Military Transformation

Fred Kaplan had a characteristically excellent article in Slate yesterday. He argues that no “military transformation” has actually occured during Rumsfeld’s tenure at the top of the Defense Department. Rather, the branches have simply become more bloated with equipment that they already had and that bears little resemblance to the equipment they need to fight “new war”.

One of the few things that has impressed me about Rumsfeld’s tenure as Defense Secretary is his ability to force the high brass into line. For all intents and purposes, the military brass could say and do anything they liked during the Clinton years, because Clinton was terrified of tangling with them. Not so Rumsfeld; he retired or hastened the retirement of a number of generals, putting the fear of God in the rest of them. This is a good thing; it helped secure civilian supremacy at a time when it might have been slipping. Unfortunately for Rumsfeld, it is easier to fire people than to make them do what you want, and easier to have “vision” than to make organizations as large as military branches change course. Stephen Rosen wrote an excellent book, Winning the Next War, which argues that civilian leaders have only a limited ability to enforce doctrinal change on military organizations. Doctrine typically changes from within, and civilian pressure can be counter-productive. So, while Rumsfeld can fire people and order them to change, he can’t actually effect the change himself; that depends on young officers within the military.

So, what does the military look like right now, and how is it preparing for the future? Kaplan lists a few of the big-ticket items:

$4.1 billion for 24 F-22 stealth fighter planes—at a time when our prospective enemies can barely fly fighter planes, much less shoot down our non-stealth aircraft;

$4.3 billion for continued development of the F-35 Joint Strategic Fighter, a smaller version of the F-22;

$2 billion for a new “Super Hornet” version of the F/A-18 fighter plane;

$2.3 billion for a new Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, at a time when our Navy faces virtually no threat and possesses more subs than it knows what to do with.

His analysis is entirely correct. The results of the “Cope India” exercises notwithstanding, the United States has virtually no prospect of facing a foe that can deal even with our 1970s era fighter and attack aircraft. The naval procurement is if anything worse; new nuclear submarines are precisely the last thing that the Navy needs. The surface fleet continues to decline in size, making the patrol of shipping lanes more difficult. Given that piracy and seaborne terrorism are potential threats to the United States, expanding the surface fleet would seem a good idea. Nuclear submarines, of course, are 100% useless for this purpose.

There’s more going on here than just organizational inertia. For a “small government” party, the Republicans are astonishingly open to the influence of large corporations seeking government contracts. In the military sphere, this leads to the acquisition of weapons that we really don’t need, and that will have no impact on the next war, the next one after that, or the next one after that. Instead of reforming the military, Rumsfeld is simply giving it an injection of pork. While I am somewhat (and only somewhat) sympathetic with the idea of reforming the Army as a lighter, more mobile, and more effective force, it is unlikely to happen as long as the Army doesn’t want it to happen.

Frankly, I think Rumsfeld would have a better chance with the Navy. Naval doctrine and force structure are horribly anachronistic; they bear no relationship with the realities of the post-Cold War world. Because of its reliance on big ticket items (like ships), I suspect that the Navy is more susceptible than the Army to civilian influence. An activist defense secretary might be able to do some good. Rumsfeld, of course, has made no effort whatsoever in this direction.