The Admiral Pipes Us Ashore
Most of the news coverage of Adm. Michael Mullen’s reconfirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday led with his confession that “we will need more resources to execute the president’s strategy”–resources meaning not only the funds requested by former International Security Assistance Force commander and current Amabassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, but the forthcoming troop request from current commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Lost behind that very big headline was an equally profound observation about the nature of U.S. strategy, not only for Afghanistan, but for the Long War.
The admiral also noted that the United States could not achieve its aims from “from offshore and you can’t do that by just killing the bad guys. You have to be there where the people are when they need you there.” In underscoring the problems of “offshore balancing”–which is the lingo used by security studies professors to describe an over-the-horizon military posture–the chairman not only rejected arguments advanced by columnist George Will (representing the Tory wing of the Republican Party) but also those of former Marine Commandant Charles Krulak. The recent killing of al-Qaeda-in-Africa leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan–implicated in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998–had also seemed to make the offshore-balancing case.
But Mullen continued that McChrystal, Gen. David Patraeus and the rest of the service chiefs agreed: offshore balancing is inconsistent with American strategy in the region. This, too, marks a sea change in thinking among senior uniformed leadership, who traditionally have been offshore enthusiasts–particularly admirals and Marine generals. It’s a welcome sign that the top brass have embraced their mission, if not with bounding enthusiasm–for who would want to slog through a Long War if “rapid, decisive operations” and “long-range precisions strikes” were a realistic alternative?–then with steely determination.
Tom Donnelly is the director of the Center for Defense Studies.
