could talk some in the question and answer, but there are any number of illustrations where the capabilities today of American forces and our allied forces are vastly superior to what they were just a few years ago, to say nothing of 20, 30 or even 50 years ago, and there have been dramatic changes in capabilities and we need to account for that.
There are also dramatic changes in the nature of the challenges that we face, and that's one of the issues the President was pointing to, is that we need to have a posture, an American posture, an allied posture, that's relevant to the challenges of this era, and that's why we've been working so closely with our allies, to make sure that we do this in parallel and in sequence, and to ensure that your capabilities and ours are relevant to the nature of the challenges that we confront.
And the last point I would make is that what the President announced today represents the best military advice he has had from our Joint Chiefs of Staff and from our combatant commanders. And particularly in the case of our combatant commanders, they have been in close touch with our allies abroad, have worked closely with them. We've been informed of the views of our allies and the combatant commanders who are making recommendations to the Secretary of Defense have tried to represent those views.
And so, yes, this is best military advice but, yes, this is also best military advice that's been informed from the views of our allies abroad. And with that, I think we're available for your questions.
MR. DENIG: Okay, let me remind you to please keep your questions short so we can maximize the number, identify yourself and your news organization. Let's start with New York. New York, your first question, please.
QUESTION: Yes, good afternoon. My name is Torsten Rik. I'm with Germany's leading business paper, Handelsblatt, here in New York. I've got two questions, actually.
I just wonder whether you could be a little bit more specific about your plans in Germany. So what kind of impact do you expect on different locations in Germany?
And the other question is what role is Germany going to play as a location for U.S. troops in the future. Thank you.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Germany has been and will continue to be an especially important ally of the United States, and the military relationship we have with Germany is one that we value considerably. There will be changes to our posture in Germany. The President referred earlier today to Cold War legacy forces. In that case, in Germany, we're really pointing to the heavy divisions that are in Germany. We think that there is a time for change there and that those forces should return to the United States.
But, at the same time, we think that there are new, more relevant capabilities that ought to be in Germany and therefore we have -- it is our plan, it is our intention -- that Striker Brigade be stationed in Germany, both as representative of the kind of transformation that is taking place within our ground forces but also as a very important signal in terms of how we think American and allied ground force capabilities should be changing and, to us, to have Striker Brigade in Germany is a very important asset for working with the German armed forces and working with our NATO allies generally.
And so, in this instance, it's a perfect representation of a legacy capability that we think should return to the United States; but also, when I talked about pushing capabilities forward, in this instance, pushing Striker to Germany as part of the transformed ground forces of the United States is a very important part of the global posture for the future.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Perhaps I could just add a political perspective on the plans for Germany. It is a fact that Germany has been a very important ally of the United States for a long, long time, and remains so. And it's also a fact that Germany has been home to many military personnel and families for generations, and this has forged a very close bond between the United States and Germany, particularly among our military community. That's very important to the American people and we have enjoyed German hospitality for a long time, and that weighs very heavily in our thinking, as well.
What you see in this review is a recognition that a lot of the location and the positioning of assets and infrastructure follows the logic of a bygone era. Much of it is waiting for a war that, thank goodness, is not going to come to Germany. And so there's no need for dispersed facilities; it makes more sense to consolidate. And it's my understanding that the German Government is also considering comparable moves among its own facilities.
And so I think that our thinking is very much in harmony with that of Germany's security experts.
MR. DENIG: New York, your second question.
QUESTION: Mauricio Murati from Italy, Il Sole. The defense budget in America was $300 billion three years ago, and this year, you are spending almost $500 million -- billion. In Italy, we don't understand how you can squander so much taxpayers' money. Is there any way that you can change your posture without doubling the budget?
Thank you.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think it is safe to say that the President proposes to our Congress spending for defense in a way that meets the security commitments of this country, or the security needs of this country and the security commitments to our allies. He would not propose spending any more money than he thought was needed to meet for our defense and that of our partners.
We are in a new era. We face a host of new challenges. I needn't remind this audience of the attack on this country on September 11th, but I do so, in a way, because it signals the very different nature of the challenges that we face in this era. There are very complex challenges, there are very different challenges from that of the past. And, frankly, we think that we and our allies need to make adjustments in our posture, in our capabilities to meet these kind of challenges. And so our President proposes to our Congress a level of spending he thinks is appropriate to the nature of the military and security challenges that we face.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Turkey in the first row here.
