Both may be true. Ironically, those same leaders have spent the last two years complaining that they are being forced to live in an era of too much uncertainty.
Why do Pentagon leaders think they can make uncertainty go away? The year 2014 could not have proven more unpredictable. Maybe it’s time to start planning for the unexpected.
The new era of global conflicts for which political leaders demand constant U.S. military intervention offers the Pentagon a new opportunity to stop fighting against the age of uncertainty and start embracing it.
These days, the “uncertainty” complaint refers to the budget, and to the automatic sequestration cuts lingering over budget writers’ heads. The mood around Washington this year is that the sequestration stunt’s time has passed. With the midterm elections behind them, a new secretary of defense on the way, and new political battles to be fought for something bigger (the White House) few seem eager to keep the sequestration fight alive. That will make a lot of folks happy: the arms industry, Defense Department purchasers, combatant commanders, and a few of those “J” divisions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that plan for the future, at least.
But even with an agreed upon budget, there will come no added certainty to what the world will bring to the Pentagon’s doorstep this year. And that’s an uncertainty leaders in the Pentagon, Congress, White House, intelligence and law enforcement communities could do much more to anticipate and manage.
The year 2014 was supposed to the intermission. Remember? The time between eras, when the war in Afghanistan wound down and the military could get back to some fantasized version of itself that predated Sept. 11, 2001 – with training operations back at the bases, eased deployments, smaller forces and no more big land wars.
Instead the world gave chaos. At the Pentagon one year ago, not many people expected Russia to invade Ukraine, the Islamic State to take over half of Syria and Iraq, Western journalists to be beheaded one after another, Islamic extremists to attack civilians in Ottawa, Sydney and Paris, and half of the African continent to be embroiled in terrorism. By December, the mood around the Pentagon was one of exhaustion and exasperation at the never-ending stream of national security bad news.
Each week brought another crisis, another possible deployment of U.S. firepower or “boots on the ground,” another political fight inside the Beltway, or another fight with adversaries outside of alliances. But inside Washington, little changed.
Institutions pivot as slow as aircraft carriers. That’s a luxury modern national security professionals can no longer afford. The institutions that fund, govern and oversee the U.S. defense machine remain organized in a way that barely resembles the current threat matrix it faces and, critics complain, operate too slowly as the world races by. Last year, incoming Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., pledged to create a new subcommittee on cybersecurity. That a standing committee did not already exist was shocking to many.
Army leaders have said they wanted the post-war years to allow that service to become more “agile” and “flexible” for a new counterterrorism age. It’s an idea the entire national security community should consider for itself, too. Among the chief criticisms of President Barack Obama on foreign policy is that he was too reluctant to use U.S. military force of any kind anywhere because he is spooked by the big wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Critics like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., (who is considering a run for the presidency) and allies like former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak say Obama should have armed Syrian rebels and launched military strikes there sooner. Instead, Washington leaders spent months debating if new war powers were needed to strike in Syria, or Iraq, against the Islamic State group or anyone else. The Pentagon spent months to come up with even a plan to send a few hundred trainers into Syria, years after that war began.
Others this week point to Yemen, whose capital is under siege by Houthi rebels after months of openly staging for such an attempt on the government, while the U.S. stayed mostly on the sidelines. Yemen has been collapsing on itself for years, but this weekend McCain blamed Obama for Yemen’s chaos.
Inside the military services that have to be ready to carry out the U.S. response to any conflict, planners are moving forward with some of their own changes so that they don’t have to wait for uncertainty. In 2015, there will be new chiefs of the Army and Navy. Until then, the Army is expected to win its request to scrap the downsizing plan it wanted one year ago, thanks to the high demand for rapidly deployable troops to the world’s hotspots. The Army also will proceed with a complete overhaul of its helicopters. The Air Force is pressing on with the F-35, with no alternatives at this point, while calling for more drone pilots. That service also will continue to mend after repeated scandals in its nuclear force and sexual assault issues. The Navy spent the winter finally scrapping its ship of the future, the littoral combat ship, or LCS, and rebranding it as an up-gunned frigate, while the service explores how to keep top personnel in the modern age. The Marines continue to be that “middleweight” amphibious force its leaders prefer, but the president and Corps leaders keep sending them deep into landlocked countries as tip-of-the-spear reaction counterterrorism forces. The new commandant is expected to lay out his plans within weeks.
Nobody wants more certainty about their futures more than the men and women in uniform. Congress and the president may finally move them beyond the sequestration era, easing fears in pocketbooks and at PXs. But the world certainly won’t be tipping its hand anytime soon. That means it’s up to the new stable of decision makers – from likely next Defense Secretary Ash Carter to McCain and the new Joint Chiefs to come – to figure out how the state of defense can remain one that is prepared for anything, anytime, anywhere. Because if past is prologue, that’s how often U.S. soldiers, sailors, airman and marines must be ready to fight in the new era.
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