FORBIDDEN QUESTIONS

NOTE: I received the following comment from anonymous on my Stupid is as Stupid Does post:

Anonymous: You make some good points about our cognitive amnesia and the failure of Americans to ask hard questions about our country’s foreign affairs. I agree that we have been very stupid about using military force, though I tend to lean toward willful stupidity: too many powerful individuals and organizations benefit from war.  What are some of the tough questions you think should be asked?  

Dear Anonymous,

For an expansive list of questions that should be asked, and very likely won't, I offer the following list provided by Andrew Bacevich, a highly regarded historian, specializing in international relations, security studies, U.S. foreign policy, and American diplomatic and military history, which was posted on the TomDispatch website. Bacevich is a Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies.  He is also a career U.S. Army officer who retired with the rank of Colonel.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

By Ronald T. Fox

"Stupidity is not the lack of knowledge, but the illusion of having it." 

                                                                                               Grigore Iulian:

These are confounding times.  The widespread rejection of facts and reason by many of our national leaders as well as a sizable portion of the American public has perverted our national discourse and led to decisions that boggle the rational mind.  Many people point to Donald Trump as the culprit who perverted our historical commitment to truth, but in reality our escape from reason traces back decades.  President Trump has clearly demonstrated he is well prepared to take irrationality to new heights.  

Not only have facts become politically irrelevant for most Americans, so has history. As a people, Americans are suffering, perhaps terminally, from cognitive amnesia, particularly as it applies to foreign affairs. I can’t help but think of the Santayana aphorism: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It’s patently obvious that most of our political leaders, Republicans and Democrats, and most top military brass, foreign policy think tanks, and popular political pundits, have learned little from our recent history of military interventions in the Greater Middle East, Africa and Asia.  The Trump administration is no exception.  With missile attacks, intensified bombing, and loose talk about troop surges, it is doing its best to continue the amnesiac process. George Orwell would be proud.

Why are we oblivious to the lessons of past political and military disasters in places like Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, to name a few? Why do we continue to try to achieve political ends through the use of military force?  Why do we tend to shun diplomacy?

RESPONSE TO JIM DUBBS ON SOLDIER’S LIVES DON’T MATTER

I received the following comment from loyal Phronesis reader Jim Dubbs on my recent post on the continuing Air Force campaign to retire the A-10 Warthog, which I argued represented a lack of concern for the lives of our troops. Jim always brings a valuable historical perspective to my posts, for which I am grateful.

You just have to wonder where any political leadership is on these issues. Ike may have issued the warning about a military-industrial complex, but successive Secretaries of Defense have decided that their survival depends on providing our various military leaders with the newest toys. I recall that McNamara -- who I believe was a car industry executive (Ford), like his predecessor Wilson (GM) -- was touted as this great efficiency expert who was going to make sure of strong civilian management of the armed forces. Indeed, he became lauded as a rather "strong" Defense Secretary. Not hard to understand. Of course, he was: Kennedy's military budget tripled that of Ike's as I recall. However, I think the bigger problem than the toys controversy (A-10 v. F-35) is that, in general, the military always seems to be preparing for the wars of the past, not the likely ones of the future. I would agree that A-10 is best for support of ground troops, but how much of the conflicts facing us now and in the future are likely to involve a significant commitment of troops on the ground? That may be one of the only things Rumsfeld was kind of right on, and he got castigated for tying to fight war on the cheap, right? 

My Response:
 

SOLDIER LIVES DON’T MATTER: THE AIR FORCE STILL DETERMINED TO SCRAP THE A-10

By Ronald T. Fox

An A-10 On Mission

Give the Air Force credit for persistence. Undeterred by a Congressional prohibition on retiring the highly effective A-10 Warthog, the AF is continuing its campaign to scrap it. Its latest scheme is to reduce the number of Warthogs that are combat ready. Manipulating Congress is nothing new to the AF; what is different this time is that the lives of many soldiers hinges on what the Congress ultimately decides to do about the A-10.

 

As I’ve written previously (see links below), the A-10 is a highly effective aircraft that has proven its value in all wars the U.S. has been involved in since 1990.  Designed primarily to support troops on the ground, which remains its main mission, it has also been used effectively for air defense suppression, interdiction, search and rescue, armed reconnaissance, forward air control, and air-to-air combat against helicopters.  Troops on the ground swear by it, its pilots and former pilots taut its virtues, and Congressional supporters on both sides of the aisle, aware that there is no viable alternative (it is far superior to the Army's Apache helicopter), continue to support its deployment. Despite these accolades, and its proven track record in combat, the AF wants to retire it, replacing it primarily with the problem-plagued F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the most expensive weapons system in history. 

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S NUCLEAR MODERNIZATION PROGRAM RAISES THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR

By Ronald T. Fox

Is This the Future?

Barack Obama began his presidency with a firm pledge to rid the world of nuclear weapons. In an oft-quoted speech in Prague, he said that as the only nuclear power to have used nuclear weapons, the United States had a moral responsibility to take “concrete steps” to begin to build a world without nuclear weapons. He reaffirmed his vision of a nuclear-free world during his recent visit to Hiroshima. Lofty rhetoric aside, his current nuclear modernization program promises to spur a renewed nuclear arms race and increase the risks of nuclear war.

