Military Strategy – Page 14

Transformative Ideas – Part III, Make America A Humanitarian Force in the Middle East

What is our grand strategy in the Middle East? Do we have a strategy at all?

We are now escalating our military role in Yemen. The USS Roosevelt battle group is deploying from the Persian Gulf to the northern Arabian Sea to….do what?

Both the US and Iranian navies have now sent ships to the waters around Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been bombing rebel targets since March. The press says the Iranians are bringing weapons to the Houthi rebels in Yemen; the Iranians say they are not. This sets up a scenario that can lead to miscalculation, like we saw in 1988, when US officials said they were trying to keep shipping lanes open, and a fight between Iran and the US wiped out half of the Iranian Navy.

Traditionally, we say that our Navy ensures freedom of the sea. So, are we again ensuring the freedom of the sea in the Bab al-Mandab Strait? Who threatens freedom of passage there?

Since 1980, US forces have invaded, occupied or bombed 14 countries in the Islamic world, and American soldiers have killed, or been killed, in them. Here’s the list:

Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-present), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-present), Sudan (1998), Yemen (2000, 2002-present), Pakistan (2004-present) and Syria (2014-present).

What is the outcome of our intervention in the Middle East? We should look at what we have accomplished in the Middle East, and what our sustained war footing has cost us.

Are Middle East nations more favorable to us? Are we more secure at home?

What of the millions of internally displaced persons and refugees in the Middle East? Estimates are that 3.1 million refugees are living outside their countries, while 13.1 million are displaced within Iraq and Syria alone.

A Brookings report, Arab Youth: Missing educational foundations for a productive life concluded that the percentages of primary school students who did not meet basic learning levels (average of numeracy and literacy) in 2011 was:

Around 90% in Yemen, 77% in Morocco, 69% in Kuwait and 63% in Tunisia. The best performers, with 30-40% of non-learning students, were Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, though in wealthy Qatar…over 53% of children at the secondary level were not learning.

It can’t have gotten better since 2011. These are flashing red lights. These tens of millions of uneducated young Arabs will prove to be homemade weapons of mass destruction, some directed at us. These young men and women cannot look forward to employment or meaningful roles in their societies. They are the feedstock for armed groups, criminal cults, and extremist militias, as we see in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, and Libya.

Here is the transformational idea: It is time we move away from US military intervention in the Middle East. Since it has failed us as a primary means of US policy, let’s change direction.

Let America keep a forward military position in the region, but we should stop bombing, shooting and droning. The National Priorities Project estimates that we have spent $1.6 Trillion on ME wars since 2001.

Instead, let’s use a big slice of that money to become the primary supplier of humanitarian and educational aid to the refugees and displaced people in the Middle East. We should position ourselves as a positive force for change among many millions of Muslims, and not be just another country in a long line of crusading infidels.

We can’t use military might to bring stability wherever it’s needed. We can’t remake parts of the world in our image, and the world doesn’t want us to even try to do so.

America has many fine attributes, but there is a naïve and possibly ignorant side of the American psyche that gets us into trouble. It is the myth of American exceptionalism. It bleeds into our politics, our popular culture, and much of our military. It makes us very hard to like in the ME.

Mr. Obama decided that we should try something different in Cuba, when 50 years of doing the same thing didn’t produce results.

Well, we have been doing the same thing in the Middle East for at least 60 years. In 1953, Iran’s military, financed by the CIA, overthrew Prime Minister Mossadeq. The Shah took power and, as thanks for the American help, signed over 40% percent of Iran’s oil fields to US companies. You know the rest of the Iran/US story.

Let’s try something different in the Middle East.

(This is the third in an occasional series about transformative ideas. You can read the first about capitalism here and the second about restoring the military draft, here)

Sen. Cotton Must Bone Up on Strategy

“Empires are lost when inadequate men become leaders and wage war for base reasons or no reason at all.” – Sun Tzu

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) Cotton accused President Obama of a “false choice” between his framework deal on Iran’s nuclear program and war. He then downplayed what would happen if we just bombed Iran: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

It would be something more along the lines of what President Clinton did in December 1998 during Operation Desert Fox. Several days of air and naval bombing against Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction facilities for exactly the same kind of behavior. For interfering with weapons inspectors and for disobeying Security Council resolutions. All we’re asking is that the president simply be as tough in the protection of America’s national security interest as Bill Clinton was.

Who cares what the generals, intelligence analysts and foreign policy experts think after war gaming various scenarios for a war with Iran? Hint: it’s not a pretty outcome.

