On a progressive grand strategy

By Dave Anderson:

I am late coming to the discussion on progressive military strategy that was kicked off by Bernard Finel a few weeks ago as he graciously hat-tipped the 'Hogger crew for interesting and in-depth progressive defense and strategy analysis. My life has been busily undergoing some significant and positive changes that have eaten up a good chunk of my time and more importantly, my free brain cycles.

The question is simple --- what is a progressive military strategy to the world as it is today and as it is likely to be in the intermediate future.

The United States is the hegemonic power with no direct peer competitors. This greatly simplifies American foreign policy as we live in world, rule sets, organizations and international norms that are greatly shaped by American interests.  There are no 1937 Germanies in the current international system in that there are no major players who are seriously aggrieved at the structural arrangement of power and norms and who have the capacity and will to seriously disrupt the international system to rejigger the equation. Nor is there a 1950s Soviet Union that is able to shape and support a competing sphere of norms and influences.

Most of the world's power potential, measured in GDP, PPP GDP, men under arms, armored division equivilants, deployable naval capacity, nuclear warheads, or any other metric either belongs to the United States, its close allies (mainly NATO, Japan, and South Korea) or in states that are not too discomforted by the current international system and alignments.

The United States has the luxury of having only a very few core interests that must be defended. The first is simple; territorial defense of the fifty states. That requires almost no ground forces besides law enforcement and cardiologists who inveigh against the import of poutine. There are some need for naval and air defense forces.

The second is a stable Europe as that has been a core American priority since 1917. Again, this requires very little in forward deployed forces as Europe is fundamentally stable among the larger powers as Germany is satiated, Russia is internally focused and does not have power projection capacity and integration is still the dominant political-economic process. Active engagement with Europe through NATO is necessary but this does not require forward deployed divisions or fighter wings except as confidence building measures or for training opportunities.  It also means recognizing a Russian sphere of interest and influence that includes the Cacucuses, Ukraine and Belarus.

The trans-Pacific alliances of the past fifty years between the United States, South Korea, Japan, Australia and increasing the ASEAN nations have been effective at integrating an emerging region into the American favored global system. However, these alliances have a core interest in the free flow of trade through the open sea lanes. This is the next significant American interest. We are a maritime power and the open sea lanes have been a core American interest since the 1630s and will continue to be a core interest until there is cheap teleportation as sea transport is the cheapest bulk transporter of goods in human history.

There are a few major sea-lanes the United States needs to make sure that goods and services can freely flow over. The easy ones to secure are the Gulf of Mexico to points south in the Caribbean and Atlantic Basins, as well as the trans-Atlantic routes to Europe and the Mediterranean. The trans-Pacific sea lanes from Japan and South Korea area also fairly easy to secure with the cooperation of those two major allies. However the nature of the American economy and the relatively open and thus fungible trade in oil means the United States also needs to maintain the open oil lanes coming out of the Persian Gulf and increasingly the African Atlantic coast. Those lanes are more difficult to patrol and control because of their distance from the global economic and military core. 

A core domestic political policy should be efforts to restructure the American economy to minimize the need for hydro-carbons as that will significantly reduce American military requirements and tasks.  However that is a twenty year project assuming we are trying to avoid a replication of Cuba's experience in 1991.  

Those are the major American interests; territorial integrity, a reasonably stable European core, a reasonably stable East Asian littoral and open sea lanes. Everything else is at least a secondary interest including who in particular is selling the United States its oil, and what forms of government distant nations have. The overall DoD budget would shrink significantly as expensive aviation is de-emphasized and mission scope is dramatically reduced to align with actual core interests instead of identifying everything as a critical American interest.

These interests are not irrelevant, but they are not vital interests. Main body or large scale commitment of military force should be reserved for critical interests. Anything else is the engagement of force, treasure and attention in the pursuit of expensive luxuries that crowd out needed investments at home.

 What does this mean for the US military's force structure?

The short answer is the Army gets significantly smaller and lighter, the Marines probably expand by several infantry regiments as well as embark on more amphibious assault ships in dispersed operations, the Air Force shrinks, and the Navy dramatically increases the number of non-carrier/non-submarine hulls. The National Guard would also expand dramatically.

Let's take a look at each service. The US has almost no core interest that is served by a major counter-insurgency capacity unless one is projecting a scenario of complete disintegration of Quebec, Idaho or the north bank of the Rio Grande Valley. Conducting large scale counter-insurgency campaigns in another country is often an indicator that the foreign government has already lost legitimacy so the COIN campaign and the core interests of the US don't have a projected COIN requirement. COIN is currently practiced in areas of tertiary interest. Heavy armored and mechanized infantry have a place in one projected conflict in a core American interest zone and that is in South Korea.

Currently the US has forty five brigade combat teams in the active duty, Regular Army. These brigades come in three basic flavors; infantry (including Airborne, Air Assault, Light, and Mountain troops), Stryker/Intermediate brigades which are wheel vehicle mounted infantry, and heavy brigades (tanks and tracked mechanized infantry.) Once the main body of the US Army leaves Afghanistan, the army should be configured for three missions. The first is a continuation of being able to rapidly reinforce South Korea in case of a North Korean invasion. The second is to maintain a rapid response force that can quickly deploy to the Persian Gulf in the defense of allies of convienence and keep the oil flowing. The final primary mission is to act as cadre and skill retention formations in case the US decides that it needs to expand the army in the future.