QUESTION: Umit Enginsoy, NTV television. Earlier, the United States had planned to shift some F-16 fighters from bases in Germany to Incirlik in southern Turkey, on the condition that the planes operate without restrictions. And so far, there is no indication that Turkey has positively responded. At this point, have you decided on what to do with Incirlik or on cooperation with Turkey?
And secondly, do your structuring, restructuring plans have anything to do with Cyprus?
Thank you.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I'll leave the second part to my Defense colleague. I think that the characterization that you've given, I might wish to rephrase, because the United States and Turkey have had some discussions about the nature of the worldwide Global Defense Posture Review. The administration has briefed our Turkish allies on the full extent of the wide-ranging nature of this review.
With respect to specifics, it has not come to the point of formal proposals and I think it's fair to say that the Turkish and U.S. governments will be having further discussions with an eye to finding as much common ground as possible on our perspective of the threats that both countries face well into the future and ways in which we can best cooperate to meet those threats as allies.
Would you like to answer the second questions?
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On the second, I can say in a sentence: We have made no proposals on a change of status in Cyprus.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Africa, in the first row.
QUESTION: Adu-Otu, Africanewscast.com.
Where does West Africa come in in the reconfiguration of the posture? And a second question is: Is the thinking in the State Department or difference that West Africa has become a sanctuary for al-Qaida?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Perhaps I can, from the State Department perspective, give you a policy view, and then invite the Defense Department response regarding this specific initiative. West Africa enjoys close relations with the United States. The security of West Africa is important and probably growing in importance to the United States.
The intervention in Liberia followed the interventions in Cote d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone and have prompted a great deal of interest on the part of the U.S. policy community to work with ECOWAS and our friends in West Africa to help address the underlying causes of crisis. Our military has a great deal of normal engagement activities with the West African states and is quite enthusiastic about these activities, which are also supported financially by the Department of State.
Let me ask my Defense colleague to speak to the Defense Posture Review and the implications for that.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: One of the important elements that we're considering in this posture review is not only the focus on the large numbers of stationed forces that are in various places of the world, but also to give particular attention to arrangements that we have with countries in various parts of the world for training, for exercises, for the ability to pay for services; for example, if I were to cross your land, we could pay for fuel and be able to move on, if necessary.
And so much of what we see in the future, particularly as it's associated with the war on terrorism, the war on terror, is to have arrangements in place, so that when we and our partners believe that a particular response is required, that those arrangements would be there in time so that we could act when we believed we needed to act.
Much of our thinking in Africa, and in other parts of the world, is as much about having arrangements as it is about stationing forces or large numbers. And so I don't want to go into particular details here, but I think I would leave it for you to think that the emphasis here is having arrangements, the political arrangements, the military arrangements, and so that we can now cooperate in peace time through our security cooperation activities; that we could have arrangements in place that, in a contingency or crisis, we and you would be able to act appropriately; and we don't find ourselves doing the difficult pieces of negotiation over legal status of forces and how we would be able to pay for services rendered and so forth -- and such matters that, if we had that in place ahead of time, then when we came to a political agreement on the necessity to act that we'd be able to do so. So much of that focus is on arrangements, as I said.
MR. DENIG: Okay. Japan in the middle of the first row here.
QUESTION: I am Kendu with Japanese paper Sankei. I have a question about U.S. Marines stationed in Okinawa. I believe 3,000 U.S. Marines went to Iraq from Okinawa. However, they didn't return to Okinawa. Instead, they returned to U.S. And also, they were not replaced by other U.S. Marines. Is this permanent plan or do you plan to replace them in future?
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think there's two parts to your question that I really want to focus on. The first part, about Marines from Okinawa that were deployed to Iraq, that is illustrative of a bigger change that's taking place in our military forces overall, and that is the idea that we have one military force -- Secretary Rumsfeld talks often about that -- we have one military force throughout the world, and we have to use those forces where they are most needed, and we need to account for the risks in one area or another area, in terms of how that's done, and we try to account for that, and the Secretary of Defense relies on the advice of his military commanders.
