A Recipe for Military Readiness

Ray · 04-21-2007, 10:26 AM

Quote:

A Recipe for Military Readiness

All the armed forces need a revamp — and have for over a decade.

By Jim Talent

The Army is stressed, Time reports in its April 16, 2007 issue. According to Time:

* The Air Force and Navy have gotten too much money over the years
* The services have spent too much on high tech equipment
* The Army is not good enough at anti-guerilla warfare
* The Army should be bigger

A Recipe for Military Readiness 04/19

On one point, Time is undoubtedly correct. The active duty Army should be bigger. On the other points, Time is either simply wrong or has concentrated on debatable operational issues rather than the strategic dilemma America now faces.

The problem with America’s military is not that the Navy and Air Force got too much money (that is not true) or that the services have bought too much high tech equipment (they actually haven’t bought nearly enough). The problem is that all three of the services have been systematically underfunded since the beginning of the Clinton administration. The stress we now see in the Army is the logical and foreseeable result of underfunding by President Clinton throughout the 1990s, an inadequate response by the current administration, and the effects of four years of grinding combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A brief history is warranted. (For more detail, see my article on the military in the March 5, 2007, issue of National Review.) Ronald Reagan understood a fundamental truth: Defense policy is foreign policy, because influence in the world depends on force plus resolution, in addition to a nation’s economic might. So President Reagan increased defense spending by double digits in his first two years in office, reversing the underfunding of the Carter years. The result was a recapitalized military with equipment that used the latest technology. That military was the foundation of America’s successes in the 1980s and ’90s: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the victory in Desert Storm, and the end of genocide in Bosnia.

When Bill Clinton assumed power in 1993, he returned to the policies of the Carter years. He dramatically underfunded our military. During Operation Desert Storm, the active Army had 18 divisions — each with 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers; the Clinton administration cut it to its current size of 10, despite clear, bipartisan warnings from Congress and newly retired Chiefs of Staff that the Army could not carry out the national military strategy on a sustained basis at that level of strength. There were similar cuts in the Air Force and Navy.

Even worse, the Clinton administration did not buy enough equipment even for the reduced force. His administration took a “procurement holiday.” It cut modernization budgets and bought anywhere from 50-90 percent fewer “platforms” — ships, planes, and vehicles — than the military needed to maintain its capital stock. These decisions were driven by short-term budget concerns rather than objective evaluations of military requirements. For example, the administration usually justified cuts in personnel numbers on the grounds that a transformed military needed fewer troops, but then failed to fund the modernization programs that were necessary for transformation.

President Bush has increased military funding, but not enough to make up for the underfunding of the 1990s. After 9/11, the administration should have increased force structure and vastly increased acquisition funding. Instead, this year the government is funding the regular military budget (not counting day-to-day war expenses) at 3.3 percent of GDP, a very low level historically.

The result is a force that, across the board, desperately needs more troops and more modern equipment. The Army is the focus of attention now, and certainly Army training is suffering, though morale, recruiting, and retention are much better than Time suggests. But the larger problem with the Time article is that it judges preparedness in terms of the capabilities needed by one service in the current conflict. The only effective way to prepare a military is the way Reagan did it — by honestly evaluating and funding all the capabilities that will be needed to deal with every substantial threat over the foreseeable future. Had the Clinton administration used that standard, or had the Bush administration promptly and decisively changed course after 9/11, many of our troops would not be on their third or fourth rotation, and they would not have to make ongoing Herculean efforts to sustain a deteriorating fleet of weapon systems and support vehicles.

Clearly a substantial and sustained increase in regular defense funding is vital to the safety of the United States, not just now, but to prepare for future challenges like the rising power of China. Policymakers who say they support a strong military should be judged by whether they support the Heritage Foundation’s “4 percent for Freedom” solution — spending a minimum of 4 percent of the GDP on the regular defense budget over the next decade. That policy would generate, on average, an extra 40 billion dollars per year to increase the size of the Army and Marines and recapitalize the equipment of all three services. The American Enterprise Institute, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Air Force chief of staff are among those who have publicly supported spending at least that much, and I know of no reasonable defense expert who believes we can protect American security with less.

