Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of (Land) War!

Professor Jim Lacey of the Marine Corps War College gets one thing right in his National Review Online post entitled "Why Armies Matter".  Well, maybe two things.  The first is his view that "....Around the Pentagon, the budget cutters have put away their knives and are reaching for axes. In times like these, every service naturally circles the wagons around its share of the budget pie." On this, he is correct. I have been sounding the alarum for several years now as the tea-leaves pointed to lower defense spending, that the role of American Seapower in defending our national interests should be privileged.  Professor Lacey has risen before to make his views known on the folly of reducing our land power.  I've written before here about his views, most recently in a serve and volley about Air-Sea Battle which featured the Professor's predilection for straw-man arguments. 

The second thing that he gets right is that Armies--specifically the U.S. Army--matter.  As I did in my rejoinder to him linked to above, I concede that throughout history and in the foreseeable future, state on state war has been and will be decided by land armies.  Seapower and Airpower enthusiasts always over-reach when they attempt to assert that either is a war-winning (on its own) approach.  It is ironic though, that very few land-power enthusiasts ever concede that modern war cannot be won even by overwhelming land power--without Air and Seapower--but I digress.  

I seek here to dispute Professor Lacey on behalf of American Seapower.  I am not an Airpower strategist, though I do recognize that modern American Seapower is enriched by the world's most mobile and lethal air force (Naval Aviation).  I will leave it to others to make the Air Force's argument. 

Professor Lacey takes us on an interesting and fascinating tour of history, recounting the (unchallenged) record of land-battle as war-winner.  Therefore, one should surmise, since Seapower does not win wars, it is and should necessarily be secondarily considered.  Or as a former CIA Director once stated, "this one is a slam dunk."  This view adequately considers 100% of 50% of the question, leaving the other 50% completely unanswered, unquestioned, and un-valued.  That is, what function does military power perform when it is not actively engaged in combat?  Or put another way, do we invest in our Armed Forces to do things other than fight and win wars?

The answer of course, is yes, we do.  Chief among them is that we invest in our Armed Forces to look after our far-flung national interests, to deter emergent threats to those interests, and to assure our friends and allies in an effort to create an reinforcing architecture aimed at--yes, protecting and sustaining our national interests.  Professor Lacey's historical tour concludes with a reference to Pax Americana, yet somehow his argument manages to overlook Pax Britannica and the role played by dominant Seapower in its maintenance.  Surely, if history teaches us that armies win wars, does it not also teach us that navies protect and extend the interests of powerful nations?  

And it is in this realm, where the maintenance of large standing armies--increasingly US-garrison based--becomes subject to rational strategic criticism, the kind in which Professor Lacey seems unwilling to engage.  We are indeed winding down from two large land wars, wars in which our Landpower was properly increased because we were fighting land wars.  One was forced upon us, yet morphed into something that was clearly a war of choice.  The other was without question, a war of choice.  The Administration is rationally choosing to now disengage from those wars, as (to their satisfaction) our objectives have been met and also, because of the American public's weariness with their continuance.  It is doing so after a significant recession and fiscal crisis rocked our economy, forces that should lead to a significant effort to reshape and redefine our National Security Strategy and the forces that pursue it.  My fear of course, is that it leads to a smaller version of what we have now, except less powerful, less globally arrayed, and less capable--while retaining the self-esteem boosting quality of "balance".

In the perfect world that inhabits my brain, we would maintain a wondrous Navy, an unbeatable Air Force, a gigantic Army and a powerful, mobile Marine Corps.  Everyone would be happy and no oxes would be gored.  Adversaries and potential adversaries would cringe at our greatness.  We would pay for this grandiosity through dramatic cuts to entitlements and the budgets would balance every year.  

This is however, not the world we inhabit.  In this world, hard choices must be made about the size and shape of our armed forces.  One of the fundamental questions that must be asked (and answered) is "How should resources be apportioned among the various functions of our military power?"  For the past 11.5 years, the answer was relatively easy--that those forces involved in the winning of war should be privileged. Hence, our Army and Marine Corps each grew during that time, and they grew relatively quickly, an attribute of land forces.  Should we now maintain the same level of investment in those capabilities as the nation turns more toward the other functions of its military power, functions for which garrison force land power is ill-suited?  What are the opportunity costs of maintaining large, highly ready, standing Land Forces that are unengaged?  Given the (relative) ease of expanding land power, should resources be denied capital-intensive capabilities that take longer to create (a.k.a Seapower and Airpower)? 

For Professor Lacey's argument to be persuasive, one would have to believe that something on the order of the current level of war-fighting effort is somehow a baked-in feature of the world of the future.  I reject this notion completely.  Conversely, it is not a stretch to envision a world in which U.S. vital national interests remain geographically dispersed and clustered along the coastlines of the world.  Nor is it a stretch to envision that future Administrations would like to have the capabilities to tend to those interests.  

And, importantly, it is not a stretch to believe that we might someday once again need half-a-million Soldiers in a high state of readiness to win a war.  The question ultimately, is whether those Soldiers need to be primarily in the active duty Army and maintained at their current levels of readiness.  Professor Lacey would have us believe the answer is yes, I would have us believe the answer is no.  

One final point.  Professor Lacey teaches at the Marine Corps War College, though he rightfully avers that the views he expresses are his, not his employer's.  As a navalist, I am glad of this, as Professor Lacey's view dangerously lumps the USMC into the category of "land force" by tying its fortunes to those of the Army.  The U.S. Marine Corps is a naval force, and its value and relevance increases in proportion to its being understood as an element of Seapower.  The worst thing for the institutional Marine Corps at this juncture would be to become more distant from the Navy.  The best  thing for the Marine Corps (and for the nation) would be for Department of the Navy to start to organize, train, equip and fight as a Department.  

Bryan McGrath