U.S. Defense

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From March 13-16, former soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are giving eyewitness testimony to what they did in that country. Unlike filtered news from the military, or the biased news from the media, this is the visceral truth, straight from the frontlines. Whether you are against the occupation or for it, finding out what is really going on in Iraq is a requirement to help clarify your point of view.

The courage of these soldiers is undeniable and I am not talking about their actions in combat. Exposing their innermost thoughts and revealing things about themselves that they would normally only share with their combat buddies is perhaps the bravest act of their military service. And it is a great service to their country and history as well.

To watch the video, go to www.ivaw.org.

The US military has geographically divided up the world into six regional “commands.” Northern Command, which was created in the wake of the September 11 attacks, is based in NORAD in Colorado. European Command is based in Stuttgart, Germany, so it is right in the middle of its area of responsibility (AOR). Pacific Command has as its AOR, the Pacific Ocean, Australia, and Southeast Asia, so it is well placed in Hawaii. Southern Command is in charge of controlling Latin America. Until 1997, it was located in Panama, but since the Panama Canal Treaty, SOUTHCOM was forced to relocate to Miami, Florida, because no country in the region would host it. However, it is at least still close to the region it is responsible for. That leaves Central Command and Africa Command. 

CENTCOM has been the busiest command since 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. At the time, many observers thought CENTCOM would take the opportunity to relocate itself to Kuwait, but it stayed in its home base in Tampa, Florida. Basing an entire command in its AOR may not be necessary nor even productive anymore. The new paradigm seems to be instead of one major headquarters, having many smaller ones dotted around the AOR. This is a new concept that the CENTCOM is trying out in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. The commander, General Lovelace said, the war on terror and a need to be more operationally focused compelled the Army to alter its approach. “You don’t have the element of time on your side anymore, like we did in the Cold War. We’ve got to be ready tonight. That’s why now you have that broader commitment. This is a big, dynamic theater. We track little hot spots in a time that’s exceedingly important to our nation.” George Bush’s current trip to Africa is being seen by some as laying the groundwork for the same diversified command structure for AFRICACOM, which is currently located in Germany. Bush has denied this even though every country he has visited has expressed interest in having AFRICACOM set up its base there. However, Bush did clarify that “that doesn’t mean we won’t develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa.”

From 1979 to 1989, the Soviet Army attempted to occupy Afghanistan and defeat an insurgency of Afghan rebels. They failed and two years later found their own country falling to pieces and with it, the Soviet Bloc’s collective security alliance, the Warsaw Pact. Although, the Russian Afghan War was not the main reason the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved, it definitely played a role. Now with the US Army mired in an Afghan insurgency of its own, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been trying to push America’s NATO allies to help out. Although Gates is right to seek more allies and  troops for Afghanistan, he is conveniently forgetting why they are needed in the first place. After the US military invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, it should have devoted the vast resources that were necessary to winning the peace afterwards because a scattered Taliban does not mean a defeated Taliban. Instead, those resources were sent to fight a war in Iraq, which was being effectively contained and wasn’t an imminent threat to the stability of the Middle East, or America. Now, bogged down in two quagmires, the US has to go begging with bowl in hand to allies it has denigrated in the past. Gates has to even resort to empty threats saying, “NATO is a collective security agreement, a military alliance. The members have signed up with certain obligations in this regard. But if it were to become the case that some allies are not prepared to fulfill their military obligations, while others continue to do so, I think that that is a very dangerous situation for the future of the alliance.”

Afghanistan indirectly caused the end of the Warsaw Pact. It would be ironic if it did the same to NATO.

The Department of Defense released its figure for the 2009 budget: $518.3 billion. As this article points out, that number is only the military portion of the budget. There are other expenditures that could be easily classified as funding national security also. First, the $70 billion the DOD requested to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Secondly, the requested $17.1 billion the Department of Energy needs to maintain our country’s nuclear weapons. Then there is Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the State Department, and many other departments and agencies that relieve the DOD of some of the debt burden. The grand total of our national security state comes to well over $600 billion.

America’s national security budget is only 4-5% of its GDP, which ranks it 28th in the world on military expenditures as a  percentage of GDP. However, the US ranks #1 on total expenditure and in fact, spends more on defense than every other country in the world combined.

MSNBC cites a report from a research group “that nearly 71 percent of Army recruits graduated from high school in the 2007 budget year.” MSN goes on to state that “the Army’s goal is 90 percent high school graduates, which it hasn’t met since 2004. Each year since, the number of recruits with at least a high school diploma has steadily declined.”

In a conventional war, soldiers don’t need to be critical thinkers, strength and guts is usually enough to win through to victory. However, counter-insurgency is a thinking man’s war. The enemy has to be outthought as much as outfought. Often, knowing when not to shoot is as important as engaging, which takes discipline born from intelligence, maturity and selflessness. Also, fighting an insurgency is more ambigious than fighting an interstate war between uniformed armies. The soldiers involved do not have clear military objectives that can be attained by applying the right amount of force at the right place. There will be no liberation and joyous people thanking the soldiers. Instead, there will be indifference at best and resistance at worst. This also will prey on those without the mental agility to deal with this aspect of their role as occupiers.

Now, because of its losses, the Army has to lower its standards in order to put more soldiers in the field. The same situation existed in Vietnam during the last few years of US involvment. The officer corps lowered its standards and allowed its cadets to go through a quick leadership program, which came to be derisively called “shake and bake.” Lieutenant Calley of My Lai infamy became an officer through this program.

I’m not saying anything so heinous will occur in Iraq because of relaxed standards, but there will be a slow, grinding price to pay. The new soldiers will have less discipline, which will lead to more casualties and more deadly errors. In turn, this will lead to greater resistance among the Iraqi population, which translates into more US casualties and an even more urgent need to replace them. The longer the occupation goes on, the lower the recruitment standards will fall. The Army is caught in a vicious circle.