Big war dinosaurs after the asteroid

ARTICLE: Can US Still Fight a 'Big-battle' War?, McClatchy Newspapers, September 16, 2008

Pike falls into the same category as Bacevich: they don't want a SysAdmin force because it will be used. If we keep the capacity stillborn, then we can focus on just fighting wars and losing the peace (which, in their mind either doesn't matter or shouldn't be sought in the first place through military intervention).

Here is the missing piece to this argument: America can impose its big-war willpower nicely with air power and air power alone. If we're not going to own the aftermath, then we can just bomb, bomb, bomb and not care about what comes next. I can do that with air assets from Navy and Air Force. If I'm not going to put my ground forces at risk in small wars, why the hell would I put them at maximal risk in big ones?

This is a diversionary argument. We are not fighting major land wars in Asia (f--king duh!) against Russia (which doesn't have the bodies), nor China and India (not as stupid as we often assume them to be). If we are going to fight high-end, then it'll be missiles and drones and high-altitude bombers and guided this and that. It will not be the Marines storming some beach en masse, nor Normandy with the Army.

In short, we can have our SysAdmin green force and use it too, while maintaining an appropriate lead in the blue Leviathan force. This is not as hard as Pike and Bacevich make it out to be. Again, their arguments are essentially trojan horse arguments against a SysAdmin force that's appropriate to the age we live in and therefore usable--for American "imperial" projects, in their minds.

Enough of guys who only know war within the context of war! These are dinosaurs still roaming the planet after the asteroid has hit.

We either adjust ourselves to this frontier-integrating age or we make America an irrelevant strategic power. Again, that's fine for the old-timers who know their Vietnam and nothing else, but it does not answer the future mail. They want to paint Nagl as out of touch with enduring realities, when it's their thinking (they know what they know and won't change their views no matter what the evidence piling up over the past several decades) that's gone way past expiration date.

(Thanks: Endre Lunde)

Real power is demand

POST: Why Not Empower Iranian Entrepreneurs?, By Ben Katcher, The Washington Note, Sep 16 2008

Brilliant little bit. Any time in Dubai makes this argument self-evident. Ditto, quite frankly, for Kurdish Iraq.

As always, real power is demand, not supply, within globalization, ergo real weakness is unmet demand.

(Thanks: Hans Suter)

Police yourself before the police come

PRESS RELEASE: IPOA Welcomes Montreux Agreement on Private Security Companies, September 17, 2008

Exactly what I always look for: self-regulation by players in anticipation that "worse" regulation would arrive from above if the initiative wasn't pursued.

[Ed. See Tom's recent column: Stability ops will follow all military interventions in future]

Good stuff.

I spoke at IPOA's conference a while back. Good group.

Two additional glass-filling-up views of Africa

ARTICLE: "Consumer Continent: Millions rise to the middle class," by Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 8-14 September 2008, p. 18.

ARTICLE: "The Allure of Africa: Foreign investors see opportunity," by Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 8-14 September 2008, p. 24.

Okay, so it's the same journalist (who clearly had more material than she could cram into one article).

Bit I like in the first one:

Vijay Mahajan, a business professor at the University of Texas in Austin, recently coined the phrase "Africa 2s" to describe people who are neither desperately poor (Africa 3s) nor obnoxiously rich (Africa 1s), and says the middle group is one of the most important drivers of economic growth in Africa.

"I'm convinced that Africa is going to be built by Africa 2s," says Mahajan, who has written a book, "Africa Rising," on the subject. "These are the people sending their kids to school ... who are the most optimistic, the most forward-thinking.

Kenyan economist James Shikwati suggests that middle-income consumers are also a driving force for political change.

"It's empowering," he said. "If you give people a sense of freedom in the economic sector, then you deny it in the political sector, you have a problem.

This matches up nicely with what economist George Ayittey calls, in generational terms, the difference between "cheetahs" (new) and "hippos" (old). Find his TED talk here.

Best bit from the second:

Middle Eastern firms flush with oil money are increasingly looking to Africa, as are investors searching for the next India.

