Revamping Our Military With Budget Cuts

    
     In the immediate years after the end of the Cold War era, Department of Defense leadership envisioned that there would be a 25-year period of "strategic pause" before the nation faced another major competitor, predicting sometime between 2015 and 2020. In the 1990s, the major candidates for peer-competitor status had included China and a resurgent Russia. India and a nuclear-armed Iran were cast as non-threats. In those quiet days, terrorism was seen as a tactic and more the issue of law enforcement. The major emphasis was on being prepared for those big wars against peer competitors—the types of wars no world power can afford to lose. Preparing for those wars also satisfied each service's need to perpetuate itself in familiar ways focused on developing and acquiring high-tech weapon systems. There were the programs like "The Army After Next," "From the Sea," and "Air Force Next." They addressed future strategic plans focused on American military core strengths.
     Let's remember that tere were cuts in defense spending during the 1990s. The size of the American military shrank. The Air Force was the only one, among the services, that reorganized its force structure from the one based on strategic deterrence to one that dealt with power projection. Cuts were such that reduced but did not reform outdated structureing.
     Then, September 11, 2001 changed everything. In the immediate aftermath, the Bush administration made it's worst mistake by declaring a "War on Terror" rather than specifly stating the enemy as Al Qaeda, associated groups, and those nations that support these groups. By declaring that "terror" was the enemy, the war easily changed from one war into two wars, with the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. Here it is ten years later and the fighting in Iraq continues. Also, what was originally a campaign to root out and destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan has turned into an endless struggle against the Taliban. This war has exhausted the American military, contributed to our national economic down fall, and derailed critical thinking about the future.
     This exhausted force is also outdated. Cutting such a force by a quarter, much less half, would invite attacks by nations like Iran and North Korea. Keeping the current force at its current state would be very expensive and also leave the nation vulnerable to the current threats and unable to cope with a rapidly growing Chinese threat.
     The U.S. military needs massive restructuring. Its current structure originated with the reforms instituted in 1903 after the Spanish-American War, under Theodore Roosevelt. There was a major overhaul on the eve of World War II, which made it possible to fight the Axis powers. Then there was the National Security Act of 1947, which institutionalized the Industrial Age force that we have today. With the present structure, the armed forces of the United States would be hard-pressed to counter a North Korean invasion of South Korea without using nuclear weapons.
     The fact of the matter is that war on the Korean peninsula is one of our more immediate threats. Iran, which will soon be a nuclear-armed country, is bent on establishing hegemony in the world’s energy epicenter. Despite the predictably forthcoming declaration of “victory” in the ill-conceived War on Terror, al Qaeda and other like-minded groups will continue to attack U.S. interests abroad while putting the nation on the defensive at home.
     There is also the possibility of an anti-American alliance between Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and possibly Cuba. Then, if Mexico continues to descend into anarchy, that alliance could extend to our immediate and un-defended southern border; imagine the cost of trying to fortify it sufficiently to keep it secure. Hell, we can't even keep the illegal immigrants out, how could we stop an invading army?
     The promised defense spending cuts will result in fewer divisions, no new weapons acquisitions, and reducing costs associated with professional military education. This is like starting a weight loss diet with a frontal lobotomy and removing a few fingers. What is needed is drastic restructuring of the armed forces, massive reduction in the associated bureaucracy, and major changes in the way officers are educated.
     Meanwhile, Red China is building a first-class fighting force, one capable of global power. While Russia’s ability to project power remains questionable, its modernization programs are focused on high-tech weaponry and on revitalizing nuclear forces.
     Critics argue that the United States now spends more on its military than the next 10 nations combined. True. A lot of that goes to sustaining force structures that are redundant, unnecessary, and ill-suited for Information Age warfare. Much of it goes to personnel costs, maintaining bases and posts in Europe, that are no longer needed, and unnecessary civilian personnel. There is quite a bit that can be cut, but also much more that needs to be restructured if the United States is to survive the challenges beyond 2015.
