The U.S. Defense Apparatus Needs to Start Over

Every day, the state of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan reaches a new low. American citizens still stranded in country are having to wait in line alongside tens of thousands of locals who are somehow being allowed to board planes and flee to the United States. The nation’s highest-ranking general has admitted that neither he nor other top military leaders even considered the possibility that Afghan forces would fold to the Taliban so easily. And just yesterday, suicide bombers seemingly unaffiliated with the Taliban were able to get through to Kabul airport, killing more than a dozen American servicemembers.

If the United States still commanded any respect on the world stage, the events unfolding in Kabul right now would be a national humiliation. Instead, it almost feels like a waste of effort to point out that America has botched yet another overseas conflict. Those calling for firings, resignations, and accountability are of course right to do so. But what would removing inept bureaucrats like General Milley and Defense Secretary Austin actually accomplish? Even if America could somehow put together a bench of modern-day Pattons and MacArthurs to take charge, they would still be stuck with a playbook that has eroded the military’s competence and readiness for decades. This playbook teaches officials how to wage conflicts that have no clear end state but create endless opportunities to secure lucrative contracts and grow the defense apparatus.

That is why this playbook needs to be thrown out in its entirety. America’s military and defense leadership needs to purged not until more competent administrators of endless war are found but until the establishment adopts a fundamentally new mindset: one that puts the interests of the American people, and only the American people, first.

Any lesson on how to achieve this change must start with a hard look at the Afghan War – starting from the period when the immediate mission of toppling the Taliban lost relevance. The national security state has approached the war with a complete lack of seriousness for at least the past decade: as the Afghanistan Papers revealed in 2019, nearly every aspect of the occupation was convoluted and mismanaged beyond parody. Infrastructure projects weren’t just routinely over budget, behind schedule, and of limited utility to actual Afghans: American authorities also tried to use them to create societal change. In one case, a well was dug on the boundary between two tribal territories in an attempt to teach the locals to cooperate – as if they were children who needed to learn how to share, and not insular tribespeople with generational knowledge of their own land. While unscrupulous Afghans gamed the system and collected vast sums of money intended for paying translators and other indigenous support staff, the military couldn’t produce more than a handful of personnel fluent in local languages like Dari and Pashto. Troops were having pizza, burgers, and ice cream delivered to remote outposts because the logistical system apparently made this approach easier than buying food from local vendors or delivering conventional rations. Meanwhile, fuel for trucks was transported by helicopter, possibly the most inefficient way to do so given the logistical needs of the aircraft. America’s strategy for occupying Afghanistan seemed to be half blatant grift and half determined effort to make evidently absurd policies work.

The mindset of repeatedly taking the most irrational approach possible has infected the Department of Defense as a whole. Even during the early years of the War on Terror, obstinate short-sightedness had already set in within the military establishment. Now, America is paying for it not just in humiliating retreats but in reduced preparedness for future conflicts. In the mid-2000s, the Navy decided to sink billions of dollars into a fleet of lightly armed, poorly protected ships that would ostensibly rely on speed and sensors to perform counter-terror, counter-drug, and other low-intensity missions. These Littoral Combat Ships started entering service in 2008 – and started getting put on the chopping block earlier this year, barely a decade later. It turned out that the Navy couldn’t actually identify a mission that the ships could execute effectively. But the Navy did succeed at spending $16 billion on the ships, which have a dismal performance record in simulated engagements and likely won’t fare well in a full-scale naval conflict.

Meanwhile, the Air Force is also setting itself up for long-term readiness failures. The massively wasteful F-35 fighter program recently took a new round of criticism from watchdog groups and members of Congress. But problems with America’s other stealth fighter, the F-22, have received less attention. Because the Department of Defense cut production of the aircraft short in 2009 in favor of the F-35, the approximately 180 completed fighters are being cannibalized for parts to keep squadrons at acceptable readiness levels. And the Air Force is using the high-maintenance, limited-quantity F-22s for routine missions and exercises instead of saving them for a potential conflict with a high-tech, well-equipped opponent. Ending production also leads to lost institutional knowledge, a problem that the Air Force may also encounter if it goes through with plans to purchase new refueling aircraft from Airbus, a European aerospace corporation, instead of Boeing, a domestic firm. Boeing already shuttered the California plant which produced the Air Force’s C-17 cargo aircraft – the same ones currently facilitating the Afghanistan evacuation – more than five years ago. The United States can’t afford to dismantle its defense infrastructure to the point that the military must scavenge for parts or rely on foreign equipment.

