The Pentagon Needs a New Way of War by Robert Haddick, War on the Rocks
Can the Pentagon do the same with less? That seems to be what the White House expects. The U.S. Department of Defense recently released the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Pentagon’s latest attempt to explain its global military strategy for the medium term. But far more revealing than the QDR itself was the “Chairman’s Assessment” of the QDR, written by General Martin Dempsey and appended to the end of the report. Dempsey’s tepid and qualified endorsement of the QDR (also discussed by WOTR’s Bryan McGrath) and his candid accounting of geostrategic risks that will compound over the next decade, provide a bracing contrast to the main text. In his second paragraph, he warns, “With our ‘ends’ fixed and our ‘means’ declining, it is therefore imperative that we innovate within the ‘ways’ we defend the Nation.” …
Comments
(Edited and enhanced.)
"Can the Pentagon do the same with less?"
We should realize that the Pentagon is not, now, being asked to do the same with less. It (the Pentagon) is, in fact, being asked to do much less with less. Consider the following:
A. Yesterday:
1. In the recent past, the Pentagon was asked to embrace a larger role in helping the United States transform outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines.
2. Within this concept, the Pentagon was asked not only to (a) take out uncooperative regimes but also to (b) lead the effort to transform these "different" states and societies as we desired.
3. The central, underlying and foundational idea behind this new concept being that, post the Cold War, populations liberated from their oppressive regimes would rapidly and voluntarily adopt our way of life and our way of government.
4. Re: this latter contention and, therefore, the plan overall, we learned that we were gravely mistaken.
B. Today:
1. Today, the Pentagon is no longer being asked to embrace a larger role in helping the United States transform outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines.
2. Likewise today the Pentagon is neither being asked to (a) take out uncooperative regimes nor (b) lead the effort to transform "different" states and societies. Herein, the regimes are now considered to be (1) too valuable to overthrow and (2) the only game in town. (THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THIS LINE-OF-THOUGHT ARE, INDEED, MIND-BOGGLING!)
3. This "about-face" coming as a result of our understanding that populations, liberated from their oppressive regimes (minus a 50-year full scale commitment on our part), are as likely -- or more likely -- to (1) descend into chaos or (2) adopt ways of life and ways of governance that are even more detrimental to US interests. These realizations forming the basis for the idea that the regimes are the only game in town.
4. This understanding causing us to abandon the population -- in favor of the regimes -- as our old/new way forward. Herein, we came to realize that -- via the regimes -- we no longer needed as large a military force to achieve our desired ends. These such desired ends to now be achieved -- more cheaply and more reliably -- by having (1) our whole-of-government assets (2) work by, with and through the regimes. State and societal transformation, achieved in this manner, just taking longer than we had hoped. (We had thought that, by working with the populations, we could end-run the regimes and speed up this process; but this did not work out.)
Thus, the Pentagon is not, I would contend, being asked to do the same with less.
Rather, it (the Pentagon) is being asked, I would suggest, to do much less with less.
To conclude:
The title of this article is "The Pentagon Needs a New Way of War."
I suggest that the Pentagon HAS a new way of war; one that not only:
a. Does not include "stability operations" but also
b. Does not include that which would cause stability operations to take place, to wit and generally speaking: (1) the invasion of a country and (2) the formal taking down of its rulers and these rulers' military forces.
These such things, it would seem, we are now much more reluctant to plan, prepare for and/or to do. (For the reasons outlined at "B3" above.)
The Pentagon is being asked to do what every successful corporate enterprise is routinely asked to do and that is – do more, do it better and with less. New technology plays a key role in that process but even more important is a much-needed emphasis by the armed forces on rigorously selecting higher quality people than has been their custom. Better quality people train easier and conform to discipline better. This goes for both O's and E's alike.