In his first speech as Britain’s new defense minister, Liam Fox on Monday laid out his priorities for a new defense review, promising a “clean break” from Cold War-thinking on national security strategy and defense policymaking. The “salami-slicing approach” that has characterized past defense reviews will give way to a “transformative change” in British defense, Fox said. While Afghanistan will remain Britain’s top priority for some time, Fox left no doubt that the dire state of Britain’s finances will impact government decisions on defense. The new defense review, due to be completed by the end of the year, Fox conceded, will be “resource-informed” but “policy-led.” The defense minister’s admission that Treasury will have a say after all in the crafting of British defense policy belies the Tories’ pre-election promise to conduct a strategy-driven defense review devoid of predetermined financial considerations.

Britain’s problems are “structural” in nature and thus they require “structural” solutions, Fox said. Reducing overhead costs will not suffice to return the armed forces to a sound financial and strategic footing. In the past, the government’s answer to these woes has been to delay procurement programs, thereby merely increasing the cost of defense equipment programs in the long run. Citing the troubled new aircraft carrier program, Fox claimed the decision in 2009 to slow the procurement rate of the Queen Elizabeth class carrier added an additional £600 billion to the program’s overall price tag. While it is true that many inside Whitehall worry about the affordability of certain programs, including the new carriers, they are not yet prepared to live with the consequences of a sharply reduced defense budget. Inevitably, a smaller defense budget will spur strategic retrenchment and decline. Fox’s calls to act “ruthlessly and without sentiment” are a precursor of what lies in store for Britain’s armed forces after the new defense review.

The British, however, are not the only ones whose defenses are in disarray. Military capabilities across Europe are atrophying at a fast clip. Although the global financial crisis is largely to blame for the latest round of planned defense cuts, Europe’s seemingly insatiable appetite for expensive social entitlement programs, coupled with a dangerous aversion to all things military, continue to undermine the state of Europe’s defenses. Recent calls by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Admiral James Stavridis, America’s European and NATO commander, not to cut defense budgets too deeply and to devote at least two percent of GDP—a NATO requirement—to defense despite economic woes, appear to have fallen on deaf ears in capitals across Europe, as my CDS colleague Tim Sullivan has noted. The current round of planned defense spending cuts across the continent is widely expected to rival the dramatic reductions after the end of the Cold War, and the list is indeed staggering.

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News about the existence of enormous, untapped tracts of rare minerals in Afghanistan—large enough to turn the country into the “the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” according to a DOD memo—has been met largely with skepticism and bemusement. Not only has much of the data in the recent DOD-U.S. Geological Survey report been available online for nearly three years, but Afghanistan’s suspected mineral wealth has been the subject of intense interest among the country’s neighbors for over four decades. In recent years, China has been investing hand-over-fist in Afghanistan’s mining sector, providing the country’s largest single foreign direct investment with the development of the Aynak copper mine. Skeptics have further downplayed the impact of the news by pointing to the limited infrastructure throughout Afghanistan, the country’s untested legal structure for managing mineral revenues, and the ongoing insurgency in many of the most resource-rich portions of the country.

At the end of the day, though, this is still a very welcome development for Afghanistan. It is one of the few signs that the country may at some point be prepared to sustain itself economically—as opposed to relying on the perpetual financial support of the international community. If the country can avoid the “resource curse” (as some have suggested it can) and achieve economic stability, it would be well positioned to resist the malign influence of its neighbors and ensure its own security.

Will these new projections about the extent of Afghanistan’s mineral resources have an appreciable impact on the coming year’s counterinsurgency campaign? Probably not. Does the United States have more pressing priorities in Afghanistan at this point than helping the country develop a framework for regulating its mining sector and managing its mineral wealth? Certainly. But by doing so, Washington can begin to lay the groundwork for the long-term strategic partnership it has committed to pursuing with Kabul. Mining sector assistance should be viewed, then, as a key element in the as-yet-nonexistent civilian strategy for Afghanistan–and it will be a challenging one: Afghanistan’s Mines Ministry is widely reputed to be one of the most corrupt departments of the government.

