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What in the World? The military's secret plan...to shrink

An article written under the pseudonym Mr. Y. grabbed my attention this week. The article has a bold thesis, even more surprising given who the mysterious Mr. Y turns out to be.

It argues that the United States has embraced an entirely wrong set of priorities, particularly with regard to its federal budget. We have overreacted to Islamic extremism. We have pursued military solutions instead of political ones.

Y says we are underinvesting in the real sources of national power - our youth, our infrastructure and our economy. The United States sees the world through the lens of threats, while failing to understand that influence, competitiveness and innovation are the key to advancing American interests in the modern world. Y says that above all we must invest in our children. Only by educating them properly will we ensure our ability to compete in the future.

Y also argues that we need to move from an emphasis on power and control to an emphasis on strength and influence.

Y goes on to say that we shouldn't even talk about national security as we have for the past 60 years; we should be talking about national prosperity and security.

Now, I think this is very smart stuff for the new world we're entering in, but it's important and influential in particular, given the source. This article arguing we need to rely less on our military comes, in fact, from the highest echelons of the Pentagon.

Mr. Y is actually two people, both top-ranking members of Admiral Mike Mullen's team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They are Captain Wayne Porter of the U.S. Navy and Colonel Mark Mykleby of the Marine Corps. It's likely that the essay had some official sanction, which means that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or perhaps even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had seen it and did not stop its publication.

So why did the authors call themselves Mr. Y? It's a play on a seminal essay from Foreign Affairs magazine more than five decades ago. The title was "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," and it was signed simply X. The author turned out to be the American diplomat George Kennan, and the article turned out to have perhaps the greatest influence on American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century.

It set out the policy of containment, that if we contain the Soviet Union, countering its influence, eventually the internal contradictions of the Soviet system would trigger its collapse, and it worked. But Porter and Mykleby say the basic approach, a massive military to deter the Soviets, a quasi-imperial policy to counter Soviet influence all over the world, is still in place and is outmoded and outdated. They call their policy proposal sustainment, and they hope it just might be the policy that will carry us forward for the next 50 years.

Mr. Y is hoping to be the next X - to set the new tone of Washington strategy. Will that happen?

Well, the term "sustainment" is silly, but the ideas behind it are not.

Washington needs to make sure that the United States does not fall into the imperial trap of every other superpower in history, spending greater and greater time and money and energy stabilizing disorderly parts of the world on the periphery, while at the core its own industrial and economic might is waning.

We have to recognize that fixing America's fiscal problems - paring back the budget busters like entitlements and also defense spending - making the economy competitive, dealing with immigration and outlining a serious plan for energy use are the best strategies to stay a superpower, not going around killing a few tribal leaders in the remote valleys and hills of Afghanistan.

Skjellyfetti wrote:We have to recognize that fixing America's fiscal problems - paring back the budget busters like entitlements and also defense spending - making the economy competitive, dealing with immigration and outlining a serious plan for energy use are the best strategies to stay a superpower, not going around killing a few tribal leaders in the remote valleys and hills of Afghanistan.

AZGrizFan wrote: Hmmmm....sounds suspiciously like my "Ten Things Obama Could Do to Earn My Vote".

CitadelGrad wrote:BTW, Colonels aren't "top officers".

both top-ranking members of Admiral Mike Mullen's team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

CitadelGrad wrote:BTW, Colonels aren't "top officers".

I would consider top-ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be

both top-ranking members of Admiral Mike Mullen's team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

CitadelGrad wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
I would consider top-ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be

They aren't members of the JCS. They are staff officers who serve on the JCS staff. Colonels on the JCS staff are a dime a dozen. When I was a first lieutenant, I was a staff officer at the brigade level for a time, but I wouldn't have called myself a top-ranking brigade officer.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote: Hmmmm....sounds suspiciously like my "Ten Things Obama Could Do to Earn My Vote".

