The Joint Strategic Vision of Conservatives and Progressives

I've been thinking about the QDR. OK, so I'm the only person who actually thinks about the QDR, but it is useful to look at the QDR to understand where we are and where we are going. In examining the QDR I've also found myself reviewing the recommendations for the DoD produced prior to the QDR by the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Progress. I focus on these two think tanks because they are highly partisan - which is useful for seeing where the political parties are in terms of looking towards the future.

Both think tanks developed a force structure recommendation based on a strategic view of the world. I'm not going to review those strategic views individually - just focus on the force structure recommendations for the DoD QDR produced by both.

The Heritage Foundation

Air Force. The Air Force currently has 2,383 fighter and attack aircraft, including the F-15, F-16, F-22, and A-10. The F-35 Lightening will soon enter service.

This overall size of the Air Force fighter force structure is about right. The QDR should recommend that the Air Force stay with this number. In particular, it should clearly state that the number should not fall below the current size of the force. The QDR should also point out that this number is adequate only in the context of a commitment to modernize the Air Force's fleet of aging aircraft.

Army. The Army plans to increase its force structure to 76 combat brigade teams across the Army, with 212 modular support brigades. The combat brigade teams will be broken down into 25 heavy brigades, 43 infantry brigades, seven Stryker brigades, and one brigade equivalent of active combat regiments. The airborne units will round out the broader Army force structure.

The upcoming QDR should recommend continuing the Army plan to increase its overall force structure. However, it should state that this projected growth should be a cap. Expanding the Army beyond this level could jeopardize proper funding for other elements of U.S. conventional forces.

Marine Corps. Unique among the services, the Marine Corps force structure is established in law. The Marine Corps has three active Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEFs) and one in the reserves. Each MEF contains a division-equivalent ground force, an aviation wing, and a logistics group.

The QDR should make it clear that the Defense Department will not seek to change the relevant law. The three-MEF standard is appropriate for the Marines and should permit it to meet its combat responsibilities. As with the other services, this force structure number is dependent on appropriate levels of modernization.

Navy Ships and Aircraft. Shipbuilding was not a priority during the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Annual procurement has fallen to just 5.3 ships per year. A lack of funding and the increasing costs of ships under construction have combined to ensure a low rate of shipbuilding that cannot sustain the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan for a 313-ship fleet. In addition to the strategic ballistic missile submarines, the fleet includes aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, amphibious ships, attack submarines, converted Trident submarines, and miscellaneous other ships.

The Navy's future force structure is the minimum size needed to secure U.S. maritime interests, but it lacks the proper internal balance and sufficient funding for the necessary shipbuilding rates. Specifically, it shortchanges aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and attack submarines in favor of littoral combat ships. The U.S. has 11 aircraft carriers, and that number should increase to 13 over the longer term. The number of cruisers and destroyers should increase from a projected 88 to 100, and the number of attack submarines should rise from 48 to at least 60. This should be facilitated, in part, by reducing the projected number of littoral combat ships from 55 to 20.

Further, the QDR should at least consider recommending that the Navy proceed with DDG-1000 procurement instead of extending the construction of DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers by ensuring that the DDG-1000s will have both air and ballistic missile defense capabilities. However, this approach will leave the cruisers with the Navy's primary air and missile defense missions. The QDR should also include a serious discussion of America's shipbuilding industrial base and how to maintain its strategic competitiveness throughout the next two decades.

Center for American Progress

Ground forces recommendations (Army, Marines)

• Continue increasing the size of U.S. ground forces without lowering standards. Also, enlarge the recruiting pool by dropping the ban on women serving in ground combat units and repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.
• Slow down Future Combat Systems and cut the program’s procurement, research, and design budgets by a third over the next four years.
• Move forward slowly on the Brigade Combat Team model, but carefully review the operations of the Maneuver Enhancement Brigades and determine whether more are needed.
• Maintain funding for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle at the current level, allowing for development and testing, but delay production in favor of purchasing M-ATV armored vehicles for Afghanistan.
  

