Rebuilding Americas Defenses

REBUILDING

AMERICA’S

DEFENSES

Strategy, Forces and ResourcesFor a New Century

A Report ofThe Project for the New American Century

September 2000

ABOUT THE PROJECT FOR THE

NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New American Century is a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership.The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project. William Kristol is chairmanof the Project, and Robert Kagan, Devon Gaffney Cross, Bruce P. Jackson and John R.Bolton serve as directors. Gary Schmitt is executive director of the Project.

“As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as theworld’s most preeminent power. Having led the West to victory inthe Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Doesthe United States have the vision to build upon the achievement ofpast decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape anew century favorable to American principles and interests?

“[What we require is] a military that is strong and ready to meetboth present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly andpurposefully promotes American principles abroad; and nationalleadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.

“Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises itspower. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of globalleadership of the costs that are associated with its exercise. Americahas a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia,and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invitechallenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th

century should have taught us that it is important to shapecircumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before theybecome dire. The history of the past century should have taught usto embrace the cause of American leadership.”

– From the Project’s founding Statement of Principles

____PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY____1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Suite 510, Washington, D.C. 20036

Telephone: (202) 293-4983 / Fax: (202) 293-4572

REBUILDING

AMERICA’S

DEFENSES

Strategy, Forces and ResourcesFor a New Century

DONALD KAGAN GARY SCHMITT

Project Co-Chairmen

THOMAS DONNELLY

Principal Author

REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSESStrategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century

CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

I. Why Another Defense Review? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

II. Four Essential Missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

III. Repositioning Today’s Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

IV. Rebuilding Today’s Armed Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

V. Creating Tomorrow’s Dominant Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

VI. Defense Spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Project Participants

Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century

i

INTRODUCTION

The Project for the New AmericanCentury was established in the spring of1997. From its inception, the Project hasbeen concerned with the decline in thestrength of America’s defenses, and in theproblems this would create for the exerciseof American leadership around the globeand, ultimately, for the preservation ofpeace.

Our concerns were reinforced by thetwo congressionally-mandated defensestudies that appeared soon thereafter: thePentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review(May 1997) and the report of the NationalDefense Panel (December 1997). Bothstudies assumed that U.S. defense budgetswould remain flat or continue to shrink. Asa result, the defense plans andrecommendations outlined in the two reportswere fashioned with such budget constraintsin mind. Broadly speaking, the QDRstressed current military requirements at theexpense of future defense needs, while theNDP’s report emphasized future needs byunderestimating today’s defenseresponsibilities.

Although the QDR and the report of theNDP proposed different policies, theyshared one underlying feature: the gapbetween resources and strategy should beresolved not by increasing resources but byshortchanging strategy. America’s armedforces, it seemed, could either prepare forthe future by retreating from its role as theessential defender of today’s global securityorder, or it could take care of currentbusiness but be unprepared for tomorrow’sthreats and tomorrow’s battlefields.

Either alternative seemed to usshortsighted. The United States is theworld’s only superpower, combiningpreeminent military power, globaltechnological leadership, and the world’slargest economy. Moreover, America standsat the head of a system of alliances whichincludes the world’s other leadingdemocratic powers. At present the UnitedStates faces no global rival. America’sgrand strategy should aim to preserve andextend this advantageous position as far intothe future as possible. There are, however,potentially powerful states dissatisfied withthe current situation and eager to change it,if they can, in directions that endanger therelatively peaceful, prosperous and freecondition the world enjoys today. Up tonow, they have been deterred from doing soby the capability and global presence ofAmerican military power. But, as thatpower declines, relatively and absolutely,the happy conditions that follow from it willbe inevitably undermined.

Preserving the desirable strategicsituation in which the United States nowfinds itself requires a globally preeminentmilitary capability both today and in thefuture. But years of cuts in defensespending have eroded the Americanmilitary’s combat readiness, and put injeopardy the Pentagon’s plans formaintaining military superiority in the yearsahead. Increasingly, the U.S. military hasfound itself undermanned, inadequatelyequipped and trained, straining to handlecontingency operations, and ill-prepared toadapt itself to the revolution in militaryaffairs. Without a well-conceived defensepolicy and an appropriate increase in


defense spending, the United States has beenletting its ability to take full advantage of theremarkable strategic opportunity at hand slipaway.

With this in mind, we began a project inthe spring of 1998 to examine the country’sdefense plans and resource requirements.We started from the premise that U.S.military capabilities should be sufficient tosupport an American grand strategycommitted to building upon thisunprecedented opportunity. We did notaccept pre-ordained constraints thatfollowed from assumptions about what thecountry might or might not be willing toexpend on its defenses.

In broad terms, we saw the project asbuilding upon the defense strategy outlinedby the Cheney Defense Department in thewaning days of the Bush Administration.The Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) draftedin the early monthsof 1992 provided ablueprint formaintaining U.S.preeminence,precluding the riseof a great powerrival, and shapingthe internationalsecurity order inline with Americanprinciples andinterests. Leakedbefore it had beenformally approved,the document wascriticized as aneffort by “coldwarriors” to keep defecuts in forces small dethe Soviet Union; not ssubsequently buried byadministration.

Although the expeeight years has modifieof particular military rcarrying out such a stra

of the DPG, in our judgment, remain sound.And what Secretary Cheney said at the timein response to the DPG’s critics remains truetoday: “We can either sustain the [armed]forces we require and remain in a position tohelp shape things for the better, or we canthrow that advantage away. [But] thatwould only hasten the day when we facegreater threats, at higher costs and furtherrisk to American lives.”

The project proceeded by holding aseries of seminars. We asked outstandingdefense specialists to write papers to explorea variety of topics: the future missions andrequirements of the individual militaryservices, the role of the reserves, nuclearstrategic doctrine and missile defenses, thedefense budget and prospects for militarymodernization, the state (training andreadiness) of today’s forces, the revolutionin military affairs, and defense-planning fortheater wars, small wars and constabularyoperations. The papers were circulated to agroup of participants, chosen for theirexperience and judgment in defense affairs.(The list of participants may be found at theend of this report.) Each paper then becamethe basis for discussion and debate. Ourgoal was to use the papers to assistdeliberation, to generate and test ideas, andto assist us in developing our final report.While each paper took as its starting point ashared strategic point of view, we made noattempt to dictate the views or direction ofthe individual papers. We wanted as fulland as diverse a discussion as possible.

Our report borrows heavily from thosedeliberations. But we did not ask seminar

At present theUnited Statesfaces noglobal rival.America’sgrand strategyshould aim topreserve andextend thisadvantageousposition as farinto the futureas possible.

ii

nse spending high andspite the collapse ofurprisingly, it was the new

rience of the pastd our understanding

equirements fortegy, the basic tenets

participants to “sign-off” on the final report.We wanted frank discussions and we soughtto avoid the pitfalls of trying to produce aconsensual but bland product. We wanted totry to define and describe a defense strategythat is honest, thoughtful, bold, internallyconsistent and clear. And we wanted tospark a serious and informed discussion, theessential first step for reaching soundconclusions and for gaining public support.


iii

New circumstances make us think thatthe report might have a more receptiveaudience now than in recent years. For thefirst time since the late 1960s the federalgovernment is running a surplus. For mostof the 1990s, Congress and the White Housegave balancing the federal budget a higherpriority than funding national security. Infact, to a significant degree, the budget wasbalanced by a combination of increased taxrevenues and cuts in defense spending. Thesurplus expected in federal revenues overthe next decade, however, removes any needto hold defense spending to somepreconceived low level.

Moreover, the American public and itselected representatives have becomeincreasingly aware of the declining state ofthe U.S. military. News stories, Pentagonreports, congressional testimony andanecdotal accounts from members of thearmed services paint a disturbing picture ofan American military that is troubled bypoor enlistment and retention rates, shoddyhousing, a shortage of spare parts andweapons, and diminishing combat readiness.

Finally, this report comes after adecade’s worth of experience in dealing withthe post-Cold War world. Previous effortsto fashion a defense strategy that wouldmake sense for today’s security environment

were forced to work from many untestedassumptions about the nature of a worldwithout a superpower rival. We have amuch better idea today of what ourresponsibilities are, what the threats to usmight be in this new security environment,and what it will take to secure the relativepeace and stability. We believe our reportreflects and benefits from that decade’sworth of experience.

Our report is published in a presidentialelection year. The new administration willneed to produce a second QuadrennialDefense Review shortly after it takes office.We hope that the Project’s report will beuseful as a road map for the nation’simmediate and future defense plans. Webelieve we have set forth a defense programthat is justified by the evidence, rests on anhonest examination of the problems andpossibilities, and does not flinch from facingthe true cost of security. We hope it willinspire careful consideration and seriousdiscussion. The post-Cold War world willnot remain a relatively peaceful place if wecontinue to neglect foreign and defensematters. But serious attention, carefulthought, and the willingness to devoteadequate resources to maintainingAmerica’s military strength can make theworld safer and American strategic interestsmore secure now and in the future.

Donald Kagan Gary SchmittProject Co-Chairmen

Thomas DonnellyPrincipal Author


iv

KEY FINDINGS

This report proceeds from the belief thatAmerica should seek to preserve and extendits position of global leadership bymaintaining the preeminence of U.S.military forces. Today, the United Stateshas an unprecedented strategic opportunity.It faces no immediate great-powerchallenge; it is blessed with wealthy,powerful and democratic allies in every partof the world; it is in the midst of the longesteconomic expansion in its history; and itspolitical and economic principles are almostuniversally embraced. At no time in historyhas the international security order been asconducive to American interests and ideals.

The challenge for the coming century is topreserve and enhance this “Americanpeace.”

Yet unless the United States maintainssufficient military strength, this opportunitywill be lost. And in fact, over the pastdecade, the failure to establish a securitystrategy responsive to new realities and toprovide adequate resources for the full rangeof missions needed to exercise U.S. globalleadership has placed the American peace atgrowing risk. This report attempts to definethose requirements. In particular, we needto:

ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for U.S. military forces:• defend the American homeland;• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in

critical regions;• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;”

To carry out these core missions, we need to provide sufficient force and budgetaryallocations. In particular, the United States must:

MAINTAIN NUCLEAR STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY, basing the U.S. nuclear deterrent upon aglobal, nuclear net assessment that weighs the full range of current and emerging threats,not merely the U.S.-Russia balance.

RESTORE THE PERSONNEL STRENGTH of today’s force to roughly the levels anticipated inthe “Base Force” outlined by the Bush Administration, an increase in active-duty strengthfrom 1.4 million to 1.6 million.

REPOSITION U.S. FORCES to respond to 21st century strategic realities by shiftingpermanently-based forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia, and by changing navaldeployment patterns to reflect growing U.S. strategic concerns in East Asia.


v

MODERNIZE CURRENT U.S. FORCES SELECTIVELY, proceeding with the F-22 program whileincreasing purchases of lift, electronic support and other aircraft; expanding submarineand surface combatant fleets; purchasing Comanche helicopters and medium-weightground vehicles for the Army, and the V-22 Osprey “tilt-rotor” aircraft for the MarineCorps.

CANCEL “ROADBLOCK” PROGRAMS such as the Joint Strike Fighter, CVX aircraft carrier,and Crusader howitzer system that would absorb exorbitant amounts of Pentagon fundingwhile providing limited improvements to current capabilities. Savings from these canceledprograms should be used to spur the process of military transformation.

DEVELOP AND DEPLOY GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSES to defend the American homeland andAmerican allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world.

CONTROL THE NEW “INTERNATIONAL COMMONS” OF SPACE AND “CYBERSPACE,” and pavethe way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission ofspace control.

EXPLOIT THE “REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS” to insure the long-term superiority ofU.S. conventional forces. Establish a two-stage transformation process which• maximizes the value of current weapons systems through the application of advanced

technologies, and,• produces more profound improvements in military capabilities, encourages competition

between single services and joint-service experimentation efforts.

INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING gradually to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of grossdomestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.

Fulfilling these requirements is essentialif America is to retain its militarily dominantstatus for the coming decades. Conversely,the failure to meet any of these needs mustresult in some form of strategic retreat. Atcurrent levels of defense spending, the onlyoption is to try ineffectually to “manage”increasingly large risks: paying for today’sneeds by shortchanging tomorrow’s;withdrawing from constabulary missions toretain strength for large-scale wars;“choosing” between presence in Europe orpresence in Asia; and so on. These are bad

choices. They are also false economies.The “savings” from withdrawing from theBalkans, for example, will not free upanywhere near the magnitude of fundsneeded for military modernization ortransformation. But these are falseeconomies in other, more profound ways aswell. The true cost of not meeting ourdefense requirements will be a lessenedcapacity for American global leadership and,ultimately, the loss of a global security orderthat is uniquely friendly to Americanprinciples and prosperity.


1

IWHY ANOTHER DEFENSE REVIEW?

Since the end of the Cold War, theUnited States has struggled to formulate acoherent national security or militarystrategy, one that accounts for the constantsof American power and principles yetaccommodates 21st century realities. Absenta strategic framework, U.S. defense plan-ning has been an empty and increasinglyself-referential exercise, often dominated bybureaucratic and budgetary rather thanstrategic interests. Indeed, the proliferationof defense reviews over the past decadetestifies to the failure to chart a consistentcourse: to date, there have been half a dozenformal defense reviews, and the Pentagon isnow gearing up for a second QuadrennialDefense Review in 2001. Unless this “QDRII” matches U.S. military forces andresources to a viable American strategy, it,too, will fail.

These failures are not without cost:already, they place at risk an historicopportunity. After the victories of the pastcentury – two world wars, the Cold War andmost recently the Gulf War – the UnitedStates finds itself as the uniquely powerfulleader of a coalition of free and prosperousstates that faces no immediate great-powerchallenge.

The American peace has proven itselfpeaceful, stable and durable. It has, over thepast decade, provided the geopoliticalframework for widespread economic growthand the spread of American principles ofliberty and democracy. Yet no moment ininternational politics can be frozen in time;even a global Pax Americana will notpreserve itself.

Paradoxically, as American power andinfluence are at their apogee, Americanmilitary forces limp toward exhaustion,unable to meet the demands of their manyand varied missions, including preparing fortomorrow’s battlefield. Today’s force,reduced by a third or more over the pastdecade, suffers from degraded combatreadiness; from difficulties in recruiting andretaining sufficient numbers of soldiers,sailors, airmen and Marines; from the effectsof an extended “procurement holiday” thathas resulted in the premature aging of mostweapons systems; from an increasinglyobsolescent and inadequate militaryinfrastructure; from a shrinking industrialbase poorly structured to be the “arsenal ofdemocracy” for the 21st century; from a lackof innovation that threatens the techno-logical and operational advantages enjoyedby U.S. forces for a generation and uponwhich American strategy depends. Finally,and most dangerously, the social fabric ofthe military is frayed and worn. U.S. armedforces suffer from a degraded quality of lifedivorced from middle-class expectations,upon which an all-volunteer force depends.Enlisted men and women and junior officersincreasingly lack confidence in their seniorleaders, whom they believe will not tellunpleasant truths to their civilian leaders. Insum, as the American peace reaches acrossthe globe, the force that preserves that peaceis increasingly overwhelmed by its tasks.

This is no paradox; it is the inevitableconsequence of the failure to match militarymeans to geopolitical ends. Underlying thefailed strategic and defense reviews of thepast decade is the idea that the collapse of


2

The multiple challenges of thepost-Cold War world.

the Soviet Union had created a “strategicpause.” In other words, until another great-power challenger emerges, the United Statescan enjoy a respite from the demands ofinternational leadership. Like a boxerbetween championship bouts, America canafford to relax and live the good life, certainthat there would be enough time to shape upfor the next big challenge. Thus the UnitedStates could afford to reduce its militaryforces, close bases overseas, halt majorweapons programs and reap the financialbenefits of the “peace dividend.” But as wehave seen over the past decade, there hasbeen no shortage of powers around theworld who have taken the collapse of theSoviet empire as an opportunity to expandtheir own influence and challenge theAmerican-led security order.

Beyond the faulty notion of a strategicpause, recent defense reviews have sufferedfrom an inverted understanding of the mili-tary dimension of the Cold War strugglebetween the United States and the SovietUnion. American containment strategy didnot proceed from the assumption that theCold War would be a purely military strug-gle, in which the U.S. Army matched theRed Army tank for tank; rather, the UnitedStates would seek to deter the Sovietsmilitarily while defeating them economi-cally and ideologically over time. And,even within the realm of military affairs, thepractice of deterrence allowed for what inmilitary terms is called “an economy offorce.” The principle job of NATO forces,for example, was to deter an invasion ofWestern Europe, not to invade and occupythe Russian heartland. Moreover, the bi-polar nuclear balance of terror made boththe United States and the Soviet Uniongenerally cautious. Behind the smallestproxy war in the most remote region lurkedthe possibility of Armageddon. Thus,despite numerous miscalculations throughthe five decades of Cold War, the UnitedStates reaped an extraordinary measure ofglobal security and stability simply bybuilding a credible and, in relative terms,inexpensive nuclear arsenal.

Over the decade of the post-Cold-Warperiod, however, almost everything haschanged. The Cold War world was a bipolarworld; the 21st century world is – for themoment, at least – decidedly unipolar, withAmerica as the world’s “sole superpower.”America’s strategic goal used to becontainment of the Soviet Union; today thetask is to preserve an international securityenvironment conducive to Americaninterests and ideals. The military’s jobduring the Cold War was to deter Sovietexpansionism. Today its task is to secureand expand the “zones of democraticpeace;” to deter the rise of a new great-power competitor; defend key regions ofEurope, East Asia and the Middle East; andto preserve American preeminence throughthe coming transformation of war made

Cold War 21st CenturySecuritysystem

Bipolar Unipolar

Strategicgoal

ContainSovietUnion

Preserve PaxAmericana

Mainmilitarymission(s)

Deter Sovietexpansionism

Secure andexpand zonesof democraticpeace; deterrise of newgreat-powercompetitor;defend keyregions;exploittransformationof war

Mainmilitarythreat(s)

Potentialglobal waracross manytheaters

Potentialtheater warsspread acrossglobe

Focus ofstrategiccompetition

Europe East Asia


3

Today, Americaspends less than3 percent of itsgross domesticproduct onnational defense,less than at anytime since beforethe United Statesestablished itselfas the world’sleading power.

possible by new technologies. From 1945 to1990, U.S. forces prepared themselves for asingle, global war that might be foughtacross many theaters; in the new century, theprospect is for a variety of theater warsaround the world, against separate anddistinct adversaries pursuing separate anddistinct goals. During the Cold War, themain venue of superpower rivalry, thestrategic “center of gravity,” was in Europe,where large U.S. and NATO conventionalforces prepared to repulse a Soviet attackand over which nuclear war might begin;and with Europe now generally at peace, thenew strategic center of concern appears tobe shifting to East Asia. The missions for

America’s armedforces have notdiminished somuch as shifted.The threats maynot be as great,but there aremore of them.During the ColdWar, Americaacquired itssecurity“wholesale” byglobal deterrenceof the SovietUnion. Today,that same

security can only be acquired at the “retail”level, by deterring or, when needed, bycompelling regional foes to act in ways thatprotect American interests and principles.

This gap between a diverse andexpansive set of new strategic realities anddiminishing defense forces and resourcesdoes much to explain why the Joint Chiefsof Staff routinely declare that they see “highrisk” in executing the missions assigned toU.S. armed forces under the government’sdeclared national military strategy. Indeed,a JCS assessment conducted at the height ofthe Kosovo air war found the risk level“unacceptable.” Such risks are the result ofthe combination of the new missionsdescribed above and the dramatically

reduced military force that has emergedfrom the defense “drawdown” of the pastdecade. Today, America spends less than 3percent of its gross domestic product onnational defense, less than at any time sincebefore World War II – in other words, sincebefore the United States established itself asthe world’s leading power – and a cut from4.7 percent of GDP in 1992, the first realpost-Cold-War defense budget. Most of thisreduction has come under the ClintonAdministration; despite initial promises toapproximate the level of defense spendingcalled for in the final Bush Administrationprogram, President Clinton cut more than$160 billion from the Bush program from1992 to 1996 alone. Over the first sevenyears of the Clinton Administration,approximately $426 billion in defenseinvestments have been deferred, creating aweapons procurement “bow wave” ofimmense proportions.

The most immediate effect of reduceddefense spending has been a precipitatedecline in combat readiness. Across allservices, units are reporting degradedreadiness, spare parts and personnelshortages, postponed and simplified trainingregimens, and many other problems. Incongressional testimony, service chiefs ofstaff now routinely report that their forcesare inadequate to the demands of the “two-war” national military strategy. Pressattention focused on these readinessproblems when it was revealed that twoArmy divisions were given a “C-4” rating,meaning they were not ready for war. Yet itwas perhaps more telling that none of theArmy’s ten divisions achieved the highest“C-1” rating, reflecting the widespreadeffects of slipping readiness standards. Bycontrast, every division that deployed toOperation Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991received a “C-1” rating. This is just asnapshot that captures the state of U.S.armed forces today.

These readiness problems areexacerbated by the fact that U.S. forces arepoorly positioned to respond to today’s


4

crises. In Europe, for example, theoverwhelming majority of Army and AirForce units remain at their Cold War basesin Germany or England, while the securityproblems on the continent have moved toSoutheast Europe. Temporary rotations offorces to the Balkans and elsewhere inSoutheast Europe increase the overallburdens of these operations many times.Likewise, the Clinton Administration hascontinued the fiction that the operations ofAmerican forces in the Persian Gulf aremerely temporary duties. Nearly a decadeafter the Gulf War, U.S. air, ground andnaval forces continue to protect enduringAmerican interests in the region. In additionto rotational naval forces, the Armymaintains what amounts to an armoredbrigade in Kuwait for nine months of everyyear; the Air Force has two composite airwings in constant “no-fly zone” operationsover northern and southern Iraq. Anddespite increasing worries about the rise ofChina and instability in Southeast Asia, U.S.forces are found almost exclusively inNortheast Asian bases.

Yet for all its problems in carrying outtoday’s missions, the Pentagon has donealmost nothing to prepare for a future thatpromises to be very different and potentiallymuch more dangerous. It is now commonlyunderstood that information and other newtechnologies – as well as widespreadtechnological and weapons proliferation –are creating a dynamic that may threatenAmerica’s ability to exercise its dominantmilitary power. Potential rivals such asChina are anxious to exploit these trans-formational technologies broadly, whileadversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Koreaare rushing to develop ballistic missiles andnuclear weapons as a deterrent to Americanintervention in regions they seek todominate. Yet the Defense Department andthe services have done little more than affixa “transformation” label to programsdeveloped during the Cold War, whilediverting effort and attention to a process ofjoint experimentation which restricts ratherthan encourages innovation. Rather than

admit that rapid technological changesmakes it uncertain which new weaponssystems to develop, the armed services clingever more tightly to traditional program andconcepts. As Andrew Krepinevich, amember of the National Defense Panel, putit in a recent study of Pentagon experi-mentation, “Unfortunately, the DefenseDepartment’s rhetoric asserting the need formilitary transformation and its support forjoint experimentation has yet to be matchedby any great sense of urgency or anysubstantial resource support.…At presentthe Department’s effort is poorly focusedand woefully underfunded.”

In sum, the 1990s have been a “decadeof defense neglect.” This leaves the nextpresident of the United States with anenormous challenge: he must increasemilitary spending to preserve Americangeopolitical leadership, or he must pull backfrom the security commitments that are themeasure of America’s position as theworld’s sole superpower and the finalguarantee of security, democratic freedomsand individual political rights. This choicewill be among the first to confront thepresident: new legislation requires theincoming administration to fashion anational security strategy within six monthsof assuming office, as opposed to waiting afull year, and to complete anotherquadrennial defense review three monthsafter that. In a larger sense, the newpresident will choose whether today’s“unipolar moment,” to use columnistCharles Krauthammer’s phrase forAmerica’s current geopolitical preeminence,will be extended along with the peace andprosperity that it provides.

This study seeks to frame these choicesclearly, and to re-establish the links betweenU.S. foreign policy, security strategy, forceplanning and defense spending. If anAmerican peace is to be maintained, andexpanded, it must have a secure foundationon unquestioned U.S. military preeminence.


5

IIFOUR ESSENTIAL MISSIONS

America’s global leadership, and its roleas the guarantor of the current great-powerpeace, relies upon the safety of theAmerican homeland; the preservation of afavorable balance of power in Europe, theMiddle East and surrounding energy-producing region, and East Asia; and thegeneral stability of the international systemof nation-states relative to terrorists,organized crime, and other “non-stateactors.” The relative importance of theseelements, and the threats to U.S. interests,may rise and fall over time. Europe, forexample, is now extraordinarily peacefuland stable, despite the turmoil in theBalkans. Conversely, East Asia appears tobe entering a period with increased potentialfor instability and competition. In the Gulf,American power and presence has achievedrelative external security for U.S. allies, butthe longer-term prospects are murkier.Generally, American strategy for the comingdecades should seek to consolidate the greatvictories won in the 20th century – whichhave made Germany and Japan into stabledemocracies, for example – maintainstability in the Middle East, while setting theconditions for 21st-century successes,especially in East Asia.

A retreat from any one of theserequirements would call America’s status asthe world’s leading power into question. Aswe have seen, even a small failure like thatin Somalia or a halting and incompletetriumph as in the Balkans can cast doubt onAmerican credibility. The failure to define acoherent global security and militarystrategy during the post-Cold-War period

has invited challenges; states seeking toestablish regional hegemony continue toprobe for the limits of the American securityperimeter. None of the defense reviews ofthe past decade has weighed fully the rangeof missions demanded by U.S. globalleadership: defending the homeland,

fighting andwinning multiplelarge-scale wars,conductingconstabularymissions whichpreserve thecurrent peace, andtransforming theU.S. armed forcesto exploit the“revolution inmilitary affairs.”Nor have theyadequatelyquantified theforces andresourcesnecessary toexecute thesemissionsseparately andsuccessfully.

aoscsa

None of thedefense reviewsof the pastdecade hasweighed fullythe range ofmissionsdemanded byU.S. globalleadership, noradequatelyquantified theforces andresourcesnecessary toexecute thesemissionssuccessfully.

While muchfurther detailed

nalysis would be required, it is the purposef this study to outline the large, “full-pectrum” forces that are necessary toonduct the varied tasks demanded by atrategy of American preeminence for todaynd tomorrow.


6

HOMELAND DEFENSE. America must defend its homeland. During the Cold War,nuclear deterrence was the key element in homeland defense; it remains essential. But thenew century has brought with it new challenges. While reconfiguring its nuclear force, theUnited States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles andweapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter U.S. military actionby threatening U.S. allies and the American homeland itself. Of all the new and currentmissions for U.S. armed forces, this must have priority.

LARGE WARS. Second, the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidlydeploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars and also to be able to respond tounanticipated contingencies in regions where it does not maintain forward-based forces.This resembles the “two-war” standard that has been the basis of U.S. force planning overthe past decade. Yet this standard needs to be updated to account for new realities andpotential new conflicts.

CONSTABULARY DUTIES. Third, the Pentagon must retain forces to preserve thecurrent peace in ways that fall short of conduction major theater campaigns. A decade’sexperience and the policies of two administrations have shown that such forces must beexpanded to meet the needs of the new, long-term NATO mission in the Balkans, thecontinuing no-fly-zone and other missions in Southwest Asia, and other presence missions invital regions of East Asia. These duties are today’s most frequent missions, requiring forcesconfigured for combat but capable of long-term, independent constabulary operations.

TRANSFORM U.S. ARMED FORCES. Finally, the Pentagon must begin now to exploit the so-called “revolution in military affairs,” sparked by the introduction of advanced technologiesinto military systems; this must be regarded as a separate and critical mission worthy of ashare of force structure and defense budgets.

