| Sunday, March
8, 2009
Magical Goo Makes It All Better,
Jerry
It looks like we are well on our way to getting
Nemourlon:
http://www.strategypage.com/
htmw/htinf/articles/20090301.aspx
Ed
=============
Hearst to launch a wireless e-reader - Feb. 27, 2009
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/27/
technology/copeland_hearst.fortune/index.htm
Francis Hamit
============
Hydrogen Produced from Aluminum
and Water
The Future Of Things reports on a new method of
generating hydrogen using aluminium.
"Scientists at Pennsylvania State University and
Virginia Commonwealth University are producing hydrogen by exposing clusters
of aluminum atoms to water. Rather than relying on the electronic properties
of the aluminum, this new process depends on the geometric distribution of
atoms within the clusters and requires the presence of Lewis acids and Lewis
bases in those atoms. Unlike most hydrogen production processes, this method
can be used at room temperature and doesn't require the application of heat
or electricity to work."
"TFOT has reported on several new methods for
generating hydrogen gas, including a new method for releasing hydrogen from
nitrogen-fixing bacteria, a new process for extracting hydrogen from
unrefined oil, and a cobalt phosphate catalyst for separating water into
hydrogen and oxygen. TFOT has also reported on many new hydrogen fuel cells
and hydrogen powered vehicles including a new hydrogen fuel cell and gas
distribution system light enough for use on an unmanned helicopter, Boeing's
tests of a hydrogen powered manned airplane, and the world's smallest
hydrogen fuel cell, measuring a mere 3x3x1 millimeters."
http://thefutureofthings.com/news/
6541/hydrogen-produced-from-
aluminum-and-water.html
Tim Boettcher
The DC/X experience convinced me that hydrogen is a
nightmare for operations. I used to be more of an enthusiast, but even if we
found hydrogen wells I'd worry about it...
===========
Schadenfreude (sp?) of the post-boomer generation
An opinion piece written by (apparently) a post-boomer
who's enjoying watching the boomers adjust their expectations now that the
sand castles they built are being swept away by the tide.
http://network.nationalpost.com/
np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/
2009/02/24/colby-cosh-watching
-boomers-suffer-is-worth-a-recession.aspx
Kind of a mean tone, but some good points.
Cheers!
Doug Hayden
"I knew I was never going to retire before it was cool
<grin>"
===========
Overheard
Paraphrased from Don Surber's blog today - can't vouch
for it's veracity, but I enjoyed seeing it:
Overheard by a commercial pilot en route from Europe
to Dubai on the Guard (emergency) 121.5 MHz frequency:
Iranian Air Defense Radar: "Unknown aircraft you are
in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself."
Pilot: "This is a United States aircraft. I am in
Iraqi airspace."
Air Defense Radar: "You are in Iranian airspace. If
you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!"
Pilot: "This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18
fighter. Send ‘em up, I’ll wait!"
Air Defense Radar: (no response - total silence)
http://blogs.dailymail.com/
donsurber/2009/03/02/quote-of-
the-day-11/#more-7617
David Smith
=============
Tipler Letter
Hi Jerry.
The letter from Frank Tipler re AGW research reminded
me of a brief article I read elswhere recently. It concerns President
Eisenhower's Farewell Address. There is a little-known second warning in his
speech, beyond the oft-quoted "military-industrial complex" one. Here is the
text (this appears right after the MIC comments):
"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping
changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological
revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it
also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing
share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal
government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop,
has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and
testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the
fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a
revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs
involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for
intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of
new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars
by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever
present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in
respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite
danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a
scientific-technological elite."
Amazingly prophetic!
As to the alleged AGW, it is my thought that, fifty
years from now (assuming a return to sanity), the whole AGW issue will be
studied as one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever carried out.
--
Be Well, Brian Mills
==
Global Warming
debate
William Schlesinger and John Christy debate on Global
Warming (Feb 11, 2009)
http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom
/lockerroom.html?id=18946
I enjoyed hearing Christy (who was actually a leading
author of the IPCC report) in the debate. Unlike Schlesinger, his specialty
is gathering and analyzing climate data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christy. I Googled a few more of
his articles; he’s into data. As a result, he doesn’t seem impressed by the
“consensus” of lots of climate scientists who are in the modeling business,
not in the data business.
Statement by Dr. Schlesinger, who was the pro-Global
Warming speaker: When asked what fraction of IPCC members were climate
scientists, he said
http://www.johnlocke.org/
lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=18982 “something on the order
of 20 percent have had some dealing with climate.”
There should be more debates on this subject – but
there aren’t, near as I can tell.
