The Pentagon Labyrinth

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74 | Confused Alarms of Struggle and Flight: A Primer for Assessing Defense Strategy in the post-Iraq World Conclusions If your assessment validates the strategy, even with reservations, you’re through. If, on the other hand, you cannot avoid the conclusion that there are serious mismatches between the world situation, what we’re trying to accomplish, the forces we propose to employ and the resources we intend to devote, then you have another decision to make. Do you want to report this to whoever asked you for the assessment and then go on to another assignment, or do you want to try to do something about it? The rest of this book is intended for those taking the second alternative. It will not be the path to riches, although you may derive great satisfaction from doing good for your country. Budding national security strategists should keep a couple of points in mind before they give into despair when contemplating the enormous size, and hence momentum, of our defense-security establishment: First, even an aircraft carrier can be turned 180 degrees by manipulating only a tiny fraction of its structure. It has to be the right fraction. Second is the Stockdale Paradox: You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. 35 Although the national security establishment defeated an earlier generation of reformers, 36 you may have the great good fortune to have come on the scene at the beginning of an era of momentous change, when a trillion dollars of national security spending comes into play. 37 35 An expression coined by management guru Jim Collins in Good to Great (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 83-87. 36 For a detailed description of what happened to them, nothing beats the memoir in Military Reform: An Uneven History and an Uncertain Future, Winslow T. Wheeler and Lawrence J. Korb (Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies, 2009). 37 Some on the political right are already talking about the need to rein in social programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, so they can preserve funding for weapon systems and standing military forces. See, for example, Mackenzie Eaglen, “U.S. Defense Spending: The Mismatch between Plans and Resources,” The Heritage Foundation, June 7, 2010. On the other hand, some conservatives, such as Senator Tom Coburn, R–Okla., have proposed extracting a trillion dollars out of the defense budget by freezing it at the 2010 level. See this proposal at http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=3ae23727-6bbe-4ce1- 8516-2b82726911cc.
Essay 7 “Follow the Money” by Andrew Cockburn “Follow the money,” Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein. Endlessly and approvingly cited, these words have become a hallowed journalistic maxim, and quite right too. The problem is that most of the time this sage advice is ignored, not least by those whose job it is to report and comment on the activities of our national security system. Similarly, the venerated Dwight Eisenhower may have put the phrase “military industrial complex” in the language, but it is today deemed too loaded a term for mainstream media employment anywhere outside the opinion columns. In fact, even to suggest that U.S. military organizations exist for the benefit of those who profit from them is considered unseemly, possibly indicating a dangerous predilection for “conspiracy theories.” Instead, the public brain is more routinely softened with thoughtful ruminations such as New York Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller’s July 25, 2010 article on the awesome cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. 1 Pondering the issue, Bumiller found a partial culprit in “twenty-first century technology,” as if that were a sufficient explanation and also unavoidable. It would have been helpful if the writer had looked at specific examples of the technology that is costing us so much, such as “Compass Call,” a $100 million Lockheed EC-130H equipped with ground penetrating radar that searches for $25 home made bombs buried in an Afghan road – one small component of our $50 billion counter- IED (Improvised Explosive Device) effort. Readers should also be aware that those responsible for Compass Call have no excuse for believing that there is anything justifiable about it all. An in-depth study of its effectiveness in Iraq, carried by a strategic analysis “cell” of military intelligence in Baghdad in April 2007, examined the results of hundreds of flights from the previous October through to May 2007. Surveying the results, the analysts summarized them as “Conclusion: No Detectable Effect.” 2 1 Elisabeth Bumiller, “The War: A Trillion Can Be Cheap,” The New York Times, July 24, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/weekinreview/25bumiller.html. 2 “Operational Iraq Data.” Study prepared for “MultiNational Force Iraq.” April, 2008. Made available to author. Estimated cost per flying hour of Compass Call is roughly $70,000.
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The World Security Institute’s Ce
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About the Authors Thomas Christie b
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security issues for members of the
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Table of Contents PREFACE . . . . .
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Preface This handbook aims to help
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xx | The Pentagon Labyrinth and for
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2 | Why is This Handbook Necessary?
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10 | Why is This Handbook Necessary
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Essay 2 “Penetrating the Pentagon
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14 | Penetrating the Pentagon of a
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16 | Penetrating the Pentagon years
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18 | Penetrating the Pentagon Washi
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20 | Penetrating the Pentagon Back
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22 | Penetrating the Pentagon weapo
Page 36 and 37: 24 | Learning About Defense In the
Page 38 and 39: 26 | Learning About Defense with ou
Page 40 and 41: Essay 4 “Congressional Oversight:
Page 42 and 43: 30 | Congressional Oversight: Willi
Page 56 and 57: 44 | Careerism For example, Gen. Ji
Page 58 and 59: 46 | Careerism responsibility for o
Page 60 and 61: 48 | Careerism brigadier general. Y
Page 62 and 63: 50 | Careerism careerist- and agend
Page 64 and 65: 52 | Careerism Accountability Offic
Page 66 and 67: 54 | Careerism 75 percent) are of E
Page 68 and 69: 56 | Careerism In sum, our armed fo
Page 70 and 71: 58 | Careerism institution.” 40 A
Page 72 and 73: Essay 6 “Confused Alarms of Strug
Page 74 and 75: 62 | Confused Alarms of Struggle an
Page 88 and 89: 76 | Follow the Money Why We Spend
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Page 92 and 93: 80 | Follow the Money billion now b
Page 94 and 95: 82 | Follow the Money Clearly, impe
Page 96 and 97: 84 | Follow the Money their behalf.
Page 98 and 99: Essay 8 “Decoding the Defense Bud
Page 100 and 101: 88 | Decoding the Defense Budget Ta
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Page 104 and 105: 92 | Decoding the Defense Budget In
Page 106 and 107: 94 | Decoding the Defense Budget me
Page 108 and 109: 96 | Decoding the Defense Budget Ot
Page 110 and 111: 98 | Decoding the Defense Budget
Page 112 and 113: 100 | Decoding the Defense Budget T
Page 114 and 115: 102 | Evaluating Weapons: Sorting t
Page 126 and 127: 114 | Developing, Buying and Fieldi
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124 | Developing, Buying and Fieldi
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Suggested Contacts, Readings and We
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128 | Suggested Contacts, Reading a
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The Pentagon Labyrinth aims to help
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The Pentagon Labyrinth

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