Current American armed forces are ill-prepared to execute these four missions.Over the past decade, efforts to design andbuild effective missile defenses have beenill-conceived and underfunded, and theClinton Administration has proposed deepreductions in U.S. nuclear forces withoutsufficient analysis of the changing globalnuclear balance of forces. While, broadlyspeaking, the United States now maintainssufficient active and reserve forces to meetthe traditional two-war standard, this is trueonly in the abstract, under the mostfavorable geopolitical conditions. As theJoint Chiefs of Staff have admittedrepeatedly in congressional testimony, theylack the forces necessary to meet the two-war benchmark as expressed in the warplansof the regional commanders-in-chief. Therequirements for major-war forces must bereevaluated to accommodate new strategicrealities. One of these new realities is the

requirement for peacekeeping operations;unless this requirement is better understood,America’s ability to fight major wars will bejeopardized. Likewise, the transformationprocess has gotten short shrift.

To meet the requirements of the fournew missions highlighted above, the UnitedStates must undertake a two-stage process.The immediate task is to rebuild today’sforce, ensuring that it is equal to the tasksbefore it: shaping the peacetime enviro-nment and winning multiple, simultaneoustheater wars; these forces must be largeenough to accomplish these tasks withoutrunning the “high” or “unacceptable” risks itfaces now. The second task is to seriouslyembark upon a transformation of theDefense Department. This itself will be atwo-stage effort: for the next decade ormore, the armed forces will continue tooperate many of the same systems it now


7

does, organize themselves in traditionalunits, and employ current operationalconcepts. However, this transition periodmust be a first step toward more substantialreform. Over the next several decades, theUnited States must field a global system ofmissile defenses, divine ways to control thenew “international commons” of space andcyberspace, and build new kinds ofconventional forces for different strategicchallenges and a new technologicalenvironment.

Nuclear Forces

Current conventional wisdom aboutstrategic forces in the post-Cold-War worldis captured in a comment made by the lateLes Aspin, the Clinton Administration's firstsecretary of defense. Aspin wrote that thecollapse of the Soviet Union had “literallyreversed U.S. interests in nuclear weapons”and, “Today, if offered the magic wand toeradicate the existence and knowledge ofnuclear weapons, we would very likelyaccept it.” Since the United States is theworld’s dominant conventional militarypower, this sentiment is understandable. Butit is precisely because we have such powerthat smaller adversarial states, looking for anequalizing advantage, are determined toacquire their own weapons of massdestruction. Whatever our fondest wishes,the reality of the today’s world is that thereis no magic wand with which to eliminatethese weapons (or, more fundamentally, theinterest in acquiring them) and that deterringtheir use requires a reliable and dominantU.S. nuclear capability.

While the formal U.S. nuclear posturehas remained conservative through the 1994Nuclear Posture Review and the 1997Quadrennial Defense Review, and seniorPentagon leaders speak of the continuingneed for nuclear deterrent forces, the ClintonAdministration has taken repeated steps toundermine the readiness and effectiveness ofU.S. nuclear forces. In particular, it hasvirtually ceased development of safer and

more effective nuclear weapons; broughtunderground testing to a complete halt; andallowed the Department of Energy’sweapons complex and associated scientificexpertise to atrophy for lack of support. Theadministration has also made the decision toretain current weapons in the active force foryears beyond their design life. Whencombined with the decision to cut back onregular, non-nuclear flight and system testsof the weapons themselves, this raises a hostof questions about the continuing safety andreliability of the nation’s strategic arsenal.The administration’s stewardship of thenation's deterrent capability has been aptlydescribed by Congress as “erosion bydesign.”

A new assessment of the globalnuclear balance, one that takesaccount of Chinese and other nuclearforces as well as Russian, mustprecede decisions about U.S. nuclearforce cuts.

Rather than maintain and improveAmerica’s nuclear deterrent, the ClintonAdministration has put its faith in new armscontrol measures, most notably by signingthe Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty(CTBT). The treaty proposed a newmultilateral regime, consisting of some 150states, whose principal effect would be toconstrain America's unique role in providingthe global nuclear umbrella that helps tokeep states like Japan and South Korea fromdeveloping the weapons that are well withintheir scientific capability, while doing littleto stem nuclear weapons proliferation.Although the Senate refused to ratify thetreaty, the administration continues to abideby its basic strictures. And while it may


8

Theadministration’sstewardship ofthe nation’sdeterrentcapability hasbeen describedby Congress as“erosion bydesign.”

make sense to continue the currentmoratorium on nuclear testing for themoment – since it would take a number ofyears to refurbish the neglected testinginfrastructure in any case – ultimately this isan untenable situation. If the United Statesis to have a nuclear deterrent that is botheffective and safe, it will need to test.

That said, of all the elements of U.S.military force posture, perhaps none is morein need of reevaluation than America’snuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons remaina critical component of American militarypower but it is unclear whether the currentU.S. nuclear arsenal is well-suited to theemerging post-Cold War world. Today’sstrategic calculus encompasses more factorsthan just the balance of terror between theUnited States and Russia. U.S. nuclear forceplanning and related arms control policiesmust take account of a larger set of variablesthan in the past, including the growingnumber of smallnuclear arsenals –from North Koreato Pakistan to,perhaps soon,Iran and Iraq –and a modernizedand expandedChinese nuclearforce. Moreover,there is a questionabout the rolenuclear weaponsshould play indeterring the useof other kinds of weapons of mass destruc-tion, such as chemical and biological, withthe U.S. having foresworn those weapons’development and use. It addition, there maybe a need to develop a new family of nuclearweapons designed to address new sets ofmilitary requirements, such as would berequired in targeting the very deep under-ground, hardened bunkers that are beingbuilt by many of our potential adversaries.Nor has there been a serious analysis doneof the benefits versus the costs of maintain-ing the traditional nuclear “triad.” What is

needed first is a global net assessment ofwhat kinds and numbers of nuclear weaponsthe U.S. needs to meet its securityresponsibilities in a post-Soviet world.

In short, until the Department ofDefense can better define future its nuclearrequirements, significant reductions in U.S.nuclear forces might well have unforeseenconsequences that lessen rather thanenhance the security of the United Statesand its allies. Reductions, upon review,might be called for. But what should finallydrive the size and character of our nuclearforces is not numerical parity with Russiancapabilities but maintaining Americanstrategic superiority – and, with thatsuperiority, a capability to deter possiblehostile coalitions of nuclear powers. U.S.nuclear superiority is nothing to be ashamedof; rather, it will be an essential element inpreserving American leadership in a morecomplex and chaotic world.

Forces for Major Theater Wars

The one constant of Pentagon forceplanning through the past decade has beenthe recognized need to retain sufficientcombat forces to fight and win, as rapidlyand decisively as possible, multiple, nearlysimultaneous major theater wars. Thisconstant is based upon two important truthsabout the current international order. One,the Cold-War standoff between America andits allies and the Soviet Union that made forcaution and discouraged direct aggressionagainst the major security interests of eitherside no longer exists. Two, conventionalwarfare remains a viable way for aggressivestates to seek major changes in theinternational order.

Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait reflectedboth truths. The invasion would have beenhighly unlikely, if not impossible, within thecontext of the Cold War, and Iraq overranKuwait in a matter of hours. These twotruths revealed a third: maintaining orrestoring a favorable order in vital regions in


9

The Joint Chiefshave admittedthey lack theforces necessaryto meet the two-war benchmark.

the world such as Europe, the Middle Eastand East Asia places a unique responsibilityon U.S. armed forces. The Gulf War andindeed the subsequent lesser wars in theBalkans could hardly have been fought andwon without the dominant role played byAmerican military might.

Thus, the understanding that U.S. armedforces should be shaped by a “two-major-war” standard rightly has been accepted asthe core of America’s superpower statussince the end of the Cold War. The logic ofpast defense reviews still obtains, andreceived its clear exposition in the 1997Quadrennial Defense Review, which argued:

A force sized and equipped fordeterring and defeating aggression inmore than one theater ensures that theUnited States will maintain theflexibility to cope with the unpredictableand unexpected. Such a capability isthe sine qua non of a superpower and isessential to the credibility of our overallnational security strategy….If theUnited States were to forego its abilityto defeat aggression in more than onetheater at a time, our standing as aglobal power, as the security partner ofchoice and the leader of theinternational community would becalled in to question. Indeed, someallies would undoubtedly read a one-war capability as a signal that theUnited States, if heavily engagedelsewhere, would no longer be able todefend their interests…A one-theater-war capacity would riskundermining…the credibility of U.S.security commitments in key regions ofthe world. This, in turn, could causeallies and friends to adopt moredivergent defense policies and postures,thereby weakening the web of alliancesand coalitions on which we rely toprotect our interests abroad.

In short, anything less than a clear two-war capacity threatens to devolve into a no-war strategy.

Unfortunately, Defense Departmentthinking about this requirement was frozen

in the early 1990s. The experience ofOperation Allied Force in the Balkanssuggests that, if anything, the canonical two-war force-sizing standard is more likely tobe too low than too high. The Kosovo aircampaign eventually involved the level offorces anticipated for a major war, but in atheater other than the two – the Koreanpeninsula and Southwest Asia – that havegenerated past Pentagon planning scenarios.Moreover, new theater wars that can beforeseen, such as an American defense ofTaiwan against a Chinese invasion orpunitive attack, have yet to be formallyconsidered by Pentagon planners.

To better judge forces needed forbuilding an American peace, the Pentagonneeds to begin to calculate the forcenecessary toprotect,independently,U.S. interestsin Europe, EastAsia and theGulf at alltimes. Theactions of ouradversaries in these regions bear no morethan a tangential relationship to one another;it is more likely that one of these regionalpowers will seize an opening created bydeployments of U.S. forces elsewhere tomake mischief.

Thus, the major-theater-war standardshould remain the principal force-sizing toolfor U.S. conventional forces. This not to saythat this measure has been perfectly appliedin the past: Pentagon analyses have beenboth too optimistic and too pessimistic, byturns. For example, the analyses done of therequirement to defeat an Iraqi invasion ofKuwait and Saudi Arabia almost certainlyoverestimates the level of force required.Conversely, past analyses of a defense ofSouth Korea may have underestimated thedifficulties of such a war, especially if NorthKorea employed weapons of mass destruc-tion, as intelligence estimates anticipate.Moreover, the theater-war analysis done for


10

the QDR assumed that Kim Jong Il andSaddam Hussein each could begin a war –perhaps even while employing chemical,biological or even nuclear weapons – andthe United States would make no effort tounseat militarily either ruler. In both cases,past Pentagon wargames have given little orno consideration to the force requirementsnecessary not only to defeat an attack but toremove these regimes from power andconduct post-combat stability operations. Inshort, past Defense Department applicationof the two-war standard is not a reliableguide to the real force requirements – and,of course, past reviews included no analysisof the kind of campaign in Europe as wasseen in Operation Allied Force. Becausepast Pentagon strategy reviews have beenbudget-driven exercises, it will be necessaryto conduct fresh and more realistic analyseseven of the canonical two-war scenarios.

In sum, while retaining the spirit of pastforce-planning for major wars, theDepartment of Defense must undertake amore nuanced and thoroughgoing review ofreal requirements. The truths that gave riseto the original two-war standard endure:America’s adversaries will continue to resistthe building of the American peace; whenthey see an opportunity as Saddam Husseindid in 1990, they will employ their mostpowerful armed forces to win on the battle-field what they could not win in peacefulcompetition; and American armed forceswill remain the core of efforts to deter,defeat, or remove from power regionalaggressors.

Forces for ‘Constabulary’ Duties

In addition to improving the analysisneeded to quantify the requirements formajor theater wars, the Pentagon also mustcome to grips with the real requirements forconstabulary missions. The 1997Quadrennial Defense Review rightlyacknowledged that these missions, which itdubbed “smaller-scale contingencies,” orSSCs, would be the frequent and

unavoidable diet for U.S. armed forces formany years to come: “Based on recentexperience and intelligence projections, thedemand for SSC operations is expected toremain high over the next 15 to 20 years,”the review concluded. Yet, at the sametime, the QDR failed to allocate any forcesto these missions, continuing the fiction that,for force planning purposes, constabularymissions could be considered “lesserincluded cases” of major theater warrequirements. “U.S. forces must also beable to withdraw from SSC operations,reconstitute, and then deploy to a majortheater war in accordance with requiredtimelines,” the review argued.

The increasing number of‘constabulary’ missions for U.S.troops, such as in Kosovo above, mustbe considered an integral element inPentagon force planning.

The shortcomings of this approach wereunderscored by the experience of OperationAllied Force in the Balkans. Preciselybecause the forces engaged there would nothave been able to withdraw, reconstitute andredeploy to another operation – and becausethe operation consumed such a large part ofoverall Air Force aircraft – the Joint Chiefsof Staff concluded that the United Stateswas running “unacceptable” risk in the eventof war elsewhere. Thus, facing up to therealities of multiple constabulary missionswill require a permanent allocation of U.S.armed forces.


11

Nor can the problem be solved bysimply withdrawing from currentconstabulary missions or by vowing to avoidthem in the future. Indeed, withdrawingfrom today’s ongoing missions would beproblematic. Although the no-fly-zone airoperations over northern and southern Iraqhave continued without pause for almost adecade, they remain an essential element inU.S. strategy and force posture in thePersian Gulf region. Ending these opera-tions would hand Saddam Hussein an impor-tant victory, something any American leaderwould be loath to do. Likewise, withdraw-ing from the Balkans would place Americanleadership in Europe – indeed, the viabilityof NATO – in question. While none ofthese operations involves a mortal threat,they do engage U.S. national securityinterests directly, as well as engagingAmerican moral interests.

Further, these constabulary missions arefar more complex and likely to generateviolence than traditional “peacekeeping”missions. For one, they demand Americanpolitical leadership rather than that of theUnited Nations, as the failure of the UNmission in the Balkans and the relativesuccess of NATO operations there attests.Nor can the United States assume a UN-likestance of neutrality; the preponderance ofAmerican power is so great and its globalinterests so wide that it cannot pretend to beindifferent to the political outcome in theBalkans, the Persian Gulf or even when itdeploys forces in Africa. Finally, thesemissions demand forces basically configuredfor combat. While they also demandpersonnel with special language, logisticsand other support skills, the first order ofbusiness in missions such as in the Balkansis to establish security, stability and order.American troops, in particular, must beregarded as part of an overwhelminglypowerful force.

With a decade’s worth of experienceboth of the requirements for currentconstabulary missions and with the chaoticpolitical environment of the post-Cold War

era, the Defense Department is more thanable to conduct a useful assessment toquantify the overall needs for forcesengaged in constabulary duties. While partof the solution lies in repositioning existingforces, there is no escaping the conclusionthat these new missions, unforeseen whenthe defense drawdown began a decade ago,require an increase in overall personnelstrength and U.S. force structure.

Transformation Forces

The fourth element in American forceposture – and certainly the one which holdsthe key to any longer-term hopes to extendthe current Pax Americana – is the missionto transform U.S. military forces to meetnew geopolitical and technologicalchallenges. While the prime directive fortransformation will be to design and deploya global missile defense system, the effectsof information and other advanced techno-logies promise to revolutionize the nature ofconventional armed forces. Moreover, theneed to create weapons systems optimizedfor operations in the Pacific theater willcreate requirements quite distinct from thecurrent generation of systems designed forwarfare on the European continent and thosenew systems like the F-22 fighter that alsowere developed to meet late-Cold-Warneeds.

Although the basic concept for a systemof global missile defenses capable ofdefending the United States and its alliesagainst the threat of smaller and simplerballistic missiles has been well understoodsince the late 1980s, a decade has beensquandered in developing the requisitetechnologies. In fact, work on the keyelements of such a system, especially thosethat would operate in space, has either beenso slowed or halted completely, so that theprocess of deploying robust missile defensesremains a long-term project. If for no otherreason, the mission to create such a missiledefense system should be considered amatter of military transformation.


12

For the UnitedStates to retain thetechnological andtactical advan-tages it nowenjoys, thetransformationeffort must beconsidered aspressing a militarymission aspreparing fortoday’s theaterwars.

As will be argued more fully below,effective ballistic missile defenses will bethe central element in the exercise ofAmerican power and the projection of U.S.military forces abroad. Without it, weakstates operating small arsenals of crudeballistic missiles, armed with basic nuclearwarheads or other weapons of mass destruc-tion, will be a in a strong position to deterthe United States from using conventionalforce, no matter the technological or otheradvantages we may enjoy. Even if suchenemies are merely able to threatenAmerican allies rather than the United Stateshomeland itself, America’s ability to projectpower will bedeeplycompromised.Alas, neitherAdmini-strationstrategists norPentagonforce plannersseem to havegrasped thiselementalpoint;certainly,efforts to fund,design anddevelop aneffectivesystem ofmissiledefenses do not reflect any sense of urgency.Nonetheless, the first task in transformingU.S. military to meet the technological andstrategic realities of a new century is tocreate such a system.

Creating a system of global missiledefenses is but the first task oftransformation; the need to reshape U.S.conventional forces is almost as pressing.For, although American armed forcespossess capabilities and enjoy advantagesthat far surpass those of even our richest andclosest allies, let alone our declared andpotential enemies, the combination oftechnological and strategic change that

marks the new century places theseadvantages at risk. Today’s U.S.conventional forces are masters of a matureparadigm of warfare, marked by thedominance of armored vehicles, aircraftcarriers and, especially, manned tacticalaircraft, that is beginning to be overtaken bya new paradigm, marked by long-rangeprecision strikes and the proliferation ofmissile technologies. Ironically, it has beenthe United States that has pioneered this newform of high-technology conventionalwarfare: it was suggested by the 1991 GulfWar and has been revealed more fully by theoperations of the past decade. Even the“Allied Force” air war for Kosovo showed adistorted version of the emerging paradigmof warfare.

Yet even these pioneering capabilitiesare the residue of investments first made inthe mid- and late 1980s; over the pastdecade the pace of innovation within thePentagon has slowed measurably. In part,this is due to reduced defense budgets, theoverwhelming dominance of U.S. forcestoday, and the multiplicity of constabularymissions. And without the driving challengeof the Soviet military threat, efforts atinnovation have lacked urgency.Nonetheless, a variety of new potentialchallenges can be clearly foreseen. TheChinese military, in particular, seeks toexploit the revolution in military affairs tooffset American advantages in naval and airpower, for example. If the United States isto retain the technological and tacticaladvantages it now enjoys in large-scaleconventional conflicts, the effort attransformation must be considered aspressing a mission as preparing for today’spotential theater wars or constabularymissions – indeed, it must receive asignificant, separate allocation of forces andbudgetary resources over the next twodecades.

In addition, the process of transfor-mation must proceed from an appreciationof American strategy and political goals.For example, as the leader of a global


13

network of alliances and strategicpartnerships, U.S. armed forces cannotretreat into a “Fortress America.” Thus,while long-range precision strikes willcertainly play an increasingly large role inU.S. military operations, American forcesmust remain deployed abroad, in largenumbers. To remain as the leader of avariety of coalitions, the United States mustpartake in the risks its allies face; securityguarantees that depend solely upon powerprojected from the continental United Stateswill inevitably become discounted.

Moreover, the process of transformationshould proceed in a spirit of competitionamong the services and between service andjoint approaches. Inevitably, newtechnologies may create the need for entirelynew military organizations; this report willargue below that the emergence of space asa key theater of war suggests forcefully that,in time, it may be wise to create a separate“space service.” Thus far, the DefenseDepartment has attempted to take aprematurely joint approach totransformation. While it is certain that newtechnologies will allow for the closercombination of traditional servicecapabilities, it is too early in the process oftransformation to choke off what should bethe healthy and competitive face of“interservice rivalry.” Because the separateservices are the military institutions mostattuned to providing forces designed to carryout the specific missions required by U.S.strategy, they are in fact best equipped tobecome the engines of transformation andchange within the context of enduringmission requirements.

Finally, it must be remembered that theprocess of transformation is indeed aprocess: even the most vivid view of thearmed forces of the future must be groundedin an understanding of today’s forces. In

general terms, it seems likely that theprocess of transformation will take severaldecades and that U.S. forces will continue tooperate many, if not most, of today’sweapons systems for a decade or more.Thus, it can be foreseen that the process oftransformation will in fact be a two-stageprocess: first of transition, then of morethoroughgoing transformation. The break-point will come when a preponderance ofnew weapons systems begins to enterservice, perhaps when, for example,unmanned aerial vehicles begin to be asnumerous as manned aircraft. In this regard,the Pentagon should be very wary of makinglarge investments in new programs – tanks,planes, aircraft carriers, for example – thatwould commit U.S. forces to currentparadigms of warfare for many decades tocome.

In conclusion, it should be clear thatthese four essential missions for maintainingAmerican military preeminence are quiteseparate and distinct from one another –none should be considered a “lesser includedcase” of another, even though they areclosely related and may, in some cases,require similar sorts of forces. Conversely,the failure to provide sufficient forces toexecute these four missions must result inproblems for American strategy. The failureto build missile defenses will put Americaand her allies at grave risk and compromisethe exercise of American power abroad.Conventional forces that are insufficient tofight multiple theater wars simultaneouslycannot protect American global interests andallies. Neglect or withdrawal fromconstabulary missions will increase thelikelihood of larger wars breaking out andencourage petty tyrants to defy Americaninterests and ideals. And the failure toprepare for tomorrow’s challenges willensure that the current Pax Americanacomes to an early end.

.


14

Guarding theAmericansecurity peri-meter today –and tomorrow –will requirechanges in U.S.deployments andinstallationsoverseas.

IIIREPOSITIONING TODAY’S FORCE

Despite the centrality of major theaterwars in conventional-force planning, it hasbecome painfully obvious that U.S. forceshave other vital roles to play in building anenduring American peace. The presence ofAmerican forces in critical regions aroundthe world is the visible expression of theextent of America’s status as a superpowerand as the guarantor of liberty, peace andstability. Our role in shaping the peacetimesecurity environment is an essential one, notto be renounced without great cost: it will bedifficult, if not impossible, to sustain therole of global guarantor without a substantialoverseas presence. Our allies, for whomregional problems are vital security interests,will come to doubt our willingness to defendtheir interests if U.S. forces withdraw into aFortress America. Equally important, ourworldwide web of alliances provides themost effective and efficient means forexercising American global leadership; thebenefits far outweigh the burdens. Whetherestablished in permanent bases or onrotational deployments, the operations ofU.S. and allied forces abroad provide thefirst line of defense of what may bedescribed as the “American securityperimeter.”

Since the collapse of the Soviet empire,this perimeter has expanded slowly butinexorably. In Europe, NATO hasexpanded, admitting three new members andacquiring a larger number of “adjunct”members through the Partnership for Peaceprogram. Tens of thousands of U.S, NATOand allied troops are on patrol in theBalkans, and have fought a number ofsignificant actions there; in effect, the region

is on the road to becoming a NATOprotectorate. In the Persian Gulf region, thepresence of American forces, along withBritish and French units, has become a semi-permanent fact of life. Though theimmediate mission of those forces is toenforce the no-fly zones over northern andsouthern Iraq, they represent the long-termcommitment of the United States and itsmajor allies to a region of vital importance.Indeed, the UnitedStates has fordecades sought toplay a morepermanent role inGulf regionalsecurity. Whilethe unresolvedconflict with Iraqprovides theimmediatejustification, theneed for asubstantialAmerican forcepresence in the Gulf transcends the issue ofthe regime of Saddam Hussein. In EastAsia, the pattern of U.S. military operationsis shifting to the south: in recent years,significant naval forces have been sent to theregion around Taiwan in response toChinese provocation, and now a contingentof U.S. troops is supporting the Australian-led mission to East Timor. Across theglobe, the trend is for a larger U.S. securityperimeter, bringing with it new kinds ofmissions.

The placement of U.S. bases has yet toreflect these realities – if anything, the


15

worldwide archipelago of U.S. militaryinstallations has contracted as the perimeterof U.S. security interests has expanded.American armed forces far from ideallypositioned to respond to the needs of thetimes, but the Pentagon remains tied tolevels of forward-deployed forces that bearlittle relationship to military capabilities orrealities. The air war in Kosovo provides avivid example: during Operation AlliedForce, U.S. and NATO warplanes werespread out across the continent of Europeand even into Asiatic Turkey, forced into awidely dispersed and very complex patternof operations – requiring extensive refuelingefforts and limiting the campaign itself – bya lack of adequate air bases in southeasternEurope. The network of American overseasinstallations and deployments requiresreconfiguration. Likewise, the structure ofU.S. forces needs to be reconsidered in lightof the changing mission of the Americanmilitary. Overall U.S. military forcestructure must be rationalized to accommo-date the fact that the presence of these forcesin far-flung outposts or on patrol overseasmay be as important as their theater-warfighting missions, especially in Europe.The requirements of Balkans stabilization,NATO expansion (including Partnership forPeace) and other missions within the theaterrender it unrealistic to expect U.S. forces inEurope to be readily available for othercrises, as formal Pentagon planningpresumes. The continuing challenges fromIraq also make it unwise to draw downforces in the Gulf dramatically. Securingthe American perimeter today – andtomorrow – will necessitate shifts in U.S.overseas operations.

American armed forces stationed abroadand on rotational deployments around theworld should be considered as the first lineof American defenses, providing recon-naissance and security against the prospectof larger crises and conducting stabilityoperations to prevent their outbreak. Theseforces need to be among the most ready,with finely honed warfighting skills – andonly forces configured for combat indicate

the true American commitment to our alliesand their security interests – but they alsoneed to be highly versatile and mobile with abroad range of capabilities; they are thecavalry on the new American frontier. Inthe event of a large-scale war, they must beable to shape the battlefield whilereinforcing forces based primarily in theUnited States arrive to apply decisive blowsto the enemy. Not only must they berepositioned to reflect the shifting strategiclandscape, they also must be reorganizedand restructured to reflect their newmissions and to integrate new technologies.

Europe

At the end of the Cold War, the UnitedStates maintained more than 300,000 troopsin Europe, including two Army corps and 13Air Force wings plus a variety of indepen-dent sub-units, primarily based in Germany.The central plain of Germany was thecentral theater of the Cold War and, short ofan all-out nuclear exchange, a Sovietarmored invasion of western Europe theprincipal threat faced by the United Statesand its NATO allies. Today Germany isunified, Poland and the Czech Republicmembers of NATO, and the Russian armyhas retreated to the gates of Moscow whilebecoming primarily engaged in theCaucasus and to the south more generally.Though northern and central Europe arearguably more stable now than at any timein history, the majority of American forcesin Europe are still based in the north,including a theater army and a corps of twoheavy divisions in Germany and just fiveAir Force wings, plus a handful of other,smaller units.

But while northern and central Europehave remained extraordinarily stable, andthe eastern Germany, Poland and the CzechRepublic have become reintegrated into themainstream of European political, economicand cultural life, the situation in south-eastern Europe has been a tumultuous one.The Balkans, and southeastern Europe more


16

The continuing deployment of forces inthe Balkans reflects a U.S. commitmentto the region’s security. By refusing totreat these deployments as a shift of thepermanent American presence inEurope, the Clinton Administration hasincreased the burden on the armedservices exponentially.

generally, present the major hurdle towardthe creation of a Europe “whole and free”from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The delayin bringing security and stability to south-eastern Europe has not only prevented theconsolidation of the victory in the Cold War,it has created a zone of violence and conflictand introduced uncertainty about America’srole in Europe.

At the same time, the continuingdeployment of forces in the Balkans reflectswhat is in fact a long-term Americancommitment to the security of the region.But by refusing to treat these deploymentsas an expansion – or shift – of the permanentAmerican presence in Europe, reflecting anenduring interest, the ClintonAdministration has increased the burden onthe armed services exponentially. Ratherthan recognizing the need to reposition andreconfigure U.S. forces in Europe awayfrom the north to the southeast, currentpolicy has been to rotate units in and out ofthe Balkans, destroying their readiness toperform other missions and tying up anincreasingly large slice of a significantlyreduced force.

