by Mitt Romney
The result has been that our Reservists and National Guard have had to fill the gap, and they’ve borne a heavy and unanticipated burden. Designed to be held back in the event of a sudden threat or dire emergency, our Reserves and Guard instead have been repeatedly called upon for regular operations. These are not just young single men and women; they are more often middle-aged fathers and mothers. Their service represents a particularly heavy sacrifice, for them and for their families and employers. As governor, I attended a number of National Guard troop send-off ceremonies. The audience was typically overflowing with spouses and children; along with their tears, I almost always saw pride in their eyes. And the soldiers were proud of their skills: one A-10 Warthog Air National Guard pilot boasted that their wing’s kill rate would be better than that of active-duty fliers; when they got home, they confirmed it. But long rotations took a heavy toll on the families, including reduced earnings for already strapped budgets, missed birthdays and anniversaries, and an absent parent or spouse.
When our armed forces are short-staffed, the inevitable results are higher casualties, more long-term health impacts, greater risk to our security, and more adventurism by tyrants. These human and national costs are simply too high to bear. We must add at least 100,000 soldiers to the army and the marines, and given the growing need for counterinsurgency capabilities, we must significantly expand soldier training.
Gordon Adams, a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, argues that we won’t need a larger army if we simply avoid getting into conflicts like Iraq. But entering wars will not always be our choice. And if foes perceive a weakness, they will exploit it. The stronger our army, the less likely it is that it will have to fight.
We also need to increase our investment in the weapons of ground warfare. The conflicts in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan have destroyed, damaged, and worn out a large share of our armament. The army needs to upgrade all of its tracked vehicles and many of its tanks. And the Army National Guard reports that it currently has at its disposal only 40 percent of its needed equipment stock. The air force reports that it has lost 40 percent of its Predator unmanned aircraft, and that it cannot meet the demands for battlefield surveillance. In rearming our military, Secretary of Defense Gates is right: we must focus first on what we need to win the wars we are currently fighting. It is inexplicable and inexcusable that the 2009 Stimulus Act, with 767 billion in spending, devoted almost no funding toward this effort. In the defense of liberty, there is no substitute for the brave men and women of the U.S. military—and we should start taking better care of them.
3. Control of the Commons
Control of the commons means that our military is able to move freely on the seas, in the air, and in space—allowing us to protect trade, respond to humanitarian crises, provide essential support to our ground forces, enhance our credibility as an ally, and project the power necessary to restrain the ambitions of tyrants. This freedom of movement is the direct result of the superiority of our navy and air force, and of our alliances around the world. While our lead remains great, we should not forget that China and Russia are investing heavily to close the gap that exists when it comes to international mobility, not necessarily by matching our strength head-on, but by creating asymmetries.
Following the Cold War, we reduced our navy by over half, from 570 ships in 1990 to the current 283-ship fleet. The size of our navy has been permitted to shrink dangerously. The navy’s stated minimum requirement is 313 ships. Unless the shipbuilding budget is substantially increased, we will see a navy with 210 to 240 vessels, numbers that no one believes are consistent with America’s security and global responsibilities.
America is a sea power. The seas have not grown smaller nor have our responsibilities shrunk. We are inviting the challenges on the oceans that a dominant navy deters. We must rebuild our fleet.
Our air force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50. The average age of our military aircraft is now twenty-nine years, and the average age of our long-range bombers is thirty-three years—the same vintage as an AMC Pacer or Chevrolet Vega. The air force’s main bomber, the B-52, is now fifty years old. The Clinton administration boasted that they would change government as we know it by reducing the federal payroll. What it did not advertise nearly so loudly was the fact that 90 percent of the cuts were in military employment. Nor did they trumpet that our human intelligence resources were cut by one quarter—including those in complex and dangerous places such as Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria.
Despite the cuts to our land, sea, air, and intelligence capabilities, and the growing ambition of China, Russia, and others, our lead in military power remains substantial. But according to Secretary of Defense Gates, other nations are developing the disruptive means to blunt the impact of U.S. power . . . and deny the U.S. military freedom of movement and action. In particular, he continued, China’s investments in space-warfare, cyber-warfare, missiles, and submarines could threaten the United States’s primary means to project its power and help its allies in the Pacific. America’s lead will endure only if we remain committed to the research and procurement of our sea, air, and space defenses. This is not the time for another procurement holiday.
4. Defending Against Discontinuities
Other nations are actively pursuing new technologies that hold the promise of leapfrogging them into superiority and making our military capabilities ineffective and obsolescent. China’s investments in cyber-warfare, antisatellite warfare, and antiship weaponry, for example, are calculated to neutralize our military’s many strategic advantages. The devastating implications if such hostile strategies succeed can’t be overstated. A successful Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack, for example, effectuated by a single ballistic nuclear missile exploded above the United States could result in airplanes literally falling from the sky; vehicles could stop functioning, and water, sewer, and electrical networks could all fail—all at once, according to the Heritage Foundation’s Jena McNeill and the Hudson Institute’s Richard Weitz. The area affected might be a single region or virtually the entire nation, leaving our military utterly unable to respond because all electronic and communications systems would be inoperable.
