A Strategic Dialogue: Force Strength and Structure

In the last week or so, I've had several people ask me my opinion of the pending Army personnel cuts. One such prompt came from one of my grad school peers, CN Slapshot, via Facebook. Since it turned into a fairly good discussion, I've edited it for blog consumption and post it below. One of my undergraduate peers, Corporal Anger (formerly of the 173rd Airborne Brigade) got involved at the end.

By the way, some of this discussion involves naval strategy and procurement, so some folks may want to review my recent discussion of austerity and naval strategy for background.

CN Slapshot: RMA is dead. Long live RMA. The Army Force Cuts: 3 Truths, 4 Fallacies


CN Slapshot: And while we are at it, thoughts? One of These Mean Little Ships Could Be the Navy’s New Frigate


Tom@JTS: Wow. So much to cover here.

1) First and foremost, the fact that we'd be below WWII force levels IS a bad thing. Doctrine Man(!!) posted this article (War is Boring: The Secretary of Defense Wants an Army of Just 450,000) yesterday, with the tagline that the proposed cut is "not as bad as you think", and used the quote: "But the comparison to World War II is about as meaningful as Mitt Romney’s election-year claim that Navy was as small as it was in 1916." I commented, and I stand by it: "So... Extremely meaningful, then?" You can talk about technology until you're blue in the face, the simple fact of the matter is that you can only leverage technology so far before you need volume. A single squadron of highly capable F-22's can't cover the training, deployment, and combat needs of the entire planet, and that illustration stretches across the entire defense enterprise. And, let's face it, our Army (like the rest of our force) has a bigger remit than it did in World War II, counterintuitive though that may be.

2) General McMaster is right in all four of his stated fallacies, and yet all are popular lines of thinking at present. They're sort of like Marxism: like Marxism, we know that SOF, allies, local surrogates, and a variety of other tactical or operational concepts do not a strategic force make, and yet there are still idealists who refuse to pay attention to the last decade and a half.

3) A couple of years ago, Andrew "Abu Muqawama" Exum made a good point in a now-deleted blog post: "If the United States has to fight another resource-intensive counterinsurgency campaign... it is easier to design and build new brigades than to design and build new aircraft or ships. I am more concerned the U.S. Army and Marine Corps will abandon the doctrine, training and education wrapped up in preparing for counterinsurgency and stability operations." He's right, you can recruit and train a new brigade for cheaper and on a much shorter timeline than it would take to build a new aircraft or ship. What people are ignoring is how painful it was to plus-up the ground forces in the wake of 9/11 in order to respond to Afghanistan and Iraq. That happened because we cut too deep during the 1990's under the "Peace Dividend", which was provided intellectual top cover by RMA/"Military Transformation". We are preparing to do the same thing all over again.

4) In the article's final paragraph: "The current mood reminds Galston of the years just after Vietnam, when 'it took us the better part of a decade to get over the psychological and political consequences,' he said. (And at least then we had an obvious Soviet threat to justify a large land force)." In that vein, some may be interested in this article, which I found very cogent and relevant: War on the Rocks: Failure to Learn: Reflections on a Career in the Post-Vietnam Army

5) I'm personally of the opinion that if we really want to adjust to 2014 budget realities, we should fold the Air Force back into a subordinate Army Air Corps, and eliminate several extraneous federal departments.

Okay, now on to the Navy article. Give me a few.


Tom@JTS: Okay, the Navy article.

1) I'm increasingly skeptical of the LCS. It was a promising concept in the late '90's/early '00's under the operational concepts of the day (Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare, Sea Power 21, Operational Maneuver from the Sea). I think the decision to fund two different hull types was a mistake, the Navy did an uncharacteristically poor job of managing procurement, and some really basic mistakes were made with some of its development and construction. (Wired Danger Room: Builder Blames Navy as Brand-New Warship Disintegrates) Cutting the program at thirty-something boats could be a good way to cut losses. Buuuuuuut...