— Jim Talent is a distinguished fellow in military affairs at the Heritage Foundation. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1993-2001) and the U.S. Senate (2002-2007). He was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and, for four years, chairman of the committee’s Seapower Committee.

Jim Talent on Military on National Review Online

A thought provoking article.

The strength of the armed forces would be based on the Threat Perceptions and the Strategy aimed to address the Threats.

The change from the Cold War times is that it is not solely focused at Russia and instead is multi-focused to take on smaller non nuclear threats. Such threats were taken to be conventional and now with the experience of Iraq, it would also be essential to focus on asymmetric matrices also.

It would also be essential to be in a position to defend Europe as also ANZAC.

Therefore, what would be the ideal force man machine mix of all three services of the US?

**Shek** · 04-21-2007, 21:02 PM

Sir,
I may have more time to get to this article tomorrow. However, I would like to correct the historical record here - while I agree that Clinton did underfund the Army, I'd also point out that the decision to go from 18 to 10 divisions was not Clinton's alone. The Base Force plan was GEN Colin Powell's plan, and it reduced the Cold War army from 18 to 12 divisions, and this drawdown was approved by Cheney/Bush 41, and started under them. So, the article is a bit misleading when it tries to lay blame to Clinton for all of the 18 to 10 division downsizing.

Ray · 04-22-2007, 00:03 AM

OK Fine.

I sure would be interested to know your views on this article and on the subject in general. Right now, as I understand, the size of the Army etc is currently under serious debate in the US and hence my interest.

**Shek** · 04-22-2007, 08:38 AM

New York Post
April 22, 2007

Overstretched

The U.S. Army is running out of people

By Ralph Peters

Plenty of Post readers have known what it's like when the money left won't stretch to cover the bills. No matter how sincerely you want to pay up, fiddling with the numbers still leaves you short.

That's where the U.S. Army is today. The soldiers in the personnel account just can't be stretched to cover our strategic debts. We've maxed out our military credit card.

The Army is out of people.

Much of the hysteria about a "broken Army" exaggerates the immediate situation. We still have the finest, most-capable Army - and overall military - in the world. But if the institution isn't broken yet, it's showing worrisome cracks.

IN recent travels, I en countered a new skepti cism among officers. They see potential in the tactics belatedly adopted in Iraq, but worry it may be too late. Despite the media-teaser bombings in recent weeks, the Baghdad surge could work over time. But we may not have that time. And we don't have the troops.

The account's empty. And our leaders are still writing checks.

In conversations with officers, a consistent theme emerged: The recent announcement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Army tours in Iraq would be extended from 12 to 15 months was a body blow to morale.

We'll have to wait to see the hard numbers, but anecdotal information suggests that, the day after the announcement, officers were "lined up" to put in their I've-had-it paperwork.

They don't lack courage. Their belief in the importance of what we're doing hasn't faltered. We've just worn these officers and their families out. While we've been living high on the hog, they've been living through hell.

THESE officers (and NCOs) are willing to risk their lives - but they deserve private lives worth risking. As the bipartisan hypocrites in Washington argue over their dry-aged steaks and trophy cabernets, Democratic moral support for our enemies and Republican incompetence to wage war have torn at the seams of our military families.

Officers don't like to admit it, but they leave the service to keep their spouses. Those spouses have been steadfast since the autumn of 2001. The divorce rate hasn't soared.

But the effect has been cumulative: Raising children who see their fathers or mothers for a few months every couple of years has left the home-alone parents feeling their lives have been stolen.

They've watched their husbands or wives go off to war - while the rest of America goes off to the mall. After the third or fourth back-to-back deployment, the yellow ribbon decal on the car in the passing lane just doesn't do it. One per cent of our population has been asked to bear the entire sacrifice of this war.

AND there are organiz ational problems, too: As failed policies drive good officers to leave because all we promise them is more of the same - without a global strategy to win - the officers who remain in uniform are promoted at higher or accelerated rates.

