General Mattis: A New American Grand Strategy

A little late, but since a nation (eventually) can only fight a war or engage in conflicts for which it has the funds, for whatever value:

As for the business environment in California, you are correct that it leaves much to be desired.

<I><U>"Was surprised by and verified your cited 6 million lost manufacturing jobs since 1998. However, those jobs have been rebounding in the past 5 years since the recession.”</U></I>

I know that the Federal Government and others have been claiming that manufacturing employment is rebounding in this country; but here is the detailed data from the BLS and a path to that BLS Source Data.

To review the current and historical number of workers employed in manufacturing by month for each year for any span of time from 1981 forward, Google “Manufacturing Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National),” and it should take you to the applicable BLS data tables and graphs. It is a bit of a nuisance to locate the appropriate Tables in the BLS World, but the data is there. It won’t do any good to use their link, as it rarely if ever works???

At the end of the Clinton Administration there were almost 17,200,000 workers employed in the manufacturing industry.

At the end of the Bush Administration, there were 12,850,000 workers employed in the manufacturing industry.

As of February 2015, the BLS reports there were 12,330,000 workers employed in Manufacturing.

The low point was 11,475,000 during December 2009.

According to the BLS statistical data, 885,000 jobs were added back to the manufacturing sector from its low point to today. However, using December 2000 as the base, the total lost manufacturing jobs as of December 2010 was 5,725,000. Therefore 15.5% of those jobs have been recovered over the subsequent four years from December 2009, at the rate of:

120,000 for 2010
200,000 for 2011
160,000 for 2012
125,000 for 2013
220,000 for 2014
30,000 YTD 2015 of extrapolated to 180,000 for the year (A SWAG)

Relying on the 220,000 from the 2014, the largest annual increase, it would take an additional 22 years to recover the remaining 4,840,000 lost manufacturing jobs.

Does that BLS manufacturing employment data demonstrate the Government’s claimed rebounding in U.S. Manufacturing Employment?

<I><U>“Should factory jobs continue to return but largely are automated with robotics to compete with low labor rates abroad, how will that increase factory work as a percentage of the total?”</U></I>

Unfortunately, only about one-quarter of the savings that American Manufacturers obtained from off shoring their production resulted from reduced direct labor costs. While the gains in productivity that have resulted from use of CAD / CAM CNC and robotics may address labor costs, they unfortunately do little to address many of the other (30% =/-) cost reductions that resulted from moving production offshore. Of course, increased productivity also reduces the labor required to run a manufacturing plant, but if it could be used to restore our industrial base -- at least it would reduce America’s Trade Deficit caused massive cash outflows resulting from off shoring.

While there are newer articles, one might read “The Myth of Industrial Rebound” dated Jan. 25, 2014,written by Steven Rattner, as his assessment continues to be accurate, and perhaps keep in mind that he not a Conservative and generally politically supports the current Administration.

For a more recent paper, dated January 2015, see http://www2.itif.org/2015-myth-american-manufacturing-renaissance.pdf

<I><U>“Yet, many foreign auto manufacturers continue to build factories in the lower cost South. ….”</U></I>

While automobile manufacturing was moving into U.S. Southern States, due to their better business climate, that trend is slowly coming to a halt. Now, automobile manufacturing is actually being moved rather steadily into Mexico, both from American and foreign manufacturers selling in this country. This year around 12% of the new cars sold in the U.S. will be manufactured in Mexico.

See e.g. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-31/mexico-surpassing-jap…- noting:

"Mexico accounted for 18 percent of North American auto output in 2013, compared with 11 percent in 2000 and 6.5 percent in 1990. ... Mexico’s tally will reach 1.9 million in 2015, topping Canada as the biggest exporter of cars to the world’s largest economy …” “Mexican auto exports to the U.S. more than quadrupled from 1993 to 2013 as output almost tripled, buoyed by lower tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Three plant openings in four months -- by Nissan Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. and Mazda Motor Corp. -- will supply the final push for Mexico’s leap past Japan, which as recently as 2008 shipped almost twice as many cars to U.S. consumers."

The process is only going slowly because of the time required to build and staff the factories, but I believe now around 12 % of the new cars sold in this country are (or will be this year) manufactured in Mexico – 1.9 million out of around 15,5 million sold in the U.S.

Also see, http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2014/08/20/americas-car-capital… on the same subject.

