http://www.stratfor.com/US_Canada/commentary/0104301930.htmU.S. Military: No Room for the Unexpected
01 May 2001
By George Friedman
For the past two months, top aides to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H.
Rumsfeld have been conducting a systematic review of American military
strategy
and force structure. Last week, as the first official leaks began to emerge,
there
were few surprises. Rumsfeld's review reportedly concluded the United
States
needs to move away from its initial post-Cold War doctrine that U.S. forces
be
sized and prepared to fight two major regional conflicts simultaneously,
such as
fighting a renewed conflict with Iraq and repulsing a North Korean attack
against
South Korea.
As compelling and valuable as these reforms may be, however, Rumsfeld and
his
policy aides may be walking into a self-created trap. The Pentagon
leadership is
moving to examine -- and likely to instigate major structural change to --
the U.S. military, absent a review of overall U.S. national security
strategy that should be the precursor to any changes in the force.
This is not to say the Defense Department and armed services aren't overdue
for a
rooftop-to-basement re-examination of roles, missions, organization and
weapons.
They most certainly are.
For instance, the two-conflict military doctrine -- now a decade old --
created a
requirement for the current U.S. military structure that includes both
mobile and
heavy combat units. Most critics point out that this doctrine required the
fewest
painful changes, allowing each service to trim its size without major cuts
or, worse,asymmetrical sacrifices.
But the force structure generated from the two-war doctrine has had
fundamental
problems, particularly in terms of the span of distance from bases in the
United
States to regions such as Southwest Asia or the Far East. Either they need
to
deploy in the area of anticipated conflict or the U.S. regional commander
suddenly
involved in a conflict must wait for their arrival, which can take months.
Rumsfeld's review, therefore, seems to point to a reasonable conclusion that
the
fundamental structure of U.S. military organization must be reconsidered in
light of the new strategic realities as well as combat implications of new
information
technology.
But it is critical that the new Pentagon leaders not confuse the quantity of
deployments with the strategic significance of those deployments.
Conflicts involving great powers obviously are much more rare than the
perennial
outbreaks of low-intensity conflict. (One research organization counted 39
active
low-intensity conflicts worldwide as of January 2001.) It is easy to foresee
an
inclination to build a force structure designed to deal with the most common
threat. But these low-intensity conflicts, regardless of how pervasive they
are, do not represent as great a threat to the U.S. national interest as a
great power
conflict.
This mission must be secondary to protecting the United States against
threats
posed by great powers. Such a threat might emerge only once or twice in a
century, but that threat, if mismanaged, could prove catastrophic.
A small cadre of the Defense Department civilian leadership is carrying out
the
study. Complaints by uniformed military leaders that the armed services have
been
frozen out of the study have emerged already. As such, the Rumsfeld review
will
focus on only part of the issue: the force structure of the U.S. military.
It cannot, by definition, focus on U.S. grand strategy in the broadest sense
of defining a sensible alliance strategy or defining those sub-critical
conflicts in which Washington should intervene and those crises in which it
should not. Those issues are, appropriately, beyond the purview of the
Defense Department and belong to the White House and National Security
Council. Thus, in one sense, the Rumsfeld
review is being conducted in a vacuum. Creating a force structure requires a
set of strategic goals. That must come from the president and must derive,
ultimately,
from the nation's sense of itself and its needs.
From all reports, Rumsfeld is doing good work within the context of his
statutory
responsibilities. He is demanding a reconsideration of the foundations of
U.S.
defense policy and structure.
The whole point of a defense policy, however, is to prepare for the
unexpected. The most unexpected event would be a major high-intensity
conflict with a great power.
Truly, this may only take place once in the century ahead. But Rumsfeld
should
take care that he does not prepare for the frequent and minor and leave the
U.S.
unprepared for the rare, but life-threatening, catastrophe.
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