| |
Rumsfeld's new model
army
By Conn Hallinan
(Posted
with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
War is the ultimate test of reality and
illusion.
On the eve of World War I in 1914, the
French general staff was convinced that victory would go
to the attacker, and that massed soldiers marching
together into battle could overcome technology with
courage and elan. German machine guns and artillery
swiftly shattered that illusion, along with several
hundred thousand young Frenchmen.
Today, the
United States is engaged in a very similar application
of theory and warfare, albeit the opposite of the one
the French tried.
Even the final victory in Iraq
was not exactly a triumph for the "revolution". It
wasn't swift-moving, light troops that took Baghdad and
Basra, but the conventional, tank-heavy US 3rd Infantry
Division, and the British 7th Armored Division. In
short, the "old model army".
Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld's military is a swift moving,
micro-chipped, killing machine where electronics turn
night into day, and satellites and laser-guided weapons
slice and dice enemy armor and artillery. President
George W Bush called it a "revolution" that has "shown
that an innovative doctrine and hi-tech weaponry can
shape and then dominate an unconventional conflict".
Has it? With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
under our belt, isn't it time to tote up the bill and
separate reality from illusion? On the plus side for the
"revolution", we won. On the minus side, it was hardly a
fair fight. In Afghanistan it was the 21st century
verses the 12th, and we're not out of the tunnel yet.
Iraq had a 20th century army, but one hollowed out by a
decade of sanctions and with little loyalty to the
brutal dictatorship it served. And that war, too, is far
from over.
Military transformation
The latest "revolution" in warfare, the brainchild
of the late Air Force Colonel, John Boyd, goes by the
name "transformation" and combines hi-tech and
maneuverability. Its model was the German Blitzkrieg.
But Rumsfeld's new model army is discovering that the
very instruments that make it so invincible on a
conventional battlefield are of little use in the
non-conventional war in which the Bush administration
finds itself embroiled. As long as the enemy was the
Iraqi army, the "revolution" works just fine. It has
done less well against roadside explosives, ambushes and
suicide bombs.
Part of the problem is the
"transformation" army itself. The US military looks
increasingly like a temp agency on steroids: a massive
organization of part-time workers armed with the latest
in firepower.
Since September 11, 2001, some
292,000 National Guard and reserve troops have been
called to active duty, and more than 190,000 are still
serving. The Pentagon just announced a further call-up
of 30,000. Reserve and National Guard units now make up
46 percent of the military.
Reserves have always
been an important component of the US military, but they
are only supposed to be called up in times of national
emergency. From World War I to Gulf War I in 1991 - 75
years - they were called up nine times. In the past 12
years, they have been mobilized 10 times.
Normally such troops work behind the front lines
and serve for shorter periods than regular troops.
However, under "transformation", their deployment has
been stretched to 12 months, and sometimes 15 months.
And the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan is any place
that a soldier happens to be.
Temping in the
21st century army
The thinking behind all this is
simple math: Reserve and Guard troops are much cheaper
than regular troops. As Christopher Caldwell at the
Weekly Standard notes, "It is hard not see a similarity
between the army's shift to part-time soldiering and
businesses preferences for part-time vs full-time
labor."
"Transformation" has essentially shifted
much of the financial burden for maintaining permanent
troops to the families of the reserves. Most joined up
for the educational grants and small stipends that come
with the job. But reserves are suddenly finding
themselves locked into open-ended deployments in very
dangerous places. "Weekend warrior, my ass," one sign
spotted in Baghdad read. Reservists also charge that
they are given second-rate equipment in the field,
including inadequate body armor.
The toll on
these temps has been considerable. According to the
British newspaper, The Guardian, 75 percent of the 478
troops shipped home from Iraq for mental health reasons
were reservists. Wounded reservists returning from Iraq
complain they have been "warehoused" in the US in
barracks without showers or bathrooms and sometimes wait
weeks to see a doctor.
Inadequate medical care -
another way that the new army is trying to save on
personnel costs - has touched a raw nerve among veterans
as well, many of whom are partially or fully disabled
from Gulf War Syndrome. Veterans' groups charge that
almost 150,000 vets from Gulf War I have been waiting
more than six months to see a doctor, and the wait for a
specialist is up to two years.
Those numbers are
likely to climb because solders in Iraq today are being
exposed to many of the battlefield toxins that felled
some 118,000 veterans in the first Gulf War.
The
syndrome has been linked to some 345 tons of depleted
uranium ammunition (DUA) used in the 1991 conflict.
According to the London Express, the Americans and the
British used between 1,100 tins and 2,200 tons of DUA,
much of it in urban areas during the recent war.
Radiation 1,000 to 1,900 times normal has been detected
in four locations in Baghdad.
The situation is
"appalling", according to Professor Brian Spratt, chair
of the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body.
"We really need someone like the UN Environmental
Program or the World Health Organization to get into
Iraq and start testing civilians and soldiers for
uranium exposure." Such testing is unlikely because the
Department of Defense denies that DUA poses any health
risks.
Cost-cutting at the Pentagon
While spending on hi-tech whiz-bangs is at an all
time high, the administration has steadily shaved the
cost of personnel.
A recent Pentagon attempt to
cut active duty pay was defeated by congressional
outrage, but the administration is still attempting to
disqualify some 1.5 million veterans from eligibility
for disability benefits. The Pentagon has also resisted
the Retired Pay Restoration Act that would correct an
anomaly that reduces military retirement pay by the
amount veterans draw in disability. The measure would
level the playing field between Civil Service retirees
and 670,000 vets caught in this bureaucratic oddity, but
the Pentagon has resisted it as a "budget buster".
Besides increasingly relying on temp soldiers,
the "transformation" army is also trying to apply
private industry practices to public service. Rumsfeld
is seeking the right to hire, fire and promote some
700,000 civilian Pentagon employees on "merit" alone,
free of government employment regulations. "The risk
that this system will be politicized and characterized
by cronyism in hiring, firing, pay promotion and
discipline is immense," says Bobby Harnatge, president
of the American Federation of Government Employees.
While the manpower crisis on the ground is bad -
there are just not enough troops available to match the
administration's imperial sprawl - it is likely to get a
whole lot worse. A recent poll by the military newspaper
Stars and Stripes found that only 49 percent of the
reserves intend to re-enlist.
So is this blind
folly? Or does "transformation" offer an unseen benefit?
"The arguments in support of technological monism echo
down the halls of the Pentagon," Major-General Robert
Scales (Retired) told the House Armed Service Committee
on October 21, "precisely because they involve the
expenditures of huge sums of money to defense
contractors."
In the 2002 election cycle, US
arms corporations' political action committees spent
US$7,620,741, two-thirds of which went to the Republican
Party. "Transformation" might not work well once the
initial "shock and awe"of battle is over, but it can be
a formidable re-election machine.
When the
"Young Turks" of the French army adopted the doctrine of
elan, they were certain it was a formula for victory.
The battle of the Marne convinced them otherwise, and
the French abandoned the tactic. Of course the French
general staff wasn't running for office.
Conn Hallinan is a provost at the
University of California at Santa Cruz and a political
analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
(Posted
with permission from Foreign Policy in
Focus)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