Absent imposing trade barriers or substantial tariffs on imports, I see no possibility that the U.S. manufacturing economy will ever recover, but who knows.

Manufacturing employment is the major sector that traditionally (and still does) provide an average of 40+ hours of work per employee per week. The overall average work week for American workers (including manufacturing) is around 32 hours a week. Thus, the non-manufacturing sector (probably sans construction) is certainly less than an average of 32 hours per week.

Therefore, what the government (using the BLS data) is referring to as a worker is a 32 hour a week employee, or an 80% worker. That means, in reality, the workforce is 20% lower than they claim.

This could go on, but I’ll stop here, and only add that unless the country restores its employment base and its Labor Participation Rate to the previous once sustained highs – and thereby obtains the tax revenues from that employment level, and returns businesses / corporations and their taxable income to this land -- we simply will not generate the tax base needed to sustain any meaningful size military. Our tax base is not going to permit the country to continue funding the costs of overseas invasions and occupations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Eventually, the large numbers of under-employed and under-paid workers in this country will rebel at its spending hundreds of billions occupying and / or fighting wars in foreign countries and politically demand that money be instead spent on jobs for them -- such as for infrastructure in this land. They delivered a mild form of that message to Obama and the Democrats in this last election.

<blockquote>First, the world has always been awash in change, that most certainly does not mean that the strategic, political, economic, and other objectives of this nation must by definition change.</blockquote>

Agreed, but most of your subsequent points <strong>change</strong> current objectives.

<blockquote>Second, the so called International Order effectively dictated post World War II by American and European Nations often applied only in selected areas of the globe -- where there were conforming parties. Many nations have (often successfully) competed against political and economic domination by the Western Powers, whether we chose to notice that fact or not -- China and Vietnam are two examples among many.</blockquote>

I seem to recall a post-WWII international order split between the West and Communist East in Europe. And despite competing very poorly for decades, they continued to attempt to control other European nations and expand their failing communist policies. As for Asia, I don’t recall many South Koreans desiring to become communist like the North. Likewise, Japan was helped by post-WWII “occupation,” financing, and influence by the West. Taiwan also mirrored the West and for decades had a superior economy until China went capitalistic and overwhelmed it with numbers of workers…something that soon will change with the one-child policy.

<blockquote>Third, State systems will exist on this globe probably into eternity, even though the shape of the States may change. Those States will each have their own value systems and it has and will create economic and political disaster for any Nation State, such as the US, attempting to impose its political, social, or cultural "values" on other States or peoples. The most recent examples of those very costly trillion plus dollar failures have been demonstrated by our failed efforts in Iraq and (soon to be, if not already) in Afghanistan.</blockquote>

The problem lies when <strong>other</strong> states attempt to impose their will on us and our friends. Sunnis imposed their will on Iraqi Shiites for too long and now the situation is reversed. Iran is trying to spread its control of other state capitals beyond the current four. Radical Pashtun Taliban imposed their will on other less radical Afghan ethnicities and allowed al Qaeda sanctuary. ISIS would impose strict sharia law in a worldwide Caliphate and kill/enslave/tax anyone who disagrees. Non-Jewish Middle East states hate Israel and if possible would wipe them off the earth. Putin would restrict free speech, and alter international borders despite small populations of Russians in areas where even political officers told troops that 70% of the overall population in East Ukraine supported Ukraine not Russia.

If we had not intervened in Vietnam would communism have spread further and faster without the numerous resources communist state sponsors were forced to divert there? Has communism thrived anywhere it was attempted, because China’s and even Russia’s successful recent versions are more capitalistic. Yet China still is marginal in terms of quality of goods, lack of original thought, child labor, and environmental impact and Russia is a one-trick energy pony. Look locally at Cuba and Venezuela. Yet for years, communist states attempted to spread their failed economic policies to others who did not want them.
<blockquote>Fourth, before we try to determine what are the threats to this nation's "vital interests," we should determine precisely what are those vital interests. Something obtained abroad is vital to this country only if it cannot be replaced by its equivalent in this country. That is simply a common sense definition of a vital interest. We cannot classify alleged threats unless we identify precisely what is, and what is not, vital to our existence as an economically and politically healthy nation.</blockquote>

If energy is a U.S. vital interest as is safety of energy movement, how is that interest supported when other nations threaten key sea lanes and trains derail in the U.S. because safer pipelines are vetoed? If coal is one of our nation’s key natural assets, how is energy self-sufficiency enhanced by making its use economically untenable? Are Japan and South Korea key economic U.S. partners as is Europe? Is Israel a key ally with whom we share common security interests?

