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What kind of military?
Speaker
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In the hopes of syphoning off some of the inappropriate controversy from the Veteran's Day thread - what type of military is it appropriate for the United States to have?
Currently we have a professional standing army, navy and airforce but it was not always so.
In the 19th century a small professional corps was maintained and only expanded in war time. I happened to read Franklin Pierce's inaugural address this morning which contained this section:
Which describes something quite different. Something not quite so handy for the foreign adventures that I think have lead to the cynical sniping at the honor of the military profession in the Veteran's Day thread. And can you blame them? Let's lay out the role call of American wars since, say, the Civil War.
The Spanish American War
WWI
WWII
The Korean War
The Vietnam War
The Gulf War
The Afghan War
The War in Iraq
We often say the military exists to guarantee our freedom. That without it we would be conquered or enslaved. But on the other hand we are the most populous and wealthy nation in our half of the globe with wide oceans on either side of us. Which of the above wars was strictly necessary to defend our rights of self government and individual liberty? The prospect of the capture of the British fleet followed by a Nazi invasion might - might - have actually jeopardized our independence. Then again, if the island of Britain held off the prospect of a Nazi landing from across the straight, was it ever really possible for the Germans to launch a successful invasion of North America across the Atlantic Ocean?
The Swiss have somehow managed to hang on to their independence despite possessing none of our natural defensive advantages. So it seems to me that the military that exists strictly to defend American territory is very different from the military that we have. That disparity is what opens the way for this criticism that our current military is actually the armed guard of something other than our freedom.
So how about it?
Currently we have a professional standing army, navy and airforce but it was not always so.
In the 19th century a small professional corps was maintained and only expanded in war time. I happened to read Franklin Pierce's inaugural address this morning which contained this section:
Franklin Pierce wrote:The opportunities of observation furnished by my brief experience as a soldier confirmed in my own mind the opinion, entertained and acted upon by others from the formation of the Government, that the maintenance of large standing armies in our country would be not only dangerous, but unnecessary. They also illustrated the importance—I might well say the absolute necessity—of the military science and practical skill furnished in such an eminent degree by the institution which has made your Army what it is, under the discipline and instruction of officers not more distinguished for their solid attainments, gallantry, and devotion to the public service than for unobtrusive bearing and high moral tone. The Army as organized must be the nucleus around which in every time of need the strength of your military power, the sure bulwark of your defense—a national militia—may be readily formed into a well-disciplined and efficient organization.
Which describes something quite different. Something not quite so handy for the foreign adventures that I think have lead to the cynical sniping at the honor of the military profession in the Veteran's Day thread. And can you blame them? Let's lay out the role call of American wars since, say, the Civil War.
The Spanish American War
WWI
WWII
The Korean War
The Vietnam War
The Gulf War
The Afghan War
The War in Iraq
We often say the military exists to guarantee our freedom. That without it we would be conquered or enslaved. But on the other hand we are the most populous and wealthy nation in our half of the globe with wide oceans on either side of us. Which of the above wars was strictly necessary to defend our rights of self government and individual liberty? The prospect of the capture of the British fleet followed by a Nazi invasion might - might - have actually jeopardized our independence. Then again, if the island of Britain held off the prospect of a Nazi landing from across the straight, was it ever really possible for the Germans to launch a successful invasion of North America across the Atlantic Ocean?
The Swiss have somehow managed to hang on to their independence despite possessing none of our natural defensive advantages. So it seems to me that the military that exists strictly to defend American territory is very different from the military that we have. That disparity is what opens the way for this criticism that our current military is actually the armed guard of something other than our freedom.
So how about it?
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I would like to see a shift towards space-based weapons. That's the ultimate high-ground and can give us a decisive advantage in certain conflicts.
I'd also be in favor of setting up something similar to the French Foreign Legion. Using non-American troops for some of our messier wars might defuse public opposition to those wars, since the media won't be able to fixate on the deaths of Americans.
