Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Is it coincidence, or design, then that all of the senior uniformed folks with any responsibility for current military policy are Navy?

If we simply look at Vietnam and Iraq (Part II) as being ill-advised and unnecessary gambles -- and mistakes -- does LTC Yingling's argument stand up?

Should the bulk of an Army, or military force, be designed around such unlikely and unfruitful missions?

Bill, you're forgetting multiple Balkans campaigns and Somalia. You're also forgetting Afganistan; we likely wouldn't be there if we had tried to calm it down and build it up after their war with the Soviets instead of ignoring it. It could also be argued that Germany and Japan after WW2 were also similar situations, as were the Phillipines, assorted Haitian interventions, and who knows what else.

At the very least, counter-insurgency abilities are a necessary follow-up to a big war (cleaning up the mess left over); at the most, they are needed to fight small wars which are as much, if not more so, a part of human history as the big wars.

Michael: Seems like the Balkans, Afghanistan (minus Iraq), Panama, Haiti, Germany and Japan after WW2, the Philippines, etc., were all accomplished fairly well with the primarily-designed big war force.

Somalia might be considered as another gamble/mistake.

I am concerned that the few failures we have experienced relate more to mistakes in policies/decision-making -- rather than in an improper make-up of the force.

Thus, I might look to Vietnam, Iraq II, and Somalia to rectify policy/decision-making problems -- not necessarily force make-up problems.

I'm not sure if you'll come back to this page, Bill, but here goes nothing. . .

You're right in that a lot of what went wrong in those areas was policy and not force structure. But when people criticise the military's focus on China, they aren't looking at the number of ground pounders hired; they're looking at ships, planes, missiles, etc, that have little use in a post-war occupation. How many soldiers and marines could be fielded for those occupations with the money we're spending on high-tech systems to fight a war that may never (and hopefully will never) happen?

And once you've accepted the notion that a) boots on the ground are more important than mega weapons systems and b) those boots are most critical in occupations and the like, you may as well consider whether their training and equipment could be optimised better for the jobs they're usually doing.

Michael: My concern: A force designed around boots on the ground/post-war occupations reinforces, rather than discourages, these bad ideas and bad policies (provides for, rather than deters, more Vietnams, more Iraq IIs and more Somalias).

Fewer such boots on the ground/post-war occupation forces reduces the likelihood that these types of mistakes will be made in the future.

I am beginning to re-like the Cold War model: Use good intelligence techniques/operatives, SF and guile -- rather than US boots on the ground -- to deal with the difficult portions of the Third World.

Bill, Michael: As PNM and The Brief, in its many iterations, make clear, at least to me, Leviathan is necessary, but not sufficient for effectively dealing with the sorts of conflict we will face as the Gap shrinks. Bill, if a frog had wings,...It's not about postwar occupation forces, its about fishing out the bad guys while we drain the swamp, whether or not we had to use Leviathan to break up the scum layer to get to the swamp. The bad ideas/bad policies are as likely to result from trying to put detour signs and fences around the swamp, as from the draining operation. Boots on the ground don't cause bad ideas, they fix them, unless you'd prefer a parking lot approach.

emjayinc: Looked at in other ways:

(1) If the US provides the Leviathan -- and the BRIC provides the the post-war occupation/nation-building (SysAdmin) forces -- does LTC Yingling's argument stand up?

(2) If the American public will not provide the blood and treasure necessary for the very long-term task of Gap-shrinking (wars, post-war occupations and nation-building) -- (looks that way today) -- what is our Plan B?