Despite the shifting focus of conflict inEurope, a requirement to station U.S. forcesin northern and central Europe remains. Theregion is stable, but a continued Americanpresence helps to assure the major Europeanpowers, especially Germany, that the UnitedStates retains its longstanding securityinterest in the continent. This is especiallyimportant in light of the nascent Europeanmoves toward an independent defense“identity” and policy; it is important thatNATO not be replaced by the EuropeanUnion, leaving the United States without avoice in European security affairs. Inaddition, many of the current installationsand facilities provide critical infrastructurefor supporting U.S. forces throughoutEurope and for reinforcement in the event ofa crisis. From airbases in England andGermany to headquarters and Army units inBelgium and Germany, much of the currentnetwork of U.S. bases in northern andcentral retains its relevance today as in theCold War.

However, changes should be made toreflect the larger shift in European securityneeds. U.S. Army Europe should betransformed from a single corps of twoheavy divisions and support units intoversatile, combined-arms brigade-sized unitscapable of independent action andmovement over operational distances. U.S.Air Force units in Europe need to undergo asimilar reorientation. The currentinfrastructure in England and Germanyshould be retained. The NATO air base atAviano, Italy, long the primary location forair operations over the Balkans, needs to besubstantially improved. As with groundforces, serious consideration should be givento establishing a permanent and modernNATO and U.S. airfield in Hungary forsupport to central and southern Europe. InTurkey, Incirlik Air Base, home ofOperation Northern Watch, also needs to beexpanded, improved and perhapssupplemented with a new base in easternTurkey.


17

Almost a decade after the end of theGulf War, no-fly-zone operationscontinue over northern and southernIraq.

Although U.S. Navy and Marine forcesgenerally operate on a regular cycle ofdeployments to European waters, they relyon a network of permanent bases in theregion, especially in the Mediterranean.These should be retained, and considerationgiven to establishing a more robust presencein the Black Sea. As NATO expands andthe pattern of U.S. military operations inEurope continues to shift to the south andeast, U.S. naval presence in the Black Sea issure to increase. However, as will bediscussed in detail below, this presenceshould be based less frequently on full-scalecarrier battle groups.

Persian Gulf

In the decade since the end of the ColdWar, the Persian Gulf and the surroundingregion has witnessed a geometric increase inthe presence of U.S. armed forces, peakingabove 500,000 troops during OperationDesert Storm, but rarely falling below20,000 in the intervening years. In SaudiArabia, Kuwait and other neighboring statesroughly 5,000 airmen and a large and variedfleet of Air Force aircraft patrol the skies ofOperation Southern Watch, often comple-mented by Navy aircraft from carriers in theGulf and, during the strikes reacting toSaddam Hussein’s periodic provocations,cruise missiles from Navy surface vesselsand submarines. Flights from Turkey underNorthern Watch also involve substantialforces, and indeed more often result incombat actions.

After eight years of no-fly-zoneoperations, there is little reason to anticipatethat the U.S. air presence in the regionshould diminish significantly as long asSaddam Hussein remains in power.Although Saudi domestic sensibilitiesdemand that the forces based in theKingdom nominally remain rotationalforces, it has become apparent that this isnow a semi-permanent mission. From anAmerican perspective, the value of suchbases would endure even should Saddam

pass from the scene. Over the long term,Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S.interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And evenshould U.S.-Iranian relations improve,retaining forward-based forces in the regionwould still be an essential element in U.S.security strategy given the longstandingAmerican interests in the region.

In addition to the aircraft enforcing theno-fly zone, the United States now alsoretains what amounts to a near-permanentland force presence in Kuwait. A substantialheavy task force with almost the strength ofa brigade rotates four times a year onaverage for maneuvers and joint trainingwith the Kuwaiti army, with the result thatcommanders now believe that, inconjunction with the Southern Watch fleet,Kuwait itself is strongly defended againstany Iraqi attack. With a minor increase instrength, more permanent basingarrangements, and continued no-fly and “no-drive” zone enforcement, the danger of arepeat short-warning Iraqi invasion as in1990 would be significantly reduced.

With the rationalization of ground-basedU.S. air forces in the region, the demand forcarrier presence in the region can be relaxed.As recent strikes against Iraq demonstrate,the preferred weapon for punitive raids is


18

the cruise missile, supplemented by stealthystrike aircraft and longer-range Air Forcestrike aircraft. Carrier aircraft are mostuseful in sustaining a campaign begun withmissiles and stealth strike aircraft, indicatingthat a surface action group capable oflaunching several hundred cruise missiles isthe most valuable naval presence in theGulf. With a substantial permanent Armyground presence in Kuwait, the demands forMarine presence in the Gulf could be scaledback as well.

East Asia

Current U.S. force planning calls for thestationing of approximately 100,000 U.S.troops in Asia, but this level reflectsPentagon inertia and the legacy of the ColdWar more than serious thinking aboutcurrent strategic requirements or defenseneeds. The prospect is that East Asia willbecome an increasingly important region,marked by the rise of Chinese power, whileU.S. forces may decline in number.

Conventional wisdom has it that the37,000-man U.S. garrison in South Korea ismerely there to protect against the possi-bility of an invasion from the North. Thisremains the garrison’s central mission, butthese are now the only U.S. forces basedpermanently on the Asian continent. Theywill still have a vital role to play in U.S.security strategy in the event of Koreanunification and with the rise of Chinesemilitary power. While Korea unificationmight call for the reduction in Americanpresence on the peninsula and a transfor-mation of U.S force posture in Korea, thechanges would really reflect a change intheir mission – and changing technologicalrealities – not the termination of theirmission. Moreover, in any realistic post-unification scenario, U.S. forces are likely tohave some role in stability operations inNorth Korea. It is premature to speculate onthe precise size and composition of a post-unification U.S. presence in Korea, but it isnot too early to recognize that the presence

of American forces in Korea serves a largerand longer-range strategic purpose. For thepresent, any reduction in capabilities of thecurrent U.S. garrison on the peninsula wouldbe unwise. If anything, there is a need tobolster them, especially with respect to theirability to defend against missile attacks andto limit the effects of North Korea’s massiveartillery capability. In time, or withunification, the structure of these units willchange and their manpower levels fluctuate,but U.S. presence in this corner of Asiashould continue.

A similar rationale argues in favor ofretaining substantial forces in Japan. Inrecent years, the stationing of large forces inOkinawa has become increasingly contro-versial in Japanese domestic politics, andwhile efforts to accommodate local sensi-bilities are warranted, it is essential to retainthe capabilities U.S. forces in Okinawarepresent. If the United States is to remainthe guarantor of security in Northeast Asia,and to hold together a de facto alliancewhose other main pillars are Korea andJapan maintaining forward-based U.S.forces is essential.

In Southeast Asia, American forces aretoo sparse to adequately address risingsecurity requirements. Since its withdrawalfrom the Philippines in 1992, the UnitedStates has not had a significant permanentmilitary presence in Southeast Asia. Norcan U.S. forces in Northeast Asia easilyoperate in or rapidly deploy to SoutheastAsia – and certainly not without placingtheir commitments in Korea at risk. Exceptfor routine patrols by naval and Marineforces, the security of this strategicallysignificant and increasingly tumultuousregion has suffered from American neglect.As the crisis in East Timor demonstrated,even the strongest of our allies in the region– from Japan to South Korea to Australia –possess limited military capabilities andlittle ability to project their forces rapidly ina crisis or sustain them over time. At thesame time, the East Timor crisis and thelarger question of political reform in


19

In SoutheastAsia, Americanforces are toosparse to addressrising securityrequirementsadequately.

Indonesia and Malaysia highlight the vola-tility of the region. Finally, Southeast Asiaregion has long been an area of great interestto China, which clearly seeks to regain influ-ence in the region. In recent years, Chinahas gradually increased its presence andoperations in the region.

Raising U.S. military strength in EastAsia is the key to coping with the rise ofChina to great-power status. For this toproceed peacefully, U.S. armed forces mustretain their military preeminence and there-by reassure our regional allies. In NortheastAsia, the UnitedStates mustmaintain andtighten its tieswith the Re-public of Koreaand Japan. InSoutheast Asia,only the UnitedStates can reachout to regionalpowers like Australia, Indonesia andMalaysia and others. This will be a difficulttask requiring sensitivity to diverse nationalsentiments, but it is made all the more com-pelling by the emergence of new democraticgovernments in the region. By guaranteeingthe security of our current allies and newlydemocratic nations in East Asia, the UnitedStates can help ensure that the rise of Chinais a peaceful one. Indeed, in time, Americanand allied power in the region may provide aspur to the process of democratization insideChina itself.

In sum, it is time to increase the pre-sence of American forces in Southeast Asia.Control of key sea lines of communication,ensuring access to rapidly growing eco-nomies, maintaining regional stability whilefostering closer ties to fledgling democraciesand, perhaps most important, supporting thenascent trends toward political liberty are allenduring security interests for America. NoU.S. strategy can constrain a Chinesechallenge to American regional leadership ifour security guarantees to Southeast Asia are

intermittent and U.S. military presence aperiodic affair. For this reason, an increasednaval presence in Southeast Asia, whilenecessary, will not be sufficient; as in theBalkans, relying solely on allied forces orthe rotation of U.S. forces in stabilityoperations not only increases the stress onthose forces but undercuts the political goalsof such missions. For operational as well aspolitical reasons, stationing rapidly mobileU.S. ground and air forces in the region willbe required.

Moreover, a return to Southeast Asiawill add impetus to the slow process ofalliance-building now afoot in the region. Itis conventional wisdom that the nations ofSoutheast Asia are resistant to a NATO-likeregional alliance, but the regional responseto the East Timor crisis – including that ofthe new Indonesian government – has beenencouraging. Indeed, forces from thePhilippines have replaced those fromAustralia as the lead element in the UNpeacekeeping mission there. And certainlyefforts through the Asian Regional Forumsuggest a trend to closer regionalcoordination that might develop into a morepermanent, alliance-like arrangement. Inthis process, the United States has the keyrole to play. A heightened U.S. militarypresence in Southeast Asia would be astrong spur to regional security cooperation,providing the core around which a de factocoalition could jell.

Deployment Bases

As a supplement to forces stationedabroad under long-term basingarrangements, the United States should seekto establish a network of “deploymentbases” or “forward operating bases” toincrease the reach of current and futureforces. Not only will such an approachimprove the ability to project force tooutlying regions, it will help circumvent thepolitical, practical and financial constraintson expanding the network of Americanbases overseas.


These deployment or forward operatingbases can range from relatively modestagreements with other nations as well asmodest improvements to existing facilitiesand bases. Prepositioned materiel alsowould speed the initial deployment andimprove the sustainability of U.S. forceswhen deployed for training, joint training

with the hostnation, oroperations intime of crisis.Costs fortheseimprovementscan be sharedwith the hostnation and beoffset as partof U.S.

heavy cargo aircraft; have modern refuelingand emergency services; ramp space to parkseveral AWACS-size planes and meet avariety of other requirements, including safequarters and offices for American personnel.Yet the command believes that for arelatively small cost – perhaps $120 millionfor the first two of three planned bases – andwith minimal permanent manning it canoffset the loss of a strategic asset likeHoward.

A recent study done for the Air Forceindicates that a worldwide network offorward operating bases – perhaps moresophisticated and suited for combatoperations than the counterdrug locationsplanned by SOUTHCOM – might cost $5billion to $10 billion through 2010. Thestudy speculates that some of the cost might

It would be wise toreduce thefrequency ofcarrier presence inthe Mediterraneanand the Gulf whileincreasing U.S.Navy presence inthe Pacific.

20

foreignsecurity assistance, and would help reducethe requirement for U.S. forces to deploy to“bare bones” facilities. Such installationswould be a “force multiplier” in powerprojection operations, as well as helpsolidify political and security ties with hostnations.

Currently, U.S. Southern Command, thePentagon’s regional command for LatinAmerica, is moving to implement a plan for“forward operating locations” to make upfor the loss of Howard Air Force Base in thewake of the U.S. withdrawal from Panamaand the return of the Canal Zone. Indeed,sustaining effective counterdrug airoperations will be difficult after the loss ofHoward until arrangements for the newlocations are in place. To achieve fullcoverage of the region for counterdrugoperations, the command plans to utilizeairfields ranging from Puerto Rico toEcuador.

In addition to securing agreements thatpermit adequate access for U.S. forces toairfields, the new locations must be capableof 24-hour, all-weather operations; haveadequate air traffic control; have runways ofat least 8000 feet that are capable of bearing

be paid for by host nations anxious tocement ties with the United States, or, inEurope, be considered as common NATOassets and charged to the NATO commonfund.

While it should be a clear U.S. policythat such bases are intended as a supplementto the current overseas base structure, theycould also be seen as a precursor to anexpanded structure. This might be attractiveto skittish allies – as in the Persian Gulfregion, where a similar system is inoperation – for whom close ties withAmerica provokes domestic politicalcontroversy. It would also increase theeffectiveness of current U.S. forces in ahuge region like Southeast Asia,supplementing naval operations in theregion. Such a network also would greatlyincrease U.S. operational flexibility in timesof conflict.

Rotational Naval Forces

The size of today’s Navy and MarineCorps is driven primarily by the demands ofcurrent rotation policy; the requirement for11-carrier Navy is a reflection of theperceived need to keep, on average, about


21

three carriers deployed at any one time. Butbecause the carrier based in Japan is consi-dered “deployed” even when in port and notat sea, the real ratio of total ships to ships atsea is closer to five- or six-to-one. Indeed,according to the Quadrennial DefenseReview analysis, the requirements for Navyforces under “presence” missions exceedsthe two-war requirement for Navy forces byabout 20 percent.

Current rotation plans call for a contin-uous battle group presence in Northeast Asiaand close to continuous presence in thePersian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea.However, significant changes in Navycarrier presence and rotation patterns arecalled for. Given the ability to station land-based forces in Europe and the Gulf, and thesize and nature of the East Asia theater, itwould be wise to reduce the frequency ofcarrier presence in the Mediterranean andthe Gulf while increasing U.S. Navypresence in the Pacific. Further, it ispreferable, for strategic and operationalreasons, to create a second major home portfor a carrier battle group in the southernPacific, perhaps in Australia or thePhilippines. Generally speaking, theemphasis of Navy operations, and carrieroperations in particular, should be increas-ingly weighted toward the western Pacific.Marine deployments would follow suit.

Secondarily, the Navy should begin toconsider other ways of meeting its vital

presence missions than with carrier battlegroups. As cruise missiles increasinglybecome the Navy’s first-strike weapon ofchoice, the value of cruise missile platformsas a symbol of American might around theworld are coming to surpass the deterrentvalue of the carrier. Unfortunately, duringthe course of the post-Cold-War drawdown,the Navy has divested itself of relativelymore surface combatants and submarinesthan aircraft carriers. Though this makessense in terms of carrier operations – Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers have fargreater capabilities and range than previousgenerations of ships, for example – this nowlimits the Navy’s ability to transition to newways of conducting both its presence andpotential wartime missions.

Moreover, as the Navy introduces newclasses of ships, its manpower requirements– one of the important factors in determiningthe length of deployments and thus overallNavy rotational policy – will be reduced.The planned DD-21 destroyer will cut crewsize from 300 to 100. Reduced crew size, aswell as improved overall ship performance,will increase the opportunities to rotatecrews while keeping ships deployed; thecomplexity of crew operations involving100 sailors and officers is far less than, forexample, the 6,000-man crew of a carrierplus its air wing. In sum, new capabilitieswill open up new ways of conductingmissions that will allow for increased navalpresence at a lower cost.


22

Elements ofU.S. ArmyEurope shouldbe redeployed toSoutheastEurope, while apermanent unitshould be basedin the PersianGulf region.

IVREBUILDING TODAY’S ARMED SERVICES

Executing the variety of missionsoutlined above depends upon the capabilitiesof the U.S. armed services. For the pastdecade, the health of the armed services hassteadily declined. Not merely have theirbudgets been dramatically reduced, theirforce structures cut and their personnelstrength sapped, modernization programsstarved and efforts at transformationstrangled, but the quality of military life,essential for preserving a volunteer force,has been degraded. From barracks toheadquarters to maintenance bay, theservices’ infrastructure has suffered fromneglect. The quality of military housing,especially abroad, ill becomes a great nation.The other sinews of a strong service, parti-cularly including the military education andtraining systems, have been dispropor-tionately and shortsightedly reduced.Shortages of manpower result in soldiers,sailors, airmen and Marines spendingincreased amounts of time on base main-tenance – mowing grass, repairing roofs,“painting rocks.” Most disappointing of all,military culture and the confidence ofservice members in their senior leaders issuffering. As several recent studies andsurveys have demonstrated, civil-militaryrelations in contemporary America areincreasingly tense.

Army: To ‘Complete’ EuropeAnd Defend the Persian Gulf

Of all the armed services, the Army hasbeen most profoundly changed by the end ofthe Cold War and the collapse of the Sovietempire in Eastern Europe. The Army’sactive-duty strength has been reduced by 40

percent and its European garrison by threequarters. At the end of the Cold War, theArmy budget was 50 percent higher than itis this year; its procurement spending almost70 percent higher.

At the same time, the Army’s role inpost-Cold-War military operations remainsthe measure of American geopoliticalcommitment. In the 1991 Gulf War, thelimits of Bush Administration policy wererevealed by thereluctance toengage in landcombat and thelimit on groundoperationswithin theKuwait theater.In the Balkans,relatively shortair campaignshave beenfollowed byextended groundoperations; even the 78 days of OperationAllied Force pale in comparison to the long-term effort to stabilize Kosovo. In short, thevalue of land power continues to appeal to aglobal superpower, whose security interestsrest upon maintaining and expanding aworld-wide system of alliances as well as onthe ability to win wars. While maintainingits combat role, the U.S. Army has acquirednew missions in the past decade – mostimmediately, missions associated withcompleting the task of creating a Europe“whole and free” and defending Americaninterests in the Persian Gulf and MiddleEast.


23

These new missions will require thecontinued stationing of U.S. Army unitsabroad. Although these units should bereconfigured and repositioned to reflectcurrent realities, their value as arepresentation of America’s role as theprime guarantor of security is as great astheir immediate war-fighting capabilities.Indeed, the greatest problem confronting theArmy today is providing sufficient forces forboth these vital missions; the Army issimply too small to do both well.

These broad missions will continue tojustify the requirement for a large activeU.S. Army. The Army’s increasing use ofreserve component forces for theseconstabulary missions breaks the impliedcompact with reservists that their role is toserve as a hedge against a genuine militaryemergency. As long as the U.S. garrisons inthe Balkans, for example, require largenumbers of linguists, military police, civilaffairs and other specialists, the active-dutyArmy must boost its ranks of soldiers withthese skills. Likewise, as high-intensitycombat changes, the Army must find newways to recruit and retain soldiers with high-technology skills, perhaps creatingpartnerships with industry for extremelyskilled reservists, or considering some skillsas justifying a warrant-officer, rather than anenlisted, rank structure. In particular, theArmy should:

• Be restored in active-duty strengthand structure to meet the require-ments of its current missions. Overallactive strength should rise to approxi-mately 525,000 soldiers from thecurrent strength of 475,000. Much ofthis increase should bolster the over-deployed and under-manned unitsthat provide combat support andcombat service support, such asmilitary intelligence, military police,and other similar units.

• Undertake selective modernizationefforts, primarily to increase itstactical and operational mobility and

increase the effectiveness of currentcombat systems through “digiti-zation” – the process of creatingtactical information networks. TheArmy should accelerate its plans topurchase medium-weight vehicles,acquire the Comanche helicopter andthe HIMARS rocket-artillery system;likewise, the heavy Crusader artillerysystem, though a highly capablehowitzer, is an unwise investmentgiven the Army’s current capabilitiesand future needs, and should becanceled.

• Improve the combat readiness ofcurrent units by increasing personnelstrength and revitalizing combattraining.

• Make efforts to improve the quality ofsoldier life to sustain the current“middle class,” professional Army.

• Be repositioned and reconfigured inlight of current strategic realities:elements of U.S. Army Europe shouldbe redeployed to Southeast Europe,while a permanent unit should bebased in the Persian Gulf region;simultaneously, forward-deployedArmy units should be reconfigured tobe better capable of independentoperations that include ongoingconstabulary missions as well as theinitial phases of combat.

• Reduce the strength of the ArmyNational Guard and Army Reserve,yet recognize that these componentsare meant to provide a hedge againsta genuine, large-scale, unanticipatedmilitary emergency; the continuingreliance on large numbers ofreservists for constabulary missions isinappropriate and short-sighted.

• Have its budget increased from thecurrent level of $70 billion annually to$90 to $95 billion per year.


The Current State of the Army

Measuring by its ability to perform anyof the missions outlined above – overseaspresence, fighting major theater wars,transforming for the future – the Army todayis ill prepared. The most immediateproblem is the decline in current readiness.Until the spring of 1998, the Army hadmanaged to contain the worst effects offrequent deployments, keeping its so-called“first-to-fight” units ready to react to a crisisthat threatened to become a major theaterwar. But now, as recently retired ArmyChief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimerexplained to Congress:

[C]ommanders Army-wide report thatthey are reducing the frequency, scope,and duration of their exercises….

Additionally, commandersare not always able tomake training as realisticand demanding as theywould like. In some cases,commands are not able toafford the optimum mix ofsimulations to live-firetraining events, resulting

quTymitrarottraneanNa

co

manning in critical combat and maintenancespecialties. Army leaders frankly admit thatthey have too few soldiers to man theircurrent force structure, and shortages ofNCOs and officers are increasingly com-mon. For example, in Fiscal Year 1997, theArmy had only 67 percent to 88 percent ofits needs in the four maintenance specialtiesfor its tanks and mechanized infantryvehicles. In the officer ranks, there aresignificant shortfalls in the captain andmajor grades. The result of these shortagesin the field is that junior officers and NCOsare being asked to assume the duties of thenext higher grade; the “ultimate effect,”reported Gen. Reimer, “is a reduction inexperience, particularly at the…‘tip of thespear.’”

The Army’s ability to meet its major-war requirements, particularly on thetimetables demanded by the war plans of thetheater commanders-in-chief, is uncertain atbest. Although on paper the Army can meetthese requirements, the true state of affairs ismore complex. The major-theater-warreview conducted for the QDR assumed thateach unit would arrive on the battlefield
Reimer
24

in less-experienced staffs.Several commands report that they areunable to afford the participation of theiraviation units in Combat Training Centerrotations. Overall, affordable trainingcompromises are lowering the trainingproficiency bar and resulting ininexperience….Already, readiness at thebattalion level is starting to decline – afact that is not going unnoticed at ourCombat Training Centers.

In recent years, both the quality andantity of such training has diminished.pically, in prior years, a rotational unitght have eight battalion-level fieldining “battles” prior to its Fort Irwination, and another eight while at theining center. Today, heavy forces almostver conduct full battalion field exercises,d now are lucky to get more than six at thetional Training Center.Like the other services, the Army

ntinues to be plagued by low levels of

fully trained and ready, but manpower andtraining shortages across the Army makethat a doubtful proposition, at least withoutdelays in deployment. Even could theimmediate manpower shortages be reme-died, any attempt to improve training – aswas done even in the run-up to OperationDesert Storm – would prove to be a signi-ficant bottleneck. The Army’s maneuvertraining centers are not able to increasecapacity sufficiently or rapidly enough.Under the current two-war metric, high-intensity combat is envisioned as a “come-as-you-are” affair, and the Army today issignificantly less well prepared for suchwars than it was in 1990.

Army Forces BasedIn the United States

The primary missions of Army unitsbased in the United States are to rapidly


25

The Army needs to restore unitsbased in the United States – thoseneeded in the event of a majortheater war – to high states ofreadiness.

reinforce forward-deployed units in times ofcrisis or combat and to provide units capableof reacting to unanticipated contingencies.In addition, the service must continue toraise, train and equip all Army forces,including those of the Army National Guardand Army Reserve. While the reforming theposture of its forces abroad is perhaps thelargest task facing the Army for theimmediate future, it is inevitably intertwinedwith the need to rebuild and reconfigure theArmy at home.

The need to respond with decisive forcein the event of a major theater war inEurope, the Persian Gulf or East Asia willremain the principal factor in determiningArmy force structure for U.S.-based units.However one judges the likelihood of suchwars occurring, it is essential to retainsufficient capabilities to bring them to asatisfactory conclusion, including thepossibility of a decisive victory that resultsin long-term political or regime change. Thecurrent stateside active Army force structure– 23 maneuver brigades – is barely adequateto meet the potential demands. Not only arethese units few in number, but their combatreadiness has been allowed to slip danger-ously over recent years. Manning levelshave dropped and training opportunitieshave been diminished and degraded. Theseunits need to be returned to high states ofreadiness and, most importantly, must regaintheir focus on their combat missions.

Because the divisional structure stillremains an economical and effectiveorganization in large-scale operations aswell as an efficient administrative structure,the division should remain the basic unit formost stateside Army forces, even while theservice creates new, smaller independentorganizations for operations abroad. TheArmy is currently undergoing a redesign ofthe basic divisional structure, reducing thesize of the basic maneuver battalion inresponse to the improvements that advancedtechnologies and the untapped capabilitiesof current systems permit. This is a modestbut important step that will make these units

more deployable, and the Army mustcontinue to introduce similar modifications.Moreover, Army training should continue itsemphasis on combined-arms, task-forcecombat operations. In the continentalUnited States, Army force structure shouldconsist of three fully-manned, three-brigadeheavy divisions; two light divisions; and twoairborne divisions. In addition, the statesideArmy should retain four armored cavalryregiments in its active structure, plus severalexperimental units devoted to transformationactivities. This would total approximately27 ground maneuver brigade-equivalents.

Yet such a force, though capable ofdelivering and sustaining significant combatpower for initial missions, will remaininadequate to the full range of strategic tasksfacing the Army. Thus, the service mustincreasingly rely on Guard units to execute aportion of its potential warfighting missions,not seek to foist overseas presence missionsoff on what should remain part-timesoldiers. To allow the Army National Guardto play its essential role in fighting large-scale wars, the Army must take a number ofsteps to ensure the readiness of Guard units.The first is to better link the Guard to theactive-duty force, providing adequate


26

Returning theNational Guardto its traditionalrole wouldallow for areduction instrength whilelessening thestrain ofrepeatedcontingencyoperationdeployments.

resources to increase the combat effective-ness of large Guard units, perhaps to includethe partial manning of the first-to-deployGuard brigades with an active commandcadre. Secondly, the Guard’s overallstructure must be adjusted and the overallnumber of Army National Guard units – andespecially Guard infantry divisions –reduced. This would not only eliminateunnecessary formations but would permitimproved manning of the first-to-fightGuard units, which need to be manned atlevels significantly above 100 percentpersonnel strength to allow for timelydeployment during crises and war.

In addition, the Army needs torationalize the missions of the ArmyReserve. Without the efforts of Reservistsover the past decade, the Army’s ability toconduct the large number of contingencyoperations it has faced would be severelycompromised. Yet the effort to rationalizedeployments, as discussed in the previoussection, would also result in a reduction ofdemand for Army Reservists, particularlythose with highly specialized skills. Oncethe missions in the Balkans, for example, areadmitted to be long-term deployments, therole of Army Reserve forces should bediminished and the active Army shouldassume all but a very small share of themission.

In sum, the missions of the Army’s tworeserve components must be adjusted topost-Cold-War realities as must the missionsof the active component. The importance ofthese citizen-soldiers in linking an increas-ingly professional force to the mainstream ofAmerican society has never been greater,and the failure to make the necessary adjust-ments to their mission has jeopardized thoselinks. The Army National Guard shouldretain its traditional role as a hedge againstthe need for a larger-than-anticipated forcein combat; indeed, it may play a larger rolein U.S. war-planning than heretofore. Itshould not be used primarily to providecombat service support to active Army unitsengaged in current operations. A return to

its traditional role would allow for a furthermodest strength reduction in the ArmyNational Guard. Such a move would alsolessen the strain of repeated deployments incontingency operations, which isjeopardizing the model of the part-timesoldier upon which Guard is premised.Similarly, the Army Reserve should retain

its traditional roleas a federal force,a supplement tothe active force,but demands forindividualaugmentees forcontingencyoperationsreduced throughimprovements toactive Armyoperations anddeployments,organizations, andeven addedpersonnelstrength. In theevent that

American forces become embroiled in twolarge-scale wars at once, or nearly at once,Army reserve components may provide theedge for decisive operations. Such acapability is a cornerstone of U.S. militarystrategy, not to be frittered away in ongoingcontingency operations.

