Panetta: Our post-cuts military a “spoiler” force
The front page of my New York Times greeted me this morning with this headline above the fold:
Panetta to Offer Strategy Cutting Military
Oh, good. Panetta, who I really don’t think is all that bad a guy, testified in November that forcing the military to take an additional $500 some billion cut, past the already pending $450 billion, would be “devastating” to the military and pose a “substantial risk” to national security. He underscored the point that our defense budget is reflective of the threat we face and reducing military spending by a trillion dollars won’t reduce the threat level, only create an enviroment were we are unable to respond to it. His most prophetic statement was this:
…we would have to formulate a new security strategy that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense needs.
Fast forward less than two months to today where the unholy alliance of “burn it all down” libertarian Republicans and anti-military liberal Democrats have produced an environment in which the sabotage of our military and its members wasn’t significant enough incentive to reach a deal. According to the NY Times:
In a shift of doctrine driven by fiscal reality and a deal last summer that kept the United States from defaulting on its debts, Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once.
Instead, he will say that the military will be large enough to fight and win one major conflict, while also being able to “spoil” a second adversary’s ambitions in another part of the world while conducting a number of other smaller operations, like providing disaster relief or enforcing a no-flight zone.
Pentagon officials, in the meantime, are in final deliberations about potential cuts to virtually every important area of military spending: the nuclear arsenal, warships, combat aircraft, salaries, and retirement and health benefits.
For those who remember history it was our “peace dividend” post World War Two “spoiler” force which was left to defend South Korea as an avalanche of North Korea soldiers flooded the peninsula before finally being stopped at Pusan by an ad-hoc fire brigade of old World War Two Marines brought together from every naval garrison and motor pool in the world. Once you get over the 100,000 wounded and 37,000 dead Americans it was a triumphant spoiler of a conflict. The millions of North Koreans living in a waking nightmare this very moment might have some other thoughts but hey, guns or butter, right?
Category: Congress sucks, Defense cuts, Military issues, Politics
There has to be a third way.
We can’t keep spending money like water being the world’s beat cop, but neither can we have another Task Force Smith.
We need to have a force that is equipped, trained, and sized appropriately to do the job we need them to do, no bigger, no smaller. What that means in the end is above my pay grade. What Secretary Panetta is outlining is without question the policy dictated to him by the President. That’s his job. If we don’t like that policy or where it leads, November is just 11 months away.
@1: “We need to have a force that is equipped, trained, and sized appropriately to do the job we need them to do, no bigger, no smaller.”
That’s the point of contention. No one knows what what that entails. The only thing they’re looking at is money, not threats around the world. Not needs to protect our country and our interests around the globe. It has to do with cash. They are going to sell our security down the road in order to brag how much money they were able to cut out of the defense budget all while giving that money to more entitlement programs. I remember Carter and what was left after he was gone was pitiful both in equipment and morale.
\
I don’t trust Panetta.
He was the congress critter representing the Monterey area during when I was in the 7th ID (L). Voted against Desert Storm and then wondered why BRAC closed Ft. Ord….
“I remember Carter and what was left after he was gone was pitiful both in equipment and morale”. I remember it, too. And now, President Present is trying to out-Carter Carter.
This is so he can tell his base, see, the U.S. will never again be able to wield a force to do anything other than put on a parade. And, I saved Welfare, and the rest of the give-aways I promised I would.
This might have just been a formatting error, but I believe “…while conducting a number of other smaller operations, like providing disaster relief or enforcing a no-flight zone” belonged in the list of things we’re cutting rather than the list of things we’re trying to maintain a capability for. Let the UN use all the money we’re sending them to deal with disaster relief instead of promoting anti-Semitism. As for enforcing no-fly zones, I’m no expert on strategic use of air assets, but it seems to me that it would have been much more cost-effective to make every runway in Iraq unsuitable for use by military aircraft than it was to fly non-stop combat missions over 2/3 of the country for a dozen years.
Stop using our military (and our government in general) for things that we don’t really need done, then come talk to me about cutting funding for things that we need done and that only it can do.
re #5
It was not a formatting error. The logic behind preserving non-essential functions like humanitarian assistance while reducing war fighting capability escaped me as well.
