Rumsfeld's missed opportunity

Guest post by Sean Aqui of Midtopia

(Ed. note: Midtopia is "a vision of how the world would be if the moderate middle prevailed". Here's how Sean describes himself: "I'm politically moderate, though I'm more liberal on social issues and more conservative on fiscal issues. I'm practically libertarian about civil liberties. I support a strong military, but believe it should be used judiciously. We should ask our men and women in uniform to risk their lives only for the most defensible reasons." Midtopia is a new blog, founded just last month, but already I think it's one of the best "moderate" blogs in the blogosphere. I suppose I ought to mention that I don't always agree with Sean, even if liberals and moderates seem to be getting along quite well in Bush's America these days, but, whatever our disagreements, he writes thoughtfully and provocatively on a variety of issues, particularly the military and the economy (see, for example, his recent post on the estate tax here). I encourage you to check out Midtopia regularly. -- MJWS)

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One of the few things I respect Donald Rumsfeld for has been his attempt to reform the structure and bureaucracy of the military.

Killing the Crusader self-propelled artillery program, for example, was a smart move. It hurts doubly to say that, because I was a tanker (making the Crusader kin of a sort) and because much of the work would have been done in my home state of Minnesota. But the Crusader was a hulking Cold War relic, unsuited for the sort of lighter, nimbler, more flexible military that I agree we need to build.

That's why this essay from Armed Forces Journal caught my eye. It argues that whatever his intentions, Rumsfeld has (once again) messed up the execution, missing his big chance to make a difference in how the military operates.

Every four years the Pentagon does something called a Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which is supposed to outline what the military's situation and structure will be in the coming years. That, in turn, is supposed to guide assembly of the military budget. But it doesn't:

The QDR calls for greater mobility, but the budget terminates both of the Air Force’s airlift programs. The report says America is engaged in a "long war" against terrorism, but the budget cuts back the Army’s planned number of combat brigades. The report says the Pentagon needs to rely more on market forces in its business practices, but the budget proposes creation of a monopoly for producing the most popular military engine in the world.

That disconnect between rhetoric and reality is a bad start, but luckily we can write it off as irrelevant. That's because this QDR -- Rumsfeld's last opportunity to radically reshape the military -- doesn't really matter. It comes too late in the budget and political process. The Bush Administration's influence is on the wane as 2008 approaches, and if Rumsfeld wanted to make lasting changes he had to start last year. He didn't.

2001 was wasted on strategic reviews and staffing decisions. Then came 9/11, followed by Afghanistan, Iraq, and Abu Ghraib -- all distractions that meant no traction for the 2001 QDR. When Bush won a second term and it was time for another QDR, Rumsfeld hadn't accomplished anything "transformative":

As it turned out, much of 2005 was consumed by the review itself. The sixth year of Bush’s eight years in office has commenced, and time is running out for military transformation. Two years ago, it was common for policymakers to say that hard choices would need to be made in the 2006 defense budget. When that didn’t happen, it was predicted that truly momentous shifts would unfold in 2007. Now, people around Rumsfeld are predicting real change in the 2008 budget. However, 2008 is the president’s last year in office, so nobody on Rumsfeld’s team is likely to be around to enforce the priorities contained in that budget. In other words, the transformationists have missed the budgetary boat. It’s too late to radically rearrange the nation’s defense posture.

Translation: Rumsfeld was too slow, and now it's too late.

Even if Rumsfeld had moved more decisively and submitted an ambitious QDR that matched his rhetoric, plenty of other self-inflicted obstacles remained: his alienation of Congress, an inability to rein in military entitlements, a detached and indecisive leadership style, and a poor appreciation for the threats facing us.

But maybe all that doesn't matter either. Because it seems increasingly apparent that Rumsfeld made a rookie mistake: thinking that what helps in one type of military situation is effective in all military situations. His idea that technology will mean we need fewer soldiers is a classic example.

In force-on-force combat, technology offers *huge* multipliers. My Abrams tank could hit targets more than 2,000 meters away. We had great communications to coordinate our movements, and satellite technology allowed us to pinpoint and anticipate enemy movements and locations within a few meters.

A tank battle was like a live-action video game, moving the targeting reticle from target to target, firing, reloading, doing it again.

But the closer you get to your enemy, and the more you have to discriminate between friend and foe, the less technology helps. I can nuke a whole city from the continental U.S.; if I want to capture the city, I have to send in troops. If I want to minimize civilian casualties, I have to be very careful in my target selection and send in far more troops per target. And the closer you get, and the more wind or rain or dust there is, the less difference there is between the U.S. soldier and his ragtag opponent.

That's one reason the Army hates urban combat. The close quarters neutralize many of our advantages; it gets down to the infantry digging people out of holes, one hole at a time. It's bloody, nasty, exhausting work that has destroyed more than one elite military force.

The U.S. military is unparalleled in its ability to destroy an enemy armored brigade. But its effectiveness in pacification comes down to training, unit cohesion, discipline, leadership and numbers -- not technology. You don't build local support by dropping bombs from space; you do it by walking the streets every day, meeting people, shaking hands, establishing relationships. A U.S. soldier's technology is no help in that regard. They are no more effective at that -- and, due to language and cultural barriers, perhaps even *less* effective -- than Pakistanis or Bangladeshis.

Rumsfeld saw the Iraq war as a sort of proof of concept, a live-fire demonstration that a small, nimble force could take out Saddam. He was right to some extent, though one may quibble about how "light" our mechanized invasion force was or how serious a threat the Iraqi military posed. But he was also myopic; he failed to recognize that actually occupying a country requires a different sort of approach and a whole lot more troops.

Compounding the failure, the White House let him do as he saw fit. Living in an alternate reality may be comforting, but it makes for really bloody messes when such fantasies are used as the basis for real-world policies.

In a way, Rumsfeld sums up much of what I think history will say about the Bush Administration: soaring and determined rhetoric sprinkled with good and principled ideas, but based on an unrealistic view of the world and executed with almost stunning incompetence.

It's too bad, because the military needs what Rumsfeld promised to deliver. We can only hope that the next Secretary of Defense has the same priorities and better luck.

I leave you with the thoughts of Retired Gen. Paul Eaton, who supports the venture in Iraq and was in charge of training Iraqi forces in 2003 and 2004. He lays out a whole list of reasons why Rumsfeld should be fired:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead America's armed forces. First, his failure to build coalitions with U.S. allies from what he dismissively called "old Europe" has imposed far greater demands and risks on American soldiers in Iraq than necessary. Second, he alienated his allies in the U.S. military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input.

In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to America's mission in Iraq... Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his Cold Warrior's view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower. As a result the U.S. Army finds itself severely undermanned -- cut to 10 active divisions but asked by the administration to support a foreign policy that requires at least 12 or 14.

There may be little point to firing Rumsfeld at this late date, but it would be nice to see the administration finally hold someone accountable for doing a poor job -- especially on something as important as the U.S. military.