Interesting piece on what the future military might look like:
The Pentagon’s most senior planners are challenging the longstanding strategy that requires the armed forces to be prepared to fight two major wars at a time. Instead, they are weighing whether to shape the military to mount one conventional campaign while devoting more resources to defending American territory and antiterrorism efforts.
The consideration of these profound changes are at the center of the current top-to-bottom review of Pentagon strategy, as ordered by Congress every four years, and will determine the future size of the military as well as the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons.
The intense debate reflects a growing recognition that the current burden of maintaining forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the other demands of the global campaign against terrorism, may force a change in the assumptions that have been the foundation of all military planning.
The concern that the concentration of troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan was limiting the Pentagon’s ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts was underscored by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a classified risk assessment to Congress this spring. But the current review is the first by the Pentagon in decades to seriously question the wisdom of the two-war strategy.
The two-war model provides enough people and weapons to mount a major campaign, like the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or the invasion of Iraq in 2003, while maintaining enough reserves to respond in a similar manner elsewhere.
This dovetails nicely with this piece at the Belgravia Dispatch:
The 1993 and 1997 QDRs enshrined over 50% of our combat arms, including artillery, special forces, and other combat support units were in the Reserve and Guard. Still about 60% of Armor and Infantry were active duty, but that means near 40% were part-timers. This is the military inherited in 2001. A conscious decision was made in the 90s to do this. We could not afford to pay those enormous amounts for defense without a public threat. (Where do you think the Clinton economy came from? Not Defense spending. Remember the Peace Dividend talk?)
So blaming stop loss and other shortages on Bush shows ignorance of the facts. It is the public’s and Congress’ fault for believing there was no threat despite the UBL edicts and North Koreans promising to turn LA into a “lake of fire”. (Read your newspapers. The stories were there. I remember them. Everyone else seems to have been reading something else.)
Makes you remember what a tough job the military and the security establishment have- not only trying to predict the future security threats, but what is needed to face those threats.
Doug
Well, even though Clinton’s military may be shorthanded now, it sure did a bang up job overthrowing Saddam and the Taliban.
Jon H
Sorry, but Bush could have taken steps, before going into Iraq, to ramp up enlistment somewhat and improve training and equipment for the most likely scenario: a long, hard occupation.
He’s the Commander in Chief. If he wants a bigger military, he can have one, as long as he can convince Congress to go along with him.
The Congress has the power of the purse, but they don’t run the Pentagon.
Do you honestly believe that, in 2001, Bush couldn’t have obtained congressional approval for an increase in military strength and retraining? It needn’t have been a WW2-size effort. Just an additional division or two would probably be a big help. As would a year of extra training for current troops, to prepare them for the task of occupying an Arab country.
The fact is, that Bush didn’t do this. He couldn’t, because that would have required that he admit the realistic costs and details of the war, in public, before Congress. Instead, he lowballed Congress on the cost, and has largely paid for the war with supplemental bills, without making commitments in the budget.
Prior to the war, the actions of the administration and the Pentagon gave no sign of being interested in facing the likely cost and difficulty of the war.
So it’s a bit much to blame it on Bill Clinton and his Congress. Bush’s hands weren’t tied. Bush could have waited a year to hit Iraq, budgeted and spent the money, recruited and trained the troops, built and deployed the equipment.
He chose not to do this. Perhaps he thought it wouldn’t be necessary.
Maybe Bush really did think the war would go like an episode of the GI Joe cartoon: quick, clean, nobody gets hurt.
Amusing as it is to imagine Bush, arriving in Baghdad on Air Force One, and asking when he gets to meet Snake Eyes and Scarlett, I don’t think this is actually what the problem was.
Jimmy Jazz
Rumsfeld’s the one who thought we could do an elective war on the cheap and without any international help except the UK (which plans to pull its troops out within 18 months to send to Afghanistan). He’s the one who thought whiz bang gadgets and special forces were an effective subsitute for an adequate troop level. Now it’s politically impossible to commit more troops and strategically impossible to draw down.
And that’s the Clenis’ fault? Thinking we didn’t need a huge, armor-heavy Europe based army when the former Warsaw Pact was begging to join NATO was kind of a no brainer.
Darrell
Bush had already waited a year, trying to deal with the corrupt scumbags at the UN who were already on Saddam’s payroll. Wait another year on top of that one? Another year for Saddam to hide more arms, fortify troops, pass nasty substances to terrorist groups and throw more people into shredders? Please elaborate further on your second guessing hindsights.. you seem to really know what you’re talking about
James Emerson
I read Gregory’s post…he gets it wrong.