Another reason to stop decrying the "largest wealth transfer in human history" a la Boone Pickens ("Damn straight! Keep all the money here and that's how we'll prosper over the long haul!").

Also another reason to deny the BS that says we only fund both sides of the war on terrorism by buying Middle Eastern oil--so not true on too many levels to mention, not the least of being that we don't buy much Middle Eastern oil.

Every bit of churn in globalization allows for somebody to take advantage. Merrill Lynch tanks and guess what? Bankers are cheap to hire right now.

Processing crisis is the key, not preventing crisis. In an increasingly recursive environment (more feedback loops) fostered by globalization (Taleb's term), resilience is adaptation because preventing "black swans" (low probability, high impact events) is a chimera.

What goes on behind the Great Firewall . . . ultimately won't stay behind the Great Firewall

WORLD NEWS: "China's Internet Culture Goes Unchecked, for Now," by Sky Canaves and Juliet Ye, Wall Street Journal, 12 September 2008, p. A10.

Opening sentence says it all:

While the Chinese government keeps a tight grip on Internet news and political discussion here, it has done little to prevent online defamation and invasions of personal privacy.

So the Chinese Communist Party is doing everything it needs, in a 20th-century, Gap-sort of way, to cover itself on political expression on the web, but ignoring the 21st-century, Core-sort of responsibilities that empowered individuals tend to demand from their government ("Hey, you need to police this collective good for our benefit and not just yours!"). They worry about "dangerous" speech in a collective sense, but it's the dangerous speech and actions in an individual sense that's actually skyrocketing.

The old assumption here, by the CCP, is that the early onliners are the ones to be watched (good reasoning), but as the percentage of Chinese population regularly going online rises dramatically (from about 8 percent to almost 29% in last three years), the mismatch of goals and policing will only grow, meaning the CCP's incompetence will be increasingly revealed and that alone will eventually become the larger source of regime illegitimacy (as opposed to "dangerous" speech).

In short, the more connectivity, the greater the demands of citizens for good governance--not just firm governance. Single parties do firm governance well, but good governance poorly, because the lack of shifting between in-power-types and out-of-power-types means that corruption goes systematically unaddressed.

The latest from Gates

SPEECH: Robert Gates to NDU, September 29, 2008

Excerpts:

BALANCE
The defining principle driving our strategy is balance. I note at the outset that balance is not the same as treating all challenges as having equal priority. We cannot expect to eliminate risk through higher defense budgets, to, in effect "do everything, buy everything."

THE WAR WE ARE IN
As we think about the security challenges on the horizon, it is important to establish upfront that America's ability to deal with threats for years to come will depend importantly on our performance in the conflicts of today....In the past I have expressed frustration over the defense bureaucracy's priorities and lack of urgency when it came to the current conflicts - that for too many in the Pentagon it has been business as usual, as opposed to a wartime footing and a wartime mentality. When referring to "Next-War-itis," I was not expressing opposition to thinking about and preparing for the future. It would be irresponsible not to do so - and the overwhelming majority of people in the Pentagon, the services, and the defense industry do just that.

COIN AND STABILITY OPS
...the recent past vividly demonstrated the consequences of failing adequately to address the dangers posed by insurgencies or failing states. Terrorist networks can find sanctuary within the borders of a weak nation and strength within the chaos of social breakdown. A nuclear-armed state could collapse into chaos, and criminality. Let's be honest with ourselves. The most likely catastrophic threats to our homeland - for example, an American city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack - are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states.

The kinds of capabilities needed to deal with these scenarios cannot be considered exotic distractions or temporary diversions. We do not have the luxury of opting out because they do not conform to preferred notions of the American way of war.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
The Quadrennial Defense Review highlighted the importance of strategic communications as a vital capability, and good work has been done since. However, we can't lapse into using communications as a crutch for shortcomings in policy or execution. As Admiral Mullen has noted, in the broader battle for hearts and minds abroad, we have to be as good at listening to others as we are at telling our story to them. And when it comes to perceptions at home, when all is said and done, the best way to convince the American people we're winning a war is through credible and demonstrable results, as we have been able to do in Iraq.

