Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure?
Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure?
by Ambassador David Passage, Small Wars Journal
Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure? (Full PDF Article)
Quote:
The beginning of a new Administration, particularly one which offers the prospect of significant departures from recent policies, offers an opportunity to re-think existing institutional structures and practices. This is particularly so, coming nearly two decades after the end of the Cold War, the Fall of the Wall, the triumph of the Eagle over the Bear, and the incorporation of many former opponents [Warsaw Pact members] into the West’s principal security alliance, NATO.
Added to this mix is President Obama’s excruciating need to achieve economies clear across the US Government’s operating spectrum to finance domestic economic recovery and our ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense spending is the largest single non-entitlement element in the USG budget. It will be under incredible pressure over the next several years. We need to re-equip our armed forces with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of materiel and munitions to replace what has been expended in those two conflicts. Vehicles of all types are worn to the point of barely being worth repatriating to the US; we are flying the wings off our aircraft, the rotors off our helicopters, and are using much of the remainder of our military equipment to within inches of its programmed life. And we have yet to calculate the ultimate cost of restoring our capacity to deal with other contingencies waiting out there in the high grass to rise up and bite us and our friends and allies.
And as every reader of SWJ knows, the way to sensibly wring economies out of existing budgets and institutional structures is not by across-the-board cuts: it’s to re-examine and terminate – ax – whole programs.
EUCOM, PACOM and CENTCOM have clear, well-defined and unquestioned war-fighting missions as well as robust force structures to support them. SOUTHCOM and the newly-formed AFRICOM do not and should not. Might this not be a good time to take a new look at our existing global military command structure?
Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure? (Full PDF Article)
Like you, I'm not persuaded...
Mr. Passage makes some excellent points but I believe he discounts inertia too heavily. I agree with John T. that the functions of both SouthCom and AfriCom are more than nation building and that their continued existence over the next couple of decades will be beneficial to the US -- and, I think also to the regions.
John posits a good alternative but it seems he places the IJOC under an Ambassaodr and I'm skeptical on that score. Admittedly, the President of the day can name anyone as his Ambassador -- not State's -- to anywhere but the AFSA is placing more of its members in such positions and fewer Prez political appointees are getting nods. My concern is that bureaucratic turf problems or simply whose turn it is will intrude on who gets that rather powerful position.
I'm in favor of an alternative -- Option 2 of the Project on National Security Reform LINK to 830 pg .pdf. The Executive Summary LINK to 33 pg .pdf . This option gives the President more latitude to appoint the best -- or a better -- person for the job compared to whatever the pipeline might provide. My belief is that another Bremer should be avoided at all costs. Here's the schematic:
Grand Strategy for a post-Cold War World
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SWJED
The U.S. currently does not possess a Grand Strategy of any sort, let alone one designed for the post-Cold War world we live in today. While this article recognizes "EUCOM, PACOM and CENTCOM have clear, well-defined and unquestioned war-fighting missions," I would contend that these war-fighting missions must absolutely be questioned as part of a comprehensive re-evaluation of U.S. Strategy designed for the world we live in today.
A Doctrine of "Containment" worked to get us through the Cold War, but for the past 20 years we have drifted through follow-on doctrines of "Intervention" under President Clinton, and "Pre-emption" under President Bush; all with no true overhaul of the overarching strategy or of the tools of policy which exist to implement the same.
In a standard Strategic construct of "Ends-Ways-Means" the Ends do not vary much. We still seek to preserve the American way of life; defend the homeland, and retain access to global markets and resouces. What must change, however, are the Ways and Means we use to sustain those ends.
So my assessment is that this article is on track if the end of the Cold War and the advent of communication-driven globalization mean nothing. I believe they are critical and that the U.S. must move on from such status quo positions and also go beyond simply applying another policy bandaid to a well-worn 65 year old program.