Walter Russel Mead has an interesting, and somewhat unsettling, take on President Obama's Libyan "humanitarian intervention" last year, in his National Interest piece Thank God For Humanitarian Bombs?. It may have seemed reasonable, and moral, at the time, but in hindsight the results have been less than one might have hoped for, and the "unintended consequences" may prove to be profoundly worse.
Once again, it seems to me, American politicians in their profound ignorance of geopolitics, history, and other cultures, have made poor choices. This isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing, nor a liberal vs conservative thing -- this has to do with the insular, somewhat self-righteous, narrow-minded views of our ruling elites.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Recommended: Civilization in Reverse
Victor David Hanson has published another of his insightful pieces: Civilization in Reverse. As he points out, there is no natural law that says once a civilization is established, it will "automatically" continue and improve. Civilizations are a product of human endeavor, and when the humans stop "endeavoring" the civilization rots way, as have innumerable previous civilizations in the world (think Persia, Rome, Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire.......).
The current Greek fiscal crisis, he points out, is a warning to the rest of us. Life is not as nice in Greece as it was a decade ago. If we don't pull up our socks and get to work here in America, the America of a decade from now may not be nearly as pleasant as it was a decade ago, or even as it is now. That certainly is the case in California, which has already declined from the "Golden State" to an increasingly troubled and backward place.
The current Greek fiscal crisis, he points out, is a warning to the rest of us. Life is not as nice in Greece as it was a decade ago. If we don't pull up our socks and get to work here in America, the America of a decade from now may not be nearly as pleasant as it was a decade ago, or even as it is now. That certainly is the case in California, which has already declined from the "Golden State" to an increasingly troubled and backward place.
Recommended: Piercing the Fog of War
Steed examines in some detail six "aberrational" battles in history, from Hannibal's victory at Cannae (216 BC) to the Russian's debacle in Grozny (1994-95),and examines how each involved one side "thinking out of the box" to defeat the other side. He discusses the importance of initiative and maneuver and isolation and other tactical concepts, but he emphasizes especially the importance of understanding the opponent, of understanding how the opponent sees things and expects to operate, of empathizing to the point of being able to see out of the opponent's eyes and walk in his shoes and understand his thinking, both tactically and strategically.
This is an area in which America has been seriously deficient for many decades. We didn't understand the Chinese in Korea, nor the North Vietnamese in Vietnam, nor the Iraqis nor the Afghans in recent history. Our leadership, both military and political, but especially our political leaders, have been woefully ignorant of the cultures and world views of other influential nations around the world, and we have made stupid, avoidable and expensive mistakes repeatedly because of this ignorance.
This is not a light read, but it is a profoundly important book.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Defense Cuts
The new Pentagon proposal for defense cuts has been posted here. It seems quite well reasoned, and apparently has the support of military leaders. Of course members of Congress will fight to keep every job in their districts, whether it is needed or not, so I expect a good deal of political pushback. But if this proposal survives relatively intact, it will be a reasonable first step toward cutting the defense budget.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Recommended: What the Left/Right Gets Right
Thomas Edsall has written two consecutive pieces on the New York Times Op Ed pages in recent weeks that are worth reading: What the Right Gets Right (Jan 15), and What the Left Gets Right (Jan 22).
In the first case he asked some prominent liberal thinkers what they thought the conservatives had gotten right, and in the second case he asked prominent conservatives what they thought liberals had gotten right. The results are quite instructive.
In the first case he asked some prominent liberal thinkers what they thought the conservatives had gotten right, and in the second case he asked prominent conservatives what they thought liberals had gotten right. The results are quite instructive.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Recommended: A Supreme Obamacare test
George Will has a good opinion piece today in the Washington Post entitled A Supreme Obamacare test. He lays out what is at stake in the Supreme Court challenge to ObamaCare.
The real issue of importance isn't about health care, though that is the substance of this law. The real issue is about how far Congress's power extends. As one lower court judge asked, if Congress can compel citizens to buy health insurance because it is good for us, can Congress also compel us to eat broccoli on the same basis?
And there is a financial issue here as well. Obamacare, as currently written, can COMPEL states to spend most of their budgets on Medicare. Should Congress have the power to compel states to do that, even if it puts them into bankruptcy?
I agree with George Will. This is probably the most significant constitutional issue to come before the Supreme Court in decades, and goes far beyond the liberal-conservative disagreement about solving health care, though that is what will probably get most of the play in the press.
