Obama’s Favorite Think Tank: Cut the Army, Forget Counterinsurgency by Spencer Ackerman, Wired’s Danger Room. Bluf:
The Obama administration’s favorite defense think tank was once a hothouse of counterinsurgency theory. But now that the government is trying to crawl out of its massive debt, the Center for a New American Security is less about big ground conflicts and more about how to shrink the defense budget. First on the chopping block, according to its forthcoming blueprint for defense cuts: counterinsurgency. Next: the Army and Marines who wage it.
“Extended counterinsurgency operations” are passe once the U.S. draws down in Afghanistan, says Nora Bensahel, a defense expert at CNAS, as the think tank is ubiquitously known in Washington. “We’re judging that a less-likely scenario.” …
More on Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in the Age of Austerity from the Center for a New American Security:
The Budget Control Act of 2011 has set the government on a path to dramatically reduce spending over the next decade, and a congressional "super committee" is now seeking to trim spending by more than $1 trillion beyond the cuts already enacted this year. As additional cuts are made, we must ask: How can the United States responsibly and effectively maximize its security in this era of growing fiscal austerity?
Authored by Center for a New American Security (CNAS) experts LTG David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), Dr. Nora Bensahel and Travis Sharp, the forthcoming report Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in an Age of Austerity answers this question and highlights the implications of tough budget cuts on America's military capabilities. Hard Choices outlines four budget cut scenarios and evaluates possible trade-offs among force structure, end strength, procurement and overhead. Barno, Bensahel and Sharp also offer several potential reforms to military pay and benefits.
On October 7, 2011, CNAS will release Hard Choices at an event featuring a discussion with the report authors and leading defense and budget experts Gordon Adams, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, and Tom Donnelly, Resident Fellow and Director of the Center for Defense Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. RSVP online here.
Copies of Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in an Age of Austerity will be available at the event on October 7 and a light breakfast will be served.
Update: Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in an Age of Austerity is now posted at CNAS.
Comments
I suppose that is a matter of how you look at it. Are they involved in development, yes. Do they provide weapons to regimes that provide them access, I think yes. Do they have military liaisons attempting to influence other countries militaries, I think a couple were just visited our crashed helicopter in Pakistan not that long ago (could just be a wild rumor). But what they do should not be the basis for what we do.
COIN is a morasses because we make it one. But as I have said before, I am not talking COIN, I am talking TSCP. Development is part of TSCP. I am just trying to build a doctrine that supports it in a logical, economical way.
The business of America may be business, but America has a long history of conflicts that don't make even the most vestigial business sense, Afghanistan among them.
We may be involved in some competition for influence with China and others. It's not war, and we gain nothing by trying to pretend it is. Military involvement doesn't necessarily expand influence, and can often reduce it. If we're looking it China, isn't it odd that they seem quite able to maintain and expand business and influence without mucking about in military adventures and COIN morasses?
The business of America is business. That hasn't changed. You are looking only at defense. You may not have noticed but the "war" of influence around the world has shifted to economics with the western powers pitted against the influence of China. You may want to rethink "why" we would want to be involved in some of these locations, particularly ones with large populations that reflect future markets or have natural resources we covet.
Given that there's very little evident interest in modernizing any of today's marginal states, not much potential. There's really very little economic reason to go around trying to modernize these states: there's nothing there that's worth the effort, and these states are generally ignored unless they present a perceived threat. Even in cases like Somalia, where piracy does represent a threat, or the DRC, where there are significant resources, nobody is interested in imposing modernization. It's just not worth the effort.
Certainly if the US was stupid enough to try to transform these societies there would be potential for major COIN commitments... but there's no reason to believe that anyone will be that stupid.
"... there are no insurgencies out here that require US engagement beyond limited FID."
And -- considering the explosive environment constituted by the threat that modernity presents to various ways-of-governance and ways-of-life -- no potential for such insurgencies (those that might mandate and/or require US engagement beyond the capabilities of limited FID); today or in the near-term future?
Which "important modernization projects" would those be? As I said, other than where we've taken it on ourselves to change regimes, there are no insurgencies out there that require US engagement beyond limited FID. "Modernization" just isn't that big a deal, not important enough to justify the expense of major military action.
Should we consider, in addition to those instances where we might INSTALL "modernization-friendly" local governments in place of anti-modern governments (regime change), other occasions when our large-scale COIN capabilities might be needed?
For example:
a. In those instances where we might need to PROTECT modernization-friendly local governments who have encountered anti-modern foes that are beyond their ability to deal with and defeat? And/or
b. In those cases where we must DO OURSELVES or TAKE OVER important modernization projects because the local governments lack individuals with the requisite knowledge, skills, abilities or motiviation to do the job (those needed to modernize the state and society)?
(The trick here being, of course, to "build partner capacity" [particularly very robust and capable military, police and intelligence forces], WELL IN ADVANCE OF these challenges; so that "our" modernization-friendly local governments might be able to do the job [modernize the state and society; defeat anti-modern challengers] mostly by themselves. Thus, precluding, in these instances, the need for a large-scale COIN effort by the United States, et al.)
Thus, the "direct relationship" re: large-scale COIN that we are looking for may extend beyond just "regime change" to include such things as the lack of "capability/capacity" problems (if left unattended/inadequately addressed) noted above?
What seems to be missed in many of these discussions is the direct relationship between efforts at regime change and involvement in large scale COIN. Aside from insurgencies that we've created through regime change, there's not an insurgency on the planet that demands anything more than a limited FID role from the US: we're only doing large-scale COIN in places where we chose to remove governments and install new ones.
If we take on regime change, we take on large-scale COIN to go with it. That's inevitable. If we don't want to fight large-scale insurgencies, we have to write regime change out of the list of policy options.