Sunday 5th June, 2005
U.S. military collapsing under weight
of Iraq
Source
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William S. Lind Sunday 5th June, 2005
Among the many unhappy developments in U.S. industry
in recent decades has been the advent of "wreck it
and run" management.
A small coterie of senior managers takes over a company
and makes a brilliant show of short-term profits while
actually driving the business into the ground. They bail
out just before it crashes, cashing in their stock options
as they go, and leave the employees, ordinary stockholders
and customers holding an empty bag.
It is increasingly clear that under Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. armed forces have also been
taken over by "wreck it and run" management.
When Rumsfeld leaves office, what will his successor inherit?
-- A volunteer military without volunteers. The Army
missed its active-duty recruiting goal in April by almost
half. Guard and Reserve recruiting are collapsing. Retention
will do the same as "stop loss" orders are lifted.
The reason, obviously, is the war in Iraq. Parents don't
want to be the first one on their block to have their
kid come home in a box.
-- The world's largest pile of wrecked and worn-out military
equipment (maybe second-largest if we remember the old
Soviet Navy). I'm talking about basic stuff here: trucks,
Humvees, personnel carriers, crew-served weapons, etc.
This is gear the Rumsfeld Pentagon hates to spend money
on, because it does not represent "transformation"
to the high-tech, videogame warfare it wrongly sees as
the future.
So far, deploying units have made up their deficiencies
by robbing units that are not deploying, often National
Guard outfits. But that stock has about run out, and some
of the stripped units are now facing deployment themselves,
minus their gear.
-- A military tied down in a strategically meaningless
backwater, Iraq, to the point where it can't do much else.
A perceptive reader recently wrote to me that "China
has the luxury of the U.S. inflicting grievous wounds,
economic and military, on itself from our commitment to
spread 'democracy' ... Although the Iraqi insurgents may
have the limited purpose of ending an occupation, other
global actors can sit back and watch us bleed ourselves
slowly to, at least, a weakened state. From that point
of view, the last thing these other actors wish to see
is either a victory or a quick defeat. Instead, events
are proceeding nicely as they are." Exactly correct,
and those other actors include al-Qaida.
-- Commitments to hundreds of billions of dollars worth
of future weapons programs that are militarily as useful
as zeppelins but less fun to watch. If the Army had its
Future Combat System, a semi-portable Maginot Line that
will cost more than any Navy or Air Force program of equal
uselessness, in Iraq or Afghanistan today, would it make
any difference? No. Maybe FCS really stands for Funnels
Cash System.
-- A world wary of U.S. intentions and skeptical of any
U.S. claims about anything. In business, goodwill is considered
a tangible asset. In true "wreck it and run"
fashion, Rumsfeld & Co. have reduced the value of
that asset to near zero. A recent survey of the German
public found Russia was considered a better friend than
the United States.
-- Finally, the equivalent of an unfavorable ruling by
a bankruptcy judge in the form of a lost war. We will
be lucky if we can get out of Iraq with anything less
than a total loss.
Earlier this week, I attended the funeral and burial
of one of the United States' real military heroes at Arlington
cemetery. Col. David Hackworth would not have sat silent,
as our current senior military leadership sits, while
"wreck it and run" civilian management drove
America's armed forces into the ground.
Rumsfeld & Co. will bear primary responsibility for
the disaster, which will no doubt disturb them greatly
as they enjoy their luxurious retirements. But our senior
generals and admirals are the equivalent of the board
of directors, and they would have some difficulty convincing
Hack that they were just the piano players in the affair.
(William S. Lind, expressing his personal opinion, is
director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for
the Free Congress Foundation.)
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