Naval forces recommendations

• Cancel the Zumwalt-class DDG-1000 destroyer and build two Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyers a year for the next four years.
• Keep SSN-774 attack submarine production steady at one per year instead of ramping up to two per year in FY 2013.
• Move forward with current plans for the Littoral Combat Ship.
• Deploy the Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) aircraft carrier but delay the construction of the CVN-79 aircraft carrier for five years.
• Cancel the LPD-26 amphibious ship and move forward with the Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future).
  

Air forces recommendations (Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines)

• End production of the F-22 Raptor immediately at 183 planes.
• Continue development of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, but do not start full-scale production until flight tests have been completed. --Buy F-16 Block 60 fighters, two wings of MQ-9 Reaper drones, and 69 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to make up for the anticipated gap in fighter aircraft.
• Cancel the MV-22 Osprey and substitute cheaper helicopters while continuing production of the CV-22.
• Build more C-17 cargo aircraft.
• Move forward on the KC-X.
• Substitute MQ-1C Warrior drones for Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters.
• Move forward on the new long-range bomber.

First, we need to recognize a few finer details. The Heritage Foundation always approaches defense issues with two battle cries - "no less" or "a lot more." Seriously, it is a problem. The Heritage Foundation needs to come up with a new national security strategic idea that doesn't always include more money.

The Center for American Progress on the other hand takes a far more strategic approach that selects winners and losers based on strategic view, but they also get caught up in social issue advocacy in a paper intended to be strategic minded. Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Seriously? As a force structure talking point? My real problem with the CAP suggestions is that it doesn't contain any strategic synergy - indeed I don't know what the military CAP advocates for is supposed to do, rather it is simply intended to cost less.

The most important point to highlight here is that both the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Progress went into the QDR with the recommendation to increase the size of the Army to fight a land war in Asia, even though during the QDR period being discussed a reduction in Army forces in Iraq was quite expected.

Think about that for a second - increasing the Army to fight land future wars in Asia is both conservative and progressive in the 21st century.

Are you kidding me? I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal, meaning I don't like taxes on principle alone, am agnostic to many issues of politics and religion, and don't perform a Baptist backflipout when my teenage daughters openly homosexual male friends spend the night when she has sleepovers with all the 'girls'... but it also means I don't fall into either category of conservative or progressive. However, if I was either a partisan conservative or a partisan progressive - I'd be more than a little pissed off that my political platform for national security is focused on increasing the size of the Army to fight future land wars in Asia.

When it was announced that 'combat operations' had concluded in Iraq (which is just political nonsesnse), a bunch of folks wrote articles about what was gained and lost in Iraq. Here is my concern on what has been gained and lost. The most influential loss to the United States as a result of the Iraq War was the lingering memory and understanding among the strategic culture in Washington, DC that the United States is a maritime nation. I am also concerned that as a result of the Iraq War, Washington, DC has gained an entrenchment of Army based strategic idea men populated across the think tank community that see every problem as a nail to be solved with the US Army hammer.

The ground war strategic solution mentality started as quickly as the cold war ended - with Panama, then the Gulf War, then the Balkans, then Afghanistan, and finally Iraq a second time - ultimately the United States Army has been engaged in a ground war almost 15 of the last 21 years.

Conservatives and Progressives alike need a new strategic view for America - because the United States is failing every golden rule for sustaining ourselves as a superpower when we are as a nation actively engaging in major military operations on the ground across the globe as a perpetual habit.

We can no longer ignore how every rising power in the world is focused on seapower national security strategies - while the United States remains focused on land war strategic debates (like COIN).

No matter how long we intend to be in Afghanistan, it is past time to realign the strategic direction of the United States towards seapower. If it isn't done now, then when the next crisis comes - no matter what it is - the solution will be to send in the Army because for the last two decades and counting it is the preferred way the defense establishment knows to solve national security problems anymore.

I believe the United States has more options than the US Army hammer, and there is a better way ahead strategically than perpetual land war. Hopefully, sooner than later, someone on Capitol Hill or in the White House will start saying as much and lead the nation back towards seapower.