[Op/Ed] A Military for a Dangerous New World

[Falkenhayn]

The NY Times

As president, Barack Obama will face the most daunting and complicated national security challenges in more than a generation — and he will inherit a military that is critically ill-equipped for the task.

Troops and equipment are so overtaxed by President Bush’s disastrous Iraq war that the Pentagon does not have enough of either for the fight in Afghanistan, the war on terror’s front line, let alone to confront the next threats.

This is intolerable, especially when the Pentagon’s budget, including spending on the two wars, reached $685 billion in 2008. That is an increase of 85 percent in real dollars since 2000 and nearly equal to all of the rest of the world’s defense budgets combined. It is also the highest level in real dollars since World War II.

To protect the nation, the Obama administration will have to rebuild and significantly reshape the military. We do not minimize the difficulty of this task. Even if money were limitless, planning is extraordinarily difficult in a world with no single enemy and many dangers.

The United States and its NATO allies must be able to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan — and keep pursuing Al Qaeda forces around the world. Pentagon planners must weigh the potential threats posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, an erratic North Korea, a rising China, an assertive Russia and a raft of unstable countries like Somalia and nuclear-armed Pakistan. And they must have sufficient troops, ships and planes to reassure allies in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The goal is a military that is large enough and mobile enough to deter enemies. There must be no more ill-founded wars of choice like the one in Iraq. The next president must be far more willing to solve problems with creative and sustained diplomacy.

But this country must also be prepared to fight if needed. To build an effective military the next president must make some fundamental changes.

More ground forces: We believe the military needs the 65,000 additional Army troops and the 27,000 additional marines that Congress finally pushed President Bush into seeking. That buildup is projected to take at least two years; by the end the United States will have 759,000 active-duty ground troops.

That sounds like a lot, especially with the prospect of significant withdrawals from Iraq. But it would still be about 200,000 fewer ground forces than the United States had 20 years ago, during the final stages of the cold war. Less than a third of that expanded ground force would be available for deployment at any given moment.

Military experts agree that for every year active-duty troops spend in the field, they need two years at home recovering, retraining and reconnecting with their families, especially in an all-volunteer force. (The older, part-time soldiers of the National Guard and the Reserves need even more).

The Army has been so badly stretched, mainly by the Iraq war, that it has been unable to honor this one-year-out-of-three rule. Brigades have been rotated back in for second and even third combat tours with barely one year’s rest in between. Even then, the Pentagon has still had to rely far too heavily on National Guard and Reserve units to supplement the force. The long-term cost in morale, recruit quality and readiness will persist for years. Nearly one-fifth of the troops — some 300,000 men and women — have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan reporting post-traumatic stress disorders.

The most responsible prescription for overcoming these problems is a significantly larger ground force. If the country is lucky enough to need fewer troops in the field over the next few years, improving rotation ratios will still help create a higher quality military force.

New skills: America still may have to fight traditional wars against hostile regimes, but future conflicts are at least as likely to involve guerrilla insurgencies wielding terror tactics or possibly weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon easily defeated Saddam Hussein’s army. It was clearly unprepared to handle the insurgency and then the fierce sectarian civil war that followed.

The Army has made strides in training troops for “irregular warfare.” Gen. David Petraeus has rewritten American counterinsurgency doctrine to make protecting the civilian population and legitimizing the indigenous government central tasks for American soldiers.

The new doctrine gives as much priority to dealing with civilians in conflict zones (shaping attitudes, restoring security, minimizing casualties, restoring basic services and engaging in other “stability operations”) as to combat operations.

Every soldier and marine who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan has had real world experience. But the Army’s structure and institutional bias are still weighted toward conventional war-fighting. Some experts fear that, as happened after Vietnam, the Army will in time reject the recent lessons and innovations.

For the foreseeable future, troops must be schooled in counterinsurgency and stability operations as well as more traditional fighting. And they must be prepared to sustain long-term operations.

The military also must field more specialized units, including more trainers to help friendly countries develop their own armies to supplement or replace American troops in conflict zones. It means hiring more linguists, training more special forces, and building expertise in civil affairs and cultural awareness.

Maintain mobility: In an unpredictable world with no clear battle lines, the country must ensure its ability — so-called lift capacity — to move enormous quantities of men and matériel quickly around the world and to supply them when necessary by sea.

Except in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has reduced its number of permanent overseas bases as a way to lower America’s profile. Between 2004 and 2014, American bases abroad are expected to decline from 850 to 550. The number of troops permanently based overseas will drop to 180,000, down from 450,000 in the 1980s.

Much of the transport equipment is old and wearing out. The Pentagon will need to invest more in unglamorous but essential aircraft like long-haul cargo planes and refueling tankers. The KC-X aerial tanker got caught up in a messy contracting controversy. The new administration must move forward on plans to buy 179 new planes in a fair and open competition.

China is expanding its deep-water navy, much to the anxiety of many of its neighbors. The United States should not try to block China’s re-emergence as a great power. Neither can it cede the seas. Nor can it allow any country to interfere with vital maritime lanes.

America should maintain its investment in sealift, including Maritime Prepositioning Force ships that carry everything marines need for initial military operations (helicopter landing decks, food, water pumping equipment). It must also restock ships’ supplies that have been depleted for use in Iraq. One 2006 study predicted replenishment would cost $12 billion plus $5 billion for every additional year the marines stayed in Iraq.

The Pentagon needs to spend more on capable, smaller coastal warcraft — the littoral combat ship deserves support — and less on blue-water fighting ships.

More rational spending: What we are calling for will be expensive. Adding 92,000 ground troops will cost more than $100 billion over the next six years, and maintaining lift capacity will cost billions more. Much of the savings from withdrawing troops from Iraq will have to be devoted to repairing and rebuilding the force.

Money must be spent more wisely. If the Pentagon continues buying expensive weapons systems more suited for the cold war, it will be impossible to invest in the armaments and talents needed to prevail in the future.

There are savings to be found — by slowing or eliminating production of hugely expensive aerial combat fighters (like the F-22, which has not been used in the two current wars) and mid-ocean fighting ships with no likely near-term use. The Pentagon plans to spend $10 billion next year on an untested missile defense system in Alaska and Europe. Mr. Obama should halt deployment and devote a fraction of that budget to continued research until there is a guarantee that the system will work.

The Pentagon’s procurement system must be fixed. Dozens of the most costly weapons program are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

Killing a weapons program, starting a new one or carrying out new doctrine — all this takes time and political leadership. President Obama will need to quickly lay out his vision of the military this country needs to keep safe and to prevail over 21st-century threats.

[Coyote]

Heh, he says we should not 'cede the seas' even as we shouldn't try to block China's rise as a blue-water navy, but then says we shouldn't worry about our own blue-water navy diminishing... but we should support the Littoral Combat Ship.

But if we don't have a blue-water navy worth note, how is that LCS supposed to get over there to do it's job? We need a strong blue-water navy to clear a path first.

As for the Army, instead of concentrating on either "fighting a major war" or "fighting counter-insurgency" we may have to go back to the old idea of having 'Light', 'Medium' and 'Heavy' divisions. Light divisions would be just that, light and air-mobile/air-droppable, and 'Medium' divisions would keep wheeled assets like MRAPS and convoy escort vehicles for COIN. Heavy divisions, of course, have all the heavy stuff for fighting a major land power. As needed, there'd be cross-pollination from time to time (we find tanks helpful & useful for some things in Iraq).

There's always this stupid insistence to make a one-size-fits-all military and military equipment. It doesn't work that way.

But, let's face it, we need to face up that what Mike said in another thread has a lot of truth to it: the US military is only partially about warfighting; for the most part it is really a giant jobs program-- not only training people in technical specialties and kicking them loose for college, but also keeping people at work in factories building stuff for defense industries.

[Guardsman Bass]

Not exactly a great editorial from the New York Times. "Hey, let's cancel/delay missile defense, new weapons that we need (like the F-22), and new blue-water navy ships so we can hire almost 100,000 new soldiers and train them to put down low-level conflict in the American Emp . . err, do better counter-insurgency and such." I mean seriously, do we really need some type of "Garrison Army" with aging equipment and inferior weaponry - the Chinese already have us beat in the "masses of cannon fodder" category, * although we'd presumably one-up them by being able to fly our new troops all over the place effectively.

*No insult to any serving members here - I'm just saying that they basically want to expand the army while dulling the military's access to top-rate technology, so you guys can presumably fight 21st Century Wars (that will be supposedly be all about putting down low-level conflicts everywhere).

[Ender]

I still like this plan (long video, but worth watching)

[Sea Skimmer]

Too stupid for words, almost. We need more troops because Iraq is exhausting them…. Does this moron really think Iraq will last six more years at anything like the current tempo, or that the US will immediately leap right back into another ground war on that scale? The old maxim of stupidity ‘planning to fight the last war’ is as true as ever it seems.

[Guardsman Bass]

Too stupid for words, almost. We need more troops because Iraq is exhausting them…. Does this moron really think Iraq will last six more years at anything like the current tempo, or that the US will immediately leap right back into another ground war on that scale? The old maxim of stupidity ‘planning to fight the last war’ is as true as ever it seems.

That's what I was wondering about. Either they think we're inevitably going to be drawn into another stupid nation-building exercise, or they think we're going to become The World Police with our Garrison Army for reals in terms of peacekeeping operations. It's incredibly ironic, of course, since the Times would no doubt also say that we shouldn't get into any other of these Iraq-style operations.

[CmdrWilkens]

I still like this plan (long video, but worth watching)

Honestly I had never seen nor heard of this guy but he makes several good points in the clip without getting into specifics which is, honestly, what we coudl really use. As an overarching framework its a lot better of a system than what the op/ed above is peddling.

[NecronLord]

Thanks for that link Ender. Very interesting stuff that.

[Ender]

Thanks for that link Ender. Very interesting stuff that.

TED talks are full of awesome. The video linking the mathematical E8 model and current approximation of the unified field equation is pretty rocking as well, because it gives you a great visual to understand what the scientists are aiming for. Youtube's TED talks channel updates a couple of times a week with older talks as well.

