CVN Debate January 9th---The Showdown in Crabtown

AEI/Heritage Project for the Common Defense Weekly Read Board (Navy)

"Maritime Southeast Asia: A Game of Go?" by James Holmes (The Diplomat, 12/22/14)

"Navy 2015: Congressional Clashes Over LCS, UCLASS and Carriers," by Sydney Freedberg (Breaking Defense, 12/22/14)

"China's Strange Fascination with the Soviet Navy," by Lyle J. Goldstein (The National Interest, 12/23/14)

"Flexibility is Key to Future Navy Ops," by Giuseppe De Giorgi (Defense News, 12/24/14)

"Does War-Fighting First Put Ship-Handling Second?" by Craig Hooper (Next Navy, 12/26/14)

The Tragedy of James Fallows

James Fallows has written an important article for The Atlantic, "The Tragedy of the American Military" , one whose hosannas are currently lighting up the web.  There is in this piece, much to like, and much to praise.  I utterly agree with Mr. Fallows about the degree to which the society and its military have become estranged, and the implications this distance has had on policy.  We have created a ducal military made up of other people's children, and we applaud it unquestioningly out of a sense of both appreciation and guilt.  Recent elections that brought more and more vets into the Congress have modestly addressed the lack of military experience in that branch, but it remains a body hamstrung by its own cowardly inability to directly question the military and assumptions made about it.

There is however, in Fallows' arguments the whiff--no, the stench--of irony and hypocrisy.  His arguments are not obviated, but he is an imperfect messenger for them.  Throughout this piece, we see a yearning from its author for days gone by, when the military looked more like the populace it served and when society's entertainments lampooned its military.  This gauzy time seems to have --for Fallows--prevented acquisition program nightmares and poor decisions to employ the military (both incorrect).  But to the extent that a closer relationship between the military and its parent society existed, Fallows completely misses the centrality that the draft played in supporting such a link.  I do not write today in favor of re-instituting the draft, only to raise the point that wistful yearnings for days long gone by need to analyze more closely the conditions that brought them about.  One cannot credibly assess this past time of civil/military relations without also acknowledging the draft's impact upon it.  Fallows does not do this, and it seems a giant error of omission.

But it is not an omission, it was an act of commission.  To have spoken of the impact, and to have ascribed importance--let alone centrality--to the draft in sustaining closer civil/military relations would repudiate the actions of the young James Fallows, who in 1969--with the aid and comfort of fellow students at Harvard-- including those studying to be doctors--willfully evaded the ongoing draft.  Fallows acknowledges the act in his Atlantic piece, which I applaud him for.   In fact, the link in the last sentence was provided by him in his Atlantic article. Fallows writes of the time:

"In the atmosphere of that time, each possible choice came equipped with barbs. To answer the call was unthinkable, not only because, in my heart, I was desperately afraid of being killed, but also because, among my friends, it was axiomatic that one should not be “complicit” in the immoral war effort. Draft resistance, the course chosen by a few noble heroes of the movement, meant going to prison or leaving the country. With much the same intensity with which I wanted to stay alive, I did not want those things either. What I wanted was to go to graduate school, to get married, and to enjoy those bright prospects I had been taught that life owed me."

Who could honestly blame the young Fallows for his fear of being killed?  I cannot.  Nor can I honestly say what I would have done in 1969.  My formative years were the early 80's, when Reaganism reigned and conformists (which I was,  and which Fallows appears to have been for his time), did not think like Fallows did.  Clearly, Fallows was conforming then to his cohort, and my decision to join the Navy reflected the values of mine.

We are not presented with the young Fallows in the Atlantic article, but the old one.  The one who has on many occasions owned up to his draft evasion and who continues to appear to believe that it was essential to his ability to "enjoy those bright prospects I had been taught that life owed" him.  I have no quibble with his decision then nor his pride in it now.  I do however, have a problem with his usual weather eye being turned blindly to how his actions and those of his friends and cohort at Harvard (and elsewhere) directly and substantially undermined the very system for which he now pines.

Fallows has done a service here, raising a series of important questions.  His well-earned status as a writer and analyst guarantees that they will receive more emphasis, and for that I am grateful.  I only wish that he had more thoughtfully considered the conditions that created a system that he seems to have considered to be self-regulating, but which obviously was not.


UPDATE:  It has been brought to my attention that Mr. Fallows has written in support of re-instituting a draft.  I'm not sure I agree, but it does seem that at some point Mr. Fallows reached conclusions that he did not include in this piece.  The irony of both pieces is manifest.

Holiday Break

As we enter the Christmas-New Years holiday week, I wanted to express my gratitude for all your support and engagement this fall. Contributing to Information Dissemination has been a tremendously rewarding experience for me, and a great deal of that stems from the observations you’ve provided, questions you’ve raised, and conversations you’ve conducted within the comments threads.

I also want to thank Information Dissemination’s other contributors for all their advice and encouragement. Writing for a site like this can be rather daunting for a newcomer, which is why their support early on meant so much.