<blockquote>Fifth, while it is a correct statement (IMO) that the foundation of our nation's strength is its economic strength (and yes I purposely omitted the word "military"), the cause of our current economic problems / weaknesses is not caused by our debt. It is caused instead by what has caused that debt to increase -- and that is not our rate of spending. Instead, our debt levels have been increasing because a major part of this nation's economy (that was once reasonably taxed) has been torn out of it and shipped overseas, i.e. the industrial part of our economy. We have in the last decade lost over 6 million higher paid manufacturing jobs (and thus the government has lost the monies from the taxes paid on those incomes) and seen almost 60,000 factories of varying sizes close. The profits from those businesses still occur, but they are now kept overseas and pay no taxes into America's tax coffers. Further, every time we buy a retail good, some part of that money leaves the country to purchase the goods we just bought. We have a major trade deficit at the national level. The US is a country where the cash outflow far exceeds the cash inflow or cash kept at home. That is the reason for this nations operating deficit. At numerous levels it has lost tax revenues -- which if paid are going to foreign countries. Before this country worries about ISIS -- which will never constitute a vital threat to this country, we had better reverse the disastrous economic policies we have in place which are slowly bankrupting this country -- or learn Chinese.</blockquote>

Because I suspect you live in California CBCalif (as did I for years), perhaps you recognize how difficult it is for a factory to thrive there given high labor rates created by housing costs and property taxes. When a starting cop in the Bay Area makes $85 grand, taxes will be high. When dock workers slow the rate of container processing, it’s difficult to have much sympathy when they average $140K. When internet sales are untaxed, a large source of revenue is not realized. My brother has owned a restaurant/bar for years but still lives in a small house on the land of his wealthier retired CalTrans parents-in-law. No wonder so many jobs are leaving California and New York. Union influence screwed up the domestic car industry. Yet, many foreign auto manufacturers continue to build factories in the lower cost South.

Was surprised by and verified your cited 6 million lost manufacturing jobs since 1998. However, those jobs have been rebounding in the past 5 years since the recession. Should factory jobs continue to return but largely are automated with robotics to compete with low labor rates abroad, how will that increase factory work as a percentage of the total? If you live in California, you see few Walmarts in large cities, yet the rest of flyover country flocks to Walmart and its often overseas-produced products to survive on average wages that have declined or risen slowly. Only electronics manufacturing and energy production is increasing dramatically in the U.S., yet electronics are largely moving to cheaper U.S. areas and energy drilling has been curtailed by environmentalists. If you truly are concerned about clean water and air and a rise in sea level, try for starters not putting so many people in lots of U.S. coastal metropolitan areas.

We won’t put globalization and robotic manufacturing back into Pandora’s box. Perhaps we need some form of national service to reduce our budget deficit and provide jobs for young people in barracks-like environments so that they build skills and reduce local, state, and federal government payrolls which in turn will reduce taxes. A military E-1 through E-3 does not need to make what they make now, and overly generous health care and retirement benefits for military retirees must more closely reflect society. We must encourage people and businesses to move to lower cost areas rather than perpetuate tax breaks for mortgage interest and high property taxes that only incentivizes remaining in high cost of living areas that make us uncompetitive at home and abroad and ensure kids living with parents in perpetuity. Yes, the gas tax needs to increase to fix infrastructure. Yes, the wealthiest among us should pay a higher tax rate on upper parts of income. Yes, every part of a military member’s pay should be taxable to include the large housing allowance to encourage living on base.

