Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The "shadow cabinet" twists its hanky
In a non-story that will undoubtedly feature prominently in the mainstream media in the next eighteen hours, a shadow cabinet of out-of-power "moderate-to-liberal" foreign policy defense experts has declared the United States Army "unready" for combat, in a state of "crisis." The group, which consists of Clinton administration alumni such as William Perry, Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger and Wesley Clark (and which was convened by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid), says "not since the Vietnam era and its aftermath has the Army's readiness been so degraded."
Now, these guys may or may not be right that the Army needs more funding and manpower, and they may also be right that the civilian leaders in the Pentagon have made a lot of bad calls. I do have two observations, however, beyond the obvious one that this looks like a public relations exercise designed to make Democrats look strong on national defense.
First, the logic of the report, at least as described in the wire service story, is bizarrely inconsistent with most rhetoric coming out of Democratic politicians. It essentially says that the "readiness" of the Army is "degraded" if a large proportion of it is deployed in theater. If the point is that we do not have troops to spare for a new, unanticipated war, then I agree that we should be worried. By all means, let's make the Army bigger. But what new war are these Democrats proposing that we fight? Which enemy threatens us? We unreconstructed hawks want to know who they think we should fight next.
Second, I find it hard to believe that the current professional Army compares unfavorably, soldier-for-soldier, to the conscript Army of the Vietnam era or even the early years of the all-volunteer force, when we were begging high school dropouts to join up. We have taken outstanding young men and women and given them extended combat experience, sometimes in multiple tours of duty, with very low casualties as a proportion of the total. Whatever the state of the equipment or the extensive deployment of the current force, we have hundreds of thousands of soldiers with combat experience. Does that not make them infinite more useful than green troops who have never been shot at? I find it very hard to believe that most generals would not much rather face an enemy with today's Army than the Army we had even five years ago, much less 25 years ago. That is, admittedly, different than the point the Democrats make, which is that we are less able to face an additional enemy than we were five years ago. But aren't all armies less ready to take on an additional enemy if they are already at war?
I have no doubt that we need a bigger Army -- I want a bigger Army -- and that Donald Rumsfeld has broken some eggs whether or not he has also made made some things better. However, the shadow cabinet's report, at least as described by the wire service, does not appear to say anything other than that we have few idle soldiers because so many of them are in theater. What's the point?
I'll try to round up the actual report and comment on it directly later.
12 Comments:
By 
Charlottesvillain, at
Tue Aug 01, 03:40:00 PM:
In fairness to the shadow cabinet, it is possible they are privy to information we do not know. Before we criticize too harshly, we should at least check for classified documents in Sandy Berger's pants.
What I really want to know is how did Richard Clarke miss out on this party. This sounds right up his ally.
The press should call each of these clowns and get them on the record regarding whether or not they think we should have a bigger army. Of course they don't. This is just another way to criticize the war in Iraq, which we all know they believe is a mistake. Well, maybe one of them will try the old "let's reinstate the draft so that rich folk's kids will have to serve" canard, but again, that has nothing to do with preparedness. It has everything to do with making the case for a withdrawl.
So leading Democrats don't think we are in a global struggle against islamist fascism. Fine. Just say so and lets have an election without all the BS.
By Cardinalpark, at
Tue Aug 01, 04:18:00 PM:
Hey - I am all for the Democrats tacking right on the exercise of American power. The evidence suggests they tend to oppose it - given the shrinkage in our armed forces and defense spending during the period 1992 - 2000.
My sense is they would propose to take the fight to Iran, perhaps moreso than the current administration. Or North Korea. These are the places where the Dem have argued for unilaterialism and not multilateralism.
Look, at the end of the day, politics is a contact sport. These guys wnat to win in November, and they are giving it their best shot. They will disagree on everything at the tactical level. Sometimes, they will be right.
In the end, the question will be are these people credible? I think not. Not since Harry Truman has the Democratic party been in political leadership during a credible and successful projection of American power. Jimmy Carter and Zbig Brez and Cyrus Vance (remember him?) were authors of a failed presidency in the Middle East, particularly viz. Iran. Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright were not catastrophic, but the spectacle of Berger shoving papers into his pants should cast some doubt onto his legitimacy. And let's face it, they didn't jump on chances to get Bin Laden when they had their shots too. They accepted Arafat, a disgusting creature, something like 7 times at the White House and forced Rabin to shake hands with the scum, leading to Rabin's tragic assassination by a crazed Israeli religious fanatic.