The real issue of importance isn't about health care, though that is the substance of this law. The real issue is about how far Congress's power extends. As one lower court judge asked, if Congress can compel citizens to buy health insurance because it is good for us, can Congress also compel us to eat broccoli on the same basis?
And there is a financial issue here as well. Obamacare, as currently written, can COMPEL states to spend most of their budgets on Medicare. Should Congress have the power to compel states to do that, even if it puts them into bankruptcy?
I agree with George Will. This is probably the most significant constitutional issue to come before the Supreme Court in decades, and goes far beyond the liberal-conservative disagreement about solving health care, though that is what will probably get most of the play in the press.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Recommended: No End in Sight
The arrogance and ideology-driven blindness of the main players (Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, Paul Bremmer, etc, etc) is exceeded only by their abysmal ignorance of Iraq, of the realities of warfare, and of the Arab world. President Bush is simply missing in action -- he apparently didn't even bother to keep up with what his advisers were doing. This movie takes Iraq up to about 2006, and now in hindsight we can see just how terrible their mistakes were. Indeed, as of today, Iraq appears to once again be descending into chaos and sectarian war.
The point is not to bash the Bush administration yet again - we have done that enough now. They are history. The point is to learn from these mistakes, because otherwise current and future politicians are and will make them again and again.
Rumsfeld's replacement as Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was much wiser and much more realistic and pragmatic, and his replacement, Leon Penetta, appears thus far to be pretty good. But the Obama administration hasn't yet shown itself to be any more competent in Iraq than the Bush administration was. It's true we are now (mostly) out of Iraq, but only because the Iraqis threw us out, not because we were smart enough to get out.
The main message is that the Washington power elites are too often completely out of touch with the realities on the ground - in Iraq then as they are with the economy now. That ought to worry the voters a lot more than it seems to.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Recommended: The Father of US All
We in America are cursed, as have been civilizations all through history, with those unrealistic idealists who think war can be eliminated if only reasonable men would talk, and those equally unrealistic idealists who think war is an ideal way to solve disagreements between nations. Neither group understands history very well, according to Hanson. He argues that war is an inextricable part of human experience, and (to quote George Santayana) "those who will not study history are condemned to repeat it". This book is a collection of various essays he has written, most of them expanded for the book. They are very good, and his views are worth thinking about.
Recommended: Civilization: The West and the Rest
In 1500 “the West” was ignorant, backward, and fragmented. Anyone betting in those days about which civilizations would emerge 500 years later as the world’s leaders wouldn’t have bet on the West; they would have bet on the Islamic world or China, both of whom were far more advanced. Yet 500 years later, the West has been the driver in new advances, and the Islamic world and China have been left far behind. Why, Ferguson asks, did this happen? His answer is fascinating.
He argues that six "killer apps" (to use the current jargon) were adopted by Western civilizations that made all the difference: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic. Ferguson discusses other influences that have been suggested, especially those like colonialism and unfortunate geography, that might have held other civilizations back, but as he points out, there are frequently cultures right next door, subject to the same influences, that have prospered anyway if they adopted most or all of these six attributes.
He also discusses how America can stay ahead, even as the rest of the world begins to catch up. All in all a fascinating book.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
More on our military
Continuing my thoughts from the last post, it occurs to me that if one steps way, way back and looks at the big picture, a few things become clear:
1. Whether or not it offends liberal sensitivities to say so, America is an empire, a commercial empire in our case, as opposed to a colonial empire, but an empire nonetheless. As with any empire, it has its good points and its bad points. But on balance, the America empire has done better by the world than the empires that would have liked to replace it in recent decades. A world dominated by Hitler’s Reich or a Soviet empire would not have been as pleasant or safe a place to live, nor would it have been as prosperous.
But no empire in history has survived without occasional military challenges, and we will be no exception. The world is not unlike the streets of a gang-ridden city. The way to be safe and not have to fight is to be, AND TO BE SEEN TO BE, “the biggest, baddest dude around”, so that potential aggressors see no possible gain to their cause from attacking us. So adequate (not excessive, but adequate) military power is essential, unless we want to quietly drift down to second- or third-tier status in the world and let other empires determine our fate. Indeed, the best (and most economical) use of military power is as a deterrent. Those who think military deterrence is expensive should look at how much more expensive the failure of deterrence (war) is to the nation.
2. Military power depends, fundamentally, on national wealth. Modern armies are exorbitantly expensive to field, train, equip and maintain. We have as large a military as we do because we are wealthy enough to afford it. North Korea or Iran or China or Russia would have just as large and sophisticated a military if they could afford it, but they can’t. Their national wealth isn’t sufficient.