But when it comes time to sourcing forces in Asia or in Europe or in Africa, we source them on a global basis. We believe that we need to be able to move forces from one region to another, if need be, and perhaps from another region back to that region, as the need be. We have a global force; we're looking at these as global capabilities. It's no accident that we call this a Global Defense Posture Review. That's part one.
Part two of the answer is that we are in detailed discussions with the government in Japan on a whole host of issues associated with our posture. I think it's inappropriate here to get into the details of that. But I would assure you that we're looking at all of the arrangements and all of the forces that are in Japan and giving consideration to the future of those, and when we come to a decision and we come to agreement with the Government of Japan then we'll be back to talk to you about that some more.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Jerusalem, right there.
QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Said Arikat from Al Quds daily newspaper.
Just to follow up on this point, should that be interpreted as, perhaps, the U.S. changing its fulcrum of forces presence from, let's say, Europe to the Middle East, especially with more reservists in the pipeline going? I mean, they just mobilized -- the largest mobilization since World War II, I think -- the Texas Army National Guards.
And while you're at it, sir, could you explain to us how the -- some are impulse exercises -- are involved in this whole process?
Thank you.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I would say -- again, there were several questions there. Does that represent a change of the fulcrum from Asia to the Middle East? I would not read that into it. What I would read is to say that in any given circumstance or any given time, we have to look around the world, in terms of available forces, and we need to be able to deploy and employ those forces where they are most needed at a given moment.
The overall effort is to ensure that around the world that we have appropriate capabilities that are stationed forward, and also that we represent or have taken account for our ability to reinforce regions with capabilities. And as you know, the capabilities of forces have not only changed dramatically, but so has our ability to move forces over time. And we're accounting for that movement and we believe that there are early arrival capabilities, early use capabilities that will be forward. We're taking stock of that and we'll be making recommendations on those, but there are also reinforcing capabilities that can come from beyond that region.
What I think we're really saying to you is that if you think of this as how we are weighted, that we want to have that weight -- if you think of it as an analogy, we want to be squarely on both feet and not leaning on one foot or the other. And so, as the challenges arise, we can meet that and be squarely in position in terms of the weighting that we have.
And for us, it is a global set of challenges that we face. There are some very specific regional challenges that we face. We are serious when we say we're going to meet our commitments to our allies in those regional challenges. But we are also serious that when we say that we have to confront these global challenges -- terrorism -- in a serious way, and that part of the posture changes that we have in mind are to deal with both those regional and global challenges.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Could I elaborate to one extent? I think it's important to recognize that there are current events that the United States is responding to. We have well-known operations with many other countries in Iraq and elsewhere. There are also longstanding security commitments, and many of them embodied in formal alliance commitments, which also compel the United States to maintain a strong and reliable posture as a defense ally.
Both of these are fully incorporated into the Defense Posture Review, such that the kind of mobility and flexibility that the Defense Department colleague is talking about permits the President to ensure that the United States will meet its current needs and its enduring obligations at the same time, and that is much of what the Pentagon does on a day-to-day basis. And this will improve our capacity to assure that all those obligations are well met.
QUESTION: On the issue of the Summer Pulse Exercise, sir, was that a signal to send to the world, so to speak, that we are really -- we're not spread too thin, that we can send our forces everywhere? It's a totally new strategy. Thank you.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Let me comment on that because it is, again, illustrative, as are other efforts, of what we are capable of. And one of the things, when we talk about our posture or we talk about assuring our allies and building partnerships and we talk about contending with uncertainty and we talk about flexibility and we talk about dealing on a global and regional basis, we also talk about our ability to surge forces to where they're needed when they're needed, and the Summer Pulse, as it was called, the Summer Pulse, was one such demonstration, not the only one. But for a period of several days in the month of July this year, we had seven carrier battle groups fully deployed in various parts of the world, and that is a very important demonstration of capability. And that wasn't to say that we're stretched too thin. That was simply to say that the United States has very significant military capability, and when we talk about our ability to surge to meet our commitment, this was a physical manifestation of that.
MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go to Mexico, the gentleman in the yellow shirt there, please.
