To Improve the U.S. Military, Shrink It

Interesting anecdotal stories, but they fail to provide any correlation to or substantive proof for the proposition that if this country “Want[s] a better U.S. military[ m]ake it smaller.” that a smaller military will be “the most relevant military at the point of necessity — a point that cannot be known” while a more “powerful military” will not be.

A story about the Royal Navy not having enough destroyers for Anti-Submarine Warfare early in WWII isn’t proof that if they had been a smaller Navy they would have had sufficient destroyers or other escort vessels at the beginning of the war nor that they would have possessed aircraft with the range needed to patrol and remain on station over the middle of the Atlantic for a lengthy period of time.

To quote from the article: “Yes, the Royal Navy won the Battle of the Atlantic — but that’s partly because the United States gave it destroyers and other escort ships the admirals had neglected, as well as some crucial long-range land-based aircraft. (One-third of U-boats sunk were hit by aircraft, with another third knocked out by combined air and surface-ship action.)”

What is it that the RN’s Admirals neglected between the World Wars? First, neither the USN nor the RN built battleships during that period under the Washington Naval Treaty. The RN and the USN built a comparatively small number after the Treaty ended. Second, the period between the wars was the depression era and military budgets were small. The RN appears from the lists to have launched around 126 destroyers between the Wars, mostly in the 1930’s and around 26 Light Cruisers that were around 4500 tons — actually glorified destroyers with 6 inch guns. The 50 U.S. destroyers were all “Four Stackers” built during / around WWI. Given their depression era budgets, the RN did what it could. If they were even smaller would they have been able to launch that many new destroyers. Where were they going to get the crews to man those ships and to maintain them in port? Warships require a lot of maintenance.

And, as far as not having Patrol type Aircraft with the range and time on station capability and the search technology needed for ASW, that airframe, engine, and search technology simply wasn’t there until later in the war. What would the writer have done, built half that number of ships and attempted to develop / build longer range aircraft with that portion of the budget? It’s a crap shoot as they say. Nothing is for free. It takes a long time to build a warship and an even longer period for the senior Petty Officers and Commissioned Officers to develop the needed skills / experience to operate and maintain the vessels. Warships aren’t somebody’s yacht or other pleasure boat type that you can jump on with a can of beer, turn on the engine, pull up to the gas station, and then cruise around.

The US military was down sized significantly after WWII ended – and were they prepared for the Korean War? Where was the preparedness and adaption? In fact, reducing the military budgets and reducing the size of the military had the opposite effect – across the services vis-à-vis being able to quickly respond to and adapt to fighting in Korea.

On the other hand, having a large Navy and Marine Corps in 1963 provided the force necessary to successfully confront the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis, having a large and well equipped Army enabled its victory in the 1990 Gulf War, having a large Air Force in 1990 ensured the Iraqi Army was moving anywhere or receiving logistical support.

The British had a 75,000 man professional army while the French had around 1.0 million and the Germans approximately 1.5 million men armies in 1914 at the outbreak of WWI – any of them perform particularly well at the opening of that conflict? And, even if the British Army performed brilliantly at the strategic and tactical level – does anyone believe that small force could have stopped the much larger German Army.

To quote again from the article: “Eugenia Kiesling, a professor of history at West Point, observed that in the period between the world wars, “Smaller forces brought fewer logistical constraints and more rapid adaptation to changes in technology.” That observation is an argument not for a big jack-of-all-trades military but for one that is smaller and optimized through its spending to be nimble.”

So, supposedly, if a nation has a smaller military, and one presumes (logically) a smaller budget and, therefore, that smaller military has lesser logistical needs, somehow that combination translates into the ability for “a more rapid adaption to change — precisely how?

Let look at some facts. Between the wars the US Navy launched 8 or 9 Aircraft Carriers — using their budgeted funds for that purpose, but given their budget constraints their aircraft were comparatively obsolete. The Army also was quite small during the interwar period. Through the end of 1936, the caissons for their Field Artillery (French 75’s) were horse drawn. Smaller budgets, optimized spending, and nimble horses.

The above noted Professor wrote a book titled “Arming Against Hitler,” which may be interesting to read and well written. However, a summary of its contents notes:

“In May–June 1940 the Germans demolished the French Army, inflicting more than 300,000 French casualties, including more than 120,000 dead. While many historians have focused on France’s failure to avoid this catastrophe, Kiesling is the first to show why the French had good reason to trust that their prewar defense policies, military doctrine, and combat forces would preserve the nation.” If she is implying the French Army Officers of that time were really stupid and inept – then okay, otherwise, Is this what they are teaching the future officers of today at West Point???

A large military may not perform well, but that will either be the fault of its officers or due to the Executive sending it on Mission Impossible, i.e. expecting success when ordering it to conduct operations under impossible limitations. On the other hand, a force that is too small for the task at hand will never succeed – especially against a much larger opponent.

I don’t get it. I mean, I get the argument that we need to cut the budget as the draw down in contingency ops would theoretically be accompanied by at least a corresponding budget drop (DC budget drama notwithstanding). I also get that we need to re-think how we think and all that. What I don’t get is the relationship between the two.

A bigger military may need to expend resources in taking care of itself. And if the question was one of resourcing, then sure, taking a bit out of the force structure to finance some modernization initiative may make for an effective argument. But that would be a specific case scenario. It doesn’t follow that a reduction in force structure would lead to modernization of the force to be adaptable, etc etc etc.

So again, I don’t get it. Nothing in this article points to the size v. modernization (ie changing with the time) trade off.

I do agree that preparing for the next war is foolishness. What the national security strategy should direct is what capabilities the US military should have. For example, fight two major land wars was a good piece of strategy. It required a large force (which incidentally used to cost less in real terms), but it was a strategy nonetheless that allowed the force to orient itself. It was also an incomplete strategy, as the services sequestered themselves in the sexiest parts of their domains, creating massive gaps that started to hurt on or about 2004.

But what are we supposed to be prepared for now? Anyone care to guess? I can point to a dozen “priorities” but not a single strategy. RAF comes close, but even it is a tactical solution to an un-articulated strategy. What is emerging as a strategy (and I think unintentionally, or rather, organically) is a constabulary-type global engagement model that will see us build really complex entanglements across the globe. But because this is not intentional at its intellectual core (we fool ourselves a bit by thinking that the modern world compels us to be engaged, rather than the choice among many that it actually is), we are approaching global engagement piecemeal; a sprinkle of SOF here, a dash of Carrier Group here, and a pinch of BCT there.

Being nimble and being small aren’t strategies either.