rssLong-Term Military Planning: What Is It Good For?
Friday, March 20, 2009 at 3:16 pm
- 4 Comments
On Monday I mused on a degree of lassitude evident in near-to-long-term defense planning, and at Small Wars Journal, Steven Metz of the Army War College goes way further. After spending a few days at a Defense Department forum that tried to think through what the threats to national security in the year 2029 will look like, Metz found himself remembering the way things used to be:
A few years ago symposia and documents dealing with the future strategic environment were dominated by discussions of “the long war,” “GWOT,” terrorism, proliferation, and Islamic extremism. For the past two years, the focus has been on “hybrid threats.” In the event I just attended, those things were almost wholly absent from the discussion. Everything centered on technological change, economic turmoil, culture, demographics, and climate change.
In short, that’s not planning, that’s faddishness. It’s not anticipating the potential threats of tomorrow, it’s channeling the political tastes of the present. Metz, in a very economical post, takes the military to task for presuming that its future task will be invading “collapsed states” to stabilize them, outside of what he considers a prudent first-order consideration of the national interest. (In a way this kind of thinking speaks to a recent debate about whether counterinsurgency theorists are actually advocating more U.S. involvement in counterinsurgencies or not.) Metz’s conclusion:
I was aghast when people talked about future missions like controlling the vast slums of Lagos or Karachi, both because I don’t think those who made this point understood the magnitude of such a task, and because I don’t think doing so would promote American security. None of the architects or implementers of 9/11 were motivated by the lack of jobs or emerged from a teeming slum. On 9/11 we were attacked by a dispersed, non-state entity but in a perfect illustration of the idea that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, we did what we knew how to do: we overthrew two national governments. But–and this is the important part—because there were no subsequent successful attacks on the United States, we assumed this was the right approach. I non-concur. …
[I]f you buy the notion that future threats will not be linked to a particular piece of geography–enemies can mobilize resources and undertake operations from almost anywhere–then seizing and controlling terrain will no longer be the essence of security. This led me to predict at the symposium that 20 years hence, the U.S. Army’s role in promoting American security will decline precipitously.
All this raises the question of what this sort of ostensible long-term planning is good for. I wasn’t at the forum, but I would be very surprised if many in the Army would be willing to sign on to Metz’s conclusion that in 20 years it won’t be as important an institution as it is now. What institution would, after all? But it’s really the sort of thing that needs to be considered before larding the forecasts with assumptions that lead to the conclusion that the institution asking the questions needs to retain a position of paramount importance. Really, read the whole post.
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4 Comments
Comment posted March 21, 2009 @ 4:24 am
If we learn not to fight unnecessary illegal wars then the US Military might again be a DEFENSE Force.
That would be good. If we cannot learn this then we should change the name back to the WAR DEPARTMENT.
I hope that sometime in the next 20 years we will realize that terrorism is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, an as such should be fought by all the police forces of the world.
I say this for the following reasons:
First, when we in the US use the “War” label and consequently fight terror with arms and troops it distorts and limits the solutions to the problem we are fighting. It eliminates the diplomacy side of the equation; of changing opinions.
Second, we will never change an opinion of a poor man that sees our lifestyle and compares it to his and joins the terrorist out of frustration, by shooting terrorists and unfortunately sometimes civilians by mistake, and devastating countries and cultures, and wrongly imprisoning thousands of innocent suspects.
Third, if we fight terror as a police action we have a world wide coalition of established “troops” that have the best motivation in the world. Namely the defense of their own country, culture and people. The police are trained to catch criminals. They are trained in how to hold and imprison them. They are trained to gather evidence that can legally determine guilt.
Fourth, if we call terrorist criminals we prosecute them in the courts of the country where they are captured. We don't have gulags with all the horrible abuses that go on there. We do have a recognized system of justice that can handle killers. All we need to do is simply recognize that their already exists in every nation the jurisdiction and legal power to try persons that commit crimes in their country. Or, follow the recognized extradition processes and send them to their own country for prosecution.
Fifth, we don't have our, or any military, invading another sovereign nation to “stop terrorism”, and then become a hated force that changes its mission to changing the culture and management of a sovereign country to something that we believe is better.
Sixth, it frees our and other military to do the job they are designed to do, that is to defend their nation. It will also as a secondary benefit lead us away from the ridiculous “Doctrine of Preemptive War”, which is accurately called aggression by a rogue nation.
Seventh, it will stop wasting huge amounts of money on “war” It will free up this money to be used to fight terror in a way that is realistic, i.e., by helping feed hungry people, giving them medical care, and clean water, and developing their infrastructure so they can lead productive lives. It might even free up enough money so we can give our own people free medical care, education, food and effective disaster care.
All of these points, and there are more, are possible. BUT if you call the fight against terror a WAR they are not available as part of the solution. These other parts of fighting terrorism are not part of the legitimate task of the armed forces mission which is to defend its own country in a last resort manner after diplomacy fails.
War is defined as armed combat between nations. Terror is not war. It is a Crime Against Humanity. It is not committed by a nation. By saying, “If you are not with us you are against us,” you frame the problem in such a manner that drags in nations. You, after adopting this illogical inaccurate statement, then take the next step and say if you have a terrorist population in your country, your country is our enemy. After all how can you send in your troops to kill citizens, even though terrorists, into another sovereign nation without being at war? There is no nation that says we totally as a nation sponsor terror and believe in it, and support it in its killing of innocent people as a method of making a political statements.
Unfortunately I think it will take a “national exhaustion” before we will create a political will to drop the “war” mentality and realize it does not work.
However, calling terrorists criminals will. It will put all good people regardless of race, creed, religion or national identity on the same side against those that would kill innocent fellow human beings for political gain and the creation of unrest, hatred and dissent.
It will not kill innocent civilians as “collateral damage.” It will not destroy cultural treasures. It will not bankrupt national treasuries. It will not foster us against them divisions between the citizens of the world, It will not improperly and inaccurately pit one culture and/or one religion against another. And it will not kill thousands of our youth in combat that is ineffective, unsuccessful and counter productive.
When the American population gets mad enough or the politicians need to appear that they are taking heroic steps to fight a problem the politicians frame a “war on…”. We did it with poverty. We did it with drugs, and we did it with terror.
We have to stop this “war on…” to enable all people and all ideas and all parties to become part of the solution
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Comment posted March 23, 2009 @ 7:35 pm
when you had think tanks of which one of the big one DICK chaney'' had an assumption to control the world by financial and military out put and rest of every thing be produce for us by the rest of the world and we would be the suppream “(mentality) policy and beleave in it too.So we have aLORD of the RING left bshindEveryone now thinks they can get rid of him.NO NO NO
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 2:35 am
when you had think tanks of which one of the big one DICK chaney'' had an assumption to control the world by financial and military out put and rest of every thing be produce for us by the rest of the world and we would be the suppream “(mentality) policy and beleave in it too.So we have aLORD of the RING left bshindEveryone now thinks they can get rid of him.NO NO NO
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