QUESTION: Thank you. José Lopez, Mexican News Agency. Does this decision have any kind of impact, direct or indirect, on Latin America, perhaps Mexico or Colombia, where you have some military advisory presence? Or do you develop and separate plans to deal with security challenges in this region?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: The entire initiative that's been described by the President today is global. The fact, the happy fact, is that in our own hemisphere we find the absence of any major war or major crisis that would compel the United States to engage significant military forces in combat operations. In fact, very much to our own hemisphere's credit, many countries of the new democracies throughout the hemisphere are now contributing to the stability of other parts of the world, through peacekeeping and, most recently, in our own hemisphere in Haiti.
So this is a good news story. The United States is very much engaged, both politically and militarily, as a partner, at a level commensurate with the security situation. And so, hopefully, this fortuitous security picture will only improve from there. But it is part of the overall initiative, but the impact is probably quite modest. And I'll invite my Pentagon colleague to elaborate on that.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't have much more to say. When I talked about arrangements in Africa for training, for exercises, for working cooperatively, collaboratively with our partners there, I think we're talking much the same in the Western Hemisphere. And we'll engage in dialogues with governments that would be effective, and again, as we have more to say, we'll come back and talk to you about that.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Russia.
QUESTION: Pavel Vanichkin, TASS News Agency, Russia, the same question, another region.
The question about the impact in Europe, particularly in Baltic states. Do you plan in this framework of general redeployment of troops to send some American troops to Baltic states?
And another question, if I may. Could you break down the general figure, 70,000, into the four commands?
Thank you.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Perhaps, I can begin with your first question. And good luck getting a specific answer to the second one. (Laughter.)
The U.S. Government has had consultations in Moscow, in Russia. In fact, Secretary Rumsfeld was in Russia this weekend and shared the overall concept and even some details with our counterparts in Moscow. And it should be clear to Russia's security experts that the overall nature of this Global Force Posture realignment is not aimed at Russia. If anything, the storyline, from a historical perspective, is that it is no longer aimed at Russia. And that's clear from the perspective of the Baltics, but it's also clear, frankly, overall.
One has heard from certain quarters in Russia questions about certain proposed potential areas of cooperation between the U.S. military and countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia and Eastern Europe, but the facts will bear out the reality that these engagement activities have much more to do with our response to the threats of terrorism further to the south and, again, pose no threat at all to Russia.
The Baltic states, of course, are members of NATO and there will, of course, be the normal sorts of alliance activities in the Baltics. But from the perspective of the U.S. permanent positioning of forces and infrastructure, again, we believe our friends in Russia will be very reassured by the plans.
Did you want to speak about --
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think you gave the right answer. In our dialogues with our allies, the focus really is on capabilities and not numbers. I think today is not the right time to give a breakdown by region. There will be a time and we'll talk to you about that.
I really want to emphasize, reemphasize a point, though, that my colleague said. The news about this from your standpoint is that this is not aimed at Russia, and that it's, in fact, as the President said earlier today, because that challenge isn't there, that allows us and our allies to consider some very different options for our posture in Europe and other places. And we think that's something to celebrate; that is, for half a century, that was a challenge that we had to deal with, and that's a challenge that, happily for all of us, that's behind us now.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Taiwan, the lady in the middle, please.
QUESTION: Hi, Daphne Fun from ETTV, Taiwan. In this posture review, do you have any news today -- arrangements for a Taiwan Strait, both flashpoint you might engage in? And could you please also confirm: (a) you are going to send another carrier to that region because of the tension there; and (b) you are going to announce the sale of four destroyers armed with Aegis system to Taiwan?
Thank you.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: With respect to current events, and even arms sales policy, that's really not the subject of the initiative that the President spoke about today, and I think U.S. positions are clearly on the record on those.
With respect to our policy on the Taiwan Strait, as it was once articulated, if there is a conflict, then our policy will have let us down. We, obviously, are very keen to maintain stability in the Pacific rim. That is our policy. Of course, stability is reinforced very much by the capacity of U.S. military forces and the strength of our alliances. And the storyline of the Global Defense Posture Review in Asia is that the U.S. is better able to carry out its commitments than ever before, as a consequence of technological advances, military advances and lessons learned, and the quality of our cooperation with countries throughout the region, and we very much expect the changes that the President was talking about today to make that a reality for many years to come.
QUESTION: So with respect to the carriers --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, that's a current event issue, and it would be misleading, frankly, to talk about any current activities that the Defense Department or the United States may undertake. That would confuse the issue because this initiative that the President spoke about today is very much a long-term repositioning of U.S. forces and assets and infrastructure at home and around the world that has more to do with preparing for the uncertain future than to respond to current events.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Egypt there, please.
