Recommended Reading to Provoke

September 6th, 2011 by zen

However, we are very early in the 21st C. to call this trend as lasting for twenty, thirty or fifty years. Deliberately eviscerate America’s conventional warfare assets, as the UK has just done to the Royal Navy and British Army, and the geopolitical calculus will change in a hurry with great power war becoming more probable again and second tier interstate war becoming likely.

AFJ  Bernard Finel  The failed secretary

….Civil-military relations under Gates were more dysfunctional than any time since the early days of the Civil War. Though it may seem hyperbolic to some, the reality is that the accumulated transgressions of civil-military norms by senior military leaders far outstrip the misconduct of Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

During the Gates years, senior military leaders intervened in domestic politics; actively lobbied for policy preferences; waged sophisticated information operations against the American public; blocked the development of alternative options requested by the president and sought to punish those in uniform who were willing to respond to presidential requests; and created command environments in which contempt for civilian leaders was widespread. And Gates was either absent or an accomplice in most of these transgressions.

….The main problem with Gates was his tendency to see his job as that of quartermaster or personnel chief. Instead of providing high-level leadership, he tended to see his job as intervening at lower levels to solve specific problem. Soldiers are killed by improvised explosive devices? He worked to get more MRAPs into theater. Units not having enough time to rest, refit and train between deployments? He signed off on temporary force-size increases. Various programs overbudget or facing technical challenges? Gates was willing to kill them to fund more pressing priorities. But in all of this, where was the strategic leadership we expect from our senior leaders?

The problem is that “winning the wars we’re in” is an appealing mantra. It sounds tough and hands-on. But except in the rare circumstance of total war, the “wars we’re in” must always be balanced against the threats and challenges we may face in the future. This is particularly true when our current conflicts are, essentially, sideshows, wars of choice in strategic backwaters. The notion that American national security strategy ought to be subservient to the short-term demands of Iraq or Afghanistan is obviously flawed. Instead, those conflicts must be waged with an eye to making them consistent with long-term national security requirements. In a fundamental sense, Gates consistently put the tactical/operational cart before the strategic horse. That is an understandable flaw for a theater commander, but it is precisely the sort of mistake we expect a good secretary of defense to avoid.

I am a fan of former SECDEF Robert Gates, Dr. Finel is not and I offer his vigorously argued op-ed in the spirit welcoming contrasting views. Many of the Gates critics seem to be unhappy with his attitude toward the USAF/Navy “Big War” positions and weapons platforms as well as Gates having focused on the wars of today ( the Pentagon is a planning agency for the wars we fight tomorrow).

That’s it.

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  1. Joseph Fouche:

    September 6th, 2011 at 4:15 am

    The government of these United States has a grand strategy. As observed yesterday:
    "we now have the emergence of a transnational generational clique that see themselves as entitled to rule and impose policies that comport with their social prejudices, economic self-aggrandizement and ideological fetishes, whether the people support them or not. A vanguard attitude, if not an organizational vanguard.Wikileaks and other devices operating in shadowy undercurrents are their form of liberum veto against the rest of us in the instances where they are not completely in control, thus migrating political power from responsible state institutions to the social class that currently fills most of the offices and appointments. So far, their actions have been largely cost-free because their peers in government, however irritated they may be at the effects of Wikileaks, are loath to cross the Rubicon and hammer these influential conspirators with whom they went to school, intermarry, do business, live amongst and look out for the careers of each other’s children the way they have hammered Bradley Manning."and earlier in the week:
    "R2P will require the imposition of policy mechanisms that will change the political community of the United States, moving it away from democratic accountability to the electorate toward “legal”, administrative, accountability under international law; a process of harmonizing US policies to an amorphous, transnational, elite consensus, manifested in supranational and international bodies. Or decided privately and quietly, ratifying decisions later as a mere formality in a rubber-stamping process that is opaque to everyone outside of the ruling group."
    There is a definite grand strategy at play. It’s not a grand strategy many Americans would agree with but that’s feature not a flaw. The purpose of this grand strategy, after all, is a world where the agreement of many Americans is irrelevant.