So blaming stop loss and other shortages on Bush shows ignorance of the facts. It is the public’s and Congress’ fault for believing there was no threat despite the UBL edicts and North Koreans promising to turn LA into a “lake of fire”. (Read your newspapers. The stories were there. I remember them. Everyone else seems to have been reading something else.)
During the Clinton years, there was no reason to believe a real security threat was on/near the horizon. NK was nullifed by its own failed economy and polity, and was awaiting the fate accorded to the USSR. Iraq was entirely contained with Saddam’s military emasculated. Bin Laden was a serious law enforcement problem that MAY have required military intervention when feasible.
One has to also remember that Clinton was under constant assault from the rightwing from day one in office, and was forced to make many decisions not based on real concerns of national interest, but on how reality based decisions would be used to undermine his presidency. He could have done a better job, but he would have been relentlessly attacked.
Our military was correctly structured for its perceived challenges. Afghanistan was eminently doable, and our intervention there a matter of self defense and national pride. That is where Bin Laden was, and that is where we needed to attack. Unfortunately, we left Afghanistan prematurely without bagging Bin Laden in order to attack target rich Iraq. The elective Iraq War and occupation…a poorly waged occupation at that…irremedially in real time altered the volunteer military’s readiness equation. The military’s inability to meet the demands of the Iraq war wasn’t a measure of poorly prepared or antiquated logistical and stratigical plans, it was an abysmal failure of Presidential leadership. With the war going South in a hurry, even a universal draft is of little import at this late stage. A timely draft…say IMMEDIATELY AFTER 9/11…would have emplaced the manpower resources for a protracted, if still needless, war (I reject Gregory’s demographical centered draft argument). A repeal of the upper class tax cuts would have financed that war, so we wouldn’t have to be selling our future to communist China. A thoughtful occupation policy would have jettisoned the political requirements for Americans serving in Iraq to a policy based on technical expertise, and on Arabic langusage and customs fluency. The disbanded Iraq Army and the de-Baathification fetishes were also predictable blunders.
In short…the breakdown of military readiness as suggested by the QDF can be laid ENTIRELY at Bush’s politics-above-all-other-interests feet.
At one time, it was POSSIBLE to wage this elective Iraq War and win the peace, but it was far more important for the Bushidos to use war to win elections in 2002 and 2004, and therefore all of us real Americans will suffer the still largely undefined consequences.
Tim F
lol.
Tim F
If my second-guessing hindsights reflect reality while yours come from some fantasy land then my second-guessing hindsights win.
James Emerson
I hate it when I screw up…
Apologies to Gregory. I read his blog from time to time and thought this was an odd post for him…
It was odd for him but not for SubSunk. My mistake.
I take issue with Subsunk alone…
ppgaz
Right, right. We have a government that spends its time raising its own salaries, lunching with lobbyists, talking about flag-burning amendments, watching over the deathbed of Terri Schiavo, and figuring out how to amend the Constitution to make gay-bashing the modern-day version of the Bill of Rights.
We have a press that sees interviews of top government officials as ratings opportunities, cannot ask a follow-up question on policy matters of life and death, talks incessantly about white damsels in distress and missing kids and shark attacks, and twiddles its thumbs while good Americans are characterized as unpatriotic and treasonous for refusing to properly praise the Emperor’s vestments.
That damned, irresponsible public! What the fuck is the matter with them???
Darrell
Mr. Emerson, you in no way explain how Gregory is wrong on this statement:
It is the public’s and Congress’ fault for believing there was no threat
Your statement: “During the Clinton years, there was no reason to believe a real security threat was on/near the horizon” affirms this. Clinton, along with congress and the American public all share the ‘blame’ for downsizing our military because, as John Cole correctly points out, “what a tough job the military and the security establishment have-not only trying to predict the future security threats, but what is needed to face those threats.”
Reading your post, your proposed solution is a “more thoughtful” occupation policy. Well isn’t that special. Nice to be able to snipe away from underneath your rock without proposing specifics on how we should have been ‘more thoughtful’. Is this kind of like how John Kerry told us that he would fight a “more sensitive” war in Iraq? I feel your pain baby
“abysmal failure of Presidential leadership”, “but it was far more important for the Bushidos to use war to win elections in 2002 and 2004”, blah, blah “all Bush’s fault”…yeah, we get your point. You’re a real deep thinker
Retief
Whatever the state and size of the military in 2001, Rumsfeld came in with a plan to make it smaller. I haven’t forgotten that his big idea was to cut two divisions and use the savings for missile defence. It looks like the past 4 years have not derailed him.