A second mission for Army units basedin the United States is to respond tounanticipated contingencies. With moreforward-based units deployed along anexpanded American security perimeteraround the globe, these unforeseen crisesshould be less debilitating. Units like the82nd and 101st Airborne divisions and theArmy’s two light infantry divisions, as wellas the small elements of the 3rd MechanizedInfantry Division, that are kept on high alert,will continue to provide these neededcapabilities. So will Army specialoperations units such as the 75th RangerRegiment. Moreover, the creation ofmiddle-weight, independent units will begin


27

the process of transforming the Army forfuture contingency needs. As thetransformation process matures, a widervariety of Army units will be suitable forunanticipated contingency operations.

Forward-based Forces

American military presence abroaddraws heavily on ground forces and theArmy, which is the service best suited tothese long-term missions. In the post-Cold-War environment, these forward-basedforces are, in essence, conductingreconnaissance and security missions. Theunits involved are required to maintainpeace and stability in the regions they patrol,provide early warning of imminent crises,and to shape the early stages of any conflictthat might occur while additional forces aredeployed from the United States orelsewhere. By virtue of this mission, theseunits should be self-contained, combined-arms units with a wide variety ofcapabilities, able to operate over longdistances, with sophisticated means ofcommunication and access to high levels ofU.S. intelligence. Currently, most forward-based Army units do not meet thisdescription.

Such requirements suggest that suchunits should be approximately brigade orregimental-sized formations, perhaps 5,000strong. They will need sufficient personnelstrength to be able to conduct sustainedtraditional infantry missions, but with themobility to operate over extended areas.They must have enough direct firepower todominate their immediate tactical situation,and suitable fire support to prevent suchrelatively small and independent units frombeing overrun. However, the need for firesupport need not entail large amounts ofintegral artillery or other forms of sup-porting firepower. While some artillerywill prove necessary, a substantial part ofthe fire support should come from Armyattack aviation and deeper fixed-winginterdiction. The combination of over-

whelming superiority in direct-fireengagements, typified by the performance ofthe Bradley fighting vehicle and M1 Abramstank in the Gulf War (and indeed, in theperformance of the Marines’ Light ArmoredVehicle), as well as the improved accuracyand lethality of artillery fires, plus thecapabilities of U.S. strike aircraft, willprovide such units with a very substantialcombat capability.

These forward-based, independent unitswill be increasingly built around theacquisition and management of information.This will be essential for combat operations– precise, long-range fires require accurateand timely intelligence and robustcommunications links – but also for stabilityoperations. Units stationed in the Balkans,or Turkey, or in Southeast Asia, will requirethe ability to understand and operate inunique political-military environments, andthe seemingly tactical decisions made bysoldiers on the ground may have strategicconsequences. While some of these needscan be fulfilled by civilians, both Americansand local nationals, units stationed on theAmerican security frontier must have thecapabilities, cohesion and personnelcontinuity their mission demands. Chiefamong them is an awareness of the securityand political environment in which they areoperating. Especially those forces stationedin volatile regions must have their ownhuman intelligence collection capacity,perhaps through an attached special forcesunit if not solely through an organicintelligence unit.

The technologies required to field suchforces already exist and many are already inproduction or in the Army inventory. Newforce designs and the application ofinformation technologies can give newutility to existing weaponry. However, theproblem of mobility and weight becomes aneven more pressing problem should groundforces be positioned in Southeast Asia.Even forward-based forces would need to berapidly deployed over very long distances intimes of crisis, both through fast sealift and


28

Americanlandpower isthe essentiallink in thechain thattranslates U.S.militarysupremacy intoAmericangeopoliticalpreeminence.

airlift; in short, every pound and every cubicfoot must count. In designing such forces,the Army should consider more innovativeapproaches. One short-term approach couldbe to build such a unit around the V-22Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft now being built forthe Marine Corps and for special operationsforces. A second interim approach would beto expand the capabilities of current air-mobile infantry, by adding refueling probesto existing helicopters, as on specialoperations aircraft. Another approach couldinvolve the construction of truly fast sealiftvessels.

In sum, it should be clear that theseindependent, forward-based Army units canbecome “change-agents” within the service,opening opportunities for transformationalconcepts, even as they perform vital stabilityoperations in their regions. In addition, suchunits would need to train for combatoperations on a regular basis, and willrequire new training centers as well as newgarrisons in more relevant strategiclocations. They will operate in a moredispersed manner reflecting new concepts ofcombat operations as well as the demands ofcurrent stability operations. In urban areasor in the jungles of Southeast Asia, they willoperate in complex terrain that may moreaccurately predict future warfare. Certainly,new medium-weight or air-mobile units willprovide a strong incentive to begin totransform the Army more fundamentally forthe future. Not only would increasedmobility and information capabilities allowfor new ways of conducting operations, thelack of heavy armor would mandate newtactics, doctrines and organizations. Evenamong those units equipped with the currentAbrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicle,the requirement for independent operations,closer ties to other services’ forces andintroduction of new intelligence andcommunications capabilities would result ininnovation. Most profoundly, such newunits and concepts would give the process oftransformation a purpose within the Army;soldiers would be a part of the process and

take its lessons to heart, breaking downbureaucratic resistance to change.

In addition to these newer force designsfor Europe, the Gulf, and elsewhere in EastAsia, the Army should retain a forceapproximating that currently based in Korea.In addition to headquarters units there, theU.S. ground force presence is built aroundthe two brigades of the 2nd Infantry Division.This unit is already a hybrid, neither atextbook heavy division nor a light division.While retaining the divisional structure toallow for the smooth introduction of follow-

on forces in timesof crisis, the Armyalso should beginto redesign this unitto allow for longer-range operations.Because of themassive amount ofNorth Koreanartillery, counter-battery artilleryfires will play animportant role inany war on thepeninsula,

suggesting that improving the rocketartillery capabilities of the U.S. division is amodest but wise investment. Likewise,increasing the aviation and attack helicopterassets of U.S. ground forces in Korea wouldgive commanders options they do not nowhave. The main heavy forces of the SouthKorean army are well trained and equipped,but optimized for defending Seoul and theRepublic of Korea as far north as possible.In time, the 2nd Infantry Division’s twobrigades might closely resemble the kind ofindependent, combined-arms forces neededelsewhere.

Army Modernization and Budgets

Since the end of the Cold War, theArmy has suffered dramatic budgetcutbacks, particularly in weapons procure-ment and research, that have resulted in the


29

In addition to terminating theCrusader artillery program, the Army’sannual budget must increase to the$90 to $95 billion level to financecurrent missions and the Army’s long-term transformation.

degradation of current readiness describedabove and have restricted the service’sability to modernize and innovate for thefuture. The Army’s current attempts attransformation have been hobbled by theneed to find “bill-payers” within the Armybudget.

In Fiscal Year 1992, the first post-Cold-War and post-Gulf War Army budget was$91 billion measured in constant 2000dollars. This year, the Congress hasapproved $69.5 billion for Army operations– including several billion to pay foroperations in the Balkans – and PresidentClinton’s request for 2001 is $70.6 billion,more than $2 billion of which will beallocated to Balkans operations. Likewise,Army procurement spending is way down.Through the Clinton years, service procure-ment has averaged around $8 billion,dipping to a low of $7.1 billion in 1995; the2000 request was for $9.7 billion, by far thelargest Army procurement request since theGulf War. By contrast, Army weaponspurchases averaged about $23 billion peryear during the early and mid-1980s, whenthe current generation of major combatsystems – the M1 tank, Bradley fightingvehicle, Apache and Black Hawk helicoptersand Patriot missile system – enteredproduction.

To field an Army capable of meeting thenew missions and challenges discussedabove, service budgets must return to thelevel of approximately $90 to $95 billion inconstant 2000 dollars. Some of this increasewould help the Army fill out both its under-manned units and refurbish the institutionalArmy, as well as increasing the readiness ofArmy National Guard units. New acqui-sition programs would include light armoredvehicles, “digitized” command and controlnetworks and other situational awarenesssystems, the Comanche helicopter, andunmanned aerial vehicles. Renewed invest-ments in Army infrastructure would improvethe quality of soldier life. The process oftransformation would be reinvigorated.

But, as the discussion of Armyrequirements above indicates, Armyinvestments must be redirected as well asincreased. For example, the Crusaderartillery program, while perhaps the mostadvanced self-propelled howitzer everproduced, is difficult to justify underconditions of revolutionary change. Thecosts of the howitzer, not merely inbudgetary terms but in terms of theopportunity cost of a continuingcommitment to an increasingly outmodedparadigm of warfare, far outweigh thebenefits; the Crusader should be terminated.

However, addressing the Army’s manychallenges will require significantlyincreased funding. Though the active-dutyforce is 40 percent smaller than its total atthe end of the Cold War, several generationsof Army leadership have chosen to retaintroop strength, paid for by cuts inprocurement and research. This cannotcontinue. While the Army may be too smallfor the variety of missions discussed above,its larger need is for reinvestment,recapitalization and, especially,transformation. Taken together, these needsfar exceed the savings to be garnered by anypossible internal reforms or efficiencies.Terminating marginal programs like theCrusader howitzer, trimming administrativeoverhead, base closings and the like will not


30

Specialized Air Force aircraft, like theJSTARS above, are too few in numberto meet current mission demands.

free up resources enough to finance theradical overhaul the Army needs.

American landpower remains theessential link in the chain that translates U.S.military supremacy into Americangeopolitical preeminence. Even as the meansfor delivering firepower on the battlefieldshift – strike aircraft have realized all but thewildest dreams of air power enthusiasts,unmanned aerial vehicles promise to extendstrike power in the near future, and theability to conduct strikes from space appearson the not-too-distant horizon – the need forground maneuvers to achieve decisivepolitical results endures. Regimes aredifficult to change based upon punishmentalone. If land forces are to survive andretain their unique strategic purpose in aworld where it is increasingly easy to deliverfirepower precisely at long ranges, theymust change as well, becoming morestealthy, mobile, deployable and able tooperate in a dispersed fashion. The U.S.Army, and American land forces moregenerally, must increasingly complement thestrike capabilities of the other services.Conversely, an American military force thatlacks the ability to employ ground forcesthat can survive and maneuver rapidly onfuture battlefields will deprive U.S. politicalleaders of a decisive tool of diplomacy.

Air Force: Toward a GlobalFirst-Strike Force

The past decade has been the best oftimes and worst of times for the U.S. AirForce. From the Gulf War to OperationAllied Force over Kosovo, the increasingsophistication of American air power – withits stealth aircraft; precision-guidedmunitions; all-weather and all-hourscapabilities; and the professionalism ofpilots, planners and support crews – has

allowed the Air Force to boast legitimatelyof its “global reach, global power.” Onshort notice, Air Force aircraft can attackvirtually any target on earth with great

accuracy and virtual impunity. American airpower has become a metaphor for as well asthe literal manifestation of Americanmilitary preeminence.

Simultaneously, the Air Force has beenreduced by a third or more, and itsoperations have been increasingly diffused.In addition, the Air Force has taken on somany new missions that its fundamentalstructure has been changed. During theCold War, the Air Force was geared to fighta large-scale air battle to clear the skies ofSoviet aircraft; today’s Air Force isincreasingly shaped to continue monotonousno-fly-zone operations, conduct periodicpunitive strikes, or to execute measured,low-risk, no-fault air campaigns like AlliedForce. The service’s new “AirExpeditionary Force” concept turns theclassic, big-war “air campaign” modellargely on its head.

Like the Army, the Air Force continuesto operate Cold-War era systems in this newstrategic and operational environment. TheAir Force’s frontline fighter aircraft, the F-15 and F-16, were built to out-perform morenumerous Soviet fighters; U.S. supportaircraft, from AWACS and JSTARScommand-and-control planes to electronicjamming aircraft to tankers, were meant towork in tandem with large numbers ofAmerican fighters. The U.S. bomber fleet’sprimary mission was nuclear deterrence.

The Air Force also has begun topurchase new generations of mannedcombat aircraft that were designed duringthe late Cold War; the F-22 and, especially,


31

the Joint Strike Fighter, are a response torequirements established long ago.Conversely, the decision to terminate the B-2 bomber program was taken before itseffectiveness as a long-range, precision,conventional-strike platform wasestablished; in the wake of Operation AlliedForce, regional commanders-in-chief havebegun to reevaluate how such a capabilitymight serve their uses. Further, the AirForce should reevaluate the need for greaternumbers of long-range systems. In someregions, the ability to operate from tacticalairfields is increasingly problematic and inothers – notably East Asia – the theater issimply so vast that even “tactical,” in-theateroperations will require long-rangecapabilities.

In sum, the Air Force has begun to adaptitself to the new requirements of the time,yet is far from completing the neededchanges to its posture, structure, orprograms. Moreover, the Air Force is toosmall – especially its fleet of support aircraft– and poorly positioned to conduct sustainedoperations for maintaining Americanmilitary preeminence. Air Force procure-ment funds have been reduced, and serviceleaders have cut back on purchases of spareparts, support aircraft, and even replace-ments for current fighters in an attempt tokeep the F-22 program on track. Althoughair power remains the most flexible andresponsive element of U.S. military power,the Air Force needs to be restructured,repositioned, revitalized and enlarged toassure continued “global reach, globalpower.” In particular, the Air Force should:

• Be redeployed to reflect the shifts ininternational politics. Independent,expeditionary air wings containing abroad mix of aircraft, includingelectronic warfare, airbornecommand and control, and othersupport aircraft, should be based inItaly, Southeastern Europe, centraland perhaps eastern Turkey, thePersian Gulf, and Southeast Asia.

• Realign the remaining Air Force unitsin Europe, Asia and the United Statesto optimize their capabilities toconduct multiple large-scale aircampaigns.

• Make selected investments in currentgenerations of combat and supportaircraft to sustain the F-15 and F-16fleets for longer service life, purchaseadditional sets of avionics for special-mission fighters, increase plannedfleets of AWACS, JSTARS and otherelectronic support planes, and expandstocks of precision-guided munitions.

• Develop plans to increase electronicwarfare support fleets, such as bycreating “Wild Weasel” and jammeraircraft based upon the F-15Eairframe.

• Restore the condition of theinstitutional Air Force, expanding itspersonnel strength, rebuilding itscorps of pilots and experiencedmaintenance NCOs, expandingsupport specialties such as intelligenceand special police and reinvigoratingits training establishment.

• Overall Air Force active personnelstrength should be graduallyincreased by approximately 30,000 to40,000, and the service should rebuilda structure of 18 to 19 active and 8reserve wing equivalents.

The State of the Air Force

Also like the Army, in recent years theAir Force has undertaken missionsfundamentally different than those assignedduring the Cold War. The years since thefall of the Berlin Wall have been anythingbut predictable. In 1997, the Air Force hadfour times more forces deployed than in1989, the last year of the Cold War, but onethird fewer personnel on active duty.Modernization has slowed to a crawl. Under


32

such circumstances, the choices made tobuild a warfighting force can becomeliabilities. As Thomas Moorman, vice chiefof staff of the Air Force from 1994 through1997, has stated:

None of us believed, at the end of theCold War, that we would be doingNorthern Watch and Southern Watch in1998. Bosnia still exists – everyone [inthe Air Force has] been there since1995….Couple that with the fact thatwe've seen surges, particularly in Iraq.Saddam Hussein has been very effectivein pulling our chain, and we've hadthree major deployments, the last ofwhich was very significant; it was 4,000people and 100 aircraft. And we stayedover there a lot longer than we thoughtwe would.

As a result, Air Force “readiness isslipping – it’s not just anecdotal; it’sfactual,” says Gen. Michael Ryan, the AirForce Chief of Staff. Since 1996, accordingto Ryan, the Air Force has experienced “anoverall 14 percent degradation in the opera-tional readiness of our major operationalunits.” And although Air Force leadersclaim that the service holds all its units atthe same levels of readiness – that it doesnot, as the Navy does, practice “tiered”readiness where first-to-fight units get moreresources – the level of readiness in statesideunits has slipped below those deployedoverseas. For example, Air CombatCommand, the main tactical fightercommand based in the United States, hassuffered a 50 percent drop in readiness rates,compared to the service-wide drop inoperational readiness of 14 percent.

These readiness problems are the resultof a pace of operations that is slowly butsurely consuming the Air Force. A 1998study by RAND, “Air Force OperationsOverseas in Peacetime: OPTEMPO andForce Structure Implications,” concludedthat today’s Air Force is barely large enoughto sustain current no-fly-zone and similarconstabulary contingencies, let alone handlea major war. While the Department of

Defense has come to recognize the heavyburden placed upon the Air Force’sAWACS and other specialized aircraft, thestudy found that “specialized aircraft areexperiencing a rate of utilization wellbeyond the level that the current forcestructure would seem able to support on along-term basis.” The study also revealedthat the current fighter force is stretched toits limit as well. Under current assumptions,the current fighter structure “has thecapacity to meet the [peacekeeping]demand, but with a meager reserve – onlyabout a third of a squadron (8 aircraft)beyond the demand.” An additional no-fly-zone mission, such as is now beingconducted over the Balkans, for example,“would be difficult to meet on a sustainedbasis.” According to Ryan, theaccumulation of these constabulary missionshas had a dramatic effect on the Air Force.He recently summarized the situation forCongress:

Our men and womenare separated fromtheir home basesand families forunpredictable andextended periodsevery year — with asignificant negativeimpact on retention.Our home-station
Ryan manning has become
inadequate — and workload hasincreased — because forces arefrequently deployed even though home-station operations must continue atnear-normal pace. Our units deployingforward must carry much moreinfrastructure to expeditionary bases.Force protection and critical missionsecurity for forward-deployed forces isa major consideration. The demands onour smaller units, such as [intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissance] andcombat search and rescue units, havedramatically increased — they areproperly sized for two major theaterwars, but some are inadequately sizedfor multiple, extended contingencyoperations. Due to the unpredictable


33

Air CombatCommand, themain tacticalfightercommand basedin the UnitedStates, hassuffered a 50percent drop inreadiness rates.

nature of contingencies, trainingrequirements have been expanded, andtraining cannot always be fullyaccomplished while deployedsupporting contingencies. Becausecontingencies are unpredictable, it ismuch more difficult to use ReserveComponent forces, many of whom needtime to coordinate absences withcivilian employers before they are freeto take up their Air Force jobs.

These cumulative stresses have created apanoply of problems for the Air Force:recruiting and retention of key personnel,especially pilots, is an unprecedented worry;the service’s fleet of aircraft, especiallysupport aircraft, is aging significantly; spareparts shortages, along with shortages ofelectronic subsystems and advancedmunitions, restricts both operational andtraining missions; and the quality andquantity of air combat training has declined.

Even as routine, home-station combattraining has suffered in recent years, so havethe Air Force’s major air combat exercises.Lack of funds for training, reports Ryan,means that “aircrews will no longer be ableto meet many training requirements andthreat training will be reduced to unrealisticlevel. Aircrews will develop a false sense ofsecurity while training against unrealisticthreats.” Similarly, the Air Force’s programto provide advanced “aggressor” training toits pilots is a shadow of its former self:during the 1980s there was one aggressoraircraft for every 35 Air Force fighters;today, the ratio is one for every 240 fighters.The frequency with which Air Forceaircrews participate in “Red Flag” exerciseshas declined from once every 12 months toonce every 18 months.

The Air Force’s problems are furthercompounded by the procurement holiday ofthe 1990s. The dramatic aging of the AirForce fleet and the resulting increase in costand maintenance workload caused by air-craft fatigue, corrosion and parts obsoles-cence is the second driving factor in de-creasing service readiness. By the turn of

the century, the average Air Force aircraftwill be 20 years old and by 2015, evenallowing for the introduction of the F-22 andJoint Strike Fighter and continuingpurchases of current aircraft such as the C-17, the average age of the fleet will be 30years old. The increased expense ofoperating older aircraft is well illustrated bythe difference in airframe depot maintenancecost between the oldest F-15A and B models– at approximately 21 years old, such repairsaverage about $1.9 million per aircraft –

versus the newestF-15E model – at8 years in averageage, the samekinds of repairscost about $1.3million per plane,a 37 percent costdifference. Butperhaps thecostliest measureof an aging fleetis that fewerairplanes areready for combat.

Overall Air Force “non-mission capablerates,” or grounded aircraft, have increasedfrom 17 percent in 1991 to 25 percent today.These rates continue to climb despite thefact that Air Force maintenance personnelare working harder and longer to put planesup. The process of parts cannibalization –transferring a part from one plane beingrepaired to keep another flying – hasincreased by 58 percent from 1995 to 1998.

Some of the Air Force’s readinessproblems stem from the overall reduction inits procurement budget, combined with theservice’s determination to keep the F-22program on track – as much as possible.The expense of the “Raptor” has forced theAir Force to make repeated cuts in otherprograms, not only in other aircraftprograms, but in spare parts and even inpersonnel programs; even the Air Force’spilot shortage stems in part from decisionstaken to free up funds for the F-22. Theseeffects have been doubly compounded by


34

the changes in the pattern of Air Forceoperations over the past 10 years. Supportaircraft such as the AWACS and JSTARS,electronic combat and tanker aircraft wereall intended to operate in concert with largenumbers of tactical aircraft in large-scaleoperations. But in fact, they are more oftencalled upon now to operate with just ahandful of fighter or strike aircraft in no-flyzone operations or other contin-gencies. Asa result, these types of aircraft routinely arerated as “low-density, high-demand”systems in the Pentagon’s joint-servicereadiness assessments; in other words, thereare too few of them to meet mission require-ments. The Air Force’s modernizationprogram has yet to fully reflect this pheno-menon. For example, the formal JSTARS“requirement” was reduced from 19 to 13aircraft; only lately has an increased re-quirement been recognized. Likewise, theoriginal C-17 procurement was cut from 210to 120 aircraft. In fact, to meet emergingrequirements, it is likely that 210 C-17s maybe too few. Overall, the Air Force’smodernization programs need a thorough-going reassessment in light of new missionsand their requirements.

Forward-Based Forces

The pattern of Air Force bases alsoneeds to be reconsidered. Currently, the AirForce maintains forward-based forces oftwo-and-one-half wing equivalents inWestern Europe; one wing in the Pacific, inJapan; a semi-permanent, composite wing ofabout 100 aircraft scattered throughout theGulf region; and a partial wing in centralTurkey at Incirlik Air Force Base. Evenallowing for the inherent flexibility andrange of aircraft, these current forces need tobe supplemented by additional forward-based forces, additional permanent bases,and a network of contingency bases thatwould permit the Air Force to extend theeffectiveness of current and future aircraftfleets as the American security perimeterexpands.

In Europe, current forces should beincreased with additional support aircraft,ranging from an increased C-17 and tankerfleet to AWACS, JSTARS and otherelectronic support planes. Existing forces,still organized in traditional wings, shouldbe supplemented by a composite wingpermanently stationed at Incirlik Air ForceBase in Turkey and that base should beimproved significantly. The air wing atAviano, Italy might be given a greatercapability as that facility expands, as well.Additionally, the Air Force should establishthe requirements for similar small compositewings in Southeastern Europe. Over time,U.S. Air Forces in Europe would increase byone to two-and-one-half wing equivalents.Further, improvements should be made toexisting air bases in new and potentialNATO countries to allow for rapiddeployments, contingency exercises, andextended initial operations in times of crisis.These preparations should includemodernized air traffic control, fuel, andweapons storage facilities, and perhapssmall stocks of prepositioned munitions, aswell as sufficient ramp space to accom-modate surges in operations. Improvementsalso should be made to existing facilities inEngland to allow forward operation of B-2bombers in times of crisis, to increase sortierates if needed.

In the Persian Gulf region, theprovisional 4044th Wing should continue tooperate much as it has for the better part ofthe last decade. However, the Air Forceshould take several steps to improve itsoperations while deferring to local politicalsensibilities. To relieve the stress ofconstant rotations, the Air Force mightconsider using more U.S. civilian contractworkers in support roles – perhaps even todo aircraft maintenance or to provideadditional security. While this mightincrease the cost of these operations, itmight also be an incentive to get the Saudis,Kuwaitis and other Gulf states to assume agreater share of the costs while preservingthe lowest possible U.S. military profile. Bythe same token, further improvements in the


35

The overall effectiveness of the B-2bomber is limited by the small size ofthe fleet and the difficulties ofoperating solely from Whiteman AirForce Base in Missouri.

facilities at Al Kharj in Saudi Arabia,especially those that would improve thequality of life for airmen and allowincreased combat training, warrantadditional American as well as Saudiinvestments. The Air Force presence in theGulf region is a vital one for U.S. militarystrategy, and the United States shouldconsider it a de facto permanent presence,even as it seeks ways to lessen Saudi,Kuwaiti and regional concerns about U.S.presence.

But it is in East Asia that the Air Forcemust look to increase its capabilities andreach. The service currently has about twowings worth of aircraft stationed at threebases in Japan and Korea; like the Army, theAir Force is concentrated in Northeast Asiaand lacks a permanent presence in SoutheastAsia, thus limiting its regional reach. TheAir Force also has an F-15 wing in Alaskathat is officially part of its Pacific force, aswell. The Air Force needs roughly todouble its forces stationed in East Asia,preferably dispersing its bases in the southas it has in the north, perhaps by stationing awing in the Philippines and Australia. As inEurope, Air Force operations in East Asiawould be greatly enhanced by the ability tosustain long-range bomber operations out ofAustralia, perhaps also by including thespecial maintenance facilities needed tooperate the B-2 and other stealth aircraft.Further, the Air Force would be wise to

invest in upgrades to regional airfields topermit surge deployments and, incidentally,help build ties with regional air forces.

Air Force Units BasedIn the United States

Even as the Air Force acceleratesoperations and improves its reach in the keyregions of the world, it must retain sufficientforces based in the United States to deployrapidly in times of crisis and be prepared toconduct large-scale air campaigns of the sortneeded in major theater wars and to react totruly unforeseen contingencies. Indeed, themobility and flexibility of air powervirtually extinguishes the distinctionbetween reinforcing and contingency forces.But it is clear that the Air Force’s currentstateside strength of approximately eight tonine fighter-wing equivalents and fourbomber wings is inadequate to these tasks.Further, the Air Force’s fleets of supportaircraft are too small for rapid, large-scaledeployments and sustained operations.

The Air Force’s structure problemsreflect troubles of types of aircraft as well asraw numbers. For example, when theservice retired its complements of F-4 “WildWeasel” air defense suppression and EF-111electronic warfare aircraft, these missionswere assumed by F-16s fitted with HARMsystem pods and Navy and Marine EA-6B“Prowlers,” respectively. The effect hasbeen to reduce the size of the F-16 fleetcapable of doing other missions. The F-16was intended to be a multi-mission airplane,but the heavy requirement for air defensesuppression, even in no-fly-zone operations,means that these aircraft are only rarelyavailable for other duties, and their pilots’skills rusty. Likewise, the loss of the EF-111 has thrust the entire jamming missionon the small and old Prowler fleet, and hasleft the Air Force without a jammer of itsown. The shortage of these aircraft is sogreat that, during Operation Allied Force,no-fly-zone operations over Iraq weresuspended.


36

The Air Force’sfleets of supportaircraft are toosmall for rapid,large-scaledeploymentsand sustainedoperations.

The Air Force’s airlift fleet is similarlytoo small. The lift requirements establishedin the early 1990s did not anticipate the paceand number of contingency operations in thepost-Cold-War world. Nor have the require-ments been changed to reflect force designchanges – both those already made, such asde facto expeditionary forces in the Armyand Air Force, nor those advocated in thisreport. The need to operate in a more dis-persed fashion will increase airlift require-ments substantially.