Michoel Reach
==
Richard Lindzen's slide for his talk at EPA,
Washington, DC, Dec. 9, 2008 can be found here:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/
wpi.nsf/09133da7fb9a95db852
56698006641d1/
"I suspect that this cessation of warming may also be
responsible for the tsunami of hysterical climate propaganda of the past 3
years. The issue has been prominent for almost a generation, during which
time many agendas have developed. There may be a fear that these agendas
must be achieved now or never." See Slide 21.
Joe
=========
Smashwords - THE FREELANCE
WRITING FILES #1: Why Publishers Use Freelancers - A book by Francis Hamit
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1035
Dear Jerry:
The Tasini case will not die! The Supreme Court has
agreed to review the Appeals Court decision that threw out the class action
settlement in the Electronic Database Litigation, on the quite reasonable
grounds that 99% of the class had never registered their copyrights. They
held that, absent that, the Federal District Court had no jurisdiction. I
thought that was the end of it. But, for those who want some deep
background, I have hauled out and revised and slightly expanded my 2003
article "Why Publishers Use Freelancers", which can be found through the
above link at Smashwords.com. There is a generous free sample, but the whole
thing will cost a buck.
You may also assume from the uber-title that there
will be other articles about Freelance Writing. These will be affordable,
but not free, because free advice is worth what you pay for it.
And Chapter Two of "Robot Dreams" my science fiction
serial, is also up.
Regards,
Francis Hamit
==============
Let's make those Republican numbers more exact
Jerry,
"Newt left office. The Republicans went mad, spending
more than the Democrats."
Yes. To be more precise, from CBO estimates:
Projection of where we'd be at the end of 2008 when
Bush took office (based on continuing the Clinton budgets): $
4,480,000,000,000 SURPLUS
Actual state at the end of 2008 after 8 years of Bush
spending:
$ 4,350,546,687,026 DEFICIT
The swing, under W's stewardship, is $
8,830,546,687,026, nearly $9T.
To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, "a trillion here, a
trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money."
The $8.8T number is why I can't work up any belief in
the sincerity of all the Crocodile tears and faux outrage over Obama's
spending. Have Rush et al been living under rocks for the last 8 years?
Deficits run by Republicans cost just as much, per dollar, as the (much
smaller!) deficits run by Democrats.
Party politics aside, we need a balanced budget. I was
astonished when Clinton managed to do it, and even more astonished at how
quickly W. blew it all away.
Chuck
===========
Pakistan
G'day Jerry,
I thought this link might be interesting for you. It's
an analysis of the situation in Pakistan following the latest Terrorist
attack there. I don't know what type of coverage the attack of the Sri
Lankan Cricket Team has received in the U.S., here it's very big. One thing
that is annoying about the media coverage is their description of the
terrorists as highly trained and co-ordinated. If they'd been highly trained
the team bus would've been disabled straight away and they'd have boarded it
rather then standing back spraying shots from the hip.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/
story/0,25197,25138988-28737,00.html
It raises the question of how do you subtract an
unknown number of atomic weapons from an unknown location(s) before they and
a country of 100 million Muslims fall into the hands of fanatics?
Regards, Chris.
==
wonder
http://www.nature.com/nature/
journal/v458/n7234/abs/nature07779.html
Consider two masses, one that weighs "only" as much as
20 million Suns, the other which weighs almost as much as a billion.
Consider them orbiting one other faster than Pluto orbits our Sun. Consider
them being so heavy that each one rips a hole in the fabric of space and
time, a hole whose interior we still don't understand. And consider that the
energy of matter falling into these two immense holes in space is so
powerful that it lights a fire which human beings can see as a 'star' from
4.5 billion light-years away.
*That's* what the Nature article is describing.
"Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till
you so love the beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to
persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption
of men in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell than
willingly be guilty of their error. There is so much blindness and
ingratitude and damned folly in it. The world is a mirror of infinite
beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards
it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it."
--Thomas Traherne
--Erich
Wow!
==========
comment on F-35s
One thing that F-22 only/no F-35 proponents tend to
gloss over is the STOVL capabilities of the F-35B.
For example in the infamous RAND report where Kadena
is rendered inoperable by SRBMs and only six F-22s could operate from
Andersen ignores the possibility of forward deployment of F-35Bs onto Taiwan
using roadways and whatever infrastructure that Taiwan has left. For
certain, Taiwan's airfields will be out of action as well. We can pretty
much write off all of their current fixed wing assets in that scenario.