(DoD photo by Cpl. Sarah Furrer, U.S. Marine Corps/Released)

In his opening statement at this morning’s SASC hearing with Gen. David Petraeus and Michele Flournoy, Senator John McCain registered his growing concern about the trajectory of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. His remarks hinged on the importance of acknowledging that, as Gen. McChrystal has said, “it is more important we get it right than we get it fast,” and that by setting a timetable for withdrawal—regardless of how flexible it may be—the United States has undermined its prospects for success:

No matter how much it has been explained and fixed with caveats, the decision to begin withdrawing our forces from Afghanistan arbitrarily in July 2011 seems to be having exactly the effect that many of us predicted it would:  It is convincing the key actors inside and outside of Afghanistan that the United States is more interested in leaving than succeeding in this conflict, and as a result, they are all making the necessary accommodations for a post-American Afghanistan.

Earlier in his remarks, McCain highlighted another area of increasing concern among Afghanistan-watchers—the lack of a coherent political strategy in the critical province of Kandahar:

To get Kandahar right, we all know that we need an integrated political-military strategy, but as far as I can tell, the political part of that strategy still isn’t there.  I hear a lot about the number of civilians who will deploy to Kandahar, but I still have not heard a convincing explanation for how we will begin to change the complex balance of power within the province, the troubling behavior of key local power brokers, the performance of the Afghan police in the city, and the counterproductive contracting practices that we are dependent on.

The Senator concluded with a message to the White House:

It is time for the President to state unequivocally that we will stay in Afghanistan until we win.  We need to begin a realistic debate about what it will take, and how long it will take, to achieve our goals…

(DOD photo by Cherie Cullen)

During discussions at the AEI conference on Indian military modernization—which was discussed in this space yesterday—China’s own military modernization, as well as its diplomatic efforts in South Asia, loomed large. Much of the Sino-Indian border is disputed, and in recent years Delhi’s concerns regarding Beijing’s intentions for the contested regions have intensified. As Jackie Newmyer noted:

From India’s point of view, the Chinese have been reluctant in the last decade to further the talks that have led to…an agreement, but not a definite definition of the borders. So this makes Indian military figures [and] strategists wonder, “what are the Chinese waiting for? Why are they not willing to settle this border once and for all?…Is it the case that the Chinese military might think that at some point in the future, they will be able to settle the border under more favorable terms and that’s why they’re holding out?”

Indeed, this is the last of China’s remaining border disputes, the only one it has failed to resolve. One can understand India’s concerns.

China, for its part, is doing little to address those concerns. According to China’s PLA Daily (h/t Project 2049’s AsiaEye blog), the Tibet Military Command has run a series of joint exercises on the Tibetan plateau this year, involving mountain infantry, mechanized infantry, “electronic confrontation” units, and artillery and engineering regiments. Such exercises can only serve to heighten India’s wariness. Of course, we cannot expect China to refrain from exercising its military, but there are steps China can take to put India at greater ease. For starters, it could invite Indian military observers to some of the PLA exercises in Tibet. The PLA could also cease incursions across the line of actual control and Beijing could soften its rhetoric on the border dispute (perhaps by not referring to Arunachal Pradesh as “Southern Tibet”).

But Beijing seems to prefer to keep tensions high. It is no wonder that, in upgrading its armed forces and updating their doctrines, India is preparing to fight its northern neighbor.

(Photo: flickr/Sadia Raval)

Earlier this week, AEI hosted a conference on Indian military modernization, bringing together a dozen experts to evaluate the defense capabilities of Asia’s other rising power. Over at Small Wars Journal, Robert Haddick has provided a concise overview of some of the event’s key points; the full video of the conference and a brief AEI summary are available here and here.

One of the panelists from the event, Walter Ladwig, had a piece yesterday in the Wall Street Journal detailing India’s growing military capacity and its pursuit of strategic partnerships with states throughout the Asia-Pacific.  Ladwig concludes with a point which was raised throughout the event about the lack of strategic vision among India’s senior civilian leaders:

The question for New Delhi will be how best to leverage this progress for additional security and improved relations throughout the region. Although India’s “Look East” policy has clearly met with success, there are many in India who still fail to acknowledge the vital role it is poised to play in Asia. The ability of countries in the region to partner effectively with India would be enhanced significantly were New Delhi to define more concretely its vision for the country’s broader role in Asia.

