----- Original Message ----- From: SolidNet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 7:41 PM Subject: CP USA, Military Strategy and Bush Administration SolidNet The purpose of the Solid Net ( Solidarity Network ) is to inform on the activities as well as the ideological and political views of different Communist and Workers� Parties on National and International issues. All articles in the SolidNet are the responsibility of the authors and in no way commit this Web Site. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.solidnet.org ================================================================== CP USA, Military Strategy and Bush Administration ------------------------------------------------------ From: Communist Party, USA, Tue, 13 Feb 2001 http://www.cpusa.org , mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] =================================================================== Pentagon Study May Bring Big Shake-Up By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 9, 2001 ; Page A01 The Bush administration has asked one of the Pentagon's most unconventional thinkers to conduct a far-reaching review of the U.S. military, in the clearest indication yet that senior officials intend to shake up the nation's armed forces and the weapons they use. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has tapped Andrew W. Marshall, head of the Pentagon's internal think tank, and has asked him to report back his preliminary recommendations by the end of next week, sources said. Although he is little known to the public, Marshall is a controversial figure in defense circles for his outspoken criticism of some of the traditional pillars of U.S. strategy and procurement policy. He has questioned the usefulness of the new F-22 fighter, the crown jewel of the Air Force's acquisition program, and has called the Army's heavy tanks and the Navy's aircraft carriers possible deathtraps that ought to be phased out before they prove to be the horse cavalry of the 21st century. Whether or not these conclusions will be part of his final report, Marshall has a long and close association with Rumsfeld, and his appointment was viewed by senior Pentagon officials as the second clear sign in the past week that the new defense secretary plans to make a dramatic impact on the military. President Bush pledged during his election campaign to improve the quality of the armed forces, and aides said he plans to spend most of next week visiting military bases and laying out his ideas. Yet Bush stunned some senior commanders this week by deciding not to seek an immediate increase in the defense budget. Before proposing new funding, Rumsfeld informed the top brass on Tuesday, the administration wants a fundamental review of the U.S. military's strategy, structure and missions. Pentagon officials said yesterday that Rumsfeld has an understanding -- though not quite a promise -- that, once the study is finished, the White House will support as big an increase in the defense budget as he deems necessary. The review is on an extraordinarily fast track. Rumsfeld gave Marshall the assignment on Tuesday. Marshall is to wind up the review by the middle of March. Bush said on Monday that the goal is to set a "long-range vision for the military." According to Pentagon insiders, Marshall's orders are to undertake a broad analysis of America's likely adversaries, the nature of future wars, how many conflicts the United States should be prepared to fight at once and what forces it will need to do so. The answers to those questions could dramatically affect the size of the military and the weaponry it buys. The services' opposition to Marshall's recommendations are "likely to be fierce," predicted one person involved in the review. But Marshall holds two aces: He has a decades-long relationship with Rumsfeld. And the Bush campaign's defense stance, laid out in a speech at the Citadel in South Carolina in September 1999, relied heavily on ideas nurtured by Marshall over the years. All but unknown outside national security circles, the publicity-shy Marshall is something of a legend within that world, both for his longevity and for his far-reaching network of acolytes across the government, academia and the defense industry. At 79, he is said to be the only current Pentagon official who participated in the entire Cold War, beginning in 1949 as a nuclear strategist for the Rand Corp., then moving to the Pentagon as a civilian official in 1973. He has been kept in his current job by every president since Richard M. Nixon. Despite his age and experience, Marshall's views are hardly conservative. In recent years, he has gained a reputation as a radical reformer and has antagonized many top officers by arguing that: =95 The military is too focused on Europe and not enough on Asia, and needs to shift its geographical and spending priorities. =95 The Air Force's new F-22 fighter has too short a range to be of much use in the 21st century, when the military may not have bases near its adversaries. =95 As Third World nations acquire cruise missiles and other precision weapons, the Army's heavy tanks and the Navy's aircraft carriers are becoming sitting ducks. Since the end of the Cold War, Marshall has focused heavily on the rise of China, sponsoring war games that look at possible U.S.-Chinese confrontations and provoking critics to say that he is looking for a new enemy to replace the Soviet Union. "Most U.S. military assets are in Europe where there are no foreseeable conflicts threatening vital U.S. interests. . . . The threats are in Asia," one of Marshall's closely held studies concluded in 1999. It also argued that, by 2025, India will be more important than Russia in U.S. foreign policy. The sort of military that Marshall has advocated would look far different from today's, but it would not necessarily be larger. Each of the armed services would have to be able to move troops quickly over long distances and carry its own fuel and supplies, without many overseas bases. Marshall's future Air Force might emphasize missiles, missile defenses and long-range bombers -- which the Air Force is not currently buying. A Navy reshaped by Marshall's views might radically cut its fleet of surface ships and be built around submarines and "arsenal ships," basically barges loaded with land-attack missiles. And the Army might be split into a small, fast-moving combat force and a larger, lower-tech peacekeeping and small-war force. As part of Marshall's review, the Pentagon is also expected to scrutinize the nuclear balance, looking at both offensive missiles and defenses against missiles. Marshall spent most of his career thinking about nuclear conflict. When he joined Rand in 1949, atomic warfare was the central issue. In the early 1980s, he pointed to demographic and environmental indications that the Soviet Union was drifting into crisis. Worrying that a collapsing Soviet Union might lash out, Marshall became an advocate of updating U.S. nuclear defenses. In part because of his fears, about $9 billion was spent during the 1980s to strengthen the bunkers for U.S. leaders and to build new mobile communications vans for them. He did not get as much top-level attention during the Clinton era. President Bill Clinton's first defense secretary, Les Aspin, never spoke to him. At the same time, Marshall antagonized the services by distributing a paper that described their arsenals of tanks, ships and airplanes as a "millstone" preventing the military from moving out of the Industrial Age and into the Information Age. The next defense secretary, William Perry, was more sympathetic but was distracted by Bosnia, Haiti and other operations. William S. Cohen all but ignored Marshall, at one point trying to move him out of the Pentagon in a cost-cutting move. But Bush's defense advisers, particularly former Pentagon official Richard Armitage, liked Marshall's ideas. Many of the themes Marshall developed during the 1990s were reflected in Bush's speech at the Citadel, largely written by Armitage and John Hillen, a Wall Street executive and former Army officer. "Today, our military is still more organized for Cold War threats than for the challenges of a new century -- for industrial age operations, rather than for information age battles," Bush said then. It was a line that could have been taken from any number of reports produced by Marshall's office, formally known as "the Adviser to the Secretary of Defense for Net Assessment." Bush went on to argue that the time for incremental change was over. To ensure that the Pentagon would make hard decisions, he pledged that, upon becoming president, "I will begin an immediate, comprehensive review of our military -- the structure of its forces, the state of its strategy, the priorities of procurement." Bush's advisers were even more pointed. "If the Republicans come in, things aren't going back to the old way" at the Pentagon, Armitage said last summer. "We're going to get into the 21st century whether they like it or not." =A9 2001 The Washington Post *End*
