What if they don't step up?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
I think there is general agreement that we have a means/ends mismatch in our current defense strategy. But there are always two solutions to such a mismatch: increase your means or diminish your ends. That's the shape the debate is taking now.
The Stanley Foundation policy brief that Frank Hoffman and I did last year, while not as extreme as the Cato position, also argued that we need to be more circumspect in what we plan and budget for. Specifically, we took issue with the scenarios that are used to justify a force increase post-Iraq and Afghanistan such as the occupation and stabilization of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, or something similar. Frank and I were not sanguine about the threat from terrorist bases in distant lands or uncontrolled nuclear weapons. We just didn't think that long term occupation and attempted social and political re-engineering of flawed states is the most effective way to address these threats.
Basically, we could build a 5 million person force, and missions would emerge to occupy them. What we need to ask ourselves is whether, in this time of mounting economic, environmental, and social challenges, we really want to underwrite the security of other nations who spend much less than we do on their own defense (and I mean on a per capita basis, not in the aggregate).
Steve,
I remember reading last year the excellent brief you and Frank did on ground troops level where you two did some serious damage to the arguments made by Kagan&O'Hanlon in a similar Stanley Foundation paper. Your points were very well taken. It's fairly ridiculous to assume that 100k or 200k more troops would allow the US to successfully invade & perform a successful long-term nation-building mission in a place like Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.
One point on which I have some doubts on is to what extent you can count on allied contribution to provide extra manpower for multilateral operations.
Frankly, outside the ones that were in Iraq, I don't really see any other NATO members or non-Nato allies being able to provide significant troops for any scenario that's not on their borders. It doesn't look to me like they have either the will or the capability to do so. I mean, if they can't even do more for a fairly clear cut "moral" case like in Afghanistan, I find it very unlikely to believe that they will do so in any scenario I can think of. Local allies, yes, Northern Allies proved very useful, but that situation seems rather unlikely to be easily replicable in other places; and they of course come with their share of problems such as unreliability, corruption, incompetence, etc. In short, I share your (and Frank's) skepticism regarding the suitability of dealing with failed states through regime change + nation-building, but if you do decide to do it, than I believe we shouldn't really count on much extra help by others - IMO "multilateralism" is sometimes an excuse for people who want to do those missions but don't want to pay for them.
Having said that, I nevertheless disagree rather strongly with the last point in your post regarding the disproportionate level of US investments in maintaing world peace and security. I don't actually think that's wrong, but it's just that it leads to a cure that in my opinion is worse than the disease. It's a great talking-point to argue that the US shouldn't "subsidize" other countries, but at the end of the day I don't think we are willing to, say, abandon Afghanistan just because we feel that the French or the Germans won't do their fair share. International Relations academics love to bitch about "the free rider" problem and about the US providing "public goods" when others ought to do more as well, but at the end of the day I think it's a much bigger problem if you don't take care of a security issue that affects you just because others are also reaping the benefits of your actions. Maybe I'm just having too pessimistic an opinion of Europeans, but having grew up in Europe, well, I have my reasons for it :D
Ionut
Gratuitous swipe and honest question
I am always a little bit mystified by those who say, in effect:
Having Conventional units do COIN is a hugely difficult transition, but a unit organized, trained, and equipped for COIN should be able to pick up conventional warfighting without too much trouble...
Now that that is off my chest, I would like to hear if anybody out there thinks it would make sense, in any current or future COIN situation, to take an approach that was common among imperial forces in the last century. That is, to build an indigenous army from scratch - as we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan - with American officers and NCOs serving as commanders and small unit leaders, rather than advisers.
Most of the 'Imperial' forces that policed the various colonial empires were 'native' troops with European leaders, some of which became famous and highly effective fighting forces.
I know, I know, there are a multitude of problems with this approach...but we don't seem to be having a great deal of success with any others
ends-means mismatch vs. future warfare
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cavguy
The non-military security studies academics has a terrible track record of their theories panning out. Wolfowitz and Feith are but two examples on the other end of the spectrum.
The fact that the whole community (who gave birth to RAND) sprung up to wargame nuclear war should add suspicion.
Of course, I'm currently enrolled in a graduate security studies program! :eek:
Yeah, the current state of that academic field is rather deplorable. That's one reason why I'm preparing to enter it: weak competition.
On a more serious note, I currently see two general ways of arguing about planning for force structure.
1. You can start from the premise that there is an ends-means mismatch, and that we need to better match our goals with our resources . And on the one side you get the people who argue that foreign policy objectives should not include regime change + nation-building operations in anything but the most extraordinary circumstances. The "Iraq is an anomaly, and a disaster, and we won't do it again" school of foreign policy. This implies that we could, and should, lower our "ends" side of the equation to match our current means. And on the other hand the ones who envision large increases in defense spending and force structure to be able to deal with failed states by occupying and nation-building them. That's my caricature of what the underlying premises are for the Conventional vs. Irregular/Coin debate people are talking about.
2. Another way of looking at it is to believe, as, IMO, Frank Hoffman, Nate Freier and others who write about hybrid challenges do, that there is something intrinsic to the nature of future warfare (because of technology, globalization, US superiority in conv. warfare, etc.) which does not so much depend on the reasons why you went to war. Both state and non-state actors will use these hybrid tactics, mixing and matching modes of warfare to cause the greatest harm in that particular situation. Thus you won't have regular vs. irregular, but ever more innovative mixes of the two. Hezbollah is a prime example of this. Hence, you need flexible forces who can switch quickly from one to the other.
I think one way to look at this, in Clausewitzian terms, is a debate between people who are focusing more on the logic of war (1) and its grammar (2)
Force structure gets modfied on an ad-hoc basis
in all wars; true in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam and Desert Storm. It should. To not do so is to fail to adapt to METT-TC.
There is absolutely no way to design a force that will fit all requirements; the structure is designed for ease of personnel use and equipping; commanders have to modify to get the job done. Not a problem.
1 Attachment(s)
For your consideration...
I throw this out as grist for the mill. The original concept was to design a brigade combat team not for COIN, but for rear area operations. It morphed into a form or hybrid.
It is bound to upset about everyone. First, it creates a non-combat arms element that is a terrain manager. That alone should piss-off most of you. Second, it is based around the idea that COIN is broken into two elements. The SOF who are the terrorist hunter/killers and the stability forces that are performing what I term State Building activities. It leaves the traditional elements to fight the traditional wars without trying to force them into being the catch all for every possible mission.
Whether we can afford to create the brigades is a separate matter. It is only the concept that I was concerned with.