QUESTION: My name is Khaled Dawoud from Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper. I'm slightly confused concerning the statement the President made today about bringing some of -- or bringing the troops back home, but then he spoke about sending them to different locations. So if he can clarify a little bit what are these different locations. And the second issue, if you can tell us by now, where are these different locations going to be.
My second question: Are you going to consider a permanent presence in Iraq of even a certain number of troops as an alternative of part of this new posture strategy?
Thank you, sir.
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: There's really three questions there, and let me try each briefly in turn. When the President made an announcement and he talked about changes abroad, there will be, yes, in some instances, new capabilities and new forces in some different locations, much of that really focused on dealing with the challenges of the war on terrorism or, in other cases, to enhance deterrence in support of particular allies.
He gave an overall number that some troops would be coming home. What he is announcing, though, is that there is a change. As he said, these are changes that are going to be worldwide, and so the number he gave you was a net of forces that was going to come home, but it doesn't necessarily reflect the changes in various parts of the world. And I think some of those details we're going to leave to another time.
The question specifically on Iraq, as my colleague has said, there are some very specific near-term events, but you also heard in that talk, the President said we would maintain our commitment there until the job is done. And in terms of beyond that, that's nothing that we can speculate on here today and, frankly, that's a choice for the government of Iraq to take, and so we'll let events unfold.
The President really was very clear about his commitment in staying in Iraq until the job is done, and that's the message you should --
QUESTION: (Off mike) -- could you just sum up the new locations that are proposed for troops that are going to be pulled out from Germany and Japan and Korea?
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, let me spend a little time on terminology because I think that will help you. We have three kinds of facilities that we think about when we think about overseas. We have main operating bases. And these are major facilities. This is where troops are stationed with their families and all of the support infrastructure that there's needed, and there's schools and businesses and commissaries and a main operating bases often are what we thought of in the past. A main operating base is also what you think of as a garrison force, somewhat of a (inaudible).
In addition to that, we talk of forward operating sites. Those are “warm” facilities. By warm, I mean that they are facilities that can be used at any given time without any particular changes. The support party is likely almost certainly in place, the support party to keep the facility up and running and warm. Could be American support party, it might be host nation support party. But in any event, that is a facility that's available to use and can be at any given time.
And then the third category that we talk about are cooperative security locations. Those are austere facilities where there would be little or no permanent parties, certainly on our part, but there would be areas where, when I talk of arrangements, that we might -- we would have agreement with a government that, for purposes of training, that we could use a facility or for purposes of operation, depending upon what the circumstances were.
The focus that we're really giving in this, in terms of the new pieces, is on those forward operating sites and cooperative security locations. This is the one facility, the austere facility, so that we can train in different areas, we can work with host nation forces, we can conduct operations as we need. We're in discussions with governments around the world about that and it would not be appropriate, really, for me to go into details, lots of details.
I can give you some examples of how we think about a main operating base. Think of Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany as a main operating base. There is a facility where we have stationed forces and all the attributes that I described. As a forward operating site, a warm facility, there is the facility that we have that we are able to use in Turkey, at Incirlik, is a forward operating site and it has been there for a period of time. And that makes no comment -- I mean, I'm not trying to speculate on what kind of arrangements we might have, but it's a Turkish facility. The Turkish Government has been very good and gracious in allowing us to use that facility. It's a warm facility and has been available for us to use at different times.
And in cooperative security locations, an austere area, there are any number in different parts of the world where we are able to train and in different locations with host countries. I can point to facilities in Thailand, for example, where we have the Cobra Gold exercises with Thai forces and other regional forces. And this isn't anything where when we go to train, for example, in Cobra Gold in Thailand, these aren't facilities that are kept warm at any given time, but they're there and available and for purposes of training with an ally that we're able to go in and use those and then we leave. And so that's the kind of thing that we're thinking about. And as I say, we have discussions with any number of governments in the world about those various level of things.
Most of the emphasis, though, is on those latter two categories: forward operating sites and cooperative security locations.
MR. DENIG: Okay. Let's go to the gentleman in the middle there, in the yellow shirt.
QUESTION: Thank you. Amir Atra, with Israel.
