Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has surprised almost everyone in the Pentagon
by taking seriously President Bush's campaign rhetoric about the need
to transform the military. The conventional wisdom among defense
pundits (including me) was that after going through the motions of a
strategic review, the new administration would then throw money at the
military to fix its huge budget shortfall.
That isn't what has happened. Instead, Rumsfeld has spun up a
series of secret panels to review Pentagon operations from which
military leaders are largely excluded. He has refused to endorse
several new weapon systems until the panels have completed their
deliberations. The administration has selected service chiefs from the
corporate world whose reputations for breaking crockery are well
deserved. And the President has shown little inclination to back away
from his campaign pronouncements about "skipping a generation" of
weapons.
Perhaps the clearest sign that real change is taking shape is the
fear spreading among senior officers and defense contractors. They're
not accustomed to being this much in the dark about what is going on,
and they're beginning to sense that the new administration isn't all
that interested in what they think. That’s very different the Clinton
Administration, which despite its reputation tried hard to keep the
military happy.
It's possible the new administration's reformist zeal will
degenerate into a Reaganesque spending binge as it is reined in by
political forces. But with seasoned players such as Dick Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld driving security policy, it's also possible the
military is in for a real makeover. Having been away from Washington
for a while, they probably share the average citizen's perplexity as to
why the Pentagon can't make ends meet on nearly a billion dollars a day
-- especially given the absence of urgent threats.
But before they embark on a massive transformation of America's
military forces, there are a few things they ought to know about the
limitations of any such exercise. Transformation could be the best
thing that has happened to the military in a generation, or it could
also turn into a political, budgetary and operational fiasco.
Understanding the constraints on change could help prevent a disaster.
First of all, transformation isn't going to save money on George W.
Bush's watch. Even if he is elected to a second term, it's likely to be
a net drain on resources, because the nation has to meet its existing
commitments even as the military is being reformed. That means
maintaining much of the current force in a relatively high state of
readiness while investing in leap-ahead capabilities. The Clinton
Administration preserved readiness largely at the expense of
investment, but that has produced an aging force desperately
in need of modernization.
Rumsfeld can't defer modernization any longer without running some
pretty sizable risks. Unfortunately, many of the new systems waiting in
the wings aren't truly transformational. Transformation thus becomes a
cost added to modernization, and the cumulative bill for both could
easily top a trillion dollars just in the current decade.
Transformation may save money over the long run, but those savings will
accrue mostly to Bush's successor.
Second, we shouldn't fool ourselves that we know what the future
holds for America's military. Many of the emerging threats driving
transformation, such as biological weapons and cyberwar, may prove to
be today's preoccupations rather than tomorrow's. Moreover, some
initiatives widely touted as transformational – "network-centric
warfare," for example – could actually increase our vulnerability over
the long run.
The uncertainties caused by what we don't know about the future are
compounded by the things that we don't seem to want to know. It doesn't
take a very deep reading of history to see that most of the threats to
American democracy have originated in Europe. Nonetheless, a key
feature of current transformation thinking is that U.S. forces should
be postured for coalition warfare with European allies.
Finally, there are the limits imposed on change by domestic
politics. Much of the congressional support for defense spending today
originates in the desire of legislators to protect local programs or
bases. Transformation could wipe out many of those activities, and thus
diminish political support for defense spending.
Given the absence of a strong congressional constituency for
transformation, Secretary Rumsfeld needs to be careful that the
political system doesn't translate his reform efforts into the latest
excuse for underfunding military investment. After ten years of decay,
the last thing America's military needs is more daring rhetoric leading
to minimal results.