Add 72 F-35Bs to the mix and those 6 F-22s from Guam
are not hopelessly outmatched. Of course, that requires that some Taiwanese
infrastructure to have survived (fuel, fuel trucks, missle resupply, etc)
and stretches of suitable highways.
It also makes STOM look a little less suicidal...and
it makes the LHA/LHDs in Sea Control Mode a lot more formidable than 20
Harriers. Effectively we get 10 baby carriers with real teeth. Cancelling
F-35A orders in favor of more F-22s probably puts the whole program at risk
and is pretty shortsighted.
N
==========
Re: Too Big To Fail
You write: " I have come to the conclusion that any
company or organization that is too big to be allowed to fail should not be
allowed to exist in a Republic. "
I'd go even further than the "failure" issue--it's a
question of basic service toward the customers. A local bank with 1000
depositors has a lot of interest in the financial health of its customers. A
nationwide bank with 25 million depositors doesn't care a bit about any one
customer; entire towns could go bankrupt and the bank could just say "oh
well, cost of doing business!"
Mike
===========
Subject: More lessons from Japan
Jerry,
Here is a grim view of one possible future:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/business/worldbusiness/06yen.html?ref=business
Japan’s Slump Tests Faith in the Resilience of Stocks:
When Japan’s stock market took a nose dive in 1990,
analysts told Shizuko Kitamura to take the long view, just invest
consistently and stoically and wait for share prices to recover.
Almost two decades later, she is still waiting.
For those seeking solace in the conventional wisdom
that stocks rise in the long run, consider this: 20 years after Japan’s
stock market peaked, share prices are still less than 25 percent of their
top values.
CP, Connecticut
We pretty well learned many of those lessons in the
New Deal; see Amity Shlaes The Forgotten Man.
============
McCain, Chu, and Nuclear Waste
Dr. Pournelle:
The exchange between Senator McCain and the new head
of the Department of Energy (DOE), Dr. Chu, on reprocessing and Yucca
Mountain is highlighted in this blog entry:
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.
com/2009/03/john-mccain-and-
steven-chu-on-yucca.html The entry also includes a link to the
audio of the hearing noting that the McCain-Chu exchange starts at the 55
minute mark.
As a Nuclear Engineer I am beyond disappointed in Dr.
Chu's positions. Essentially, his stance is that we need more research in
both areas before implementation. As McCain points out and you and your
readers are aware, the rest of the advanced world has been reprocessing
successfully for quite some time. We used to do it until Jimmy Carter. Chu
invokes the usual bogeyman of nonproliferation. From his protestations, one
might conclude that the Japanese and Europeans have not addressed the
problem, but for those of us who have looked at what our allies are doing
Chu's remarks are uninformed. Nonproliferation is the usual stumbling block
used by the Greens and their ilk to stop Nuclear Power lest a single atom of
any given isotope of Plutonium be made vulnerable to misappropriation.
Yucca Mountain has been researched to the point of
being boring. The repository has been paid for by Nuclear electric users in
their utility bills for decades. The Utilities have been prohibited from
pursuing any waste disposal solution except that offered exclusively by the
government, and that repository was promised to be accepting waste long
before now--hence all the spent fuel rods sitting in ponds at the plants. If
this exclusive contract were imposed by anyone but the Federal Government,
the Utilities could have sued the mountebank out of existence long ago.
It will be instructive should Dr. Chu be questioned
about Anthropogenic Global Warming. I'm willing to bet that in contrast to
his positions on Nuclear Waste, he advocates immediate implementation of
political solutions without waiting for rigorous research. Any takers?
P.S. You mused about reading some of your works for an
audiobook(s). I suggest you audition by placing mp3 samples on your site and
soliciting criticism from your readers. The response could factor into your
assessment of feasibility and desirability. I'm one of those who uses
audiobooks for light reading, and I expect that you have more readers who
have to try to save their eyesight for technical reading and enjoy
audiobooks for the nontechnical.
---
Clay Booker
Chu is respectably smart; we have mutual friends
and all agree. I am baffled in this instance.
I think you are right and I should try some sample
recordings. But then I have been meaning to do podcasts for about a year.
They just don't put enough hours in the day...
================
The following is very
long. I found it worth reading. I am ending the week with it.
Foreign Policy Research Institute Over 50 Years of Ideas in Service to
Our Nation www.fpri.org
E-Notes Distributed Exclusively via Fax & Email
DEFENSE SHOWSTOPPERS: NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES FOR THE OBAMA
ADMINISTRATION A Conference Report by Michael P. Noonan
March 6, 2009
Michael P.Noonan is managing director of FPRI's Program on National
Security and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
DEFENSE SHOWSTOPPERS:
NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
A Conference Report
by Michael P. Noonan
On February 12, 2009, FPRI's Program on National Security held a
conference on potential "defense showstoppers" for the Obama
administration--critical issues that, if not fixed, could lead to a serious
deterioration of American military capabilities. The event was hosted and
co-sponsored by the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, D.C.