But, for Sen. Cotton, the only opinion that really matters is Sen. Cotton’s, America’s new military strategist. Sen. Cotton was elected in part because of his prior military service, having served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He left the military in 2013. Sadly, not everyone who was in combat while serving is a strategic thinker. Given his military experience, he should know that geopolitics is not a Hollywood movie.

This guy has a romantic vision of how a “quick war” would proceed. He says it would be a few days of air and naval bombing against Iran’s nuclear facilities. He apparently thinks that Iran would not move against American shipping in the Gulf, against Israel, or even attempt to take out our military in the ME. And our allies? Who would support us, except Israel and Saudi Arabia? And once the party is over, and Iran dusts off and picks up the pieces, they would surely build nuclear weapons. Wouldn’t we then have to bomb them again?

Wouldn’t that make the US a pariah state?

This reminds us that Republicans, in their eagerness for war, often diminish the costs to America of pursuing the military option. Yep, only a four day war, and then we declare victory! Or, longer, and messier, and then what? Consider this:

• “We will be greeted as liberators”
• “Oil revenues will pay for it”
• “There is no insurgency”
• “The insurgency is in its last throes”

It was 12 years ago that pundits and politicians were touting how fast and cheaply we could turn Iraq into a model democracy. Well, the results are in, but they apparently haven’t registered for Sen. Cotton, who needs to come up with some new and better neo-con talking points.

The neo-cons, the hawks and their spokespersons, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have rarely met an international issue that doesn’t require more American military muscle, and this includes Iran. Perhaps Sen. Cotton is auditioning to replace the decaying Sen. McCain or Sen. Graham in the permanent warmongering Senator chair on the Sunday talkies? He is much younger (38) and could conceivably remain on the national political stage for the next 40 years. Would Sunday Show status give him the credibility to run for POTUS like McCain did, and Graham is attempting to do now?

A strategy tip for Sen. Cotton: “Negotiating from a position of strength” doesn’t mean, “We should negotiate only after we have our boots on their necks”, so if they refuse to accept our terms, we crush them, claiming that they wouldn’t negotiate. He thinks that anything that prevents us from exercising the “boot on the neck” option means we’re in a position of weakness. That’s awful on a lot of levels.

How can a smart guy, a Harvard grad, a lawyer, someone with significant military service, get it so wrong when it comes to geopolitics and military strategy? He should know the difference between Iraq and Iran. In Iraq, we had already decimated their military, destroyed their air defense system and made their airspace into a no-fly zone before our 2003 attack. Iran, which despite crippling economic sanctions, still has its air defense systems, its anti-ship missiles, (which, some war games showed can cripple our fleet in the Persian Gulf) and its military is intact.

Iraq was fractured by sectarian division. It has about 31 million people and is 60% the size of Texas.

Iran is not Arab, it is Muslim, and unified. It has 80 million people and is twice the size of Texas.

Sen. Cotton needs to bone up on military strategy and the Middle East.

It’s Over Between Us, Israel

“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” – (The best is the enemy of the good) – Voltaire

Now that a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice is allowing a woman to serve her husband with divorce papers via Facebook, The Wrongologist wants to break up with Israel via his blog.

Wednesday’s NYT had an editorial about Israel’s newest demands regarding the proposed Iran negotiations by the P5+1 nations: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has gone into overdrive against a nuclear agreement with Iran. On Monday, his government made new demands that it claimed would ensure a better deal than the preliminary one…announced last week. [Israel’s] new demands…would not mean a better deal, but no deal at all.

Israel must accept that their objectives are qualitatively different than those of the UK, France, Germany, China, Russia and the US (P5+1) regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Based on Mr. Netanyahu’s rants, and the incessant punditry in the media and commentary (mostly by) Republican members of Congress, it seems that the US has just one ally, Israel, and that our goals in the ME are perfectly aligned. They are not.

The Iranian framework agreement has the potential to become a historic game-changer. As Robert Parry said: (Emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The April 2 framework agreement with Iran represents more than just a diplomatic deal to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. It marks a crossroad that offers a possible path for the American Republic to regain its footing and turn away from endless war.