The first two missions will rely on significant forward deployed equipment in the same line as the current POMCUS program. The South Korea contingency is the primary heavy brigade combat team consumer while the rapid redeployment force is a strategically offensive force that is operationally defensive medium and light infantry formation. Most of the heavy formations that were involved in the initial invasion of Iraq would either be decommissioned or transferred to the National Guard.

The active duty army would see its combat arms forces shrink from forty five ground combat maneuver brigades to twenty-seven brigades (6 heavy, 6 intermediate, 5 airborne, 4 air assault, 6 infantry) along with concurrent reductions in aviation and artillery units. Special Forces (Green Berets) would be maintained at current strength or expanded as they are a comparatively cheap and highly effective force multiplier to support US secondary interests by being able to train and mentor foreign forces for their own foreign internal defense.

The Air Force would continue to become more of an expeditionary force. The Air Force is not a war winner, and it can not be. The point of an air force is to support naval and ground forces in achieving national political objectives. It can do so by strike, recon, surveillance, command and control capabilities while denying an enemy the ability to do the same against US forces in a selected region.

Air superiority is sufficient, not air dominance as this is a reasonable risk to run.

Significant increases in C-17 strength by re-opening that production line as well as an accelerated deployment of a replacement tanker would be the biggest manned aircraft acquisition change. However, short ranged tactical aircraft would be curtailed as any power that has not been under siege through a decade or more of UN sanctions has and will continue to increase their anti-airfield access capabilities. JSF production is far less important in this conception of US strategy as modernized F-15s and F-16s will be able to operate in contested air space effectively and are cheaper until UCAVs begin to dominate strike missions. Manned first day strikers will consist of B-2s, the new bomber recently announced, a limited number of F-22s while unmanned strikers will expand with additional long range, high speed cruise missiles to be procured. Close air support aircraft would be transferred to the Army and the Key West agreement would be renegotiated. Nuclear forces would shrink to NEW Start limits under an accelerated time frame and tactical nuclear weapons would be withdrawn from Europe as they serve no realistic defensive purpose there. No conventionally armed ICBMs would be designed or purchased.

The Marines currently have twenty seven active duty infantry battalions. They are primarily being used as a second army for use in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment. The Marines should be used as a forward deployed presence force instead of an adjunct to the US Army. They are, in this conception of American strategy, the beat cops of the trade routes. For instance, a Marine Expeditionary Unit (a battalion with attachments) would be extraordinary useful in either providing security detachments for American flagged ships transiting the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin, or if more aggressive action is indicated by the the American political leadership, for raiding operations against mothership support activities on-shore. A MEU is also a flexible off-shore balancer as a rapid and sustainable reinforcing element as seen in the recent Korean crisis. The Marines also have sustainable disaster relief capabilities (see Indonesia after the Tsunami, Haiti etc)

Currently the Navy has sufficient amphibious lift for nine Marine battalions at full mobilization, and a routine capacity for two or three deployed MEUs. This strategy would increase amphibious lift by extending procurement of the LPD-17 to eighteen units from the currently planned twelve, as well as possibly expanding production of the LHA-6 class to support four routinely deployed MEUs. The Marines would lose the F-35C JSF and their assault carriers would either by entirely rotary craft or have small modernized Harrier compliments.

The Navy would be the large winner in this re-organization. They are the off-shore balancer and the heavy enforcer in core American interest areas. Naval forces have the luxury of operating with low foreign footprints outside of those footprints already in significant allied ports. They are also with-drawable so they do not create sunk-cost escalation incentives to the American political system. The Navy's job is to keep the sea lanes open (in conjunction with the Marines), and then support operations ashore.

The current eleven carrier strike groups would be maintained as would most of the current surface combatant force. The Littoral Combat Ship program is a good experiment on providing a presence/policing ship but it should be capped at the currently contracted twenty-four hulls. Instead, large frigates or off-shore patrol vessels (5000 to 6000 tons) with the capability to host a Marine platoon, a pair of choppers, a few drones and relatively light self-defense armament should be the other component of the forward deployed presence fleet. These ships are deliberately a �low-end� solution but it is a high end solution for patrol duties off of Somalia, off of Colombia, in the Nigerian Delta region etc. The SSBN fleet would be replaced at a 1 for 2 rate which should significantly reduced projected procurement costs. Blue/Green crews would be maintained to ensure at least three boomers are on patrol at any given time. The attack submarine force should investigate whether or not it makes sense to buy and then forward deploy diesel-electric or AIP submarines at Guam in order to increase hull-counts.

This is the relatively short version of a progessive defense policy that recognizes core American interests and attempts to shape the US military to meet those projected needs. It recognizes that not everything that happens in the world is an American interest or that everything is a challenge to the United States. However, a stable Europe, a stable East Asian littoral and open sea lanes produces a world where the United States can continue to prosper, and that is what we should strive towards and optimize our military capacity to maintaining given realistic trade-offs and constraints.