Smashing the Defense Budget

The Center for Defense Information (CDI) has published a report titled “America’s Defense Meltdown: 13 non-partisan insiders, retired military officers & defense specialists speak out.” The report flatly states that America’s defenses are “outdated,” with “insufficient” lethality bought at high expense. In a chapter written by a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, we read: “The large standing forces were supposed to facilitate professional preparation for war, but the essential officer corps never truly professionalized itself.”

Regarding the projected national security strategy for 2009-2017, Col. Chet Richards (USAF, ret.) wrote: “Decisions by the last two Democratic and Republican administrations have … depleted our military strength … and strengthened those around the world whose goals conflict with ours.” He places the largest share of the blame on the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where military forces were used to solve problems “that are inherently social, economic or political….”

In a chapter written by a Marine colonel and an Army major, we read: “Institutional failures pervade the current management of military men and women, by far our most important defense resource.” The authors write of “ingrained behaviors” related to risk aversion, “group think” and a preoccupation with “turf battles.” Contracts are said to matter more than winning wars. “The primary route to valuing people is to … nurture highly innovative, unshakably ethical thinkers. Sadly, in today’s armed forces such people … are known as mavericks.”

According to “America’s Defense Meltdown,” the U.S. Marine Corps espouses a doctrine of maneuver while organizing and training for a attrition warfare; there are too many officers and not enough “trigger pullers”; the U.S. Navy is still preparing to fight the Japanese carrier fleet when U.S. enemies no longer deploy carrier fleets; the U.S. must shift to submarines because “cruisers, destroyers and frigates are obsolescent warship types and should be retired”; the U.S. Air Force has not properly developed its close air support capabilities and air-to-air capabilities are presently underfunded.

The report warns that the Pentagon can no longer afford to approach military problems with a “wish list” that Congress simply fulfills. This manner of arms procurement is “outrageously expensive” and “impractical.” The present air mobility of the army simply costs too much. Strategic air and sea lift should be reduced because it is excessively expensive. Manned vehicles should be replaced with unmanned vehicles where possible. The National Guard should be reduced and kept at home. According to the report, “A fundamental source of the DOD’s problems is the historically long pattern of unrealistically high defense budget projections combined with equally unrealistic low estimates of costs of new programs.”

The report does not give pride of place to America’s nuclear arsenal, however. The authors seem to think that the threat from Russian and Chinese nuclear missiles isn’t worth mentioning. Furthermore, “conventional warfare between nuclear-armed nations” is essentially “impossible.” The “real threat,” says the report, comes from “fourth generation warfare and the New World Disorder.” In other words, terrorism initiated by dervishes hiding in caves. This is referred to in the report as “the demise of conventional war,” which goes beyond “the threat of nuclear weapons.” The new warfare, says the report, “is in many respects the end of the road because it may mark the end of the state system.” This is because nation states aren’t the primary war-makers. As the state loses its monopoly on violence, non-state actors take center stage.

At this point it is time to shake off the anarchist dust, look back to the achievements of the nation-state, and realize that somebody has been buying and packaging nonsense. The nation-state is the great actor, the nuclear-armed actor that levels entire cities and exterminates peoples. The state has the resources, the technology, the money, the manpower. No sect hiding in the mountains is going to equal Hitler’s Final Solution. The atom bomb wasn’t a private research project, and no privately funded organization has produced such a weapon.

Whatever you read about al Qaeda’s nukes, or terrorists with WMDs, you should read with skepticism. Nuclear weapons are built by nation states with permissive action codes imbedded in them. You cannot get anything out of stealing such weapons, or selling them off, because they won’t work without the codes that enable them to detonate. If a nuclear device is set off in the middle of the upcoming inauguration, it won’t be an act of Arab terrorism. Do not believe it. As a Russian military defector once said to me, it will not be Arab terrorists behind such an attack. It will be the Kremlin.

This is the thing that we’ve all got to understand. Know your enemy and know yourself, and you cannot be defeated in a hundred battles. But if you don’t know your enemy, you’re probably going to die. This is the nuclear age, and the weapon that promises to transform our world is nuclear. Everyone can see that an attack against America could come at any time. Washington might be eliminated tomorrow.

After reading “America’s Defense Meltdown” I am troubled that military men should emphasize the threat of non-state actors. Whatever the problems of the Middle East, America’s main enemies are nation-states like Russia and China. Only these are capable of crushing America. This is something al Qaeda cannot do. And so, when we talk about reforming the U.S. military and cutting defense spending, we need to be careful. We need to remember who can destroy us – not in theory, but in reality.

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jrnyquist [at] aol [dot] com ()
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