We definitely need to smart about cutbacks. Why is DELTA still around when the SEALs do their missions (eg. Bin-Laden mission)? Why are the Marines in a land-locked country? “Long wars mean short promotions”… this norm is going to stop and the cuts (cut-throating) will be brutal. Inter-service politics will be another killer for the privates, airmen, and seamen. We are misusing our military enough.
re #7
The official line is that DEVGRU picked up the bin Laden mission simply because it was the fresh unit in the JSOC rotation at the time it came across McRaven’s desk. This decision was apparently reinforced by that particular units operational history in the area. Delta was, needless to say, absolutely furious and there was some speculation that the decision had more to do with the fact that, after McChrystal’s resignation, both JSOC, and SOCOM were headed by SEALs.
Regardless the current narrative coming out of Capitol Hill is that SOF assets are a cost effective way of going forward in an “age of austerity”. As a matter of fact I see the only places not getting savaged in the coming budgets are SOF and the drone programs.
Actually Korea is the UN’s “brain child”….The NORK’s were joined by Chi-com troops (a division) and the Marines were not alone in that hell hole.
There is a 3d Way: Nukes. The next couple of Presidents will have to rely on the threat of going nuclear; and may have to set one off just impress the impressionable.
That was the worst thing about Carter: had Congress ever declared war, or had Carter ever had to start combat prior to a formal declaration, he would have had to use nukes either as the first option, or within a few weeks with the logistics and stocks failed.
That is how Obama and the Progressives will achieve their ultimate goal: all the money and power, and no Putin to steal it away – any future President, Republican or Dem, will have to press the button – and the rest of the world knows that.
This was the thinking that brought the hollow Clinton-era force. “We can fight a Panama and a Desert Storm! After we cut of course.” Stupid then, stupid now.
“…Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once.” As far as I’m aware they all but in name have already admitted this. “Instead, he will say that the military will be large enough to fight and win one major conflict, while also being able to “spoil” a second adversary’s ambitions in another part of the world while conducting a number of other smaller operations, like providing disaster relief or enforcing a no-flight zone.” I think Gates already articulated this. We have hinted over the last 30 years to be hard pressed if forced to fight in two large conflicts at the same time. The Fight in one and hold/disrupt prevent from losing in a second, was already stated by Gates or Rumsfeld. “…With the war in Iraq over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, Mr. Panetta is weighing how significantly to shrink America’s ground forces.” Again we have a tiny ground force. We really have less then the minimum then nessary as is. The world wars aside, which were wars of national massive mobilisation, in Korea we fielded 8 American divisions and in Vietnam(add up the odd brigades) nearing 9. In Iraq, excluding the Surge, we had just over 4, when you add the preramped up Afghanistan deployments(1 or 2 brigades) that brings us to about 5 total. We had to call up guard units for a credible 1yr deployed, 1yr home schedule and that stretched our force to the breaking point. Frankly we just barely have the forces needed for one medium war, assuming no other contingency occurs, without straining the active side and needing to call up the Reserves/Guard. THERE IS SIMPLY NOTHING TO CUT WITHOUT LOSING A CREDIBLE GROUND FORCE CAPABILITY!!! NOT ONE COMBAT BATTALION! “Democrats and a few Republicans say that it would be painful but manageable; they add that there were steeper military cuts after the Cold War and the wars in Korea and Vietnam.” Yeah… Read more »
you get the level of readiness you pay for. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. And as long as my “can do” brothers in the Pentagon keep saying they can absorb the cuts and still do the mission, Congress will hack away.
How Could the Pentagon Possibly Defend Us With the Budget It Had Four Years Ago?
By Jacob Sullum
Reason
January 3, 2012
#14 From Article.
“The new doctrine is just as abitrary as the old one, but at least it’s a little cheaper. I would even venture to say that reducing the U.S. government’s ability to engage in pointless, costly, and destructive military interventions might decrease the likelihood of such interventions.”
See this is the libertarian jist but they almost never articulate it in such a way. They want to cut Defense(that includes Ron Paul) because simply they don’t want that sword at the ready, if it isn’t there it can’t be used. That to most conservatives(like me) is incredibly naive.
I also don’t want to be involves in conflicts that are generally beyong our interests but I believe we do have interests abroad that we need a sword for and am willing to pay for it.
Follow up to above. We are simply at an impasse.