A quick look at the globe shows a dozen possible ongoing low-intensity conflicts where our forces could find themselves. Already U.S. Special Forces are on the ground in places like Peru, the Philippines and Thailand. I’ll bet my old steel pot that within the next 10 years, regulars will be called on to back them up somewhere in the world. These forces’ readiness and combat efficiency cannot be compromised by shortsighted reductions that split the difference among the services. What is needed is amputation, not a pedicure. What is needed is real military reform.
A few suggestions for a 21st-century defense establishment:
Consolidate the U.S. military into one unified service. It would have one air element, one ground element and one naval element, all keeping their traditions, under one commander. One paymaster would pay them, one quartermaster would fit them out and one school system would train them. Right now, everything is done in four copies at a waste of tens of billions of dollars. A reformed Defense Force would pull the military rope all at the same time, and stop the interservice backstabbing and duplication that’s been around since George Washington.
Reduce or eliminate many of the overstaffed support areas and headquarters, starting with the Pentagon itself. That building has more bureaucrats and paper massagers now than it did when our uniformed military was double its present strength. This would reduce the bloated officer corps, especially at the flag ranks of general and admiral. We now have a ratio of one flag officer to every 3,333 uniformed personnel, almost twice that of World War II. We also need to sharpen the percentage of trigger pullers to pencil pushers. Right now, the clerks and jerks rule the roost. There are 53,000 personnel in the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command alone and nearly 40,000 in the Information Systems Command. If the fat were cut from the rear-echelon ranks there would be no need to reduce those that carry the sword.
Bring home all the ground combat forces stationed in Europe. They are not needed. And they cannot be properly exercised there because levels of maneuver damage unacceptable to the host countries would occur. The Germanbased U.S. Army VII Corps had more than 90 percent of the ground-inflicted friendly-fire casualties suffered during the gulf war because they could not train realistically in Germany.
Drastically reduce the size of the National Guard and Reserves. Both are overrated and overpaid. None of the major ground combat units is combat ready. It would take months of active-duty training to prepare them for battle. This was proven by the three fighting brigades called to active duty during Desert Storm. All flunked the course. The Reserve and guard combat units cost America billions of dollars to maintain, and they’re so useless that they don’t even qualify as paper tigers. (Support troops activated during Desert Storm were good, but with the drawdown, they also must be cut back.)
Close more bases. There are too many bases that are not needed. The Army’s Fort Drum in Watertown, N.Y., and Schofield Barracks in Hawaii are just two of twoscore that need to be closed or mothballed. Porkbarrel politics keep the guard and Reserves fat and unneeded bases open. Lawmakers cannot inflict pain only on the Pentagon and degrade combat readiness by forcing them to reduce active units. They have to have the guts to take a few hits themselves. They cannot demand deeper military cuts without killing their own sacred cows that graze and vote in their districts and bleed away vital defense dollars. But in fact, the current base-closing program already has proven that Congress and the Pentagon can work together and make smart cuts. They can make more.
Solving budget problems with defense dollars is not new. Nor has “fall out, some” ever worked. Our fighting men and women have always had to bear the consequences of such shortsightedness. America’s warriors need not be placed at risk in the future if our leadership profits from the mistakes of the past. American armed forces need a lasting fix. Restructure now.
