A Battle Over 'the Next War'
A Battle Over 'the Next War' - Barnes and Spiegel, Los Angeles Times
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Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr. is not a fighter pilot, wing commander or war planner. But he is waging what many officers consider a crucial battle: ensuring that the U.S. military is ready for a major war.
Dunlap, like many officers across the military, believes the armed forces must prepare for a large-scale war against technologically sophisticated, well-equipped adversaries, rather than long-term ground conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan.
First, however, they face an adversary much closer to home -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates...
Many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan side squarely with Gates. They believe future conflicts will look like the current wars, and argue that the U.S. must not lose its newfound expertise in counterinsurgency warfare.
"I think that nation-state and conventional war is in a state of hibernation," said Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, who commanded U.S. forces in Fallouja in 2004. "I don't think it's gone away, but the most likely threats probably today are not going to be conventional or from another state."
Mattis argues that the current fight is not an interlude.
"I recognize some people want to say: 'Let's hold our breath. The irregular world will go away, then we can get back to good old soldiering again,' " he said. "Unfortunately, in war, the enemy gets a vote."...
Old Eagle's got it right, I think, there is no dichotomy, just
a priority sort -- and that is driven by J. Wolfsberger's ""...Battle Over 'the Next War' " is, in fact, a battle over budget and prestige.""
Entropy is, I believe, partly correct with ""...I think it's more a battle about the future of US foreign policy and what role the military has in that policy..."" but I'd suggest that Congress and the budget are extremely significant impactors on what passes as US Foreign Policy today.
Unfortunately... :mad:
John beat me to it, Fuchs
but there's probably a couple of lessons there.
One big picture one in the Venezuelan Claims Crisis about how to deal, in an orderly way, with nation-states that are functionally bankrupt, meaning an inabiity to pay the bills, e.g. Argentina of a few years ago.
One really big picture one about - How does one determine which conflict is necessary? I feel pretty strongly that John and Tom's view holds up much, much better than yours, but if we can't agree even amongst ourselves, with the huge benefit of hindsight - what advice do we give policy makers about which fights to stay out of? You all have been referencing big wars, but the Balkans and Somalia might be instructive in terms of how liberal democracies muddle their way through to decisions.
Which would mean that force design based on a view of what conflict "should" be is a dead end.
Oh, btw, you still skipped Korea :).
Marc, a "naked war of aggression"?
Yeah, it was (in part, at least). ;) And, not only did you (as Vinegar Joe Stilwell put it about another war) kick the snot out of us, you went on and burned our capital!
But, the Red Coat leaders up in Canada had been encroaching on land ceded by Britain to the US not once but twice (Peace of Paris 1783 and Jay's Treaty 1794) and backing it up by "Hair Buyer" Hamiliton (Colonel British Army) paying good pounds sterling to nice little "Native American" boys (they were called Indians back then) for Yankee scalps. (Or maybe Hamilton was in the Revolution - I forget but it was British policy and that part a small war too). The other American grievance was the impressing of American sailors serving on American ships for service in the Royal Navy. Freedom of the seas and all that!
With the Battle of New Orleans (fought of course after the Treaty of Ghent had ended the war but before it could reach the belligerants) the threat of British closure of the Misissippi to American trade ended. When the war ended, the Jay's Treaty boundaries were respected, and Freedom of the Seas was won. So, all in all, if we ignore the drubbings during our naked aggression against Canada and the sack of Washington preceded by the military disaster (to the Americans, of course) at Bladensburg, it was a "splendid little war" - on the periphery of that World War you guys were fighting against a megalomaniacal French junior officer of artillery who thought that as a Corsican with an Italian name (Buonaparte) he should be Emperor of the World - or, at least, France.
C'est tres jolie, n'estce pas?
JohnT
PS Darn, Hamilton was in the Revolution! It was a good story and, anyway scalp bounties were paid in 1812.
Different strokes and folks.
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
Ken; many "Banana Wars" were in the inter-war years when there was quite obviously no relevance of German actions in Latin America. I wasn't aware that this terms stretched to pre-1914 times in its meaning. There's no equivalent term in German.
According to wikipedia, the Venezuela affair was not covered by the term "Banana wars", which only covers U.S.interventions on soil.
All true -- I included the Venezuela link to illustrate that Germany has been known to putter about in a 'small war' sort of setting; the other link did talk to Central America and the interwar years.
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Besides that, the representation of the Banana Wars as being in the interest of the intervened countries was pretty absurd.
I didn't say they were.
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The inability to prove alternative outcomes is irrelevant. If that was a requirement to determine that anything in history was wrong, all history would have been perfect. Which is obviously not true.
I couldn't agree more. That's why I brought it up -- because your post proffered a bunch of alternative outcomes... :D
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I see the disagreement here, and I'm pretty sure about the reason. A part of the disagreement is different culture.