So from that perspective, the single most important thing to do to support our military preparedness is to do whatever needs to be done to keep the US wealthy and prosperous, so the nation can afford a military appropriate to the potential threats. As Dennis Blair, Obama's director of national intelligence, recently observed, our faltering economy is indeed a serious national security issue.
3. Projecting effective military power depends upon adequate logistic support. This has been clear all through history. Tacticians study tactics, strategists study logistics. The ability to rapidly produce replacements, food and munitions and move them quickly to the battlefront is essential to military success. High-tech front line weapons systems get all the press, but the unglamorous logistics systems – cargo ships and planes, warehouses, pre-positioned stocks, etc., are probably at least as important, if not more so, and ought to be attended to, upgraded, improved and funded just as aggressively as the front line weapons systems.
4. Good intelligence is probably even more important than good soldiers and good weapons. This has been evident as far back as the time of Sun Tzu (c. 300 B.C.), and the lesson has been repeated innumerable times throughout history (for those few who will read and learn from history) since then. In fact, good intelligence can often avoid war, and can certainly shorten it, reduce its cost, and markedly improve the odds of winning. We have invested heavily in technology for “external” intelligence (what is where), but not nearly enough in human capital for “internal” intelligence (how does the opponent think). In fact, our political class over the past few decades (both parties) have been remarkably uneducated, uniformed and naïve about our foreign advisories and their naïveté has cost us dearly in American lives and money.
5. Military power is subject to the “predator-prey” evolutionary race. Each advance in weapons or technique immediately begins to breed a response that nullifies much or all of the advance. History is full of examples of military powers that didn’t keep up and paid for their negligence – the Maginot line effect. (for readers too young to remember World War II, the Maginot line was the "impregnable" line of fortifications that the French built and that the Germans bypassed in a matter of days). That means that supporting innovation – educating our young in science and engineering and in fields that support good intelligence (languages, history, cultural studies), subsidizing basic research – is critical to our long-term military preparedness.
6. Shorn of sentiment, the drive to reduce human casualties is critically important as our military becomes increasingly high-tech. There is the obvious political problem in today’s American democracy that the public has little stomach for high casualty rates, and therefore public support quickly erodes for any extended military action. But there is also the issue of training costs. In today’s high-tech military, training many of the specialists is very expensive and takes many years, so their loss is expensive and they are hard to replace quickly. It can cost several million dollars and take many years to train and maintain the proficiency of a fighter pilot. Even a lowly foot soldier in today’s army can cost as much as $50,000 to train, and as much as $1 million/year to equip and maintain in the field of battle.
So moves to reduce casualties by using precision stand-off weapons, unmanned aircraft and the like are important not only for economic and political reasons, but also for logistical reasons because such casualties cannot be easily or quickly replaced, unlike soldiers in lower-tech armies.
1. Whether or not it offends liberal sensitivities to say so, America is an empire, a commercial empire in our case, as opposed to a colonial empire, but an empire nonetheless. As with any empire, it has its good points and its bad points. But on balance, the America empire has done better by the world than the empires that would have liked to replace it in recent decades. A world dominated by Hitler’s Reich or a Soviet empire would not have been as pleasant or safe a place to live, nor would it have been as prosperous.
But no empire in history has survived without occasional military challenges, and we will be no exception. The world is not unlike the streets of a gang-ridden city. The way to be safe and not have to fight is to be, AND TO BE SEEN TO BE, “the biggest, baddest dude around”, so that potential aggressors see no possible gain to their cause from attacking us. So adequate (not excessive, but adequate) military power is essential, unless we want to quietly drift down to second- or third-tier status in the world and let other empires determine our fate. Indeed, the best (and most economical) use of military power is as a deterrent. Those who think military deterrence is expensive should look at how much more expensive the failure of deterrence (war) is to the nation.
2. Military power depends, fundamentally, on national wealth. Modern armies are exorbitantly expensive to field, train, equip and maintain. We have as large a military as we do because we are wealthy enough to afford it. North Korea or Iran or China or Russia would have just as large and sophisticated a military if they could afford it, but they can’t. Their national wealth isn’t sufficient.
So from that perspective, the single most important thing to do to support our military preparedness is to do whatever needs to be done to keep the US wealthy and prosperous, so the nation can afford a military appropriate to the potential threats. As Dennis Blair, Obama's director of national intelligence, recently observed, our faltering economy is indeed a serious national security issue.
