Dumb and Dumber

I was composing something uplifting and noble for D-Day. Then I heard a snippet of Kerry's latest bullbleep and I was off on a tear. This piece is long, so if you have the attention span of a gnat, vote for John Kerry and move along now.

Kerry calls extending military enlistments 'backdoor draft'

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- Democrat John Kerry on Thursday accused President Bush of creating a "backdoor draft" by requiring thousands of soldiers to remain in the military if their tours of duty extend to Afghanistan or Iraq.

One day after the Army delivered the news to active duty soldiers and reservists, the presidential candidate raised the specter of the nation inching closer to a draft as he criticized the Bush administration for stretching the military too thin, complicating the mission to create a stable Iraq.

Kerry said the Pentagon's expansion of the "stop-loss" program -- a device that prevents military personnel from leaving when their time is up -- may have increased U.S. forces by 30,000 troops, "but this has happened on the backs of the men and women who've already fulfilled their obligation to the armed forces and to our country -- and it runs counter to the traditions of an all-volunteer Army."

The administration has "effectively used a stop-loss policy as a backdoor draft," Kerry said during a speech on modernizing the military at the Truman Presidential Library.

The Army, struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq, announced Wednesday that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will be required to stay if their units are ordered to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Do you recall this? "An Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces for the Post-Soviet Era: Four Illustrative Options," authored Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Aspin's Threat-based, Building-block Approach
In a recent paper entitled "An Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces for the Post-Soviet Era: Four Illustrative Options," Congressman Aspin provides a remarkably succinct and dismissive tour d'horizon of potential future worldwide military threats. After describing the collapse of the Red Army and citing the view of the Defense Intelligence Agency that the former Soviet Union ``will have no capability to directly threaten the United States and NATO with large-scale military operations," Aspin concludes that =D2residual 'Soviet' conventional forces will be incapable of external aggression for years to come" and could not restore that capability "without years of warning time for the United States and our European allies."

Aspin then identifies a handful of other countries with relatively large military forces which could conceivably use those forces in ways that might provoke a U.S. military response: Iraq, Iran, and Syria in the Middle East; Libya in North Africa; North Korea and China in the Far East, and Cuba in this hemisphere. Using standard military measures to assess the armed forces of these seven countries, Aspin finds that except for China (whose large forces are "lightly armed and not very modernized"), the potential troublemakers generally have ground and air forces less than half as powerful as those of pre-Gulf War Iraq. Even the strongest, Syria and North Korea, are little more than half as powerful.

After noting that political constraints make aggression by any of these countries unlikely, Aspin develops a "Desert Storm-equivalent" U.S. force structure that could easily counter any aggression, should it occur. The Desert Storm-equivalent force comprises seven Army and one and one-third Marine ground force divisions; eight Air Force tactical air wings (plus 70 heavy bombers); and four aircraft carriers. (This includes one Army division and some ships that were not present in the Gulf but might have been helpful, in Aspin's judgement; and it excludes some Air Force and Marine tactical aircraft, two aircraft carriers, and one Marine brigade that were present but not needed or useful, in his view.)

Having pinpointed unlikely but conceivable future threats and developed a slimmed-down U.S. force structure more than ample to meet those threats, Aspin re-expands future U.S. force and spending requirements in two ways. First, he uses relatively high estimates of the cost of each force component. Second, like Defense Department officials, Aspin sets out options for much larger forces that would allow the United States to conduct several major military operations (that is, wars and invasions) simultaneously.

Aspin's lowest budget option--the $200 billion a year Option A--would provide forces capable of conducting another Gulf War and at the same time an operation like the U.S. assistance to the Kurds ("Operation Provide Comfort").

Option B, estimated to cost $213 billion yearly, adds forces for U.S. support to South Korea in a war with North Korea.

Option C, at $234 billion annually, funds additional forces for a military action like the U.S. invasion of Panama ("Operation Just Cause") and for force rotation in a protracted quarantine as an alternative to war in a Gulf-type crisis. Option

D--a $255 billion alternative to the President's 1997 budget--would provide forces for a second "Provide Comfort" operation and strengthen U.S. military support to South Korea (or a comparable contingency elsewhere).