Further, the Air Force’s need for othersupporting aircraft is also greater than itscurrent fleet. As Air Force Chief of StaffGen. Ryan has observed, his service is farshort of being a “two-war” force in many ofthese capabilities. Even in daily no-fly-zoneoperations with relatively small numbers offighters, the nature of the mission demandsAWACS, JSTARS and other long-rangeelectronic support aircraft; EA-6Bs and F-16s with HARM pods for jamming and airdefense suppression; and several tankers topermit extended operations over longranges. The “supporter-to-shooter” ratios ofthe Cold War and of large-scale operationssuch as the Desert Storm air campaign havebeen completely inverted. Air Forcerequirements of such aircraft for perimeterpatrolling missions and for reinforcingmissions far exceed the service’s currentfleets; no previous strategic review hascontemplated these requirements. Whilesuch an analysis is beyond the scope of thisstudy, it is obvious that significantenlargements of Air Force structure areneeded.

Finally, the Air Force’s fleet of long-range bombers should be reassessed. Asmentioned above, the operations of the B-2sduring Allied Force are certain to lead to areappraisal of the regional commanders’requirements for that aircraft. Yet anotherstriking feature of B-2 operations during theKosovo war was the length of the missions –it required a 30-hour, roundtrip sortie fromWhiteman Air Force Base in Missouri foreach strike – and the difficulty in sustaining

operations. The bulk of the B-2 fleet isoften reserved for nuclear missions; in sum,the Air Force could generate no more thantwo B-2s every other day for Allied Force.Whatever the performance of the B-2, itsoverall effectiveness is severely limited bythe small size of the fleet and the difficultiesof operating solely from Whiteman. Whilethe cost of restarting the B-2 production line

may be prohibitive,the need is obvious;the Air Force couldincrease the“productivity” ofB-2 operations byestablishingoverseas locationsfor which the planecould operate intimes of need, andby developing a

deployable B-2 maintenance capability. Asthe Air Force contemplates its future bomberforce, it should seek to avoid such adilemma as it develops successors to the B-2. And considering the limited viability ofthe bomber leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, theAir Force might seek to have bombers nolonger counted for arms control purposes,and equip its B-52s and B-2s solely forconventional strike.

At minimum, the Air Force based in theUnited States should be increased by two ormore wing equivalents. However, themajority of these increases should bedirected at the specialized aircraft thatrepresent the “low-density, high-demand”air assets now so lacking. But while thiswill do much to alleviate the stresses on thecurrent fighter fleet, it will not be enough tooffset the effects of the higher tempo ofoperations of the last decade; the F-15 andF-16 fleets face looming block obsoles-cence. This will be partly offset by theintroduction of the F-22 into the Air Forceinventory, but as an air superiority aircraft,the F-22 is not well suited to today’s lessstressful missions. The Air Force is buyinga new race car when it also needs a fleet ofminivans. The Air Force should purchase


37

new multi-mission F-15E and F-16 aircraft.The C-17 program should be restored to itsoriginal 210-aircraft buy, and the Air Forceshould address the need for additionalelectronic support aircraft, both in the near-term but also in the longer term as part of itstransformation efforts.

If the F-22 is less than perfectly suitedto today’s needs, the problem of the JointStrike Fighter program is a larger onealtogether. Moreover, more than half thetotal F-22 program cost has been spentalready, while spending to date on the JSF –although already billions of dollars –represents the merest tip of what may proveto be a $223 billion iceberg. And greaterthan the technological challenges posed bythe JSF or its total cost in dollars is thequestion as to whether the program, whichwill extend America’s commitment tomanned strike aircraft for 50 years or more,represents an operationally sound decision.Indeed, as will be apparent from thediscussion below on military transformationand the revolution in military affairs, itseems unlikely that the current paradigm ofwarfare, dominated by the capabilities oftactical, manned aircraft, will long endure.An expensive Joint Strike Fighter withlimited capabilities and significant technicalrisk appears to be a bad investment in such alight, and the program should be terminated.It is a roadblock to transformation and asink-hole for defense dollars.

The reconstitution of the stateside AirForce as a large-scale, warfighting force willcomplicate the service’s plans to reconfigureitself for the purposes of expeditionaryoperations. But the proliferation of overseasbases should reduce many, if not all, of theburdens of rotational contingency opera-tions. Because of its inherent mobility andflexibility, the Air Force will be the firstU.S. military force to arrive in a theaterduring times of crisis; as such, the Air Forcemust retain its ability to deploy and sustainsufficient numbers of aircraft to deter warsand shape any conflict in its earliest stages.Indeed, it is the Air Force, along with the

Army, that remains the core of America’sability to apply decisive military powerwhen its pleases. To dissipate this ability todeliver a rapid hammer blow is to lose thekey component of American militarypreeminence.

Air Force ModernizationAnd Budgets

As with the Army, Air Force budgetshave been significantly reduced during thepast decade, even as the service has taken onnew, unanticipated missions and attempts towrestle with the implications ofexpeditionary operations. At the height ofthe Reagan buildup, in 1985, the Air Forcewas authorized $140 billion; by 1992, thefirst post-Cold-War budget figure fell to $98billion. During the Clinton years, Air Forcebudgets dropped to a low of $73 billion in1997; the administration’s 2001 request wasfor $83 billion (all figures are FY2000constant dollars).

During this period, Air Force leaderssacrificed many other essential projects tokeep the F-22 program going; simplyrestoring the service to health – correctingfor the shortfalls of recent years plus theinternal distortions caused by serviceleadership decisions – will require time andsignificantly increased spending. A gradualincrease in Air Force spending back to a$110 billion to $115 billion level is requiredto increase service personnel strength; buildnew units, especially the composite wingsrequired to perform the “air constabularymissions” such as no-fly zones; add thesupport capabilities necessary tocomplement the fleet of tactical aircraft;reinvest in space capabilities and begin theprocess of transformation.

The F-22 Raptor program should becontinued to procure three wings’ worth ofaircraft and to develop and buy themunitions necessary to increase the F-22’sability to perform strike missions; althoughthe plane has limited bomb-carrying


38

The Joint Strike Fighter, with limitedcapabilities and significant technicalrisk, is a roadblock to futuretransformation and a sink-hole forneeded defense funds.

capacity, improved munitions can extend itsutility in the strike role. The need forstrategic lift has grown exponentiallythroughout the post-Cold-War era, both interms of volume of lift and for numbers ofstrategic lift platforms; it may be that therequirement for strategic airlift now exceedsthe requirement in the early 1990s when theC-17 program was scaled back from aplanned 210 aircraft to the current plan forjust 120. The C-17’s ability to land on shortairfields makes it both a strategic andtactical airlifter. Or rather, it is the firstairlifter to be able to allow for strategicdeployment direct to an austere theater, as inKosovo.

Likewise, the formal requirements forAWACS, JSTARS, “Rivet Joint” and otherelectronic support and combat aircraft wereset during the Cold War or before the natureof the current era was clear. These aircraftwere designed to operate in conjunction withlarge numbers of fighter aircraft, yet todaythey operate with very small formations inno-fly zone, or even virtually alone incounter-drug intelligence gatheringoperations. As with the C-17, it is likelythat a genuine calculation of currentrequirements might result in a larger fleet ofsuch aircraft than was considered during thelate Cold War. In sum, the process ofrebuilding today’s Air Force – apart from

procuring sufficient “attrition” F-15s and F-16s and proceeding with the F-22 – liesprimarily in creating the varied supportcapabilities that will complement the fighterfleet.

In the wake of the Kosovo air operation,the Air Force should again reconsider theissue of strategic bombers. Both thesuccesses and limitations of B-2 operationsduring “Allied Force” suggest that the utilityof long-range strike aircraft has beenundervalued, not only in major theater warsbut in constabulary and punitive operations.Whether this mandates opening up the B-2production line again or in acceleratingplans to build a new bomber – even anunmanned strategic bomber – is beyond thelevel of analysis possible in this study. Atthe same time, it is unlikely that the currentbomber fleet – mostly B-1Bs with ashrinking and aging fleet of B-52s and thefew B-2s that will be available forconventional-force operations – is bestsuited to meet these new requirements.

To move toward the goal of becoming aforce with truly global reach – and sustainedglobal reach – the Air Force must rebuild itsfleet of tanker aircraft. Sustaining a large-scale air campaign, whatever the ability ofstrategic-range bombers, must ultimatelyrely upon theater-range tactical aircraft. Asamply demonstrated over Kosovo, theability to provide tanker support can oftenbe the limiting factor to such large-scaleoperations. The Air Force’s current plan, toeventually operate a tanker fleet with 75-year-old planes, is not consistent with thecreation of a global-reach force.

Finally, the Air Force should use someof its increased budget and the savings fromthe cancellation of the Joint Strike Fighterprogram to accelerate the process oftransformation within the service, to includedeveloping new space capabilities. Theability to have access to, operate in, anddominate the aerospace environment hasbecome the key to military success inmodern, high-technology warfare. Indeed,


39

as will be discussed below, space dominancemay become so essential to the preservationof American military preeminence that itmay require a separate service. How wellthe Air Force rises to the many challenges itfaces – even should it receive increasedbudgets – will go far toward determiningwhether U.S. military forces retain thecombat edge they now enjoy.

New Course for the Navy

The end of the Cold War leaves the U.S.Navy in a position of unchallengedsupremacy on the high seas, a dominancesurpassing that even of the British Navy inthe 19th and early parts of the 20th century.With the remains of the Soviet fleet nowlargely rusting in port, the open oceans areAmerica’s, and the lines of communicationopen from the coasts of the United States toEurope, the Persian Gulf and East Asia. Yetthis very success calls the need for the cur-rent force structure into question. Further,the advance of precision-strike technologymay mean that naval surface combatants,and especially the large-deck aircraftcarriers that are the Navy’s capital ships,may not survive in the high-technology warsof the coming decades. Finally, the natureand pattern of Navy presence missions maybe out of synch with emerging strategicrealities. In sum, though it stands withoutpeer today, the Navy faces major challengesto its traditional and, in the past, highlysuccessful methods of operation.

As with the Army, the Navy’s ability toaddress these challenges has been addition-ally compromised by the high pace ofcurrent operations. As noted in the firstsection of this report, the Navy has disruptedthe traditional balance between duty at seaand ashore, stressing its sailors andcomplicating training cycles. Units ashoreno longer have the personnel, equipment, oropportunities to train; thus, when they go tosea, they go at lower levels of readiness thanin the past. Modernization has been anotherbill-payer for maintaining the readiness of

at-sea forces during the defense drawdownof the past decade. As H. Lee Buchanan, theNavy’s top procurement official, recentlyadmitted, “After the buildup of the 1980s, atthe end of the Cold War we literally stoppedmodernizing in order to fund near-termreadiness[and]…ourprocurementaccountsplummeted by70 percent.The result hasbeen an agingforce structure witinvestment.” AccoChief of Naval OpJohnson, the Navybelow a fleet of 30create “unacceptabmissions called forstrategy. Unfortuncurrent level of shito preserve even thcoming decades.”

As a consequeattempting to condpresence missions combat forces devyears of the Cold Wembark upon a comrealignment and reof increased operainvestment has wowon the Cold Warmissions require nof operations, withon East Asia. To mnaval power todayrealigned and reco

• Reflecting thefocus of Amertoward East AU.S. fleet, inccarrier battleconcentrated permanent foestablished in

The Navy mustbegin to reduce itsheavy dependenceon carrieroperations.

h little modernizationrding to recently retired

erations Adm. Jay is in danger of slipping0 ships, a level that wouldle risk” in executing the by the national militaryately, he added, “Thepbuilding is insufficientat level of fleet in the

nce, the Navy isuct a full range ofwhile employing theeloped during the later

ar. The Navy mustplex process of

configuration. A decadetions and reducedrn down the fleets that. The demands of newew methods and patterns an increasing emphasiseet the strategic need for

, the Navy should benfigured along these lines:

gradual shift in theican strategic concernssia, a majority of the

luding two thirds of all groups, should bein the Pacific. A new,rward base should be Southeast Asia.


40

• The Navy must begin to transitionaway from its heavy dependence oncarrier operations, reducing its fleetfrom 12 to nine carriers over the nextsix years. A moratorium on carrierconstruction should be imposed afterthe completion of the CVN-77,allowing the Navy to retain a nine-carrier force through 2025. Designand research on a future CVX carriershould continue, but should aim at aradical design change to accom-modate an air wing based primarilyon unmanned aerial vehicles. TheNavy should complete the F/A-18E/Fprogram, refurbish and modernize itssupport aircraft, consider thesuitability of a carrier-capable versionof the Air Force’s F-22, but keep theJoint Strike Fighter program inresearch and development until theimplications of the revolution inmilitary affairs for naval warfare areunderstood better.

• To offset the reduced role of carriers,the Navy should slightly increase itsfleets of current-generation surfacecombatants and submarines forimproved strike capabilities in littoralwaters and to conduct an increasingproportion of naval presence missionswith surface action groups.Additional investments in counter-mine warfare are needed, as well.

State of the Navy Today

The first step in maintaining Americannaval preeminence must be to restore thehealth of the current fleet as rapidly aspossible. Though the Navy’s deploymentstoday have not changed as profoundly ashave those of the Army or Air Force – thesea services have long manned, equippedand trained themselves for the rigors of longdeployments at sea – the number of theseduties has increased as the Navy has beenreduced. The Navy also faces a shipbuildingand larger modernization problem that, if

not immediately addressed, will reach crisisproportions in the next decade.

Thus, like the other services, the Navy isincreasingly ill prepared for missions todayand tomorrow. For the past several years,Adm. Johnson has admitted the Navy “wasnever sized to do two [major theater wars]”– meaning that, after the defense drawdown,the Navy is too small to meet the require-ments of the current national militarystrategy. According to Johnson: “The QDRconcluded that a fleet of slightly more than300 ships was sufficient for near termrequirements and was within an acceptablelevel of risk. Three years of high tempooperations since then, however, suggest thatthis size fleet will be inadequate to sustainthe current level of operations for the longterm.”

Even as the Navy has shrunk to a littlemore than half its Cold-War size, the pace ofoperations has grown so rapidly that theNavy is experiencing readiness problemsand personnel shortages. These problemsare so grave that forward-deployed navalforces, the carrier battle groups that arecurrently the core of the Navy’s presencemission, now put to sea with significantpersonnel problems. When the USS Lincolncarrier battle group fired Tomahawk cruisemissiles at terrorist camps in Afghanistanand suspected chemical weapons facilities inSudan, it did so with 12 percent fewerpeople in the battle group than on theprevious deployment. Similarly, during theFebruary 1998 confrontation with Iraq, theNavy sent three carriers to the Persian Gulf.The USS George Washington deployed theGulf with only 4,600 sailors, almost 1,000fewer than its previous cruise there twoyears earlier. The carrier USSIndependence, dispatched on short noticefrom its permanent home in Japan, sailedwith only 4,200 sailors and needed anemergency influx of about 80 sailors just soit could be rated fit for combat. The USSNimitz, already in the Middle East, was 400sailors shy of its previous cruise. The Navy


41

also had to issue two urgent calls forvolunteer sailors in port back home.

This is a worrisome trend. Today morethan ever, U.S. Navy operations centeraround the carrier battle group. Indeed, theability to conduct additional operations oreven training independent from battle groupoperations is increasingly difficult. But theprocess of piecing together the elements of abattle group – the carrier itself, its air wing,its surface escorts, its submarines, and itsaccompanying Marine Amphibious ReadyGroup – is also becoming a substantialchallenge.

Bringing a carrier battle group to thehigh states of readiness demanded bydeployments to sea is a complex andrigorous task, involving tens of thousands ofpersonnel over an 18-month period.Formally known as the “interdeploymenttraining cycle” and more often called thereadiness “bathtub,” this period is the key toreadiness at sea. Equipment must beoverhauled and maintained, personnelassigned and reassigned, and trainingaccomplished from individual skills upthrough complex battle group operations.Shortfalls and cutbacks felt in the inter-deployment cycle result in diminishedreadiness at sea. And finally and vitallyimportant to the health of an all-volunteerforce – sailors must reestablish the bondsand ties with their families that allow themto concentrate on their duties while at sea.

Although Navy leaders have recentlyfocused on the cutbacks in their inter-deployment training cycle, it is clear thatpostponed maintenance and training ishaving an increasing effect on the readinessof forces at sea. As a result, naval taskforces are compelled to complete theirtraining while they are deployed, rather thanbeforehand. And with fully 52 percent of itsships afloat, including training, and 33percent actually deployed at sea – comparedto historical norms of 42 percent at sea and21 percent deployed, Navy leaders arecontemplating a reduction in the size of

carrier battle groups by trimming thenumber of escorts. Most ominously, theNavy’s ability to surge large fleets inwartime – the requirement to meet the two-war standard – is declining. As Adm.Johnson told the Congress:

[N]early every Major Theater Warscenario would require the rapiddeployment of forces from [the UnitedStates]. Because of the increasinglydeep bathtub in our [interdeploymenttraining cycle] readiness posture, these

follow-on forcesmost likely willnot be at thedesired levels ofproficiencyquickly enough.Concern over thereadiness of non-deployed forceswas acontributingfactor to the

JothwhouingrlemhimA

Naculo“phaofUnwico

Johnson
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffrecently changing his overall riskassessment of a two[-war] scenario tomoderate to high.
This assessment has promptedhnson’s successor, Adm. Vernon Clark,e former commander of the Atlantic Fleeto was confirmed as CNO in June, totline a major reallocation of resources tocrease the readiness of carrier battleoups – although only to the “C-2” ratingvel, still below the highest standard. “Toe, readiness is a top priority,” said Clark ins confirmation testimony. “It simplyeans taking care of the Navy that themerican people have already invested in.”

But while Clark is correct about thevy’s increasing troubles maintaining itsrrent readiness, an even larger problemoms just over the horizon. The Navy’srocurement holiday” of the past decades left the service facing a serious problem block obsolescence in the next 10 years.less current trends are reversed, the Navyll be too small to meet its worldwidemmitments. Both in its major ship and


aircraft programs, the Navy has beenpurchasing too few systems to sustain eventhe reduced, post-Cold War fleet called forin the Quadrennial Defense Review.

As a result of the significant expansionof the Navy to nearly 600 ships during theReagan years and the following drawdownof the 1990s, today’s Navy of just over 300ships is made up of relatively new ships, andthus the low shipbuilding rates of the pastdecade have not yet had a dramatic effect onthe fleet. Assuming the traditional “ship-life” of about 30to 35 years,maintaining a300-ship Navyrequires thepurchase of abouteight to 10 shipsper year. TheClinton Admini-stration’s 2001defense budgetrequest includes arequest for eightships, the firsttime in several years high. And the adminplan would purchasestill below the requiran improvement over

However, there iimprovement than mincrease in the shipbuby purchasing less exships, which typicallymillion, compared tosubmarine or Arleighdestroyer, or $6 billiocarrier. According toResearch Service anaadministration plan wcargo ships, “procurethe steady-state replaauxiliaries.” The repauxiliaries is approxiadministration’s requ2001, three each in 2each in 2004 and 200

While buying too many cheapauxiliaries, the administration is buying toofew combatants, as the state of thesubmarine force indicates. In 1997, theNavy’s fleet of 72 attack boats was too smallto meet its operational requirements, yet, atthe same time, the QDR called for a furtherreduction of the attack submarine force to 50boats. Since then, these additionalreductions in the submarine force haveexacerbated the problem. As the Navy’sdirector of submarine programs, Adm.Malcolm Fages told the Senate last year,“We have transitioned from a requirements-driven force to an asset-limited forcestructure. Today, although we have 58submarines in the force, we have too fewsubmarines to accomplish all assignedmissions.”

Nor is it likely that the Navy will be ableto stop the hemorrhaging of its attacksubmarine fleet. For the period from 1990through 2005, the Navy will have purchasedjust 10 new attack submarines, according tocurrent plans. But the replacement rate for

The Navy hasbuilt up a‘modernizationdeficit’ – ofsurface ships,submarines andaircraft – thatwill soonapproach $100billion.

42

that the number is thatistration’s long-term 39 ships over 5 years,ed replacement rate, but recent Navy budgets.

s less to this apparenteets the eye. The slightilding rate is achievedpensive auxiliary cargo cost $300 to $400

$1 billion for an attack Burke-class Aegisn for an aircraft a Congressionallysis, theould buy unneededd at a rate in excess ofcement for Navylacement rate formately 1.5 per year; theest includes one in002 and 2003, and two5.

even a 50-sub fleet would have requiredprocurement of 23 to 27 boats during thattime period. In sum, the Navy has asubmarine-building “deficit” of 13 to 17boats, even to maintain a fleet that is toosmall to meet operational and strategicneeds. According to the administration’sbudget request, the Navy plans to build nomore than one new attack submarine peryear. Assuming the 30-year service life fornuclear attack submarines, the Americansubmarine fleet would slip to 24 boats by2025.

The Navy’s fleet of surface combatantsfaces much the same dilemma as does thesubmarine force: it is too small to meet itscurrent missions and, as seaborne missiledefense systems are developed, the surfacefleet faces substantial new missions forwhich it is now unprepared. For thesereasons, the Navy has prepared a new report,entitled the Surface Combatant Force LevelStudy, arguing that the true requirement forsurface combatants is 138 warships,


43

compared to the 116 called for under theQuadrennial Defense Review. Bycomparison, the Navy had 203 surfacecombatants in 1990 and the BushAdministration’s “Base Force” plan calledfor a surface fleet of 141 ships.

As of last year, Navy shipbuilding had acurrent “deficit” of approximately 26 ships,even before the requirements of new mis-sions such as ballistic missile are calculated.To maintain a 300-ship fleet, the Navy mustmaintain a ship procurement rate of about8.6 ships per year. Yet from 1993 to 2005,according to administration plans, the Navywill have bought 85 ships, or about 6.5 shipsper year. Steady-state rates would haverequired the purchase of 111 ships, accor-ding to the Congressional Research Serviceanalysis. Once the large number of shipsbought during the 1980s begins to reach theend of its service life, the Navy will begin toshrink rapidly, and maintaining a fleet above250 ships will be difficult to do.

As with ships and submarines, theNavy’s aircraft fleet is living off thepurchases made during the buildup of theReagan years. The average age of navalaircraft is 16.5 years and increasing. Whilethe Navy’s F-14 and F-18 fighters are beingupgraded, the aging of the fleet is mosttelling on support aircraft. The Navy’s planto refurbish the P-3C submarine-huntingplane will extend the Orion’s life to 50years; the fleet average now is 21 years.The E-2 Hawkeye, the Navy’s airborne earlywarning and command and control plane,was first produced in the 1960s. The S-3BViking is another aircraft essential to manyaspects of carrier operations; it is 23 yearsold and no longer in production. And theEA-6B Prowler is now the only electronicwarfare aircraft flown by any of the services,and is now considered a national asset, notmerely a Navy platform. Operation AlliedForce employed approximately 60 of the 90operational EA-6Bs then in the fleet; currentNavy plans are to refurbish the entire 123Prowler airframes that still exist, inserting anew center wing section on this 1960s-era

aircraft and improving its electronicsystems. No new electronic warfare aircraftis in the program of any service.

As a result of a decade-long procure-ment holiday, a Navy already too small tomeet many of its current missions is headingfor a modernization crisis; indeed, it alreadymay have built up a “modernization deficit”– of surface ships, submarines, and aircraft,that will soon approach $100 billion – evenas the Navy is asked to take on additionalnew missions such as ballistic missiledefense. Higher operations tempos, person-nel and training problems and spare partsshortfalls have reduced Navy readiness. Byany measure, today’s Navy is unable to meetthe increasing number of missions it facescurrently, let alone prepare itself for a trans-formed paradigm of future naval warfare.

New Deployment Patterns

Revitalizing the Navy will require morethan improved readiness and recapitaliza-tion, however. The Navy’s structure andpattern of operations must be reconsideredin light of new strategic realities as well. Ingeneral terms, this should reflect anincreased emphasis on operations in thewestern Pacific and a decreased emphasis onaircraft carriers.

As discussed above, the focus ofAmerican security strategy for the comingcentury is likely to shift to East Asia. Thisreflects the success of American strategy inthe 20th century, and particularly the successof the NATO alliance through the Cold War,which has created what appears to be agenerally stable and enduring peace inEurope. The pressing new problem ofEuropean security – instability in South-eastern Europe – will be best addressed bythe continued stability operations in theBalkans by U.S. and NATO ground forcessupported by land-based air forces.Likewise, the new opportunity for greaterEuropean stability offered by further NATOexpansion will make demands first of all on


44

Tomahawk cruisemissiles have beenthe Navy weapon ofchoice in recentstrike operations.

ground and land-based air forces. As theAmerican security perimeter in Europe isremoved eastward, this pattern will endure,although naval forces will play an importantrole in the Baltic Sea, eastern Mediterraneanand Black Sea, and will continue to supportU.S. and NATO operations ashore.

Also, while it islikely that theMiddle East andPersian Gulf willremain an area ofturmoil andinstability, theincreasedpresence ofAmerican groundforces and land-based air forces inthe region mark anotable shift fromthe 1980s, whennaval forcescarried theoverwhelmingburden of U.S.military presencein the region.Although theNavy will remain

an important partner in Gulf and regionaloperations, the load can now be shared moreequitably with other services. And,according to the force posture described inthe preceding chapter, future Americanpolicy should seek to augment the forcesalready in the region or nearby. However,since current U.S. Navy force structure, andparticularly its carrier battle-group structure,is driven by the current requirements forGulf operations, the reduced emphasis ofnaval forces in the Gulf will have an effecton overall Navy structure.

Thus, the emphasis of U.S. Navyoperations should shift increasingly towardEast Asia. Not only is this the theater ofrising importance in overall Americanstrategy and for preserving Americanpreeminence, it is the theater in which navalforces will make the greatest contribution.

As stressed several times above, the UnitedStates should seek to establish – orreestablish – a more robust naval presence inSoutheast Asia, marked by a long-term,semi-permanent home port in the region,perhaps in the Philip-pines, Australia, orboth. Over the next decade, this presenceshould become roughly equivalent to thenaval forces stationed in Japan (17 shipsbased around the Kitty Hawk carrier battlegroup and Belleau Wood Marine amphibiousready group). Optimally, these forward-deployed forces, both in Japan andultimately in Southeast Asia, should beincreased with additional surfacecombatants. In effect, one of the carrierbattle groups now based on the West Coastof the United States should be shifted intothe East Asian theater.

Rotational naval forces form the bulk ofthe U.S. Navy; as indicated above, the sizeof the current fleet is dictated by thepresence requirements of the regionalcommanders-in-chief as determined duringthe 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review.And, the Navy and Department of Defensehave defined presence primarily in terms ofaircraft carrier battle groups. The currentneed to keep approximately three carriersdeployed equates to an overall forcestructure of eleven carriers (plus one reservecarrier for training). In truth, the structure-to-deployed forces ratio is actually higher,for the Navy always counts its Japan-basedforces as “deployed,” even when not at sea.Further, because of transit times and otherfactors, the ratio for carriers deployed to thePersian Gulf is about five to one.

Although the combination of carriersand Marine amphibious groups offer aunique and highly capable set of options forcommanders, it is far from certain that theNavy’s one-size-fits all approach isappropriate to every contingency or to everyengagement mission now assumed by U.S.forces. First of all, the need for carriers inpeacetime, “show-the-flag” missions shouldbe reevaluated and reduced. The Navy isright to assert, as quoted above, that “being


45

While carrier aviation still has a largerole to play in naval operations, thatrole is becoming relatively lessimportant.

‘on-scene’ matters” to reassure America’sallies and intimidate potential adversaries.But where American strategic interests arewell understood and long-standing,especially in Europe and in the Persian Gulf– or in Korea – the ability to position forcesashore offsets the need for naval presence.