Nor can America afford to sustain its current approach to war. One of the worst possible takeaways from the events of the past week – and the last two decades – would be that America needs to make reforms so that it can engage in future Afghan War-like conflicts with greater competence, not that our country must re-consider what our military is for in the first place. The trap that critics of the withdrawal risk falling into is arguing that the United States would have succeeded it if it had done more. More nation-building in a nation which consists of feuding tribes inside arbitrarily drawn borders. More time spent trying to train young men from these tribes into a cohesive “Afghan National Army,” even if it meant continuing to endure green-on-blue killings and ignore barbaric practices like bacha bazi within the ranks. And more efforts to instill liberal, democratic, feminist values in a region where the vast majority of the population supports Islamic fundamentalist law.

What this would have looked like in practice is another decade of sending 20-year-old Americans from flyover country to get shot at and bombed so that defense contractors could get rich and foreign policymakers could feel clever. The same people who, over course of two decades, have seamlessly shifted their justification for endless war from terrorism to regional stability to promoting liberal values would keep lobbying for just a few more years of “limited” troop presence, forever. America could have the best soldiers and weapons in the world – and it should – but with a defense establishment motivated by a mix of naive idealism and shameless greed, such a qualitative edge would go to waste.

And the absolute worst response to the tragic events of yesterday, the past few weeks, and the past twenty years would be to send even more of our nation’s finest to die for nothing.

We as a nation, have been kicked back to 1776.

The embeds have ensconced themselves in every niche of the American fabric, not the least of which has been the public school system.

Too late to do much of anything now except to bone up on "The Will To Kill"

The pulpits were hot then with the message of Godly revolution, without which we would never have succeeded.

It must be in a man's spiritual hart that he is correct and Godly to fight for freedom and liberty.

The task is harder now ...

It's a lot easier to keep the freedom fought for and won than to re-claim what has been lost.

“We as a nation, have been kicked back to 1776.”

At least back to 1876. When another medal bedecked General (actually a Col.), out manned & outgunned charged in against a rapidly changing enemy with flags flying and bugles blaring.

To quote an old song; “When will they ever learn”

“We as a nation, have been kicked back to 1776.”

At least back to 1876. When another medal bedecked General (actually a Col.), out manned & outgunned charged in against a rapidly changing enemy with flags flying and bugles blaring.

To quote an old song; “When will they ever learn”

perfect article, Ike was right. The military industrial complex needs the afghan experiments to justify the expenditures. pencil pushers get rich while kids from nowheresviile USA come home in boxes, if at all

Please do keep in mind that the US military was a significant, if not primary, contributor to 911. It was a DOD lawyer who wrote the rules on how domestic intel agencies may not share noise about terrorists with foreign. One outfit knew terrorists were coming in and planning something big. But, they were not allowed to tell domestic outfits who to watch or what to listen for.
This lawyer, lacking the brains Gawd gave a turnip, felt it was more important to put her stamp on policies than it was to keep defensive outfits working together.
The rot goes back that far. It continues with DOD home office pukes telling field commanders when and who to shoot at.

It would have been so much better if we had gone in there as the Chinese will. We bring our mining engineers in there and protect them with the necessary military force. We encourage the locals to join us by training them and employing them in the mines. We extract lithium, rare earths, etc. and share the profits with the locals. And by locals I mean the tribes in the areas where the mines are located. We also train locals in fighting against any Taliban, ISIS, etc. that get in the way of the mining.

The money we make from the mining would offset the costs of the limited military incursion.

If people complain that we are exploiting Afghanistan for their resources, we answer "Hell yeah!"

So, we all sit at our keyboards and talk about reforming the FREEMAN MILITIAS (what kept alien invaders out of here for almost 200 years), but I never see those retired or end of service officers, who have the managerial/public speaking/strategic or tactical skills trying to form up free militias.

Of course if they did they would probably be ARRESTED by the FEEBEEE guys.
And tried and CONVICTED by some liberal WOKE JUDGE!

I am a inactive MARINE, I know squad tactics down to the fire team level, and field artillery fire control, probably could use a refresher course, I am also in my mid 70’s’,still willing to serve (don’t recall any limit on my oath of service) but I sure as hell can’t hump those hills like I used to!

I don’t want to lose the country I fought for for 5 years, but without some officer/senior NCO leadership and management I think I am f#cked.
I prefer to FIGHT AND WIN for my country, but without leadership I just hope I am DEAD befor the end.

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