Move away from endless war. Who would be against that? We are still a Satan to Iran, but maybe no longer the Great Satan, now, just a pretty bad Satan. When we think about Iran, we should think about how we have played both sides against the middle with Iran for decades:

• Iran holds our people hostage in 1979
• We enter Iran/Iraq war on Saddam’s side in 1982
• We sell Iran HAWK missiles in 1986 as part of the Iran-Contra debacle
• In 1988, we accidentally shoot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing about 300. The US paid compensation, but never apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing
• Iran helps us hunt down Al-Qaeda personnel fleeing Afghanistan in 2002, after we sent the CIA in to flush them out
• We first sanctioned Iran in 1979, with the UN joining in, in 2006

Can this kind of inconsistent relationship lead to warm feelings? Maybe not, but should we sacrifice a possible game-changing initiative for Israel’s sake? More Americans are saying “no”. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that:

• 31% of US Republicans favor the nuclear deal with Iran
• 30% of Republicans oppose the pact, while 40% are not sure
• 50% of Democrats supported it, while 39% were not sure
• Among independents – 33% voiced support, 21% were opposed, and 45% are unsure

And Israel itself is losing American political support. From David Atkins:

The number of Americans who view Israel as an ally of the US has sharply decreased, according to a new poll…Only 54% of Americans polled said that Israel is their country’s ally, a decline from 68% in 2014 and 74% in 2012. Rasmussen Reports, who conducted the poll, said Israel had “tumbled down the list.” By contrast, 86% and 84% see Canada and Britain respectfully as the US’s allies.

When broken down along party political lines, 76% of Republicans view Israel an ally of the US compared to only 45% of Democrats and 47% of Independents.

Given how politically divided the US has become, it’s not surprising that an Israel that aligns itself in a strongly partisan way with one US political party, while it finds itself losing support from citizens of the country it relies on most for aid and defense.

So, we have different objectives. Moreover, our relationship has largely one-sided. We defend and support Israel, but what do they provide in return? Well, they buy our weapons with our aid money. In fact, the special relationship has hurt us geopolitically. If Bibi’s administration thinks it’s a good idea to play partisan politics in the US, then the appropriate response of the US administration should be: “Good luck with your ME follies”.

And why the Israeli hysteria? Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons (assessments are 80-400). If Iran builds nuclear weapons, and then attempts to obliterate Israel, Israeli nuclear submarines will obliterate much of Iran. If the Iran nuclear deal fails, nuclear Israel and nuclear Iran will have to live in a Balance of Nuclear Terror, as does America, and many other countries. It’s not pleasant, but the rest of the nuclear club has been able to live with the existential menace.

If the US leaves the marriage with Israel and goes back to being simply their ally, Israel’s security will not be affected, since the US continues to make clear that we will defend them. But, we would finally be free to give clear voice to our own policies. For too long it has been the Israeli tail wagging the US dog when it comes to Middle East policy.

An Iran deal potentially opens the door to an eventual US withdrawal from its hugely expensive, and failed history in the Middle East. A completed deal would pave the way to shrink our war machine, one that has spilled much American blood and treasure in a region of the world where we have little business meddling.

So, Israel, the Wrongologist is changing his status with you to “its complicated”.

Monday Wake Up Call – April 6, 2015

Today’s Wake up is for the Republican Chicken Hawks who think that Iran is the Greatest Threat To America™. They are denouncing the possible nuclear Iranian deal because Bibi says, or because they think it takes the military option off the table, or they think that Iran got too good a deal, or all of the above.

Here, from the Atlantic, are some specific details from Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The table below summarizes the new framework accord and analyzes differences between where Iran stood before negotiations, and where it will be, if, or when, the accord becomes reality:

By eliminating 12,000 centrifuges and five bombs’ worth of low-enriched uranium, the accord extends the breakout timeline for Iran to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb to one year. By requiring the reconfiguration of Iran’s planned plutonium-producing reactor at Arak, the accord essentially closes the door to a plutonium-based Iran bomb. And by agreeing to establish a new mechanism that will allow unprecedented access for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to suspicious nuclear sites anywhere in Iran, the accord makes it much more difficult for Iran to cheat.

It’s time to ask critics of the proposed deal, particularly those running for president in 2016, exactly where they stand, and what they would do if an agreement is reached.

Wouldn’t you think after Iraq, the American people would want to debate this, and emphatically say that war with Iran is such a stupid idea that no one advocating it should get within a mile of the White House, the State Department, or the Pentagon? Everyone, (Republican chicken hawks included) should want to negotiate peace as our default position.

But, it has been a whole twelve years since we started a war, and given the history of the last few decades, we’re past due. So who’s the big, brave Republican running on an Iran war platform? Everybody.

