Posted on 02/10/2006 8:56:28 AM PST by StoneGiant
Max Boot: Pentagon orders the wrong weapons
By MAX BOOT
Commentary
THE DEFENSE Department released two important documents in the last few days — the Quadrennial Defense Review and the Defense budget for fiscal year 2007.
Unfortunately, they seem to be diametrically at odds with one another.
The QDR — a major overhaul of defense strategy — calls for moving beyond a military configured exclusively for fighting mirror-image adversaries. “In the post-Sept. 11 world, irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States, its allies and partners,” the QDR states. To win what the QDR calls the “Long War” — nee the Global War on Terror — it calls for strengthening such areas as “counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and stabilization and reconstruction operations.”
The old assumption that the armed forces must be ready to fight two conventional adversaries at once has been eliminated. Now the U.S. must be ready for only one conventional foe (say, Iran or North Korea) “if already engaged in a large-scale, long-duration irregular campaign.” The QDR acknowledges that concepts such as “swiftly defeating” the enemy may not be applicable in this type of campaign, and that it will call for very different skills from our warriors, who will have to “understand foreign cultures and societies and possess the ability to train, mentor and advise foreign security forces.”
This is a welcome reversal of years — make that centuries — of conventional thinking among the upper echelons of the armed forces. But what is the Pentagon doing to realize this bold vision?
The Defense budget announces a few positive steps, such as 30 percent increases in the number of special operations, psychological operations and civil affairs units. Unfortunately, whatever the rhetoric of the QDR, too much of the $439 billion 2007 defense budget is still devoted to conventional weapons platforms left over from the Cold War.
For example, the Pentagon is continuing to fund three ruinously expensive short-range fighters — the F/A-22 Raptor, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — even though we already have total dominance in the air. The entire budget for language and cultural training — $181 million — comes to less than the cost of one F-35.
Also being funded is the Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine, with the QDR calling for an eventual increase in its procurement from one sub a year to two. These $2.4-billion subs are now being sold as great tools for gathering intelligence, firing Tomahawk missiles and inserting Special Forces units into enemy waters, but they were designed to fight Soviet subs and surface ships, and that’s still what they’re best suited for.
Even more ill-suited for irregular warfare are two other ships whose development will eat up untold billions: the CVN-21 and the DD(X), a next-generation aircraft carrier and destroyer, respectively.
Attack submarines, aircraft carriers and fighter aircraft may be glamorous, but they are almost entirely useless for the challenges the United States faces today in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. There, the fighting is being done by Army and Marine infantrymen — and there are not nearly enough of them.
The Army was downsized 30 percent in the 1990s even as the number of deployments grew exponentially. More and more officers worry that if the current tempo of operations continues, the Army will become a “broken” force. There is a glaring need to expand the Army’s active-duty ranks — and if not enough Americans are willing to volunteer, then open up recruiting to foreigners. Hire Gurkhas if necessary.
Yet the Defense budget does not fund any expansion of Army strength, and the QDR actually calls for shrinking the Army slightly over the next five years — from 491,000 active-duty soldiers today to 482,400 in 2011. That’s down from 710,000 soldiers in 1991!
What gives? Why is the Pentagon still throwing money into high-tech gadgets of dubious utility while ignoring the glaring imperative for more boots on the ground? Part of the answer may be politics: Big-ticket weapons have more champions on Capitol Hill than do ordinary grunts. But there also appears to be a large element of strategic miscalculation here.
For all the QDR’s genuflections toward irregular warfare, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld still seems to think that Iraq and Afghanistan are the exceptions, not the norm — that in the future we won’t need so many ground troops. The U.S. has already paid a high price for the misguided decisions not to send enough troops to secure Iraq or to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. Now, it appears, we are fated to make the same mistake on future battlefields, simply because we won’t have enough troops available.
Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The F-15 design is 30 years old. There are better fighters out there. Countries have spent billions on better SAMs and fighters and we need aircraft that are survivable if we were to go up against countries with this capability.
It takes five years or more to spin up production, training, and tactics on a new aircraft. It takes six months to get more bodies in the Army.
For all obvious reasons...the QDR is worthless and a total waste of time. By the time the big business enterprise makes their impression, and the senators make theirs...nothing really happens other than a bunch of generals meet...drink beer...and dream of the next war.
Uh, Max forgot about Red China (and to some extent, a partially resurgent Russia).