Yes, most of it is just that. Many Europeans look at Americans and see other Europeans (albeit perhaps slightly demented or certainly not very bright). Quite wrong. We're not demented nor are we incredibly stupid -- we are different. We are not European. Most of our forebears left Europe because they didn't like the way things were being run. We inherited that mantle and if the Europeans like something, you can be pretty sure that most Americans will not. We have a rather strong contrarian streak. We are far more independent and far, far less community (or, more accurately, communitarian) oriented. We are also significantly less risk averse (so far...)
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The disagreement stems from a different approach.
Yes, it does...
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A war is in my understanding only won if the sum of its activity can at least be understood to have been positive for the citizens of the state (in comparison to no war). Some wars are kind of pyrrhic wars. You lose even if you win.
Not to wax philosophical but I suggest all war is pyrrhic and no one ever wins -- nor will any citizens have a gross positive experience from a war, though there may be a net benefit for some. All that however is a difference of opinion, little more.
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The discussion quickly drifted into by comparison pretty irrelevant details, I'm sorry for that. My attempt to point out the inferior importance of small wars wasn't understood.
Partly true; that predictably happens when one tends to equate the actions of another to evil or irrelevance. I don't think anyone questions that small wars are less important than large one -- thus the small -- but less important or even less 'relevant' does not necessarily mean unimportant. Nor does it mean they should be avoided at all costs. Risk avoidance carries its own penalties...
Such downward drift is also pretty apt to happen when one states an opinion in a dogmatic way as hard cold fact.
Try either of those things with a bunch of Americans and they'll vehemently disagree with you just so they can say they did. That's un-European, I know. To be expected, really -- our values differ. Markedly.
Now you're saying something different..
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The trade balance deficit and federal budget deficit are clear indicators that the current U.S. economy and state are not sustainable. There's nothing to argue about it, both is evidence - defining indicators.
The high military-related expenditures (of which only a small part can be considered as investment into economic development - all else is state consumption) can easily be identified as a probable cause.
Saying that military expenditures are unsustainable is not the same thing as saying a budget deficit is unsustainable. Besides, defense spending as a percentage of total US government spending has steadily decreased since the 1950's. One might therefore argue that other federal spending/taxation is more easily identified as a "probable cause" of US deficits.
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
Not really. It's still a free choice. Many allies have saved a lot of their military expenditures after 1990. The NATO is not a one-way alliance. The alliance members have the same obligations - but some governments/parliaments chose to keep expenditures high.
And the US has saved a lot on military expenditures too since 1990. Look at the data yourself. (And you can find graphs of US defense spending using a variety of measures here).
Furthermore I never said NATO or any other alliance was one-way, but the relative differences in capability are pretty stark regardless. NATO has very little capability to project any kind of force beyond its borders - just look at Yugoslavia in the 1990's and that was in Europe.
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Alliances are usually understood as lowering the need for defense expenditures. To believe that the opposite is true seems to require somee kind of political brainwashing in my opinion.
Alliances are not formed for the purpose of saving defense money in national budgets - at least that's how I believe alliances are usually understood. I would like to see some data or analysis that show any kind of linkage between forming an alliance and a corresponding decrease in defense expenditure to back up your assertion - I suspect the opposite is actually true in most cases.
In the most general context
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Originally Posted by
wm
My response wasn't meant to suggest that you had proposed this. Rather, I used the possibility as a way of trying to point out some potential problems for a competitor/opponent that might choose to adopt such a strategy. I'd like to see folks' thoughts on that.
It would always seem most likely that interested parties seek ways to capitalize on what is happening at any given time rather than expecting givens for future conditions.
At least seem that way from what history I've seen:confused:
A few additional thoughts...
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Originally Posted by
J Wolfsberger
My concern, especially in light of some of the discussions on this board, is that such a strategy might be risk free.
For example, 20% (if I recall correctly) of Nigerian oil production is unavailable due to "insurgent" (or whatever we want to call it) activity. Now assume that a near peer attempts to foment the same in other locations (say Indonesia). The investment in financing and weaponry is tiny, the impact is large, and any attempt at intervention by the US will be met with considerable international and domestic hostility.
Similar actions could be carried out with food distribution. Or, as another example, deliberately releasing a virus, then interfering with medical relief. Simply providing support to movements such as FARC or Sendero Luminoso sufficient to destabilize the government would work.
The point I was driving at, is that a near peer doesn't have to challenge us in a conventional war. A series of LICs scattered around the world, with the near certainty of international and domestic opposition to armed response, would eventually bleed us into "defeat."
JW,
For the most part I concur with most of what you propose... Certainly another competitor could adopt such a strategy (near peer or otherwise), and this would cause us and others significant challenges.
I think this example falls apart when you expand the scenario to the point of threatening national sovereignty/cause great harm to US... Any competitor that harms the US economy in such a way also harms the global economy... The hew and cry of the globalized world would be great and a coalition of the pissed off would form.
Now if you use this same strategy as a non-peer competitor/super empowered individual/group you stand a better chance of drawing western powers into a series of prolonged/resource draining expeditions.
Live well and row