Wake up Chicken Hawks. Here to help rouse you from your neo-con wet dream, a song by The Lone Bellow, a Brooklyn NY-based group with three-part harmonies and great melodies. This is “Then Came the Morning” from their 2nd Album of the same name. Here they are on WFUV, Fordham University radio:

Sample Lyrics:
Take my words, breathe them out like smoke
Burn every single letter that I wrote
Let the pages turn to ash, I don’t want them back
Everything you always said to me

Monday’s Hot Links:

Tesla made an April fool’s announcement and investors were pissed:

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 1, 2015 – Tesla today announced a whole new product line called the Model W. As many in the media predicted, it’s a watch. That’s what the “W” stands for.

In the following minute, the stock jumped $1.50. Nearly 400,000 shares traded in that time, and it was the heaviest one minute of trading volume in the stock since the first minute after the IPO on Feb 12. Sadly, there is no watch. People bought the stock because they were introducing a thing called the Model W. They didn’t read beyond the headline, and thought whatever it was, would be big. Invest wisely, grasshopper.

The next two links contrast a big business solution to a big problem, with an open-source solution to a big problem. The big business solution is elegant, expensive and patented. The entrepreneurial solution is elegant, cheap and free:

The latest technology for removing salt from seawater, is developed by Lockheed Martin, and will be a game-changer. Desalination technology is all over the world, but it is inefficient, using lots of energy to force salt water through a filtration system. That makes it expensive. Lockheed has developed a special filter that doesn’t need as much energy to push water through the filter. Its made out of Graphene. If this scales up, where do we put the excess salt? Or, if you really are thinking, If Lockheed can strain salt ions out of water, then why not gold ions? Invest at your own risk.

Ever hear of Liter of Light? They are a charity that makes a skylight-type light using a used liter plastic bottle, filled with water and a little bleach that is placed through tin roofs in the 3rd world. They then added an LED light and a 1 watt solar collector, for light at night. All of this started in the Philippines. Liter of Lights now has chapters in 53 countries, and has installed 350,000 daytime lights and around 15,000 night lights. Watch a video here. Please, you won’t regret it.

According to UNESCO, more than 1.5 billion people around the world currently have no access to electric light, and around 1.3 billion of them must spend up to half their income to light their homes at night. The fact that the technology is not patented, or owned by a large, multinational corporation, like Lockheed, who owns the Graphene filter, makes this a sweet place to send some of your excess money, Wrongsters. Do not expect a financial return.

Friday Music Break – April 3, 2015

A final thought about Indiana. The Financial Times has an article about corporate backlash to the RFRA laws in Arkansas:

The Arkansas u-turn followed a rare intervention by Walmart in a sensitive social policy debate. Doug McMillon, the retailer’s chief executive, said on Twitter the bill ‘threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present through the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold.’

Who is the moral arbiter for 21st century America? Wal-Mart. Big business has become MORE of a moral arbiter for equality in our society than religious right legislators.

We also are seeing a love-fest between Progressives and Big Business over the Arkansas/Indiana fracas. This isn’t the first time Progressives and Big Business have seen eye-to-eye, but the spectacle of Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, taking his brave position on Indiana’s lack of discrimination protection for the LGBT community begs the question about whether he would ever take the same position about China’s discrimination of LGBT individuals. Would he reward states in the US that had already protected LGBT rights even before big business made it trendy, maybe by pulling a factory or two out of China and relocating them to those states?

You already know the answer.

On to music, well, to a story about music. The Smithsonian has an exhibition of the art and music of Mingering Mike. Mingering Mike is a fictitious funk and soul recording artist created in the late 1960s. Mike’s work might never have been seen if Dori Hadar hadn’t visited a flea market in Washington, DC in 2003. Digging through a crate of used LPs, he found 40 album covers that Mingering Mike had created for his non-existent music career:

I came upon this one crate that contained albums like I had never seen before…There were approximately 40 LPs that had hand-painted covers and handwritten liner notes and lyrics. And they were all made by someone named Mingering Mike.

Hadar later met Mike, and learned that starting in the late 1960s, Mike recorded hundreds of songs on a reel-to-reel recorder with his cousin. Today his music is only available on the subscription service eMusic.

To Mike, the album covers seemed like a natural way to archive his music in case a record label ever came calling. That never happened. In 1970, he was drafted into the military. He made it through basic training, but when it was time to fly to Vietnam, Mike just went home. In 1977, after President Carter pardoned Vietnam draft dodgers, Mike got a job and put his hand-painted albums in a storage unit. After 20 years in storage, when he fell behind on the payments, his albums eventually ended up at the flea market.