Above all, I want to thank Galrahn for granting me use of his place to freely share my ideas.

All of the multi-part pieces I published this fall were originally written either earlier this year or back in 2013 as standalone articles without publishing outlets in mind, and therefore without limits on length. Each one took me several weeks to develop. As of two weeks ago, I’ve burnt through all but one article in that stockpile.

Since I won’t have that kind of preparation time available going forward, many of the pieces I’m planning for 2015 will be much shorter. I have a pretty lengthy list of topics I want to cover through the spring, though, so I’ll be on hiatus from now through just after the New Year trying to get a head start on writing some of them. Until then, I wish you and yours Happy Holidays!

Maritime Denial and Land-Based Missiles, Revisited

Last month I wrote a bit about the idea that U.S. ground forces should field ‘area denial’ missile systems of their own to defend allies’ frontline maritime territories as well as constrain potential adversaries’ wartime abilities to use adjacent waterspace and airspace. I believe land-based anti-ship and anti-air missile systems can do much to support strategic concepts for broad-spectrum conventional deterrence within maritime theaters. Even so, I noted in my post that these systems’ hypothetical combat utility—and thus their value as part of a deterrent—depends greatly upon when and how they would be deployed to wartime positions, how those positioned on territories within a hotly-contested maritime zone would be logistically sustained throughout a protracted conflict, and how anti-ship over-the-horizon targeting would be performed.

The comments I received on that post pointed out an additional consideration that I had overlooked: the underlying business cases. Given finite budgetary resources, the U.S. Army would have to trade the opportunity costs of developing and then fielding these kinds of systems against the opportunity costs of developing or fielding other types of ground units.

For example, a strong business case can be made for the Army to field relocatable wide-area air defense systems, as they are quite useful for protecting bases, other types of U.S. and allied ground forces in the field, and critical civil/economic infrastructure sites from aerial attacks. The original Patriot system was, after all, developed specifically for these purposes. It is not much of a leap, then, for the Army to use these systems to protect maritime bases, forces, and infrastructure. Nor is it a stretch to use these systems in ways that would lessen the demand on naval surface combatants to provide air defense coverage over islands or mainland coastal areas, thereby granting the warships more maneuvering room or otherwise freeing them for other tasks. Lastly, it is perfectly reasonable to use these systems where geographically possible to create barriers the adversary’s air forces must ‘break through’ in order to achieve their operational objectives. The preceding logic applies to Army BMD systems, as well. It follows that the Army’s existing Patriot (and THAAD) missile forces provide organizational, tactical, technical, and logistical foundations for any expanded (or new) air and missile defense capabilities the Army might choose to field in the coming years. This greatly lessens the associated opportunity costs the Army would face in doing so.

It seems somewhat more difficult, though, to make a business case for the Army to field advanced ASCMs. Since the Army does not presently possess ASCM forces, there would be some opportunity costs in establishing the requisite organizational, tactical, technical, and logistical foundations. Developing an ASCM capability from scratch would also likely trade from a budgetary standpoint against expanding (or maintaining) existing ground force structure. Prior to this year, one might have rationalized this kind of trade based on a strategic assumption that global demands for ‘heavy’ U.S. ground forces would be low over the next ten to fifteen years. That assumption has been called into question by the Russo-Ukrainian War, not to mention Moscow’s increasingly aggressive military posturing against NATO’s eastern and the EU’s Scandinavian members. It is therefore harder to justify development of any new type of Army capability without a better understanding of how it might affect the service’s capacity for major ground combat in Europe.     

I have little doubt land-based ASCMs (with satisfactory over-the-horizon targeting support, of course) could be quite useful in defending America’s allies and constraining potential adversaries’ wartime operations along the First Island Chain in East Asia, the coasts of the Black and Baltic Seas, and perhaps the northern Norwegian coastline. However, I think there needs to be a critical examination of the trades that likely exist between developing new Army ASCM forces and maintaining/expanding the service’s existing combat arms. It also seems to me that an Army ASCM business case analysis should examine whether it makes more sense for America’s allies to field land-based ASCM capabilities themselves. Many of the allies the U.S. is committed to defend in the aforementioned regions already deploy such missiles, whether through indigenous production or through sales by other countries. Rather than duplicating what these allies are already doing, perhaps it would be better for the U.S. to provide the needier ones with financial assistance for establishing, improving, or expanding land-based ASCM arsenals. Or perhaps the U.S. might sell certain allies maritime surveillance/reconnaissance systems or C³ systems that would enhance their existing ASCM capabilities as well as allow them to better coordinate tactical actions with U.S. or other allied forces during wartime. It is even possible the U.S. might find mutually-beneficial opportunities to cooperate with key ASCM-producing allies on researching and developing selected advanced ASCM component technologies. 

Ultimately, I am not opposed in principle to the Army (or Marine Corps for that matter) developing land-based ASCM capabilities. I do believe, though, that their doing so requires a broader analytical basis that addresses the operational issues I previously noted as well as establishes a sound business case.