- "The U.S. military looks increasingly like a temp
agency on steroids: a massive organization of part-time workers armed with
the latest in firepower."
-
- War is the ultimate test of reality and illusion.
-
- On the eve of World War I, the French General Staff was
convinced victory would go to the attacker, that massed soldiers marching
together into battle could overcome technology with courage and elan. German
machine guns and artillery swiftly shattered that illusion, along with
several hundred thousand young Frenchmen.
-
- Today, the United States is engaged in a very similar
application of theory and warfare, albeit the opposite of the one the French
tried.
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- Even the final victory in Iraq was not exactly a triumph
for the "revolution." It wasn't swift moving, light troops that
took Baghdad and Basra, but the conventional, tank-heavy U.S. 3rd Infantry
Division, and the British 7th Armored Division. In short, the "old
model army." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's military is a
swift moving, micro-chipped, killing machine, where electronics turn night
into day, and satellites and laser-guided weapons slice and dice enemy
armor and artillery. President George W. Bush called it a "revolution,"
that has "shown that an innovative doctrine and high-tech weaponry
can shape and then dominate an unconventional conflict."
-
- Has it? With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under our
belt, isn't it time to tote up the bill and separate reality from illusion?
-
- On the plus side for the "revolution," we won.
On the minus side, it was hardly a fair fight. In Afghanistan it was the
21st century verses the 12th, and we're not out of the tunnel yet. Iraq
had a 20th century army, but one hollowed out by a decade of sanctions
and with little loyalty to the brutal dictatorship it served. And that
war, too, is far from over.
-
- Military Transformation The latest "revolution"
in warfare, the brainchild of the late Air Force Col., John Boyd, goes
by the name "transformation" and combines high tech and maneuverability.
Its model was the German Blitzkrieg. But Rumsfeld's New Model Army is discovering
that the very instruments that make it so invincible on a conventional
battlefield are of little use in the non-conventional war the Bush administration
finds itself embroiled in. As long as the enemy was the Iraqi army, the
"revolution" works just fine. It has done less well against roadside
explosives, ambushes, and suicide bombs.
-
- Part of the problem is the "transformation"
army itself.
-
- The U.S. military looks increasingly like a temp agency
on steroids: a massive organization of part-time workers armed with the
latest in firepower.
-
- Since Sept. 11, 2001, some 292,000 National Guard and
reserve troops have been called to active duty, and more than 190,000 are
still serving. The Pentagon just announced a further call-up of 30,000.
Reserve and National Guard units now make up 46% of the military.
-
- Reserves have always been an important component of the
U.S. military, but they are only supposed to be called up in times of national
emergency. From World War I to Gulf War I - 75 years - they were called
up nine times. In the past 12 years they have been mobilized 10 times.
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- Normally such troops work behind the front lines and
serve for shorter periods than regular troops. However, under "transformation,"
their deployment has been stretched to 12, and sometimes 15 months. And
the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan is anyplace a soldier happens to
be.
-
- Temping in the 21st Century Army The thinking behind
all this is simple math: reserve and Guard troops are much cheaper than
regular troops. As Christopher Caldwell at the Weekly Standard notes, "it
is hard not see a similarity between the army's shift to part-time soldiering
and businesses preferences for part-time vs full-time labor."
-
- "Transformation" has essentially shifted much
of the financial burden for maintaining permanent troops to the families
of the reserves. Most joined up for the educational grants and small stipends
that comes with the job. But reserves are suddenly finding themselves locked
into open-ended deployments in very dangerous places. "Weekend warrior,
my ass," one sign spotted in Baghdad read. Reservists also charge
that they are given second-rate equipment in the field, including inadequate
body armor.
-
- The toll on these temps has been considerable. According
to the British newspaper, The Guardian, 75% of the 478 troops shipped home
from Iraq for mental health reasons were reservists.
-
- Wounded reservists returning from Iraq complain they
have been "warehoused" at Fort Stewart, Ga. in barracks without
showers or bathrooms and sometimes wait weeks to see a doctor.
-
- Inadequate medical care - another way the New Model Army
is trying to save on personnel costs - has touched a raw nerve among veterans
as well, many of whom are partially or fully disabled from Gulf War Syndrome.
Veterans' groups charge that almost 150,000 vets from Gulf War I have been
waiting more than six months to see a doctor, and the wait for a specialist
is up to two years.
-
- Those numbers are likely to climb because solders in
Iraq today are being exposed to many of the battlefield toxins that felled
some 118,000 veterans in the first Gulf War.
-
- The Syndrome has been linked to some 345 tons of Depleted
Uranium Ammunition (DUA) used in the 1991 conflict. According to the London
Express, the Americans and the British used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons
of DUA, much of it in urban areas during the recent war. Radiation 1,000
to 1,900 times normal has been detected in four locations in Baghdad.
-
- The situation is "appalling," according to
Professor Brian Spratt, chair of the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific
body. "We really need someone like the UN Environmental Program or
the World Health Organization to get into Iraq and start testing civilians
and soldiers for uranium exposure."
-
- Such testing is unlikely because the Department of Defense
denies that DUA poses any health risks.
-
- Cost-Cutting at the Pentagon While spending on high-tech
whiz-bangs is at an all time high, the administration has steadily shaved
the cost of personnel.
-
- A recent Pentagon attempt to cut active duty pay was
defeated by congressional outrage, but the administration is still attempting
to disqualify some 1.5 million veterans from eligibility for disability
benefits. The Pentagon has also resisted the Retired Pay Restoration Act
that would correct an anomaly that reduces military retirement pay by the
amount veterans draw in disability. The measure would level the playing
field between Civil Service retirees and 670,000 vets caught in this bureaucratic
oddity, but the Pentagon has resisted it as a "budget buster."
-
- Besides increasingly relying on temp soldiers, the "transformation"
army is also trying to apply private industry practices to public service.
Rumsfeld is seeking the right to hire, fire, and promote some 700,000 civilian
Pentagon employees on "merit" alone, free of government employment
regulations. "The risk that this system will be politicized and characterized
by cronyism in hiring, firing, pay promotion, and discipline are immense,"
says Bobby Harnatge, president of the American Federation of Government
Employees.
-
- While the manpower crisis on the ground is bad - there
are just not enough troops available to match the administration's imperial
sprawl - it is likely to get a whole lot worse. A recent poll by the military
newspaper, Stars and Stripes, found that only 49% of the reserves intend
to re-enlist.
-
- So is this blind folly? Or does "transformation"
offer an unseen benefit?
-
- "The arguments in support of technological monism
echo down the halls of the Pentagon," Major General Robert Scales
(Ret.) told the House Armed Service Committee Oct. 21, "precisely
because they involve the expenditures of huge sums of money to defense
contractors."
-
- In the 2002 election cycle, U.S. arms corporations' political
action committees spent $7,620,741, two-thirds of which went to the Republican
Party. "Transformation" might not work well once the initial
"shock and awe"of battle is over, but it can be a formidable
re-election machine.
-
- When the "Young Turks" of the French Army adopted
the doctrine of Èlan, they were certain it was a formula for victory.
The battle of the Marne convinced them otherwise, and the French abandoned
the tactic. Of course the French General Staff wasn't running for office.
-
- - Conn Hallinan is a provost at the University of California
at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online
at www.fpif.org).
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- ©2003. All rights reserved.
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- http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0311transf.html
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