NPR reported that Leslie Umberger, who curated the exhibition, Mingering Mike’s Supersonic Greatest Hits at the Smithsonian, was drawn to one cover, made just after Mike went AWOL, because it shows his feelings at the time:

It kind of shows him as the civilian on one side, back to back with himself as a soldier…On the back side it shows the singer and the artist making people happy, and the other Mike, the soldier, going to war and standing in formation.

Here is a clip of Mingering Mike at his art show at Duke University in 2010:

Here are two images of his album art:

See you on Sunday.

Why Are Republicans Actively Undermining Obama’s Foreign Policy?

“Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule, or ruin, in all events.” – Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Speech

This is a short meditation about the Republican Party. Last week Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took to the Senate floor, to encourage the Israelis to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran:

The Israelis will need to chart their own path of resistance. On the Iranian nuclear deal, they may have to go rogue. Let’s hope their warnings have not been mere bluffs. Israel survived its first 19 years without meaningful US patronage. For now, all it has to do is get through the next 22, admittedly long, months.

Those 22 months would be the remainder of Mr. Obama’s term as president. You can see a video of McCain’s speech here.

And so, the Republican effort to make our foreign policy a partisan mess continues.

You may have heard the phrase, “politics stops at the water’s edge”. That thought dates to 1948, when the idea of a Treaty to establish NATO was debated in Congress. The Senate was controlled by Republicans, Harry Truman was president. Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) worked with the Truman Administration to create and pass the Vandenberg Resolution, which paved the way for the US to negotiate an agreement with our European allies.

Vandenberg was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it was he who said “politics stops at the water’s edge”. He helped the Truman administration get bi-partisan support for the Treaty.

You can connect the dots from John McCain’s love affair with Middle East war, to John Boehner’s (R-OH) love affair with Bibi, to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) letter to Iran, undermining Obama’s negotiations on their nuclear program. In them, we see a complete repudiation of Vandenberg’s principle.

The Lincoln quote should remind us that he was speaking to his fellow Republicans in February, 1860. The issue then was slavery, and it was dividing his party along with the country. Lincoln urged fellow Republicans not to capitulate to Southern demands to recognize slavery as being right, but to “stand by our duty, [opposing slavery] fearlessly and effectively.” But, his comment about “rule or ruin” has resonance today.

As the 2016 presidential race picks up speed, we can expect foreign policy to be the key issue for Republicans. The strategy starts from Mr. Obama’s foreign policy approval ratings holding at 37% in a January 2015 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. As we can already see today, the Republican presidential contenders will inevitably compete to appear more hawkish on foreign policy.

Republicans will run away from the economy and towards their testosterone-laden policy positions of more guns, less butter, lower taxes. The public clearly believes that Mr. Obama should have done more to manage Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, and Yemen. And with so much to be unhappy about, Republicans should have little trouble making the case that it is time for a change.

The ISIS stalemate most likely is helping Republicans. A recent CNN poll finds that 58 % disapprove of his handling of the campaign against ISIS. It will play even better for Republicans if the situation worsens, and Americans grow more frustrated with setbacks, or just a lack of progress. The Republicans will try to lure Mr. Obama into sending in ground troops. If he does, there is a high likelihood of things going wrong, which will only help the Republicans in 2016. The GOP has cards to play on Iran, Syria and ISIS, but sadly, they may only be playing politics, positioning the Democrats for a failure that cannot be explained or papered over in the 2016 election.

The Vandenberg precedent is not a part of our Constitution, so there is nothing illegal about the Republicans abandoning it. It is also a good thing to review principles and historical precedents to see if they are still useful. But the precedents the GOP are so busy abandoning are the guidelines established years ago to allow our representatives to work together, despite their differences, for the good of this country.

This new, more politicized approach will hurt us all.

The Pentagon’s Huge Problems with the F-35

The F-35 combat aircraft is the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken by the Pentagon. It will cost $1.5 trillion to build and operate over its lifetime. Most pilots think that the F-35 is being tasked with too many things, from use as a fighter and a bomber, to landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, to performing vertical takeoffs and landings. These are conflicting demands, requiring the plane to be over-configured to accomplish all of them. So, the F-35 is unlikely to handle all of these requirements at a high level.

Despite all of the above, in the Pentagon spending bill that passed last month, Congress approved nearly a half a billion dollars more for the F-35 than the Pentagon even asked for.