2) "That leaves the Navy with a two-dozen-ship gap in its force structure - one Hagel intends to fill with a more powerful combatant. 'The Navy will submit alternative proposals to procure a capable and lethal small surface combatant, consistent with the capabilities of a frigate,' he said. 'I’ve directed the Navy to consider a completely new design, existing ship designs and a modified LCS.'" In this case I suspect "we're cancelling a bunch of LCS units and will instead look to replace/expand the frigate inventory" is actually a precursor to "Y'know how we're shrinking the Army to pre-World War II force strength? Stop me if you've heard this one before... "

3) The article mentions European designs, but most of these aren't what I'd want to sail on. For example, it mentions British frigates and destroyers, buuuuuuut... War is Boring: All the Things the British Military Can’t Do Anymore

4) We absolutely need a next generation frigate (or maybe some custom destroyers? Small Wars Journal: Six Frigates and the Future of Gunboat Diplomacy). I'd like to see the Navy repeat some of the processes and philosophies it used to get an affordable and capable Virginia Class SSN as it pursues a replacement for the Perry class. I think you could probably even come up with a fairly simple design that combines the benefits of the Perry Class with the scalability and modular design of the LCS. We'll see whether that happens or not.


CN Slapshot: I was really happy/surprised that they capped the LCS at 32 (and hopefully fewer) for several of the reasons you mentioned. A heavy frigate like the one Israel bought from the Germans only with the latest American tech would bridge the cost/capability cap between Burkes and the LCS. Yay for the Navy!

I disagree on how bad the cuts are now - for a number of reasons the pre WW2 comparison is misleading - but am aware of the dangers of cutting too much. Repeating the mistakes of the last two decades would seem like a silly and avoidable thing to do. As usual we disagree on how to solve the deficit/debt - I'd focus on entitlement and tax code reform, before bothering with federal departments. Growing the economy would also help, but that is a bit more of a nebulous affair than simple revenue/expenditure analysis.

Also, apparently that letter that Sen. Ayotte sent to the air force is having an effect- they've agreed not to cut the A-10s at least until the FY2015 budget is decided on. Apparently that was actually a legal constraint written into the NDAA that the air force was about to just disregard so...yeah. For once, its not a terribly depressing day in the defense procurement world.


Tom@JTS: Hey, don't take me out of context. If it were up to me, we'd sunset Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, eliminate or pare back some federal departments. I also think the Air Force will continue failing to kill the A-10 for the foreseeable future. I have yet to find anyone outside the Air Force who believes that the F-35 can do the job.


Corporal Anger: The main thing missing in all of this? What is the desired capability? There is 0 statement of desired capability in this, the closest is "one large-scale conflict."

We could use a new frigate. We could use a new General service rifle too. How about we quit trying to make the next new Uniform every decade.

In his initial comment, Slapshot refers to "RMA", or the Revolution in Military Affairs. Known in American military circles as Military Transformation, RMA/MT was an effort to update doctrine and equipment in the wake of the Cold War's end. The movement followed technological developments in the 1970's and 1980's which afforded Western forces a qualitative edge against the Red Army's quantitative edge. RMA/MT was spearheaded by U.S. Joint Forces Command (before its disestablishment in 2011), and by NATO Allied Command Transformation. I worked at USJFCOM for several years. Based on my observations and research, I believe that RMA/MT showed a lot of potential, but suffered from three major drawbacks: 1) they were developed with insufficient intellectual rigor; early RMA/MT concepts were used to justify deep cuts to force strength and defense spending, rather than actually informing the "right-sizing" of force strength; and most fundamentally, promising concepts were taken beyond their actual operational utility. Unfortunately, many of the very RMA/MT events which were undermined by historic events have become fashionable once again as policy-makers and senior military leaders seek to leverage technology as a justification for reduced force strength. Their challenge is to strike the right balance between technology, manpower, and sheer numbers of each. It's a difficult and thankless challenge.

Of course, all of this is tied into the constant debate about ways, means, and ends. At some point, I may try to put together a discussion of ways, means, ends, and the American approach. In the mean time, I hope that this discussion by CN Slapshot, Corporal Anger, and myself has been informative and thought-provoking.