Nothing can be further from the truth. The first article in this series showed how the current defense review proposals build and expand on what the Department of Defense dubbed the transformation of the military in 2001. (See “Pentagon: Washington faces ‘long war,’” in March 13 Militant.) The second article described how the U.S. rulers are using this historic change in the global deployment, military strategy, and order of battle of their armed forces to renew military attention to Africa, Latin America, and China, in addition to their ongoing military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia. (See “Pentagon renews focus on Africa, Latin America, China” in March 20 Militant.)

This week we take up the arguments of liberal politicians and pundits, voiced most clearly by the two dailies mentioned above, that the transformation of the U.S. military is at best stalled.

“Even before the attacks of 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld had the foresight to realise that the US military had to change from the lumbering behemoth it became during the cold war to a nimbler machine capable of using stealth, skill, and technology to fight terrorist groups,” began the editorial in the February 13 Financial Times. “But he has failed to carry this revolution much further in his latest Quadrennial Defense Review.”

A Washington Post editorial the same day sounded a similar note. “Mr. Rumsfeld’s Quadrennial Defense Review…is a disappointment,” it said. “While it envisions a partial adjustment of the armed forces to what it calls ‘the long war,’ it dodges almost all the hard decisions that Mr. Rumsfeld should have made.”

Both papers applauded the Pentagon’s plans to increase Special Operations Forces by 15 percent, acquire more “smart bombs” and unmanned aerial vehicles, and improve military spying. But they argued that Rumsfeld flinched from tackling “bloated weapons programs” and from increasing the number of troops, which is needed, they said.  
 
No alternative in ruling class
In the first article in this series we quoted the following passage from “Their Transformation and Ours,” a resolution adopted by the 2005 convention of the Socialist Workers Party, which is published in issue 12 of the Marxist magazine New International: “Championed by the White House and pushed forward by the Defense Department, this transformation aims at preparing for the character of wars the imperialist rulers know they need to fight—at home as well as abroad,” it said. “No substantial wing of either the Democratic or Republican parties has a strategic alternative to this course. And it is already too far advanced to be reversed.”

This statement has been corroborated by the facts—bipartisan support for the military appropriations the White House has requested for the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for antidemocratic laws like the Patriot Act, to name a few.

On March 13, the U.S. Senate approved the Pentagon’s budget request for $439 billion—a 7 percent increase over 2006. That does not include $67 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that is expected to easily get congressional approval.

What is the beef then that the Post and Financial Times editors have with the Pentagon? Their arguments reflect the increasing factionalism within the ruling class and its dominant parties. The source of this factionalism is the frustration born of a vague but growing awareness of the vulnerability of the capitalist system headed toward economic depression and war and “the inability to find a self-confident course to decisively surmount it,” as the 2005 SWP resolution put it.  
 
Conventional war
“Four years of war against a highly unconventional enemy have persuaded him [Rumsfeld] to maintain every conventional weapons system in the pipeline,” said an article in the February 12 Washington Post. “Some hoped that he would decisively push the American military out of the outdated conventional war posture it was in on Sept. 11, 2001,” but that was not the case, complained the Post’s editorial the next day.

At the same time, the Post expressed agreement with the QDR’s assessment that China has the “greatest potential to compete militarily” with the United States. “The review sensibly proposes a fleet of long-range bombers and more attack submarines to hedge against a possible threat from China,” it said, casting doubt on some fighter jets. “Yet the plan also proposes spending tens of billions of dollars on three advanced short-range warplanes, including the Air Force’s gold-plated F/A-22, even though there is no threat to U.S. air superiority from China or anyone else,” the Post said.

The 2006 QDR calls for a wider range of “conventional and non-kinetic deterrent options while maintaining a robust nuclear deterrent” as a “hedge against future strategic uncertainty.” It states that “the pace and scope of China’s military build-up already puts regional military balances at risk.”  
 
Demand for more troops
“Even worse, Mr. Rumsfeld postpones the day of reckoning in part by sticking to a stubborn refusal to increase the size of the Army,” the Post said. The Pentagon is “unwilling to sacrifice any big conventional weapons programmes, but at the same time proposes to reduce overall army strength by 30,000,” over the next five years, the Financial Times complained.

The restructuring of the Army into Brigade Combat Teams as a central part of its transformation away from the standing divisions of the Cold War era represents a 46 percent increase in readily available combat power, says the QDR. It shifts the emphasis from having the bulk of soldiers in the institutional army, the so-called tail, to more powerful operational forces that deploy and fight, the “teeth.” This includes eliminating the gap between the combat-readiness of active-duty soldiers and members of the National Guard and Reserves, who were once considered a strategic reserve to be called once in a lifetime for a major war.

Before considering any increase in the size of the military, the Pentagon is expanding the number of “war fighters,” including through the transfer of noncombat tasks and replacing them with civilians under Pentagon supervision.

The way Washington conducted the invasion of Iraq three years ago, and the restructuring of its military bases around the world and redeployment of forces to serve smaller and more agile units that can move faster to theaters of conflict, has convinced most in the ruling class of the advisability of this course.
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. troops to stay in Iraq beyond 2008
Offensive in Samarra boosts Iraqi military
Protesters call for end to U.S. war on Iraq
Washington targets Iran in report on ‘nat’l security’  
 
 
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