More importantly, the role of carriers inwar is certainly changing. While carrieraviation still has a large role to play in navaloperations, that role is becoming relativelyless important. A review of post-Cold Waroperations conducted by the Americanmilitary reveals one salient factor: carriershave almost always played a secondary role.Operation Just Cause in Panama was almostexclusively an Army and Air Forceoperation. The Gulf War, by far the largestoperation in the last decade, involvedsignificant elements of all services, but theair campaign was primarily an Air Forceshow and the central role in the ground warwas played by Army units. The conduct ofpost-war no-fly zones has frequentlyinvolved Navy aircraft, but their role hasbeen to lighten the burden on the Air Forceunits that have flown the majority of sortiesin these operations. Naval forces also haveparticipated in the periodic strikes againstIraq, but even during the largest of these,Operation Desert Fox in December 1998,Navy aircraft did not have range to reach

certain targets or were not employed againstwell-defended targets. These are nowmissions handled almost exclusively bystealthy aircraft or cruise missiles.Likewise, during Operation Allied Force,Navy planes played a reinforcing role. And,of course, neither Navy nor Marine unitshave played a significant role inpeacekeeping duties in Bosnia or Kosovo.

The one recent operation where navalforces, and carrier forces in particular, didplay the leading role is also suggestive of theNavy’s future: the dispatching of two carrierbattle groups to the waters off Taiwanduring the 1996 Chinese “missile blockade.”Several factors are worth noting. First, thecrisis occurred in East Asia, in the westernPacific Ocean. Thus, the Navy wasuniquely positioned and postured to respond.Not only did the Seventh Fleet make it firston the scene, but deploying and sustainingground forces or land-based aircraft to theregion would have been difficult. Second,the potential enemy was China. AlthoughPentagon thinking about major theater warin East Asia has centered on Korea – whereagain land and land-based air forces wouldlikely play the leading role – the Taiwancrisis was perhaps more indicative of thelonger-range future. A third question has noeasy answer: what, indeed, would thesecarrier battle groups have been able to do inthe event of escalation or the outbreak ofhostilities? Had the Chinese actuallytargeted missiles at Taiwan, it is doubtfulthat the Aegis air-defense systems aboardthe cruisers and destroyers in the battlegroups could have provided an effectivedefense. Punitive strikes against Chineseforces by carrier aircraft, or cruise missilestrikes, might have been a second option,but a problematic option. And, as in recentstrike operations elsewhere, initial attackscertainly would have employed cruisemissiles exclusively, or perhaps cruisemissiles and stealthy, land-based aircraft.


46

The Navy’ssurface fleet istoo small to meetcurrentrequirements,war plans andfuture missiledefense duties.

Thus, while naval presence, includingcarrier presence, in the western Pacificshould be increased, the Navy should beginto conduct many of its presence missionswith other kinds of battle groups basedaround cruisers, destroyers and other surfacecombatants as well as submarines. Indeed,the Navy needsto betterunderstand therequirement tohave substantialnumbers ofcruise-missileplatforms at seaand in closeproximity toregional hotspots, usingcarriers andnaval aviation as reinforcing elements.Moreover, the reduced need for navalaviation in the European theater and in theGulf suggests that the carrier elements in theAtlantic fleet can be reduced. Therefore, inaddition to the two forward-based carriergroups recommended above, the Navyshould retain a further fleet of three activeplus one reserve carriers homeported on thewest coast of the United States and a three-carrier Atlantic fleet. Overall, thisrepresents a reduction of three carriers.

However, the reduction in carriers mustbe offset by an increase in surface com-batants, submarines and also in supportships to make up for the logistics functionsthat the carrier performs for the entire battlegroup. As indicated above, the surface fleetis already too small to meet currentrequirements and must be expanded toaccommodate the requirements for sea-based ballistic missile defenses. Further, theNavy’s fleet of frigates is likely to beinadequate for the long term, and the needfor smaller and simpler ships to respond topresence and other lesser contingencymissions should be examined by the Navy.To patrol the American security perimeter atsea, including a significant role in theater

missile defenses, might require a surfacecombatant fleet of 150 vessels.

The Navy’s force of attack submarinesalso should be expanded. While many ofthe true submarine requirements likeintelligence-gathering missions and ascruise-missile platforms were not consideredfully during the QDR – and it will take sometime to understand how submarine needswould change to make up for changes in thecarrier force – by any reckoning the 50-boatfleet now planned is far too small.However, as is the case with surfacecombatants, the need to increase the size ofthe fleet must compete with the need tointroduce new classes of vessels that haveadvanced capabilities. It is unclear that thecurrent and planned generations of attacksubmarines (to say nothing of new ballisticmissile submarines) will be flexible enoughto meet future demands. The Navy shouldreassess its submarine requirements notmerely in light of current missions but withan expansive view of possible futuremissions as well.

Finally, the reduction in carriers shouldnot be accompanied by a commensuratereduction in naval air wings. Already, theNavy maintains just 10 air wings, too smalla structure for the current carrier fleet,especially considering the rapid aging of theNavy’s aircraft. Older fighters like the F-14have taken on new strike missions, and themulti-mission F/A-18 is wearing out fasterthan expected due to higher-than-anticipatedrates of use and more stressful uses. Evenshould the Navy simply cease to purchaseaircraft carriers today, it could maintain anine-carrier force until 2025, assuming theCVN-77, already programmed under currentdefense budgets, was built. A small carrierfleet must be maintained at a higher state ofreadiness for combat while in port, as shouldNavy air wings.


47

Marine Corps:‘Back to the Future’

For the better part of a century, theUnited States has maintained the largestcomplement of naval infantry of any nation.The U.S. Marine Corps, with a three-division structure mandated by law and witha strength of more than 170,000, is largerthan all but a few land armies in the world.Its close relationship with the Navy – to saynothing of its own highly sophisticated airforce – gives the Corps extraordinarymobility and combat power. Even as it hasbeen reduced by about 15 percent since theend of the Cold War, the Marine Corps hasadded new capabilities, notably for specialoperations and most recently for response tochemical and biological strikes. Thisversatility, combined with a punishingdeployment schedule, makes the MarineCorps a valuable tool for maintainingAmerican global influence and militarypreeminence; Marines afloat can bothrespond relatively rapidly in times of crisis,yet loiter ashore for extended periods oftime.

Yet while this large Marine Corps isuniquely valuable to a world power like theUnited States, it must be understood that theCorps fills but a niche in the overallcapabilities needed for American militarypreeminence. The Corps lacks thesophisticated and sustainable land-powercapabilities of the Army; the high-performance, precision-strike capabilities ofthe Air Force; and, absent its partnershipwith the Navy, lacks firepower. Restoringthe health of the Marine Corps will requirenot only purchases of badly needed newequipment and restoring the strength of theCorps to something near 200,000 Marines, itwill also depend on the Corps’ ability tofocus on its core naval infantry mission – amission of renewed importance to Americansecurity strategy.

In particular, the Marine Corps, like theNavy, must turn its focus on the

requirements for operations in East Asia,including Southeast Asia. In many ways,this will be a “back to the future” missionfor the Corps, recalling the innovativethinking done during the period between thetwo world wars and which established theMarines’ expertise in amphibious landingsand operations. Yet it will also require theCorps to shed some of its current capacity –such as heavy tanks and artillery – acquiredduring the late Cold War years. It will alsorequire the Marines to acquire the ability towork better with other services, notably theArmy and Air Force, by improving itscommunications, data links and othersystems needed for sophisticated jointoperations, and of course by more frequentjoint exercises. These new missions andrequirements will increase the need forMarine modernization, especially inacquiring the V-22 “Osprey” tilt-rotoraircraft, which will give the Corps extendedoperational range. And, as will be discussedin greater detail in the section ontransformation, the Marine Corps mustbegin now to address the likely increasedvulnerability of surface ships in futureconflicts. To maintain its unique andvaluable role, the Marine Corps should:

• Be expanded to permit the forwardbasing of a second MarineExpeditionary Unit (MEU) in EastAsia. This MEU should be based inSoutheast Asia along with therepositioned Navy carrier battlegroup as described above.

• Likewise be increased in strength byabout 25,000 to improve the personnelstatus of Marine units, especiallynondeployed units undergoingtraining.

• Be realigned to create lighter unitswith greater infantry strength andbetter abilities for joint operations,especially including other services’fires in support of Marine operations.The Marine Corps should review its


48

The V-22 Osprey will increase thespeed and range with which Marinescan deploy.

unit and force structure to eliminatemarginal capabilities.

• Accelerate the purchase of V-22aircraft and the AdvancedAmphibious Assault Vehicle toimprove ship-to-shore maneuver, andincrease tactical mobility and range.

The State of the Marine Corps

Like its sister sea service, the MarineCorps is suffering from more missions thanit can handle and a shortage of resources.Although Corps commandants have tendedto emphasize Marine modernizationproblems, the training and readiness of unitsthat are not actually deployed have alsoplummeted. The Marines’ ability to fieldthe large force that contributed greatly to theGulf War land campaign is increasingly indoubt. Of all the service chiefs of staff,recently retired Marine Commandant Gen.Charles Krulak was the first to publiclyadmit that his service was not capable ofexecuting the missions called for in thenational military strategy.

Like the Navy, the Marine Corps haspaid the price for rotational readiness interms of on-shore training, modernizationand quality of life. Marine Corps leadersstress that much of the problem stems fromthe age of the Marines’ equipment: “Ourproblems today are caused by the fact thatwe are, and have been, plowing scarceresources – Marines, money, material – intoour old equipment and weapon systems inan attempt to keep them operational,”Krulak explained to Congress shortly beforeretiring.

Much Marine equipment is serving farbeyond its programmed service life. Andalthough the Marine Corps has investedheavily in programs to extend the life ofthese systems, equipment availability ratesare falling throughout the service. Marineequipment always wears out rapidly, due tothe corrosive effects of salt water on metal

and electronics. Even a relatively modernpiece of Marine equipment, the LightArmored Vehicle, is feeling the effect. In1995, the Marines began an “Inspect, RepairOnly as Necessary” program on the LightArmored Vehicle, and have experienced a25 percent rise in the cost per vehicle and a46 percent rise in the number of vehiclesrequiring the repairs. For some Marineunits, the biggest challenge is theavailability of parts, even in such a time ofrepair and recovery. At Camp Lejuene,North Carolina, maintenance officers andNCOs make near-daily trips to nearby FortBragg to get parts for inoperable vehiclessuch as the battalion’s High MobilityMultipurpose Wheeled Vehicles(HMMWV). In part because the Marineshave the oldest version of the HMMWV, nolonger made for the Army, bartering withthe 82nd Airborne is the most commonanswer for procuring a needed part.

But although the Marine Corps’ primaryconcern is again equipment, the service ishardly immune to the personnel and trainingproblems plaguing the other services. Facednot only with a demanding schedule oftraditional six-month sea deployments butwith an increasing load of unanticipatedduties, the interdeployment “bathtub ofunreadiness” has deepened and the climb outhas grown steeper. Like the Navy, theMarine Corps has had to curtail its on-shore


49

NavyDepartmentspendingshould beincreased tobetween $100and $110billionannually.

training, especially in the rudiments that arethe building blocks of unit readiness. Eventhen, it may be required to deploy smallerelements to assist other units in training orparticipate in exercises. Often, Marine units

will be forced to sendunder-strength units formajor live-fire andmaneuver exercisesthat in times past werethe keys to deployedreadiness. Moreover,large Marine units lackthe infantry punch theyhad in the past. Marinedivisions have fewerrifleman than in past;as the overall strengthof the Marine Corps

has been cut from 197,000 to the 172,000 asspecified in the Quadrennial DefenseReview, the number of infantry battalions inthe division was cut from 11 to nine;authorized personnel in the division wentfrom 19,161 to 15,816.

Navy and Marine Corps Budgets

President Clinton’s 2001 budget requestincluded $91.7 billion for the Department ofthe Navy. (This figure includes funding forthe Navy and Marine Corps.) This is anincrease from the $87.2 billion approved byCongress for 2000, a sharp reduction fromthe Navy’s $107 billion budget in 1992, thefirst true post-Cold-War budget.

Equally dramatic is the reduction inNavy Department procurement budgets. For2000, the administration requested justunder $22 billion in total Navy and MarineCorps procurement; from 1994 through1997, at the peak of the “procurementholiday,” department procurement budgetsaveraged just $17 billion. By contrast,during the Bush years, Navy procurementaveraged $35 billion; during the years of theReagan buildup – arguably a relevantcomparison, given the need to expand the

size of the Navy again – Navy procurementbudgets averaged $43 billion.

To realign and reconfigure the Navy asdescribed above, Department of the Navyspending overall should be increased tobetween $100 billion and $110 billion. Thisslightly exceeds the levels of spendinganticipated by the final BushAdministration, and is necessary toaccelerate ship- and submarine-buildingefforts. After several years, this will bepartially offset by the moratorium in aircraftcarrier construction and by holding the JointStrike Fighter program in research anddevelopment. Yet maintaining a Navycapable of dominating the open oceans,providing effective striking power to jointoperations ashore and transforming itself forfuture naval warfare – in short, a Navy ableto preserve U.S. maritime preeminence –will require much more than marginalincreases in Navy budgets.


50

The effects ofthe RMA willhave profoundimplications forhow wars arefought, whatweaponsdominate, andwhich nationsenjoy militarypreeminence.

VCREATING TOMORROW’S DOMINANT FORCE

To preserve American militarypreeminence in the coming decades, theDepartment of Defense must move moreaggressively to experiment with newtechnologies and operational concepts, andseek to exploit the emerging revolution inmilitary affairs. Information technologies,in particular, are becoming more prevalentand significant components of modernmilitary systems. These information tech-nologies are having the same kind of trans-forming effects on military affairs as theyare having in the larger world. The effectsof this military transformation will haveprofound implications for how wars arefought, what kinds of weapons willdominate the battlefield and, inevitably,which nations enjoy military preeminence.

The United States enjoys every prospectof leading this transformation. Indeed, itwas the improvements in capabilitiesacquired during the American defense build-up of the 1980s that hinted at and thenconfirmed, during Operation Desert Storm,that a revolution in military affairs was athand. At the same time, the process ofmilitary transformation will presentopportunities for America’s adversaries todevelop new capabilities that in turn willcreate new challenges for U.S. militarypreeminence.

Moreover, the Pentagon, constrained bylimited budgets and pressing currentmissions, has seen funding for experi-mentation and transformation crowded outin recent years. Spending on militaryresearch and development has been reduceddramatically over the past decade. Indeed,during the mid-1980’s, when the Defense

Department was in the midst of the Reaganbuildup which was primarily an effort toexpand existing forces and field traditionalweapons systems, research spendingrepresented 20 percent of total Pentagonbudgets. By contrast, today’s research anddevelopment accounts total only 8 percent ofdefense spending. And even this reducedtotal is primarily for upgrades of currentweapons. Without increased spending onbasic research and development the UnitedStates will be unable to exploit the RMAand preserve its technological edge on futurebattlefields.

Any serious effort at transformationmust occur within the larger framework ofU.S. national security strategy, militarymissions and defense budgets. The UnitedStates cannotsimply declare a“strategic pause”whileexperimentingwith newtechnologies andoperationalconcepts. Norcan it choose topursue atransformationstrategy thatwould decoupleAmerican andallied interests.A transformation strategy that solelypursued capabilities for projecting forcefrom the United States, for example, andsacrificed forward basing and presence,would be at odds with larger American


51

policy goals and would trouble Americanallies.

Further, the process of transformation,even if it brings revolutionary change, islikely to be a long one, absent somecatastrophic and catalyzing event – like anew Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics andindustrial policy will shape the pace andcontent of transformation as much as therequirements of current missions. Adecision to suspend or terminate aircraftcarrier production, as recommended by thisreport and as justified by the clear directionof military technology, will cause greatupheaval. Likewise, systems enteringproduction today – the F-22 fighter, forexample – will be in service inventories fordecades to come. Wise management of thisprocess will consist in large measure offiguring out the right moments to haltproduction of current-paradigm weaponsand shift to radically new designs. Theexpense associated with some programs canmake them roadblocks to the larger processof transformation – the Joint Strike Fighterprogram, at a total of approximately $200billion, seems an unwise investment. Thus,this report advocates a two-stage process ofchange – transition and transformation –over the coming decades.

In general, to maintain Americanmilitary preeminence that is consistent withthe requirements of a strategy of Americanglobal leadership, tomorrow’s U.S. armedforces must meet three new missions:

• Global missile defenses. A networkagainst limited strikes, capable ofprotecting the United States, its alliesand forward-deployed forces, must beconstructed. This must be a layeredsystem of land, sea, air and space-based components.

• Control of space and cyberspace.Much as control of the high seas – andthe protection of internationalcommerce – defined global powers inthe past, so will control of the new

“international commons” be a key toworld power in the future. AnAmerica incapable of protecting itsinterests or that of its allies in spaceor the “infosphere” will find itdifficult to exert global politicalleadership.

• Pursuing a two-stage strategy for oftransforming conventional forces. Inexploiting the “revolution in militaryaffairs,” the Pentagon must be drivenby the enduring missions for U.S.forces. This process will have twostages: transition, featuring a mix ofcurrent and new systems; and truetransformation, featuring newsystems, organizations andoperational concepts. This processmust take a competitive approach,with services and joint-serviceoperations competing for new rolesand missions. Any successful processof transformation must be linked tothe services, which are the institutionswithin the Defense Department withthe ability and the responsibility forlinking budgets and resources tospecific missions.

Missile Defenses

Ever since the Persian Gulf War of1991, when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a Saudiwarehouse in which American soldiers weresleeping, causing the largest single numberof casualties in the war; when Israeli andSaudi citizens donned gas masks in nightlyterror of Scud attacks; and when the great“Scud Hunt” proved to be an elusive gamethat absorbed a huge proportion of U.S.aircraft, the value of the ballistic missile hasbeen clear to America’s adversaries. Whentheir missiles are tipped with warheadscarrying nuclear, biological, or chemicalweapons, even weak regional powers have acredible deterrent, regardless of the balanceof conventional forces. That is why,according to the CIA, a number of regimesdeeply hostile to America – North Korea,


Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria – “already haveor are developing ballistic missiles” thatcould threaten U.S allies and forces abroad.And one, North Korea, is on the verge ofdeploying missiles that can hit the Americanhomeland. Such capabilities pose a gravechallenge to the American peace and themilitary power that preserves that peace.

The ability tocontrol this emerg-ing threat throughtraditional nonpro-liferation treatiesis limited whenthe geopoliticaland strategicadvantages of suchweapons are soapparent and soreadily acquired.The ClintonAdministration’sdiplomacy, threatsand pleadings didnothing to preventfirst India andshortly thereafterPakistan fromdemonstratingtheir nuclearcapabilities. Norhave formalinternationalagreements suchas the 1987MissileTechnologyControl Regimedone much to stem

requirements to impose sanctions onBeijing.

At the same time, the administration’sdevotion to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile(ABM) Treaty with the Soviet Union hasfrustrated development of useful ballisticmissile defenses. This is reflected in deepbudget cuts – planned spending on missiledefenses for the late 1990s has been morethan halved, halting work on space-basedinterceptors, cutting funds for a nationalmissile defense system by 80 percent andtheater defenses by 30 percent. Further, theadministration has cut funding just at thecrucial moments when individual programsbegin to show promise. Only upgrades ofcurrently existing systems like the Patriotmissile – originally designed primarily forair defense against jet fighters, not missiledefense – have proceeded generally oncourse.

Most damaging of all was the decisionin 1993 to terminate the “Brilliant Pebbles”project. This legacy of the original Reagan-era “Star Wars” effort had matured to thepoint where it was becoming feasible todevelop a space-based interceptor capable ofdestroying ballistic missiles in the early ormiddle portion of their flight – far preferablethan attempting to hit individual warheadssurrounded by clusters of decoys on theirfinal course toward their targets. But since aspace-based system would violate the ABMTreaty, the administration killed the“Brilliant Pebbles” program, choosinginstead to proceed with a ground-basedinterceptor and radar system – one that willbe costly without being especially effective.

To increase theireffectiveness,ground-basedinterceptors like theArmy’s TheaterHigh-Altitude AreaDefense Systemmust be networkedto space-basedsystems.

52

missileproliferation, even when backed by U.S.sanctions; in the final analysis, theadministration has preferred to subordinateits nonproliferation policy to larger regionaland country-specific goals. Thus, PresidentClinton lamented in June 1998 that he foundsanctions legislation so inflexible that hewas forced to “fudge” the intelligenceevidence on China’s transfer of ballisticmissiles to Pakistan to avoid the legal

While there is an argument to be madefor “terminal” ground-based interceptors asan element in a larger architecture of missiledefenses, it deserves the lowest rather thanthe first priority. The first element in anymissile defense network should be a galaxyof surveillance satellites with sensorscapable of acquiring enemy ballistic missilesimmediately upon launch. Once a missile istracked and targeted, this information needs


to be instantly disseminated through aworld-wide command-and-control system,including direct links to interceptors. Toaddress the special problems of theater-range ballistic missiles, theater-leveldefenses should be layered as well. Inaddition to space-based systems, thesetheater systems should include both land-and sea-based interceptors, to allow fordeployment to trouble spots to reinforcetheater systems already in place or to covergaps where no defenses exist. In addition,they should be “two-tiered,” providingclose-in “point defense” of valuable targetsand forces as well as upper-level, “theater-wide” coverage.

Current programs could provide thenecessary density for a layered approach totheater missile defense, although funding foreach component has been inadequate,especially forthe upper-tier,sea basedeffort, knownas the NavyTheater-Wideprogram.Point defenseis to beprovided bythe PatriotAdvancedCapability,Level 3, or PAC-3defense missile anDefense system, lcurrent Standard aAegis radar systemverge of being dep

These lower-twill be capable ofagainst the basic Sthat comprise the adversaries today,longer-range, highseveral states havMoreover, they wmissiles with morthose that break a

modified Scuds did during the Gulf War.And finally, point defenses, even when theysuccessfully intercept an incoming missile,may not offset the effects against weaponsof mass destruction.

Thus the requirement for upper-tier,theater-wide defenses like the Army’sTheater High Altitude Area Defense(THAAD) and the Navy Theater-Widesystems. Though housed in a Patriot-likelauncher, THAAD is an entirely new systemdesigned to intercept medium-range ballisticmissiles earlier in their flight, in the so-called “mid-course.” The Navy Theater-Wide system is based upon the Aegissystem, with an upgraded radar and higher-velocity – though intentionally slowed downto meet administration concerns overviolating the ABM Treaty – version of theStandard missile. The THAAD system hasenjoyed recent test success, but developmentof the Navy Theater-Wide system has beenhampered by lack of funds. Similarly, afifth component of a theater-wide networkof ballistic missile defenses, the Air Force’sairborne laser project, has suffered frominsufficient funding. This system, whichmounts a high energy laser in a 747 aircraft,is designed to intercept theater ballisticmissiles in their earliest, or “boost” phase,when they are most vulnerable.

The ClintonAdministration’sadherence to the1972 ABMTreaty hasfrustrateddevelopment ofuseful ballisticmissile defenses.

53

version of the Patriot aird by the Navy Areaikewise an upgrade of their defense missile and the. Both systems are on theloyed.

ier defenses, though they providing protectioncuds and Scud variants

arsenals of most American are less effective againster-velocity missiles that

e under development.ill be less effective againste complex warheads orpart, as many Iraqi

To maximize their effectiveness, thesetheater-level interceptors should receivecontinuous targeting information directlyfrom a global constellation of satellitescarrying infrared sensors capable ofdetecting ballistic missile launches as theyhappen. The low-earth-orbit tier of theSpace-Based Infrared System (SBIRS Low),now under development by the Air Force,will provide continuous observations ofballistic missiles in the boost, midcourse andreentry phases of attack. Current missiletracking radars can see objects only abovethe horizon and must be placed in friendlyterritory; consequently, they are mosteffective only in the later phases of aballistic missile’s flight. SBIRS Low,however, can see a hostile missile earlier in


54

its trajectory, increasing times for inter-ception and multiplying the effectiveness oftheater-range interceptors by cueing theirradars with targeting data. It will alsoprovide precise launch-point information,allowing theater forces a better chance todestroy hostile launchers before moremissiles can be fired. There is also a SBIRSHigh project, but both SBIRS programshave suffered budget cuts that are to delaytheir deployments by two years.

But to be most effective, this arrayglobal reconnaissance and targetingsatellites should be linked to a globalnetwork of space-based interceptors (orspace-based lasers). In fact, it is misleadingto think of such a system as a “national”missile defense system, for it would be avital element in theater defenses, protectingU.S. allies or expeditionary forces abroadfrom longer-range theater weapons. This iswhy the Bush Administration’s missiledefense architecture, which is almostidentical to the network described above,was called Global Protection AgainstLimited Strikes (GPALS). By contrast, theClinton Administration’s plan to developlimited national missile defenses based uponMinuteman III missiles fitted with a so-called “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” is themost technologically challenging, mostexpensive, and least effective form of long-range ballistic missile defense. Indeed, theClinton Administration’s differentiationbetween theater and national missile defensesystems is yet another legacy of the ABMTreaty, one that does not fit the currentstrategic circumstances. Moreover, bydifferentiating between national and theaterdefenses, current plans drive a wedgebetween the United States and its allies, andrisk “decoupling.” Conversely, Americaninterests will diverge from those of our alliesif theater defenses can protect our friendsand forces abroad, but the American peopleat home remain threatened.

In the post-Cold War era, America andits allies, rather than the Soviet Union, havebecome the primary objects of deterrence

and it is states like Iraq, Iran and NorthKorea who most wish to develop deterrentcapabilities. Projecting conventionalmilitary forces or simply asserting politicalinfluence abroad, particularly in times ofcrisis, will be far more complex andconstrained when the American homeland orthe territory of our allies is subject to attackby otherwise weak rogue regimes capable ofcobbling together a miniscule ballisticmissile force. Building an effective, robust,layered, global system of missile defenses isa prerequisite for maintaining Americanpreeminence.

Space and Cyberspace

No system of missile defenses can befully effective without placing sensors andweapons in space. Although this wouldappear to be creating a potential new theaterof warfare, in fact space has been militarizedfor the better part of four decades. Weather,communications, navigation andreconnaissance satellites are increasinglyessential elements in American militarypower. Indeed, U.S. armed forces areuniquely dependent upon space. As the1996 Joint Strategy Review, a precursor tothe 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review,concluded, “Space is already inextricablylinked to military operations on land, on thesea, and in the air.” The report of theNational Defense Panel agreed:“Unrestricted use of space has become amajor strategic interest of the UnitedStates.”

Given the advantages U.S. armed forcesenjoy as a result of this unrestricted use ofspace, it is shortsighted to expect potentialadversaries to refrain from attempting tooffset to disable or offset U.S. spacecapabilities. And with the proliferation ofspace know-how and related technologyaround the world, our adversaries willinevitably seek to enjoy many of the samespace advantages in the future. Moreover,“space commerce” is a growing part of theglobal economy. In 1996, commercial


55

launches exceeded military launches in theUnited States, and commercial revenuesexceeded government expenditures onspace. Today, more than 1,100 commercialcompanies across more than 50 countries aredeveloping, building, and operating spacesystems.

Many of these commercial spacesystems have direct military applications,including information from globalpositioning system constellations and better-than-one-meter resolution imaging satellites.Indeed, 95 percent of current U.S. militarycommunications are carried overcommercial circuits, including commercialcommunications satellites. The U.S. SpaceCommand foresees that in the comingdecades,

an adversary will have sophisticatedregional situational awareness.Enemies may very well know, in near-real time, the disposition of allforces….In fact, national militaryforces, paramilitary units, terrorists,and any other potential adversaries willshare the high ground of space with theUnited States and its allies.Adversaries may also share the samecommercial satellite services forcommunications, imagery, andnavigation….The space “playing field”is leveling rapidly, so U.S. forces willbe increasingly vulnerable. Thoughadversaries will benefit greatly fromspace, losing the use of space may bemore devastating to the United States.It would be intolerable for U.S.forces...to be deprived of capabilities inspace.