     The U.S. Department of Defense must restructure to withstand the deep budget cuts and, more importantly, be ready for the challenges of 21st-century warfare. Those challenges will include unconventional operations and wars fought in vastly expanded battle spaces. Reforms are needed in three areas.
     First, today’s Department of Defense—structured around land, air, and sea forces structured to fight an Industrial Age conflict—is inadequate for the new Information Age warfare. The U.S. Air Force received separate service status in 1947 by a mating of the atomic bomb to the long-range delivery system of the day, the B-29 bomber. For five decades, air-power enthusiasts argued that air power formed the tip of the spear while land and sea forces constituted the supporting shaft. This is no longer the case.
     Manned combat aircraft is the Air Force’s reason for being. It is more than likely that the 20 B-2 bombers currently in the Air Force inventory, at $2 billion dollars each, will be the last of the manned bombers. Also, the F-35 is to be the last manned fighter developed by the United States. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be the aerial fighting vehicles of the future. They can do more at less cost, both in dollars and in human lives, because UAVs are not designed for pilot survivability. Not to mention, in the current wars, the Air Force is the supporting, rather than the supported, armed force. It’s time to merge the Air Force back into the U.S. Army. This would eliminate an entire branch of our military, along with its accompanying bureaucracies, while minimally expanding the Army which will likely experience reductions throughout its other branches.
     The U.S. Navy should assume the primary responsibility for any space and cyber warfare. Movement in space is more analogous to that at sea than it is to operations on land or air. The global reach of the Navy also makes it appropriate to place cyber operations under its responsibility.
     Second, since warfare is foremost a mental and secondly a physical endeavor, the Department of Defense needs to restructure the officer education system. In the interest of building a truly seamless force, the three service academies should be closed and then consolidated into a single National Defense University located in a central location, such as Fort Riley, Kansas. The professional military education system can be further streamlined by doing away with the individual service schools for junior, mid-level and senior officers. Schools like the Air, Army, and Naval war colleges would become part of the National Defense University. All military physicians and lawyers, after completing basic medical and legal training at a civilian university, can then be prepared for their military service at the NDU. Students could also take courses at the universities within the University of Kansas' educational programs.
     NDU’s graduate courses could offer masters and doctoral level courses. The individual service “think tanks” that are currently associated with the various war colleges only exist to support their host service programs. As in any civilian university, research and writing at NDU would be expected of all faculty members. A single, consolidated think tank might be established at NDU with a resulting cost savings in the number of personnel. This reform could close three academies; close the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps command and staff colleges; close the Army, Naval, Marine Corps, and Air war colleges; and reduce facilities needed at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Quantico, Virginia.
     By eliminating the three service academies reduction in overhead costs would be tremendous, and it may also ease the effects of inter-service rivalries by educating all officers at a single, integrated institution. An entering freshman class of 4,000 to 5,000 would provide enough entry-level Army and Naval officers. To further military diversity, ROTC would provide 2,000 to 3,000 officers a year, but ROTC should be restricted to the 50 to 75 top-rated academic institutions.
     Third, allowing officers to retire at half pay after 20 years of service, and forcing them to retire at some point between 25 and 35 years, is a waste of skills and money. Service careers should run between 25 and 40 years. Additionally, the number of flag-rank officers should be reduced by at least 50 percent. Older officers can be moved to desk jobs or, if academically qualified, serve as faculty at NDU or in ROTC units.
     Lastly, close the Pentagon. It was built to accommodate the bureaucracy needed to operate the Industrial Age armed forces of World War II. The tendency is for bureaucrates to fill empty space and once in place, become entrenched. The Pentagon could be made into a privately run soldiers retirement complex with enough room for a shopping mall, restaurants, a gymnasium, and even a hospital. A restructured Department of Defense could be housed in the Forrestal Building in downtown Washington.
     This restructuring would completely streamline the bureaucracies, utilize human capital and potential more effectively, and foster a greater interaction between the services. Armed forces exist to fight and win the nation’s wars. A leaner, better-educated force can meet the challenges of Information Age Warfare and do it at considerably less cost.