A cyberspace attack could similarly cripple our defenses. The Department of Defense manages a hundred thousand networks on five million computers in sixty-five countries around the world—a system that could be attacked at any point by hackers, hostile governments, or terrorists. As with all advances, our dependence on information technology is both a strength and a vulnerability that potentially can be exploited in a new kind of warfare. It is essential that we invest the considerable resources in developing technologies to defend against these threats. The fact that America’s government and commercial computer systems have repeatedly been hacked by foreign entities does not instill confidence that this investment has yet been made a priority. In 2009, it was reported that foreign hackers had gained access, over a period of two years, to computer files containing design, performance, and electronic data for the F-35 Joint Force Fighter. Depending upon which data was obtained, such information could potentially enable an enemy to determine how to compete with, defeat or disable the aircraft. The F-35 is no ordinary fighter. At a price tag of 300 billion, the program represents the most expensive weapons system that has ever been undertaken by the U.S. military. The Department of Defense claimed that the most critical aspects of its design were not compromised, but the credibility of the military’s optimism is surely suspect given its failure to prevent the cyber-attacks in the first place or to detect them over such a long period of time. The Wall Street Journal reported that former military officials indicated that the incursions appear to have come from China.
If we choose to minimize the effort to defend against cyber-threats, everything we have invested in our army, navy, and air force could be rendered useless in an attack in which not a single shot is fired. Space and cyberspace are the twenty-first century’s new battlefields.
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br /> 5. Counterinsurgency Forces
The jihadist strategy of insurgency and destabilization of nations throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East means that counterinsurgency support from the U.S. military will be in great demand in the coming years. In situations like our current effort to stabilize Afghanistan, we must draw upon the resources of our entire military. But in other cases, such as the terrorist threat in the Philippines, a smaller footprint can be more effective.
In 1991, the terrorist organization known as Abu Sayyaf was formed by Philippine members of the Islamic International Brigade, the predecessor of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden charged it with waging jihad and establishing sharia in the southern region of the Philippines. By some estimates, Abu Sayyaf amassed more than three thousand terrorists and enjoyed widespread public support, resulting in years of brutal strikes and kidnappings. In 2002, the Philippine government asked the U.S. military to join its counterinsurgency and we responded. But instead of assuming command and deploying numerous combat forces, our military assembled a small team of special operations forces and intelligence personnel who worked in partnership with the Philippine military. And rather than immediately engaging Abu Sayyaf combatants, these forces first extensively evaluated geographic, economic, and political conditions in each of the affected communities and trained Philippine troops in counterinsurgency warfare. As regions were systematically cleared of hostile forces, our troops initiated public works projects and built schools, water systems, and bridges. As a result, the local population became increasingly supportive of the Philippine government and individuals increasingly began to offer intelligence. Little more than a year later, Abu Sayyaf had shrunk to a band of only about three hundred fighters and had moved entirely out of the region.
These small military teams composed of special operations forces and intelligence personnel—working in collaboration with a foreign nation’s military—may be a model for supporting countries under threat from jihadists. In an address in 2007, I called such teams Special Partnership Forces, a term that highlights not only their distinctive capabilities but also their relationship with the host nation’s military. We and other NATO nations should act quickly to raise such forces and place them on call to help needy governments repel insurgent jihadists before they become entrenched. Supplying them with the specific tools and armaments they will require for successful counterinsurgency must be a very high priority. Any reader of Robert Kaplan’s chronicles of the post 9/11 modern American military will know the incredible effectiveness of our special forces deployed in partnership in nations as diverse as Mongolia, Algeria, and Colombia. This small footprint-huge impact approach may well be necessary in Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Somalia, and throughout the Horn of Africa. When a nation that is threatened by violent jihadists calls for such assistance, we must have the capability of sending it.
Alliances Capacity
America alone is strong. America standing with its allies is a good deal stronger. But as Thomas Donnelly and Frederick Kagan observe in Ground Truth, our allies are disarming at the same time that our potential foes are rearming. China and Russia are spending more than 4 percent of their GDP on their military, but France and the United Kingdom spend less than 2.5 percent, Italy 1.8 percent; Germany allocates only 1.3 percent, and consistent with its postwar commitments, Japan spends less than 1.0 percent on defense. Raising the United States defense budget from 3.8 to 4 percent of our GDP would add about 30 billion to defense. Raising defense spending by these five allies to 4 percent of their GDP would add ten times that amount to our combined defense. It is time for our allies to increase their investment in national and global security in order to assume their fair share of the load and to strengthen our combined capabilities.