James Emerson
Hi…I’m Larry…This is my brother Darrell…and this is my other brother Darrell…
ppgaz
And the technology spinoffs would help us with that all-important mission to Mars! Hey, whatever happened to that all-important mission to Mars?
Maybe it went the way of the Faith Based Intitiatives … or maybe it WAS a faith based intitiative, I forget.
Well, at the rate these guys are spending money and giving us nothing useful in return, and piling up debt, maybe we’ll have to settle for a Mission to the Texas Panhandle. Once men have landed there, we can build the new Stem Cell Nonresearch Center.
Honest to Dog, I saw a letter today to the MSNBC blog editor, chastising NASA for wasting money trying to figure out the “origin of the universe” by throwing a spacecraft at a comet. Why don’t we just read Genesis? I’m not making this up.
Sojourner
The scary part is the current president holds the same view.
Jon H
“The scary part is the current president holds the same view.”
Nah, the current president doesn’t need to read Genesis to get the secrets of the universe. God just tells him, directly, when He isn’t passing along strategery and tactics.
Jon H
Darrell writes: “Bush had already waited a year, trying to deal with the corrupt scumbags at the UN who were already on Saddam’s payroll. Wait another year on top of that one? Another year for Saddam to hide more arms, fortify troops, pass nasty substances to terrorist groups and throw more people into shredders?”
Well, gosh, what did President Bush do with the year he had, to prepare for a long occupation of an Arab state?
Nada.
And how concerned was he about Saddam’s caches and fortifications? Not at all. Why, Bush was content to deploy so few troops that the huge caches we *knew* about were left unguarded. And the buildings with important records were left unguarded, and thus destroyed.
And there actually were never any shredders. That was made up propaganda.
The only drawback to waiting another year is that, in that case, the war would have started during an election year.
Nice to know that Bush considered that to be more important than giving our troops what they needed to win.
Sojourner
I stand corrected. Thanks for the setting me straight!
ppgaz
Hmm.
“Wanted, dead or alive.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“Bring it on.”
“The insurgency is in its last throes.”
God’s instructions?
Is God just generally fucking up, or does Bush need a new hearing aid battery?
Kimmitt
Why is Bush not responsible for the five years of his Presidency?
Jon H
Well, I never said that the God who talks to Bush is, you know, the real one.
Darrell
Jon H wrote:
Actually, there was a witness that made the claim. Since corraborating witnesses who experienced such shredders would be themselves shredded, there is a shortage of corraborating testimony regarding the shredders. Certainly shredders exist at industrial facilities there. “Never were any” shredders has not at all been established, and your statement is not unlike those who claim to have “debunked” the holocaust
Not that a regime capable of this, this, and this, could ever be guilty of throwing people into shredders mind you
Ask yourself, what kind of scumbags are sooo concerned about the validity of claims of Saddam throwing people in shredders, a claim entirely consistent with the nature of Saddam’s regime.. so concerned about shredder claims, but unconcerned over claims made about “5,000 starving babies starved per month” or “hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties”.. seems clear that only *some* claims without factual proof are important.. “plastic turkey” anyone?
ppgaz
Can you show, Darrell, any evidence that Saddam’s behavior was significantly different before, during, or after the time we developed him as an ally and winked at “restrictions” in order to move materiel to his forces? Take all the time you need, but I think you’ll find that he was just as much a murdering asshole when he was our butt buddy over there. The only difference was that he was “our” murdering asshole.
The only difference between him and the thug Shah of Iran is that the Shah used to come over regularly for state dinners and photo ops with presidents, whereas Saddam was not invited. Too embarassing, I suppose. I guess the Shah’s white uniforms and the entourage of gorgeous babes on his arm made him more suitable as an East Room celebrity. But the Shah and Saddam were peas in a pod. I’d wager that the Shah stole more cash from his country than Saddam did, but that would be hard to prove. But they are both just sociopathic thieves.
And they are both erstwhile pals of the United States government. Including the original Bush government, in Saddam’s case.
Darrell
ppgaz, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that Saddam was some huge ally whom we supplied a “lot” of weapons. I wish you lefties would get yourselves educated about the facts
Despite the fact that the mullahs of Iran were our enemies and who had taken our hostages, we still had very, very little to do with Saddam, despite the fact he was fighting the mullahs at that time.
ppgaz, are you ever embarrassed by your ignorance? Yes of course, Saddam the mass murdering butcher = Shah, is like comparing the actions of our troops to the Khmer rouge. Incredible, but typical of you lefties.. you’ll believe anything. Faith based leftism I suppose