Program-affiliated scholars Michael Horowitz, Michael P. Noonan, Mackubin T.
Owens, and Frank G. Hoffman served as panel moderators. More than 100
individuals from academia, government, NGOs, the media, the military, and
the public participated in person, and another 300-plus individuals from
around the world participated by webcast. Audio and video files of the
proceedings are posted at FPRI's website: http://www.fpri.org/research/nationalsecurity/showstoppers/index.html
The papers presented at the conference will be published in Orbis and other
outlets.
FPRI thanks W.W. Keen Butcher, Robert L. Freedman, Hon. John Hillen,
Bruce H. Hooper, and Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. for their support of the
Program on National Security. The views expressed herein are those of the
speakers and should not be construed to represent any agency of the U.S.
government or other institution.
What follows is a summary of the major panel presentations and
discussions.
PANEL 1: HOW WILL WE FIGHT? Colonel T.X. Hammes, USMC (ret.), author of
The Sling and the Stone, opened by noting that the U.S. has no national
strategy, but rather a series of goals with no ways or means assigned to
them. He argued that the Department of Defense must return to threat-based
analysis after the past decade of capabilities-based analysis that he
labeled "a bad fantasy." His assumptions were that the U.S.: (1) will remain
engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) will remain committed to globalization;
(3) will be unable to afford its current procurement plans; and (4) will not
significantly increase its defense budget.
Hammes foresees four types of probable threats: conventional conflicts,
insurgencies, hybrid wars, and terrorism. While China, Russia, Iran, and
North Korea are commonly listed as conventional opponents, Hammes doubted
that the U.S. would be drawn into direct ground combat with any of them. And
while China may be an attractive enemy for force-sizing or budgetary
reasons, it is "clearly the dragon versus the whale. It's hard for either of
us to get at the other. What we can do is stay around the perimeter, and
that's why they're focused on_ anti-access program[s]."
As for insurgencies, we are currently involved with two, and others will
likely grow. The biggest military shortfall in this area is the lack of
advisors, but the biggest problem is that "We are not ready to do the
interagency response that's required, and that will take years to do."
Hammes defined hybrid war as a mix of conventional and unconventional
tactics. It is not new, but the concept is useful because "it's essential
you understand you are fighting against a range of enemies."
Last, terrorism will always be a problem as long as there are angry
people. He argued, "They are going to at some point get lucky. WMD are
coming, particularly biological." Serious research is needed in this area,
he said.
According to Hammes, DoD's priorities should be: nuclear deterrence,
protecting the global commons, conducting counterinsurgency, homeland
security response and recovery, force projection, missile defense in the
medium to long term, and a different approach to counterterrorism that
doesn't absorb so much money and quality personnel. His preference is for a
balanced, medium-weight force that can fight both state and non-state
enemies. A balanced force is needed because "Prognosticators don't get it
right! If you look decade by decade at who the [British] thought they were
going to fight, they were consistently wrong." The Army, he said, should
move back to the more flexible and balanced "line division" model the Marine
Corps employs, because these types of units "are just a big toolbox. You
don't have to deploy the whole division. You deploy the parts." The Navy,
for its part, should focus on the tough mix of operating in deep water at
standoff distances and littoral and riverine missions. Standoff, base
hardening, unmanned combat aerial vehicle heavy bombers, and tankers, along
with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, should be the
Air Force's priorities. That service, according to him, "probably has the
most challenging investment portfolio to manage." The National Guard and
federal Reserves should be strategic rather than operational reserve forces.
Furthermore, they should have primary responsibility for response and
recovery, with at least one brigade trained and focused on such duties in
each FEMA district. Hammes concluded that we must "balance the force. Plan
for significant budget restrictions, and then hedge against the price."
Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on
Foreign Relations, agreed with much of Hammes' remarks. Specifically, he
agreed that the hybrid form of warfare had always been an important warfare
form and that while recently states have been moving towards "guerrilla
modes of operation," "non-state actors are able to adopt some of the more
important features of the war making of states." He also agreed there was a
need for medium-weight forces and was against capabilities-based planning.
But he said, "the reality of the situation is that the future of
warfare--looking out past Iraq and Afghanistan--really is more
differentiated than the low-intensity transformation school often claims.
The future of warfare is not exclusively asymmetric or irregular conflict.
There really will be other opponents out there who will fight differently
than that. The trouble is we're not waging that war right now." According to
Biddle, in order to be prepared for those different realities, the U.S. "may
just get stuck with the requirement for two transformations, which is not
uncommon in military history for wartime great powers."
Lieutenant Colonel Roger Carstens, USA (ret.), a senior fellow at the
Center for a New American Security, also agreed with much of Hammes'
presentation. Addressing Special Operations Forces (SOF), he noted that the
U.S. has very capable SOF forces for addressing myriad threats, but there
are some problems. "The Special Operations Command was given a lot of extra
'umph,' you could say--extra authorities, extra resources, by way of the
2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and by way of some good hard work from the
Pentagon and Congress. Unfortunately, we didn't always get it right_. We're
still low on helicopters. We're low on unmanned aerial systems. We're low on
intelligence analysts." He also noted that there was still some internal
debate within SOF about whether to focus on direct action or on the
so-called indirect approach of working by, with, and through foreign forces.
Lack of enablers and suboptimal partnering arrangements, according to
Carstens, are negatively impacting SOFs' ability--and particularly Army
Special Forces' ability--to conduct such indirect missions.
PANEL 2: AT WHAT COST? Lieutenant Colonel Frank G. Hoffman, USMCR (ret.),
a senior fellow of the FPRI and a research fellow at Quantico's Center for
Emerging Threats and Opportunities, noted approvingly that Secretary of
Defense Robert M. Gates' recent Foreign Affairs piece called for a return to
the basics of strategic planning, taking into account resource
constraints.[1] "The essence of strategy is the ability to make decisions
... with scarce resources, with risk assessments, and with constrained
dollars." But too often this is forgotten.
U.S. defense spending, he argued, must be balanced and sustainable.
Currently DoD has a spending ratio of 17:1 compared to other agencies. At
present we are well prepared, stocked, and organized for fighting wars, but
not as prepared for preventing wars or for responding to homeland security
contingencies. Furthermore, while dependence on supplemental funding and
deficit spending is acceptable during crises, it is not an acceptable way to
do future business. He pointed out that the national debt over the past
eight years had nearly doubled to $11 trillion and that by 2012-14 our debt
will be roughly 120 percent of GDP--the same level we were at in 1946. But
today we account for only 20 percent of world gross domestic output versus
nearly 50 percent at the end of World War II. Mounting debt, growing
interest payments on debt, and a bulge in entitlement payouts such as Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid worry Hoffman for the effect they might
have on the DoD and the defense industrial base.
As to arguments that we should spend more money on defense, he noted that
we are spending more than the next 22 nations combined and that the Pentagon
has not wisely managed the resources it already has. Citing a GAO report,
Hoffman argued, "in the last eight years, cost overruns, decision making,
cost estimates, and perhaps mismanagement _ have cost us three years of
capital investment in the Pentagon." Hoffman called for strategic solvency
and said that the most important thing the Obama administration can do is
"get us out of the red--metaphorically, strategically, economically and
militarily." He sees DoD making a contribution to such solvency with a
defense budget of $460 billion a year--a 10 percent reduction in real terms
over today's level, with the bigger contribution coming from the rest of
government and particularly from entitlement programs.
In order to realize these cost savings, he called for a reduction in:
foreign basing (particularly in Europe and Korea), strategic force levels,
and programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter and Future Combat System.
Hoffman also offered a framework for allocating funding for future defense
investments which reduced funding for traditional warfighting to enhance
funding for irregular warfare, cyber warfare and sci-tech, particularly in
the realms of nanotechnology, biological weapons, robotics, and directed
energy systems.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior policy analyst for defense and homeland
security issues at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that future defense
budgets will be most affected by federal government discretionary spending
related to the deficit and the rising costs of mandatory expenditures such
as servicing the national debt and entitlements. However, she argued that
the most significant problem is negative GDP growth. In the long term,
economic growth is paramount to national well- being. Strategy must drive
budgetary concerns, but "strategy always changes faster than force
structure." And even with a defense budget of more than $500 billion, there
are still many unfunded areas that deserve attention. While increased
competition and deregulation in the defense industrial community can save
money, there are no quick fixes. In the final analysis, "a disconnect exists
between the civilian population and the day-to-day obstacles facing the
military. Many Americans may not perceive the same current or future threats
as defense leaders, making them unable to properly approve the types of
capabilities the military must possess_. [T]he ongoing war is not over, and
the stakes extend to their lives, liberty and future prosperity."
Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the CATO
Institute and a former Navy officer, agreed with much of what Hoffman had
said, but felt that "a majority of the American people do not believe that
the costs of our current national strategy are outweighed by the benefits.
Many, and I think most, Americans resent that our military is used primarily
to protect other people's governments, other people's shores and air space
and, increasingly, to rebuild other people's nations." Strategy must drive
the budget, and we currently have a "gross mismatch between our on-paper
foreign commitments and our physical military capacity and domestic
political will to make good on those commitments." But if there is not a
fundamental shift in grand strategy in the Obama administration, "it will be
extremely difficult and certainly unwise to reduce military spending to the
levels that prevailed in the first years after the end of the Cold War
because I don't think it's fair_ to saddle our men and women in uniform with
more missions and less money, as was done in the 1990s."
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: JOINT WARFARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY General James N.
Mattis, USMC, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and the
Commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, delivered the keynote address.
General Mattis observed that like Janus of Roman mythology, we need to look
to the past to look forward to the future. "The history that we have
provides us some of our very best signposts for the future, especially if
some of that history is very, very recent." He stated that "Every military
in history_ that transformed, that changed, that modernized, did so on the
basis of one thing: they identified a problem and solved it." He added,
"Everything I've learned in 35 years of wearing this uniform could be summed
up in three words: when you go into a fight, improvise, improvise,
improvise."
Of course, one tries to anticipate things ahead of time. The U.S.
military, said Mattis, has addressed this by developing the Joint Operating
Environment to look at how our forces are employed today and how the joint
force will operate in the future through testing and experimentation.
Getting these concepts wrong incurs a high cost on the force, and while one
can never get it 100-percent correct, "we just don't want to get it
completely wrong."
The U.S. will wage warfare in the 21st century as a part of coalitions
and must be prepared to engage enemies in "hybrid conditions." General
Mattis argued that "we do not want the U.S. forces to be dominant and
irrelevant in the future," something that could happen if we don't get the
problem and the solution right. Our forces are superior in conventional
warfare, but "the area that we are not superior in is irregular warfare, and
we are going to make irregular warfare_ a core competency of U.S. military."
We will need to find a right mix of soft and hard power, he said. Much of
our forces will need to be able to fight across the entire spectrum of
threats. "So the bottom line is we've identified what we think is the
fundamental problem, which is gaining competency at the national level and
right down to the tactical level under the strategic tactical compression in
irregular warfare, without surrendering our nuclear superiority and our
conventional superiority, behind which the international community gains
great benefit." The recent war in Georgia, he concluded, served as a
reminder that we "surrender our superiority in conventional war at our own
peril."
PANEL 3: WHO WILL FIGHT FOR US? Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in
foreign policy, director of research for the 21st Century Defense
Initiative, and the Sydney Stein, Jr. Chair at the Brookings Institution,
opened by commending the rapid pace of organizational learning that has
taken place in the military over the past several years. Overall, he said,
the force was currently in "pretty good shape." Smart, young, and career-
oriented people are joining and middle-aged people are staying in the force
and doing effective work, but the quality of command leadership has been
uneven.
Not long ago, O'Hanlon said, he was very worried about readiness
indicators and the quality of the modestly sized (compared to the total
populace) force, but things have improved. Of course, he noted, some of this
can be attributed to the state of the U.S. economy, but success in Iraq has
made it easier to recruit because success sells, and there was an idea that
the pace of deployments might ease up. While problems on the personnel front
were never quite as bad as they were portrayed, he said, there are still
some concerns relating to rising service member suicide and divorce rates,
percentages of those severely affected by post-traumatic stress disorder,
and, perhaps in the long-term, slipping levels of skills for traditional
high-end warfighting.
He stated that a better job needed to be done by the military health
system at taking care of Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Some sort
of voucher system for mental health issues might be useful, to provide
service people "more freedom to get the mental health care they need--
wherever they need it, from whomever."
O'Hanlon also discussed the issue of fairness and military service in the
all-volunteer force. While he noted that it is not fair that so few out of
so many serve, the issue of effectiveness is crucial. He felt that it was
not quite time to lower the quality of the force and hinder effectiveness by
making some kind of military service compulsory. He pointed to the
military's ability to improve the situation in Iraq over the past few ways
as an example of why now is not the time to implement mandatory service.
Colonel Thomas McNaugher, USAR (ret.), senior principal researcher and
director of the Supply Chain Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, agreed
with O'Hanlon on the notion of fairness, but noted that the U.S. "is not a
nation that ever buys a worst-case ground force". At the same time, he felt
the all-volunteer force had professionalized to the point where "the
operational routines are so complicated that I don't know how you would put
a large, young, largely untrained draft force back into this without
significant change in the military."
The Army's force size coming into the 21st century (482,000 Soldiers) was
set for a style of war that was "nasty, brutish, and short," but now we find
ourselves using this force for wars that are "nasty, brutish, and long."
While former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's departure allowed for an
increase in Army end-strength, people are still very expensive. In addition,
the Reserve Component has shifted from a strategic to an operational reserve
and that has caused some friction that may not be sustainable in the
long-term. While the recession, along with a downturn in casualties abroad,
has helped for recruiting and expanding the size of ground forces, even an
expanded force will have difficulties if mastery of too many styles of
warfare is expected from it. Increased demands on service members may make
us need to reconsider and lengthen the notion of what makes a military
career. He concluded by discussing the issue of fairness and military
service, saying, "One thing we all could do is maybe pay for the war_
instead of having our kids pay for it and our grandkids pay for it. We could
at least start there."
Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar in defense and security policy
studies at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed with O'Hanlon that too
much has been made about the lack of quality in the force. "The notion of
the reduction of quality of force does not survive contact with the force_.
This is the best Army that has ever existed from the standpoint of carrying
out the kinds of missions that it's carrying out_. There has never been a
better force than this, so whatever we've been doing has not been harming
the quality of the force on the ground." However, he was adamant that both
ground forces and the defense budget are too small. Iraq and Afghanistan
"are_ the first wars that we've fought, to my knowledge, for which we have
not mobilized at all beyond those who have already volunteered for service,
and we have not increased taxes to pay for them and we have not increased
baseline defense spending by any measurable margin. We've tried to do all of
this year to year on the cheap--we've tried to slide through." He concluded
by saying that if we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the
economic stimulus, then we can spend more on defense, which will have a
positive economic effect and meet "national security interest[s] and a moral
imperative" for the U.S.
PANEL 4: BROTHER, DO YOU HAVE A DIME? Janine Davidson, an assistant
professor of public policy at the George Mason University, former Air Force
office, and the author of The Fog of Peace (forthcoming), began by thanking
both the men and women in uniform and the civilians operating side-by-side
with them. "It reminds me of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. They say that
Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high
heels. Think about deploying to the field the way some of these civilians
do, without the kind of support that the military has, _ without health
care, without the life insurance that the military has, without logistical
support and, most of all, without the understanding and the appreciation
from the American people that the military gets today."
She cautioned that interagency structures and architectures might not be
the most important areas of emphasis. "We can get more people from more
agencies. We can spend a lot of money. But once we get there, if they're
operating off of different sheets of music, then we're no better off, so it
doesn't really matter what our architecture looks like." In addition, there
are several uncomfortable truths. First, the U.S. is still at war and the
economy is in crisis, so even if we wanted to reorganize at this time we
might be unable to afford it. Next, the U.S. government's system of checks
and balances rightfully places brakes upon optimizing bureaucratic and
organizational efficiency. Reform is hard and takes time. Last, enthusiasm
for reforming the system gives some people an excuse for not working on the
things that need to get done while they await the 100-percent solution. "We
can't afford to wait but we can't really afford to start over, either."
With the above in mind, she focused on four things already in place or
that could be implemented to improve interagency performance. First, we
should expand the definition of "veteran" status and benefits to civilians
working in the conflict zone and extend to them the support they need in the
field. Next, we should modify and fund the Consortium for Complex Operations
as an interagency hub for capturing and disseminating lessons learned. We
must also continue to do the "heavy thinking" on developing and improving
interagency doctrine. "A lot of people like to pooh-pooh doctrine_ [but]
like planning, it's the process sometimes that's almost more important or at
least as important as the product." Last, we need to expand upon and improve
civilian expeditionary capacity and the Provincial Reconstruction Team
models.
In doing all this, however, we need to take a number of steps, argued
Davidson. One of them is to clean up our terminology. Terms such as
"shaping," "pre-conflict," and "irregular warfare" can have negative effects
on relationships with allies and host-nation governments. Another is to
reexamine the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for
Reconstruction and Stabilization and re- craft it in order to make it work.
Finally, Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds need improved
coordination in order to better target them to achieve strategic objectives.
She concluded by stating that we must do a better job at building
government strategic planning from the top, improving information sharing
across diverse actors in the field that can be hindered by different forms
of cyber security and encryption, and improving the Interagency Management
System for contingency planning and crisis management. "We shouldn't confuse
our frustration over this problem set with the fact that what we're trying
to do around the world and in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially, is just
really hard."