When added together, the troop-strength and armament figures of our allies appear quite competitive, but the numbers may be deceiving to the public. They do not fool our potential adversaries. Low levels of modernization, disparate command structures, and divergent rules of engagement prevent the various forces of our allies from becoming a coherent collective military power. When NATO joined the effort to stabilize Afghanistan, for example, many European armies lacked the airlift capacity to actually get their troops there. Instead, they had to charter flights from Russia. In theory, the European Union could become a credible military superpower. That would be as welcome as it is improbable. The countries of the EU spend far too little on defense, face demographic and budget crises, and experience little public sentiment that favors more significant military investment. A region that has witnessed war close at hand throughout its history is nevertheless more inclined to favor hope and wishful thinking than to vigorously support adequate defense. And the expenses of a vast welfare state are simply easier to carry when, by default, America is picking up a large share of the cost of Europe’s national defense. We recognize and appreciate the extraordinary sacrifices made by some of our allies in the war against violent jihadists, especially Great Britain, which lost scores of brave soldiers and Royal Marines in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but the fact is that Great Britain and, to a greater degree, our other NATO allies simply have not budgeted for a military establishment equal to the challenges that face our alliance.
Despite the disparity in the conventional and strategic capabilities of our allies in comparison with the world’s potentially hostile major powers, their capabilities are in fact critical to the defense of freedom. Allies provide bases that are essential to moving military resources to hot spots around the world, and they impede the movements of potential foes. Those countries like Britain, France, and Canada that have invested in substantial numbers of trained ground forces can significantly augment our troops, particularly in peacekeeping and stabilization missions. In some cases, our allies have particular skills—such as naval minesweeping—that we have in only short supply. Some have intelligence, communications, and political resources that may exceed our own. America is strong alone, but not strong enough to overcome alone all the challenges that are likely to confront freedom and security in the next half century. America has no leadership role in the twenty-first century without a basic partnership with other democracies in Europe and Asia, writes Dr. Henry Nau, a professor at George Washington University. We need strong allies.
NATO’s initial decision to engage in Afghanistan was a major accomplishment. Again, we cannot ignore or diminish the losses of life that our allies have suffered there to protect freedom. But the lack of decisiveness and the disunity among NATO members, coupled with its exclusive focus on the security of Europe, have led some observers to suggest that we bypass NATO and create a new global consortium of democracies. This is not the right course. Instead, the history, achievements, and current commitments of NATO make it the preferred foundation for such a body. Including other democracies like Japan, Australia, and South Korea could be accomplished by forming regional security councils and establishing a worldwide charter, but the NATO alliance should remain its foundation.
A great deal of political hay has been made of our diplomatic failures with NATO nations in the lead-up to the Iraq war. President Obama has an opportunity to strengthen our NATO ties and leadership. The right way to do so, however, is not by apologizing for every one of America’s mistakes or by simply acquiescing to the opinions of others. America has earned its leadership of the world’s free nations, and we have nothing to apologize for when the balance sheet of our contributions is weighed against whatever mistakes we have made. Our job remains the unapologetic leadership of the globe’s most decent, most free states. It is, in the words of Dr. Nau, to pay more attention to the interests of others, but then, after hearing those interests, to clearly assert our own. The objective of the United States of America is strength, not popularity.
Effective application of our soft power and the modernization and reinforcement of our military power will be neither easy nor inexpensive. President Obama, however, drops the defense budget to 3.7 percent of the GDP in 2010, and sets it
on a course to approach 3 percent of the GDP in ten years. During the fifty years of the Cold War, defense budgets averaged 6 percent of the GDP. The budget comparison itself is not enough to make the case for higher spending, but the gaps in our current military capabilities and the threats we face certainly do. It is time to commit to an annual defense budget of at least 4 percent of the GDP. The troop reductions of the 1990s, the depleted state of our military equipment, the threats posed by new technologies, and the growing list of potential military missions mean that if we continue to underfund our military, we cannot sustain the level of American leadership that peace requires and that our national security demands.
In some respects, the long and very expensive Cold War simplified the selection of military priorities. The arms race was a two-party contest; we could assess where we stood by counting the Soviet Union’s comparable weapons. The end of the Cold War and the resulting eruption of conflicts around the world, however, have expanded the number and the nature of threats. Today, even at a moment when we remain the world’s only true superpower, our military has more missions, not fewer.
At the same time, we face enormous challenges at home, and I anticipate a growing outcry to reduce or cap our security spending. Some will support their argument by comparing defense budgets with those of other nations, but when they are properly calculated, the figures simply do not support cutting back. Others will insist that dialogue and diplomacy can free the world of grave threats, but history proves otherwise, and an honest threat assessment augurs for the opposite outcome: Iran and its jihadist colleagues present a real and serious danger; Russia is retooling and rearming its military and paying the bill with its massive energy resources; China’s military expansion is the largest peacetime ramp-up since prewar Germany’s; and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and disruptive technologies is expanding, not shrinking.