  2. zen:

    September 6th, 2011 at 4:45 am

    I would say "Touche, Fouche!" except that is a grand strategy of a social class of governors, not the government, with which the governors have increasingly diverging interests and are quite willing to injure, if they can still prosper. You are right though, it *is* a grand strategy and so far, it is working and subjecting us is the objective. 
     .
    If they saw their interests as being synonymous with promoting those of the USG, we’d be in slightly better shape

  3. MikeF:

    September 6th, 2011 at 11:51 am

    I’ll throw one more topic in the loop as it is one I’ve been bouncing my head against the wall with lately-  Labeling our current wars as occupations, militaristic foreign policy, evidence of empires, or eras of persistent conflict. 

    Do the labels really matter or are they irrelevant?  

    Ultimately, where the rubber meets the road, one common thread that is found in these conflicts (Vietnam, Iraq, Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippines, El Sal, Guatemala, Mexico, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc) over the past sixty years is an American (CIA, State, Army, Marine, SF) in a village trying to work with an elder to shape, influence, or coerce towards following the US-backed government.  

    Rory Hanlin’s One Teams Approach to Village Stability Operations is the latest snapshot of where the theory meets the practice.

  4. Dave Schuler:

    September 6th, 2011 at 1:36 pm

    I don’t know if you recall this, Mark, but the thesis of the professor who taught the full year U. S. diplomatic history course I took in college (when dinosaurs ruled the earth) was that the U. S. had no grand strategy.  I argued with him for a full year about this.  If I were to phrase my position using more contemporary diction I’d say that U. S. strategy is an emergent phenomenon of the several forces that comprise U. S. public opinion and that, unfortunately for would-be Talleyrands, in this grand strategy the White House, State Department, and U. S. military are just instruments, not the conductor.

  5. Grumps86:

    September 6th, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    "Deliberately eviscerate America’s conventional warfare assets, as the UK has just done to the Royal Navy and British Army, and the geopolitical calculus will change in a hurry with great power war becoming more probable again and second tier interstate war becoming likely."

    I think we should absolutely set aside more funds for the navy and air force.  However, as for the Army, I really can’t see massive ground campaigns being at all relevant to US vital interests again.  That’s not to say that we should disband the Army, but massive cuts are certainly in order. 

  6. zen:

    September 7th, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    hi gents,

    .
    MikeF wrote:
    .
    ‘Do the labels really matter or are they irrelevant?
    .
    I think so. The labels, accurate or not, direct our attention toward "Ends", though some, like "occupation" describe an interim state, we should at least be asking ourselves "For what purpose?". The label often implies the speaker’s normative answer to the question.  Methodological practice ( A "Quiet American" in a village) can be used for a variety of ends.
    .
    Dave Schuler wrote:
    .
    "… If I were to phrase my position using more contemporary diction I’d say that U. S. strategy is an emergent phenomenon of the several forces that comprise U. S. public opinion"
    .
    Fair comment. It also goes to JF’s point that the grand strategy being implemented is one with which many Americans would not agree. The Talleyrands want an overarching policy that runs counter to the interests of many Americans. So for that matter, do the European Talleyands. Gerhard Shroeder, the ex-chancellor, came out to demand political unification of Europe, something European voters have repeatedly rejected, often by overwhelming margins, but would greatly empower ppl like Shroeder to do as they please without effective democratic checks on their actions.
    .
    Grumps86 wrote:
    .
     However, as for the Army, I really can’t see massive ground campaigns being at all relevant to US vital interests again. 
    .
    The US Army needs to be scalable, the Marines to be expeditionary. The Army can be cut but the cuts should leave in place a platform for rapid expansion from the reserves that is functional (i.e. you leave logistical capabilities intact for a full Army while having more active duty brigades moved to the reserve status). The Army needs to heave more heavy duty units, armor and artillery in case of emergency because the Marines are going to be the lighter and quicker weapon while the Army is the sledgehammer. We do not need two Marine Corps or two Armies

  7. Larry Dunbar:

    September 7th, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    That said, doesn’t the US have a grand strategy. It comes mostly from the right (Christianity). This leaves the left offering decentralization, into a global world (Neo-con), and isolation from conservatives, which is based on past honor (the American Orientation). This leaves liberals with only the ability to promote some past liberal strategy of the Constitution of the USA (anti-religious) and the accompanied Bill of Rights (anti-centralization), which the conservatives agree with.