As Haddick notes in his summary, this lack of clarity has had a direct impact modernization efforts, as well:

Problems with Indian military modernization:

a. Indian officer corps is highly professional, but

b. India’s top civilian leadership has given minimal strategic guidance/grand strategy to the general staff.

c. India’s parliament doesn’t know and doesn’t care about strategic or military issues.

d. India’s civilian defense bureaucracy is no better.

e. Military acquisition programs lack any strategic coordination and are not tied to any doctrine or planning. Corruption in acquisition system is a major problem.

f. Indian military staff thinking seems stuck in the 1985 AirLand Battle concept, with little consideration given to indirect strategies, irregular warfare, hybrid techniques, cyber/electronic attack, etc.

(Photo: flickr/HEMS THE UNIQUE)

On a trip to London and Brussels this week, Defense Secretary Bob Gates found himself in a familiar position—pleading with our NATO allies not to shed their military capabilities. Gates has been consistently critical of our transatlantic partners’ unwillingness to invest substantially in defense, arguing in February that “the demilitarization of Europe…has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.” His rebukes, however, are increasingly falling on deaf ears.

With the ongoing financial turmoil in Europe, the urge to reduce defense spending and cut military programs has only increased. Within the last week, German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg reportedly proposed reducing Germany’s active-duty forces from 250,000 to 150,000, and eliminating the country’s policy of conscription. Recent analysis from London’s Royal United Services Institute likewise anticipates significant reductions in Britain’s active-duty forces and air and naval assets in the coming decade. Italy and France are also reportedly considering end-strength reductions.

As an alternative to outright force structure cuts, Gates suggested NATO countries undertake a regimen of cost-saving measures similar to those he’s seeking to implement at the Pentagon—pursuing administrative efficiencies and overhead savings while scrutinizing costly programs for potential cuts. But even if our European allies were to adopt Gates’ model, it would only modestly slow what has been a two-decade-long slide toward military and strategic insolvency.

While none of this necessarily stands to compromise the coalition’s near-term effort in Afghanistan—which, in any case, is by now almost an entirely U.S.-driven enterprise—it does call into question the alliance’s ability to conduct and sustain operations beyond its borders, which is (no kidding) a priority detailed in the recently released NATO 2020 “group of experts” report.

More importantly, Europe’s continuing disarmament undermines one of the core concepts of the White House’s National Security Strategy, which prizes “cooperative approaches” and stipulates that while “the United States will continue to underwrite global security,” “no one nation—no matter how powerful—can meet global challenges alone.” For those challenges that demand the use of force, the growing incapacity of our allies may leave the U.S. no other choice but to try.

(DoD photo by Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison, U.S. Air Force/Released)

Last Sunday the New York Times ran yet another misguided editorial on the Air Force’s bungled efforts to buy a replacement for its aging fleet of refueling aircraft, compounding the flawed analysis featured recently in editorial pages elsewhere, and revealing once again how little free-market capitalism has to do with defense procurement.  Buying weapons is not a business transaction, but rather a subset of national security strategy: it’s called the “arsenal of democracy,” not the “trading house of democracy.”

To be sure, the Air Force and the Boeing Company, the supplier of the current fleet and—if sanity prevails in the end—the builder of the future fleet, have created the mess that continues to embroil them.  If you haven’t been following the tanker saga from 2003, when the Air Force (looking for a way to extend its inadequate budget) signed up to lease (rather than buy) a new refueling aircraft based on Boeing’s 767, suffice it to say that the tale since then is one of individual greed and service incompetence and corruption, all made worse by efforts at “procurement reform.”  The net result is that the fleet’s a decade older, the taxpayers are out tens of billions of dollars and that—a thought inconceivable in 2003—the work might go to the European Airbus consortium.  It will someday make a gripping book, but it’s been a tragedy.

Congress has generally made this process worse, first by throwing out the lease deal and second by mandating a “competition,” which lured the European Aeronautics Defense and Space company (that is, in this case, the military version of Airbus)—which has never built a tanker, but loved the idea of keeping European jobs on the Pentagon’s nickel—into offering a version of its A330 airliner.  U.S. defense giant Northrop Grumman agreed initially to be Airbus’s American connection.