3. Projecting effective military power depends upon adequate logistic support. This has been clear all through history. Tacticians study tactics, strategists study logistics. The ability to rapidly produce replacements, food and munitions and move them quickly to the battlefront is essential to military success. High-tech front line weapons systems get all the press, but the unglamorous logistics systems – cargo ships and planes, warehouses, pre-positioned stocks, etc., are probably at least as important, if not more so, and ought to be attended to, upgraded, improved and funded just as aggressively as the front line weapons systems.
4. Good intelligence is probably even more important than good soldiers and good weapons. This has been evident as far back as the time of Sun Tzu (c. 300 B.C.), and the lesson has been repeated innumerable times throughout history (for those few who will read and learn from history) since then. In fact, good intelligence can often avoid war, and can certainly shorten it, reduce its cost, and markedly improve the odds of winning. We have invested heavily in technology for “external” intelligence (what is where), but not nearly enough in human capital for “internal” intelligence (how does the opponent think). In fact, our political class over the past few decades (both parties) have been remarkably uneducated, uniformed and naïve about our foreign advisories and their naïveté has cost us dearly in American lives and money.
5. Military power is subject to the “predator-prey” evolutionary race. Each advance in weapons or technique immediately begins to breed a response that nullifies much or all of the advance. History is full of examples of military powers that didn’t keep up and paid for their negligence – the Maginot line effect. (for readers too young to remember World War II, the Maginot line was the "impregnable" line of fortifications that the French built and that the Germans bypassed in a matter of days). That means that supporting innovation – educating our young in science and engineering and in fields that support good intelligence (languages, history, cultural studies), subsidizing basic research – is critical to our long-term military preparedness.
6. Shorn of sentiment, the drive to reduce human casualties is critically important as our military becomes increasingly high-tech. There is the obvious political problem in today’s American democracy that the public has little stomach for high casualty rates, and therefore public support quickly erodes for any extended military action. But there is also the issue of training costs. In today’s high-tech military, training many of the specialists is very expensive and takes many years, so their loss is expensive and they are hard to replace quickly. It can cost several million dollars and take many years to train and maintain the proficiency of a fighter pilot. Even a lowly foot soldier in today’s army can cost as much as $50,000 to train, and as much as $1 million/year to equip and maintain in the field of battle.
So moves to reduce casualties by using precision stand-off weapons, unmanned aircraft and the like are important not only for economic and political reasons, but also for logistical reasons because such casualties cannot be easily or quickly replaced, unlike soldiers in lower-tech armies.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Military cuts
President Obama has announced substantial cuts in US military spending, beginning in the 2013 budget, with additional cuts in prospect from the "sequester" occurring automatically after the failure of the budget commission to agree. Of course, in reality his proposal isn't really "cutting" military spending at all - just slowing it's growth. This is more of the political "smoke and mirrors" we get from Washington politicians.
As I have noted before, we could probably cut the US military budget in half and still have the most powerful military in the world, IF (and it is a big IF) the cuts were made wisely. We currently spend as much annually (about $740 billion) as the next 10 nations put together - including China ($90 billion), Russia ($53 billion), India ($32 billion) and the UK ($64 billion). That certainly seems like overkill to me.
The danger, of course, is that we will not make wise cuts. That we will save or cut weapons programs based on how powerful a few key members of Congress are in defending jobs in their districts. That we will save or cut weapons programs based on the relative influence of key large defense contractors and their lobbyists. That we will adjust the sizes of the various services based on how powerful their Congressional allies are. That we will skimp on pay, pensions and medical care for our service men and women to keep feeding the defense contractors. Or that Republican hawks will prevail and we simply won't cut anything significant, continuing to drive the US economy into the dirt.
Wise cuts would be based instead on a strategic view of our potential future conflicts and enemies. Such considerations as:
1. Control of the oceans remains as important today as it has been for the past few centuries. Something like 80% of world trade moves across oceans, include critical gas and oil energy supplies. The US has an unmatched geopolitical and geographic advantage, fronting on the world's two major oceans. But to exploit that advantage, we need to maintain a powerful navy. Ships aren't as "sexy" as high speed aircraft, but in the end they are probably more important.
Moreover, our ability to rapidly project military power to other parts of the world depends heavily on unchallenged control of the seas. Modern high-tech armed forces require massive logistics support (for example, a typical armored division may use approximately 600,000 gallons of fuel per day), far more than can be delivered simply by airlift, so continuing logistics support by sea is critical, and that means control of the seas.