The sane parts of your 10 points. They leave out the Ron Paul-looney stuff like "dismantle the IRS"

AZGrizFan wrote: It's only "looney" to you tax and grab motherfuckers.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote: It's only "looney" to you tax and grab motherfuckers.

It's only sane to people that crash planes into IRS buildings.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

CitadelGrad wrote:BTW, Colonels aren't "top officers".

I would consider top-ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be

both top-ranking members of Admiral Mike Mullen's team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

CitadelGrad wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
I would consider top-ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be

They aren't members of the JCS. They are staff officers who serve on the JCS staff. Colonels on the JCS staff are a dime a dozen. When I was a third lieutenant, I was a staff officer at the brigade level for a time, but I wouldn't have called myself a top-ranking brigade officer.

houndawg wrote:

CitadelGrad wrote:
They aren't members of the JCS. They are staff officers who serve on the JCS staff. Colonels on the JCS staff are a dime a dozen. When I was a third lieutenant, I was a staff officer at the brigade level for a time, but I wouldn't have called myself a top-ranking brigade officer.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

CitadelGrad wrote:BTW, Colonels aren't "top officers".

I would consider top-ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be

both top-ranking members of Admiral Mike Mullen's team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

CID1990 wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
I would consider top-ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be

Yeah, well you also consider buttholes to be entrances.

CG is absolutely right. Staff COLs write that kind of stuff all the time. It was probably a War College thesis. They are encouraged to think outside the box. I also agree that we need to change the paradigm, but as I have said 100 times here if I have said it once:

You have to downsize the MISSION before you downsize the MILITARY. No more Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, etc etc etc. We will need to become comfortable watching Europe return to the days of fvcking things up in the world, and we will need to become comfortable with minding our own house while the Qaddafis and the Milosevics do what they want.

I seem to recall you being favorable towards the action in Libya just a few threads back, SK. The fact that you would wave this article around is indicative of your complete lack of understanding on the matter. (Not to mention that you seem to think that a staff colonel is anything more than a coffee fetcher.)

mrklean wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
Yeah, well you also consider buttholes to be entrances.

CG is absolutely right. Staff COLs write that kind of stuff all the time. It was probably a War College thesis. They are encouraged to think outside the box. I also agree that we need to change the paradigm, but as I have said 100 times here if I have said it once:

You have to downsize the MISSION before you downsize the MILITARY. No more Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, etc etc etc. We will need to become comfortable watching Europe return to the days of fvcking things up in the world, and we will need to become comfortable with minding our own house while the Qaddafis and the Milosevics do what they want.

I seem to recall you being favorable towards the action in Libya just a few threads back, SK. The fact that you would wave this article around is indicative of your complete lack of understanding on the matter. (Not to mention that you seem to think that a staff colonel is anything more than a coffee fetcher.)

You dont have to down size that military, just Cut the R&D by 50%. The military waste so much money of systems and crap that does not work. ie F-22 Fighter and the Coast Guard Deep water Cutter and my fav. This New Battle ACU for each Service.

CitadelGrad wrote:Yes, you have to change the mission before you change the budget, but more fundamentally, you have to change foreign policy. If you have an interventionist foreign policy, then by necessity, you must have an interventionist Pentagon that is funded well enough to execute the interventions.

I have no problem with changing our foreign policy. We don't need the number of bases that we have around the world. We cannot build nations in our own image that have no tradition or understanding of Enlightenment principles. We can't topple every corrupt and violent dictator in the world unless we have a desire to be in a perpetual state of war. That kind of change doesn't come from the JCS. It comes from the White House and State Dept.

CID1990 wrote:

mrklean wrote:
You dont have to down size that military, just Cut the R&D by 50%. The military waste so much money of systems and crap that does not work. ie F-22 Fighter and the Coast Guard Deep water Cutter and my fav. This New Battle ACU for each Service.

That's how you arrive at things that DO work.

Still changes nothing. Back in 2005 people like you weren't yelling and screaming about the cost of R&D. You were screaming about the cost of IRAQ.