Rigorous Scholarship
Second, the purpose of the military is not just warfare. A lot of people forget that the military does a lot of disaster aid, school building, good will ambasadors, ect, all over the world. The Navy, by it's very existence, prevents the oceans and key trade lanes from turning into a complete cluster fuck.
The military we have is very good and does a very good job in all it's missions and roles. The problem lies in the politicians, who are civilian, in charge of it using it to enforce a stupid world view that comes from our general populace and it's deluded perception of American exceptionalism.
I think that the paradigm has shifted significantly since then however. The Air Force is not needed, its purposed can be folded into other branches. The Navy is needed in order to fight piracy and to project power at the times when projection is actually needed.
I think the composition and purpose of the Army is dependent on what the grand national strategy is for the military as a whole. I personally think that stability is a worthwhile goal, and that state building is something that is actually worth undertaking. I think that this would require massive numbers of troops with relevant skills filtered through the U.N., preferably from many different nations.
But why?
Instability spreads.
I think it's a good idea, but I don't see Modern Man's goal as the reason for doing it.
We are occupying two countries halfway around the world with something like a quarter million troops, not to mention those stationed in places like Germany and South Korea.
@psycotix - you don't need two million people permanently under arms for disaster relief.
And I think even hardcore libertarians and communists will grant the necessity of a good airforce and navy.
We already have non-citizens joining the military in hefty numbers.
And because like it or not, we are the most powerful country in the world, and with great power comes great responsibility. Cheesy lines aside, I do feel like there is a need for a global policeman, and until there are massive changes in global politics, we are the only realistic contender for that job. Just because neo-cons struck out hard this decade doesn't mean it's always wrong to use American military might to intervene in cases of genocide, etc.
It's better then contracting out everything.
(I just finished watching Die Hard 4)
Yah, the problem with that line of thinking is that we won't intervene in the most heinous cases, because they aren't "politically valuable" to us. Darfur anyway? Talk about a region that seriously needs our help, that we are still leaving to hang in the wind while we try and quell Iraq and Afghanistan.
I agree with your sentiment, unfortunately it's not the reality of the situation.
I don't think the present situations in Iraq/Afghanistan are an effective or useful way of applying the military. I think more troops are necessary with either broader skillsets or with the assistance of civilian professionals in either region.
Why is an Air Force necessary?
Lol, what? If by "did it" you mean fight an entire "war" from 40,000 feet using smart bombs, yah, we totally "did it". And the only reason we got involved there was political pressure from NATO allies, of which there is none over Darfur. Bill Clinton was always to scared to do the right thing, which was commit ground troops to stop the genocide then, and there, because it would have been political suicide in a country that had just gotten past the "100 day" war (Gulf War), and was still in the "God not another Vietnam" mind set.
All the potential of outer space, and you want to militarise it?
Look at the ISS, how it's brought countries together in the spirit of scientific advancement and cooperation, that's how the world should invest in space, not by building weapons satalites and starting another arms race.
What? Are you serious? Because air power is how wars are won in the 20th and 21st century, and trying to pigeon hole something as complex as aerial warfare in to another service has already been tried once, it was called the Army Air Force, and was split in the latest 40's.
I think Americans vastly overestimate the extent to which we've acted as benevolent overseers of world affairs, as opposed to corrupt overlords who display just enough interest in the natives to keep the blood money flowing into our coffers.
Ground troops were committed. They just rarely went outside of Kosovo (I know of only one instance when they did and that was to rescue a downed pilot). They didn't get into any firefights because Serbians were too smart to stick around.
Bill Clinton did do it the right way.
Intervention done poorly or where it's unneeded tends to cause more instability. Nonintervention tends to mean genocides or Somalias.
We say we want a military capable of humanitarian foreign occupation. Yet such things are tremendously expensive and won't be undertaken unless they are viewed as vital to our more cynical interests.
