US Strategic and Tactical problems I

It seems to me the US faces two major military issues, one strategic and one tactical. This note explores the strategic issue.

The strategic issue, it seems to me, is how to maintain a military adequate to insure the safety of the US without driving the nation into bankruptcy. Military spending isn’t the only thing driving the federal debt to dangerous levels, but it is certainly one of the contributors. We spend more on our military (about $700-750 billion next year, depending on how Congress comes out on the next budged deal) than the next 10 nations combined, including Russia and China. That is more than all the rest of the federal government’s discretionary spending (ie – not including mandated spending like Social Security, Medicare and interest on the federal debt). For more detail use the archive in the sidebar to see my series on priorities posted in April of 2017.

As I argued in a previous posting, distance is the issue that makes forward posting of US military assets highly expensive, but some in government feel the strong need to have US troops and equipment pre-positioned throughout the world to overcome the distance problem, the inevitable delay in responding to aggression in distant nations.

The common military argument is that the US needs to have a large enough military to be able to fight and win a two front war, or at least win one and stalemate the second. It’s not clear our current military could do that even with the current massive spending levels, and so achieving that goal would require even higher rates of spending, and debt. I would argue instead that what we need is a strong enough military that we WITH OUR ALLIES could fight and win a two front war.  That was certainly the strategy during the Cold War, and it would be just as applicable today.

So it seems to me the focus ought NOT to be on building US military might to be able to win two simultaneous wars ALONE, but rather on working with our allies to share the load, and to be sure their forces are adequate and properly equipped and trained to do their share in any conflict, and that we have designed and tested the interoperability, not just of our combat forces, but also of our logistics, intelligence, and command systems. Of course we do some of that now, but not nearly as much as we would do if we and our allies were serious about a true shared responsibility.

In that respect I think president Trump has done the right thing in bluntly and forcefully pressing our NATO allies to step up to their pledge to spend at least 2% of their GDP on military forces (only 8 of the 28 NATO members did so in 2018, but that is better than it has been).  And despite the withering scorn of the media and Washington foreign policy elite directed at Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan and let the local regional allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) handle the matter, I think that is the right direction to be taking in the Middle East; it is consistent with sharing the load rather than bankrupting ourselves trying to do it alone.

I have a proposal

What is noticeable about this shutdown, like all past shutdowns, is that while thousands of government workers are furloughed or working without pay, and trying to figure out how to pay their mortgage and credit card bills and whether to return Christmas presents, members of Congress and the president are all on paid holiday, totally unaffected by the chaos they have unleashed on others. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out in his recent book Skin in the Game, it is immoral to make policy for others if one has no skin in the game.

Government shutdowns are highly disruptive, yet they have become a tool of political hardball by both parties.  We need to discourage that, and encourage more bipartisan efforts at compromise. So here is my suggestion:

Any time any portion of the government is shut down because of a failure of Congress and the president to pass and sign an appropriation bill in time, for whatever reason:

• a)      Both houses of Congress shall be required to remain in session 24 hours a day, all members of Congress shall be required to be present on the floor for a morning and evening roll call, and the president shall be required to remain in the White House, until the government is reopened


• b)      The pay of all members of Congress and their staffs, and the president and the White House political staff, shall be docked one week of pay for each day or partial day of the shutdown and shall not be eligible for back pay at the end of the shutdown.


• c)      If the government shutdown exceeds three days, all sitting members of Congress in both houses and the president shall become legally ineligible for re-election, on the grounds that they are obviously incapable of discharging their duties. In the case of a president in her or his second term who would already be ineligible for re-election, that president’s party forfeits 40 electoral votes in the next presidential election.

Of course Congress will get around this with continuing resolutions, and we ought to discourage that was well, but this at least will discourage the chaos of government shutdowns.

This shutdown is stupid!

Democrats, and some Republicans, in Congress have driven us to a partial government shutdown over Trump's demand for $5 billion for a border wall. This is stupid. The wall may be a dumb idea, but just to put things in perspective, Americans spend an estimated $5.9 billion a year on CHEWING TOBACCO.  So Democrats want to shut down the government over less money than we spend on CHEWING TOBACCO!!!!

Give Trump his $5 billion and let's reopen the government! Yes, the wall may be a dumb idea, but it is hardly the first dumb idea Congress has funded.

The strategic issue of distance

The main strategic problem America faces if it wants to be the world’s peacekeeper is the issue of distance. Even with today’s technology, it takes a long time to get large military formations to distant locations in the world. For example, Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2,1990 , but we didn’t begin the counteroffensive until January 17 of 1991. It took almost 6 months to get enough troops and equipment assembled to begin a response.

One solution to the strategic problem of distance is to pre-position ships and troops and equipment all around the world, so that some are relatively near any potential trouble spot. That’s fine, but it is enormously expensive.

For example, on average it takes 3-4 ½ ships (depending on type) to keep one ship on station somewhere around the world; the rest are steaming to or from station, or in training, or in maintenance.  To move a carrier group from the US to, say, the Middle East takes about 17 days, not counting the time pierside to provision it and prepare it to leave (typically 30-90 days).  That is why we maintain 11 wildly expensive carrier strike forces, so that at least 2-3 can be on station at any given time. (and that’s why China’s two carriers are hardly a serious threat).

And moving heavy armor has the same problem. A few pieces can be airlifted in, but the main body needs to move by ship, taking weeks to arrive. In 2016 we spent somewhere between $91 and $121 billion, between 15-20 percent of the entire military budget, in 2016 just to maintain our military forces in the Middle East.

