re: "Libya Exit Strategy"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") should know better than this.

Money quote(s):

"an elementary concept on war planning, the requirement for an exit strategy."

Actually, although it apparently took Sec. Rumsfeld until 2005 to say it, the Weekly Standard discussed it as early as 2003: you want a victory strategy, not an "exit strategy."

"It’s a fundamental precept of national security policy going back to at least the writings of Carl von Clausewitz that wars are fought to achieve political ends and it follows that military strategy must be tailored to achieve political ends. Indeed, countries can lose wars in which their armies are absolutely dominant on the field of battle–as American forces were in Vietnam–if the fighting does not achieve the sought political objectives.

In order for military planners to match tactics and strategy, they must know what the end game is. In the case of total war, such as we fought in World War II, that’s pretty simple: The unconditional surrender of the enemy. In the case of humanitarian interventions, counterinsurgencies, and stability operations, however, it’s much harder.

The concept of an exit strategy is designed to spotlight this dilemma. Simply put: How do we know when we’ve won the damn thing and can stop fighting?"

I'm as Clausewitzian as the next guy (perhaps more), and agree with Mr. Joyner about that. It's the notion of an exit strategy versus one for victory or even a set of objectives or goals, an end state that is worth all the trouble, blood, and treasure that vexes me.

Language is important. The very use of the word "exit" together with "strategy" messages our essential unseriousness about the dead serious business of warfare, and causes our allies many sleepless nights. It signals that our most important objective is to leave, to be uninvolved, even as we commit men and materiel to a conflict.

"The bottom line is that the colonels Ricks is hearing complaining about the lack of an exit strategy aren’t asking for all the answers, just the most important one: What are they fighting for?"

Here we agree. What is our strategic grand objective? From that all lesser operational and strategic issues must necessarily flow.

TWS - The Defense Stimulus

From my archive of press clippings:

The Weekly Standard

The Defense Stimulus A key to American recovery and reinvestment.

by Tom Donnelly 01/13/2009 4:36:00 PM


The politics of the current economic crisis are fluid -- the Bush administration's original diktats for bailing out the troubled financial sector and the auto industry have generated growing resistance -- but it's likely that Barack Obama will be able to produce a stimulus package quickly after his inauguration. Even House Republican leader Rep. John Boehner "believe[s] Washington has to act." Indeed, the stimulus debate that remains was succinctly framed by his counterpart in the upper house, Sen. Mitch McConnell: "The question is: How big and in what form?"

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"A key part of the answer on the spending side of the equation is increased defense spending, by at least $20 billion per year, particularly on procurement and personnel. These kinds of expenditures not only make economic good sense, but would help close the large and long-standing gap between U.S. strategy and military resources. If bridges need fixing, so too do the tools with which our military fights. A critical element in any recovery will be strengthening the foundations of the globalized economy, built upon U.S. worldwide security guarantees."

&

"The Army's "Grow the Force" initiative. Recruiting and training an additional 20,000 soldiers per year would cost about $3.5 billion. The pace of current operations -- driven by the requirements of Afghanistan and Iraq -- has proved the need for more troops.

Creating and equipping an additional 4 Stryker brigades. This family of wheeled combat vehicles has done yeoman service in Iraq and as the Army expands it should add more Stryker units. An additional 250 per year would cost about $550 million annually.

Maintain F-22 production. The Air Force originally wanted 750 Raptors, but the line will end in 2009 after the purchase of just 183. Close allies like Japan and Australia would like to purchase the fighter. Renewing the final 3-year procurement would secure an additional 20 aircraft per year at $4 billion annually.

Sustain C-17 production. The cargo aircraft has been key to the deployment of U.S. forces around the world. With no new production, "stop work" orders will be issued to suppliers in 2009. Restoring a rate of 12 per year would cost $3 billion annually.

Accelerate attack submarine production. The U.S. fleet of attack submarines will shrink from about 80 boats to approximately 35, too few to counter the rapid increase in Chinese submarine production and meet the Navy's own stated global requirements. Expanding production to three boats per year would not only restore an adequate force, but better utilize excess U.S. submarine-building capacity.

Build more Littoral Combat Ships. The Navy's fleet of surface combatants is also too small, both for traditional missions like antisubmarine warfare and the demands of irregular warfare such as anti-piracy patrols. The LCS is an effective and relatively inexpensive solution to these multiple requirements. Building three per year, to be split competitively between several shipyards, might cost $1 billion per year."