So it appears to be a collective action problem. We might have such a force under the United Nations tasked with nation building and the remedy of the ills of instability. On the other hand, what makes us think the United Nations is even composed in such a way that such a force could possibly exist and operate on large, tough missions? Where is such a mission likely to be so free of controvesy that the United Nations wouldn't undermine its legitimacy with key nations and blocs by deploying an armed occupation? What if the stabilization force is as much of a joke as the Human Rights Commission?
In the world in which we actually live, is a military like ours in any way necessary to defend us?
I have to say, I lean toward no right at this moment.
In fact, even if we were to spend $60 billion a year instead of $600 billion I'm having trouble imagining scenarios in which the American self-government and liberty are going to come under plausible threat.
So if defending our freedom and humanitarian intervention are the justifications for our military machine, I'm having plausibility problems with both.
As long as we have an overwhelming nuclear arsenal, and firm alliances with pretty much every other major nation, we're never going to fight a WWII style all-out conventional war again. That means that all of our tanks, large surface ships, and interceptor planes our completely useless (or at best, a poor substitute for other vehicles).
What we really need these days is a large and effective military intelligence program, to preempt threats like 9/11 before they happen. Combine that with some small, well trained commando forces (which the US has already), and predator drones anywhere we need a lot of firepower. That's what would actually be useful, in any war that we'd realistically fight these days.
Committing ground troops that hung out Kosovo the entire is barely even token support, and you know it. The entire "war" was fought from 40,000 feet as far as the US was concerned. We dropped more bombs in that conflict than we did in Gulf War one, by a huge margin.
The American people, of whom politicians are a tiny subset, are the greatest threat to American freedom. We're often lazy or uneducated, and frequently both, and as a singular entity, we're pretty easily misled. I include myself in this group - I feel pretty strongly about net neutrality, but aside from a speech in a required class, I've never really put any effort into standing up for it.
You're criticizing a strategy that worked.
And I'm saying all this as a Herzegovanian with a brother who worked as a civilian in Kosovo for NATO.
The US military is already moving towards exactly what you describe. Asymmetric warfare, heavy use of disengaged power (planes, cruise missiles, drones), anti-insurgency warfare, etc.
Also, we haven't built true interceptor planes in 30 years. Every plane we build now is a multi-role fighter/bomber, and 90% of them have been re-tooled to be able to mount electronic warfare and command and control packages (allowing them to act as AWACs).
Really? Because air power isn't winning us either of the wars we are in right now.
You don't even have to be a citizen to join the US Army, so this would be pointless.
I have a strange theory about this. I call it the "comfort zone theory". I think it's someone elses theory that I just like to think I came up with...but basically, while the average American is comfortable (food in the belly, power to their house, cable TV and the basics of life handled), you could basically take nearly any freedom you wanted away from them and they would only put open token resistance.
*By them, I mean me, as I am also American.
Obviously, the American military needs air power capabilities, but creating a specific bureaucratic entity given exclusive responsibility over air power was an idea grounded in a 1940s-vintage overestimation of strategic air power's capabilities, and its continued existence creates an artificial constituency for continuing such overestimations.
Tell me which war in the 21st century is won by, or should be won by, or can be won by air power.
Perhaps, yet politicians were responsible for such things as the Patriot Act and the suspension of Haebus Corpus, when anyone objected they were beaten down with the "Why do you hate America" nonsense. That sort of policy has been a greater assault on freedom than anything else over the last decade.
Because we aren't fighting wars right now, we are fighting anti-insurgency conflicts in countries we have occupied largely against the will of those countries.
The Gulf War and the Vietnam War? The Gulf War WAS won by air power (the reason our tanks were able to roll through unopposed is because all of Iraq's C&C structure was destroyed by our bombs), and the Vietnam war SHOULD have been won by air power, but Lindon Johnson and Nixon were pussies and wouldn't let us lay waste to Hanoi and it's infrastructure.
hah
by this logic, has the U.S. fought any wars at all since WW2?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
The war with China, Russia, Iran, etc?
I don't know, the 21st century just started.
It's a little naive to say that we will never fight another prolonged conventional war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY