The U.S. Military is Changing

We almost did not notice it during the Easter holiday, but the United States military has received a warning that with a new president come new times: Traditional weapons systems are being axed, and more resources are allocated for fighting rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military of the superpower has been in an existential crisis for a long time. The new asymmetrical conflicts, marked by rebellion, guerrilla warfare, sabotage and terrorism, have sidelined large parts of the enormous military apparatus. For how can you use a submarine weapon in Afghanistan, or stealth fighters against hi-jacked jet liners crashing into Manhattan’s skyscrapers?

Even the Army and the Marines have, at times, been paralyzed in the conflict with rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan. How else can you explain that ragged soldiers without uniforms, carrying The Almighty Rifle (Kalashnikov) and the Koran in their hands, on occasion have been able to paralyze what, at the outset, was supposed to be the most powerful military power in the world, with highly skilled soldiers and hi-tech weapons systems?

For too long has the U.S. underestimated the need for more soldiers and new operational concepts in this type of warfare. When Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki said they would need 300,000 troops, not 150,000, for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, he was fired by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The war in Iraq, a violation of public international law, has been a bloody lecture for America and a military leadership that has used political arrogance as its foremost weapon.

The new defense budget does bear some recognition of these experiences. But the U.S. military apparatus is so large that traditional weapons systems will exist for decades ahead, partly because it is difficult to dispose of them, and partly because the U.S. has not fully written off the danger of new conflicts with superpowers where there might be a need for thousands of combat aircraft and a navy with hundreds of vessels.

Basically, the U.S. military is constructed to fight a third world war. If we keep the nuclear arsenals out of the equation, the Navy and Air Force consist mostly of conventional weapons and forces designed to face an enemy (Russia/China) in an extensive war of bombing and naval battles with heavy surface vessels. The U.S. still has 11 carrier groups in operation, more than all other nations combined. Twenty-two missile cruisers and 85 frigates and destroyers are part of this enormous fleet of surface vessels. The Air Force is sized for the same effort in a world war. But the warning lights are blinking.

An all-new class of frigates has been reduced to three new ships. Price: three billion dollars each. The very costly production of the F-22 fighter is being halted – almost. Instead, the Pentagon will go for the F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter), which is a cheaper solution in American eyes. But the number is mind-boggling: 2,443 new aircrafts will be produced, beginning in 2012.

But the most striking changes in the budget are different weapon systems and troops, entirely. An unknown number of much larger, unmanned aircraft (drones) will be built. This is the weapon America is using in the bombing of Taliban and Al-Qaeda bases in western Pakistan. At the same time, new, fast combat vessels, capable of operating in shallow waters, will be put to sea. Two thousand eight hundred, new elite troops will be trained, and a vast range of technical systems will be updated. All these proposals are pointing to a defense more capable of fighting today’s wars than to fight World War II over again.

Still, most of the Pentagon budget is for conventional defense. Expenditures have exploded, and purchasing has run amok. Under President George W. Bush last year, purchases exceeded the budget by 296 billion dollars. For Barack Obama, the challenge is to regain control of the wild spending on weapons systems that only the producers can justify.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, in his farewell speech almost 60 years ago, of the unwanted influence from what he called “the military industrial complex”, a complex that wishes to push weapons systems that do not serve the nation’s security, but the manufacturers’ pockets. President Obama is facing this problem in wanting to shut down production of the F-22. It will mean the closing of 25,000 jobs in Georgia and other states. Not just the manufacturers, but also members of Congress are getting ready to fight all decisions that do not serve their own interests.