The truth is, we have not been precisely credible in the exercise of extreme power for good in the region until recently, and even then in fits and starts. It did take us 4 years before we firebombed Dresden and used atomic weapons in Japan. With limited exceptions, most would agree that these uses of power were awful, but effective.
We must be prepared to be equally awful in a world of rogues like Iran and Syria and North Korea. Truly awful. We cannot be deterred by newspaper editorialists (nor can we be motivated by them, by the way). The exercise of power -- enforcing your will upon your clear opponents -- is about domination in the end. I think Israel has just come to realize this in the current Lebanese War. The US has occasionally gone about it in Iraq. It needs, perhaps, to be done again.
Let me be exceedingly clear -- we need to be prepared to impose our will on Syria and Iran in order that they might seriously consider standing down. If they do not take us seriously, then they will continue to threaten us, our friends and our interests.
By allen, at
Tue Aug 01, 06:32:00 PM:
Charlottesvillain,
Hold on now, Sandy Berger is a serious person...if you can get the picture of a fat, middle aged man stuffing paperwork down his oversized pants out of your mind. Don't think about a pink elephant!
And, really, what does Clark's sexual orientation have to do with anything? Up his ally, indeed.
By K. Pablo, at
Tue Aug 01, 08:18:00 PM:
I was a big fan of Rumsfeld's New Model Army and I believe the optimal conditions for that type of organization were found in Afghanistan ca. 2001. Now, I'm no longer as sure it was a great idea to emphasize this kind of warmaking capability.
General Yahya (love that name) of the Iranian Republican Guard has commented before that our troops in Iraq are vulnerable to attack from Iran. If this happens, we are likely to see a replay of what Khomeini attempted against Saddam Hussein; namely, a link-up with Shiites within Iraq (now far more dangerous; there were no militias during the Iran-Iraq War), and likely larger unit warfare. Kurds were allied with Iran against Saddam; it is unlikely they will side with Iran this time given their regard for U.S. forces at this time.
So what we might have to consider is the rather strong possibility that soon the U.S. will be compelled, for the first time in recent memory, to engage in defensive warfare. Rumsfeld has concentrated on optimizing our armed forces for quick and light actions against small insurgent enemies. What is the status and capability of our defensive doctrine? We may not have to wait long for the answer. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the recent movement of more U.S. personnel into Iraq can be interpreted as anticipatory of aggression from Iran. We'll see.
By K. Pablo, at
Tue Aug 01, 09:24:00 PM:
oops, it's Revolutionary Guard, not Republican Guard.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Aug 01, 10:01:00 PM:
"a shadow cabinet of out-of-power "moderate-to-liberal" foreign policy defense experts has declared the United States Army "unready" for combat"
"not since the Vietnam era and its aftermath has the Army's readiness been so degraded."
Politically opportune bullshit. This is a misguided attempt by the Democrats to strike at the Republicans on their perennially strong issue, defense. At best, they're interpreting the fact that we have a lot of used and damaged equipment in stock (ref: National Guard made an announcement to that effect today I think) as some sort of crippling weakness. Not in prime condition does not = unready for combat. I would happily go into combat now in a bullet ridden vehicle; it proves that it will in fact stop bullets.
By the by, units in the 80s and 90s who were at statistical full strength would be eaten alive by the current Army, even discounting things like technological advances. Why? Experience and warrior spirit.
Our troops now know what it's like to fight, kill, and survive, and most of them are good at it. This ain't our daddy's spit and polish look-good-for-the-general garrison Army. The P3's (paper-pushing pussies) started to jump ship right around Autumn '03. The Army is made up of fighters now. The Marines don't even give us crap anymore.
By Final Historian, at
Wed Aug 02, 01:17:00 AM:
"The Marines don't even give us crap anymore."
Have the Marines gone soft or something?
By 
, at
Wed Aug 02, 11:26:00 AM:
Cardinalpark: Your invocation of Dresden is telling.
Dresden was an attempt to disrupt German industry, communications, railway transportation. It mostly failed in these objectives; most notably what it succeeded in doing was killing a massive number of civilians, and providing a fruitful source of propaganda for the Nazi regime. There is no direct evidence that the destruction of Dresden helped end the war significantly faster, while there is evidence that it strengthened the Nazi will to fight.
