Tuesday, April 14, 2009

 

So who’s in the Big War crowd?


Barnett unpacks it and throws a few elbows along the way.

In response to his “radical” vision, Gates is preparing for the Know Nothings — those same national-security figureheads who have long sung his praises from the Capitol — to put him through the meat grinder. He will be dubbed, with all appropriate indirectness, “naïve” and “reckless.” His opponents, all of whom fear that the loss of home-district defense jobs will ultimately end their congressional careers, will suddenly accuse Gates of disregarding this or that “disturbing trend.” Try not to laugh out loud when you spot these security neophytes on TV, spouting absolute nonsense fed to them by staffers smarted-up by Google searches.
Of course, the organizations that can start getting Congressmen and women to have a stake in the fight because of jobs in their district building the equipment used in all the “little” wars will begin cleaning up in this scenario (as they will be rowing with the tide). In other words, Senator, if you want to assure your reelection, then learn to love the SysAdmin Industrial Complex.


Sunday, April 12, 2009

 

Statelessness



…history seems to indicate that for every technological advance there is a corresponding advance in the tools and skills to counteract its effect. For every new weapon, sooner or later there is an instrument or behavior that minimizes its power and usefulness.
Jakub Grygiel, a professor at JHU SAIS, just wrote a powerhouse article that looks at the rise of stateless groups as a response to (1) the proliferation of technological capabilities that were until recently monopolized by states as well as (2) the dominant ability of the United States and other major powers to target and coerce states.
The Power of Statelessness is easily one of the most cogent, articulate and reasonable summaries of these dynamics that I’ve encountered. Highly recommended.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

 

Rebalancing the Defense Portfolio

Before too much time passes, I wanted to pass along my favorite clips from the SECDEF’s FY10 budget press conference last week.

First, this department must consistently demonstrate the commitment and leadership to stop programs that significantly exceed their budget or which spend limited tax dollars to buy more capability than the nation needs. Our conventional modernization goals should be tied to the actual and prospective capabilities of known future adversaries – not by what might be technologically feasible for a potential adversary given unlimited time and resources. I believe the decisions I am proposing accomplish this step.
Second, we must ensure that requirements are reasonable and technology is adequately mature to allow the department to successfully execute the programs. Again, my decisions act on this principle by terminating a number of programs where the requirements were truly in the “exquisite” category and the technologies required were not reasonably available to affordably meet the programs’ cost or schedule goals.
…Under this budget request, we will reduce the number of support service contractors from our current 39 percent of the workforce to the pre-2001 level of 26 percent and replace them with full-time government employees. [Part of a larger rebalancing of the role of support contractors.]
…As I told the Congress in January, this budget presents an opportunity – one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity; to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements – those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead. An opportunity to truly reform the way we do business.
I will close by noting that it is one thing to speak generally about the need for budget discipline and acquisition and contract reform. It is quite another to make tough choices about specific systems and defense priorities based solely on the national interest and then stick to those decisions over time. To do this, the president and I look forward to working with the Congress, industry, and many others to accomplish what is in the best interest of our nation as a whole.
And from the Q&A:
Q: Dr. Gates, you famously complained about next-war-itis. Does this proposal cure this building of next-war-itis? And if so, how?
SEC. GATES: Well, it certainly doesn’t cure it. That may be incurable.
I mean, the reality is that — and let me put this very crudely — if you broke this budget out, it would probably be about 10 percent for irregular warfare, about 50 percent for traditional, strategic and conventional conflict, and about 40 percent dual-purpose capabilities.
So this is not about irregular warfare putting the conventional capabilities in the shade. Quite the contrary: this is just a matter — for me, at least — of having the irregular-war constituency have a — have a seat at the table for the first time when it comes to the base budget.
I pointed out a while ago that this isn’t an either-or choice (and anyone who tries to portray it as such is off-base). Gates 10%-50%-40% breakout illustrates this.

 

FCS as Catch-22


Back in the Fall of 2008, Andrew Krepinevich at CSBA wrote an assessment of the Army as part of CSBA’s “Strategy for the Long Haul” project. His assessment, “An Army the Crossroads” [pdf], had some especially insightful points in light of the SECDEF’s announced rebalancing of the FY10 budget.

…the Army’s Future Force, configured around the FCS, will likely be deployable only against an A2/AD [anti-access area denial] threat that has already been defeated by air and maritime forces. Those same forces, however, could locate, track, and destroy enemy ground forces operating in the open, which would likely compel the enemy to move into restricted terrain (e.g., urban areas) and employ irregular warfare tactics, for which the FCS is poorly suited.
Heller could write a 21st Century Catch-22 about this logic.
During the major combat operations phase of the conflict, Army forces would likely need to engage in protracted security, stability, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations. On the other hand, if the Air Force cannot stage out of forward air bases and if the Navy is forced to operate outside the littoral, it is difficult to see how an enemy’s A2/AD system could quickly be degraded to the point where significant Army forces could be introduced quickly and at acceptable cost. Simply stated, solving the A2/AD challenge enables the Future Force – while marginalizing it at the same time.
To sum up: the Future Force could not deploy to a theater until the mission for which it had optimzed had become irrelevent.
This is all overcome by events, but still important for the exercise in clear strategic thinking it provides.

This is my personal blog. All opinions expressed are mine and do not reflect the position of any other person or organization

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