Money Changes Everything

The Pentagon's hunt for money to pay for the Iraq war is evidently quite a bit deeper and broader than I supposed just a few weeks back. The Air Force faces not only cuts in the F-22 program, but cuts across all kinds of systems including intelligence-gathering and airlift. These are two things the post-9/11 "transformed" military is supposed to need more of, not less.

Then there are the manpower issues that have everyone scrambling:

"The Guard and Reserve were designed to be called up for a war of national survival or something of short duration like Desert Storm [in 1991]," the third official says. "They were not designed for the global war on terrorism where there's high operational tempo for a very long time. We need a bigger active-duty force and a smaller Guard and Reserve. But it will be a terrific problem to come up with the necessary money. One plan is to have the Guard and Reserve run the bases and infrastructure while the active-duty forces go off to war."

All kinds of politics are at play, of course, but it is interesting that old H&R friend Stephen Cambone is named as an enemy of Air Force long-range radar aircraft. The defense undersecretary seems intent on claiming intelligence assets long held by the uniformed military for the civilian bureaucracy.

Should Cambone win one wonders if the Pentagon suits will heed the intelligence they themselves gather or just continue to ignore it.

Comments

[joe]

You have to admit, scrapping all Pentagon intelligence propgrams and renting an office suite where Richard Perle and Douglas Feith can sit around making shit up would save a ton of money, and produce the same quality of intel that the White House and DoD have been relying on for the past four years.

[gaius marius]

this is yet more good material for why we should consider withdrawing from iraq.

[blem]

The longer this war goes, the more I'm a-thinkin' the whole strategy of conventional forces as being a good counter to the terrorist threat is unworkable. Wouldn't it be smarter to start looking at some radically different approaches?

Like closing borders more thoroughly. Like getting the snot out of foreign countries and concentrating on keeping the home fires from burning.

Blem say ugh.

[blem]

Heck, joe, they could let me sit here at home and make shit up for a lot less.

[Brian]

Blem - you mean the War on Terrorism is more or less like a law enforcement issue?

War is something that happens between states and that's what the military is set up to do. Terrorism is more like the mafia or something.

[joe]

"Wouldn't it be smarter to start looking at some radically different approaches?"

You mean like doubling the size of the Special Forces? Nah, that sounds like something a French lover would propose.

[Stevo Darkly]

Back when the war in Afghanistan was still in the news, I thought it would be a better idea if the U.S. gov't just offered a reward of a billion dollars or three for capture of Osama bin Laden (or maybe just his head). Cheaper, and it lets a market-based solution emerge.

[gaius marius]

Terrorism is more like the mafia or something.

pree-cisely, mr brian. even if saddam was sleeping with osama on every other tuesday, invading iraq was the wrong way to go about counterterrorism.

[SR]

Stevo,

That was pretty much my idea after 9/11 too: Bush goes on national television and says, "I have issued an executive order. The person or persons who delivers Osama bin Laden, dead or alive, to any U.S. law enforcement official shall receive one metric tonne of gold from the U.S. Treasury's reserve, deliverable anywhere in the world. No questions asked."

[Andrew]

I suspect that the best "forward strategy" is to take things as they come, and muddle along as best you can - about all government (or really, any large human institution) can do on its best day. I don't believe a lot of "prescient" decisions about our future force needs made right now will prove to be prescient at all.
It is very likely that the provisional and jerry-built expedients employed by the pentagon at the moment will prove to be the most economical and flexible solutions over time...they just don't smack of good governance to central-planning expert types, being as messy as the real world is.