<blockquote>Sixth, this country has spent far too much money and effort in the Middle East, motivated by the Al Qaeda attack of 9/11 -- for far too little return. We have only one vital interest (at present) in that part of the world -- obtaining the quantities of oil needed to fuel the Western Economies, and nothing else. <strong>It is up to those people what their borders will look like, what the basis for their laws will be, what will be their cultural norms, etc. We have to stop attempting to impose our ways on them -- we will not succeed.</strong> Instead we should simply use that situation for our economic gain by selling weapons to those groups who are willing to fight against others that someday perhaps could pose a threat to this country. We should pursue a balanced approach and maneuver to keep the parties fighting and killing each other off. It is not in our long term interests to see either the Iranian / Shiite faction or the ISIS / radical Sunni faction prevail. The best way to prevent either from being victorious is to insure each has the weapons and supplies needed to kill off the other in a balanced approach.</blockquote>

The bolded section added to your paragraph does not acknowledge that colonial borders of a century ago create conflict in cultural and religious norms. If we intervene on the ground to consolidate gains (rather than break it and leave chaos in Libya) shouldn’t we rectify those failed borders to give like people self-rule? You say it would not succeed to impose our will, yet if we did just that as we did in Germany and Japan following WWII, creating new countries of like folks, why wouldn’t that work better in keeping the peace?

As for your subsequent comments after the bold section, we already arm the Middle East and it has not kept the peace. ISIS ended up with our weapons because Sunni Iraq Army elements had no interest in fighting fellow Sunnis and none wanted to follow politically-appointed leaders who paid off the Shiite leader. Iran continues to use our weapons. Ukraine is fighting Russians with like weapons that in some cases were produced in Ukraine for both armies.

In addition, while there is a jaded logic in letting both side kill each other, it does nothing to enhance opinions about the U.S. when we allow genocide and Shiite rule to prevail in areas where Shiites do not live. The surest way to continue to be the great Satan is to conduct regime change, and then continue to support the new Shiite ruler with airpower while Sunni and Kurd areas do not want such rule and will not stop fighting just because Iranian and Shiite militias temporarily re-seize terrain. Some decry the death of terrorists from “drones” as promoting terror, yet somehow believe that allowing 200,000 Sunnis to be killed by Assad is not going to lead to terror and ISIS???

<blockquote>Seventh, in the final analysis if a country is willing to pay the economic price to develop nuclear weapons -- that effort will eventually be successful. Our alternative is to maintain the necessary MAD capability and to continue to heavily invest in anti-missile capabilities.</blockquote>

Why spend $350 billion over the next decade to reproduce far too many nuclear weapons that will never be used if our world is to survive. The Navy would spend billions building nuclear-launch subs of which only a third will deploy at any time meaning a few assets could be followed and destroyed. LRS-B likely would be based at one location where commando precision weapons could destroy them on the ground. Worse, nuclear war could start out of fear that penetrating bombers were going to drop nukes on China or Russia and pursue TELs that launch both conventional and nuclear missiles. Why do we need 1500 nuclear strategic warhead or an operating Minuteman IV in every current silo? Could we go road mobile like the Russians? Tunneled roads with fewer missiles?

<blockquote>Eighth, It is the height of folly to propose that we continue to invest our treasure and blood in a protracted war in Afghanistan or elsewhere. America does not have the military strength to impose its will on the peoples of the world -- in any country where they are willing to fight against us into eternity. It is foolish beyond belief for America's military officers not to have learned that lesson from our strategic debacle in Vietnam. Whether today's generals (flag officers in general) want to admit or not, our invasion and occupation efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan were doomed from the start, incredibly foolish, and need to end. Large scale COIN efforts are too costly and will never succeed -- because those we call insurgents, other call invasion resisters and freedom fighters.</blockquote>

If we had surged upfront in Afghanistan and redrawn it borders to incorporate Pashtun and other areas as separate countries, I submit the war would have been far shorter. The same strategy could have worked in Iraq, as well, and many will even stipulate OIF’s folly in the first place. However, recall that would have meant a continued no-fly zone and continued oil sanctions curtailing the world energy total meaning high prices. It also would have meant no guarantee of a stable Middle East or an Iraq and Iran without WMD. We seem to get recurring reports of new chemical weapon stores discovered there that back in 2003-2004 naysayers were saying did not exist.

Our failure in Vietnam was a Congressional law that prevented use of airpower in 1975 against a conventional NVA attack. We also abandoned any notion of long-term stability operations after Vietnam. I recall zero instruction about Vietnam at West Point from 1976-1980, yet ample lessons (correctly but shouldn’t have been exclusively) about potential war in Europe. We got plenty of history about ancient wars irrelevant to how we fight now, but few lessons from Vietnam, such as helicopter and light infantry warfare, augmented by indirect fire and close air support. I recall no SF instructors except one.