In short, the unequivocal supremacy inspace enjoyed by the United States todaywill be increasingly at risk. As Colin Grayand John Sheldon have written, “Spacecontrol is not an avoidable issue. It is not anoptional extra.” For U.S. armed forces tocontinue to assert military preeminence,control of space – defined by SpaceCommand as “the ability to assure access tospace, freedom of operations within the

space medium, and an ability to deny othersthe use of space” – must be an essentialelement of our military strategy. If Americacannot maintain that control, its ability toconduct global military operations will beseverely complicated, far more costly, andpotentially fatally compromised.

oAssaAeorttmctciTtsr

As exemplified by the GlobalPositioning Satellite above, spacehas become a new ‘internationalcommons’ where commercial andsecurity interests are intertwined.

The complexity of space control willnly grow as commercial activity increases.merican and other allied investments in

pace systems will create a requirement toecure and protect these space assets; theyre already an important measure ofmerican power. Yet it will not merely be

nough to protect friendly commercial usesf space. As Space Command alsoecognizes, the United States must also havehe capability to deny America's adversarieshe use of commercial space platforms forilitary purposes in times of crises and

onflicts. Indeed, space is likely to becomehe new “international commons,” whereommercial and security interests arentertwined and related. Just as Alfredhayer Mahan wrote about “sea-power” at

he beginning of the 20th century in thisense, American strategists will be forced toegard “space-power” in the 21st.


56

In the future, itwill be necessaryto unite thecurrentSPACECOMvision for controlof space to theinstitutionalresponsibilitiesand interests of aseparate militaryservice.

To ensure America's control of space inthe near term, the minimum requirementsare to develop a robust capability totransport systems to space, carry onoperations once there, and service andrecover space systems as needed. Asoutlined by Space Command, carrying outthis program would include a mix of re-useable and expendable launch vehicles andvehicles that can operate within space,including “space tugs to deploy,reconstitute, replenish, refurbish, augment,and sustain" space systems. But, over thelonger term,maintainingcontrol ofspace willinevitablyrequire theapplicationof force bothin space andfrom space,including butnot limitedto anti-missiledefenses anddefensivesystemscapable of protecting U.S. and alliedsatellites; space control cannot be sustainedin any other fashion, with conventional land,sea, or airforce, or by electronic warfare.This eventuality is already recognized byofficial U.S. national space policy, whichstates that the “Department of Defense shallmaintain a capability to execute the missionareas of space support, force enhancement,space control and force application.”(Emphasis added.)

In sum, the ability to preserve Americanmilitary preeminence in the future will restin increasing measure on the ability tooperate in space militarily; both therequirements for effective global missiledefenses and projecting global conventionalmilitary power demand it. Unfortunately,neither the Clinton Administration nor pastU.S. defense reviews have established a

coherent policy and program for achievingthis goal.

Ends and Means of Space Control

As with defense spending more broadly,the state of U.S. “space forces” – thesystems required to ensure continued accessand eventual control of space – hasdeteriorated over the past decade, and fewnew initiatives or programs are on theimmediate horizon. The U.S. approach tospace has been one of dilatory drift. AsGen. Richard Myers, commander-in-chief ofSPACECOM, put it, “Our Cold War-eracapabilities have atrophied,” even thoughthose capabilities are still important today.And while Space Command has a clearvision of what must be done in space, itspeaks equally clearly about “the question ofresources.” As the command succinctlynotes its long-range plan: “When we matchthe reality of space dependence againstresource trends, we find a problem.”

But in addition to the problem of lack ofresources, there is an institutional problem.Indeed, some of the difficulties inmaintaining U.S. military space supremacyresult from the bureaucratic “black hole”that prevents the SPACECOM vision fromgaining the support required to carry it out.For one, U.S. military space planningremains linked to the ups and downs of theNational Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration. America’s difficulties inreducing the cost of space launches –perhaps the single biggest hurdle toimproving U.S. space capabilities overall –result in part from the requirements anddominance of NASA programs over the pastseveral decades, most notably the spaceshuttle program. Secondly, within thenational security bureaucracy, the majorityof space investment decisions are made bythe National Reconnaissance Office and theAir Force, neither of which considersmilitary operations outside the earth'satmosphere as a primary mission. And thereis no question that in an era of tightened


57

budgets, investments in space-controlcapabilities have suffered for lack ofinstitutional support and have been squeezedout by these organization’s other priorities.Although, under the Goldwater-Nicholsreforms of the mid-1980s, the unifiedcommanders – of which SPACECOM is one– have a greater say in Pentagonprogramming and budgeting, these powersremain secondary to the traditional “raise-and-train” powers of the separate services.

Therefore, over the long haul, it will benecessary to unite the essential elements ofthe current SPACECOM vision to theresource-allocation and institution-buildingresponsibilities of a military service. Inaddition, it is almost certain that the conductof warfare in outer space will differ as muchfrom traditional air warfare as air warfarehas from warfare at sea or on land; spacewarfare will demand new organizations,operational strategies, doctrines and trainingschemes. Thus, the argument to replaceU.S. Space Command with U.S. SpaceForces – a separate service under theDefense Department – is compelling. Whileit is conceivable that, as military spacecapabilities develop, a transitory “SpaceCorps” under the Department of the AirForce might make sense, it ought to beregarded as an intermediary step, analogousto the World War II-era Army Air Corps,not to the Marine Corps, which remains apart of the Navy Department. If spacecontrol is an essential element formaintaining American military preeminencein the decades to come, then it will beimperative to reorganize the Department ofDefense to ensure that its institutionalstructure reflects new military realities.

Cyberpace, or ‘Net-War’

If outer space represents an emergingmedium of warfare, then “cyberspace,” andin particular the Internet hold similarpromise and threat. And as with space,access to and use of cyberspace and theInternet are emerging elements in global

commerce, politics and power. Any nationwishing to assert itself globally must takeaccount of this other new “globalcommons.”

The Internet is also playing anincreasingly important role in warfare andhuman political conflict. From the early useof the Internet by Zapatista insurgents inMexico to the war in Kosovo, communi-cation by computer has added a newdimension to warfare. Moreover, the use ofthe Internet to spread computer virusesreveals how easy it can be to disrupt thenormal functioning of commercial and evenmilitary computer networks. Any nationwhich cannot assure the free and secureaccess of its citizens to these systems willsacrifice an element of its sovereignty andits power.

Although many concepts of “cyber-war”have elements of science fiction about them,and the role of the Defense Department inestablishing “control,” or even what“security” on the Internet means, requires aconsideration of a host of legal, moral andpolitical issues, there nonetheless willremain an imperative to be able to denyAmerica and its allies' enemies the ability todisrupt or paralyze either the military's orthe commercial sector's computer networks.Conversely, an offensive capability couldoffer America's military and political leadersan invaluable tool in disabling an adversaryin a decisive manner.

Taken together, the prospects for spacewar or “cyberspace war” represent the trulyrevolutionary potential inherent in the notionof military transformation. These futureforms of warfare are technologicallyimmature, to be sure. But, it is also clearthat for the U.S. armed forces to remainpreeminent and avoid an Achilles Heel inthe exercise of its power they must be surethat these potential future forms of warfarefavor America just as today’s air, land andsea warfare reflect United States militarydominance.


Transforming U.S.Conventional Forces

Much has been written in recent yearsabout the need to transform the conventionalarmed forces of the United States to takeadvantage of the “revolution in militaryaffairs,” the process of transformation withinthe Defense Department has yet to bearserious fruit. The two visions oftransformation promulgated by the JointChiefs of Staff – Joint Vision 2010 and thejust-released Joint Vision 2020 – have beenbroad statements of principles and ofcommitment to transformation, but verylittle change can be seen in the acquisition ofnew weapons systems. Indeed, new ideaslike the so-called “arsenal ship” which mightactually have accelerated the process of

transformation have been opposed and seentheir programs terminated by the services.Neither does the current process of “jointexperimentation” seem likely to speed theprocess of change. In sum, the transfor-mation of the bulk of U.S. armed forces hasbeen stalled. Until the process of transfor-mation is treated as an enduring mission –worthy of a constant allocation of dollarsand forces – it will remain stillborn.

There are some very good reasons whythis is so. In an era of insufficient defenseresources, it has been necessary to fund orstaff any efforts at transformation by short-changing other, more immediate, require-ments. Consequently, the attempt to dealwith the longer-term risks that a failure totransform U.S. armed forces will create has

58

N o R &D , N o R M A ?N o R &D , N o R M A ?N o R &D , N o R M A ?N o R &D , N o R M A ?Declining R&D Funding Stymies Transformation

30

32

34

36

38

40

42

441993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

Budg

et A

utho

rity

Budg

et A

utho

rity

Budg

et A

utho

rity

Budg

et A

utho

rity

($ B

illio

ns, c

onst

ant

2001

)($

Bill

ions

, con

stan

t 20

01)

($ B

illio

ns, c

onst

ant

2001

)($

Bill

ions

, con

stan

t 20

01)


59

threatened to raise the risks those forces facetoday; this is an unpleasant dilemma for aforce straining to meet the burdens of itscurrent missions. Activity today tends todrive out innovation for tomorrow. Second,the lack of an immediate military competitorcontributes to a sense of complacency aboutthe extent and duration of American militarydominance. Third, and perhaps most telling,the process of transformation has yet to belinked to the strategic tasks necessary tomaintain American military dominance.This is in part a problem for transformationenthusiasts, who are better at forecastingtechnological developments than aligningthose technological developments with therequirements for American preeminence.Thus consideration of the so-called “anti-access problem” – the observation that theproliferation of long-range, precision-strikecapabilities will complicate the projection ofU.S. military power and forces – hasproceeded without much discussion of thestrategic effects on U.S. allies and Americancredibility of increased reliance on weaponsand forces based in the United States ratherthan operating from forward locations.There may be many solutions to the anti-access problem, but only a few that will tendto maintain rather than dilute Americangeopolitical leadership.

Further, transformation advocates tendto focus on the nature of revolutionary newcapabilities rather than how to achieve thenecessary transformation: thus the NationalDefense Panel called for a strategy oftransformation without formulating astrategy for transformation. There has beenlittle discussion of exactly how to changetoday’s force into tomorrow’s force, whilemaintaining U.S. military preeminencealong the way. Therefore, it will benecessary to undertake a two-stage processof transition – whereby today’s “legacy”forces are modified and selectivelymodernized with new systems readilyavailable – and true transformation – whenthe results of vigorous experimentationintroduce radically new weapons, concepts

of operation, and organization to the armedservices.

This two-stage process is likely to takeseveral decades. Yet, although the preciseshape and direction of the transformation ofU.S. armed forces remains a matter forrigorous experimentation and analysis (andwill be discussed in more detail below in thesection on the armed services), it is possibleto foresee the general characteristics of thecurrent revolution in military affairs.Broadly speaking, these cover severalprincipal areas of capabilities:

• Improved situational awareness andsharing of information,

• Range and endurance of platformsand weapons,

• Precision and miniaturization,• Speed and stealth,• Automation and simulation.

These characteristics will be combinedin various ways to produce new militarycapabilities. New classes of sensors –commercial and military; on land, on andunder sea, in the air and in space – will belinked together in dense networks that canbe rapidly configured and reconfigured toprovide future commanders with anunprecedented understanding of thebattlefield. Communications networks willbe equally if not more ubiquitous and dense,capable of carrying vast amounts ofinformation securely to provide widelydispersed and diverse units with a commonpicture of the battlefield. Conversely,stealth techniques will be applied morebroadly, creating “hider-finder” games ofcat-and-mouse between sophisticatedmilitary forces. The proliferation of ballisticand cruise missiles and long-rangeunmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will makeit much easier to project military poweraround the globe. Munitions themselveswill become increasingly accurate, whilenew methods of attack – electronic, “non-lethal,” biological – will be more widelyavailable. Low-cost, long-endurance UAVs,


60

and even unattended “missiles in a box” willallow not only for long-range power projec-tion but for sustained power projection.Simulation technologies will vastly improvemilitary training and mission planning.

Although it may take several decadesfor the process of transformation to unfold,in time, the art of warfare on air, land, andsea will be vastly different than it is today,and “combat” likely will take place in newdimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” andperhaps the world of microbes. Air warfaremay no longer be fought by pilots manningtactical fighter aircraft sweeping the skies ofopposing fighters, but a regime dominatedby long-range, stealthy unmanned craft. Onland, the clash of massive, combined-armsarmored forces may be replaced by thedashes of much lighter, stealthier andinformation-intensive forces, augmented byfleets of robots, some small enough to fit insoldiers’ pockets. Control of the sea couldbe largely determined not by fleets ofsurface combatants and aircraft carriers, butfrom land- and space-based systems, forcingnavies to maneuver and fight underwater.Space itself will become a theater of war, asnations gain access to space capabilities andcome to rely on them; further, the distinctionbetween military and commercial spacesystems – combatants and noncombatants –will become blurred. Information systemswill become an important focus of attack,particularly for U.S. enemies seeking toshort-circuit sophisticated American forces.And advanced forms of biological warfarethat can “target” specific genotypes maytransform biological warfare from the realmof terror to a politically useful tool.

This is merely a glimpse of the possi-bilities inherent in the process of transfor-mation, not a precise prediction. Whateverthe shape and direction of this revolution inmilitary affairs, the implications for con-tinued American military preeminence willbe profound. As argued above, there aremany reasons to believe that U.S. forcesalready possess nascent revolutionary capa-bilities, particularly in the realms of intel-

ligence, command and control, and long-range precision strikes. Indeed, these capa-bilities are sufficient to allow the armedservices to begin an “interim,” short- tomedium-term process of transformationright away, creating new force designs andoperational concepts – designs and conceptsdifferent than those contemplated by thecurrent defense program – to maximize thecapabilities that already exist. But thesemust be viewed as merely a way-stationtoward a more thoroughgoing transfor-mation.

The individual services also need to begiven greater bureaucratic and legal standingif they are to achieve these goals. Though afull discussion of this issue is outside thepurview of this study, the reduced impor-tance of the civilian secretaries of the mili-tary departments and the service chiefs ofstaff is increasingly inappropriate to the

demands of arapidlychanging tech-nological,strategic andgeopoliticallandscape.The central-ization ofpower underthe Office ofthe Secretaryof Defense andchairman of

ttddwpolafhm

p

Until the processof transformationis treated as anenduring militarymission – worthyof a constantallocation ofdollars and forces– it will remainstillborn.

he Joint Chiefs of Staff and Joint Staff, andhe increased role of the theater comman-ers-in-chief, products of Cold-War-eraefense reforms and especially the Gold-ater-Nichols Act of 1986, have created arocess of defense decision-making thatften elevates immediate concerns aboveong-term needs. In an era of uncertaintynd transformation, it is more important tooster competing points of view about theow to apply new technologies to enduringissions.

This is especially debilitating to therocess of transformation, which has


61

become infected with a “lowest commondenominator” approach. “Jointness”remains an important dimension of U.S.military power and it will be necessary toconsider the joint role of the weapons,concepts of operations and organizationscreated through the process of transfor-mation. The capability for seamless anddecisive joint operations is an importantaspect of warfare. Yet, the process oftransformation will be better served byfostering a spirit of service competition andexperimentation. At this early stage oftransformation, it is unclear whichtechnologies will prove most effective;better to undertake a variety of competingexperiments, even though some may proveto be dead-ends. To achieve this goal,service institutions and prerogatives must bestrengthened to restore a better balancewithin the Department of Defense. Theessential first step is to rebuild servicesecretariats to attract highly talented peoplewho enjoy the political trust of theadministration they serve. A parallel secondstep is to reinvigorate the service staffs andto select energetic service chiefs of staff. Ata time of rapid change, American militarypreeminence is more likely to be sustainedthrough a vigorous competition for missionsand resources than through a bureaucracy –and a conception of “jointness” – defined atthe very height of the Cold War.

Toward a 21st Century Army

There is very little question that thedevelopment of new technologies increas-ingly will make massed, mechanized armiesvulnerable in high-intensity wars againstsophisticated forces. The difficulty ofmoving large formations in open terrain,even at night – suggested during the battle ofKhafji during the Gulf War – has diminishedthe role of tank armies in the face of the kindof firepower and precision that American airpower can bring to bear. This is an undeni-able change in the nature of advanced landwarfare, a change that will alter the size,structure and nature of the U.S. Army.

Yet the United States would be unwiseto accept the larger proposition that thestrategic value of land power has beeneroded to the point where the nation nolonger needs to maintain large groundforces. As long as wars and other militaryoperations derive their logic from politicalpurposes, land power will remain the trulydecisive form of military power. Indeed, itis ironic that, as post-Cold-War militaryoperations have become more sophisticatedand more reliant on air power and long-range strikes, they have become lesspolitically decisive. American militarypreeminence will continue to rest insignificant part on the ability to maintainsufficient land forces to achieve politicalgoals such as removing a dangerous andhostile regime when necessary. Thus,future Army forces – and land forces morebroadly – must devise ways to survive andmaneuver in a radically changedtechnological environment. The Army mustbecome more tactically agile, moreoperationally mobile, and more strategicallydeployable. It must increasingly rely onother services to concentrate firepower whenrequired, while concentrating on its “corecompetencies” of maneuver, situationalawareness, and political decisiveness. Inparticular the process of Army transfor-mation should:

• Move ahead with experiments tocreate new kinds of independent unitsusing systems now entering finaldevelopment and early procurement –such as the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraftand the HIMARS light-weight rocketartillery system – capable of longer-range operations and self-deployments. Once mature, suchunits would replace forward-basedheavy forces.

• Experiment vigorously to understandthe long-term implications of therevolution in military affairs for landforces. In particular, the Armyshould develop ways to deploy andmaneuver against adversaries with


62

improved long-range strikecapabilities.

As argued above, the two-stage processof transforming the U.S. armed forces issufficiently important to consider it a sep-arate mission for the military services andfor the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The need forboth the near-term and long-term transfor-mation requires that a separate organizationwithin these institutions act as the advocateand agent of revolutionary change. For theU.S. Army, the appropriate home for thetransformation process is the Training andDoctrine Command. The service needs toestablish a permanent unit under its Com-bined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth,Kansas to oversee the process of research,development and experi-mentation requiredto transform today’s Army into the Army ofthe future.

With the need to field the independent,combined-arms units described above, this“transformation laboratory” must be estab-lished as rapidly as possible. Althoughmany of the weapons systems already existor are readily available, the introduction ofnew systems such as an armored gun sys-tem, wheeled personnel carrier such as theLight Armored Vehicle or the HIMARSrocket artillery system in sufficient numberswill take several years. Further, the processof “digitization” – the proliferation of infor-mation and communications in tactical units– must be accelerated. Finally, the Armyneeds to increase its investment in selectednew systems such as UAVs and the Coman-che scout helicopter to field them morerapidly. These will need to be integratedinto a coherent organization and doctrinalconcept. The process of near-term experi-mentation needs to be sharply focused onmeeting the Army’s near- and mid-termneeds, and to produce the new kinds of unitsneeded.

Yet this initial process of transformationmust be just the first step toward a moreradical reconfiguring of the Army. Evenwhile the Army is fielding new units that

maximize current capabilities and introduceselected new systems, and understanding thechallenges and opportunities of information-intensive operations, it must begin to seekanswers to fundamental questions about fu-ture land forces. These questions include is-sues of strategic deployability, how to ma-neuver on increasingly transparent battle-fields and how to operate in urban environ-ments, to name but a few. If the first phaseof transformation requires the better part ofthe next decade to complete, the Army mustthen be ready to begin to implement morefar-reaching changes. Moreover, thetechnologies, operational concepts andorganizations must be relatively mature –they can not merely exist as briefing chartsor laboratory concepts. As the first phase oftransformation winds down, initial fieldexperiments for this second and moreprofound phase of change must begin.

While the exact scope and nature ofsuch change is a matter for experimentation,Army studies already suggest that it will bedramatic. Consider just the potentialchanges that might effect the infantryman.Future soldiers may operate in encapsulated,climate-controlled, powered fighting suits,laced with sensors, and boasting chameleon-like “active” camouflage. “Skin-patch”pharmaceuticals help regulate fears, focusconcentration and enhance endurance andstrength. A display mounted on a soldier’shelmet permits a comprehensive view of thebattlefield – in effect to look around cornersand over hills – and allows the soldier toaccess the entire combat information andintelligence system while filtering incomingdata to prevent overload. Individualweapons are more lethal, and a soldier’sability to call for highly precise and reliableindirect fires – not only from Army systemsbut those of other services – allows eachindividual to have great influence over hugespaces. Under the “Land Warrior” program,some Army experts envision a “squad” ofseven soldiers able to dominate an area thesize of the Gettysburg battlefield – where, in1863, some 165,000 men fought.


Even radicalconcepts such as thosecon-sidered under the“Land Warrior” projectdo not involve out-landish technologies orflights of sciencefiction. Many alreadyexist today, and many

ironically, as the Air Force seems to achievethe capabilities first dreamt of by the greatpioneers and theorists of air power, the“technological moment” of manned aircraftmay be entering a sunset phase. Inretrospect, it is the sophistication of highlyaccurate munitions in the Kosovo campaignthat stands out – even as the stealthy B-2bomber was delivering satellite-guidedbombs on 30-hour round-trip missions fromMissouri to the Balkans and back, so wasthe Navy’s ancient, slow, propeller-drivenP-3 Orion aircraft, originally designed forsubmarine hunting, delivering precision-guided standoff weapons with much thesame effectiveness. As the relative value ofelectronic systems and precision munitionsincreases, the need for advanced mannedaircraft appears to be lessening. Moreover,as the importance of East Asia grows in U.S.military strategy, the requirements for rangeand endurance may outweigh traditionalmeasures of aircraft performance. In sum,although the U.S. Air Force is enjoying amoment of technological and tacticalsupremacy, it is uncertain that the service ispositioning itself well for a transformedfuture.

The Army’s‘LandWarrior’experimentswill greatlyincrease thevalue ofdismountedinfantry.

63

follow developments incivilian medical, communications, infor-mation science and other fields of research.While initiating the process of transfor-mation in the near term, and while fieldingnew kinds of units to meet current missions,the Army must simultaneously invest andexperiment vigorously to create the systems,soldiers, units and concepts to maintainAmerican preeminence in land combat forthe longer-term future.

Global Strikes from Air and Space

The rapidly growing ability of the U.S.Air Force to conduct precision strikes, overincreasingly greater range, marks asignificant change in the nature of high-technology warfare. From the Gulf Warthrough the air war for Kosovo, thesophistication of Air Force precisionbombing has continued to grow. Yet,

In particular, the Air Force’s emphasison traditional, tactical air operations ishandicapping the nation’s ability to maintainand extend its dominance in space. Over thepast decade, the Air Force has intermittentlystyled itself as a “space and air force,” andhas prepared a number of useful long-rangestudies that underscore the centrality ofspace control in future military operations.Yet the service’s pattern of investments hasbelied such an understanding of the future;as described above, the Air Force hasploughed every available dollar into the F-22 program. While the F-22 is a superbfighter and perhaps a workable strikeaircraft, its value under a transformedparadigm of high-technology warfare mayexceed its cost – had not the majority of theF-22 program already been paid for, thedecision to proceed with the project todaywould have been dubious. As also argued


64

above, further investments in the Joint StrikeFighter program would be more expensivestill and would forestall any majortransformation efforts. Therefore, the AirForce should:

• Complete its planned F-22procurement while terminating itsparticipation in the JSF program andupgrading the capabilities of existingtactical aircraft, especially bypurchasing additional precisionmunitions and developing new onesand increasing numbers of supportaircraft to allow for longer-rangeoperations and greater survivability;

• Increase efforts to develop long-rangeand high-endurance unmanned aerialvehicles, not merely forreconnaissance but for strike andeven air-combat missions;

• Pursue the development of large-bodied stealthy aircraft for a varietyof roles, including lift, refueling, andother support missions as well asstrike missions.

• Target significant new investmentstoward creating capabilities foroperating in space, includinginexpensive launch vehicles, newsatellites and transatmosphericvehicles, in preparation for a decisionas to whether space warfare issufficiently different from combatwithin earth’s atmosphere so as torequire a separate “space service.”

Such a transformation would in factbetter realize the Air Force’s stated goal ofbecoming a service with true global reachand global strike capabilities. At themoment, today’s Air Force gives a glimpseof such capabilities, and does a remarkablejob of employing essentially tactical systemsin a world-wide fashion. And, for the periodof transition mandated by these legacysystems and by the limitations inherent in

the F-22, the Air Force will remain primarilycapable of sophisticated theater-strikewarfare. Yet to truly transform itself for thecoming century, the Air Force mustaccelerate its efforts to create the newsystems – and, to repeat, the space-basedsystems – that are necessary to shift thescope of air operations from the theater levelto the global level. While mounting large-scale and sustained air campaigns willcontinue to rely heavily upon in-theaterassets, a greater balance must be placed onlong-range systems.

The Navy Returns ‘To the Sea’

Since the end of the Cold War, the Navyhas made a dramatic break with pastdoctrine, which emphasized the need toestablish control of the sea. But withAmerican control of the “internationalcommons” without serious challenge – forthe moment – the Navy now preaches thegospel of power projection ashore andoperations in littoral waters. In a series ofposture statements and white papersbeginning with “…From the Sea” in 1992and leading to 1998’s “Forward…from theSea: Anytime, Anywhere,” the Navy, incooperation with the Marine Corps,embraced this view of close-in operations; toquote the original “From the Sea:”

Our ability to command the seas inareas where we anticipate futureoperations allows us to resize our NavalForces and to concentrate more oncapabilities required in the complexoperating environment of the “littoral”or coastlines of the earth….Thisstrategic direction, derived from theNational Security Strategy, represents afundamental shift away from open-ocean warfighting on the sea—towardjoint operations conducted from the sea.

The “From the Sea” series also hasmade the case for American militarypresence around the world and equated thisforward presence specifically with navalpresence. Following the lead of the


65

China’s acquisition of modern Russiandestroyers and supersonic anti-shipcruise missiles will complicate U.S.surface fleet operations.

Quadrennial Defense Review, the Navy andMarine Corps argue that “shaping andresponding require presence – maintainingforward-deployed, combat-ready navalforces. Being ‘on-scene’ matters! It is andwill remain a distinctly naval contribution topeacetime engagement….The inherentflexibility of naval forces allows a minorcrisis or conflict to be resolved quickly beon-scene forces.” The sea services furtherhave argued that the conduct of thesepresence missions requires the same kinds ofcarrier battle groups and amphibious readygroups that were needed to fight the SovietUnion.

The balanced, concentrated strikingpower of aircraft carrier battle groupsand amphibious ready groups lies at theheart of our nation’s ability to executeits strategy of peacetime engagement.Their power reassures allies and deterswould-be aggressors….The combinedcapabilities of a carrier battle groupand an amphibious ready group offerair, sea, and land power that can beapplied across the full spectrum ofconflict.

Thus, while the Navy admitted that thestrategic realities of the post-Soviet eracalled for a reordering of sea service missionpriorities and a resizing of the fleet, it hasyet to consider that the new era also requiresa reorientation of its pattern of operationsand a reshaping of the fleet. Moreover, overthe longer term, the Navy’s ability to operatein littoral waters is going to be increasinglydifficult, as the Navy itself realizes. As RearAdm. Malcolm Fages, director of the Navy’ssubmarine warfare division, told the SenateArmed Services Committee, “A variety ofindependent studies reviewing key trends infuture naval warfare have concluded that21st century littoral warfare could be markedby the use of asymmetrical means to countera U.S. Navy whose doctrine and forcestructure projects…power ashore from thelittorals.” Already potential adversariesfrom China to Iran are investing in quietdiesel submarines, tactical ballistic missiles,cruise and other shore- and sea-launched

anti-ship missiles, and other weapons thatwill complicate the operations of U.S. fleetsin restricted, littoral waters. The Chinesenavy has just recently taken delivery of thefirst of several planned Sovremenny classdestroyers, purchased along with supersonic,anti-ship cruise missiles from Russia, greatlyimproving China’s ability to attack U.S.Navy ships.

