[Marxism] A Military for a Dangerous New World

[Bonnie Weinstein]

A Military for a Dangerous New World
Editorial
November 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16Sun1.html

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.