Robert Gates, President Obama’s secretary of defense, is a longtime Washington insider. After succeeding Donald Rumsfeld for the last two years of the Bush administration, Gates adapted quickly to Obama’s goal of reducing America from superpower to also-ran.
From World War I through Korea, American generals were often criticized justly for preparing only for the wars they’d already fought. But beginning with the Cold War, a new military mind-set took hold.
We won the arms race against the Soviet Union because of two American strengths: our economic power, which propelled the advancement of technology, and the investment in the men and machines that could — and did — dominate future battlefields.
Monday: Weakening America starts with emasculating intelligence agencies
Tuesday: Inside the Obama Doctrine for American decline
Wednesday: Putting on blinders about the future
Thursday: Obama’s dance with missile defense and American security
Friday: A critical failure of leadership
Foreclosing on the future
America has been a superpower since the middle of World War II because our military might was built on the foundation of tremendous economic strength. Our economy is, quite literally, the engine of freedom in the world.
When the Cold War began, it was America’s burden to stand against Soviet aggression because no other nation could. Once again, it was our economy that made possible both that stand and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
But now President Obama’s military build-down is accompanied by his domestic spending tsunami, which is burdening our economy to so great a degree that future presidents may not be able to reverse directions and rebuild our military — and our intelligence services — to the point where they can again defend America, its allies and its interests.
We may, as Winston Churchill said he feared to, live to see the day when the force of right is deprived of the right of force.
According to his budget plans, Obama will have borrowed $3.7 trillion in the first three years of his presidency, more than the accumulated debt in the first 225 years of American history. This year, the federal debt will exceed 50 percent of our gross domestic product, and the interest we are paying on the debt has reached so high a level that in March, Moody’s Investor Services warned that America’s debt had grown so large that we could lose the top “AAA” rating, causing interest rates to rise and our ability to repay the debt to fall to a dangerous level.
Obama is spending so much that future presidents may not be able to reinvest in the new aircraft, ships and other systems needed to replace obsolete, worn-out systems that have already been neglected too long. But that reinvestment — “force recapitalization” in Pentagonese — is an urgent priority that is being shunned by Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. – Jed Babbin
None of our war fighters wants a fair fight. They want to win as quickly and decisively as possible, with as little cost in our soldiers’ lives as they can manage. To do that, they must have the best troops, the best equipment and the most penetrating intelligence analysis. During the Reagan administration, there was an annual process called “Defense Guidance” that provided an analytic basis for the defense budget.
Pentagon experts analyzed intelligence on every threat, not just the Soviets, to determine current and likely adversaries’ intentions and capabilities. They compared them with our defensive and offensive weapons, transport capabilities, allies, weapons, and troops. Whatever the differences were became the president’s Defense Guidance.
Planning to fight the next war instead of the last, we invested in future technologies — sometimes a decade in advance — so that our war fighters wouldn’t have to have that fair fight. (After Reagan, Defense Guidance was transformed into the “Quadrennial Defense Review,” which is its congressionally mandated descendant.)
Before he became Obama’s defense secretary, Gates was dismissive of thinking beyond current threats to meet those that can be predicted thinking ahead. He diagnosed it as a disease called “next war-itis.”
In a 2008 speech, Gates said, “I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called ‘next war-itis’ — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict.”
Gates believed — even before Obama’s inauguration — that in the new multipolar world there was little reason to worry about another conventional war. In that same speech, he said, “It is hard to conceive of any country confronting the United States directly in conventional terms — ship to ship, fighter to fighter, tank to tank — for some time to come.” In short, he saw no need to invest in future weapons and research because — to Gates — another conventional war is unthinkable.
(Obama and Gates have significantly reduced missile defenses at home and in Europe, increasing our vulnerability and apparently abandoning many allies.)
“Next war-itis” is an essential concession to reality. It takes at least a decade to put a new fighter in the air, and as long or longer for a new Navy combatant ship. If you don’t plan at least a decade ahead, you risk losing too many lives or even losing a war.
To cure America’s military of “next war-itis,” Obama and Gates made drastic cuts in current and future weapon systems before they had the analytical basis of a Quadrennial Defense Review. Reducing the defense budget by $30 billion in 2010, they ended the Air Force’s new fighter, the F-22 Raptor, at 187 aircraft and are ending production of the C-17 airlifter.
They canceled the DDX-1000, a new stealthy naval vessel intended to operate independently of carrier battle groups. The Air Force’s CSAR — combat search and rescue — aircraft was canceled along with most of the Army’s Future Combat System.
Obama is reducing our carrier battle groups from 11 to 10. And the F-35 is suffering production delays so that the Navy will be at least 200 fighters short of its requirements for five or more years. And its fleet will shrink below the current 313-ship level. (When Reagan was president, the fleet comprised nearly 600 ships.)
The Air Force — in worse shape — is perhaps the most vivid example. The last time an American ground soldier was killed by an enemy aircraft was in April 1953. In the 57 years since, air supremacy has been every American grunt’s birthright. But that may soon change.
Under Obama’s plan, the Air Force is forecasting a fighter shortfall of 800 aircraft from 2017 to 2024. Gates planned to fill the gap with the F-35. But the F-35 — even if it could be produced quickly and in great numbers (which it won’t be, because of continued production delays) — can’t fill the F-22’s shoes.
It’s slower, less maneuverable and far less stealthy. And the F-22 can fly combat maneuvers at 50,000 feet. The F-35 is left 20,000 feet below. In short, the F-35 is a far less capable aircraft. It’s not the new fighter our Air Force needs.
Russia recently unveiled its answer to the F-22. The Russians say the Sukhoi T-50 is capable of supersonic cruise, can carry an impressive array of advanced weapons and is invisible to radar. But there’s no need to worry. Gates and Obama don’t believe we’ll ever have to fight another conventional war.
Jed Babbin was appointed deputy undersecretary of defense by President George H.W. Bush. He is the author of such best-selling books as “Inside the Asylum” and “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