CHINA
Other nations may be unwilling to challenge the United States fighter to fighter, ship to ship, tank to tank. But they are developing other disruptive means to blunt the impact of American power, narrow our military options, and deny freedom of movement and action. In the case of China, investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, submarines, and ballistic missiles could threaten America's primary means to project power and help allies in the Pacific: our bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them. This will put a premium on America's ability to strike from over the horizon, employ missile defenses, and will require shifts from short-range to longer-range systems such as the Next Generation Bomber.

CONVENTIONAL DOMINANCE
...although U.S. predominance in conventional warfare is not unchallenged, it is sustainable for the medium term given current trends. It is true that the United States would be hard pressed to fight a major conventional ground war elsewhere on short notice, but as I've said before, where on Earth would we seriously do that? We have ample, untapped striking power in our air and sea forces should the need arise to deter or punish aggression - whether on the Korean Peninsula, in the Persian Gulf, or across the Taiwan Strait. So while we are knowingly assuming some additional risk in this area, that risk is, I believe, a prudent and manageable one.

PROCUREMENT
As we can expect a blended, high-low mix of adversaries and types of conflict, so too should America seek a better balance in the portfolio of capabilities we have - the types of units we field, the weapons we buy, the training we do.

When it comes to procurement, for the better part of five decades, the trend has gone towards lower numbers as technology gains made each system more capable. In recent years these platforms have grown ever more baroque, ever more costly, are taking longer to build, and are being fielded in ever dwindling quantities. Given that resources are not unlimited, the dynamic of exchanging numbers for capability is reaching a point of diminishing returns. A given ship or aircraft - no matter how capable, or well-equipped - can only be in one place at one time - and, to state the obvious, when one is sunk or shot down, there is one less of them.

In addition, the prevailing view for decades was that weapons and units designed for the so-called high-end could also be used for the low...The need for the state of the art systems - particularly longer range capabilities - will never go away, as we strive to offset the countermeasures being developed by other nations. But at a certain point, given the types of situations we are likely to face - and given, for example, the struggles to field up-armored HUMVEES, MRAPs, and ISR in Iraq - it begs the question whether specialized, often relatively low-tech equipment for stability and counterinsurgency missions is also needed.

The key is to make sure that the strategy and risk assessment drives the procurement, rather than the other way around.

INSTITUTIONS
In Iraq, we've seen how an army that was basically a smaller version of the Cold War force can over time become an effective instrument of counterinsurgency. But that came at a frightful human, financial, and political cost. For every heroic and resourceful innovation by troops and commanders on the battlefield, there was some institutional shortcoming at the Pentagon they had to overcome. Your task, particularly for those going back to your services, is to support the institutional changes necessary so the next set of colonels, captains, and sergeants will not have to be quite so heroic or quite so resourceful.

CONSTITUENCIES & INSTITUTIONS
...the reality is that conventional and strategic force modernization programs are strongly supported in the services, in the Congress, and by the defense industry. For reasons laid out today, I also support them. For example, this year's base budget request contains more than $180 billion in procurement, research and development, the overwhelming preponderance of which is for conventional systems. However, apart from the special forces community and some dissident colonels, for decades there has been no strong, deeply rooted constituency inside the Pentagon or elsewhere for institutionalizing our capabilities to wage asymmetric or irregular conflict - and to quickly meet the ever-changing needs of our forces engaged in these conflicts...

In the end, the military capabilities we need cannot be separated from the cultural traits and reward structure of the institutions we have: the signals sent by what gets funded, who gets promoted, what is taught in the academies and staff colleges, and how we train.

LIMITS & MODESTY
First, limits about what the United States - still the strongest and greatest nation on earth - can do. The power of our military's global reach has been an indispensable contributor to world peace - and must remain so. But not every outrage, every act of aggression, every crisis can or should elicit an American military response, and we should acknowledge such.

