DATE: Tuesday, November 25, 1997            TAG: 9711250558

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A8   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   43 lines

STUDY: NAVY'S PRESENCE HELPS MAINTAIN PEACE

The Navy's overseas deployments are vital to maintaining peace and protecting American economic interests, an independent study released Monday asserts, but as defense budgets shrink it will be tougher to sell them to the American public.

The report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, argues that the placement of Navy warships in world hot spots influences the decision-making of American friends and foes alike.

The value of those forces is clear in times of crisis, the report suggested. But ``there is little quantitative evidence or generally accepted analysis available'' to show how naval presence influences events during times when tensions are low.

Because of that, the report warned, the public may be receptive to calls for reduced presence.

Harlan Ullman, a fellow at the Center for Naval Analyses and a participant in the CSIS study, said the Army and Air Force are trying to match the Navy's ability to provide presence. The Army now pre-positions substantial amounts of equipment in regional hot spots like Kuwait. And the Air Force has developed Air Expeditionary Forces of about 35 fighter planes that can be ordered anywhere in the world within about 48 hours, assuming a friendly country provides them a base of operations.

Ullman suggested that the Quadrennial Defense Review conducted by the Pentagon earlier this year ``deferred some of the really tough choices'' about providing presence as defense spending declines.

``The question is whether Congress or any White House has got the stomach'' to face such problems, he said.

Marine Lt. Gen. Martin Steele, another participant in the study, said the services continue to discuss different ways of maintaining a presence, including the construction of massive floating bases that would be more or less permanently located in troublesome areas like the Persian Gulf.

Mobile base advocates say such platforms could be constructed for less than the cost of building today's aircraft carriers and would provide room for far more attack and transport aircraft, as well as quarters for troops, than the flattops.

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