zenpundit.com

RAND REINVENT’S ASIMOV”S ” FOUNDATIONS”

Just kidding but this summary of a paper argues for an application of very long term planning models for ” robust ” policy decision making. I’m highly skeptical that computer modeling of this sort will have much accuracy before the advent of quantum computing which will be able to handle the fluidity of the interacting variables over fifty or a hundred years.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF MILITARY COMMAND AND CONTROL

The long-term implications of this are interesting. The projectory of the trend is that each individual American soldier will become increasingly lethal in terms of power projection, particularly as nanotech improvements are integrated into combat gear as well. On the other hand, the Pentagon has to be careful that when fighting an enemy with access to first rate technology that we aren’t creating small units that are the sigint equivalent of mobile Christmas trees leaking data, microwaves and electromagnetic waves when stealth and surprise are required.

IN MEMORIAM

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said

“Take my hand,” and from there he led

five thousand plus heroes, Newcomers to heaven

On this day, two thousand one, nine eleven

And for the soldiers, sailors, pilots and marines who trod the paths of the Khyber Pass

and waded the Tigris and the Euphrates on our behalf

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

PRESIDENT BUSH ON IRAQ

Drudge has the transcript. Ideologically, the President reiterated a very strong commitment to democracy and political liberalism in Iraq. Secondly, there was not an inch of retreat in prosecuting the War on Terror in the face of recent Democratic criticism from the appeasement-Left candidates running for that party’s nomination. Most importantly, Bush backed his speech with a real commitment in dollars. In terms of values, everything I could ask to be said by Bush was said.

The only exception to my general euphoria is the policy matter of the size of the military which seems to have been taken off the table by Rumsfeld despite a widespread realization in Congress stretching from Charles Rangel to John McCain that we are short on troops. I’m not sure why this is given that the administration spends money like drunken sailors in every other matter so the long-term commitment in terms of dollars to add a couple of divisions cannot be the trouble ( recall the US spent 6% of it’s GDP on defense circa 1986, about two and a half to three times what we spend today). My guess is that adding extra troops would make it harder for Rumsfeld to engineer the ” Revolution in Military Affairs ” transformation because extra manpower would reinforce the desires of the brass to stick to current, modified Cold War military doctrines with which they feel most comfortable. The Army likes it’s heavy armor, the Navy it’s carriers, the Air Force it’s B-1 bombers and hyperperformance fighters – getting them to move to lighter, faster, integrated, high technology doctrines requires dragging unwilling, autonomous bureaucracies accustomed to outwaiting and frustrating Defense Secretaries.

In any event, the war should have a higher priority than inside-the-beltway combat and more troops would relieve the stress on military families and overall combat readiness. It should be done intelligently before Congress does so without focus and with much irrelevant pork in the bargain.

PUTTING IRAQ INTO HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

While the situation in Iraq is worse than it need be and mostly for the Bush policy ennui that followed military operations against Saddam’s regime, a few things ought to be recalled. Conditions in Germany and Japan after WWII were far worse than in Iraq today. Iraqis are not starving or in danger of freezing to death, Baghdad and Basra do not resemble Berlin and Nuremburg where piles of rubble remained heaped up in the streets for years. A major difference between today and back then is that the American public did not much care if the Germans starved and lived in ruins and today we expect – properly – that the Iraqis should be treated decently and helped to introduce democratic norms. We have unfortunately been quite slow to introduce the democratic reforms that held the best chance of allaying suspicions and winning popular support among Iraqis. Why this is in my view is that the major players in Washington – the Joint Chiefs, State, Rumsfeld and the DoD, the CIA, the Neocon policy advisers – were not forced prior to the invasion to implement one vision for occupied Iraq. Differences were sort of papered over when the president ought to have insisted on a decisive choice for American occupation policy. Consequently, each bureaucracy has felt free to pursue their own agendas in Iraq while eschewing responsibility for the resultant problems and lack of coordination ( case in point – the humiliation of Jay Garner whose utter lack of power and influence was bizarrely paraded before the Iraqis). The brass simply want to decamp and leave; State wants to further dilute authority and responsibility for occupation policy decisions by bringing the UN in some kind of amalgamated administration to achieve some kind of ” fig-leaf legitimacy “. A gambit that has more to do with mollifying the cynical French and Germans and ” controlling ” the White House staff by limiting their room to manuver than achieving anything concrete on the ground in Iraq. The latest Neocon proposal to ship oil to Israel from Iraq via a pipeline, for whatever it’s economic virtues in the long-term, was astounding.

Forgotten has been the promise of democracy. What American leader has directly addressed the Iraqi people as to our goals and intentions ? Paul Bremer is a bright guy but his policy has been to deal only with Iraq’s traditional elites – and then at a distance – while leaving the average Iraqi completely in the dark. Offered nothing by vague assurances the common Iraqis stand on the periphery afraid to get involved but realizing that the Islamist-Baathist-Sunni nationalist lunatic fringe currently waging a terror and assassination campaign against Coalition troops will turn on them if the Americans suddenly cut and run.

The President is addressing the nation tonight. Hopefully he will offer a clear vision for our mission in Iraq and more importantly, force the recalcitrant bureaucracies to carry out his policy and not their own. The situation is still salvageable if for no other reason than our opponents in Iraq are loathsome and murderous and Iraqis cannot expect anything from them but dictatorship and cruelty. However if the sense of drift and weakness persist, if we do not make ourselves less hated and more feared then, Iraq will turn into a debacle. A great chance to renovate the poisonous political climate of the region will have been lost the way that Europe, once, without the Marshall Plan, might have been lost. We need more troops in Iraq and we need a larger military to prosecute the War on Terror. A peacetime force has accomplished great things in fighting this war since 9/11 but our resources are now at the breaking point. That means the President must level with the American people regarding the stakes, the costs and the price we will pay should we fail.

I hope he does.