LED BY THE WILLING, NOT THE ABLE
FAT, EXPENSIVE AND WRONG FOR ANY MISSION
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
We have gone 3 decades since both Vietnam and a draft and nearly 2 decades since the end of the Cold War. We have justified our continued record expenditures on defense based on potential adversaries more aptly dealt with by police agencies than massive strategic retaliation.
Hundreds of billions spent on ballistic missile protection was wasted as advances in warhead delivery systems, costing a small fraction, have outpaced all current or even proposed developments in that area. Even with massive post-Soviet era cutbacks, our military found itself entering regional conflicts against vastly inferior opposition saddled with defective, inadequate and poorly conceived systems.
Further complicating this has been the development of a military culture of mediocrity based on applying the worst America had to offer, the failed management practices brought into play in the 1980s that destroyed our industrial and financial sectors in little over 20 years. Tactical, strategic and technological expertise and needed core values of leadership, honor, accountability and excellence were set aside for "moral flexibility," proper politics and the right religious beliefs.
TECHNOLOGY AND PLANNING
Even with the 1991 Gulf War behind us, we entered the recent and continuing conflict with a military grossly understrength and largely untrained for a mission, not only easily predicted, but one that had, as we have found, been planned in advance.
Our small arms are poorly designed, have little stopping power and are unreliable, both rifle and pistol. Going to war with a weapon inferior to that of an enemy using a rehashed Communist version of a German WW2 assault rifle is inexcusable. Anyone know knows a lick about weapons knows that sending powder residue back onto a bolt is idiotic.
Seeing thousands killed and wounded while riding around in vehicles, not only incapable of dealing with IED explosives but easily penetrated by shoulder weapons wielded by small children compounded our lack of preparation. Weighing troops down with body armor of mediocre quality and extreme cost purchased under an infamous political insider deal killed hundreds more.
VEHICLES
Right off we learned the M1Abrahms main battle tank had serious flaws although it had been our supposed main line of defense in Europe for many years. Only emergency retrofits kept them safe from Baathists in pickup trucks.
With tens of billions wasted developing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, whose development was the subject of the HBO comedy, The Pentagon Wars, our miltiary was forced to turn to the Swiss designed Predator, an inexpensive low tech rubber tired vehicle, which we refitted as the Stryker, our great "secret weapon." Crossing guards in Indonesia drive these things to work.
IED’s AND CONVOY SECURITY
Improvised explosive devises, IEDs, are responsible for most of the deaths and injuires in Iraq and Afghanistan. These devices have, for the most part, been activated through radio signals, typically mobile telephones.
Technology capable of jamming all RF signals while allowing specific friendly devices to work have been used for years and have been on every presidential motorcade since Bush Sr. Powerful, inexpensive and effective units are built in Greece and delivered, preinstalled in armored Toyota Land Cruisers at a price many American families could afford. They are a mainstay of the executive security industry yet our Department of Defense, DARPA and our military services seem to know nothing about them.
Much more advanced units are ready for production in the US but as yet, no military requirement has been authorized. Why is that?
Wired remotely triggered devices, be they underground or car bombs can be detected using remote "hyper-spatial" sensing devices. The same units detect individual terrorists using biometric "tagging" and can detect any explosive or gun shot residue on an individual at a substantial distance and enter a profile into a database allowing tracking of terrorist suspects for life.
The same technologies, used on vehicles, UAVs or permanently mounted detect bio-hazards and dangerous chemicals. These technologies are inexpensive and could be delivered for use by the US military had they ever been requested.
WRONG MILITARY/WRONG MISSION
A variety of misconceptions controls military funding. Since aircraft are capable of killing more people than ground troops, most of our money goes, not only for aircraft but for maintaining a lavish lifestyle for one service while other services suffer. Air Force bases continents away from combat receive funding well beyond Army or Marine units in direct day to day combat.
After years of war, General McChrystal, our commander in Afghanistan, has surmised that tactics proven unsuccessful, no matter how much they are altered, will remain unsuccessful. What does this mean? It means we have been doing everything wrong, fighting a war for others that they will either have to fight themselves or end.
Recent operations in Southern Afghanistan clearly proved that using what we learned in Vietnam well over 40 years ago can be successful in Afghanistan but using forces we don’t yet have, trained in ways we don’t yet understand and in a combined operations environment with an ally years away from being able to contribute to the effort.
TRAINED TO SUPPORT AN INDUSTRY, NOT FIGHT A WAR
Currently, the biggest strategic threat the US faces is cyberwarfare. It can render any system we have ineffective, penetrate any security and, theoretically, virtually destroy the fighting ability of any command. Recently we were told North Korea hit America with devastatingly successful cyber attacks.
North Korea has difficulty building motorbikes.
While building a military designed to be everything to everyone, consuming unneeded and redundant technologies, vehicles, platforms, you pick the term, military consumption is driven, not by mission but by a need to support defense industry jobs in key constituencies, no matter how useless the system.
The primary job of the Secretary of Defense is to keep just enough useful weapons available and in the pipeline to keep us from being invaded by the Bahamas while making sure Congressional support for vital systems isn’t pulled as part of our traditional blackmail for pork acquisitions mode.
WAR AS POLICY OR WAR AS PRODUCT
Privatization of military support activities on a massive scale has created a powerful lobby for continual warfare, free from the concerns of morality or national interest. Attack is now the first resort rather than the last. We have given the craziest kid in the classroom a loaded gun. This is what we have become and this is what best describes how we now think of war.
In any recent conflict, the end result has always been far from the product sold the public. WW1 did nothing but kill millions and bring about WW2. WW2 killed millions but, as predicted by our enemies, ended with decades of confrontation between east and west with the largest war in our history having altered that in no way whatsoever other than to have partially emptied the Earth of living beings.
I am invited to visit Vietnam, a country I fought in to prevent the triumph of Communism. Those same Commuists want me to visit their resorts, eat their food and buy their souvenirs.
I have had the same invitation from Iraq where I have visited their resorts, eaten their food and bought their souvenirs.
War has always been about trade or colonialism. The phony ideology of the Cold War fooled only very few.
What do we do when war itself has a stronger economic life than the resources it is supposedly meant to secure? With no real issue of national defense and war expenditures outweighing any potential gain from securing markets or resources, a government advocating war becomes a criminal gang in every sense of the term.
THE DISEASE OF DUMBING DOWN
Every cent spent on weapons and defense impoverishes the nation doing the spending. This is axiomatic and clear to any economist, no matter what set of theories they espouse. A prison is like a factory. It has workers who don’t work, supervisors who watch workers who make nothing and every day the losses mount up.
The more people a society jails, the more the society loses.
The miltiary works the same way. Everyone serving in the military consumes but does not produce. The end product is supposed to be security. However, government, the military and industry now produce and sell "insecurity" as a product to stimulate military consumption.
Thus, the disease produces the cure which is the disease itself.
Either way, the patient dies.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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