That said, we probably need to seriously rethink our naval strategy. Current naval strategy is based around carrier groups - one aircraft carrier protected by dozens of smaller ships and submarines. Carrier groups do give us an airfield anywhere in the world, but they are exhorbitently expensive targets, vulnerable to relatively inexpensive anti-ship missiles or torpedoes. It is not clear what would be a better alternative, but at this point in their evolution, most of the enormous acquisition and operating cost of a carrier group goes to protect the vulnerable carrier, while the effective bomb load that can be delivered from the carrier deck hasn't increased than much since World War II.
2. We are more likely to face low-intensity asymmetric conflicts than major wars, and Iraq and Afghanistan have both shown how much a relatively primitive insurgent force can bleed a high-tech army in urban warfare. As the Israelis learned in their last excursion into Gaza in Dec 2008-Jan 2009, high-tech and expensive armor is highly vulnerable to inexpensive anti-tank missiles in urban conflicts. The M1 Abrams tank is a wonderfully advanced weapon system, but at $5+ million each it is a very expensive toy to lose to an inexpensive shoulder-launched anti-tank missile. In the desert in Iraq the tanks were great against Saddam's inexperienced and under-trained armored forces, but we are unlikely to have a turkey-shoot like that again any time soon. It is possible that the massed tank formations envisioned in a Cold War European conflict are out of date in most of today's likely conflicts.
3. Precision guided munition have made a massive difference in our ability to destroy targets effectively. One precision guided munition in Desert Storm could accomplish what took 170 bombs in Vietnam, or 9000 bombs in World War II. In a 1982 Army wargame that matched 30 Abrams tanks against 30 dune buggies with precision guided anti-tank weapons, 27 of the tanks were put out of action immediately, at the loss of only 3 dune buggies. It seems clear that continued investment in advances in this field will pay off handsomely, especially because it massively reduces the required logistic load -- not only are less munitions required, but more significantly, less sorties are required to deliver them, so less fuel is needed, less maintenance and spare parts are needed, less support infrastructure has to be provided, etc. etc..
4. Unmanned aerial vehicles have proven their worth over the past few years. In fact, much as air force types love to fly planes, the manned fighter is probably doomed, and the manned bomber as well. Unmanned airplanes can maneuver through far higher g-forces than a human can stand, and in air combat high-g turns are what wins the battles, especially against increasingly effective air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles. Historically, air bombardment has never proved as effective as its proponents have claimed. And with the advent of long-range cruise missiles with precision guidance, the manned airplane as a weapon delivery platform is probably on the way out. The one exception may be the slow, not-very-sexy, sturdy ground attack plane, like the old A-10 Warthog, useful in low-intensity conflicts, easy to maintain and hard to bring down.
5. I worry about our over-reliance on GPS guidance, and on satellite communications and imagery in general. If I were an enemy force about to face US military power, I would disable these assets any way I could. Many (perhaps most) are probably vulnerable to the powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) of an stratospheric nuclear blast. It seems to me we should address this issue more thoroughly than we appear to have done (though perhaps more has been done to harden them than the public knows - one can hope!).
6. Finally, it seems to me we need to massively improve our intelligence capability. Our military is so enamored of its high-tech weapons systems that it has neglected to invest heavily in understanding its opponents. And we have paid heavily for that neglect, repeatedly misreading our opponents from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. I would like to see a lot more money put into language and cultural training all the way from senior State Department officials and politicians to the lowest soldier.
If cuts are made from strategic consideration like these, we will still have an effective military. If the cuts are made by the usual Washington political horse-trading, they may seriously compromise our military forces, saddling us with expensive gold-plated weapons systems ill-suited to future conflicts and neglecting important investments that might make our military more effective and less expensive.
As I have noted before, we could probably cut the US military budget in half and still have the most powerful military in the world, IF (and it is a big IF) the cuts were made wisely. We currently spend as much annually (about $740 billion) as the next 10 nations put together - including China ($90 billion), Russia ($53 billion), India ($32 billion) and the UK ($64 billion). That certainly seems like overkill to me.
The danger, of course, is that we will not make wise cuts. That we will save or cut weapons programs based on how powerful a few key members of Congress are in defending jobs in their districts. That we will save or cut weapons programs based on the relative influence of key large defense contractors and their lobbyists. That we will adjust the sizes of the various services based on how powerful their Congressional allies are. That we will skimp on pay, pensions and medical care for our service men and women to keep feeding the defense contractors. Or that Republican hawks will prevail and we simply won't cut anything significant, continuing to drive the US economy into the dirt.