The problem is that the two airplanes are fundamentally different.  In particular, the A330 is a lot bigger.  Bigger might seem to be better in the abstract, but looks a lot less so in military practice.  Bigger airplanes inevitably cost more to operate, like an SUV costs more than an econobox.  Also, the value of a gas station in the sky is measured mostly by the capabilities of the strike and fighter planes that get the gas, not the tanker itself.  However, given the legal requirement for a competition, Airbus had a good deal of leverage and the Air Force kept rewriting its requirements to keep the A330 in the game, at one point even announcing that it had won the competition.

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This morning Politico reported that leaders within the tea party movement may provide an unexpected source of support for Defense Secretary Gates’ campaign to realign the Pentagon’s budget:

Key tea party players, on and off Capitol Hill, are expressing a willingness to put the Pentagon budget on the chopping block if it will help rein in federal spending and eliminate a projected trillion-dollar-plus budget deficit.

Although generally hawkish and conservative with a libertarian streak — “we’re for strong defense” is an oft-repeated mantra in the movement — tea party leaders and allies contacted by POLITICO said that both fairness and common sense dictate that the military budget be scrutinized for such cuts, a view that puts them in sync with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and some of the most liberal members of Congress.

“Everything is on the table,” insisted Mark Meckler, a national coordinator with the group Tea Party Patriots. “I have yet to hear anyone say, ‘We can’t touch defense spending,’ or any other issue. … Any tea partier who says something else lacks integrity.”

On closer inspection, though, this line of argument isn’t just about pursuing more efficient defense spending; it’s about limiting the circumstances in which the United States employs its armed forces—and thus redefining America’s role in the world. Politico cites Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), “a tea party favorite,” as arguing that the United States “cannot be a protector of the whole world. We cannot do that any longer. We don’t have the money to do it anyway.” Likewise, the article points to the campaign website of Chuck DeVore, a tea party candidate running for Senate nomination in California, who calls for “robust and modern volunteer military” but argues that Americans “neither have enough people or treasure to be a global policeman for decades.”

In a forward-looking article from April, Bill Kristol and Gary Schmitt warned about this emerging trend among conservatives and highlighted its fundamental wrong-headedness:

[Conservatives] are at present so upset with the increasing level of federal debt that, in the rush to cut spending and reduce the deficit, there is risk they may lump defense in with all the other federal programs to be cut.

No doubt, the Pentagon could be made more efficient. But efficiencies will only go so far. State-of-the-art weapons and military platforms are expensive, and so is the all-volunteer military that uses them with incredible capability. Republicans are only kidding themselves if they think defense reform will fix the procurement and modernization problems we now face. The gap between what is needed to modernize the military and the resources being provided is larger than any “reform” can bridge.

And there may be an even more serious problem on the conservative side: the lack of a clear strategic vision. There is a sense among conservatives, especially among many in Congress, that, if we can just get our economic house in order, all else will be well. Yet, since the end of World War II, the overriding premise of American grand strategy has been that if we as a country want peace and prosperity at home, we must have a military sufficiently dominant to deter major threats, police the international commons, and, when necessary, win the wars we wage. Although not cheap, such a strategy provided the underpinning for six decades of remarkable prosperity and success all across the globe. This is something conservatives know in their bones, but spend too little time actually articulating.

Some elements of the tea party movement, however, appear not to know this in their bones—far from it. Which, ironically, puts them in league with the White House in terms of their distaste for the application of American military power and a desire to focus on domestic priorities—preferences communicated clearly in the 2010 National Security Strategy. This convergence of politics and strategy from the Left and the far-Right only stands to further compromise the United States’ continued role as guarantor of global security.

(Photo: flickr/asterix611)

Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster’s remarks at AEI last week have been well received in the blogosphere. Today at Tom Ricks’ Best Defense, William Shields summarizes nicely McMaster’s key points about the futility of relying on technology in pursuit of “full spectrum dominance” and the importance of decentralized mission command in the  Army’s efforts to adapt successfully to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the guys over at Bellum picked up on one of the points that also caught the attention of many of us here at AEI…

Have conventional skillsets atrophied? Certainly, McMaster says, but that is a challenge we can overcome with more training. He cited as examples:

• Command and control capabilities with respect to large numbers of forces on the move

• Logistical support to combat operations at a high tempo along extended lines of communication

• Entry operations other than those that depend on deep-water ports.

Video of Brig. Gen. McMaster’s remarks is available here.

(Photo: flickr/FortBraggParaglide)