[Falkenhayn]

Thanks for that link Ender. Very interesting stuff that.

TED talks are full of awesome. The video linking the mathematical E8 model and current approximation of the unified field equation is pretty rocking as well, because it gives you a great visual to understand what the scientists are aiming for. Youtube's TED talks channel updates a couple of times a week with older talks as well.

I fuck near blew my tea all over my laptop at that video. We fanned on 17,000 Indian Peacekeepers (and possibly 50,000 Chinese) because Rumsfeld went to war with the doctrine he wanted? How has this man not been incorporated into political discourse?

[Coyote]

There is a strong vein of military thinkers and theorists who feel that 'assymetric warfare' is pretty much the only threat we're going to face. They have the notion that "because the US is unparalleled in continental-level, full-scale mechanized warfare" that we will remain "unchallenge-able" in that realm, and that therefore potential enemies will resort to the guerrilla style insurgency warfare which we have "proven to be poor at".

So, of course, they want to hamstring the part that made us "unchallengeable"... so of course a future adversary will say "hey, they have a counter-insurgency army! That's like... well-armed policemen! We'll just raise an army of tanks & choppers and we can bowl 'em over!"

[Ryan Thunder]

Too stupid for words, almost. We need more troops because Iraq is exhausting them…. Does this moron really think Iraq will last six more years at anything like the current tempo, or that the US will immediately leap right back into another ground war on that scale? The old maxim of stupidity ‘planning to fight the last war’ is as true as ever it seems.

An interesting take on that phrase is that they're planning to fight the last war--the last war they'll ever fight, that is.

Well, alright, maybe not all that interesting, but it sounded good to me.

[Ender]

Thanks for that link Ender. Very interesting stuff that.

TED talks are full of awesome. The video linking the mathematical E8 model and current approximation of the unified field equation is pretty rocking as well, because it gives you a great visual to understand what the scientists are aiming for. Youtube's TED talks channel updates a couple of times a week with older talks as well.

I fuck near blew my tea all over my laptop at that video. We fanned on 17,000 Indian Peacekeepers (and possibly 50,000 Chinese) because Rumsfeld went to war with the doctrine he wanted? How has this man not been incorporated into political discourse?

It is my hope that Obama's Civil Service Corps may be a tie in to what he was talking about the System Admin force, which would mean someone was listening to this guy. But I rather doubt it. Which sucks, because I really like his proposals. The world is full of bad guys everyone wants gone. Why don't we have a way to process politically broken states the same way we do to process economically broken ones?

[Samuel]

Mostly because economically broken states want to be fixed, while politically broken states (or at least their leaders) don't want to be fixed. And actively oppose such a system on the UN.

[Sidewinder]

Although the article notes the contradictory demands placed and will be placed upon the US military in the near future, the solutions it proposes are contradictory themselves, and are not real solutions.

Pentagon planners must weigh the potential threats posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, an erratic North Korea, a rising China, an assertive Russia and a raft of unstable countries like Somalia and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The Pentagon plans to spend $10 billion next year on an untested missile defense system in Alaska and Europe. Mr. Obama should halt deployment and devote a fraction of that budget to continued research until there is a guarantee that the system will work.

Big problem here, "devote a fraction of that budget to continued research until there is a guarantee that the system will work." To make the system work, you must spend billions on R & D and have the patience to perform failed tests after failed tests until you get a successful one, and then performing more tests to see if the success can be repeated.

China is expanding its deep-water navy, much to the anxiety of many of its neighbors. The United States should not try to block China’s re-emergence as a great power. Neither can it cede the seas. Nor can it allow any country to interfere with vital maritime lanes.

The Pentagon needs to spend more on capable, smaller coastal warcraft — the littoral combat ship deserves support — and less on blue-water fighting ships.

Spending more on "smaller coastal warcraft" and less on "blue-water fighting ships" will result in the US ceding the seas and losing the ability to challenge nations with more long-range warships when those nations interfere with vital maritime lanes. And the writer is obviously ignorant of the LCS's problems, most damning of all, its lack of range and endurance, i.e., how long it can operate without resupply/refuelling.

There are savings to be found — by slowing or eliminating production of hugely expensive aerial combat fighters (like the F-22, which has not been used in the two current wars) and mid-ocean fighting ships with no likely near-term use.

Preventing interference with "vital maritime lanes" is a near-term use for "mid-ocean fighting ships." And although the F-22 is more capable than needed for the wars the US is fighting and will likely fight in the near future, the problem of airframe life cycles must be addressed before more F-15s begin disintegrating in midair due to airframe fatigue; at the very least, the USAF must buy hundreds of aircraft with performance comparable to the F-15 and likely opponents, i.e., Su-35, MiG-35, Rafale (Libya has considered buying it, and who knows if or when its government will become hostile again?), and the Gripen.

Overall, the article reads as if the writer cut out a bunch of other articles on the US military and potential rivals, put it in a blender, and pressed "puree." No thought has been given to sorting out the contradictions and finding a real compromise between them.

[Guardsman Bass]

That's what kills me. The editorial is totally incoherent to anyone who takes more than a shallow glance at what it really gets at.