Be modest about what military force can accomplish, and what technology can accomplish. The advances in precision, sensor, information and satellite technology have led to extraordinary gains in what the U.S. military can do. The Taliban dispatched within three months, Saddam's regime toppled in three weeks. Where a button is pushed in Nevada and seconds later a pickup truck explodes in Mosul. Where a bomb destroys the targeted house on the right, leaving intact the one on the left.

But also never neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of warfare, which is inevitably tragic, inefficient, and uncertain. Be skeptical of systems analysis, computer models, game theories, or doctrines that suggest otherwise. Look askance at idealized, triumphalist, or ethnocentric notions of future conflict that aspire to upend the immutable principles of war: where the enemy is killed, but our troops and innocent civilians are spared. Where adversaries can be cowed, shocked, or awed into submission, instead of being tracked down, hilltop by hilltop, house by house, block by bloody block.

I don't agree with every single point here, but the general thrust is so dead-on that mentioning any quibbles strikes me as a trite enterprise.

I know Gates is hot to leave, but I hope he gets extended exchange time with Obama's people and hopefully with the man himself. He has done a magnificent job of trying to set the Defense Department on the best and most logical path going forward, and if the next SECDEF doesn't keep up that course, I will be sorely disappointed.

That's not to say I look back on Rumsfeld in an entirely bad light, because I do not. I think he screwed up Iraq far too much, but I think that was inevitable given the system. I prefer to point out how much he did to shake up the old system, which in turn allowed the COIN "insurgency" to brew inside the Marines and Army and finally succeed. Rummy was the new-rules maker who played a necessary role in his time--both good and bad. Fortunately for all of us, he is followed by the rule-spreader in Gates.

That was essentially my argument for Kerry in 2004--the rule-spreader to follow the rule-maker Bush. In the end, Bush out-Kerries Kerry by making his second term almost a complete repudiation of his first term, which may sound good but it really isn't enough--the man and the mea culpa simply can't be separated. The problem is, Bush-Cheney simply backtracked and didn't get any further buy-in on the new rules their first term proposed and made clear in its choices. So here's the irony: we finally "win" Iraq and do so in a way that changes us for the better. But we can't really claim that win because we've so alienated our old allies and our necessarily new ones that we're now forced to consider their collective rise as some sort of threat, when combined with our current financial distress (long in the making and cathartic in the execution).

But rest assured, all this talk of a post-American order is just fear-mongering of the short-term sort. We regularly go through corrections of course. That's not the issue, just the speed at which we traverse this situation.

The model fails to work in Chad, but still makes sense

ARTICLE: "World Bank Ends Effort To Help Chad Ease Poverty," by Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, 11 September 2008, p. A12.

Simple idea: Chad has struck gold, and per reality, this "poor mountaineer" doesn't possess the counterparty capacity to deal with this new-found wealth, the cynical (and often correct) assumption being that elites will siphon off the profits and not use them adequately to finance national economic development. So deal was, ExxonMobil and World Bank and Chad agree to put oil money into internationally credentialized/monitored/populated board that would determine how to us it for the benefit of the Chadian people. Naturally, Chad's government itself would participate, but the sense was, "You need adult supervision," so let's close this financial loop, making it transparent, and avoid the siphoning.

I praised the model in PNM.

It didn't take. Chad officials realized how much money was there and haven't lived up to their end of the bargain, so the WB pulls out its financing of a $4.2b pipeline.

This was basically an oil-for-infrastructure deal that attempted to hard-wire that deal with others that would build up Chad's larger infrastructure over time. Again, the goal was to create a closed-loop where money wouldn't disappear.

Paul Collier, in his Bottom Billion, likes this model enough to say it should and could be used for foreign aid (pretty sure it was him, but maybe it was Easterly in White Man's Burden [on healthcare aid?], or maybe it was both).