Sounds good, if you're waiting for the next promotion list, but a retired Marine regimental commander worries about the ultimate cost. He saw what happened in the wake of Vietnam, when officers and NCOs who didn't merit promotion rose in the ranks because there was no one else left.

Years after that conflict's end, we had a hollow NCO corps and an officer corps that put time-servers in charge of heroes.

I saw that wretched Army first-hand in the 1970s. No soldier of conscience who was there wants to see a replay.

WE'RE not yet near so dire a point. But if there's a lesson we should learn from the past six years, it's that you have to attack the problem before it gets out of hand. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flatly refused to consider increasing the size of the Army and Marines. Now we're playing catch-up, and it's going to take five years - five years that we haven't got.

The wrong thing to do would be to blame Secretary Gates. He inherited a bloody mess. While his announcement that Army tours of duty would be lengthened punched morale in the solar plexus, he saw no choice.

To have the least chance of turning Iraq around at this late date, we need to send more troops. But we don't have the numbers to do it right. So we cook the books and send the same guys and gals in uniform back again.

Is the effort worth it? Yes. Just barely. But we're also going to have to be honest: If the Iraqis aren't picking up far more of the weight by the end of this year, it's over. No more excuses.

Gates took that message to Iraq's leaders last week. But he's unable to take the same message to our troops. Too many promises have been broken already. To his credit, the defense secretary has been honest about the muddle we're in and doesn't want to create false hopes that "the boys will be home for Christmas."

OUR troops did all that we asked, but we asked them to do many of the wrong things, and we asked them to do too much. Meanwhile, the pols we elected, Republican and Democrat, lavished billions on corrupt defense contractors when what we needed was more of that commodity ever despised in Washington, the American soldier.

Now the human budget won't stretch - and the collection notices are starting to come in.

Ralph Peters' latest book is "Never Quit The Fight."

**Shek** · 04-22-2007, 10:45 AM

Sir,

Sorry that I don't have a bunch of time to devote to a lengthy response, so I'll just present two sides of the coin. The first side is what are the requirements. Here's a thread which I know that which you've seen but may not have had the time to read what these experts had to say (the testimony addresses the size of the ground forces).

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/uni...th-levels.html

The other side of the coin is what can we afford. Here's a article that addresses this, Foreign Affairs - The Underfunded Pentagon - Martin Feldstein. I've attached a .pdf copy of the article.

Quote:

Throughout the twentieth century, U.S. military capabilities were suffcient to protect the United States and its allies. For many decades, the United States has been the global leader in military spending, and it continues to be so today. In the current fiscal year, U.S. defense outlays will total roughly $550 billion, reportedly more than the defense expenditures of the next 40 nations combined. Yet this spending is probably not enough to ensure the security of the United States—and for something as critical as national security, even “probably enough” is inadequate. Handling the new threats facing the United States will require a significant rise in defense spending; the real questions are how much more is needed, what the new funds should be spent on, and how the money can be raised.

***

Despite these needs, U.S. national security expenditures today remain low relative to national income (the best measure of a nation’s capacity to spend). Defense spending is now 4 percent of gdp, including the funds for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.Without those operations, defense outlays would now be about 3 percent of total economic output, whereas in 1962, before the Vietnam War, defense spending was 9.3 percent of gdp. By 1979, that percentage had been cut nearly in half, to 4.7 percent, in order to
make room for the growth of domestic social programs. Defense spending rose rapidly during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, rising to 6 percent of gdp by 1986—a trend that helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War led to the so-called peace dividend in the 1990s, and by 2000, defense spending had fallen to just 3 percent of gdp.
Foreign assistance programs, meanwhile, only amount to 0.3 percent of gdp, essentially where they have been for most of the past 40 years.

Although the new threats confronting the United States imply that more funding for national security is in order, there is no way to say precisely what percentage of gdp should be devoted to it. The appropriate level of outlays can be determined only through a detailed budget process that examines each potential use of funds and arrives at an aggregate figure. But to frame the discussion about how an increase could be financed, it is useful to consider the 6 percent figure achieved during the Reagan years as a specific target.