Ambassador Thomas Schweich, a visiting professor of law and ambassador in
residence at Washington University in St. Louis, opened by noting that
during his service in the George W. Bush administration as ambassador for
counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan, the Washington
interagency process was by far the toughest part of his job which also
included working in Afghanistan and coordinating with European allies. He
described the interagency process--both in the U.S. and in dealing with
allies--as either "uncoordinated lack of action" or "action without
coordination." In the U.S. the National Security Council "has the
coordinating role among the interagency, but _the way it was formed and
staffed, it wasn't really designed for coordinating major roles all at
once." Enforcement of agency behavior is also difficult. Bureaucratic
infighting and funding imbalances, Schweich said, are major factors
affecting interagency relations. There has to be a "better recognition of
how the funding ought to flow so that the experts can actually do the job."
Lack of strategy, he added, is not always the problem. The problem often is
the lack of implementation and the unwillingness of some actors within the
interagency process to be followers, rather than leaders.
Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, USA (ret.), a writer, strategist, and
commentator, stated that "Woody Allen famously said that 90 percent of life
is just showing up. Well, so is the interagency." He argued that the Army
and Marine Corps does not want to be in charge on the ground, but that if no
one else shows up, then they are the American representatives by default. He
felt that CERP funds needed to be directed by commanders at the tactical
level. Furthermore, he argued that the military does not have to be in the
supporting role in counterinsurgency operations, calling its role that of "a
deep, firm foundation without which everything collapses." One could pull
out from Iraq or Afghanistan State, DEA, or Treasury, and the effort would
have problems, but it would not collapse. "Pull out the military, and see
what works." What is important is for a clear chain of command, not
necessarily military, to be in place.
Peters cautioned those who point to the General David Petraeus and
Ambassador Ryan Crocker model in Iraq should be careful. "Don't
institutionalize something that worked because of a wonderful personal
relationship. Those guys were the best tag team in modern U.S. history, but
normally somebody's got to be in charge." Strategy and strategic planning,
rather than increased resources, are key for getting things done. "The
interagency is like herding cats, and when you come to the table, you can't
just come with a set of emotional beliefs and prejudices. You've got to come
with skills and abilities."
CONCLUSION Harvey Sicherman, the president of FPRI, summed up the panel
discussions as follows:
* Roles and Missions. "The thesis was put forward that we need a balance
of capabilities that is somehow going to be derived from less money, to
which we have to apply certain hedges. But there was a big argument over the
relationship between what we had to do to fight the current conflicts and
the changes that we have to make for the future. So the transformation
notion is now breaking down into two segments--the current battle and
problems of the future."
* Defense Economics and Procurement. "It was pointed out that while the
defense budget is a smaller percentage of GDP than it used to be, it is in
gross terms higher, and it has to be placed in the context of the general
federal budget crunch, which might be described best as entitlements versus
the rest. The U.S. spends what is equal to 22 of the next highest level of
expenditures by other countries, but we do not pass the solvency test, which
is the relationship between resources and what we have to do. The various
reasons why include the ever more difficult procurement process. The general
conclusion was that we are in a crucial phase of recapitalization that will
be necessary after the recent strains and stresses."
* Joint Warfare in the 21st Century. "General Mattis gave us some idea of
what he expects the operational environment to be in the future-- coalition
warfare, hybrid wars, that we had to make irregular warfare_ a core
competency. But we have to avoid, at all costs, a situation where we are
dominant but irrelevant to the crisis that might confront us."
* Personnel. "It seems that we're in better shape than we thought with
respect to the force and our ability to get the right recruits into it and
put the right people in the field. Nonetheless, an important social and
ethical issue was raised, those having been done by so few for so long,
along with the question what relationship that American society would have
going forward with this kind of volunteer force. We don't have the option
anymore for expanding this force very rapidly through a draft, and the point
was also made that we're not doing enough for those who have been through
the latest round of fighting, particularly after they come home."
* The Interagency Process. "We heard a presentation on truths, mainly the
difficulties of the current situation, what has been done and done right,
the people who were involved, the PRT model, and what needs to be undone,
including the terminology and ... what the core mission is actually supposed
to do. The interagency process emerged from this discussion as an attempt to
legislate leadership, and it is very important to note that in the absence
of such leadership, what was at best a difficult system becomes rather
impossible, so people go around it. But if this system were to work in the
future, an important part of it would be to get people with some kind of an
integrated background, and we were enlightened to the effect that the
federal government is actually trying to do something about that."
---------------------------------------------------------- Notes
[1] Robert M. Gates, " A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon
for a New Age ," Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb. 2009.
---------------------------------------------------------- Copyright
Foreign Policy Research Institute (http://www.fpri.org/). You may forward
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FPRI for permission to repost it at another website.
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or visit us at www.fpri.org
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