In the end, the goal is worthy and the model makes sense: monetize the oil in the ground for direct financing of infrastructure in order to avoid corruption entering into the equation somewhere along the line. WB and Exxon couldn't pull it off, but that doesn't mean others can't, assuming you're talking about a national leadership that really wants development versus one that simply wants to get rich.

In other words, don't throw the baby out with Chad's bathwater, because this model will work and already does work elsewhere.

The failures just get all the press--naturally.

We could've had Iran

ARTICLE: Iran: Secret memo reveals Khamenei plan for nuclear arms, says report, AKI, September 15, 2008

As I write in Great Powers, in the end, all these stories will end up being true. Iran is highly incentivized to get actual nuclear weapons, to rule out U.S. invasion and Israeli strikes and to put Iran on a level playing field with the region's 200-plus-warhead mini-superpower Israel.

America decides to lock in on Iran instead of Iraq, then Iraq would be in this position today most likely. But we chose Iraq first. Good choice, in my mind. But given the poor performance of our missing-in-capacity SysAdmin force at the time, this is the inevitable result.

Whine about it all you want, that's strategic reality--as we have decided to trigger it. Once we get over the impulse to go all wobbly, then the real thinking begins.

(Thanks: Craig Nordin)

Conservative trojan horse

COMMENT: The Petraeus Doctrine, by Andrew J. Bacevich, The Atlantic Monthly, October 2008

Good piece worth reading. Bacevich clearly falls into the "conservative"/big-war camp, with his unstated (at least here) fear being that, if we develop the small-wars/COIN/"crusader" vision of a SysAdmin force, then America will be tempted to use it.

Now, simply calling it the "crusader" force versus "conservative" is a big tell: my norms are good (conservative) and yours are bad (you frickin' nutcase crusader!).

In that sense, Bacevich views big war as deterrence: have the capacity and you'll never need to use it--truly conservative. But it's also quasi-isolationist in this timeframe of frontier-integration. It's isolationist because, as I've argued, the Gap gets shrunk--no matter what--over the next several decades. Mr. and Mrs. Chindian Middle-Class will demand it--plain and simple. If we're not involved, then other great powers--along with their militaries--will be forced to get involved. I'm not against that, per se (in fact, I welcome their help, properly channeled). I just want us in the picture, because if we're totally missing in action, prepping our big-hammer force, we'll start to interpret the interventions of others as constituting (or re-constituting, to use an old Pentagon term) great power-on-great power war threats, when they'll be nothing of the sort. That will lead to all sorts of pointless arms racing (a favorite of this conservative camp) and brinkmanship that will be ultimately diverting, accomplishing nothing vis-a-vis the Gap and only raising the potential for globalization's pointless partition. In effect, the conservative tack does more to raise the specter of great power war than to quell it because it does not address the root causes for such conflict in this age: the perception of a re-colonialization of the Third World--a chimera, given the economic connectedness across the Core, if ever there was one. Since nukes continue to kill great power war as a feasible concept, the only alternative is proxy wars inside the Gap, where--duh!--the "crusader" position would still make more sense than the "conservative" one.

So I find Bacevich's arguments to be a trojan horse: he simply doesn't want America involved in "empire" as he sees it. He wants a big-war force precisely because it's unusable. Fine for us and the military-industrial complex, bad for anyone living inside the Gap left to the tender mercies of those great powers that will come and will fight because they have no choice. Bacevich is a smart guy, but this is cloaked isolationism, not smart grand strategy. He needs to be more honest in his arguments.

(Thanks: Tim Lundquist)

Up, up and away

ARTICLE: Boeing sees industrial base worry if programs stall, By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters, Sep 15, 2008

ARTICLE: Quest is on for UAVs that stay up for years, By Jim Hodges, Air Force Times, Sep 16, 2008

If not for 9/11, it was my supposition, going back to the late 1990s, that UAVs would go commercial mainstream much faster than the Internet or GPS--just too cool and useful in so many areas. But 9/11 set everyone back on fears, so a delay. But still, you know it's coming, including high-altitude balloons, especially for virtual antenna placement.

(Thanks: Pete Johnson)