Conventional wisdom touts the F-35 as an aerial Swiss army knife, but the F-35 is proving to be more like a butter knife — one that only slices taxpayer dollars. A recent report by the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), highlights the conclusions in the latest F-35 report from the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). Among the problems highlighted in the DOT&E report:

• Software glitches disrupting enemy identification and weapons employment
• A redesigned fuel tank that continues to demonstrate unacceptable vulnerability to explosion from lightning or enemy fire
• Wing issues that cause loss of controlled flight during high-speed maneuvering, a six-year-old problem that apparently will not be solved without sacrificing stealth or combat capability
• Helmet issues that prevent pilots from seeing things approaching from the side
• Engine problems so severe they’re impeding the test schedule, and generating risky operational decisions
• Maintenance issues leading to over-reliance on contractor support

The Marines’ version of the plane won’t be operational until this summer, while the Navy’s version won’t be operational until at least 2018.

There are accusations that Lockheed Martin has papered over these problems, failing to include certain failures or re-categorizing them to improve program statistics. Taken together, the GAO and DOD reports make for an unambiguous headline:

The F-35 is years away from being the next-gen fighter jet promised by Lockheed to the Pentagon.

More time, more money and unresolved problems. What is going on here?

That’s not all. Head-to-head competition with the Russian SU-30 fighter/bomber was conducted in the US in 2008, and the results favored the Russian aircraft. Now, aircraft have two primary missions, air-to-air combat (ATA), and air-to-ground attack (ATG). The F-35 failed the ATA exercises SIX YEARS AGO.

If you find this summary alarming, consider taking a tranquilizer or two before digesting the full POGO article (“Not Ready for Prime Time”) or the detailed DOT&E report, both of which focus on a subject that are the eventual cost equivalent to the combined GDP’s of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

We are at the point where we will be fielding yesterday’s aircraft solution tomorrow. To a great degree, this is a failure of the Defense Department’s Acquisition Process. POGO believes that the problem is not nearly as much with the detailed laws and regulations that govern the acquisition of military goods, as it is in the management by the people who have been operating the system. In the case of the F-35, while several nations are providing elements of the plane, Lockheed is the sole source contractor for the DOD.

This creates a case of moral hazard. Moral hazard is the idea that misplaced incentives can create unintended and adverse behaviors. For example, an insurance policy with no deductible could embolden some drivers to discount the consequences of reckless driving, raising the likelihood of accidents. Applied to a defense contractor, this policy can cause a heavy economic toll.

The F-35 program is an example of moral hazard. By continuing to lavish cash upon a failing program, Congress risks making failure a financially viable strategy. The predictable result would be more failure. This debacle is, in many ways, a sign of what happens when Congress is no longer the domain of the kind of statesmanlike adult behavior that puts the country first.

Congress itself has incentives to set perverse incentives for others. Unfortunately for the country, the first sign that moral hazard has truly captured our national defense maybe relying on a program that is supposed to be the single answer, one that does not perform, continues to be postponed, and costs far too much.

The second sign will be the inability of our airpower to effectively support our ground and sea military efforts, as and when called upon.

This will happen if bad decisions continue to bleed our resources, and Congress continues to try to make room for the F-35, a weapon that has not proven itself.

Reading List Q1 2015

Here are books that the Wrongologist read over the past few months. All were about war, both new and old, and all are highly recommended:

April 1865, The Month That Saved America by Jay Winik (2001). Richmond fell in April 1865. Followed by Appomattox. After that, there was Lincoln’s assassination, and a nearly-successful plot to decapitate the Union government. Then came the real possibility of prolonged Southern guerrilla warfare, which Jefferson Davis considered, and Lee would not. Had Davis decided on guerrilla war, it might have ended any chance at a national reconciliation. This is a great (and short) history of the end game of our Civil War.

The Republic of Suffering-Death and the American Civil War (2008) by Drew Gilpin Faust. It’s hard for us to appreciate just how deadly the Civil War was: 620,000 dead soldiers, (2% of the US population at the time), at least 50,000 dead civilians, an estimated 6 million pounds of human and animal carcasses to deal with on battlefields. When the war began, neither army had burial details, graves registration units, means to notify next of kin, or provisions for decent burial. They had no systematic way to identify or count the dead, and until 1867, no national cemeteries in which to bury them. In an unusual twist, in 1866, the Union Army opened an office in Ford’s Theater to record deaths, house the war records and assist families to find lost loved ones. In 1893, it collapsed, killing 22.

The mortality rate in the South exceeded that of any country in WWI. In addition, the South lost nearly 2/3rds of its wealth in the war.

Embattled Rebel (2014) by James M. McPherson. This short book lets you view the Civil War through the eyes of Jefferson Davis. Davis was an interesting character, he was a one-eyed and sickly micromanager.

