The trend that began with the U.S. quickly emptying Turkey and Jordan of its warplanes and troops after the end of fighting in Iraq is accelerating as part of the effort to solve two nagging Pentagon problems--local opposition to U.S. troops abroad and the associated cost of keeping them there.

The U.S. is moving rapidly to lower its presence in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and, most particularly, Saudi Arabia. The pressing political concern is to vent the pressure exerted by fundamentalist Islamic groups, which demand that non-Islamic armed forces leave the region. It may also serve as a signal to Syria and Iran that the U.S. plans to exert no near-term military pressure on them.

"We won't leave completely," said a Pentagon official. "They want us around to maintain stability. If they had really wanted us to go, we'd have been out of there before now. But the footprint [of troops and aircraft] is going way down. Nobody knows what the [residual] long-term force will be. They're still working that." Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of Central Command, is drawing up plans for the regional force reduction. "Franks is looking at everything," the official said. But the final form will have to be blessed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, he added.

The moves in the Middle East also reflect a larger trend to move U.S. troops from bases in built-up urban areas in Europe and Asia to sites that are rural and little more than runways. Eastern Europe and Central Asia have already provided many such sites, which senior U.S. commanders say suits the new expeditionary organization of U.S. forces.

Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, the new Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said, "There are a number of opportunities here to re-shape a little bit, continue to transform ourselves away from the Cold War model of large, heavy, permanent installations that are extremely expensive. The concept is to see if we can develop a new type of base called a forward operation base and still another type called a forward operating location . . . but without the infrastructure that we have traditionally [built around them]."