Janine Davidson posted at Thomas E. Ricks' The Best Defense blog ("Tom Ricks' Daily Take on National Security"), read the "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense and Defense Budget Priorities and Choices" documents (so you don't have to).
Money quote(s):
"The fact is, whether we call it "COIN," "stability operations," "peacekeeping," or "irregular warfare," such frustrating, complex, population-centric, and increasingly urban operations against and among savvy and networked non-state actors are simply a modern version of an age-old phenomenon. And they are here to stay."
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"(N)ot sizing the force for large-scale operations like Iraq and Afghanistan is a responsible and prudent strategic approach. As these two huge wars wind down, of course the force will be down-sized. This is what we do after every war, no matter the type. It would irresponsible, and in fact unconstitutional, to do otherwise. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States clearly indicates the power of the Congress to "raise and support Armies..." but to "provide and maintain a Navy." This language is deliberate, as the founders did not want to maintain large expensive standing ground forces in peacetime. The Congress is empowered to appropriate money to expand the force as needed to fight wars. And that is exactly what happened during the past decade. Our force planning can and should account for our ability to do this again when needed.
For operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the army grew from just over 480,000 soldiers in 2001 to a peak of 570,000 just a couple of years ago. Likewise, the marine corp grew from approximately 170,000 to 210,000. Following redeployment from these wars, the new strategy calls for downsizing back to about 490,000 soldiers and 182,000 marines by 2017, (assuming we manage to disengage in Afghanistan) which is slightly larger than the what President George W. Bush inherited eleven years ago. And still, it is nearly four to five times the size of the ground forces of any of our NATO allies."
Strategy (as outlined in the document being reviewed by Prof. Davidson) is one thing: the meat ax of sequestration is another. The downsizing she posits may be the best case scenario.
"(L)et's not confuse size with competency. Not sizing for Iraqs or Afghanistans does not, and should not, mean forgetting how to conduct such missions -- no matter the size."
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"Throughout its entire 250-year history, coin, stability operations, and nation building have been far from an "irregular" occurrence. The U.S. has conducted such missions -- on a large scale -- about every 25 years since the Mexican War in the 1840's. U.S. ground troops conducted nation-building, peace-keeping, and a series of counter-guerilla wars against American Indians on the western frontier throughout the 1800's. They conducted a bloody counterinsurgency in the Philippines (1898-1902), a number of "small wars" in the Caribbean (1930's), and occupation duty after the American Civil War and the two World Wars. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has deployed every 18-24 months in response to complex crises of various size, with the average duration of these endeavors becoming increasingly protracted.
From the beginning, these missions have been frustrating and ill-defined, and they have always been controversial. Repeatedly, after each painful episode, the military has sought to avoid having to do them again by forgetting its doctrine and failing to plan, leaving the next generation to re-learn on the fly.
The U.S. army was so fed up with counterinsurgency after its bloody and protracted experience in the Philippines that it eagerly -- with the support of the secretary of War -- managed to turn the whole mission set over to the marines in the early 20th century. While the army focused on "real" war, the marines were sent to the Caribbean for the "Banana Wars," where they had to re-learn all the hard-learned lessons from old U.S. army manuals that were being discarded. The marine corps did allow a small team of officers to capture this Caribbean experience in the 1940 Small Wars Manual; but the mainstream corps had little appetite for these missions and was already trying to reinvent itself as specialists in amphibious operations. Once WW II began, the marines discarded its doctrine, training, and education for small wars in order to focus intensely on amphibious operations. This left the Vietnam generation to re-invent relevant doctrine once again."
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"Today we face a global environment characterized by transnational criminals, terrorists, insurgents, and myriad illicit and violent bandits and traffickers. Some of these "bad guys" are aligned with nation states, but most operate in the gray space between what we consider crime and war. Importantly, our future enemies have been paying attention to our struggles against low-tech, high-impact fighters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere and have been sharing their own "lessons learned" across global social networks. One lesson is clear: Go asymmetric and "irregular" against the U.S. military, because taking it on head to head conventionally would be just plain stupid. " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)
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"Demographic trends such as urbanization, the youth bulge, resource scarcity, and radicalization ensure that future conflicts requiring ground forces will occur in cities and slums and among populations, where differentiating friend from foe, and victim from "combatant," much less just trying to navigate through the crowded urban "battle space" will continue to plague traditionally-minded and conventionally trained ground forces."
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"The military should continue to develop special operations and civil affairs capabilities as key components for security force assistance, conflict prevention, and crisis response. Army modularity, which allows ground units to be scaled and tailored for various operations should continue to be developed, and competencies in foreign languages, interagency coordination, and human intelligence collection and analysis should be sustained and enhanced." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)
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"So how then, do we size this new more enlightened and capable force to ensure success in future coin or stability operations missions? With 490,000 soldiers and 182,000 marines on active duty, plus the forces in the selected ready reserve (560,000 in the army and 39,000 in the marine corps), America's ground forces will arguably be large enough for stability operations of significant size even without needing to add to the force once a crisis hits. Still, there is no crystal ball to predict the exact scenario our military might face. Moreover, despite much debate, there is still no consensus over the question of how many ground troops are required to bring stability to a country of a given population. Clearly neither sizing the peacetime force for the largest imaginable stability operation, nor down-sizing and hoping we won't face another large-scale mission of this sort, is no way to plan. Because we have the demonstrated ability to grow the force and adapt once a war begins, the trick is to find the right size that allows us to conduct smaller and medium scale operations and to initiate an operation while scaling up for something larger if and when needed."
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"(W)e need to be confident that we can access the capable and ready forces we need, when we need them. Being able to grow the force for large-scale missions if required means having a reserve component that is ready for mobilization and an active duty-training cadre that can deliver the expertise on demand. The DoD's plan to, "... leverage the operational experience and institute a progressive readiness model in the National Guard and Reserves in order to sustain increased readiness prior to mobilization," is aiming in the right direction. On the active duty side, the army and marine corps are both planning to retain a greater percentage of mid-grade NCO's and officers even as they downsize, reflecting their understanding that a slightly more senior force is not only required in the conduct of these complex missions, but is also the seed corn needed to train and grow a force if required."
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Janine Davidson is assistant professor at George Mason University's Graduate School of Pubic Policy. From 2009-2012, she served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Plans, where she oversaw the development of guidance for military campaign and contingency plans and the review and assessment of plans. Before all that she was a pilot in the air force.
7/27