A few months ago, you took Syria and Lebanon out of UCOM and gave it to CENTCOM in your unified command plan, and actually left Israel all alone in the Levant in UCOM. Do you foresee any further change which will make Israel either part of CENTCOM, or at least will enable CENTCOM to speak to Israel openly rather than hiding the flank, if you may, as you go about it today?
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't want to go into any particular details on what you talked about. I will simply say this: The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff look regularly at the Unified Command Plan and just as the President announced today about our global posture being dynamic, flexible, they don't view the Unified Command Plan as something that's static either.
And so they look regularly, they make recommendations to the President, and the President takes decisions on what he thinks is best, in terms of the security for the United States and the security for our partners. And so he relies on that advice from the Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as they see that changes are fit, they make those recommendations.
MR. DENIG: The gentleman from Korea in the green shirt there.
QUESTION: Ki Yon with Segye Times, Korea.
The United States plans to pull 12,500 soldiers out of Korea by the end of next year, but Korean Government keep saying that the deadline will be flexible. Do you think the timeline or do you think troops in Korea is negotiable?
Secondly, Korea views Korea's share of defense expenses should be decreased because of the reduction of the United States forces in Korea. What's your position on the matter of the share of ROK and U.S. defense expenses?
Thank you.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: If I may say so, the proper venue for any negotiation is between the two governments, and that is precisely where the matter rests. I know there have been a lot of press stories that probably get a little further out in front than the true state of affairs in close negotiation between the Korean Government and the U.S. Government. So I think we'll allow the two sides to meet as allies behind closed doors and to hear each other's concerns and to work things out together.
So with respect to the cost -- the host nation support of the cost-sharing burden, Korea has been a very stalwart ally, has borne significant expenses over the years, and I think that one of the significant aspects of the Global Defense Posture Review, as it relates to this issue, is not only that there may not be the exact same number of U.S. troops inside Korea, but that U.S. troops outside Korea become more relevant than ever before to the defense of Korea. The point being that transformation has changed the nature of military capabilities, such that the defense of Korea will be assured in the future, even perhaps more so than before, by virtue of the global integrated capabilities that the U.S. military is putting together.
MR. DENIG: Okay. Let's go to Helsinki there, please, for our last question.
QUESTION: Thanks. Jyri Raivio, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland. Can anybody give any rough estimate on the timing of this? When will the first of these 60- to 70,000 soldiers that the President mentioned today, when will they be coming back to the States?
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: You heard the President today talk about this as an initiative that will last over the next ten years. And because of the complexity of some of the dialogue and working out the details with governments that we've referred to here, some of this will take some time. But there's another dimension to it as well, and that is, we have two initiatives, very separate initiatives, initiatives that stand on their own weight and merit but are related.
We have the Global Defense Posture Review, which looks at our forces and capabilities around the world in light of new challenges. We also have underway at home a domestic Base Realignment and Closure effort. When the President referred to the number that would return home, the best vehicle for making a determination on where those forces should go, what installations here in the United States, is really through that Base Realignment and Closure initiative, the BRAC process, as we call it. And here, we give real emphasis to the realignment element of that process, as well as the closure. And so, for us, that means looking at the entirety of our Defense infrastructure, and then making a determination on where those troops, where those people, where those families should go.
That process takes some time. The Defense Department is underway right now on developing the recommendations that would be used to go to a commission that is formed next spring. The commission then makes a deliberation and presents its deliberations, its conclusions to the Congress. And then our Congress will then vote on whether or not to accept that package of recommendations in the entirety, in its entirety. That process I described, of the Defense Department making recommendations, it's a very involved effort, giving those to the commission, the commission then making its own deliberations and giving those to the Congress. That will take us to about this time next year. And so to begin to really implement the proposals that the President referred to today, then, follows after that process is concluded.
One of the reasons of making the announcement today, is all of this takes time, all of this we want to do very carefully with our allies, all of this we want to give real notice to our military families as well so they can make preparations.
And so the decision was taken that this is a good time to provide this information because it's going to be going to the decision to realignment and closure here domestically, but it allows our allies to make the proper preparations, and it allows our military families to make the preparations they need to make as well.
MR. DENIG: Okay. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Let me remind you that this was a background briefing and that attribution should be only to senior administration officials from Defense and State. I want to thank our two secretaries very much, and thank you, too, ladies and gentlemen.