Wise cuts would be based instead on a strategic view of our potential future conflicts and enemies. Such considerations as:
1. Control of the oceans remains as important today as it has been for the past few centuries. Something like 80% of world trade moves across oceans, include critical gas and oil energy supplies. The US has an unmatched geopolitical and geographic advantage, fronting on the world's two major oceans. But to exploit that advantage, we need to maintain a powerful navy. Ships aren't as "sexy" as high speed aircraft, but in the end they are probably more important.
Moreover, our ability to rapidly project military power to other parts of the world depends heavily on unchallenged control of the seas. Modern high-tech armed forces require massive logistics support (for example, a typical armored division may use approximately 600,000 gallons of fuel per day), far more than can be delivered simply by airlift, so continuing logistics support by sea is critical, and that means control of the seas.
That said, we probably need to seriously rethink our naval strategy. Current naval strategy is based around carrier groups - one aircraft carrier protected by dozens of smaller ships and submarines. Carrier groups do give us an airfield anywhere in the world, but they are exhorbitently expensive targets, vulnerable to relatively inexpensive anti-ship missiles or torpedoes. It is not clear what would be a better alternative, but at this point in their evolution, most of the enormous acquisition and operating cost of a carrier group goes to protect the vulnerable carrier, while the effective bomb load that can be delivered from the carrier deck hasn't increased than much since World War II.
2. We are more likely to face low-intensity asymmetric conflicts than major wars, and Iraq and Afghanistan have both shown how much a relatively primitive insurgent force can bleed a high-tech army in urban warfare. As the Israelis learned in their last excursion into Gaza in Dec 2008-Jan 2009, high-tech and expensive armor is highly vulnerable to inexpensive anti-tank missiles in urban conflicts. The M1 Abrams tank is a wonderfully advanced weapon system, but at $5+ million each it is a very expensive toy to lose to an inexpensive shoulder-launched anti-tank missile. In the desert in Iraq the tanks were great against Saddam's inexperienced and under-trained armored forces, but we are unlikely to have a turkey-shoot like that again any time soon. It is possible that the massed tank formations envisioned in a Cold War European conflict are out of date in most of today's likely conflicts.
3. Precision guided munition have made a massive difference in our ability to destroy targets effectively. One precision guided munition in Desert Storm could accomplish what took 170 bombs in Vietnam, or 9000 bombs in World War II. In a 1982 Army wargame that matched 30 Abrams tanks against 30 dune buggies with precision guided anti-tank weapons, 27 of the tanks were put out of action immediately, at the loss of only 3 dune buggies. It seems clear that continued investment in advances in this field will pay off handsomely, especially because it massively reduces the required logistic load -- not only are less munitions required, but more significantly, less sorties are required to deliver them, so less fuel is needed, less maintenance and spare parts are needed, less support infrastructure has to be provided, etc. etc..
4. Unmanned aerial vehicles have proven their worth over the past few years. In fact, much as air force types love to fly planes, the manned fighter is probably doomed, and the manned bomber as well. Unmanned airplanes can maneuver through far higher g-forces than a human can stand, and in air combat high-g turns are what wins the battles, especially against increasingly effective air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles. Historically, air bombardment has never proved as effective as its proponents have claimed. And with the advent of long-range cruise missiles with precision guidance, the manned airplane as a weapon delivery platform is probably on the way out. The one exception may be the slow, not-very-sexy, sturdy ground attack plane, like the old A-10 Warthog, useful in low-intensity conflicts, easy to maintain and hard to bring down.
5. I worry about our over-reliance on GPS guidance, and on satellite communications and imagery in general. If I were an enemy force about to face US military power, I would disable these assets any way I could. Many (perhaps most) are probably vulnerable to the powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) of an stratospheric nuclear blast. It seems to me we should address this issue more thoroughly than we appear to have done (though perhaps more has been done to harden them than the public knows - one can hope!).
6. Finally, it seems to me we need to massively improve our intelligence capability. Our military is so enamored of its high-tech weapons systems that it has neglected to invest heavily in understanding its opponents. And we have paid heavily for that neglect, repeatedly misreading our opponents from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. I would like to see a lot more money put into language and cultural training all the way from senior State Department officials and politicians to the lowest soldier.
If cuts are made from strategic consideration like these, we will still have an effective military. If the cuts are made by the usual Washington political horse-trading, they may seriously compromise our military forces, saddling us with expensive gold-plated weapons systems ill-suited to future conflicts and neglecting important investments that might make our military more effective and less expensive.
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