Posted on 08/14/2003 10:43:32 AM PDT by LavaDog
STUTTGART, Germany -- When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wanted to shake up America's armed forces in Europe, he called in a Marine.
Rumsfeld was assembling a team of commanding officers to carry out his plans for a military overhaul last year, and asked General James L. Jones, then commandant of the Marine Corps, to draw up a list of candidates for several top posts. Jones, who had been planning to retire in June, dutifully presented his recommendations and figured that was that.
Rumsfeld then stunned him by asking whether he wanted one of the top jobs himself: commander of US forces in Europe, a post that doubles as NATO commander.
''I was very surprised because I didn't see it coming,'' Jones, 59, said in a recent interview at the US military's European Command Headquarters. ''I asked if he was serious or if he was joking,'' Jones added. ''He said he was serious.''
Jones wasn't the only one surprised by the move. Like many of Rumsfeld's decisions, naming a Marine Corps veteran who was nearing retirement to command US forces in Europe was unconventional and controversial. No Marine had held this high-profile job, once occupied by Dwight D. Eisenhower. The post has traditionally been held by Army generals, with some exceptions.
When Jones assumed the job in January, it was widely seen as a signal to the more than 100,000 American troops in Europe that big changes were in the works.
Rumsfeld wants to remake the US military into a lighter, more nimble, and highly mobile force that can quickly deploy to trouble spots and more effectively fight the war on terrorism. This has caused some anxiety among the ranks, particularly in the Army, which comprises most of US forces in Europe and is the main target of the transformation.
While Rumsfeld's overhauls at the Pentagon have been marked by bureaucratic resistance and friction between the civilian leadership and the uniformed brass, military officials say Jones has been skillful in reassuring nervous troops in Europe that the changes will be carried out thoughtfully.
''Jones has been a very calming presence,'' said a senior Army official in Europe, speaking on condition of anonymity.
And given the defense secretary's goals, Jones seems a logical choice, officials say. Being light, quick, nimble, and expeditionary, after all, is second nature to the Marines.
Moreover, Jones, who grew up in France and feels at ease among Europeans, has had a soothing effect on the allies at a time when trans-Atlantic relations are strained over the Iraq war.
''Philosophically and culturally, I feel at home in Europe,'' said Jones, who lived in France where his father worked as a businessman from 1947 to 1962. ''I speak French,'' he added with a smile. ''Maybe that's the reason I got the job.''
His European background has been an asset as he shepherds the North Atlantic Treaty Organization through the biggest transformation in the alliance's history. Part of those changes, a prototype of the new NATO rapid deployment force planned at the alliance's summit in Prague last year, will be running by October, Jones said. And later this month, NATO will take over peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan, the alliance's first mission outside Europe.
Analysts also credit Jones with defusing tension over such potentially thorny issues as US plans to close military bases in Germany and open new ones in Eastern Europe, a shift viewed by many Germans as retribution for Berlin's failure to support the war in Iraq.
''He took the steam out of this issue,'' said Henning Riecke, a specialist in US-European relations at the German Council of Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank. ''He was very outspoken about how redeployment was a strategic necessity from the US point of view, and not the result of German opposition to the Iraq war.''
Jones joined the Marines in 1967, and served tours in Vietnam; Okinawa, Japan; northern Iraq; Bosnia; and Macedonia. Among other posts in his 36-year military career, he worked as the Marine Corps' liaison officer to the US Senate in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and served as military assistant to former defense secretary William S. Cohen during the Clinton administration. He was named Marine Corps commandant in 1999.
Since taking over as commander of US forces in Europe, Jones has wasted little time implementing Rumsfeld's changes. Plans to reposition US forces to Eastern Europe and Africa should be finalized by fall, military officials say.
The reorganization, however, is about more than the location of US bases. The vision Jones seeks to implement is nothing short of a revolution in how the military is deployed. Currently, US troops stationed in Europe come for three-year tours and bring their families, creating the need for massive bases resembling small cities, complete with kindergartens, shopping centers, and movie theaters.
That arrangement served US interests well in the Cold War when the United States needed to maintain a large standing ground force to counter the Soviet threat, Jones said, but it ''doesn't quite fit as well in the 21st century.''
The new plan envisions smaller bare-bones bases that can serve as launching pads where US forces can quickly deploy to trouble spots. Rather than three-year tours, troops would be stationed in Europe for six-month periods, albeit without their families.
Moreover, the current system, in which individual soldiers rotate in and out of overseas assignments, would be replaced with a new arrangement in which entire units rotate together.
The Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy long ago implemented similar changes in their rotation schemes and moved to a more expeditionary posture.
The latest plans, however, are causing anxiety in the Army, where they will mean major cultural and lifestyle adjustments. The future Army, military officials say, will need to become a more expeditionary force similar to the Marines. ''Soldiers are worried about things like what is going to happen to my battalion, my platoon, my family,'' said the senior Army official.
Such was the apprehension over the coming changes that Jones saw fit to write an open letter to US troops in June.
''Our pledge to each of you is we will get this right,'' Jones wrote. ''We owe you no less than our very best. We are making these necessary adjustments to meet the 21st century's challenges, knowing full well that we must keep faith with you and your families.''
Jones said in the interview that he understands that soldiers, particularly in the Army, are apprehensive about the changes, but he said: ''Everything has to change at some point. People who don't change are doomed to be bypassed, to become a rock in the middle of a stream.''
And that's pig latin for...???
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