Historic US strategic military shift

Photo: BBC

On January 5, 2012, President Barack Obama proposed a historic shift in the US military's size and ambitions, scaling back its ability to wage the type of war and occupation that just ended in Iraq as the administration seeks to cut defence spending over the next decade.
Under the proposal the following is proposed:
-The Army would face a 14% reduction in troops leaving it with too few to conduct two grueling ground wars at once, long a strategic imperative of the Defence Department;
-Reductions in the nation's nuclear arsenal; and
-A delay in the Pentagon's most expensive weapons, such as the F-35 stealth jet made by Lockheed Martin Corp.
Defence officials said the Army, currently at 570,000, likely will shrink to about 490,000.
A strategy document released said the military will be redesigned to fight one war using air, land and sea forces, while still being able to take on involvements in another region.
Overall, the plan envisions shrinking military spending by $487 billion over 10 years, a cut of about 8% in coming years, according to Pentagon figures. While the president has wide latitude to set military priorities, specific cuts the Pentagon will announce in coming weeks, must be approved by Congress.
President Obama said the nation was "turning the page" on a decade of war. But the president and Pentagon leaders said they weren't abandoning the US role as the pre-eminent global power.
"Our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats," the president said in a rare appearance by at the Pentagon.
Obama said he wouldn't repeat the mistakes of past administrations by crippling the military through post-war cuts. But some Pentagon officials -- anxious to stave off the possibility of further reductions -- said the proposed reductions will be as deep as those after Vietnam and the Cold War when cuts in annual emergency war spending are counted.
The strategy document reflects the Obama administration's preference for operations such as the war in Libya, which entailed a large coalition of nations and no US ground forces. The strategy also touts the utility of US special operations forces, which have decimated the leadership of al-Qaeda.
Also emphasised in the new strategy are counterterrorism operations -- missions using special operations forces that create only a small overseas footprint and work with local forces. Intelligence and surveillance will take on increasingly important roles, meaning the Air Force fleet of unmanned drones is likely to grow.
A new US emphasis on Asia is reinforced by the strategy as the Pentagon plans to shift its focus and resources away from Europe. The Pentagon sees challenges in China's military modernisation and is planning the new military approach to more aggressively counter Beijing's "anti-access" technologies, weapons such as China's DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, used for keeping US ships at greater distances.
Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the military still will be able to respond to multiple crises at once, deterring aggression around the globe. "Make no mistake, we will have the capability to confront and defeat more than one adversary at a time," he said.
But, he said, "The Army and Marine Corps will no longer be sized to support the large-scale, long-term stability operations that dominated military priorities…over the past decade."
Panetta and defence contractors have argued for months that the planned cuts, while tolerable, are quite steep. But they have contended that an additional $500 billion to $600 billion in cuts over the next 10 years triggered by last year's congressional deal on the country's debt ceiling would be ruinous for the military.
Panetta said "The capability, readiness and agility of the force will not be sustained if Congress fails to do its duty and the military is forced to accept far deeper cuts. That would force us to shed missions and commitments and capabilities that we believe are necessary to protect core US national security interests. And it would result in what we think would be a demoralised and hollow force."
Obama approved a buildup of forces in Afghanistan, but administration officials have always viewed counterinsurgency operations with skepticism. The new strategy reflects the administration's view that counterinsurgency conflicts are too costly, while yielding murky results and incremental gains for international security.
Defence officials said they wouldn't abandon the military's expertise in conducting stability operations, but would move some of the resources to military reserves. That would preserve the ability of the Army to conduct limited counterinsurgency.
Reaction within the US
Announcement of the strategy prompted a swift response from Republicans. Sen John McCain said the US couldn't afford a "budget-driven defence strategy" but said he would review the document released by the administration. "I understand the need for reductions in defence spending, but we must also address the broader cultural problem plaguing our defence establishment: the waste, inefficiency, and ineffective programmes," Sen. McCain said.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. David Barno of the Center for a New American Security, a centrist think-tank that is often aligned with the administration, said the plan "fails to address the elephant in the room: whether this strategy can hold up under the weight of further defence cuts," particularly additional cuts contained in the debt-ceiling agreement Congress reached last year.
But Charles Knight, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, which advocates more aggressive defence-spending cuts, said the administration's plans were "only baby steps" towards greater fiscal restraint.
Criticism is likely to grow in coming weeks as details of the cuts emerge. Key Republican presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, have proposed increases in defence spending, and have criticised proposed Pentagon cutbacks in the past.
China's initial response
China in its first reaction to the US policy shift, the Global Times, owned by the People's Daily, a Communist newspaper, said that China would "pay the price" if it retreated in order to appease the United States. Further it said, "of course we want to prevent a new Cold War with the US, but at the same we must avoid giving up China's security presence in the neighbourhood region." China's Foreign Ministry did not respond as of writing this paper.
IISS View
The defence spending as a percentage of GDP in 2009 by London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) was as follows: the US-4.7%, Russia-3.1%, UK- 2.7%, France- 2.1%, China-1.5% and Germany 1.4%.
Turning to 2011 edition of The Military Balance, published by IISS which is as ever comprehensively global in its scope, one key theme stands out that Western states' defence budgets are under pressure and their military procurement is constrained.
But in other regions, notably Asia and the Middle East, military spending and arms acquisitions are booming. There is persuasive evidence that a global redistribution of military power is under way.
In an atmosphere of economic stagnation, Western states' defence budgets are declining. While making significant cuts to Britain's defence capability including its ability to contribute to future expeditionary operations beyond Europe, the announcement by Britain and France in November last that they were 'opening a new chapter' in their bilateral defence cooperation that will include creating a joint expeditionary task force, and collaboration on aircraft carriers.
Finally, it is already clear that as a result of shifts in the global distribution of economic power and consequently the resources available for military spending, the big powers including the US are engaged in shifting their priorities in key areas such as quick deployment of troops including stealth aircraft and unmanned systems to address a crisis situation.

The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.