An obvious alternate solution to this problem is to rely on allies closer to the trouble spots to provide the main military forces used, rather than carry the enormous cost of maintaining American troops and equipment everywhere..  Rather than maintaining American forces in Europe to counter Russia, let the Europeans carry that burden; it’s their neighborhood, not ours (and their GDP is as big as ours; they can afford it).  Rather than maintaining American troops in the Middle East at enormous expense, let Turkey and Israel and Saudi Arabia and even Russia manage the quagmire there; it’s their neighborhood, not ours. Rather than facing off against China, let Japan and South Korea and India and Australia carry that load; it’s their neighborhood, not ours. We can certainly help by providing training and weapons systems and overhead intelligence and even some logistics support, but we don’t actually have to commit major forces there unless there is an active war going on..

The Washington neoconservative foreign policy consensus (or perhaps groupthink) of course thinks we ought to keep American forces everywhere, which is why the dismay when Trump pulls them out of Syria. But in fact we need to be realistic about the national budget – we simply can’t afford to maintain troops and equipment everywhere. We are already deeply in debt, and it is getting worse.

How dangerous, really, is Russia today?

The media made much of the two Russian nuclear-capable TU-160 bombers that flew to Venezuela this week for a few days of exercises with the tiny Venezuelan air force, which shows that the old Cold War mentality is still alive and well in the media, and perhaps in Washington as well.

There is no question that Russian engineers and designers are good, and that new Russian aircraft and ships are perhaps as good as anything we build in the West, though usually a bit behind in electronics.  For example, the new SU57 fighter appears to be quite good, but Russia has only ordered 10 pre-production prototypes, and 12 production models. In contrast, the 9 countries that have ordered America’s new F35 fighter account for 3,100 orders so far (the US Air Force alone plans thus far to acquire 1,763 of them).

Or consider nuclear attack submarines. Russian currently has 17 operational, as near as US intelligence can determine (one Sierra I, two Sierra IIs, three Victor IIIs, 10 Akulas, and one new Yasen). They also apparently have 22 conventional (non-nuclear) in service, most 25-35 years old and useful mostly for inshore defense. In contrast, the US has 51 nuclear attack submarines currently in service (32 Los Angeles class, 3 Seawolf class, and 16 Virginian class, with 14 more Virginia class planned or under construction).

Or consider the TU-160 (Blackjack) strategic bombers that just caused such a media hysteria. The Russians have 16 of them in service. We have 62 B1 and 20 B2 bombers currently in service, though for both the Russian and American bombers maintenance is a problem (largely for budget reasons in both cases), and probably neither nation could actually field on short notice more than half their total.

Certainly the Russians have enough force to cause us problems around the Russian periphery, and of course they are a nuclear nation, which suggests that we would be unwise to invade them (but Napoleon and Hitler both demonstrated that was unwise in any case). But they are hardly an existential threat to the US, or even a serious threat to Europe. Indeed, it is not even clear they could actually successfully invade and hold all of the Ukraine, though they might like to.

For all their designers are good, their economy just isn’t large enough to field and support large numbers of expensive weapons systems. In fact the Russian economy (GDP about 1.7 trillion) is about the size of Italy’s economy, and somewhat less than the economy of Texas.  Looked at in terms of GDP per capita, Russian’s is about $8,700 per worker while Texas workers produce about $58,000 a person.  

Media hysteria is never helpful.

Climate Change - yet again

As a friend pointed out about my last post, the French have a peculiar attachment to street demonstrations, many of them violent  (perhaps a residual national pride still in the 1789-1799 French Revolution, or perhaps just because they are French!),  so really the current street violence in France may not be indicative of how the rest of the world might react. A valid point. And of course there are other factors at work as well - the French middle class and rural class have been under financial pressure for years now, so it's not just the petrol tax that is at issue, French president Marcon has already shaken up the labor markets and unions and is highly unpopular at the moment, and the demonstrations have been taken over by thugs and fringe elements, which accounts for much of the violence and destruction. 

Still, the elites of the world are under pressure everywhere. Trump's election, the rise of the socialist Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party, the Brexit vote and the political chaos that has followed in Britain, and the rise of right-wing parties all across Europe are all symptoms of an international order under stress, largely because of growing inequality - in both political power and wealth- between a small elite class and the rest (the so-called 99%). And all of this unrest is being amplified by the new social media.  Imposing the radical changes recommended in the recent climate report would be hard enough in good times when the populace was prosperous and happy; in the current stressed atmosphere any additional hardships will just feed the anger and resentment at whatever party is in power.

I don't expect this problem to be resolved quickly. I think the world order will continue to be disrupted for decades yet, and I think there are other forces in the wings which will continue to feed it, including increased automation (which will put more people out of work, and perhaps depress wages for the rest), and the demographic changes which are beginning to depopulate many first world nations, which will badly upset the social safety nets and tax bases of nations.
      

Climate change - again

I argued in a post back in October that there was little chance that governments would follow the recommendations of the recent climate change report, and that if they even tried their populations would probably revolt.  So the French government raised its hydrocarbon tax this year by 7.6 cents per liter on diesel and 3.9 cents on petrol, as part of a campaign for cleaner cars and fuel, with a further proposed increase of 6.5 cents on diesel and 2.9 cents on petrol on 1 January 2019. The result has been four weeks of rioting in Paris and elsewhere in France. I rest my case.

Can you imagine what would happen if a government tried to ban eating beef, milk and cheese, or using wool (domestic cattle and sheep produce 20-25% of the world's methane, a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide) ? Or if a government demanded that we cut in half the energy used to heat and cool our homes (think of the people in Phoenix with no air conditioning, or the people in Maine with no heat). Or if a government banned almost all personal automobiles?  Yet these are all recommendations of the climate report.