 

RESPONSE TO JIM DUBBS ON THE VALUE OF THE STRATEGIC BOMBING OF GERMANY IN WORLD WAR II

I received the following comment from loyal reader Jim Dubbs on my recent post: American Conventional Wisdom About Strategic Bombing Isn't Very Wise. Below I include his comment and then my response.

AMERICAN CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ABOUT AIR POWER ISN'T VERY WISE

By Ronald T. Fox

Last week the U.S. initiated air strikes on ISIS in Tikrit in an effort to retake the city.  Lt. Gen. James L. Terry, the commander of the Islamic State operation, assured us that “these strikes are intended to destroy ISIS strongholds with precision [italics added], thereby saving innocent Iraqi lives while minimizing collateral damage to infrastructure.”  He went on to say that "this will further enable Iraqi forces under Iraqi command to maneuver and defeat ISIL in the vicinity of Tikrit."  In the same week, John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said “to stop Iran’s bomb, we must bomb Iran.”  Implicit in these statements is the belief that air power is the critical ingredient for achieving strategic objectives.
  
There is perhaps no greater myth in America than belief in the efficacy of air power, or, more specifically, strategic bombing.  This myth persists in spite of the fact that independent air operations have never proven decisive in any war in which the U.S. has been involved: not in World War II, not in Korea, not in Southeast Asia (where the US dropped twice as many tons of bombs as were dropped in the entire Second World War), not in the Gulf War (where we were told a "shock and awe" air campaign against the Iraqi leadership would end the war in just days), and not in Afghanistan or Iraq. Constant pounding from the air has also done very little to deter Islamist organizations like al Qaeda and ISIS from prosecuting their war of terror.  If bombing campaigns employing increasingly accurate and lethal technologies have failed to deter our Islamist enemies, let alone produce victories, why do Americans remain so attached to them?

General Billy Mitchell

THE 2015 DEFENSE BUDGET: A FINAL NAIL IN THE A-10 COFFIN?

 

By Ronald Fox

 

I predicted in a previous post (Say Goodbye to the A-10 Warthog: Shame on the Air Force) that it was likely the Air Force’s A-10 “Warthog” close air support (CAS) airplane would be phased out. The Pentagon’s recently leaked preview of its 2015 budget confirmed the suspicion of many who have followed the issue: the fleet of 350 A-10 attack planes is scheduled to be permanently retired. Should the elimination be finalized, it will be a sad day for combat troops who have grown to love the highly effective CAS aircraft. It will also disappoint military reformers who have long been critical of the Air Force’s “deep strike” strategic bombing mindset, which they argue has been responsible for excessive costs, ineffective air power, and, arguably, longer wars. These reformers would like to see the Pentagon purchase weapons where mission cost effectiveness is the overriding procurement criteria. It is clear, however, that the Pentagon remains fixated on expensive high tech weapons of unproven effectiveness.

IT AIN’T OVER TIL’ IT’S OVER: THE A-10 WARTHOG IS STILL BREATHING

By Ronald T. Fox

The A-10 Attacks

Much has been written about the ability of the Pentagon to get the Congress to do its bidding. Working in tandem with the individual military services, weapons manufacturers and other contractors that desire a piece of the procurement action, and members of the Senate and House who drool over bringing big contracts home to their state or district, the Pentagon can field a formidable machine extremely adept at moving favored legislation.

It also has a formidable propaganda machine capable of shaping public opinion, as Senator J. William Fulbright wrote about decades ago. To build support for a new weapon, the Pentagon and the individual services frequently resort to embellishing the weapon’s capabilities, playing down its costs, and puffing up similar weapons possessed by our enemies. If it meets organized resistance, which is rare, it pulls no punches in fudging facts and discrediting critics. With such tools, it rarely loses a political fight, especially since it can count on pro-military members on Congress who prioritize defense spending over real defense.

The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Made

An excellent case to observe the Pentagon machine at work is its current fight to retire the Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt (affectionately also known as the Warthog) and replace its close air support (CAS) mission with a combination of aircraft: the speedier B-1B bomber, F-15E, and the F-16.

Until recently the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was also offered as an effective alternative, but with its cost souring (it’s reputed to be the most expensive weapon ever made) it has become too expensive to risk close to the ground where airplanes are vulnerable (see previous post: F-35 Cost Explodes: Business as Usual at the Pentagon). It seems the Air Force is operating under the assumption that future wars will be high tech affairs against heavily-armed foes sporting sophisticated air defenses, wars that don’t favor the slow-moving A-10. This seems strange given the current saber-rattling over going to war against ISIS, which would present precisely the kind of challenge that favors the A-10.

In two previous essays, I sang praise of the A-10’s virtues in supporting troops on the ground and lamented that it had lost favor with the Air Force and would likely soon be retired (see: Say Goodbye To the A-10 Warthog: Shame on the Air Force and The 2015 Defense Budget: A Final Nail in the A-10 Coffin?). It appears now that I may have been premature in my prediction.

