U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ latest speech on the nature of American armed force has got me thinking about the next iteration of warfare. It’s a topic that a lot of academics are arguing about these days, with the rise of global asymmetrical conflict. The debate essentially boils down to a single objective: trying to determine where the next war will be, and how best to respond to it.
For his part, Gates is wary of the current trend in military affairs. “Be modest about what military force can accomplish, and what technology can accomplish,” he told military experts at the National Defense University on Thursday. Gates’ criticism comes on the heels of a recent (and massive) Pentagon effort, led by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to downsize the U.S. military and rely increasingly on technology in battle.
Source: http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/030131-O-9999J-007.jpg
Rumsfeld’s conception of 21st-century conflict does away with large standing armies. But that very proposal creates a need to protect what few forces the military does control. And so along with a crusade against excess, Rumsfeld arguably brought to the Pentagon an obsession with force protection. Force protection is a valuable objective, but when you’re always trying to anticipate the next punch, you forget to throw some of your own. It’s a reactive, not a proactive, policy. And so the U.S. military has fallen into a rut. It’s buying more vehicles with thicker armor. It’s enhancing soldiers’ situational awareness in the field with advanced GPS. It’s extending the range from which targets can be engaged, and making the weapons that engage them even more precise. All these efforts are designed to provide tactical advantages to the U.S. military that can’t be matched by its adversaries. But all they’re really doing is making combat more efficient, not revolutionizing or transforming war in any significant way. They’re essentially upgrades of conventional technology. So it’s somewhat disingenuous to talk about a “transformation” of the military, as Rumsfeld liked to say.
Everything in the military’s recent experience actually suggests it should be moving in the opposite direction. Iraq remains the prime example. U.S. troops there found that the security environment improved when they fostered direct contact with local citizens instead of emerging from their firebases only to hunt suspected insurgents. “Tactics and procedures are changing,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006.
U.S. soldiers and Marines try not to muscle their way through an area the way they used to, knocking down doors and kicking people’s belongings aside looking for weapons.
Today, the favored approach is softer. Soldiers still go through homes and stables, but quietly. They smile. Offer a “Salaam Alaikum.” Try not to be too intimidating….
Iraqi kids swarm the soldiers, seeking sweets, money, pens, sunglasses.
They literally hang off of Sgt. 1st Class Michael Taylor’s arms and legs after he produced a whole bag of candy.
“The children know who are the fighters and who are the civil affairs soldiers,” [a local] imam said, laughing.
Source: http://www.nwdc.navy.mil/content/Library/Documents/NDPs/ndp2/PG57.JPG
There’s a similar need for a human approach in Afghanistan, where Predator drones equipped with Hellfire missiles have become the weapon of choice for the Americans. It’s a safer and more effective surveillance and engagement option, to be sure, but without adequate human intelligence, information about targets will likely become increasingly limited. Sure, you can try and count on Afghan informants, but at the end of the day, who’s more reliable—your local recruit about whom you know next to nothing, or your trained intelligence operative whose loyalties and skills have been tested and proven? In a counterinsurgency campaign, simply watching from 15,000 feet is not the way to victory.
If we want to talk about a transformation in military affairs, it might look something like this: our forces should certainly be smaller (I think Rumsfeld was right on this one), but more importantly, it’s got to be more specialized.
Let’s start with the first point. Downsizing the U.S. military to resemble, say, the EU’s rapid reaction forces boasts a number of benefits.
- It forces Washington to rely more on coalition-building to accomplish its military objectives, for instance. That might rile sovereignty advocates, but I would argue that ignoring the international community hasn’t gotten us very far since 2001. At the very least, asking for help from our allies would improve our relationships with them while simultaneously lending more legitimacy to U.S. operations around the globe.
- It saves money. In FY2008, the Defense Department received a budget of $481.4 billion—a jump in funding by 62 percent since 2001, according to the Bush administration. Cutting that budget by just 10 percent would save us $48 billion. Statistician Bjorn Lomborg outlines an entire list of world problems that could be, if not solved, at least mitigated by $50 billion of investment. They include hunger and malnutrition, water shortage, civil war, and the like. If so much is possible using only a tenth of America’s defense budget, imagine what 20 or even 30 percent of it could do.
- Downsizing the force would make it more accountable. I’m not questioning the loyalty of the military, and I don’t think anybody needs to. But serious ethical questions have arisen in connection to the role of military contractors, particularly those that are armed. But the difficult truth is that without contractors, the Iraq War could not happen. The number of contractors in Iraq in fact exceeds the number of troops stationed there. Out of the 180,000+ civilians working in Iraq, as many as 30,000 of them are considered private security employees. Cutting back on just those contractors would stabilize America’s moral position in a major way.
As I said before, we shouldn’t just be downsizing but also specializing. This is the real transformation the military needs. Obviously, soldiers still need to know how to take down a house. But the threats arrayed against the U.S. are now extremely variable—much more so than during the Cold War—and tasked as it is with defending the country, it’s only logical that the military should seek to learn more about these threats. Here’s how the force should change:
- Cyberwarfare. Countries like Russia and China have been exploring cyberwarfare for a while now, and the U.S. is embarrassingly behind. We should be recruiting some of the best programmers and hackers in the U.S. to help identify potential weaknesses in the country’s electronic armor. Then we should hire them to harden it, and encourage them to seek out soft spots in our adversaries (covertly, of course). Cyberwarfare is too big of a threat to ignore in today’s interconnected global culture.
- Language. The U.S. military and intelligence communities are woefully underprepared in terms of language ability. More language specialists would improve civil-military relations in conflict theaters like Iraq and Afghanistan, but they’d also be helpful wherever the U.S. has or needs a presence. In a war of culture and ideas, showing that you’re willing to take the initiative by connecting with the people is a big plus. Besides, if you send language specialists to learn at universities and subsidize their education, that’s extra money in the pockets of higher education institutions—meaning a better college experience for all.
- “Study” abroad and “gap” years. For many soldiers, going to a combat zone will be their first experience of living abroad. As such, they bring distinctly American expectations and biases to their job—which can create friction with the local population. Requiring that new officers (if not the enlisted men themselves) spend some time out of the country before going on active duty will acclimate them to a pluralistic global society. It doesn’t really matter where they go—the point is that they begin to understand that not everybody is (or should be) like them. And that will foster greater cultural sensitivity when the officers start leading troops, whether into battle or simply into a village for tea with the local imam.
Source: http://globalizati.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/060303_guantanamo_vmed_4pwidec.jpg
These suggestions highlight a growing theme—that asymmetrical conflicts require an asymmetrical response. When under attack, fend off the assault and then respond with a human face. The Rumsfeld strategy calls for actually distancing the soldier from the field of operations, which is exactly the wrong approach if you’re trying to convince civilians to support your cause. Nobody wants to support a faceless military, especially when faced with the machete-wielding rebel down the street. The rebel is, effectively, more real and dangerous than all the tanks and aircraft America owns. By contrast, Gates is trying to refocus the military, shaping it into something flexible, something that doesn’t lean too heavily on one advantage, like technology. Because Gates knows that the tides of war can shift in an instant, turning strength to weakness.
This is an excellent post. Thanks much.