In sum, Aspin's threat-based building blocks demonstrate that the President's (Clinton) budget-- which does not specify either threats or responses--would allow the United States simultaneously to conduct another Gulf War, help defend South Korea in a major war with North Korea, invade a small third world country, and protect two large indigenous populations from abuse by military dictators.

John T. Correll, Editor in Chief, Air Force Magazine wrote this editorial shortly after the election.

National defense was not an issue in the 1992 election. The voters weren't interested, or so the pollsters said, and the defense programs laid out by the candidates got no more than superficial examination.

A popular misconception, touted by the Washington Post and others prominent in analyzing the campaign, was that Gov. Bill Clinton and President George Bush had fundamentally the same positions on defense. That is not true.

Mr. Clinton's position was a virtual clone of "Option C," the detailed plan written by Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in challenge to the Base Force plan of the Bush Administration. Mr. Clinton's campaign statements followed Option C straight down the line, not only in concept but also in specific details of cost and force structure.

This points to a defense program that would be below the Base Force projection by about 200,000 troops, eight fighter wings, three army divisions, two aircraft carriers, and $60 billion over five years. That is not a trivial difference. The armed forces would shrink toward 1.4 million active duty troops, almost 40 percent below their peak strength in the 1980s. Capabilities would be closely measured to meet threats that are immediately apparent and not much more.

Despite the Pentagon's objection, think tanks and military strategist's opinion, they forged ahead with a massive draw down of US military force and readiness. You may note that they were totally unprepared for the expansion of terrorism, attacks within the US and the new global threat that 9/11 presented was not even on their radar.

The Base Force Meets Option C

Mr. Aspin says the Pentagon is wrong and that we can dispense with more troops, divisions, wings, and ships.

The most picturesque criticism, however, came from Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, Air Force Chief of Staff, who said that Mr. Aspin got his numbers wrong and that his Desert Storm Equivalent would be more accurately termed "Desert Drizzle." The force structure options suggested by Mr. Aspin and his staff "are a recipe for military disaster," General McPeak said.

[...]

Force mix. The Guard-Reserve issue is a political nuke. So far, most of the defense reductions have been made in the active-duty force, with Congress blocking attempts by the Pentagon to make corresponding reductions in the National Guard and Reserve.

In March, Secretary Cheney sent Congress a list of 830 Guard and Reserve units he proposes to reduce or inactivate. Most of the reductions would be in the Army Reserve component, which is at present larger than the active-duty Army.

Most of the alternative force proposals, including Option C, strike hardest at the active-duty force. In a remarkable position paper published in February, the National Guard Association declared that "the existing Total Force Policy and the emerging Base Force policy are competing strategies."

Challenging the Pentagon head-on, the Guard Association says that the Army should have 10 active-duty divisions and ten National Guard division equivalents, rather than 12 active-duty divisions, six reserve divisions, and two cadre divisions as projected for the Base Force.

[...]

Estimates of the requirement. Mr. Aspin's main claim is that his estimate of force requirements is better than the Pentagon's, which he derides as "defense by subtraction," calculated by obsolete "top-down" methodology, leading to "less of the same."

[...]

His working paper postulates four options, but three of them are obvious throwaways. His keeper is Option C. "Compared to the Pentagon's proposed Base Force," Mr. Aspin says, "Force C would put proportionately more emphasis on naval power projection, Marine Corps expeditionary forces, and our National Guard and Reserve Forces."

By mid-90 the JCS opined:

Despite its smaller size, our military must retain an appropriate mix of forces and capabilities to provide the versatility to handle today's challenges and to provide a hedge against unanticipated threats. Combat forces must be balanced with capable supporting forces, active duty forces must be balanced with appropriate Reserve capabilities, and force structure must be balanced with infrastructure.

George W. Bush was the governor of Texas and Cheney was raping and pillaging for Halliburton when Clinton approved, SecDef Cohen implemented and Kerry voted for force reductions, so how the hell does he blame the Bush administration for the force shortage?

Oh...that's right, he counts you possessing little memory of the Clinton administration's flawed military "planning" and failed global strategy.

This is not campaign hyperbole; it is outright, trickery, distortion and lies, lies that may get millions of us killed.

(Cross posted to TCP OP-ED page.)

Posted by feste at June 4, 2004 10:22 AM | TrackBack