In addition, America’s adversaries willgradually acquire the ability to target surfacefleets, not only in littoral waters but perhapson the open oceans. Regional powers haveincreasing access to commercial satellitesthat not only can provide them withdetection and militarily useful targetinginformation, but provide also importantelements of the command, control andcommunication capabilities that would beneeded. As Fages put it, “Of concern in the21st century is the potential that thecombination of space-based reconnaissance,long-range precision strike weapons androbust command and control networks couldmake non-stealthy platforms increasinglyvulnerable to attack near the world’slittorals.”

To preserve and enhance the ability toproject naval power ashore and to conductstrike operations – as well as assume a largerole in the network of ballistic missiledefense systems – the Navy must acceleratethe process of near-term transformation. Itmust also addressing the longer-termchallenge of the revolution in military


66

affairs, to ensure that the America rules thewaves in the future as it does today. Navytransformation should be a two-phaseprocess:

• Near-term Navy transformationshould accelerate the construction ofplanned generations of 21st centurysurface combatants with increasedstealth characteristics, improved andvaried missiles and long-range gunsfor strikes ashore. Efforts toimplement “network-centric” warfareunder the cooperative engagementconcept should be accelerated. TheNavy should begin to structure itselffor its emerging role in missiledefenses, determining, for example,whether current surface combatantvessels and a traditional rotationaldeployment scheme are apropos forthis mission.

• In the longer term, the Navy mustdetermine whether its current focuson littoral operations can be sustainedunder a transformed paradigm ofnaval warfare and how to retaincontrol of open-ocean areas in thefuture. Experiments in operatingvaried fleets of UAVs should beginnow, perhaps employing a retiredcurrent carrier. Consideration shouldbe directed toward other forms ofunmanned sea and air vehicles andtoward an expanded role forsubmarines.

The shifting pattern of naval operationsand the changes in force structure outlinedabove also should show the way for atransformation of the Navy for the emergingenvironment for war at sea. In the imme-diate future, this means an improvement innaval strike capabilities for joint operationsin littoral waters and improved commandand control capabilities. Yet the Navy mustsoon prepare for a renewed challenge on theopen oceans, beginning now to developways to project power as the risk to surfaceships rises substantially. In both cases, the

Navy should continue to shift away fromcarrier-centered operations to “networks” ofvaried kinds of surface ships, perhapsleading to fleets composed of stealthysurface ships and submerged vessels.

The focus of the Navy’s near-termtransformation efforts should be onenhancing its ability to conduct strikeoperations and improving its contributionsto joint operations on land by patrollinglittoral waters. The Navy’s initiatives towring the most out of its current vesselsthrough the better gathering and distributionof information – what the Navy calls“network-centric” warfare as opposed to“platform-centric” warfare – should beaccelerated. In addition to improvingintelligence, surveillance and reconnaissancecapabilities and command and controlnetworks, the Navy should, as describedabove, acquire larger fleets of surfacecombatants and submarines capable oflaunching cruise missiles. Expanding theNavy’s fleet of surface combatants primarilyshould provide an opportunity to speed upresearch and development of the new classesof destroyers and cruisers – and perhaps newfrigates – while perhaps extending onlymodestly current destroyer programs.

Moreover, the Navy should accelerateefforts to develop other strike warfaremunitions and weapons. In addition toprocuring greater numbers of attacksubmarines, the Navy should convert four ofits Trident ballistic missile submarines toconventional strike platforms, much as theAir Force has done with manned bombers.Further, the Navy should develop otherstrike weaponry beyond current-generationTomahawk cruise missiles. Adding theJoint Direct Attack Munition – applyingGlobal-Positioning-System guidance tocurrent “dumb” bombs – will improve theprecision-strike capabilities of current navalaircraft, but improving the range andaccuracy of naval gunfire, or deploying aversion of the Army Tactical Missile Systemat sea would also increase the Navy’s


contribution to joint warfare in littoralregions.

However, improving the ability ofcurrent-generation ships and weapons towork together is important, but may notaddress the most fundamental nature of thistransformation. The Navy has alreadydemonstrated the ability to operateunmanned aerial and underwater vehiclesfrom submarines and is improving itsabilities to communicate to submarines; aslong as submerged vessels remain relativelystealthy, they may be able to operate wheresurface vessels face high risks.

Thus, the Navy should devote anelement of its force structure to a deeperinvestigation of the revolution in militaryaffairs. Beyond immediate opportunitiessuch as conversion of Trident submarines,consideration should be given to employinga deactivatedcarrier to betterunderstand thepossibilities ofoperating largefleets of UAVs atsea. Likewise,submerged“missile pods,”either perma-nently deployedor laid covertlyby submarines intimes of crisis,could increasestrike capabilities wivessels in littoral watNavy is moving towawarfare, it should expincreasing the numbe

For the moment,level of global hegemof the Royal Navy duthe ability to project as it has always beensubsidiary mission foremain the service’s the coming decades.

but, given the service life of ships, wellwithin the approaching planning horizons ofthe U.S. Navy – the Navy’s focus mayreturn again to keeping command of theopen oceans and sea lines of communi-cation. Absent a rigorous program ofexperimentation to investigate the nature ofthe revolution in military affairs as it appliesto war at sea, the Navy might face a futurePearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in thepost-carrier era as it was unprepared for warat the dawn of the carrier age.

As Goes the Navy, So Goes theMarine Corps

Ironically for a service that is embracingcertain aspects of the revolution in militaryaffairs, the long-term pattern oftransformation poses the deepest questionsfor the Marine Corps. For if thesurvivability of surface vessels increasinglywill be in doubt, the Marines’ means ofdelivery must likewise come into question.Although the Corps is quite right to developfaster, longer-range means of ship-to-shoreoperations in the V-22 and AdvancedAmphibious Assault Vehicle, the potentialvulnerability of Marine amphibious ships isalmost certain to become the limiting factorin future operations. While the utility ofMarine infantry in lower-intensityoperations will remain high, the Marines’ability to con-tribute to high-technologywars – at least when operating from theships that they rely on for everything from

The Navyshould considerusing a de-activatedcarrier to betterunderstand thepossibilities andproblems ofoperating largefleets of UAVsat sea.

67

thout risking surfaceers. In general, if therd “network-centric”lore ways ofr of “nodes on the net.”

the U.S. Navy enjoys aony that surpasses thatring its heyday. While

naval power ashore is,, an importantr the Navy, it may not

primary focus through Over the longer term –

command and communications to logistics –may become marginalized. Also, therelatively slow speeds of Marine ships limittheir flexibility in times of crisis.

Over the next decade, the Marines’efforts toward transformation ought to allowthe Corps to lighten its structures and rely onother services, and especially the Navy, toprovide much of its firepower. This willpermit the Marines to shed many of theheavy systems acquired during the ColdWar, to reduce its artillery (the Marines,typically, operate the oldest artillery systems


68

that are less effective and efficient in combatand more of a logistical burden) andeventually its fixed-wing aviation. Indeed,many Marine F-18s and EA-6Bs spend thebulk of their time on regular aircraft carrierrotations and in support of Air Forceoperations. Likewise, the long-term futureof the AV-8B Harrier is in doubt. TheMarines operate a relatively small andincreasingly obsolescent fleet of Harriers;while service-life extension programs maybe possible, the Corps will soon approachthe day where it must contemplate lifewithout fixed-wing air support of its own,especially if the Joint Strike Fighter programis terminated. Consequently, the MarineCorps should consider development of a“gunship” version of the V-22 and pursueunmanned combat aerial vehicles, as well asaccelerating its efforts to develop methodsof joint-service fire support.

Thus, the long-term utility of the MarineCorps rests heavily on the prospects for truetransformation. As with the Army, if therelationship between firepower andmaneuver and situational awareness cannotbe redefined, then the relevance of landforces and naval infantry in future wars willbe sharply curtailed – and the ability of theUnited States to undertake politicallydecisive operations will likewise be limited.The proliferation of technologies fordelivering highly accurate fires overincreasingly great distances poses a greatchallenge for both the Army and the MarineCorps, but rather than attempting to competein the game of applying long-range fires,both services would be better off attemptingto complement the vastly improved strikecapabilities of the Navy and Air Force, andindeed in linking decisive maneuvers tofuture space capabilities as well.


69

Use of the post-Cold War“peacedividend” tobalance thefederal budgethas created a“defensedeficit” totalingtens of billionsof dollarsannually.

VIDEFENSE SPENDING

What, then, is the price of continuedAmerican geopolitical leadership andmilitary preeminence?

A finely detailed answer is beyond thescope of this study. Too many of the forceposture and service structure recommen-dations above involve factors that currentdefense planning has not accounted for.Suffice it to say that an expanded Americansecurity perimeter, new technologies andweapons systems including robust missiledefenses, new kinds of organizations andoperating concepts, new bases and the likewill not come cheap. Nonetheless, thissection will attempt to establish broad guide-lines for a level of defense spending suf-ficient to maintain America military pre-eminence. In recent years, a variety ofanalyses of the mismatch between theClinton Administration’s proposed defensebudgets and defense program have appeared.The estimates all agree that the Clintonprogram is underfunded; the differences liein gauging the amount of the shortage andrange from about $26 billion annually to$100 billion annually, with the highernumbers representing the more rigorousanalyses.

Trends in Defense Spending

For the first time in 15 years, the 2001defense budget may reflect a modest realincrease in U.S. defense spending. BothPresident Clinton’s defense budget requestand the figures contained in the congres-sional budget resolution would halt the slidein defense budgets. Yet the extended payingof the “peace dividend” – and the creation oftoday’s federal budget surplus, the productof increased tax revenues and reduced

defense spending – has created a severe“defense deficit,” totaling tens of billions ofdollars annually.

The Congress has been complicit in thisdefense decline. In the first years of theadministration, Congress acquiesced in thesharp reductions made by the ClintonAdministration from the amount projected inthe final Bush defense plan. Since theRepublicans woncontrol ofCongress in 1994,very slightadditions havebeen made toadministrationdefense requests,yet none has beenable to turn aroundthe pattern ofdefense declineuntil this year.Even these in-creases wereachieved by theuse of accountinggimmicks thatallow the government to circumvent thelimitations of the 1997 balanced budgetagreement.

Through all the accounting gimmicks,defense spending has been almost perfectlyflat – indeed, the totals have been less than$1 billion apart – for the past four years.The steepest declines in defense spendingwere accomplished during the early years ofthe Clinton Administration, when defensespending levels fell from about $339 billionin 1992 to $277 billion in 1996. Thecumulative effects of reduced defense


70

spending over a decade or more have beeneven more severe. A recent study by theCenter for Strategic and InternationalStudies, Avoiding the Defense Train Wreckin the New Millennium, compared the finalBush defense plan, covering 1994 through1999, with the defense plan of the ClintonAdministration and found that a combina-tion of budget changes and internalPentagon actions had resulted in a netreduction in defense spending of $162billion from the Bush plan to the Clintonplan. Congressional budget increases andsupplemental appropriations requests addedback about $52 billion, but that spending forthe most part covered the cost of contin-gency operations and other readinessshortfalls – it did not buy back much of themodernization that was deferred. Comparedto Bush-era budgets, the Clinton Admin-istration reduced procurement spending anaverage of $40 billion annually. During theperiod from 1993 to 2000, deferred pro-curements – the infamous “procurementbow wave” – more than doubled fromprevious levels to $426 billion, according tothe report.

The CSIS report is but the most recentin a series of reports gauging the size of themismatch between current long-termdefense plans and budgets. The Congres-sional Budget Office’s latest estimate of theannual mismatch is at least $90 billion.Even the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Reviewitself allowed for a $12-to-15-billion annualfunding shortfall; now the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, according to news reports, areinsisting on a $30-billion-per-year increasein defense spending. In 1997 the Center forStrategic and Budgetary Assessmentscalculated the annual shortfall at approxi-mately $26 billion and has now increased itstotal to $50 billion; analyst MichaelO’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution pegsthat gap at $27 billion, at a minimum.

Perhaps more important than thequestion of which of these estimates bestcalculates the amount of the current defense

shortfall is the question of what costs are notcaptured. All of these estimates measure thegap between current defense plans andprograms and current budgets; they make noallowance for the new missions and needs ofthe post-Cold War world. They do notcapture the costs of deploying effectivemissile defenses. They do not account forthe costs of constabulary missions. They donot consider the costs of transformation.Nor do they calculate the costs of the otherrecommendations of this report, such asstrengthening, reconfiguring, and reposition-ing today’s force.

In fact, the best way to measure defensespending over longer periods of time is as aportion of national wealth and federalspending. By these metrics, defense budgetshave continued to decline even asAmericans have become more prosperous inrecent years. The defense budget now totalsless than 3 percent of the gross domesticproduct – the lowest level of U.S. defensespending since the Depression. Defenseaccounts for about 15 percent of federalspending – slightly more than interest on thedebt, and less than one third of the amountspent on Social Security, Medicare and otherentitlement programs, which account for 54percent of federal spending. As the annualfederal budget has moved from deficit tosurplus and more resources have becomeavailable, there has been no serious orsustained effort to recapitalize U.S. armedforces.

As troublesome as the trends of the pastdecade have been, as inadequate as currentbudgets are, the longer-term future is moretroubling still. If current spending levels aremaintained, by some projections, the amountof the defense shortfall will be almost aslarge as the defense budget itself by 2020 –2.3 percent compared to 2.4 percent of grossdomestic product. In particular, as modern-ization spending slips farther and fartherbehind requirements, the procurement bowwave will reach tsunami proportions, saysCSIS: “By continuing to kick the can down


71

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Reagan Buildup

Second World War

Trends in Defense Spending, 1940-2001

Korean War

Vietnam War

Post-Cold War Drawdown

the road, the military departments will, ineffect, create a situation in which theyrequire $4.4 trillion in procurement dollars”from 2006 through 2020 to maintain thecurrent force.

After 2010 – seemingly a long way offbut well within traditional defense planninghorizons – the outlook for increased militaryspending under current plans becomes evenmore doubtful. In the coming decades, thenetwork of social entitlement programs,particularly Social Security, will generate afurther squeeze on other federal spendingprograms. If defense budgets remain atprojected levels, America’s global militarypreeminence will be impossible to maintain,as will the world order that is secured bythat preeminence.

Budgets and the StrategyOf Retreat

Recent defense reviews, and the 1997Quadrennial Defense Review and theaccompanying report of the NationalDefense Panel especially, have framed thedilemma facing the Pentagon and the nationas a whole as a question of risk. At currentand planned spending levels, the UnitedStates can preserve current forces andcapabilities to execute current missions andsacrifice modernization, innovation andtransformation, or it can reduce personnelstrength and force structure further to payfor new weapons and forces. Despite theQDR’s rhetoric about shaping the currentstrategic environment, responding to crisesand preparing now for an uncertain future,


the Clinton Administration’s defense planscontinue to place a higher priority on im-mediate needs than on preparing for a morechallenging technological or geo-politicalfuture; as indicated in the force posturesection above, the QDR retains the two-warstandard as the central feature of defenseplanning and the sine qua non of America’sclaim to be a global superpower. TheNational Defense Panel, with its call for a“transformation strategy,” argued that the“priority must go to the future.” The two-war standard, in the panel’s assessment, “hasbecome a means of justifying current forces.This approach focuses resources on a low-probability scenario, which consumes fundsthat could be used to reduce risk to our long-term security.”

Again, the CSIS study’s affordabilityassessments suggest the trade-offs betweenmanpower and force structure that must be

made under currentbudget constraints. Forexample, CSIS esti-mates that the cost ofmodernizing thecurrent 1.37 million-man force wouldrequire procurementspending of $164billion per year. Whilewe might not agreewith every aspect of the

require significant further cuts in the size ofU.S. armed forces. According to CSIS, ashift in resources that would up the rate ofmodernized equipment to 76 percent – not afigure specified by the NDP but one notinconsistent with that general approach –would require reducing the total strength ofU.S. forces to just 1 million, again assuming3 percent of GDP were devoted to defensespending. Thus, at current spending levelsthe Pentagon must choose between forcestructure and modernization.

When it is recalled that a projection ofdefense spending levels at 3 percent of GDPrepresents the most optimistic assumptionabout current Pentagon plans, the horns ofthis dilemma appear sharper still: at theselevels, U.S. forces soon will be too old ortoo small. Following the administration’s“live for today” path will ensure that, insome future high-intensity war, U.S. forceswill lack the cutting-edge technologies thatthey have come to rely on. Following theNDP’s “prepare for tomorrow” path, U.S.forces will lack the manpower needed toconduct their current missions. From con-stabulary duties to the conduct of majortheater wars, the ability to defend currentU.S. security interests will be placed atgrowing risk.

In a larger sense, these two approachesdiffer merely about the nature and timing of

If defensespendingremains atcurrentlevels, U.S.forces willsoon be tooold or toosmall.

72

methodology under-lying this calculation, the larger point isclear: if defense spending remains at currentlevels, as current plans under the QDRassume, the Pentagon would only be able tomodernize a little more than half the force.Under this scenario, U.S. armed forceswould become increasingly obsolescent,expensive to operate and outclassed on thebattlefield. As the report concludes, “U.S.military forces will lose their credibility bothat home and abroad regarding their size, age,and technological capabilities for carryingout the national military strategy.”Conversely, adopting the National DefensePanel approach of accepting greater risktoday while preparing for the future would

a strategy of American retreat. By commit-ting forces to the Balkans, maintaining U.S.presence in the Persian Gulf, and by respon-ding to Chinese threats to Taiwan and send-ing peacekeepers to East Timor, the ClintonAdministration has, haltingly, incrementallyand often fecklessly, taken some of thenecessary steps for strengthening the newAmerican security perimeter. But byholding defense spending and militarystrength to their current levels, theadministration has compromised the nation’sability to fight large-scale wars today andconsumed the investments that ought to havebeen made to preserve American militarypreeminence tomorrow. The reckoning for


73

The Procurement Holiday The Procurement Holiday The Procurement Holiday The Procurement Holiday Living Off the Investments of the Reagan Years

404040405050505060606060707070708080808090909090

100100100100110110110110120120120120130130130130140140140140

19811981198119811983198319831983198519851985198519871987198719871989198919891989199119911991199119931993199319931995199519951995199719971997199719991999199919992001200120012001

Bud

get A

utho

rity

, 198

1-20

01

such a strategy will come when U.S. forcesare unable to meet the demands placed uponthem. This may happen when they take onone mission too many – if, say, NATO’srole in the Balkans expands, or U.S troopsenforce a demilitarized zone on the GolanHeights – and a major theater war breaksout. Or, it may happen when two majortheater wars occur nearly simultaneously.Or it may happen when a new great power –a rising China – seeks to challengeAmerican interests and allies in an importantregion.

By contrast, a strategy that sacrificesforce structure and current readiness forfuture transformation will leave Americanarmed forces unable to meet today’smissions and commitments. Since today’speace is the unique product of Americanpreeminence, a failure to preserve thatpreeminence allows others an opportunity toshape the world in ways antithetical toAmerican interests and principles. The priceof American preeminence is that, just as itwas actively obtained, it must be actively

maintained. But as service chiefs and othersenior military leaders readily admit, today’sforces are barely adequate to maintain therotation of units to the myriad peacekeepingand other constabulary duties they facewhile keeping adequate forces for a singlemajor theater war in reserve.

An active-duty force reduced by another300,000 to 400,000 – almost another 30percent cut from current levels and a totalreduction of more than half from Cold-Warlevels – to free up funds for modernizationand transformation would be clearlyinadequate to the demands of today’smissions and national military strategy. Ifthe United States withdrew forces from theBalkans, for example, it is unlikely that therest of NATO would be able to long pick upthe slack; conversely, such a withdrawalwould provoke a political crisis withinNATO that would certainly result in the endof American leadership within NATO; itmight well spell the end of the allianceitself. Likewise, terminating the no-fly-zones over Iraq would call America’s


74

position as guarantor of security in thePersian Gulf into question; the reactionwould be the same in East Asia following awithdrawal of U.S. forces or a lowering ofAmerican military presence. The conse-quences sketched by the QuadrennialDefense Review regarding a retreat from atwo-war capability would inexorably cometo pass: allies and adversaries alike wouldbegin to hedge against American retreat anddiscount American security guarantees. Atcurrent budget levels, a modernization ortransformation strategy is in danger ofbecoming a “no-war” strategy. While theAmerican peace might not come to acatastrophic end, it would quickly begin tounravel; the result would be much the samein time.

The Price of AmericanPreeminence

As admitted above, calculating the exactprice of armed forces capable of maintainingAmerican military preeminence today andextending it into the future requires moredetailed analysis than this broad study canprovide. We have advocated a force postureand service structure that divergessignificantly both from current plans andalternatives advanced in other studies. Webelieve it is necessary to increase slightlythe personnel strength of U.S. forces – manyof the missions associated with patrollingthe expanding American security perimeterare manpower-intensive, and planning formajor theater wars must include the abilityfor politically decisive campaigns includingextended post-combat stability operations.Also, this expanding perimeter arguesstrongly for new overseas bases and forwardoperating locations to facilitate Americanpolitical and military operations around theworld.

At the same time, we have argued thatestablished constabulary missions can bemade less burdensome on soldiers, sailors,airmen and Marines and less burdensome onoverall U.S. force structure by a more

sensible forward-basing posture; long-termsecurity commitments should not besupported by the debilitating, short-termrotation of units except as a last resort. InEurope, the Persian Gulf and East Asia,enduring U.S. security interests argueforcefully for an enduring American militarypresence. Pentagon policy-makers mustadjust their plans to accommodate theserealities and to reduce the wear and tear onservice personnel. We have also argued thatthe services can begin now to create new,more flexible units and militaryorganizations that may, over time, prove tobe smaller than current organizations, evenfor peacekeeping and constabularyoperations.

Even as American military forces patrolan expanding security perimeter, we believeit essential to retain sufficient forces basedin the continental United States capable ofrapid reinforcement and, if needed, applyingmassive combat power to stabilize a regionin crisis or to bring a war to a successfulconclusion. There should be a strongstrategic synergy between U.S. forcesoverseas and in a reinforcing posture: unitsoperating abroad are an indication ofAmerican geopolitical interests andleadership, provide significant militarypower to shape events and, in wartime,create the conditions for victory whenreinforced. Conversely, maintaining theability to deliver an unquestioned “knockoutpunch” through the rapid introduction ofstateside units will increase the shapingpower of forces operating overseas and thevitality of our alliances. In sum, we see anenduring need for large-scale Americanforces.

But while arguing for improvements intoday’s armed services and force posture,we are unwilling to sacrifice the ability tomaintain preeminence in the longer term. Ifthe United States is to maintain itspreeminence – and the military revolutionnow underway is already an American-ledrevolution – the Pentagon must begin inearnest to transform U.S. military forces.


We have argued that this transformationmission is yet another new mission, ascompelling as the need to maintainEuropean stability in the Balkans, preparefor large, theater wars or any other oftoday’s missions. This is an effort thatinvolves more than new weaponry ortechnologies. It requires experimental unitsfree to invent new concepts of operation,new doctrines, new tactics. It will requireyears, even decades, to fully grasp andimplement such changes, and will surelyinvolve mistakes and inefficiencies. Yet themaintenance of the American peace requiresthat American forces be preeminent whenthey are called upon to face very differentadversaries in the future.

Finally, we have argued that we mustrestore the foundation of American securityand the basis for U.S. military operationsabroad by improving our homelanddefenses. The current American peace will

be short-lived ifthe UnitedStates becomesvulnerable torogue powerswith small,inexpensivearsenals ofballistic missilesand nuclearwarheads orother weaponsof massdestruction. Wecannot allowNorth Korea,Iran, Iraq or

precisely based upon known budget plans isunsound. Likewise, generating independentcost analyses is beyond the scope of thisreport and would be based upon greatpolitical and technological uncertainties –any detailed assumptions about the cost ofnew overseas bases or revolutionaryweaponry are bound to be highly speculativeabsent rigorous net assessments andprogram analysis. Nevertheless, we believethat, over time, the program we advocatewould require budgets roughly equal tothose necessary to fully fund the QDR force– a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent ofgross domestic product. A sensible planwould add $15 billion to $20 billion to totaldefense spending annually through theFuture Years Defense Program; this wouldresult in a defense “topline” increase of $75billion to $100 billion over that period, asmall percentage of the $700 billion on-budget surplus now projected for that sameperiod. We believe that the new presidentshould commit his administration to a planto achieve that level of spending within fouryears.

In its simplest terms, our intent is toprovide forces sufficient to meet today’smissions as effectively and efficiently aspossible, while readying U.S. armed forcesfor the likely new missions of the future.Thus, the defense program described abovewould preserve current force structure whileimproving its readiness, better posturing itfor its current missions, and making selectedinvestments in modernization. At the sametime, we would shift the weight of defenserecapitalization efforts to transforming U.S.forces for the decades to come. At four

The program weadvocate – onethat would provideAmerica withforces to meet thestrategic demandsof the world’s solesuperpower –requires budgetlevels to beincreased to 3.5 to3.8 percent of theGDP.

75

similar states toundermine American leadership, intimidateAmerican allies or threaten the Americanhomeland itself. The blessings of theAmerican peace, purchased at fearful costand a century of effort, should not be sotrivially squandered.

Taken all in all, the force posture andservice structure we advocate differ enoughfrom current plans that estimating its costs

cents on the dollar of America’s nationalwealth, this is an affordable program.

It is also a wise program. Only such aforce posture, service structure and level ofdefense spending will provide America andits leaders with a variety of forces to meetthe strategic demands of the world’s solesuperpower. Keeping the American peacerequires the U.S. military to undertake abroad array of missions today and rise to


76

very different challenges tomorrow, butthere can be no retreat from these missionswithout compromising American leadershipand the benevolent order it secures. This isthe choice we face. It is not a choicebetween preeminence today andpreeminence tomorrow. Global leadershipis not something exercised at our leisure,

when the mood strikes us or when our corenational security interests are directlythreatened; then it is already too late.Rather, it is a choice whether or not tomaintain American military preeminence, tosecure American geopolitical leadership,and to preserve the American peace.

PROJECT PARTICIPANTS

Roger BarnettU.S. Naval War College

Alvin BernsteinNational Defense University

Stephen CamboneNational Defense University

Eliot CohenNitze School of Advanced InternationalStudies, Johns Hopkins University

Devon Gaffney CrossDonors' Forum for International Affairs

Thomas DonnellyProject for the New American Century

David EpsteinOffice of Secretary of Defense,Net Assessment

David FautuaLt. Col., U.S. Army

Dan GoureCenter for Strategic and International Studies

Donald KaganYale University

Fred KaganU. S. Military Academy at West Point

Robert KaganCarnegie Endowment for International Peace

Robert KillebrewCol., USA (Ret.)

William KristolThe Weekly Standard

Mark LagonSenate Foreign Relations Committee

James LasswellGAMA Corporation

I. Lewis LibbyDechert Price & Rhoads

Robert MartinageCenter for Strategic and BudgetaryAssessment

Phil MeilingerU.S. Naval War College

Mackubin OwensU.S. Naval War College

Steve RosenHarvard University

Gary SchmittProject for the New American Century

Abram ShulskyThe RAND Corporation

Michael VickersCenter for Strategic and BudgetaryAssessment

Barry WattsNorthrop Grumman Corporation

Paul WolfowitzNitze School of Advanced InternationalStudies, Johns Hopkins University

Dov ZakheimSystem Planning Corporation

The above list of individuals participated in at least one project meeting or contributed a paper fordiscussion. The report is a product solely of the Project for the New American Century and does notnecessarily represent the views of the project participants or their affiliated institutions.

Documents

Rebuilding Americas Defenses