Calling Dresden an effective use of American power is especially ironic considering that it was the RAF that did the bombing, and "bomber" harris who planned and ordered it. Also, it is very revealing of your attitudes I think. Even Churchill, who is no doubt a hero of yours, thought the better of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dresden%2CChurchillletter.jpg
(though under pressure from his officers he later withdrew the memo)
It is further revealing that what you want America to engage in is what Churchill termed "acts of terror and wanton destruction." Pursuing this strategy didn't work against the Nazis, it only strengthened their will to fight. What makes you think it will work against Islamic fanatics? It will also cost us more support among our allies.
Unmitigated cruelty does not win wars. I support the right of Israel to militarily defend herself, and I recognize that it may eventually be required to confront Iran/Syria militarily in order to secure vital national security interests. But unlike you and your right-wing cohorts, I do not advocate cruelty for its own sake.
By K. Pablo, at
Wed Aug 02, 12:41:00 PM:
Phrizz, it is telling that you did not address Cardinalpark's other example of what you would probably call "acts of terror and wanton destruction": the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is it a coincidence that the Japanese sued for unconditional surrender within days of these attacks?
"Unmitigated cruelty does not win wars" you assert after your analysis of WWII, as if only the U.S. and U.K. were involved. Most people familiar with the defeat of Nazi Germany would concede that the U.S.S.R. probably did the majority of the fighting. My ancestors, post-WWII immigrants from Europe, are unanimous in their opinion that the Soviets were feared more than either the U.S. or the U.K., precisely because of their use of "unmitigated cruelty". Most accounts I have read about life in the Wehrmacht quite clearly show a marked preference on the part of the average German soldat to face the sportsmanlike Anglosphere rather than the barbarian red horde.
While it is laudable that you seek to avoid cruelty for its own sake, I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is the utility of tactics and strategies in wars of survival, such as the current one in which we are engaged. If you agree that the current Rumsfeld Doctrine tactics aren't working, you must discard them and try something else. And it ain't a little tenderness.
By , at
Wed Aug 02, 01:22:00 PM:
K. Pablo: I didn't address Hiroshima/Nagasaki because I honestly just don't know whether those bombings were justified. Some take the "moral clarity" position and say that using a nuclear weapon is a crime against humanity of such proportions that it is never justified, full stop. Others argue that the bomb saved more lives than it killed because it encouraged the Japanese to surrender. I find both of these arguments somewhat convincing, I admit.
I don't think the Rumsfeld doctrine works but I don't see how the opposite of that is increased barbarism in the treatment of enemies. To me, it means more troops on the ground more throughly protecting the Iraqi infrastructure and hunting criminals that the government is powerless to defeat. That is why I support Israel's ground operations in Lebanon. I worry, though, that in Israel's actions, there is no carrot to go along with the massive stick that they are wielding.
By Cardinalpark, at
Wed Aug 02, 06:35:00 PM:
Phrizz - Play to win. Win. Like Al Davis says, Just win baby. Unconditional surrender means you fight til the other guy cries UNCLE. Germany firebombed London (remember the Blitz?). Sherman burned down Atlanta. The Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. And so forth and so on.
War between irreconcileable and implacable enemies is invariably, throughout history, without exception, CRUEL. I am not an ADVOCATE of it. I am an observer of it. A "respecter" of history. Those who ignore it are condemned to repeat it. If you appease an implacable enemy out of some highminded and utopian desire to avoid cruelty, history has proven again and again the results are far more cruel. Sharon's reference to Czechoslavakia -- of which I have written at length - is apt. Had war commenced upon Hitler's first aggression, millions of lives would have been spared. Millions. Literally. Think about THAT. Cruelty unleashed upon Germany then would have been damn smart.
So, cruelty sucks. Given. But, to be honest, I'd rather have less of it than more (which requires having some vision); and I'd rather dish it out more and receive less, assuming I will be on the receiving end.
By , at
Thu Aug 03, 11:02:00 AM:
CP: you're setting up a straw man and deliberately missing the point. Of course everyone fights to win - I never argued against that we should go as far as we need to completely destroy the enemy's military capabilities. The point I am trying to make is that acts such as the firebombing of London only strengthened the British will to fight Nazi Germany. The pointless barbarism that you advocate will only strengthen our enemies' propaganda while doing nothing to hinder their fighting abilities.