McPherson shows how Davis gradually lost support of many Southern politicians, and a few of his generals. He was a West Point graduate, he had fought alongside many Civil War generals on both sides, and he appointed generals who were his West Point buddies. He had long personal feuds with General P.G.T Beauregard, and later, with General Joseph Johnston. Both would not keep Davis informed of their maneuvers, their true troop strength, or their tactics. McPherson summarizes the flawed strategic and logistics position of the Confederacy: The lack of well-trained, well-armed men, the lack of effective railroads, and the lack of usable waterways. The Confederacy started the war undermanned, understaffed, and under-equipped, and it went downhill from there.

Here are three books about the Afghan and Iraq wars, two that deal primarily with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and one that deals with official corruption.

Redeployment (2014) by Phil Klay. Redeployment is a collection of stories around the experience of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. These stories have no sappy sentimentality or macho muscle-flexing. They are as real and honest as anything you’ll find being written about how these wars have affected America’s young men and women who were sent there, often multiple times, and who have been irrevocably changed by it. A shattering, must-read book.

Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War (2013) Edited by Matt Gallagher. This collection offers a deeply personal look at the human ravages of our Middle East wars; the impact of fear, violence, destruction and death on its warriors, both male and female alike. It portrays PTSD as a nightmare; the psychic suffering of re-integrating into society with brain injuries, trauma such as faces burned off or limbs and genitals blown away. This is truth-telling that only those who were there can write. “Play the Game“, by Colby Buzzell shows the ball of emotions a combat vet experiences as he wanders around Los Angeles in a fog. Mariette Kalinowski’s amazing story, “The Train“, is perhaps the collection’s most affecting story. If there are Americans who still mistakenly believe that women weren’t damaged by serving in combat, they need to read “The Train” to see how PTSD is not an illness of just one gender.

Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War (2014) by James Risen. Risen reveals a litany of the unseen costs of our war on terror: From squandered and stolen money, to abuses of power, to wars on decency, and truth, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Risen makes two overarching points: First, the enormity of waste and corruption generated during the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq. Consider: The US government, eager to reflate Iraqi currency post-Saddam, sends plane after plane load filled with US hundred-dollar bills from the US to Baghdad. Why? Because printing new Iraqi Dinars would take too long. A large proportion of that cash simply goes missing.

Second, Risen makes the point that the false legitimacy of surveillance and torture as promulgated by GW Bush, Cheney, the CIA, NSA and their Justice Dept. acolytes that morphed our security apparatus into one that believes total surveillance of American citizens is not only desirable, but necessary.

Our government has done some things that are as shameful as those of its wartime enemies. And it has worked very hard to cover them up.

What are you reading?

Monday Wake Up Call – February 23, 2015

Welcome to Monday. The Wrongologist and Ms. Oh So Right are heading back to the Northeast.

Today, the world needs to wake up to the threat posed by outsourcing military operations to private armies whose allegiance is only to the highest bidder. The American Conservative warns in an article by Kelley Vlahos, called “A Blackwater World Order”, that the Pentagon’s dependence on contractors has created a new era of warfare in which several newly founded private military companies are meeting the demand of an exploding global market for armed conflict.

The article describes the book, The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What they Mean for World Order, by Sean McFate, a former Army paratrooper who later worked for outsourcer and defense contractor DynCorp, in Africa. In the book, McFate says that warfare is shifting from global dominance by nation-states to a “polycentric” military environment in which states now compete with transnational corporations, regional and ethnic interests, and terror organizations in the chess game of international power. McFate argues that new access to professional private arms has ended the traditional monopoly on force by the large states, and has brought about the dawn of a new era of armed conflict.

Are we sure these groups won’t go rogue? Who can control the mercenaries? What if a truly wealthy oligarch fields his own mercenary army to seize control of a country? It wouldn’t be for the first time.

Lots of questions, but very few answers.

Here is your Wake Up tune of the day. The National’s “Fake Empire”, from their 2008 album “Boxer”.

A fun fact about “Fake Empire” is that it was used in a 2012 Romney political video made by the group, Ohio University Students for Romney. Apparently, nobody told them that the same song was used by Obama in a 2008 ad. The National asked the Romney people to take it down, saying:

Our music was used without our permission in this ad. The song you’re using was written about the same backward, con game policies Romney is proposing.