FURTHER RESPONSES TO YOSARIAN"S COMMENT

Since these last three responses to the initial Yossarian comment were not circulated to subscribers, I decided to circulate the following for you Catch-22 lovers:

Response to Yosarian's Question about Exaggerating Enemy Fighter Airplane Capabilities

Yossarian,

Thanks for your comment.  Yes I can give you an example.  To push the F-14 and F-15 programs, the Pentagon hyped the Russian Mig-25 "Foxbat."  It was portrayed as a super plane, with superior speed, range, and capability to what we currently had; that is until a defecting Russian pilot in 1976 landed his Foxbat in Hakodate,  Japan, where upon inspection we found it to be very ordinary.  It was made of steel instead of titanium (which made it unwieldy), almost incapable of close-quarters combat, electronically far inferior to U.S. fighters, and had less top speed and range than the Pentagon had claimed. Such exaggeration was common in U.S. Cold War assessment of the Soviet threat.

Yossarian, huh?  Figures.

Response to a Subscriber Regarding my Goodbye to the A-10 Posting

Subscriber, Larry Slayen, wrote: “Why has nothing changed?  You could have written this article 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago.  The military continues to overspend at the expense of the taxpayers and the troops.”  

 

You’re exactly right, Larry. The Pentagon’s addiction to gold plating, which often makes weapons too expensive to purchase in planned numbers, goes back a long time. The weapons acquisition system is structured to virtually guarantee cost overruns, biased testing, poor combat readiness, and a great deal of waste (see my 8/22 post on why our weapons cost so much). Seymour Melman wrote about structural problems in our procurement system back in 1970 in his book, Pentagon Capitalism. He followed this work up with a broader treatment of the problem in, The Permanent War Economy (1985). The addiction to excessively high technology was covered in a 1982 book by Mary Kaldor called, The Baroque Arsenal. Over the years, many works on procurement problems have been published.  So, yes, there is a long history of concern about the kind of practices I wrote about.  

 

What is most remarkable is that nothing seems to significantly change. The military-industrial-Congressional complex, which Gordon Adams referred to as “The Iron Triangle” (The Iron Triangle: the Politics of Defense Contracting), is a powerful symbiotic alignment that is self-promoting and impervious to reform. Politicians in key military appropriations committees, and other Members who just love to take military contracts back to their home districts (the bigger the better) are all in on the procurement charade. Few politicians have had the courage to take the system on.  On this there is bipartisan consensus.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE A-10 WARTHOG: SHAME ON THE AIR FORCE

 

By Ronald Fox

In a previous post, I focused on the case of the air force’s new super-airplane, the F-35, as yet one more example of our military’s persistent tendency to understate cost and overstate performance of major weapons systems. Specifically I questioned the veracity of F-35 Program Manager, Lt. General Christopher Bognan’s boast that the unit cost of the F-35 will settle in at about $85 million per plane. Well, with the cost per plane now over $160 million and climbing, that prediction appears pure fantasy, if not outright duplicity. But that’s not the worst of it. It appears that to free up funds to purchase the overpriced F-35’s, the Air Force will phase out the A-10 Warthog, the best airplane ever made for the task of close air support (CAS) for combat troops on the ground. In the end, the costly F-35 will degrade our CAS capability, making our soldiers more vulnerable on the battlefield. This is yet another example of the military addiction to high technology trumping good old common sense.

F-35 COST EXPLODES: BUSINESS AS USUAL AT THE PENTAGON

By Ronald Fox


My skeptical juices rose when Lt. General Christopher Bognan, Program Manager for the Air Force and Navy’s F-35 fighter aircraft, proudly announced recently that unit cost for the F-35 “continues to come down” and will likely settle in at about $85 million per plane when in full production. His optimistic prediction of reduced unit cost was echoed by Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel in Congressional testimony. The Navy’s commander of the Naval Air Systems Command, Vice Admiral David Dunaway, chimed in that the F-35 was a “fairly mature air vehicle,” suggesting that most of its bugs had been worked out.  The GAO also gave the F-35 (there are differing Air Force and Navy versions) a thumb up for progress, as did the DOD in its most recent Selected Acquisition Report (SAR). The cost savings and good performance news are supposed to result from economies of scale in larger production runs as well as the "learning curve" that comes from experience.  Isn’t it good to hear that our tax dollars are being well and carefully spent? Or are they?

In a recent report, the Center for Defense Information (CDI) exposes such optimistic assessments as pure fiction. Unit costs doubled from $81 million in 2001 to $161 million in 2012, and are estimated by the CDI to be, on average, $219.3 million in 2014 (higher for the Navy version). The boast by General Bogdan that the cost per aircraft will decline to $85 million in 2018 stretches credulity to the limit. The real question, according to the CDI, is how much more they will cost than the projected $219+ million for 2014. Nor is there any evidence to conclude that the F-35 is a “mature airplane,” implying  that it has been thoroughly tested and is on course to be put into operation in the near future. In fact, the aircraft is less than half way through its developmental flight testing, which when completed will have assessed only 17% of its capabilities. The more important and rigorous battlefield testing will not start until 2018, meaning that no meaningful appraisal of its performance can be made until after that testing is completed and reported.