Returning to that point would require devoting an additional 2 percent of gdp to defense. The United States clearly could afford to do so if it wanted to. Since real gdp can be expected to grow by about 15 percent over the next five years, a 2 percent rise in the share of output devoted to defense would account for only about one-sixth of this additional national income. The decision to increase national security spending is therefore a question of politics and budgets rather than available resources.

The bottomline is that we can afford more defense spending and a size increase, so politics is the limiting factor.

As far as Talent's denial of the need for more concentration on counterinsurgency, I think that he's wrong. His oped didn't really address this, other than to say that he's against it, so I can't comment point by point against his views. However, there are many who state that the GWOT is really a war against a global insurgency being waged by the pan-Islamists. Thus, we need to build the intellectual (mostly cultural) capacity to wage that war. It's not a matter of smarter tanks or helicopters in this war, but simply, people skills based on a knowledge of how to exploit those people skills. Look at failed states, which are the incubators for terrorist sanctuaries, and that's where we'll need to operate. A glaring oversight IMO by Talent.

Ray · 04-22-2007, 15:49 PM

Shek,

Thanks for the trouble.

I was re-reading Ralph Peter and it was so similar to our problems!

Demosthenes · 07-14-2007, 11:08 AM

heh...that's what you get when politicians try to become generals. Maybe the US Administration should just invest more on their intelligence operations and give them authorization to use any force necessary. War isn't about honor or life...it's about winning.

If the US wants to save money, they shouldn't cut their budget in ongoing wars (that is SO stupid). They should at least suspend giving away all those free military aid to countries in Asia.

I'm going to read some more...

The Chap · 07-28-2007, 21:23 PM

Any chance of combining this with the Pax and Cash thread? (A starter regarding the fudicial merits of spies)

04-21-2007, 21:02 PM	#2 (permalink)
Shek *Military Professional* Moderator Join Date: 02-23-05 Location: Krblachistan Posts: 7,629 Country:	Sir, I may have more time to get to this article tomorrow. However, I would like to correct the historical record here - while I agree that Clinton did underfund the Army, I'd also point out that the decision to go from 18 to 10 divisions was not Clinton's alone. The Base Force plan was GEN Colin Powell's plan, and it reduced the Cold War army from 18 to 12 divisions, and this drawdown was approved by Cheney/Bush 41, and started under them. So, the article is a bit misleading when it tries to lay blame to Clinton for all of the 18 to 10 division downsizing. __________________ "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

07-28-2007, 21:23 PM	#8 (permalink)
The Chap *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 08-18-04 Location: UK Posts: 1,181 Country:	Combine? Any chance of combining this with the Pax and Cash thread? (A starter regarding the fudicial merits of spies) __________________ Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.

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04-22-2007, 00:03 AM	#3 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 26,144 Country:	OK Fine. I sure would be interested to know your views on this article and on the subject in general. Right now, as I understand, the size of the Army etc is currently under serious debate in the US and hence my interest.