Judge for yourself. Here is “Fake Empire”:

Sample Lyrics:
Turn the light out say goodnight, no thinking for a little while
Let’s not try to figure out everything at once
It’s hard to keep track of you falling through the sky
We’re half-awake in a fake empire
We’re half-awake in a fake empire

Monday’s hot links:

Chinese city says air pollution is due to bacon: Dazhou, a city located in the northeastern corner of Sichuan province, has suffered from especially “severe air pollution” since earlier this month, and officials say the main cause is the smoking of bacon by local residents. China consumes half of the world’s pork every year. Insert your own joke here.

MIT has a list of breakthrough technologies for 2015. Invest at your own risk.

New data for 2013 reveals that states with weak gun violence prevention laws and higher rates of gun ownership have the highest overall gun death rates in the nation. Here is a handy table from the report:

You can see where your state ranks here.

Now, get up, get dressed, and get going.

Obama’s National Security Strategy Dissed by Republicans

For the third time in a century, America might be asked to save Europeans from themselves.

As is evident in Congress’s unease, events are spiraling out of control in Ukraine. We are again getting drawn into Europe’s centuries-old propensity towards self-destruction. It is evident that Europe seems unwilling and/or unable to contain the geo-political ambitions of Vladimir Putin. It is also evident in the European Union’s (EU’s) stand-off with Greece, which grows uglier by the day. And Greece’s overtures to the Russians make the situation possibly even more alarming.

After WWII, America helped rebuild Europe. That provided the early foundations for the unprecedented period of European stability and prosperity that has followed. Is Europe willing to throw that away? Our global role raises many questions for America’s policy makers:

• Are the Europeans being careless with their hard-won peace and prosperity?
• What is our strategy with Ukraine and Russia’s aggression?
• What is our strategy for the greater Middle East, including Israel, Iran and ISIS?
• What about China?

All of these questions are on the table as the Obama administration seeks a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS this week. It is particularly relevant that the Obama administration released its new National Security Strategy (NSS) last Friday. It was greeted by Republicans with disdain. Given the major issues we face throughout the world, most thought it should have been more concrete in its outline of strategy.

It isn’t often that an administration’s own recently retired top official would blast the NSS. Former Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who retired last year as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said on Fox News Sunday:

We need a much broader strategy that recognizes that we’re facing not just this tactical problem of ISIS in Iraq and Syria…We’re facing a growing, expanding threat around the world…

It’s normal for any president’s political opposition to deride a new NSS. And no NSS is likely to be compared to Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Flynn, who led the DIA for two years under Obama, has some credibility. He used the analogy of a quarterback leading a football team down the field:

I feel like when we say ‘ready, break,’ every player on the team is going off into other stadiums, playing different sports…

By contrast, the administration is describing their approach as “strategic patience” – signaling that they intend to avoid any substantial commitments (at least involving any direct military presence on the ground) for the next two years. This codifies Mr. Obama’s “leading from behind” as at the core of US strategy.

Strategic Patience brings along with it a very high Wimp factor. But should it be dismissed out of hand as weakness, or as a simplistic attempt to avoid foreign policy commitments? The Wrongologist has written before about the urge to “do something”. This is called the “Politician’s Syllogism”, a logical fallacy:

1. We have to do something
2. This is something
3. Therefore, we have to do this.

We hear this most Sunday mornings on “Bloviating with Old Politicians”, featuring John McCain. In fact, Sen. McCain’s wingman, Sen. Graham, launched the first strike against Obama’s NSS, tweeting:

I doubt ISIL, the Iranian mullahs, or Vladimir Putin will be intimidated by President Obama’s strategy of ‘Strategic Patience.’ Lindsey Graham

Many other Republicans piled on during the next few days, but no one offered an alternative strategy.

Iran is far more important than Ukraine, which is more important than ISIS, which is a strategic side show. Short of ‘boots on the ground’ in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine, what are the Republicans suggesting we do?

If Strategic Patience is acceptable for our adversaries like Russia or China, it should be acceptable for us. The realities of US resource allocation and the current balance of power dictate we focus on the long game, which may mean that saving Ukraine, or lives in Syria, won’t make it to the top of our list. The most important rule that America’s would-be interventionists must learn is that the “first do no harm” doctrine must apply.

The amount of treasure the US has expended on foreign interventions since 2001 is irreplaceable. We could have covered the Mojave in solar thermal plants, and no longer need foreign oil. We could have completely renovated our transportation infrastructure. We could have built a high speed Internet across the US for what we spent on what are now piles of junk and wrecked installations in the Middle East, not to forget the wrecked lives of our soldiers and their loved ones.

US politicians and foreign policy elites really must resist the urge to “do something” in response to every perceived foreign policy crisis.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Military Strategy