Max prolly thinks you can just build a bunch of those things right quick, when a real war starts....
Army Reorganizes to Boost Its Combat Power
The Army has embarked on a six-year plan to boost its combat power by 40,000 troops while reducing the number of noncombat jobs -- essentially giving the nation more forces to deploy without a costly increase in the active-duty Army's authorized strength of 482,000.
...
Solid retention came even though today's soldiers are busier than ever. Seventy-five percent of active-duty soldiers have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and 100,000 are on a second tour. "This is going to be a long war," Lovelace said, but he added: "We're holding it all together."
(Excerpts) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You guys absolutely need to stay ahead in sea power.
Max Boot: "yack, yack, yack, blah, blah, blah..."
Idiot. The US Military has to look ahead beyond today's problems. Today it's state sponsored terrorists. But maybe tomorrow it's the terrorist sponsoring states. Gotta have a serious conventional military as well as a brush fire military.
Soviets, tight budgeted as they are, keep making newer, more advanced missiles, fighters, ships, etc.
So, we need to, too.
Coming from a Veteran, "It takes six months to get more bodies in the Army.", that is the stupidest statement I have ever heard!
Imagine having a sergent with 1, 2 or even 5 years experience, none of which is in combat training 6 month privates how to fight.
They would be better off to surrender. Boots on the ground that have been trained by grizzled old men who have done it all, many times are the only superiors I would ever want to line up with.
Pilots with 500 hours behind an instrument panel and flying fighter aircraft are as worthless as tits on a boar hog. They would be as green as a freshly laid lawn, pretty to look at but not worth a damn because there isn't a root system yet.
I want pilots with 4000 hours defending me, not greenhorns. Our military has been shrinking in size since WWII and we haven't won a war since then. Desert Storm, I don't consider a win because we never went to Baghdad to take out the headquarters.
Max Boot doesn't know what he is talking about. The Virginia-class was designed from the keel up to operate in the litorals and support post-cold war operations. Two a year are needed replace the real cold war submarines and to keep the industrial base in place.
Six months to get more bodies in the Army. Six months to replace the fourteen friends I've lost in Iraq. That means we promote NCOs and officers who aren't ready for the next step in leadership. Their inexperience results in more dead soldiers.
Yeah. Six months to get more bodies in the Army.
Exactly right. This reads like it was written by the chicoms.
How many times will this same article be run and shot down before we tire of arguing against it.
Our major opponent isn't Iran or Korea. We need to be prepared for an attack from China.
Light units are needed to fight the current battles in Iraq, but if that is our focus, it exposes us to an attack from organized armies.
Max needs a Boot to the head.
"Attack submarines, aircraft carriers and fighter aircraft ....are almost entirely useless for the challenges the United States faces today...."
If I may make a few points:
Last time a US plane was killed air-to-air: 1991
Last time US carrier was killed: 1945
Last time US infantryman was killed: yesterday
Max Boot is on to something. I strongly recommend his book "The Savage Wars of Peace," already on the Marine Corps Commandant's Reading List, which for those who don't know, is a pretty heavy-duty list.
- ThreeTracks
Factually incorrect. The Seawolf class, which has been scrapped, was for blue sea work. The Virgina class is for littoral work. For example, killing Iranian subs in the Persian Gulf or dropping off a Seal team. Seems Max is more advocate then expert.
That's because we keep waaay ahead of the technological curve of the rest of the world.
We have the best Air Force and Navy in the world, and need to keep it that way.
From Wikipedia, validating what Max Boot said: an attack submarine being press-ganged into service as a littoral vessel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_class_submarine
As for as Boot being more expert than advocate, he is in fact both. He is a military historian who is pushing for a more serious commitment to small wars - by far the most prevalent type of war in America's history, and the ONLY type of war America could be said to have lost.
Judging from the inclusion of his book on the CMC's Reading List, and the numerous speaking invitation he's getting from the Marines, there are at least a few "experts" who are taking him seriously.
- ThreeTracks
"We have the best Air Force and Navy in the world, and need to keep it that way."
All true.
But there's one area where we AREN'T the best in the world, and that's in fighting these irregular wars.
It's not just Vietnam - it's also Lebanon, Somalia, the Russian Expedition (1918). There's no reason America can't be as dominant in those places as we are on the high seas and in the air above 10,000 feet.
- ThreeTracks
In the case of a national emergency they would activate the national guard, reserves, and recall retirees.
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