04-22-2007, 08:38 AM	#4 (permalink)
Shek *Military Professional* Moderator Join Date: 02-23-05 Location: Krblachistan Posts: 7,629 Country:	New York Post April 22, 2007 Overstretched The U.S. Army is running out of people By Ralph Peters Plenty of Post readers have known what it's like when the money left won't stretch to cover the bills. No matter how sincerely you want to pay up, fiddling with the numbers still leaves you short. That's where the U.S. Army is today. The soldiers in the personnel account just can't be stretched to cover our strategic debts. We've maxed out our military credit card. The Army is out of people. Much of the hysteria about a "broken Army" exaggerates the immediate situation. We still have the finest, most-capable Army - and overall military - in the world. But if the institution isn't broken yet, it's showing worrisome cracks. IN recent travels, I en countered a new skepti cism among officers. They see potential in the tactics belatedly adopted in Iraq, but worry it may be too late. Despite the media-teaser bombings in recent weeks, the Baghdad surge could work over time. But we may not have that time. And we don't have the troops. The account's empty. And our leaders are still writing checks. In conversations with officers, a consistent theme emerged: The recent announcement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Army tours in Iraq would be extended from 12 to 15 months was a body blow to morale. We'll have to wait to see the hard numbers, but anecdotal information suggests that, the day after the announcement, officers were "lined up" to put in their I've-had-it paperwork. They don't lack courage. Their belief in the importance of what we're doing hasn't faltered. We've just worn these officers and their families out. While we've been living high on the hog, they've been living through hell. THESE officers (and NCOs) are willing to risk their lives - but they deserve private lives worth risking. As the bipartisan hypocrites in Washington argue over their dry-aged steaks and trophy cabernets, Democratic moral support for our enemies and Republican incompetence to wage war have torn at the seams of our military families. Officers don't like to admit it, but they leave the service to keep their spouses. Those spouses have been steadfast since the autumn of 2001. The divorce rate hasn't soared. But the effect has been cumulative: Raising children who see their fathers or mothers for a few months every couple of years has left the home-alone parents feeling their lives have been stolen. They've watched their husbands or wives go off to war - while the rest of America goes off to the mall. After the third or fourth back-to-back deployment, the yellow ribbon decal on the car in the passing lane just doesn't do it. One per cent of our population has been asked to bear the entire sacrifice of this war. AND there are organiz ational problems, too: As failed policies drive good officers to leave because all we promise them is more of the same - without a global strategy to win - the officers who remain in uniform are promoted at higher or accelerated rates. Sounds good, if you're waiting for the next promotion list, but a retired Marine regimental commander worries about the ultimate cost. He saw what happened in the wake of Vietnam, when officers and NCOs who didn't merit promotion rose in the ranks because there was no one else left. Years after that conflict's end, we had a hollow NCO corps and an officer corps that put time-servers in charge of heroes. I saw that wretched Army first-hand in the 1970s. No soldier of conscience who was there wants to see a replay. WE'RE not yet near so dire a point. But if there's a lesson we should learn from the past six years, it's that you have to attack the problem before it gets out of hand. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flatly refused to consider increasing the size of the Army and Marines. Now we're playing catch-up, and it's going to take five years - five years that we haven't got. The wrong thing to do would be to blame Secretary Gates. He inherited a bloody mess. While his announcement that Army tours of duty would be lengthened punched morale in the solar plexus, he saw no choice. To have the least chance of turning Iraq around at this late date, we need to send more troops. But we don't have the numbers to do it right. So we cook the books and send the same guys and gals in uniform back again. Is the effort worth it? Yes. Just barely. But we're also going to have to be honest: If the Iraqis aren't picking up far more of the weight by the end of this year, it's over. No more excuses. Gates took that message to Iraq's leaders last week. But he's unable to take the same message to our troops. Too many promises have been broken already. To his credit, the defense secretary has been honest about the muddle we're in and doesn't want to create false hopes that "the boys will be home for Christmas." OUR troops did all that we asked, but we asked them to do many of the wrong things, and we asked them to do too much. Meanwhile, the pols we elected, Republican and Democrat, lavished billions on corrupt defense contractors when what we needed was more of that commodity ever despised in Washington, the American soldier. Now the human budget won't stretch - and the collection notices are starting to come in. Ralph Peters' latest book is "Never Quit The Fight."

04-22-2007, 15:49 PM	#6 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 26,144 Country:	Shek, Thanks for the trouble. I was re-reading Ralph Peter and it was so similar to our problems!

07-14-2007, 11:08 AM	#7 (permalink)
Demosthenes Regular Join Date: 07-14-07 Location: Pasig City Philippines Posts: 43 Country:	heh...that's what you get when politicians try to become generals. Maybe the US Administration should just invest more on their intelligence operations and give them authorization to use any force necessary. War isn't about honor or life...it's about winning. If the US wants to save money, they shouldn't cut their budget in ongoing wars (that is SO stupid). They should at least suspend giving away all those free military aid to countries in Asia. I'm going to read some more...

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