<blockquote>Ninth, We choose our enemies more often than not, and those chosen enemies most certainly act to their strengths and against our weaknesses. Being able to fight against the so-called spectrum of combat is one thing, being wise enough to know when not to employ military strength in a given spectrum / situation, or when to limit the amount of effort being applied is even more strategically important. The strategy of invading and occupying foreign lands with the goal of removing their current political structure and replacing it with one of American creation and with a Western social and cultural scheme must be recognized as having led the U.S. military into and out of one failed strategic effort after another. The idea that we should remain in Afghanistan is nothing less than the height of folly.</blockquote>

Is Iraq now displaying a “Western social and cultural scheme” or an Iranian one? Do you propose letting the same thing happen to Afghanistan that happened in Iraq by leaving too early? Should we look the other way whenever genocide results when others impose their will on neighbors or fellow countrymen? Will allies abandon us and seek agreements with Russia and China if we abandon them and fail to honor treaties?

<blockquote>Tenth, we need to recognize and accept that other powerful nations have their spheres of influence and accept that reality -- just as we did during the Cold War. During the Cold War the US wisely adopted a strategy of containment and MAD. WE need to do the same with the Middle East, Russia, China, etc. -- while being wise enough to provide them operating room within their sphere of influence or sphere of combat. Our failures during the Cold War, such as in Vietnam, only occurred when we acted outside the strategy of containment. The US needs to invest in its military accordingly.</blockquote>

Why is East Europe a Russian sphere of influence? Would the NATO nations that border Russia agree with that characterization? Isn’t NATO <strong>still</strong> a strategy of containment and MAD? Would containment of China simply increase their paranoia (as would an exclusive UW approach in Europe and Asia) or should we be pointing out that we buy ample Chinese products, want to continue that policy, but simply want fair sharing of regional resources disputed by Asian countries. Would forward prepositioning of ground forces in numerous European and Asian countries on trains ensure more rapid regional reinforcement while limiting A2/AD targeting?

<blockquote>Finally, it is one thing to carry out a campaign against International Terrorism, it is another to conduct it on a cost efficient and cost effective basis.</blockquote>

And again, I would argue that should we pursue regime change or redrawn borders in the rarest of future situations, the surest way to consolidate gains and restore stability is create new self-rule boundaries for similar peoples. Do that upfront before elections and we would turn a decade-plus long counterinsurgency war into far shorter stability and transition “occupation.”

If ISIS, al Qaeda, and Hezbollah have taught us anything, you cannot separate terrorism and the potential for WMD use by zealots who don’t adhere to MAD because in some cases they seek an apocalyptic battle that they insanely believe they can win. As PM Netanyahu put it in his speech before Congress, “the biggest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam and nuclear weapons.” What price do you want to limit ourselves to in keeping a smuggled nuke out of NYC? How long do we think we can preclude the inevitable use and abuse of nuclear weapons once proliferation increases in the Middle East? Will Japan and South Korea seek nuclear weapons because the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner in conventional defense? The end of the Cold War has blinded younger Americans to the horror of nuclear weapons. That does not mean we should spend $350 billion to upgrade current ones. It means we should prioritize and forward deploy more conventional strength to preclude nuclear or any major wars in the first place.

Morganthau's thoughts below are interesting:

"Given the contentious manner in which in democracies the variable elements of the national interest are generally determined, the advocates of an extensive conception of the national interest will inevitably present certain variable elements of the national interest as though their attainment were necessary for the nation’s survival."

"In other words, the necessary elements of the national interest have a tendency to swallow up the variable elements so that in the end all kinds of objectives, actual or potential, are justified in terms of national survival." (In this negative light, to consider President Obama's grand strategy[ies]?)

"The same problem presents itself in its extreme form when a nation pursues, or is asked to pursue, objectives which are not only unnecessary for its survival but tend to jeopardize it." (In this negative light, to consider President's Bush (Jr.)'s grand strategy[ies]?)

(The items in parenthesis above are obviously mine.)

Thus, in both the case of President Bush, and the case of President Obama, where these guys get in trouble -- re: their grand strategies -- is in, shall we say, coloring outside the "survival" lines.

This such misguided action being caused by the fact that we are, post-the Cold War, in the unusual and enviable position of not having to worry, really, about our "survival?"

This, in turn, making the articulation of our grand strategies, post-the Cold War, an exercise in addressing parochial/partisan "want" matters -- rather than national "need" matters?